Hello to all of you Dot-Communists in Cyberspace:

I am trying to be 'straight' and 'factual' in my missives to ya'all, but it is extremely difficult!  My hooves keep hitting the wrong keys.  Have you ever tried typing with a pair of horseshoes attached to you hands?  Then your back feet get in the way- but how I acquired a 4-footed keyboard will have to wait for another occasion.

Oh, by the way- in my last report, I forgot to mention that Cheng and Eng, the original Siamese twins, were very attached to each other.  I just couldn't let that fact go by!.

Yesterday Tomiyo and I went to a village outside of Chiang Mai where a family we have dealt with in the past and their neighbours make grass and bamboo bags as part of a Thai government program called OTOP.  OTOP was started in 1999 with the help of the Japanese Government, with the intent of teaching locals in impoverished areas how to market their skills to Thai and international audiences. While we drove there and back and spent several hours at their compound, the husband (who had returned from Bangkok to his wife's village to engage in the business) told us a couple of interesting stories. The stories were all related in broken English thru a mess of snaggle teeth, since our friend Benja had recently fallen while feeding his ducks and fish in the dark, and knocked out 5 front upper teeth on one side of his mouth while hitting them against a log.  We mentioned the Western advances in tooth transplants and he said that a dentist in Chiang Mai told him that he could give Benja transplants and the whole job would cost $500.  Now that's what I call REAL medical advancement! Teeth are at the root of many of our problems in life- I acquired this knowledge after having some 'wisdom teeth' pulled out (I was also bitten by a K-9 punster while lying in the dentist's chair).

The first story Benja told us was that he and his wife (who are in their late 40's or early 50's), have about 5 children.  The youngest girl Tan, is 16 years old, sweet, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and a real go-getter- helping her family sell at the Sunday Night Market, learning English, with the plan to go on to university.  On her own she has saved enough money to buy a motorbike which she moto-vates about 30 km into town every day to attend classes while school is out for their summer.  Besides grown daughters in Bangkok and Tan and another son at home, Benja and his wife have taken on two small children which the Thai government asked them to raise.  The fathers are criminals 'in the monkey house', and the mothers are either prostitutes or drug addicts who are 'in the female monkey house'.  Apparently this is a common practice in Thailand- to farm out children of problem parents to 'responsible' people- assuming of course that the responsible people are not Westerners engaged in child sex abuse or trafficking- a problem which one sees in the paper every day.

The second story involved certain illegal activities that take place in the Golden Triangle.  When we first came to Chaing Mai in 2006, the Night Market was rocking. One could barely move down the sidewalks, with stalls and shops on both sides- selling T-shirts, 'hot CD's & DVD's of the latest music and movies, tribal crafts, manufactured kitsch objects, and what have you to tourists from all over the face of the planet.  There was also the Night Market Shopping Mall in the middle of it, which was filled with shops and tourists and international buyers.  When we returned last year in 2008, business appeared to be down, a new indoor/outdoor mall had opened across from the original one (complete with free folk dancing every night, a buffet of food choices, international soccer matches playing on big screens overhead, etc., etc.).  When we arrived last week, Chiang Mai and the Night Market was as DEAD AS A DOORNAIL!  There were/are a few tourists stumbling around, being half-heartedly besieged by shop-keepers, taxi, and tuk-tuk drivers.  We assumed it was blow-back from the US economy, and mentioned it to our bag maker friend Benja, and asked him how all of the operations could stay open and still survive.  He explained it to us.  MOST of the stalls in the Night Market are fronts for drug dealers- some Thai and some Burmese (Myanmar is just across the border and apparently heroin production in Burma and Thailand is really taking off.  If you see how steep the hillsides jungles are, it is very easy to understand how difficult it would be to police these regions- unless of course you spray everything and everyone and give cancer to the natives- like the US is currently doing in Columbia!.  Also, look at the US presence in Afghanistan- heroin production has actually increased!  Perhaps the US and CIA are involved in helping finance the war?  We have heard and read that the US turned a blind eye to the heroin trafficking of the deposed King of Nepal).  In any event, in Chiang Mai, the shop keepers are doing little or no business but are depositing 20,000-30,000 baht (about $570-$860) every day- if not every hour and it is obvious that they are doing no business.  The banks all know the scam, and so do the politicians- who get paid off to ignore it.  Interesting!  And most of the tourists probably don't have a clue.  Of course in the US we don't know who is paying off the politicians- do we.  Couldn't have been Wall Street and the big corporations could it?

The third story involved Benja's wife directly.  A Burmese woman ordered 250 bags from them which they delivered.  About a month or so ago, the Thai police showed up on their doorstep and transported Benja's wife (who is a very sweet woman), to the main Chaing Mai police station.  It appears that the police had picked up the Burmese woman selling Benja's family's bags at the Jatujak Sunday Market in Bangkok.  Somehow, the police kew that the woman was selling the bags at a price cheaper than what Benja sells them for wholesale (even Benja was amazed by the police knowledge of this!).  So, they checked out the bags and found the lining to be filled with heroin (recently the Thai police seized a 12 piece place setting- all made of heroin!).  Seing Benja's label, they traced th bags back to his wife in her village.  Benja hired an attorney, and went to the Chaing Mai main police station and pointed out to the police that the sewing on the interior lining was totally different than what his family did.  That got his wife off the hook.  The police found the Burmese woman was carrying 30 million baht (approximately $850,000- a staggering amount for your average Thai!).  I told Benja not to bother to put any lining in the bags we ordered cuz I didn't want Tomiyo picked up by the Thai authorities and I don't even know how to sew and I wouldn't know a lock stitch from a granny knot.

It's hard to sew with hooves for hands

Sez the Electric Mule

(I'd like to know why they call drug-runners 'mules'- it is giving my species a bad reputation!  Despite this, I guess I'll just have to keep 'carrying on')

Copyright Ernest Gusella 2009