May 2006

HIYA!

Didn't sleep much last night because of all the racket at the temple where I stayed. Chain-sawing a tree to make doors for the temple. Lots of building at this new temple. Nice monks though.

Left about 6:30 this morning. About 7:00 I saw a guy approaching me on foot. We were walking on the same side of the road. I walk counter to traffic because I feel more comfortable this way. If a vehicle is going to hit me I'd like to know beforehand. Maybe I can dodge my way out of death! As we got closer I saw that he was walking barefoot. And I saw him carrying something. As we got closer I saw that he was carrying his sandals and that one of them was broken.

This poor shoeless young man.

When we reached each other I asked him, "Sandals broke, huh?" He grunted a sort of yes reply. He seemed kind of out of it. Maybe drunk or on drugs, or exhausted or what I don't know. He looked a bit dirty and ragged. I felt a little sorry for him. So I asked him if he would like my sandals and he said he would. I gave them to him and he thanked me. Then we walked away.

So now who's the poor shoeless man?!

I walked barefoot along the side of the road for about 3 hours or more. Towards the end my feet really started to hurt. As the heat of the day intensified my feet hurt more and more. I finally found a store with some decent sandals and bought them. I'd like to start walking barefoot a couple of hours a day starting tomorrow so as to toughen the soles of my feet. They used to be pretty thick but have softened quite a bit now that I wear sandals again all the time.

HIYA!

I just want to say a few things about this. Honesty.

I am writing this in a way that hopefully will not come across as critical of Pranom. But if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be writing these things.

People we met along the way often asked why we didn't take a bus or a train. He'd say that he didn't want to. Well, what else can I say but that this just isn't so. I'd talk with him about this and he'd say that he realizes it's not true but, that this is just the way people talk. "Don't think about it so much", he'd say. It's just the way people talk. He meant Thais in general. And he was just doing what they do.

At the beginning of the walk, he'd tell people that he didn't want to eat rice or the entrees that people eat with rice. He'd say that fruits and vegetables are enough. Well, even I don't eat only fruits and vegetables. I eat various things, it's just that the majority of what I eat is uncooked.

I don't understand telling people things that aren't true. Especially when it's so easy to be truthful. Why give wrong impressions? Why give false information? I never did get answers that satisfied me.

So it's a lesson for me. A lesson on letting go of what I want. Letting go of what I see as proper. Letting go of my views. And not getting answers is a lesson on letting go of the "need" to understand. It's an opportunity to be okay with feelings that I dislike. All the feelings that arose when I didn't get what I wanted, when things didn't go "properly", when I didn't get satisfying answers, and when I didn't understand. I won't say that I'm over it. Not by a long shot. But I got the chance to work on it anyway.

I remember reading letters to the editor in the Japan Times years ago regarding just this sort of thing. Foreigners would write in saying that they couldn't respect Japanese because they never knew if the Japanese were being honest or not. I remember reading one or two responses that said that harmony is more important than the truth. And, what's more that the truth is not something that can be pinned down so easily. What's true for one person is not true for another. Even considering these two points, I can't see any reason for Pranom saying those things he'd say.

Another thing that I consider is the Buddhist teaching to be honest. For a man who says that he follows the first five precepts of Buddhism to so openly flout the fourth precept, and so often ....

And when yesterday he said a couple of things, and, I think, whithheld other things, well ....

I like communicating with people. I like communicating truthfully and from the heart. I am sincere with people. I like it when I feel that others are sincere with me. That's one of the things I so like about so many Asoke people. Temple people anyway.

I can't think of anything else that I want to say on this subject.

I never review what I write, nor do I ever prepare. So some ideas may be incomplete or awkward or whatever.

I dare say that you can read other people's travel blogs, you can read travel books, but you're not going to find another one like this!!

Troy.

I'm alone but not lonely. At least not yet. Pranom seems to have left. Money, trust, and whatever else I don't know. These things.

We got to the Cambodian border yesterday. I knew I didn't have enough money for the visa to get into Cambodia. I have known since the day we left. I was thinking I'd take my ATM card along and withdraw money when I needed it. Yesterday, when we got to the border I thought about where my card might be. I then realized I didn't have it and that I'd forgot to bring it. A big blooper. A dumb thing to do. I had thought to bring along my bank account book too then at the last minute decided against it. I had my ATM card in the bank book. I didn't see the ATM card and so didn't think of it. So I left it at a friend's house. His name is Somchai. I called to see if it was there and it was.

