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December 29, 2004
TheOtherSide
In the midst of this terrible event, I've managed to set up a much better photo viewing experience. I'm now a total blog-convert...and set up a photoblog. It's super easy for me to add new photos, and super easy for you to leave all the comments you want, positive or negative, on whichever picture you want. There's quite a few more on there that are PREVIOUSLY UNVIEWED (wow) so if you got some time to kill that's my suggestion. :P All the shots were taken with my Fuji S7000 6MP Digital Camera. Any post processing is either very apparent or so subtle it's not worth mentioning. Okay, cool everybody, thanks for stopping by.
TheBodhiBlog contains the words of my travels.
Here is TheOtherSide. The eyes.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 01:05 AM | Comments (1)
December 28, 2004
Tsunami
By now I'm sure most of you have heard the tragic news of this earthquake and resulting tsunami that has devastated many costal areas in Southeast Asia. I would also assume that you know Thailand resides in Southeast Asia...and that I just spent the week surrounding Christmas on an island off the coast of Thailand. I'll put to rest any worried thoughts you're having and tell you honestly I'm perfectly fine and completely dry.
Fortunately, the island we chose to stay on lies on the other side of the narrow Burmese/Thai stretch of land that connects the two countries to Malaysia. There was some consideration to go further southwest and stay on a beach in Krabi, one of the heavily affected areas of Thailand. The town of Krabi neighbors Phuket, the highly-developed, resort filled, ultimately touristy area that also got hit hard. Hundreds of bungalows were completely washed away on Phi Phi Island, Krabi Province, which was made famous as the location that "The Beach" (starring you know who) was filmed on.
You can imagine what a major quake this was as the waves caused deaths in those African countries, over 3,000 miles away.
My Christmas was an excellent one. I slept in and woke up late to the sounds of the water washing up on the shore just twenty feet from the front door of my bungalow. Everyone was full of happiness, as always in this wonderful culture, and after some breakfast, we headed to the south of the island on the motorbikes to a village built entirely on stilts. One road stretches way out into the bay with diving shops, seafood restaurants, souvenir shops, beautiful homes, and even, surprise surprise, a 7-Eleven. We ate Christmas dinner at a table perched on the edge of the deck, feeding the remnants of our Steamed Lemon Herb Fish to the ravenous cannibalistic fish below.
The reported magnitude of the quake that caused the killer waves was between 8.9 and 9.1, the biggest in over 40 years. Apparently Bangkok experienced aftershocks of 6.5 but no damage was done. At least my sister made her December 28th flight out of Bangkok which is soon to be flooded by survivors desperately trying to get out of the entire area. Tourism is Thailand will be affected by this event, I'm sure, compounded by recent strict curfew laws and regulations requiring bars and discos to close at, in my opinion, unreasonably early hours.
I am so grateful to life for keeping me safe from this terrible tragedy, but with the death toll already over 40,000 and still rising, it's a very sad thing to hear about. Advanced monitoring stations and precautions have been set up in places like Hawaii and Japan, but unfortunately the areas that were hit the hardest have yet to join in the vast network of warning systems. How can you blame impoverished places like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the island off the coast of India, for not having evacuation plans? How can you evacuate millions of people who live their lives in little huts on stilts on the shores of the pacific, barely eating enough to get by? "I think this is the worst-ever natural disaster in Sri Lanka," N.D. Hettiarachchi, director of the National Disaster Management Centre, said. Food supplies and drinking water have been seriously depleted and the risk of widespread disease is very serious.
I just read that the US has pledged $15 million dollars in aid...How much did George spend in Iraq in the last week on technology based on killing? I see a huge, upsetting difference in these numbers. Billions are spent to kill for power and oil, but a catatstrophe affecting millions of people in 11 countries only deserves $15 million? There is much to be done to help these places. A new development just today states: UNICEF said uprooted land mines in Sri Lanka threatened to kill or maim aid workers and survivors. "Mines were ... washed out of known mine fields, so now we don't know where they are," said Ted Chaiban, the Sri Lanka chief of UNICEF.
Goosebumps and chills preceded the tears that came when I saw this photo. What's life for if not to feel?
"This was the worst day in our history," said Sri Lankan businessman Y.P. Wickramsinghe as he picked through the rubble of his sea-front dive shop in the devastated southwestern town of Galle. "I wish I had died. There is no point in living."
