The Heart Of The Day

Well, the media had hyped the violence over the poll on Feb 2 which Yingluk introduced in an attempt to mollify people and stop the protests. These were at my On Nut skytrain headed downtown.

So Bangkok hotels are pretty empty…including my VXTheFifty guesthouse. But I was welcomed back by the proprietors and the maids as an old friend.

There have been some shootings in isolated areas with, I think, about 6 people killed but of course the media hypes it up and travellers are avoiding Bangkok. Well, good for me but bad for business and the people who live and work here. Thailand is really taking big losses again as they did in 2010 when I was here when the upcountry pro-government “Reds” were demonstrating. Over 90 people were killed in that mess so guess Thailand isn’t doing so bad this go-around. So far anyway.

The protesters led by Suthep, an old politico with an agenda of his own, tried to interrupt the voters from voting so of course the opposition was accused of being against democracy. Only 45% of the people showed up at the polls with many giving a “No Vote.” But the poll stations were disorganized and many didn’t have poll takers so they weren’t even open. Now the anti-government Democrats will take it to the courts to have the poll annulled claiming that it was unlawful in the first place.

Sutep promises he will keep leading the protests until Yingluck steps down. On top of all that twitter was abuzz with the fact that when Yingluck voted in a high profile photo shoot she stuck the ballots in the wrong box. Nobody typically said anything at the time. Only in Thailand.

The taxi at the airport wanted 400 baht to take me 5 minutes up the road to Bang Rak Beach. I just laughed and set out on my own down the road. Next two taxis wanted 300 baht but finally talked the third one down to 200 baht. Good grief, I could have gone clear from the airport 40 minutes to Lamai for 500 baht! They know when they have you!

The guesthouse in the Beach area Doug had found for me to stay in was full. Trudging down the road with my wheeled luggage, probably looking a little forlorn, I waved down a moto taxi driver who took me to the lonely modest but cozy Bang Rak Bungalows facing the water. Just a mattress on the floor but so what. It’s only 500 baht a night and I’m here only two nights before flying into Bangkok.

Good coffee and French Breakfast (hot croissant and French bread) at the French Bakery the next morning made my day.

Alarm went off 4am for the taxi to the airport for the flight to Bangkok. OMG! I thought I wouldn’t make it the couple of kilometers! The “boss” had left for another province so this old guy, who really didn’t know how to drive, took me in an old jeep…changing the automatic shift every 2 seconds at 10 miles an hour I think. And of course a new departures area had recently been constructed. And he had to stop and ask directions twice in spite of the fact that he had lived there for years! “It’s been 20 years since I’ve been to the airport” he said. Whew! Just made it!

A lot of memories here where Doug and Luk lived 14 feet from the water on Khlong Muang Beach in Krabi until they nearly succumbed in the 2004 tsunami. Ten years ago! Seems like it happened yesterday and hard to believe so much time has passed since that tragic day when I learned about it in Bangkok and nearly had a heart attack when I saw the devastation on Krabi on TV! Many young Thai people today hardly remember it. I mentioned it to the young View Son Hotel receptionist but she just keep repeating…“no tsunami here, no tsunami here!”

After that day, in December 2004, Doug and Luk moved from the Pacific side…on the Andaman Sea…to Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand…on the other side of Thailand. Luk said there were too many ghosts at Krabi and she wouldn’t eat the fish anymore because she said the fish ate the people! Such is Thai culture.

However, we spent a wonderful day forgetting all the devastation…visiting the islands off Ao Nang in the Bob Marley “pirate” ship manned by Doug’s old rasta friends.

My Swedish friend took me to a Swedish enclave at the end of Fisherman’s Beach. OMG! Hundreds of Swedes on the beach and sitting in rows and rows of chairs all together. Most of them return every winter, my friend says.

We said goodbye on Feb 2 to the lovely staff at the guesthouse…including the funny katoey who would knock on the windows at night of the young Swede I was hunging out with! I flew to Samui for two days before catching a Bangkok Airways plane to Bangkok and Doug flew to Chiang Mai on Asia Air for another couple weeks until we both leave Thailand from Bangkok on Feb. 14.

Doug flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and spent a couple days with his dad in Pattaya before going back to Samui again to say goodbye to old friends and close down his rented house.

I flew into Samui a few days later on Jan 19th and stayed at a guesthouse he had found for me for 500 Baht a night right on the ring road and near a great French coffee shop and bakery.

I enjoy early morning Pork Rice Soup and chinese donuts at a street stand a few yards down the road each morning. I get there early because by 8am they are “finish.”

It is fun staying in a place you know well. We flew out to Krabi on Jan 26 for a few days…a place we both love.

Stayed in a good location…the ThaiLanna Guesthouse just outside the Anapurn Night Market. Good to be off the Soho bar street except for a couple very loud young Russian women next door.

By this time, after an orgy of seafood and Chinese food with Josh and Polly in Hong Kong and all the great Thai street food for a couple months, I welcomed the big American and British breakfasts and rack of BBQ ribs at Malloy’s Irish Bar in the market.

Met a nice woman from Tennessee who accompanied me to a rather hokey restaurant featuring Khao Soi Curry…a northern Thai specialty…with a personal apron to boot. Felt weird to be eating Khao Soi this way after years of eating it on the street. I guessed the restaurant was owned by a foreigner which the cashier confirmed as I left. I regret paying 300 baht for the apron.

I also regret paying the 700 baht for a double scoop of Haagan Daz ice cream!

An occasional Mango Lassi at one of the Indian restaurants rounded out my travel cuisine.

Apparently this is what this visit to Asia has come to…eating! I’ll spare you photos of all the food!

Doug found a wonderful massage place…two very strong NE Thai women. Seems like massage is never strong enough. “You can do strong!” I always say. Nothing worse than being disappointed when you know what a really good massage can do. I think they get frightened by foreigners who don’t understand that Thai massage is supposed to hurt to get the most benefit.

Flew off to meet Doug who had preceeded me to Ko Samui on the 19th of January.

Josh and Polly have treated me to five days of an eating orgy. From famine in Oaxaca, except for extraordinary Oaxacan food, to Chinese feasts in Hong Kong! Oh my!

Yesterday I took a Dragon Air flight from Chiang Mai to Hong Kong. The efficient 20 minute high speed train from the airport passes through Kowloon and ends in Hong Kong…at the building, incidentally, where Josh works in the penthouse location of the American Club restaurants. Heading to the turnstiles I see his smiling face on the other side. Oh joy!

We take a taxi to Josh’s tiny apartment in a Hong Kong high-rise with every wall space and corner full of artifacts picked up from Polly’s business travel all over SE Asia and from their trips to Istanbul and India. I add to all this sh** with a great but expensive handwoven Zapotec rug I brought from Oaxaca which now adorns Josh’s “office” floor. Josh and I explain to Polly that “Sh** can be used in a good or bad way. Stuff is just sh**t. She laughs. Next thing I know, Polly has taken a photo of all my stuff and posted it on Facebook with the caption “My shit from Oaxaca!” Ha! My apartment in Oaxaca is 5 times the size of his for $325 a month. He pays nearly $3000. Such is the price for living in a cosmopolitan city with the highest population density in the world.

Polly joins us later at a well-known traditional sushi restaurant. Polly is on a roll this night…so funny and so cute with her Cantonese accent. She is one smart witty woman. Well, she didn’t get her masters being a dummy. Of course Josh gives it as good.

It is a complement for a chef to be visited another chef. But this night the sushi bar was full so we were seated at a table outside the view of the chef. Josh decides to leave for another place but just as we were entering the elevator here comes running the sushi chef! “No no, don’t leave! I have room at the bar now!” The supreme complement for Josh!

Josh and the head sushi chef explain the nuances of each sashimi. I learn you never mix the wasabi with the soy sauce. Some is eaten with a special sauce of it’s own. And some is eaten without either…but with a tiny bit of grated salt from Nepal. Only two things I won’t eat, we told the chef. Raw egg and fermented bean. (Natto) Otherwise we eat what the chef decides what we will like. The fish is rich and finally I’ve really had enough. I told Josh I would really hate to see the bill. He accommodates. 🙂

After dinner we do a bit of shopping in a hip shop:

Polly says she would translate this as “what the hell… Mother fxxxker!” Delay No More!” I decide to wear it like the young Thai girls who wear t-shirts with totally inappropriate sayings in English. If they knew what they meant I can’t believe they would wear them! So now I will wear a t-shirt that only Cantonese-speaking people will understand…and watch their sly smiles! 😉

This trip is for only five days. Waiting for a taxi home, I tell Josh I’ve got Bangkok down. Next trip I think I will get a place of my own in Hong Kong for a couple weeks and explore this city…where East and West have come together in an interesting way ever since the British occupation.

I’m used to going to bed at 8:30-9 and getting up about 5:30 or 6. I collapse at midnight on the wonderfully comfortable couch under a great comforter and on a generous down pillow. What a relief from the rock-hard beds I’ve been sleeping on in cheap guesthouses for the last month!

In the morning Josh and Polly go to the gym. I am on the tiny veranda with a view of more highrises and the harbor. And my computer. They will take me to a traditional Dim Sum restaurant soon.

I am in my glory!

Doug had been on Koh Samui while I was in Bangkok having my teeth taken care of after we first arrived in Thailand in November 2013. While there, Doug had taken his boat, that he had just finished refurbishing, out into the open sea off Samui. It was just a little fishing boat and the boat launchers forgot to put the plug into the back of the boat. The launchers realized it but it was too late. Luk tried to call him back but he didn’t hear her.

Needless to say the boat sank and since the life vest got caught on the bottom of the boat Doug had to swim about a mile back to shore nearly drowning in the process. “You almost lost a son today,” he said, when he called me!

Fishing Boat Launch

He lost his wallet, credit card and phone with the boat so we spent quite a bit of time finagling with banks and getting him a new phone.

Understandably, Doug decided to get off Samui so he flew from Samui to Chiang Mai and I flew from Bangkok on Dec 23rd to meet him for a couple weeks. He had his motorcycle sent from Samui to Chiang Mai…through the post! Amazing!

While in Chiang Mai we took a 4-hour trip north through the mountains in a van to Pai for a couple days. Couldn’t believe how much Pai has changed into a hippie backpacker town! Seemed like there were more foreigners there than village people!

I’m about fed up with Japanese princesses who take up more than their fair share of space on the planet to take those blasted photos! And loud crude Russians! And besides that the princesses hold up the van for 20 minutes while they talk on the phone and pack the van with bags of gifts. Perhaps I’m just getting tired. Sigh.

Then…serendipity! A guy I know used to live across the street from us years ago in Salem Oregon. He turned up in my life again in the late 80’s when he happened to be the legislative fiscal officer in charge of the budget for the Commission on Hispanic Affairs where I was the Executive Director. I would run into him occasionally over the years at a coffee shop whenever I was in Salem in transit to Asia.

Well, here in Chiang Mai, one day I was strolling down a little soi near Suan Buak Haad Public Park in the SE corner of the old city and saw a nice looking new guesthouse. The Tulip. I walked into the outdoor reception area to check it out and who was sitting at a table with his laptop open on the table? Geronimo!

What are the chances?

Christian holidays are an excuse for a party in a Buddhist country. I spend it quietly…with Doug in Chiang Mai and skype calls from Greg and Josh…bless their hearts. Greg spends it quietly too in Las Vegas…making my recipe for Beef Stroganoff. Josh is busy feeding hundreds of Christmas celebrants at the American Club in Hong Kong where he is the Executive Chef. Such is the life of a family scattered all over the world. Far from each other…but close to me.

