Thai Country Life - ThaiKarl

120314 Thaikarl - Laundry man, me?

2012-03-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

friends,

since my wife is out working very hard to buy and sell tamarind i'm left at home most of the day. i try to do a few things to lighten the load on her. she usually takes care of all the household stuff, cooking, cleaning, plants, shopping, laundry. well, i can't cook, i can clean some, mama usually handles the plants, i don't know what to shop for.. that leaves laundry.

of course, when i'm in the states i do laundry in the classic masculine fashion. automatic machine, but in detergent (what ever is near the machine), dump in ALL the dirty cloths in, none of this sorting out light/dark stuff i've heard about, set temp to hot and warm (i still don't believe that cloths can get clean in cold water. how is that supposed to work? detergent is detergent, how did they magically make it work in cold water? my mom never washed in cold water.) set on regular cycle- don't know about all this 'permanent press' and 'delicates' stuff, let it run, put everything in dryer, them dryer sheets etc smell weird, don't need them either. power up the machine. at the ding! take it all out jam into a sack. done.

its a little bit different here. Tok ran me thru the procedure, and after the first go, she never asked me to wash cloths again. it's not like patching drywall or putting in an electrical outlet, which i totally can do, so i must used the wrong method. somewhere.

today i was out working on my underground wiring for the front gate lites and it started raining. had to stop that job and do something else. the cloths basket was overflowing so i did the wash. we have this ancient washing machine. the machines they use here have an agitator side, and a spin-dry side. the spin dry is busted (i guess, cause she never uses it.) so you tun on the tap to fill with water, and turn off tap when the level is right. put in the detergent, cloths and spin the dial to 8 minutes. there is a plate in the bottom of the washing well that spins one way, stops, and spins the other way. your cloths swoosh around, stop and swoosh the other way. machine dings. take out, hand wring, drop in bucket and take outside, put in another load.

The National "Super Jumbo Deluxe" washing machine

outside i'd prepared the three rinsing basins on the sidewalk. you fill them with well water. you have to plug in the pump, wait for it to flow, and filter the water thru a little aquarium fishnet, cause green flakes of whatever come out in the stream. the basins are usually upside down on the walkway when they aren't in use. today when i flipped them over a billion tiny black ants freaked out and ran around in full tilt panic. when their scouts thought under the bins was a good place to set up a nest, they got some bad intel. in seconds there was hundreds of them running up my legs and all over my arms. fortunately, they aren't the stinging/biting variety of tiny black ant, they just tickle a lot. i gave them a few minutes to grab as many larvae as they could and head for safer ground. the pump started getting a head of pressure going, so i had to get the hose. washed thousands of them off the walkway, off the bins and off my arms and legs. sorry about that, little guys.

the freshly washed cloths need to be rinsed in each of the basins, theoretically getting most of the detergent rinsed out. the last basin gets some blue stuff poured in- fabric softner i think (?). you have to ring them out some by hand between each basin. after the last rinse they go in the basket.

bucket, rinse1, rinse2, rinse3, basket...

then you take the basket to the other side of the house, under the extended roof of the shed, and hand the cloths on hangers, bamboo rods and lines between the posts. then go back to the washing machine, which should be done with 2nd load, and carry on. did three loads today.

hang 'em high, hang 'em low, don't let 'em touch the ground

of course, when Tok or Terry do the wash, they can squat down flatfooted to rinse and wring the cloths thru the line. white men like me can't squat, so i have to teeter on the balls of my feet, or just bend over. i'm feeling those muscles now, hours later. when Tok does the wash, and brings the dry cloths up to our bedroom to put away, they are always inside out. i never knew why. a bit annoying to reverse anything you want to put on, but i have other issues that are really more annoying then that, so i save my energy for the really annoying stuff. (like electrical cords that automagically tangle themselves up for no damn reason and will NEVER just let you drag one out... etc) I finally asked Tok the other night why the cloths were inside out. "so when they dry in the sun, they won't get lighter color on outside" she says. duh. that totally makes sense eh?

i hope the suns back out tomorrow, i want to get on with electrical work, PVC piping, cement... things that make sense to me. she did smile when i told her i did the wash and told me "Good Job!"

ain't love grand?
อนุกูล

120308 Thaikarl - before, after, or in-between

2012-03-08T08:17:00.000-08:00

friends,

these are some rolling days, one flows into the next and the next and the next. far to quickly i'm afraid. really begining to feel the tension of departure. sux.
Toks tamarind business is keeping her quite busy. she drives off early in the morning, usually by 9:30 am, and might not come back until dark, around 6:30pm. she goes out looking for and buying processed tamarind, and takes it to the various buyers. some nights when she gets back, she has a whole truck full - one metric ton or more (2,204 lbs) in 10 kilo bags. some nights we have to repack everything, especially when the workers used odd or whatever bags, and didn't put them in exactly 10 kg packages.