Traveling close to five hundred miles an hour at sea, the height of a tsunami may only rise a foot or two above the surrounding ocean. When it reaches close to shore and the sea floor rises, the water has no place to go but up and forward, destroying everything in it's path. You'll see the ocean retreating away from the shore, sometimes over three hundred feet back, and then suddenly stacking up and returning rapidly to crush the beach-front with waves over thirty feet high. I wonder what happens to the scuba divers that are down thirty meters below the surface? Are they affected? Are they thrashed along the coral that stands steady as a rock? The numbers of missing and dead continue to rise.
There is a lot of sorrow and concern in people's eyes here. The Earth is an unconquerable thing, and these reminders are not going cease for anyone. They happened long before us and will continue long after we are gone. I'm not going to bring religion into this event, but in answer to those who ask "What did we do to deserve this??" I'm going to say "Absolutely nothing. We're human. This is the Earth." If anything, it's a wake-up call from our mother reminding us who our life support and guardian is. Part of me thinks the real question is "What did the Earth do to deserve us?" Someday better care will be taken.
Let's all close our eyes and send our love and healing energy to those who have lost their lives and those who have lost their loves.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 03:30 AM | Comments (7)
December 21, 2004
Travels
From one city to the next, nobody knows where we'll end up to rest. Can it please be a beautiful deserted beach on some tropical island? The Lonely Planet Guide, with it's golden Buddha eyes staring out the cover, leads and educates while hanging the loud but silent tourist billboards on our backs. Edition number ten, the newest, yet already almost two years old, guides us all in the same directions. It leads the solos, the couples, the graduated friends, the heart broken, the heart breakers, the middle-aged desperates, the shutter happy, the drunken happy, some not so happy while others ridiculously so. The planet doesn't seem so lonely anymore.
I drink freshly cut ginger tea and soak my rice in delicious red curry, trying to beat whatever nasty invader has made my throat hurt so bad. Maybe it's just the blue smoke from the tuk-tuks and diesel trucks that's blown into the faces of every motorbiker in Chiang Mai, myself included. Swallowing is torturous so I try not to. I forget for just a moment and an absent-minded swallow slips in as we walk by the local pharmacy with the words "Free consulting with pharmacist" printed on the window. I go inside and tell her what's wrong. She asks a few questions and hands over two kinds of multicolored pills. Clarinase and Amoxycillin (as trihydrate); are those names supposed to be intimidating? It took under five minutes and I paid less than five dollars for both and have since recovered. America is supposed to be the land of the free, so how come the same result would have cost me absurdly more time and money, not even factoring in the insurance plan I would have had to have just to see a doctor to get a prescription?
A ten hour bus ride from one capital to the next, bouncing and rumbling through the pitch black night. Yellow street lights and the occasional security checkpoint, who could be hiding in the cargo containers? Frighteningly underaged Burmese girls looking in the wrong places to provide for themselves and their families? Muslim terrorists from the south? Drop a million paper swans on their heads, encourage the trash pickup and maybe we'll all be friends one day.
The tuk-tukers and the shady taxi drivers want to be your friend. You can ride with them for a special low price that they only offer to their friend one time. Later on you find out that true friends to them are colored pieces of paper with pictures of the king and the mutually recognized symbols we call numbers on them. Higher is better. They know where to wait, at the steps of the bus, at the toilets as you come out, on the street just before you get to the more reasonable and legitimate meter-taxi's. Quite an effecient system they have worked out, as we're ushered into an air-conditioned red one that'll take us to the legendary Khao San Road. The driver speaks not a word of English, but he knows where we are going. Who needs to guess? It's six in the morning and the sun is still hiding. Traffic never seems to cease in this metropolis as we weave and dodge in the early light. I practice my Thai with the driver and tell him "It's too early, no? I would like to sleep." He laughs and rubs his eyes. "Khao San Road, near or far?" I question. "Near." he says.
Cities in America have areas called Chinatown, Little Italy, and even Thai Town. If Bangkok did the same, Khao San Road would be called Falang Central or Backpackerville. As we step out onto the street there's no question we've made it. Signs for guesthouses and tourist agencies abound and the streets are littered with all-nighters stumbling back to sleep through the heat of the day. The other types out at this absurd hour are those like us, searching for a place to put these heavy bags and my guitar, which I haven't taken out since I left Chiang Rai. A mental slap on my wrist and an urge just to sit on the sidewalk and play rises in me, but we have to find a room. Door to door we go, always getting the same response. "So sorry, we're full!" is the polite way, or a silent wave of the hand sends us on to the next rejection. The strategic searchers have staked out a particular guesthouse, waiting for the inevitable daily check-outs and then the cleaning girls to open a room for them to snatch up. This place is nothing like the North is all I can think. I'm going to reap it for all it's worth and move on. Am I wrong to think this way?
