Excerpts from Sandra Larson's Letters Home: There are many surprising differences between the United States and Thailand. One of them was the amazing fruit, but another was transportation. Thailand drives on the other side of the road, and when I got in my host family's car ot go home from the airport the night I arrived, I gasped when there was no steering wheel in the "driver's seat" where my ten-year-old brother was seated. And more than once, I have stood on the "passenger side" of the car while waiting for my host father to lock the door to the house before my morning ride to school. After a subtle combination of look, gesture, and slowed step on his part, I realize that I am standing on the driver's side, essentially indicating that I want to drive -- something that my host father and I both know cannot be true. :)

Seatbelts, lane lines, and traffic laws are mere "suggestions" here, and I have not seen any speed limit signs yet in Thailand. Multiple times I have been in a car that drove on the wrong side of the road ON PURPOSE, and only I was wearing a seatbelt. People "merge" by forcing themselves into places even New York cab drivers would never dare to go, and there is apparently an implied "third lane" between any two marked lanes. Still, I have yet to see ANY car accidents here.

And never before Thailand have I experienced "smell overload." Upon entering my first market, the combination of fruit, fish, seafood, meats, spices, vegetables, and flowers nearly floored me. At first, there was just one confusing smell - both good and very, very bad at the same time. I had read that smell was very important to Thai people and wondered how such an overpowering, overwhelming, non-differentiated smell could be anything but confusing to anyone. As I walked, I began to be able to sort out the odors, especially as I changed areas of the market, moving from the fish section to the flower section, for example. I had never before had cause to use my nose in this way before - when I get to the point where I can immediately "read" the component parts of these odors, I'll know I have 'arrived.'