I didn’t know what to do today so I went to a nearby hotel where I was told you could pay to use the pool. The hotel was the one I wanted to stay at, but couldn’t because I didn’t book it in time. The pool was beautiful.
My flight was late leaving Labuan Bajo, but I figured that was ok. I’d just work on my blog. I was wrong. There are no outlets in the airport so I couldn’t charge my computer. I got to the airport in Bali and had to recheck my luggage because I was going from a domestic flight to an international flight and changing airlines. It took me over a half hour to walk to the international terminal. It took forever to find the Jetstar counter because no where did the counter or any of the signs say Jetstar. I went to check in and pay for my excess baggage. The guy first said I couldn’t take the extra bag. What? Then he decided I could, but told me that because I was going to Australia, it was very expensive and I couldn’t afford it. It would be $500. I just stared at him like he was nuts. Then, he decided he would only write down that I had 20 extra kilos. Somehow that brought the price down to $250. But, I had to pay in cash. This makes no sense, but he now has my bags and my passport. I go to the atm to try to pull that much money out and of course, I can’t. He then takes me to another counter as I’m trying to explain that I can’t get that much money. So, he decides I now only have 15 extra kilos which will cost me $185. I wait forever as the couple ahead of me had two tickets and Jetstar randomly changed one of their flights and canceled the other. I’m crying now as I’m pretty sure something illegal is happening and crying seems to be what I do a lot of lately when things get stressful. I finally get to the counter and explain that because I had to pay in cash, that my credit card is now frozen and I won’t be able to buy food or get a taxi when I get to Sydney because they required cash. Oh, you can pay by credit card. Why did you tell me I had to pay cash? So, I try to pay the fee with my other credit card. My card was declined – now the only two cards I have are frozen. The hysterical crying gets me down to $148 which is still ridiculous and I’m pretty sure still illegal, but my bags have already been put on the belt and are gone and they have my passport and boarding card. Maybe I could cry my way into less money, but I have no energy left.
I did manage to call both credit cards and get them reinstated. But, where’s the line between fraud prevention and you fucked me and now I’m stuck in the airport unable to get my baggage or get on a flight or eat? So, this is a bigger airport and still there are no electrical outlets. How is this possible? Right now I hate Indonesia. I get a bottle of water for the plane and some dinner. I’m waiting at the gate and all of a sudden, a SWAT team descends on the gate. Everyone is roughly rounded up, they section off the gate area and make everyone line up to get their bags searched. Everything is allowed on the plane except bottles of water. How is this a security issue? It’s a 5 hour flight and I’m not allowed to have water. I get on the plane and it has the personal movie screens for each seat. You have to pay to watch a movie or tv or play a game. Jetstar is officially the worst airline – Ever.
The first two days of diving were great. On the first day we did two dives and then went to Rincon, a nearby island to see the Komodo Dragons. The dragons were just lounging around under the park ranger’s buildings. They don’t move much in the heat of the day. That was nice from a safety point of view, but not as quite as nice from the cool viewing or photo point of view. We also saw a nest. They bury their eggs under the ground. The females are quite a bit smaller. We only saw one female sitting next to her nest. I learned quite a bit about dragons, but only three facts stuck with me – 1. If one bites you, you will die within 3 days to 3 weeks if you don’t get medical help; 2. They often eat their babies after they hatch; and 3. The males have two penises. The National Park also has deer, monkeys and buffalo. The dragon trek/tour was not quite what I expected, but it was still neat to see them. As we sat waiting for the boat to come back to pick us up, another small boat got stuck in the mangroves as it was trying to back up. All the park rangers and dive guides got up from where we were sitting to watch the boat struggle. They laughed and heckled the boat driver. It was fun to watch them interact. It was almost as interesting as the dragons themselves. People here are so much less uptight than in Thailand, more relaxed and down to earth.
The staff at the dive shop was great. The coral health and the amount of fish life was nice to see, especially after diving in Thailand. I saw all kinds of wonderful things including a lot of manta rays. This area of islands has a lot of currents. They are constantly moving and changing. In the morning they are moving one direction and in the afternoon they go the other way. They create other currents around the islands including swirly currents. The boat captains have to be pretty good at spotting them and driving through them. Ironically, most of our dives had very little current. I took Scott’s ashes on one of the dives and let him go swim with a very large puffer fish. I was going to take him to be with the Komodo Dragons, but tossing him out under ranger housing seemed unglorified. The other divers on the boat for the first two days were fun to hang out with. I met two guys that were travelling around the world for 6 months – their companies just gave them the time off. Sure beat’s America’s 2 weeks off, but then how does anything get done with 6 months off? There were a lot of Dutch people, two newlyweds from America, and some Canadians. I mostly hung out with Johan and Alex, the other two people travelling alone. I met Johan at dinner at my hotel. He said hi, but didn’t speak after that. The whole first day on the boat he barely spoke. Then the next day he started talking. Turns out he was sick before and was just trying to make it through the day. Alex became my dinner buddy and we tried most of the restraunts in this little town. I use the word “town” lightly. I keep secretly (somewhat secretly) hoping I will meet my next boyfriend while traveling. Oh well, not yet. It was nice to have a couple of other people to pal around with though. Saturday night we went to the local bar. It was packed with locals, backpackers and divers. The big pressing question of the day: is every island town in the world full of nothing but man buns and dreadlocks? Is it the island life or the backpacker life or both that makes men not want to cut their hair?