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 07:32 AM | Comments (2)
December 09, 2004
Loi Kratong
The Loi Kratong festival, Chiang Rai, Thailand. Sometime late November, 2004. The troublesome two are at it again. He spends all day away from home and she spends all day at home thinking too much. Thinking can be bad for your health. Falang food for lunch. Why did I do that? Bad choice. Where should I eat next? Thai food down the street. Good choice. A little boy holds a stick full of fireworks as they shoot into the night sky over the passing motorbikes. It seems to be finished and he points it right at his mom. She screams and takes it from him. He laughs. Everybody's gotta learn sometime. Candles line the streets and floating candles fill the cloudy sky. The moon may be full or crescent, but the clouds are in full effect tonight and no stars or moon can be seen. The floating candles create dynamic constellations of yellow in the sky. I thank the Earth for the clouds. A quick stop home for the camera and a change of clothes and we head out. The parade marches through the colorfully lit streets and provides some frustrating but interesting low light photo conditions. After ten minutes, we've had enough. At his request we drive out past the closed roads with the traffic gaurds blowing their whistles endlessly to a deserted no-falang feeling place on the river. It's dark and raining. There's nothing. He says he didn't know and feels bad. No problem, but all I want to do is be free. Back into town we go through the pouring rain on the motorbikes. The girl at the red light speaks for a minute and gives directions in Thai. She continues through the entire countdown of the green light and as soon as she finishes the light turns red again. I smile apoligetically and she just smiles back. We ask the traffic police, we ask people at their homes. Why is this so confusing? Isn't this the biggest event in town? Finally he gives up and leaves me with her...thanks a lot.
Anyway... We wander and ask for more directions... Finally we make it to the right brige on the right river and it turns into another Nevada County Fair and instead of seeing everybody I never wanted to see again, there are, of course, Asian people everywhere. I'm at least six inches taller than the tallest person there, around a foot taller than most. Instead of imported handcrafts from India and Thailand and Africa like Nevada County is full of, there are imported garbage products from China. Toy cars, guns, watches, calculators, shirts, hats, pants, food, cds, vcds, more food and more toys. The "big" ferris wheel, that would be dwarfed be any American ferris wheel, spins through the night sky speckled by the floating candles rising and falling through the clouds. A candle rocks back and forth in the breeze and ends up plumeting into a chair on the ferris wheel. Everyone is okay, nothing to worry about. I contemplate throwing darts at colorful balloons to win a prize, but to tell you the truth I don't want to win the player at my side a prize. She bumps into friends at every turn. I feel awkward standing next to her, and then she holds my hand. Get me out of here. Turn these spotlights off of me. I want to reflect, talk, relax. I'm sure the riverside is quite nice right now...but how would I know? I suppose this holiday could be quiet, peaceful, and spiritual, but the experience is always based on who you share it with. Next year I know.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 07:30 AM | Comments (3)
December 07, 2004
Life's Curriculum
So I was reading this essay on the unschooling movement called "Schoolaholics Anonymous" and the author talked about how he's been attending The University of Planet Earth. This is his curriculum with a few changes and additions by me:
Live in a different place every year: DC, Oakland, New York, LA, a farm, and somewhere in the South. Play a different sport every day of the week, preferably with a different ethnic group: Basketball with blacks, martial arts with Chinese, capoeira with Brazilians, soccer with some of everybody, pool with drunks, tennis with the white middle-class, etc. Every Sunday attend a different place of worship. Every day get to know someone new. Volunteer, attend lectures, talk to strangers on the street. Seek out hundreds of role models and mentors. The rest of the time, read and save up enough money to travel to a different continent every year; otherwise work as little as possible. Do that for five years. That is the freshman survey course. Then you'll have a better idea of what to do as a sophomore.
