Thai Country Life - ThaiKarl

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.....

100826 Thaikarl - USA - Doe Bay, Orcas island - hanging out for a few days

2010-08-31T23:03:00.001-07:00

friends

posted a few now photos in the desolation sound gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/thaikarl/DesolationSound scroll down to the picture of Errol at the bottom for the lates posted pix.

we anchored at Doe Bay, Orcas island a couple days ago. been hanging around, enjoying the resort facilities (for free :-) they have a restaruant, mike got us in to play music tuesday night. we made 36$ in tips, and got free pizza. he got us in last night also, nother 38$ - i keep one dollar, the rest goes into the boat fund. i don't know mikes songs, so i don't sing with him much, i fake my way thru the chords with him. sometimes i can read them off his song book, otherwise i watch and listen and try to keep up. fun to be playing in public again.

the resort has a spa - a set of hot tubs overlooking the little bay here. we went up and sat in the hot water after playing last night. nice.

the wind blows thru the strait of jan de fuca, hits widbey island and blows north thru rosario strait - right at us. the boat was rocking and rolling all night again. nice way to get to sleep, being rocked and bumped around. errol was sleeping up on deck, hanging in the mayan hammock suspended by lines and halyards. i went up late at night to see what was rolling around making a banging noise. errols hammock was swinging back and forth like a flag in a storm. the kid slept thru the whole thing. except when we was being banged into the mast! we're going to play music tonight at the open mic and probably head south towards seattle tomorrow.

the weather has turned cold, windy and somewhat cloudy. summers over i guess. nice while it lasted. we got a text saying it was pouring rain in seattle. wah! when i get back i'll make a google map of our travels.

the adventure continues

karl

100810 - Thaikarl - CANADA - Chilling out for the day in Maple Harbor

2010-08-31T23:03:00.000-07:00

friends,
we pulled into maple harbor today. nice marina. rustic, with numerous nautical decorations around the property - old ships engines painted red and white old propellers etc. store, pub, laundry... laundry! my wife was consternated when i told her i've been wearing the same pair of jean for two weeks (..."put honey, i change my underwear...") mike decided to pay moorage, so we'll hang out for the night. shore power to charge up all the batteries things. errol has a nintendo DS, there's a DVD player machine, i've got batteries, cell phone and camera to charge, computers, there's the GPS etc etc. you get real attentive to charging things when your 110v options are limited. we have a 12v to 110v inverter, but it drains the anchor and house batteries so we have to limit the use of that. at least the adults think about charging things. errol just uses them til they die.

traveling by boat sure is different. i have no idea how you would DRIVE here.

onward - back to the san juan islands this week.
Karl

100816 - Thaikarl - Canada Millions of jellyfish, and wonderful sun

2010-08-31T23:02:00.000-07:00

friends,
we're having a wonderful time up her in British Columbia. the internet connection here in Campbell River marina is weird proxy thing. i'm trying to upload photos. goto my picassa gallery http://picasaweb.google.com/thaikarl and look for an alblum called "Desolation Sound". i'll upload as many photos as the connection will allow. we're heading up around Quadra island today. headed for Octopus islands and more.

onward!

100808 - Thaikarl USA - greetings from canada

2010-08-31T23:01:00.001-07:00

friends,
greetings from bedwell harbour, south pender island, British Columbia. Canadian customs station check in.
we left seattle on the armadillo - mikes 50 foot sailboat on friday around 7pm. motored up north into the setting sun and oncoming darkness. i had been going full bore the last few days, so i went to my bunk around midnight. we got in to some rough water alongside whidbey island, where the sea is open to the ocean thru the straigt of juan de fuca. difficult to sleep with the boat banging around, bouncing up and down on the bunk, things falling down and clattering in the cabin. i just got to sleep at 3am when nathan woke me to go up and take down the sails. we hoped to sail, so we'd put them up, but not enough wind to make a difference, so we were motoring, but the sails were making steerage difficult, so we hauled them down and went back to bed. mike was driving until 5am, when nathan awoke me again to anchor up in burrows pass. we slept a little while motored into anaortes to top off the fuel tanks.

we motored over to friday harbor in the afternoon, went grocer shopping and nathan and i took land showers. a friend of mikes lives on friday island across from the harbor. we mored over there, visited a while and anchored up in the south anchorage of friday harbor, because the fog rolled in and it wasn't a good idea to go any further.

mike set the crab pot before midnight. this morning, mike hausled up 15 crabs, 6 of which were males big enough to keep. crab feast tonight! motored up here to check into customs. we're in funny money land now. woo hoo!!!!

onward!!!
karl

100806 Thaikarl - In the USA and off again

2010-08-31T23:01:00.000-07:00

friends,

returned to the USA. what a shock. but, after so many trips, it's as expected. been really fortunate to have lots of work come my way. which means i'm just enough ahead to take off again. going to desolation sound in canada on mikes 50 foot sailboat. we're out for three weeks. yeeeee haaaaa!

more will be revealed...

karl

100702 Thaikarl - thailand is behind, korea is now, USA is before... me

2010-08-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

friends,

the internet cafe next to our hotel in bangkok is no more, so i didn't post before i left. i'm in korea now, on 10 hour layover. so i took the subway trains into town. going to drop off a book to the couch-surfing.com contact i have here, and goto a korean bath-house. the subway system here is a trip. it's a giant puzzle. you have to know how to read maps and spatial diagrams, search out the english words mixed in with the korean characters. i got it sorted out, mostly. when i went to leave, my travel card that i bought from the machine didn't work to let me out the gate. buzzes went off, and barriers wouldn't open. i went to various machines, up and down stairs, to multiple exits, studied all the maps looking for an office of some sort. couldn't find a worker to help me. finally a young guy helped me... he just took me through the handi-capped gate. doh! don't have a clue what when ary. maybe i fried my card?

raining here, but warm. bought a cheap umbrella cause it's warm, and i was getting all steamy. with a little help from the guy at the desk, i got online in a "PC-BANG", internet/game room, down in the basement of a building. going to the bath-house for a few hours next, then back to the airport. and try some mystery food.

and from there... i dunno.

onward!

100625 Little things happen all the time

2010-06-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

friends,

getting down to the departure time next week. wah. but life still going on here. i've added a few pics to the picasa galleries
for Misc Life and Thai Bugs. go there and scroll down to the new photos.

A lizard appeared on the tamarind tree behind my shower. he was nice enough to hang out there until i could finish my shower and run for my camera. beautiful color on his head.

i showed him to tok and she was like "meh" she said they are common in thailand, they see them all the time. i explained to her that we don't have these commonly in the states- depending on where you live. and not in seattle. i guess it would be like somebody coming to seattle and taking pictures of pigeons all the time. we'd be like "they're just pigeons, what's the big deal?" my earliest memories were from the time we lived in victorville california. out in the desert at george air force base. lizards were part of a boys life then and there. specially "horny toads". i liked lizrds then, like 'em now. she asked me what animals are common in seattle. i had to think about that one. birds of course, dogs cats, sometimes raccoons, dead 'possums, squirrls, rarely a snake. that's about it. had to google up photos of most the raccoons and possums for her, she'd never seen one.

the kids came by with a crazy bike they put together. check this thing out:

cow skull handlebars... now THATS COOL! (there's another picture in the picasa gallery) little scooter wheel in front, regular wheel in back, and lots and lots of rope.

we've had a "bad cat" coming around harassing our cats for a while. poor August comes in all scratched up, missing patches of hair. one day mama caught the "bad cat". there was a bunch of hollering (in thai of course) teri came out with the basket and a lid, the put the cat inside, tied down the lid jumped on the motorbike and drove away. i was concerned they were going to throw it in the river - i don't know what they do in such situations. 15 minutes later, tok and teri came back, minus the cat. they didn't drown it. just took it to the next village and let it out. let them deal with the monster. banishment i can handle. it was likely a feral cat, not somebodies pet. here's August:

we fixed a few things around the house today - i put up a shelf, re-strung the ropes on the rain shades, took off the cement board over the steps. trying to get all the little things done while i'm still here. i've been following Cliff Maas's weather blog since i've been home. i see the folks in seattle have had worse than usual crappy weather. but it just might be real summer when i get back. that will be nice. easier to adjust to. but 75 degrees F will seem cold, as usual.

i made a panorama view of the mountains to the west of our house. it is nice, isn't it? (click here to goto the view page)

gorgeous the life in amazing thailand,
Nu

100621 Thaikarl - what IS happening now anyway?

2010-06-20T23:41:00.000-07:00

friends, one of my readers wrote and me ans asked the timeless question: what's happening? here's my reply:

oh, i'm just hanging out, enjoying my last days here. lots of thinking time, speculating, dreaming, conceiving, fretting, calculating, wondering, regretting, inventing, designing, proposing, accepting, rejecting, feeling, observing, analyzing, worrying, deducing, pondering.... lots and lots of "ings" all within my own skull. when you are surrounded by people who don't speak english, you don't get diverted into conversations about anything really, so almost all of your talking is in your own head. a running monologue that gets meandered and guided by voices from the past present and future. reading books and listening to music, swurfing the internet, watching videos on youtube, provide a modicum of focused distraction, but the ever present voice and running movie in my head is merely attended to, not silenced by such stimuli.

it's a brief interlude into the life of the idle rich. rich, because i have everything i need, idle because i don't HAVE to do very much of anything. but it has a strict span of time, this leisure, the income stream stopped when i got on the plane, and the bucket of funds i brought with me is leaking out the myriad of holes. the bucket will need refilling, but that is later, this is now, and now is pretty damn good all in all.

it's perpetual summer in thailand. you aren't bundling up to protect yourself from the cold, hiding inside to keep warm, turning on lights in the middle of the day cause it's so dark under all the clouds. when it rains, you just get under cover, you don't have to go inside, you don't have to go get your coat. and the rain never lasts that long. sometimes the heat is oppressive, and you welcome a cooling breeze or a chance to go in 7-11 where the aircon is always set to imitate the arctic summer. it takes a lot of energy to keep warm. i don't have that cost here.

it's a brief interlude into the life of the idle rich. rich, because i have everything i need, idle because i don't HAVE to do very much of anything. but this interlude has a sharp span. the income stream stopped when i got on the plane, and the reservoir of funds that runs the powerplant is getting down to reserves level. the reservoir will need refilling, but that is later, this is now, and now is pretty damn good all in all. refilling the bucket just means i won't be so idle, but i'll still be rich. i have a home in paradise, and i carry that with me always.

years ago i had an apartment. it was the first apartment that was completely mine. i called it "the Oasis". it was a refuge in the desert, a place to quench your thirst, regain your power. i had a business sized card made up that said this:

Everybody needs an Oasis.
If you don't have one, make one.
If you can't make one now,
Use somebody else's until you can.

i've made a new Oasis for myself here. and i enjoy it while i am here. i carry it with me, everywhere.
that's what's happening.

Nu

Bird Brain or...

2010-06-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

this crazy bird tries to make a date with himself, EVERY day.

100612 Thaikarl - a few random bits

2010-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

friends,

here's a photo of the sky above my shower, taken a few nights ago:

not much to see except stars, a bit of the tamarind tree, the the trunk of the betal nut palm that's had its head removed. and that is EXACTLY the point! the row of glaring, orange sodium high pressure lamps on the big road in front of our house have been silent for a week now. it's wonderful! it's dark... wow, there was just now a powerful swirl of wind around the house. the bedroom shook on it's pilings, and the trees and bushes are whipped around. a big bubble of hot hair just broke loose from the ground and rose up into the sky. that means a thermal is going up right over our house, and a cloud will form when it gets high enough to cooler air. and now it's calm again. anyway, as i was saying; it's dark around the house at night this past week. when i go out to take a shower before bed i'm surrounded by dark shapes of the trees and houses. lightning bugs fly thru the air. a quiet, steady light, the color of white LED's wandering thru the dark. how do they see where they're going? there was lightning in the sky the other night. awesome. quick flashes of brilliant light illuminating everything like a ginormous camera flash. it started to rain, and i stood there in the stream of water from my pump shower, deeply enjoying the experience.

there is usually a haze in the air in our valley. moisture and dust in the atmosphere soften the bright sunlight, and blurs the ridges of the mountains and the edge of the horizon. today it is very clear. the kao koa peaks to the north west stand out sharply, the green of the trees on the slops is bright and variegated. the sunlight is sharp on your shoulders. not too hot today. very pleasant.

we had planned to go to the Phe Tha Kon ghost festival in Dansai next week. except the websites that had next week as the dates were wrong. tok saw on television that the festival is *this* weekend. we're un-prepared to go now. tok has to go to work early monday morning, and the bus doesn't get back early enough. if we went tomorrow, because of the bus schedule, we would only be able to be in Dansai for a few hours, so we might cancel that plan. our budget for extras like that is pretty slim this late in my time here. there have been packs of motorbikes and motorcycles going by on the big road all day and night since yesterday. they are going to Dansai. i'd like to go just to see all the cool motorcycles and motorbikes. maybe we will.

we bought recessed lights for the bedroom, so i have another wiring/install job to do this week.

i received some information late last night that made me really sad. a friend of mine, a guy i've known for 25 years, decided to start drinking again. he'd been clean and sober the whole time i've known him. he said it's fun now. but that won't last. and his taking the next step - to serious drugs- is one more bad decision away. i don't drink or get high because it was revealed to me that i'm one of those people who went over the line. over the line past "recreational use" i was offered a path out of that darkness, i took it, and i'm still on that path. my world is much better illuminated since then. i've lost many friends and many acquaintances over the years. that's their choice. just makes me a bit sad to hear about this one, as he and i have a long history together, and i have strong feelings for him to go with that. oh well.

mama is spending the day under the house cleaning the shells off tamarind fruits. man, she gets things done. she 'hangs out' a lot more than she used to, as her health is a bit weaker, but she just keeps at it. she sat in the yard for four days, on a little wooden stool, poking at the weeks with a digging tool. covered the whole yard.

onward!
Nu

100610 Thaikarl - Party times!

2010-06-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

friends,

it's been party time the last couple days. monday night we went to a party, given by a family of a young man who is going to become a monk. most thai males enter the monkhood at some time in their lives. even if it's only for a few weeks. it's a very big deal for a family, a 'rite of passage" of sorts, and they often throw a party to celebrate the event. some parties are small- a few neighbours, some food and drinks, a stereo playing. on up to big bash's, with tens of people, mass food and drink and hired entertainment- usually "Coyote Dancers" and singers and a giant set of speakers. they typically rent plastic chairs, folding tables and put up awnings in case it rains. they serve a lot of food, and every table has a bottle of whisky, bottle of coka cola, water, ice and glasses. after the eating and drinking, some people of course get a little loosened up, and they start dancing. it's great fun, the food is usually good. people are very friendly to me, especially after some of the alchohol starts to work in. they smile at me, talk to me, or try to, as i never understand, so they turn to tok and she answers for me. if they know a little english, they will try it out on me. i get offered drinks alot. which is awkward, because they just want to be friendly and have me join in. i usually pat my stomach, then throw my hand quickly away from my mouth. they seem to get that pretty well - if i drink it goes to my stomach and i'll throw up. in the past, i've poured a little coca cola in my glass of water, giving the water a slight brown color- which passes for whisky/water, they see i have a drink and are good with it. but then people tell tok that they were sure they saw me drinking, and my little deception isn't worth it so i usually don't resort to that trick.

the party night before last was very nice. some of the singing was good, some wasn't. there were a whole table of people there who are toks friends. i usually sit and eat, sit and drink soda water on ice, sit and look at eveybody. i always get invited to the dance floor. never really a floor actually, since these are always outside parties and the 'floor' is usually dirt. so i smile, and dance and sit, eat, smile some more.

last night we took the motor bike to Lom Kao, about 28 km away to Henke's gas station, where he was having his birthday party. he bought a motorcycle this year, so most of the people there were bikers, with a row of big motorcycles parked along the hedges. more food, drinks, talking, smiling. one of the guys there was a thai/american from florida. living here now on disability after a truck accident in the states. we met Henke and his wife at the waterfall last year. great guy, good energy and very welcoming. tok had to be at school for work very early this morning so we didn't stay very long.

today was "teacher appreciation" day at the school. tok was there almost all day. and she said there was a party at the school also. three days, three parties. she went to bed at 8pm tonight. i'm still up, as usual, working on the website and surfing the web for details. i finally finished the wiring for the new bedroom ceiling light.

party photos in picassa

onward!

100603 Thaikarl - wonderful poetic translation - about a snake

2010-06-02T23:19:00.000-07:00

there is a snake living around our house. everybody else wants to kill it, i want to save it from them. trying to identify it, i did some googling, and emails back and forth. one of the pages with pictures came up on a thai website, which i ran thru google translate. down the page in one of the comments was this entry:

กลัวค่ะ กลัวมาก	Fear ค่ะ very afraid.
แค่เห็นในบล็อกนี้	Just saw this blog.
ก็ขน ลุกแล้วค่ะ	It horrible Out!.
ไม่ กล้ามองงูเลย	I did not dare look snakes.
แต่ อยากจะอ่านมาก	But I want to read more.
ว่าคุณ จะช่วยชีวิตเค้าอย่างไร	You could save him how
เห็น ด้วยค่ะ ว่าไม่ควรไปฆ่าเค้า ค่ะ	not agree that to kill him.
เวลา ช่วยชีวิตสัตว์ได้	Time to rescue animals.
รู้สึก ดีมากนะคะ	I felt great คะ.
เพราะ เคยช่วยจิ้งจกที่มันเกือบจมน้ำช็อกโกแลตตาย	Because it almost always helps lizard chocolate drowned dead.
ตอนแรก บีโกรธมันที่ทำให้อดกินเลย	At first angry, it makes B อด eat it.
แต่พอ เห็นมันพยายามเงยหัวให้พ้นน้ำช็อกโกแลต	But when I saw it lifted my head to try to spray chocolate
แล้ว จ้องมาที่เรา	Then stared to us.
สงสาร มันขึ้นมาทันที	Pity on it immediately.
เลย ต้องหาอะไรมาเขี่ยมันออกจากถ้วย	What I find to poke it out of the cup.
พอ ช่วยมันได้ก็ดีใจค่ะ	I'm glad it helps enough ค่ะ.
แต่นี่ คุณช่วยงูตัวใหญ่กว่าตั้งแยะ	But here, you help the bigger the snake amply
บุญ เยอะเลยนะคะ	I คะ much merit it.

the english translation reads like some gonzo, stream-of-consciousness tone poem. in fact, i'm inspired to turn these words into lyrics and make a song out of it. and like thai songs, it won't rhyme. stay tuned for that.

this is the translate page: http://translate.google.com/translate?........ the comment above is found down the page. our snake is just like the one in the photos: It's a Xenochropis flavipunctatus - Yellow spotted Keelback. not very poisonous. it would have to chew on you for several minutes to get enough venom into the wound. thanks to Vern at thaipulse.com for help identifying our little friend. i hope i can ketch him and convince him to live in the ditch out front of the property, and stay away from the house, or he's gonna end up dead.

Xenochropis flavipunctatus, with shoes

Amazing Thailand. everyday!

