Opportunity Knocks

“In one of these dreams, you forgive me
It makes me think of the bad decisions that keep you at home
How could anyone else have changed?
All these wrong conclusions that leave you alone
How could everyone rearrange?
How could everyone else have changed?
What I see,
I believe”
-Counting Crows, I Wish I Was a Girl

HIATUS

“Ellen Cherry understood then that religion was an improper response to the Divine.
Religion was an attempt to pin down the Divine. The Divine was eternally in flux, forever moving, shifting shape. That was its nature. It was absolute, true enough: absolutely mobile. Absolutely transcendent. Absolutely flexible. Absolutely impersonal. It had its god and goddess aspects, but it was ultimately no more male or female than it was star or screwdriver. It was the sum of all those things, but that sum could never be chalked on a slate. The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was creation divided by destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of the soul, the dull of wit, weren’t content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions (anger, jealousy, etc) to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.
The Divine was expansive, but religion was reductive. Religion attempted to reduce the Divine to a knowable quantity with which mortals might efficiently deal, to pigeonhole it once and for all so that we never had to reevaluate it. With hammers of cant and spikes of dogma, we crucified and crucified again, trying to nail to our stationary alters the migratory light of the world. Thus, since religion bore false witness to the Divine, religion was blasphemy. And once it entered into its unholy alliance with politics, it became the most dangerous and repressive force that the world has ever known. –Tom Robbins,  Skinny Legs and All

Well, hello there. Regrettably, I had to leave Indonesia (NO, I was not deported), but happily, I am now in Thailand once again, land of smiles and cheap beach side bungalows. Lake Toba was a pretty spectacular place, though at some times it felt a bit deserted. Not that I mind having the thing to myself, but it’s really sad to see such a beautiful place with what was formerly a thriving tourist industry now just very quiet. I actually felt a pang of guilt when I was leaving, like my patronage was vital to the local economy. While this is not exactly the case, it is nonetheless not a feeling I’ve had before.
From Indonesia, I took a string of long bus and boat rides back up to Thailand, stopping in Malaysia for only a day to catch my breath. On one of the bus rides, I meet a woman who recommended a place to me called Railay Beach. While I’ve never heard of it, I don’t really have any other plans, so I head there. Once off the boat, I spend considerable time and effort lugging my pack around, searching for a reasonably priced place to stay. Eventually I meet Erich, a backpacker from Berlin, equally dismayed by accommodation, and we end up splitting a bungalow.
Railay is a pretty nice place, even if one of the beaches turns to a landfill at low tide. The rest of the beaches are clean and the water inviting. Also, it’s a sort of mecca for rock climbers, with cliffs and jungle-like hiking everywhere, so there’s plenty to do. If you climb up the side of one cliff via frayed and questionable rope, supposedly, you then may descend into a hidden lagoon. So Erich and I attempt to find this place, but there are too many paths and not enough maps. So who needs paths, right? To my mind, if the lagoon is in the middle of the mountain, then one should be able to scale the thing-path or no path-and thereby reach said lagoon. So we go off road. It was no small feat, but we did make it to the top…only to find no lagoon in sight. Oh well, at least we can brag about climbing the thing in unsuitable shoes and without ropes or hooks like those pansy professional climbers. So then we go back down, get lunch, and climb the mountain again, vowing to find the lagoon or die trying.

This time we have a better idea of where we’re going, and do eventually find the lagoon. It was…lagoonish. Quiet and peaceful enough, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something lurking beneath me when I went out into the water.

The next day, I booked a one-day snorkeling tour on a speed boat around the islands of Phi-Phi (I still giggle every time I say it). It was good snorkeling, but I did get a little sea sick, so I was lucky that there was a girl on my boat who had pills to fight it. The tour took us, among other places, to the beach where “The Beach” was filmed. I never actually saw the movie, but for anyone who did…yeah.

That evening marked my first and hopefully last experience with taking a “shortcut” through the jungle in the darkness with naught but my puny Swiss army knife flashlight to guide me.

At this point, Erich and I part ways, but I haven’t gotten quite enough sun (or so I thought) so I head to yet another beach, Ko Lanta. Here, for reasons I cannot guess, I am stricken with a bout of nausea and exhaustion so strong that I spend 72 hours virtually unable to move from my bed. When I do attempt to go out for water, I am unable to take more than just a few steps without puking. Attractive. Yesterday, I felt better and finally saw something resembling an appetite, which is good because a lot of today will be spent traveling back towards Bangkok. I’ve already spent about 2 hours on the minibus from hell. I’m not kidding. This driver was so terrible, you’d have thought he came from Cairo. But that is behind me now, and I have 4 hours to kill in Krabi, where I will probably rent a motorbike once again and go checkout a place called Tiger Temple. Grr.

