Dead people have feelings too

News Flash: There are rumbles on the street that a good old fashioned Thai coup d'état is in the works.

Apparently, the Prime Minister of Thailand,Thaksin Shinawatra, is an...umm...interesting guy. (Think Bush, except smarter and richer.) He's been using his prime ministerly powers to privatize Thai companies and then buy them. For example, he already owns 2-3 oil companies and he tried to privatize and purchase the electric company, but he was shot down by the courts. He also recently used public money to fund a private venture called "Night Safari" in Northern Thailand (A tourist-trap zoo type thing). He made an agreement to open trade agreements with Kenya if they would give him 135 African animals to put in this zoo. A bit twisted, eh? Not only that, but it appears that Thaksin has recently been less than respectful toward Thailand's king...a *very* big mistake because the king holds the respect and the hearts of the Thai people. [However, to his credit, although it seems all his actions have his wallet at heart, many of them *have* benefited the Thai people, i.e. the amazing skytrain in Bangkok...]

Conveniently, Thaksin also owns most of the media in Thailand. When an ex-friend of his created a TV show that criticized the government, Thaksin it shut down, so the ex-friend started holding the show in the biggest public park in Bangkok and thousands of people were showing up every Friday to watch it. A week from next Friday, they've asked for a half-million people to show up, and who knows where things will go from there...

Disclaimer: All of this is word-of-mouth and half-assed internet research, so I could be spewing 100% pure hogwash.

In other less exciting news, my blogging time has recently been pillaged and plundered by my new love: that's right kids, the sport of kings: THAI BOXING!!! One of the scariest things I've done here so far was to walk up to the Thai boxing club after school one day and ask if I could join. Hey, I may be a pansy, but give me a little understanding: everyone else in it is Thai, and I felt more than ever like a stupid white bumbling farang the first time I stepped onto the mat for warm-up exercises.

It's funny how the most frightening things I try end up making me really happy. (Case in point: studying in Thailand) Now, several nights a weeks I stumble home with burning thighs, aching feet, and a ridiculously huge grin plastered on my face. I still punch like a girl, but I'm getting better...

Did I mention that our boxing instructor is also the NATIONAL CHAMPION in his division? He's this really cute small smiley guy, but apparently he knows how to kick ass in the ring. He's really down-to-earth, and he makes sure to spend one-on-one time with each student. My mind keeps trying to fold itself around this fact.[Waitaminute...you're the friggin national champion...and you're asking me to kick you? Grin. Okay!] I'm very tempted to ask him to slug me, just so that I can say I've been punched by the Thai boxing national champ.

One of my new found heroes is a past Thai boxing champ, Nong Toom. (S)he wore lipstick and a bra in the ring, had an incredible 50-3 record, and then used his(her) championship winnings to fund a sex change operation. She was then barred from Thai boxing and now works as a model/actress. Intrigued? You should check out the movie _Beautiful Boxer_.

If you want a sex change, Thailand is the place to be. There's a hospital here that's famous for it. One of the tremendously awesome things about Thailand is that the Gay/Lesbian/Transgender/Bisexual/Queer community is largely accepted here. Part of the Thai culture is a "don't worry" attitude...if you can't do anything, don't let it bother you. This attitude has its dark side, but it also generates a nice sort of tolerance...if your son is gay, that's just fine.

It seems like every thirtieth person I see is a ladyboy (like Nong Toom). The lesbian scene here is really interesting. It seems pretty polar: butches (toms) and femmes (dees) and not much in between. Just like Thai ladyboys have an uncanny ability to be gorgeous, I've seen many jaw-droppingly handsome toms. It even seems like the straight girls are expected to be a little bit bi. It's not uncommon for middle-aged married women to have a young mistress or two on the side...

Halloween night, someone told me the Thai slang phrase "yet kang" means "I fucked a crocodile." It's used to emphasize a statement. Something like, "I totally bit the dust, yet kang." The hogwash disclaimer should be repeated here.

Running List of Thai Pronounciations of Laura:
Rala
Wala
Lorla
Lala
Rawa

Thai names tend to be rather long, so everyone here has a cute nickname (i.e. Pom, Ice, Boat, Wan.) In light of my farang name being so hard to pronounce, I've been itching to pick up a nickname of my own. I like the sound of "Not." Short, simple, with infinite punability potential and some interesting philosophical interpretations. Then again, I'm probably just going through another phase like the time in 6th grade when I found out my Dad wanted to name me Xinovia, and I had everyone call me Xinovia for a year. Whatever. Phases are fun.

"Thai Beer kicks like a Thai Boxer." -- Koh Tao ad

"Please offer your seat to monks." -- Bangkok Skytrain

ZOUK IS AMAZING!!! My new favorite Bangkok past time is to head to Fogo Vivo, a Brazilian bar downtown, take advantage of the lady's hour for a free chocolate magarita or caipirioska, and then jump into the beginning zouk class. It's kind of like the reverse of salsa with a tango connection...yummm... I think I need to spend a while in Brazil sometime...

