In addition to venerating the teachings of the Buddha, the ritual act of floating away the raft symbolizes a release of negative emotions and defilements, allowing believers to start life afresh. People spend hours making elaborate Kratong that are then taken to a river, lake, the ocean or any body of water. Prayers are said and the Kratong is launched. A typical Kratong raft has a candle, some incense, and flowers. Many people add fingernail and hair clippings to the raft as a physical embodiment of this wish for renewal. Sometimes a few baht is also included.

We headed over the Laguna complex around 8:00 pm. Sim said we were really supposed to do this at midnight, but it would probably be OK with the Buddha if we were a bit early. We clipped our nails and hair so we can float them away with the Kratong. To help reduce pollution to our environment Sim said our Kratongs will be made from all natural material; banana leaf, banana trunk, and coconut stems. First we had to stop at Sister-In-Law Mai’s house. Mai has been working on our Kratong. We picked up all the kids and the Kratong and headed out. We got to the Laguna complex and parked. There were about 2,000 other people already there and the lake was full of Kratong. They had food booths, Kratong for sale booths, and entertainment too. A big tent was set up with a stage. They had Thai dancers, and amateur singing contest, a Kratong building contest and later in the evening they had a popular Thai singer belt out a few songs. We watched the Thai dancers and tried to listen to the singer, but as usual at any Thai event I have been to so far, the music was cranked up so loud it hurt my ears, so we did not stay long at the stage.

Mai and her husband showed up so we went to the lake, said a prayer and launched our Kratong. A couple of people were also launching hot air lanterns as well. They have a Mylar balloon with a ring of waxy material that burns slowly suspended below the balloon. They light the wax on fire, hot air fill the balloon and off it goes; very pretty. They also had a fireworks display later in the evening. All in all it was quite fun. After we got home Sim realized that she did not put her hair and nail clippings in her Kratong. Well, she will do it right next year.

The southwest monsoon season has ended. Now the winds are shifting 180 degrees and are now offshore at the beach. The surf is gone at Surin and Bangtao and it is flat, flat, and flat at the beach. I went to Surin the other day and took a sailboat with me. All of the lounge chairs and umbrellas are lined up at the high tide mark and in place for high season starting this month. The lounges were still only ¼ full, but still quite a contrast to how many I saw at the beach in low season. I sailed my boat for a few hours and took a dip or two in the ocean. The water is crystal clear and a warm 84 degrees. Nice.

We have a visitor coming next week. Ying and her son Theo are visiting from Sunnyvale, CA. Ying is Thai and she is coming over for family business and will be with us in Phuket for a week. We are excited about seeing her and Theo again.

November 8 – 14, 2009 Phuket, Thailand
Sim, Mack, Toey and I went to the Swatch International Beach Volleyball tournament at Karon Beach today. Parking was a bit of a problem as it is everywhere you go where there is a crowd of people. We ended up about a ¼ Kilometer from the event. We walked back up the beach road to the event and found the grandstands only about 60% full. The main event, a USA vs. USA match was scheduled to start at 3:00 pm and we arrived right on time, but the tournament was not. It was HOT and we had to sit in the sun. But after an hour or so, it clouded up and was more bearable. The action on the court was very exciting. When we got seated the 3rd place match between Russia and the USA had just started. USA took the first set, and Russia came from behind to take the 2nd set. The 3rd set was close but Russia prevailed and took 3rd in the tourney. There was quite a large Russian rooting section in the grandstands. The announcer would ask “Who is for the Russians, who are for the US over and over. The crowd applause and woops were pretty even for the 2 countries.

The final match up of USA vs. USA was kind of anti-climatic after the excitement of the USA/Russia match up. Last years champions Kessy and Ross defended the title and beat their opponents, Akers and Turner in 2 sets.

Poor Tha had to go to the hospital this week. Tha is Sim’s 2 year old nephew and Mai’s son. He was complaining that his stomach hurt so they checked him in the hospital where he stayed one night. The next night he was still complaining so they took him to another hospital. The doctors there diagnosed appendicitis, so out he went into surgery and they took out his appendix. We went to visit him a couple of times this week and he is looking good and getting more chipper. He should be coming home this week.

We got new neighbors across the street. It looks like a women and her daughter. I have not seen a man yet. They have a dog too. It howled for about 3 hours straight this morning after everyone left the house. I tried to go over and talk to the dog, but had no luck. I was calm and assertive, just like Caesar says, but it did not help. The owner finally came home. It is a weird situation. This morning the dog was out and the neighbor next to us was feeding the dog. Then the dog was in the other neighbors yard, not his own. The owner came home and took it back to her house across the street. It looks very strange and I plan to send Sim over to get the full scoop on everything.

