Okay, now a few from July/August and that will have to satisfy until I start posting the new stuff in a matter of days, internet willing....
July 4 Sunday Happy Fourth of July everyone back at home. No fireworks here in India. The day was spent cooped up in an upper bunk of a sleeper train completing a 32 hour train ride across the bulk of India. We arrived in Mumbai at 9:20pm to discover that Gabe did not have the address of our hotel written down anywhere and the prospect of finding open internet cafes was dim. We walked out of the railway station to get away from the most bothersome taxi drivers and eventually found one that was convinced he knew where the hotel was. That turned out to be a complete fabrication. Almost immediately he began pulling over to the sides of the street and calling to other cabbies and anyone who would listen for help finding the place. Of course no one seems to have any idea, but they all know other places they can take you for a great deal. Since it was partly our fault for not having the address/phone number (well, Gabe's anyway) we spent a great deal of time trying to get them to understand if they found us an internet cafe we could get the address. We were unable to get this across no matter what we tried. After a while, with our cabbie getting increasingly testy (he had agreed to a flat rate and I'm glad we had negotiated that before getting it), we found someone who spoke enough English to work something out. He did not know where the hotel was, but sent us to a cafe, Leopold Cafe, where many foreigners hang out and where there was a good chance to get an internet connection. Then we could work on the solution to our problem.
July 8 Thursday Today was rough day. Some might use the phrase 'soul searching', although that doesn't quite seem to fit for me. This theme does come up in my thought process with relative frequency, for whatever that is worth. Mumbai has been trying overall and India on a whole has maybe lived down to my lower expectations. Another rainy day began early with us meeting Terence, our guide/headache of the past few days. His claim to be able to get us into a Bollywood shoot was, of course, vaporware and we were pretty much ready to sever our contact with him, but he insisted on helping us get our tickets to our next destination and that was worth something. Before addressing that we made sure we were cleared at the hotel and they would watch our luggage until early afternoon. We took a bus to the Victoria Terminus and checked on train prices, which as we knew, were quite high. Then we walked around the building to where all the bus ticket vendors were located. Of course, we immediately run into some 'obstacles': there seem to be no buses with reclining seats or air conditioning headed to Rajastan state. So our choices are non A/C seats (stiff back none reclining) or sleeper (which is a bed, so you are lying down the entire 16 plus hours). We elected to go with the sleeper option, which was half the price of the train ticket and a method of transport we have not yet experienced. So Udaipur, here we come. With that squared away, we had a late breakfast of uttapams, dosas, vegetable cutlets, and various other things. And we paid for Terence's food as well. Then we walked a looooonnnnnggggg way to a bus that took us to the home where Gandhi lived for about 17 years and from which many of his campaigns for Indian freedom originated. It is a small simple place and now houses a decent sized library of his documents and those about him. The exhibits include letters to US presidents, Hitler, and Leo Tolstoy. It was special to me to spend the time carefully going through the exhibits, as Gandhi is one of my heroes. He spent a life time living by principles and a moral code that are worthy of emulation.
With our time nearly gone we hurried back to Volga II, dismissed Terence, grabbed our baggage, bought some water for the bus ride, and after about 10 cabbies, we found one that would actually use the meter to take us to the bus depot. All the other cabbies wanted to rip us off, usually to the tune of triple the true rate. Even the cabbie we took changed rates on us once we arrived. He suddenly wanted the meter rate, plus 35 rupees 'luggage fee'. We told him flat out that we were not paying any add on fee and had him show us the rate card, which is what we used to pay him the fair price for our trip. The bus was right there and we made a pile of our bags. We had decided we would put our Pac Saf mesh on our big packs, since we had had so many warnings about things disappearing. So we were both in the process of doing that, when a young guy started helping me with mine. I told him I did not need help, but he just kept involving himself. It was annoying because he just made it take longer, since he doesn't know how it gets attached and just got in the way. Anyway, I got the Pac Saf on, the guy said thank you, I thanked him rather tersely and then he was gone. Gabe got his on and we loaded them both into the back of the bus, then I realized my small backpack was not in the remaining pile of bags and I panicked. My computer as well as my backup hard drive were both in the backpack, plus my passport. That guy was the only person we thought had been near the luggage and Gabe took off down the street where he had headed. I was angry and full of adrenaline. It had only taken a few seconds of distraction and the bag was gone. And that it happened while we were securing other bags from theft.
Well, within minutes of Gabe heading down the street where the guy had gone, a small crowd was gathering outside the travel agent where we had purchased our tickets. And they seemed rather agitated themselves. Suddenly from the midst of the group appeared my bag. I quickly ran over and grabbed it. Nothing was missing when I looked through the compartments and as annoying as it was that they began asking for a 'reward' for the guy that had the bag, I gave him 60 rupees. I sent a quick thank you prayer to God and then scanned the street for Gabe. He made it back, just as they were ushering me onto the bus in preparation to leave. I told him the story and he told me of his looking down alley's and places to see if the bag had been dumped. So what had been a near disaster, became not so much of one. Just a warning to us both about how fast it can happen. As we began driving out of Mumbai we passed a series of billboards and that in conjunction with the other events of the day had me thinking long and hard. The billboards, which I am sorely sorry I did not get a picture of, were for an under construction housing project by a joint group of Indian developers. The image was of twin suns setting on a body of water with the tagline “Ultra luxury living that will force others to look up to you. For the privileged few.” As far as the eye can see around these billboards were the slums of Mumbai, shanties like you see in most any country with a large population of poor people. How is it that we as humans can be so oblivious or intentionally callous to the rest of humanity? How can someone justify an “ultra luxury” lifestyle while others live in such poverty? Another example from yesterday was a Four Seasons Hotel directly across the street from a slum that has one bathroom for each 9000 residents. How can we convince ourselves we are deserving of so much at the expense of others? How do the people living in the shadows of these premium accommodations see the whole thing? Is that why as a white person walking down the street I am seen as a money machine? How does someone honor Gandhi as the Father of free India, and mistreat their own countrymen? It boggles my mind and I get to a point where I wonder why God would choose to save any of us. And I have to remind myself that despite what is happening in the world, He does have a plan and ultimate control and though I will not understand it until I can ask Him about it directly, He loves me and everyone else on this big world. I can be responsible and try to improve the world around me. Maybe that does not accomplish much, but it is worth doing anyway.
July 9 Friday I woke up several times in the early morning and the 16 hour mark passed by. We needed another 2 and a half hours to eventually reach Udaipur. After unloading our bags and taking a bathroom break, we had competing cabbies wanting to take us everywhere and anywhere. This time we had a written list of several places to stay and after selecting a driver, had him take us to Anjani, which was supposed to have internet access. I waited with the tuk tuk while Gabe went to check on the actualities of the rooms. A guy stopped at the tuk tuk and gave me a card for another place. When Gabe got back he said the rooms were enormous, but also much more expensive, plus the internet was nearby, but not included. Next he checked out the place I got the card from, but those rooms were not very good. We asked for a place with internet access and they gave us the name of Hotel Minerwa. Our driver took us to a different place, using the amazing logic all cabbies seem to possess. We made him bring us to the Minerwa, and Gabe went in to check it out. A smiling Gabe emerged soon after, saying we definitely wanted to stay here. The price was great and the room is large compared to our places in Mumbai and Kolkata (but it is still half the size of the rooms at Anjani, which is crazy). We got registered and installed in room 304 then went to the roof top restaurant for breakfast. We both had curd with bananas and honey, and I had a masala omelette while Gabe had a tomato omelette and chai. Really good food and quite cheap. We talked with the waiter and got a lot of good info on the city. The hotel (and actually many of the hotels here) have a nearly nightly showing of the James Bond film, Octopussy, since it was partially filmed in Udaipur. He gave us the internet password, but we could not get it to work. They said it would be working later in the day. Regardless, this is already so much nicer and beautiful than the India we have experienced to this point and I am glad for it.
August 8 Sunday We woke up at 4 am to gauge the weather and it was actually raining. We went back to bed and got up closer to 7 to see that the clouds were breaking up. There was hope for pictures of the Annapurna range yet. It was still slightly drizzling, so we went over to Kangaroo and had breakfasts of fruit juice, brown toast with jam, fruit muesli with curd, tea and a croissant from the German bakery. Back to the hostel to check out of our room and put the bags in their storage for the day. We walked to the damside and all the way to the alternatively named Devi, Davis, or David Fall, where we planned to take a bus the remaining way up to the Shakti Stupa (World Peace Pagoda). Turns out that no bus actually goes to the Pagoda despite our having been informed otherwise, so we ended up walking the whole way up the mountain. We were drenched in sweat, the clouds refused to come off the higher peaks, and other clouds were threatening rain, but the walk and view were well worth it. It is somewhat sad to have been to the Himalayas and not have any pictures to show for it, but we really did see them on several occasions, when photography was just not really possible, in buses around the valley. As has been the case the last few days it has felt so much like Switzerland, with the way the mountains look, the houses all decorated, the friendly people, the smells of cows and grass, the sounds of chickens and goats, I really love it here.
The Peace Pagoda itself is rather impressive and if the clouds had cooperated it is the type of place you could sit all day and take pictures.
