Misogyny? Must be Thailand.

Before we left Luang Prabang, this was the scene on the porch of our colleagues' room: beer cans, a  big,empty bottle of gin, bug spray, tonic, cigarettes and shoes.  Think they had any fun last night?

Walking around the little city this morning, I found some laundry,

a picket fenced science institute with a very skinny Sakyamuni stature inside,

a man puttering in his porch,

the man at the laundry shop who seems to be the seamstress or the tailor, and

men making a fishing net that sparkled and shimmered in the light.

When we checked in for our plane to Chiang Mai, this sign was displayed at the counter, and one of our colleagues had been bragging just the night before that she had NEVER been stopped for carrying a lighter onto a plane; when she saw the sign, she just said, "Mine is NOT a ciggalate lighter!"  She had to relinquish her lighter, "ciggalate" or no cigarette...

When we arrived, our rooms were not ready, the checking women at the front desk had bare tummies, and my iced coffee stirrer had this naked woman at the top.  I think we are staying in a truck stop, and this isn't the FIRST one of the hotels that had a male oriented ambiance...

I walked the perimeter of the old city of Chiang Mai this afternoon and came across this image that to me epitomizes ALL of Thailand.  Winnie the Pooh dangling on a garage with a satellite dish above...  The country had sold out when I was here about 5 years ago, and it seems to have gotten worse.

These parrots are for Lisa and Avi; however, these guys were sitting on the steering wheel of a motorbike!

The graffiti is swell, as expected.

The wall, which dates to 1286, still surrounds the city, as does the moat.

 Since we are staying at De Naga Hotel, I had nagas on the brain and saw this fellow at a temple on my walk.

Close to the hotel there is this "Gun Simulation Sport Stadium," and my roommate commented that this whole place seems to have been designed for men who feel sexually or physically inadequate in some way.

This graffiti suggests that there are SOME artists who feel completely empowered!  Nothing better than good graffiti in a city.  Tomorrow we have a lecture at a university, God knows where.  The whole program seems to be flying by the seat of HIS pants and feels more and more like a circus.  Every hotel we stay in is located close to "the night market," as though the men leading the group may have some interest in the Night Market Association of Southeast Asia, if there were one!

We found a delicious vegetarian restaurant called Aum, right down the street from the hotel where we are just off the main periphery of Moon Muang Road.  Over and out for tonight and back to my contemporary Vietnamese short stories.