End note

Some of you have asked if the cyclone hit here at all. The remnants of it touched northern Thailand, but in Bangkok it's been nothing but hot and sunny. Burma has been devastated, as you know, with very great loss of life. The junta is cruel and stupid, but not so cruel and stupid that it has refused entry to international relief groups. Alhough, the country was such a wreck to begin with that the helpers surely will have a hard time knowing where to begin.
Joe is especially concerned about a Chin village where he spent a night on his last trek. A steep hillside had been cleared for planting. Joe asked his guide if landslides might result during the monsoons. The guide said yes, but the villagers---who lived at the bottom of the hill---didn't understand that.
The regime still plans on holding its sham constitutional referendum on Saturday. It is madness.

Today is our last full day in Thailand. We spent the first part of it slogging around Bangkok in the heat scouting locations for scenes in the tenth Strachey book. I'm on chapter 11, out of about 25. It might be titled "Not How Anybody Wants to Die." Is that lurid enough? (Consumer note: "Death Vows", the ninth Strachey book, about a gay marriage gone wrong, will be out in September.)

Our plan for The Last Supper tonight is tom kah gai, fried morning glory vines in spicy sauce, and duck red curry. Does this represent a failure of imagination?

This is the end of this blog but not the end of Dick and Joe's Endless Cycle of Travel Death and Travel Rebirth. There will be no Travel Nirvana for the likes of us, ho ho.