August 9 Monday Daybreak had us approaching the Nepalese border town of Sonauli and at 5:40 am we got dropped off in typical traveler fashion 6 kms from the actual border. Yay for convenience and practicality. A 50 rupee jeep ride got us to about 200 meters from the crossing. We walked to the immigration office on the Nepali side and got stamped out, walked across the no man's land to the Indian immigration office and within an hour were back in India with all our stamps in place. Then the hassles with taxis and rickshaws began as they all claimed we had a huge distance to cover to the bus station (we walked the one kilometer just over a week ago, so we know what it really is). Gabe discovered one mistake in that he did not change his money back to Indian rupees on the Nepali side. Similar to my extra Myanmar Kyat, it was much harder to change on the Indian side (that actually became a day long search for a place that would do the exchange and not flat out gouge on the transaction). We ran into a nearly full taxi landrover and again got a deal with rides to Gorakhpur for 100 rupees each. This is a double blessing because it cuts almost three hours off the travel time of the bus and at 100 rupees is barely more than the bus. Most people pay 200-250, but since they just want to pack the vehicle we have benefited in both directions. Our driver was in a hurry so we made good time and with a few short naps in our crammed seats in the back, we were suddenly in Gorakhpur by about 8:30 am. This time we got dropped off right at the train station which was great for us. We waded through the drivers trying to take us right back to Sonauli and while I guarded the mound of our bags, Gabe tried to track down train tickets to New Delhi. That was a whole story in itself and an hour and a half later
August 10 Tuesday We arrived in Delhi at 6 am and with the normal hassle of taxis got one to take us to Connaught Place (which is undergoing major renovation for the Commonwealth Games), where the rooms were either complete dumps or VERY expensive. That driver passed us on to another driver who said he would not charge us to help find a place to stay. That means he gets a commission on the room, but that can work both ways. After some really expensive options he did take us to Hotel Kumar Palace and we took a room. We dropped our bags in the room and after about five times of hotel staff knocking to see if we needed food/beer/laundry, we locked the door. We both took showers and then headed out to explore Delhi a bit and get some food. The metro system is supposed to be one of the more efficient ways of getting around the city and I have to agree after our time here. The subway is being greatly expanded and will be a nice system when completed (who knows when that might be), but we were able to use it very cheaply to get to a few places of interest. They are packed with people at all hours though. We actually ate at a cafe in the metro station, snacking on samosa, veg cutlets and other veg pastries, on top of some decent lassis.
August 11 Wednesday I arrived at the Indira Gandhi Int'l Airport about 12:30 and getting through customs/immigration including three separate scannings of my luggage and person I made it to the gate with fifteen minutes to spare. I was able to get the bags checked straight through to SFO, which is a blessing since I have the long German layover. The plane left 10 minutes late at 2:35 am. The flight was basically uneventful, we arrived in Frankfurt 10 minutes early due to favorable winds and I could listen to some decent inflight radio, but the movies were not ones I was interested in. With a seven hour layover in Frankfurt I was in no rush to get off the plane and was one of the very last. It was easy to find which terminal I needed to go to, but they had no info on which gate I would need to go to. My ticket indicated C13, but that is an isolated gate specifically for flights to/from Israel. So much for security fears and peace in the middle east. I chose to wait in a no man's land area until I could confirm which gate was mine before going through another round of baggage checks and scans.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Some May and June notes....
May 1 Sabbath I showered and headed for church without breakfast this morning. A young man named
Tony from Kenya was one of the only other foreigners when I arrived, but then Marc Andre's family came and so there was a small group of us that could have an English lesson study when it was time to break for classes. The lesson this week was about the environment and how Christians should relate to it. We had some interesting conversation. Gabe and I have both been watching a number of documentaries lately and several have been on the state of the world and they paint a rather bleak picture. They mostly end on a hopeful note, but the reality is that we as humans have taken to our role as stewards of the earth very poorly and pushed the planet beyond the point of safe return. Overfishing, deforestation, pollution, depleted water supplies, the burgeoning oil crisis: any of these could cause a global catastrophy by themselves and we are facing them all at once. Despite how depressing that could all be, I see it more as a chance to learn and share with others how God still gives me hope and peace.
The new pastor gave his second sermon today and chose as a topic several aspects of the Job story.
Around 6:30 pm we left the hostel to meet with a person that knows people Gabe knows, who wanted to have dinner with us. Her name is Eva and she has been here for three years on a lectureship at a university here in Chiang Mai. She teaches Old Testament subjects, which seems to be an odd match in Thailand, but she seems to enjoy it. We met her at a Thai restaurant near the Amari Hotel on the west side of the city. For dinner we had two salads (one was a spicy banana flower salad and the other a pomelo salad), a baked fish dish, a fermented fish dish, a traditional soup, and a rice chicken dish. Eva is normally a fan of the pomelo salad, but this time it was different and not very good. The spicy banana flower was also a disappointment. It was more like a tuna salad and I could not even detect anything that seemed like banana flower, which I had been curious about. The baked fish was good, but the fermented fish dish was extremely tasty. I liked the soup although towards the end it was getting pretty salty.
May 3 Monday We slept in this morning to celebrate Thai Labor Day. Then after getting up and having breakfast we moved to a room on the first floor. We think it might be slightly cooler and it has the additional benefit of a stronger wifi signal (when the internet is up). Gabe brought out Citadels and we reacquainted ourselves with the basic rules while playing three games. It was good to finally get it into the mix as we have played quite a bit of Bonanza and San Juan, but this was our first foray into Citadels on this trip. Later in the afternoon we got in touch with Gabe's friend Eva and she gave us directions to meet her at a Burmese restaurant on the west side of town outside the moat. There was just enough time before we arranged to meet her that we could squeeze in massages. This was my second massage at this place. Gabe was getting his third. I have had seven massages so far in Thailand (I know that sounds extravagant, but I can live with that) and each one has been slightly different. By that I mean I have gotten a traditional Thai massage each time and while they follow a certain general pattern, each one has changed up maneuvers and techniques enough that they are different. Only one as been unsatisfactory and that was from a younger masseuse, which I just chalk up to her inexperience. For that matter, my best massage came from a girl that looked to be about 14. She had strong hands and knew what she was doing, while the other young woman had not been very confident in what she was doing. This time I had an older lady who was competent and I had a good massage. Gabe came out of his feeling pretty good, but started feeling sore soon after. That got worse the rest of the evening. He has to evaluate where that is going before we decide to go back.
Having the massages gave us little time to get to our dinner appointment, but we quickly flagged down a mini bus and were on our way. We weren't watching too closely and got out a block too soon and while that probably does not sound like much, outside the moat the blocks are LONG. Walking briskly we soon found the signs for the Burmese place, but it was closed and Eva wasn't around. Gabe called her and she was at a second Burmese place. We were at the right one, but since it was a holiday they were closed and she had gone to a second location nearby to see if they were open. With some rough directions we walked a little further and soon found Eva (and a little place called Hwme in the side alley of the Soi). She had already ordered five dishes and we added another. The food was delicious. There was a bean curd salad, a samosa salad, a tomato salad, a tea leaf salad, a morning glory salad, and then a sauteed mushroom and water cress dish, in addition to our portions of rice. Each one was wonderful, although the stand out for both Gabe and me was the samosa salad. We have learned to pick out the most obvious peppers and to live with the ones you miss before you get them in your mouth. I'm getting used to having the pepper induced hiccups quite regularly. We had some other excitement during dinner in the form of a lightning and thunder storm show (but no rain) and the wind that accompanied that twice knocked down the shade structure on the other side of the restaurant. Luckily no one was under the portion that fell. Just at the end of dinner it did sprinkle just a bit, but we were going to take a mini bus anyway so the little rain we did get hit with did not matter. Our mini bus dropped us at the Tae Phae gate and we grabbed ice cream cones before making a leisurely and indirect walk back 'home'.
May 4 Tuesday After getting up we arranged to go to the ADRA office and see what we could accomplish on the project. We picked up our 'usuals' at the Funky Monkey Cafe for breakfast and met Bob at the Monttri Hotel to drive to the office. Most of the office was empty because tomorrow is another holiday and so most people just take an extra day off. In the evening we met up with Tangmo and saw Iron 2 Man at the airport theater. Tangmo had her scooter, but we would not all fit, so Gabe and I walked back, which was not nearly as long a walk as I had imagined. Gabe split off to go to her house and I ended up walking back most of the way with a couple from Oregon, who had arrived in Chiang Mai three days ago. The guy was saying he had some dental work planned, since he did not have insurance back in the states, and the whole thing would only cost him $45 to do in Thailand.
May 5 Wednesday Another holiday, this time it is Coronation Day, so the office is closed. We slept in and were about to head out for a late breakfast when Eva called and invited us to lunch out at one of the nearby lakes. We met her and one of her friends at a coffee shop near one of the restaurants she had taken us to before and took his car out to the lake a short drive outside town. There were shade structures all along the lakeside, set back some because the lake is low in anticipation of the coming rainy season. We had brought a card game, and Eva had brought a badminton set, but there was too much wind for us to really do anything with either of those. We did order seven dishes for a shared lunch. The most unusual was one called jumping shrimp, which consisted of live shrimp in a strong chili paste. When it arrived Eva lifted the lid and several jumped out. Her friend tried putting them back in and several more jumped out. The people at the next shade structure were laughing at the whole thing since they are Thai and knew what to do. I took the dish and shook it for about a minute and that stunned most of the shrimp enough for everyone to start eating them. The other dishes were quite good.
May 8 Sabbath Another nice Sabbath in Chiang Mai. We had a strong rain shower just at the end of potluck after church and after the sun broke back through, Isaiah and his dad gave me a ride back to Safe House on their scooter.
May 9 Sunday We only left the hostel complex to have breakfast at Funky Monkey and eat lunch. Once it got dark we did meet the staff from the Funky Monkey at a nearby Wat to get dinner. There were five of them, Gabe and Tangmo, and me. I had three samosas, a plate of pad thai, a watermelon shake, and some lemon ancient ice for desert, all for less than three dollars. Jae is really going through a tough time, even though she tries hard not to show it, since her husband asked for a divorce and she has found out about infidelity on his part. She really wants the relationship to work and is not willing to let it go yet, but that is probably where it is headed. It is hard in some ways to realize how involved we have become in the lives of the Funky Monkey staff, the family at Safe House, people at the church, in a relatively short amount of time. I think it does speak to the fact that Gabe and I are accessible and open and people feel comfortable around us.
