On the recommendation on my friend Ann, now one of the Island’s freedom and privacy gurus, and previously a CBC impressario, I visited the Formosa Tea House on University Avenue this afternoon for a Hot Black Milk Tea. I needed something to combat winter, and also an environment evocative of southeast asia, for which I have a mild case of homesickness.

I’m happy to report that the hot black milk tea is very, very good, and the perfect antidote to wintertime. I had two. It’s served in a very nice square-mouthed mug. It’s sweet. We decided, Ann and I, that’s on the beverage spectrum it falls halfway from hot chocolate to tea. Highly recommended.

Amazing the number of Islanders connected to or visiting Thailand this season. Just got off the phone with Rob Paterson who was there with his wife Robin before Christmas for three weeks. Eugene Sauvé from GrabbaJabba was there in January for five weeks. Peter Jansons from The Dunes is in and around Thailand (he’s in Bali right now) this winter. And I assume Dave Coffin is there too somewhere. The mercurial Gary Carroll is not in Thailand, but he’s certainly been there enough to know the lay of the land. And he tells me there’s a Island woman who’s living with the hill tribes north of Chiang Mai who we should have visited.

For the record, I have no feeling, positive or negative, about anything to do with the winter Olympics, including any wins or losses by any Canadians or groups thereof. I think the entire thing is a big waste of time, and any suggestion that it has anything to do with Canada being “better” or that cheering for Canada is somehow patriotic is absurd. Just for the record. You are, of course, free to disagree.

Additional thoughts about flying Air Canada: the attitude that pervades the in-flight customer service culture at Air Canada is “we are here to protect you from the plane, and to protect the plane from you.” In-flight service is offered as more of a time-consuming distraction, and something for the flight attendants to use to fill up the empty time.

On other airlines in our recent experience — Japan Airlines and Thai Airlines — the attitude is rather different: “we realize that flying is stressful and difficult; we will do what we can to make it less so.”

The one hour flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in Thailand on Thai is roughly equivalent, in time and spirit, to the Air Canada flight from Halifax to Boston. The Thai flight provides hot towels, drink service, a very pleasant boxed lunch, and a service of bracing green tea, and costs about $80. The Air Canada flight offers drink service and pretzels and costs about $600.

With Air Canada as an effective monopoly, I don’t hold out great hopes for any dramatic improvement in service in the near future. Unfortunately they are essentially the only airline flying from Charlottetown, so it’s almost guaranteed that one has to fly them several times a year.

Arrived Halifax Airport last night at 8:30 p.m. and drove as far as Amherst before our bodies wore out (warning: if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, don’t think about trying to stop in Springhill, as there are no hotels there!). Left early this morning and drive the short hop (all hops seem short now, compared to Tokyo-San Francisco) to home on Prince St. New furnace was installed by our brilliant plumber in our absence and we’re all ready to have the first real bath in our house since we moved in almost two years ago.

Left Bangkok on Wednesday night, arrived Tokyo on Thursday morning. All thoughts of spending a leisurely day in Tokyo gave way to our need to sleep, something made easier by being put up by Japan Airlines in the Nikko Narita Hotel, right near the airport (spaghetti, hamburger, Coke, juic = $60).

SLept most of our first Thursday, then Tokyo to San Franciso, arriving, oddly enough, Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. Left San Fran at noon and arrived Toronto at 8:00 p.m. Thursday.

Thus the longest Thursday of our lives.

Mom and brother Mike met us at the airport. The sinus infection I caught at the tail end of our trip seems to have gone, or at least been transferred to Catherine. I’ve thrown out my lower back, though, which should make the final Toronto - Halifax - Charlottetown leg of the trip interesting.

General comment on airline situation: Air Canada is a horrible no good airline with next to no service, esp. when compared to Japan Airlines (which we flew internationally) and Thai Airlines (which we flew in Thailand). The broken down old a/c bus we took from Phitsanulok to Bangkok had better service than the San Francisco to Toronto flight we took last night.

More when we’re back in Charlottetown.

The best 24 hours of our trip so far, I think.

Last night, after reading the section titled “Will I die?” in the Moon Guide to Thailand (where they discuss the issue of eating at restaurants vs. street stalls and suggest that generally no, you won’t die eating from street stalls) we plucked up our courage, diverted from our usual mid-range restaurant tradition, and had the best meal of our trip at the Flying Noodle on the riverfront in Phitsanulok.

The Flying Noodle is not, technically, a street stall — it’s more of a giant street-stall collection with tables and chairs and a television set, all under a tent on the side of the river. We had garlic and basil fried chicken, rice, and a large bottle of Singah beer to split, and the total bill was 120 baht, or about $5 (and, by coincidence, the same amount that Catherine paid at The Oriental Hotel for her bottle of Evian water).

By the way, the reason the Flying Noodle is called such is that if you order fried morning glory, your food is thrown backwards over the head of the chef into a plate held by your waiter standing on top of a ladder on top of a truck. You have to see this to believe it.