i spend my day while she is gone hanging around the house, running errands, shopping, internet, playing guitar and working on my projects. today i took the motorbike into town, paid the land-line bill, went to try to straighten out a bank problem, moved cash around, bought more 16x26 bags for the business, went to the post office and bought some food. when i was motoring back, something beside the road caught my attention, i saw a boy running quickly in the opposite direction beneath a walking overpass, just a flash, and i saw a motorbike on its side on the ground, and another bike parked next to it. i was moving right along at 70 kph or so and quickly was far past the scene. something about it didn't seem right, maybe there had been an accident, or maybe something fell off the kids bike and he was running to retrieve it? i stopped beside the road and looked back, but it was hundreds of meters away by then and i couldn't see anything out of place or notice any activity back by the flyover bridge. i would have had to turn around and drive the wrong way on the road for that distance to go and check, that didn't seem prudent. but it still had me puzzled 'cause i felt something was wrong with the picture. so i carried on, dropped off my shopping stuff at the house, and rode to the other side of the village to take some photos. i'd burned up the remaining gas in the motorbike on my travels, so i decided to head back north, past our house to the gas station and fill the tank. the gas station is right across the road from the flyover bridge. this is what i saw there:

lottsa people, police, emergency truck.. There had been an accident, likely moments before i passed the place and saw the boy running. i felt pretty bad, i was right there, but it was not obvious at the time that an accident had occurred, it was just a flash of activity that seemed peculiar. i saw the results of a traffic accident last trip, and it was really traumatic for me. i'm not interested in repeating that vision. if i was first on the scene, and people needed any kind of help, i'd be right there, but if it's afterwards, and there are already people responding and taking care, i don't need to "just have a look" Tok and i were sitting on the porch a couple months ago, she was applying some stuff to her face and we heard people hollering up on the big road. we went down to the gate, a ways down the road to the north i could see a dark shape - a body, and nearer to me, a bicycle on it's side in the far lane. that's all i needed to see. there were 10 people up there already, and more coming, so i knew there was nothing i could do, and i started to have that whirlpool feeling in my belly again, like last year. Tok went up to see what was going on, i stayed back in the yard. when she came back, she said the man was dead, hit by a car as he was riding his bicycle home. the man rode 7 km into town and back every morning, to have breakfast at a restaurant in lom sak. the car vanished, as they usually do. the next morning, Tok told me that at that same spot, a pickup truck ran into the median late in the night and flipped over... fatality. I asked her if it bothered her to see the bicycle man, she said no, she'd seen such things many times, and it doesn't bother her.

accidents and death aren't all hidden away here. accident scenes aren't all taped off so you don't see anything, there's not usually police directing traffic away. when someone dies, they keep the body at the house (in a refrigerated casket) and everyone comes to the house for days. funeral processions aren't lead by a smoke glass limousine at the front and a line of cars with their headlights on, the body is in a colorful casket, on an ornately decorated platform in the back of a pickup truck, music plays over loudspeakers as they drive to the temple, and the body car is followed by more pickups, cars, motorbikes and even farm trucks. i'm sure it's different in the metropolitan areas, where people live in apartments and condo's, but we live in the country, and the process is very visible.

so many times in my life i've left situations just before something bad happened, or i arrive after it's all over. today it was in-between.
onward.

อนุกูล

Footnote added 120312: one of my readers replied and had this to say:

The other sane reason, though far from a human one, yet a very practical point as life as a gaijin or farang in a far off land, is not to further involve yourself in something where you are not already. If I was there and at that moment could do something significant to aid or help out, then by all means I'd be the first to jump in and sacrifice to help out without any concern for my own well-being. But after the fact, with others and local competent people around, nothing to be gained from that kind of samaritanism than to further" implicate" yourself as the foreigner or outsider or different or "other." We have to be constantly vigilant of that fact, as much as I enjoy a laid-back lifestyle it's a somewhat necessary reality of life abroad. All it takes is a moment failing to concentrate, not paying attention, or brief lapse of judgement for the system to come crashing down and attack and eat one of its contributing members. Not to sound overly negative but I've read enough about horrible things happening to otherwise good-intentioned, forthright people. Particularly in asia. This world is still very much Darwinism in action and the powers that be will tear you to shreds for practicing your humanity. I'll still be the kindest person I can be, but I'm always cognizant of this perceived reality.

Something to keep in mind when your better angels are tugging at your heart-strings.

I was very glad to get his message. and i do agree with him. i am usually quite aware that i am a guest in this country and it's only a stamp in my passport that permits me to be here at all. i can't risk having that stamp revoked by my not paying attention to this fact.

120306 Thaikarl - video of lom sak market street

2012-03-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

friends, we were getting our hair done at the beautyshop in the late afternoon. while i was waiting for Tok to get finished up, i stepped outside. this kind of public activity and commerce just isn't seen in the parts of america i have lived in. it is endlessly interesting to me, even though by now, i've seen it many times. there is always something new to notice.

