Umphang Thailand's Death Highway

Umphang in Tak Province has long been one of Thailand's most remote provinces.

Well in the 20th Century the only access to the region was by pack horse, ox-cart or on foot.

In the late 60s the Thai government financed construction of road through the perilous mountains only to have rebels kill thirty construction workers. The other workers abandoned their machinery and it wasn't until the mid-70s that Highway 1090 connected Mae Sot to the remote town on the Burma border.

I had always been curious about Umphang and one night in Ban-nok suggested to my wife that we take a drive to see the end of the road.

“It will be a road adventure.”

"Like Lord of the Rings." my ex-wife commented, remembering a long-ago trip in a cheap car through the mountains north of Chiang Mai.

"More like Swordman of Ayuthayya." I couldn't think of another Thai movie.

“Oh.” Angie my eight year-old daughter groaned with dismay. Her idea of excitement was hitting the local shopping mall for a KFC dinner.

The next day we we set off north to Tak in our pick-up.

Before the Umphang turn-off, we asked the owner of a noodle stop at the beginning of Highway 1090, if she had ever been to Umphang.

“Mai. Mao lot.” Car sickness was a plague besetting the Thais, but this highway is renown for its formidable assault of 1219 nail-biting curves on the tender Thai constitution.

“Umphang mii arai?” Angie’s mom questioned the owner’s husband who had family in Umphang. He was part Karen, which was the major ethnic group in the area, who have been at war with Burmese government for decades.

“Umphang has nam-tok Thi Lo Su, a very beautiful waterfall.”

I was enheartened by that information and set off for Umphang.

It was only 160 kilometers away.

A long 160 and we were about to discover how long.

The road was worse than treacherous.

Work crews repaired damage from monsoon rains at various spots in the mountains.

Two hours into the trip a mudslide had washed out the road. There was just enough room for our pick-up to pass the obstacle. I looked across the valley. The road snaked up to the peaks. It took us twenty minutes to reach that spot.

We stopped at a waterfall.

The flowers were exquisite.

White.

Orange.

160 stretched longer and longer, as the day got shorter.

Coming around a corner furred with jungle another pickup was cutting the corner in my lane.

I tapped my brakes and skidded forward without any control. Coming from frozen Maine I didn’t turn the steering wheel to avoid a slide. The other driver was local. He was used to dirt.

My internal proximity alarms rang like the Titanic’s ‘warning’ claxons.

For the first milli-second I was totally convinced that my right bunker was destined to crush his driver side door.

A second milli-second later and downgraded the danger to kissing to a 90% chance of tagging his rear bunker.

A millisecond more and we miraculously passed each other without a scratch.

He braked to see that I didn’t plunge off the road, then continued on his way and me on mine.

“Close.” Angie’s mom was not happy.

I wasn’t either.

We stopped for gas at a Karen refuge camp.

The foreigners had been living in Thailand for decades.

Their houses were rudimentary.

They remained stateless.

A mile on the skies opened up, as we entered the home stretch.

Noahesque monsoon rains lashed the mountains. We descended into a valley.

At the bottom a motorcycle was stopped before a brown deluge. The turbulent stream raced across the road. The water appeared about hub cap deep, but I waited for an oncoming truck to test the waters.

The pick-up emerged from the angry torrent and I followed his route to the other side. The motorcycle driver was stuck in the rain. He was soaked to the bone.

We arrived in Umphang to discover not a jungle Shangril-lah, but a sleepy town accustomed to its remoteness. No restaurants were open and we had to make do with noodles, plus the road to the Thi Lo Su waterfall had been washed out by the monsoon.

Needless to say there were few happy campers in our guesthouse room that evening.

Today it was back to Mae Sot.

The same 160 kilometers.

The same 1219 curves.

The same dangers as before, but this time I had beer.

My daughter is poking me in the back.

Her eyes say one thing.

"Let's go, I want KFC."

"I know somewhere better."

She didn't believe me, but I had been to Mae Sot before.

The Moei river separated the border town from Burma.

And one place had good food.

"When?" asked Angie."

I could only say, "Soon."

And three hours was soon on the Highway Of Death.

TV Terror

When I was young, my father called the TV the 'boob tube'. He felt that the programming made us idiots.

He was right.

I loved THE THREE STOOGES.

Later my father railed against the senseless violence on the TV.

"Only will breed violence."

He was right again.

This country is full of violence, but some of it isn't senseless.

It makes us do what 'they want us to do.

In fear of violence.

Tomb Knot

For over three thousand years Tutankhamen's tomb was secured by this intricate knot and a delicate clay seal featuring Anubis, the ancient Egyptians’ jackal god entrusted with the protection of the cemetery.

