Route 3009 - a favorite ride

I first discovered this scenic byway when Nut and I traveled to the popular little hamlet of Pai a couple of years ago on the Phantom. My GPS was actually responsible for finding it because I asked it to take us to Pai by the "shortest route", rather then the usual setting of "fastest route". The quickest way to get there involves driving the traffic-choked Route 107 north to Route 1095, hanging a left and following that road to Pai for about three hours. Route 1095 is a pretty road in itself and is one I've occasionally mentioned before in this journal. Route 3009, the shortcut, traverses some very pretty farmland more or less diagonally between R 107 and R 1095. It shaves a couple of miles off the journey but is a slower ride and much more scenic than the faster route. Nut and I often drive out to a little coffee shop, Pankret Cafe, just for the fun of the ride.

Route 3009 (purple) shaves a few miles off the trip to Pai

The first few photos below have appeared in another post but I included them here because I like them so much. These scenes are from September of 2012. In order to see them best you should click on each to open in a new window. My newest camera, a Sony RX100 (which replaced my Canon G10), with its extra large sensor does an incredible job for such a small camera.

Rice field - Route 3009

Rice field - Route 3009

Rice field - Route 3009

Fast forward to August of this year and almost the first thing Nut and I did was hop on the bike and ride the 3009 for a visit to the Pankret Cafe.

It is still summer in Thailand yet the weather has been nicer than I expected. It is uncomfortably hot in the afternoons and it does rain almost every day, as you can tell from the dark clouds in the photos above, but when it does rain it cools things off nicely. Riding a motorcycle on cloudy days like these is a joy.

We had our coffee and took the obligatory photos of the beautiful orchids at the Pankret Cafe. I recently watched a Youtube video about fine photography and in it the hosts advised aspiring photographers never to include flower pictures in their portfolios because they're just too common a subject, and ahem, because all flowers are beautiful already. Even though orchids can be found literally everywhere in Thailand and despite the aforementioned sage advice to the contrary, I couldn't resist these beauties.

Oh, the new motorcycle arrived a few days ago too. It's a fantastic machine! It fits me much, much better then the CBR and it has power to spare. We've done a few rides already, the Samoeng Loop, another favorite, and a couple of mapping runs in the country north of here. I'll have more to say about the CB500X in future posts.

Danny, Ning (our landlord), me and Nut

From Alaska to Chiang Mai

Dateline: Chiang Mai

I'm back in Thailand with my dear friend Nut, quite a bit earlier than usual, and it's good to be back despite the heat. I was sitting here yesterday afternoon surfing the Internet and feeling glad to be indoors where the temperature was a comfortable 85 degrees while streetside it was pushing 100. My comfort was enhanced by a floor fan blowing directly on me, and being practically naked besides. We hardly ever use the aircon but our big fan runs all afternoon. Evenings and mornings are quite nice though and the rain, which at this time of year is an almost daily event, drops the outdoor temperature 15-20 degrees. Getting caught in a hard rain on a 40 degree day in Homer, especially on a motorbike, would be a life threatening experience while over here at 85 degrees, not so much. I must admit I love that rain.

My time in Homer was short this go-round but the summer was a record breaker in many respects, especially the weather. Warm sunny day followed warm sunny day in almost unprecedented succession. Nearby Anchorage set new records for high temperature posting several highs near 90 degrees and broke the record for most days with temperatures of 70 degrees or higher in the month of June. July continued that trend.

My first day back - Anchorage, May 18 - snow with wind and rain

May 20 - Kirk's yard is still brown

I arrived in Alaska on May 18th, obviously a trifle too early. My old buddy Kirk was in Kansas helping his parents remodel their home so he was away for six weeks during which I stayed in his beautiful little hideaway. As you can see, summer started slow. I was cold most of the time and spent a lot of time huddled in front of the oil heater trying to get warm. Things changed quickly though and by Memorial Day weekend we were basking in almost tropical, for Alaska, temperatures. The beautiful weather continued for the entire time I was there.

The path to Kirk's home 10 days later

July 21 - Kirk's yard in full summer dress

I drove around Homer and outskirts putting the finishing touches on my additions to the Open Street Map of the area and visited some places I'd known about forever but had never seen before. Beautiful Eagle Lake sits just a few yards north of Basargin Road but is hidden from view by trees and scrub. It's a true gem.

Eagle Lake (N59.82704 W151.13339)

A view north to Bear Cove across a placid Kachemak Bay

I haven't been in Bear Cove for many years but it looked so inviting it convinced me to try and make it back for another visit some time. This was one of only a few cloudy days we experienced all summer.

I also stayed a week or so at another friend's home while he was away building a new get-away cabin at Little Jakolof Bay. Dave lives in a 30 foot diameter yurt that has a fine view of Kachemak Bay and the Chugach Mountains beyond.

View from Dave's yurt

I was treated so very warmly by my many friends that it made me realize all over again that I still have roots in Homer and that I'll be returning for summers until, well, just until....

My last day was extra special. I had lunch with Janelle, a favorite tennis partner who bested me many times on the courts and whom I hadn't seen for years. It was wonderful to get to see her and catch each other up on our adventures since she moved away from Homer. Afterward I played a farewell tennis match with Homer buddies Mary Ann and Chuck.

