THAILAND - January 2005

By the end of January I was getting bored and started looking for a new adventure.  Mom & Dad were planning a trip to Thailand where Dad was enrolled in a 2-week Thai cooking school on Samui.  Lauraine had arranged to take some time off and accompany them and she and Mom had arranged a one-week side trip up to Chaing Mai while Dad was in school.  I was investigating the possibility of joining a program which was seeking volunteers to rebuild housing in Sri Lanka which had been destroyed by the tsunami.  Cindy had completed her French language classes in Beijing and was awaiting the issuance of her French visa so she could attend graduate school in Nice, France.  I decided to fly to Bangkok where I would meet Cindy, and then we would fly down to Samui and surprise Mom & Dad.  Assuming I was accepted into the rebuilding project in Sri Lanka, I’d head there on February 17^th.

I arrived at The Oriental Hotel in the early afternoon of February 10^th, after spending seventeen hours in the air and an additional four hours between flights in Taipei.  As always, the room was fantastic and I spent the afternoon relaxing before going back out to the airport to meet Cindy who was arriving at 9:00 PM.  My original plan had been to fly to Samui the following day, but hotel rooms on Samui were very difficult to come by because people who would normally have vacationed in Phuket had shifted their plans to Samui as it was not affected by the tsunami.  By staying in Bangkok an extra night, however, we were able to find accommodations at The Buriraya Resort & Spa which is 15 KM from the main tourist area of Chaweng Beach where Dad’s cooking school is located.  Friday night we went to Lord Jim’s at The Oriental for dinner where I had one of the most memorable meals I’ve eaten – steamed monkfish on white chocolate; an unusual but fantastic dish.

Saturday we checked out of The Oriental and took a taxi to the airport.  While passing through security, we meet Lauraine & Mom who had just arrived from Chaing Mai and were headed to Samui on a different flight.  Although Lauraine knew we were coming to Thailand, Mom was thoroughly surprised.  We spent about 30 minutes learning of their trip up north, but then had to leave to catch our flight.  They were able to take an earlier flight than they had originally planned, but still arrived in Samui a couple hours after we had gone to our hotel.  We did not try to get together Saturday night, but arranged that on Sunday, Dad’s only day off, they would come over to Buriraya and we would spend the day on the beach.

We spent the next several days enjoying the resort.  Mom & Lauraine would come over each morning and we’d spend the day on the beach or at the spa getting various treatments.  We went to Chaweng twice to have dinner at SITCA where we enjoyed whatever Thai food Dad & his classmates had learned to prepare that day.

Lauraine left on Tuesday night, but not before we were able to have a farewell dinner at The Chaweng Regent Resort.  Cindy left early Wednesday morning to return to Beijing where, hopefully, she will only spend a week or two before heading to France for a year.  Dad’s cooking school is over on Saturday and on Sunday he and Mom will fly to Phuket for a couple of days before returning to California on the 22^nd.  I have confirmed my plans to go to Sri Lanka on the 17^th where I’ll stay in Colombo for a couple days before heading south to Galle where I will work with an American NGO for a couple of weeks building housing for families which lost their homes to the tsunami.

Global Crossroads is one of scores of Non-Government Organizations participating in relief efforts in countries affected by the Boxing Day Tsunami.  I have been assigned to a project to build 79 homes in a small village near Galle.  Every two weeks, a fresh group of up to 20 volunteers arrives to participate in the next phase of the project.  For the last six weeks, the groups have been clearing rubble, but our group is scheduled to dig trenches, mix concrete and pour foundations.  Each participant pays his or her way to Sri Lanka and a fee of about $1,000, which covers room & board for two weeks and a $500 donation for construction materials.

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