100601 Thaikarl - Swimming lessons and more creepy brain pictures

2010-06-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

friends,

my step-daughter, Toey wants to learn to swim. tok asked me if i could teach her. my brain said "NO". my brain usually says "NO" to everything, then i have to kick in the "conscious override" program and when it works, i can get my mouth and vocal chords to say "yes". if it doesn't work the first time, it defaults to silence, so the program has a loop that says "IF 'reply' = silence, restart mechanical "yes" routine. do loop until 'reply' = "yes". sometimes even that routine fails. in this case, i finally said "yes, i can teach Toey to swim". nothing happened for a few weeks, then a few days ago, we were off to the market to buy swim cloths. found one for me, but not for Toey, so i won a reprieve. but, persistence paid off on toks part, toey had he swim suit, i had mine, we'd already been to the swimming pool one evening and got the hours and layout in place. it was time to go.

i've never taught swimming, but i know how to swim. so i reached way back into the memory banks and came up with some starter objectives: blowing bubbles to get used to having your face in the water; floating on your back, kicking with your feet. Toey was game to learn, but since i have to tell her in english, there was a bit of a communications problem. i would demonstrate, she would try it out. she has a habit of starting to inhale before her face is out of the water, so she sputters and coughs a lot. but, with the encouragement of her friend sitting by the pool, see kept on, and was getting the hang of it. her friend timed her floating, and she got up to 3 minutes and 27 seconds. pretty good for the first day.

she had to take the motorbike to take her friend back home, while i waited at the pool. there are some music rooms at the front. tok told me they were there, but i didn't understand what that meant when she told me. inside a windowed room were a full set of drums, a couple of guitars and a bass, amplifiers and a microphone set-up. while i was waiting for Toey, i was watching a guy playing guitar. a women came over and invited me to go inside. this was cool. the guy inside said hello, "guitar??" and i pointed at the bass. he turned it on and we played a bit. he was really shy about playing, and deferred to my playing bass. he said his name is Mun, he lives there at the pool. this was pretty cool, i've been itching to play with others for a while now. been along time since the band(s) folded and i miss playing bass.

the next day i was up in the bedroom working on the website in the late afternoon. Toey came up and said "Swimming!" brain said "no" mouth said "yes" and we went off. Mun was manning the desk at the pool, so we didn't go in the music room. Toey came back with her friend again and we got in the pool for more practice. she totally forgot how to float and we had to start over. there was a man teaching five or so little kids in the middle of the pool, and i was taking cue's from him about instructions. suddenly there was a man yelling and pointing at the middle of the pool. i looked around, trying to see what he was excited about. there was a shadow under the water in the middle of the pool. the instructor man went over and hauled a young boy up from underwater and carried him to the side. the boy was limp and lifeless. not again. the pool people came running, the father ran over, the kids all gathered around. i went over to see if i could help, but the pool ladies started CPR, with chest compressions and breaths. water spilled out of the boys mouth, which they drained to the side and kept up the CPR. the boy still wasn't responding, but they kept it up. the hospital is a block away. i couldn't see, because of all the people in the way, but there was a change in the demeanor of the people around the boy, and i thought maybe some signs of life had re-appeared. the father was sitting at the boys feet, keening in a high voice. the other little kids were right there watching the whole thing. the hospital guys ran in, and they carried the boy away. in a couple of minutes, people started coming back, smiling and talking, so evidently the boy was revived. later the pool women talked to me, and i understood when she said "sabai dee" which means "comfort good" - so apparently the boy was okay. he wasn't breathing for a few minutes, so hopefully there wasn't any damage. jeez.

so we went back to floating, kicking and face in the water lessons. now i have another set of grim pictures in my brain of a small boys life-less face. funny how those things stick so well in ones mind.

two days at the pool, two adventures in addition to swimming. i told tok, "i wonder what will happen the next time we go swimming?"

there's a few new photos in the picassa gallery. scroll down to the picture of the blue guitar and click on it, and keep going from there. there's a few new pictures in the bugs and critters gallery also. scroll down to the praying mantis on the back of my hand picture, click on it, and go from there.

amazing thailand!
Nu

100528 Thaikarl - a shower with a view

2010-05-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

one on my friends said i must have a great view from my shower. i'm sure there are much better ones, but my view is mine and i enjoy it everytime. especially in the moonlight.

(click here to see the full size picture)

left to right: corn in the fields, tamarind tree, neighbors house, our kitchen and back of the house

100526 Thaikarl - american ingenuity. loses again.

2010-05-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

friends,

i use my outdoor shower behind the house. i like it out there. we didn't have village water when i built it last year. i put a piece of cement board on the corner of the shower and put my shower stuff on that. my organizational wife got me a basket for my things. but when the wind comes, my razor, toothbrush and such gets blown off behind the wall and i have to go retrieve the stuff.

so i got all fired up when i found three and four-way PVC fittings at the shed market. bought a bagful of parts, and a long piece of 1/2 inch PVC, found another basket in the shed, and built myself a stand to hold the basket and my shower things. quite please with my ingenuity, i showed my wife.

her comment? "why you not get two nails and nail the basket to the wall. not spend all that money on pipe?"

FAIL. i had no answer for that one.

(but it is cool eh?)

100524 Thaikarl - new ceiling in the bedroom house

2010-05-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

friends,

at long last we have a new ceiling in the bedroom house. the ceiling before wasn't a ceiling at all, it was the bottom of the roof tiles. a common trait of many thai country houses. problem is, the sun bakes the roof, the tiles get hot, and the heat radiates from the bottom of the tiles into the room. and because the there is an open space between the top of the walls and the ceiling tiles, the dust gets into the room much easier. Tok is sensitive to dust, so it's not a good thing for her.

we'd already spent our "home improvement" funds on other things, but tok decided that she would use the savings she has and get it done, since the weather has been so hot. and i promised i send her extra money to replenish her savings over time. we had do do a little shopping for the wood, insulation and nails. then a friend of hers who is a builder came over with a few guys and they did the job in two days.

looks nice eh? and it is cooler up here in the daytime. 10mm hardwood sheets of plywood were 850 baht each (26$ USD), we used 11 sheets. plust labor 4000 baht (123$ USD) and incidentals, the whole job came out to 19,000 baht (585$ USD)

looks nice tho eh? more pictures here....

100521 Thaikarl - Snake - Toad - Termites - Cat

2010-05-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

friends, what do all those words have in common? they are all in the video i just posted to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBTv13kg9k

the other day i saw the snake three different times on the same day. each time on a different side of the house. when it slide into the woodpile on the east side, i hope to get a better look at it. i poked a long piece of pvc into the pile lengthwise. heard it move a couple of times. he even stuck his head up and gave me a threatening gaping mouth glare, like i was really annoying him. which i was. so i stopped. if the neighboors see it they'll kill it, so if it shows up again, i'll try to suggest to it that it goes out to the fields to live. it'll be safer out there... till they start harvesting the corn. but it can run away. i hope.

didn't see any fangs, but still couldn't get a good enough look to take a photo and identify it.

the toads and the gekkos have a feast on the bug blooms, which usually happen after some rain.

yesterday, the Tokay gekko suddenly appeared out the the corner of the ceiling and ran along the top of the door over toks head. it stopped on the wall beside the cabinet. i ran and got my camera, but it took off as i brought the camera up to take a picture. beautiful animals! this one is about 14 inches long. tok is annoyed with him because he drops his crap on the floor in the bathroom and she has to clean it up. i was wondering what those were. kind of looked like little slugs. tokay turds. hmm.

amazing thailand!
Nu

100517 Thaikarl - the dentist is in - and a ghost story - tok got a job!

2010-05-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

friends,

went to see my dentist today. he replaced a crown that had fallen off. it fell off months ago, but i waited until i got here to have it stuck back on. in that time, my teeth moved around, so it didn't fit. my dentist took an impression and had a new one made. he put it in for me today, and fixed a stain in the veneer in one of my front teeth. total cost: 42 USD. the crown was on a back molar. dentists usually charge more for work on back teech. you know that have to reach alll that way back there and all. he had it made from a high-level alloy of some sort. gold would have cost way more because of the ridiculous gold bubble we're in. seriously, you can come to thailand, have all your teeth fixed, have a vacation, and return to the states for LESS than it would have cost you to have your teeth fixed in the states. i'm going to be organizing dental trips to thailand next year. so if you are facing a huge dental bill, need things like bridges, crowns, veneers, implants and your dental insurance won't cover it - you have dental insurance don't you? all american enjoy such wonderful comprehensive healthcare don't they? - keep in touch with me. even if you're travel shy, i'll get the details set up for you- hotels, transport, a choice of dentists, and some sightseeing if you like. stay tuned!

tok and mama and i were sitting around the table eating dinner last night. i got tok to ask mama a few questions about her life. i was wondering what mama wanted to be when she was a little girl. answer: farmer. she doesn't read or write, so she knew that farming, or selling food was the only future for her, so she never thought about anything else. i asked her to find out why she had only one child - tok, my wife. she said that it was difficult for her to have children. this was pre-pill days, so there was nothing inhibiting the process. tok said that her mother had been married ten years before she had her. mama went to some special place and asked the ghosts to help her get pregnant. mama had a dear friend who was pregnant at the time. her friend promised, that if she had twins, that she would give one of the babies to mama to raise. the friend had her babies but one of them died. soon after, mama became pregnant. they believed that the ghosts caused one of the babies to die, so that the spirit of the dead baby could enter mama. that baby was tok. so tok is indeed a special, and very much wanted child.

tok got a job! the school called her and asked her if she would teach thai dancing at the school in village. we talked about it a month or two ago when it first came up. she went to see the director today, and got the job. starts tomorrow. three days a week, 7 hours of teaching. but in the strange thai fashion, she is supposed to be at the school all day, even if she is only actually teaching 2 or 3 hours per day. she has to be there at 8, and can leave at 4. un-defined what she will do with the other 5 hours of the day. i've heard this from the english teachers also. if you are teaching english, you have to be at the school 8-4 every day. 40 hours a week, even if you are only teaching 17 class hours. some of the non-class hours you will spend making teaching plans, but from what i understand, after you teach a few round, you can re-use the lesson plans you made last term, so you are sitting around, looking busy. she will earn 27,000 baht for a 5 month term. that's 834 USD. she's somewhat excited about it, cause she can save the money. she really really wants to have a car. nothing fancy, just a car. with air-con. and dry when it rains. used cars in thailand are not that common. i don't know where they go, but you just don't see old cars around here. and the used ones they do sell, go for big money. i'm looking for another van (had my friend sell mine after i left) so i'm checking craigslist from here. she is amazed that you can get a used car for 1000 USD.

but what this means, in the short term, is that i get to be on my own three days a week. have to get my own lunch (awwww, i can hear yall moaning for me from here) and keep myself amused. she'll be taking the motorbike to school, so i won't have transport either. wah. yeah right. i'm over the half way mark of this visit. so i'll just have to make due. muawwwwww! it does mean that the couple little tips we were thinking about might not happen. we were thinking of going to chang mai and chang rai up in the north west part of thailand. there's a temple up there i really want to see, and they are supposed to be a nice cities. up in the mountains. whull see. phi ta khon is in the end of june, just before i depart, but it's only a few hours by bus from here. so we'll make that. if tok skips out of school early on friday :-D

gorgeous the life!

neighbors hanging out at sunset. everybody here is related.

100514 "Lawn" the word of the day is "Lawn"

2010-05-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

friends,

there's a word i hear frequently these days - especially today. it sounds like the english word "Lawn".
it means "Hot" as in "it's hot now" what ever the rest of the phrase is people might say to me, but when i hear "Lawn" in there, i know they are talking about the weather. i usually reply "nit noi" which means "little bit" it was 110F up here in the computer spot yesterday afternoon, probably get there again today.

my frustration with trying to learn thai comes and goes. i'm not saying i can't learn, i am saying it's going very very slowly. i've worked on a number of "learn to speak thai" programs - including rosetta stone. unfortunately, they teach phrases that i don't use like "he is riding a bicycle" and thus, i don't remember them.

not remembering, that's the problem. for some reason, my brain just isn't tuned to recalling the sounds of thai language. i ask tok for a word, perhaps for something i like like a food. she'll tell me, i'll write it down, transliterate it, say it over and over, make associations and mnemonics. practice it for a couple of days. a week later, i look at the food and say "_____"? gone. not there. hello, brain. what is the word for that. no answer. come on brain, you filed this away somewhere. brain finally answers with "you know, you have never seen anyone water skiing in thailand. thanks brain. thanks alot.

not hearing the tones is a big problem. listen here to someone saying the word "mai"
doesn't sound to hard does it? except each of those sounds is a very different word

* ใหม่ or "MAI" is new ( low tone )
* ไม้ or "MAI" is wood ( high tone )
* ไม่ or "MAI" is not ( falling tone )
* ไหม or "MAI" is silk ( rising tone )
* ไม - this word does not exist ( mid tone )

(taken from: http://www.thaiworldview.com/langue.htm )

so depending on how you sound the sylable, you are saying new, wood, not, silk or a nonsense sound. so if you don't sound it correctly, thai's generally don't understand you.

if i pointed to a pond, and said "beautiful buck" you would wonder what i was talking about. because i said "Buck" instead of "Duck". buck and duck are two different things, two different words. if your native language doesn't have a "B" or "D" sound, they will sound the same to you, and you might not learn the difference.

super simple example.
Lawn means "hot" if you want to make a question you add MAI (falling tone) to the end - you say "Lawn Mai" meaning "hot ???" except in english, we inflect questions with a RISING tone at the end, so if i say "Lawn Mai (rising at the end)", to a thai person i have just said "Hot silk". no wonder they look at me with blank looks when i say things like that.

and as you can see from the thai up above, the different meaning of Mai are SPELLED differently in thai language, but then you have to learn to read thai, which is another whole box of "huh?????

even still, i'm picking up words here and there. some stick, most don't. one way to live in thailand for up to a year on a clear visa is to get an educational visa - you have to goto school, but i could take thai lessons. but oh, wait. you can't work on that visa and have to have a way to live...

more circular problems. i think i'll go have an iced red bull and take a shower now. it's just now noon. and not the hottest part of the day yet.

onward!!!!!
Nu

2010-05-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

100513 Thaikarl - home to languid heat and soft days

2010-05-12T22:32:00.001-07:00

friends,

it was good to get home again, tho i did enjoy our little holiday. back home to our full moon house, hot days, light winds and occasional relief from a little rain. after a few days of laying about, i'm back on beam to get a few things done. i have to wire up an outlet up in mama's room, another switched light in our bedroom, make a stand for the fan we bought that will set on the headboard inside the mosquito net. and work on the website for products, and and and. i have a bunch of photos to sort thru for posting from bang chang, chantaburi and bang fai. when it's 40 degrees tho, you tend to move at a slow pace dripping in sweat.

tok really really wants to put a ceiling in our bedroom house. it's just exposed rafters and roof tiles now, and when the sun heats the tiles, it radiates into the room below. the fan just stirs the hot air around. but, the building fund was depleted paying off the phone company. so it has to wait. owning a house and all the attendant repairs, improvements and projects is something new to me. the land isn't going to do it. we are the landlords! i used to be the guy they hire to do this stuff, now i'm the one to spend the money, and do the work. or at least order it up, as the locals can do the job so much cheaper than i can even doing it myself.

i chatted with a friend of mine i met in india a few years ago. he lives in england now, has a rather important job there, british counsil or something lkike that. when i met him he wa a young guy running his fathers paan shop in maduri india. he's come a long way, but in spite of that, he rues the loss of time, family and dreams that the dedication to work has taken from him. i understand. i've taken the opposite track in my life- time, family and dreams came first, materials and assets were acquired as necessary, and just as easily disposed of or taken away. such is life.

Onward!
Nu

100509 Thaikarl - Bang Fai was a blast!

2010-05-09T06:55:00.001-07:00

friends,

woke up this morning to what sounded like jets flying over. it was Bang Fai launching - a few km away at the park site. woo hoo!!!! we got ready, took a pedal-cab out there. same scene as last year, zillions of people, umbrellas held right at my eye level watching the rockets roar into the air. the big rockets are made from 10 foot sections of 150mm PVC pipe with a long long bamboo or spliced banana tree tail. packed with black powder rocket fuel, they haul them up one of the three launch towers, rope them in, light smoke, and run away. tok just told me that the announcers would tell everyone to "go away go away" and all the thai people would leave the launch area, but there would still be a falang in the trees, taking pictures. when they launch, they ROAR!!! smoke pours out, and they take off into the sky trailing white smoke, up, up , up! the big ones were piercing the clouds later in the day. awesome! the champion rocket stayed airborne for more than 300 seconds... 5 minutes of airtime. This year there was a group of rocketeers from japan. they had these fabulous complex rockets. after they launched, they shot colored stars from the stems as they went up, ejected parachutes and colored cloth and at the apex, they blew apart into color stars, parachutes and smoke streamers. tok said that a delegation of thai rocket men will go to japan for their rocket festival to exchange experiences and enjoyments.

it was very hot today, sunny and dry. there are speakers shouting everywhere - from the launch announcers, from the snake tents, from the vendors, from music stages- over load. even for me. we watched 15 or so launches, went to the tents where they prepare the rockets. drank a couple of liters of water. i knew tok was having a difficult time in the sun- but she didn't complain and when i asked her if she wanted to go back she says "up to you" what a sweetheart. so we came back mid afternoon and took shower and napped. we upgraded to an air-con room yesterday. noisy thing, but tok likes the coolness. and we could actually snuggle when we slept - something we rarely get to do except in the winter season.

tomorrow we bus back to home. i can upload pictures and video then.

Upwards on a tail of fire and smoke!

Nu and Tok

(p.s. my blogsite http://www.thaicountrylife.com is still being hijacked by some nefarious Chinese code breakers. they get in thru some weakness in the blogger code, or in the "gadgets" that are on the side of the page. i'm having to delete things, change the layout etc to try to eliminate hole they are using. VERY annoying. those of you who get these postings from my email list, but readers on the blogsite only will get the crap - redirecting to some money-making internet scheme crap-ola. if you read online, try subscribing to the RSS feed. that may avoid the hi-jack code entries.)

100504 Thaikarl - Bang Fai - first day

2010-05-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

friends,
we got here early! sorta. there wasn't much going on today (friday) except for setting up of the stages and more food and vendor booths. so we lounged around the hotel room and i napped some. i twisted my lower hip somehow, so i'ts painful to get up and down, which is a real drag. slows me down alot. we walked the main road after dinner. the rocket crews each have their own stage set up. big concert size stages. with sound systems that could fill an arena with sound. tok even bought ear plugs. your guts jump around when you walk in front of the stages. jeez. but there are lots of dancing girls, singers, and just crowds of people on stage dancing. the bang fai floats are at the far end of the road, ready for the parade in the morning. they are enormous, covered in gold painted thai traditional designs on layers of skrim. very beautiful.

the keyboards in this cafe are awful, i can't stand to type on them more than a few minutes, cause you have to bang the keys. and too slow to upload pictures.

tok just told me there are 5 bang fai (rockets) from japan here for the launch day tomorrow. wait. i got that wrong. tomorrow - saturday - is just parades and dancing. launch day is sunday, the day after. that happens alot. i only *think* i know what's going on. what's 'really' going on and when is usually different than what i think it is. thus i get the joy of surprise all the time. actually it is part of what i enjoy about being here. things aren't always 'normal', 'usual', 'regular'... as soon as i think i have it figured out, i find out it's different than i thought to a greater or lesser degree. amazing thailand.

gorgeous the life!
Nu

100507 Thaikarl - Bang Fai time in Yasothorn

2010-05-06T22:37:00.001-07:00

friends,

we got up at 5:00am yesterday - even before the 'crack of dawn', got stuff together, motorbike taxi to the bus store.
14 hours on the bus later - with one 20 min lunch stop, we arrived in Yasothorn, in the Issan area of thailand. it's flat, dry and hot here. Bang Fai started as a way to request good rains in the coming rainy season, by shooting giant bamboo rockets into the sky. the higher the better. and of course it's evolved into a big event. and the big rockets are made with blue plastic PVC pipe not bamboo anymore.

i'm looking forward to the launches tommarrow. tonight it's one big giant dancing contest, with one whole street lined with big stages, HUGE sound systems trying to over-power each other and tons of dancing girls and singers. lottsa food, games and booths. cool!!!!!

onward! to the sky!
Nu

100429 Thaikarl - roadtrip time!

2010-05-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

friends,

we're going on a little get-away. taking the bus down to Ban Chang to visit our other house, picking up the motorbike from the post office, going to chantiburi for the weekend, and next weekend is Bang Fai up in yasathorn! Rocket Festival! woo hoo! then back home to dong khwang.

i'll be stuck with internet cafes along the way.