I’m doing serious beach time lately, so count on a new blog in the next week or so.  Until then, I put up some more pictures.  I’m of space again on webshots and had to start a new account.  You can find them at: http://community.webshots.com/user/blairnorene .

I figure I’ll just keep using different name combinations until I run out.  Too bad I’m not Catholic.

“A fool wishes to know no more about what drives him than simply that it does. A judicious man will seek his motivations, but in the end, find himself merely a more worthy fool.” -Max Berlin

Soo, a bit has happened since the last entry. The majority of it took place more recently, but I would like to share a particular irrelevant story with you from earlier before getting into it. I took a bus from K.L. to Singapore, slated to arrive around 12:30 at night. I get to customs around midnight, and go through the motions-bag on the belt, smile at the guards, hope they don’t want me to open it; they do. Now, what, in this situation-a security check at a country border, surrounded by armed men, at a particularly strained time for large backpacks in our world’s history- could be the worst conceivable move on my part? If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s something like occured. On the way there, I saw a couple of small roaches on the bus, which is nasty, but they were small. I go to open my bag, and sitting there is the mother of all roaches, looking right at me. So, naturally, I scream like a girl and stumble wildly backwards, causing the 6 men with guns surrounding me to jump and scream like girls too. In hindsight, it would make for a funny scene in a movie, but in reality, it’s probably not one of the best reactions I could have had. Then, to top it off, the bus left me! There was one older man behind me in the customs line, who said he’d go tell them to wait, while I and six grown men went “Ew! Ew!” and picked items one at a time out of my bag, looking for one giant, crafty roach. After a short period, I was forced to concede that the bug had eluded us at present, and I had better get going or I wouldn’t have a ride. When I arrived outside, the old man was there, but he said, “They left us. I tried to run after them and I waved at them, but he just left.” Luckily, Singapore is small, and we were only about 20 km out of the city center, so (as ours was the last bus of the evening), two nice gentlemen gave us a ride to the nearest taxi stand, and from there, we split a taxi into town. I never did learn his name, but he was very friendly. He spent the ride telling me about Singapore and how clean and safe it was (and he was absolutely correct in this). When the cab dropped him off first, he bid me a good journey, and pointing at me like a caring old relative said, “buckle up and then you’ll really be safe in Singapore.”

Other than that, Singapore passed without much incident. Once again, I stumbled onto a parade and fireworks display for the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Otherwise, I sort of felt like I was back in Europe and was much spoiled by Starbucks, a large flat screen tv in the hostel, and the LOTR trilogy. Once I left there, I just sort of haphazardly threw myself onto a multitude of buses for the next three days with the vague idea of going back to Thailand…but in the end, I met an English girl just come from Indonesia, who, after some persuasive stories, convinced me I should go there while I’m “in the area” as it were. I took a five hour ferry from Malaysia to Medan, the capitol city of the largest of the Indonesian islands, Sumatra. Medan doesn’t do much for me. I’m actually there right now. It’s crowded, home to a good 10 million people, and it’s polluted and noisy. My initial intentions were to head to a little place in north Sumatra called Pulau Weh, where there is supposed to be an excellent beach and snorkeling. But then I get to talking to the travel agent, and decide instead upon a 2 day trek through the Indonesian rain forest in search of orangutans. I take a bus from the city to a village about 3 hours away called Bukit Lawang, accompanied by my guide, Udin, who introduces himself first and foremost as “Jungle Boy”.

By the time we reach the village, there’s a pretty violent storm going on. I ask idiotically if it rains like this often, to which Udin replies, “it is the rainforest.” It’s a short drive via motorbike from bus station to guesthouse, which we make, bags and all, in the pouring rain. When we arrive, I am immediately faced with the narrowest, ricketiest bridge I have ever seen. Add this to the fact that it runs over very troubled water, it’s completely dark (minus the occasional lightening menacing overhead), it’s pouring, I have an unevenly distributed 60 lbs on my back and am wearing an ankle length skirt, sopping wet. The best advice I attain from my Indonesian escort? “Don’t worry. Chicken curry.”