The day ended with a gala going away party staged by my partners at Alaska Boats & Permits. The food was perfect as was the weather. And as always, I came away feeling both humbled and lucky to have been somehow blessed with such a fine collection of close friends and colleagues.

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After a too short visit with my son Tuli and grandson Harper in Eugene I arrived in Chiang Mai on August 4th. As soon as I got back I cashed in the stash of American money I had brought along and put a down payment on a new motorcycle, a 2013 Honda CB 500X. I know I've written with fondness about the bike I have now, my CBR 250, and it is indeed a fine bike for Thailand but riding two-up on the hills, with all our gear, is a bit of a struggle that demands running the smallish 250 cc engine at 7-8,000 RPM much of the time. Plus, riding in the semi-sporty posture this bike imposes tires my wrists when driving in the city with the constant shifting and braking required. With these factors in mind I decided it was time to move up to a more comfortable, more powerful bike with higher low-end torque and a wider power band.

Honda CB 500X

This model was introduced in early 2013 and is powered by a parallel-twin 500 cc (actually 470 cc) engine that is closely related to the single-cylinder 250 on my bike. It only comes in matte black and, to my mind at least, an unattractive white-red color combo. I chose black. The X model, there are also R and F models, is the so called cross-touring style and allows for a more upright seating position. That should take the pressure off my wrists. The bike is bigger overall than my CBR at 430 lb vs 360 lb with a seat height of 32 in vs 30.5 in. The one-piece seat is more generous than that of the sportier "R" series bikes too and that should suit Nut better. I'll do a road report after I get the bike and tell you more about it then.

It's inevitable that I compare life in Chiang Mai with life in Homer. Before retirement I had often wondered just how I was going to handle my passion for tennis, a summer sport, and my love for my adopted home in Alaska. I seem to have found a way to accommodate both of these needs by living in Thailand part-time. Unlike our neighbor and good friend Danny, who left the U.S. last year after retirement and has never looked back, I am always torn when I transition from one home to another. I reckon that's just my nature. I've never been good at making decisions.

The gardens at San Kampaeng Hot Springs
(N18.81570 E99.22811)

Danny and Nut on the road to San Kampaeng

Nut and me at our apartment on Siriton Road, Chiang Mai

Now that I'm back and have some new stuff to talk about, I'll probably be writing a bit more often. I'm back to full health after my aortic valve replacement operation in April. I'm feeling fit as a fiddle and have a lot of my old energy back. In hindsight, the operation was much easier than I had thought going in to it. I was playing tennis exactly one month after having my heart stopped and the faulty valve replaced. Ah, the wonders of modern medicine! Nevertheless, I'm glad it's over.

Open Heart Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic

This a post about heart surgery. I wrote much of it when I was staying with my sister Sandy at her place in Olcott on Lake Ontario. Here's a view toward Toronto at sunset a few days ago. For those of you who prefer pictures over words, I'll include this photo and then get on with the wordy part of the post.

Lake Ontario Sunset

At this point, three weeks post-op, I'm happy to say that I'm back to blogging and back on track for continued good health thanks to aortic valve replacement surgery I recently underwent at the Cleveland Clinic. I can't say enough about the fantastic treatment I received from every single person in that organization, from greeters and housekeepers through nurses and physicians. I was so impressed with the employees' level of dedication and competence that I want to sing their praises to anybody who will listen. If you're not familiar with the circumstances that took me to the Clinic for heart surgery, you can read this blog post from last summer.

The Cleveland Clinic Guesthouse where we stayed

Sandy and I drove from Buffalo to Cleveland on Sunday the 21st of April for my aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery scheduled for the 23rd. We stayed at the Cleveland Clinic Guesthouse which was reasonably priced and had a great restaurant downstairs, the Chicago Deli. The entire day of the 22nd was set aside for getting a chest x-ray, an EKG, echocardiogram, lung volume measurement, and blood tests. It culminated in a visit with Dr. Douglas Johnston, the surgeon who had picked up my case. I don't know how these cases are dealt out to the docs at the CC; all I know is that after I sent my records to the Clinic last summer a note came back by email telling me Dr. Johnston had offered to perform a minimally invasive AVR operation.

I quickly Googled both the technique and the doc's name. "Minimally invasive" sounded good because for it the breastbone is cut only about 4 inches to gain access to the aortic valve, which sits on top of the heart. The more common technique, the gold standard in open heart surgery, cuts through the entire breastbone from top to bottom. The rib cage is then hauled apart with clamps to allow unfettered access to the entire heart muscle. This is the sort of operation necessary for CABG (bypass) surgery or to operate on any of the other heart valves. As for Dr. Johnston -- his credentials were impressive and I learned he does over 100 AVRs every year. Most people who have OHS want to meet their surgeon and get to know him before trusting him with their lives. Considering I was to come to Cleveland more or less directly from Thailand, that wasn't possible in my case. I had to assume that he would turn out to be someone I could relate to.

