The security, military and police officers are all uniformed in a slightly different way. From train conductors to school children everyone is in a tidy uniform. We saw a military person in camouflage too.

Bangkok is like any other mid-sized city in the US. However, in the countryside there is a varying degree of infrastructure. Little villages didn't have post offices, mailboxes, often no electricity, or telephones. Smaller cities like Surin have a full compliment of services. Pictured here is the Surin Post office.

Money makes the world go 'round, and here is a bank in Surin.

Schools are segregated by Sex in Surin. Children Wear Uniforms. They go to school 10 months out of the year. We saw children at present and at play before classes started by 7AM.

The Train system was excellent in Thailand, extremely affordable ($1.5 for a 7hour train ride) relatively clean, immaculate train stations with a lot of character, on-time and a model of efficiency. Best of all were the train vendors, YUM!

I hae to admit squat toilets took a little getting used to. Public toilets cost 3B ($0.07) to use. Toilet paper cost an additional 1B ($0.02) The hotels/guesthouses we stayed in ranged from flush toilets to grimy shared bathroom squat toilets

About 30% of the homes we saw in Thailand were Shanties, or Wooden stilt homes as pictured here. Next to the modern home one might often encounter a shanty. This would be unheard of in the US. We ran across dirty to immaculately clean homes.

Pictured here is the 3 of us in a Tuk-Tuk. Traffic flowly smoothly if a little haphazardly. We encountered a mixture of traffic vehicles everywhere. About 1/2 of the vehicles are motorcycles or scooters.

The public transit system was extremely well run. Labor is cheap, and there are conductors everywhere. Multiple conductors to greet each train. Sometimes 2 or 3 workers per BUS! One to collect tickets, one to drive, and one to handle luggage!

I met 2 deaf people onboard a train in Thailand. Kintara and Vitan. Because I know american sign language (ASL), I managed to strike up a conversation. We quickly ran into a language barrier, as Thai sign is different than ASL. However using my phrase book I manage to mouth out words and learn some thai signs, we did this for about an hour, but then I had to get off the train.