Meanwhile I try to track Thai politics so I know which intersection and skytrain exit to avoid. My Yellow Shirt friend feeds me information. My Thai friend who is a professor of fisheries at Kasetsart University issues warnings. I scour Twitter and read the ThaiVisa alerts on my local phone.

The middle class has finally risen. People from Bangkok and the rubber workers in the south continue with hundreds of thousands of whistling anti-government demonstrators scattered throughout the city. The whistles are deafening and remind me of the unceasing cicadas in the spring in Oaxaca. The Reds, supporting the ruling party with Thaksin’s sister as the puppet Prime Minister, have been instructed (I assume by the exiled Thaksin who is holed up in Dubai) to remain cooped up in the stadium to avoid clashes.

Politics in Thailand is inscrutable to the outsider but also to most Thais themselves. Speculation abounds in the alternative press and on twitter. Mainstream press of course is all government controlled. But by the end of December it certainly looks like Thailand is headed for more violence or at the least a silent coup to get the ruling regime out. The poor countryside Reds from the rural north who are the majority argue…but the ruling party was elected! Well, an election with votes and a leadership bought off by the wealthy Thaksin does not a democracy make. I’m convinced by looking at both Mexico and Thailand…and the lack of effort by governments to upgrade the education systems…that the oligarchies do not want people to be educated or informed. They may revolt…as many people have around the world where consciousnesses have been raised and information made accessible by social media.

Wondered around in the Silom district at the Saladaeng skytrain exit. I forgot how much I liked the area. Stopped to buy a whistle on a side soi from an anti-government seller for my friend. An article had just been written in the NYT comparing the situation of Thailand to the Ukraine. As if that wasn’t insulting enough, the US Ambassador to Thailand had just issued a statement…that sounded like a warning…to the people of Thailand to please avoid violence and settle their issues through democratic means. Patronizing for sure! The seller, sitting on the street in the middle of mounds of whistles on red white and blue ribbons, head bands, wrist bands all around her on the sidewalk… looked up at me and admonished this American angrily. “We liked Obama! What he doing?! Why he do this to us?! He make problems all the world!” These anti-government demonstrators are no dummies. What could I say? Except “I know, I know.”

Later, back at the guesthouse I have an interesting conversation at the hip cafe next door with a 40ish German businessman who has an up-close view of things. Says the King should appoint a care government made up of neutral parties like a rep from the UN and people completely outside the system and give them time to write a new constitution to allow election, instead of appointment of ministers, and initiate reforms. Then hold an election in a year or two. The election scheduled for Feb 2 will just restore the ruling party and the country will have all the same corrupt politicians and judges and just have the same problem all over again. I said I felt sorry for Thailand. He retorted “I don’t!” The meaning, I assume, is that they do this to themselves and don’t learn. Only in Thailand. Even Mexico, with all it’s corruption, isn’t this convoluted.

VX The Fifty Guesthouse in Bangkok

Sukhumvit 50, a nice quiet street, is at the OnNut Sky train exit with Tesco Lotus conveniently at the corner. 10 baht takes me down 50 to the guesthouse/hostel on the back of a moto taxi driver. Lovely proprietors and friendly staff. The lady wears the latest panty hose.

I liked the other backpackers staying there and made some friends…one a nice young French woman, Isabelle, who I chatted with in the courtyard every day. She was looking for a job with a nonprofit working with refugees. Talking with her for a week, my anti-French biases went out the door. Alas her grandmother died and she returned to Paris early.

A very talkative guy from Sri Lanka had been ejected by his family to get him out of the way while his wife gave birth back home…another country…another cultural difference. He talks constantly with them on skype on the hostel computer. He makes me a Sri Lankan shrimp dinner cooked in the hostel microwave with cold rice.

As with most hostel/guesthouses there are issues:

Americano coffee at the hip cafe next door was 45 baht. Directly across the street a cafe offered coffee for 25 baht…less than a dollar. But people liked the hip cafe so paid twice the price for coffee. Go figure.

Unfortunately I took a wildly twisted fall on the slippery floor getting out of the shower one morning. Now I know what it feels like for time to stand still. Ex-rays taken at Bumrungrad Hospital showed no broken bones but the fall sure wracked my bad leg and knee for a week or so. I was lucky it was no worse. The lovely semi-retired Thai orthopedist who had practiced in the states for years suggested that I have my knee replacement soon, however, to take the stress off my good knee or I would wind up having to have two replacements. $40 worth of good advice. Doug and Luk found a beautifully crafted cane made of Teak. Perhaps I’ll need it again one day on the narrow broken sidewalks of Oaxaca.

Bob bussed it in from Pattaya on Thanksgiving…great turkey dinner at the Bourbon St. Bar and Restaurant owned by an American. On the Sunday after, we enjoyed the wonderful Indian buffet in the penthouse of the Windsor Hotel on Sukhumvit 20, my old neighborhood. What a welcome change from Oaxacan food.

Had lunch with Tom L., one of Bob’s golfing buddies. Can’t resist posting this photo of Bob and I. Get a load of the body language. 🙂

All has been quiet today in honor of the King’s birthday. American born, he is 86 today. And dearly loved by Thai people. But he is very ill and people are worried what will happen to Thailand when he passes.

The last two weeks Bangkok has been beset with protesters again…a conglomeration of Yellow Shirts, the business elite and others who want to oust PM Yingluck from office. PM Yingluck is sister to former PM Thaksin who has been charged and convicted of corruption but is now exiled in Dubai. Of course Yingluck is charged by her critics as being a figure head of Thaksin’s.

But after some violence, with 4 people dead, the protest took a bizarre turn a couple days ago when the occupied municipal police commander laid down their riot gear in the street. Crowds of protesters were allowed to enter both compounds unopposed after police were ordered to stand down in a bid to prevent further violence. The protesters were given access to Government House and the municipal police station.

Only in Thailand.

it has been raining and humid outside so am watching the Blue Sky Channel showing 4 different groups of protesters in Bangkok today. Comments on the ThaiVisa blog are interesting as usual. Of course I don’t have a clue what any the speakers are saying, singing, yelling and chanting.

A so-called million man march is being planned for tomorrow. This has a long complicated history but the bottom line is that exiled PM Thaksin has manipulated several groups to support his return to Thailand and others are dead set against not only his return, but his proxy government led by his sister that is currently in power.

At the Democracy Monument protest site, are a group of anti-Thaksin academics, representatives of labour unions from state enterprises, members of the Silom business community, political activists among others talking in front of thousands of cheering protesters with whistles and red, white and blue headbands.

The group on stage also includes leaders of the “People’s Army to Overthrow the Thaksin Regime” and the “Network of People and Students for Thailand’s Reform,” who have been holding separate rallies in Bangkok to voice their opposition to the government-backed controversial amnesty bill and the so-called Thaksin regime. The Student group is the most radical of course.

Meanwhile, pro-government red-shirt leaders have called on supporters to gather at Rajamangala Stadium today to discuss how to deal with what is expected to be a massive gathering of anti-government protesters tomorrow. The protesters are expected to split into 12 groups around Bangkok. The Chiang Mai 51 group has readied 150 buses to bring red-shirt protesters to Bangkok. So you can imagine what the traffic situation is going to be.

The police are worried that the red-shirt supporters will conflict with the anti-government anti-Thaksin supporters. 40 teams of rapid-response police officers have been set up to deal with the situation.

Toward the end of the day a grey-haired stately woman took the stage and voiced a plea to Thaksin to LEAVE US ALONE! LEAVE US ALONE! Then she said she was advised not to use rude language. So she swished her flag in the air with a “… OFF!”

I’m just going to sit in my guesthouse room with the TV and my computer for the day.

Need new crowns on implants I got last spring while in Bangkok. Need to see my son Josh and his lovely Significant Other, Polly, in Hong Kong. And spend some time down south in Krabi Thailand with my son Doug and his little fishing boat.

On my yearly trip to Asia, I flew from Oaxaca to Oregon for a week where I picked up 6 months of mail and paid property taxes and ran a myriad of errands. Then Nov 9 spent 8 hours on a cramped Delta flight to Tokyo and another 5 hours to Bangkok. Every trip seems to get more and more uncomfortable. Hard seats make my butt bones hurt even with a pillow. Jet lag and culture shock makes me feel like my body and soul is rubber…stretching out over continents. Getting too old for this shit. But what better to do with myself than visit adult children scattered all over the world. 😉

In the metro on my way to the dentist I see this lovely ad.

Details here are not especially for my readers (if there are any) but a kind of diary to remind myself where I go when and what I do. Memory going fast! But while I am on it, dental work at the Bangkok International Dental Center is excellent and VERY affordable. Dr. Preeda completed dental school at the Univ of N. Carolina and spent a year teaching implant technology there. And for health care you can’t do better than Bumrungrad Hospital. Want a face lift? Ask for Dr. Poomee who spent 30 years practicing in Atlanta Georgia before retiring with a part time practice in Thailand. I asked for a partial but he wouldn’t do it for me. Said I wasn’t ready! Not ready? If I’m not ready at 69 when will I be? He said if you are not ready then results would be disappointing. Oh well. I don’t care anymore anyway. My life is in my face anyway. However I did get upper eyelids done to keep them from falling into my eyes a few years ago.

Have spent 3 days in a dental chair with 3 more to go this week. But the weather is wonderful. Dr. Preeda said winter got here 2 days before I arrived. It is 30F 27C!

I asked him if he had been out in the street protesting and blowing his whistle. He said no but that his 2 year old has been blowing his whistle constantly for days! My yellow-shirt friend will take me to the protest sites. With ear plugs. Hope it’s better than the hand-clappers in 2009-10! But I’d rather be here or in Oaxaca than the U.S. any day where the political drama makes me sick.

Read this morning that the Street Art is getting painted over in Oaxaca. Probably the most egregiously political stuff. Apparently Oaxaca will host the World Congress of World Heritage Cities, a major event bringing together mayors from five continents to discuss the problems of their cities and promoting comprehensive strategies, in order to protect the heritage and promote human development … So they paint over the Street Art??? Arghhhhh! Ruined my morning.

OMG, it’s almost been a year since my last RTW! I am planning my next trip back to Thailand to get some teeth in November and to see my sons in Thailand and Hong Kong. I am beginning to anticipate…and remember…

An expat took his laptop battery to the computer shop opposite Makro in Samui to see if they had one or could order one from Bangkok. He approached the guy at the counter with his carrier bag. (There was no one else in the shop, and the guy was not busy doing anything)

“Sawasdee Krap”

(Silence)

“can you help me?”

(Silence)

“I have a laptop battery” (reaching into carrier bag)

“NO HAVE!”
(At this point the battery was still concealed in the bag)

“Can you….?.”

“CANNOT!”

“cannot what?”

“CANNOT!”

“Do you have……?” (producing said battery. He didn’t even look at it)

“CANNOT”

” I see…..Can you order from Bangkok?”

“CANNOT ORDER!”

“Are you saying that there is no shop in the whole of Bangkok where you can get a laptop battery?”

“CANNOT ORDER!”

Another expat:
“In Banphai there is a pharmacy, each time I go in, without looking up the man says NO HAVE. Hello I can see what I want on that shelf… NO HAVE…I go outside and get the [Thai] wife and she asks for the same item. He goes to the shelf and passes item to my wife 80 baht please. WTF.”

You may also encounter Mr. NONO and Mrs. SHOO-SHOO

I think there may be several things going on here.

Mrs. NOHAVE may not understand the request and don’t want to admit it to save face. Also may apply to MR. CANNOT, MR. NONO and MRS SHOO-SHOO.
Mr. CANNOT can not speak English in order to answer the request.
This may be followed up by Mrs. SHOO-SHOO
Mr. CANNOT and Mrs. NO HAVE, Mr. NONO and Mrs. SHOO-SHOO may be tired.
Thais are sick of dealing with farangs who don’t speak Thai
Thais are sick of dealing with farangs

Of course it may be true that they really CANNOT or NO HAVE.

