More Thailand

Well, since I took my semi-waterproof camera on our snorkeling trip in Koh Samui (to the Ang Thon National Marine Preserve) and made a few dives down to see the GIANT CLAMS, sadly the camera does not want to give up its photos right now. But the card is good and we will get those photos out when we get home. In the meantime, more basic Thailand.

Ready, set, ... go!

This is what everyone rides here, mostly without helmets, with little kids/babies seated in front of them, or girls riding side saddle on the back. This is a reason head trauma is number one cause of death here. Still, that's what they do.
We're always looking for opportunities for you kids, like the Samui jazz festival every September ... David? and for Claire, wonder what this guy is doing?
The Bangkok airport is excellent as is the Chang Mei airport and the Koh Samui airport. So basically we give Thailand an "A" in airports. We had to take a picture of the cabs outside the airport when we first arrived (we had a car waiting to take us to the hotel, hehe) since they reminded us of the different color cabs in Hong Kong. These cabs are pretty good. They also have little tuk-tuks where it seems you take your life in your hands - think Charleston pedi-cabs except gas powered and in something like downtown Manhattan.
Although there is a non-monarchy government, the King is big here (and the Queen). You see pictures of them everywhere. Unfortunately the king has been sick for quite a while and is living in one of the hospitals I visited. Many, many people come each day to pay there respects and leave gifts though they do not get to see the king. You see Monks or monks in training everywhere (always in orange). Here is one of the many pictures of the King, this one at the airport in Bangkok.

Dad really did work

With all the great pictures and stories, you must be wondering ... did Dad really do some work? The answer is a resounding yes. Actually the first week was quite busy, getting up at 6 or 6:30 each morning to go to a different hospital (we spent 2 days in Chang Mei at the same hospital) and then we did stuff after work each day. It has made our time here on Koh Samui this week nice to slow down a little. But don't get the wrong idea. It was really neat.After using our first Saturday to get over jet lag (haha - can't do that in one day for this long of a trip), we had a meeting at the hotel in Bangkok to go over the plan. This is Dr. Teresita (Terry) Angtuoco from Univ. of Arkansas who was my co-visiting Professor. She had done this about 4-5 years ago, so she and her husband Eddie (a neuroradiologist) were a great help and we hung around a lot with them at night.
Every trip I would give a didactic lecture and then also give a resident/fellow conference where I would ask them questions like we do USA residents. This was different for them and the fact they had to answer in English made it even tougher, but they all did a great job. There was usually a lot of giggling and laughing through it all.
At Chang Mei I actually got to scrub in on a very interesting case. We may end up including it in a joint paper I want to write.
This is the Interventional Radiology group in Chang Mei. You always had to take your shoes off and put on some flip flops or rubber clogs. They would always laugh when they tried to find some big enough for me. David L. wouldn't have stood a chance.
Back in Bangkok I visited 3 different hospitals one on Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday. It was on the go most of the time, but it was all enjoyable. And we usually did something fun at night. Here is where we went to the most amazing seafood restaurant Mom and I have ever seen in our lives. Yes, the waitress goes down the 100 meter line of seafood with you and the shopping cart as you pick out dinner! Here we are with some of our hosts.
And Friday afternoon after work, some of the residents and fellows from one hospital took us up the river to an island where some mountain people now live and make pottery. We had a great time and stopped at a riverside restaurant (that may have been the most difficult to find ever nice restaurant we have been to) for a beer and dinner.
This is a long tail boat, by the way (the one with the propeller on a long shaft - see James Bond movie - The Man with the Golden Gun?)
Okay, so it seems like a lot of this post still didn't have to do with work, but hey, work can only be so interesting. Saturday we got together for a check out visit. At the end, they presented Dr. Angtuoco and myself each a nice bouquet (red for the man, they said) and gift.

Claire and Isabelle go to Thailand

Yes, we were just as surprised when we went to Thai Night at the place we are staying on Koh Samui. But shortly after we had a come to the buffet dinner and show, so did little Claire and Isabelle. Well, not really, but I bet for a minute you thought you were watching old home movies. We talked to the family today - very nice. And they have another on the way. Maybe a John?

Elephants!

As you can see, We Love Elephants! And of course now more than ever since we got to see them (and ride one) at the Elephant Park outside of Chang Mei (note: we will try to do a similar thing on Koh Samui). You can see that Mom is excited even before we get in.
The first thing she did was buy a bunch of bananas and sugar cane to feed them. The first elephant she got close took tried to take the whole bunch when she wasn't looking. But did she back down? No!!! She took back her bananas and then handed them out one at a time. After that the elephants were in love with her.

Not sure they gave me the same respect.

After that we got to see them take a bath. That was great although you couldn't help but notice that bath time was also apparently the time for the elephants to er, ah, go number 2 (I have nicely cropped the pictures for the blog). I wouldn't have wanted to be the two people standing downstream with big baskets whose job it was to, how can I say this delicately, preserve the water sanitation downstream.
The elephants seem to love bath time, although that is also a chance for them to play a little joke on unwitting tourists.
Then they did the show, it included playing soccer, playing harmonicas (yep!), dancing, and other stuff, but the most amazing thing was the painting. I didn't think it would be that interesting, but when you see it in person ... it's unbelievable (unglaublich for Claire). The trainer would dip the brush in different colors and then hand it to the elephant who would do the rest. This was the elephant closest to us painting.

