These Things I Like

[popshirt]

In fermented-fish-paste-land the smell of what folks are cooking is for me one of the worst experiences in life, it comes just after time spent in the morgue...

I love it here and am very happy. But I have to agree with ColPyat, I don't eat fish in the first place, and the fish sauce smell causes me to almost vomit.........this "condition" I have is a real handicap in LOS.

[November Rain]

Animals. Temple cats, soi dogs, ducks walking single file across the road to get rice & cars screeching to a halt to accommodate them, jin-joks, tock-ehs, chang yai-yai .... all the fauna wonders of Thailand

[lannarebirth]

9 dogs, half a dozen cats, 30 chickens and a pig that is to die in another 10 or 12 years of old age. 5 workers and there extended families to support.

There was a time when the stress to "take care" would have been less than salubrious. Now, there's always room for one more. So in short, the thing I like, is how I changed.

[lannarebirth]

Just thought of another thing I like. I like driving by the crematorium everyday where I will br burned one day. It reminds me of how death is just a natural part of the life cycle. It's comforting.

[terry57]

i love the chaos of bangkok, the stunning looking women with the great friendly smile, M.B.K. shopping centre the river transport and rambuttri street.

i love the islands, the storms and the wild life.

actually the only thing i dont like about los is the whingers that cry on this forum.

but i really like the positive people here and there's lots of them.

its all good and keep up the good work friends.

[kmart]

Just thought of another thing I like. I like driving by the crematorium everyday where I will br burned one day. It reminds me of how death is just a natural part of the life cycle. It's comforting.

That just put a jaunty spring in my step, you little ray of sunshine you!

[kayo]

Here's a little piece I wrote back in 2002, when I first left the kingdom.

There are times that I wish I'd recorded more photographic or written memories. I'm so terrible at developing useful habits, such as picking up my pen and putting it to my journal. So sporadic. One day I'll write ten or fifteen pages, then for weeks and weeks I won't write a word.

My uncle bought me a camera before I left, and repeatedly told me not to forget to take a lot of pictures, as they will remind me of all the moments I've lived. Of the last few hundred days, perhaps seven of them have been preserved or memorialised in the exposure of five rolls of film.

All extremes, however must have an opposing force, and I was reminded of this not a week ago, when a British computer animator, on an extended holiday, who I had met accidentally in Bangkok, later in Koh Chang, and again just a week ago in Bangkok, and he had over thirty rolls of film. Fourteen of those films were of the Cambodian world wonder, Angkor Wat.

Feeling obliged to look at his photo's (he really, really wanted someone to look at them) I suddenly remembered why I'd gone to the other extreme and not taken any photos. OhmyBuddha, this guy was really pretty boring.

No, I suppose that all that which I shall share shall be brought to the surface of my memory appropriately to whatever situation I find myself in at the time. All else shall remain for me to contemplate.

So finally a page may be turned.

The sun has started to descend slowly and the oppressive warmth of a heat wave in the middle of the hot season wanes as the clear white-washed walls of the National Library across the road pick up the red, orange, golden hues of another invisible sunset. The wall is a canvas as Mother Earth creates and inspires.

I pen these thoughts in my journal as I sit at my favorite little sidewalk stall restaurant in Bangkok, on my favorite street in Bangkok, Sri Ayudaya, near my favorite guesthouse in Bangkok, Taewez.

I walk up and down this street every day. I have done for the last month.

The father and three daughters of a little drinks supply store on the corner greet me as I walk past. The sidewalk vendors greet me as I amble on by. Toothless grins and mangy cats. A girl picks at the hair of her very young brother, perched on a bright pink plastic stool outside her mothers newsagent stall.

Another mother, her sister, and the four girls who work at the hairdresser/sidewalk restaurant I frrequent all say, "Sawa-dii Khrap!" in chorus and I return the greeting. If I don't stop, they usually ask me, " Gin khao mai?" Am I going to eat? Maybe later, thanks.

