verbingnouns

Travel Log Part 15

Thursday, March 15, 6:00pm

Presentation went better last night - no problems. Left out the jokes and the statistics - helped a lot.
This morning I called R, then went to meet the others. We were suppoesed to go to some museum, but the princess was in town visiting that museum, so it was closed to the public.
We walked through the Buddha foundry briefly, then M & I went to an insurance company to ask questions. Like banking, their insurance system is largely based on the American system. I also spent time talking with a pharmacist about public health. She was telling my about the anti-smoking campaign. The gov't is trying to discourage smoking (and I really haven't encountered many smokers), but the gov't owns 80% of the tobacco industry, so it's hard to say how much they really want people to quit smoking.
I also talked to her about the HIV/AIDS problem in Thailand. She told me that a large portion of HIV patients are housewives who were infected by their sorry husbands. (It's no secret that pr*stitution is a huge problem in Thailand - something like 3% of the Thai economy is funded by pr*stitutions. It is technically illegal, but everyone turns the other way. It is not discouraged.)
We also visited TV & radio stations. Apparently, we will be on both tonight. Must be a slow news day.

From Thailand Marc...

From Thailand Marc...

Peyamas left the radio station and had M's host, Anne, along with Jenny the Sarcastic Canadian Exchange Student drop me off. That was at 4:00. It's now 6:15, and I haven't seen Peyamas. She left the key at the salon next door. I walked down to an actual internet cafe (really more like a online game room), then went and got my hair washed (again!). Now I'm just hanging out at the house wondering what to do next. It may be a quiet evening at home.