Tomorrow is the last day of class. yetkang. How in hell did that happen???

I'm going to Cambodia on Friday. It's weird that going to Cambodia from here is easier than going to New York from Boston.

This is why I want to be Buddhist:
"I remember a Tibetan monk who had been tortured in a Chinese prison for 22 years. When he reached Dharmasala, the Dalai Lama asked him: 'What were you scared of most in prison?' He replied: 'I was afraid that I might lose my compassion for my torturers.'" Holy hell monkeys.

Whew. I have 1,001 travel stories to tell and no time right now to type them out...maybe after finals.

Until next time,
Not (your mom)

Dames are just dead fish covered in perfume...

A second installation of random thoughts/photos...(you can run, but you can't hide)

First, an apology to Ms. Rayona: I didn't realize it was such a pain to post comments on Blogger. If I wasn't a pansy, I'd be writing my own blog page from scratch...

Secondly...ummm...the guard at the international dorm next door was stabbed last night. [Notthinkingaboutitnotthinkingaboutitnotthinkingaboutit]

Laura at a temple in Petchaburi. (No, no, the other Laura.) This is where Naught taught us the Buddhist way of praying...

Red dragon fruit. (This one's for you, Janet!) You can barely make out all the tiny black seeds. For such a flamboyant fruit, it sure didn't taste like much.

Buddamonthon Park, located between my apartment and school.

Top six things I bet you didn't know about Thailand:

1. There are 7-11's everywhere. The Bangkok challenge is to find a stretch of street where there are less than two 7-11's within eyesight.
2. The taxis are sparkling clean. Apparently the Thai government just subsidized a huge project to rehaul the fleet and make all of them hybrids. Way cool.
3. You don't need any special training to be a Bangkok taxi driver. Just show up with your driver's license...or your brother's uncle's neighbor's driver's license. (It also may explain why most of the taxi drivers here don't seem to know how to get where you want to go.)
4. Whatever you do, don't diss the monarchy. It's very highly regarded. The current king is the longest reigning sovereign in the world, and he happens to be an accomplished jazz musician.
   
5. His majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej was born on December 5, 1927 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. There's even a square named after him in Cambridge, kind of near Harvard Square...
6. Supermarkets here have an entire aisle devoted to rice. It's also pretty common to find fish being grilled fresh right in the middle of aisles.
7. Thai streetfood is amazing! I've been pretty damned adventurous about it, and I haven't gotten sick once. (Knockonwood)
   

Fish, anyone?

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. This guy is enormous.

A short discourse on Thai uniforms:

I have to admit I wasn't thrilled when I first heard I'd be wearing a uniform to school. Who wants to be an anonymous conforming automaton, right? They've since grown on me for assorted reasons:

• Packing was a snap--I packed less for this trip than I've taken on 2-week vacations
• No tedious clothing decisions in the morning
• Everyone looks great in a uniform!

Until next time...

The Krabi Epic

Disclaimer: This entry has the ugliest html known to man.


Life lesson #3, re-learned for the 5886^th time: Dehydration and sleep deprivation are not my friends.

Seven easy steps to break a mind:

1. Wednesday night: Skip out on a giant international pow-wow at Kamlangdee in order to get plenty of sleep. (BAD idea)
2. Thursday afternoon: Run out of 5:30 class, quickly change out of uniform (leave in the International Relations Office), and meet the girls at the bus stop.
3. Catch a 12-hour bus to Krabi
4. Fill head with feverish thoughts, catch less than an hour of sleep. Don’t drink much. (Bus toilets…uggghh…)
5. Catch a songthew (pick-up truck converted to a bus) to the pier. Strike up a conversation with a 72-year-old Swede who’s traveling the world with his shiny red accordion.
6. Jump into a long tail boat.
7. Arrive at Railay Beach completely delirious and try to locate a room with 4 other girls.

Wow. Twelve-hour buses are an experience. Who knew that a $13.25 ticket buys:

• transport (all 12 hours of it, woohoo!)


• 1 “fruit cake sweet rolled”


• 1 “orange yogurt drink”


• 1 viewing of a gory Thai movie with lots of guns, zombies, and ghosts


• dinner at a rest stop, including rice and UMOs (unidentified meat objects)


• a place to sleep—theoretically, you fall asleep in Bangkok, wake up in Krabi at 7 am, refreshed and ready to start your day. It saves on hotel expenses…

"All I need is a flask of whiskey and a hot guy to pass out on." --Lobin aka Robin

Railay is undoubtedly the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. And I don’t even like beaches. When the boat slid into the bay, I was suddenly in postcard land. Holy hell monkeys. (Picture: Man-magnet Jill hits the beach.)