When I refer to myself as an expat in Mexico, I often get asked “what is an expat.” Now I am having to change my Mexican visa from a temporary one to a permanent one. Do I want to be a Residente Permanente? At least I will not have to renew my visa every year.

Today Garrison Keillor posted a poem by Paul Zimmer on his Writer’s Almanac web site entitled “Amongst The French.”

I do not have their words,
do not have their years or customs.
Passing them on the road,
shy as fog passing down
slopes into the valley,
I always give first utterance
or make an uncertain gesture.

My neighbors are kind,
knowing I am like rain,
that if they wait long enough,
in time I will go away.

It is the same for me in
all directions—under stars
swarming out of foothills,
on the gravel I churn
with my shoes—east, west,
north, or south—the same.
If I remained in
this friendly place forever,
I would always be a stranger.

This got me to thinking. It’s not just true in France of course. It’s true of anyone leaving their birth country and moving to another one. It’s true for me in Mexico and it’s especially true for Thailand. Apparently another “expat” has been thinking about this too and the following has been lifted from his blog Life In Prana

When is an expat not an expat?

Read the rest of this entry »

In his A Global Soul Pico writes “We travel, some of us, to slip through the curtain of the ordinary, and into the presence of whatever lies just outside our apprehension. I fall through the gratings of the conscious mind and into a place that observes a different kind of logic.” Especially when we Stand and know that we are home. Transcendence… and pure Pico.

I don’t have to talk about Snowden and Egypt, Syria and all the other countries struggling for self-determination. It’s all over the web. But I have a special place in my heart for Turkey…and my friends there.

On the first day of Ramaden, Istanbul Turkey broke fast with a mile long table along Istikal Street near Taksim Square. The water cannon trucks were menacingly standing at the end of the street.

Set your dreams where nobody hides
Give your tears to the tide
No time
No time
There is no end, there is no goodbye

Disappear with night
No time
No time
No time
No time
No time

Erdogan rallied about 200,000 bussed-in AKP party supporters yesterday, at tax-payer expense and gave a 2-hour hate-filled lie-filled speech while protestors and police fought it out in the side streets.

Police are getting edgy.

Couple thousand union people went on strike Monday and pushed through a police line until the chemical-added water cannons cut them off.

Many suspect Erdogan is already using the gendarmeri but is threatening to send in the army.

Meanwhile the Standing Man becomes top tweet. After 18 days of mass protest against the Turkish Government, sparked by plans to re-develop Istanbul’s Gezi Park, Monday’s headline was grabbed by a solitary act of defiance in nearby Taksim Square.

Performance artist Erdem Gündüz stood silently in front of the flag of modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, hung on the Atatürk Culture Center — scheduled for destruction in the clearance of Gezi Park’s green space for a replica Ottoman-era military barracks.

Gündüz remained for six hours until he and a group that joined him in the silent stare were briefly detained by police. The act is being replicated in several international locations.

Standing Man

This Is What Fascism Looks Like

A savvy Turkish friend wonders if Erdogan wants civil war.

June 19 Update

Well, yesterday, Erdogan, after initially promising to leave the park alone, emptied the park with only seconds of warning.

The police emptied Gezi Park in Istanbul with tear gas, water cannons with water that leaves people with skin burns, extremely strong gas and all manner of cruelty by the police including rubber bullets and clubbing. Just because people want to peacefully exercise their right of free speech and free assembly. In a democratic country, this is an attack on democracy everywhere.

The police attacked makeshift infirmaries in hotel lobbies with tear gas and clubs…where children and elders especially…had taken refuge. There was no escape. Erdogan is a megalomaniac on every level and must be stopped. When one protestor asked a policeman why he was doing this, the policeman said: “You pay me like the government does and I will fight for you too.”

10 people have lost an eye, at least 4 people are dead, one in Ankara shot dead with a real bullet by a policeman, and scores are hospitalized with serious injuries…not just in Istanbul but in other cities.

Today, with tax money from all Turks, he is shipping AKP party people into Istanbul in a show of support. He intends to follow with “dog and pony shows” in other cities. My friends in Turkey are saying they will also show up again today. I am worried for them now.

I hope the people take heart in the fact that Erdegon has shown the world he is not a Statesman. He is using secularism in a thinly disguised move toward absolute authoritarianism. Ataturk would turn over in his grave.

A comment to an article in the Waahington Post today: “To form a meaningful opposition, the various political parties need to form a united front with a limited set of common objectives. Until now, every one of them has insisted on their own ideological purity in positions. It’s a classic example of ‘divide and rule’. Maybe, just maybe, these events might be the trigger to form a common opposition party.”

My friends always remember my birthday because that is when the municipal police tried to clear out the striking teachers from the Zocalo in 2006. Every year they have a memorial walk to commemorate it.

June 14 Memorial March

Erdogan met with members of the Solidarity Group yesterday. Apparently it didn’t go well.

On Facebook this morning by OccupyGezi:

Media claims that PM Erdogan has raged at the previous night’s meeting with the representatives and left the meeting suddenly without even handshakes. They wrote that PM Erdogan was mad at Arzu Cerkezoglu, the General Secretary of Confederation of Progressive Trade Union, about her comment. Cerkezoglu says she told the PM Erdogan “Sir, if we were making this meeting on 25th of May, we could have been talking about the architectural and environmental issues. But it has been weeks now, people are on the streets, 4 of them dead. It has been 17 days, mothers are on the streets. If we are here for the solution, we must talk about the truth. Those people are telling you something on the streets from day to night. Don’t you think that we have to talk about these issues? This is not an architectural issue, it’s a sociologic issue.”

Arzu Cerkezoglu says in the paper “The PM, who has been continuously interrupting my speech, gave a harsh response when I say this is a sociologic issue. He raised his voice and said `Who are you to teach us sociology? We know sociology and psychology. How do you dare saying those to us?`”

http://haber.gazetevatan.com/uzun-gecede-gergin-anlar/546123/1/gundem

Some protestors say they are not represented by any group political or otherwise. And a tweeter on the ground says they will occupy one symbolic tent in the park while the others will leave. We will see what happens.

Meanwhile Erdogan is planning on counter-rallies in several cities in a show of support for himself. Tens of thousands are expected to show up. PM Erdogan speaking at the rally: “Our people has sense that this is a trap, a threat! We extend our hand but they extend their fists. How can we handshake?”

Hakan Aygun, a journalist, claims that all the personnel from municipalities and ministries has been obliged to come to the rally and brought there with official vehicles.

The Al-Monitor Pulse said: It is not realistic to expect the Gezi Park protesters and their representatives to be satisfied with the “possibility of a referendum.” The Taksim Platform, consisting of some 80 leading non-governmental organizations orchestrating the resistance, announced it would not agree to a referendum and that it had no intention of evacuating the park.

Erdogan: Tomorrow we hold an Istanbul rally. Let me make this clear. If Taksim is not emptied, police forces will empty it.” #occupygezi

Divide and conquer.

From Facebook today: “PM Erdoğan addressed to the mothers of the protestors and said “call them back to your houses for their own safety”. Mothers answered. They showed up at Taksim Square. Formed a human chain between the police and the protestors. In front of Gezi Park. This is the real “tear” gas.”

Mothers Form Human Chain Between Protestors And Police

Erdogan has called a meeting with a Solidarity Group…not some meaningless actor like he met with before which was a joke.

Tonight there is another concert in Taksim Square. I’m watching it live on DHA. It’s beautiful and watching the people makes me cry.

______________________________________________

Meanwhile in social media…a conversation between two people in Istanbul. I am taking the liberty of posting it here.

The real problem is that his bullshit economic policies are reaching an end. He was expanding credit at 40%/year rate. Eventually you reach your borrowing max and you have to start paying down the debt. It is MAJOR recessionary! Apparently, the number of employed people has dropped by about 5% in the last year. That was what happened over 4 years in the US from 2008-2012. The de-leverage is gonna happen soon and it will get REALLY ugly!

What u have to realize is that the prosperity of the last few years was all bullshit. It was artificially generated by insane borrowing through credit expansion And it would appear that it was the worst kind of borrowing, that is for consumption of mostly foreign goods. Not investment! Remember 2 years ago I said there was gonna be a currency collapse? It didn’t happen because the Saudis are propping up the currency by short term borrowing. They want Turkey to protect them from Iran. I don’t know how long that will last. The economic hardship hasn’t even started yet!

So, does he wanna go before economic recession himself? Why is he provoking people, why does he not give in for a simple request like keeping a park as it is, and instead use excessive police force? How do U.S. politicians look at the issue? Do they want him to go?? They were backing him, but recently it seems that they withdraw their support?? What do you think?

D: As I have told you before, everything I know about Jihadis I learned from my Jewhadi relatives. You gotta understand, they can’t control themselves and they have these tribal instincts that makes them pounce on a chance. He is provoking because he thinks he will win. He is a psychopath. Why back down when a vistory will consolidate his power. The one thing these folks go crazy about is when there is a challenge to their authority. When u are god’s messsenger, any dissent against you is blasphemy. Really quite simple.

As far as U.S. goes, all our leaders are idiots. They will back him as long as they see him as staying in power. Who else r they gonna deal with.

The worst is still yet to come!

After being gassed out of Taksim Square, the government spent the night cleaning up. Just in time for the children to come back with this:

Night After Gassing of Taksim

Gorgeous Photo

The Children Of Taksim

By dint of their imagination, humor and self-possession, they are proving themselves to be just the kind of people who should make up the “new” Turkey that Erdogan’s party promised to create when it came to power in 2002. When Erdogan says he hasn’t got an inkling what the children of Taksim want, that may be all too true, but it’s his confusion not theirs.

Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. He is the author of the book “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

Maybe this is all just taking me back to the days in the 60’s and 70’s when we thought all we needed was love.

In Spanish, the singer is Müge Zerin.

Policemen are using real bullets now and one man was shot and killed in Ankara. This in addition to at least 3 others killed by beatings or tear gas. And scores hospitalized. Caught on tape, it’s on YouTube.

Erdogan wants to meet with the protestors. Now we will see how wound up the gordian knot is.

According to OccupyGezi one of the the demonstrators says this:

“As Bulent Arinc announced that PM Erdogan will be accepting the representatives from Gezi Parkı protests on Wednesday, those “representatives” declared they haven’t received any invitation or make any attempts to request a meeting from the PM Erdogan. One of them, Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan tweeted: “I have no ideas about the group that will meet our PM. I saw it on the news after my friends informed me.”

It isn’t going to be pretty from here on out.

In Oaxaca in 2006 it was not only undercover police but young “students” (called Porros) who were hired by the government to carry out all kinds of violence to give the police an excuse to come down with the “hard hand.” During a peaceful demonstration in the Plaza Of The Three Cultures in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City in 1968…10 days before the Olympics…scores of students, and by-standers were slaughtered. A 2001 investigation revealed documents showing that the snipers were members of the Presidential Guard, who were instructed to fire on the military forces in order to provoke them.

I’ve been waiting for this.

Undercover Police Shooting Molotov Cocktails...with hidden guns

Fake Fight

According to one poster on Facebook:

“The Turkish government turns nasty(er)!
Government is staging a fake fight between the protestors and the police this morning. If you see images of people throwing molotov bombs you should know that those people are not part of the protest and are put there by our corrupt government.

How do we know?
-Well, the press has covered NONE of the protests going on for 14 days. This is being live streamed on all channels.
-More than a thousand police has been “fighting” with these 12 guys for over 3 hours
-Police is pretending to use the water canons but the pressure is so low that the actors\rebels dont even get pushed back one step.