Dr. Douglas Johnston

At the very end of the long day Monday I finally met Dr. Johnston. He was a friendly, soft spoken man, with the sort of haircut we would have called "collegiate" in the old days, and delicate looking hands, surgeon's hands I hoped. We had a chat and briefly discussed my options regarding whether to have surgery or not. Although we both knew the decision had already been made, this conversation was required along with my signed acknowledgment of the risks and details of the surgery ahead. I signed on the line and we continued our talk.

One measure of valvular stenosis, which is the stiffening of the valve that was affecting me, is obtained from echocardiogram tests.  It is called the mean pressure gradient and is expressed in mm of mercury (mm/Hg), a number directly proportional to the amount of energy it takes to push blood through the valve. Lower numbers are good, higher numbers bad. Coupled with the valve area, which is usually reduced because stenotic valves do not fully open, a qualitative measure of the severity of the stenosis can be derived. Normal gradients are in the range of 3-5 mm/Hg and normal aortic valve are roughly 3 sq. cm. in area. Mild stenosis is anything not exceeding 25 mm/Hg. Severe stenosis involves a mean gradient greater than 40 mm/Hg and a valve area of 1 sq. cm. or less. These last numbers characterize my valve situation when I entered the Clinic. My aortic valve was only opening 1 sq. cm., about 1/3 as much as it should, and my mean pressure gradient was just over 50 mm/Hg. This makes it very hard for the heart to deliver adequate oxygen to the rest of the body. The valve that controls the flow of freshly oxygenated blood is too constricted to be able to do its job properly.

In discussing my options Johnston told me that statistically people having my numbers eventually reach a point where mild physical exertion causes lightheadedness or even fainting and at that point I would have only a 50% chance of surviving another 3 years. I wasn't quite there yet but had already noted a reduction in endurance when playing tennis and riding my bike. Several friends upon hearing about my diagnosis last summer pooh-poohed the idea of heart surgery. They're just trying to drum up business, they claimed. In my mind, I never doubted I needed the surgery.

Next we discussed the type of valve I'd receive. Dr. Johnston recommended a newer model from St Jude Medical, the Trifecta valve, a combination porcine and bovine tissue valve that he's used extensively for the past year or so. The Trifecta  exhibited a high degree of reliability over a simulated 15 year test period (600 million cycles), has a high throughput rate and, because it's made from natural tissues, requires no blood thinners. I knew I would get some sort of tissue valve and I had no reason to prefer one over another so that's the one I ended up with.

Later that evening my daughter Carin arrived. She had driven up from North Carolina to be there during my surgery.  I was ready for the next day now that I had my support staff in place.

The big day started out in the nursing pre-op center on the first floor of the main cardiac center at the clinic. The aide who prepped me was very nice and after she learned I had come from Alaska via Thailand for my surgery, she started bringing her girlfriends in to visit the exotic guy in 2A. Who doesn't enjoy a little taste of celebrity whether deserved or not? I had some good fun talking with them about my travels and my life in Thailand. But reality soon intruded on our little gab fest.

It was a surreal journey to the operating room. I said goodbye to my daughter and sister and was wheeled away through stainless steel corridors and a stainless steel elevator to the operating room, a brightly lit and chilly room full of people and equipment. There I lay supine on my little gurney, the person for whom this technology and effort was being marshaled and the focus of all the energy in that room. It was a weird feeling. My mind was racing through various scenarios and outcomes until someone placed an oxygen mask over my mouth and asked me to take some deep breaths.

I woke up 5 hours later in the ICU. A nurse whose name tag read Cheryl said hello and asked how I felt. I signaled okay with a thumbs-up and then slipped back into semi-consciousness. Something was stuck in my throat and it felt awful. Try as I might I simply could not swallow. And I was stuck like a pin cushion with IVs, electrical leads, a drain tube in my chest and a catheter in my you-know-what. I couldn't swallow and I couldn't move. It was the most uncomfortable moment of the whole deal -- I felt so constrained and claustrophobic I wanted to scream. The feeling passed but it was never far away until those tubes came out. After a while my sister and daughter were allowed to come in to see me and soon after that the breathing tube was removed. If I never have to use one of those things again it will be just fine, thank you.

Later I scanned the surgeon’s report where I read that after I was fully anesthetized  “the upper sternum was opened and the thymus divided; the pericardium was opened and the heart and great vessels exposed …” And, “the aorta was cross-clamped and the heart arrested with a single dose of cold blood Del Nido cardioplegia antegrade. After adequate diastolic arrest the aorta was opened and a heavily calcified bicuspid valve excised … after debriding the annulus, a 27 mm Trifecta sizer was a snug fit. The valve seated well. The aortotomy was closed.”

Phew! A lot of big words having big implications. That was my heart being "arrested", my aorta he's talking about and my valve that was being "excised". I'm very glad to say I made it through all that.

After an overnight stay in the ICU I was wheeled upstairs to a very modern private room where I spent the next few days getting my strength back. My diet of drugs was extensive and included aspirin (blood thinner), acetaminophen (pain), colace (stool softener), Pacerone (heart rhythm regulator), Lasix (diuretic), heparin (blood thinner), lidocaine (pain), Lopressor (beta blocker), Protonix (proton pump inhibitor to prevent acid reflux), potassium chloride, tramodol (pain), and last but not least, a patient controlled device to administer Fentanyl to control pain and help me sleep. Fentanyl is about 100x more potent than morphine according to Wikipedia and I used 36 cc of it while I was there. Pretty good stuff!