We are picking up Ying and Theo today. Ying lives in Sunnyvale with her husband Michael and their 2 children, Theo and Adena. We met Ying at the Tsunami Fund Raiser that Sim organized back in 2002 and have been friends with them ever since. Sim and Ying have somewhat of a parallel life. Both are the only girl and the youngest with all older brothers. Both left Thailand and ended up going to school in the US and both married farang.

We are driving about 125 kms north to meet Ying and Theo at a meeting place that is about half way to Ranong, Ying’s hometown. Her brother is driving her to meet up with us. Sew is going along for the ride and we are going out to Phang Nga bay to eat lunch at the ‘floating’ restaurant.

We picked up Sew and headed out around 9:30 am. We got a call from Ying saying she was at the meeting place while we were still 30 minutes out so I stepped on the gas to hurry up. This made Sew a bit nervous. She does not like it when I drive fast. We found Ying and Theo, they said goodbye to her brother and we headed off for lunch. We got to the restaurant and the food was as good as last time. Theo and I had fun feeding the fish leftover pieces of shrimp. Back in the car, we headed home. Ying and Theo are staying with us for about a week. Mack and Toey have to go back home as Ying and Theo will be using their bedroom.

Theo wants to go to the beach today, so we all got ready first thing in the morning. He wants to see my RC boat in the water too so we packed up a boat as well. Sim is going to the hospital to see Tha, so it is just Ying, Theo and me. We went to Surin beach, unloaded the car and got set up. I set up the boat and because there were some waves, waded out a bit to get the boat out past the breakers, launched the boat and headed back to shore to get the radio to start sailing. As I was coming back in Ying yelled and pointed at the boat. I turned around the boat was sailing up the face of a 2 foot wave. Boy that was close. But as luck would have it there was another even bigger wave right behind the first one and it broke right in front of my boat sending it back into shore rolling in the white water. The boat was dismasted and apart from my embarrassment and bruised ego, it took only minor damage, but we were done sailing for the day. The waves were too big for Theo to play in the water so we packed up the truck and headed over to Bang Tao where I know the waves are much smaller. We spent several hours at the beach before hunger drove us to a small restaurant over by Sew’s house for some noodles and shrimp over rice for lunch.

Theo wants to go to the beach again today. Tha is out of the hospital and home with his mom, so Sim is going with us. I decided to take them to Layan Beach, which is a National Park at the far north end of Bang Tao. Hardly anyone ever goes there and there are no crowds. It is Saturday so we stopped to pick up Toey and Poo (Sim’s deceased nephew’s son). Toey came but Poo had pink eye so he had to stay at home. We spent all morning at the beach playing in the water, building sand castles and burying Toey in the sand.

We went to the beach one more day this week, but it was blowing hard, the sea was choppy and rain looked imminent so we passed and went home. Theo and I worked on my sailboat that took a beating in the surf earlier in the week, and we managed to get everything repaired and back in order.

November 15 – 21, 2009 Phuket, Thailand
Our routine with Ying and Theo here visiting, is going to the beach in the morning, come home, clean up, eat and take a nap. It is working out quite well. I especially enjoy the napping part. Sim’s morning routine was riding a bicycle to the market in town to buy breakfast in banana leaves for our guests. Theo’s favorite is sticky rice with coconut topping, palm cake, and stuffed coconut in coconut milk paste.

We managed to get in a couple more beach days this week. One day at Laem Singh and another day at Surin. Laem Singh is one of my favorite beaches. It does not get really crowded because there is limited parking and you have to hike down the hill to get to the beach. Our last beach day was at Surin, another favorite of mine. The wind waves were gone and the water was flat, so flat that were some tourists trying their hand at water skiing. After the beach we cleaned up and went downtown for noodles at our favorite noodle shop. After lunch we wandered around a bit, found some really good desserts and Sim did some shopping.

Ying and Theo are leaving today. We went to the beach one more time. Theo is really getting brave and walked out into the water up to his waist all by himself. It was great to see them again and Ying promised to come back with Adeana, their daughter and Michael, her husband, next time.

November 22 – 29, 2009 Phuket, Thailand
It is going to be a busy week. Greg is coming for a 4 day visit on Thursday, Thanksgiving, and the Kings Cup Regatta is at the end of the week running Friday thru Sunday.

