As I write this it is much hotter back in the Midwest than it is here in Chiang Mai. Not that it’s cool here. I can’t imagine what it was like to live in Thailand before air conditioning.

Most of what motivates us was implanted in our psyches back in early childhood. My visions of Asia came from the black and white TV coverage of the Viet Nam war. I remember seeing lots of slim girls on bicycles, holding parasols in one hand and steering with the other.

Nowadays, in living color, high-def and 3-D, I see lots of girls on motor scooters, either driving or riding sidesaddle as passengers, non-chalantly texting on their cell phones while their boyfriends navigate their way around cars and trucks, just barely missing knocking his passenger’s sandels from her protruding feet.