100505 Thaikarl - Active day wot?

2010-05-05T06:24:00.001-07:00

friends,

yesterday went like this: we got up and ate, went to town to buy fruit, witness the remains of a motorbike/truck accident (dead people), set out fruit for the ghosts, took a nap, took a song toews to sattahip, took another one to pattaya, took another one into town. walked, walked walked. bookstore was gone. internet cafe to find another. another song toew, to bookstore, eat food, two more song toews to sukumvit (the main road) song toew to sattahip, song toew to ban chang. got the bike, went shopping at the meeting market and tesco lotus. bike had a flat. got air. flat again. got a new rear tire and tube (15 USD including labor), went home, then went to the beach and i went swimming in the ocean in the dark under the stars. home to snack shower and sleep.

whew. but it was fun, except for the accident. just to clarify, the drive made a u-turn at the light, didn't see the truck and pulled right in front of the truck and was literally run-over. sad thing is, the truck just kept going. and disappeared. i understand that happens frequently if there's an accident. people don't stick around to get in trouble over it. motorbikes, cars, flying, climbing ladders... all dangerous and always the potential for death and injury. i know this. but i like riding a motorcycle, drive a car, fly in planes, climb ladders. i'm careful, but feces occurs you know. i'm just as eligible as the next guy to not see the on-coming agent of my death and drive out onto the road in it's path. but i dearly try to avoid that. i didn't want to go into the gory details, but i've recieved a few very concerned and caring emails and i do acknowledge them.

besides that, late night swims in the ocean are great! especially when the water is warm, the air is warm, the sky is clear...

onward! by bus to Yasatorn tomarrow for Bang Fai rocket festival

100504 Thaikarl - Back to Ban Chang and off to Pattaya

2010-05-03T21:52:00.001-07:00

friends,

the trip back to Ban Chang on the motorbike was exciting as usual. big buses and trucks in the lane to your right will just start to ease over to the left, squeezing you out because they want to pull over to the left side of the road. you have to brake, brake BRAKE! so you don't get squished. maybe they will have blinkers on you can see, maybe not. you can't just whip off to the right either, because faster traveling motorbikes and cars behind you will be whizzing by right where you want to go. you have to stay on your line! people will pass you on the right and left, so you can't be wobbling around. exciting. tok is very nervous about such things and never fails to start telling me to look out look out. i finally snapped back at her "i could just close my eyes and you will tell me where to go" and i immediately felt very bad about it. there was silence from the back of the bike for the last 20km. i apologized to her, but i still feel bad. our relationship doesn't run on small annoyances and aggravations, and i do understand she is just more concerned about traffic than i am. we had a little notice about that this morning. we went to the market early to buy fruit for the ghosts at our house. as we were preparing to leave there was a loud CRASH behind us. a big truck had creamed a women and baby on her motorbike. we went over to look. i wish we hadn't. it was pretty bad. i was surprised how squeamish i felt, i started feeling dizzy and weak. feeling that now just remembering it. next time i hear that sound, i'll not go over there, unless it's obvious that i'm the only one around to help. such is life.

we're going to take the song thow - pick-up taxi car - to pattaya today to goto the bookstore, so i can turn in a bunch of books i've read, and get a few more. we'll probably go down to the ocean near our house when we get back. go swimming. yeah. that will be nice. we cruised around the area a little bit yesterday. so nice to have the motorbike to get around on. i like it here. nice little village of Phlay next to the ocean from us.

our neighbor hood has developed some in the last year. many of the houses have trees and plants growing up, banana trees 15 feet tall. people have built out their porches and made shade roofs, tiled floors, extensions behind the houses. we we bought here, it was rows and rows of houses all exactly alike and no greenery. there's an internet//game shop a few houses over (where i am now, along with 15 kids playing online games), there's laundry, food shops, beauty hair shops, sewing shops. all built into peoples houses or porches. you can stay right here in the housing area and get everything you need. mostly.

onward!

1000501 Thaikarl - Mayday at the Durian festival

2010-05-01T06:32:00.001-07:00

friends,

only just noticed that it is mayday. this morning we walked up to the gem trading street. many little shops along the road and side streets, all devoted to selling gemstones. they have an odd system here. if you want to buy gems, there are tables in the shops where you can sit, put up a sign for what you are looking for, and the sellers come to you. the sellers are walking all over the area with shoulder bags of gems, looking for buyers seated at the tables. opposite of the way business is usually done. interesting. and of course there are shops selling cut gems, jewlery, gem cutting and polishing tools, scales and everything associated with the business. lots of pretty rocks there, and i havn't a clue what is what, or what is worth anything. so i just took pictures. i did buy some rough stones at a shop we passed by. apparently, the stone comes from mozambique. they put the raw stone in kilns here, and "burn them" which changes the raw stone into gemlike material, from which they can polish the 'burned' stones and make beautiful cut gems. my daughter is into rocks, she's taking the jewlery design program at north seattle community college, so i thought she might like these. i bought a raw stone, a burned stone, and a polished stone. the dealer threw in a few small cut stones to go with the deal. all for 31.00 USD. i have no idea if i got a good deal, no deal, or a bad deal, but it was fun. man did they start bringing out the trays when we were there longer than a couple of minutes. tough business these days tok told me.

we spent the rest of day at the durian festival, set up all around the lake at the King Taksin monument, in the center of chanthaburi. there is of course, many food stands and rows of stuff for sale, but the highlight are the floats on the lake, covered in fruit, depicting thai scenes - mountains, waterfalls, the budda mountain, fishing. you know how the rose parade in the states has floats made out of flowers? same idea, except they use fruit and rice. the big activites are tomorrow, but we walked around the lake. it started raining, so we took refuge at the massage tent! toks cousin was working there. we got foot massage (60 baht for 1/2 hour - 1.90 USD) and i went for whole body massage (120 baht for an hour - <3.00 USD) ahhhhhhh. we had food, particular foods that you can only find in chanthaburi provice, some shopping and looking around.

tok lived here for 14 years. she was a school teacher, her daughter was born here. she took me to see the school where she worked. as we were driving by the back, a women by the road called out Toks name. it was a friend who recognized her. the women and tok chatted for a while. there was a regular swimming pool right there, with a few people swimming. tok told me that her friend taught her to swim in the other pool at the school. she said when she was learning to freestyle swim, if she stuck her head out the the water, her friend would hit her on the head with a long piece of plastic pipe she carried as she walked along side the pool coaching the swimmers. from there we went to out to what used to be very countryside, tok showed me the house she used to live in, set back behind some newer houses. we came upon some people sitting beside the road and stopped. the olderwomen recognized tok after a moment and was so happy to see her. her male friend was drunk, and very happy to see me (that happens alot. i'm very attractive to drunks for some reason) the women was toks old neighboor. she was very excited to see us, and very please to see me with her, she wished up long and happy life. this happens frequently. whenever i'm introduced, or more precisely, when ever i'm encounted by friends, relatives or accouaintences of tok, they are very pleased to see me with her, and have kind things to say to me. i understand this just from the way they look to me, and i catch a few words here and there. i'm a lucky man.

this internet cafe computer keeps crashing when i try to get to my photos, so yall will just have to wait on them.

we're off to see the "beautiful women" contest. the Durian Qween?????

google map to where we are: (switch to sattilite view to see better, and zoom out a little)

onward! NU

100430 Thaikarl - a little road trip on the old motorbike

2010-04-30T08:05:00.001-07:00

friends, we stayed at our little house in ban chang, last night. when we got there, there was a vine growing across the porch. it not only grew across the porch, but a tendril had sneaked under the front door, split in two and went clear across the living room floor and was starting to head up the stairs. tok said it was a vegatable we could eat. we've got plenty of it.

this morning, tok got up early, went to the post office and got the old motorbike which had been shipped down here, went to the store and got breakfast, washed the cloths, cleaned the house. and i was still in bed. got my ass up, made coffee, packed a small bag, dressed up and headed for chantiburi. tok wasn't sure about taking the motorbike vers the bus. i was all for it. it's about 150km to chantaburi, maybe more, i never saw the signs till later. took us all day, cause we stopped to eat, stopped for gas, stopped to get some circulation going in my butt, and made a side-trip to goto the aquarium by the ocean in rayong. the aquarium was really nice, they had some giant tank displays, lots of tropical fish, and it only cost 30 baht to go in. less than dollar. we drove along the ocean side for quite a ways, very nice. you really have to pay attention on a motorbike - there's other motorbikes going different speeds, cars, trucks, divots in the road, gravel, dogs, people going the wrong way, cars parked on the motorbike lane, berms where they laid down new asphalt on the road but not on the bike lane and we drive on the left side of the road. all good. then the rain started. that made it interesting. then it got dark. even more interesting.

but we are here. tok knew of a hotel from the days when she used to live here. she lived here for 14 years. her daughter was born here. so she knows the area well. the hotel is 200 baht per night.

6.25$ USD. not real fancy, fan- no aircon, but good for us!

tommorow some sight seeing, fruit festival/fair, visit some (more) of toks relatives, visit a few temples, forts and waterfalls. nice to have a motorbike to get around on. when you take the bus, you're kind of stuck u nless you pay for taxi's, and know just where you want to go.

onward!

How would you like 2 Million (ANGRY BLOGGERS)

2010-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

READ THIS, THEN SOMEBODY GO STRING THIS GUY UP BY HIS THUMBS
Hi there,My name is Michael
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places your ad on millions of blogs.
You will receive thousands of targeted hits to
your website as Blog Blaster places your ad on
blogs that match your ad's category.
This method has never been released to the public
before. Very few, if anyone has implemented this

yeah, no one has implemented this because it it HIJACKING SPAM!

100424 Thaikarl - with nothing to do, we're still busy.

2010-04-24T08:23:00.001-07:00

friends,

i was privileged to attend a most interesting event the other day. i'm working on the write up and uploading video (which takes for-ever). you'll get that posting tomorrow probably. my blog site was hijacked for a few days by some Chinese website. bastards. but it seems to be okay now. we've been doing so many things, i can't keep up. going to a 5 day funeral- the pre-cremation event today at the temple took 4.5 hours - been to the post office a few times. you can "mail" a motorbike here! we're sending the old motorbike down to our house in Ban Chang. we just took it to the post office, parked it around back and they'll take it to the post office down there. neato. going to see my dentist tomorrow, been to the meeting markets, shopping at the market in Lom Sak, over to relatives houses... working on the house (but only a little, i need batteries for my cordless drill - coming from the states) and... taking lots of photos.

i noticed today at the funeral, where there were several hundred people sitting on plastic chairs, that thai people rarely cross their legs when sitting on chairs. feet on the ground almost all the time. sometimes they will tuck a leg back to the side, but rarely one leg over the other.

we had some rain yesterday. which brought out a minor bloom of flying termites and other bugs. which brought out a bunch of frogs, hopping all over the porch. while we were eating dinner at the table, there were 5 frogs skittering around, snatching up the winged termites when they would crash into the ground and stun themselves momentarily. and the gekko's were running up and down the walls and ceiling sharing the feast.

there is a tokay gekko back in our house. i like that. he seems to be up in the roof near the bathroom. and when he calls,in a few minutes there are answering calls from the other tokays nearby. such a cool sound. you can hear it here. hey cool! when i played the tokay sound on the computer to test the link, the tokay at the neighbors called back a few seconds later.

there's a bug on the desk that looks just like an american cockroach. except the damn things fly!

toks already in bed sleeping. it's 10:22 and i haven't had my evening shower yet. off to do that now. in the moonlite.

Gorgeous the life!

$@&#*$ chinese site hajacked me!

2010-04-22T03:15:00.000-07:00

friends... one of my readers sent me an personal email and told me they went to this blog and were redirected to some crap-ola. i think i got it sorted out, but if you come here, and the first post is internet ad-speak garbage, hit the "STOP" button in your browser - the big "X" in the firefox toolbar - and then write a comment on one of the entries below that. i'll get your comment in an email. but i'll just have to keep checking this page like crazy. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

100417 Thaikarl - a short day

2010-04-17T07:24:00.001-07:00

friends,

lazy day today. went by quickly. worked on the computer for hours answering emails, setting up web pages. it rained a few times today, which cooled the air off quite a bit, and cleared the dust and haze from the sky which made for a nice sunset cloudview:

a few people have asked again why i'm not living here in thailand. the short answer is of course, i have a family to support, and it's not easy for me here, as i don't speak the language, and most of the skills i have don't translate to well paying jobs here. english teachers make enough to support a family. as much as i complain about the states, i don't dislike america - i just like thailand more. if i could understand more about the government and things here, i'd probably complain about here also. americans - of which i am one and will always be one - are great complainers. i try to keep it to a low level tho, as generally my outlook on life is positive, no matter where or what i'm doing. so while i'm here i enjoy it immensely. when i'm in the states, well, it is familiar, and i can work there - which supports the family. but believe, as soon as i can figure out something that will enable me to live here permantly, here is where i'll be. tok has no interest in living in the states. she would like to meet my family, and see some of the country, but not to live there. i'm sure she would hate the food. (i do)

i found an interesting observation about thailand in one of the blogs i follow:

Next, Richard comments, "What's up with all the violence in Thailand? I thought it was an idyllic Buddhist country. Now it seems like they're more prone to violence than the good old U.S.A. Even with our budget issues and governator, I'll take southern California anytime."

I like southern California too… but don't be too quick to judge Thailand based on an anomalous incident in which 21 people died. Statistically, violent crime is much, much worse in southern California.

In Thailand, violent crime, particularly against foreigners is almost unheard of; the worst thing you have to worry about there is corruption, not getting your head blown off.

relevant, as i have received a number of caring concerned emails about being here in thailand when there is news about the red-shirts demonstrations getting out of hand in bangkok.

the rest of the day was lax. made a new cable for my guitar amp and played guitar, ate dinner and maybe we'll watch a movie.
or not.

gorgeous the life!
Nu

100415 Thaikarl - another day, more adventure

2010-04-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

friends,

tok woke me early today. "wake up, take shower! eat breakfast! we must go!" arrrrgh. but wake up i did, took shower, ate breakfast, got dressed. we motorbiked a ways up the road to a relatives house.... and waited around for an hour. that happens alot. tok likes to get ready and go so WE aren't the one holding up the program. even if it means we wait around an hour at someones house.

eight of us got in the back of the pickup, and 7 more in the cab - tho some of that number were small kids and a baby. more than two hours drive up into the highlands west of where we live. it's the last day of songkran festival, so allong the way we got doused, dumped, on, hosed, splashed and deluged with water by crowds and sometimes gangs of people waiting by the side of the road for people to come along. no going around them either. soaked over and over. but it's warm as usual, and the hot air blasting past the truck feels like sitting in the face of the furnace outlet. just when you would get dried out almost, we'd go thru another little village and get doused again. wee hee! the really heinous tossers use ICE WATER. that gets your attention as it soaks thru your crotch.

we disembarked at toks grandmothers sisters house. she's 96 years old, blind, can't hear well, and so skinny you'd think she'd blow away. but everyone talked with her and handed her babies. we ate food (8 different dishes on the floor, plus sticky and regular rice). i chilled in the hammock for a while, and tok came to get me to go fishing. that was interesting. they netted hundreds of little fish from the water hole left in a nearly dried up water course. when we got back, they cleaned the junk out of the nettings, wrapped handfuls of the little fish in leaves and roasted them out back. tasty with sticky rice. i napped on the floor for a while with six other people. hot part of the day indeed. (photos in the gallery here)

they had a water ceremony for the old ladies, and for some of the not-so-old people. more food and ice water, and we were back in the pickup for the long drive home. it's a bit hard on the body being folded up in the back of an open pickup, with hot wind blasting you, a young girl full of energy singing and playing with everyone. and of course, getting soaked again along the way. the ride back seemed a lot longer than the ride up.

tomorrow, i think i'll just hang out. Hah! hopefully the shops will be open and i can get the tubing to finish my shower plumbing - pictures to follow.

gorgeous the life!
Nu

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2010-04-14T20:25:00.001-07:00

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100414 Thaikarl - all in one day - amazing thailand

2010-04-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

friends,

tok and i went to town for songkran day yesterday. the usual parade, beauty contests, and mass throwing of water. the photos are in my picasa gallery.
..
today was eventful. if i don't tell you now, tomorrow will fill up with more things and i'll never get caught up.

early in the morning, tok got me to get out of bed, saying something about putting out food for her father. (?) her father died many years ago, so i wasn't sure what was going on. around the side of the house, she had a tray with food on it- rice, chicken, water, vegetables. she lit a candle and incense, said a few words and we set the tray on the ground next to my plum tree. songkran is a time to honor the ancestors also i learn.

i read my book and laid around in the hammock most of the hot mid-day. then a whole bunch of people showed up, kids and neighbors and a few old people. we did a songkran water ceremony to honor the old people right off our porch. photos of that are in the gallery here.

the men hung around for a while drinking whisky and water, so i went around back. 27 years i haven't had a drink and sometimes that brown liquid still looks inviting. jeez. healed, never cured. i worked on putting together the PVC pipe for my new shower. we bought a big submersible pump in bangkok and i'm looking forward to getting it all in place. but most of the hardware stores are closed for like 5 days for songkran, so i'm lacking a few parts. more to come on that.

then tok came and got me to go have dinner at her uncles house. (pictures here) wow, what a spread! 20 people sitting on tarps on the ground. chicken, noodles, vegetables, fish balls, sausage, fish, drinks, cabbage and a few bits of mystery foods, all cooked on charchol stoves korean Bar-B-Que style. YUM! they are all so nice to me, even though i can't talk to them. welcoming me to sit down, offering me drinks and putting food on to cook for me. everyone there was related by family or marriage. everyone there lives there or nearby. nobody had to drive to dinner, everyone lives close enough to walk. i asked tok if this was common in the villages and she said it was. they say what ever words of english they know "you happy?" "anukhun! you like?" and laugh and laugh. i feel so fortunate to be sitting there with these good people. eating food with them, and totally accepted as a mute part of the big family. i was thinking of bar-b-ques in the states and there's little comparison, beyond it being a family get-together. they asked me for a show, so i went back to the house and got my guitar. the first song i sang was all the phrases i kniow in thai. made it up on the spot to three chords: "1,2,3, 1,2,3, thank you, thank you, how are you, how are you," "Nung, Song, Sam...kap khun kap...sabai dee mai" that was a hit. then i badly played a few neil young songs and a couple of beatle songs. totally forgot the words, but it didn't matter, i just made them up to fill in the gaps and nobody knew the difference!

10:20 at night now, cooled down to 85 degrees and time to go shower and get to bed. another day beckons. hope to find a shop open tomorrow to buy the PVC and hose i need to finish my shower.

amazing thailand! onward!
Nu

100413 - Thaikarl - more things under the sky than i can tell

2010-04-13T07:58:00.001-07:00

friends,

trying to convey the things i see, feel and think about after just five days in thailand is like trying to pass on the entire contents of a magazine when you only have time to flip thru the pages standing in line in the grocery store. events and information flys by with each page you flip thru, but you can only catch snatches of text, and glimpses of photos. it's like trying to tell someone the scene by scene contents of a movie while walking back to the car. best i can give back is little snippets.

leaving bangkok was a bit of a struggle. the red shirts had the main road all blocked off. the taxi's couldn't get thru to take us to the bus station. we had to take all our kilo's of baggage up to the sky-train and take the train to Mochit- the end of that line. then taxi to the bus station. since then, the whole red-shirt thing has turned violent, with many dead. i haven't followed the story, tok just comes and tells me "21 people killed today" after hearing it on thai tv. whew. dodged that mess. as my wife says "no red-shirts in Lom Sak" which is where we live.

a few things are different around the neighborhood. there's a nice new house next to ours on the formerly vacant plot in front of tai and sai's house. it's owned and was built for Sai's nephew and his wife and baby. young couple who worked in bangkok, saved their money and borrowed the rest to build the house. they have a business they work under the house makeing sticks for umbrella's. of all things. they buy bundles of wood that come from a kind of palm tree, split them into thinner sticks with a machette, and a worker chucks them in an electric drill and shoves them thru a die that carves the spinning sticks into neat round shafts that will make the ribs of an umbrella that the monks use. so there is the whirrrrrrr whirrrrr whirrrrr sound of the drill going all day.

the back neighbors fighting cocks crow morning and night, their dog barks, and the small deisel pump in the field runs all the time... chuckachuckchucka. since it's sonkran holiday time, they boys next door crank up the stereo and sing out loud to all their favorite rock songs. and of course, the cars, motorbikes and trucks that motor by on the big road in front of the house keep the sound field fresh. quiet in the country it is not.

there is a tree six feet tall and quite full beside the house that i was excited to believe is my plum tree. but to the amusement of tok and mama, that tree is more like a weed (they use it in the curry). my plum tree is behind that. not quite so big, but bigger than it was last year. it's summer season here, hasn't been rain for a few months tok says. all the fields and ditches are dry and brown. looks like california. one of these times i'm going to be here after rainy season, which is august and september, when everything is massivily greened out. one of these times.

i'm very happy to be home, very happy to see teri and mama and the kitties, very happy to be around thai people again. already dreading going back to the states. but such is life. for now.

onward!
Nu

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2010-04-07T00:54:00.001-07:00

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Apr 6, 2010 12:45:18 AM


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100405 Thaikarl - Korea rocks!

2010-04-06T01:21:00.001-07:00

friends,

flight over was pleasant, except for being stuck in a window seat. i much prefer the aisle so i don't have to wake people to get up, and the food carts don't go by me cause i'm sleeping so far away.

took the airport bus to town, followed the directions i was given, and arrived at amiee's apartment for my couchsurf for the night. she was very nice, quite personable and a good conversationalist. she told me down the little streets to a small restaurant and ordered these kimchi cake things that were awesomely delicious! food suddenly becomes exciting, interesting and desirable here.

i slept nicely on some pads on the floor, got up when she had to head off to her english teaching job. she waved me off, and i was free to wander. which i did. just walked around the neighbor hood for a while. i really wanted to goto a Korean bathhouse she recommended, but i knew i'd spend all day there and see nothing else. i wanted to figure out the subway system, so i went underground. the system is quite extensive, and fortunately the stations have the english name on the signs, so i figured out the smart card machine, got on the green line and got our where i wanted to go. and there wasn't much there above ground. did run across and old palace to visit, took a few pictures, had my picture taken with several gangs of shy school girls. they are so cute. a man with purple hair gets their attention. had some more espresso in an upstairs shop. they guy that served me spoke perfect LA english. cause he's from there. his name was jimmy, we talked abit, he located the airport bus stop for me. made my way back to the airport, got another stamp in my passport, breezed security and found the internet place. free computers, free internet.

man, as soon as i get off the plane and i'm back in a land of mystery i feel myself perk up. the WONDER returns, the urge to assimilate, absorb, notice, contemplate and just "BE" wafts in on the psychic breeze that rushes in when the door to the plane is opened. i think its the same reason, for the same feelings you get when you visit las vegas, or disneyland, or yellowstone park. the ordinary is in-ordinary, the normal there is an abberation of your normal. what you are used to, what you see everyday is overlaid by a new movie, the sights and sounds and images are HUGE, inspiring, bigger than life. and not like home. but this isn't disneyland, it's seoul korea. and i can't read the signs, understand what people are saying, can't tell what is in this can of something to drink.

and i love it.

few more hours and i'll be back with my sweetheart, in another (slightly less) mysterious place and i get to have that "home.....!" feeling. nice.

onward!!!!!
Nu

(reverting to my thai name for the duration)

visit http://www.thaicountrylife.com

Invitation to view thaikarl's Picasa Web Album - Thailand april - june 2010

2010-04-06T00:51:00.001-07:00

You are invited to view thaikarl's photo album: Thailand april - june 2010

Thailand april - june 2010

Apr 6, 2010
by thaikarl

went home for three months.