I took two days off from diving to plan my trip to Australia. One day I did little planning and mostly wandered around trying to find reliable wifi. One place, I could connect, but nothing happened. Another I couldn’t even connect. Another was fine until the electricity went out. It kind of went on like that for most of the day. I spent a lot of time researching tours in Tasmania only to discover that none of the ones I liked left on dates I could go. Finally, after hours of research I decided that trying to go to three places in Australia in 2 weeks was too much. I still can’t do everything even though I keep trying. So now I’m going to Sydney and Cairns. I was able to book all my hotels and flights, but am now brain fried and will have to decided what to do and see in Sydney and Cairns at the last minute.
My third day of diving was nice and relaxing, but of course, the people chemistry on the boat was vastly different. There weren’t as many people. Two older men who didn’t want to talk to anyone and two younger men who were a little friendlier. I still had Alex to talk to and the dive guides I had been diving with before. It was a long day due to boat engine problems. But it was better than sitting in a coffee shop wondering if the wifi would go out. The dives were beautiful. The local bar was not packed on week nights. It has a lovely overlook out to the boats in the bay. There was live music a couple nights and I remember getting this feeling of “home” more than “vacation”. I think the live music and looking over the water reminds me of when I lived in Florida. After growing up in Florida, the beach bar kind of place has never felt like vacation to me. It just feels like weekend.
I had an interesting conversation with Yohan about Europeans and Americans. I had some similar conversations with Alex about this too. Americans are quick to be friendly, talk to strangers, introduce themselves, etc. Most Europeans are not. There was one Dutch guy that wouldn’t talk to me and when he left the bar, he said goodbye to everyone but me. The next night he sat at the bar and talked to me as if the previous night had never happened. Americans find it rude when others are unfriendly or standoffish. And of course, all Americans are not friendly, but those that tend to travel tend to be quick to connect and talk with other travelers. Johan’s response was, “He’s Dutch”. We talked about how the forwardness of Americans is about as uncomfortable to some Europeans as their lack of forwardness is to us. I think this may be part of why we have the reputation of being loud and obnoxious, although most Americans are so loud. So, on the surface, it appears that Americans value connection and Europeans do not. But, I don’t think this is the case. I wonder if Europeans avoid connection until it’s “safe” until they know someone a little better. I wonder if Americans are doing the same exact thing by being overly friendly. Are they avoiding real connection by being too quick to connect shallowly with everyone? Of course this is just generalized and the observation of the moment. I reserve the right to change my opinion later. It is interesting the way we will avoid real contact. You go into any restaurant or bar and the first thing everyone does is get the wifi password so they can “connect” with the world out there, completely withdrawing from the actual world in front of them. I’m guilty of it too. I tried to make quite a conscious effort this week to put the phone away.
My last night here I ate by myself at a taco restaurant. Both Johan and Alex left before me. The food was not great, but I ate there more out of curiosity than the thought that they would get Mexican food right. The bonus was that they had seating on the third floor overlooking the docks. The sunset was wonderful – every shade of hot pink you can think of. Today I went to a higher end hotel where you can pay to use the pool. This is one of the hotels that was booked up when I went to look at hotels. If it had not been booked up, I would have stayed there although it was quite a bit more expensive than the one I did stay at. It was worlds nicer. As much as I didn’t like my hotel, the people were nice, the food was good and they took me to the airport for free.
I took a bus from Tak to Chiang Mai on Wednesday. The people in the Tak bus station were rude again. I’m glad this will be my last Tak bus station experience. While sitting at the bus station, I could see the news on tv. There was coverage of the Loi Krathong cleanup. I’m not sure where the cleanup was happening, but it was heavy equipment pulling buckets and buckets of krathongs out of the water and putting them in trash trucks. Even though the materials are all biodegradable, they aren’t going to degrade for a long time and they are still a massive amount of trash in the water.
I got to Chiang Mai and checked into my hotel then went to By Hand Pizza for my last dinner in Thailand. I had friends that were in Chiang Mai for the festival and they suggested meeting for the parade. Chiang Mai canceled the festival, but it sure didn’t look like it. There were a ton of people lining the road. I found a place near one of the floats and texted my friends where I was. Then the parade started and I discovered I was standing next to a float that wasn’t moving and the parade was happening on the other side of the float. All I could see was the tops of white glittery floats. All the floats were ornate white glittery things with the picture of the King on them. I couldn’t see anything that was happening in between the floats, but I’ll guess it was people dressed all in black. I looked around me and it was 90% tourists, not many Thais at all. This didn’t surprise me, but it just felt wrong. They played the King’s song and no one seemed to notice – how would they – they were all tourists like me. I started crying. This isn’t a Thai festival. It’s a tourist show. This isn’t how I want to spend my last night in Thailand. I couldn’t find my friends and standing in a crowd of people crying and watching a parade I can’t see makes no sense. So, I left to get a massage. I found my friends later. We wandered for a while and then went to a roof top bar. It was a fun bar, but hot and smoky. I didn’t stay long because of the smoke.