Here are the finished products. All elephants did something different.

And then it was off on our ride (for those who wanted to go). At one point the trainer got down and walked ahead and it was just us on our elephant. It turned out our elephant, Maesa, was a mother and we went by her baby on the way. We also got to go in the stream. We have lots more pictures, but we'll wait till were home to show them all.

Chang Mei - the North

Chang Mei is up in the Northwest, near the Myanmar (Burma) border - get out your maps. This is where we rode the elephants and I'll do a whole separate post on elephants after this. We had an orientation type meeting Sunday morning with the Thai radiologists from all the hospitals we were going to visit. Then we took a plane to Chang Mei while our fellow IVP radiologists, the Angtuocos, went to Kon Kaen in the northeast. We landed in a region with mountains surrounding the city, quite a change from the "low country" of Bangkok.We spent two days here. The night of our arrival, two interventional radiologists took us out to dinner to a nice place on the river (we have eaten outside at least half of all our meals as the weather is just like home!) At this point we seemed to have a little relapse of jet lag or maybe our bodies just trying to figure out how to adjust to 12 hours difference. We had a great hotel, however, and slept well. The next day I went to the hospital, 1500 beds!!! Interesting picture by the entrance to the ER trying to get people to be more careful, but the picture didn't seem to interest anyone but me.

At the end of the day, we went up the mountain to see the temple on top of the mountain. If you go over the back of the mountain, you get to where the hill people live including the Hmong, like John's friend from North Carolina. The temple on the mountain, Doi Saket, is what people go to see. The wat is reached by a staircase of 300 steps. You can also take a tram, but walking the steps gets you closer to enlightenment I think. We took the steps, of course. There is a big buddha on top and 7 small buddhas, one for each day of the week. I think the reclining buddha represents Tuesday.

A little boy, I think wearing clothes of some of the hill people, was sitting on the steps.

That night we went to dinner that included a nice show. Afterwards, one of the creatures tried to cuddle up to Mom.

Then we got to launch a small "hot air balloon". I'll try to post a movie later. It was really cool watching them sail away into the night sky. You are supposed to do this for someone or something like a prayer, so we did ours for Grandma.

Okay, next post - elephants. Although in real time we are now finished our week in Bangkok and will be traveling later today to Koh Samui, an island.

More photos from Thailand - Up the River

After arriving at 11:30 pm on Friday night, we got up the next morning, had breakfast, and then set out to explore. We bought an all day pass on the skytrain and rode down to the river. There we negotiated our way through the many people trying to get you to take their boat. We finally settled on one that you could get on and off at different stops. So off we went up the River Chao Phraya.

It was a really cool ride. Note all the vegetation floating in the river. We never did quite figure out where that came from. We got off at the Grand Palace, home of the Emerald Buddha. This Wat is one of the biggest and is truly amazing. Every where you look you have a site like the one below - and it is 360 degrees.

Here is a temple, one of many, with just an amazing look to it.

And here is a close-up of some of the detail.
And here is a super close-up!
We have decided there is no way pictures can do justice to a Wat. You just have to be there and walk around. It isn't looking at the detail, like it is with lots of artwork and such. It's more just taking in the whole scene as well as the ambience. In keeping with us posting interesting signs - here you go. We did not use the fortune teller.
We did decide to head back to the boat. Some young Monks-in-training were waiting to go somewhere.
We decided to have a beer (ice coffee for Mom) and relax while we waited for our boat to take us home.
Then it was time to head home and get ready for a meeting the next day. Stay tuned for our next post (running about 4 days behind, hehe)

The Selbies have taken flight ... again!

Well, actually we missed the Germany trip earlier this summer - not really missed, just put it on the main Selbies blog. But from now on we are going to try to put big trips on Flight of the Selbies! And this is a big trip! From the time our alarm went off on little Sullivan's Island, SC to tell us to get ready to go to the airport (Thanks, John, for driving us) until we checked into the Pullman King Power Hotel in Bangkok it was about 30 hours. And the flight from Washington, DC to Tokyo may have been our longest in the air. But when we arrived, we had the easiest check-through ever. Folks from the hospital met us and escorted us through the VIP immigration. Basically, we didn't stop till we got to the hotel.Since then we have had some the usual blur when you have traveled that far. I will post more pictures later, but the basics of what we have done so far are: Saturday - recovered and went around Bangkok, visited the Emerald Buddha Palace and took a boat on the river; Sunday - Had meeting with all the people I am working with here, then took plane in afternoon to Chang Mei in Northwest corner of country; Monday and Tuesday - Visited the big 1500 bed hospital in Chang Mei, gave lectures, did a procedure, and got shown lots of really neat things. That is where we went to the Elephant Park!
Tuesday night we flew back to Bangkok. Wednesday - Visited Ramathibodi hospital and again gave lectures and visited. Today, Thursday, I go to a related hospital and then on Friday the last hospital. We have been spending time with the Angtuocos, my fellow visiting professor (Mrs. Dr. Angtuoco). They are great companions. They're from Arkansas (Philippines originally) and they do a parallel path during the day and then we usually meet up for dinner. Last night we had seafood at a restaurant in Bangkok where the fish and crabs are swimming around for you to look at before you choose. Time to go. More later!