Work men discovered the tomb under debris of Ramsses' final resting place.

The knot survived thanks to the desert's aridity and the lack of oxygen in the sealed chambers as well as the infamous curse “Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh”.

Ah, the wonders of antiquity.

I only know simple knots, but they work whe needed.

I'm a little better at curses.

They are tied to the mind.

Sin Bin

My friend Emily Armstrong send this list and asked, "Are you a punk?"

The video archivist scored a $110.

I hit $140.

I feel like a good boy.

The Thin Shadow

"As I got older, I rejected the mirror in favor of my thinner shadow at sunset."

Peter Nolan Smith 2016

MISSILE AWAY by Peter Nolan Smith

During grammar school my older brother was the top of his class at Our Lady of the Hills, but he was also a pyromaniac and on several occasions Frunk came close to burning down our suburban house underneath the Blue Hills. Each time my mother punished us both with a wooden spoon and my father sternly admonished our incendiary behavior, yet my older brother was undeterred by cracks across the knuckles and hards words.

The early 1960s was the height of America's Space Race with the Soviet Union and Frunk abandoned his fiery endeavors to conduct missile experiments with discarded hair spray cans collected from garbage cans in our neighborhood. Our blast site was a secluded sandpit, where Chuckie, my next-door neighbor, Frunk, and I taped the cans together and positioned the ersatz V-2 of Aquanet hair in a bonfire.

Sometimes our rocket would explode in fiery, yet separate bursts of colored flames, but occasionally the strapped cans would arced into the sky at low altitudes spitting toxic fumes.

None of us suffered injuries from these experiments, however we came close to setting the woods on fire and the town police warned our parents that we were a danger to the community. My father forbade any further research and we abandoned our emulation of NASA's failed rocket launches.

Even at my parochial high school I resisted the draw of the rocket club. They were interested in achieved height and not destruction, so I ran freshman cross country in the fall of 1966.

The five-mile course directed runners past a gloomy mansion surrounded by a high barbed wire fence. Our competitors were never forewarned that their runners had to leap a stone wall to cross through the estate, giving our team an edge and my school won two consecutive state championships in 1967 and 1968, however our dominance was challenged after a mysterious government agency purchased the mansion in 1969.

The men occupying the estate wore white shirts and black ties. They never left the building. We thought they might be aliens.

Chuckie Manzi said that they were CIA scientists experimenting on apes for the War in Vietnam.

When the cross-country team passed the big house, we listened for the shrieks of chimps. We heard nothing other than our panting lungs.

Upon our return to the gym, our coach informed us that the grounds were off-limits to the cross-country team.

"What about the wall?"

"No more wall," said Brother Jude.

Two weeks later we lost our first race in years.

"We want the wall."

We protested to Brother Jude. He was on our side as was the principal, who asked for special access from the men in black suits.

The men in the white shirts refused our request.

Every time we passed the mansion calling them 'assholes', then trained harder to regain our edge.

Few of our fellow students cared about the track team.

Our school's football team was state champs. The cheerleaders came from the nearest Catholic girls school. They wore short skirts.

Our only fans were the rocket club and their president said that this matter was not over.

No one from the cross-country team paid them much mind.

They were nerds and the cross-country team worried that nerdiness might be contagious.

We won our next race, although I barely beat out our rival's 5th runner. Afterward the rocket club glared at the distant mansion and the cross-country team exchanged a conspiratorial glance with them. Whatever they had planned was more than all right by us.

The next day the school's rocket club announced an exhibition of their missiles and the brothers proudly assembled the students in the field behind the high school. The principal instructed the collective classes to stand a good distance from the launch area, for the rockets were not small.

One of them was at least ten-feet long.

After running a series of tests, the rocket club signaled that they were ready and soon missiles were soaring into the sky.

Even the football team thought the rocket club was cool and the brothers beamed with satisfaction, thinking maybe one of these boys might end up at NASA.

Off in the distance a few of the men in the white shirts were standing outside the mansion.

The rocket club lined up this final missile, the ten-footer, with the mansion.

The men in the white shirts started shouting and then the president of the rocket club lit the fuse. The men ran for cover. It was a wasted effort, for the missile covered the half-mile between the field and mansion in less than a second.

The explosion was muffled by out applause.

Afterwards the men in the white shirts complained to the brothers.

The town police ignored the complaint, since some of their kids were on the track team and we regained permission to run through the field a week later and won the state championship for the third time in a row.

No one ever said anything bad about nerds in our school.

They were heroes, because they were dangerous.

