For the Sake of Art

One of my goals for this trip was to keep an active sketchbook and do some watercolors of our experiences. I started out having fun but at some point my critic started making too many visits and my confidence went south in a flood of muddy watercolors. So the brushes and paints have been sitting idle and I find the camera and computer are at my fingertips more than my sketchbook. Once again I am disappointed in myself, such a simple goal and I am not following through.

Months before we embarked on this journey I saw the utube video of elephants that painted with their trunks. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, the skill, the focus, it was amazing. When I discovered that the painting elephants were located near Chang Mai I knew I had to experience it in person.

Just seeing the elephants up close was an inspiration. I did lots of very quick gesture sketches on the watercolor paper so that when I get my courage up again I can splash some colors down on decent paper. I even bought an elephant original for $30. Here was a painting to look at and say to myself…”if an elephant can paint then so can I.”

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately I later saw a video of what is done to these elephants to ‘break’ them so that they can be trained to paint and do tricks. I was horrified at the absolute brutality. So now my original elephant painting is a sad reminder of what is done to these magnificent beings to make them perform for our entertainment and tourist dollars. I think about how they tortured these elephants to make them paint and I think about how I torture myself to paint. Hmm, but I have a choice, the elephants don’t.

The next day we visited the Elephant Nature Park where abused elephants are rescued. www.elephantnaturepark.org Here they give them positive feedback, no hooks, no riding, no tricks. It is a safe haven to heal the wounds and broken spirits within a predictable routine of care and nourishment. I need to remember this sanctuary, remember the elephants and let them be my teacher. If they can recover and thrive again, so can I.

The Don Bloom Challenge

Eating in Bangkok is an interesting test of faith. Not only are the menus in Thai (that is if there are menus) but much of the time we don’t recognize the food even when it is in front of us. Today we decided to try this gelatinous looking stuff partially wrapped in a leaf offered by a street vendor. As we watched a woman make her purchase she turned to us and said ‘aloy’ which means delicious and she was right.

Our friend Don Bloom encouraged us to create a blog for this trip before we left Maui. He generously offered to help us if we had any problems. When we failed to create a blog, he set one up for us and sent us the web address and password. Now he has challenged us to include videos in our blog and since he can’t do it for us, I guess we have to rise to the challenge. He suggested we keep the video to 5 seconds so it doesn’t take to long to download. Well we flunked that part of the challenge so I hope it’s worth the wait. (Don how do we edit these things….)

I have teeth!!!!

Okay, in truth I’ve had teeth since Monday but I’ve been too busy eating to post anything to the blog.

I don’t have my permanent teeth yet but I’m getting closer. If all goes well the bone in my jaw will grow around my implants over the next four months so when we return from India I will be ready for my new and improved teeth. In the mean time I will do the best I can with what I have because plastic teeth are better than no teeth at all. Just ask the old woman in the mirrior...

Hindu Melee, Thai Style

What Hindu festival happened last night? Oct 9th? In our wanderings yesterday we came across the Indian area here in Bangkok and saw a beehive of activity. We decided to return in the evening thinking it might be cooler, cooler-ha who were we kidding! We still went, can’t let searing heat and humidity stop us. We kept asking people ‘what is the festival? What holiday is it?'

“Yes, smile, it is a Hindu festival, only one night a year, tonight.” This was all we got in response. Okay, we don’t know which Hindu festival it is but we enjoyed the festivities anyway. It was a mini melee Hindu block party. Everyone was setting up elaborate alters/shrines with lots of flowers, mostly marigolds and whatever else they had on hand including fluorescent lights and very loud speaker systems. Some even had their own small bands. One after another lined the street with incense and burning coconuts everywhere. I’m sure it isn’t hard to imagine the heat, the flames the crowds and the noise not to mention the devotees sometimes kneeling and praying or wildly dancing and crawling on the ground in trances. There were times when the crowd was so thick and squeezed that we really got how dangerous this could be in any given moment. Now we understand, fall or faint from the heat and add a stampede and you are dead just like that.

We figured this was a small indicator of what will be much bigger in India if we venture into the thick of any Hindu Festival. So I think we will steer clear of the Hindu festival in Pushkar at midnight on the full moon next month when it is the height of the festival. Now I know why you gasped Aruna when we said we were going to the Pushkar Melee. As we were leaving we saw fire trucks lined up at the end of the street, good idea! It was fun but we decided it was okay to leave before the main event of the parade happened, I’m not sure how it would even make it down the street there was no room it was solid people.