...Now I'm not saying I don't want to go to a real college, but if you put a graduate from the UPE next to a graduate from a UCD, who do you think would be a more interesting and educated person? Just a thought.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 02:36 AM | Comments (2)
December 05, 2004
A Random Journal Entry
What did I do today? Yesterday? The day before? Was I having fun? Of course. What will I do tomorrow? I'm trapped in a constant paradox of loving to live in the moment but also hating how each day seems to fly by into the sea of the past. Each one has it's own unique characteristics and experiences that make it very different from all others. At the same time, each day seems to blend into each week which seems to blend into each month which in a lesser extent blends into each year. As I get older the years get shorter and the past gets more summarized. I'm nineteen years old. What will my life feel ilke when I'm thirty? Fifty? Happy. Content. Peaceful.
Today my sister arrived. It's strange how a little over twenty-four hours ago, she was eight thousand miles away on the other side of the world. We ate dinner together and drank papaya shakes. It was takeout, which in no way affects the quality of the food. We all thoroughly enjoyed the good conversation in fluent high-speed American English and the good tastes of mixed vegetables and rice, papaya and ice. I haven't worn shoes in four days.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 08:30 AM | Comments (1)
December 04, 2004
The Wreck
So as you may know, Thailand is full of mopeds. It's a super economical way to get around and a ton of fun too. When I go back to the states I want one...but I don't want to be competing for road space with 2-ton SUVs all by myself. Thai people drive crazy...but they're used to dodging and weaving with motorbikes filling in every gap. The street lights in Thailand have visible timers next to them. No fancy sensors like in America that tend to go bad and leave you waiting at red lights for ten minutes late at night... You know exactly when it's going to change. This tends to be a bit dangerous though, as the young and reckless tend to jump the timer a bit and go when there are a few seconds left before the green. So this is where my story is heading...someone did that on a moped while I was on my moped going through the green light that only had a few seconds left. I was cruisin at about 45 KPH (a little under 30 MPH). They didn't look at all, even after I swerved behind them to avoid a full on collision. My braking and the sand on the road sent me into a slide and I knew the bike was going down. I bailed as carefully as I could to avoid getting creamed by my bike or anyone else and rolled and slid across the intersection...loosing my shoe in the process. I hobbled to the bike and pulled it off the road because the light was green and people were in a hurry to go. Seriously, no one got out to help, they were just trying to figure out how to get past me and on their merry way. A quick dash out to grab my shoe and then back to calm my nerves. Everything is okay, but I'm a little banged up. Here's a couple pictures to show the damage. My foot looks a bit worse underneith the sock, but it's all cosmetic damage, no broken bones or sprained joints or the like. I always wear a helmet and now drive even more carefully. Don't worry about me, be happy I'm not on crutches or worse. It was a good learning experience...which I seem to get plenty of in every catagory. Hah. Yay for life.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 03:28 AM | Comments (1)
Foahtoes...?
So I posted some photos from Thailand online...here... Check them out and lemme know what you think!
Thanks to everyone who were so quick to reply with their comments about the photos, positive and negative (the latter of which I always especially appreciate)... But I have one concern. The website was automatically created by Photoshop, and I didn't and still don't know much about the feedback feature. When I get some time, I'm going to get rid of it because I believe it only lets you send feedback for all the pictures at once, not each one seperately...and I think maybe that's too confusing for most. Well, for me anyway. :) To make sure your comments don't get lost in this vast other dimension we call the internet, please just write me an email mentioning the titles if you want to comment, okay?
Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from all'la'ya out der in da werld.
PS...Really sorry if you wrote individual comments for each picture using the feedback deal...I can promise you I only got one.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 03:21 AM | Comments (1)
My Cell Number
If anyone wants or needs to talk to me, my cell number in Thailand is 050362070. If you're calling from the US you'd drop the first zero and dial 011 and then the country code for Thailand which is 66 and then my number... so you'd dial like this: 011 66 50 362 070
I don't expect you to call unless there's some kind of emergency...but if you do, the ring is going to be different. Be prepared. :P
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 03:19 AM | Comments (1)
December 03, 2004
The Beginning of Something New
Catchy, eh? So anyway, I've always heard about these funny things called Blogs but never ever ever took one step towards figuring out what the deal was... Now look at me! This way I don't have to clutter your mailboxes with duplicate letters and missed emails... Just check the blog if you wanna hear what I've been up to...it's like a portal to the inside of my head! Well, no not really because you're only going to see as much as I want you to see. Could be dangerous. So yeah, this is the beginning of something new and I've spent too much time saying nothing, so good night all! It's Friday night and I've got a town to tear up. More here later.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 03:10 AM | Comments (5)