A taste of home? It'll cost ya!

For the white-guy staples of life -- whole-bean coffee, laundry soap, decent wine, just-passable baked goods -- western-style Rimping Supermarket is the only option within walking distance.

It really is like stepping magically back into America, and any Thai people you see at Rimping either work there or have a Caucasian mate. Its multiple stores in Chiang Mai do a fine job of satisfying just about every farang appetite ... for a price.

Jonesing for a big stack of flapjacks with your morning coffee? You'll shell out the equivalent of just under $6.25 not for a gourmet buttermilk pancake mix but your basic box of Krusteaz.

Newman's Own balsamic vinaigrette rings up just shy of $8.25 a bottle -- a little over a dollar more than what I spent last week for 2.2 pounds of tiger prawns.

Luckily Rimping hasn't caught on that it could triple its price of fresh-ground coffee and I'd still buy the stuff. Because some things you just cannot live without.

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Meet my friend Meow-Meow, named for how she and I greet each other:

Me: "Meow, meow, meow."

Her: "Meow, meow, meow."

Whenever my terrible Internet connection is acting up, which is mostly always, I walk out front to work beside the fence bordering the hotel next door (I have their wi-fi password). Meow-Meow tags along for company, meowing all the while. We must drive the neighbors nuts.

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I don't know why the American healthcare system is broken, or who broke it, or why we can't unbreak it. All I know is this:

Wednesday afternoon I decide to have my blood pressure checked -- I've been lazy about my meds for months now, damned fool that I am -- so I drop in on a nearby medical clinic. The place is very busy but clean and organized-looking. The receptionist hands me a card to fill out asking for name, age, occupation and address. That's it. I complete the card and 30 minutes later I'm ushered into an exam room where a nurse takes my vitals. Good news: even without meds my BP is only slightly elevated. (Thank you, clean living!) The English-speaking doctor comes in, does a quick exam and writes me a one-month prescription for fresh meds. Minutes later I am settling up for a grand total of 280 baht -- about $9.34 American.

No one asks about insurance or requires a signature on a stack of forms. And I get the impression that there are not many behind-the-scenes third parties involved. It's all about quality of service and patient outcomes.

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Riding on the back of Lian's motor-bike always used to terrify me, but I am over that now.

Thursday morning we are tooling along on back roads to the railway station to buy train tickets for a trip south in two weeks. About halfway there we come to a narrow spot in the road where a car in the oncoming lane is parked and another vehicle is inching around it. Lian has two choices:

   a) Stop the motorbike and wait.
   b) Veer into the rough.

She chooses unfortunately.

Blammity-blam-blam!! go the tires bouncing madly over treaded concrete drainage ditch covers. Lian tries to maneuver this bucking bronco back onto the pavement but her front wheel lodges in a perpendicular tread and the motor-bike drops to its side violently. I sail over the top and land across the downed bike, my reading glasses skidding in front of me on the street.

We are lucky: Lian is unhurt, I walk away with a sprained finger, sore toe and one hell of a bruise on my right leg. But the motor-bike takes the worst of it, a nasty crunch to the handlebar panel.

"Tell you what," I say. "If it's OK with you, I'll walk the rest of the way there. And then home again. And maybe everyplace else we ever go again, forever."