Thursday morning, I went and got a healthy breakfast with fresh squeezed juice and a bowl full of healthy granola fruit and other superfood stuff. I tried to find a hotel in Indonesia. The lady at the dive shop had said I shouldn’t book ahead, I could just do it when I got there and it would be cheaper. But that makes me uncomfortable so I thought I would at least look at the options. I wrote down the names of the places I liked.
In the afternoon, I went to the airport. Now I’m traveling with two suitcases. I know I will have to pay extra for the extra suitcase and I’m not looking forward to dragging two through airports, but I don’t see much way around it. It cost me $175 for the extra suitcase. Oh my god I feel violated. It was very confusing that I had to go through the international terminal for a domestic flight to Bangkok. I’m still at the check in desk when my flight should be boarding. The lady said I had plenty of time. I go through immigration and get to the gate and no one is there and there is nothing written on the gate sign. There are a bunch of other confused people on the same flights so I figure I’m in the right place and somehow it will work out. Thailand magic, it does. The flight was delayed so I wasn’t late to the gate. They put stickers on our shirts, put us on a shuttle bus and shuttled us to the domestic flight. Now, I will have less than an hour to make my connection in Bangkok with only a sticker on my shirt to claim I’ve already been through immigration. This would never work in America. I get off the plane and there is a lady holding a sign with the same logo as my sticker. The sign also has two flights written on it with the gate number. One is mine to Jakarta. The sticker gets me easily into the international terminal and I’m at my gate 5 minutes before it boards. Thailand magic.
I remember 10 plus years ago I was sitting in an airport in Taiwan waiting for my connecting flight to somewhere. I had a 6 hour layover and couldn’t leave the airport because I didn’t have a visa. I watched movies and listened to all the flight announcements. I distinctly remembering that I heard flights to Jakarta being announced often. I remember thinking that Jakarta seemed like such a worldly and exotic place, like people more well-traveled than me would go there. It felt like, you haven’t really travelled until you’ve been to Jakarta. I knew nothing about Jakarta. I still know very little about Jakarta. But, I’m going there and even though I will never leave the airport, I feel much more worldly now.
I watched a movie and two Discovery shows on the plane. The Discovery shows were great. Both were about subjects I am naturally interested in and I felt like they were reminders to me of what I need to be doing. One was called “Predict My Future”. It was about an on-going study called the Dunedin Study. They have followed a group of 1,000 people since childhood and kept extensive medical, psychological and sociological records on them over the years. The study group is in their 40s now. A lot of what they discussed is how our childhood shaped our adulthood. It didn’t go into the spiritual side of things, but I bet there is data on that as well. They barely scratched the surface on the amount of data collected, research done and learning gained from this study. As I watch it, all I can think of is ATP. It’s time to make the transition into doing ATP for a living. I have no idea what that looks like, though. By the end of it, I’m crying. The other documentary was about how horrible sugar is. Duh, don’t need to convince me. But, I liked the way it presented the information simply. It’s also time to get back to eating healthy. That documentary was called “Is Sugar the New Fat?”.
Jakarta had the fastest immigration ever. There were no lines and I was through in under 3 minutes. I found the airport hotel pretty easily. The staff was very nice. The rooms are above the terminal so I heard ding ding ding for hours as announcements were being made below me. The lady at the dive shop that I’ve been emailing told me hotels were easy to find and cheaper in person so I didn’t need to book one ahead of time. I thought I’d try this because I was pressed for time and because why not wing it and see what happens. I looked at some of the hotels on line a couple nights ago and found a couple that looked ok. By the time I got to Jakarta I was not ok with winging it. I don’t have a place to stay, I don’t have a plan and I’m not happy about it. My whole body is tight, not that it wasn’t already, but this has definitely added to it. I stayed up late looking at hotels. The two I liked were already booked. Literally every other one on line either had horrible reviews or was over $150 per night. I contacted two, one through their own website and another through airb&b, gave up and went to bed. Thank god the ding ding ding had finished for the evening.
I got up early and looked at my emails. I guess when I had hit the button that said “make booking inquiry” I had really made a booking through airb&b. I was just trying to ask some questions and was going to book one of the two places this morning. So, I guess I inadvertently made a decision. There were several emails back and forth as I was getting packed up. Some didn’t quite make sense, but I figured I’d work it out when I got there. I figured I just had to go downstairs to check in, but left extra time for dealing with the possibility of extra suitcase drama. Wow – so glad I left extra time. I was in Terminal 2 and my flight was leaving from Terminal 3. The hotel had a free shuttle and everyone was very helpful. Terminal 3 is really far away. It took over 15 minutes of drive time. Terminal 3 is a big bright shiny new terminal – very worldly indeed. I only had to pay $25 for the extra bag this time. That’s more reasonable. Right before I got on the plane I figured out why the hotel emails were weird. I was emailing both hotels thinking it was only one. I almost had booked two hotels. The guy at the other hotel was not too happy about my mixup. I got to Labuan Bajo just fine. The guy picking me up from the airport was late so I had to deal with pushy taxi drivers for a while. No matter how many times I told them someone was picking me up, they kept wanting to know where I was going, who I was waiting for, what’s my name. If you were the person picking me up, you would know that. I finally told one where I was staying and that someone was picking me up. He actually called the hotel and put me on the phone. The hotel is asking why I called. I didn’t call you, the taxi driver thinks I’m stupid and that he’s going to harass me into his taxi. My ride finally came. Labuan Bajo is not worldly. It makes rural Thailand look worldly. It reminds me of the rural parts of Bali where there is one tiny broke down road in town. The road is lined with small hotels and scuba shops with 8 or 9 restaurants and some shops. I can see why all the hotels had such bad reviews. Nothing in this town is up to western standards. My room is ok. It is real basic. It has wifi that doesn’t really work, air conditioning that doesn’t really work, hot water for 1.5 minutes, a lot of stairs, a decent restaurant and a very loud water pump behind my room that squeals every few seconds. It’s costing me $41 per night and is probably worth $8. But judging from some of the other places I walked by, I’m doing good. Every hotel review I read complained about the 4:30am wake up call from the nearby mosque. I already heard the evening call to prayer and it is insanely loud so there will be no escaping 4:30am.
