Lamplaimat and Bangkok

At about this time last Saturday, I was getting ready to board a plane in Charlotte to leave for Bangkok. I found myself adapting relatively quickly to the large city of Bangkok, even finding my favorite street food vendor to go to twice a day for $1 meals. On Wednesday night, I met up with a friend of mine and a couple of his friends to see the nightlife of Bangkok. We went to a restaurant and then bounced around town sampling the Thai beers and looking for the Manchester-Barcelona soccer game. I was pleasantly surprised to find Bangkok extremely safe and well lit at night, as well as much, much less hot. The average temperature here is 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit plus 50-80% humidity, making the shade feel like 100-110 degrees every day.

On Thursday, I took a boat ride in a very small and hidden canal to a place which ended up being nothing special, so I returned to MBK center and bought two polo t-shirts for a total of $13. 

Yesterday (Friday), I arrived in Lamplaimat, a small village of about 500, approximately 100 km from Cambodia and 300 km from Laos. We left from the PDA office to pick up the architect for the secondary school in Lamplaimat, one Mr. Tay Kheng Soon. Mr. Tay is a Singaporean architect and is extremely well read; we had many interesting conversations on the way to Lamplaimat. He is on the front line of many new initiatives, including using algae as energy and a rural/suburban development planning model he calls "rubanization." I believe that the Indonesian Government has allotted 200,000 acres to Mr. Tay to pilot rubanization and I am interested to see the results.

My room in Lamplaimat is certainly less accommodating than the one in Bangkok. While they have all the same amenities (A/C, bathroom, beds, electricity, warm water), this room's A/C is not even half as strong as my last one, and also my room has a significant population of insects and animals in the room. Let there be no doubt; my room is not for the squeamish. I have a gecko family of four (three small ones, one 6 inches long) living in my room that feast on a host of ants, beetles, and mosquitoes. Last night I rolled over to hear a crunch inside my pillow: a beetle had found itself under the pillowcase and eventually beneath my head. Ultimately, it is something that one gets used to very quickly - but there must be an emphasis on adjusting. I am eternally grateful for whoever "Ben" is - "Ben's" is the company that makes my 99% deet insect repellent that I have found myself spraying on everything of value or importance.

Here in Lamplaimat, I have found myself more challenged than ever by the language barrier. I depend entirely on the teachers and headmaster of the school, but they only speak rudimentary English and attempting to communicate is an exhausting task after a couple hours. 

However, I have been taken from feast to feast. When we arrived, we ate a dinner worthy of kings: two whole fish with red curry and sliced ginger and garlic; two dishes of shrimp stir fried in sliced lemongrass and chillies; two bowls of green curry with shrimp (my favorite), two dishes of mixed vegetables, two egg dishes, and more that I cannot even remember - all for seven people. Today, some teachers took me to a restaurant at 8 in the morning - we ate again at 10:30, 12:15, and 3:30 (and dinner is pending at 7). Believe it or not, it may actually be too much food for me! I have tasted a lot of different types of food that I have never eaten before, including three types of algae, at least 10 different types of mushrooms, fish cakes, and a delicious dish called "som tam." Som tam is a spicy green papaya salad that is served literally hundreds of ways. It typically includes almost shredded green papaya, lemongrass, keffir lime leaves, fish sauce, and chillies. The som tam I had today literally burned my mouth for half an hour and could easily serve as a substitute for pepper spray.

Working with PDA has been very interesting so far, even though my actual work has been minimal. PDA is a monstrous non-governmental organization that could best be described as a national conglomerate. It utilizes businesses to raise funds that go directly to the NGO/humanitarian organization and runs dozens of hotels, restaurants, and resorts. It was started by a former politician and activist, Mr. Mechai, in the early 1970's as a family planning NGO and has taken off to be the largest NGO in Thailand. Mr. Mechai is famous for addressing the stigma of family planning and HIV/AIDS and is nicknamed "Mr. Condom." There are over 18 PDA centers in Thailand and tons of other initiatives, including a school that I am working at and a major program called the Village Development Program (VDP). VDP is an initiative that PDA is pioneering in 150 villages in Thailand and Cambodia that is the final product of thirty years of PDA's trial and error in the development world. VDP works at the village level and harnesses its population for microfinance, urban development, planning, and more (Mr. Meechai actually started microcredit before Muhammad Yunus). VDP is just beginning but aims at being a sustainable and comprehensive model to fight poverty that can be scaled up very quickly and easily. I personally do not believe that it is the end-all solution to poverty, but there is no doubt that it is extremely helpful and an excellent method to really fight rural poverty on a large scale in Southeast Asia.

Tomorrow, Mr. Mechai is arriving at Lamplaimat and I am looking forward to meeting him. 

I am rethinking the plans that Kathleen and I have laid out for traveling around Southeast Asia. Everyone here has told me that Krabi, a beach town in Southern Thailand, is the place to go - one can lounge on the beach, scuba dive, snorkel, rock climb, sea kayak, etc. Also, I haven't heard much about Vietnam, but I have heard that we must go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We definitely are still going to Chiang Mai, though. The logistics are difficult so I have start redrawing our plans - we only have three weeks to do everything.

As always, stay posted for the latest in my adventures!