Happy feet

Wednesday night, my last American meal in the old neighborhood.  See you in 11 weeks, Ladd's Addition!

A slice, soda water and salad at Hot Lips on Hawthorne.

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Late Friday evening and 30 hours removed from the Beaverton Transit Center, I share a cab from Chiang Mai International Airport into town with a dapper old American gent -- probably the only holiday traveler to arrive dressed in a suit and tie. Longish silver hair, mildly gregarious manner, maybe a retired English teacher. He wields the standard set of helpful Thai phrases comically, thanking the cabbie with a broad "cop coon crap." (It should be more of a rapid-fire, monotone khap-kuhn-khrep.) So I peg him as a Thailand newbie.

"Actually, this is my third trip to Thailand, but my first to Chiang Mai," he tells me on the way in. So I ask where else he's been.

"Besides Bangkok? Phuket and Pattaya," he replies.

Ah. Understood. Say no more.

Destinations reveal a little something about the traveler. Now if he had said Koh Samui and Krabi, I'd know that he's a splash-in-the-surf kind of guy. If he had said Ayutthaya and Chiang Rai, he'd be into history and culture. But an older single guy whose first two choices were to partake of Thailand's reputed Sodom and Gomorrah?

The cabbie drops him at his hotel -- smack dab in the Loi Kroh bar scene near the moat -- and we make some vague promise to grab a beer if we happen to cross paths. But I doubt that we'll be hanging out in the same places.

A hofbrau, a BK, and just out of frame are a Belgian beer joint, McD's and an Irish pub.  Why do some people even bother leaving home?

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Today in Panthip Plaza I see these Buddhist monks shopping for sunglasses. I guess monks need protective eye wear as much as the next ascetic, but how hard can you rock a pair of Ray-Bans in a saffron robe?

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It was one year ago that I wandered into Nina Lanna Spa for a pedicure and met one Charita Methacharatphon, better known by her nickname: Lian. Only much later did I learn that my feet, which had lived in the same dilapidated travel shoes and socks day after day after day, were ... let's say memorable. (Would that be called "meeting cute-icle"?) But I guess the experience was not totally off-putting, as we've had an adventure or two together in the 12 months since then.

Then ...

So we mark the occasion by re-creating the moment ... this time with better foot hygiene.

... and now.