I didn’t do much exciting today. I spent a good part of it at the coffee shop. I don’t think Thais hang out in coffee shops for hours the way we do so they probably think I’m nuts or wonder when I’m ever going to leave. So, rather than spend the whole day there I tried to go shopping.
I don’t know why, but going into the stores around town makes me very uncomfortable. I’m being stared at. I don’t know what half the stuff I’m looking at is. And if I have questions, forget it. I feel uncomfortable at the market, but I like it. I don’t like stores. Weird. So, shopping didn’t take up much time. Now what do I do?
I chased the mouse around the bathroom quite a bit today. Then tonight, found him dead. The bathroom is mine again, well, not really. There are probably 8 small geckos living in there and some bugs. Why do jumping spiders live near the toilet?
I tried to find the orange house of the lady who made me promise to come visit her. I didn’t find it. There were a few peach colored houses and some cedar colored houses. Too bad it wasn’t pepto bismol pink because there was only one of those and it was unmistakable or that equally obnoxious green house.
I went to the gardens up by the dam. At some point the road has manicured lawns along it and beautiful landscape. This makes me sad because I live in the woods and I want to live in a place with lawns and landscape. So this brings up the question: Why do certain things make us relax and others don’t when in reality, one isn’t better than the other? I think it’s a combination of familiarity and programmed preferences. The manicured lawns remind me of the US and of wealthier/nicer neighborhoods. The woods I live in make me think of snakes, bugs and other crawly things. There’s trash everywhere and it’s wild and uncared for. Granted, I’d rather look at pretty flowers than trash in a pile of dead leaves, but it’s the way looking at one vs the other actually changes the way I feel, my emotions, my nervous system, my energy level. The reality is one is not actually different than the other (except the trash), both are nature. My friend Corina and I were discussing this the other day as we were comparing me trying to rid my house of mice and tokays and she had squirrels in her garage. Somehow, the squirrels were not as bad as mice and tokays. But in reality, what is the difference? I also noticed this when I was in Vietnam and they drove on the “right” side of the road. I felt my system relax a little. I noticed this in Singapore too. Everything is clean, people drive politely, there are gardens and art everywhere. Why is planned landscape better than natural? I think part of may be because of the intention that was put into creating a garden or art, but it’s still interesting how physical the reaction is, not just a simple “aw, I like that”. And how automatic the reaction is that we may not even notice it enough to ask the question. So, apparently I want to live a wealthier lifestyle and I’m drawn to the things that represent that to me.
I read some more of Diamond Heart Book 4. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s just amazing that whenever I read AH Almaas, he’s speaking directly to me as if he just wrote that chapter for me 5 minutes before I decided to read it. This only happens EVERY time I read his books. This time it was about how the problem is that we aren’t seeing correctly. We aren’t seeing reality. We are seeing concepts we learned a long time ago. We are seeing concepts in our brains. I was just talking about how I feel like I’m not seeing correctly. And I think the previous paragraph fits into this as well. Maybe I should read more Almaas and less Game of Thrones…….
Daylight helps so much. Nothing looks quite as dire during the day. I woke up not happy, but not completely covered in bugs so that’s a plus. I hardly slept at all last night. It was so hot that I just laid in bed sweating trying to lay as close to the edge as I could so I got full effect of the fan. I’m still amazed how much my face can sweat. I noticed that I’m just holding all the stress of it all kind of like holding my breath, waiting until September. I can’t hold my breath until September. I can’t live like this that long. I still don’t know how to let the holding go. I tried to cry or get angry, but it’s not an emotional thing. I’ve done that work for years. Cognitively I understand that it’s an issue of seeing. None of this looks the way I wanted it to. The fairy tale I was fed as a child isn’t true. No knight in shining armor is coming to save me. I wanted a more comfortable life than this. I wanted to live in a different culture, but in a city with expats I could be friends with and the ability to get around easier. And then I wanted the next step in my process to present itself easily. And some how money would appear and I’d live happily ever after. It doesn’t look like that. I need to see differently. Last night as I typed that I was feeling broken, I thought maybe I need to be broken. Maybe it’s like losing all that muscle I lost a few months ago, where I felt that I had to lose it all to start over. Maybe I have to be broken, have everything I want not possible so I can let go of how it “should be” and really see. Maybe it’s already happening.