June 8 Tuesday To make it into Angkor Wat for sunrise we had to leave the hostel at 4:45 am. Our tuk tuk driver Ramon was on time and got us to the ticket entrance quickly. With a little more than a half hour to spare we got dropped off and so began a long day with visits to Angkor Thom then Bayon, then Bapuon then the Suor Prat Towers and the Khleangs, then the Elephant Terrace, the Phimeanakas and the Royal Palace, then the Leper King Terrace, then finally to Ta Prohm (Tombraider site). Then it was back home for showers and rest so much so that we missed dinner (it was raining as well)
June 9 Wednesday Our second day of Angkor began at 11 after we could not contact the person that had been recommended to us. We had a nice breakfast for $3.50 that included eggs, a small baguette with cheese, butter, and jam, fresh fruit and a pancake, with orange juice and tea. It was a place we found walking down a back alley scouting bike rental places. The temples we saw were Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Ta Keo, and Phnom Bakheng for sunset.
June 10 Thursday After breakfast at Le Tigre de Papier we met up with Ramon at 9am and headed to Roluos where three temples are concentrated. We drove to the farthest one first and visited tiny Lolei then Preah Ko then Bakong, then negotiated with our driver to head north to Banteay Srei then back near town to the monument for the Killing Fields in the Siem Reap area. Then back to hostel, to pub street to eat, internet and sleep
May 1 Sabbath I showered and headed for church without breakfast this morning. A young man named
Tony from Kenya was one of the only other foreigners when I arrived, but then Marc Andre's family came and so there was a small group of us that could have an English lesson study when it was time to break for classes. The lesson this week was about the environment and how Christians should relate to it. We had some interesting conversation. Gabe and I have both been watching a number of documentaries lately and several have been on the state of the world and they paint a rather bleak picture. They mostly end on a hopeful note, but the reality is that we as humans have taken to our role as stewards of the earth very poorly and pushed the planet beyond the point of safe return. Overfishing, deforestation, pollution, depleted water supplies, the burgeoning oil crisis: any of these could cause a global catastrophy by themselves and we are facing them all at once. Despite how depressing that could all be, I see it more as a chance to learn and share with others how God still gives me hope and peace.
The new pastor gave his second sermon today and chose as a topic several aspects of the Job story.
Around 6:30 pm we left the hostel to meet with a person that knows people Gabe knows, who wanted to have dinner with us. Her name is Eva and she has been here for three years on a lectureship at a university here in Chiang Mai. She teaches Old Testament subjects, which seems to be an odd match in Thailand, but she seems to enjoy it. We met her at a Thai restaurant near the Amari Hotel on the west side of the city. For dinner we had two salads (one was a spicy banana flower salad and the other a pomelo salad), a baked fish dish, a fermented fish dish, a traditional soup, and a rice chicken dish. Eva is normally a fan of the pomelo salad, but this time it was different and not very good. The spicy banana flower was also a disappointment. It was more like a tuna salad and I could not even detect anything that seemed like banana flower, which I had been curious about. The baked fish was good, but the fermented fish dish was extremely tasty. I liked the soup although towards the end it was getting pretty salty.
May 3 Monday We slept in this morning to celebrate Thai Labor Day. Then after getting up and having breakfast we moved to a room on the first floor. We think it might be slightly cooler and it has the additional benefit of a stronger wifi signal (when the internet is up). Gabe brought out Citadels and we reacquainted ourselves with the basic rules while playing three games. It was good to finally get it into the mix as we have played quite a bit of Bonanza and San Juan, but this was our first foray into Citadels on this trip. Later in the afternoon we got in touch with Gabe's friend Eva and she gave us directions to meet her at a Burmese restaurant on the west side of town outside the moat. There was just enough time before we arranged to meet her that we could squeeze in massages. This was my second massage at this place. Gabe was getting his third. I have had seven massages so far in Thailand (I know that sounds extravagant, but I can live with that) and each one has been slightly different. By that I mean I have gotten a traditional Thai massage each time and while they follow a certain general pattern, each one has changed up maneuvers and techniques enough that they are different. Only one as been unsatisfactory and that was from a younger masseuse, which I just chalk up to her inexperience. For that matter, my best massage came from a girl that looked to be about 14. She had strong hands and knew what she was doing, while the other young woman had not been very confident in what she was doing. This time I had an older lady who was competent and I had a good massage. Gabe came out of his feeling pretty good, but started feeling sore soon after. That got worse the rest of the evening. He has to evaluate where that is going before we decide to go back.
Having the massages gave us little time to get to our dinner appointment, but we quickly flagged down a mini bus and were on our way. We weren't watching too closely and got out a block too soon and while that probably does not sound like much, outside the moat the blocks are LONG. Walking briskly we soon found the signs for the Burmese place, but it was closed and Eva wasn't around. Gabe called her and she was at a second Burmese place. We were at the right one, but since it was a holiday they were closed and she had gone to a second location nearby to see if they were open. With some rough directions we walked a little further and soon found Eva (and a little place called Hwme in the side alley of the Soi). She had already ordered five dishes and we added another. The food was delicious. There was a bean curd salad, a samosa salad, a tomato salad, a tea leaf salad, a morning glory salad, and then a sauteed mushroom and water cress dish, in addition to our portions of rice. Each one was wonderful, although the stand out for both Gabe and me was the samosa salad. We have learned to pick out the most obvious peppers and to live with the ones you miss before you get them in your mouth. I'm getting used to having the pepper induced hiccups quite regularly. We had some other excitement during dinner in the form of a lightning and thunder storm show (but no rain) and the wind that accompanied that twice knocked down the shade structure on the other side of the restaurant. Luckily no one was under the portion that fell. Just at the end of dinner it did sprinkle just a bit, but we were going to take a mini bus anyway so the little rain we did get hit with did not matter. Our mini bus dropped us at the Tae Phae gate and we grabbed ice cream cones before making a leisurely and indirect walk back 'home'.
May 4 Tuesday After getting up we arranged to go to the ADRA office and see what we could accomplish on the project. We picked up our 'usuals' at the Funky Monkey Cafe for breakfast and met Bob at the Monttri Hotel to drive to the office. Most of the office was empty because tomorrow is another holiday and so most people just take an extra day off. In the evening we met up with Tangmo and saw Iron 2 Man at the airport theater. Tangmo had her scooter, but we would not all fit, so Gabe and I walked back, which was not nearly as long a walk as I had imagined. Gabe split off to go to her house and I ended up walking back most of the way with a couple from Oregon, who had arrived in Chiang Mai three days ago. The guy was saying he had some dental work planned, since he did not have insurance back in the states, and the whole thing would only cost him $45 to do in Thailand.
May 5 Wednesday Another holiday, this time it is Coronation Day, so the office is closed. We slept in and were about to head out for a late breakfast when Eva called and invited us to lunch out at one of the nearby lakes. We met her and one of her friends at a coffee shop near one of the restaurants she had taken us to before and took his car out to the lake a short drive outside town. There were shade structures all along the lakeside, set back some because the lake is low in anticipation of the coming rainy season. We had brought a card game, and Eva had brought a badminton set, but there was too much wind for us to really do anything with either of those. We did order seven dishes for a shared lunch. The most unusual was one called jumping shrimp, which consisted of live shrimp in a strong chili paste. When it arrived Eva lifted the lid and several jumped out. Her friend tried putting them back in and several more jumped out. The people at the next shade structure were laughing at the whole thing since they are Thai and knew what to do. I took the dish and shook it for about a minute and that stunned most of the shrimp enough for everyone to start eating them. The other dishes were quite good.
May 8 Sabbath Another nice Sabbath in Chiang Mai. We had a strong rain shower just at the end of potluck after church and after the sun broke back through, Isaiah and his dad gave me a ride back to Safe House on their scooter.
May 9 Sunday We only left the hostel complex to have breakfast at Funky Monkey and eat lunch. Once it got dark we did meet the staff from the Funky Monkey at a nearby Wat to get dinner. There were five of them, Gabe and Tangmo, and me. I had three samosas, a plate of pad thai, a watermelon shake, and some lemon ancient ice for desert, all for less than three dollars. Jae is really going through a tough time, even though she tries hard not to show it, since her husband asked for a divorce and she has found out about infidelity on his part. She really wants the relationship to work and is not willing to let it go yet, but that is probably where it is headed. It is hard in some ways to realize how involved we have become in the lives of the Funky Monkey staff, the family at Safe House, people at the church, in a relatively short amount of time. I think it does speak to the fact that Gabe and I are accessible and open and people feel comfortable around us.
June 8 Tuesday To make it into Angkor Wat for sunrise we had to leave the hostel at 4:45 am. Our tuk tuk driver Ramon was on time and got us to the ticket entrance quickly. With a little more than a half hour to spare we got dropped off and so began a long day with visits to Angkor Thom then Bayon, then Bapuon then the Suor Prat Towers and the Khleangs, then the Elephant Terrace, the Phimeanakas and the Royal Palace, then the Leper King Terrace, then finally to Ta Prohm (Tombraider site). Then it was back home for showers and rest so much so that we missed dinner (it was raining as well)
June 9 Wednesday Our second day of Angkor began at 11 after we could not contact the person that had been recommended to us. We had a nice breakfast for $3.50 that included eggs, a small baguette with cheese, butter, and jam, fresh fruit and a pancake, with orange juice and tea. It was a place we found walking down a back alley scouting bike rental places. The temples we saw were Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Ta Keo, and Phnom Bakheng for sunset.
June 10 Thursday After breakfast at Le Tigre de Papier we met up with Ramon at 9am and headed to Roluos where three temples are concentrated. We drove to the farthest one first and visited tiny Lolei then Preah Ko then Bakong, then negotiated with our driver to head north to Banteay Srei then back near town to the monument for the Killing Fields in the Siem Reap area. Then back to hostel, to pub street to eat, internet and sleep
Some snippets and incomplete thoughts from April.....
