where to start?

Where to start? So much has happened since xmas. Gotta make it short so I don't drive anyone crazy... must leave internet cafe vortex before I pass point of no return. Can't send psychic memories yet. I'll work on it. But wow, this might be a long one.

After xmas, Sara and I took a bus to Pai. The journey there was like highway 17 only more windy, steep, and with a crazy Thai bus driver and tiny bus seats that were fun to try to stay on. Pai is sooo beautiful, nestled in the mountains north west of Chaing Mai. Really secluded and the town is surrounded by distant tribal villages of the long necked Karen tribe and a few other tribes I forget the name of right now. Pai is so much sweeter than any place I have been in Thailand. You can walk around the whole town easily, run into the same people and make friends, find comfort in the same cafe and market but still find new places to try. The goods are more expensive so I can not shop and it feels great but the streets are lined with hilltribe women and beautifully colorful goods, hand made purses, clothing, hats (crazy pointy Wizard of Oz hats and zig zag lined square Alice in Wonderland hats. I don't think they've seen Doctor Suess books, but maybe he's been here. The inner town is surrounded by outlying villages and farms and a lot of international artists settle in Pai for part of the year, writing or painting in paradise while their homelands darken with storms. A good way to avoid the sultry depression of good deep art. I found a new poet to love. Garuda. He lives here with his Thai wife. He teaches breathing meditiation too, I might go. But we arrived in Pai and were looking for a guesthouse (they were all full or expensive) and asked this girl if she knew of any and she said "oh, come live on a farm with me" so we went and found this beautiful experimental organic farm with eight hippie travellling kids and one beatnick ("beatnick" ?) old man named Mikel who wants to start "a travelling circus with a pony and a wagon to go through rural China for at least a year, they'd love us" he says. Mikel is the essence of Jack Kerouack, Ken Kesey and all those guys. He utterly rejects as much of "the system" as he can but I see how he has forfeited stability and solid relationships and comfort for dreams of free will and adventure. I don't think he really realizes that there is a huge age gap between him and the rest of us, he has such big crazy dreams still. It is good for me to be around impractical people. Maybe I'll go to China in a circus.
Sara and I spent three days taking a Reiki course at our teacher, Julie's, farm and it feels so good to be back in the sway of the healing arts. We got a discount on the course and gave Julie two tandom massages and one tandom massage to her friend in return for the discount and it was really fun to massage in a new format, Julie really liked it, she's so funny. She's married to a Thai man and they make such a great couple. He gives guided rafting tours and takes people to hilltribe villages but I won't go on a tour of people, I refuse. And I have all these ethical concerns about taking pictures of Thai and of Tribals. New Year's Eve totally changed everything though. Pai became crowded with Thai tourists, all these Thai who want to see the tribal people and who want to escape their cities. I watched the Thai people barter for goods and go picture crazy and sign up for guided tours and I watched them take photos of the Tribal people. It made me feel more comfortable being a tourist. All the kids (they range from 18 to 29 and are so sweet) and I went to town and claimed a corner of the street and started juggling and playing drums and dancing and I spun some poi but without fire (too shy) and a crowd of people gathered around us and watched and all these Thai people were taking pictures of US. It made Mikel's dream of the circus seem so much more plausible. We sent a hat around and collected 1000 bhat ($25) which was so needed cause the farm pays rent. It was strange, being an attraction to the people that are My attraction and taking money from people that I am spending all My money to be with. A parade of the Hilltribes went down the street too, celebrating their ethnicity and distinctions, wearing their traditional clothing. We went over to the school fields and a huge stage was set up with a Thai pop singer wearing a hot pink flapper's dress and all these Thai were screaming and dancing and moshing around by the stage and there were booths set up with games and stuffed animals. It was a carnival. Hundreds of lanterns were being set into the air, huge paper lanters lifting from the strength of a candle's heat. I started taking pictures of the lanterns and the people and I took a picture of this guy with his lantern and he invited me to help him with his lantern so we stood there holding this huge lantern, waiting for the hot air to balance enough for it to fly strong, it was such a gift to help, we let it go and watched it fly into the air, me and this Thai guy celebrating the hope of a new year together. I went back to my friends, watching the Hilltribe people now on stage and having a microphone projecting their shy voices, such a contradiction - hilltribe seclusion and fame- and we said the countdown in English as hundreds of Thai counted down in Thai and then there were fireworks and lanterns were still flying. I was praying that we wouldn't find our farm in flames from a stray fallen lantern (it happens every year to hundreds of people around the country). The celebration felt so jovial and authentic, it felt so good to be celebrating a new year. Funny that our New Year's has only been celebrated in Thailand for a few years. They know how to party.