Today I did not want to get up. I almost missed the free breakfast at the hotel. I was supposed to get up and take a bus to the bus stop near Sam Ngao. Then Noi would pick me up and take me to school. She didn’t have any classes until 11:00am. I missed that. I guess I don’t really want to go to school. I guess that makes sense since I didn’t really want to go to school when I lived there either. I also didn’t want to deal with getting a bus at the Tak bus station since I had such an unpleasant time last time I tried to get a bus out of there. Eventually I made a new plan. I took the bust to the highway bus stop and Ging picked me up and took me to her new coffee shop. She looks so happy. I spent a couple hours with Ging and Tip there.
Then Tip took me to school. I got to see some of the students, but not as many as I would have liked. I got to see very few of the teachers. A lot of teachers had left for a seminar? Some of the students were making flowers out of ribbon and they helped me make one. Pat explained that you but coins in them and then give them to the boys who are just starting out as monks. I met the new western teachers. Apparently there was some issue with Robin so he is gone and there is a young Filipino woman teaching math and science now. Noi asked them if they wanted to join us for Loi Krathong and they said yes.
Noi really wanted to go to Sukohthai instead of Tak. If she is ok driving – it will be a late night for her, then it’s fine with me. I imagine it’s real pretty since it’s held at the historical park. It was real beautiful. There were so many people it was sometimes difficult to walk. There was no rhyme or reason to the floating of the krathongs, just put them in a lake when and where you wanted. There didn’t seem to be a program either, just food stalls, krathong sellers, people selling other stuff and lots of people taking pictures. The only time everyone seemed on the same page was when they played the King’s song. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stood still. We wandered around, took pictures, ate food and floated krathongs. If you make a wish before you float it, that wish will come true. Since it’s a super moon, the wish is definitely going to come true. I used the krathong that the hotel in Tak gave me. The wick on it was a rope. Within seconds, the krathong became the the floating sun. I could barely hold it long enough to smile for a picture and get it in the water. It might still be lit tomorrow morning. If the krathong didn’t kill me, the pork balls tried to. Once again, too spicy, tried to make my lips bleed. One of the vendors was selling bags of fish, frogs, and turtles. You can buy the bag and release them into one of the ponds. Since you saved their lives, you will get good luck, merit and a long life in return. What? They wouldn’t need saving if someone hadn’t taken them out of a pond to sell so you could save them.
Overall, it was a very beautiful night!
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
The bus is trying to be prettyBut it’s all broke downAt Ging’s new coffee shopCoffee shop kitchenSukohthai Historical ParkKrathongs for sale
I went to the Mae Sot bus station, got rushed onto bus that was just leaving with not ticket. This pissed off bus attendant lady. Why didn’t I have a ticket. How was I supposed to know what seat was mine? As she passed out the snacks, she purposefully skipped me. Once again I think about how everyone is constantly telling me that Thai people are the nicest people on the planet. I think they are just like all people on the planet, some are nice and some are not.
My hotel in Tak is nice. I spent most of my time on the computer trying to plan where I’m going in a couple days. Final decision – Indonesia – Flores Island for some diving and a day trip to Komodo Island.
Friday night, Noi came up to Tak to have dinner. She brought Pim with her. Pim wanted to go have Korean BBQ. Noi asked if I had ever had Korean BBQ before and seemed quite surprised when I said I had. She still doesn’t quite understand how big and culturally diverse America is. I think I can honestly say not one restaurant I’ve eaten in in Thailand would pass a US health inspection. This one was right up there. They put charcoal in the table, added a grill thing on top and gave you a teapot of a brownish liquid. I’m not sure if the liquid was water or oil. I’m hoping it was oil. You poured the oil in the bottom part of the grill thing and that became like a hot pot. Instead of ordering what you want to put on the bbq, you went up to a salad bar like thing. There were vats of raw meat and vats of veggies and vats of mystery food. You grabbed a basket and loaded it with what you wanted and went back to your table to cook. It was tasty. I didn’t get sick. I have hardly gotten sick here. After dinner we went to the river to walk on the bridge. Noi was on a roll and was just cracking jokes and heckling kids. Pim was doubled over laughing. I sure am going to miss both of them.