อนุกูล

120225 Thaikarl - New video - ThaiCountrylife YouTube

2012-02-25T05:57:00.007-08:00

more shower machinations:

(click this link http://youtu.be/XshDIcyCamA to view in better size on YouTube)

อนุกูล

120225 Thaikarl - bangkok bound, and up

2012-02-25T05:45:00.004-08:00

friends,

winter season seems to be on the decline here, the days are getting hotter, and the nights warmer. we've been all busy, Tok is going gang-busters with her tamarind business. some days, she leaves early in the morning and i don't see her until evening. i try to help out, mostly loading and unloading 10kg backs off and onto the pick-up. while she's out in the field, my job is to buy tamarind from people who bring it to the house. i can usually figure it out, what type it is, what grade and what the price is, get it weighed out and pay people, but sometimes i'm grateful mama is here to talk with the people, as i can't.

i'm really excited to be going to bangkok tomorrow. one of my favorite guitar players, Sungha Jung from korea is going to be playing in a ukelele festival in Siam Paragon tomorrow. I was planning on taking the bus down and back in one day all by myself, but it turns out that Teri has to go do some applications for university on monday, so we three are going down. we'll spend the night at Hotel 99, even though he'll be playing Ukelele instead of guitar, i am still jazzed to see him play in person. and they are having a "meet and greet" session afterward, so you know i'll be in that line. visit his youtube channel and be amazed at his work: http://www.youtube.com/user/jwcfree?feature=watch

we went to pitsanulok to get my visa extended the other day. drove up over the mountains, took some photos of Tok wearing mountain people cloths, (4$ rental)

and finally finding the immigration office about 1:00 pm. an extended string of problems arose. i had overstayed by one day. doh! i had the 22nd FIXED in my brain as the day to go renew, but my passport stamp said good until feb 21. whups. that cost an extra 500 baht (15$). then we didn't have the right papers, they wanted Toks house book with her address. she forgot her National I.D., so we were stalled. there was a lot of discussion i didn't understand, and we went off to find some government buildings to try to get the papers we needed. Tok was worried about where her I.D. was and forgot the directions, but we eventually found a government complex. they were able to use her drivers license to look up her residence on the computer, and gave her an official paper document of same. and we had to make copies of everything, that required going to yet another building. then back to immigration. lots of paper shuffling, filling out forms, oodles of rubber stamping and signing and notating and paying a total of 2400 baht (72$) i was all stamped in and ready to go. we'd planned on doing some sight-seeing and shopping, but this whole thing took all day, so we visited and important temple,

and headed back to Lom Sak. Didn't get home until after dark. next time, i'll know what to bring!

onward!
อนุกูล

120123 Thaikarl - a trip to Pitsanulok

2012-02-20T22:00:00.001-08:00

friends,

we made a day trip to Pitsanulok a little while ago. My mother-in-law has had some health issues for a while now, so we went to the BIG hospital in Pitsanulok to have some scans read. we took the roof of the cargo rack to a man in the village, to get some aluminum skin applied to the top, and tied on some netting to the sides to cut down the wind in the back. Mama and two of her sisters, my wifes aunts, piled in the back with mats and food and drink. i got to drive.

Pitsanulok is a fairly large city up in a broad valley in the mountains west of where we live. the road would thru the mountain area, and came down to a flat plain, covered in farm fields. we've had a little rain in the past weeks, so the mountains were sprouting some fresh green color, where there had been only dry brown grass and brush before.

the hospital was a busy busy place. there were people everywhere, it was like an active station. there were people camping out in their pickups in the parking lots, and visitors napping on mats in the grassy areas. hospital staff came out the doors to greet us, and brought out a wheel chair for mama to get around in. there was lots of running around, getting papers stamped, copied, signed and noted, then upstairs to wait with the hundreds of other people there. i went out to the pickup in the parking garage (30 baht/hr - 1$ for parking) and read my nook book and had a little nap even though it was pretty warm. i didn't want to take a seat inside the hospital since there were many people standing, waiting to get seen. after a few hours everybody came back out to the car, we went around the front and collected Mama, and started back for Lom Sak.

we stopped to visit a couple of chinese temples on the side of a mountain on the way out. very beautiful, with lots of statuary and decorations. i wanted to get a photo of a giant jelly fish constructed out of PET water bottles i saw on the way up. it was outside of a resort restaurant. i went inside to have a look around - there were tables right in the jungle trees out back. my friend Mr. Bo from denmark would love it, as he and I would go in search of "Jungle Bars" when i was hanging out with him in Phuket some years ago.

i'm still getting the hang of driving in thailand, and there would be a chorus of screams from the back of the truck whenever i did anything wonky - like back-up into the roadway with trucks on-coming. nerve-wracking at times.

we have to go back to Pitsanulok in a few days to get my visa extended. i hope we have time to look around some.

i've posted a few videos on my thaicountrylife Youtube channel
and created a thaicountrylife.tumblr.com blog for quick posts and pictures subscribe-rate-comment if you like please! you can add the tumblr posts to an RSS feed and keep up to date on them.

there is a gallery of photos from the trip on picassa

later i learned the verdict of the doctors who read the scans of mama's lung. the lump in there is probably cancer.