April 11 Sunday We slept in, eventually had breakfast and got sprayed by various Songkran celebrants as we made our way back to the hostel along the moat. We both fell asleep again and then I started watching Invictus, a film about Nelson Mandela at the time he took over as president of South Africa. Partway through the film a character asks one of Mandela's body guards what he is like and the response was that with the previous president his job had been to be invisible, but with the new president “To him no one is invisible.” Because of things I have been seeing and thinking about that was enough to make me start crying. That is what God is like to me. That is what I wish my life would convey to others. No one is invisible. No one is unworthy of acknowledgment. We were made to need human contact and contact with a higher power and yet most people spend great amounts of time and energy cutting themselves and others off. It is a challenge to me on this trip because sometimes I am inundated with beggars and these are a whole different class from the homeless in America. The range of physical deformities is astounding and cringeworthy and I can't possibly give money to all of them, but at the same time these are often the people who most need to know that they aren't invisible. The crowds move by like they aren't there and I do the same and I feel heartsick about it.
April 15 Thursday A good portion of today was dedicated to getting my taxes filed. My mom had gotten most of the necessary documents scanned and emailed to me and I was able to file online with a minimum of difficulty. It is nice to be getting everything back, even though it is not a very large amount since I only was working for the first two months of the year and then I had no income to speak of. (I did not bother reporting the $10 Australian I earned moving furniture at a hostel in Cairns). Of course this was secondary to celebrating another day of being wet to bring about the end of Songkran.
And part of an essay I was working on about the sex trafficking situation in Thailand
An Essay: The sex trade in Thailand and implications of trafficking
Part of the reason we came to Thailand in the first place was that it is an epicenter for sex tourism and human trafficking. We wanted to learn more first hand and possibly help to increase awareness of the issues for ourselves and within our spheres of influence. In that regard it has been an eye opening experience, with some preconceptions confirmed and many discounted or modified. The story goes back a long time, since much of this is tied to the oldest profession in the world.
There are two lynch pin pieces to this issue as I have come to see it, those being the historical male Thai perspective on relationships and the Vietnam war. To look at the first part of that, you have to understand that for centuries Thais practiced polygamy. This idea that men could have multiple partners openly and really have that be seen as a sign of wealth and power is deeply ingrained in the culture. It was only in the early part of the reign of the current king that the law was changed, banning polygamy as a gesture to the Western Civilized nations, that they were not as backward as some of their neighboring countries. So the gesture was made, but no change was effected in the mindset of the average Thai male. As a result, modern Thai men adjusted to have a wife and then many mistresses and/or prostitutes on the side. This apparently satisfies and preserves their cultural masculinity. There really is no stigma attached to visiting prostitutes.
The second prong, the Vietnam war, is when the sex trade really took hold, as Thailand became an R & R point for the US soldiers. The demand for sex was met by a willing Thais who saw the money making situation for what it was. By the time the Vietnam war was wrapping up, Thailand was gaining a reputation as a tourist destination and a place where beautiful girls and cheap sex were readily available.
It is a combination of these two things that has generated the human sex trafficking that tarnishes Thailand's reputation now. And it gets more tangled and complicated to closer you look. When foreigners come to Thailand looking for sex, they bring with them money and in the grand scheme of things the women servicing them are doing quite well for themselves financially, if at untold emotional and psychological cost. This can be demonstrated with the not uncommon example of a girl who has gone into prostitution returning to her home village capable of building a nicer house than the village chief. Other girls see this and since there is little stigma attached to the profession, it is very tempting and many do go into it willingly. The girls in this sector commonly do not work with pimps. The consequence of many girls and women going into sex work with foreigners is that there are fewer women for the average Thai man to achieve his virility quota. This is exacerbated by the issue of migrant work forces, where many men are away from their families for months at a time for work. These workers are commonly on the lowest earning levels, but they still have this ingrained cultural need to have multiple sexual partners. They demand access to very cheap sex and that demand is met through trafficked girls and women from neighboring extremely poor countries, such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,and Burma. These are the girls that are living in absolutely atrocious circumstances and the horror stories we have seen and heard about are sickening.
There are other parallel issues dealing with the Ladyboy/Transgender and the Gay/Lesbian communities. Ladyboys are young men who are living as women. The sheer numbers of them is astounding. They are not openly accepted or ostracized, but they obviously....
April 11 Sunday We slept in, eventually had breakfast and got sprayed by various Songkran celebrants as we made our way back to the hostel along the moat. We both fell asleep again and then I started watching Invictus, a film about Nelson Mandela at the time he took over as president of South Africa. Partway through the film a character asks one of Mandela's body guards what he is like and the response was that with the previous president his job had been to be invisible, but with the new president “To him no one is invisible.” Because of things I have been seeing and thinking about that was enough to make me start crying. That is what God is like to me. That is what I wish my life would convey to others. No one is invisible. No one is unworthy of acknowledgment. We were made to need human contact and contact with a higher power and yet most people spend great amounts of time and energy cutting themselves and others off. It is a challenge to me on this trip because sometimes I am inundated with beggars and these are a whole different class from the homeless in America. The range of physical deformities is astounding and cringeworthy and I can't possibly give money to all of them, but at the same time these are often the people who most need to know that they aren't invisible. The crowds move by like they aren't there and I do the same and I feel heartsick about it.
April 15 Thursday A good portion of today was dedicated to getting my taxes filed. My mom had gotten most of the necessary documents scanned and emailed to me and I was able to file online with a minimum of difficulty. It is nice to be getting everything back, even though it is not a very large amount since I only was working for the first two months of the year and then I had no income to speak of. (I did not bother reporting the $10 Australian I earned moving furniture at a hostel in Cairns). Of course this was secondary to celebrating another day of being wet to bring about the end of Songkran.
And part of an essay I was working on about the sex trafficking situation in Thailand
An Essay: The sex trade in Thailand and implications of trafficking
Part of the reason we came to Thailand in the first place was that it is an epicenter for sex tourism and human trafficking. We wanted to learn more first hand and possibly help to increase awareness of the issues for ourselves and within our spheres of influence. In that regard it has been an eye opening experience, with some preconceptions confirmed and many discounted or modified. The story goes back a long time, since much of this is tied to the oldest profession in the world.
There are two lynch pin pieces to this issue as I have come to see it, those being the historical male Thai perspective on relationships and the Vietnam war. To look at the first part of that, you have to understand that for centuries Thais practiced polygamy. This idea that men could have multiple partners openly and really have that be seen as a sign of wealth and power is deeply ingrained in the culture. It was only in the early part of the reign of the current king that the law was changed, banning polygamy as a gesture to the Western Civilized nations, that they were not as backward as some of their neighboring countries. So the gesture was made, but no change was effected in the mindset of the average Thai male. As a result, modern Thai men adjusted to have a wife and then many mistresses and/or prostitutes on the side. This apparently satisfies and preserves their cultural masculinity. There really is no stigma attached to visiting prostitutes.
The second prong, the Vietnam war, is when the sex trade really took hold, as Thailand became an R & R point for the US soldiers. The demand for sex was met by a willing Thais who saw the money making situation for what it was. By the time the Vietnam war was wrapping up, Thailand was gaining a reputation as a tourist destination and a place where beautiful girls and cheap sex were readily available.
It is a combination of these two things that has generated the human sex trafficking that tarnishes Thailand's reputation now. And it gets more tangled and complicated to closer you look. When foreigners come to Thailand looking for sex, they bring with them money and in the grand scheme of things the women servicing them are doing quite well for themselves financially, if at untold emotional and psychological cost. This can be demonstrated with the not uncommon example of a girl who has gone into prostitution returning to her home village capable of building a nicer house than the village chief. Other girls see this and since there is little stigma attached to the profession, it is very tempting and many do go into it willingly. The girls in this sector commonly do not work with pimps. The consequence of many girls and women going into sex work with foreigners is that there are fewer women for the average Thai man to achieve his virility quota. This is exacerbated by the issue of migrant work forces, where many men are away from their families for months at a time for work. These workers are commonly on the lowest earning levels, but they still have this ingrained cultural need to have multiple sexual partners. They demand access to very cheap sex and that demand is met through trafficked girls and women from neighboring extremely poor countries, such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,and Burma. These are the girls that are living in absolutely atrocious circumstances and the horror stories we have seen and heard about are sickening.
There are other parallel issues dealing with the Ladyboy/Transgender and the Gay/Lesbian communities. Ladyboys are young men who are living as women. The sheer numbers of them is astounding. They are not openly accepted or ostracized, but they obviously....
Here are some bits and pieces from my journal from March...
March 1 Monday In the morning after eating the free breakfast we booked a bicycle tour for tomorrow. Then we headed out into the city for the day. We met Gabe's high school classmate Ken, who is Thai and is a vice president of Citibank for the region. He had a box of items that Gabe's parents had sent for him that we needed to retrieve. We started out with him treating us to lunch and it was quite good. There were not many vegetarian options so I got a Thai papaya salad, which like many Thai foods was spicy, with a bit of sweetness. After eating and looking through all the things Gabe had in his care package we took a taxi down to the piers. Ken recommended we buy the day pass as we would be using the river quite a bit for the rest of the day. Our first stop was the Grand Palace, just so we could see where it was. It is quite expensive and during lunch Gabe discovered that his camera battery was dead, so we knew we would be coming back to a few of these places and did not need to spend the money now. Back at the piers we took a short ride to Wat Pho and walked around about a quarter of the grounds. There is a closed off portion that you pay 50 baht to enter and see an enormous reclining buddha, but with dead cameras it was not going to be today. Ken showed us where the Museum of Siam was behind the temple and though it was closed for the holiday, he highly recommended we come back for a visit. Back to the river and a short ride to the other side brought us to Wat Arun and we each paid 50 baht to get in. This is also known as the Temple of the Dawn. It has a number of towering spires with external staircases, which people seemed to have much more difficulty coming back down than climbing in the first place. Crossing back over the river we stopped at a small cafe for smoothies before walking into the Chinatown of BKK. Now it seems like a very familiar place. The decorations were still up for New Years and the vendors all have similar wares to what we have been seeing for the past several months. On the edge of Chinatown, Ken took us to an all you can eat Japanese restaurant which was different from what I have seen before. The food came by on a conveyor belt and you picked whatever you wanted. There was a hot pot on the table and you cooked your food choices to your liking and ate and ate and ate. Afterwards, Ken pointed us in the direction of the metro, we said our goodbyes, and headed back to the hostel.