I stay the first night in the village, intending to leave for the trek the next morning, but decide to just hang out for a day first, on the word that there might be a few more tourists wanting to go the next day. In the meantime, Udin takes me to the weekly market and to his house to meet his wife and two adorable children and I get a chance to familiarize myself with a few of the locals. Next morning, Udin and I head into the jungle with another group of two Dutch girls doing a one day trek. Pretty early on, we see a bunch of Thomas Monkeys, and then shortly after, a breed of Long-Tailed something or other. Then, about 45 minutes in, we spot an orangutan. All in all, we saw 4 orangutans, one with a baby, and one, sadly, with a dead baby. Udin is impressed with my agility in trekking over rocks and roots, and I am forced to “open my secret”-as they say in Russia-and am obliged to tell him that I am not truly an authentic city girl, but in fact grew up in the backwoods of Texas. Aside from the monkeys, the jungle itself was a pretty amazing place. We came in and out of contact with the river, which unfortunately was all cloudy due to a landslide upstream the day I arrived. (I have that effect on terrain) We have to cross it on one occasion, and in doing so, Udin takes my hand. I’m not especially keen on the whole “you’re a girl; you need my help” sort of thing, but I underestimated this particular river. I counted 3 times that, had he not had hold of me, I would likely have been swept away, much to the detriment of my digital camera.

We reach the campsite to find our cook, Ling, already there-cooking-and the tent set up. Ling makes wonderful wonderful food and that night he plays a bunch of matchstick tricks on me, while everyone has a good laugh at my ineptitudes in spacial reasoning. Next morning, I am treated to banana pancakes before heading back. There are several gentlemen from Holland at the campsite next door who invite me to go back to the village by way of rafting with them-but they are all in their underwear-and thanks but no thanks.

So Ling and Udin and I head back for some distance before encountering (unexpectedly, I’m sure) Udin’s brother, who has brought with him about 20 of his students from an all-girls English school in Medan on a field trip. Udin suggests we stop for a bit, so I take up a place on a rock, but am soon surrounded by the girls, and I begin to feel a bit like an exhibit…not that I didn’t enjoy it. We talk for a while, me answering questions, and them testing their English on a live specimen. They too are rafting back, all 20 of them, and as they have an extra seat on one of their rafts, they invite me to join them. I feel a little better about this group, so I take them up on it, and we have a grand ole time screeching our way down the rapids. Then we take pictures….a LOT of pictures, and I pass out for several hours before Udin comes by to take me up a hill on his motorbike for a better view of the village.

The whole couple of days in Bukit Lawang was really amazing, but I am also looking forward to my next destination in western Sumatra, Lake Toba. It’s supposed to be very peaceful there, and I think I’ll enjoy a bit of time to myself just relaxing.

…Then it’s volcano time.

“She always returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all every one thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life.  This impression was necessary to prevent mistakes, and after it should be secured she might make the unfortunate condition of others a subject of special attention.”   -Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

2am, somewhere outside Kuala Lumpur, a bus pulls over at a service station, and an American girl bounds out, exclaiming, “Ay, que frio!” before running around to the side of the bus to retrieve a sweater.  Why is an American speaking Spanish in Malaysia?  Or better yet, why the following night did she find herself in a cave at 4:30 in the morning?  Read on to find out.

I left Thailand without too much trouble.  The bus sector of the tourism industry is remarkably well connected, but this is not to say it is without aggravation.  All bus companies apparently being in collaboration, there is always someone pulling you one way or another; onto a boat to the mainland, onto the back of a truck with 6 other people, from bus company to bus company to mini-bus to big bus.  Although it seems confusing for the traveler, the people who work from the companies know exactly what’s going on at all times….or so you tell yourself as you board yet another form of transportation at yet another unknown transit stop at ungodly hours in the morning.  I prefer trains because there is none of this changing business, you just get into your sleeper car, and when you wake up, you’re there-even if it is 4 hours later than you expected.  For whatever reason, I decided to head to Kuala Lumpur via bus.  I was lucky in that from the beginning, there were 3 other guys in my mini-van who were going there too.  They were from Ecuador, Mexico and Spain, but were studying together in China, and now taking a vacation (hence my usage of Spanish, scant though it may be).  The final big bus they load us onto is quite miserable.  My last overnight bus seemed luxurious with wide, reclining chairs, blankets and pillows, and a bathroom.  This one had chairs.  Malaysia is hot and humid, really humid. But I don’t mind the temperatures, as I like wearing lighter clothes.  Unfortunately, my skirt and tank top did not work well with the arctic temperatures on board this particular bus.  So after being unable to sleep on “overnight” bus, we are dropped off in Kuala Lumpur five hours ahead of schedule, at 4 in the morning.  After being turned away from two full hostels, we opt for a budget hotel instead.  It now being 4:30am, the guy at the desk doesn’t want to give us a room yet, so we pass out all over his lobby until he wakes us around 6 with a room.  Then we crash till noon, at which point, I get my own room (With a TV.  Classy). 