The real protestors did not fall for this dumb trick for one second! They are staying calm and strong because that is how smart and united my people are!”

Meanwhile the police are moving in on Taksim Square. So apparently the meeting between Erdogan and the protestors is off. Instead Erdogan is busy arresting an estimated 70+ lawyers who have supported the resistance.

Then this happened.

Updated and amended daily since May 29, 2013

I was in Turkey for a month in February staying mainly with locals. My couchsurfing friends there have been criticizing the Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, who has been dismantling the democracy that Ataturk built nearly a 100 years ago. The last democracy in the middle east. The people revere Ataturk. This is of monumental significance for Turkey and for the world because Turkey is a pivotal point between East and West.

I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for 10 days now watching my friends in Turkey post videos and photos on Facebook and twitter. There has been a total blackout of all internal Turkish media so the people have been desperate to get the word out. Subsequently there have been supporting demonstrations all over the world. And the NYT published a crowdsourced full-page ad with the lead: What Is Happening In Turkey?

The Prime Minister wanted to raze Gezi Park in Taksim Square in Istanbul, cutting down ancient trees, to build a shopping mall with the contract going to his son-in-law. After the police routed the demonstrators with tear gas, some kind of yellow gas shot at the people with “water guns”, water shot out of big tanks (TOMAS) and beatings, the resistance turned against the “bulldozer” of a Prime Minister who has become authoritarian…imprisoning army generals and over 200 journalists, controlling the media and all manner of social mandates.

It didn’t really just start with Gezi Park in the minds of the people though. On May 1, Erdogan tried to curtail a traditional day of celebration for children instituted by Ataturk. He stopped public transportation when he saw so many people turning out as a statement of support for Ataturk’s democracy and by implication a judgment on his. And a mandate against public display of affection a couple weeks before Gezi Park resulted in young people turning to public spaces to hold kiss-ins. And his packing important posts with Islamists has been alarming. This has been slowly building and people see their beloved democracy…a beacon of democracy in the Middle East…slipping slowly away.

Gördüm – Bir Gezi Parkı Direnişi Belgesel Filmi / Documentary Film from R H on Vimeo.

Erdogan was elected Mayor of Istanbul in the local elections of 27 March 1994. He was banned from office and sentenced to a ten-month prison term for reciting a poem during a public address in the province of Siirt in 1997. Before his conviction, the fundamentalist Welfare Party was declared unconstitutional and was shut down by the Turkish constitutional court on the grounds of threatening the laicistic order in Turkey. Erdoğan became a constant speaker at the demonstrations held by his party colleagues. With the conviction, Erdoğan was forced to give up his mayoral position. The conviction also stipulated a political ban, which prevented him from participating in parliamentary elections.

He served less than 4 months of the 10 month conviction from 24 March 1999 to 27 July 1999 for reciting the poem, which, under article 312/2 of the Turkish penal code was regarded as an incitement to commit an offense and incitement to religious or racial hatred. It included verses translated as “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers”. The aforementioned verses, however, are not in the original version of the poem according to Wiki.

Erdoğan established the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in 2001. From its first year, the AK Party became the largest publicly supported political movement in Turkey and the first single party government. And Turkey has done well economically. However, since then his democratic “reforms” have moved Turkey closer to an authoritarian state.

The ban on lipstick for flight attendants and a 10:00 p.m. ban on alcohol and no display of public affection…all of this is completely contrary to the lifestyle of young secular Turks who are objecting to Erdogan’s attempt to reorganize social structures and his authoritarian style of governing which is bringing religion into the public sector threatening secularism. They feel that he is a megalomaniac looking for a legacy. And they’ve had enough.

However, this article appeared in The Guardian entitled Why the Turkish protests matter to the west. This isn’t just about lipstick – if Turkey can’t reconcile secularism, Islam and democracy, there will be global repercussions

Education is in peril, she says with the lions share of the education budget going to mosques and muslim schools. Freedom of speech and the press has been curtailed. Corruption is rampant. And people are judged on the basis of their piousness. For example women are told to stay at home and have children.

The writer says: As a member of the opposition, what I want is not for the west to intervene in our internal affairs, but for it to stop shielding a government with such little regard for the values of freedom.

Bear in mind how valuable a secular Turkey is for the world. Do not forfeit the last secularists in the Middle East to the purge that is taking place in the name of democracy, as if a lower level of rights is somehow “good enough” for our region, when you would never accept such restrictions in yours…

This is what I posted on FB:

The U.S. picked out Erdogan when he was a nobody, and even met with him in the States in the 90’s, to run for Prime Minister as a model of moderate Islam and to make Turkey a pivotal point in the struggle between west and east. The U.S. now needs to take him by the collar and explain that democracy doesn’t stop at the ballot box. And take their own advice as well. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen US bashing which is just as well because it would take the focus off Erdogan where it needs to be. Turks are smarter than the average joe around the world. 3 generations raised by Ataturk have seen to that.

The police are on a rampage…beating people at random who aren’t even demonstrating. Someone estimated that there was twice as much tear gas released in Turkey in the last week than all of Europe in 2012. Several thousand have been hospitalized, three have died and nearly a dozen lost an eye. The protestors set up a medical unit in a mosque to treat people. Now Erdogan is telling people that the protestors “attacked the mosque and entered with shoes and beers.” Inciting hatred…the very thing he was imprisoned for years ago.

I’ve never seen so much creativity and humor as I have seen in the videos and graffiti in response. And I lived through the demonstrations against the Viet Nam war. Oaxaca in 2006 could have learned something from the Turks. Instead of just sitting on the sidewalk and knitting, the teachers, during the strike, could have gone out at night to clean up the streets as the Turks are doing with thousands and thousands of tear gas canisters included. They could have tried to use their time striking by walking around informing people…with humor or not…as the Turks are doing. Instead they just alienated the general public who were trying to get to work and lost their support.

When I was in Turkey there was a subterranean heaviness in the people. But they are not afraid now and their hearts are free. Estimates of several million people have turned out in cities all over Turkey…young people, old people, students, unions…even bitter football rivals walking together in solidarity. And political factions from left to right. The Kurds are worried though that all this will interrupt the peace process that Erdogan has been working on. “It’s not good for us Kurds if Erdogan resigns,” said BDP member Erhan Calahan, who has joined the protests. “Our government is in the midst of a peace process. If it changes now, the country could face some turbulent times.” So as usual things are complicated.

Taksim yesterday:

The police have pulled back from Taksim Square because of all the international media cameras.

Meanwhile the demonstrations and police brutality continue in Ankara (the capitol) Adana, Antalya, Antakya, Izmir and 70+ other cities across Turkey. There is still a blackout on Turkish media.

Click for weather forecast

I arrived “home” April 19, 2013 after a 6 month RTW trip to Oregon, Thailand, Oman, Turkey, Oregon, Las Vegas and finally Oaxaca again. As I’ve recently said to friends, I’m getting too old for this shit! Figuring out the logistics in an unfamiliar country is exhausting even though exciting. Supposedly this kind of activity is supposed to at least delay Alzheimers. It better do something. Since retirement, and after more than 10 years on the road and living in Mexico, I’m beginning to feel like my friend Tim:

Just this year I started thinking that some travels closer to home would be nice, or a hotel room reserved for me by somebody else, or a pick up at the train station, a nice affordable meal that i haven’t had to search for, working out new currencies and languages, the certainty that my bed is gonna be quiet and comfortable, the knowledge of where I am gonna be tomorrow and the relaxing certainties that come with that. Even so there are a few places that I’d [still] like to see.

Sigh.

Well, now I’ve come home to a complete change in not only Mexican visa regulations but also rules regarding whether you can keep your foreign plated car in Mexico if it is less than 10 years old. Well I have a Residente Permanente visa now which apparently means I can’t keep my foreign plated car because it is less than 10 years old. What they want is for you to take your car back across the border, sell it and come back in and buy a car in Mexico. No way. My car is a rugged 2010. I will just drive it until I get stopped. Don’t think they are going to hassle foreigners and no one else follows the rules anyway. We’ll see what happens.

This has been my life for the last 3 weeks. But I feel ashamed to be complaining as I read about the Boston Bombing, Syria, Bangladesh, Iran, Israel, Mali and a host of other places around the world. And BTW, there was a horrible bombing a couple days ago at the Turkey/Syria border very near Antakya where I stayed for 4 days in a guesthouse.

It seems strange to be thinking about what to do with myself. The U.S. is boring without the street life I’ve come to love around the world, at least in warmer climes, where people are not sequestered inside their homes all the time and I am free to interact with them. I love going to the zocalo and sitting at one of the outdoor sidewalk cafes and drinking coffee or lemonade or mescal for hours over good conversation with simpatico friends.

I am very fond of Oaxaca and the capacity of the people to enjoy life and each other in the face of poverty and a government that sucks. (Well, my government sucks too and I am happy to not be living there.) I would miss the indigenous customs and art, the music, processions, political marches, dancing, ceremonies, celebrations, fireworks and even the rockets. And waking up to church bells and birds chirping in the courtyard at 6am. And the wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor. And walking to the corner at 7am to buy freshly steamed red and green or chicken mole tamales. And the comida corridas that serve a full home-cooked meal for 30-40 pesos (about $3.00US) And the street performers in the intersections. And the Street Art!

I would miss even the horrible karaoke in the community center for elders down the street. And even if the people have no sense of time whatsoever. And even if I’d like to give the finger to nearly every driver on the road…which I did once. And even though I left behind a beautiful home and my apartment is old and the grout is dirty. And I have to buy 5 gallon jugs of water for drinking and cooking. But I am free to choose where to live and enjoy my life…which is a lot more than can be said of many people the world over.

Before flying out to Las Vegas from Salem/Portland to see my eldest son, I drove a couple hours to the coast to visit my cousin, Cindy and her husband Jim who live near Waldport. They were kind enough to drive me along the coast so I could get some photos…and eat incredible Fish Wives Stew down by the harbor.

Church

Grazing Elk

Coastline

Coastline

Cooks Chasm and Blow Hole

Ubiquitous Seagull

Newport Harbor

Sea Lions in Harbor

Fish Wives Stew

Made By Mexican Chefs

Won’t bore anyone with the sordid details of bureaucratic busy work while holed up at Howard Johnson’s Motel since March 19, 2013.

However I did meet up with the few remaining old friends I have here…very fun!

Tomorrow I’ll drive over to Waldport on the Oregon coast to visit Cousin Cindy for a few days. Then back to Salem and fly out of Portland to Las Vegas on the 9th to spend about 10 days with son Greg before flying on to Oaxaca on April 19. Whew! It’s been a long haul on this RTW trip…Oaxaca, Oregon, Thailand, Oman, Turkey, Oregon, Las Vegas, Oaxaca from the end of October 2012 until April 2013! I’ll be glad to be “home!”

Antakya is in the south of Turkey…30 miles from the Syria border. I flew here yesterday from Istanbul and Friday I will take a 3 hour bus back north to Adana north of here where I will stay with another Couchsurfing host.

The guy sitting next to me on the plane to Antakya was a Canadian working for the American Emergency Services Organization. He was going to Antakya for a meeting concerning the Syrian refugees at the border. Perhaps with the UN. Today I saw the proverbial white SUV with UN written in bright blue on the side. I asked him how many refugee camps there were along the border. He said “not camps.” Just solid people on both sides. This doesn’t bode well.

So I am ensconsed on the third floor of a little hotel with windows opening to the city center along the Orontes River about 14 miles from the Mediterranean coast. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Known as Antioch in ancient times, the city has historical significance for Christianity, as it was the place where the followers of Jesus Christ were called Christians for the first time. It had an important role as one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire and Byzantium, and was a key location of the early years of Christianity, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the rise of Islam, and the Crusades because of it’s massive walls.