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Message from thaikarl:

all the menu's on this computer are in korean, so i couldn't figure out how to attache photos to my email. but i did get them into picassa. this link will work for photos from this journey. comment and enjoy!

If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser:
http://picasaweb.google.co.kr/lh/sredir?uname=thaikarl&target=ALBUM&id=5456926356212695201&authkey=Gv1sRgCIfNrZTbxqvGaQ&feat=email

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100404 Thaikarl - departure time!

2010-04-04T06:55:00.001-07:00

friends,

it's been a frenzied week, as usuall before take off. when you take a 2 week holiday, if you forgot to take care of something- like putting your netflix account on hold before the send you some new disks, it's no big deal. but when you're going to be gone for 3 months, you aren't going to be around soon enough. so i have to take care of all that. i did send in my netflix dvd's, but i forgot to put the account on hold before they sent the next one out. so "dead snow" is going to sit in my mailbox for three months.

it's 6 am, the sky is just starting to lighten up. i've been up all night, storing stuff and packing my bags. i usually stay up all night before i leave. when i hit the seat on the plane, i'll be asleep before we take off. wake up to eat then back to sleep. all the way across the pacific. except this time i have a 23 hour layover in seoul korea. which is kind of weird, but it means i get to spend the night and most of the next day there. i got a place to sleep on couchsurfing.com. should be fun, though i'll still be a little fuzzy brained from sleep/wake disruption. then, then, then... the flight to bangkok and my wife tok will be waiting for me at the exit gate. joy abounds.

the "red-shirts" are raising a ruckus in bangkok. they are people who don't like the current government, they want it dissolved and new elections held. and just so everybody knows who they are, they wear red-shirts. thousands of them are milling around the major shopping centers in bangkok, causing the malls to close. last year the "yellow-shirts" occupied and closed the bangok airport for a week. i wonder what color-shirts will be next. purple would be nice. for i while i thought the politics in thailand was pretty wacky. i've payed a little more attention to american politics since the last election, and listened to everyone talking about issues like the health-care movement. having listened to americans having their say, left and right. from what i hear right here in the states, our politics, and the people who talk about it, is just as wacky. we're a bit different, but just as wacked-out as thailand. people believe all sorts of crazy things. tok is worried about getting mixed up in the red-shirt mess. i told her we'll just go around them. whull see.

wow, check out the weather near where we live. pitsanalok is and hour our so away... and it's at up in the mountains, so it's gonna be even hotter in the lower lands where we live. that's a little warm, even for me. but after the crappy week of rain, wind and cold we've had here in seattle, it will be high heaven.

i had to drive around and find an open wire-less connection. probably won't be online again until the airport in korea. for you all that tweet, i'm on twitter at http://twitter.com/thaikarl more to come. perhaps even a podcast from far away! and more video - now that i have a better camera. what would you like to see and hear about???/

onward! to amazing thailand!

Re: 100308 Thaikarl - going home again, at last - emailed question

2010-03-10T19:54:00.001-08:00

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 4:54 AM, <lxxxxxxbxxxx@aol.com> wrote:
oh wow cool. So, the house with the computer, is that the one that you send pics of, it's like on stilts kind of? or looks that way. 105 eh? wow. So, they have electricity and all? not to sound stupid. Is her mom ok, or did she pass? I remember she was sick. The house where you send the original picx, is anyone still at that house?

yes, our computer is up in the 'bedroom' house. that's the one i had built that is up on stilts with the blue roof. on the left in the photo. we even have DSL broadband... usually. not super fast, but when it works, it's a heck of a lot better than dial-up or an aircard.

the orange house on the right is the original, main house where mama, and teri sleep. my wife (an i, when i'm home) sleep in the bedroom house. we do indeed have electricity. thailand is a developing country, but everyone has electricity, unless they build out in the mountains and don't want to pay to have the lines strung. we didn't have running water until last year, when the village put in a pond and pumping station. so there's a PVC pipe that runs along the rain ditch in front of all the houses, then runs to each house. we had a guy run PVC from the tap to the kitchen and bathroom, so there is water at the sink in the kitchen and a shower head in the bathroom. but the village water costs money, so we mostly use well water for everything. and the village water is only on during the day. it shuts off at night. there's a 2 inch hose from the well and an electric pump. we move the hose around and fill up the big jars for bathing and washing water, watering the plants and filling the fountain pond.

my mother in law is still kicking around. her single kidney is slowly failing, but they are treating that with medications and careful diet. eventually it's gonna kill her, but not till later.

life in the country where we live is basic, but not so primitive anymore.

and yes, it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit up in the bedroom the other day my wife told me. this is the early part of the hot season in thailand. getting up around 100 F every day now, high 70's at night. Phitsanulok is about 70 miles away from us, here's the weather there. and it's in the mountains, so usually a little cooler. thanks for asking. i can't wait to be there,

100308 Thaikarl - going home again, at last

2010-03-08T00:53:00.001-08:00

friends,

finally got the funds together. i'm going home to thailand april 4th. i have a three month ticket, but if the cash runs out, i'll have to book back earlier. i've had a lot of things going on the last four months that enabled this trip. i am soooo looking forward to seeing my wife and her mother and her daughter, our house(s), and everything! looking forward to the HEAT- april is the hottest month in thailand, the food, showering outside, working on the house, going to town, going to the markets, seeing the neighboors, meeting new friends, the bugs, the geko's, the motorbike, our cats, ... need i go on. it's been 8 long months. it has been an El Nino year in seattle, so quite warm and dry... for winter here, so it's not been too bad, but nothing like home.

i have a 23 hour layover in Seoul korea before flying on to bangkok. strange i know, but it means i get to overnight there and look around some more. tok and i would like to holiday in korea. may not this time, but sometime. it costs almost as much for her to fly to korea round trip as it does for me to fly seattle to bangkok!

in the meantime, whilse i've been counting the days, i've been hanging out a little:

(yes, that's me up there)

ONWARD!!!!

--
" ...when an ideal gas (which doesn't exist) is cooled down to absolute zero (which can't be done) it has zero volume (which also doesn't exist, except as an idea. Isn't Zero great?)" tim anderson

091204 Thaikarl - homesick indeed

2009-12-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

friends,

winter is pooling around my feet here in seattle. i'm still wearing my flip-flops, going to have to find my shoes soon, i think. i came across an article by another man who lives in thailand: http://www.escapefromamerica.com/2009/11/homesick-expat/ echos how i feel. everyday.

Tok and i had a discussion about my going home time. looks like i won't go home until.... shudder... april. if i wait until then, i hope i can save enough money to go home for three or four months, and there are festivals in thailand in aprill (Songkran, Pee ta Khon) and in may (Bang Fai rocket festival) and in july is Kao Pansa which is a festival that tok has never been to, but every year she says she'd like to go. me too! so we'll do our traveling IN thailand this time. we've been to cambodia, vietnam and taiwan and we want to go to korea sometime. but this time we'll get around the home country some. i've been there for Songkran, Pee ta Khon and Bang Fai, and will enjoy them again.

as ever i'm looking, feeling, investigating, thinking, asking, wishing, searching for that person, business, job that will enable me to live at home all the time. just have not found it... yet. i get some good suggestions from people: teach english (not enough income for a man with a family to take care of) import/export (but what product??????) tour guide (dis-allowed by the thai government) internet-based business (yes, but what????). something will click into place. some of the good ideas that might work, aren't ideas that i could get passionate about. i don't mind working (the money's kind of nice) but i'm not one to do some job or business that i am not somewhat excited to be in. something that i like to say "would get me out of bed in the morning" meanwhile, i'm busy keeping the cash flow going day to day. living cheap, sending money home and saving some to go back. if you have any ideas/opportunities, email them to me, or comment on the blog.

meanwhile, back home... we have new next door neighboors. Tai and Sai had a big area in front of their house that is part of the family land. sai's relative is building a house there.... just off our porch.

this is how it looked a couple months ago. it's much further along now. ah progress. Tok says they are good people. but they can see right into our bedroom windows. so i'll have to stay dressed if the curtains are open :-D which i didn't have to do before.... the kids used to play on this area. wonder if they still are?

Gorgeous the life! karl

091121 Thaikarl - i'm a reverse immigrant

2009-10-21T22:57:00.001-07:00

friends,

i'm still here in seattle. would much rather be home in thailand, but that's normal. i've realized that i have a lot in common with many immigrants to the states. people who's home is mexico, south america, asia, india can't find good paying work there, so they come here. they work, send money home to the family, and when they have enough saved up, go back to the home country till the money runs out, then come back to the states to work again. which is exactly what i do. i live as cheaply as possible when i'm here, send enough home to thailand to take care of Tok, mama and teri, and when i save up enough, i'll go home for two three months. the income stops when i get on the plane. i need roughly one thousand dollars per month that i'm home, plus plane ticket- which could be anywhere from $850 - $1200. a thousand a month when i'm home is more than i send over each month, but when i'm home we do more things, and i spend money that tok wouldn't- on tools, books, red-bull etc.

needless to say, this remote life is getting old. but somewhere out there, is the right contact, the right product, the right idea that will somehow, someway enable me to earn our living and (more) from within thailand. just don't know who or what that is. yet.

a number of my readers have told me that they miss my entries. i feel a little odd makiing entries in "thai country life" when i'm not in the thai country actually, so i don't update much when i'm in the states. but nearly everything i do here is for and by my life there, so why not tell you about it?

it's getting darker earlier here in seattle, and the rains and cold are approaching for real. meh. hoping i can get ahead to be home late december- but it's probably going to be january or february. so i'll still skip a good part of the winter. this is good.

onward!
karl

090802 Thaikarl - just like home!

2009-08-02T13:56:00.001-07:00

friends, we've been having a "heat wave" here in seattle. July was the hottest month in seattle recorded history. upper 90's for days at a time. of course, seattlites are complaining. their wails and moans and screams hang over the city. but for me, it feels like home in thailand. and i'm quite happy. hot is hot- don't get me wrong. when it gets into the upper 90's it feels hot for me too, but it's not that uncomfortable. 80's feels warm to me. 70's are cool, 60's are cold, 50's are damn cold, 40's and below. i don't even want to think about it. strange (even to me) is how i became 'tropicalized'. i don't remember being so heat tolerant when i was younger. i guess when "home" becomes the tropics, then things like weather and food become the preferred state of being.

051709 Thaikarl - working in seattle, dreaming of

2009-05-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

friends,

after a month and a half in seattle, i'm sorta adjusted. the weather is improving here, which is comforting, but Tok tells me everyday that it's hot in thailand, and i miss that. i have been most fortunate to have a good run of work since i've been back. i was hoping to return to thailand in august, as i've never been in there in august or september. but... my van has a blown head gasket. so i have to get that solved. repairing the engine is very expensive, 1500-2000$. i can get another whole van for that much, but a friend suggested replacing the engine, which would be less. whatever... means i won't be going back in august tho. and since i'm living in my van, i have to have that taken care of.

yep, living in my van. it's rather nice actually. i'm only here to earn money to support the family in thailand, and get enough to go home again, so i don't need to be paying rent anywhere. i have two house's to take care of in thailand already. i'm comfortable. i have a folding mattress on top of some plywood, resting on plastic tote boxes. the totes hold my tools and supplies for working. i find various places to park in the vicinity of whatever job i'm working the next day, so i don't have to commute to work at all. but i can STILL manage to show up later than planned. i have a membership at 24hour fitness, where i can take showers and go for a steam room. i eat at all different places- the deli at safeway is generous. since i'm driving around, i get my food at the store daily, don't need a refrigerator. i have a little home made alchohol stove and stovetop espresso maker, so i make coffee right there between the seats. a microwave would be nice, but no way to power that. i have an aircard for my my old notebook computer, so i have internet anywhere.

things back home in thailand are just fine. the parakeets Tok has in a cage outside are breeding- there were 4, now there's 8 of them. the cats are good, Teri (her daughter) did well in summer school and started a new term (i have to buy new uniforms for her as the school is different). Mama is on medication that keeps her heart and kidney problems in check for now. a neighbor died, so Tok helped with the cooking and preparations. we talk on the phone everyday, and when we can we get on skype and do video and voice chats. i ask her what her plans are for the day, most days it's a "normal" day. a normal day is cleaning the house, washing cloths, going to market for food, cooking, eating, taking care of business. the lack of crisis and drama is refreshing.

the politics and demonstrations in thailand seem to have settled down, at least for now, air fares are a little more expensive than a few months ago, but much lower than they were last year. i can't wait to go home again. well, actually i can, as, that's the way it is for us now.

gorgeous the life!

Nu

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com
It takes 10,000 hours to be an expert. Only 9,999 to go...

090410 Thaikarl - landed but not here.

2009-04-11T02:53:00.001-07:00

friends,

arrggh. back in the USA. what a weird place. downtown seoul to downtown seattle- what a difference. took the bus downtown. had a piece of (bad) pizza, 5.34$! 190 baht. i was suffering the usual re-entry traumas. reading signs i don't care about. not used to people talking to me, so i'm not paying attention to the pizza guy and don't understand what he said. cold. driving on right. young kids shouting and wilding in the mall. homeless guys shouting and digging through trash cans. got on the number 11 bus. the driver told us all to get off, there was a handicapped guy in a wheelchair slumped over not moving. so the aid car was coming. took me 4 hours to get to my brothers apartment from the airport.

but i didn't have any hassle with immigration and customs this time. i got diverted thru a second x-ray machine, and asked some survey questions - "have you been on a farm?" because i put on my card that i visited vietnam. that was it.

now i'm all confused about days and nights, traveling east is worst for "jet lag", getting my phone turned back on and paying for my storage room so i could get to my cloths and stuff drained the last of my bank account.

but here i am, and ready to hustle, work work work- that's my ticket home again.

onward!!!!!!

karl

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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090409 Thaikarl - a free day in Seoul, korea

2009-04-08T23:52:00.000-07:00

friends,
since i had so much time on my layover, i decided to go exploring. it seems you get a visa-on-entry (being american) so i went out thru immigration - got an entrance stamp for korea and went downstairs. the nice lady at the information desk gave me a map of Seoul, and directed me to the right bus into town. rode in and got off at the Namdaemun market in downtown area. pretty cool! i wandered around all day, figured out how to get the bus back, cleared immigration- now i have both stamps in my passport! woo hoo.

korea is quite interesting. seems to be rather wealthy. lottsa cars, nice well regulated roads, huge towering blocks of apartments. everyone is dressed nice- no raggedy folk that i could see. there was all this interesting food, but i wasn't the least bit hungry. i ate something-on-a-stick, had a couple of espresso's and that's all i had room foor. tons of stuff at the market, rows and alleys and streets filled with little stalls selling all the usual mega variety of trinkets, cloths, do-dads, finery's, watches, jewelery, kitchen gear. the korean people sure look different thant he thai's and vietnamese. paler skin, rougher features, not as many cute girls. some interesting style choices. plenty of businessmen in suits. smokers everywhere. mobile phones stuck to everyone ears. no pick-up trucks in korea either, only cars. the merchant trucks have pickup beds, but they look and are merchant and delivery vehicles. most of the motorcycles have racks on the back for deliveries of goods. the personal motorbikes were mostly big scooter style things. nearly every car has a 6inch LCD screen sitting on the dash- GPS systems??? the land seems to be totally manicured and terra-formed. except for the steep hills, every inch seems like it was gone over in the past, or is being gone over in the present, lots of road and building construction going on. really nice airport.

things to seem TOO expensive, jeans and shirts for 10 to 15 dollars in the stalls, espresso was 1.20$ a shot. and good coffee it was too. i think tok and i are going to have to figure out a trip here. i think she would like the food- which is a critical criteria for her. i didn't spend hardly any money, got a little mobile phone fob with the Korean flag on it, and had my thai name engraved on a stick as a signature stamp, like the ones they use in japan.

what a deal twelve hour layovers are eh? i'm all check thru here at the airport, and i still have two hours to wait. feeling really confused about what time of day it's supposed to be. i'ts 4 in the afternoon here. it was cool this morning, but the sun came out and it warmed up. the whole area is covered with haze- smog maybe? but my eyes don't burn, so maybe it's just "marine air". yet another country where i can't read the signs and understand a single word that's being said. at least now in thailand i can understand a few things. i pick up a couple of words each time, but it's back to null here.

the Koreans hardly give me a second look, none of that "hey, it's a foreigner, would ya look at that" like other places. except for my purple hair, got a few smiles and thumbs up on that. guess i'll have to come back.
Onward!!!! Nu
--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090409 Thaikarl - camped out at the airport in korea

2009-04-08T15:56:00.001-07:00

friends,
free internet for 30 minutes at the airport in inchon korea. i have like a 12 hour layover here. jeez. but it's a nice airport, and i have some korean money from a previous trip. so i'll just have to hang out.
i wonder if i can go outside? hmmm, i'll let you know!
onward!
Nu

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090408 Thaikarl - bouncing back across the world

2009-04-08T04:40:00.000-07:00

friends,
back in bangkok yesterday, i was considering how many times i've been here- 9 times. i'm must be devoted to this place. most people only get to thailand once, if ever, and for most it's a one or two week "holiday" place. and as usual, i become obsessed with figuring out how to get back. the lang song (medium) says two years till i'm living here. hope so. make it so!

new video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRw7322EAr8
thai's celebrate a death quite differently than we do in the west, at least from what i've seen. when i get back to my macintosh computer, it will be much easier to edit and upload videos. i have a bunch more. hope i can bring a better camera next time.

i'll keep posting. there are stories and events i haven't posted yet. to my surprise, there's people all over the world who are reading these messages on the blogsite. check out: http://feedjit.com/stats/thaikarl.blogspot.com/map/?x=94&y=50&w=160&h=94 you have to click on the map and drag it around to expose the USA and europe to see some of the flags... those are people who have been to the blogsite. imagine that.

see yall soon, Nu and Tok

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090401 Thaikarl - I have a new friend

2009-04-01T04:35:00.001-07:00

friends,
last month, when Tok and i went to the local waterfall, i met a Dutchman named Hank and his wife. they were leaving the area as we were going in. i talked with him a few minutes, seemed like a good guy. His wife is thai, she talked with Tok a bit also. Tok said she knew the name of the village where they lived. hank said they had a small gas station, on a corner, in Lom Kow.

we went off to vietnam, and have been back, and i've asked tok a couple of times about going to see them. then she told me she couldn't remember the name of the village. well, i decided it was worth going out there, how many falangs would be running at gas station in the area? surely someone could tell us where to go.

so we got on the motorbike and headed north and west. out in the countryside, passing fields of tobacco, corn, chillies and peas. all the tobacco near our house has wilted and turned yellow from the big rain a few days ago, but a few kilometers away, the tobacco was just fine. no big rain out there. the day was warm, riding the bike is like having the oven door opened into your face, blasts of warm air, then a little cooling, then hot again.

we got to lom kow town, made a couple of stops to ask around, went back and forth a few times, and finally came around a corner and there was an intersection, with a two pump gas station on the corner. we pulled up, i recognized hanks wife Sala, and she called to him, he came running out, thinking something was wrong with the pump. it was just us.

we spent a couple of hours there, sitting around, drinking cold water. hank lives here permanently now. he has a cute story about meeting his wife. she lived in holland, right next door to him. she was divorced, and hanks wife took off for another man. hank would babysit her young daughter, as he was left with two small children of his own when his wife took off. before long, sala's daughter spent more time at hanks house than at hers. he said they were just friends and mutual babysitters for three years, but then, because of the conjoined kids, it got a little friendlier, then romantic. hank said he used to come to thailand for a month two times a year for thirteen years. when holland became part of the European union, and the borders effectively went down, many polish workers came to holland and the jobs dried up. the poles would work harder for less money. (sound familiar?), so hank and his wife decided to pack it up, sold everything in holland and moved here.

hank had a lot of knowledge about various businesses- chicken farming, pig farming, insect farming (for eating). either he's looked into it for himself, or knows other falangs who tried it. he said the gas station was good business for thailand. they were doing okay. one of the most interesting things he told me about was a thai friend of his who flies paragliders and paramotor! hank says he's been up to the mountains with this guy, he'd drive the truck back down the mountain after the guys had launched and flown down to the valley. i thought this was pretty interesting, as i still have my wing, harness and gear. i'd thought about bring it to thailand, but the flying sites i've found online are all far away, but here's a connection right in this area. so we'll see what happens next time. i return to the US next week. i need to get out to tiger mountain and get my wings on again, it's been a few years. then maybe when i come home again.....????