Answer...This particular day is known as Dashhara (dash means ten/hara means defeated). Ravana was defeated by lord Rama on this day. Lord Rama finally won the battle over Ravana who was the king of Shri lanka and was very powerful. He made his island so rich that Shri Lanka was known as "Sone ki Lanka" which means "Galoden Lanka". Originally Ravana was a devotee of lord Shiva. He had achieved many super power qualities (ten heads are the symbols of his super power achievement) during the time that he was worshiping Shiva. Later on he started misusing his power. Finally Lord Rama had battle with him. From the day of Dashhara all the following days till Diwali ( festival of lights in honour of Lord Rama's victory) are festivity days.

On The Mend

I’m glad to say I’m feeling 100% better today, not to be confused with feeling 100% but at least things are going in the right direction. The surgery was a breeze (thanks to anesthesia) but the recovery has been tough. At first I was told that the swelling would peak at three days and my gums would be back to normal on day five. No problem I can handle that! Well, on day five when the pain and swelling was still on the increase I got the real story. I should expect the pain and swelling to build over the first week and then gradually decrease over the next two to four weeks.

What is it about doctors giving patients half truths or no truth at all. I saw this happen to my mother in surgery after surgery as she aged and now it’s happening to me. I just don’t get it; do doctors really believe that the patient won’t find out what happens after surgery? Do they truly believe that discussing only the best post surgery scenario is better than covering the full range of possibilities? Is this a universal belief among doctors? So far I have found this to be true in the US as well as in Thailand. I’m hoping to find another belief in India.

I have discovered that healing is not just about managing the pain and swelling but also about coming to terms with my own aging. It’s been hard to look in the mirror and see a woman with sunken lips and no teeth looking back at me and it’s been even harder to be kind to her. I know this time will pass, my energy will return, I’ll have teeth again and I’ll be ready for what comes. But for right now I think I’ll take the time to make friends with this toothless woman and see what she can teach me.

Shifting Street Markets

When I first came to Bangkok and saw all the street vendors it was a cacophony of overwhelming sensory stimulation, a big blur of people, smells, sights, colors, textures and noise. Add to that the searing heat and humidity which usually puts it all way over the top for me. When I am feeling good, not to hot or tired, these sights and sounds are really interesting. I see food raw and in the process of being cooked that I have never seen before. I don’t know whether it is sweet and a dessert or a main dish and salty which a lot of food is in Thailand.

Yesterday I went out at around 10am just about when it was getting really too hot to comfortably walk anywhere leisurely. I was on a mission to get a paper and a cool fruit smoothie for Janet. This was a mission to be accomplished as expediently as possible as my melting point is far lower than the Thaïs. Walking to our neighborhood store I am usually the only non-Thai on the street and this morning it was bustling with activity. I saw so many more vendors than I usually do with lots of fruit, flowers and various unknown food. As I was making my way back home I noticed they were breaking down their booths and packing up to go home. Something clicked.

I realized that the vendors and markets I have been seeing on the streets are really an evolving daily market with different vendors sharing the same space at different times of the day. It’s a time share for the sidewalk spot throughout the day not just one poor Thai working the same cart for 12-18 hours a day. By the afternoon the fruit and flowers carts are less abundant and the meal carts are everywhere with tables and stools set up for the lunch crowd. I decided then that I wanted to make a point of walking this street (that I thought I knew) at different times of the day to see how it differs as the day progresses.

This morning we got an earlier start at 8 am which is actually not too hot, a good time to shop and snoop with the small camera in hand. The street was alive and thick with people. We were even early enough to see the monks out giving blessings and collecting there daily food donations. Fortunately we are taller than most so we can see a little distance as we move on what seems to be a narrow conveyor belt of people. Like a line of ants moving around any obstacle in its way and filling in any gaps or openings that appear. Stopping is not a problem as people just move around you. Passing sometimes gets a bit challenging as you must venture into the oncoming swarm of bodies to move around the slow poke or person buying something. It’s right about now that you start to feel that trickle of sweat stream around your eyebrow and down your face. That’s what eyebrows are made for, natural rain gutters.

We stopped and bought a few veggies for lunch and some sort of unknown tapioca concoction for breakfast. We even found a vendor selling carrot soup, which was a real score. So now we are back home and it is before 10am and we are on our 2nd cold shower of the day. I think I might pass on going out for the noon vendors today; braving the heat and the lunch crowd can wait till it cools down in the evening to see what is happening on the street.

No Energy

No energy. Alas, Janet wants to have fun and play on the blog but she is drained from the surgery. On Friday she got an X-ray of the successful implant surgery. Dr Surikit was so proud of his work. I took one look at it and thought, WOW, no wonder she is so knocked out. Look at all those holes that he had to drill into her mouth before he set the implants. No wonder she has had such a headache, not to mention what is going on inside her mouth like all her inflamed gums. I need not go on, you get the picture.