When we went for a swim, the beach was practically deserted. The water was insanely blue, green rocky cliffs towered above, and all I could think is “This is so beautiful…why isn’t it making me happy?” A liter of bottled water later I concluded that it’s impossible to be happy and dehydrated at the same time.

Even water can’t fix everything…Railay felt so…empty. There were bungalows, shops, restaurants, sand, vendors…and no soul. It was probably just the sleep deprivation talking, but I hated Railay the first day. One of the most beautiful places in the world…and all I wanted to do was go back to school…or find my monastery again.

Four of us girls signed up to go on an 8 hour snorkeling trip to 7 different nearby islands. Sea urchins rock my boat. (Anything with deep blue fluorescent spots gets my vote…presidential candidates, take note.) We stopped on an island to watch the sunset and eat dinner (See Liz's sunset picture)…that’s where the Israeli bombardment began.

They say that Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country to never have been colonized. In reality, it turns out that Thailand is an Israeli colony. Waiting for dinner, I struck up the usual travel banter with my fellow snorkelers:

Where are you from?
Israel.
Oh. What about you?
Israel.
You look totally different, where are you from?
Russia. But we moved to Israel.
Fuck.

I soon learned that 70% of the tourists, backpackers, and climbers at Railay are Israeli. Apparently, most Israelis want to travel the world after they get out of the army, and Thailand is a popular destination.

After dinner, it was dark, but there was one more stop on our tour. We jumped back in our longtail boats and stopped at a cove. I cannot begin to describe what I saw…The water was inky dark, and I felt incredibly vulnerable, thrashing in the water, gulping air…and furiously quashing thoughts of lurking sharks and other unfriendlies.

The water glowed.

Well, not the water exactly…there were these tiny, dancing, swirling globes that lit up as I churned the water around me. When I put on my mask and ducked under…it was another world. They were everywhere, swirling, luminescing with my movement…spinning through my fingers, curling around my arms…I could have stayed for eons down there watching them….

Later that night at a beach bar, I was watching an 8-year-old Thai completely school me in with his fire-spinning routine, and I ran into Arick and Asaf, two Israelis from the snorkeling trip. We started talking and it was all downhill from there. From then on out, every sentence of the conversation was laced with absurdity and 5 layers of sarcasm…just the way I like it. I haven’t met many people here with kind of sense of humor here, and I miss it. I almost feel as though I’m forced to be someone else when it’s not there…

Top five things I learned from Israelis:

1. Most American humor is actually Jewish humor.


2. All Americans are devils.


3. There are different kinds of American devils with different names, like Satan, Lucifer, and Laura.


4. “Lo-rah” in Hebrew means “not bad.” (Ironic, huh?)


5. “No, you’re not a liar…you’re just stupid.” –Asaf
   

I went rock climbing with them and another Israeli the next day in a jungle valley. On my second climb, I lunged for a hold outside of my reach and missed it. I began falling for what seemed like a very long time. I remember thinking the belay must have failed. My mind was so calm, so peaceful.

“Rock climbing in Thailand…not a bad way to die.”

Then my rope jerked and I bang-scraped to a stop against the rock, no worse for the wear.

At the end of the day I was tired, sore, filthy, dripping with sweat, covered with mosquito bites…and magnificently happy. As I looked up at the cliffs and the valley draped in green foliage, I wondered what I had done in past lives to deserve such luck, such contentment. (Look for the blinding white legs to find me in the cliff picture...)

That night, there was a wicked Reggae band playing at one of the bars. I listened and danced, grinning like a fool. Later, I sneaked back to the beach for a night swim. I spent hours swimming with the phosphors, floating in the waves.

The next day I hiked up to a lagoon and then a viewpoint. I ran into more (you guessed it) Israelis, and startled a Thai guy on the jungle path. He spoke excellent English and carried a nice camera. When I climbed back down to the beach, I bumped into these guys running up the path:

Forget tuk-tuks, pushcarts rule all!

Later that day, I was running on a slippery sidewalk to catch a longtail boat back to Krabi, when my feet flew out from under me and I wiped out in the mud. A graceful exit. “Hmmm…falling on my ass in the mud like a stupid American Thailand…terrible way to die.” I broke my sandal—a tragedy.

I bumped into the Thai photographer again on the boat from Railay to Krabi. He had a shiny bike with him, and he said he was cycling all over Thailand. Cool.

When Robin and I got off the longtail boat, we had no idea where we were. We knew we wanted to get to the bus station by 5:00 to meet the other girls and catch a ride back to Bangkok. We walked for a little while and then realized we were much farther away than we wanted to be. Then our guardian angel (the photographer Thai with a bike) appeared.

“Where do you want to go?”
“The bus station. Can we catch a songthew?”
“The bus station? Oh, no problem. Very easy. Hitch a ride.”
“Hitch?”
“Yeah, I traveled 15,00 km for a few years by hitching. But not anymore. Now I bicycle… It’s easy, watch.”

