Rubber meets the road!

12-8-2007

It’s a good thing that I’m not operating heavy machinery today..

The “Chemist” gave me a little something to “help me sleep” last night. Whoa trigger! I wonder if he has something to help with the drooling.

Ever since I got here, the little German clockmaker in my brain just hasn’t been willing to let go of Texas time and get hip with the new schedule. It seems that I deal with all of my photos from the day ‘till midnight or later and then I have to force myself to sleep. My consciousness inevitably seems to surface around 3:30 – 4:30AM, where I try to just lay there in the dark for as long as I can and try to quiet my mind for which Jimmy Dale sings “has a mind of it’s own”. After what seems like about a year or so, the roosters begin to crow - calling up the city’s amazing cacophony. Then around 8AM or so I am ambling around like the living dead.... Then something or someone activates me and my adrenaline gland. For and hour or so it's like I sniffed smelling salts….until another wave of exhaustion rolls in ….

I am pleased with my stamina but enough is enough…There was only one thing left to do… Induce a coma, and that coma was good! I hope that Hans gets the message and resets the clock now…”Don’t make me do this again Hans!”

So here I sit at this tiny little street side café across from the guesthouse where I like to stay called “Shanti Lodge”. I just ordered my favorite Thai breakfast. It’s called “Kow Pat Moo” which is simply fried rice with egg, vegetables and pork with fish sauce & thai pepper. It’s funny to me that the word “moo” means pork. I tried ordering “Kow Pat Oink” but strangely, they didn’t bring beef.

I am still so groggy and stoned right now that it’s all I can do to type like a snail here, but it’s fun and I’m really thinking I’m funny as shit right now so buyer beware! This typing at about two words a minute (instead of my usual four) let’s me really think through what I’m trying to say…Whatever that is.

But you know, that’s really what travel is all about isn’t it? Getting to slow down enough to where one can have some room to think. I always say “Illness and travel are the only two ways to slow down the hands of time.” Me, I prefer the latter.


But so far, this visit to Asia has been a little different. Being in pursuit of something as culturally specific as “San phra phum” (spirit house) is turning out to be somewhat of an anomaly as far as what a lone farong (westerner) man would be looking for here in Thailand, if you know what I mean….

At first, people assume that I don’t know what I just asked for, so they suggest what a farong might actually be looking for...Then, when I say “no, no”, and repeat it again a couple of times, they look at me like a deer in the head lights. Then when I finally draw a spirit house or point to the one that is right next to us, they smile and wonder what the hell I want with it…By now I’ve attracted a crowd that wants to watch me draw something, so of course I impulsively deviate from my focus and start drawing and giving away cartoons of the adorable snot nosed little street kids who are packed in a wedge shape all around me. Suddenly my very business like safari has transformed into a giant giggle fest.

Finally, if this goes on long enough, someone who knows some English might appear who may be able to lead me somewhere where an elder or a more knowledgeable person on the subject might be…I tell you this is work! But I am really really loving it!

I told Patti a couple of days ago that I was a little frustrated because I felt I just wasn’t getting any traction on this project. Although it’s a lot of fun of walking around and taking pretty pictures and playing with people, It wont be until I get candid interviews of people’s personal experiences with San prah phum that these photographs will fill with life.

As always she comforted me, and afterwards came a lunch meeting that I was lucky enough to get arranged with a very interesting man named Mr. Satayaphorn Tantemsapya.

Roger, Kristi & I were walking down some random alley close to the Vietnam consulate looking for a “guide book” restaurant that (like so many) didn’t exist anymore. A western man in business clothes was walking by so I piped up and asked if he might know of a good place to eat. He certainly did, and not only did he lead us to it, but within the time that he was explaining directions we had pieced together enough of a rapport that he decided to join us.

