And how could I forget...

As I said before, Mon culture goes back a long way but is fading. The people though are eager to promote it, and I saw some great t-shirts while in Sangkhla: "Make Monday Mon Day!" and "Wear Red on Monday!" Traditional Mon dress is red, and the red on the shirts had the same pattern as traditional Mon longyi and paso. I overheard a conversation in Burmese at my guesthouse and learned that most of the staff are Mon and speak Burmese. I'm finding Thai to be less and less useful.

We were talking about all the things that are really strange but that you start to overlook. One of those is the fact that Thai sweep their lawn. In all the parks there were people constantly sweeping leaves. Not much is left but dirt and the scratch marks left from their equivalent of a rake. Raking leaves at home is similar, but here leaves fall all year round and it seems much more pointless.

I've decided to skip Hellfire Pass museum and just lay around today. It's been nice. I'm eating lots of Western food and enjoying my first non-Thai bed (ie not hard as a rock) since I arrived. Tomorrow I'm off to Bangkok and then Phnom Penh. Also I've found that the Lonely Planet-type books are generally half-right. Generally, for every place listed in it there are three look-alikes near it that cost 30% less and are never full. Not quite sure how places make it in there, but it's a real benefit for business if they do.