According to wikipedia, both Turkish and Arabic are still widely spoken in Antakya, although written Arabic is rarely used. A mixed community of faiths and denominations co-exist peacefully here. Although almost all the inhabitants are Muslim, a substantial proportion adhere to the Alevi and the Arab Nusayri traditions, in ‘Harbiye’ there is a place to honour the Nusayri saint Hızır. Numerous tombs of Muslim saints, both Sunni and Alevi, are located throughout the city. Several small Christian communities are active in the city, with the largest church being St. Peter and St. Paul on Hurriyet Caddesi. With its long history of spiritual and religious movements, Antakya is a place of pilgrimage for Christians. It also has a reputation in Turkey as a place for spells, fortune telling, miracles and spirits, the wiki writer says.

But I have to tell this story. In the breakfast room this morning I saw a guy who had a “California” sweat shirt. But he looked maybe Turkish. I felt silly asking this but I asked if he was from the U.S. Yes, he said, but I’m Syrian. He has been going to a large refugee camp 30 miles away on the border to volunteer. No toilets in this camp…one of three along the border inside Turkey. The UN is giving food but this guy says he went to several markets here in Atakya and he saw “with my very own eyes” sacks of grain with “UN” marked on them being sold on the black market.

His brother, a medical doctor has traveled from CA to this camp 3 times to volunteer with Doctor’s Without Borders. He spent 20,000 of his own money for milk for one week for the children and to build 12 toilets for men and 12 for women. He and his brother have collected money and clothes and blankets through a Syrian-American org. They sometimes don’t even have shoes or anything else because they fled so quickly.

His father is very sick in Syria. His sister is 6 months pregnant. He cannot reach them because it is so dangerous. He has been told by everyone he dare not go…even with a bullet proof vest and that he likely will be kidnapped by the opposition who hates Americans. Who is the opposition I asked. Various Al Queda groups, he said.

“Syria doesn’t care about the people. Turkey doesn’t care about the people” he said. Turkey has forbidden any more camps along the border and they won’t allow any pictures from visitors or the press. So now the camps are beginning to multiply along the border on the Syrian side. For every person who goes back 1000 will flee. So people aren’t seeing the misery. It’s just an impossible situation. And this is only one of the wars going on in the world.

I have to go back to the US to school he said. I am doing what I can.

My friend Dilek, however, says that Turkish TV reports have indicted massive problems in the camps…predictably so considering the environment. And the guy I talked to had a very hoarse voice. He said it was from yelling at a bunch of drunk Syrians the other night who were raising hell in the camps. It’s the women and children and old people he was concerned about the most. They are always the most affected victims.

Another Turkish friend wants to know, if the opposition is Al Queda…and Al Queda is our enemy…why is the U.S. supporting them against Asad. But things are never as they seem.

Update 2/28/2013: This morning in the breakfast room I met another Syrian. His brother works in the hotel, he says. I imagine the hotel is putting up these Syrians. He said he came here from Lebanon but cannot go to Syria. Two brothers in Syria are “kaput” in a bloodbath of 200 people. “Kaput?” Odd word to use? He showed me an interview on his iPhone he gave to Aljazeera. Then he showed me a photo of the head of Hesbollah. Said Hesbollah was behind the opposition. They are not good he says. He wanted to know why Obama wasn’t helping. I told him we never know what our government is doing or not doing.

Update 05/19/2013 Last weekend there were two car bombings in Reyhanli, near Antakya on the Syrian border, in which 50 people were killed. Nearly 20 people were arrested. The bombs were most likely planted by pro-Assad forces in retaliation for Turkish support of the Syrian rebels. Criticism of Prime Minister Erdegon’s response to the bombing, fearing Turkey is being dragged into the Syrian conflict, criticism of Turkey’s lack of intelligence and criticism of PM Erdogan’s relationship with the U.S. has sparked anti-government demonstrations this week in several cities across Turkey on a day that is supposed to be celebrating Ataturk’s tribute to children. My Turkish friends are posting slogans all over Facebook.

Turkish Anti-Government Demonstration

Arriving in Istanbul I was delighted to see smiling, laughing, joking people! I am so tickled to be in Turkey! I had forgotten how open and fun the Turks are…laughing easily and so funny! What a relief from the oppressive atmosphere of Oman where I felt like I had to walk on egg shells!

Much to my surprise, I was met outside the arrival hall by Darrell, a Couchsurfing “friend” that I had corresponded with for several years on one of the forums. I don’t know how Darrell recognized me at the airport…probably the hair. I had no idea he was going to be in Istanbul! So we took a taxi to another couchsurfing friend’s house in Bakirkoy where I was going to stay for 3 nights. Apparently it was a secret kept from me because Dilek knew Darrell was going to be in Istanbul. She had prepared a traditional Turkish meal of rice and lentils and condiments for us and then Darrell left for the Peninsula Hotel in the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul.

It was so much fun meeting Dilek after years of being on the Couchsurfing International Politics forum with her! The first night after Darrell left we stayed up late talking a mile a minute about everything under the sun. I am enjoying her insights. She is the consumate cs host! ! I told her I was enjoying seeing her in her own country…being a Turk!

Dilek and I and Dilek's Childhood Friend Standing

Then the next day Dilek took us on a walk-about to see some of her secret haunts…one being a shop that sold a fermented beverage called Boza…popular in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, parts of Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, according to wikipedia. It is a malt drink, made from maize (corn) and wheat in Albania, fermented wheat in Turkey and wheat or millet in Bulgaria and Romania. It has a thick consistency and a low alcohol content (usually around 1%), and has a slightly acidic sweet flavor. It tasted to Darrell and me like slightly fermented applesauce. It’s supposed to cure everything under the sun and locals often stop by for a glass.

My last and only visit to Istanbul had been in 1995 on our way back to the states after a trek in the mountains of Central Asia. I was astounded at how developed, Istanbul, at least, had become! I certainly don’t remember a tram! Or the train!

I didn’t visit the Blue Mosque or Aya Sofia or the Bazaar or a hamman or the underground Cistern because I had done that in ’95 and wanted to see more of the rest of the city.

I did visit the Suleymaniye mosque which had been closed for restorations since 2008, and since re-opened to the public in November 2012. It’s the largest mosque in Istanbul with four minarets, symbolizing, I am told, the four centuries of imperial Ottoman rule. It’s architecture is a blend of Islamic and Byzantine architectural elements and took 8 years to construct. It combines tall, slender minarets with large domed buildings supported by half domes in the style of the Byzantine church Hagia Sophia which the Ottomans converted into the mosque of Aya Sofya. People going in for prayer now put their shoes into plastic bags and carry them into the mosque with them…leaving them on shoe racks just inside. The women are still made to sit in the very back of the mosque in their own section behind a railing while the men fill the main cavernous interior. It is a bit touching to see so many men washing their faces and hands reverently before entering. It seems a religion for men.

After 3 days with Dilek, I checked in to the Peninsula Hotel so it would be easier to meet up with Darrell for dinner. Darrell was hilarious! We met some delightful travelers in the hotel where Darrell was quick to robustly tell early morning people in a hushed breakfast room that he was a farmer from Indiana and that we were couchsurfers. And then go on to tell them about the people he knew on Couchsurfing!!! Of course he was met with quite quizzical looks! He’s Anabaptist but I think his mission is to get everyone in the world to join Couchsufing! LOL He was off to Uganda after Istanbul. Couchsurfing is his world now.

I stayed in Istanbul an extra day because I had an opportunity to do a walk-about through old neighborhoods near the Spice Market with a young Turk, also a member of Couchsurfing, who had stayed with a Mexican friend of mine in Oaxaca. Onur was really interesting…had lived in Columbia 9 years, traveled all through Mexico, Central and South America and I don’t remember where else. I enjoyed his take on Turkish politics. Turkey is like the U.S. in many ways…very diverse with many minority groups. It is booming economically. At the moment he was in-between jobs as an IT engineer.

OMG, up and down hills! My poor knee! But we stopped to have lunch finally in a working class neighborhood and and I sampled Turkish tripe soup, Işkembe Çorbasi, which was wonderful. Not as sour as the Polish tripe soup and not as spicy as the Mexican Menudo. We were going to go to a Klezmer concert that night at a synagogue but I was beat and literally limped my way to the tram which took me back to my Sultanhamet hotel.

BTW, Sultanhamet, near the Blue and Sofia Mosques and the Grand Bazaar, has completely changed since ’95! Total Tourist! Streets full of smart cafes with white table clothes!!! Many offered a hookah pipe.

So after a week in Istanbul I flew to Antakya just on the mediterranean coast…and about 30 miles from the Syrian border. My plan is to take the 3-hour bus tomorrow to Adana where I will stay with Gursel, a couchsurfer, a couple days before working my way to Antalya where I hope to see Tijen, another couchsurfer, and then to stay with yet another couchsurfer, Gunes, in Bodrum and then fly back to Istanbul from Izmir. I will stay a night with Dilek and pick up my big bag she let me leave in her apartment before flying out to Oregon and back to Oaxaca. Whew! I think when I get to Oaxaca and my own apartment and my own bed I won’t want to leave it for a month!

Map of Mediterranean Coast

After Antakya, I took the bus to Adana where I stayed with a lovely couchsurfing host, Gursel, and her daughter Nida in their beautiful high-rise flat.

The evening of my arrival we sampled traditional Turkish food in a popular restaurant. And later, Gursel took us to a specialty cafe that served a to-die-for dessert called Künefe, a shredded pastry with cheese, that is actually famous in Antakya…it’s origin. Lahmacun is a kind of Turkish pizza but my friend Dilek bristles at this comparison. And of course Kabob is skewered and grilled beef, chicken or lamb.

Kunefe

Lahmacun

Turkish Lamb Kabob

The highrises in the “new city” are chock-a-block together and there wasn’t much to see walking around from Gursel’s apartment. But no worries!  She spoiled me with home Turkish cooking and of course many good conversations over the three days I stayed with her. I also really enjoyed her bright vivacious daughter, Nida, who wants to study in the U.S. after high school.

Gursel had asked me to cook something for them but alas I was unprepared and couldn’t think of anything original on the spot except maybe Mexican food and of course there were no available ingredients. I’m sorry, Gursel! From now on I will be prepared for cooking for my hosts!

After having been in Thailand for several months I was not prepared for the cold spring in Turkey, so Gursel kindly gave me one of her sweat-shirts and a warm pull-over to sleep in. Thank goodness for Gursel! It was freezing cold all over Turkey!

One evening we visited a huge open but covered market where I bought some really sharp paring knives for $3US and a yummy soft leather bag $7US for my newly acquired iPad that was handed down from my son in Hong Kong. I was wishing I had room in my baggage for more!

The last day of my stay, Gursel drove us through bustling Old Town where we saw the tallest clock tower in Turkey and out to the Seyhan River and the Taskopru Bridge…a 4thC Roman bridge that has the Sabancı Central Mosque, the largest mosque in Turkey, at one end and the Hilton Hotel at the other. We wound up having a Turkish coffee at the lake behind the dam where locals spend time at the many coffee and tea houses on the banks.

Adana is Turkey’s 4th largest city, 2 million people, and is an agricultural and industrial boom town in the middle of the Cilician Plain…the commercial capital of the eastern mediterranean coast. Click on the photos to enlarge:

Manti

“Jimmy’s Place” behind the bus station, right in the center, welcomed me to Selcuk where I stayed for three days and took two tours. One to an ancient Greek city and the Temple of Apollo and the next day to Ephesus. I liked Selcuk with it’s ruins in plain view of the city center. And it’s espresso cafes where the waiters usually spoke English. Turkish guys are fun to talk to.