Onward! Nu
อนุกูล

The Golden Hours

2012-02-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

For the past few days, there has been more haze in the air. the late afternoon "Golden Hour" before sunset has been running for much longer than an hour. I went into town by myself to buy some guitar strings and a few other things. coming back on the motorbike i was riding almost directly into the sun. beautiful orange ball hanging on the horizon. the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photograpy app on my iPhone takes two photos and blends them together. they guys on the motorbike weren't in the frame for the first picture, and in frame for the second, which is why you can see thru them. it's about 85 degrees F at this moment. Not bad for february eh?

120126 Thaikarl - 10 Shots

2012-01-27T00:55:00.000-08:00

We popped into the shooting range at the Sweet Tamarind Fair and took some shots

that was fun!

120117 Thaikarl - days rolling by like summer

2012-01-17T09:03:00.001-08:00

friends,

when i was a kid in grade school, the beginning of june was an exciting time. school would let out for summer! we had three months of freedom. it felt like i had forever to be out playing in the sun, staying up late, hanging with my friends. right about the beginning of august, the stores would start putting out "back to school" displays. oh no! it didn't make sense. summer still had a whole month to go, and the best weather yet. but the shades of impending return to structure, rules, disipline and teachers telling us what to do had started to fall on me. as those last weeks sped by, i felt an anxiety for fun-not-had, explorations-not-done, and then it was "back to the real world".

i have a similar feeling now. nearly half way to running out of visa time. we've been busy. i've been more interested in doing life here than writing about it. we've had some fun adventures, went to our house in Ban Chang, went scuba diving with a friend from seattle, saw a lot of cool temples. i've been helping tok around the house, fixing things i can, cleaning up the yard. her tamarind business is starting to happen, the sour tamarind is just getting ripe, and i get to be the one to buy the fruit from people when the come to the house and tok is gone to the factory or seeing her processing workers. Mama got a flu, and they put her in the hospital for a week to mind her care, so Tok spent most days and nights at the hospital. we do errands, go shopping, take care of business. normal things of life. but this is life unlike any other i have know before i started coming here.

i have the kind of mind that likes to compare and contrast, i notice differences, similarities, what works here vrs what works there, how it's done here, how it's done over there. living in thailand after living most of my life in america provides a rich environment for my comparative mind. since i'm abysmally slow at learning even the simplest thai language, i can't ask about things, i have to observe, and guess. often the only thing i can say is "amazing thailand" to my wife, everything is "normal life", so she's not up for answering a thousand questions about such ordinary things. when we go to the temple for Tam Bun (make merit) she sometimes has me repeat the words after her. which i try to do, mangling the pronunciation pretty badly. i asked her what we were saying. she said she doesn't know. the words it turns out, are in Pali language, which is the language that buddist canonical texts were written in. similar to the way the old catholic church used to say mass in latin, like they did when i was a kid. i'm almost certain that they teach the meaning of the words in schools and such, but like the meaning of the latin i learned as an alterboy, it's just words you say when you are devoting.

i drive her to distraction sometimes with my fascinations. she's up in the tree whacking away at the diseased branches with a big knife, and i'm taking pictures of the hoards of ants we've disturbed, instead of pulling away the cut branches. meanwhile, those same ants (red weaver ants) i'm so fascinated with are biting her ankles, arms and neck, crawling up underneath her cloths before they open their jaws an bite down on her flesh. she's totally focused on getting the job done and getting out of the tree, i'm wondering where the ants are going to live now. btw, they harvest the larvae from these ants nests and sell them at the market. very tasty!

i brought a Nook e-book reader with me this time. an entire library of reading in one device. so i'm reading jack london's "The Sea Devil" now. i'm an evangelist for these devices. since i've had a nasty cold the past few day's i haven't been doing much besides reading. and web-surfing. mama isn't feeling too good. tok took her to the hospital today but they don't have any blood to tranfuse for her. she started coughing up blood, so tok took her back this evening. so it's just me and you tonight folks. hope yall in seattle are enjoying the snow.

cares to you all
อนุกูล

120101 Thaikarl - New Years Day visit to a beautiful temple

2012-01-03T08:02:00.001-08:00

friends,

we visit a lot of temples. they are everywhere in thailand. even the smallest village will have at least one. some are more magnificent than others. on new years day, Tok says "we're going to the beautiful temple in the mountains" cool!

we took the motorbike, because Tok said there would be a lot of cars on the road, which turned out to be very true. many cars from bangkok (the origin of the car is named on the license plates.) of course it was a pleasant day, warm and sunny. i miss riding the motorbike. since Tok got her pick-up truck, we take the car more often. the road up the mountain isn't too steep, but our little motorbike burned nearly a tank of gas getting up there - which is a couple of liters. it hasn't rained since i've been here, so the forests are turning brown, and very dry. but still beautiful on the drive up.