I have too much stuff. I decided to mail some more home. I dragged a bag full of it to the post office just to find the post office closed at noon and it was 1:00. When I got back to the hotel, the staff helped me find a box to put it all in. The next day I carried the heavy box back to the post office and managed to get it sent off all by myself! Hooray – small victory. I will probably make it back to the US before it will. So, if anyone wants to wear panda hats and play Mahjong with me, you’ll have to wait until February or March.
Saturday night I had dinner with Tip, her husband and kids, her mom and sister, Ging, Ton (the student that attended my monk classes) and a Russian lady. The Russian lady is Fai’s English tutor on weekends. I was excited to meet her until 5 minutes in when I realized she was going to talk my ear off to the point where I didn’t get to talk to my friends. She wouldn’t stop talking and she is not a happy person. After dinner everyone went home and I went to the river to see if any Loi Krathong activities were happening. They had the street blocked off and bleachers set up along the street. There were students sitting in the street forming words. I have seen this a lot (like every 15 minutes) on tv. People are forming words, or the King’s symbol or hearts or combinations and then taking photos. It’s kind of like mourning flash mob. Once again, it’s such an interesting thing to see nothing but black (and some white) clothing. It felt weird in the airport, but it was even more apparent here. Even the street vendors and shops have nothing but black. Everyone was in the bleachers or sitting on the sidewalk or standing, waiting for something. So I found a spot and waited too. Tip’s mom was there, saw me and handed me a candle. As quickly as I saw her, she was gone. Ok, now I’m a participant. I have a candle. Then groups of students started walking down the street like a parade. They had banners in front of each different group and the student all carried krathongs. A krathong is a floaty thing to float candles down the river. It might be a coconut shell or something made out of banana leaves. They are decorated with flowers or other beautiful natural materials. I saw some made of ice cream cones. Some were plain and some were elaborate, made to look like ducks or swans. There was a giant krathong on a flatbed trailer that came down the street too, but other than that it was just students, thousands of them. I saw no one from Sam Ngao, but I ran into Kru O. She’s the lady I met at the retiree’s ceremony a couple months ago. She introduced me to her husband and daughters. Kru O told me there were close to 5,000 students. More standing around, then we all lit t he candles, then singing, then standing around, more singing. Kru O gave me her krathong to float. I need to put fingernails or hair and 1 baht in the krathong, make a wish and put it in the river. The sight of 7,000 krathongs floating down the river at once was one I looked forward to. It was more like a line of krathongs flying down the bank of the river with maybe one in 50 still lit. It was still impressive to see, but not photo worthy. I didn’t see the giant krathong go. Not sure if did. I think they should set the whole thing on fire. It would be a floating bon fire.
Sunday night I went to the river again to see what might be going on. There was a decent sized market. There were people standing around with candles. There were announcements and singing. There was one group of students in the street. It was like a mini mini version of the night before. In the pavilion there were many giant krathongs on display. Tomorrow night is the actual full moon and main night of the festival. I’m curious what it will be like.
(c)All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Horse statue at hotel
Korean BBQKorean BBQ with Noi and Pim
Noi and Pim on phonesForming letters in the streetGiant krathongKru O and her husbandLighting candles
Banana leaf krathong
Last roti sai mai
Have an Awake 2016
This is a waffle with bananas, chocolate chips and caramel More giant krathongs
It was party time again at the Bamboo House. This is the third night in a row I got about 4 hours sleep. I should have changed hotels. I should have known that just because the hotel said the kids would be respectful didn’t mean they would. I no longer can function at this point. A minivan comes to get me to take me to Bangkok. I don’t really want to go by minivan. I have to pay for two seats because of my suitcase. But, still, if I had taken a bus it would have cost about the same amount for a taxi to the bus station and the bus. The minivan does not belong to some company that owns a fleet of minivans. This is definitely a case of “my uncle has a minivan….”. We get into the main part of town and the minivan driver stops, takes my suitcase out and puts it on the side of the road and tells me “out”. In the back of my head I know it’s ok, but I am not equipped with enough sleep to handle anything so I just start crying as he’s talking to some woman across the street standing with more people and suitcases than can fit in the minivan. How is this going to logistically work and why do I have to get out to make room for these people? The lady rushes over and tells me not to cry, it’s ok. Then they put me back on the van and we leave the other people standing there. I have no idea why I’m crying and still after all this time I have no idea how transportation works in this country. I wonder why all this “poor me” stuff is coming up. Once again, I’ve worked on this for so long and here it is again. I feel like I’m doing well trusting that everything in life will unfold just fine and then I feel like I’ve just gone backwards in time. The only thing I can do is just cry and notice that I’m feeling scared and uncomfortable and wait for it to change. It always changes. When we get to Bangkok, the van stops at a gas station and the driver says “Mo Chit”, the name of the bus station I want to go to. So, now my suitcase and I are back out and he takes me to another van. This van is more ghetto than the last. This time I didn’t cry. That van took me to Mo Chit. I was dropped on the side of the road with a few other people. Good thing I didn’t actually want to take a bus because I couldn’t see a bus station anywhere. There were a couple taxis and that’s what I needed so it didn’t matter that Bangkok’s largest bus station had gone missing. I told the taxi driver I wanted to go to Don Mueng airport. He kept asking me. I must have said Don Mueng 4 times. Then he called an English speaking friend so she could talk to me and double check. Yes, still Don Mueng.