I started walking in the mornings. I get up about 7:30 or 8:00 and head out down the shortcut road that goes to Sim’s brother’s house. I have to walk on the main road for ½ kilometer then I turn onto a much quieter road. It is a nice walk thru rubber trees and pineapple fields. Today, as I was coming back a dog started following me. I stopped, met the dog and continued walking. The dog kept following me and eventually followed me all the way home. Now he is hanging around the house. I think he adopted me. One problem though is he attacked one of the neighbor’s dogs that I have befriended. That is not good. So, we will see if he continues to hang out. I may have a permanent walking companion.

Well, I had to take the dog back to where he picked me up. He kept beating up the neighbor’s dog and generally causing chaos in the neighborhood. I starting walking back to where he found me in the morning and he just followed along. When I got to the same spot, I stopped, and he just wandered off; hopefully to his home. I still want to get a dog, but I think I am going to need to get a puppy so he can be raised with some guidance and discipline. Grown up Thai dogs are just too darned independent and will be really hard to train.

Jeff and Neung are also in town. They are staying at the JW Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa. Neung called Sim two days ago, but we could not meet with them. Today we will go to JW Marriott and take them out for lunch. They came with three kids; a daughter and nine month old twin boys. We know Jeff and Neung via Ying. They live in Palo Alto. JW Marriott is located at the north end of the island, so we plan not to take them to our local town as it will be too long of a ride for the twin boys. We took them to the restaurant that is managed by Sim’s brother. After lunch we took them to Sim’s lake. Our property is an old rice patty, so it is full of water right now..

We picked up Greg Thursday evening from the airport and moved him into Mack and Toey’s room. Toey is staying with his mom and Mack is staying with his Uncle. It is good to see Greg again. I just wish he was here for more than 4 days. We are going to have to cram in a lot of stuff quickly and even then he won’t get to see all of Phuket.

The Kings Cup Regatta is coming up this weekend and a lot of boats are staging up off Kata beach in preparation for the racing. Sim called Pon for something at 8 am and he asked if we wanted to come along for the day with Chewy for the process of moving a boat from Yacht Haven Marina down to Kata. Of course we do and Greg was all for a sailboat ride too. So Sim went to get us some lunch to eat on the boat and Greg and I gathered up cameras, swim trunks and towels and we all headed out for Yacht Haven Marina. We are picking up Pon’s wife and she is taking our truck and will pick us up at Kata in the evening.

We got to Yacht Haven and found Chewy and the boat. The boat, Octopussy, is a 38 ft Bruce Farr designed race boat. We took off and headed south. We have to travel the entire east coast of Phuket, around the bottom of the island and up the west coast to Kata. We put up some shade and settled in for our 5-6 hour boat ride.

The boat ride was nice and Greg got to see a lot of the coastline. Along the way we saw some flying fish, and a lot of jellyfish. We had lunch; talked, admired the scenery and I helped Chewy setup the new Garmin GPS system they had just installed on the boat. We turned the corner at the bottom of Phuket just as the sun was setting in the west. It was a great day topped off by a beautiful sunset. We anchored the boat next to Lawana, the boat we brought down from Samui. When the dinghy came to pick us up, we went over and said hello to Lek, our Lawana captain, before heading into shore and meeting Pon and his wife for the drive home.

We got up late on Friday and just messed around at the house until after lunch then headed for the beach. We took Greg down to Surin and spent several hours swimming, lounging and taking walks on the beach. Just before the sun went down we went of to one of the many beachfront restaurants and had a beer and watched the sun dip below the horizon.



Nov 29 – 30, 2009 Phuket, Thailand
On the agenda today is more sightseeing with Greg. We took him over to the Banyan Tree Resort for a peek at a 5 star resort. We walked around the Banyan Tree, got the folks at reception to show us a villa, so Greg could get an idea of how the rich visit Phuket. We also drove by our land to show Greg and we toured some houses for sale in a nearby community. It is fun to go see new homes so we can get ideas for our house when we build it.

We took Greg to a new restaurant we found called the Sunset Café. The owner/chef used to work at one of the 5 star resorts on the island but wanted more freedom to create, so he quit and opened his own place. We had a delicious lunch and headed off to visit the Big Buddha of Phuket. Construction on the Great Buddha, as the locals call it, started a couple of years ago and it is still about 1 year from completion. The Big Buddha sits on a mountain top in a mountain range that pretty much runs the entire length of the island. From here you can see Chalong Bay on the east coast and Kata and Karon beaches on the west coast. We walked up to the Big Buddha for a closer look and it really is big. At 150 feet tall the Buddha can be seen from just about everywhere on the south end of the island. We hung out, took pictures and listened to some school girls playing music with some instruments I had never seen before. They were sort of like bamboo rattles. They were all different sizes and the girls shook them to make music.