As most days here in the big mango, I sit there from about 4 pm till after the sun goes down, watching the world go by. I've become rather adept at this particular skill. I love to watch everything unfolding; the drama's of the world, of the neighbourhood. I used to do this back home sometimes. There are always so many things happening. Three or four boys play Targo (a form of Hackeysack, or Kick ball, played with a hard weaved ball form). This is a national past time in Thailand, with compulsory classes at school, and world championships. Thai usually wins these.

The ladies of the Shanti Lodge and associated guesthouses might take a little break, and sit out on the street chatting. At my little restaurant, three of the girls, the katoey (lady-boy) and their mother sit near me. One of the girls is singing a Thai love ballad to the radio in the background. The katoey and his (her) little sister look at me and giggle, as the mamma smiles knowingly. She asks me, "Alloy mai?" Food good?

"Hmm, chai, alloy mak, khap.” Yeah, delicious, thanks.

My mind takes me back to the countless sunsets out on Koh Chang. That island and Lonely Beach are in my dreams often.

I recall how alive the world became at sunset. How the monkeys would come out of the tree line, and the fish in the small channel passing by the bungalows would swim up to the surface, opening and closing their small mouths as if commanded by the increasing shadows, in rythm with a thousand birds as they noisily settled to find their perch for the night. Gekko's would join finding their places on walls and ceilings and wooden beams, preparing to tackle the evening's ample supply of mosquitos. The world seemed to come to life at the changing of the light. A man and woman would go quiet, and many would reflect. Would do so many souls think?

A few tuk-tuks (three wheeled motorized rickshaw-like vehicles) park nearby, the drivers taking a break. A smell of chilli and basil leaves drifts across from another stall. This delicious smell usually makes people's eyes water and usually ends up with everybody, especially tourists, coughing incessantly. If you've ever been in a restaurant as it's being cooked you'll know what I mean. Clears the sinus' I say.

Yet every time that smell crosses somebody’ s path, regardless of the tears streaming out of their eyes, the people cannot resist ordering it. It was like that at the restaurant in Koh Chang. Good for business.

A little boy parks his old rickety bicycle next to a little rusty motor bike, and runs into clinically clean internet gaming shop, as I pour the last glass out of my big bottle of Chang beer.

These last weeks, watching the world go by, I've seen a big sound and light show on the river, hosted by the governor of Bangkok (Krung Thep), and many Thai dancers. Fireworks, celebrating the 220th anniversary of Krung Thep as capital city, founded by King Rama iii.

My days at the moment are usually filled with writing, and hanging around the guesthouse, helping when it gets a little busy, or chatting to the regulars, and long-term guests here. Most evenings are spent with my new found girlfriend, a computer programmer for Panasonic. Then, as every night, I take Bow back to her appartment across the river by cab, and I walk back to my guesthouse, watching the world go by.

As I return to my street, I pass by a man and his two daughters who come every evening at around six, and stay until about two in the morning, serving food from his converted pick up truck. He's been there for about fifteen years, every night, on the same corner.

He's seen a lot of the world go by. Every night he greets me and asks me to sit down. I've only ever sat down once or twice there. No reason, but I just never was very hungry.

Every night I stay up until I can't keep my eyes open, talking to pi-Daeng, the night porter. We speak of Thai Buddhism. We speak of Liverpool (he is a fan) and the World Cup. I laugh and say I want to cry.

Speaking of crying, I did something a few days ago, that I had not thought I would get round to doing this trip.

I went about two hours out of Bangkok, and spent a night and day in Kanchanaburi, to the west of here, near Burma. Famous for being the place of "The Bridge over the River Kwai"

Actually, small technicality It is not Kwai as in 'K-why', but Kwae as in 'K-way'. and there are actually two River Kwae's. One is the River Kwae Yai (big, with bridge) and the other is river Kwae Noi (small, beautifully serene).

I did not see most of what this town and province has to offer, but I did go and see the Bridge over the River Kwae, where nearly two hundred thousand prisoner's of war, captured by the Japanese forces, were killed in multiple efforts to build a bridge and the Death Railway connecting what was perhaps the hardest and most treachourous terrain of the rail link between Singapore and India.

Some were murdered, some died of disease, malnutrition. Only about a hundred thousand survived.

