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Coincidence In Bangkok!

Friday, December 25th, 2015

I love coincidences!

A couple days ago I was walking on the flyway across Ratchipidisek Rd in Bangkok when I happened to look down to the street far below. I was sure I saw one of my favorite Couchsurfers who I hosted several years ago in Oaxaca while he was bicycling from the U.S. to Venezuela…pulling his little wagon with his sax behind him. From Boston, he has been living in Hanoi where he developed a music program for country children. I have been following him on FB so I came back to my hotel and messaged him. Sure enough! I got the best hug! And company for lunch and the Star Wars movie! The best Christmas present ever!

Spirit Prayer

Tuesday, March 10th, 2015

It was an amazing experience.

I was in my familiar Governor’s Cup coffee shop in Salem Oregon talking with my friend when I told her I didn’t know what to do with all the Indian rocks my father inadvertently dug up while tilling the soil on his sheep ranch in Klamath County. She pointed to a guy with a long pony tail and said, why don’t you talk to him. He happened to be a Native American with a doctorate in anthropology. So he contacted someone with the Klamath Tribe. It just happened that people with the Tribe were coming to Salem for a Tribal meeting a few days after David picked up the rocks. So he transferred them to the Tribal members.

The reason so many of them were broken, he said, was that when someone was buried they broke up their household bowls and pestles and buried them along with the body. So the Tribe is going to rebury them on Tribal land. David asked me to write a prayer to the Spirits and to cleanse the house with a sage smudge.

    Prayer To The Spirits

[read on]

I’m In My Glory

Monday, November 24th, 2014
This past week, Ivan, my temporary Italian roomie, who has been living in Oaxaca many years but split with his girlfriend and lost his apartment cooked Pasta Bolognaise for me, Angie and her mom. Angie is the sister of Lumina, ... [Continue reading this entry]

One Oaxacan Migrant Family

Monday, June 26th, 2006
Yesterday I went to Tule...a small town of about 15,000 near Oaxaca City. What a charming place. Most of the men are gone up north, my driver said (as a huge brand new black diesel pickup backed up ... [Continue reading this entry]

Miao Village In Guizhou

Wednesday, December 8th, 2004
1wXSp3CkNsDoJl3s0SgHmw-2006171171225701.gif In Shanghai, exploring the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree web site, I noticed a query from a young woman from Kaili in Guizhou Province who was offering to arrange a homestay in a Miao minority ... [Continue reading this entry]

Goodbye to Vladamir

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
Vladamir makes crying motions with his fingers running down his cheeks as we prepare to leave him on the train. Astrakhan in 2--5 he writes on a piece of paper...Astrakhan in 2005 we say to him as he helps ... [Continue reading this entry]

Forest Mushrooms and Vodka

Friday, September 10th, 2004
7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif The night before we leave St. Petersburg, Elena and her childhood friend, Dula, breathlessly excited, bring home bags and boxes of forest mushrooms. Bob and I haven't eaten and we hope the ... [Continue reading this entry]

U-2 in Berlin

Monday, August 2nd, 2004
Coming up out of the U-2 line of the Zoo railway station and thinking of course of the Irish rock band we enter now-rich, Western, happening Berlin. We pore over maps trying to get our bearings ... [Continue reading this entry]

Zhangziajie

Wednesday, January 8th, 2003
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif Bob and I said goodbye to Jana who would leave later in the day on a train to Shanghai and then home from Hong Kong. The next day we took a train to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Email From Paul In Ruilli

Sunday, January 5th, 2003
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif Before we left Chongquing Jana and I got an email from Paul, one of the Ruili kids. Jana and I were both very touched that these kids considered spending time with us ... [Continue reading this entry]

Panda Research Base

Wednesday, January 1st, 2003
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif An early morning one-hour ride on Sam's Guesthouse bus took us south of Chengdu to the Panda Research Base where China is trying to keep the Giant Pandas from disappearing into extinction. It ... [Continue reading this entry]

Ruili China

Saturday, December 28th, 2002
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif Coming down out of the mountains we were happy to see Ruili lying in the green lush valley below...a larger city than I thought...a Chinese/Burma border town with a mix of Han Chinese, minorities ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob’s Thai Village Visit

Saturday, December 28th, 2002
While Jana and I were playing with Chinese teenagers in Ruili in the south of Yunnan, Bob spent some time in an ethnic village in the mountains in Issan Province southeast of Chiang Mai in Thailand. The people were Thai ... [Continue reading this entry]

Volcanos in Tengchong

Saturday, December 21st, 2002
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif A young Chinese woman on the bus had struck up a conversation in English...telling us about the sights around Tengchong. We thought that maybe we could pay her to guide us to the ... [Continue reading this entry]

My Name is Zhuy Yu Ping

Friday, December 20th, 2002
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif On the way to Tengchong, the bus climbed high up into the Gaoligong Shan Mountain Range on a winding narrow two lane road...dropping down and then higher up again...beautiful valleys down below terraced with ... [Continue reading this entry]

Getting Blessed

Thursday, October 3rd, 2002
Getting into Hanoi late on the train after visiting Sapa, I walked into a hotel down the street from the train station because I was going to leave again the next afternoon on the train for Dang Ha in Central ... [Continue reading this entry]

Extremes In India

Sunday, August 4th, 2002
Back in Delhi the next day Bob and I are walking in the middle of the street as usual to a shopping area from the hotel when I noticed that one of the men lying on the sidewalk was dead...large ... [Continue reading this entry]