Hank showed us his new jeep, and introduced us to his pet porcupine in a big cage, and a beautiful owl with one wing he rescued from the temple and cares for.

i've been told that one of the ways to keep your sanity and not feel so isolated is 1) learn the language and 2) make friends with other falangs in the area. well, number one is ongoing, but will take me forever, but it seems i may have a start on number two.

have to finish up my jobs list in the next few days- painting under the house, putting up some rain-stopping tin, a little cement work off the porch etc. then, the sadness of departure, and the culture shock of "the good ole USA", where i see on my yahoo weather, the temperature is near freezing and there is still snow!!! %@$%(_Q&#(*^@*Q^%&&*@ whats up with dat???

moving right along..

Nu and Tok

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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090401 Thaikarl - never coming back.

2009-04-01T03:24:00.001-07:00

considering the date today, i have great news! we won the thai lotto, so i'm never have to come back to the united states.
woo hooooooo!!!!!

see ya! NOT!

Anukhun

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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090327 Thaikarl - it's been raining, big time, pix and tweets

2009-03-27T05:37:00.001-07:00

friends,
we've had rain the last few days. yesterday was a big one, with high winds. we had to run around and secure all the windows and shades, even still, water got into the house, flooded the porches and generally made a mess of things. all the tobacco crops will die from so much water, and lots of the tall corn in the fields got blown over. i have a lot of work around the house to finish, but that was rained out.

finally got my gallery of photos from our trip to Vietnam up and ready for your perusal.
http://picasaweb.google.co.th/thaikarl/Vietnam?feat=directlink

our internet connection has been pretty flakey last few days. i changes DNS servers and that helped, but it's still not great.

if you use twitter, i've been sending tweets from my phone. follow me!

Tok made one of my favorite dishes today, one of many actually, but this stuff is GOOD! it's called Yam Pra Duk Toe (or something like that) first time i had it, i swore it had vinegar in it, but it doesn't. that flavor comes from fish sauce and lemon. it has fish in it, but doesn't taste fishy, peanuts and green mango slivers. plus secret ingredients i can't identify. man, its tasty, kind of salad like.

onward! Nu

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090319 Thaikarl - Getting accepted by the Ghosts

2009-03-19T02:43:00.001-07:00

friends,

a few weeks ago, after the medium was here for mama, tok told me that the Ghosts wanted me to bring them a chicken and some alcohol, so that i would be accepted within their protection. this morning we carried out that task.

tok bought a whole chicken yesterday at the market. looked like a small turkey. this morning we got up early. well early for me: 6:30, showered and had a quick bite to eat. we took the motorbike the small shop up the road and tok bought a small bottle of thai whiskey to add to the basket with the chicken and a woven sticky-rice box. we went to her aunts house- sister of her mothers. auntie wasn't home, so we went to the thursday meeting market in the village to kill some time. when we returned, auntie came back. her aunt sat on the floor and tore a banana leaf into equal strips, ten folded the strips into little cones. tok added some leaves of some sort to each one, and some small yellow candles. we went into her aunts bedroom. there was an alter of sorts in the corner, with bottles of lotion, dried flowers, candles, incense and various other things. auntie poured out a glass of cold water and put it up on the table, they opened the bottle of whiskey. she lit some candles knelt at the alter. auntie quietly appeared to "pray" and bowed and touched the floor several times. after a few minutes, they searched around the house and found the ball of white string. auntie cut some equal lengths of strings, and carefully tied three knots in each one. then she tied a string to toks, mine and the young boys wrist (video). when she ties a string, you hold our arm out, palm up. she drags the stretched string quickly up your wrist, flips the string up under your wrist and over, makes the first over hand of the knot and makes the loop of the send part of the overhand. she contemplated the loose knot before pulling it tight. then she rubs your wrist.

that was it. tok gave the chicken to her niece who took it downstairs and chopped it in half. we got half a chicken to go with us, and brought back the rice. we went home, tok started the cloths washing, i re-arranged the big jars behind the house and filled them with well water. i'd bought another ball valve to put in line with the village water pipe that goes to the sink, because the water pressure is so high, when you turn on the sink tap it blasts out. the extra ball valve would allow throttling down the flow.

while i was cutting the pipe and gluing in the new valve, i asked tok what had happened this morning. she said it was difficult to explain, so i asked a bunch of questions and go something of an explanation of what it was about. I'll tell you best i can, as it's still a little unclear. Tok uses the word "Ghost" to refer to whatever entities we were appealing to. it is unclear if she means "ghost" - as a dis-embodied earth-bound spirit, or simply a non-physical being. i asked her if the Ghosts used to be people, but she didn't quite understand what i was getting at. she said she didn't know about that. but she said they "have a boss, and soldiers, and workers". The Ghosts wanted an offering for me, because i'm part of the family now, and if they are to include me in their protection, i must bring them a chicken and alcohol. i asked tok what if i didn't believe in such things and didn't want to go "feed the Ghosts" myself. she said they would just do it themselves. what happens if you don't make the offering? then the Ghosts would be angry, and you will have some problem, a sickness, bad feeling, accidents, you, or others in the family will feel the problem of the Angry Ghosts. She said the Ghosts will now protect and help me, as part of the family. I asked her if they would help when i was in america. she said i have to think to the Ghosts before i get on the plane, or they won't know where to find me. i joked with her and said, what if i forgot? when i got to america would i have to shout really loudly "Hey! I'm over here! catch the next plane!"

so now it seems, i have been accepted into the circle of protection of the Ghosts that takes care of Toks whole family. I won't tell you if i believe or dis-believe this. it's something that is part of thai country life. something that i have the privilege of experiencing, even if i don't understand what's going on. that's part of the allure, part of the Quality of being here.

later, we had the chicken and rice as part of lunch. i couldn't tell how the chicken was cooked, since they don't bake anything, and it wasn't fried. tok said she cooked it by steaming. i've never heard of that. good lunch tho.

amazing thailand.

nu
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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090317 Thaikarl - Ho Chi Min City redux

2009-03-16T23:03:00.001-07:00

friends, 8 hours on the bus back to saigon was a bit grueling. this bus was older and not as comfortable, and had a very LOUD horn, which the driver had to use a couple of thousand times. similar to india, they honk when over taking someone, approaching a blind curve, or to get someone to move over. you hardly ever hear a horn in thailand. in india however, they honk their horns at any and all other times, just to make sure it is in good working order. we stopped at a bus rest for lunch. i picked up a few large dead beetles for my friend don in the states. a young Vietnamese man came over to our table to talk to us. he was very nice. wanted to practice his english. the people in vietnam are all quite friendly to us. if you want to set yourself apart from the average tourist, and evoke smiles, thumbs ups, and compliments of "oh modern", "very nice", and "beautiful"; dye your hair purple. i'm the only person i've seen here with such hair color. goes over good in thailand also.

when i was trolling the chat rooms for friends 4 years ago (which is how i met Tok initially) i also made friends with a vietnamese man named Luan. I phoned to him last night, and after a couple of hours he and his friend arrived on motorbikes. it was really good to see him and visit. he has been working in japan for the last three years, so he said his japanese was much better than his english now. he's doing well for himself. when i knew him before he was living in the attic of a house, going to school, and living on a quick noodles. now, after working in japan, he has a motorbike, an iPhone (!!!!!) and is ready to take the entrance exam to enter university. he's really funny when he gets all shy about not knowing the english words for what he wants to say. big smiles and laughs.

one of my other friends here is a young girl named BeHai. she is a street vendor how just charms money out of you. she's one of those who always has some soft-sell way to extract a few dollars from you. i used to buy cigarettes from her, but now she is selling books. i learned from an expat last time, that she takes care of her grandmother and a few random kids with what she earns. one of her spiels is to say "i want to ask you a question" and i always tease her and say, "Behai, i can't marry you, you are too young!" - and now i can add "i'm already married". she laughs and says that's not what she wanted to ask me. what she does want to ask is if i will buy a book or some smokes later, or can she have some money for new jeans, or it was her birthday a few days ago, can she have something for her birthday. i always just give her a few dollars for her. if you buy a book, the boss gets most of the cash. we friended another bookseller this time also. her name is How. i did buy a couple of books the first night, but since then i just give her a couple of dollars when i see her and tell he it's for her.

the kids who sell gum and kleenex are are funny. 8 or 9 years old, and out working the streets with their mom. they are easily distracted with the "watch me pull off my thumb" trick or other diversions, before they remember they are supposed to be selling you and go back to "buy gum???"

there is just so much of interest and mystery here, as there is in all of this part of the world. but, we have a plane to catch back home. i'll be able to post pictures and video from there.

Onward! Nu and Tok.

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090315 Thaikarl- a delightful day in Da Lat Vietnam

2009-03-15T07:33:00.001-07:00

friends, we had a delightful day. rented a motorbike from our hotel, and motored off out of town to see the Prenn waterfall. up here in the highlands, pine trees dominate the hills. very lovely to drive thru. with mostly motorbikes on the roads, you aren't constantly squeezed off on the right side of the road to avoid cars and trucks. since they drive on the right in vietnam, it's like driving in the states, but it's all confusing, cause i'm used to driving on the Left in thailand, so i have to double think my intersections, and the round-abouts are crazy. the water fall was nice. nothing to spectacular, as it is dry season so not much water was coming over the falls. the area is well developed, with paved pathways, places to sit, restaurant at the bottom. they even had a small cable car that went from the top of the falls down below. the cool thing was a giant concrete elephant that you go inside, up some stairs and emerge from the upraised 'mouth' of the elephant, to walk across a cable suspension bridge over the stream. very safe and not to high, but wobbly fun. further down there was a place to ride elephants and ostriches. we just looked.

on the way back up the hill, i noticed a much bigger higher cable car up through the trees. when we got back into town, i found the upper terminus of the cable car, we parked the bike and went up. the cable car cost $4.00, and went above the pine trees, down the hill and up onto another hill. perhaps a km long. great view of the surrounding hills and mountains, and the town in the background. at the far end, we got out and walked up the hill. there was a Chinese Buddhist temple and meditation center there. much more subdued architecture than thai temples. where the thai temples and grounds are decorated with filigree and sculpted surfaces of ornamentation and gold and mirror glass mosaics, these buildings were rather plain, painted a cream color with tile roofs. the grounds were very pleasant, with grace and flower gardens. riding the cable car back, the wind blew up threw the trees and reminded me of skimming the trees paragliding. gave me the itch to get up in the air again, as i haven't been flying for a few years.

we motored back down into town and went to the market. quite a big and busy market. we had some food and wandered around a bit. like most markets, there were many stalls crammed full of merchandise. so much STUFF! i bought a cute Led bedside lamp. it's a neon green elephant, with a bendable stalk coming out it's head with a pod on the end that has white Led's. the three way switch goes from low to hi white light, and the click turns on a color changing Led in the elephant body. you flip a lever, and prongs pop out so you can plug the thing into the wall to recharge the battery. cool huh? about $3.00. there were lots of sweaters and jackets- cool weather gear for this climate. tok really liked some of the sweaters, but they were all to small. Vietnamese people are pretty small. most are only as tall as my shoulder. and they are thin also. haven't seen any fat people here- none. the girls are very cute. very. :-)

we had a nap for a little while at the hotel, and after dark went our for a little ride around town. drove around the lake that is in the center of the town, the lights shining across the calm water were beautiful. when we came to the market area, we were surprised to see that they had blocked off the roads leading into the market. people that had motorbikes inside were walking them out. it seems that this evening the whole area becomes walking streets only. don't know if it's every night, or just sundays. vendors spread out on the sidewalks selling cloths and food. we had some dinner and walked over by some steps that went up the hill. nearby were sidewalk food vendors, with bots of noodles and vegetables, those little plastic tables and tiny stools. as we were standing there, there was a shout from down the road, and instantly, people sprang into action, stacking up the tables and stools, and dashing off with the food pots. these places completely disappeared in 30 seconds. a girl told us it was because the police were coming. after a few minutes, the police truck passed by, and customers holding bowls of noodles, kids with stacks of tables and stools re-appeared and reset everything, and they were back in business in 2 minutes. we went up the stairs to some upper streets and the same thing happened with the clothing sellers. they had all their cloths on big tarps, and they suddenly dragged them off the street back to the fences, a police truck drove buy, and they dragged them all back again. amazing. it was really nice to walk around in the streets and look at things. there were lots of people out, lots of kids running round, riding bicycles, young kids and teenagers walking in groups, families. wonderful to be here.

it's 15 degrees Centigrade right now (60 F) but it feels much colder. brrrrrr!

tomorrow we bus back to saigon. i finally got an email from my young friend Luan, so we will get to see him when we get back.
Gorgeous the life!!!!!

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090314 Thaikarl - Up in the highlands, it's like- COLD!

2009-03-14T06:43:00.001-07:00

friends, we caught an early bus from Na Trang up here to Da Lat in the highlands. the bus finally got away from the coast, and traveled across a big valley full of rice fields and up to the mountains. the road was a rather beat-up two lane, and we were going only 40km/hr most of the time. about as fast as we go on Toks old motor-bike. when it got to the mountains, we went up a little switchback road that climbed and climbed. the view out to the valley and the surrounding hills was beautiful. when we topped out, we're in a highland area, hilly, with flat valley's in between.

we arrive in Da Lat, which is a highland resort town for the Vietnamese. it's actually cold here. we're about 1500M above sea level (rond 3000 feet) i'm freezing! people are wearing puffy jackets and hats. we accepted an invitation to see the hotel of a pleasant young guy who walked us up the road. nice big room for the usual 10 dollars a night. no aircon... cause we don't need it! brrrrrrrrr. we'll spend today and tomorrow night here and head back to saigon.

we went out for dinner after a little nap. found a Vietnamese place and had vegetarian with rice. didn't know it was vegetarian, it just worked out that way. there are a lot of people out walking the streets, going every which way, and it's after dark already. we walked up the hill to see where everyone was going/coming from. there were cloths sellers on the sidewalks a the top of the hill, but mostly people just seemed to be out and about. the vietnamese, like thais and Khmer live outside their houses and shops much more than other places. you can go through a neighborhood in seattle and see one or two people, maybe. not so here. people sit out side their houses, congregate on the sidewalks, eating, drinking coffee and tea, hanging out talking, selling fruits and things.

last night we ate at a sidewalk place. just a few little plastic tables, with these little stools about a foot high to sit on. one propane burner over next to the wall, and a charcoal brazier next to the tree. barbecue pork, with egg, a few tomato, cucumber and carrot slices on a pile of rice. wonderful. $1.50 for two people.

there appears to be quite a few attractions around here, maybe we'll rent a motorbike and look around tomorrow.
Tok says she likes vietnam and we can come back again. mostly because the food is "just okay". unlike cambodia. there were a lot of dive shops in Na Trang, and the prices where much cheaper than thailand. i'd really like to come back and do some scuba. and see even more of the country.

ah yes.
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Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090312 Thaikarl - where are we now? oh yeah, Na Trang

2009-03-13T03:23:00.001-07:00

friends, another bus ride, another place. of course the bus lets us off in the middle of the city somewhere, no obvious places to go from the booking office, but there is the usual hoard of motorbike taxi guys waving brochures for best hotel- near the beach, cheap rooms yes yes. sometimes it's just easier to go with them, even though you have no idea where they are taking you, and you know they are getting a commission to take you to THAT hotel.

but, it appears to be near the ocean, and for 10 dollars we got an aircon room with two beds, tv and free internet downstairs. so whatever. we'll go get some dinner somewheres and figure out where we are. i've long since given up using Lonely Planet guide books like the rest of the backpackers. if you use them, when you get there, you find more backpackers with guidebooks. to me, just being HERE is amazing.

we walked for blocks looking for a vietnamese noodle stand on the road, or something like it. no luck. all the restaruants, and there are plenty of them, are tourist eateries, menu's in three languages, with italian, french and english foods, and a page of vietnamese. oh well.

vietnam is lacking in the quick-mart department. not a 7-11 or Family Mart to be found (so far). the little mini-shops sell mostly drinks and soaps. so we wonder where to get snacks and things.

i've been trying to send this email for two days. the internet at the hotel sucks, keeps going offline. couldn't even stay logged in long enough to get into their router and straighten things out. so we found and internet cafe.

we went out to the beach this morning after breakfast. nice long, clean beach, with a walking park between the beach and the road, with the hotels and such behind that. very nice. in the distance, you can see some islands. one has a huge sign that says VTNPEARL, like the famous hollywood sign. it lights up at night in big white letters. the hillsides below are scarred cuts. there's a over head gondola line that runs from the mainland all the way out to this place. we asked a fellow at a windsurfing booth what it was about. he said it was a bunch of rich russians who put it in, laundering their money and putting a blight on the view. the only good thing about it was that now that government party has seen what this is like, they aren't allowing another one to go in a little ways on.

tok had a dream about mama last night, and wanted to call home and see what was happening. the sailboarding guy told us that the only place to make an international phone call was at the post office. the hotels don't do it, and there are no phone booths on the street.   so we taxi'd down there. tok made the call... everything at home is okay, but her aunts daughters husband died a few days ago. went to sleep, and didn't wake up. (nice way to die i think) turns out that the market was near the post office, so we walked there. quite a market. a big building was in the middle, and the market lanes were in concentric circles around that. housewares on the inner circle, cloths on the next circle out, foods on the circle out from that, and on the outside, drinks places, fruit stands and souvenirs. i like the markets, it's where the interesting stuff is. lots of strange foods- dried sea horses and needle fish, fruits that tok hasn't ever seen, gadgets and tools. the people are always talking to Tok in vietnamese, now i tell them she is from thailand. usually they get it, others think she is just being coy.

the cruise ships dock here someplace. busloads of um, older folks, okay old folks come off the Cunard Shuttle buses and wander the market and shops. Na Trang is all ready to receive them. so we're thinking of getting on tomorrow, taking a bus to Da Lat for a night, and maybe taking the train back to saigon, as we fly back to thailand tuesday.

on friday we get on the bus again in thailand for an 11 hour bus ride down south to go to the 'footprint of the budda' mountain pilgrimage.

photos and video will be coming! i promise!
Gorgeous the Life!   Nu and Tok

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090311 Thaikarl - Mui Ne, Vietnam

2009-03-11T05:37:00.001-07:00

friends, we got out of the city. checked out and took the bus north. it took nearly two hours on the road before we got out of populated, mercantile, industrial roadsides to where there was greenery beside the road. and that was rows and rows of rubber trees. it's interesting how similar, but different it is here, compared to thailand and cambodia. we havn't seen a single pickup truck. there's not that many cars even, most of the ones you see are taxis. the conical hat that they wear in vietnam doesn't show in thailand. we passed an area where there were shop yards full of industrial equipment- cranes, tractors, bulldozers, front loaders, back loaders, trucks, pumpers. i mean this went on for miles. tok noticed that all of the buildings and houses are made of concrete and bricks, there are no wooden houses. and where are the temples? every village in thailand has a temple, or two or three or for. here in Vietnam we saw a couple of buildings that appear to be spiritual in nature, but not so identifiable. strange in a strange land.

even just riding along in the bus, looking out the window is like being on a mystery trip. what's that? why is that? where are the _____? the bus drivers helper, sat up front and talked the whole time. the whole 4 hours time. practically non-stop.

we arrived at Mui Ne, which is on the coast, on the ocean. theres a road along the water with strings of resorts, guest houses, restaurants, shops. we got out when the bus stopped at the company travel shop. as we were getting our bags out, the bus driver said he had a resort 5 km up the road, on the water, rooms for 10 and 15 dollars. so we went, declined the aircon room for 15 dollars and took the fan room for 10. doesn't appear to be any other guests. but it is on the water. 500 meters down the road we rented a motor bike for 50,000 dong and went riding up and down the road the rest of the afternoon. i saw a side road and turned up. it went up above the beach road thru the red sand dunes and crossed a huge fourlane divided road under construction. strange thing was , they had paved 'sidewalks' on either side of the asphalt and curbs. not just a few feet wide, but two carl lanes wide paved sidewalks. and there was nothing out there. no houses, no resorts, just sand dunes and scrub. we went up the road a few km, but could discern no real reason for this road to be here. maybe they are planning some big resort or something in the future, but for now it's just a big road with a couple of motorbikes using it. huh???? coming back, i notice a house beside the 4 lane. they had literally chopped of a big corner of the house, taking out on a diagonal what used to be the front and side rooms, and the people were still living it what was left. there was a triangle left of what used to be a room on one side, with broken off walls on the outside corners. go figure.