A room at the Cleveland Clinic

Spotless corridor at Cleveland Clinic

I knew the mini-sternotomy would be less severe than the standard op, as I've said, but it was apparently a whole lot less severe judging by the folks I saw on my floor who had got the full treatment. They were walking gingerly as though their incisions still hurt quite a bit. In my case, the pain was never serious and after a couple of days the Fentanyl pump was removed along with the catheter and I was encouraged to get up and walk about. I took some of the tramodol a couple of times the third day post-op and then quit the pain meds entirely. My chest was tender but not enough to keep me awake. I slept a ton while in the hospital.

I had one minor complication that I've been told is quite common. Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat that can cause serious problems if left untreated. Fortunately, mine was corrected in a few hours though the use of the drugs Lopressor and Pacerone which help regulate and control heart arrhythmia and fibrillation. Of the drugs I was getting just after surgery, those are the only ones I'm still taking.

I'm in Eugene now and will be back in Alaska next week. I can't play tennis for a few more weeks to allow my chest to heal fully but the doctor told me to feel free to do any sort of exercise I want as soon as I was up to it, aerobic, whatever. He said, "Once we re-start a heart it either works or it doesn't. There's no in between."

Amen.

Cleveland Clinic Rooftop Patient Lounge

The Cleveland Clinic opened its doors on Feb. 28, 1921. It was a new kind of medical center for the times: a not-for-profit group practice, dedicated to patient care enhanced by research and education.

Cleveland Clinic pioneered the world's first cine-coronary angiography, first published coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery (1967), and the first successful larynx transplant and first near-total face transplant took place there. In addition to many other achievements  the first minimally invasive AVR, the kind I got, was performed there. In other words, the Clinic pioneered the very surgical technique I had the other day.

The main campus of the Cleveland Clinic consists of 41 buildings situated on a campus of more than 140 acres in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It was ranked as the fourth best hospital in America for complex and demanding situations according to recent U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Hospitals report and has been ranked number one for cardiac care for 16 years in a row.  This is the primary reason I chose Cleveland Clinic for my surgery. The Clinic is the largest private employer in northeast Ohio, and the third largest in the state of Ohio, with over 36,000 employees all over the United States and revenues exceeding $4.4 billion annually. It has over 1200 beds and admits about 50,000 patients every year, patients from all 50 states and all around the world.

It is an awesome hospital. Of course, I'm biased.

My room is in there somewhere

Note (August 2013): The full cost of my surgery and 6-day hospital stay was a mind boggling $220,000! I count myself fortunate to have Medicare, which paid 80% of that, and supplemental insurance from the State of Alaska that I received when I worked for the City of Homer back in the 90s, which paid the rest.

Last scribblings from Thailand

We did a big tour, my last motorcycle trip of the season, last week. We had intended to drive over to one of my favorite areas, Lake Phayao, stay a night or two, and return. But the weather was so fine and the scenery so beautiful we decided instead to go on up to Chiang Rai. Plus, I wanted to map as much new territory as I could. We have a new friend, Daniel, a recently minted expat from Maine who has taken up residence in Chiang Mai. We met last year through our mutual friend Albert and corresponded over the intervening months about living in Thailand. Danny has made a firm commitment to living here already. Like many expats, he can afford to retire and live better here than he can in the U.S. on his retirement income. Anyway, he was able to get an apartment in our little residence and since then we've become very compatible neighbors. He recently bought a 150cc Honda PCX and readily accepted an invite to go on tour with us.

On the way to Phayao - Tantong Waterfall on Route 120
(N19.06982667, E99.72897833)

After a wonderful cruise we reached Phayao, checked in to a nice hotel and took a quick ride around the lake as sunset was coming on. It's always a lovely ride and this one was no exception. We spotted an old Thai who was harvesting seaweed. We had a chat with him via Nut, our interpreter, and learned that he owns a fish farm and uses the seaweed to feed his fish, which are almost ready for market.

Fisherman - Lake Phayao

Seaweed harvester - Lake Phayao

Sunset at fish farm

The historic Kwan Phayao Stupa House in Phayao is being refurbished

Next morning at Nut's urging we visited a temple in Phayao city, Wat Sri Khom Kham (N19.17672000, E99.88981167), that turned out to be very special. I've driven by this one many times but always on the way to somewhere else. Thailand must have 10,000 wats scattered throughout the country and after a while one just stops noticing them. (Correction: Actually, there are more than 40,000 wats in Thailand. See this Wikipdia article.)

Reclining Buddha

Enclosed in a walled garden near the temple itself is a collection of statues unlike any I had ever seen before. Nut told us these were meant to remind people that if you do bad things in this life, you will suffer bad things in your next life. Whatever, much of the statuary was fantastical, grotesque.

 

Tormented souls

We found a new to us cafe near our hotel where they make a delicious latte and decorated it in exquisite style. Aptly named The Coffee, it's located on the corner of Chaykwan and Thakwan Roads.