The janitor came over and finished covering holes in my house. There are so many he didn’t do because it would take a month full time to cover every hole, but I think we got the ones that mice and tokays could get through. Speaking of mice, I found the one living in my bathroom. We both chased him around for 5 minutes and then he disappeared. Like magic. I have no idea where he went. So mind boggling. There must be a secret trap door that only mice and frogs know about.
Now I’m sitting in the coffee shop in air conditioning and wondering how they can actually get that much sugar to dissolve in a latte. On my way here, I ran into one of the teachers, Pit. I don’t know Pit’s actual title, but he’s kind of like an assistant principle. He and one of the other teachers looked so happy to see me. They both mentioned the air conditioning. So, I will have air con in the future. As usual, I’m not clear on the full content of the conversation, but I think the air con unit will be here on the 15th.
So, over the next few weeks, I’m going to try putting tags in my blog so that they are searchable by others. Or at least, that’s what I think it will do. I’m not sure because the whole thing about hashtags has me mystified. I understand it makes things searchable, but I have no idea who is searching for some of the things I’ve seen hashtagged. I have no idea how someone goes about searching. And above all I have no idea why. So, if you get a bunch of emails in the near future saying I updated a blog, sorry. I don’t know if WordPress sends an email every time I make and update or only when I post a new blog. Also, if you have any good ideas of hashtags I should use, let me know.
It rained and cooled down last night. What a relief to be able to sleep. I was able to sleep until 7:00am and toss and turn and complain until 8:30am. Even though I was complaining, I was grateful that it wasn’t too hot and I could lay in bed and complain until 8:30. I swept my bedroom floor this morning. Even though it was cleaned the other day, it’s a disaster again – lots of bugs and mouse poop. I swept the rest of the house too – same thing. I just might have to sweep every day.
I worked on lesson plans at school. I don’t like doing lesson plans especially when I have no curriculum or any idea what they are learning in the rest of their English classes. I feel so unprepared and unqualified for this job. The main office has air conditioning. It doesn’t work real well, but my house is uninhabitable during the day so it was great. I was there most of the day and got hardly anything done. I don’t know what happened. I feel like that most days. Nothing gets done and I don’t know where the day went. I think I move slower in the heat? Maybe? I blame the heat.
I went to the pool with Tip and her kids tonight. Yay! A pool! You have to pay to get in the pool and the water was very warm, but I was covered in water so I don’t care. I definately felt out of place as most people just stared at me and no one really smiled. The pool is at the hotel. We ate at the hotel restaurant after. It reminded me of Laura, the missionary that use to live here. She liked to eat at that restaurant. I miss her. My salad had lots of dead ants in it. I picked out a ton before I just gave up and decided I wasn’t very hungry. Tip asked what I was doing and I showed her the ants. She didn’t seem too affected by it. On the way home Tip asked how much money I make. I wish I hadn’t told her. I make more than a dentist makes. Now I feel uncomfortable.
Several times today and quite a few times in the past I have heard scurrying sounds in my walls. The janitor didn’t come to fix the rest of the holes today. I know a mouse or tokay or both are living in the walls. I don’t like this. It’s ridiculously hot in my house so my only option is to sit in my bed with the fan on. The fan only helps slightly. It’s blowing very hot air on me, but I think that’s still better than no air flow. I’m told if I want air conditioning I have to pay half. I have no issue with that, but I wonder how long it will take to get it bought and installed. I was told they have to fix the school cafeteria first. I have no idea what that means. I wish I had just agreed to it two months ago. Maybe it would already be installed. I don’t know what I was thinking, thinking I might be able to handle it with out air conditioning.
I have now shook out my sheets 3 times tonight. I’m in the bug net, but my sheets are covered in bugs. I suppose I’m covered in bugs. I swept the bedroom floor again, but to no avail – the bottoms of my feet are now caked with dead bugs.
