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Chiang Mai, Thailand Fri, 22 Nov 2002
We're off and running on our round-the-world jaunt.
Well - loping - well - maybe meandering would be the
best description. We flew to Bangkok, Thailand on
November 10th. Canadian friends graciously met us at
the airport. We spent our first few foggy-minded
days, recovering from jet-lag, with them. They live
outside of central Bangkok near the landmark elephant
'skyscraper.' You'll only find such architectural
gems in Las Vegas or in countries where the population
has a deeply-rooted sense of humor. This high rise
apartment/shopping/office/parking complex actually
looks like an elephant in a cute, chunky, cubist sort
of way. A smile generator for sure.
After a few days of refreshing R&R, we moved to our
regular Bangkok stomping grounds near the Grand
Palace. However, rather than visit the Palace with
it's lavish, delicately decorated sacred structures,
we headed to one of my favorite temple complexes: Wat
Suthat. Here, again, we saw the Thais' great sense of
humor. Guarding one of the temples on the Wat's
grounds are sweet, smiling, western-looking, stone
soldiers who look like they could have marched right
out of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical productions.
While in Bangkok we met up with other early retired
friends - new and old. One of the 'new' guys we met
just retired a couple of months or so ago. He spent
his last year of work consulting for a NGO in
Bangladesh in order to check out living abroad in the
third world. (And it's a 'go'.) Bangladesh Bill, now
Bangkok Bill, emailed me about his current, content,
early retired status. (Ah, the joys of email.) I
quickly replied that we too were in Bangkok for a few
days. We met and made a new friend.
And speaking of email and early retirement, we
received an email from Kiplinger (The old Changing
Times) who wants to write some kind of follow-up story
on us. Although the reporter said that it was obvious
from our homepage that we enjoy our life, she still
had to personally ask if we were still enjoying early
retirement. My reply: "Every year gets easier and
better. Because we are open to opportunities, and
because we know what makes us happy, we are able to
both direct our lives while going with the flow. When
we first retired I thought we'd stay in Argentina
forever - and I certainly never imagined that we'd
become perpetual travelers owning nothing. Who knows
what we'll be doing five years from now? The mystery
of how our lives evolve is part of the fun and
adventure.
These days, and at least until December 20th, you can
find us 'evolving' (smile) at the Top North Guesthouse
in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Love, Vicki
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Bangkok's elephant building
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The Top North Guest House