Latte from "The Coffee"

 We made an excursion to a couple of parks north of Phayao that afternoon before heading to Chiang Rai. Mae Puem N.P. and its nearly empty reservoir are shown below.

The Mae Puem Reservoir at low ebb - in need of a refill from the April rains

We took the long way to Chiang Rai going northeast to the Phu Sang Waterfall almost at the Loatian border before turning west. This waterfall, a popular tourist spot for Thais, runs hot at about 35 deg C (95 degrees F) which is why I wanted to see it. It was beautiful but crowded so we ate a quick lunch across the road and took off.

Phu Sang Waterfall (N19.66353 E100.37622)

We spent two nights in Chiang Rai. The intervening day was taken up with a trip to the Golden Triangle. Nut and I had been there earlier this season but Danny hadn't, so off we went. This is the point, actually in the middle of the Mekong River, where Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and Laos meet, which is famous because it was a major drug trafficking center years ago (for all I know it still is).

Chang (aka: Dave) and Chang at the Golden Triangle
(N20.35320 E100.08259)

We drove back to Chiang Mai the next day. The heat in the afternoons is getting intense as summer closes in. Riding in full motorcycling regalia in that heat gets uncomfortable so we doused our clothing with water several times on the way home. The "coolth" lasts about 20-30 minutes and for that time driving at 50 mph is quite refreshing. One of our favorite stopping places along Route 118 overlooks a small river. Danny and I waded in and flopped in the cool water.

Getting cool on the way to Chiang Mai
(N18.96639 E99.24110)

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Even though mapping bores most of my friends to tears, it is still the thing that gets me out of the house and keeps my mind from straying too much to the heart surgery. And I'll continue with it until I leave Thailand. We've had a run of beautiful weather for the past few weeks — cool and often cloudy and not at all typical for this time of year — positively fantastic motorcycling. Tomorrow morning I'll stick the GPS in its mount, make sure my camera battery is fully charged, and off I'll go, exploring, and mapping. The rural countryside surrounding Chiang Mai is truly lovely. Again and again I'm reminded of rides in the country around Buffalo we used to do when I was a teenager. Being a city boy, I always loved being out in farm country with the smell of new cut alfalfa coming in the open windows of my dad's old '55 Ford Victoria. Oddly enough, these trips remind me of those days.

I've written two posts about mapping and they have widely different numbers of page views (hits). Blogger, a Google product that I am using for this blog, makes it easy to track various statistics. My last post, on Feb 12th, about a Mapping Run to Lamphun, has only been viewed about 50 times. The first one, Mapmaking 101, which talks about the Homer area among other things, has had 320 hits to date (posted Dec 12).

I've almost finished my Homer area mapping projects. The two main focal points were downtown and the end of East End Road although I hit almost every road in the Homer-Diamond Ridge area. Using the Bing imagery I've got pretty much everything straightened around and with the help of Tiger data and my memory, most of the roads named. You can see an overview using the two links below. You may zoom in and out using your mouse wheel or by using the "+" or "-" on the dashboard at the right.

Homer downtown

East End Road terminus

To continue in that vein for a moment: some of my other scribblings have been fairly widely read. It's gratifying to know that people are reading what I write. The posts about Africa top the popularity chart with, at this point, about 3600 hits each for the Zambezi rafting and the Ngorongoro Serengeti screeds.

Ranking below those, one about Phnom Penh and carrying pictures of some beautiful bar girls has had almost 2000 hits (Feb 2010), while one I did in October of 2010 after returning to Thailand and Nut has surprisingly garnered 1000 hits.  And this one, about my visit to Bilbao in 2009, has had 1200 hits. I cannot for the life of me understand that one.

Other popular posts include: one about Vespas, with 950 hits, Dirtfish Rally School, with about 830, and two about the CBR250 , Maiden Voyage and Riding the Honda CBR250, each have about 850 hits.

One drawback to having a blog that is more widely read is the spam it attracts. I had to start moderating comments because I'm getting 3 or 4 every day that are designed to get my readers to visit commercial sites. So if you want to leave a comment you'll have to wait for me to approve it before you see it on the screen.

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It's getting close to the time when I'll be leaving Thailand for the summer. This year is different though because of what awaits me back in the states. I'm scheduled for aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery on April 23rd and it's finally getting to me. Everything is in place, the paperwork transmitted to the Cleveland Clinic, and I have a very experienced surgeon who has offered  "minimally invasive AVR" instead of the standard operation that involves splitting the chest completely. He does about 120 of these operations a year so I reckon I will be in good hands during the ordeal. Still, it's daunting to say the least, especially for one who has never seen the inside of an O.R. except on TV.

Friends are telling me to look on the bright side, to think ahead to the time when I'll have improved endurance, to be thankful that my condition can be solved by modern medical science. I have done that for the most part. Wasn't it just the other day that I was writing about how good my life felt, how happy and content I was? Things are looking decidedly bleaker now that the operation is only a few weeks off. I'm surely gonna miss my easy life over here.

A mapping run to Lamphun

Lamphun isn't a city people generally think of when you're talking tourism hot spots in Thailand. It's a small city situated on the Wang River about 30 miles south of Chiang Mai as the crow flies. Neither of us had ever been there before except on the way to somewhere else.

