Upgraded to business class from Bangkok to Delhi, which was a rare and wonderful treat, but finding that my bag had gone missing on the exchange took a bit of the thrill off it. There seems to be a lot of a bit of this and a bit of that going on these days.

Chiang Mai One of the more interesting, and surprising, things we found ourselves watching with interest was the porous border crossing on the Moei River between Thailand and Burma. The bridge was lightly trafficked above us as we saw an occasional foreign couple or straggler walking over, but beneath the bridge in the fast moving water an informal ferry service was constantly busy taking people and their shopping bags across the river using giant truck inner tubes the likes of which I had not seen since time spend on the water in New Braunfels or across the lake in Louisiana years ago.

The Organizers’ Forum delegation had two great meetings with organizers and the job before them was stunning and prodigious. We had the opportunity to meet for several hours with five union organizers working to organize industrial plants along the eastern shore of Thailand. We also got lucky and our trip coincided with a training session for young organizers from Korea, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines where we were able to spend several hours sharing discussions about the state of community organizations. These were gifts!

Bangkok The Organizers’ Forum delegation forged out to see various slums along the river and canal courses of Bangkok and the dense acres near the city center, so we were prepared by the time we sat down for several hours with leaders and organizers of the Four Regions Slums Network as they came back to the Human Settlement Foundation compound after a march of 2000 people on Government House. Despite being caught in pouring rain, they were in good spirits as the truck was off loaded with the flags and banners of the day.

One of my colleagues with the Organizers’ Forum kept bending down and picking up his cigarette butt every time we happened to be out and about doing errands to get ready for the first formal session of the Forum. I finally asked what was up.

Picking up a copy of the Bangkok Post on the plane as we came from Tokyo to Bangkok, it was a good omen to see an article on the opinion page by one of friends, Jeff Wong, who has been working as an advisor with the Four Slums Network we will be visiting on Sunday. Even though it’s almost 3AM, I’ve spent some time, albeit unsuccessfully, trying to find a link to the piece, but here’s the bottom line.