Red skies at night

I've been in Thailand since March 8th. Before that I was in Kuala Lumpur for three nights. I am currently writing from the Northern mountainous province of Nan where I drove up from Bangkok with my old housemate Todd and another expat San Franciscan, Stuart. Just like in the Philippine's mountainous provinces, Nan was in the 80s a refuge for communist guerillas. The air here is hazy from all the smoke from forest clear-cutting--I can't quite tell that it's any worse than Solsona in the evening and early morning when most of the burning of trash and fields goes on--also I've been smoking enough cigarettes so that it probably doesn't even matter. In the evenings the sun seems to be setting eventhough it's still at least 10 degrees above the horizon, a reddish circle in a smokey sky. (Apparently Thailand has just issued a state of emergency regarding the haze problem and looking to curb outdoor activities for the young and elderly)

After 3 weeks of travelling alone, getting around by my own rather addled wits, and talking to virtually no one, having the company of better informed fellow travellers is a godsend. (The only conversation of any length I had in Singapore was on the last night I was there, with the owner of a Malay restaurant in the Arab quarter--he was very nice but he tried to sell me if somewhat passively on some pyramid scheme--he said his sideline was networking--he told me about his two wives, having just married his second, a 23 year-old--and then he told me of his new found interest in some positivist guru in Sedona, Arizona. This was the only conversation I had in Singapore.