He flagged down the next vehicle that rolled by. It happened to be a small blue pick-up truck packed with people. Robin counted 13 in the truck bed, and I saw at least 6 in the cab. It looked like a family: young girls, old women, a few boys…

“Ummm…I don’t think they have room for us.”

I don’t know if he heard, he was already speaking Thai to the driver. He turned back, smiled, and said, “It’s okay, hop in.” Robin and I looked at each other…then awkwardly climbed into the truck bed and crammed ourselves into a corner. We thanked the cyclist profusely. “Be careful,” he said with a smile.

What a fantastic ride. The truck bumped along and jungles flashed past us. “This is Thailand,” I thought as my mind swam in deliriously happy circles and my foot cramped beneath me. Crazy. Never thought I would ever hitchhike.

I slept much more on the bus back to Bangkok.

I double-checked my seat when we left the bus, and I still managed to leave my cell phone behind. Bugger. Oh well.

We were back in our beds by 6 am Monday morning, and I was back in school and Organic Chem land by 10:30 am. Good times.

Longtail boats. The talent Ms. Liz took the sunset picture, and I think Alana took the incredibly blue sea photo...

Bangkok strikes back

I present you with: random thoughts and photos [Cue: corny Thai music]....duck and cover people, duck and cover...

The gang in a photo op behind a temple. Wow. They do detail here. Lots of detail.


Petchaburi beach. (School field trip) The water was so warm...


A scene from the heart of a Thailand jungle...um...actually this picture was taken in the middle of my campus. Seriously.


The street sidewalk across from campus. I usually order dinner from the street vendors here. Shortly after this picture was taken, it started pouring rain by the bucket, so I was trapped for a while. The street vendors put up tarps and took it in stride. Just look at those cute Thai uniforms. I wear the same thing to school everyday.


I LOVE organic chemistry. Discrete math + abstract algebra + chemistry --> happiness
Southeast Asian Dance and Theatre rocks my socks.
Thai is going to break my mind. In a good way.

Things I miss (in no particular order)

Olin
Boston
whole wheat bread
carrots
Tango
Swing
cold, dry air
people (you know who you are ^_^)

Things I'll miss when I leave Thailand

Street food
School uniforms
Coconut yogurt
MUIC
Buddhist nuns
Khaosan Rd
Thai fruit (I've never seen half the fruits here before)
Naught/Not/Nod (KEI coordinator. Pure Thai. Catch phrases: "It's a Thai joke." "Why not?" "Are you okay?")

Wasteful words

Life is never what I expect it to be. I went questing for Sri Racha sauce and instead found a Buddhist master who told me to stay single because the suffering of two people is too great…

I took my first independent mini-excursion this weekend. I thought I was making a pilgrimage to Sri Racha, birthplace of the infamous Sri Racha sauce. (They sell it in the states in bottles labeled with roosters…or ducks…a must-have condiment for any college kitchen…) Another KEI girl, Alana, wanted to see a nearby island named Ko Si Chang, and so we agreed to travel together.


Sri Racha is not the small provincial town I expected. The bus dropped us off on the side of a bustling, nasty highway. We tried to find our way to a mystical seafood market (championed by Let’s Go) by use of sign language, butchered Thai, and broken English. We did find some sort of market, but it was closed, so we detoured to a classy restaurant where the seafood was divine. Best $5 meal I’ve ever had.

We took off on a tuk-tuk (ooo…I love tuk-tuks) to the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo, the local tourist trap. It was…a bizarre and disturbing experience… Highlights include:

• Crocodiles. EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of them.


• A crocodile wrestling show where the crocs were more or less catatonic
  An elephant show…I couldn’t stop crying…although they did look fairly healthy and well-kept…


• The scorpion queen. A lady covered with live scorpions. Seriously.


• “Happy Family”—two dogs, a tiger, and a pig in the same cage…right next to the cage with humans in loin cloths and tigers.


• Baby tigers suckling on a sow


• Baby pigs suckling on a tiger

The vast number of crocs and tigers convinced me of rumors that the zoo is a disguised meat farm. There is no other logical reason for keeping that many animals. Tiger and croc meat are very expensive, so it would be quite a lucrative enterprise to have the zoo double as a tourist trap and a meat farm…a disquieting thought. At the same time, I’ve seen the cattle meat farms in southern California, and I had to fight to keep my stomach in place. A meat farm that fronts as a zoo has to look presentable/pleasant, which I think leads to better living conditions for the animals…All the same, I’d rather wipe the Tiger Zoo from my memory.