The company that is leasing my car is not making the car payments. This is ruining my credit. The guy renting my house says he wants to buy it, but hasn’t made an offer so I need to decide if I’m putting it on the market or not. I feel trapped. If I come back to Colorado at the end of a year, I won’t be able to buy a car and I won’t have a house or I’ll have a house I can’t afford the payments on. I’m having trouble seeing how this is all going to be ok. I’m sure this is part of the lesson of learning to trust life and go with the flow of life, but it’s difficult to trust when all of this is going on.
I’m having a real hard time staying present and non-judgmental. This whole blog feels like a pity party, but that’s part of writing an honest blog. I’ve been thinking a lot today about how much I’ve taken for granted living in America. I know somewhere I’m learning and this is all part of awakening, but I’m not loving what is today. I just feel broken. Broken, sweaty and covered in bugs.
It’s so hot. I looked at the weather forcast and it’s in the high 90s. It’s supposed to get up to 105 three days in a row. I’m going to die. I stayed at Tip’s house last night. I came home around 9:30 am and went into my house to get a few things. Within 10 minutes I was completely soaked. All the rat poison I left out was gone except in my bedroom. However something ripped the window screen off one of my bedroom windows. What on earth is strong enough to do that and where is it now?
I went into school and worked on lesson plans. Pat had said she’d help me with lesson plans, but when I go there, I got “up to you”. I’m beginning to hate that phrase. It basically means there is a right answer, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. I’m almost done with the first month of lesson plans. I should be done tomorrow so that will make me feel better. There is a room at the school that is always open. Pat said if my house gets too hot, I can use that room to hang out in and turn on the fans. It’s not air conditioned, but way cooler than my house. I’ll probably hang out there tomorrow.
The janitor came over and boarded up some of the holes – the ones between my house and Q’s house. He has to finish the others tomorrow. I’m glad he started with those as I noticed Q’s windows were open and he has no screens – this might be one of of the ways the critters get in. I assume he’s home and opened them or someone is airing out his place before he gets home. But now I don’t know which side of the wall the critters ended up on. Are they stuck in my house or his? I sprayed bug spray into all the dark places and put out more rat poison just for good measure. I have seen two tokays tonight on the outside of my screens, but I’m still not happy because I’m thinking they might be big enough to have broken the screen upstairs and they might do it again. One is staring into my bedroom as I write this.
It rained. I went outside and just stood in it. One of the other teachers and I were talking and she kept trying to get me to stand under cover, but I wouldn’t. The rain isn’t hot. Then I sat on the front “porch” and listened. So many things started making noise after the rain stopped. It was almost deafening. There is a lot going on in the woods. It’s great when it’s going on “over there” and not in my house. I took video of it so you could here all the noises, but I don’t think it picked up the noises so now you just get a video of what it looks like from my front porch.
It’s been like a ghost town around here. I haven’t seen another teacher or student in the housing area and no cars or motorbikes parked out front. The teacher I mentioned above was the first. She just got back today. I heard some other people talking a little later in the evening. I bet more will arrive tomorrow too. I imagine they are going through what I just went through, cleaning out the disaster that moved into their houses. The only difference is they are probably use to it and it doesn’t make them want to run away.
I was going to go to the pool with Tip, but she had to cancel. I came home and washed all the dishes instead. I also made dinner. It was no where near as fun as the pool, but I felt a lot better after knowing the dishes were clean. I think just getting back into a routine will help with the culture shock a lot. I feel quite a bit better after doing the dishes.
Now I’m sitting inside the semi safety of my bug net. I’m marveling at the amount of bugs that are not kept out by the bug net. I’m thinking it’s time to turn off the light and attempt sleeping. I think I’m going to go turn the light on in the other bedroom so maybe the tokays will hang out on those window screens instead of my bedroom. Seems logical.
