Part of a three-tiered waterfall in Pai, northern Thailand.
Calapan, Mindoro Island, Philippines. Hera's hometown.
Chiang Mai, Thailand. Forgot the name of the wat, but it's
somewhere near 700 years old.
The Jeepney. This is who you get around short distances
in Manilla.
Shot through the window-tint of a car. This is one of the
squatter fishing villages outside Calapan
Small church in Calapan
Our resort in Bantayan Island, Cebu, Philippines.
After a three hour catapult bus ride [that should have taken five] through the mountains of Thailand I found my way back in Chiang Mai. With nothing but an email that said, "we'll be at some place called Riverside, or Rivertine, or River Place... something. I'll be there with some friends for drinks and dinner" I set out to say goodbye to Lyndsey. I knew it could be years before I ever see her again.
I went, I looked, and I left the Riverside Bar and Restaurant after not finding her. I decided to walk a mile or so into the night market I had passed earlier. I had just made it to the market when I heard her calling from a zipping Tuk-Tuk, "TREYYY!!" Thailand just works like that. Endless serendipity. Chance encounters really defined almost every aspect of my trip.
I left the next morning for a 14 hour train ride back to Bangkok. Horrible, horrible idea. It was easily as bad as my flight to Beijing from Jacksonville. Always, always take a sleeper train. At least with a plane you feel like you're actually getting somewhere quickly.
And thus I arrived in Bangkok with a few hours to think on what I thought of the country. Thailand is an amazing place. The people are some of the happiest, peaceful people I've ever encountered. It's a ciountry that seems to have pulled off globalization as well as one could hope. In my 24+ hours looking out the windows into the countryside I never really saw any grinding poverty. Everyone seemed to have enough and then a little bit extra. They've kept the country clean. The endless stream of tourist and backpackers are welcome there and, except for some horrible exceptions, they've commodified the best assets of their nation without cheapening it. That's skill.
As for the backpackers themselves, I grew to have a healthy respect for them. It took awhile getting over my territorial anti-laowai feelings I'd developed in China. There whenever I'd see a few white people in a bar or resteraunt I'd want to leave. In Thailand, I'd let the local places be local and have fun in a place built for my own kind. Almost everyone I met respected Thai culture and wanted to learn as much as possible. You'd don't find that too often with foreigners iun China.
China, it seems sometimes we're in the business of getting the Chinese to think a little less Chinese and a little more Western. Almost every Westerner has a little crusade, something they want to change about China. Even I dream of being a musical Johnny Appleseed, spreading better music to the clubs and shops blaring 200bpm techno today. Cody wants them to dress better. Most of us want them to be able to keep a Western schedule. In Chiang Mai, though, the Thai's teach us, giving classes in everything from cooking to meditation. Gifts for the foreigners to make their own home a little happier. Food for thought, ey?
My way of travel involves my own limited understanding of mankind's role in this universe. It involves a heaping spoon of randomness stirred lightly with mobility. Being in the right places and making decisions as you go. Finding the right guest house and bar is infinitely important in my line of work. It's not just about finding the cheapest or the cleanest, it's about finding the right kind of people. Monday night I knew I needed to camp out at the Rasta bar in front of our guest house. I knew I needed information from those more traveled than I am in this region.
So Lyndsey and I ordered our drinks and drew out a calender and began visualizing all the options in front of us. My gut kept leading me to Pai, a village three hours away on the Burmese border overrun with bohemians. We were both still interested in Laos. There were also a million posters in the open-air lounge of the Banana Guest House showing downhill mountain biking, white water rafting, a million courses on all things Thai, and trekking. Trekking is the main thing here. Locals take you into the woods to see waterfalls, ride elephants, and gawk at the hill tribes - particularly the "long necks" you see in National Geographic.
Serendipity stuck as I walked back to our room to grab the Lonely Planet. A man around my age and looking much more traveled was standing about after asking the inn keeper a question.
"You! Have you been in Thailand long?"
"A month."
My prayers. Answered.
"Have a beer with my friend and I?"
Thus we sat and chatted. They had just come back from a trek and were raving about it. Campfires, bamboo rafts, waterfalls. It sounded great. We decided then and there to do that. Then something even more curious arose. My new friends girlfriend mentioned going to a meditation class on Tuesday. It was 24 hours long, in a temple, run by monks, and was funded through donations.