March 2 Tuesday Gabe and I had our very simple free breakfast, then got a taxi over to the Hotel that was our meeting point for our bike tour with Absoluteexplorer.com. We were met just outside the lobby by Panida, a tiny Thai girl with a big personality. She brought us through a street market near the hotel that was mainly farmers from where she was going to be taking us. She showed and identified a number of unusual items in the market from roasted ants/ant larvae to bell apples (which I actually like, but had not known what they were called). Then we had an hour long train ride out to Klong Bang Phra, which translates to Canal Thin Monk village. For the next 6 hours or so we meandered through rice paddies, fish farms, prawn farms, tiny villages, and small temples, stopping to talk to local people, sample fruits, shaved ice, and plants, have lunch, see snakes, praying mantis, pick mangoes from a tree, visit a local elementary school, etc. It was a very hot day, but we were provided with plenty of water and most of the terrain was level. It is interesting that we know of mangoes for example, and know a couple kinds back in the states, but here there are at least 23 types of mangoes. There are a host of different eggplants, papayas, and many of the other vegetables we know as a single type are greatly varied here. Gabe and I both fell asleep during the train ride home. When we got to our station, Gabe headed straight back to the hostel, but I took about an hour to walk around the area of the station and photograph some of the graffiti work.
March3 Wednesday Now armed with the knowledge we had gathered with Ken on Monday we retraced some of our steps. We made it down to the Express Boat central pier and just took the single leg ticket for 25 baht. This made more sense than the full day ticket and would have saved us money even on Monday when we used the river a lot. We headed straight for the Grand Palace complex, not planning to go in because of the high cost, but to get what pictures we could. When we had been there before we had seen a place where it was possible to walk in without paying although this was a loophole that was easily cut off. Well we took pictures in the open area of the palace complex and then we got separated. I had walked into the toilet since it was convenient and apparently Gabe did not see me do that. When I came back out about two minutes later he was no where to be found. Well great, thanks for waiting! I checked all over the area I had access to and did not see him and after waiting a full 45 minutes with no sign of him, I left to continue my day on my own. We had made a basic outline of the places we had wanted to visit, so next on my list was Wat Pho. I walked down the east side of the Grand Palace to Wat Pho and went in. I spent a good hour wandering through the portions that were open to the public, where I could go into several shrines, observe a memorial service in progress, see where the temple massage school was (too expensive though), visit a sacred tree, and see plenty of Buddhist iconography. I did go to see the center piece Reclining Buddha, which is a massive gold colored buddha. Because of the way the temple is build around the statue it was difficult to get a full picture, but I did get a number of sectional shots. The feet were quite interesting as the pattern on the soles was made up of several hundred smaller images of plants, other gods, animals, etc. The whole time there is a musical accompaniment as people in the procession around the buddha drop coins into a line of offering drums that follow the entire length of the building. In several of the shrines were smaller buddha icons covered in gold leaf. It was beautiful the way they seemed to be decaying and shedding gold skin. I got a lot of pictures of these. When I completed my tour of Wat Pho, I returned to the pier and crossed the river to Wat Arun., I had already been there a few days before and since my camera was working at the time I already had pictures, but I figured it might be a good picture location at sunset and now I was on the right side of the river at least. Instead of going right into the Arun complex, I went along the north side and into the city away from the river. Once I got out to a major road I followed it towards another Wat we had seen during our rides on the river. Along the way I passed several Naval facilities, including one where some sort of graduation ceremony had just concluded. Swarms of people were clustered around young men and women in uniforms, showering them with flowers and gifts and piling into cars to head home. Further down the road, I was momentarily stopped in my tracks when three foot length of tail was hanging out of a bush into the sidewalk. I approached cautiously and what did I see? Crikey, ain't she a beauty! A large monitor lizard resting up. I grabbed the tail and got no response, but the creature was definitely alive and did not appear to have been hit by a car or anything. Still not a very safe place and I wonder how an animal that large survives in the midst of a city. Shortly after that incident I was at the temple and it was not nearly as impressive as the others, but still interesting. It was listed as one of 9 temples that are considered the holiest in all of Bangkok.
March 4 Thursday We returned to the area near Wat Pho this morning and split up temporarily. Gabe to really see Wat Arun across the river and me to see if I could get into the Grand Palace. We would meet in an hour and a half at the Museum of Siam. Well, when I got to the Grand Palace, the path that Gabe had been able to sneak into was blocked by a convention of toilet cleaning personnel. There was no chance of me getting in. So I made my way down to the Museum of Siam and waited in the air conditioned cafe drinking a tamarind fruit juice. Gabe arrived a few minutes after our scheduled meeting time and we then discovered that the museum was quite expensive. They could give us a group rate if we waited around and found four other people to join us. Well, we waited a bit, but not many people were coming in. Then one of the attendants told us if we came back at 4:30pm the museum was free for the last hour and a half. No problem, we can deal with that and so we set out to see a few other things in the area until 4:30. We took a tuk tuk (after turning down about 20 of his compatriots with their outrageous prices) with a driver that was willing to negotiate the price with us. The first stop was the Giant Swing, which is really a disappointment. In the middle of a large intersection is the frame work for a mega swing, probably 20+ meters high, but there is no swing. It has been removed for safety reasons. Boo boo boooooo. Our driver took us next to the Golden Mount and we released him there as we planned to walk back. The mount is a man made hill with a number of tombs, thousands of small buddha images, and a large golden shrine at the pinnacle. There were bells at each landing as you climbed the artificial mountain and the sounds are pleasant and all around you. Our walk back to the museum was rushed because we spent more time at the Golden Mount, with its great panoramic view of the city. This is a much more centralized point and you can see a lot from here.
Back at the Museum, we were met with a multitude of interactive exhibits details all aspects of Thai history and culture, including the contributions of the many non Thai groups that have had impacts here. There is a wealth of information here and Gabe was very impressed with the museum on the whole. I guess I was not that impressed, although I know they put a lot of work into it. It was smaller than I expected and while the interactive portions of the facility probably are great for school groups, I did not find too many of them engaging.
March 13 Sabbath Today we joined a group of new friends and took a long tail boat around Koh Phi Phi Don and the surrounding islands of Koh Phi Phi Le, Mosquito, and Bamboo. One guy was a young Chinese man who works in the Shanghai area. He was interested in talking to us about our time in his homeland. We were the first Americans he had encountered in a couple months of traveling through Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. We stopped at a different Monkey Beach than the one we walked to yesterday. We also stopped at several other beaches along Phi Phi Don for snorkeling, then broke away and headed to Bamboo for some beach time. I ended up walking all the way around the island. It is quite small so that was no great feat. We boated past Mosquito, but did not actually stop there.
March 14 Sunday After checking out and leaving our bags for later pickup, we went down to have some pancakes and then visit the viewpoint. The trail to what turned out to be three official viewpoints and numerous unmarked ones was very close to our bungalow. It was not a long walk, but it was mostly up stairs and very steep. We were both sweating quite a bit by the first viewpoint. The second viewpoint was the best with extra elevation and a clear view of the isthmus and both bays, plus Koh Phi Phi Le in the distance. The third viewpoint was further down the ridge and while nice, it has a number of trees that block any serious picture taking. It was a pleasant place to sit in the shade for a bit and just relax. We walked back on the ridge beyond where we could descend and discovered a viewpoint of our own. It was very nice although difficult to find and not as spectacular as viewpoint two. Returning to retrieve our bags, we had a short amount of time to use the internet, then made our way to the pier at 3pm to begin our 16 hour journey back to BKK. In what is appearing to be typical Thai fashion, what our tickets say and what actually occurred before we were in BKK are completely different. Our tickets said we had a boat to Krabi then a bus straight up to BKK (which should have picked us up from the Krabi pier). Well at the Krabi pier we were herded onto a bus that took us to another bus depot, where after a wait we did get onto a nice looking air conditioned bus. It was nice looking, but horrendous for both Gabe and my knees. And we headed for Surat Thani, which is definitely not the most direct route to BKK. They made a stop a little more than halfway to Surat Thani and unloaded those who would continue that way and the rest of us headed north.
March 15 Monday Because of the uncomfortable seating, neither of us got much in the way of sleep and when the bus pulled over to the side of the road in BKK at 6 am, we were just as confused as everyone else. We were literally dropped of at the roadside, not at the Southbound Bus Depot, where our tickets said we were headed. There was also a cloud of taxi drivers to pounce on us when we disembarked. That lead us to think it was part of a planned scheme to get us to use the taxis. A little later another option emerged. There were Red Shirt protesters by the thousands gathering near the Grand Palace and many bus routes had been modified and some roads closed. The helpful taxi drivers where shouting that there were no buses at all and we had to take taxis, even though buses were driving by right behind them as they spoke. It is absurd. We walked away from the scene to where we could catch a bus we knew would get us close to 'home', which is now with Bronson, a teacher at Ekkamai International School. Eventually we made it to Soi 37 off Sukhumvit 71, but it took an hour more before Bronson could escape class and get us the key. He invited us to lunch at another school down the street, where we had all we could eat.