Phitsanulok was a very pleasant low-key town and we had a very good time there. As near as we could see we were 3 of about 6 western tourists in the entire city, a nice change from touristy Chiang Mai. This made it difficult to walk down the sidewalk, however, as Oliver was stopped every 6 feet or so to accept greeting from shopkeepers, lottery ticket salespeople, police officers and so on.

This morning we were off to the bus station at 9:00 a.m. The bus station was a confusing place, and we made the apparent mistake of buying tickets from a private bus company rather than the state-owned enterprise. As a result we probably paid a little more, and our bus was a little grotty, though not too bad. Oddly we were fed a meal of rice and chicken, along with a glass of Coke at 9:40 a.m. right after we departed, and then there was no further offer of food nor drink for the rest of the trip (save for a self-catered rest stop about 1/2 way through the trip).

The silver lining of the bus trip was that we were seated beside a young Thai woman and her 5 year old daughter. Oliver and daughter became fast friends, and the two of them alternated between our seats and her mothers. The daughter read Oliver our Thai-language copy of “Country Mouse and City Mouse,” shared her cocoa-puffs and potato chips, played puppets and generally kept Oliver well entertained. Midway through the trip we looked over and found Oliver lounging around on his back with his head on the mother’s lap and daughter playing “paddy cake” with him. They exchanged gifts — Oliver got a flower bracelet and daughter one of Oliver’s finger puppets — and then the trip was over.

It’s days like these that make you realize why it’s so important (and fun) to travel.

We arrived Bangkok 3:00 p.m. and hobbled our way to a taxi, which delivered us directly to our hotel. Bangkok is as hot as we remember, but Oliver’s waitress friends at the hotel coffee shop greeted him like an old friend.

Bangkok ‘til Wednesday, then Thursday in Tokyo, followed by another Thursday in Toronto (I think) and home at the end of the week. Snow!?

Here’s the promised story of Oliver and Peter and the prostitutes: I hadn’t been outside and around and about Chiang Mai (or anywhere else in Thailand) until the other night when I went to the Night Market while Catherine and Oliver slept. Without Oliver in tow, I found Thailand to be a much “seedier” place at night — lots more people trying to seel me things, get me places, etc.

At I also bumpde up against the edges of the so-called “sex tourism” industry — only insofar as I was gently propositioned from across the street several times — “hey, looking for a good time” sort of thing, much as you would find in downtown Toronto, and certainly not a big problem.

The next afternoon, wee Oliver and I were around and about alone while Catherine visited a craft shop, and who should we run into but a similar gaggle of “good time girls,” during their off-hours, eating at an outdoor cafe. They spied Oliver and googled over him, ran over to talk to him, asked how old he was, and generally couldn’t get enough of him. It was a totally different side of the same group of people; certainly went a long ways to humanizing the sex trade for me.

The fringe benefit of all this is that Oliver can say honestly that he visited with his first prostitutes before he was even 2 years old.

Brief update today — slow Internet in the heat of the midday while Catherine and Oliver are out at the playground. We are here in Phitsanulok, a small town halfway between Chiang Mai in the north and Bangkok in the south. We arrived yesterday by train, a pleasant journey save a minor freakout by Oliver at the crossover point from mountains to rice paddies.

We’re staying in a hotel of faded luxury — perhaps once the best hotel in town but now, alas, good mostly for its location, 1 block from the train station. But we have a TV, so I can keep up to date on my new addiction to the nightly soap opera that airs on Channel 7 just after supper.

This morning we visited the famous folk museum, which has an interesting collection of older Thai artifacts, and which bears a striking resemblance to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit for its attempt to catalogue “everyday life” though record players, musical intstruments, household appliances and the like. Acrossthe road, run by the same retired army officer, is a bronze casting plant, also an interesting visit. Only once our visiting was done did we realize that we’d not provided for a ride back into town, about 2km up the road. We were saved by a pedal rickshaw driver who pedalled all 400-odd pounds of us back to the centre of town for 40 baht (about $1.50). Catherine is sure we took years off his life.

For lunch today we visited the restaurant of the competing faded luxury hotel in town, the Pailyn. Their operation is somewhat less faded, and the food was very good. Oliver, as per usual, was swept away from us and entertained by about 15 waitresses, cooks, barmen and concierges. He got a tour of the kitchen and of the entire back office, and cried and cried and cried when we had to leave.

This afternoon we’re off to the local temple, reputed to have the most significant images in all of Thailand. Tomorrow it’s back to Bangkok. More later.

Steve’s sons say that Linux isn’t big here in Thailand. And indeed all of the Internet cafes that I’ve visited so far have been Windows-based.

But here in the cafe in Chiang Mai, it’s 100% Linux: about 20 terminals all running Caldera OpenLinux. And it works. Well. I’m typing this in Netscape under Linux, and it looks better than it does on my home PC.

By the way, Steve is writing his online column for the Bangkok Post next week about Travelling with Children, using our experiences with wee Oliver as a jumping off point. Stay tuned. You can read this weeks column to learn more about how Steve was buried at the Oriental Hotel this week.