Then a lot of time in the airport because I was early. Again, I’m in awe of how strange it is to see everyone in black. There’s no color anywhere. I see on Facebook all the fear Americans are having right now. There is so much fear and hatred, hatred coming from those that are complaining that Trump and Republican are about hatred. I see no posts from Trump supporters. Either they are keeping quiet, Facebook is choosing not to show me those posts, or all my friends are Democrats. It makes me sad to see so much fear and speculation about how horrible it is going to be. The actual truth is we don’t know. I want to stop looking at Facebook because all I see is unnecessary hysteria that helps create the separation that they are scared of. I want to scream at everyone and tell them to calm the fuck down. Oh, is this the real reason I’m crying so much? Is this why I’m feeling scared? I haven’t moved backwards at all. I’m feeling America. Damn it America, stop it, I’m on vacation here.
My airplane to Mae Sot was uneventful. I got to see the smallest snack ever made. The water bottle was so small that it took two sips to drink. But that’s ok because the bun in the snack box was no bigger than an inch in diameter. So, not much water was needed to wash that down. There was literally more packaging than snack. I had a wonderful taxi driver from the Mae Sot airport to my hotel. He talked my ear off the whole way. I stayed at the Hop Inn. It actually has a comfortable soft bed. This is the first soft bed I have experienced in Thailand. I got to eat dinner at my favorite café in Mae Sot – the one I took a cooking class at a long time ago. I love Mae Sot!!!
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
This door is why there were so many bugs in my roomBanana Roti with White Chocolate and Ice Cream, WhoaThe River KwaeCool Garden Restaurant in Kanchanaburi
I have heard nothing but amazing things about Kanchanaburi. I say meh.
I took benedryl my first night here to help me sleep through the party next door. I woke up to an ant infestation. I tried to explain to the staff that there were ants in my room. No one spoke English so I had trouble knowing if they understood my concern or not. I tried using google translate, but I never know if it worked or not since google apparently knows only a few more words in Thai than I do.
I did a tour yesterday. First we went to the bridge. I didn’t need to pay a tour guide for that since I just walked there the day before. Oh well. There were 6 other people on the tour. They were not friendly at all. I tried to make conversation, but it was painful. I miss my tour group from China. Everyone on that trip was fun, interesting and friendly. Of course, we spent 2 weeks together so that helped. This is just one day. After the bridge we went to the Erawan Waterfall which is why I booked this tour. It has seven levels. It takes an hour (took me longer) to hike to the top waterfall. It was so humid, my face was sweating. I enjoyed the exercise though. Half way up I was so hot, I wished I had brought my bathing suit. I didn’t because I thought I would just wade in the water and not actually swim. They had told us that we could enjoy the fish massage at the waterfall. Fish spa is where you put your feet in a fish tank and the fish eat the dead skin off your feet. I assumed this is what they meant by fish massage. I finally got to the top waterfall and was so excited to get in the water. I wasn’t even in to my knees before fish started biting my feet. These weren’t the tiny fish I had seen in the fish spas. Some were 6 inches long. Others were over a foot long. I screamed like a little girl. I am now torn between being so hot that I just want to be immersed in water and wanting to be as far away from the water as possible. The fish won. I decided that swimming was not an option and was quite fine not having my bathing suit. I could stand where the water was going over a rock and be fish free. I splashed water on myself to cool down. Overall, the waterfalls were very beautiful and I enjoyed sitting with my feet in fish free zones watching and listening to the water. After the waterfall, we went to ride a train on the death railway. We waited about 50 minutes for the train. While we waited, we could go see the cave near the train station. There’s a Buddha statue in the cave, of course. We rode the train for a half hour. If you are ever in Kanchanaburi, you can skip the train.
Last night I tried to rent a bicycle since my hotel was advertising bicycles for rent. No. No bicycles. But…..I can see them……they are right there. The lady typed into google translate – All broke. Really? 10 broken bicycles? Ok, walking is good exercise too. After dinner it was more party next door. I tried to get help, but no one spoke English. Finally, tired from lack of sleep and just frustrated I slammed my door and cried. I’m sure everyone could hear me crying because Thailand doesn’t believe in insulation or proper building materials. That actually put an end to the party. I should have cried hours ago. I tried to change rooms today, but there are no more rooms. They promised the kids would be quiet tonight. I thought about changing hotels, but I’m too tired and that sounds like a lot of work. Breakfast at this hotel is weird. It’s not a buffet and I don’t get to chose what I want. They just make it when I appear. Yesterday it was fried eggs, hot dogs and fruit. I didn’t eat the hot dogs. This morning it was fried eggs, french fries and fruit. Bless their hearts, they are trying. French fries are better than hot dogs.