It was a little hole in the wall and the food was outstanding! Somehow he gave me the courage to eat the raw green papaya salad which is one of my favorites at home but I never had the guts to try here because of the uncooked veggies. “In Bangkok, it’s no problem” he said..I believed him and I since I haven’t had a problem, I still believe him. His name was Kevin, I gave him my card and asked him if he might know anything about the spirit house around here. He didn’t, but he mentioned an old friend of his who he referred to as being very friendly and knowledgable on most everything plus, he said "he is very well connected". He also mentioned that he writes books too…about golf.

I was twenty minutes late because I misjudged the time. Like a fool, I didn’t factor in getting lost. I didn’t really get lost, it’s just that when you see the sign on the top of a big hotel in Bangkok, it’s hard to find the bottom of the damn building. There are so many busy sidewalk markets that line the streets and alleys that when you see the top, that only means that you have just located the approximate maze in which to enter in order to get to the entrance of that particular building. Ask for directions?..I don’t think so…

Satayaphorn Tantemsapya Is a fine and fit elder gentleman who was well educated in England and Ivy League USA. His brother was the Thai Ambassador to Laos and China and his father in law was the US ambassador to Vietnam during the war.

Needless to say, this dude knows how to get along.

Upon our introduction he immediately qualified himself with a very impressive and abbreviated resume of his education and accomplishments, then he slid a really cool green colored 1000 paged, hard covered edition of one of his five “how to” golfing books in front of me.

As per my perception of what was going on, his goal was accomplished..He had instantly established himself as the alpha dog in our relationship. I gladly submitted. He went on to explain how tough it had been to translate western golfing idioms and slang words to Thai language. The word “slice” or “hook” for example, might take a paragraph to describe. He threw his hands up in the air as though his children are driving him crazy as he lamented the hardships of his writing.

The funny thing about all of this is that Satayaphorn doesn’t really play much golf. He was inspired to write the first book because his father was a great lover of golf and died while playing. Satayaphorn wrote the first book perhaps as a kind of epilogue and distributed them at the funeral. “The rest are to make money” he said with a giggle..

Satayaphorn has a lovely vitality for life and proves to be a great raconteur. It turns out that since our meeting, he has become very enthusiastic about my book idea and wants to help me. Since our lunch, day before yesterday we have meet again and he has gotten in touch with a “very important” art professor and painter who he feels can be of great import to the project. It seems like the rubber is now meeting the road!

I tell you, "IT" is just exactly where you find it.

I am going to head up to Luang Prabang, Laos in a couple of days for about a week. It’s one of my favorite places. Laos is so gentle. Luang Prabang is perhaps the only place in the world that is so awesome that UNESCO has deemed the entire town a world heritage site. It is so interesting and so restful at the same time. Luang Prabang is situated right along the bank of the big old muddy Mekong River. The quietness of it’s spirit ought to flood into me just as this sleeping pill wears off.

I am going there because last time I made friends with a novice monk named Link Panysouk at the Mt. Phusi (pronounced “Pussy”) monastery. His English was really good and he had been assigned to teach it to the other young monks.

He showed me a really dilapidated open
air, dirt floor space under a building adjacent to their living quarters. Out of scraps of wood and bamboo, he had fashioned together a very basic but useable classroom.

I suggested that we hire a tuk tuk and go find some building materials and then make him a “real classroom” with bench desks and a usable chalkboard. So off me & the saffron robed boy went in pursuit of a Home Depot “Lao style”. I wish I had the photos to show you. It was a great experience. Patti and Autumn and a really cute kid monk pitched in and after schlepping wood and supplies up the long staircase and measuring and sawing and nailing and painting. Voila! A classroom was born!

Link has retired from the monk’s life at the monastery and now co-runs a children’s book publishing company in LPB with his brother. He is waiting to be my spirit house guide and co-interviewer/translator.

NOW WE’RE COOKING WITH GAS!

Well my ass is now totally numb from sitting for so long. Me and this laptop’s battery have had just about all of this that we can take today. I hope these 1760+ words will suffice for the 1.76 photos that I just don’t have the patience to download.

So, sawwasdee krub for now…and with love till next time…