After we left the Buddha, we went further down the island to see a house for sale that is owned by Sim’s friend. She built the house on speculation and is still trying to sell it 1 year later. It is a 7 bedroom 5 bath house. It sits on 1 rai of land and has a view of the water on the east coast. She is asking 45 million baht. ($1,355,421.) Greg and I decided the best thing for this house would be to become a Bed and Breakfast. It is really broken up and has no flow to it at all.

It was getting close to sunset, so we drove over to Promthep Cape to watch the sunset with about 300 other natives, ex-pats and tourists. After the sun went down we drove to Patong beach. Greg said he needed to visit Patong where there were bars and clubs along the entire beach strip because he was asked about it before he even came to Phuket. Since Sim was with us we didn’t experience the hawkers and bar girls trying to entice us into their bars like they did the other tourists. Too bad, Sim told Greg. Back to Cherng Talay we had dinner at the Sunset Café again. We really like this place.

Greg is leaving tonight so this is our last day to see stuff. We went down south to Karon beach first and took a long walk on the beach. Next we drove to the Kata viewpoint to catch a glimpse of the King’s Cup racing. The boats were pretty far offshore so we could not really see much. But the viewpoint is nice and you can see Kata, Kata Noi and Karon, plus the Big Buddha.

We were getting hungry so we headed down to Rawai to a restaurant at Leam Ka beach on the east coast. The restaurant is owned by a school mate of Sim. Sim attended three schools in Phuket and she made a lot of friends at each school. That is why I am never surprised wherever we go; there is always someone there that Sim’s knows. We went to the restaurant for the first time with Maew and Craig when they were here and it has now become a must visit when anyone comes to town. It is right on the water, with beautiful views and a great breeze. The food is pretty good too. We had fresh mussels, dog conch, bar-b-que squid, and seafood in coconut milk soup, rice and fresh fruit. Greg and I split a tall beer too. The bill was $18.00 total. We hung out for about 3 hours eating, talking and enjoying the ambience.

After lunch, on the way home, we stopped at Villa Market. I have heard of this place that has ‘everything’ but had never been there. We went inside and it really does have everything. They had a large variety of breads, cheeses and goods from all parts of the world. They had 3 kinds of fresh salmon and some choice selections of beef. Now I know where to go when I can’t find something at the local supermarket. Last week, I could not find any spicy mustard at our local market. Villa Market has 4 brands of spicy mustard. The bad part is the prices that are really high. Greg and I walked over to a Home Works store and I showed him why I asked him to bring me a couple of bottles on Nu-Finish car polish. Home Works sells it here in Phuket for $45.00 a bottle.

We took Greg to the airport in the evening and hung out with him for a while he checked in and checked his bags. His flight was about an hour late. He is flying to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Taipei for a few days before flying back to Los Angeles. We really enjoyed having him here and hope he comes back again next year.

Well it has been a busy month with visitors and tourist stuff. November is in the books. December is here, and the Christmas decorations are up at the shopping mall. We won’t be home for Christmas, but will probably come back to the US in February or March. I have to leave my current insurance plan and pick a new one with Medicare, so I have to find a new doctor and meet with him/her to get some new script written for my meds. That requires a face to face.

<<<<<<<<< QUEER NEWS OF THE MONTH >>>>>>>>>>>>

Fear of girlfriend leads to death plunge BANGKOK: A man fell to his death November 15 as he tried to lower himself onto the balcony of his fifth floor flat – rather than go in through the front door and meet his angry girlfriend. The body of 29-year-old Surasak Kasan was found lying on the ground under the balcony of his apartment in Din Daeng. He had some television aerial cable wrapped around his leg. A coat-hanger was found next to his body.

Investigating Officer Thaywa Bunchariang from Din Daeng Police said he believes Mr Surasak was trying to lower himself from the flat’s roof terrace onto his balcony by sliding down the TV cable because he did not dare knock at the front door to wake his girlfriend up. The TV cable, however, was unable to take his weight.

Mr Surasak’s girlfriend, 21-year-old Parita Thongsuk, said that after getting home from work around 2:30am on the night of the incident she heard a loud bang outside the window. When she looked down, she saw the body of her boyfriend.

Miss Parita said Mr Surasak was ashamed as he had stolen her mobile phone and sold it. This was not the first time he had done it – a number of her phones had met the same fate, she said.

After doing something bad Mr Somsak usually didn’t dare show his face for a while and would do anything to avoid her, even risking a five-storey fall.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< PHOTO OF THE MONTH >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>