Ancient Greek City

Ancient City Center

Pillar Ruins

Temple of Apollo

Medusa

Ancient Road to Library and Theater

Library

Me and LiYu

LiYu, my former couchsurfer in Oaxaca last year had been a student at Colby College in Maine on a scholarship and had accompanied Gustavo Esteva, from Oaxaca, and a group of other American students on a one year tour to India, Thailand, New Zealand and finally to Oaxaca to study indigenous sustainability…not to teach…but to learn. At the end of her year with Gustavo she returned to Malaysia to find a way to implement what she had learned.

I fell in love with her in Oaxaca and so I jumped at the chance to join her and her family in their home in Kuala Lumpur for a couple days while renewing my tourist visa.

I had the luck of meeting her grandparents…Chinese immigrants to Malaysia and learned a bit of history.

Father, LiYu, grandfather, mother, grandmother

By the start of the second world war, Malaysia’s economy was flourishing with the output of tin and rubber, giving it great strategic importance. Malaysia fell under threat of a Japanese invasion when the American, British and Dutch governments froze essential raw materials and oil supplies to Japan. Japan was then forced to look to Southeast Asia for shipments. While Britain was preoccupied with defending itself against he threat of German invasion, the Japanese wasted no time to effect their occupation of Malaysia, commencing with the bombing of the beaches of Kota Bharu in Kelantan, and Singapore, on 8 December 1941.

The takeover continued almost without opposition as Commonwealth troops defending Malaysia were expecting invasion by sea and not by land. They were hopelessly and inadequately trained in jungle warfare and lacked ammunition, so fell to the invaders one by one. Malaysia was occupied for the next three and a half years by the Japanese.

On Feb 15th, 1942 Britain surrendered the Allied forces.

Within ten weeks the Japanese won control of Malaysia and Singapore. The dreaded Japanese secret police, the Kempetai subjected sympathisers to humiliation and torture especially the Malaysian Chinese sympathisers who were treated ruthlessly and executed.

Oppression of the Chinese community led to a resistance movement which moved to the jungle fringes. There was widespread unemployment and marked social and economic problems, destruction of mining equipment and decline in rubber and tin industries. An armed resistance movement against the Japanese was organised in the Malaysian jungle consisting mainly of Chinese men from The Malaysian Communist Party.

When the Japanese took control of Malaysia they put the Chinese in a sort of concentration camp…individual homes that were fenced off to contain the population. Very ironic. LiYu’s grandparents were among those and they still live in that original home in a seedy part of KL. Listening to them talk (through LiYu’s mom who translated) I came to realize why the Chinese are often the fiercest conservative bootstrappers. And finally understood why LiYu feels so constrained living at home with her parents who are quite controlling. You have to get out, I said to her. Yes I know, she said.

Met a really nice bright young Swiss guy in the breakfast room while at the Sarisanee who has been living in New Zealand. He talked up NZ and of course now I want to go there! He, a self-described punker when younger (you would never know it by looking at him) is living in Karamea on the West Coast of the South Island where apparently there is an enclave of “hippies.” Wikipedia says that in 2006 the population was 423! Wiki also says the Karamea township offers local services including a general store, supermarket, petrol pumps, information centre, cafe, hotel, camping ground, motels, backpackers and art and craft shop. Ha! Must have been written by one of those hippies!

The town sits on the estuary of the Karamea river, 100km north of Westport. A two-hour trip down the river from the gorge is a pleasant way to spend part of the day. Horticulture and dairy farming are important industries to the town.

Wonder how long they are going to keep this place a secret. Hmmmmm.

After traveling through central Thailand with Supaporn, I returned to Bangkok to get started on my dental plan at the Bangkok International Dental Clinic. My mainstay, the Queen Lotus Guesthouse just off Sukhumvit 20 welcomed me anew. I left my large bag there and took a bus to Pattaya to spend Christmas week with Bob…attending midnight mass with he and a friend of his who played Santa for all the little Thai kids.

Back in Bangkok again, I moved across the Chao Praya River to Thonburi about 10 minutes from the end of the BTS line. I think it may be the next cool area of Bangkok but at the moment it has little infrustructure for tourists. If I wanted a Thai neighborhood I sure got it! Even the taxi, coming from Sukhumvit, had a little trouble finding the Sarisanee Hotel. But at about $25 a night I got two big rooms with kitchenette and sitting area…about half of what I would pay on the Bangkok side of the river. I had the added advantage of not only being 10 minutes away from the skytrain but about the same distance to the river boats. A 90 minute trip upriver to Nonthaburi on the Bangkok side…past everything from the Oriental Hotel to old houses on stilts was lovely.

Dilek, I’m back home again, I blurted as I came tumbling through her door with my baggage in Bakirkoy, Istanbul.

Thankfully the weather turned warm so Dilek and I walked all over Bakirkoy for a few days before catching my Turkish Air flight to Portland Oregon on the 19th. Why do we “catch” a flight or a bus but not a boat? Oh well…

Bodrum and all it’s inlets and bays seen from Mediterranean hilltops is about as breathtaking as it gets. My Couchsurfing host, Gunes picked me up from the bus station after my 6 hour ride from Antalya and roared up the narrow winding roads in her little Fiat to her house on top of a hill. As I said to her, once in awhile you meet someone that is as crazy or crazier than you are! 🙂 I am so happy that Gunes is one of these! We understood each other perfectly! So much for stodgy old women! lol

She treated me to a couple trips around the bays and I enjoyed her home cooking, her hobby. It was so much fun trading travel stories and a bit of politics thrown in. The last day she treated me to seaside fish dinner when I should have been the one to treat her! I will be waiting for her in Oaxaca! She promised!

After the family reunion on Koh Samui I flew back to Bangkok for 3 days while I waited for my flight out and for more last minute dental work. And got to meet up with Tim who I knew from Couchsurfing forums and who was also waiting for his flight back to England. A lovely man!

Then I flew out to the Sultinate of Oman, a small Arab state on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emerates to the northeast, by Saudi Arabia to the west and Yemen to the southwest. Off the north coast is Iran, and on the south coast is the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman. At its narrowest, the strait is 21 nautical miles (39 km) wide.

It is on the Hormuz Strait which is the body of water between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. It is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world’s most strategically important choke points. About 20% of the world’s petroleum, and about 35% of the petroleum traded by sea, passes through the strait making it a highly important strategic location for international trade. (Which is why the U.S. has ships anchored there.)

Muscat is spread out for 40km along the coast. The whole metropolitan area of Muscat has about 800,000 people spread out over about 580 square miles with the rest of the population, mostly tribal, in small towns and villages in the mountains.

I was picked up at the airport by my Couchsurfing host who I stayed with for 3 days near Muscat…the capital city. She is from Australia but is in Oman teaching English. The day after I arrived, she needed to attend a meeting so she drove me to a gas station out on the highway where I could pick up a taxi to the Mutrah Souk (indoor market with winding aisles and goods galore), sit along the corniche in view of the sea and just people watch. There is a port here (there were 2 cruise ships docked here) so the locals are used to seeing tourists walking around in this part of Oman.

It was my great good luck to be in Oman during the Muscat Festival when Omani customs and practices were demonstrated and we had permission to take photos of people although some women did wave us away. At the airport, upon arrival, I was given a bag with a cup, a thumb drive, a white polo shirt, a couple promotional DVD’s concentrating on eco-tourism and a slick-backed tourist book listing the week’s festivities which included an international biking competition through the mountains.

Click on this link for a video:
Omani Tribal Ritual

After the third night with my host I moved to a hotel, the Husin Al Khaleej Hotel Apartments (a huge suite of rooms apparently for big families) for about $30US) in Seeb City Center, a coastal newish middle income section with large homes, located several kilometres northwest of Muscat City. No tourists there!

My own experience as a solo foreign woman was interesting indeed. I saw no foreigners in a week in the country other than Europeans who got off cruise ships at the port in Old Muscat. And a few young people headed into the mountains to off-road in the mountain washes. And I was the only foreigner that I saw in Seeb City. I saw only a handfull of women on the street although I did go to a mall about 20 minutes away by taxi where I saw plenty of women…all covered of course.

So where to eat. There were a few Turkish tea houses nearby with men only that opened about 4pm until about 4am. So I asked the Muslim receptionist in the hotel where I could find typical Omani food. She sent me to a restaurant with a narrow walkup to several small tiny private rooms where I sat on the floor and ate alone. I should have paid attention to this.

The next couple days I walked down from the hotel a couple blocks and found 2-3 small take-out cafes. I ordered and ate at a table on the sidewalk in front…crossing my legs and having a cigarette after. Finally (low-wage people are usually Indians) I got the feeling that the Indian waiters were uncomfortable with me there. On the third day one of them handed me a menu and told me in English to go back to my hotel and call in with an order and they would deliver it.

I noticed that hardly anyone went into these cafes either to eat or to take out. Men would drive up on the service road and honk. A waiter would run out, take the order and return with it whereupon the men would drive off…presumably to their homes or work. I also have to say that no Omani men looked at me in a lewd way. In fact they didn’t look at me directly at all and I didn’t look directly at them. But I felt very conspicuous and I found myself oddly wishing I could cover up like the local women. Even though I had been in Muslim countries before (Egypt and Morocco) in the past, I was in areas that were either inundated with foreign tourists or in big cities like Cairo. And indeed in Egypt I WAS propositioned. “30 minutes I give you banana.” Whatttt? I see no bananas. Duhhh!

What I didn’t know while in traditional Oman was that people, when they are not working, mostly stay home.

Homes Are Peaceful Abodes For Muslims

So, I was a woman…a foreign woman…dressed in (what in virtually every other country I have been in recently…even Turkey) the ubiquitous black tights and top. And I was on public display. I still want to talk to my couchsurfing host about this.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have never seen so many stray cats in a country. The people put food outside their doorways to feed them. Dogs too. The surprising thing is they are so mild and gentle and approachable. Never seen an approachable cat before! I think this says a lot about the people here. They treat animals with love and care and it is a joy to watch.

And they love children! A month here and I’ve never seen anyone give a child a harsh word. Visiting a family on a Friday…their Sunday…with a 7 month old baby in Adana with my couchsurfing host, the whole extended family was waiting in the living room for the child to wake up. The word came. All 7 of them jumped up to run to the child’s room…hovering over the crib. Oh, I thought, all these big people staring down at him will frighten him. But he wasn’t frightened at all. He just looked at first one person and then the other with a big grin on his face. They brought him out to the living room with a blanket on the floor. I had to laugh at all the ridiculous “baby sounds” the family was making…especially…I noticed…an older uncle. lol. They were so proud of this child!

In the breakfast room early this morning I had a warm conversation with one of the pansiyon employees. There is an old resident dog and as I was sitting out on the patio with my coffee petting her, the breakfast manager brought out some pieces of buttered bread. She is fat, I said, smiling. But she likes buttered bread, he said. It is delicious for her! 🙂

He said he has two children, 7 and 4. I asked him about the schools here. The schools don’t cost money but there are a lot of other expenses. There is morning school and afternoon school…split schedules…because there is not enough money for schools. Then suddenly he says, “I love my children!” And pulled out his phone to show me their photos.

I told him that in the month I have been in Turkey I have found the people to very gentle and kind. Why is this, I asked. He said, we are mostly a Muslim country. It is in our character. We must not be rude. I told him that I wished people in America knew this…because all they hear and see in the media are the words and actions of the militant jihadists. However another Turk…a modern secular one…says she thinks it’s an individual thing…people are either kind or they aren’t just like in any other country. So there you have it. Well, I’ve only been here a month and haven’t had time to drill down into the bias, prejudices, loves and hates that exist in every country and every culture.