I got home around 5:30pm. I’m glad it was still daylight when I got home as it would have been extra creepy in the dark. It’s completely disgusting. There is a thick layer of yuck on everything. The refrigerator was half ice. I’ve never seen so many spider webs before, of course complete with large spiders. There are geckos everywhere. No sight of tokays though. They obviously are not doing a good job or they don’t eat spiders. There is mouse poop on everything. None of the bags of food have been touched, but a bag of instant noodles had ants in it. There are ants all over the house. The bathroom was a war zone. One of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure what was pooping in there – frogs? Something ate holes through the screen doors upstairs. I’m not sure why I need screen doors upstairs anyway, but I don’t want to think about what decided eating screen was a good idea. My favorite flip flops were eaten. Something ate through the straps and chewed huge chunks out of the soles. There were quite a few bug wings on the floor upstairs. My bed has ants in it, not many, but enough that I won’t be able to sleep because that’s all I’ll be able to think about. The bug net save my bed from being a total disaster. My closet seemed to be ok. I went around with a can of bug spray and sprayed all the spiders, some roaches and under the stairs. I cleaned the bathroom since it was the worst. I was sweating soooooo bad. I don’t know if I will survive the heat. I turned off the refrigerator and opened the door – old fashioned defrost method. I asked Tip if she knew anyone that could help me clean tomorrow and if I could borrow clean sheets. Her cleaning lady may be able to help me tomorrow. I’m now at her house. They are going to let me stay here tonight. So, I’m now clean and I feel human again. I sitting here having a conversation with a furby. Tip’s daughter set the talking toy in front of me and then left the room. Tomorrow I plan to get some more cleaning supplies and bug spray. Tomorrow I go to war.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
What is big enough to do this to my bathroom?So much poopI loved these shoes 😦
I go back to Sam Ngao today. I would have expected to wake up with the morning dreads, but I didn’t. It was more like minor grumblings mostly about waking up in general. I don’t want to go back to my house or back to work, but I feel a sort of resolve. This is what is happening and it’s ok. I will miss the lack of roosters. I haven’t heard one in Chaing Mai. I will miss the swimming pool. Goodbye Western food. Goodbye air conditioning, I will miss you most of all.
I packed up, went out for breakfast and then went back to the condo to work on lesson plans and watch more bad tv. I caught the end of Minority Report. I like that movie. But then it was paranormal activity investigators on the sci fi channel – boo. I waited in the lobby of the condo for 45 minutes before Pat asked me to get a taxi and come to her. I got a taxi to the other side of town and had lunch with Pat and Dam. Now I am riding back to Sam Ngao with them listening to 60s and 70s American music and watching Pat grab the oh shit handle every time Dam tries to pass another car.
I’m wondering how terrifying my house will be after being locked up for 2 months. Will it be a little dusty? Will the rat and other creatures have found the snacks I left? Will the refrigerator have flooded the kitchen? Will I come home to bug wings inches deep like I did one weekend? Or will it be a total war zone? Tune in tomorrow……or later tonight.
I like this part of Chaing Mai that I’ve been staying in. Of course, I probably like this area because it’s a more expensive place to live so with nicer condos comes nicer restaurants, shops, etc. I’d rather be staying in a hotel than an condo, but it’s a real nice condo.
I found a language school near the condo. The shortest class they offered was 20 hours. I don’t have that much time. My brain would explode if I tried to do that many hours over a few days anyway. I went in and talked to them anyway and asked if I could do private lessons. I signed up for 3 hours Friday and 3 hours yesterday. My teacher was a wonderful, cute, young, energetic lady. She taught me basic sentence structure and gave me good worksheets I can refer to later. That is good because I have forgotten just about everything she taught me. She basically gave me everything I would have learned in the 20 hour class. My brain did not explode, but it was touch and go for a while there. Not much stuck. I think it will come back as I study the worksheets later. We went to lunch together the first day and then the second day I offered to buy her a coffee on break. She took me to her favorite coffee shop and made me order in Thai. Now, I just have to put in the time to practice.
I worked on some stuff for my engineering company. It wasn’t much, but every little bit of income helps. I spent way more on vacation than I made. I hung out in the pool. I hung out in the condo and watched bad American and Thai tv. Thai soap operas are horrible. Their game shows are hysterical. For American tv they had bad cop shows, Grim, a firefighter show, A Minute to Win It, the ScyFi channel and a movie channel.
