080223 Thaikarl - not a lot happening over here

friends,

since i've been sick with infection and bronchitis the last 12 days, there hasn't been much going on here.  the antibiotics and broncho dilators the doctor have been giving me leave me pretty weak.  if we goto to town, tok gets to drive he motorbike, and after walking around buying foodstuffs i'm pooped out.  it's a  real drag,  and i have to say i'm actually a little bored.  because i am boring like this.  i spend the day pretty much just hanging around.  reading a lot, which is good but not good.  i only had room in my bags for about 10,000 pages of reading, and i've read 9,000 of them already.  i'll have to start re-reading some of  my books from last trip.  but since i ran out last time also, some of my books are going for a third read.

i brought a set of Ryobe cordless tools with me- drill, circular saw etc. found a 300 watt step-down transformer in town for 350 baht (10.00!) which was a good deal.  these transformers were 5 times that price in the states.  but so far,  my tools are unused.  i have a notion to build a passive solar water heater using the principle of thermosiphon, out of PVC pipe, but don't have the energy to do all the shopping and cutting.  oh well, soon now.  feeling better everyday.

thursday was a buddist holyday.  i couldn't get up to go with tok to the temple at Oh-Dark-Hundred.  later in the day, a group of four monks came walking along the road.  they were carrying more than the usual gear, food bowels and what look like the monk equivalent of a back pack.  they came down to the house and  sat around the table.  tok and mama went to talk with them, squatting low beside the table.  tok came out with  rice and food in bags for them.  the monks accepted them and they did some praying.  the monks went away.  i asked tok about them, she said they were forest monks, traveling from Loi to somewhere down south.  a long journey to walk.  forest monks are monks who have eschewed the modernization of the temples in the towns and cities.  they live a simpler life, away from all the distractions of towns and cities.  i asked her where they sleep. she said they sleep in the fields and the forests.  they have mosquito net tents that put over them and a mat for the ground.  monks are required to respect all life - which includes NOT killing mosquitoes.  i think they have some polite meditation way of  asking the mosquitoes to go somewhere else, if they have been at their disciplines for a while.

i sit up on my porch, book in my lap, krating daeng (redbull) on the table.  the motorbikes and trucks and cars buzz by on the big road, the road-grader, tooth roller, flat rollers and the water trucks diesel on my relentlessly.  the tobacco is rising in the fields, the sun shines down on the palm trees.  kids and neighbors wander by, the chickens trespass into our yard.  the dogs come round to drink from the lotus and fish tanks beside the house.  as i wipe  a little drop of sweat from my temple, i think "life, here, now, IS."  most pleasant, indeed.

cares to you all,
Nu and Tok
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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com