Water, water, everywhere, but nary a drop to drink

The people I'm supposed to see in Nakorn Phanom are not answering the phone (New Year's holiday, I suppose), so I changed gears and came up to Laos this morning. I'm sitting in an internet shop just a few doors away from my original office here back in '71. Buddhist New Year is being celebrated here the same as in Thailand, so there is still water being thrown constantly. Can't tell if I'm sweating from the intense heat or drenched from "well wishes." Probably both.

I flew from Chiang Mai to Udorn yesterday morning, and braved the buckets of water to look around a bit at the place where I was first introduced to Thailand. More accurately, to "the world outside the box."

The American military is of course long gone. The air base from where so many attacks on North Viet Nam were launched is now a combination international airport and Royal Thai Air Base. Kind of like Hickam and Honolulu International. About 18km down the road from there is the Army base where I was stationed through all of '67 and part of '68. Actually left Udorn on the 28th of March, 1968. I can remember the date because it was my good friend Tex's birthday that day, and because we crossed the dateline before our stopover in Anchorage, his birthday was more than 30 hours long. We became good friends in Udorn, left together to go to Okinawa, and got out of the AF about the same time and became roommates as we began our civilian lives in Honolulu. He and his wife came to visit us in Hawaii many years ago, and Michele and I have both visited his Texas home a couple of times.

But I digress. I took a few pictures that I emailed to him last night, but don't have my computer with me today, so I will post no pictures. I got up early to catch the bus to the northern border town of Nongkai, struggle with passports and visas for an hour or so, and got checked into my Vientiane room before 11. Have been dodging water ever since. I'll do a little souvenir shopping this afternoon (maybe--Karen, do silk shawls shrink when they're soaked?) and make a major trip continuation decision tomorrow morning. If the Aviation University continues to be closed, I'll trash that sidetrip and go to Luang Prabang here in Laos instead. Communication has been so poor from the University that it will probably be a wasted trip in any case.

Udorn pictures (uninteresting to the general public) will appear later.

But now I'm feeling the urge to take yet another shower fully clothed walking down the street.