I got massage almost every day. My fingers hurt. I wonder what’s going on with them. I wonder if I’m getting arthritis, but assume it’s something else. My shoulders are very tight. It feels like my muscles are burning, like a chemical burn, when they work on them. My hamstrings and IT bands are pretty flexible though which has never been something I could say. I got a body scrub one day instead of a massage. Unlike the one in Vietnam, it didn’t hurt. At no time did I think I might be bleeding or might need a trip to the hospital. After, she put on oil. It didn’t feel like massage oil or lotion. It felt like she was turning my skin into silk. Oh, I wish I had asked what she used because it was a marvellous feeling. Now my knee caps are peeling. With all the sun I got over the past two months, no part of my body has peeled except my knee caps. So weird and fascinating.
I went on a few google maps adventures. Some of the restaurants I asked it to lead me to didn’t exist. Some of the routes were impossible. Still, how did we ever do anything before google?
I had a session with my teacher. He thought the hurting fingers might be a diet thing – too much starch. That might explain the burning muscles too. That or I have a rare horrible burning muscle disease. It’s probably diet. Nothing monumental happened in the session, but that’s not unusual for me. It did come out that I’m just not in a place where I have a bunch of emotional processing to do. I’ve worked through so much of that. It seems that now I’m down to Muscle Zero, that what I need to do is rebuild muscle while rebuilding my center. So, how do I rebuild? DSE exercises! In the past I did these exercises regularly and they usually put me into process, helping me work through the stuff that came up. I’m excited to see what the exercises will do now as I try to rebuild my body and energy system. So, I’m ready to go home with a new resolve of doing this conscious movement, finding a way to work out/lift weights, and seeing if I can eat better. The eating better will be hard as I can hear ice cream taunting me from somewhere off in the distance as I write this.
Strange food experiences of the week! I think this will be a regular feature of my blog. I went out for ice cream one afternoon. I found a place that advertised snow ice. It could be ice cream. I couldn’t tell from the pictures. I’m more adventurous with dessert than other foods so let’s see. I ordered the watermelon snow ice. It was gigantic. I couldn’t eat it all, but I tried real hard. The best I could tell is that it was like a snow cone except they used sweetened condensed milk instead of ice. Then they put water melon balls and ice cream on top. And they gave you a red syrup on the side to put on the snow ice. It was a bit much, but I’ll probably forget that in the future and do it again. The other food adventure was one morning I went to get breakfast. I found a couple coffee shops that had coffee and cake. I didn’t want cake for breakfast. I found a place that had bread. By now, I was starving and decided garlic bread for breakfast would have to do. They put syrup on the garlic bread. How on earth is that a good idea? Why can’t there just be food that is savory without having to be sweet too? Not every food has to have every flavour in it. It was edible, but I wouldn’t rush out and try to re-create this food concept. This I won’t forget, but I suspect it will happen again not by choice.
On a similar note I had a weird restaurant experience. I saw a restaurant near my condo and went in. They didn’t have a menu out front so I asked to see a menu. They asked if I wanted whiskey or beer. The place was called a café. I wanted a menu. They gave me a menu and then seven of them stood by my table and watched me look through the menu. This has happened often before where the waiter or waitress stands by the table waiting to take your order while you look through the menu. But it was seven women. I felt like an animal at the zoo. “What will it do next”? I’m not sure what was going on, but I decided I didn’t want to eat there.
I tried Tinder. It’s a dating app, but less intensive than most websites. It’s a weird concept to me. It shows you a picture of someone nearby and you either “like” them or not. If you hit the X or swipe to the left they go away forever. If you hit the heart or swipe right they go into your likes category. You don’t get to see the next picture until you’ve decided on the first. If you like them and they like you then you can send messages. There can be few photos and a short description you can look at. It tells you their age too. It only shows people that are physically nearby you. You decide what radius to look at. I messaged two guys, but didn’t meet up with anyone. I don’t think I like this app, but I am extremely curious to what comes up in the app when I get to Sam Ngao. And it might be a good way to meet people to have dinner with in the future when I go to other places for the weekend. We’ll see.