the temple was extraordinary. the entire thing was covered in mosaic. tiles, broken dishes, glass, jewels, ornate plates; and the top was mirror glazed gold tiles. and they are far from finished. the upper floors were still cement walls inside. and they are building another temple near by that will be covered in cut-glass diamonds. millions of them. there is a hospital at the bottom of the hill, for people who come to tam bun (make merit) at the temple and need medical care. in the surrounding hills were resort buildings where you can spend the night. Tok said they were in Burmese style.

we had visited this site a couple of years ago, when just the concrete shell was under construction. amazing what they have accomplished since then. we both wondered how they designed all the elements- was it all planned out as to color, shape and style before hand, or was a rough drawing made and the individual artists allowed to fill the space to in their own design? however it was done, it took a lot of careful though and devotion to harmony, color and detail to accomplish. just gathering the materials was a huge job in itself. someone had to buy the pottery and dishes and tile, and someone had to break things into little pieces to mosaic with. we recognized bits that were parts from colonnades, pots, floor tiles, and cups and dishes commonly sold in the markets in thailand.

there were many people there due to the holiday. we'll go back again another day when it's not so crowded and look at the details a little more. Tok told me there had been some local resistance to building a temple there, but the Kings daughter interceded and requested it be constructed.

when my sister and i went to Europe some years ago, we went to major cathedrals in every town we went to. there were some very impressive ones, especially the one in Koln Germany. European cathedrals were of course, built for a different purpose, and in a different time. i find the Thai temples much more resonant with my own spirit. the cathedrals just felt like interesting old buildings. Temples feel like devotion and self directed calm, and the artwork is much more impressive to me. but i am obviously biased.

There is a gallery of many photos we took that day in picassa. and there is a panoramic view in my Photosynth gallery. enjoy.

onward! Nu

120101 - Thaikarl Calendar says it's a new year

2011-12-31T20:34:00.001-08:00

friends,

it's new years day here in thailand - new years eve still for yall. we're always in the future. Tok and i have had some marvelous adventures and a lot of ordinary daily life here in the land of perpetual summer. obviously i've spent more time doing things than typing them out.

we went out for dinner at a nice karaoke restaurant last night. Mama is still sick in hospital with some bug, so Tok, Teri, and Toks good friend Malee and i had an excellent dinner. There was no place with a newyears "countdown" so Tok took Teri and me back home, and she went back to stay at the hospital with MaMa. The neighbors were setting off fireworks and had their stereo cranked up to 10 playing karaoke songs. This went on ALL night. they didn't' shut down until 9:00am this morning. so aside from lonely sleep because Tok wasn't there, i had boom boom boom BANG! dreams. I woke up to the usual rooster choir, stereo still blasting Midi music and people singing sorta close to the song, and the zooming traffic on the big road, sun blazing thru the east window. and there is no place else i'd rather be.

for all of you, a good year.

111211 Thaikarl - The winds of home keep me unstill

2011-12-10T22:07:00.001-08:00

friends,

i've received a few emails asking "whats happening over there? where are the postings" i have to admit, posting about life here, reminds me of life there, and i'd rather just be here. but, my postings are as much for me as for yall, as it keeps a record of my experiences and travels. so here's the ketchup, and i'll post some of the details accounts on the website and send links to them.

my 23 hour layover in korea was wonderful. i like korea. even though i've only seen a small part of Seoul, the vibe there is very pleasant. but it was cold! i spent the night in the jjimjillbang, which was amazing. if you fly korean air to asia, look for the schedule that gives you that 23 hour layover. you can exit the airport, bus or train into the city, and have a free day in korea.

arrived in bangkok late in the evening and couldn't find Tok, my mobile phone didn't work, so i had to figure out the pay-phones. finally discovered you have to dial a leading "0" to get through. she was waiting way down at the other end of the terminal. i'd delayed my departure a week to let the flood waters go down some, and she had a room at our favorite hotel all booked and ready to go. the sky-train boards right at the airport - unlike the light rail in seattle, which boards a thousand yards away, terrorists you know, can't have them taking the train right to the airport- we have to make them walk in like the rest of us. the sky train takes us to victory monument station, where it's a short walk to Hotel 99.

we spend a couple of days in bangkok. picking up things we can't get up north. bangkok shopping is an assault on the senses. there is so much stuff, so many little shops and kiosks. strange thing is, if you are just walking around looking at everything you will find all sorts of things you didn't know you needed. but if you go looking for a specific thing - like a 14V DC power adapter, you'll go crazy cause nobody has one. there were piles of sandbags everywhere, and many of the shops had sudden cinder block dams built around the entrances. Tok told me that at the height of things, people were charging as high as 400 baht (12.97$) per sandbag. normal price about 50 cents. there's probably whole beaches with no sand on them anymore. my favorite guitar shop had nothing on the racks. the owner moved everything upstairs in case the water came as far as his shop, luckily it didn't.

we took the bus from Mochit station home to Lom Sak. along the way, just outside of bangkok, we could see there were large areas still underwater. acres and acres of factories and homes flooded. fortunately, most of the major roads in thailand are built on raised berms, so traffic still moves, but there were a couple of times the bus had to cross sections a foot deep in water.