we're off to find dinner somewhere now. we're thinking we'll keep moving and take the bus to Na Trang tomorrow. the adventure continues.
Nu

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090310 Thaikarl - walking around in saigon

2009-03-10T08:16:00.001-07:00

friends, we breakfasted at a restarouant t his morning and started walking. and walking and walking. we went thru the market building. stalls and stalls of STUFF for sale, mostly tourist appealing stuff. the vietnamese sales girls are much more aggressive than they are in thailand. we blundered through the shirts for sale area. the girls would actually grab my hand and pull me towards their booth, aking me what i want to buy- nice shirts, t-shirts, polo-shirts. they love my purple hair. a bit difficult to pull away from them. and if you stop to ask prices, and then don't buy, some of them will play 'angry' with you- "why you ask me how much if you not buy anything?!" "go away"! most of them aren't so intense, but they are more active about trying to get you to stop, and buy if you do stop. things are a bit more expensive her than thailand. bottle of water that is 25 cents in thailand is 75 cents here etc. food on the street is about a dollar fifty for noodles, where i's less than a dollar in thailand.

we finally got to the zoo. rather a minor zoo actually, a few bored animals, some big trees, walkways. the orangutan in a big cage was a hoot. if you thru something to him, like a banana or a leaf, he'd reach thru the bars and throw it back at you. sometimes after he slobbered all over it. we wandered around in an anticquities museum for a while- you know, old busted pots and bits of wood and such.

we took a couple of motorbike taxie's back... quite a thrilling ride. it's kind of like those microsopic movies of blood cells flowing thru capularies, all rushing along nearly bumping into each other, but no body does. there are millions of motorbikes in vietnam. and no pick-up trucks, unlike thailand, where the small pickup is the normal "car". when we got off the bikes and were walking back to our hotel, we passed a girl whom i bought a couple of books from the first night. i'd told her to let me know if she ran across one of my favoirte street sellers i met last time- a gir named Behai. when How saw us, she waved and Behai came across the street. it was nice to see her. she's as charming as ever, and still the sweet coniver. i gave her a couple of dollars for dinner and promised to see her again.

we had a nap for a couple hours, got some noodles on the street and went walking again. there is a long park in between two big streets near here. lots of young couples hang our on the sidewalks next to the road. seems a big date in saigon is to goto the park with your girl and sit on your motorbike, watching people going by. there were a couple of pavillioins in the middle, people were learning to ballroom dance. fun to watch.

the night market wasn't much different than the day market, it's just dark above us, and a bit cooler. we walked some more. semi-wandered into a travel booking shop, one of a hundred around here, and ended up buying two tickets to Me Mui and Na Trang, so we're getting out of the city tommorow. figure it out from there. $5.00 for a 4 hour bus ride.

onward!!! Nu

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090309 Thaikarl - Greetings from Vietnam!

2009-03-09T06:55:00.001-07:00

friends, we got up early, took the 6 hour bus ride to mochit in bangkok, hour by taxi to the airport, and flew to vietnam. as per my usual, we didn't have a plan, or pre-booking. we just showed up at the airport.

and figured it out.

taxi took us to, were weren't sure where for how much- 120,000 vietnamese Dong. what is that in dollars now? oh about 8... to... to... as it turns out, right to the area where i was the last time i was here. which was good, cause i vaquely know my way around. we walked down a narrow alley filled with restaruants and mini-hotels, and just because, we took a room on the fifth floor for $13.00/night. a bit fancier than i like- it has aircon, tv and fridge, so we'll wall around and downgrade tommarrow. got some food, water, and we're walking around.

i like vietnam. it's very busy, zillions of motorbikes and things going on. it just feels good here. Tok hasn't decided yet. be we did have some noddles and pork which was to her liking so we're off to a good start. things are a little more expensive than 4 years ago- jeez, it's been that long.

tommorow we figure out what to do next. i want to get out of saigon this time. plenty of booking shops for tours, travel, buses, etc. whull find something interesting i'm sure.

onward!!!!

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090308 Thaikarl - FANG LUUK NIMIT

2009-03-08T05:28:00.001-07:00

friends, today we got up early and went to a FANG LUUK NIMIT, which is the dedication ceremony for the most beautiful building in a thai temple area. the building is called a Bot (sounds like 'boat') and is the most sacred part of a temple.

they have these large round stones called Sima that they drop into holes around the Bot to mark the boundaries. the stones get gold leaf touched to them before they are dropped in the holes. later they build these structures over the boundry stones.

i'll have to go over the details in a later post, as we have to get our stuff together to goto vietnam tomorrow. leaving at 6am.

there were some hundreds of people there. they had a new monks ceremony afterwards where young guys enter the monastery. we were with some friends/relatives of Toks. we rode out there in a pickup truck.

i met a Norwegian guy named harold who has been living here ten years. im going to try to find his house and visit when i come home next time.

one of the women in our group told us there was a big old tree nearby. we walked down the road and visited the thing- it was huge. hollow inside. very cool! and of course, there was lots of food!

varnished two more rows under the house today. i'll have it done in another week at this rate- when we come back.

i've created a YouTube video channel for Thai Country Life where i'll post just videos from here. the address is:

http://www.youtube.com/thaicountrylife there's only two vids there now, but more to come.

talk to you from vietnam next!

ONWARD! Nu

Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090302 Thaikarl - a pleasant sunday

2009-03-01T20:00:00.001-08:00

friends,
i have a project i'm wanting to work on in our back yard. i want to build a shower/steam room. just a walled space, about 4 feet high, open top, with a small doorway and a a drained floor. i can shower outside, and if i have a steam generator or some sort, i can pull a cover over the space and have a steam room. but how to make a steam generator? commercial ones cost mega-bux, i don't need anything high tech: fire; water; steam.

tok said she knew a temple down the road where she could take me that has a steam room and we could go look at how they made it. cool! so i dressed up a little and we took the motorbike about 5km south to a temple i had not been to before. the monks at this temple specialize in making herbs and barks for vitalizing teas. behind the herb house was a bamboo mat hut, and their steam generator. simple. i can do that! except i'll likely use propane instead of wood.

i looked around the temple grounds. a monk was opening the doors to the main building and invited me inside. beautiful paintings cover the walls, telling the story of the budda. i always have lots of questions - whats this? what is that? why do they do that? what does this say? Tok is pretty good about answering me, except when the concepts involved stretch her language skill. some of the things, and the reasons behind them are rather esoteric, and to a native buddist, they have seen this stuff all their life. the why's and wherefore's and how come's are lost back in the school days, now it is IS.

we went up the road a little ways to the Kao Kho park, and went up to the Than Thrip water falls. a pleasant place. not a lot of water coming over the falls, as it is the dry season. i'ts only rained once in several months. I'd love to come back here in the rainy season july-august when there's tons of water and everything is green and lush. going into the path to the falls, a falang was coming out. i stopped to talk with him. his name is hank, he's from netherlands. he used to live in sitard, which is 20 km north of where we used to live in holland. he and his wife have a gas station in a village about 20 km north of us. very nice guy. we'll go up and visit sometime. on the way back, we had lunch are a roadside place, sitting in a sala beside a big fish pond.

when we got home, i opted for the hammock, and my book. but eventually, it cooled off enough that i went out back to work on my shower stall area. i had to remove an old stump, at least low enough to be below the concrete floor. took me an hour and a half wacking at it with and hatchet to whittle it down. HARD wood. really pissed off the little termites that (used) to live inside.

next monday we goto vietnam! onward!!!!

Nu

090226 Thaikarl - visited by the shaman

2009-02-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

friends,

the "longsan" or spirit women (i probably have the word unclear) came this morning. it is so interesting to watch the ceremony. the women has a whole ritual she does to get ready, then appears to go into 'trance' or open state, and can answer questions, help with illness diagnosis and treatment and i'm not sure what else. i video'd about 15 minutes on my casio camera, but the quality is pretty low, i'll post it later non-the-less. to be present at such things is a treat, a joy, a rarity, and one of the marvelous things i have access to being married to a thai women from the country. i'm going to figure out a better video camera for the next time i come home so i can get these things recorded properly. i still have my mini-dv video camera, but video tapes are so.... so... analog, and requires too much stuff to lug around. casio is coming out with a new model of camera that takes HD video, so when i upgrade to that camera, i may have a solution. my single battery died after 15 minutes of video. casio batteries last for hundreds of photos, but video sucks electrons highly.

the couple of bits i gleaned - meaning they were translated to me -were that i will be living in thailand in a couple of years, in bangkok, working there. and that Tok and i are indeed, soul mates. imagine that!

it's a bit warm up here in the bedroom house where the computer is, so i'm going outside to varnish the underside of this house. more...

090224 Thaikarl - where am i? it rained today.

2009-02-24T06:45:00.001-08:00

friends,

it is so wonderful to be home. sitting at the keyboard and typing just hasn't been one my my things to do so far.

we had a good few days in bangkok. i had composed a long post relating the details, then i crashed firefox and lost it. oh well. most important task after shopping was to get my visa for vietnam. had to leave my passport at the consulate over the weekend, but it was all ready to go on monday. i brought my steinberger guitar with me in my carry-on. it had an electrical problem when i bought it off ebay, so i got it for a good price. took it to a shop in ratcatewei and the fixed it and set up the strings for 15.00. would have cost me a hundred dollars or more in the states. no luck finding strings for it tho, went to 6 different shops. almost no luck finding a 7.5 volt power supply for the clock/radio i brought. some things in thailand are just impossible to find. in the states i'd just goto radio shack. finally found an adapter that would work at a street vendor in china town, for 1.25 USD. after all that, it was off to the Mo chit bus station to go home.

wonderful doesn't cover the feeling to come down our driveway... been some improvements around the place. more will be revealed...

cares, NU

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090214 Thaikarl Happy Valentines Day from Bangkok!

2009-02-14T05:35:00.001-08:00

friends,

arrived. re-assimilation takes a couple of days. recalling all the little and not so that being home is about... foot high curbs, sidewalks and ways with holes and chunks in them, look right when crossing the street, roaches the size of your thumb dashing for cover in the alleys at night, thai women of impossible cuteness, the musical language, the fresh exhaust air of Bangkok, foods of all kinds available everywhere at all hours, automatically spicy food, sticky rice, hard beds, incomprehensible television, the difficulty of finding a specific item- like a 7.5 volt, 1800 mA powersupply, or double ball strings for a steinberger guitar,- the sun shine, the temperature reversal- it's cool INSIDE buildings, warm when you step outside, kids fill the internet shops playing fantasy role games... so so many things that get refreshed and familiar and loved and grokked.

tok was waiting for me at the airport, i was so happy to see her, she is just as beautiful to me as ever, more so. this valentines day is the one year anniversary of our civil union, so we slept in late this morning, had breakfast from room service, something we've never done before, and only left the hotel because the staff really wanted to get in to clean the room. and of course, we went shopping. er, well, Tok went shopping, i pretty much just follow her around the pratunam clothing market and occasionally give my opinion on which color or style is nicer. and i carry the bags. like her 'body guard' she just said. tee hee.

i tell her: "there's no place else i'd rather be, than here with you, and you with me."

onward! NU
--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

090210 Thaikarl - Fixing to go home.

2009-02-10T16:55:00.001-08:00

friends,

this time tomorrow i'll be way out over the pacific in a cozy sleep inside a giant aluminum tube. and as you might imagine, i'm very happy about that. it's been snowing the last two days in seattle. not much, but it's sticking on the grass. it's in the hight 80's in thailand. and sunny.

it always seems like such a long journey just to get to the fly-away point. fixing stuff, painting, drywall, repairs, digging holes, patching, drilling, building stuff for my clients... pays the few bills i have, takes care of the family back home, and when some consistant jobs show up i suddenly have enough for a plane ticket and life away from the state. i want to thank those clients who keep me busy, it's your contribution that makes it possible. you know who you are! THANKS!!!

i actually got everything put away, bags packed and i'm nearly ready to go. somehow i had it in my head that i was flying out on TUESDAY. but tuesday was the 10th, my ticket is for the 11th. so i was like nearly a day ahead of myself!

i'll keep the emails/blogposts coming.

cares, NU

090107 Finally! Flight plan is filed

2009-01-08T12:41:00.001-08:00

friends,

i this this song "I'm going Home" going thru my head. why? because i am! thanks to a intense run of work, i had enough to buy a ticket home. leaving february 11th. woo hooooooo!!! my return is scheduled for only 6 weeks later, but if i win the lotto (and yes, i buy tickets) or have some good work happening in the next month, i can extend my stay. i have to have about a thousand dollars in my pocket for every month i am overseas, to take care of the family, daily life, and to pay for my expenses back in the USA. so, six weeks is all i can count on, and i'll be coming back broke at that, but oh well, what the hell! things always work out.

round trip ticket on asiana airlines was only 860$ USD. quite a deal, last trip the airfare was 1200$ USD. getting a good price on an airline ticket is a hit and miss voodoo art. it's such a weird system. you can go online the next day, and the same airline, for a similar trip will show 2500$

Tok took mama to the hospital in phetchaboon yesterday to have her blood and kidney checked out. they will know more in a month, but it appears she's okay for now, they've given her medications, and they want to wait to see how that goes.

i'm quite thrilled to be going back, as you might imagine. it will be soooo good to get home to tok and everybody, not to mention the warmth, the food and the utter strangeness that is thailand. we are hoping i can cash up and have a small trip out of thailand. i'd like to take tok to vietnam. i was there just before i met her four years ago, and i have wanted to go back ever since. i have a young friend there, and i'd like to see him again, and get out of Ho Chi Min City... beaches perhaps??? it's only 300$ to fly there from bangkok for two, and a couple of hundred bucks to have a time for a week. overland would be much cheaper, but takes a couple of days on buses, and i don't think we can afford the extra days away from mama and teri. whullll seeeee. even if we don't get to go, it will just be nice to hang out at our house in lomsak, and go down to our house in ban chang for a few days.

good new year to yall!
Nu

081223 Thaikarl - beneath the snows of seattle

2008-12-24T00:59:00.001-08:00

friends,

i'm still in seattle. the past two weeks we've had snow, cold, more snow, cold, more snow, and now they are saying, even more snow. my thought on the subject can be summed up in the famous words: "bah, humbug!" I won't bore you with complaints. i did make a vow to myself, as i was trudging thru the snow coming back from parking my car, that i will not spend another winter in a cold place.

on the other side of the world, thailand, and Tok, mama and tere and every thing i love there is still moving right along. i feel like a goalie on the wrong hockey team, madly fighting of swarms of players on this side of the ice, but the net i'd rather be standing in front of is way across the blue line of the pacific. wow, i just used a sports metaphor. i rarely do that.

i've had a couple of good runs of good work the last few months. earned enough to get caught up on my expenses, and send enough overseas to finally get sealer on our bedroom house, have a reserve in the bank for payments on the house in Ban Chang, and provide for the family comfortably. Now i'm able to actually consider a trip back home.

Tok's 44th birthday was november 21. she never asks for anything, i had to ask several times for ideas. she finally said she'd like a new motorbike. the one she has now is 15 years old. still works, but it's showing it's age, and if it breaks seriously, she's going have a big problem, as it's the major transportation to the market and everywhere else. so with a generous matching gift from my dad and his wife, i sent her enough to purchase a nearly new motorbike- perhaps a year old, with warranty. then mama started showing some health problems. mama is about 75, and i didn't know it, but she has only one kidney. they removed the other one because of kidney stones some time ago, and it appears that her remaining kidney is acting up. we're not certain what the situation is, there are further diagnostic appointments coming up in the next few months, but Tok decided to put the motorbike money aside, in case mama has to have special tests and treatments in the near future. they don't have anything like health insurance. the government subsidies the health care, and compared to here, even major treatments for illness cost very little, but it is still an expense we have to account for. mama is doing okay at the moment, they have her on some medications that are helping the symptoms, so it's a 'wait and see' thing.

Tok seemed pretty worried at first, but then she perked up, saying "I am Iron Woman" which is a little joke we had going a while ago. then she said "but sometimes i am Paper Women." so, she is pretty self-aware of handling the situation. Mama's medical issues presented me with an interesting ethical question. given this very simplified sequence of events: say that mama's kidney is failing. she will need dialysis or a transplant. transplant is not an option. dialysis costs $150.00 per visit. say she needs it once a month to start, but over time, the frequency of need increases, twice a month, every week etc. since i am pretty much the sole support of the family, and mama is under my care, i will be covering the costs. so i'm thinking, an extra $150 a month i can handle pretty easy, $300 a month is stretching it, $600 a month is beyond my present means. so, at some point i have to in effect say "sorry, we can't pay for anymore treatments". and she'll die. note that this is a simplified scenario, we don't know if her kidney is truly failing, and that the treatment will escalate as i laid it out, but bear with me. in the west we have the "keep people alive at any cost" ethic, bankrupt the family, burn up every ones insurance dollars, do absolutely everything you can to keep a person living as long as possible, while you still can. but i wondered what the thai ethic about this was. i asked tok. first she asked if i meant what would rich thai people do? i said no, i mean us. she said that basically, you do what you can, and that's it. she told me the thai word for it. it sounds like you do what is practical, spend what money you can afford without depleting the lives of others, and let it go from there. which makes sense, since they generally see death as a transition from this life to the next, it's not THE END. Tok told me she discussed what to do with mama, and mama said that we shouldn't spend all our money on treatments, because we wouldn't have anything left for a funeral - which costs about $2000. the funeral is important, because it prepares the stage for meeting your ancestors, and it celebrates your life this time around. at least that is my best interpretation of the event.

so we'll continue, see what happens, and deal with it when it comes up.

meanwhile, it's snowing. again. oh yeah, and it'll be Xmas next tomorrow. hope it's a good one for ya.

onward! Nu

080902 Thaikarl - the bogs of seattle

2008-09-02T01:16:00.001-07:00

friends,

still bogged down in seattle. i've had work and income over the last few months, but it seems to go right out the door as fast as it comes in. Tok and i have decided that were going to have to postpone the buddist wedding (again). we had it scheduled for november 11, 2008, but it's evident that i'm just not going to have the resources to pull it off. so, it will be... later. you marry three times in thailand- if you go the whole route. 1st is common-law: if you live with a person of opposite sex, and are known in the community as being married- you are. 2nd is buddist ceremony: you have the monks come and do the what-ever-they-do and have a wedding party. 3rd is to register civil union with the government: goto the local amphor (government district office) fill out the papers, pay $5.00 or so and get the papers and stamps. we've done 1st and 3rd, so we're good on 2 out of three. we decided that it was more useful at the moment to spend our money to the the bedroom house painted (stained) and send in the application for toks immigration. staining the house is about $500, and filing the immigration papers is $600 plus plus plus. THEN i can put the cash together for a plane ticket and life expenses to go home for a few months. whew!

at the moment, tok is at our house in rayong. she located a norwegian man online for her friend mot, acted as the go-between online, and now he has come to thailand for holiday and to meet mot. they spend nearly a week in bangkok, and are now in rayong. some friends of mine from seattle were in thailand the last three weeks of august on their honey moon. they came back to bangkok last week after going to phuket, and met up with tok. tok took them out for food and the market. if any of you readers come to thailand, we're glad to be helpful. just let us know. our house in rayong is available for supporting donation or whatever. and tok is only a phone call away.

there's all sorts of social/political trouble and noise going on in bangkok now (SNAFU). several people have asked if tok and the family are anywhere near it. no they aren't. tok has the sense to NOT go anywhere near protests and unrest. outside of a few specific areas of bangkok, it's not a problem.

we miss each other very much. this long distance thing is getting to be a drag, but, it is the best we can do at the moment. we've been using Skype for video, voice and chat, which is nice. works quite well actually. tok has to sit up in the bedroom house where the computer is though, and it gets warm (hot) up there in the day time. but i's free to use.

a friend of many years lives done in the san-francisco area. he's working on a computer related business, that has a good business model. he's asked me if i want to be part of the company, which i am excited about, but the company is in california, and i'm here. so i'm planning on going down there when work slows down here. i'm going to get my van running properly, put a penthouse on the roof and go down with all my tools. check out the business and see if i can help it become a revenue generator for me. if i can get handy-man work going, i'll stay down there for a while. stay tuned for that one.

we had a couple of weeks of nice weather in seattle, and then a little preview of it's like the rest of the year- grey, cold, and wet. since i've been converted to a tropical weather lover, i'm not digging it. california offers a bit of relief, so i'm working on getting there before the dread falls.

onward! NU

First Photo Ever

2008-07-08T23:24:00.001-07:00

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

080602 Thaikarl - where is he now? why so quiet?

2008-06-02T13:19:00.001-07:00

friends,

yes, i'm back in the USA. the transition is dreary, but i can't complain. well, actually i could, but it's the same old complaint so why bother? i've been fortunate to have been quite busy with jobs since i returned, and i have other things lined up for the next couple of weeks. got caught up on some "past due" notices, sent money to the family in thailand so they aren't living on fumes. and i'm looking forward to returning home, probably in october as our wedding is November 11th.

speaking of wedding stuff. a number of people have expressed interest in coming to thailand for our wedding, and to have a little vacation there. this is wonderful! november is a good time of year for thailand- the weather is cooler, and the rainy season is finishing. if you are considering coming to thailand, please email me, i will make a separate email list for possible wedding guests. if you turns out that you can't actually come for the wedding, that's okay. we realize it can be difficult to get the money together and get time off work for those of you who have, like regular jobs. i can answer questions, offer travel and hotel tips etc. we are planning to be as helpful as possible- we can come to bangkok to retrieve visitors, set up accommodations in the area according to your tastes, suggest things to do and places to go whilst you are in country. so email me back and i'll get the list started and i'll post a info page on my website.

i miss tok, and thailand very much. we've been using Skype lately, because it has audio AND video - and it's free. works pretty well actually, just like the video-phones we were promised in the future. our DSL connection in the village is a bit flakey, and i suspect the ISP throttles down the bandwith, so tok has to reconnect with me fairly often but it's not that much of an interrruption. we are used to it from all our daily phone calls. i use a calling card from nobelcom.com, when i call her the call is routed thru local phone systems, and all sorts of computer systems, into the cloud and back down to her mobile phone, so we get garbled signals, bad sound, wrong numbers, failure to connect issues all the time. but the calls are cheap - about 20 hours talk time for 20 dollars for the USA to thailand mobile phone cards. but Skype is free.

i'm presently staying at my sisters in north seattle. but i'm looking to get more self-contained and mobile. gasoline is getting to be a big issue. i'm looking for the right van, camper, or small mobile home so i can have a place to live, be near where i'm working, and spend as little as possible to live here. after all, i am only here to make money to go back home to live in thailand! so every dollar i save here, is another dollar for thai country life!

onward!