 On the way here, I spoke a while with an older British couple who were headed to Penang, and said that this weekend is a big Hindu festival called Thaipusam.  Looking online, I find out that the biggest celebration is right here in K.L.  I think it’s interesting how often I just run into various holidays and celebrations.  It makes me wonder if it is more a thing of good fortune, or perhaps that there are more things in this world worth running into than I thought.  Or maybe people just like throwing parties.  This particular party consists of a hike from central K.L. to the Batu Caves…approximately 15 km south of K.L.  It was my understanding that the walking commenced the next afternoon, so I turned in early to take advantage of my HBO.  Well, as I’m watching Steven Segal in The Glimmer Man (It was all that was on!  You would have done the same thing!!), I hear something outside.  I walked up two flights of stairs to get to my room, so I assume it is ok to take a quick peek out on my balcony sans pants.  Quickly discovering that my room is still somehow mysteriously on the ground level, I retreat and put some clothes on before going back out.  Apparently the walking starts this night. There were tons of people walking through the streets.  I think I am tired, and that I should sleep, but then I think, oh why not, and grab my camera, a little money, a plastic bag (for my camera because it is raining) and head to the streets, knowing full well that I was embarking at 11:30 at night for a 15km no turning back walkathon.  The walking wasn’t bad at all.  For one thing, it was made much nicer by free handouts every hundred meters or so.  People giving you water, food, juice, candy, more, more, more.  Nobody goes hungry at Hindu parties, gotta love it.  In this case, my face did me a favor, as everybody seemed happy that the strange little white girl was willing to go out into the rain and march all the way with them, so I was a constant target for people trying to give me delicious halava.  Poor me.  I saw many women carrying these little metallic canisters on their heads; apparently, part of the custom is that they carry these things (I think they were full of coconut milk) all the way to the caves, on their heads.  Moreover, probably at least half of the people were not wearing shoes-a gutsy move in a big city.  I want you to get a good idea of how absolutely massive this procession was.  I’ve just checked on-line for stats, and there are over a million people who gather for this thing every year in K.L. alone.  That’s a big ole parade.  It’s not Macy’s, but it’s nothing to sniff at, either. 

 There were a couple of things I saw along the way that I won’t expand upon here, but you can see pictures up on webshots with explanations if you click the link over on the right side of the page.  I walk quickly, though I never come to the front of the line, and arrive around 4:30am.  Then I climb stairs upon stairs to get to the temple itself, where I just sit and watch the crowd for a while.  I ask someone something along the lines of, “what now”, and they tell me that now we wait for the chariot to come in.  I think this sounds like a plan, and that although I passed the chariot at walking speed some 4 hours ago, it is motorized, so surely will be there before too long.  6am rolls around and I’m manic with exhaustion, and decide to go back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours before returning.  6:30, I realize there are a good deal of other people who would like to do the same, but no one knows how to get back to town short of walking.  7:00 I resign myself to the long walk back.  7:30, I run into a packed bus-like New Years packed-but manage to squeeze on and head back to my room.