from the time we got home, we've been going going going, like little energizer bunnies. went to the tamarind factory, went to a singing contest that Toks daughter danced in, visiting people, getting supplies, shopping for food and things i need, getting the car fixed, getting supplies for the construction workers. hardly any time sitting on the porch reading my book and sipping espresso. my wife had saved up some money, put it down on a toyota pickup truck, and contracted to have the dirt area under our bedroom house paved with concrete. the people who sold her the truck changed their minds and wanted the rest of the money at once, so they could buy another car, so we ran around trying to find another truck - Tok finally made arrangements with another family in the village to pay off the first people and carry the loan for her. on and on and on. only quieted down in the last couple of days.

i just love it here. it's warm and sunny everyday. it's the dry season now, so no rain for a couple months and cool at night.

Weather for Phitsanulok, Thailand (in the mountains 130 km away from us, a little warmer where we are.)

79°F | °C

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Scattered Clouds

Wind: E at 4 mph

Humidity: 47%

81°

59°

84°

61°

86°

61°

86°

66°

last night, i took a shower in my outside shower, and looked up and enjoyed the total eclipse of the moon, the bright point of jupiter, the shadow of palm trees against the night sky. sublime.

(20 second exposure)

onward! Nu

111207 Thaikarl Getting ready

2011-12-06T16:39:00.001-08:00

slumber party at our house last night. my wife's daughter and her friends are in a dancing show this morning.
everybody was up *before* dawn so Tok could do their make-up.

amazing thailand!

111129 Thaikarl - moving quickly with muddy feet

2011-11-29T05:37:00.001-08:00

friends,

landed at the airport in bangkok a few days ago and havn't stopped moving since. went everywhere shopping and looking in BKK, took the bus home to Dong Khwang, our village. lots of changes around here - new houses here and there, trees and bushes have grown up, my sweet wife has been busy making improvements to the house and property.

you know how there's always something you forget to bring when you travel? i forgot to pack the netbook that i bought specifically for traveling. it's small, light, easy to transport and it works. the two notebook computers we have at the house here are very old, slow and generally messed up. only got this one working late this afternoon... is why i haven't been posting anything since i got back.

but it's wonderful to be here, its certainly a thrill, waking up at 5:30 am to the howling roosters next door, the blazing sun rise that turns the bedroom house into an easy-bake oven within an hour; cars, trucks and motorbikes roaring by intermittently on the big road out front, people talking in words i can barely make out and can't understand, the wack wack wack sound of someone pulverizing chilies and herbs in a stone mortar, and oh yeah, when you are at the edge of the road wanting to cross, look the other way, cause cars are driven on the left side.

and i'm happy as can be to be home.

more... when i get the computer crap worked out.

cares, Nu

(for the folks new to this list, my thai given name is Anukhun - which means "good person to all people". they shorten names here, or have pet/nick names they go by. most every one around our area calls me 'nukhun' sounds like "noo-koon". my wife is a little more familiar and she calls me just "Nu". it sounds like a big "N" sound with a very short, clipped "uw" right behind it. most thai's have a hard time pronouncing "Karl" so many years ago we went to see the monks to get my proper thai name.)

111125 Thaikarl - Bangkok Lovely

2011-11-25T00:02:00.001-08:00

friends,

home in thailand. sooooooooo wonderful. so happy to see my wife, Tok, again,. and the WARMTH and the SUN, and the FOOD, and the crazyness of it all. Amazing Thailand. more to come, we have shopping to do :-)

onward

Thaikarl 1111223 - greetings from Korea!

2011-11-24T23:56:00.001-08:00

Friends,

At long last, the adventure continues. Only 2 degrees here. Just like Seattle but its not raining!

I'm off to find a Jjimjilbang- Korean bathhouse to shower, soak, and sleep. 23 hour layover.

more will be revealed...

onward

Building the Giant Budda

2011-08-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

my wife sent me some photos of the construction of a giant budda. they are building it beside the road somewhere in Petchaboon - which is good sized town 25 minutes away from our house. Petchaboon is the seat of our province of... Petchaboon.

as you can see, while the head of the statue is on the ground, many people have come to apply little squares of gold leaf to the face. one of the many ways to show respect and make merit. by giving away something precious - gold - you are making a bit of merit for your life.

I hope i can get home for the dedication ceremony. that will be an event!

click the image below to goto the gallery of photos.

