Tag Archives: thailand

Chasing the Dragon by Cops 2009

Drugs are illegal in Thailand. The police have squads of officers scouting the slums, discos, and bars for offenders. Suspects are piss-tested for ‘ice’ and ‘ja-bah’, the two popular speed drugs in the orient. Any trace of purple means a lock-up for months. Actual possession could earn years, but smuggling drugs gets the most time […]

Joni Mitchell In Drag

I was born in 1952. During that prehistoric period doctors had no way of predicting an infant’s sex, yet my mother was so convinced that her second child would be a girl that a year’s worth of pretty pink baby clothing lay neatly stacked in a crib prior to my birth. I imagine she experienced […]

Loy Krathong 2007

Back in 2007 November 8 was Loy Krathong. Pattaya City police geared up for the annual water festival by conducting street sweeps of undesirables in order to clean up the coastal city’s image for the traditional festival. Last year they banned fireworks and instituted shore patrols to prevent any krathongs or offerings from entering the […]

The Roam of Ghosts

My youngest son talks about phee or ghosts. Fenway is not scared of these spirits, but he doesn’t want to go to certain houses on our soi in Sri Racha, since the four-year-old sees birds with voices. His mother thinks that he has the 6th sense. Mam says that she is not frightened by ghosts. […]

Over The Burma Border

2002 Fifteen miles into Burma Hot Dry Dusty An illegal entry On a 250cc ATX Honda. Stop at a A Lao village On a nameless dirt road Surrounded by eternal opium fields. Children gawking at the falang An old white man in black Two men with AK47s. Watch From a bar. Thinking DEA. Two beers […]