The next day is when the real celebration starts, all this other was just preliminaries.  Today was hot, but at least it wasn’t raining.  There were a multitude of people already there when I arrived this morning, so the streets in front of the cave were ringing with music and jammed with people sweating all over each other.  They stood along the sides of the street watching the line of party people go by.  And just how do they party?  By sticking hooks and pins through their skin, of course.  Duh.  I’m standing on the outside, with my camera held over my head to get a better shot when a guy grabs my arm (nicely) and leads me through the masses and into the line of the parade where I am able to get a picture close up.  It was really amazing stuff.  Apparently, they enter into a trance, or rather, their bodies play temporary host to a god, so they don’t feel pain, nor do they bleed, nor do they seem to be completely aware of their surroundings or situation.  They are photogenic, however.  Some people had spears through their cheeks or foreheads, some had hooks in their backs or stomachs supporting either flowers, assorted fruits, or large floats which they wore on their shoulders.  Then there were others who’s hooks attached to lines attached to another person or floats on wheels which they pulled.  Pretty hardcore.  So I wandered around for a while taking pictures and then sat down for lunch, where I was befriended by an early 30s couple, Angel and Ben.  They are both Malaysian, but Angel speaks Chinese while Ben speaks Hindi, so they converse in English, which is to my advantage as I also converse in English.  They invite me to walk around with them, which I do, and we go into the caves and around to the various stands selling music or carpets or sweets or anything else.  Then I take off to come here, because I knew downloading those pictures was going to take a considerable amount of time.  I took a couple of videos as well, but I’m not sure how or where to put those up.  If anyone has any pointers on this, please share.  I’ve got a bus to Singapore tonight, which, my father tells me is to immaculately clean, one is not allowed to chew gum.  Wonder if that’s a hangin offense.

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here?”
-Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

I ask myself all the time. This week has been a good follow up to my time in Chiang Mai. I took an overnight train to southern Thailand and hopped aboard a ferry to Koh Samui, an island off the east coast. I got myself set up with a beach-side bungalow for a little under 9 US dollars a night, including mosquito net. It’s the first actual bed I’ve slept in in weeks, and I had my own private bathroom. Not bad. In the shuttle on the way from the dock to here, we passed a little place called, “Ninja Crepes”, and I thought, please please please be close by. It’s next door. I’m there right now, in fact. I’ve just finished my nutella and banana crepe. Yum. So, all these factors combined, and I’ve felt pretty comfortable right here. Because I am quirky, when I think of places I’d like to travel, “the beach” isn’t usually at the top of my list, and I never really feel a compulsion to visit beaches even when in coastal areas. I never realize how much I actually enjoy the atmosphere until I’m in it, and then time just sort of doesn’t matter anymore. Sadly, (or perhaps fortunately) my visa runs out on the 14th, so I have been forced to make plans to leave…but be not mistaken, I shall return. Maybe not to the beach, but I’m thinking I will spend 3 or 4 days in Kuala Lumpur and then re-enter Thailand, and head back to Chiang Mai to finish up there. Then, maybe I will come back to the beach. Somehow, though, knowing myself, I think by then I will have lost interest in the sun. There is something to it however, the sun does improve one’s mood. The first day I was here, I rented a motorbike (yes, ma, I wore a helmet) and used it to explore the island. It was a costly 5 dollars for 24 hrs, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again just because I didn’t particularly enjoy the keen and constant awareness of my own mortality. But it was certainly an experience. I rode it to hunt down some sunscreen, but by the time I found some, I already had a biker’s, er, burn.

One day I had the bright idea to wake up early and go running barefoot down the beach, just like they do in the movies (and, in my defense, I saw other people doing it here too). Well, this was a terrible idea, and it landed me with a blister large enough to have been a 6th toe, and has impaired my walking abilities since. Luckily, the nutella is just next door. Other than that, it’s been a pretty uneventful week with a lot of reading, topless sunbathers (not me), and oh, monkeys. Today I went for a walk and saw a sign offering a “monkey show”. I asked the guy what this entailed, and he said the monkey goes up the tree and gets a coconut, 100 baht. I’m not really interested in the monkey’s retrieval skills, so I ask how much just to play with the monkey. 50 baht, that’s like a dollar. It was a really cute baby monkey, but I think I interrupted it’s lunch, which it proceeded to wipe all over my face an arms. Lucky for it, I think baby monkeys are cute and so I will excuse this kind of behavior. Incidentally, did you know that the plural for monkey is monkeys? I didn’t. I thought it would be monkies, but I guess that if I were really applying the rule of subtracting the “y” and adding “ies”, it would have to be monkeies, which is just absurd.