Something clicked in my head. I've long joked that I ought to be a Buddhist monk when in the depths of indecision about my life. I've also long had that Western fascination with the non-divine religion of Buddhism, the philosophy as lifestyle. And here it was, a glimpse into a monks life at one of these ancient Wat's lying about.
After motorbiking around earlier in the day trying to find a rumored Chinese-speaking community and their mosque somewhere in Chaing Mai, we met back up with Isabelle to go to the temple.
We were piled into a classroom with 20 other foreigners in the local Buddhist university and given a quick run down on the tenants of Buddhist. For those not in the know, basically we have 1) all life is suffering, 2) suffering comes from desires, 3) to end suffering you must be liberated from your desires, 4) the Enlightened One has a path full of meditation to relieve you of the unfulfilled desires wreaking havoc on our souls.
I can perhaps agree with all four Noble Truths. I have issues, however, with the core assumption that we need to be liberated from suffering. Perhaps I still have that old Christian outlook that a little bit of pain can be good for you in the long run. I still believe that emotional pain is how we grow. Not that we should bring it on or shouldn't avoid it, but I'm also hesitant to believe that we need to make a life running from the attachments that bring us pain and suffering. Those attachments have also brought me the greatest joys in life.
Back to the program... and, man, it was a program. We were boarded up in trucks and taken half an hour out into the countryside to a new facility they had build.
We begin by getting to our [big, clean] rooms and change into white monkish linens. One-size fits all garments that are as comfortable as they are freaky. It looks precisely like what you'd think someone would wear right before committing ritual suicide with 20 other "open minded spiritualists" in a jungle compound.
We come together for tea after that. Little did I know that this was to be the last time we were supposed to speak until lunch the next day, so I cracked jokes about when the Kool-Aid was going to be served and doing Karate Kid poses.
After dinner we sit and first learn how to bow in front of the Buddha. Somehow I didn't expect this. I really, really didn't like bowing down in front of a picture of Buddha. We then chant. I have no idea what I'm chanting. We then try our first meditation.
I think meditation, I think sitting cross-legged and spacing out. I'm all about that. When Buddhist monks think meditation they have a few more tricks up their sleave. They like walking meditation. Imagine the slowest choreographed dance ever. Without dancing. You're walking. At a set pace. In a very set way. Very. Very. Slowly. I think we covered one meter in five minutes. Three feet. Five minutes. Over and over again. And then again.
Peace did not come to your humble fair narrator. My ADD-wracked mind wanted to tear my eyeballs out. Everything was annoying me. Even the calm, peaceful whisper-voices of the monks leading the way. "Visualize turning. Turning. Turning. Turning. Lifting. Treading, Stepping, Lifting, Lifting..."
After we left that session I ran up to Lyndsey. In Chinese in told her that we needed to speak. I hate this program. I want to go back to Chiang Mai. She turned around and looked at me. Deep meditation had changed her into someone else other than my travel companion. I went to find the real Lyndsey who wouldn't speak to me. She merely pointed to her name tag that said, "silence." Did I forget to mention the "silence" name tags?
Once everyone else was away she gave me her blessing for me to find my own way back to town. I chickened out at the prospect of walking down unknown Thai roads looking for a willing motorcyclist to pick up a silly foreigner.
Things lightened up when I got back to my room. My roommate was cool. We ignored the silence rule and laughed about the program. Making fun of it quickly made it far less serious. It gave me the courage to face another day. And thus that day came at 5am with the ringing of bells.
The "master" came to us this morning. The other monks were around my age and just out of monk university. This man had been there and done with everything except the things I do everyday. His inner peace was almost too much. He spoke in barely a whisper about peace and happiness and monkey brains.
I kind of liked the term. It was his contrast to a peaceful, meditated brain. The monkey brain wanted to jump around everywhere. The meditated brain was focused. We did yoga, which was a lot more relaxing than I expected, then broke for breakfast. Afterwards, In the mountain fog and soft life of northern Thai morning, I think I actually learned to meditate. They gave us a Buddhist rosary and told us to do the same things we did last night, except in a chair and counting beads slowly instead of trying of thinking about the tip of our nose or abdomen.
I lightened up considerably. I kind of enjoyed the rest of the program. We were able to speak after lunch and everyone in the program was really cool. I ate with an Irish singer who's mixing traditional Thai and Celtic music together for a CD. There were only three Americans in the whole mix. I guess in the end, it was nice not wearing shoes and I kind of want to find a set of prayer beads somewhere.