Shimla India

Wednesday, July 31st, 2002
July 31-August 4 2002 The last few days I have been fighting some sort of strange malady...raging sore throat, red spots on the tops of my feet and the underside pads of my fingers red, sore and sensitive. Want to risk ... [Continue reading this entry]

Rickshaw Driving Lesson

Wednesday, July 31st, 2002
After dinner, Bob entertains the nearby date sellers by dickering with another rickshaw driver who makes the mistake of saying to Bob "You are rich man-why can't you give me few extra rupees?" Bob shot back that "I have ... [Continue reading this entry]

Traveling India Bob-Style

Saturday, July 27th, 2002
The Indians have a wonderful sense of humor so Bob takes advantage of it and manages to turn everything upside down wherever we go. In addition to an auto-rickshaw, India has bicycle rickshaws-a three-wheeler bicycle with a seat for ... [Continue reading this entry]

Mr. Singh’s Rickshaw In Udaipur

Sunday, July 21st, 2002
We take the offer of Mr. Singh, the Sikh driver of an auto-rickshaw, a small, noisy, three-wheeled motorized contraption with no doors, to take us around the narrow streets that are filled with cows, people, dogs, pigs, men in dirty ... [Continue reading this entry]

Our Mumbai Neighborhood

Thursday, July 18th, 2002
We watch India swirling with life on the street below our hotel window on the Colaba Causeway-the stretch of land that the English filled the Bay with that turned Bombay, now called Mumbai, from an Island into a peninsula. I ... [Continue reading this entry]

Robben Island

Monday, June 17th, 2002
S12J2pKbmw6zVZyRvmb7L0-2006193181305721.gif June 16 to July 13, 2002 Standing bunched shoulder-to-shoulder in the small anteroom of the prison on Robben Island where Mandela and others were political prisoners, our half of the ferry load of visitors impatiently ... [Continue reading this entry]

Citrusdal and The Baths

Friday, June 14th, 2002
S12J2pKbmw6zVZyRvmb7L0-2006193181305721.gif June 14, 2002 My birthday The Baths is a health spa about 16 km from Citrusdal in a pretty wooded gorge. It is a long weekend in South Africa; Monday is Youth Day-(SA has ... [Continue reading this entry]

Buffalo Fence & Planet Baobab

Monday, May 27th, 2002
t5vdleC6v9bjElbi1QdXwg-2006193161808725.gif May 27, 2002 We see the 3000km of 1.5 meter high "Buffalo Fence" along side the road on the way to Okavango Delta in Botswana. It's actually a series of high-tensile steel wire barriers ... [Continue reading this entry]

To Lusaka Zambia

Tuesday, May 21st, 2002
t5vdleC6v9bjElbi1QdXwg-2006193164953338.gif Tues May 21-22, 2002 Long Drive to Lusaka the capitol of Zambia Up at 5 am again and on the truck by 6:30. Take the whole day just to drive to Lusaka-about 12 hours or ... [Continue reading this entry]

Dinner & Dancing On A Mat in Malawi

Saturday, May 18th, 2002
PZmR20gwby0cg19rXgklIw-2006197131657399.gif That night Rod has arranged for us to have dinner at the home of a local family. We each take a bowl and spoon from the truck and are led down a series ... [Continue reading this entry]

Animal Spotting The Big 5 In The Sarengeti

Thursday, May 9th, 2002
I love the remnants of the Swahili cadence in Victor's English. Giraffe: "It is raining and he is very happy there-he is getting a shower." Bob watching elephants: "This makes you feel badly there are zoos. Topi: lives up to 20 ... [Continue reading this entry]

Santorini & Sifnos

Friday, April 12th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172105305371.gif As the ferry approached the island through the caldera you see a red-brown black and pumice grey terraced cliff face that looms hundreds of feet above the water with brilliant-white buildings with blue trim ... [Continue reading this entry]

Stuck In A Train In Napflion

Wednesday, April 10th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172105126681.gif Train Trip to Nafplion The next morning we walked to Syntagma Plaza to took the metro to the port at Piraeus for departure to some of the Greek islands by ferry. But we had just ... [Continue reading this entry]

Athens Greece

Tuesday, April 9th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172111649438.gif Landed in Eletherios Venizelo airport and everyone clapped as is often the custom around much of the world. Took a one hour bus ride from the airport to Monastiraki Square Station at Syntagma Square in ... [Continue reading this entry]

St. Peter’s House

Tuesday, April 9th, 2002
The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre ... [Continue reading this entry]

Michelangelo’s David

Saturday, April 6th, 2002
Bob is going on a walking tour where he will learn how the Renaissance Medici family ruled and held onto their city as an independent state for three centuries in face of pressure from the Papacy and how they commissioned ... [Continue reading this entry]

Serendipity Florence

Friday, April 5th, 2002
Well, we are in Florence, by serendipity, on April 5, 2002. By that I mean that we were on the train from Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera headed to Siena when we realized we would be going through Florence ... [Continue reading this entry]

9/11 & Two Muslims

Saturday, March 23rd, 2002
The next day, we spent the day in Marrakech waiting for our favorite night train back to Tangiers. I spent all afternoon at the Ali Hotel Internet Cafe while Bob went out walking through the city again. Ate dinner at ... [Continue reading this entry]