After that huge celebration, I feel like such a local. I have a real place to live, with a kitchen to shop at the market for, a family to cook for, a place to do some gardening and work and hitch hike or walk to and from. I have met a lot of locals too and easily understand why this place is such a vortex. My comfort was shattered by a bout of illness. One of the girls made tea with river water and didn't boil it all the way and she, Sara, and I all spent a night throwing up and feeling sooo sick. I spent the whole next day in bed, literally could not walk, but the bedrest did cure my cold which I think was bronchitis, so now my cough is all gone and I am all better and hey, maybe it's good to get all this sickness out of me in the beginning of my travels. We had to leave the farm to make our visa run (have to leave the country every 30 days) and got rides all the way to Burma. Our first ride was with the sweetest Thai couple who bought us Heinekins for the ride and kept taking pictures of us. Then we got a ride with a woman who offered to take us to dinner at her cafe so we accepted and when we tried to leave to get a guesthouse she said "no, no guesthouse here. You stay here with me" Sara and I wanted to leave, this lady was really hard to talk with so we were just sitting there with nothing to do, but she insisted and we ended up sleeping there above the apartment. We had all these imaginings of being traded into the slave market or having our organs stolen, but really, she was just this nice Thai lady who was being hospitable. But in the morning, we were so happy to go to the bus station and be free. We crossed the border into Burma. It was so crazy. Go under a fence into an office, get a passport stamp, go over a bridge into another office,give some money, get a stamp on your passport, go under another fence and you're in a new country, a scary one with people who don't speak any English and are really poor. They were approaching us trying to sell us cigarettes and begging for money and following us around and we were so tired and hot and overwhelmed and couldn't find a place to sit and get a drink. I wanted to understand the country, stay a few hours, but we just left as soon as we could. The poverty was really hard and it helps to spend money, but I also heard to boycott Burma because of human rights abuses. Such sweet children begging for money. Crossed back under the fences and got some more stamps and there were no more children begging. Clean streets and educated people. What is going on in the world that a river divides wealth? Divides opportunity and education? We got a ride to Chang Rai with five beautiful giggling Thai women who stopped at every roadside stand and gave us slices of strange fruit. Every time they spoke English, they giggled and burst into a frenzy of Thai to eachother. Giggled more at our Thai. Then we got a ride with this really nice man who was a taxi driver and drove like one. He laughed at me for taking pictures out the window (well, trying to) as he swerved around the mountain roads. He took us to dinner and professed his undying love to me. Thank god we had a guest house in mind to go to. Sara was no help, she was glad he didn't love her. But he also was really helpful with our Thai and we helped him with his English. Now we are back in Chiang Mai but we're going back to the farm today. Can't stay away from Pai for too long. I am starting to feel like I fit in here, it's getting comfortable to be a traveller and I can process what life back home is like in new ways that being there never afforded. Still missing home and my people, but enjoying the craziness, getting through it in leaps of rest and chaos.

How Connected We Are

It's easy to forget how connected we are,

You and me, he and she and they as well;

All of us appearing

In this mysterious  three dimensional movie,

different characters and yet the same,

each person, every form

a unique manifestation of the One Light

in the Divine Projector.

 

How have we gotten so far from one another?

How long has it been since we looked tenderly into each

other's eyes?

and held each other's hands?

 

It's a blessing how disconnected we've become.

Then we can feel our deep yearning for connection.

And once we've cried out from that yearning,

 

It's easy to see how connected we are,

you and me, he and she 

and they as well.

 

     I.D. Garuda