I’ve got my feet on the ground and I don’t go to sleep to dream.”
-Fiona Apple, Sleep to Dream

Greetings! I have had a very interesting 10 days. I’ve never known a time to pass so slowly, but now that I’ve left, I feel like I was hardly there a day. In actuality, a new record has been set. 10 days is the longest I’ve spent in one place in 5 months. It sounds crazier than it feels. Chiang Mai is a nice city, what I saw of it. It’s got a laid back, yet bustling feel to it. Most of my time, however, aside from the last few hours, was spent at Wat Doi Suthep. The temple is about a 40 minute drive out of Chiang Mai. It’s up on a mountain, surrounded by rain forest, so it’s spared the pollution, and the air is ripe for long whiffs, heavy with the smell of flowers which are in bloom all around in vibrant shades of purple. In the mornings, if you walk to the end of the grounds just after the sun has risen and the clouds obscure the view of Chaing Mai below, all you can see is the end of the landing and beyond it, sky; it looks like the edge of the world. At night, you can see the city lit up, but none of the noises reach the mountain top. I would say this meant it was quiet, but there were always the bells. On either side of the main temple, was a wall of large, differently tuned bronze bells. My best guess is that ringing them brings good luck, because from the moment visitors arrive in the morning, they did so. There was also a giant gong, with a caption translated to english as “if you strike the gong softly, it would be auspicious for you.” I do so. During daylight hours, though, I generally refrain from going to the temple because people stare. I spent most of my time behind, a little lower down where it’s quiet, and there’s a little lower down where it’s quiet, and there’s other people dressed like me wandering about. I really must have been a sight–walking around barefoot all day, looking at my feet, measuring each step, dressed all in white, talking to no one. I felt like I’d been institutionalized. And in a way, I suppose I had sort of committed myself–detox for the mind, withdrawals included.

“Vipassana” meditation means “to see clearly”. After my time spent practicing, I could think of no better way to describe my experience. I feel like I’m seeing things a lot more clearly-myself, people around me, the ever elusive meaning of life (and no, I haven’t found it yet). I don’t know how it happened, and I can’t say that I had any epiphanies about what I should be doing with my life, but I do see things more clearly, and it’s strangely comforting. There are other benefits; like today I feel happy and calm, even when amongst the thronging masses in the city. The sky was a bit bluer, the babies were a bit cuter, and I felt a tinge farther from the people I care about–but not in a way that upsets me, in a way that knows what’s okay and what is right right now. But I’ll spare you too much of the emotional or philosophical here, that’s another blog all together. I’ll refine this one to my objective experience. During the course of my stay, I kept eight precepts: No killing(including spiders and malaria-carrying mosquitoes), no stealing, no “romantic activity” (and girls are not allowed to even come too near the monks), no wrong speech (this includes speaking with any of the other meditators) no intoxicants (or caffeine), no over eating (breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 11, and no eating after noon), no “diversion or beautification” (singing, dancing, reading, writing), and no oversleeping…this last one, I ashamed to say, I might technically have cehated with a nap here and there, but I believe I was justified, and later you shall find out why.

The day started at 4am every morning and ended at 10pm. In between, there was a whole lot of meditatin goin on and one meeting a day with my teacher. In the end, I was meditating around 2 hrs at a time, upwards of 7 hours a day; half walking, half sitting meditation. Although my legs fell asleep, I preferred sitting because that’s when the cool stuff happens. Vipassana aims to still the mind, and so involves a close watch over the mind’s movement, and constant noting until the distraction disappears (and believe it or not, it does). So, if you’re walking, you note, “right foot thus, left foot thus…”. If you start thinking about something later that day, “thinking, thinking”, or if there’s dogs barking outside, “hearing, hearing”, etc. Anything the mind comes up with, you must note and so be mindful all the livelong day. I must admit, a part of me feared I was being brainwashed, so outside of meditation, I tried to give my mind liberty to do as it pleased and retain a notion of the more thoughtful Blair whom I was rather fond of. After a lengthy inner monologue, I have come to the conclusion that I may still be good ole contemplative, analytical me and advance in meditation, because I’ve seen that there really is something to it. Now for an anecdote. One day, during sitting meditation, I started having these involuntary stomach muscle spasms. The more I concentrated on them, the more intense they became, until it developed into laughter. I was laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes and had to stop and leave the room. My teacher told me that I’d reached a stage called piti, and while it was good and fun and all, it was “not the path.” I listen to her, with a big stupid grin on my face, then proceed to lock myself in my room where I laugh uncontrollably for over half an hour, at nothing at all.