I told Pranom that I didn't want to ask to borrow money but that I had no choice. My visa expired yesterday and where else could I get money? He didn't like this. I won't explain all the details except to say that he didn't believe me. He wouldn't say that he thought I was lying but couldn't believe that I only then realized that I didn't have my ATM card. I told him that I didn't need money before yesterday so didn't think of the card. I can't say for sure but it seems like he wasn't telling me everything, and, I'd say he was lying to me.

I asked Somchai if he'd come to this city with my ATM card because it's only about three hours by bus. Drastic but I couldn't think of anything else. I didn't think to ask anyone at home to wire money and wouldn't want to ask. Only as a very last resort. He said he'd wire the money. I found a bank at the border that was open (yesterday was Sunday) and asked what we needed to do to wire money. Got the money after a little while.

Pranom couldn't cross the border because even Thais need a passport (unlike other border crossings with Thailand where Thais can just use a border pass and get across to Burma or Laos). So I went alone while Pranom waited for me. I gave him my cell phone number before we separated and we agreed to meet at a certain place.

After I finished I went to look for him, asked around for him, but he was nowhere around. He doesn't have a cell phone so I couldn't call him. I called his wife who told me he'd called her and said he was "going back" but that he'd wait for me at "the station". This was confusing too. We had talked about taking the train to a city, then taking a bus to another city. (This was a compromise I'd made with some reluctance. But it still seems like a good option to me so I'll still do it even though he's gone.) Well, I went to both the bus and the train stations and he wasn't there. I asked about him but nobody remembered seeing him. Understandable because lots of people go through and they all seem the same after a while.

I was in contact with Pranom's wife but she didn't know where he was. This was all late yesterday afternoon. It's now almost 10 am Monday morning. I haven't called Pranom's house and he hasn't called me. I may call later just to see if he's home and okay. But I suppose if he hadn't come home last night his wife would have called me. She didn't. I suppose Pranom is sour about the event yesterday and doesn't want to call me. So, that's fine.

I'll look around on this travellerspoint for a walking partner.

I don't mind walking alone but realize it's on the whole better to have a partner.

Enough.

Troy.

HIYA!

Okay, some things that happened along the way.

I'm so glad to be walking because, for one thing, there are experiences that could never happen while travelling by vehicle. Of course, I see the reasons for travel by vehicle.

The first thing that pops into my head was two days ago. Pranom and I left the temple we'd stayed at and went out for some food. The shop / restaurant was right in front of the temple. Pranom got some noodles and I had a young coconut. I drank some of the water then put some granola in it and ate it that way. Very nice. I bought the granola weeks ago and have been eating it a little at a time.

Before leaving the shop we asked if there were many shops along the way and the store owners said yes there were plenty. I had no food to eat and no water to drink. Pranom had brought something for lunch and had some water. I like traveling light so was happy to be without the weight of food and water.

But "plenty" of shops to a person in a moving vehicle is not the same as "plenty" of shops to a person on foot. Consider traveling 60 kilometers per hour. That's 60 kilometers in one hour, or one kilometer in one minute. It takes between 10 and 15 minutes to walk 1 km. If the shops are 5 kms apart, that's only about 5 minutes in a vehicle but it's at least an hour on foot. And when the weather is hot you get thirsty pretty quickly.

Well there were hardly "plenty" of shops in our minds. Nearly 10 kms before we found another shop. We walked up to the shop, saw they had Coke and stuff and I thought they'd have drinking water for sure. So I walked up and asked for drinking water. The lady brought out two mugs of water and gave them to us. I was confused. She said this was rain water and that they didn't have drinking water for sale. Pranom then explained to me that people in the countryside just drink rain water. This makes lots of sense. I know there are people in the countryside who drink bottled water, but for whatever reason, they didn't have any.

I drank rain water several years ago and am pretty sure that it gave me diaorrhea, and that I got progressively sicker and a foot problem that still hasn't gone away, MAY be related even though I can't say how this could be so. I was hesitant to drink it but seems there's been no problem.

This was a local highway and all around was abandoned fields and fallow rice fields. Very pretty green all around. These fields have trees here and there dotting the landscape everywhere. You don't see or hear many birds but it's very pretty scenery just the same. Rainy season is coming and soon everything will be a very pretty lush green. Oh, some people have started tilling their rice fields for the coming rainy season. Rainy season is rice growing season.