I’m feeling drawn to write a book based on my blog. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if I need to get my blog out to more people first or if I just write the book. I don’t know how to go about getting a book published. Maybe it’s just a matter of advertising on my blog and getting it out to more people to make money, but it feels more like a book to me than a money making blog. If any of you out there have ideas of how to make this happen, please let me know. You can email me at rrainefiore@gmail.com. I might try putting hashtags in my old blogs so they can be found easier by people I don’t know that may be interested in reading. If you haven’t subscribed to my blog, but are following it regularly, please do so as I assume the number of followers I have will be useful in marketing to a publisher. If you are not interested in subscribing to my blog, that’s fine too. I don’t want to pressure anyone. I know how annoying it can be to receive emails you don’t want. I may try advertising on my blog too. If I do and you find it takes away from the blog, let me know as I’m still figuring all this blog stuff out. I don’t mind advertising that’s off to the side, but if it highjacks my blog or gets in the way of readers enjoying my blogs, then it’s not worth it.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
3 headed elephant statueSnow IceThis penguin made my snow ice, I thinkI think he likes me
Yesterday I left Singapore and flew to Bangkok and then to Chaing Mai.
The Singapore airport is amazing. There is art everywhere. There are at least 2 gardens in each terminal. It’s easy to get around. They have reclining chairs in case you want to relax. They have lounges, tv rooms, a pool, and a movie theater. . I heard they had free massage chairs, but I didn’t find them. One of the gardens was a butterfly garden. I went early just to see the butterfly garden.
Bangkok airport has no gardens.
The strange food story of the day…..Mochi. I like the gummy mochi candy you can get in the US at yogurt places. I love mochi balls (ice cream wrapped in mochi). I saw this mochi dessert on the airplane menu each time I flew. Then a video of it appeared on facebook on someone’s page as clear cake (it resembles cake in no way at all). So, it was time to try it. It is a clear tasteless jelly. Then you pour a brown uneventful syrup on it and top it with crushed nuts. It was good enough that I ate it all, but there is no reason you should ever pay money to eat this.
I got to my hotel in Chaing Mai, only it wasn’t a hotel, but an apartment complex. The guards had no idea what to do with me. I had no idea where to go. I called the number on my reservation, but it said “this number is not available right now”. I sat in the guard’s office for a while trying to figure out what to do when someone called me. He said his wife emailed me (I didn’t receive an email). The key was at the guard’s shack. So, it appears I rented a 2 bedroom apartment. I’d actually rather have a hotel, but it is a real nice apartment. There’s air conditioning which I won’t see for 5 months, a gym and a pool. The location seems good – near a mall, plenty of restaurants, and massage places. I ate at a restaurant that only serves made to order salads. That made me feel a little better. Then a massage. I was going to do a massage and a body scrub, but if I ordered two services, they would tack on another 50 baht in addition to the regular cost of the two services. This marketing approach is backwards and didn’t work. I gave up on the body scrub.
Today I signed up for private Thai language lessons for tomorrow and Saturday, 3 hours each. I’m not sure if my brain can handle 3 hours each day, but any new Thai I can learn will be helpful. All of the classes I looked up on the internet last night were longer – weeks or more so that is why I did the private lessons.
I went to the hospital. I had to do the health certificate again since the one I did in February is now outdated. This is for my work permit. The first hospital I went to was a mass of people and no English anywhere. I couldn’t tell if I was in the emergency room, the general hospital or what. There were many windows and steps to go through, but I couldn’t figure out where to start. I knew there was a more foreigner friendly hospital somewhere so I found it on google maps and went there instead. Within 30 seconds of being there, I was pointed in the right direction. Then began the game of move Rraine from seat to seat to room to seat to room. Overall, it didn’t take very long. They actually took blood which was more than the last place I had this done did.