March 19 Friday We had made a decision to go and do some things on our own for the day, so we headed first to the post office and I sent a package home and a letter back to China. Then we took the #40 bus down to Sukhumvit 25 and got info on extending Gabe's India visa. Which is to say, we found out that they will not extend a tourist visa, like what we have. Other visa types they have ways of doing it, but not for tourists. So Gabe did have one option: apply for a new visa to replace the one he has and pay the full cost again. He filled out the paperwork and we dropped it off, but he has to go into the embassy once more on Monday for an interview, probably to explain why he is trying to apply for a visa while he already has an existing one. So we can mull our options over during the weekend before he has to pay anything on this new wrinkle. With that out of the way, we let our curiosity get the better of us and we hopped on the BTS to go right to the area being occupied by the Red Shirt protesters. There have been warnings by the US government and the Australian government to avoid the areas where they are congregating, so there was definitely some risk in what we were doing. We made our way around a few blocks of government buildings and then walked through a blockade to where the red shirts have taken over the street and set up their temporary housing. The people were in high spirits, we got many friendly greetings, and many people wanted us to take pictures of them. We passed a very long line of Red Shirts waiting in a line to give blood. Those taking the blood were wearing Red Cross uniforms, so I do not think this blood was headed for the parliament steps like some earlier demonstrations. The crowds got thicker and thicker as we approached the Parliament Building, but everyone was orderly and seemed quite happy. We were given bottled water and some bananas and generally welcomed openly.
March 20 Sabbath It was a busy day. It was the final day of a seminar series by the same couple that is leading out the Child Evangelism programs we helped out with this week. Gabe, Bronson,and I met Pastor Doug and his family at the mission and he drove us all over to the RAIS campus, where they had set up in the school auditorium yesterday afternoon. There was some free food in the cafeteria and that was a good thing since we had skipped it. Only problem was that it was fried rice and a vegetable rice soup. Gabe decided he would hold out for lunch. I had two plates of fried rice and some fruit they brought out, then headed up to the church area. The seminar has been held over the past three weekends, where people were being trained in how to work with child evangelism and starting last Wednesday they had been implementing what they learned in real life situations at four locations around the city.
March 21 Sunday This was about the laziest day I have had in several months. We stayed indoors for almost the whole day sitting in front of our computers with the fans blowing on us. The windows and doors were all open and it was hot, but the moving air felt good anyway. I finished sending pictures to our travel mates from the South Great Wall, got a few things posted to the blog, emailed several people, listened to music, monitored the news for Red Shirt activity, etc. Eventually, we did leave for a while in the late afternoon to get food. We ended up at the Green House, a nearby restaurant owned by the parents of some students from the SDA school. The prices are decent and they will make any dish vegetarian. They also adjust the prices if you make a dish vegetarian. So I had a Bamboo shoot with chicken dish (normally 80 baht) which they substituted tofu for the chicken and my bill was 45 baht. Then I added a watermelon shake for 20 baht. Gabe had a sweet and sour fish dish and then we split a pad sae eu dish. So for just over $3 I had enough good food for my meal and a very sweet watermelon shake. Walking back home, we stopped at a street vendor and got more shakes – mine was apple/banana and Gabe tried a coconut/pineapple combo. His pineapple was not very ripe, so the drink had an odd taste, but mine was quite good.
March 22 Monday Up early to meet the team at the mission, where all the pastors from Thailand (well the majority of them, 93 or so) were having their yearly convocation. That meant it was a perfect opportunity for H4BKK to gather some information for the future. When we arrived nothing was set up and it quickly became clear that much of the needed equipment was at a different location and therefore unaccessible for the day. We managed to get four cameras set up, each one different and recording to a different media (hard drive, DV, SD card, etc.). Not the way you want to go into a shooting day, but later we learned why it would be okay. The plan was to interview about half of the pastors and their spouses today and catch the rest tomorrow. What the interviews were supposed to focus on was how God has been working on individuals within each pastor's congregation and the immediate community they interact with. Goi was tasked with playing the role of producer, getting the pastors to come over and do the interviews. She did not like doing it, but we had about 50 interviews done by early afternoon. Even though Gabe and I do not speak Thai, it soon became clear that most of the pastors were telling stories from their own life, and while that may have been interesting it was not the aim of this project. And we were fairly confident that the reason we were getting this sort of info was the question sheet they were being given. When we had a chance to talk to Pastor Doug as the meetings were winding down for the day, we confirmed that there was a problem. This was frustrating to all of us. Most of a day's work was essentially unusable and it had been like pulling teeth to get the pastors to cooperation in doing that. Now we would have to do it again tomorrow. Oh, and the reason that it was not really a problem to have multiple formats on the cameras is that the information was just to get stories from each church. Later on teams will visit each church and film a segment to expand those stories and that is when consistency will matter. Because of the issues throughout the day, Gabe called a debriefing for everyone involved in the video work. It is important for the other volunteers to see how these happen as well as go over the positives and negatives from the day, because there are almost always some of both. That lasted for a couple hours and Doug's wife brought some noodles for us to eat and some molasses cookies. Four of us stayed and talked until 11:30 about the politics and reasons for the tensions between some of the parties we have been working with.
March 27 Sabbath This was a great day that almost did not happen for me. Gabe was having some issues with his upper back (unrelated to his previous back issues) and so he was not going to participate, but we had been invited to go with the Prison Ministry group to a Thai prison. The hitch was that we had to meet at the mission at 5:30am. I set my alarm for 5am and went to bed early, but when I woke up it was 5:23am. I had enough time to go to the bathroom, throw my close on, and head out. When I reached the reception of Bronson's apartment building the doors were locked and the alarm panel on the side looked complicated. Usually there is someone manning the desk, but not this morning. I tried Bronson's apartment number to see if that was the code, but no success. I felt frustrated that I would have woken up, but been locked inside the building and would miss the Prison Ministry trip. I climbed back up the five flights of stairs to Bronson's and laid down to go back to sleep. About half an hour later Bronson's phone was ringing and he answered it. It was Leah calling to see if I was still coming, they still had not left if I wanted to make it. Well Bronson told me he did not know the code, but there was a sliding door I could go through. That worked and I was on my way. Only five of us left from the mission. There were 3 other vans meeting us at the prison. We had rice and soy milk for breakfast while traveling and I napped part of the 2 hour drive to Kanchanaburi. When we arrived I still did not really understand what kind of program we would be involved in presenting. There were about 20 young people from one of the BKK churches and they had guitars, so they were obviously planning on playing some music. I know in the states, prison ministries often gives a basic church service along with whatever else they offer and assumed that was what we may be doing. I guess since the vast majoirity of the population is Buddhist, that should have seemed less likely and indeed it was not what we did. The youth group did play contemporary Christian music (minus any drums) and typical youth group church music and seemed to get a great response. What I ended up doing was helping prisoners select free eyeglasses. We had a range from +2.00 to -4.00 in 0.25 increments. I was doling out glasses on the negative end of that spectrum and most of the prisoners really needed reading glasses, so I was not nearly as busy as the other table was. Some people really needed the glasses and took the time to find ones that were as close as possible to their ocular needs, but true to the foibles of human nature several of the men tried on a single pair and took it, while a number of the women seemed far more concerned about what the glasses looked like than if they improved their vision. While this was going on there were three dentists working with the female prison population. They finished close to noon and we then spent an hour passing out care packages to each prisoner in the place. There were 1700 men and 274 women and there were enough for everyone. The warden was passing out the packages with the rest of us. I was surprised by how young some of the prisoners looked. I don't know what the age is that they can be tried as adults here, but I can hardly imagine some of them were out of their teens. We were provided a basic lunch after that and the youth group left for home. Those of us that remained turned our space in the prison yard into a dental treadmill. One dentist was identifying the problem teeth and giving a basic local anesthetic to four men at a time. Then they waited in a short queue until there was an open chair. The four chairs were basically split between the husband and wife dentist team, but really it was first come first served as fast as we could go. And that was amazingly fast. I think by the end we had worked on 10 percent of the prisoners. I had a couple different roles. First I was stripping the labels off the drug vials, so that they would fit into the syringe casings, then once that was done I was primarily holding the heads of the patients still while the dentists worked. We worked in teams of four: a dentist, one assistant to hand utensils to the dentist and remove large chunks from the patients mouth as the dentist continued working, a flashlight man to make sure the dentist could see in the mouth and me keeping the patient as still as possible. If you ever think of having dental work done overseas or in a mission setting, please understand that there is basically one procedure: extraction of the problem tooth. There is no patching or capping; the tooth simply comes out. I have had several issues with my teeth and I know how much it hurt, but I do not know how some of these men could hold out until their teeth were in the state that we got to see them in. Lots of them were like ice cream cones without any ice cream. And that makes extraction difficult since there is not much to grab onto. It leads to cracked teeth and much messier digging into the gums to remove the remaining roots. I get very squeamish at the sight of my own blood, but not at that of others, I don't know why that is or what it says about me. It was fascinating to watch how efficiently the two dentists removed the teeth and despite that efficiently, they tried to minimize the pain the men felt and even with the drugs there was a lot of pain. But there were several problem situations that hurt to watch as they had to really dig and cut up the gum to get the last little pieces out. I won't describe it further than that.
Several of those helping us out were prisoners themselves and by the end most of them had their mouths packed with cotton from their own dental work. There was also a constant audience watching over the short fence that blocked us off from the rest of the prison yard.
March 1 Monday In the morning after eating the free breakfast we booked a bicycle tour for tomorrow. Then we headed out into the city for the day. We met Gabe's high school classmate Ken, who is Thai and is a vice president of Citibank for the region. He had a box of items that Gabe's parents had sent for him that we needed to retrieve. We started out with him treating us to lunch and it was quite good. There were not many vegetarian options so I got a Thai papaya salad, which like many Thai foods was spicy, with a bit of sweetness. After eating and looking through all the things Gabe had in his care package we took a taxi down to the piers. Ken recommended we buy the day pass as we would be using the river quite a bit for the rest of the day. Our first stop was the Grand Palace, just so we could see where it was. It is quite expensive and during lunch Gabe discovered that his camera battery was dead, so we knew we would be coming back to a few of these places and did not need to spend the money now. Back at the piers we took a short ride to Wat Pho and walked around about a quarter of the grounds. There is a closed off portion that you pay 50 baht to enter and see an enormous reclining buddha, but with dead cameras it was not going to be today. Ken showed us where the Museum of Siam was behind the temple and though it was closed for the holiday, he highly recommended we come back for a visit. Back to the river and a short ride to the other side brought us to Wat Arun and we each paid 50 baht to get in. This is also known as the Temple of the Dawn. It has a number of towering spires with external staircases, which people seemed to have much more difficulty coming back down than climbing in the first place. Crossing back over the river we stopped at a small cafe for smoothies before walking into the Chinatown of BKK. Now it seems like a very familiar place. The decorations were still up for New Years and the vendors all have similar wares to what we have been seeing for the past several months. On the edge of Chinatown, Ken took us to an all you can eat Japanese restaurant which was different from what I have seen before. The food came by on a conveyor belt and you picked whatever you wanted. There was a hot pot on the table and you cooked your food choices to your liking and ate and ate and ate. Afterwards, Ken pointed us in the direction of the metro, we said our goodbyes, and headed back to the hostel.