The breakfast manager has been reading an autobiography of Ataturk. Ataturk is very important to us, he said. As the conversations progressed to world affairs he said that there are about 10 American military installations in Turkey. He added that 85% of Turks hate America. They killed one and a half million muslims in Iraq, he said. It is unbelievable, he said! Your defense minister lied. They said they were bringing democracy. What good is democracy if you are dead, he said. They just wanted the petrol. I was sick to my stomach… knowing Iraq didn’t have to happen.

Breakfast Table

Then we moved on to domestic matters. Seeing an old woman walk by in the street he said, “That is my boss!” Her three sons own and run the Pansiyon. “But when she says something it is finished, he said!” I said that families in Mexico are like that too. People there say I am a bad mother because I “let” my sons, in their 40’s, leave home to live in Hong Kong and Thailand. “Why you let them live there, they ask! I told my Turkish breakfast friend that when I tell my sons to do something they just roll their eyes and say “Moooommmm!” We laughed.

And now I have to go to thank the Pansiyon employees for a wonderful week here in Antalya and go catch a bus to Bodrum where I will stay with Gunes (which means sun in Turkish), another Couchsurfing host.

I left Adana by plane for Antalya.  Outside the Arrivals Hall I asked a gentleman if he spoke English. He didn’t but another one with a very busy 4-year old in tow, overhearing me, asked if I needed help. The city  was a considerable distance from the airport. “Do the Red buses leave everyone off at the same place in the city?”  Yes, he said, but my friend can give us a ride into town. Oh my, I thought!  Ever since I arrived the Turks have been friendly and generous everywhere! He even gave me a Turkish pastry to eat on the way!

I am staying in the Kaleiçi (KAH-leh-ee-chee) a castle ruins at the center of the sprawling modern city which was a Roman town, then the Byzantine, then the Seljuk Turkish, and finally the Ottoman town.   There are oodles of shops, boutique hotels, guesthouses and restaurants along the narrow winding walking streets. I am staying at the Sabah Pansiyon…with breakfast…very friendly and helpful staff. And wifi in my room!  It’s a short distance to both the city center and the many coffee houses that line the beaches.  So the easy walking has been a pleasure.

I had to laugh today at an outdoor cafe with a view of the Taurus Mountains. About 40 German guys took nearly all the tables and chairs and ordered beer. The first one took a taste and made a face! lol. Turkish beer not so good?! ha! Then a Turkish guy tried to sell them all cologne and perfume. They had great fun with that!

I’ve been corresponding with a woman in Germany. When she read my blog and saw that Antalya was full of Germans she said:

The place where you are staying sounds very romantic. I know I would enjoy it there. The pension inside the ruin makes it even more romantic. I wish I could join you, but I don´t think I would like meeting so many Germans. I hope they behave and respect the country and the customs. There are reasonable ‘packages’ for a vacation in Turkey, so that must be the reason, why so many Germans are there now. We had a very tough and long winter . The sun has been out for the last two or three days, but next week, winter will be back again.

I assured her the Germans here were very well-behaved and gracious. lol I told her I felt sorry for these Germans. Cold in Germany and it’s been damn cold here!

Taurus Mountains

I have never seen so many stray cats in a country. The people put food outside their doorways to feed them. Dogs too. The surprising thing is they are so mild and gentle and approachable. Never seen an approachable cat before! I think this says a lot about the people here. They treat animals with love and care and it is a joy to watch.

I called another couchsurfer and a food writer, Tijen, whom I had had lunch with in Bangkok a couple of years ago. I was delighted to find that she lived only about a 10 minute walk to my pensyon in the Castle.  She cooked a lovely vegetarian lunch for me…steamed artichoke hearts with oil and lemon and a lentil salad. Says she:

“Green lentils with dried eggplants, wild leeks and dried tomatoes (I just soaked green lentils in water for few hours, then add all of them in the pot with some water and cooked it down. Of course there is salt, pepper, cumin seeds and olive oil. You can use normal leeks or onions, doesn’t matter. Buon appetite!”

The next day we had a breakfast of Borek, a wonderful Turkish pastry made by an old Borek Master in his tiny three-table restaurant. He learned it from his older brother and his uncle, Tijen said. Watch the video below showing how Borak is made:

Making Borak

Well, Tijen surprised me this morning and came by my pensyon to see if I needed anything. So I walked her back to her apartment and on the way we stopped and bought a bus ticket for tomorrow at noon to Bodrum. Thank God! I would have gone to the bus station not knowing there was only one bus a day and might have missed it! I told her she was my angel! She is leaving in the morning for Morocco. She is lucky she can travel all over the world for her work…writing food articles.

This morning in the breakfast room I talked again with a tall blond Danish guy…about 50. A former journalist, he is enraged by the lack of transparency and the corruption in Denmark! And the stupidity of the EU. Of all places! That should tell you a lot about all the other countries! When he described his Prime Minister I told him she sounded like our Sarah Palin. “Worse!” he said! She’s never worked…just always been a politician/bureaucrat. He actually said a lot of other things too I won’t repeat here.

I’ve always said that people running for government office should be required to have some time in the workplace first. He’s been aggravating government officials with letters and questions he doesn’t get answers to. He is afraid they will find a way to nail him and shut him up. So he is writing a book. He’s supposed to be here resting from all the controversy but it’s so cold he has been miserable…and we’ve both gotten chest colds…we think from the unclean air con/heating units in the rooms. I told him I was sorry to get him revved up again but he said no, it’s all just going round and round in his head anyway and that it was good to talk. I hope so.

I caved in this afternoon and had my first Burger King in 5 months!

The Big Deals...Josh, Greg, Doug

Me And Greg

It had been Christmas 15 years ago, Josh remembered, when the whole family…Bob, Greg, Josh, Doug and I…had been all together at one place at the same time.

Bob Charmed The Help

Luk, Doug's Thai Wife

Polly, Josh's SO

So Bob, retired from his pediatric practice in Salem, Oregon and realizing we weren’t getting any younger, rented a resort villa on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand where Doug lives part of the year in a rented bungalow with his Thai wife Luk. We chose Thailand because Doug was already there and it was easier than trying to get Luk a tourist visa to any other country.

Josh brought his Cantonese significant other, Polly, from Hong Kong where he lives and works as the Executive Chef at the American Club. (Not that it has anything to do with America!) Greg had taken off a couple weeks of his anesthesiology practice in Las Vegas to meet Josh in Hong Kong and then spend a few days in Hanoi together before flying down to Samui. Bob flew in from Pattaya where golf is his life. In November 2012 I had flown in from Oaxaca Mexico where I live so it was no problem to fly down from Bangkok where I had been sitting in a dental chair for days.

Four whole days together was wonderful but it was just about the right amount of time for resort living. We all had our own villas right on the ocean. Several Thai girls and a cook were at our beck and call. They spread out an elegant breakfast of our choice each morning by the pool. A massage table by the pool was ready for us. Doug and I had rented a pick-up and Josh and Greg rented motorbikes to run around the island. The only decisions we had to make were what to eat the rest of the day.

Sitting there watching the boys in the water I shivered remembering Christmas of 2004 when Doug and Luk almost lost their lives in their bungalow 14 feet from the water when the tsunami hit the Krabi coast. About 8 in the morning Doug heard what he thought was a bomb. Lukily they had the doors and windows closed. When he pulled back the curtains to the sliding doors, the water was engulfing the entire bungalow. When the first wave went out they grabbed their phones and ran up the hill behind the house.

But then Luk wouldn’t live on the Krabi beach anymore. She said there were many ghosts and she wouldn’t eat the fish because she said the fish had eaten the people. So Doug had rented a pickup to move them to Koh Samui on the other side of the Thai peninsula in the Gulf of Thailand. I was in Bangkok at the time and seeing the news on TV I was frantic. But after 30 minutes of trying to get through to them on the phone I heard those sweet sweet voices. A movie about the tsunami is in the theaters now called “Impossible.” I can’t bear to see it.

Anyway, this was the first time any of us had experienced a self-contained resort like this. But as we were all very familiar with Thailand and Thai life, we weren’t sacrificing anything by isolating ourselves. We did remark how sad it is that many people only experience a country in this way though. Our time together ended with “When are we going to do this again?” All of us looking at Bob who footed the bill! LOL

My Christmas this year was quietly spent in Oaxaca. As with any holiday season I get many greetings from friends. But the ones from Patty are always especially rewarding.

A bit about my Mexican-American friend. She married a Mexican National in the states, left all her family there, gave up her home and moved to Mexico with Jose to begin his legalization process. This entailed a hefty fine for his being in the States as an undocumented person and a long drawn-out and expensive and bureaucratic process. It has been 6 years and they are still in Mexico with little hope of getting the money together. So they are barely making it with Patty teaching English to young folks in her home and Jose trying to get work as a mechanic even though he has a college degree in it.

Patty’s Christmas letter 2012
“Well, we’ve made it to the end of the year and despite all of the dire predictions, we partied like it was…going to be 2013 in a matter of days!

With the help of some of my 40+ past and current students and their families we celebrated with as much hope and joy as possible and in the process consumed 150 cupcakes; 400 cookies (sugary stars, frosted Christmas trees, chocolate chip and strawberry filled); 60 quarts of piping hot homemade fruit punch (guayabas, apples, whole sugarcane, tejocote, raisins, plums and piloncio boiled for about 4 hours); and bowls of mole, beans and rice, and just about anything else that happened to wander by.

Thank you all so much for the wonderful e-mails and prayers that have been great company this entire year. I always look forward to hearing from you. When things get particularly tough I gather all of your Love close to my heart, and always seem to find myself on the other side.

The Mayans didn’t predict the end of the world, but rather the end of one cycle, and the beginning of another. In this New Beginning I pray that all of your days are filled with enough Love, Joy and Laughter to get you through whatever difficulties you may encounter along the way. And, as always celebrate the good stuff and kick the junk to the side.

Patty’s “letter” on behalf of Jose:

“What Jose Roberto Did While I Was Busy Trying Not To Get Whacked By The Crazed Mob That Was Chasing Swinging Piñatas…”

“This is what happens when you leave a guy alone for way too long, with too many loose ends-or metal pieces.

Though Jose comes from a long line of stone sculptors (endless cousins and uncles with a multitude of workshops in the neighboring town of Escolasticas) most of whom make a livingselling their beautiful artistry around the world, Jose has never shown much of an interest. As most of you know he works as a mechanic alongside his brother, Carlos. Unfortunately, lately there hasn’t been as much work as we could hope for. Usually, he and his brother sell damaged car parts to a local recycler, but unexpectedly, Jose said he was bored and starting to get a little stressed-out, when he decided that he would take some of those used car parts and create something else.

As you can see he has been busy even if he hasn’t had too many cars to repair.

The first piece he made was Don Quixote which he just sold on Christmas Eve for $300 pesos-about $24 dollars. He has another request for Don Quixote’s sidekick, Sancho Panza.

Jose was nice enough to create a statue of a figure seated with a book (actually a small, rustydoor hinge) in its hands, aptly named the “Student.” I raffled off the Student at our students’Christmas party. Each attendee received a ticket, including their family and friends. The interesting thing is that of the dozens of people present, the statue went to one of my younger students who really struggles to read and to retain information (I suspect he is autistic). God knew what He was doing. The little boy was beyond thrilled and was absolutely beaming with a smile that could hardly fit on his little face!

I don’t think I could be prouder of Jose, and if nothing else, he brought a bit of joy to my little student and his family.

Once again, Jose has shown me that when things look the bleakest, it’s the perfect time to do something for pure pleasure. And, within that, there might just be something more, something beyond the obvious. Something unexpected, and really sweet and good, for more than just ourselves.