Another tuk-tuk and a 40 minute ferry ride later, we were at Ko Si Chang, where there are [gasp!] no cars. It was fabulous. It made me realize that the true evil in Bangkok is the hordes of cars. They take the soul out of a place... (Sidenote: Khaosan Rd is closed to motorized traffic at night…) Tuk-tuks, motorbikes, and bicycles are fine, just keep your friggin cars to yourself, alright? Alana and I took an evening walk where we practiced our Spanish, swapped near-death experiences, and glowed over a group of elderly Thais playing bocci by the side of the street.

The next morning we woke early to explore the temples and beaches on the island. We were trying to find a giant yellow Buddha we had seen from the ferry, so we took a random side street and found something that looked like temple grounds. We timidly stepped inside and started looking around… This tiny little nun with a shaved head, white robes, and glasses scampered over the stony ground and invited us (in English) to have breakfast with the other nuns and monks. She promised us a tour after we had eaten. Our jaws must have sounded very loud hitting the ground like they did. We gave her enthusiastic nods. As we followed her back, she asked us a few more questions. We told her we were students at Mahidol, that Alana was studying psychology and I engineering.

We stepped inside an open building where dozens of nuns in white robes and monks in saffron robes sat on the floor around an ancient man who was lecturing quietly in Thai. “Now, we listen to the Master,” our guide said. We sat on our heels and she taught us how to show respect for the Buddha and the Master by bowing three times. The Master continued talking as his audience listened intently and respectfully. Reason #4906 (si gao soon hok) why I wish I knew Thai: I couldn’t understand any of his jokes—his audience laughed several times and all I could do was put on my stupid-foreigner face.

When he finished, he got up and sat at the head of an elevated platform behind a silver bowl. All the other monks sat down in a straight line on the same platform behind their bowls. The nuns sat on floor in front of the platform, in two lines facing each other. There were huge platters of food everywhere. A man began offering the food to the monks…he placed white trays with wheels on the monk platform and he arranged a couple of platters of food on each tray. The Master took some food, and rolled the tray down to the next monk in line. After a few people had offered food, our guide encouraged us to offer food. I nearly fell over. I had read about offering food to Buddhist monks (they can only eat what other people give to them, and they have to put it all in the same bowl) but I never imagined that I would take part in it…When I began placing the trays and bowing, our guide talked to the Master and told him (in Thai) that I was an engineering student at Mahidol…and I understood her. In Thai. I felt like singing.

When the trays rolled past the end of the monks, they were passed down to the nun level. Alana and I sat near the end of the nun lines. There was so much food…I wanted to try everything…I took just a little of each dish, and I still had way too much to eat in my bowl at the end. Curries, noodles, vegetables, spices, fruits…everything imaginable rolled by. When the last tray made its way past all the nuns, everyone (including us) took water from the little silver vases in front of them and poured it into little silver bowls. Our guide explained its significance…something about kharma and life…then everyone began chanting…it was beautiful to the point of pain. I was so happy I could have burst.

When the last notes died away, the eating commenced…my favorites: a Thai fruit called ____, an orange sweet potato type thing, and rice pudding with coconut milk. The nuns whisked our dishes away, and we were instructed to pour out the water from our little silver bowls at the base of a tree…I can’t remember the reason. Alana and I sat and talked with an elderly white gentleman who had also taken part in everything. A retired English professor, he now lives part time at the monastery. He told us that the monastery was slightly unusual because it functions like a commune—everyone pitches in to do something. Usually monks are supported by patrons and don’t get their hands very dirty… Then he left us in the hands of Sao Pui (Sister Pui, our guide)and asked her to bring us by his hut before we left.

Pui and Ying, another sister, reappeared in brown clothing and began to lead us around the monastery. They wore straw hats to protect their shaved heads from the vicious sun…They told us that there were 27 nuns there. Pui had been there for 10 years, I think, and Ying was the newest sister, just under a year of experience. Right before that, she graduated from college with a degree in Chinese. As they showed us the temple and various buildings, they explained that the monastery was fairly new and that it had been built by monks and nuns. “We build very fast because meditation together makes the work light. Work was not heavy because we were motivated.”

They showed us a mural of the story where Buddha as a prince leaves his palace for the first time. He sees four truths that he has never been exposed to before: an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a holy man. The first three prompt Buddha to ask why there is suffering in the world, and he goes to the forest to find the answer. After telling the story, the nuns took us into a small room with a body lying in the open on a low table. A decaying human body. “I think you never see this before, yes? This is my mother. She donated her body so that we could learn the truth. We will all end like this. Your body, it is not yours. You cannot change it. You cannot take anything with you…Suffering comes from desires and wishes. Your mind must be like your hand, it can pick something up, but it must also let it go. Do not be attached. Let it go. It does not matter.”