For me the main attraction was mapping. I had never driven on any of the roads alongside the Ping River south of Chiang Mai and I was curious about them. A riverside is always an interesting place to see and drive with a motorcycle and besides I wanted to do some mapping of attractions, street names, and other Points of Interest, (POIs). So I asked Nut if she'd be interested in a little moto trip. We've not been doing much of any traveling lately so she was definitely into it. We grabbed some stuff: our cameras, my new Garmin Montana GPS, a backup paper map, and after I'd picked an arbitrary destination, a coffee shop in Lamphun, from the current version of the OSM map, off we went.

Disclaimer: I've noticed several friends' eyes glazing over when I tried to interest them in my mapping activities so if you're one of those, you might as well stop reading right now ;-)  Mapping has me firmly in its clutches!

It was a beautiful day and the ride was lovely. When I'm going mapping I use the GPS to record my track and take a camera along to photograph interesting data. (see Mapmaking 101 in this blog for more about GPS tracks and the Open Street Map project). I used to make notes on paper as I went but it was hard to keep track of where I was when I wrote the note and correlating which photo went with the note. A better method I recently turned to uses geolocated images. It's much more accurate and allows me to postpone any writing or data recording until later when I'm back at my desk.

Basically, this method uses a computer program to synchronize the GPS track from the trip with the time stamp in a given photograph to accurately position the photo on a map. All modern digital cameras record a host of data and stash it in every photograph: such things as exposure time, metering mode, focal length, ISO setting, camera name and model, and much, much more, are stored in the EXIF area inside the JPG image file. (Wikipedia: EXIF) This EXIF area can also include the latitude and longitude of the photo if your camera happens to be equipped with an internal GPS, which many are. Seeing as my stand-alone GPS is much more accurate than the present crop of GPS/camera combos and neither of my cameras have an internal GPS, I use this method.

It involves a nifty piece of free software called GeoSetter. GeoSetter reads your GPS track, loads the photos that were taken while recording that track, and then displays the photos geo-graphically located with high precision on a background map of your choice. Here's a screen shot of a map run I made a while ago in my neighborhood. You'll have to double-click to open the full size image in order to follow the discussion.

GeoSetter screenshot with selected photo in viewer and on Google Map

Here you see my GPS track in blue and a bunch of pushpins that represent the photos I took along the route. This particular photo is of a street sign displaying the street name in Thai and English that I will later place on the OSM map. I'm sitting at the corner of Srilanna Road and this small adjoining lane, Srilanna 4. The other blue markers show that I stopped at several more intersections where I took photos and recorded street names.

If you look carefully at the map in the photo you can see that the street name on the Google Map is incorrect. The road joining Srilanna Road from the left is indeed Chotana 12 but on an earlier mapping run I discovered that its name changes to Srilanna Road at the intersection indicated by the arrowhead. That's why I claimed OSM maps are often more accurate than Google Maps. The OSM mappers typically live in the area and as a result know much more about it than Google's teams of drive-by photographers and mappers can garner in a quick visit. What Google's accomplished is amazing nonetheless. They actually have Streetview imagery for much of Chiang Mai (population 1.5 million) and the huge urban jungle that is Bangkok (20 million)! I wonder what Google had to spend to get this data?

You even can see our apartment house in this map link. Drag the little yellow "pegman" onto Siriton Road and find the "Friendly House" sign at the far western end. Amazing, no?

By the way, OSM mappers are not allowed to use actual data from Google Earth or Google Maps. It's strictly protected by copyright. In the photo I'm using Google Maps as a background reference to make a point but all street names, POIs and any other data we include in OSM must be obtained legally, i.e., manually. That's one reason, aside from the fun of it, that I do these on-the-ground mapping runs.

Once I reach the geolocating stage it's merely a matter of transferring the information from the photos to the OSM. Oh, and getting the Thai name into it (in Thai script) as well. That's tricky for me but with Nut's help, doable. Somehow, the OSM project obtained permission from Microsoft to use their Bing maps as a background for their map editing interface and using that imagery we can draw ways and buildings, etc. The same copyright restriction is in place regarding names of things but roads and lanes can be more or less traced onto the map using the Bing imagery. The names, route numbers, traffic controls, etc., can then be researched and added at a later time.

Anyway, let's get back to our drive along the west side of the Mae Nam Ping. I took photos of street signs, we visited a colorful wat, or temple, of which there must be thousands in Thailand, and finally we got to Lamphun. I discovered that the highway we'd been driving and which had no special status in OSM parlance except "residential road" when I first checked it was in fact a nice two-lane designated highway, Chiang Mai Route 4032. I photographed mile-marker posts along the entire length of the highway and have updated the OSM map accordingly.

Detail: Wat Wang Sing Kham (N18.70289 E98.98351)

Shelters, like these at Wat Wang Sing Kham, are mapped as POIs

We drove directly through the city to what turned out to be a very pleasant little coffee shop right on the riverside. Different river but with similar scenery. The shop served food as well and because it was a convenient time for lunch, we ordered several items and sat in the shade nursing iced lattes while our order was prepared. The food was terrific!! The Add Up Coffee Bar is a real find (N18.57537 E99.00924). Great food, fine coffee, a perfect setting. And because it's far from the popular tourist centers, cheap even by Thailand standards.

