MicahJohn

Until today I could not have said that I was party to borrowing someone’s driver. Today I met up with a friend who is in Bangkok for three days. His friend loaned us his driver and car for the afternoon.

We went to three temples. The most significant chunk of time was spent puzzling over a series of over 130 murals painted on the walls surrounding the one temple complex. There seemed to be many distinct peoples (including non-human spiritual beings) weaving through whatever story was being told.

In one of the murals we spotted a dude chilling on a rock wearing glasses. We asked one guy who was passing by for an explanation, his best guess was that it was done during one of the restorations that take place every 50 years. I need to do some online research to try to figure out the panels.

At one of the temples we saw several people making merit. In the one place people were dropping a coin into each of a long line of bowls. In another people placed gifts of food and flowers at the feet of chanting monks. There was a string passed over all of those people and over the monks as well. I have not yet had a chance to get an explanation of the whole thing from someone in the know.

During dinner I got to meet my friend’s friend. So I now have another friend in this big city. We didn’t get to chat long thanks to the infamous locking of the gate at 10:00.

I better wrap this day up. Peace.

Happy Birthday Judah!

Today was a good day. I spent time in the morning writing out chords to some of the hymns in the BIC hymnal I brought along. I then had a good time singing them.

A little after 9:00 I left my residence to go meet friends who where flying  through Bangkok. We were able to have about three hours together during their layover. It was really good to reconnect.

I then made my way to Lumpini Park where the the Bangkok Symphony was playing. It was very nice. The symphony was seated in a pavilion. The palm trees on either side of the pavilion were draped with white lights. There was a light breeze. Slightly detracting from the mood was the thumping music of the aerobic dance a few hundred yards away in the park (I think every park in Bangkok has aerobic dance in the evenings. People come out in droves).

The music played was very fun. They played the theme from Mission Impossible. They had an excellent soloist from Chiang Mai sing a few songs (the title I remember was “I could have danced all night”). The symphony was joined by a jazz trio for, if I’m thinking right, Rhapsody in Blue. They played some other fun stuff that I really should be able to remember names for, but I can’t. I’ll blame it on the late hour.

Speaking of the late hour, I just go ahead and mention for any of you who may be wondering: I usually post my entries so that the appear as having been written on the day that I wrote them even if I did not post them that day. However, I do not usually adjust the time to acurately reflect the time of day when they were written. If you look closely, there are some post that appear to have been written before the events which they describe took place.

One of the leaders here at the church had suggested that two students here take me to see various sites in the area. Today was our first adventure together. Today none of us seemed very talkative. There was a lot of silence. Today none of us seemed real keen on making decisions. I was thinking of them as guides and they were hesitant to impose on my will by guiding.

Today’s visits were a bit touristy, and touristy in a category that is not my preferred cup of tea. I’m quite willing to be a tourist and go see mountains, parks, gardens, old buildings, ruins, maybe even a bit of coast.   I don’t mean to say I didn’t enjoy seeing the crocodile show, the elephant show, and the cultural show today.

I think I would have enjoyed them more if I had attended them with children. I think I would have better entered into a childlike excitement at the sight of someone sticking their head in a crocodile’s mouth, or watching elephants kick soccer balls into a goal. Maybe I shouldn’t write this right now while I’m tired. This is sounding negative. It was fun.

The musical accompaniment for the cultural show was excellent. I wish the musicians in their little corner and the actors on center stage could have traded places, at least for a little while so I could better observe the music making.

Personal highlights from the cultural show (having already mentioned the music) were the Thai boxing and one of the styles of Thai dancing. In Thai boxing (as far as I can tell) anything goes, elbows, kicks, whatever.

For the one dance they brought out bamboo poles which they used percussively in pairs. Try to picture several sets of bamboo poles side by side clapping together a few inches off the ground. Then picture dancers dancing amidst the poles. It was rather akin to skipping rope.

I was invited to go bowling last night. When we all arrived, it was decided that we wouldn’t bowl that night, but would come again some afternoon when it is half the price of evening bowling. We therefore decided to watch Chocolate, a Thai made martial arts film. The movie ended after 10:00 (gate locking time). I spent the night at Pi Tot’s house.

I say random because it’s not everyday that I set out to go bowling and find myself at the Cambodian border instead.

Yesterday Pi Tot invited me to go bowling. We never did make it to the bowling alley. Before we left his house he needed to meet with someone. That someone was a little late in coming. While waiting, I had joined some folks in watching Stardust in Thai. I think that movie must be rather bizarre/fantastic/etc on its own, when watched starting in the middle, in a language that you don’t really yet understand, it is positively baffling.

Sometime during waiting and Stardusting a dinner was arranged. Pi Tot, two guys from Indonesia (they show up no more suddenly in my retelling of the narrative than they did in my experience of it), and myself picked up Pi Silk and met Pi Bee for dinner. After a good time of conversing (and eating) we were driving back and talking about getting the two Indonesian guys to the bus station in the morning so they could go to Cambodia and all of a sudden I was being asked if I wanted to join the group in driving to the boarder in the morning. I agreed.

Following this decision we went back to Pi Tot’s house and had the prayer time mentioned in my last post.

After spending the night at Pi Tot’s house we set off, I would say “bright and early,” but it was too early for it to be bright even in this tropical region.

There was a lot about the boarder that was very depressing. I wish I knew how to make it so no child need ever beg again.

On a lighter note, if you are in the market for counterfeit brand name clothing, the Cambodian boarder is the place to go. One of the more amusing things to me were the clothes that had been given unmatching counterfeit tags. There were a lot of virtually identical socks, some with Adidas, some with FILA, and some with NIKE on the socks and on the tags. I also saw however socks that said FILA with NIKE tags. Additionally I saw a pair of pants that said “Abercrombie and Fitch” on the outside paper tag, but said “Old Navy” on the tag inside the pants.