Wow. They don’t teach that in engineering school, kids…

They led us to the professor’s little white hut, which overlooks the sea. He welcomed us and talked about how nothing is real because everything is in a state of eternal change. I asked him about happiness and he told us that Buddhists believe it can be achieved by removing suffering. One way to happiness is to analyze pains, to watch them arise, objectively follow them back to their root, and in the process they will loose their power. (Buddha was an analytical man, he told us.) He spoke about a stage of bliss, but also that a monk once told him that he must pierce through this phase of happiness to find something deeper. “Someone once asked Buddha, ‘What do I do now?’ Buddha replied, ‘You start…and then you keep going.’” He talked a little about meditation breathing—my first piece of the meditation puzzle. He encouraged us to try it and ask someone else for the next piece. He told us that the Buddhism practiced in temples and monasteries can’t be found in books, you have to ask nuns and monks to find it.

The nuns led us to the gardens and gave us some of the sweetest juice I’ve ever tasted. They couldn’t tell us exactly what it was—a mixture, they said, apple and something else. Almost everyone at the monastery is vegetarian, they explained.

Sometime in my life I’m going to have a little garden like that—where I can grow food and feed it to other people.

They taught us about the 8-fold path and the senses. I was so overwhelmed by that point that I could barely absorb any of it. They took us past a room with a coffin and told us that every night a different nun sleeps under it, to remind them of their mortality. A cave came next, a natural limestone formation that had been reworked with a tile floor. There were bats. At the end we went back to talk to the Master one-on-two. Pui and Ying translated for us. He told us four things:

1. Our minds must be like our hands…we must give freely and let go.


2. We are born covered in lymph and blood, we are dirty all our lives, and we return to dirt.


3. Open and close your eyes (nothing is real).


4. Stay single. The suffering of two people is too great.

***************

Alana and I had expected to spend the day exploring the island, but by the time we left the monastery, it was time to head back. The bus ride home was surreal. Between catnaps and philosophical discussions with Alana, I lost all sense of where I was, who I was…well, not exactly…I >did< know…but it felt as though someone had torn apart my mind and put it carefully back together while I wasn’t paying attention. Everything was the same, but it was…different.

In Bangkok, Alana and I parted ways. A few nights previous, I had tried to find a tango event and failed miserably, but between skytrains, taxis, a pair of Russian tourists, endless wandering, a bag of rambutans, and desperate phone calls, I got the email address of the coordinator, and thus better directions to the next event. I found my tango this night in a wild restaurant called Reflections…the décor felt like someone had way too much fun with some throwing darts and a design catalog. All the waiters wore knit caps with horns. I ordered “sweet curry with snails” and began chatting the usual dance banter. There were….ehh…about a dozen other people there…Germans, Frenchmen, Japanese, Americans, and all the Thais there had lived in the states before. No Argentines. As the next progressed and I danced, I forgot I was in Bangkok. I was some place without a location. The tango community is small, but strong…good dancers. Salsa is much more popular here, and I’ve heard that a bar offers free zouk lessons (from Brazil…apparently the “yoga of dance”), so I’ll probably try my hand…errr…feet at those. No swing. Someone led salsa to a swing beat and it almost worked. Fuck. I miss swing. I asked Apple, a dance instructor who knows basically every dance in the city, and she nailed the coffin shut: “I’ve never seen anyone dance swing here.”

When I stumbled out of Reflections, Bangkok hit me like a wall again. Here were the street vendors, here were the cars, here was the skytrain, and finally bus 515 to take me home. Between the Tiger Zoo, the monastery, and tango, I feel like I 've been leaping between worlds…36 hours is a long time.

I never did find any Sri Racha sauce...

A second skin of sand

Mmmm…Ko Samet…dark green island, lined with shining white beaches, swimming in a sea the color of envy. The roads are mud, colored paper lanterns grow on the trees, there's a dozen stray dogs for every person, and insect repellent is your best friend. By day, tourists lounge and burn in the warm sun, roaming peddlers wander the shore looking for victims, and every white, balding, flabby, middle-aged man has a cute Thai girl (or boy) in his arms. By night, music from the bars drips through the air, cocktails are served in buckets, whirling fire lights the beaches, and lady boys close their souvenir shops to step out and join the dancing and karaoke.

Alana and Nikesha hit the beach.

Why I'm studying away—Exhibit A:

Mmmm… crab with lime chili sauce for dinner...mai tais, long island iced teas, pina coladas, followed by a pleasant drunken glow and a short hike down the island to go dancing. It was raining lightly when we arrived, and as the night progressed, the rain intensified exponentially. I danced madly (and foolishly, I'm sure) because it had been such a long time since I'd had the chance to move my body to music. I miss tango and swing so bad it hurts. I danced almost every night this past summer, and the bar dancing was a welcome relief from the withdrawal symptoms. By the time I staggered home, the road had turned into a river. The stretch between the bar and our bungalows was deserted, dark, and surrounded by jungle. There were frogs everywhere, and they filled the wet air with the sound of an army of dying record players. As I stumbled through the dark and the mud, soaked to the bone from the rain and high from dancing, I paused in a knee-deep puddle and realized that I was intensely happy. "Hell yeah," I thought, "I'm in Thailand…"

The next night karaoke, more dancing and, the fire guys on the beach let me twirl some. Good times.