March 2 Tuesday Gabe and I had our very simple free breakfast, then got a taxi over to the Hotel that was our meeting point for our bike tour with Absoluteexplorer.com. We were met just outside the lobby by Panida, a tiny Thai girl with a big personality. She brought us through a street market near the hotel that was mainly farmers from where she was going to be taking us. She showed and identified a number of unusual items in the market from roasted ants/ant larvae to bell apples (which I actually like, but had not known what they were called). Then we had an hour long train ride out to Klong Bang Phra, which translates to Canal Thin Monk village. For the next 6 hours or so we meandered through rice paddies, fish farms, prawn farms, tiny villages, and small temples, stopping to talk to local people, sample fruits, shaved ice, and plants, have lunch, see snakes, praying mantis, pick mangoes from a tree, visit a local elementary school, etc. It was a very hot day, but we were provided with plenty of water and most of the terrain was level. It is interesting that we know of mangoes for example, and know a couple kinds back in the states, but here there are at least 23 types of mangoes. There are a host of different eggplants, papayas, and many of the other vegetables we know as a single type are greatly varied here. Gabe and I both fell asleep during the train ride home. When we got to our station, Gabe headed straight back to the hostel, but I took about an hour to walk around the area of the station and photograph some of the graffiti work.
March3 Wednesday Now armed with the knowledge we had gathered with Ken on Monday we retraced some of our steps. We made it down to the Express Boat central pier and just took the single leg ticket for 25 baht. This made more sense than the full day ticket and would have saved us money even on Monday when we used the river a lot. We headed straight for the Grand Palace complex, not planning to go in because of the high cost, but to get what pictures we could. When we had been there before we had seen a place where it was possible to walk in without paying although this was a loophole that was easily cut off. Well we took pictures in the open area of the palace complex and then we got separated. I had walked into the toilet since it was convenient and apparently Gabe did not see me do that. When I came back out about two minutes later he was no where to be found. Well great, thanks for waiting! I checked all over the area I had access to and did not see him and after waiting a full 45 minutes with no sign of him, I left to continue my day on my own. We had made a basic outline of the places we had wanted to visit, so next on my list was Wat Pho. I walked down the east side of the Grand Palace to Wat Pho and went in. I spent a good hour wandering through the portions that were open to the public, where I could go into several shrines, observe a memorial service in progress, see where the temple massage school was (too expensive though), visit a sacred tree, and see plenty of Buddhist iconography. I did go to see the center piece Reclining Buddha, which is a massive gold colored buddha. Because of the way the temple is build around the statue it was difficult to get a full picture, but I did get a number of sectional shots. The feet were quite interesting as the pattern on the soles was made up of several hundred smaller images of plants, other gods, animals, etc. The whole time there is a musical accompaniment as people in the procession around the buddha drop coins into a line of offering drums that follow the entire length of the building. In several of the shrines were smaller buddha icons covered in gold leaf. It was beautiful the way they seemed to be decaying and shedding gold skin. I got a lot of pictures of these. When I completed my tour of Wat Pho, I returned to the pier and crossed the river to Wat Arun., I had already been there a few days before and since my camera was working at the time I already had pictures, but I figured it might be a good picture location at sunset and now I was on the right side of the river at least. Instead of going right into the Arun complex, I went along the north side and into the city away from the river. Once I got out to a major road I followed it towards another Wat we had seen during our rides on the river. Along the way I passed several Naval facilities, including one where some sort of graduation ceremony had just concluded. Swarms of people were clustered around young men and women in uniforms, showering them with flowers and gifts and piling into cars to head home. Further down the road, I was momentarily stopped in my tracks when three foot length of tail was hanging out of a bush into the sidewalk. I approached cautiously and what did I see? Crikey, ain't she a beauty! A large monitor lizard resting up. I grabbed the tail and got no response, but the creature was definitely alive and did not appear to have been hit by a car or anything. Still not a very safe place and I wonder how an animal that large survives in the midst of a city. Shortly after that incident I was at the temple and it was not nearly as impressive as the others, but still interesting. It was listed as one of 9 temples that are considered the holiest in all of Bangkok.
March 4 Thursday We returned to the area near Wat Pho this morning and split up temporarily. Gabe to really see Wat Arun across the river and me to see if I could get into the Grand Palace. We would meet in an hour and a half at the Museum of Siam. Well, when I got to the Grand Palace, the path that Gabe had been able to sneak into was blocked by a convention of toilet cleaning personnel. There was no chance of me getting in. So I made my way down to the Museum of Siam and waited in the air conditioned cafe drinking a tamarind fruit juice. Gabe arrived a few minutes after our scheduled meeting time and we then discovered that the museum was quite expensive. They could give us a group rate if we waited around and found four other people to join us. Well, we waited a bit, but not many people were coming in. Then one of the attendants told us if we came back at 4:30pm the museum was free for the last hour and a half. No problem, we can deal with that and so we set out to see a few other things in the area until 4:30. We took a tuk tuk (after turning down about 20 of his compatriots with their outrageous prices) with a driver that was willing to negotiate the price with us. The first stop was the Giant Swing, which is really a disappointment. In the middle of a large intersection is the frame work for a mega swing, probably 20+ meters high, but there is no swing. It has been removed for safety reasons. Boo boo boooooo. Our driver took us next to the Golden Mount and we released him there as we planned to walk back. The mount is a man made hill with a number of tombs, thousands of small buddha images, and a large golden shrine at the pinnacle. There were bells at each landing as you climbed the artificial mountain and the sounds are pleasant and all around you. Our walk back to the museum was rushed because we spent more time at the Golden Mount, with its great panoramic view of the city. This is a much more centralized point and you can see a lot from here.
Back at the Museum, we were met with a multitude of interactive exhibits details all aspects of Thai history and culture, including the contributions of the many non Thai groups that have had impacts here. There is a wealth of information here and Gabe was very impressed with the museum on the whole. I guess I was not that impressed, although I know they put a lot of work into it. It was smaller than I expected and while the interactive portions of the facility probably are great for school groups, I did not find too many of them engaging.
March 13 Sabbath Today we joined a group of new friends and took a long tail boat around Koh Phi Phi Don and the surrounding islands of Koh Phi Phi Le, Mosquito, and Bamboo. One guy was a young Chinese man who works in the Shanghai area. He was interested in talking to us about our time in his homeland. We were the first Americans he had encountered in a couple months of traveling through Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. We stopped at a different Monkey Beach than the one we walked to yesterday. We also stopped at several other beaches along Phi Phi Don for snorkeling, then broke away and headed to Bamboo for some beach time. I ended up walking all the way around the island. It is quite small so that was no great feat. We boated past Mosquito, but did not actually stop there.
March 14 Sunday After checking out and leaving our bags for later pickup, we went down to have some pancakes and then visit the viewpoint. The trail to what turned out to be three official viewpoints and numerous unmarked ones was very close to our bungalow. It was not a long walk, but it was mostly up stairs and very steep. We were both sweating quite a bit by the first viewpoint. The second viewpoint was the best with extra elevation and a clear view of the isthmus and both bays, plus Koh Phi Phi Le in the distance. The third viewpoint was further down the ridge and while nice, it has a number of trees that block any serious picture taking. It was a pleasant place to sit in the shade for a bit and just relax. We walked back on the ridge beyond where we could descend and discovered a viewpoint of our own. It was very nice although difficult to find and not as spectacular as viewpoint two. Returning to retrieve our bags, we had a short amount of time to use the internet, then made our way to the pier at 3pm to begin our 16 hour journey back to BKK. In what is appearing to be typical Thai fashion, what our tickets say and what actually occurred before we were in BKK are completely different. Our tickets said we had a boat to Krabi then a bus straight up to BKK (which should have picked us up from the Krabi pier). Well at the Krabi pier we were herded onto a bus that took us to another bus depot, where after a wait we did get onto a nice looking air conditioned bus. It was nice looking, but horrendous for both Gabe and my knees. And we headed for Surat Thani, which is definitely not the most direct route to BKK. They made a stop a little more than halfway to Surat Thani and unloaded those who would continue that way and the rest of us headed north.
March 15 Monday Because of the uncomfortable seating, neither of us got much in the way of sleep and when the bus pulled over to the side of the road in BKK at 6 am, we were just as confused as everyone else. We were literally dropped of at the roadside, not at the Southbound Bus Depot, where our tickets said we were headed. There was also a cloud of taxi drivers to pounce on us when we disembarked. That lead us to think it was part of a planned scheme to get us to use the taxis. A little later another option emerged. There were Red Shirt protesters by the thousands gathering near the Grand Palace and many bus routes had been modified and some roads closed. The helpful taxi drivers where shouting that there were no buses at all and we had to take taxis, even though buses were driving by right behind them as they spoke. It is absurd. We walked away from the scene to where we could catch a bus we knew would get us close to 'home', which is now with Bronson, a teacher at Ekkamai International School. Eventually we made it to Soi 37 off Sukhumvit 71, but it took an hour more before Bronson could escape class and get us the key. He invited us to lunch at another school down the street, where we had all we could eat.
