Rambling.

This whole country is much more sustainable than I was expecting it to be. I guess I was expecting it be a little more like northern Mexico, with the littering, and nobody checking or caring about the emissions of their automobiles. But really, every single person recycles, people walk the streets and pick up trash, everybody carpools (more out of necessity than anything else, but still). Last week there was a huge, 3-day conference in Pattaya that delegates from 16 countries attended about making Southeast Asia a more environmentally friendly environment, that Thong attended. One thing that I thought was particularly cool was that all of the outdoor trash cans are made out of recycles car tires. Like this...Another thing that being here has really made me notice is that in Orange County, as soon as something gets old it is replaced by something new and shiny and smooth. But here things are fixed and tied and painted and glued until they fall apart. The buildings and the streets and all the things around you have so much character because of that. You can look at something and read the repair jobs and almost tell it's history. Orange County has character, sure, but not anywhere close to this.