I walked across the bridge. It was constructed twice during the war, and both times promplty destroyed by the Allies.

After the war, a Japanese engineering firm rebuilt it, a little further up the river. It was not so impressive, and quite touristy. It looked small. Very small.

In the afternoon Bow and I cycled out to one of the allied cemetaries, near the smaller River Kwae

One thought that crossed my mind was, "what about all the locals? where are they enshrined?"

I walked among rows of small white crosses. Hundreds of the them. I believe it was five hundred and fifty. Perhaps the number of boys killed every week.

I don't quite know what to make of it. I wander in silence, reading names, nationalities, dates, quotations. I recall trying to work out how old a number of those boys were, how many autumn's they had seen. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, ...

The quotations got me "You have fought, so we may live in peace" "Across the world in a far away place. Over no distance shall we ever forget." "Never again shall a shadow fall over you, as you lie in peace in a faraway land" Or my favorite:

"But to have your hand to touch, Your voice to hear. Never forgotten, far or near"

Had those young men ever tried to walk across the entrance of a local school at four p.m. and not get caught up in a crowd of curious thai teenagers, full of questions, pushing forward their best English speaker who stumbled at 'How are you? I am f..f..f..fine?' and giggled and all the kids bent over in fits of giggles and smiling such broad grins of joy at life and the turns of fate.

Later in the day, as my friend Bow and I were sitting back in a lounge style bar over the peaceful river Kwae, my head on her lap, I started and could not stop thinking about it, and when she wiped away tears off my cheeks, I realized I was crying for all the dead hearts and souls.

Innumerable amounts of people died because of anothers belief system, cultural ideology.

To build a ######ing bridge.

Dead.

Then I started to think about situations the world over, starting of course with the various stands in Arnhem, and other places in my country.

Thousands of people on either side were killed in a failed bid by the Allies to gain control of the Low lands. Several bridges too far.

Thousands. Dead. For a bridge and a steam train.

And in Germany, and in Rwanda, and Bosnia, and the sufferings of the middle east, and, and… ... How the list goes on and on?!

I can not help but feel that there must be something severely wrong with us, if after so many decades, centuries, we are still massacring each other, and then retaliating, because of an ideology, or a belief system, or a cultural difference. What’ s our mental damage?

Where are our hearts?

In Bangkok, Songkran has started early this year. Instead of two or three days, this water festival that celebrates the Thai New Year is going to last two weeks in honour of the founding of the city.

The worlds' longest fountains, water pistols, street parades, festivals, music, Bangkok is going all out to celebrate what it is hopiog will turn out to be the biggest and most memorable event this city has seen for a long time. Songkran started the weekend of the 6th of April, and will continue until about the 20th. Celebrated right in the middle of the hot season, the festival marks the beginning of a New Year, time for reflection and change.

And a chance to cool off in this mind boggling heat.

I have another week here. I’ ll watch the world go by and see in the New Year, and then disappear off home on a Thai Airways flight, taking off above the smog, into that bright blue sky...

How to say goodbye to all of this, I have no idea.

I’ m sure that there are and shall continue to be many reflections gained that are and will continue to be of invaluable importance to me.

A well-traveled person once told me that it is very easy to forget about all the things you discover about yourself or your way of thinking when you stop traveling and settle down. The guy has for five years now been working for some firm in London.

Do you really forget?

I don’ t know the answers. I don’ t even know the questions. Yet I feel as though I should never forget.

Mai pen lai. One of my favorite sayings in Thai. No worries, no problems.

Mai pen lai. We sit and we watch the world go by. It is a fascinating world. It is a great place to be.

Next time you see me sitting in a bar somewhere, please remind me I don’ t have to be doing anything. I don’ t have to be speaking.

Please remind me that I can just be.

Remind me that I can just sit and watch the world go by.

We are all under this blue sky.

NB> I then returned to Thailand and lived a blissful few year in Kanchanaburi. Alas, without Bow, but content nonetheless.

[onzestan]

Thanks for sharing this with us Kayo.

I wish I could write like that, but I guess I'm lucky to be able to read it and feel what you're saying

Thanks again

Onzestan