There was a big wat nearby that had a gleaming gold chedi. Nut likes to visit the various temples we see from time to time and they're always interesting to me too if only for oogling the magnificent decorations covering every surface, so we made a stop there after lunch. This chedi had apparently just been recovered with gold leaf (gold paint?) and it shone brightly in the sunlight.

Wat Phra That Hariphunchai

Nut spotted a woman weaving saffron-colored cloth for use in the temple. She donated 20 baht to get a short session on the loom.

Because I was interested in putting interesting places as well as roads on the map, we stopped at a botanical garden on the return trip. The privately owned and extravagant Baan Phor Lian Meun Thai Medicinal Plants Garden is a work in progress. Nut spoke with a gal we saw there and she said construction has been on going for 8 years. There are many fountains, large ponds, and beautiful red stone buildings scattered about. It will be quite an attraction when finished. (View in Google Earth at N18.60566 E98.97757)

This ended our little mapping run. I hope someone using the OSM in the future enjoys these gardens as much as we enjoyed the Add Up Coffee Bar. The days are getting warmer now as spring closes in so we turned north for home before the heat of mid afternoon got too intense.

A Life in Chiang Mai

View from the kitchen window

I've been trying to sit down to write something in here for weeks but I just can't seem to pull myself away from the maps, the maps. I'm delving deeper and deeper into it as I learn more about the Open Street Map project (OSM) and my own level of expertise increases. Mapping the world is no small chore and there are literally countless web sites, software programs, wikis, blogs, and other source materials dedicated to map editing, routing, error detection, database interrogation, etc., using the OSM data. Add to that the major distraction of the Australian Open on TV and assorted friends  from Homer who have been visiting Chiang Mai practically non-stop since about mid November and you can begin to understand why I've felt so busy these last few weeks. I've read about people who lose their will to live after retirement. Who are these people, I wonder, and what's wrong with them?

I've tried to come up with a theme for this post, something compelling enough to motivate me to write and I keep coming up with the fact that I'm incredibly happy and satisfied, perhaps more so then at any other time of my life. I wake up early every morning with a feeling of utter contentment. Despite that feeling, or maybe because of it, I can hardly wait to jump out of bed to begin the day, whether it's to play tennis or make a mapping expedition or take a ride in the country.  Life in Thailand is deeply satisfying on so many levels. I have a crew of tennis junkies to hang out with that provide enough recreation to keep me active and somewhat fit, a few consuming and satisfying pastimes including motorcycling in the hills hereabouts, and a wonderful woman to share things with. After a hot November, the winter weather settled into an almost perfect idyll of cool mornings, blue skies and temperatures that barely reach 80 in the afternoons. Damn near perfect.

We've done some motorcycling up north, visited some picturesque spots, entertained some good friends, eaten a slew of wonderful Thai meals but I'm tired of writing about that sort of thing. This blog stared out as a travel blog. However, now that I've all but stopped traveling, what's there to write about? I've settled into a pleasant life over here, with a home and a satisfying relationship — I have no desire to go anywhere else for the time being.

I reckon part of that contentment stems from the fact that I quit drinking again back in June. Those of you who have known me for a while also know how much I love my beer (and wine and scotch) and that I've quit (and started) drinking several times over the years. I love the feeling of an alcohol high, the pleasant buzz, the lowering of inhibitions, the elimination of anxiety. But for me those qualities are what makes alcohol so addictive and what makes it difficult to manage my consumption.  I've never had a drink in an evening and been satisfied with just one. I've actually noticed half-full bottles of wine in people's refrigerators from time to time. Imagine that. Saving wine for another day. Not me. If it's open I finish it. After a while I got tired of being a slave to the addiction and quit.

It's easy to avoid alcohol when you're happy and freshly committed to being alcohol free but it's also easy to backslide, especially when most of your friends drink. When I learned about my heart situation last August I immediately did some reading on the subject and two of the things the writers, cardiac doctors, harped on were these simple directives: "If you drink, quit. If you smoke, quit." Check — I quit drinking last month. Check — I quit smoking in Africa two years ago. (Yes, I temporarily slid back to that horrible habit as well.) Frank Sinatra, a notorious drinker, reputedly said, "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning that's the best they're gonna feel all day." I can recall many mornings during the past few years, I call them lost mornings, when I experienced the truth of that statement. Blech. I love waking up clear-headed and full of energy right from the get go; it's an infinitely better way to begin the day.

Then there's being in Thailand.  What is it about Thailand that exerts such a draw on me? This is neither my country nor my state and is certainly not my ancestral home. But I do feel at home here. I've written previously about the super friendly Thai people, the mom & pop stores and food shops that you find in every neighborhood and along every roadside, the delicious Thai food, the world class motorcycling. The amount one can buy here with an American dollar is a huge factor. I can live well on my retirement income, unlike in Alaska, or indeed most of America.