At least to anyone not on our side and that's the way it should be when you're young.

ps my older brother was really pissed that he hadn't been there.

Pursuit of Higher Education UK

My sister-in-law regards me as a ne'er-do-well. She’s not far off the mark, I've led a prodigal's life, while she has worked for the CIA under George Bush and led a an exemplary suburban life as a working mother and wife. My brother and she have raised two good kids. Smarter than me and this Spring her son applied to the top Ivy Colleges.

With great grades, outstanding SATs, and a well-rounded extra-curricular career, my nephew seemed a lock except Harvard, Yale, and the lesser universities sent rejection notices. This blanking didn't make sense and I asked his mother, "Why didn't you call George Bush to get him into Yale?"

"I couldn't do that." She had scruples as an honest accountant.

"Maybe you can't, but I can call someone." A Palm Beach friend had bought Penn a medical wing. It was worth a shot and I said, "I'll make a phone call."

"Anything will help." Her voice revealed that she hadn't much hope.

"You never know." I couldn't promise anything, however a week later my nephew was accepted into Penn's pre-med program. My sister-in-law was grateful, although I was a little surprised at her saying, "You must be good sex."

Sometimes I am, although not in this case.

The Palm Beach heiress was strictly a friend, and my friends scratch each other's backs when necessary wthout explanation to the rest of the world.

Straight and narrow people don't understand our lives, especially since the following are the questions school kids face when trying to get into school in the UK.

For the unaware, there is a slight difference between private schools and comprehensives in Britain.

The Department of Education has realised this and has revised the secondary Maths Exam papers accordingly.

Attached are the most recent maths exam papers for your reference.

MATHS TEST FOR COMPREHENSIVES

Name _____________________________

Nickname__________________________

Gang Name________________________

1. Simon has 0.5 kilos of cocaine. If he sells an 8 ball to Matt for 300 quid and 90 grams to Ollie for 90 quid, what is the street value of the rest of his hold?

2. Damon pimps 3 bitches. If the price is GBP40 a ride, how many jobs per day must each bitch perform to support Damon's GBP500 a day coke habit?

3. Crackster wants to cut the kilo of cocaine he bought for 7,000 quid to make a 20% profit. How many grams of Strychnine will he need?

4. Trev got 6 years for murder. He also got GBP350,000 for the hit. If his common law wife spends GBP 33,100 per month, how much money will be left when he gets out?

Extra Credit Bonus: How much more time will Trev get for killing the slapper that spent his money?

5. If an average can of spray paint covers 22 square metres and the average letter is 1 square metre, how many letters can be sprayed with eight fluid ounce cans of spray paint with 20% extra paint free ?

6. Liam steals Jordan's skateboard. As Liam skates away at a speed of 35mph, Jordan loads his brother's Armalite. If it takes Jordan 20 seconds to load the gun, how far will Liam have travelled when he gets whacked?

MATHS TEST FOR PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Name___________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________

(If longer please continue on a separate sheet)

School _______________________________________________

Daddy's/Mummy's Company ____________________________

1. Harry smashes up the old man's car, causing x amount of damage and killing 3 people. The old man asks his local Chief Constable to intervene in the court system, then forges his insurance claim and receives a payment of y. The difference between x and y is three times the life insurance settlement for the three dead people. What kind of car is Harry driving now?

2. Fiona's personal shopper decides to substitute generic and own-brand products for the designer goods favoured by her employer. In the course of a month she saves the price of a return ticket to Fiji and Fiona doesn't even notice the difference. Is she thick or what?

3. Tristram fancies the arse off a certain number of debutantes, but he only has enough Rohypnol left to render 33.3% unconscious. If he has 14 tablets of Rohypnol, how is he ever going to shag the other two thirds?

4. If Verity throws up 4 times a day for a week she can fit into a size 8 Versace. If she only throws up 3 times a day for two weeks, she has to make do with a size 10 Dolce & Gabbana. How much does liposuction cost?

5. Henry is unsure about his sexuality. Three days a week he fancies women. On the other days he fancies men, ducks and vacuum cleaners. However he only has access to the Hoover every third week. When will he stand for parliament?

I think the questions for the USA will be more religious.

Is God a man or woman?

The Meaning Of Life In 13 Words

The meaning of life.

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the fuck happened.

I know what happened.

63 years under gravity.

45 years of sex.

50 years of drinking.

43 years of drugs.

51 years of work.

Time has taken its toll and I feel like Merlin who has lost all his powers, but for several good reasons and all of them women.

All trouble and I'm happy to have live through it.

Every second.

Mia Noi DNA Test

Thailand is a surprisingly puritan country.