BuildingTheGiantBudda

110227 Thaikarl - Blood good, it is

2011-02-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

friends,

i received some very nice, concerned comments on my last post. and several kind offers from friends to donate their own blood for mama. don't think the blood would survive the post getting to thailand however. i sometimes feel like i'm viewing the world of thailand with fogged glasses and earplugs in. i can't quite see what's going on clearly, and what i hear is muffled. i have to try to figure out what is going on. and i realize that my understanding is filtered through my own experience.

mama's condition has been known for quite a while. in the past year, as her kidney slowly wears out, it has slowed her down and caused her problems in over-all well-being. she is normally a self-guided busy machine. she cooks, processes output from the fields, makes things (she knotted a three foot fishing net by hand), tends to the plants, chops wood, removes the weeds, visits with friends, and relaxes in between. i asked tok what mama wants to do about her failing health. they discussed it, and faced with the hassle and complication of home dialysis, mama decided that she didn't' want to mess with that. she's around 77 years old and has had a full life. she would rather spend her savings to have a decent funeral than spend it on extra-ordinary medicine that would prolong the length of her life, but not the quality of her life. the funeral is preparation to go from this life to the next life. not to some heaven or infinite after-life, but to the next incarnation in this world. and during that transition you meet your ancestors and the spirits that surround us. so it is more important to her to have a good send-off than to live her a little longer and have a poor presentation to the ancestors.

she is a person that i love and care for, but you know we have never had a conversation? she speaks no english except for "good morning" any interaction with mama and i has to be translated thru tok, and i get the readers-digest-condensed version. i'll ask a question, like "how many relatives does mama have?" tok and mama will talk for 10 minutes, and tok will answer me "many". that's it. life without her will be quite different. tok will have to maintain the house and take care of her daughter all by herself when mama isn't there to help. i'm fairly useless with the house stuff. i can't cook - and don't really care to learn how, i can clean but i'm worse than a fifteen year old, i don't know much about caring for plants, except for dumping water on them, and i sure can't knot a fishing net. my job is to "bring home the bacon" or in this case "bring home the baht" until i can figure out a way to do that at home, i have to do that from here... which doesn't help take care of the household up-keep.

tok did locate some blood, and she's got a donor list going so next month, or when ever it's needed she won't have to do so much running around. the hospital may have better supplies on hand by then also. the notable thing, which was the real subject of my last post, was the idea of running around on your own to find a donor. i've only heard of that here in the states with people who have very rare blood types. thailands medical system is quite extensive, but there are some areas lacking of course. and they pay a tiny fraction of the price we pay, for the same or better general health care.

the weather in seattle is miserable right now. (whine, snivel, whine whine) low thirties, windy, rain. oh, would i much rather be in the tropics. 77 degrees F and partly cloudy in bangkok right now.

onward! regardless!

110224 Thaikarl - out for blood

2011-02-24T20:28:00.000-08:00

friends,

my mother-in-law has only one kidney, and it's going downhill. she has to go to the hospital about once a month to have her blood checked, medications adjusted, diet reviewed. she's doing okay, mostly. they told her that at some point her kidney function will be so low that she will need dialysis. it could be done at home for free, but it would mean putting a "port" in her belly to flush fluids in and out. mama said "phooey on that".

i talked with tok yesterday, and she was urgently running around trying to find blood for mama. they occasionally give her whole blood - for reasons i'm not quite clear on. but there are a lot of sick people right at the moment, and the hospital doesn't have any in stock. so tok was going all over the place trying to find a relative, friend or volunteer to give a pint of blood for mama. she said she went to 3 hospitals, and all the near relatives with no luck. next she was going to the police station, then the army base, then to the jail. could you imagine that? running yourself around trying to find someone with type "O" blood for your mother? tok has a thyroid problem, she can't donate. her daughter doesn't have enough hemoglobin sho she can't either. when i talked to her today, she said she found the policeman who had the right blood, so they were sending it to the hospital in Pitsanolok to be tested for compatibility. so it looks like things are okay for now.

of course i asked all the "problem solving " questions: "can't you order some blood from a big city like bangkok?", "can they put some donated blood in the fridge to keep untill next time mama needs some" apparently, that's just not the way it works. so i made a few jokes, "is she being a vampire today" and if the hospital in Pitsanalok says the policeman's blood is "Aloi" (tastes good) then they can use it this time.

being so far away, the only thing i can do is be supportive, and try to understand.

mama hanging out in the hospital last month

big sigh...

Onward!

110103 Thaikarl - Nappy Hoo Dear, the fruit stand

2011-01-03T00:28:00.000-08:00

friends,

this new year feels alot like last year. well, today feels a lot like a few days ago when it was the last year. Smack-a-life changes in the last month, but i'll get to that later.

tok got in mind to get some business going. she was looking into a few options and finally decided to sell rumbutan fruit. so she took her savings, had a stand built in front of the house by the big road, bought a stock of fruit and went for it. new years is a four day holiday for thai people. many people come up our way to go the mountains where there are some sights and a lot of resorts. she has been somewhere up in the mountains near where we live, selling fruit, and from what she told me today, she's doing quite well.

when she first brought it up to me, i ran thru the standard business modeling - profit/loss, cost of goods, sales, return on investment, etc etc etc. that went right past her. i gave up all that scientific stuff and just told her i'd do anything to help if i can. i already posted a short one about it on the blog: http://www.thaicountrylife.com/2010/12/toks-fruit-stand.html there's a photo there. hope yall are well and have a good year.

