LETTERS

This dispatch from our intrepid Far-East correspondent
Carol Bullen, arrived by mail from Colombo, Sri Lanka ,
in about a week: Canada Post have sent over a sun-
starved study group; Your 1986 newsletters may arrive by

their express buffalo service to West Vancouver within
a week!

I'm sitting on a shady patio, after lounging by the
pool for most of the afternoon.

The weather here is perfect, not so steamy as Bangkok.
And there is less traffic and confusion (Colombo is about
1/4 the size of Bangkok). Although after spending 9 days in
Bangkok, I can hop on and off a moving bus with the best of
‘eam, and I'm looking forward to returning.

While in Bangkok I went to the National Museum-they have
quite a good collection of Chinese and Thai pots, the That
ones mostly have very intricate, colourful decoration.
Unfortunately, the display could be a lot better, but | guess
in a city of 7 million, many of them homeless, they have
more urgent problems to cope with. Also went to the weekend
market and the thieve's market, where there are thousands of
pots for sale, all supposedly hundreds of years old. They're
very nice, anyway, even if many of them were actually made
last week, as I suspect. Oh, and leaving the museum I
wandered into a music festival (the only blonde head in a
sea of dark ones). Classical Thai music and dance, and a
folk group from Chiang Mai (in Northern Thailand). They were
great - real party music, played on bamboo and gourd pipes
that sound like an organ and a bit like bagpipes,drums and
a xylophone thing that looks like a hammock with wood slats
across it.

Here in Sri Lanka, I've seen lots of nice earthenware
jugs and bowls; I haven't yet been able to find out where
they're made. My favorites so far are unglazed, low bowls
used to package buffalo curd for sale in supermarkets. It's
nice to see them in such a commonplace situation.

s)