So, back to the shop where we got water. These places are usually people's homes too. I mean, a person will set up a restaurant, a shop selling daily necessities and whatnot at their homes. This is typical. The whole family was there. A nuclear family. Two little boys, mom, and dad. A young couple with young kids. School is out now for summer break. This is summer allright, it's HOT. Oh, an older lady, I suppose grandma, was there too.

I had seen three papaya trees earlier in the morning with ripe papayas on them. One or two were overripe but one or two looked good. Knowing that many people only want the green papayas and are "tired of" ripe papayas, I asked to buy a papaya or two. Got one, for nearly nothing. I sort of insisted on paying for it so the lady took what little change I had. She'd'a probably just given it away and not given it a thought. Just an amusing event that happened that day. A white boy comes along asking to buy a ripe papaya from their tree.

Okay, back to the shop again. The lady brought out three plates for us to eat our food on. Me with my papapya and Pranom with his noodles that he'd got earlier that morning. Remember, this is someone's home and they were there going on with their daily lives. We were sitting inside their home. But many homes, especially countryside homes, especially poor to lower middle-class people have homes which are very open to the outside. Nothing like four walls, a couple of doors, and some windows. These are a mixture of what we'd call a shack and a house. But they serve their purpose. Shelter from rain, heat, and to some degree, wind.

They sell noddle dishes there so Pranom ordered something, then ate the noodles he'd bought earlier. I had only a papaya and didn't really want the noodles. The lady looked at me and maybe felt sorry for me so bent over and picked up three fresh fresh freshhhhhh corns on the cob that she'd been keeping warm on a pot on the floor. Charcoal stoves -on the ground - are common, especially in the countryside. I decided to have one. I took one bite and man o man was it ever salty. Pranom said he'd have one so I asked him to take half of mine. I was thinking, I don't have any water, the papaya is a wonderful source of water, but I wanted a lot of water and wasn't about to ask for their water. With so little water and such salty food, in such hot weather, I didn't want the whole corn on the cob.

Pranom even asked if they wash the dishes that the lady had brought out for us. Of course, she said. Shouldn't we have washed them?! We left a short while later.

We chatted with the family the whole time; Pranom did most of the talking, with me saying a little here and there. The lady was so cheerful and talkative. Really friendly.

Okay, this was sort of long, so I'll stop here.

Troy.

HIYA!

I will write about touristy things. I swear. Just not quite yet. Haven't gone anywhere yet. Tomorrow we'll arrive at a border crossing with Cambodia so I'll write about that.

Yesterday while walking I saw a dog in the road. Lying down. Had obviously been hit. As we got closer I could see that it was breathing. I'd never seen a dog dying on the road before. It was really hard to look at. It had difficulty breathing and I could see blood under it's head. I heard it yelp a couple of times. I saw it get up once or twice then fall back down. It was hot when we walked by. Cars and pickup trucks whizzed by, container trucks whizzed by. What a hard way to die.

I felt so sorry for the dog. I don't know that I could have been of any real help.

I thought so of many things. I remembered seeing a kitten in Japan that had had its eyes burned. One of my co-teachers had thought about jumping on it with his boots to put it out of its misery. I remembered when I was living at the temple in Chiang Mai and smashing little moths that flew into the dish-washing water. I killed them thinking that it's better to die a quick deatht than a slow one. I remembered an Asoke monk telling me that we shouldn't interfere with the lives of other things. We shouldn't kill them. They should be able to live out there lives to it's natural end. Without intentional killing. It's a karma thing. But of course, if a person or an animal is dying, and we help, then what does that say about that person or that animal's karma? I remembered how when I was a small kid I'd cry when saw I a dead dog on the road.

I know that I've always been very sentimental about animals. I know that many people say that such people anthropomorphise animals. Animals don't have any feelings, they say. I don't know. I remember years ago a young woman telling me that she once looked into the eyes of a cow and she knew right away that that cow had a soul. It's in their eyes. She was so passionate when she told me. She was drunk too. It's easy to be passionate when we're drunk! I don't know if I anthropomorphise or not, but I don't care to wait until I am fully enlightened. I believe that I did the right thing yesterday in not helping this dog. This is so common. It's an everyday thing here.

Want something touristy? Well, there you go. Something about a "dog's life" here in Thailand. Soon, I'll write about the Thai - Cambodian border town. We're going to Aranyaprathet, in the eastern part of Thailand. Pretty directly east of Bangkok.

Oh, and durian. Soon, I'll write some things about this amazing piece of food.

I'd really like to write about honesty, but, I'll leave that until another time. I like to keep these entries short. This is long enough.

Troy.