I hope your Holiday Season is as Blessed and Joy-filled as ours.

My response:
I wish more people in the world were as good and unselfish as you and Jose. You are wonderful models for the Mexican people around you. As with our Latino high school drop-outs in our alternative education program, we just felt like we were planting seeds. You may not always immediately see the happy results of your labors…just know that you are indeed making a difference in people’s lives. They will think back on what you have modeled for them. It’s what makes life worthwhile.

I may have told you this. A baby sitter in LA from a Chinese family a couple doors up from us found me on FB about a year ago. She called me and told me what an influence we had on her at the age of 12. She used to go through our books and skim them while sitting the kids which she said opened up her world. She expressed such gratitude, it made tears come to my eyes. She since went to college and is now married to a pediatrician (!) and has a lovely family. We never know how we affect people. It was almost scary to me to realize why it is such a great responsibility to model healthy behavior. I get similar feedback from former CREATE students who are on FB with me. (Thanks to modern technology) It makes my life worthwhile. 🙂

And thanks for being such a good partner for each other.
Abrazos,
Zoe

A couple nights ago I went to the Thailand Foreign Exchange Club in the penthouse of the Maneeya Building to sit at the bar along with all the foreign correspondents and reporters and see a documentary and listen to a panel of speakers about the repatriation (or not) of the 160,000 Burmese refugees in the camps in Thailand along the Burmese border.

As with everything else in the world, this issue is incredibly complicated too. Apparently the Burmese army didn’t get the memo about the cease-fire in a dirty war against the Shan, Karen and Mon minorities. There is no political stability or rule of law and many of the refugees either have no place to go back to because their land was confiscated and homes burned or they are petrified of violence perpetrated by the Army. With no transparency, rumors and tension abound. The UN is supposed to be coordinating this but they are kept in the dark too by the Burmese government who is calling the shots (so to speak) and no one seems to know what will happen…and killings and rapes go on with impunity.

In this information vacuum and continuing threat of violence, the minorities have issued some conditions: A nationwide ceasefire between the ethnic armed groups and the Army, rule of law and human rights improved, military bases withdrawn in the areas where they would return, landmines in areas cleared in areas where refugees would return, minority representatives must be at the table during planning and decision making and implementation. The repatriation process must conform with international principles of repatriation ensuring that refugees would return voluntarily and in safety and dignity and that those who do not wish to return to their original place can choose to live elsewhere. This last one will be particularly sticky with the Thai government. This will take years.

During the Q&A a guy stood at the microphone and started ranting loudly and vociferously about the lack of care and attention being given to the Rohingya Muslims who are native to Burma, but who are ethno-linguistically related to the Indo-Aryan peoples of India and Bangladesh (as opposed to the Sino-Tibetan people of Burma). The region of Rakhine (Arakan) was annexed and occupied by Burma in the 1700s thus bringing the Rohingya people under Burmese occupation.

As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Burma. According to the UN, they are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Many Rohingya have fled to ghettos and refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, and to areas along the Thai-Myanmar border.

This was all brewing of course 10 years ago (indeed for the last 30 years) when we visited Burma and found the people to be sweet and very friendly. They were hungry to talk to foreigners if they could speak some English…usually the people who had been English teachers before India left. (See my other blog entries re Burma) Now with the opening of Burma it’s all coming to a head.

In the Burma Couchsurfing group I think every backpacker in SE Asia will be there this winter…hopefully witnessing but avoiding harm if they are sensible enough to not try and sneak their way into the border areas.

From rice fields to the Royal Bangkok Sport Club! Took a short cut yesterday, saved money on a taxi, and hiked a trail across the golf course of the club. On through a construction area where a guy let me through a door in an iron wall and then out onto the sidewalk and the Rachadamri skytrain (BTS) station. My friend, Wera, who I had been having a 3-hour lunch with at the club, calls it “the electric train.” 🙂

Wera spent 4 years in the late 50’s and early 60’s getting an engineering degree in Michigan and returned to work on various dam projects in Thailand from north to south and has been a member of this club for 40 years.

But Wera also has traveled all over the states…often studying in Buddhist temples, and is just as familiar with U.S. politics and policy as he is of Thailand’s… which is hilariously complicated if it wasn’t so sad. Ex-PM Abhisit has just been charged with murder for ordering the Army (because he had no control over the police who were sympathetic to the demonstrators) to disperse the Red Shirt demonstrations in 2010 when over 90 people were killed. The politicos in Mexico should be watching this.

Anyway, I peruse the Bangkok Post every morning at breakfast downstairs in my guesthouse. The paper is usually quite entertaining…with bits of perversity as well as the latest news. The letters to the editor are best….

Time out. I am sitting in the Exchange Tower right now, looking out through a third-story plate glass window with a view of Sukhumvit Road. An especially dark-skinned fellow is walking on artificial limbs among the lanes of traffic asking for money. I suspect a land mine casualty in Burma or Cambodia. All of a sudden my expensive coffee in my upscale cafe has become bitter….

…………………………..

Back to the Bangkok Post. One of the letters to the editor in the BP was about Thai food being loaded with MSG. Whether this is true or not I have no idea, but the writer notes that visiting dignitaries are not given food with MSG. Now I’m thinking it may not just be the walking and heat that makes me tired by the afternoon in Thailand. Hmmmm. Think I might try finding some restaurants that don’t use MSG in lieu of street food and see if it makes a difference in my energy level.

Each day I pick one “big thing” to do after breakfast. It usually involves riding the sky train or the subway. It might be a dentist appointment. This week I will have lunch with my friend Jiraporn who spent 10 years at Oregon State University getting her doctorate in fisheries and who is a professor at Kasetsart University. She is giving back 5 years to the University for financing her doctorate. She will tell me about how the students aren’t interested in studying…they just want the status of having the degree. And all the “Old Head” professors there drive her nuts. I think 10 years in the states has made her a little too independent for Thailand! ha!

Or spend a couple hours in front of the Landmark Hotel people watching and checking email and FB on my iPhone along with all the other Thais. Then stroll over to the middle eastern or Indian streets for lunch and more people-watching…all Indians and people from the ME.

This year I hope to meet up with Dave Thompson, married to Syy, who I traveled with a bit 2 years ago when we went to visit Syy’s two-house village!. By coincidence they are in Thailand again the same time I am this year. Check out Dave’s Travel Corner…his travel web site. Dave has given me the name of a Couchsurfer in Oman I am hoping to contact before I get there in February.

Or I might get another two-hour massage. Or have coffee with a retired couple from Oregon who live here now. Or look up a “friend” I met on FB who lives in BKK. She’s youngish so I’m hoping she will humor me with a night out together. Jazz or Dubstep would be just fine with me.

Oh, can’t forget my Yellow Shirt activist friend who adopts homeless cats. He, who was at the airport and one of the Yellow Shirt guards who was arrested when the Yellow Shirts took over the airport in 2009, will give me the straight-on anti-Taksin story…with all the expletives included.

Usually when in Bangkok I catch a talk or a press conference about some current issue at the Thailand Foreign Correspondents’ Club in the penthouse of the Maneeya building at the Mo Chit BTS exit. They have a bar and restaurant and it’s fun to chat with the foreign correspondents there. One year I was privileged to hear Sharon Ebadi speak. She won the Peace Prize as an attorney defending the some 200 imprisoned journalists (at the time) in Iran. This year I saw a documentary and panel discussion about the repatriation of Burmese refugees along the Thai border.

Watching the people on the BTS is especially fun and during business rush hours it can be an interesting experience to be standing jammed up against each other. Oh well, you get touching where you can get it I guess! ha! I watch to see whether the young ones get up to give their seats to an older person. Amazingly many do, which would never happen in the U.S., but others, mostly naughty young guys with spiky hair just streak to the nearest empty seat. tsk tsk. I’ve even had a young girl giving me her seat. Most public areas in BKK has free wifi so virtually all the young ones are glued to their iPhones and iPads on the ride.

The iPad story is interesting too. When I had dinner in BKK with my husband there were several other Thais present…one with his 6 year old son. The government is trying to upgrade the education of youth and are trying to get parents involved in this effort. So iPads from China are being distributed free to each child. The school has it’s own Facebook page and each child has his/her own FB page. Instructions for homework are given to both child and the parents. Homework is even corrected on the child’s FB page. An incredibe innovative idea. So that’s why they all have iPads.

Tourist attractions have lost their appeal. I love searching out nicks and crannies where I’ve never been before. It is like treasure hunting. And it is endless. And so much fun for me after spending a year and a half at a time in my little town of Oaxaca. Back in my aircon guest room I take a shower and flop on the bed. Maybe fall asleep exhausted.

I don’t go out tromping around every day though…gotta take a down day every 2-3 days and just hang out in my room…in the aircon…with the wifi and my computer…sorting and posting photos. Then go across the alleyway from the guesthouse to a shop-house for a bowl of noodle soup for dinner and then around the corner to soi 20 for one of those little sugared banana crepes (roti’s)…usually made by Muslims for some reason.

Since I’ve been coming to Bankok for the last ten years, Sukhumvit sois 20 and 22 has become my little neighborhood and vendors, shop-house cooks and hotel workers remember me each year. Wera says that’s how they charm me! ha! Today I ate a bowl of Khao Soi at my favorite little eating spot. “Where friend?” the owner asks…referring to my husband who eats here whenever he comes to BKK.

And today I had a rousing irreverent conversation with the British owner of “Som’s Guesthouse” both of us venting about the noise, garbage and traffic and what seems to us like perverse cultural habits in our chosen expat countries. But in the end we agreed that we choose the freedom of living in anarchic chaotic countries rather than the anal tight-ass countries of our birth. And then we laugh…understanding each other perfectly. But it’s time to move on from the Sukhumvit area full of tourists…although they are fun to watch too. When I get back from Christmas in Pattaya I’ll stay in a cheap hotel in Thonburi and explore Thai neighborhoods on the other side of the river.

So for those of you who ask what I do every day by myself in Bangkok…there you have it…sort of…

Doug, my son, flew into Bangkok yesterday from Oregon to fly out again two days later to spend his annual several months with his wife, Luk, on the island of Koh Samui. We had a bit of a scare just before he arrived because a scheduled utility maintenance on undersea trunk wires went bad and Koh Samui and Koh Phagnan were both out of electricity for several days. It went back on in the morning just before he flew in to Koh Samui so Luk, my daughter-in-law, was ecstatic…saying that Doug bring the electricity with him! 😉

Tourists were leaving the islands left and right and Thailand has reportedly lost 1.2 billion baht in income. Poor Thailand. I was in Thailand for the 2004 tsunami where Doug and Luk nearly lost their lives in their bungalow on the Krabi beach, 2006 for the last coup, 2009-10 for the Red Shirt Rally and in 2012 for the Yellow Shirt Rally. If it isn’t one thing it’s another.

I’ve written about the tsunami on this blog where Doug and Luk nearly lost their lives in their bungalow on a Krabi Beach on December 4, 2004. I was in Bangkok at the time and nearly had a heart attack when I came back to my hotel and switched on the TV to get the daily news. Half hour later I was able to get through to them, however. What sweet voices! Doug immediately hired a pickup to take them to the other side of the Thai peninsula to live. Luk said there were ghosts on Krabi and she wouldn’t eat the fish because they had eaten the people. So that is why they live on Samui instead of on Krabi…a place we all dearly loved.

On Dec 22nd I’ll take a bus to Pattaya about an hour west and spend Christmas week with my husband…or Oregon Bob…as his golf club buddies refer to him because there are 3 Bobs in the group. He wants to cook a turkey for me and his golfing friends. He says he needs someone to peel potatoes! hahahahaha!