080415 Thaikarl - the "world traveler" screws up.

2008-04-15T06:15:00.001-07:00

friends. yall are going to laugh at me. my ticket with korean air was for departing april 15th. it said "depart 01:30 local time"
so tok and i got the van to the airport this morning, and arrived at 10:30. very early. there's not much traffic on the roads because today is songkran day. my flight wasn't listed on the departure board. the Korean Air counter was silent. ???? i told tok we were just too early, they haven't posted the flight yet. we hung around a while. still no listing. it began to dawn on me that something was wrong.

a helpful "airport helper" asked where i was going. i told him, and he said the counter opened at 8 o'clock tonight. huh? he looked at my ticket, and pointed out, that "01:30" is One Thirty A.M- you know, at night, in the morning. Not 1:30 PM- in the afternoon. that would be 13:30 on the ticket.

oh, yeah. that's true isn't it.
duh.

i missed the flight by 9 1/2 hours. the "airport helper" said his company can sort it out for me for 1,000 baht. (30$) i actually thought he said 10,000 bath ($300.00) but i didn't bother to sort that one out. fortunately there was a local phone number on a placard at the Korean Air counter. after spelling out my last name with the NOT military word spelling "that is B as in Bangkok, E as in Europe, T as in Thailand .... etc the Korean air ladie told me i was lucky, i have a confirmed flight out at 01:30 on april 17th. she reminded me that i needed to check in at 11pm, tomarrow night, as tomorrow is the 16th, and to not miss this flight, as my ticket expires and i will have no ticket out if i miss the plane. that would be bad.

and, in the fortunate category, my visa extension is good thru midnight of the 17th. Whew! don't want to overstay your visa. not good karma, and there is the 500 baht per day over-stay fine- which i don't have.

Tok came back from the ATM, and i had to tell her my screw-up. she DID say she wanted more time in bangkok. she took it well. teased me about my saying the flight wasn't listed on the departure board because we there so early. so we took the bus back to bangkok, which incidentally cost 1.10$, went back to the hotel 99 and got the same room as last night, #259. they didn't even have to fill out a registration card, cause we were just there a couple of hours ago.

i check the ticket 10 times in the last few days. and got floozed because america doesn't use 24 hour time. this is what, the second or third time i have missed the plane leaving bangkok. evidently something in my brain gets all clouded over when it comes to leaving here.

so we took a nap and took the bus to pratunam market. most of the shops were closed for sonkran day (which is today) but there were some cloths vendors open on the small soi's in the area. Tok was looking for bargins for cloths, and found a few things for 2 and three dollars each. shirts and tops and things. we took the bus over to MBK shopping mall, and walked over to Siam Paragon Mall. We watched the last half hour of the movie "Apocalypto" in a big screen plasma monitor in the window at the Sony shop. There's an apple computer store in the mall there, i went in to see the new MacBook Air - the worlds thinnest notebook computer. too cool for words.

so here we are. i used the ATM to take out $30.00 from my bank, now the balance is LESS than that, to pay for the extra night in the hotel and food. it was pretty warm today. 95 degrees F and 45% humidity at 9:30 this morning when we went for breakfast, and that was in the shaded front of the shop. there are still groups of people ready to assault you with water. you have to get around them, or get wet. songkran would be a good time for a car-wash business! they douse cars, and buses and people with this oily water with what appears to be talcum powder in it. washes off easily, but every vehicle has splatters all over it.

and due to pressing obligations, like getting back to work, my "recovery time" is going to like 1/2 a day. we are pretty much going to lay around the hotel tomorrow i guess so i'll have to get "un jetlagged" before i leave even.

but i get to hand out with Tok in Bangkok for more than a whole extra day! so it's not all bad.

Onward. (again!) see ya on the 17th!
Nu and Tok

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

080414 Thaikarl - departure time, for now anyway.

2008-04-13T18:31:00.001-07:00

friends,
i'ts that time. i dread these days. departure days. tok has been quiet the last couple of days. i always think she is annoyed with me, but now i'm knowing that she is feeling the pre-seperation also. we take the early bus to bangkok tomorrow morning, do a few last minute things, night over at our favorite bangkok hotel 99 and i fly out middle of the next day. due to flying east, crossing the dateline and all that, i arrive in seattle the same day i left, at nearly the same time, but some 22 hours will have past.

thanks to everyone who replied to my long essay about home. i didn't realize it was that long until i printed it out for tok to read on the bus tommarow.

i sure made a mis-calculation on the departure time. because i had some jobs to finish, i delayed my original travel dates by one week. not an issue on the going away time, but i am leaving right at the Sonkran holiday. Songkran is the thai new year, and a time when traditionally they honored the old people, and sprinkled water on each other to celebrate the new year and coming rains. now it's turned into the biggest water fight in the world. still great fun, but getting doused with water all day gets wearysome. we don't have the energy to do much with it this year. the butterfly gang- what i call the kids from the neighboorhood set up beside the road and were dousing passing cars and motorbikes with bowels of water. they waved me over, but, i had to collect my things, and wasn't up for it. oh well, next year! i should have setback the trip by two weeks, or even just 10 days. duh.

there was a significant event last night, the death of a neighbor. it was so intense, i don't want to compose the story in a hurry- we have to go get the car to the bus station - so i'll write it up and send it later. actually, i have plenty of material for more posts. we had some adventures that i didn't write about yet- our first trip to rayong, going to the budda footprint mountain, going to tak bun, where some boys entered the monastery, the water blessing by the Lang chong. and i took some 2500 photos, only a few of which i posted. so i'll keep posting over time. until i can return here.

i will have a little time to check in before i leave tomorrow.

Onward!

Nu and Tok
--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

080412 Thaikarl - Where's home, anyway?

2008-04-12T02:32:00.001-07:00

friends,

a while ago, someone left the following comment to my blog:

you are a man with two countries. when you refer to Thai as home you abandon all this country does for you. may I suggest you refer to your home as something else. your family still lives in this home. homey....however you are free to say what you want in this country so home away if you like....

I've thought about this comment for some time. and I do have a response. a long version and a short one. if you don't want to read thru the long version, scroll down to the bottom of this post and you'll find the short version.

The LONG response.

yes, I am a man of two countries. I hold an american passport, I am still an american citizen, and will continue to be. my future wife, is Thai, and she lives in Thailand. I have chosen to be responsible for her care, and for her mother and daughter. so I am very much connected to Thailand also.

even if I lived here for many years, it is unlikely that I would qualify for Thai citizenship, since good command of the thai language is one of the requirements. so I couldn't change citizenship, even if I wanted to. even if I did, I would NEVER BE Thai. I will always be american. no matter what passport I carry. just like in america. even if you, your father, his father and his father and his father have lived in america since their births, if the most distant father came from asia, or africa, or the middle east, you will be labeled asian, african, middle eastern. we simply tack the word 'american' behind it. unlike europeans. only several generations ago my ancestors came from germany and italy. but I am not called german-american, or itialian-american. there was a time and place, where these delineations were in common use, but today, and all of my life, I have been simply "american". I will always look different that Thai people. such is as it is.

so where is "home"? we all know the saying "home is where the heart is" is this true? or is home the birthplace, the growing up place, the place you "settle down"? the place you retire? the place you die? I had the fortune to be born into a military family. I was born in Massachusetts, live in colorado, california (where my earliest memories are) then france, several places in germany, dayton ohio - longest we ever stayed in one place, 6 years- the netherlands. I left home at 18, lived in ohio, florida, louisiana, colorado, ohio again, colorado again until finally moving to seattle washington. my birth family moved to the seattle area when my father retired. but only my father had ever been there. he chose to retire in seattle because he liked the area and had friends from the air force there. his birth family lived in new jersey. my brothers and sisters, who spent the larger part of their growing up years in seattle, consider seattle as "home" now. so where's my "home"? I have lived in seattle area since 1979, some 25 years. my birth family all live there now. which is a bit extraordinary since there are 7 children in the family, and in the mobile life of america, where people go where they need to for education, jobs, climate, the fact that we all live in the same 30 mile radius is notable. but it is the result of everyone choosing to be there. one of mybrothers went to california after college, because that's where the opportunities were for him. after many years there, and numerous forced changes of company, he finally moved back to the seattle area.

my time living in europe did change me. it gave me a much different perspective, much different experiences than stateside kids. I don't presume to say my international childhood was better, but it was different. even then, we lived within the world of the military, were they bring as much of america to you as they can. we shopped at the Base exchange where we could buy american food and goods. we lived in base housing with other americans. except in the netherlands, because my father was attached to a NATO base, the high school I graduated from was an international school. the kids were from USA, canada, england, germany. and I had friends in all those classes. we lived in a house on what we used to call "the economy", which meant that we lived in a normal dutch house, that was leased for us by the military. so our neighbors and the town we lived in was all dutch people. and you know something? I liked it. there was something about being in places, having friends, that were just DIFFERENT than me. of course, there were similarities common to all people, we like to have fun, liked the opposite sex, went to school, had families and hopes and dreams, just like anyone in world.

so, that was then. I had the "want to travel" idea, like many people. but I didn't know how to do that. finally I had the chance in 2002, when I had a job that was paying me way more money than I was used to. I had two weeks vacation, so I decided to go around the world. 1 day in amsterdam, a week in india, 3 days in bangkok. the rest of the time was travel time. and I loved it. especially india, and my 3 days in bangkok were magical. so when the big pay job ended, I had some thousands in the bank, and my first thought after reading the lay-off letter was: "I'm free!" and I went around the world again- this time 2 weeks in europe, where my sister and I visited all the places we lived as kids, more than two months in india, and three weeks in Thailand. when you go somewhere for a weeks vacation, or even two weeks, you have hardly even landed in a place before it's time to go back. when you have two months to explore a smidgen of india, you land, and start to actually BE there after a month. and after nearly three months circumnavigating the globe, I came back to america, and for months and months all I could think about was "I want to see more- I want to know more"

I went back to Thailand a couple more times. the forth landing, as I was walking thru the airport, smelling the air, feeling the warmth, seeing the workers in the airport- filled with you, excitement, anticipation, adventure- I decided. I want to live here. that is what I want. that is what I'm going to do. somehow, someway. I was kind of startled to have even had these thoughts. but I distinctly remember how I felt the last time I got off the plane in seattle returning from Thailand. I felt like: "okay, I'm back in seattle. it's kinda cold here. um, have to get some work going." that was it. I still like seattle, I like being near my family, I like the familiarity, the country, the social contacts and the history I have there. I can talk with strangers, read the signs, high-speed internet, intelligible TV. it's all there. and it is lovely. but again when I am there in seattle, all I could think about is going back. what about cambodia? what about vietnam? what about northern india, egypt, turkey... what about those places, those people, that life there?

I went to cambodia, loved it. I went to vietnam. loved it there too. but as fate would have it, I met a Thai women. before I took my forth trip, I got online and tried to make friends in Thailand, cambodia and vietnam. I wanted to meet native people there, visit them, see their homes and how they lived. I was successful. I met a young guy in cambodia, and another young man in vietnam. they took me around, introduced me to their friends, took me out to see things, eat the food, exchange ideas and information about our countries. the Thai women, once I actually met her was just a really nice person. I discovered, I really really liked her. after our visit, she want back to the city where her teaching job was, and i went off elsewhere. I missed her, and called her to see if she could take some time off from her teaching job and hang out with me. and I began to fall in like, and then in love with her. oh, I asked myself all the usual questions: What's going on here? Do I really want this? Can this work? etc etc. I even did the very american thing, and came here and spent months together with her. you know "getting to know her" and as they say, everyday, in every way, it just got better and better. I wanted to marry her after a week. but I did the "proper" american thing, and waited three months to ask her.

three months in a place is enough time for the "I'm on holiday" fog to thin out. it's enough time, for me anyway, to get a sense of "this is what it's like to live day-to-day ordinary life here". I loved it. and more importantly, I liked it. you can love someone, or something and not like them or it. when you have both, you have something special going on.

when I returned to seattle after my sixth trip, I gave my apartment over to my room mate, I'd already sold my major assets- even my beloved triumph motorcycles - and had a house built for us next to her house. I lived at my sisters and brothers while working to save the money to come back here for this trip.

so, my house is here in Thailand. the women I am married to is here in Thailand. I don't even have a residence in america, but I have a residence book here. I love the food here, the climate (especially), the culture- what I can understand of it, and even what I don't understand- the fauna and flora, I feel happy, content, energized, and calm here. so you tell me... where is my "home"?

the dictionary entry in Answers.com defines "Home" as: http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=home&gwp=13

1. A place where one lives; a residence.
2. The physical structure within which one lives, such as a house or apartment.
3. A dwelling place together with the family or social unit that occupies it; a household.
4. 1. An environment offering security and happiness.
2. A valued place regarded as a (a)refuge or (b)place of origin.
5. The place, such as a country or town, where one was born or has lived for a long period.

Note that "place of origin" doesn't appear until 4.2(b), and home as a birthplace or place you have lived a long time doesn't appear until 5.

Definitions 1, 2, and 3, are each portable- a residence, physical structure and a dwelling can refer to where you are at any time. So by definition, if I am at our house in Thailand, or sleeping in my sisters den, or in my van, that is home. The key definitions are "an environment offering security and happiness", and "...a refuge..." If you ask me where in the world those definitions are satisfied for me, I have to answer "Thailand". There is a problem here of course. I have had residences, physical structures and dwelling places with social units, that have, at times, NOT offered security and happiness or refuge. In my philosophy of life (sic), those attributes come from within my own self. It is up to me to decide if those attributes exist in any given location. I think it goes back to the saying, "...where the heart is." I believe that is independent of the dictionary definitions.

Have I "abandoned" america and "all it does for me"??? as I have stated, I am still an american citizen. my passport allows me free entry back to the USA anytime I like. and like it or not, I will be returning to america often, because I can make more money faster there. that is one thing america does for me, and I am not so wealthy that I can escape that. of course this means long separations from my wife and her family, and my home here. but, that is what we choose to do. I could take a job here teaching english, but all the english teachers I know here can't save enough money to buy a ticket back to their original county. and I need to build up some kind of future support for myself and my wife. so everything 'america does for me' is still right there, and still important in my life. and if I were to get into some kind of trouble here or other places, it would be the american embassy who I would turn to for assistance.

Have I "abandoned" anything? it is a matter of perspective. true, the last thing you will see of me will be my back as I get on a plane to leave for Thailand. I do go away from america. put simplistically, there are two reasons for making a move - to get away from something, or to GO TO something else. simplistically, either you are running away, or running towards. which reason you are using as motivation for movement is up to you. you cannot goto another place, with out leaving the place you are now! I have a nephew who was born and raised in north seattle, washington state. he now lives in arizona. he has friends there, a place to live, and will be going to school for two years. he says he loves it there. his mother and father, and his siblings live in seattle. did he "abandon" everything he has in seattle to live in arizona? Did he "abandon" everything the state of washington, his family and city does for him? it's interesting that we don't think of moving to another state as abandoning. but, moving to another country, and calling it "home" is perceived by some as an abandonment. but you cannot go anywhere, without leaving some place behind.

Thailand, is my home.

The SHORT response.

Home, as they say, is where the heart is. My heart is in Thailand. So, this IS my home.

Onward!

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

080408 Thaikarl - Bob Bumble Bee

2008-04-07T20:39:00.001-07:00

friends,
scroll down an view the pictures first, then read.
The yellow and black creature is Bob. Bob Bumble Bee. I asked Bob what his name is. He said "Bob". "And DON'T call me Buzz. I hate that." he added. Bob has decided to live in our bedroom house. Notice i didn't say he has decided to live WITH us, no, he has actually decided he wants to live IN our house. Literally. He's gnawing a hole underneath one of the rafters on the porch. you can see in the third photo, that like house building contractors everywhere, Bob leaves his wood dust on the ground. Doesn't bother too sweep up. I asked Bob about this, he said "I'm a house builder, not a janitor".

I said to Bob ""Of all the wood joints in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine." He said, "That sounds familiar, where did you get that from?" I said i got it from a bumble bee named Bogart. "Oh, Bogart's a bad bumble bee, buddy, better be booking a bus ticket and bailing out on Bogart Bee." Bob said "Why not build here? Wood is easy to nibble off, it's under a roof and i like it here."

Of course my wife wasn't to happy to see Bob. First thing she does is takes a broom and wacks at him. "He's makeing a hole in the house!" The locals see bugs like Bob as a nuisance when they decide to live IN your house. I tried to get her to promise that she wouldn't kill Bob or scare him off. "What for?" she says. "Why you need a hole in the wood? I will be not strong!" much to practical she is. She sorta promised. But i have a feeling that when i go back to the states next week, Bob's lease will be terminated. I'll have to work on her some more.

Meanwhile, as i'm working on sanding the porch rails to prep for a little stain, i have too mind that i don't bug Bob. He gets alarmed when i bang around and get too close. He'll drop off the rafter and buzz around - oh sorry, i promised him i wouldn't use that word - he'll fly around assessing the threat level. i stand very still. My wife tells me that if Bob were to bite me that would be very bad. my hand would swell up big as a bell, and become inflamed and burden me with pain. So i'm careful to appear to provide no threat.

He has some advanced GPS in his brain to find his hole. He swoops one way, hovers in the air, rotates, swoops another direction, hovers, rotates and swoops again. eventually, he locks on to the coordinates, establishes a pattern recognition profile of the exact location of his labors and using an amazing thrust vectoring system, flips inverted and "lands" upside down right at the door to his new home. Bob proceeds to stick his head into the hole and using jaws that i would NOT like to have clamped on my skin, starts making more wood chips, that fall to the floor beneath him.

I just went outside and checked. Bob is busy busting out the bits. He's head and thorax deep into his hole now. I'm curious as to how deep he's going to go, and what he's going to do when he decides it's deep enough. crawl in backwards and sip nectarade? Extrude eggs and make more Bobs? But wait, if he does that, the my assumption that Bob is male is backwards. Bob must be female to bust out eggs. So why did he/she tell me a masculine name like Bob? Maybe Bob is a lady-boy? Or a Tom? I forget which is which. Maybe Bob has a Betty out there in the wilds who's busy brooding baby Bobs, and demanded that Bob build a bungalow for her babies, and Bob took the job because Bob is a Best Boy and believes in being the best bee he can for his baby('s)

better bee stopping me now, because i have been to the behemoth box of "b" words and i can't be bludgeoned into stopping. it's beedicting.