I spent most of the day at a coffee shop and a restaurant trying to figure out what I’m doing after the 15th when I have no more plans. People don’t just sit around in coffee shops here so it was uncomfortable after an hour or so when they kept staring at me, but I stayed anyway. It was kind of like the coffee shop in Sam Ngao where the entire menu was different forms of sugar. The restaurant I went to was wonderful. It had a great garden out back. They put a fan on for me and they didn’t seem uncomfortable having me hang out for awhile. They have a free taxi service and offered to take me back to my hotel or pick me up later if I wanted to come back for dinner. I narrowed down the list of possible places to go after the 15th. I was leaning toward Fiji until I looked up flights. It would cost more and take longer to go to Fiji than to go back to America. That was the point where I gave up. I will have to search smarter later as I’m sure it’s possible for way cheaper. I think sites like Expedia assume I’m American and give me American prices. If I search through the airlines that fly to Fiji, I bet I’ll get a better deal.
Trump will be our new president. I really do not understand how this happened. How can over half our nation think he would make a good leader? You only have to listen to him for 5 minutes to see he has no idea what he’s talking about. Yet, half our nation doesn’t see this. What am I missing? So much of the world is living in fear. Fear breeds anger and hatred. Then add ignorance. This feeds the fear and it becomes a never ending circle. I think much of the world is caught in this circle, especially America and they have no idea. It’s the fault of the republicans, the Muslims, the black people, the Christians, the rich people, the Mexicans, – whoever is over there. Everyone is so busy pointing that no one realizes they are on the merry-go-round and they could just hop off. How am I supposed to support people to wake up when I’m standing next to the merry-go-round offering help, but no one hears me? (I know, my new magic tattoo.) How am I supposed to help people wake up when I keep finding myself back on the merry-go-round myself? I don’t know how I got there, but there I am. Last night my issue got resolved by slamming doors and crying – on the merry-go-round. Then I jump off. Oh, crap, how’d I get here again. Jump off. On. Off. In the past some of my best learning experiences came from me getting so worked up, creating drama and destruction everywhere I went, total meltdown or blowout and only then could I see the absurdity in it all. I had to take it to the extreme to see that what I believed wasn’t true, who I thought I was wasn’t true. After that, I can never go back to the old beliefs, but it was a messy uncomfortable process to get to the truth. So, as much as I think Trump was the wrong decision, I wonder, does it have to be like this? Do other people learn this way too? Does it have to be chaos before we will open our eyes and say “what am I doing – this is not true”? Are we doing that as a country? Does it need to be horrible before people will see how ridiculous our thinking has become? Then I also question, will it actually be horrible or will American life go on as it always has? Or, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about….
I challenge you:
Ask yourself – are you on the merry-go-round? If so, are you having fun? If not, why not jump off?
How many times do you point the finger and blame someone else in a day?
See if you can make it through one week without turning on the news on tv. Then turn it on and see if you can feel how the news propagates fear.
Maybe I’ll find a new job and stay in Thailand longer, but it doesn’t feel like that is going to happen. I feel that my time living here is coming to an end. This has been a big part of my journey to awakening as I practice living in presence even when things are challenging. I decided to get a Sak Yant tattoo as a ceremonial experience of this part of my journey. A Sak Yant tattoo is a traditional Buddhist tattoo that has magic for protection, good luck, or some other purpose. A friend recommended the Sak Yant master I went to. I made an appointment with him a month ago. He isn’t a monk, but has learned from the monks as well as other teachers. It sounded cleaner and more personal than going to a temple to have it done. They have a package where I could have a translator as well as be picked up from my hotel so I paid extra for that. The translator picked me up at 8:30 and we didn’t get to the tattoo place until 10:00am. He chatted the whole time. He has a friend that wanted to watch me get the tattoo – she wants one, but is afraid. She met us at Ajarn Neng’s tattoo place. He works out of the front room of his house. When we got there I had to sit in the carport and wait since Ajarn Neng was still praying. The carport, like most places in Thailand, is dirty. It smells like pee. What have I gotten myself into? This is supposed to be one of the best Sak Yant masters in Bangkok. Am I in the right place? His assistant came out and gave me some incense to hold while I prayed with him to Ganesha. I had to repeat what he was chanting. I have no idea what I promised to Ganesha. Ganesha is a Hindu god. I cannot explain what he has to do with a Buddhist tattoo. Then I got to go into the house, kneel before the master and present him with a pedestal that had a bunch of fake flowers and and envelope with my money in it. After a brief conversation, he recommended the tattoo that I got. It will help protect me in my new business. It will make people want to support me. People will want to listen to me the way they want to listen to a bird sing. I decided that this was fitting as I’m learning to trust that life supports me. He suggested the right shoulder and as I was not set in what or where, I went with his suggestion. He makes the ink himself. He uses a long stick with a sharp point to do the tattoo. It’s amazing that he has any aim at all with such a long stick. Two people assist him to hold my skin tight. After the tattoo is done, he cleans it and then puts a sheet of gold leaf above it. He prays as he puts the gold leaf on. I believe this is also part of the process of putting the magic in the tattoo. He also anointed me with holy water like I had seen the monks do at ceremonies I had seen.