Grasshoppers, elephants, and a lawn gnome

I saw an elephant yesterday. We live by an 8-lane highway and I was waiting for the bus by the side of the road. I was getting pretty frustrated because I had been waiting for a long time, so I was staring intently at the oncoming traffic, ready to jump up and wave my arms if bus 84 appeared. When I took a quick glance behind me, there was this elephant lumbering up the sidewalk. I nearly fell over. Bangkok is crazy like that—just when I think the bedlam has reached its limits and the city can't get any louder or dirtier, I stumble across an enchanting, serene side street, a golden temple appears out of nowhere, …or an elephant nearly knocks me over.

Last night, I met a girl from Tajikistan. We stuck out like bright white sore thumbs ordering our dinner from street vendors. We struck up a conversation and ate together, we had green tea and Russian chocolate back at her dorm. She's 28 and used to work for CARE. She attends a medical school at MU, and she seemed incredibly lonely. She knows of no one else from her country at MU, and she complained that none of her classmates ever go out at night. She made me feel lucky because our group of 10 KEI students always goes out together. It's a sweet thing that KEI gave us mobile phones, because we all go our separate ways during the day, and then coordinate ourselves by night time to head into Bangkok or organize a movie night at home. Sometimes traveling with 10 people is like pulling teeth because decisions take an eternity and a half, but the companionship sure is nice…

Last night the KEI gang went out to a Jazz club. The music was phenomenal, although the food was pricy: $2-3 for entrees, $3-4 for drinks. My standards have definitely changed. A full plate of Pad Thai on Khosan Rd is $0.35, while mouth-watering street food in other places runs $0.50-$1. It's gonna be painful coming back to the US.

After Jazz, we took taxis to Khosan Rd. The gang had beers at the ladyboy bar again, and I wandered the streets. GRASSHOPPERS. I ordered fried grasshoppers from a street vendor. I've wanted to eat grasshoppers since I read about eating insects in Ranger Rick when I was 8. I even went as far as to catch some in my backyard and kill them in my freezer, but I balked when it came to cooking them because I wasn't sure if they were poisonous. The Khosan grasshoppers weren't fantastic, but I wasn't disappointed: they were crunchy and a bit spicy, with a pleasant aftertaste.

Street art

Recent sightings near Club Q on Sukhumvit Rd in the middle of Bangkok...

Never say night

Once upon a time there was an English bloke named…of course…John. And like most English blokes in Thailand for the long term, he had a Thai girlfriend. He breathed alcohol, drank smoke, and showed us the way to several little sweet hang out spots. "Katmandi" is a good place to be. (The sign out side says, "Great Food Good Song") A Thai named Paul plays guitar and sings American and Thai hits every night, and after a few rounds the whole bar is singing with him. It's quickly becoming a favorite hangout of the gang, and there's been at least one night where we invited the rest of the international students--that usually quiet little pub was so packed it was bursting at the seams. I've spent a few nights sitting at a table piled with Singha bottles, talking philosophy, pondering celestial physics, and musing on the human mind. Now if only I could wash the stench of second-hand smoke out of my clothes...

Then there's The Shamrock on Khoasan Rd... Khoasan Rd is >the< hangout for backpackers and farangs (foreigners) in Bangkok. It's trashy, debauched, and I love every last slimy stone on that street. It's so...international... Stop any random person on the street and strike up a conversation, they're from all over the world... Street vendors sell everything from your grandma to the kitchen sink. [This includes: food (of course), used books, cocktails, hair braiding/dredding, trendy clothing, and the usual knick-knacks.] If you want to get a feel for Khaosan Rd, watch "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio, but be warned, it's full of cheesy lines and macabre scenes...but it does give a good feel for the utter insanity found in parts of Thailand...although I can't say I've found any fields of marijuana or Thai drug guerrillas with guns...

Ummm...back to the point...the Shamrock is...bloody fantastic...that's what it is. An Irish pub with a Thai band that does smashing covers of American songs....good times...good times...

Concrete for breakfast

My mind is so full I don't know where to begin.

I don't like admitting that I don't like Bangkok. When I first started seriously looking for a place to study away, Gaylon and Zenia gave me a multitude of recommendations, listed beautiful places all over the world…and told me to stay away from Bangkok. When Teresa talked about her months in Asia, she glowed about everything…until Bangkok came up, and she started scowling. Hours of Google and elbow grease later, I was oscillating between two choices: Kenya and Thailand. Qualifying criteria: 1) Not in Europe or the Americas, and 2) a wide variety of classes, including psychology. The decision process is only clean-cut and concise in retrospect. I had no clue in hell what I was doing. I'm not exactly sure what tipped Thailand. I think it might have been the neuroscience course in their catalog, which is ironically not offered this term after all.