And then there's Nut.
She makes my life here enjoyable, and easy, as I've often noted. She also makes it possible for me to feel very relaxed in a country whose language I still cannot speak. She's where my real Thailand home is.

My BTGF

Nut is a woman who's caught in the middle of a period of great social change in Thailand, although I don't think she's really aware of it. She's a traditional Thai woman in that she values family, duty and acceptance above all. Her needs are few and uncomplicated. She wants a comfortable life with a man she loves and who can care for her in return by providing both emotional and financial support in her later years.

Even though she's reached middle age and at age 49 considers herself over-the-hill, a concept I am understandably forced to downplay, she's modern enough to scoff at some of the old ways. Since we got together she has essentially dedicated her life to, as she puts it, taking care of me. I read somewhere that one of the things that is so attractive about Thai women is that they have a way of empowering their men. I can certainly say that I am treated very well and feel as though there's nothing Nut would rather be doing than being with me and doing things for me. Of course, the feeling is mutual. Except that in my case I'm not allowed to contribute to the housework or the cooking. My contribution is companionship — in a shared life and shared experiences — and taking care of the rent. And occasionally playing the straight man in our humorous banter.

While she treats me like a king in some respects you would be dead wrong if you were to think Nut submissive or having no sense of self. She's feisty, outspoken, and quick to anger if crossed. She knows herself very well and isn't afraid to speak her mind. She jokes about how she runs things around here, calls herself "the boss" during our playful verbal jousting. Funny thing though, I sometimes think she is.

Many people have written about the Thai-farang relationship and what it means. Many callously describe a Thai woman in such a relationship as a gold digger, an opportunist. Not that these sorts of women don't exist or that certain Thai women wouldn't take advantage of an older farang with financial resources given the chance. Many of those situations arise when a fellow falls in love with a bar girl, a woman who has been working men for profit already. To make generalizations about the entire population of Thai women from these exceptions is both foolish and wrong. While it is true that older farangs have a better chance at snagging a much younger woman in Thailand than they might back home, this has to do with several factors. According to many Thai women I've asked, including Nut, your average farang man is likely to be more stable, more faithful, and gamble less than his younger Thai counterpart. In Nut's world, this stuff counts more than just good looks and is what makes him a better, a more desirable, life partner.

Having read those things, I'll admit that when we first got together I was a bit cautious. I had been warned by everyone about this, for lack of a better phrase, "opportunistic streak" in Thai women, and being well past the age of being physically attractive to women, asked myself what she saw in me. It took some time and the sharing of many experiences to lessen my initial skepticism. During that time I've learned that because our cultures are so different it inevitably colors our views in ways not easily comprehended from the outside or during a casual relationship. Many negative judgments written about Thai women have been by people who don't really know much about the inside of a relationship with one.

As the months go by I find I'm enjoying our life together more and more. It's been three years since our first date and I seldom hear Nut ask me for money that isn't for everyday expenses, excepting for the occasional trip to get her hair done ("to make beautiful") or a recharge for her son's cell phone. She's careful with money in every respect, almost frugal. In addition, she's fiercely loyal and worries about my health and safety all the time. She is, in many ways, the perfect partner. I can only hope our next three years together are as good as the last. As for my skepticism, it's been gone for a while now.

Our kitchen on Siriton Road, Chang Phuak, Chiang Mai

Anyhow, last October we found this nice little apartment with a kitchen, two bathrooms, huge bedroom, and cheap of course. Very comfy and very homey. I wanted to do something nice for Nut and because we both love food and eat  breakfasts at home now that we have a kitchen, I decided to introduce her to my special pancakes. We gathered the unusual for Thailand ingredients from various markets and one morning I whipped up a batch. I don't use a recipe for pancakes so Nut watched me as I went about putting the batter together. Pancakes with syrup and butter are not Thai food and Nut had little experience with them, but she really liked them and said, "Next time I watch carefully and then I make for you."
I replied, "No need to do that, this is something I want to do for you."
"No way", she said, "I do everything for you!"
Of course, as in all such "discussions" about house chores, she was not to be dissuaded — I've yet to prevail in a single one of them. Sure enough, next time I made pancakes she observed carefully and asked questions as I went along.
Then one morning a week or so later while I was off playing tennis, she put together her first batch and proudly served them up when I got home. She watched as I ate the first bite and asked, "Okay, mai?"
I replied, "Well, it's very good but not perfect."
"What?" she retorted,  "Not perfect! What's wrong with them?"
"Not quite enough vanilla." She hustled back to the counter, added some vanilla and poured another dollop of batter into the pan, rotating it slowly to distribute the batter evenly. After bubbles had formed and broken she flipped it to finish the top side and then served it to me.
"Perfect," I said.
Fast forward two weeks and this time it's about spaghetti. I had made some marinara sauce and it was an immediate hit with Nut. It was pretty damn awesome sauce I must say. I had packed some bay leaves, basil and cumin in Alaska because I didn't know if these essentials could be found in Chiang Mai. Before we finished our first helping she was asking, "Those leaves you used. What are they?"
"Bay leaves" I replied.
"Use how many?"
I think you can see where this is going.

I guess I'll close now and get back to my mapping.
So much to do, so little time in the day.