============================================================== To reach ALL SJD members, please send to sjd@satjadham.net ... Do NOT include any other addresses when sending to the list... Include as LITTLE of the original messages as possible........ Message sent by: LanXang Siengkhene *** Announcement: *** Please register for SatJaDham Fifth Annual conference at the website http://www.satjadham.org/sjd5sd/ ============================================================== At Thakek, the Mekong River was at its shortest width, maybe half the distance of the one at Savannakhet. From Thakek shore, you could see what was going on in Nakon Phanom, and it was enticing with their bright lights, big buildings lining up the shore and traffic going on all the time. I spent as much time in Nakon Phanom as I did in Thakek during the weekend. Luckily, they didn't usually charge me boarding in the ferry crossing the Mekong River. By the way, I was only a kid and skinny too, not much a load to their ferry. The places I liked to frequent in Nakhon Phanom were the movie theaters (they had recent movies than the one in Thakek), the market (they had sweet and red watermelon, they also had the kind of navy blue short that I liked to wear to school. It was interesting to tell you that those who sold the shorts were Vietnamese and they were plentiful in Nakhon Phanom. They always talked to me in Vietnamese as if I could understand any words they spoke. By the way, the only Vietnamese language I could understand was Ung Keum (eat), Daek Lum (pretty) and some counting words to only six. Since my brother, the one who was a pilot, was exiled to Nakhon Phanom after the coup d'etat in 1967, I went there almost every week. He liked to give me a red banknote of 100 baht which I used to buy a soccer ball. I was very awful with this round ball. In a couple of months or so, I would buy a new one as the old one was continually kicked right into the stream and flowed straight to the Mekong River. The field that we played soccer was the backyard of the post office residence, and it was next to the stream only a few yards to the mouth of the Mekong River. We did try to prevent the loss of ball by stationing one of us by the stream, and still the ball flew past him. What the heck with the ball! If I couldn't extort some money from my parents, I would go to my brother in Nakhon Phanom and got some without even asking for it. It was funny that my brother always wanted to marry a tall girl (not to mention a girl from a glamorous town like Savannakhet or Vientiane), roughly at his height, because he said that it would be very inconvenient to kiss his wife if she was shorter than him. As it turned out to be, his wife was rather short and from a town less glamorous, Thakek. Whatever it was, his choice of wife was a good one for they stayed together through the thick and thin of time until today. (to be continued) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com _ ***************************************************************** Visit SatJaDham Homepage at: http://www.satjadham.org (or .net) *****************************************************************