Toks fruit stand

2010-12-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

Tok is selling tamarinds and watermelons from a bamboo stand in front of the house.
there are a lot of thai tourists going to the mountains for new years. so she's taking advantage of the extra traffic to try to make a little money.
15 baht for a watermelon is 5 15 cents in U.S. dollars

(that's mama hanging out in the shade there)

permits from the city: 0$

permits from the county: 0$

permits from the health department: 0$

permits for business: 0$

taxes on sales: 0$

lack of government involvement on trade and entrepreneurship: priceless

101128 Thaikarl - Loi Krathong time

2010-11-28T22:38:00.000-08:00

friends,
the Loi Krathong festival this year was on Toks birthday: the 21st. She sent me some photos. they went to the temple in the village, and floated their Krathong on the pond next to the temple. This is one holiday that we have never shared together. I was in thailand years ago, and enjoyed the event when i was in phuket. that time, they floated the krathongs on the ocean, and on a large inland lake. the hot air balloons they release float high in the sky. very beautiful to see a hundred flickering lights in the sky and on the water. they don't seem to worry about them coming down and starting fires - which is the first thing people say in america when i tell them about it.

they are floating them on a small pond - they can collect the styrofoam floats.

traditional ones are made from bread (which disintegrates) or banana leaves.

Tok with Krathong

Teri launching Krathong on the pond

Hot air balloon lantern - up and away!

Onward!

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." Soren Kierkegaard

101029 Thaikarl - Our new spirit house

2010-10-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

friends,

we have a new spirit house! after mama found a snake in bed with her in the middle of the night, the Long Som (spirit medium) told us that the ghost of the land wants a place to live. (see the previous blog entry for the story) i sent tok some extra money to get us a spirit house. she had to wait until after the recent buddist holiday to have the workmen come and install a concrete pad and tile.

and again mama had a nocturnal visitor - this time a centipede under her pillow. don't know what kind of centipede it was, but they do have some big ones in thailand. ones that bite and produce a painful wound that is easily infected. they usually don't come creeping around the house. i've never seen one on our property actually. so the creatures visit is a little odd. we're hoping that with the new spirit house installed, the local ghosts will be appeased with their fancy new digs, and stop bothering mama. that's the principal, as i understand it anyway.

and old man from the village came out to dedicate our spirit house. offerings of fruit, sweets and food were prepared:

i wish i could have been there for the ceremony. we now have a beautiful addition to the yard.

i found a explanitory article about thai spirit houses. so many things to try to understand.

100907 - Thaikarl - USA - The snake is a ghost (?)

2010-10-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

the snake is a ghost (?)

my wife told me a story the other day when i called her. my 77 ish old mother-in-law woke up in the middle of the night and discovered a snake in her bed. she slowly and carefully got out of bed and went downstairs. she got a flashlight and went back upstairs to look for the snake, but couldn't find it. odd that a snake would go all the way up to the her second floor room.

the next day they went to the Long Som (spirit medium - i still can't say it right, and am probably spelling it wrong) to see what this was about. the Long Som said that it was the ghost of our land. He wants a place to live. So we have to get a spirit house. My wife told me that we actually have to buy two houses - a larger one for the "Angel" and a smaller one for the Ghost. her dictionary translated all the thai words for what she was trying to say as "Angel" but i don't think it's and angel as we think of them in the west exactly.

we also have to have some of the old people from the village come to look around and decide where is the best place to put the spirit houses. i said we'd better go with the program and i'll send her a little extra money (3900 baht) to buy the houses, pedestals and concrete.

i'm never quite sure what is going on with such things. I don't "believe", but i don't dis-believe either. it's important to my family there, so i follow the customs- even if i don't fully understand them. my basic interest is that they don't just kill the snake. if they think that the snake is a familiar for a ghost and thus won't kill it, that's good by me. don't know what kind of snake it was - i'm going to show her pictures of thai snakes next time we skype and see if mama can pick it out. venomous snakes that could be dangerous need to be invited to live elsewhere. maybe the ghost won't need the snake after we get the spirit house installed. i'll post pictures when we have them.

amazing thailand.

100824 - Thaikarl - USA Friday Harbor, unitedstates, uh, yeah

2010-08-31T23:03:00.002-07:00

friends,
back in the USSR, er, USA. we departed canada by crossing in invisible line in the water yesteray. came into Roche Harbor to clear customs. uh, huh. when we entered canada, we docked at the customs harbor on Pender. mike got out, and made a phone call to customs, to thell them that foreigners were entering the country. they asked a few questions on the phone- "any fruit, food, guns or explosives?", gave mike a number to post in the window of the boat, and we were in. when American Citizens come back INTO america, well, i don't want to say anything. Homeland INSECURITY might be listening. lets just say it was a little more involved.

we're gonna hang out in the san juan islands for a few days, mikes wife might join us for a couple of days, and we're back. "it's good to be alive"sings sheryl crow on the music in the coffe shop here... i agree.

you see a lot if interesting boats out here.....