Let’s see, what else…I met the abbot, and even gave him lunch one day, although he is not allowed to take it directly from me because I’m a woman and so super irresistible. Also, one evening, the princess of Thailand came to the temple. Apparently it’s sort of a big deal in these parts, it boasts a Buddha body relic (thought they aren’t more specific than that). Anyway, she showed up wearing her royal track suit to pay respects. That was coo; there were guards everywhere, and I didn’t know what was going on, until one told me, “I cannot let you pass…for the security of my princess.” I thought, “ok, weirdo”, and then went a different way and saw her as she was leaving. Then immediately after, I experience my first earthquake. Very minor, really just a tremor, but still, I thought it was something.

Then there was the case of the vindictive neighboring monk. The windows to the rooms were all like foggy glass shudders, which you could open to see outside, or close, and just see forms and colors, if they were close enough. I had a room adjacent to mine, which I thought nothing of for the first few days. They appeared to store a computer there, but I hadn’t seen anyone in it. My room and this room were separated by those glass shudders. One night, I’m meditating and I hear chanting. I finished my session, but then it was still there when I was trying to sleep, and I started hearing something like feedback screeching. I realize it is coming from that room. So, I open the shudders, look in, see a computer, speakers, and a soundboard. I think, “Oh. No big deal, I did AV stuff in college, I’ll just use my vast knowledge to reach through the shudders and turn the volume down on the board. I am in fact so genius, I use a water bottle to extend the length of my arm, which doesn’t quite reach. I do this, but then, instead of turning the volume down, it just turns to static. I think, among the static, I can hear someone tapping a microphone as if to see if it is still working. Then I think, “Well….shit” as I realize this is possibly not what I thought it was. The shudders as close together, and I am wearing a cotton sweater to keep warm that evening…I can’t reach my hand far enough in to reach the levers without the bottle, so to gain better control, I take off the sweater. Then I’m reaching through the shudders, fiddling with knobs I cannot see in the dark, when I realize, that should a person walk down the hall at that moment, they could see into the room what would probably appear as a robber, attempting to steal a computer….topless. I gather my wits and my garments, and find I can remove the shudders one at a time to make a bigger space to get through. Then, because I still can not see the upside down board in the dark, I get the bright idea to hold my camera through the opening and take a picture of the panel that I can zoom in on. It is then that I realize that what I thought was the volume control was actually labeled, “Hz”. I know nothing about running a radio station or that equipment. The phone starts to ring. I start to panic, and when I try to think of a solution, I find myself automatically going, “thinking, thinking, thinking…NO!” I didn’t know what to do. Turns out it was indeed a radio station, and that evening, I knocked the entire monking community offline. Way to go me. A techie monk finally came to fix it…and he was there for 4 hours, till 3 in the morning. I didn’t move in my room, too afraid to face him as a woman and an english speaker. I just laid there thinking, “What have I done” for 4 hours. After this evening, there was always a monk in the room, and I promise you, when I came back at night, they would turn the volume up, making sleeping during the allotted hours very difficult indeed.

Other than this, my time at Doi Suthep was relatively stressless. I am in fact planning to go back in a week or two to finish the course (however that is determined). My teacher thought it shouldn’t take me too much longer, so I agreed to go back, after a short trip BACK to Bangkok to take care of an airline ticket, and then a little time south on the beaches.

My trip back to Bangkok was an adventure in itself. My overnight train was delayed two hours, so I set off to an internet cafe. When I went back to the station, I approached a group of train employees and showed them my ticket. They were all talking excitedly (but not happily), and it seemed as if I did not help the problem. There is a small Thai woman there in a suit, and she takes me by the wrist and leads me away hurriedly. I don’t really know what is going on, but she doesn’t seem very happy, and I feel like a little kid who drew on the wall with crayons, though I am oblivious to my crime. She is talking and I don’t know what she’s saying, but there’s a man walking on my left side who’s laughing. I think it’s weird that she still hasn’t let go of my arm, but I didn’t push it. We go to the ticket counter, and she speaks to the agent. Then she takes my ticket and the guy’s ticket and gives them to the agent, and then gives me money in return. I’m thinking, “Oh no. No, no. I want to go to Bangkok.”, but she has my arm again, and suddenly we’re outside. I make a futile gesture towards the train station and say, “no…train?”, but I get little in the way of a response. Then we are in a taxi and the 3 of us have become 7. The man looks like he is thinking, and finally comes out with, “Bus. Bangkok.” Like I mentioned, I was feeling uber calm at the moment, so I thought, “whatever”. Then we get to the bus station, and we go to a counter and the woman purchases tickets. I’ve been under the impression, she worked for the railway, on account of the suit, but then we sit down, and she finally smiles, and I realize that they’re a couple who for whatever reason, like myself, could not board the train, and have taken me as their charge. They’re very friendly, and we all show each other our ID cards, and I throw out the only two Thai words I know too soon, and it becomes quiet because she doesn’t really speak any english, and his is sparse. Still, I get their names, Shirapon and Gouswan. I start writing in my journal, and I look up and she’s extending a bracelet to me. “She made it,” says Gouswan, “for friend”. I’m still wearing it, even though the elastic’s a bit too tight. We eventually get on the bus, and I fall asleep, only to be woken at 12:30 to get off the bus and eat. I do not know why why why we need to eat at 12:30, but they’re pulling me again. Then we get back on, and Shirapon reaches across the aisle to pull my blanket over me. I feel loved. 4am and we reach Bangkok. We get off the bus we’re on, and they motion for me to get on another bus, yelling something to the people in the seat next to me about where to kick me off. Then they are gone. I’ve spent the day here taking care of a few things and writing this ridiculously long blog before I head out tonight to the south. Pui should be here soon, I think we will hang out for an hour or two before I’m off. Sorry I don’t have a more exciting way to end this monsterous entry, I’ll try to do something exciting on the beach, like burn or something.