The nation's Buddhist tenets demand propriety on all levels of life.

Most people succeed in keeping the straight and narrow, however many men lose interest in their first wives and take up with mia nois or small wives.

When my wife left to go up country, ostensively to care for an ailing brother-in-law (He actually had a serious motorcycle accident while going to help his brother with a sick buffalo), I was left alone in Pattaya, the last Babylon. A month passed without her return. Then two and three. My friends, Thai and farang, said she had left me for another man.

I drove up there unannounced to see for myself.

No man in sight and I checked the house for any signs of another man.

There were none, but my wife wasn't coming back to Pattaya.

She hated the town.

The go-gos, the crime, and the dust.

Ban Nok was her home and she said, "You can live here."

"And do what?"

My business of selling counterfeit Ferrari shirts only worked in Pattaya and I bid my daughter's mother good-bye and returned to the tawdry beach town of the Gulf of Siam.

Within a week I met Mint. She was 22. Skinny and willing to have a boyfriend full-time. I was old enough to be her father and wise enough to realize that everything she was telling me was a lie. I never asked questions and my wife stayed up country.

Everyone was happy until Mint got pregnant.

"It's yours."

"Mine."

"Yours."

Nine months later we had a child. Fenway looks like me with two arms and two legs and I was willing to support him as my son, but Mint said I want you do DNA test.

"Why?" I didn't care about his genes.

"Because everyone always asking me why he not look like farang. I know he yours. Only you. I have sex only with you." She was crying and explained that her family thought she had betrayed me. "Not true."

I told her that we would do a DNA test, if it would make her feel better.

"I not like to be mia noi, but worst not like someone think your son no good."

I don't like that either, but I have to admit I never heard any Thai girl using this tact to regain your trust.

Cleverer than us by half.

ps I never took that DNA test and Fenway is mine.

100% always.

Angles of Angels

Steve Tyler of the group Arrowsmith once said that during the early part of his career he chose groupies asking them to put their legs together and if he could put his hand between their upper thighs then he was on.

This blonde might have passed his scrutiny.

But just.

Beware Of The No-Goat Zone

Back in 2006 a Swiss man was caught speeding on a Canadian highway.

The cop radared the violator going 161 km/h (100mph) in a 100 km/h (60mph) zone 1.

The foreign driver apologized for his transgression and explained to the traffic officer that he was taking advantage "of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat".

Canadian police spokesman Joel Doiron said he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario in his 20 years of service, but also added, "Nobody's ever used the lack of goats here as an excuse for speeding. I've never been to Switzerland, but I guess there must be a lot of goats there," he said.

The Swiss driver was ordered to pay a fine of C$360 ($330; £175) for speeding.

ps the above photo is of a mountain goat on a road running through Banff Park in Alberta, Canada.

And I see goats.

ps there are about 70,000 goats in Switzerland and the same number in Canada.

But of course the goat density in Switzerland is greater.

And they are everywhere.

Crime Does Pay

I loved this story from 2007.

After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get "Guitar Hero III" video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.

The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.

"So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn't wait to spread the jubilance to my son," the father wrote on the eBay website.

"Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends."

The man, a school teacher, who kept his identity private, said he sold the coveted video game to punish his son for smoking dope.

The sale proved a boon for the family's bank account, since the game, which the father had purchased for 90 dollars (US) was sold to an Australian for 9,100 dollars .

The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.

"I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them," the father said, tongue-in-cheek.

Happy 4/23.

The World Mourns A Prince

Paris

Harlem.

LA

Minneapolis.

New York.

Throw on your purple.

Prince lives in the path of the stars.

In The Purple Rain Nebula

To hear PURPLE RAIN, please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8BMm6Jn6oU

PRINCE RIP

Prince's first show was at the Minneapolis' Capri Theater on January 5, 1979.

Throughout his long career the rock star performed his music at 1,332 concerts.

I was lucky enough to catch his Palladium gig in December 1981.

Richie Boy, my coke connection, and I was walking down West 14th Street and the concert hall's big security guard, Benji, shouted to me, "Man, you gotta see this show."

"Who?"

"Prince." The giant Jamaican grabbed my arm. "Don't say no or you got someplace to go. You going to see this show."

"I know who Prince is."

He had scored two surprise hits with "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover" in 1979 and another Billboard bullet with UPTOWN in 1980.

Then you in for a teat."

Benji led us inside the Palladium and got us beers.

A minute later Prince hit the stage with his band.

We danced to every song.

Richie Boy sold out his stash.

I thank Benji to dragging me to one of the best shows I have ever seen and thank Prince for all he gave us.

Rest in the stars.