I had to wait 2 hours for my tests to come back to get my certification. So I went and got lunch. There was a mall with a pizza hut and another pizza place. I opted for the other pizza place. My pizza looked and tasted suspiciously like pizza hut though. I was able to find the phone store and get my internet issues resolved (in theory – haven’t tried it out yet). I got my certification. I didn’t look at it because it was in a sealed envelope. I assume I’m healthy enough to work in Thailand. The blood test was for syphilis. I think you have to have sex to get that so I should be good to go.
While I was waiting for the certification, I got a message from the owner of the condo. He wanted to know if I could move to the room I actually rented today. Huh? With all that confusion yesterday, this isn’t even the right room. Ok, not a big deal I guess. I told him what time I’d be back and he said he’d have the maid change keys with me. This didn’t go so smoothly either. The new room hadn’t been cleaned. It was a mess and had no clean towels or sheets. I went to the pool hoping the problem would solve itself. A lot of messaging back and forth and now someone is cleaning my new room.
Thoughts of the day though: This morning when everything went so smoothly with the language lessons, hospital and phone store (the three main things I needed to do today), I felt good and thought I might accomplish everything today . I wanted to finish blogs, do some engineering work and finish lesson plans too. Ha – too ambitious. Then the dirty room dashed all of that. Now I’m cranky and grumpy and have a bit of a poor me thing going on. Such a little thing. So, I know this is no big deal, but the old nervous system pattern is getting triggered that makes me feel bad when things are out of my control and not going the way I want. It’s not panic, but a dulled down version of panic. The new learning of the day is I’ve never been a person to panic. That’s rarely, if ever, a reaction I have. I realize that in the past I couldn’t actually panic because then there’d be no control over the situation I already have no control over. I can keep from panicking, but I can’t seem to let the dulled down reaction go either. Of course, the bigger issue is that I don’t actually have control over anything and I’m in the process of letting the ego’s control go and learning to go with the flow of life. Another tiny layer of the onion can now fall away as I see the dulled down panic as a control defense.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
One of the airport gardensMore airport gardensAt the airport – yay!
Mochi Series – Picture 1 – packaged for airplaneMochi Series – Picture 2 – Add the syrupMochi Series – Picture 3 – Add the nutsMochi Series – Picture 4 – EatI have no idea – just found it at a coffee shop
Thursday, I did a half day of rock climbing. Railey Beach, which is near me, is known for its climbing. The beach is only accessible by boat. It has such a weird vibe to it which I didn’t like much. It’s like a Rastafarian, a hippy and a rock climber met on a beach. The climbing was good and it felt nice to be on the rock again. But I pulled a quad muscle part way through. That might cause a problem for climbing in two days – I booked two days of climbing. I wondered how they would know to take me back to my hotel after I did the boat ride. As I was leaving the climbing shop, they gave me a red nametag thing around my neck and put me on the boat. I felt like a little kid who had been given a nametag and sent off to school. It worked, a taxi was waiting on the other side and knew me by my red tag. I did have a neat experience where I had the distinct feeling, “Oh, I live here”. It was subtle, but it was as if a small part that was resisting, let go.
Yesterday my leg did not feel miraculously better as I had hoped it would. All my other muscles were sore too. I guess I got a good work out climbing the day before. I had signed up for a jungle tour today. The people in my tour were less than fun. It was 4 Europeans, 7 Thai Muslims and a family of 3 from India. I’m becoming more and more convinced that Europeans are just snooty. The Muslims didn’t even acknowledge me. The Indians were nice to talk to. We went to a hot springs waterfall. I really enjoyed that. We also went to the Emerald pool which was a mineral springs with tons of Thais swimming in it. It was also enjoyable. There was lunch which was Thai or Halal and too spicy for me. I didn’t really like it, and (foreshadowing) it didn’t like me either. Then they took us to the Tiger Cave Temple. It doesn’t have actual tigers, that’s another temple somewhere else in Thailand. I didn’t see a cave either. There was a bunch of stairs you could climb to see a big Buddah. Of course there were, they seem to like to build things on tops of mountains and I seem to climb them even though, it looks like the same Buddah I’ve seen in other temples. I didn’t listen too closely to the tour guide when she said how many stairs. I should have. At about 600, I asked someone, how many stairs? Oh jeezee, I would not have done this if I had known it was 1260 really steep stairs to see a Buddha statue. So, enjoy the pictures I took, because I worked very hard in the heat to get them. The way down was just as hard since they were so steep. I could barely move my legs by the time I got down. I felt dehydrated and horrible by then. Next was elephant riding. I’m am against this so I didn’t pay to go. Another couple didn’t pay either. Shortly after everyone took off on their elephant ride, the put the three of us into another van full of other people and took us back to our hotels. The ride back went winding down steep streets way too fast and I felt sick to my stomach by the time I got back. I never get car sick. I tried to nap, but was rudely awakened by the need to throw up. This continued roughly every hour through the rest of the day and all night. Really, Life? What do you want? I was just beginning to feel better and was trying to rebuild my strength.
