Ten reasons we are happy to be back in Thailand

1. On the way into Bangkok from the airport at 6 Friday morning, the taxi driver answered a call on his cell phone. His "ring" was a small child's laughter.

2. Our friend Poe Suwatchie phoned us at the Pinnacle Hotel to welcome us "back to paradise." He always says this---and then laughs, because he knows it is both not true at all and entirely true.

3. At the hotel, we had trouble making outgoing calls from our room. We notified the front desk, which placed our calls for us. Also, within minutes a cheerful guy appeared at our door carrying two screw drivers.

4. Soon after we arrived, Joe walked around the corner to use the ATM. He reported back that among the food vendors set up on the sidewalk---selling exquisitely aromatic noodle soups, dumplings, meat on skewers, seafood salads---were two young women with an espresso machine. He bought a cup and it was excellent.

5. We slept for a few hours Friday morning---after having sat zombie-like on the plane from Bombay through the night---and then ordered tom yam and tom ka gai from room service. It was the best food we ever ate---until we went out from the hotel later and ate again.

6. The small shop down the street where we use the internet still has---along with eight or ten computers---its own seamstress.

7. On Saturday morning, we had an appointment at 9:30 to meet Henry Nyan Htun, the manager of Peace House Travel, the Burmese agency arranging our upcoming visit to Myanmar. It took us a while to get across Bangkok, and we arrived at 10, concerned that we had kept Henry waiting. He came in at 10:10 and said, "Ah, you're right on time."

8. The "letters" page in The Bangkok Post is as lively and free-wheeling as ever. On Thursday, deposed Prime Minister Thaksin returned to Thailand to face charges of corruption. A letter on Saturday said, "I wonder if upon his fanfared return Mr. Thaksin took some time out between kissing the ground and getting into his limo to take a look around at his great achievement, Suvarnabhumi Airport. I wonder if he noticed the poor acoustics, the meager and filthy restrooms, the stained and cracked floors, the flimsy baggage carts, the endless snaking lines waiting to clear customs...." The new airport, built by cronies of Thaksin, isn't quite that bad. And plainly the letter writer had never been to Bombay or Newark.

9. Today, Sunday, local elections are being held all over Thailand. No alcohol was served in the country yesterday and none will be served today. Also, coincidentally, a ban on smoking in most public places went into effect yesterday. We saw French and German tourists in the hotel lobby looking anxious.

10. After Africa, and especially India---a nation of Larry Craigs---it's nice to be back in a country where being gay is just fine. I'm setting a Strachey book partly in Bangkok. (We're dining with a gay police official, a friend of Poe's, on Tuesday.) The book begins:
"Mr. Strachey, do you believe in reincarnation?"
"I've never given it much thought."
"So you won't mind my telling you I think the whole idea is perfectly absurd."
"Go ahead."

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This is Dick with a test posting on January 2. Will it work? Let's see.