I'm not unhappy here… just takes a lot more effort to stay happy. I think this is going to be my semester of self-discipline. I've considering joining the army or the navy in the past, just because I want the experience and the discipline. I wanted to be forced to test my limits, and by doing so, expand them. (Corny, I know…) I've since realized that I'll never learn to be strong unless I learn to test my own limits without being forced. I think I'm going to jump into Peace Corps after college. Thailand is my boot camp now.

It's amusing that I want to be more disciplined and yet more spontaneous at the same time. I want to be strong enough to keep myself above apathy, to have the stamina it takes to be happy. Thailand will teach me to be more patient and assertive, less panicky and thin-skinned. I want to be open to the world, but at the same time, I don't want to let it tear me apart.

Anyone who thinks America is a nation of consumer whores should take a day trip to Bangkok. I have never experienced such blatant commercialism in my life. Bangkok is a writhing sea of fast food, clothing, shoes, cars, and cell phones. There are billboards screaming everywhere, empty smiling ad faces look out from every corner, and sometimes I feel like I'm trapped inside a giant shopping mall.

There are astounding wats (temples) and palaces nestled between the expressways and the skyscrapers, but even they seem decadent, glaring, overdone. We've taken lightning tours across the city, and I've seen enough golden Buddhas to last a lifetime. I just want to find a small, quiet, cool stone temple with a small wooden Buddha on some back road and sit for hours in silence away from the noise and the tourists and the exhaust.

In other news, the air conditioner in our shaft-and-a-half bedroom broke. Now it spits out scorching hot air. Yipee.

A glossary of sorts...

Ummm...here's a few buzzwords defined, maybe it will help lend a little sense to my entries...I'll try to go back and update it as I come up with more words...

The gang -- the 10 KEI students at MUIC this semester

KEI (Knowledge Exchange Institute) – My sponsoring program. We pay them a lump sum, they pay for school, find housing, arrange outings, etc. There are 10 KEI kids here now. There's probably ~60+ other internationals at MUIC who are not with KEI.

MUIC (Mahidol University International College) – the Thai institution I'm attending. Courses are taught in English, but only 10% of the students are from out of the country.

Tuk-tuk -- Hell yeah these things are fun. Bargain with the driver, then hand him your life as he weaves through Bangkok traffic.

Contact info

Mailing address:

Laura Stupin
International Relations Office
Mahidol University International College
999 Buddhamonthon 4 Rd.
Salaya, Nakhonpathom 73170
THAILAND

Thai cell phone: 05-1266181

$50 stack slap

Hey, I’m going to sleep now. You won't see me for…a little bit. ‘Cause I’ll be sleeping.

--Madfellow Mike

The ghosts are at the gate

I don’t actually live in Santa Fe. My house is outside of city limits on a dirt road. I went running last night, a little past midnight. No moon, only stars, and there’s no streetlights out here, so it was darker than a communist conspiracy. I’m not a runner, but I start missing New Mexico before I leave it, and I felt the overwhelming need to stake out my turf, to make sure I still owned the hills and arroyos, and the thin air and parched piñons still belonged to me.

I learned how to ride a bike in the dark during inky summer nights at Ghost Ranch. Dodging unseen obstacles wasn't the hard part, it was learning to make peace with my mind…in the dark, every half-seen clump of bushes concealed a rattlesnake or an axe murderer. Nothing scares me quite like groping through a dark night does. It creates a familiar feeling of utter panic...my throat tightens, my veins sing with adrenaline, and my my pounding heart leaks out my ears. After a while, it becomes addicting. How long can I skate on the edge of my fears?

Last night, I found myself running nearly blind, feeling the road and watching the stars. I felt enormously vulnerable because I could barely see and mind kept creating lurking monsters. My feet thumping against the dirt seemed like the only sound in the world, and I felt so loud. I couldn't help imagining people sitting up in bed as I thumped by. I heard some dogs barking maniacally in the distance, and I realized that there were three of them and I would soon be running right past them. I could see them leaping over the fence, coming to tear my throat out in the dark. Then my runner's high kicked in and my head exploded with euphoria. It dawned on me that they were barking because they were afraid of me, this thumping, shadowy monster that was barrelling down their road past midnight, and if they dared jump over that fence, I would just rip their effing throats out.

Sounds silly in retrospect, right? The point is...in that moment it was razor clear that I have nothing to fear in the world because the whole world is fearful. Thailand, here I come.

Speaking of tango...

Do we fall in love with other people, or do we fall in love with the feeling of being in love?

Love is a catastrophe.

–Jimmy the Carrot (channeling Isabel Allende)

Milkface

So much for anxiety...