Today I woke in so much pain. All my muscles hurt from climbing the other day and now my stomach muscles hurt from being sick all night. I tried to eat some yogurt, but didn’t feel much better. The owner of the guest house I’m staying in offered to drive me to the doctor. That was real nice. The doctor asked a bunch of questions, gave me some meds and sent me on my way. I didn’t do much today, slept a bit, tried to eat a little and rescheduled the tour I was supposed to do tonight. I canceled climbing yesterday. I feel a little bit better, but not great. How am I ever going to survive Thailand?
Then to add to all of this, I find out my mom’s husband has been put into hospice care. My brother went out there yesterday to help with finances and paperwork. One of my cousin’s sons was killed in a car accident. Big stuff is happening back home and I’m complaining about some bad food. I find my brain trying to put all the information into categories and boxes and make sense of it all, but it’s having a hard time doing it. I’m not sure it even knows how any more since that’s the old way of doing things.
Yesterday was my last day laying low in Jomtien. I worked a little and had a late breakfast. I debated having breakfast by the beach and spending the whole day there or near my apartment and going to the beach later. I opted for later. Good thing. It poured rain for an hour or so and I was safely working in a restaurant instead of on the beach.
I was concerned about how I would check out of the apartment and get my deposit back since they were closed yesterday and wouldn’t reopen until after I had left today. I tried to book a private taxi to Bangkok so I could leave later than the bus, but it would cost quite a bit more. That didn’t work out so I bought a bus ticket anyway. I decided to go call the number on the apartment rental office door. As I walked by, one of the guys was in there and I told him my checkout problem. He just came in to pick up something he had left and I was lucky to catch him. I got checked out and got my deposit back. How’s that for your “life takes care of me story” of the day?
I ran other errands like printing travel plans, getting a bus ticket and getting water. That took up quite a bit of the day. I spent a couple hours at the beach reading and then went to dinner with Chris. I feel much healthier than when I arrived which is good because I already have a lot already planned and booked for the next few days – two days of diving and a day and a half of rock climbing. I hope I have the strength after being sick and losing so much weight. I’ve lost close to 15 pounds since I moved to Thailand and I feel like most of it is muscle. Time to rebuild!
Today I left on the 7:00am back to the airport in Bangkok. The 8:00 bus may have been early enough, but I just didn’t want to risk traffic. The bus only went to one airport and of course my flight was out of the other one so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get across Bangkok. I took a taxi from one airport to the other and it took quite a bit longer than I would have expected. Still, I got there way too early. Then a flight to Krabi. Another longer than I expected taxi ride and got to the guesthouse I’m staying at around 4:00pm.
Just the taxi ride to the guesthouse and this place is beautiful. Why couldn’t I have been placed here? I could live here. It is quite touristy where I’m staying, but I’m a tourist for now. I checked in at the guest house and then walked to the dive shop to check in. After that I went to the beach (Ao Nang) just as it was getting dark. I’ve been on vacation for over 2 weeks now and this is the first time I’ve felt like I’m on vacation. Yay! I’m on vacation!
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Rain outside, Rraine insideJomtien BeachAirport Coffee Shop SelfieOMG – This is an actual salad in Thailand – Rare Sight
View from my Krabi guesthouse roomAo Nang
Look who’s on vacation
Green lights from the squid boatsStatue in front of a clinic
Rraine Drops 