#END
--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

080329 Thaikarl Thai massage, dentist and whups

2008-03-29T07:47:00.001-07:00

friends,

lots of new photos in the Picassa gallery for you to see. http://picasaweb.google.com/thaikarl/ThailandJanApr2008

for many years i was a very solid sleeper. didn't know what a nightmare was, never woke up in the night. my partners used to tell me i would mumble in my sleep sometimes, but otherwise, i was "dead to the world". changed somewhat in the last few years. don't know why. i'm much more active in my sleep, occasional nightmares, always different things. i talk and even shout in my sleep, and apparently thrash about and sleep in weird positions. and i will wake up for no apparent reason and lie awake for a while before going back to sleep. one thing that is very annoying is that i must be doing something in my sleep that throws my spine out of wack. i'll wake up with very low, middle, or upper back pain and that "out of place" feeling, with the associated muscle tension and cramping. i don't know what i'm doing to cause it. Tok said i was sleeping on my back with my knees up, and my legs would fall to the sides, sometimes knocking her and waking her up. then i'd put my knees together again, then fall to the sides. i've been pulling a loop of tied bandanna up over my theighs to keep my knees together at night to prevent that. what ever i'm doing, i woke up the other day with sharp pain and spasms in my lower left back and butt muscles. if i was sitting down or standing it was okay, but if i moved, walked or when i tried to roll over or skootch over in bed, i couldn't do it. sharp "poked my funny bone" nerve pains. made it difficult to climb down the ladder, or start the motorbike. got a little better as the day went on, but only if i was sitting up or standing.

Tok did some massage for me, which helped, but when it was going for the third day, she took me to the hospital massage clinic to have a real workup done. i was in there for 2 hours. one of the experienced ladies took over the job because i kept yelping. thai massage is like acupressure and yoga and torture all in one. they press with thumbs, elbows, knees, hands and feet. push your limbs into all sorts of stretching poses and lean on you some more. walk on you. push and pull. just when you think there can't possibly be any other way they can stretch, fold and spindle you, they will come up with another application. sometimes it's gentle, sometimes it's very hard, sometimes really hard - like when they stand on the back of your thighs and put the other foot on your back. 50kgs of thai women on your back makes an impression. when she was done, i still couldn't get off the table without wincing, so she went back at it, AND got hot towels to press on my spine and tail. i could get up without too much aggravation after that.

Tok came back from her massage and going to visit at a school and we went into the Hot Room. it's a sudatorium (steam room), with herbs in the mix so it smells like it's supposed to be good for you. i love steam rooms. 40 minutes in there and i was happy as cooked shrimp. then a shower and we left, feeling like a freshly cooked glass noodle. and the next morning when i woke up, lo and behold, i could roll over in bed and get up- carefully mind you, as i was still sensitive, as it were- but i got up and could walk right away. amazing. i have experienced more outright relief from pain, and disjointedness having had good thai massage than any of the standard swedish massage and physical therapy i've had before. it cost 200 baht for all. that's $6.50 folks. for all.

got my all fired up to build a combo shower and steam room behind the house, next to the jars where i shower. i'm thinking of a stucco'd and tiled walled enclosure, but only 5 feet high, with an insulated foam lid- like a hot tub cover- that hinges off the back. so when you want to shower you have am partially enclosed shower stall, lower than my shoulders and open to the sky. you still have the outdoor shower feeling. then for a steam, flip down the lid, drap a rubber curtain over the doorway and fire up the steamer. you can sit in the now enclosed steam room. when finished- fllip the lid back, and shower off. don't know how i'll make the steam yet. don't think i want to spend a bunch of money to buy a commercial steam generator. but i'll figure something out.

of course, i had to tell tok that the steam room would be AFTER staining the full moon house, and after making a stairs up to the house to replace the ladder we climb now, and after making the new roof and porch on the back of the existing house, and after we furbish the new house down in Rayong by the ocean, and after...... you get the idea.

i don't remember if i mentioned that i went to the dentist the last week. walked in, no appointment, no waiting, straight to the chair. she checked my teeth- no cavities (yah!) did a through cleaning job, and told me she could fix the diastema (space between my two front teeth) with overlays, caps, or braces. I'll wait on that one. kind of like my gap. i can whistle thru it. had it filled with porcelin overlays once. looked different for sure, but it messed with my speaking, i couldn't whistle, and i couldn't squirt water between my teeth. one of the overlays broke off when i bit to hard on a sharpie cap, which restored the proper function. oh, the checkup and cleaning cost 500 baht. $15.00

and, the previous email was a reply to an email i got from my friend pattie. after i told the story about the tea kettle and such i thought it would be good to post the message, but i was too quick to hit send and forgot to change the subject line to "thaikarl" and didn't explain that it was a reply that i made into a thaikarll post. solly bout that. cause a bit of confusion for a few folks, but i had 10 replies to that message. a record i think. i answer every reply to any of my messages.

and, and and. i have a line on an available used car i can acquire on the "not-so-easy-but-still-a-payment-plan" option. so wonders abound.

did you know that Buddhism is an atheist religion? and it's not really a religion? It's more of a practice? they don't "worship" the Budda, they HONOR him for being the one who showed the way. but they won't allow women to be monks, and they have some other practices that i i'm not so enamored of, so i'm a leaner, not a joiner.

tomorrow we are going to take some bedding and other stuff to the new house in Rayong, and see what's happening with the electric and water hookups. we're going down in Mots truck. and i can go by a bookstore in Pattaya on the way back, because i am on my last book. the horror!

Today is a good day.... to be HAPPY!
Nu and Tok

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

Re: return trip

2008-03-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Oh dear Karl

I hate to even mention the subject but when indeed are you planning to return ? sorry I am sure you don not want your Thai mindframe being polluted with such thoughts but there we are I have said it ..............

Pattie
PS I hope you have enjoyed cups of tea from your new kettle !

oh yes

the prospect of return is always lingering. of course, it's easier to dismiss it when there are 90, or 60 days before it has to happen. when it gets down to the last lunar month before i fly out, it starts looming, where before it was a "yeah later" concept. i note the lunar month, because you can actually see the moon here every night it is up, and when the time gets short, i think "oh, i won't see that moon phase here next time it comes around" don't mind a whole lot, but i do have my druthers, and they are here, not there of course.

i do look forward to the day i actually buy a one-way ticket home, have a decent length visa arrangement, and really don't know when i have to buy a ticket back. but that is not today, so i return to seattle:

APRIL 15TH

probably take a couple of days relax, then i have to hustle. my van is in sad shape running wise, and i have to sort that out or find another vehicle too use, because i do have work waiting for me, but i have to be able to get there, and all that jazz.

{ed. note: pattie gave me a very nice stainless, ceramic coated, whistling tea kettle as a wedding present to bring with me this trip}

I presented the kettle to tok and mama. made some tea and was joyous. then i noticed it had been put in the cabinet, and they were using the same old aluminum pot to boil water in.m so i put the kettle back out near the stove. and it went into the closet again. i told them that it was okay to use it, that was what the present from you was for. they had put it away because it was a "nice thing". you put the nice things in the cabinet to use god knows when, and use the ordinary stuff, that they have been using everyday forever, to do well, ordinary things, like boil water. so i told them, naw naw, the kettle was a present so you don't have to use the aluminum pot to boil in, because the aluminum is not so good for your health. and now they use it all the time. but they still cook stuff in aluminum. i got them a stainless steel wok last year, which they do use, as i 'confiscated' the old aluminum one and used it to mix up some paint, so it's no good for cooking- ever.

this is a long answer to a short question i know. but here it is.

080318 Thaikarl - monday, tuesday? what day is this?

2008-03-19T20:39:00.001-07:00

friends,
now that we have broadband, it's easier to post pictures. have a look in the picassa gallery.

i'm reminded of the FUGS song Nothing. not that dreary, mind you, but the days are kind of blurred together. have no idea what day of the week it is most of the time. i get up after Tok does, have coffee and breakfast, read my book, check email, surf internet, take a shower and dress. might be 11am, might be 1 pm by then. in the afternoons, maybe i'll fix something - like the bedroom door that won't close, or a broken light, or mess with my shower thang - i did install a circuit breaker switch up underneath the roof. i went to pull apart the plugs one day and got a little zap. i don't like those 220 volt zaps. I couldn't find a double pole double throw switch except for a circuit breaker switch, so i used one. now there is for sure no electricity going to the plugs for the shower pump when the switch is off.- or maybe i'll take a nap or read some more. then it's lunch, then dinner, then night time again, shower and bed. some days we goto to town to buy food and things. some days we goto the open market in the village. and that's pretty much it....

we are waiting for word from this housing area that the water and electric have been turned on. then we will make a trip down there to check on it, do the house inspection to see if they need to fix anything. Tok has ambition to bring down some bedding and a few things to make the place start to be live able, kitchen stuff and the like. THEN there will be something to do. There are a zillion projects i could be working on around the house here, but they all pretty much require buying materials and or tools, which has to wait till next time.

we're sliding into the hot part of the year. april is the hottest month in thailand, and there is little rain yet to bring relief. dust and smoke inhabits the air. at night, when the cars go by on the big road, you can see the air in the headlight beams, like a thin fog. the tobacco harvest and processing is pretty much finished. they are going to grow corn in the fields out back now. and later, when the rains come, rice. when it gets this warm in the afternoons, i'll start sweating. the ceiling fan up here in the bedroom doesn't help much. it just blows the hot air from beneath the roof down up you. i find if i stay still, then that's what i'm going to continue to do- languish. the trick is to get up and get moving, then the tupor falls away and energy for motion appears. but first, you have to get over that hump, that hot gravity that makes you want to be just a lump in the hammock. beats being cold, damp and wet anyday. at least for me.

the late afternoons are delicious. the big heat wafts away, the sun is softened by the haze it is falling into, and the light relaxes and becomes golden and coppery. i love the tropics.

gorgeous the life!
Nu and Tok
--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

08031 Thaikarl - meeting market, water and house pics and DSL!

2008-03-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

friends,
several people asked for more pictures of the house. i uploaded to the Picassa Gallery. The name of the new house is unsettled as of yet. we have to go down there next week to get the inspection done, and make sure there water and electric are all hooked up.

monday night is the meeting marked in lomsak. meeting markets are ad hoc markets that appear in towns and villages on a regular schedule. the one in lonsak is in a big empty field next to the HomePro store. the pickups full of merchandise show up in the morning, set up tables, racks and covers, unpack all their stuff - cloths, glasess, household stuff, tools, jewlery, food.. everything. the prices are usually a little lower than they are in town for pretty much the same stuff. i talked Tok into going monday. i've not gone since i've been home, as it's easy to start spending money there. but i had a plan for tok. i knew if i took her there she would see a shirt or dress that she really liked and i could get it for her. if i told her "lets goto the meeting market so i can buy you a dress" she wouldn't go, saying she didn't need anything. so i said i wanted to get a cloth to wipe off my guitar strings - which i did need btw.

there was a bloom of ants that night. zillions of flying ants swarming around the compact florescent lites they string up over the merchandise. i mean hundreds of winged things shucking and fluttering around every lamp. gets in your face and hair. we were looking at a new clock for downstairs and the lady nicely turned off the lamp in front of us. 500 flying ants immediately swarmed 5 feet over to the next lamp. some guys were standing in their booth with electric fans, blowing the critters away with fan wind. other nights, there are no bugs. just depends on what's popping out to spawn that particular night.

tok did find a cute blouse, with color threads over white and sparkly things. a whole $5.00 and i picked up a couple of other little things. i told tok my trick for getting her there to buy something for her. she thought that was pretty silly. but she wore the blouse the next day,and looked mighty cute in it.

warm today. well, okay, it was kinda hot. i was sweating even. so what did i do? go out digging in the ditch of course. had to move some of the muck out of the channel, as our grey water from the sink and shower and all that drains out to the ditch - where the pond used to be. but the slope wasn't right, and the water was backing up some and getting a bit rotton. so i dug out the slope in the little ditch to get the water down to the main ditch.

we went into tow later. follow up appointment with the doctor at the clinic. lots of people there ahead of us, so we did some 7-11 shopping for green bun and yogurt, and i walked back to the clinic to wait while tok did the food shopping in the market. when i finallay saw the doctor, he listened to my breathing and told me he didn't hear any more wheezing, so i'm back on top again. and he said, that because i was well now, and he didn't have to prescribe any more medications that there was no charge for the visit. imagine that.

it hasn't rained since i've been here. one rain when we were in bangkok. a big rain, killed some of the tobacco in the fields where the ground was low. but otherwise, dry here. and with all the work on the road, grading, dirt dumping, cars and trucks diverted to the packed dirt sides of the road there is vast clouds of dust that rise in the air, and coat everything. we don't usually open the windows of the house, because the dust gets in so much. tok has to dust and mop every single day to try to keep up with it. not good for her because she'll get hives and feel lousy if she gets to much dust.

and wonders of wonders! we got DSL broadband internet installed today! wooo hoo! but it gets really warm up here in our bedroom house where the computer is, so you can't sit up here for that long. it's just nice to check mail and a bit of news and information without waiting and waiting for dial up or packet data connections. and another monthly bill.

gorgeous the life!
Nu and Tok

080309 Thaikarl - Got my shower thang working

2008-03-09T06:53:00.001-07:00

friends,
american that i am, i'm used to taking a shower where the water comes out of a pipe over head. scooping up a bowl of water from a vat and splashing it on my body is alright, that's the way most thai's and a few billion other people in the world get washed. i'm also used to hot water. we don't have running water, and of course, we don't have hot water. so i decided to work something out.

i prefer to shower outside behind the house in the open air. at night, under the stars it's just wonderful. in the morning, showering in the sun is a delight. there are a couple of big water jars back there. we keep them filled for backup water in case the well pump fails, and i use the water in the jars to wash.

we bought a submersible pump for the waterfall. it will lift water in a hose above my head. but we used that for the water fall. i bought another pump last visit, but it was smaller, and wouldn't lift the water above my waist. so we put that one in one of the big lotus flower and fish tanks in front of the house as a fountain.

we i landed in Bangkok, we went to jatucheck market, and i bought a submersible pump that was even bigger than the first one. my first installation was simply a length of plastic hose connected to the pump and strung up on some ropes over head. it worked, but it was a little sloppy. so i rebuilt it the other day.

i made an extension cord that runs from inside the house out to the jars, and hooked it over a piece of bamboo i tied to the pipe that has the TV antenna on top. then i tied some PVC pipe to the antenna pipe, with a couple of fittings. when i want to use the shower, i take the lid off the jar, pull out the short piece of hose with a stub of PVC stuck on the end, and plug it into the PVC elbow at the bottom. the water runs up thru a section of pipe, to another elbow, that extends over the jar. a piece of clear tubing hangs down from there. plug in the plump, i have running water. so i don't waste water down the train when i'm not rinsing or wetting, i move the pipe over so that the stream falls back into the jar. when i want water for wetting me, i pull on the end and direct the stream my way. works great! a bit of noise from the pump, but it works.

i even figured out how to get some hot water. so easy. totally solar. there is a long transparent 2 inch hose that runs from the pump to the back of the house. when we need water to fill the jars, we turn on the pump and drag the hose around. when the coils of the hose sit on the ground in the morning, the standing water in the hose sit in the sun, and the water heats up. if i wait until later, like around 11am, the hose has been in the sun for a few hours. i put the end of the hose in a No. 16 blue bucket and turn on the pump. when the bucket is full, that is just about the all the water that has been in the sun, what follows has been underground and is cool. so i stop the pump when the bucket is full, and i have a bucket of hot water. some days's it's so hot, i have to add cold water to it before i use it. after i've got myself all wet bowling out the hot water, the cooler water from the jar is refreshing, and not nearly as shocking to the system as using only the jar water. of course, when i shower at night, no hot water. sometimes Tok will heat up a pot of water for me on the propane stove if it's a cold night. but most nights, i just deal with it.

i have an idea to just get a bunch of 2 inch PVC pipe and string it together so it goes back and forth back and forth, and put it on top of the tin roof behind the house. if i fill it at night, it will get nice and toasty hot in the morning. might even retain some heat into the evening. but cheap as PVC pipe is, it's an extravagance that the budget doesn't permit this time. but NEXT trip, for sure.

of course, everybody else showers from the big jar in the bathroom like normal people. they wouldn't mind running water, but then we'd have to buy an automatic pump, and pay more electricity, and string pipes and all that. why spend the money? a bowl and a jar full of well water does the job.

when it rains, i prefer to channel the run-off from the roof to fill my jars with. the water from the well is very hard water. when it dries on the tiles in the bathroom there is a classic hard water scale that builds up. but it's only rained once since i've been here. there was a big rain when we were in Bangkok last month, but we missed it. dry season it is.

Improvise and rule your world! as my dad taught me.
Nu

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

Thai Country Life - ThaiKarl

120126 Thaikarl - 10 Shots

120117 Thaikarl - days rolling by like summer

120101 Thaikarl - New Years Day visit to a beautiful temple

120101 - Thaikarl Calendar says it's a new year

111211 Thaikarl - The winds of home keep me unstill

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

111207 Thaikarl Getting ready

111129 Thaikarl - moving quickly with muddy feet

111125 Thaikarl - Bangkok Lovely

Thaikarl 1111223 - greetings from Korea!

Building the Giant Budda

110227 Thaikarl - Blood good, it is

110224 Thaikarl - out for blood

110103 Thaikarl - Nappy Hoo Dear, the fruit stand

Toks fruit stand

101128 Thaikarl - Loi Krathong time

101029 Thaikarl - Our new spirit house

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

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

100826 Thaikarl - USA - Doe Bay, Orcas island - hanging out for a few days

100810 - Thaikarl - CANADA - Chilling out for the day in Maple Harbor

100816 - Thaikarl - Canada Millions of jellyfish, and wonderful sun

100808 - Thaikarl USA - greetings from canada

100806 Thaikarl - In the USA and off again

100702 Thaikarl - thailand is behind, korea is now, USA is before... me

100625 Little things happen all the time

100621 Thaikarl - what IS happening now anyway?

Bird Brain or...

100612 Thaikarl - a few random bits

100610 Thaikarl - Party times!

100603 Thaikarl - wonderful poetic translation - about a snake

100601 Thaikarl - Swimming lessons and more creepy brain pictures

100528 Thaikarl - a shower with a view

100526 Thaikarl - american ingenuity. loses again.

100524 Thaikarl - new ceiling in the bedroom house

100521 Thaikarl - Snake - Toad - Termites - Cat

100517 Thaikarl - the dentist is in - and a ghost story - tok got a job!

100514 "Lawn" the word of the day is "Lawn"

100513 Thaikarl - home to languid heat and soft days

100509 Thaikarl - Bang Fai was a blast!

100504 Thaikarl - Bang Fai - first day

100507 Thaikarl - Bang Fai time in Yasothorn

100429 Thaikarl - roadtrip time!

100505 Thaikarl - Active day wot?

100504 Thaikarl - Back to Ban Chang and off to Pattaya

1000501 Thaikarl - Mayday at the Durian festival

100430 Thaikarl - a little road trip on the old motorbike

How would you like 2 Million (ANGRY BLOGGERS)

100424 Thaikarl - with nothing to do, we're still busy.

*$@*&#*$ chinese site hajacked me!

100417 Thaikarl - a short day

100415 Thaikarl - another day, more adventure

New Picasa Web Albums Activity

100414 Thaikarl - all in one day - amazing thailand

100413 - Thaikarl - more things under the sky than i can tell

New Picasa Web Albums Activity

100405 Thaikarl - Korea rocks!

Invitation to view thaikarl's Picasa Web Album - Thailand april - june 2010

100404 Thaikarl - departure time!

Re: 100308 Thaikarl - going home again, at last - emailed question

100308 Thaikarl - going home again, at last

091204 Thaikarl - homesick indeed

091121 Thaikarl - i'm a reverse immigrant

090802 Thaikarl - just like home!

051709 Thaikarl - working in seattle, dreaming of

090410 Thaikarl - landed but not here.

090409 Thaikarl - a free day in Seoul, korea

090409 Thaikarl - camped out at the airport in korea

090408 Thaikarl - bouncing back across the world

090401 Thaikarl - I have a new friend

090401 Thaikarl - never coming back.

090327 Thaikarl - it's been raining, big time, pix and tweets

090319 Thaikarl - Getting accepted by the Ghosts

090317 Thaikarl - Ho Chi Min City redux

090315 Thaikarl- a delightful day in Da Lat Vietnam

090314 Thaikarl - Up in the highlands, it's like- COLD!

090312 Thaikarl - where are we now? oh yeah, Na Trang

090311 Thaikarl - Mui Ne, Vietnam

090310 Thaikarl - walking around in saigon

$@&#*$ chinese site hajacked me!