Now, I have rules to follow or the magic of the tattoo will be lessened. I think I can handle all of them except number 4. 1. Do not say any bad word to your parents and be grateful for them. 2. Do not use any chemical drug. Mushroom and Marijuana are ok. 3. Do not eat star fruit or Winter gourd. 4. If you have a chance to come to Thailand. You should come and worship the Waikru day(Master day) which organized once a year at Arjan Neng’s place. (The first Sunday of March). 5. Do not go under the hanging rope that hang the laundry. 6. No adultery. 7. Pray kata that Arjan Neng gave you 3 times in the morning.
After the tattoo, the translator and his friend drove me to the bus station. We drove forever (over an hour) and still didn’t even go halfway across the city. Bangkok is a huge city. They called the bus station and my hotel in Kanchanaburi just to get the lowdown on everything for me. They told me how Chinese tourists are not respectful of the Thai culture and he’d rather have tourists from other countries – he’s a tour guide too. When we got to the bus station, they came in with me and helped me buy a ticket. The bus station is huge. It had 5 or 6 floors and even had a mall. I would have been able to buy a ticket on my own, but it would have taken forever to find my way around. I was grateful to have their help. Hmmmmm…. is the tattoo working already?
I got to Kanchanaburi a couple of hours later. Instead of playing cheesy game shows on the tv on the bus, they played sad Thai music with videos of people mourning the King. For two hours. I don’t like my hotel. I miss the nice hotels I had in China. I walked to a floating restaurant for dinner. It was right next to the bridge or the river Kwae. It’s spelled Kwae, not Kwai. I thought it would be nice and relaxing to eat by the river, but the water in the river was dirty with a film of yuck on top. The food was way overpriced. I saw two bakeries on my way to the restaurant – one would have cake and that would make me feel better. No. Neither bakery had any baked goods. Maybe they don’t know what a bakery is. The room next to mine must have 8 people staying in it. They keep yelling, going in and out of the room slamming the door and shuffling their feet loudly as they go past my door, only to turn around and go back. Back and forth, back and forth, inside, outside, inside.
Shanghai is smaller in land area than Beijing, but has more people – 24 million people. Beijing has 23 million people. Xi’an has about 9 million, Chengdu 11 million, and Chongqing has around 33 million. I wish we had more time in Shanghai, but we only had one day. The day started off with a visit to a temple. The temple had a happy Buddha and a female Buddha. After the temple we went to the Bund. Shanghai has a river running through the middle. One side is the older downtown and one is the newer downtown. The Bund is a waterfront area. The view from there is the iconic Shanghai view. It’s not very iconic in my photos since it was a very hazy day. There were a lot of European style buildings near the Bund too. We went to an embroidery gallery. The work is amazing. All the embroidery was done with silk thread so the photos glowed and changed colors as you moved. Some pieces took a year or more to make. This was art way out of my price range. After lunch we went to a garden and more shopping. For dinner we were on our own. We were supposed to go to a dinner show, but it got cancelled. 10 of us took the subway back to downtown area. We went to the Pearl tower and went up to the observatory and then had dinner in the revolving restraint. Every restaurant we ate dinner in on the trip had a huge lazy susan in the middle of the table so you could spin it around to try all the dishes. We joked that at our last dinner we were the lazy susan, spinning around the food. Overall, the trip was wonderful, the people were so much fun, the food was great, and the sites were beautiful. I’m tired, but so glad I did this trip.
We left Chengdu and took an hour bus ride to Chongqing. This city is huge, 33 million people. It was just high rise buildings as far as the eye could see. We went to the Stilwell museum and then got on the river cruise boat. The boat was beautiful. We cruised the Yangtze River for 3 nights. They did too many announcements very loudly in my room early in the morning. The whole boat shut down by 11:00pm, kind of like we had a curfew. There were shore excursions every day. I didn’t do the morning ones because they cost more. One shore excursion was to see the red pagoda, Shibaozhai. We also did an excursion that took us on smaller boats up a smaller canyon. That was very pretty. There were also talks and programs on the boat too. It was even more fun because everyone in our tour group had already had a week to get to know each other so we had already bonded and had fun hanging out on the boat. There is a big dam on the river called the three gorges dam. There are 5 locks near the dam for boats. There is also a boat elevator, but our boat was too big to use the elevator. We went through two of the gorges during the day. It’s very mountainous and beautiful. There are rural villages and farms – no cars, no hospital, no high schools, no way in or out of the small villages except a 2 to 4 hour hike. We went through the locks of the dam at night. It takes about three hours to go through all five locks. I watched the boat go through the process of going through the first lock and then went to bed. It is free for boats to use the locks. On our last day we left the boat and toured the dam and locks. There are 3,000 engineers working there every day. It used to be 40,000. When the project is finished, it will be 600 engineers. There are 32 turbines to create electricity. The rest of the day was spent in the airport. Our flight to Shanghai was late. A bunch of us played cards in the airport. Chinese love games. After about 5 minutes we had drawn a crowd of Chinese men. They were watching us play. They would walk around to see what hands we had and how we laid down the cards so they could figure out how to play. We finally got into Shanghai and were on our own for dinner. A few of us found pizza. They serve pizza with a plastic glove so you don’t have to actually touch the pizza.
(c)All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
locksMap of 3 Gorges portion of YangtzeShip ElevatorLocks
Rraine Drops 