March 19 Friday We had made a decision to go and do some things on our own for the day, so we headed first to the post office and I sent a package home and a letter back to China. Then we took the #40 bus down to Sukhumvit 25 and got info on extending Gabe's India visa. Which is to say, we found out that they will not extend a tourist visa, like what we have. Other visa types they have ways of doing it, but not for tourists. So Gabe did have one option: apply for a new visa to replace the one he has and pay the full cost again. He filled out the paperwork and we dropped it off, but he has to go into the embassy once more on Monday for an interview, probably to explain why he is trying to apply for a visa while he already has an existing one. So we can mull our options over during the weekend before he has to pay anything on this new wrinkle. With that out of the way, we let our curiosity get the better of us and we hopped on the BTS to go right to the area being occupied by the Red Shirt protesters. There have been warnings by the US government and the Australian government to avoid the areas where they are congregating, so there was definitely some risk in what we were doing. We made our way around a few blocks of government buildings and then walked through a blockade to where the red shirts have taken over the street and set up their temporary housing. The people were in high spirits, we got many friendly greetings, and many people wanted us to take pictures of them. We passed a very long line of Red Shirts waiting in a line to give blood. Those taking the blood were wearing Red Cross uniforms, so I do not think this blood was headed for the parliament steps like some earlier demonstrations. The crowds got thicker and thicker as we approached the Parliament Building, but everyone was orderly and seemed quite happy. We were given bottled water and some bananas and generally welcomed openly.
March 20 Sabbath It was a busy day. It was the final day of a seminar series by the same couple that is leading out the Child Evangelism programs we helped out with this week. Gabe, Bronson,and I met Pastor Doug and his family at the mission and he drove us all over to the RAIS campus, where they had set up in the school auditorium yesterday afternoon. There was some free food in the cafeteria and that was a good thing since we had skipped it. Only problem was that it was fried rice and a vegetable rice soup. Gabe decided he would hold out for lunch. I had two plates of fried rice and some fruit they brought out, then headed up to the church area. The seminar has been held over the past three weekends, where people were being trained in how to work with child evangelism and starting last Wednesday they had been implementing what they learned in real life situations at four locations around the city.
March 21 Sunday This was about the laziest day I have had in several months. We stayed indoors for almost the whole day sitting in front of our computers with the fans blowing on us. The windows and doors were all open and it was hot, but the moving air felt good anyway. I finished sending pictures to our travel mates from the South Great Wall, got a few things posted to the blog, emailed several people, listened to music, monitored the news for Red Shirt activity, etc. Eventually, we did leave for a while in the late afternoon to get food. We ended up at the Green House, a nearby restaurant owned by the parents of some students from the SDA school. The prices are decent and they will make any dish vegetarian. They also adjust the prices if you make a dish vegetarian. So I had a Bamboo shoot with chicken dish (normally 80 baht) which they substituted tofu for the chicken and my bill was 45 baht. Then I added a watermelon shake for 20 baht. Gabe had a sweet and sour fish dish and then we split a pad sae eu dish. So for just over $3 I had enough good food for my meal and a very sweet watermelon shake. Walking back home, we stopped at a street vendor and got more shakes – mine was apple/banana and Gabe tried a coconut/pineapple combo. His pineapple was not very ripe, so the drink had an odd taste, but mine was quite good.
March 22 Monday Up early to meet the team at the mission, where all the pastors from Thailand (well the majority of them, 93 or so) were having their yearly convocation. That meant it was a perfect opportunity for H4BKK to gather some information for the future. When we arrived nothing was set up and it quickly became clear that much of the needed equipment was at a different location and therefore unaccessible for the day. We managed to get four cameras set up, each one different and recording to a different media (hard drive, DV, SD card, etc.). Not the way you want to go into a shooting day, but later we learned why it would be okay. The plan was to interview about half of the pastors and their spouses today and catch the rest tomorrow. What the interviews were supposed to focus on was how God has been working on individuals within each pastor's congregation and the immediate community they interact with. Goi was tasked with playing the role of producer, getting the pastors to come over and do the interviews. She did not like doing it, but we had about 50 interviews done by early afternoon. Even though Gabe and I do not speak Thai, it soon became clear that most of the pastors were telling stories from their own life, and while that may have been interesting it was not the aim of this project. And we were fairly confident that the reason we were getting this sort of info was the question sheet they were being given. When we had a chance to talk to Pastor Doug as the meetings were winding down for the day, we confirmed that there was a problem. This was frustrating to all of us. Most of a day's work was essentially unusable and it had been like pulling teeth to get the pastors to cooperation in doing that. Now we would have to do it again tomorrow. Oh, and the reason that it was not really a problem to have multiple formats on the cameras is that the information was just to get stories from each church. Later on teams will visit each church and film a segment to expand those stories and that is when consistency will matter. Because of the issues throughout the day, Gabe called a debriefing for everyone involved in the video work. It is important for the other volunteers to see how these happen as well as go over the positives and negatives from the day, because there are almost always some of both. That lasted for a couple hours and Doug's wife brought some noodles for us to eat and some molasses cookies. Four of us stayed and talked until 11:30 about the politics and reasons for the tensions between some of the parties we have been working with.
March 27 Sabbath This was a great day that almost did not happen for me. Gabe was having some issues with his upper back (unrelated to his previous back issues) and so he was not going to participate, but we had been invited to go with the Prison Ministry group to a Thai prison. The hitch was that we had to meet at the mission at 5:30am. I set my alarm for 5am and went to bed early, but when I woke up it was 5:23am. I had enough time to go to the bathroom, throw my close on, and head out. When I reached the reception of Bronson's apartment building the doors were locked and the alarm panel on the side looked complicated. Usually there is someone manning the desk, but not this morning. I tried Bronson's apartment number to see if that was the code, but no success. I felt frustrated that I would have woken up, but been locked inside the building and would miss the Prison Ministry trip. I climbed back up the five flights of stairs to Bronson's and laid down to go back to sleep. About half an hour later Bronson's phone was ringing and he answered it. It was Leah calling to see if I was still coming, they still had not left if I wanted to make it. Well Bronson told me he did not know the code, but there was a sliding door I could go through. That worked and I was on my way. Only five of us left from the mission. There were 3 other vans meeting us at the prison. We had rice and soy milk for breakfast while traveling and I napped part of the 2 hour drive to Kanchanaburi. When we arrived I still did not really understand what kind of program we would be involved in presenting. There were about 20 young people from one of the BKK churches and they had guitars, so they were obviously planning on playing some music. I know in the states, prison ministries often gives a basic church service along with whatever else they offer and assumed that was what we may be doing. I guess since the vast majoirity of the population is Buddhist, that should have seemed less likely and indeed it was not what we did. The youth group did play contemporary Christian music (minus any drums) and typical youth group church music and seemed to get a great response. What I ended up doing was helping prisoners select free eyeglasses. We had a range from +2.00 to -4.00 in 0.25 increments. I was doling out glasses on the negative end of that spectrum and most of the prisoners really needed reading glasses, so I was not nearly as busy as the other table was. Some people really needed the glasses and took the time to find ones that were as close as possible to their ocular needs, but true to the foibles of human nature several of the men tried on a single pair and took it, while a number of the women seemed far more concerned about what the glasses looked like than if they improved their vision. While this was going on there were three dentists working with the female prison population. They finished close to noon and we then spent an hour passing out care packages to each prisoner in the place. There were 1700 men and 274 women and there were enough for everyone. The warden was passing out the packages with the rest of us. I was surprised by how young some of the prisoners looked. I don't know what the age is that they can be tried as adults here, but I can hardly imagine some of them were out of their teens. We were provided a basic lunch after that and the youth group left for home. Those of us that remained turned our space in the prison yard into a dental treadmill. One dentist was identifying the problem teeth and giving a basic local anesthetic to four men at a time. Then they waited in a short queue until there was an open chair. The four chairs were basically split between the husband and wife dentist team, but really it was first come first served as fast as we could go. And that was amazingly fast. I think by the end we had worked on 10 percent of the prisoners. I had a couple different roles. First I was stripping the labels off the drug vials, so that they would fit into the syringe casings, then once that was done I was primarily holding the heads of the patients still while the dentists worked. We worked in teams of four: a dentist, one assistant to hand utensils to the dentist and remove large chunks from the patients mouth as the dentist continued working, a flashlight man to make sure the dentist could see in the mouth and me keeping the patient as still as possible. If you ever think of having dental work done overseas or in a mission setting, please understand that there is basically one procedure: extraction of the problem tooth. There is no patching or capping; the tooth simply comes out. I have had several issues with my teeth and I know how much it hurt, but I do not know how some of these men could hold out until their teeth were in the state that we got to see them in. Lots of them were like ice cream cones without any ice cream. And that makes extraction difficult since there is not much to grab onto. It leads to cracked teeth and much messier digging into the gums to remove the remaining roots. I get very squeamish at the sight of my own blood, but not at that of others, I don't know why that is or what it says about me. It was fascinating to watch how efficiently the two dentists removed the teeth and despite that efficiently, they tried to minimize the pain the men felt and even with the drugs there was a lot of pain. But there were several problem situations that hurt to watch as they had to really dig and cut up the gum to get the last little pieces out. I won't describe it further than that.
Several of those helping us out were prisoners themselves and by the end most of them had their mouths packed with cotton from their own dental work. There was also a constant audience watching over the short fence that blocked us off from the rest of the prison yard.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Back on the road.....finally!
Well, after a long unintended hiatus from this blog, I am about to get on the road again. So, it is high time I make some noise here. First off, the new travel plans have me visiting Kenya and Uganda for approximately two months, then several weeks in Ethiopia before a six week stint through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. A few weeks in Turkey will lead to visiting family and friends in Switzerland/Germany before returning home. Second, while I have all my pictures and videos backed up on the server of one of my best friends, I also am making quite a few of my pictures (much more than what is on here, like a couple thousand more) available on Flickr. The major sets by country are here. I hope to post some selected journal entries from the 'missing' months of the trip so far, before I take off next Thursday.
That's it for the moment.
That's it for the moment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