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. ” –Gandhi

Hello all! Bangkok has been a wonderful experience. The warm weather and smiling faces have really put me in a good mood, and I’ve just been very happy lately. I’m staying with Pui, possibly the nicest, most generous person in the world. She’s taken me all around and kept me well fed on this delicious Thai food. She also got in contact with a Buddhist temple up north in Chiang Mai, where I’m going to go tomorrow for at least 7-10 days for a meditation retreat. I think it will be perfect for me, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for some time. I just wanted to let everyone know that I won’t be available during that time; I’ll have no internet access. Also, there’s a chance I might stay longer if I’m really enjoying myself, so if you write me and don’t hear back for a while, that’s why. Just wanted everybody to know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Have a good couple of weeks.

P.S. If you’re interested in looking at where I’ll be, the address is www.fivethousandyears.org

Cheers

“But you know what is really strange after all this time and after all these continued feelings of unrest and confusion…. that I still have so much faith in Chance. I still really believe that if you go into an experience openminded and full of hope (even if we are cynical about certain aspects), if we are overall optimistic that the choice is benefiical to us and to our environment, then we will surely find the answers guiding our next great decision at somepoint during it.”
-Nicole Pollio

Hi-dee ho, good neighbor. The last week in Cairo has indeed been one to remember. It’s a vibrant city with reckless and yet somehow wreckless drivers. I fell victim to the tourist industry and invested on a camel trip into the desert to see the pyramids at Giza, but I enjoyed myself. My camel riding skills were in fact so superb that my guide allowed me to try the “crazy gallop”. I did not know that camels could run. I will never question their ability again. In the meantime, I’ve spent a lot of time wandering the streets, taking it all in. The first few days were as Heather mentioned, a big celebration/feast here called Eid Al-Adha, which involves the killing of cows and sheep, etc. So I would walk down one street and see a cow tied to a storefront, and a while later, pass that same spot to find cow pieces. I chose not to watch any of the “cuttings” as they’re called, for myself. The aftermath was quite sufficient and did not leave too much to the imagination. People here are very friendly and very proud of their city. I’ve never hear the phrase, “welcome..” more in my life. On the other hand, some people are a bit too friendly and walking down the street as a western woman can actually prove quite a hassle, having nothing to do with my nationality. The immediate effect of this was my sequestering myself away in my hotel room for a good deal of the day, reading. The longer term effect is now showing itself in my decision to skip the rest of the region for the moment. I want to stress that it is not a matter of safety that I no longer wish to travel in the middle east alone, but a matter of my impatience with the unwanted attention I garner walking to and from the internet cafe. That said, I have booked a ticket to Bangkok which leaves tomorrow. I have one night in Abu Dhabi and then I arrive the next day to Thailand. My college professor, Dr. Chasek, has put me in touch with a woman who lives there and whom I’ve met before, so I’ll have a friendly, familiar face and someone to give good advice about where I should go in the country and what to see. So that’s it for now, folks. Sorry that I haven’t put new pictures up in a while, the internet cafe I go to here doesn’t have Windows XP, so I haven’t been able to work it out yet. But soon.