We're settling into our little post here in Ban Phe.
Katie is now half way through her TESOL (teaching english as a second to other languages) course and has just passed her final grammar/phonology exam. Her classes are being held in a Buddhist Temple where saffron-robed monks live and go about their daily chores amongst the English-teaching foreigners. It's a strange and exciting co-existence, and everybody seems to get along. Travis spends his days as he pleases: cruising around town on his motocycle picking up coconuts and exotic fruits, snorkeling in the bathtub waters of the Gulf of Thailand, editing photos on his brand new laptop, and making lunches for his studious wife when she comes home from school.
We also spent the past two weekends doing a little island-hopping. First to the nearby Koh Samed for some stunning white sand beaches that squeeked under our feet. And second to the farther away and much smaller island of Koh Larn, for some less than spectacular snorkelling amongst dieing coral and speedy jet skiis loaded with tourists. How dare everyone else have the same weekend idea we did! Ah well, another weekend in paradise. PS- Believe it or not, for the two people who never EVER burn, we've both become lobsters.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
THAILAND: THE LAND OF SMILES
We made it safely to Bangkok and kicked off the weekend with the locals celebrating Sankran, Thai New Years! Similar to playing Holi in India, here in Thailand the kids and kids-at-heart alike wait in the streets to throw buckets of water on unsuspecting passersby. We walked down Koh Sarn Road along with thousands of other ornery people smearing each other with a white menthol paste and spraying each other with super soakers. Of course, we had to get in on the action. Although we may have seemed like innocent bystanders, in reality we had an ambush of ice water waiting to toss on any unsuspecting locals. They loved it. The symbolism of this ritual is to wash your friends of last year's karma so they can start a new year free from penance. And after all the dousing that was given to us, we feel pretty darn sin-free.
Onward to a little beach town called Ban Phe (see map), close to Rayong on the Southeastern coast... where the weather is a breezy 90 degrees. Katie has begun her international English teacher's certification program here and has a teaching job in Northeastern Thailand waiting when she graduates. She is in school now 8 hours a day for the next month, taking classes in phonology, grammar, classroom management, and lesson planning. While Katie is in school, Travis is doing research for the purchase of his first personal laptop. He has got the mind to edit his photography with his new laptop so he can share his talents in imagery with the world.
Both of us are so glad to finally be here in Thailand: a gentle pillow compared to the coarse culture of India. The English school has put us up in a hotel across the street from the beach. In between class and research, we watch the sunrise together from our balcony, or swim in the hotel pool, or just bob around in the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Thailand and sip salt water.
Stay tuned...
Onward to a little beach town called Ban Phe (see map), close to Rayong on the Southeastern coast... where the weather is a breezy 90 degrees. Katie has begun her international English teacher's certification program here and has a teaching job in Northeastern Thailand waiting when she graduates. She is in school now 8 hours a day for the next month, taking classes in phonology, grammar, classroom management, and lesson planning. While Katie is in school, Travis is doing research for the purchase of his first personal laptop. He has got the mind to edit his photography with his new laptop so he can share his talents in imagery with the world.
Both of us are so glad to finally be here in Thailand: a gentle pillow compared to the coarse culture of India. The English school has put us up in a hotel across the street from the beach. In between class and research, we watch the sunrise together from our balcony, or swim in the hotel pool, or just bob around in the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Thailand and sip salt water.
Stay tuned...
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
FAREWELL INDIA
The eyes can only see what the mind is prepared to comprehend. This last post is written from the southern most tip of India. We are staying in Kanyakumari, where we are watching the waters of the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Bay of Bengal converge on the shore under our hotel room. The ocean stretches in both directions as far as the eye can see. Both sunrise and sunset are visible from the same stretch of beach.
It is here that the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were placed until spread at sea. Inside the temple dedicated to Gandhi there is a large plaque quoting him when he had visited Kanukumari before his death. His words speak perfectly to the place in which we find ourselves now. "I AM WRITING THIS FROM THE CAPE. WHERE THREE WATERS MERGE AND FURNISH A SIGHT UNEQUALED IN THE WORLD" -Mahatma Gandhi.
It's hard to believe our time here has come to an end. Tonight we take a night train to Chennai on the East coast of India in Tamil Nadu. Tomorrow we fly to Thailand. And around the corner, a new chapter: Bangkok!
Stay tuned...
It is here that the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were placed until spread at sea. Inside the temple dedicated to Gandhi there is a large plaque quoting him when he had visited Kanukumari before his death. His words speak perfectly to the place in which we find ourselves now. "I AM WRITING THIS FROM THE CAPE. WHERE THREE WATERS MERGE AND FURNISH A SIGHT UNEQUALED IN THE WORLD" -Mahatma Gandhi.
It's hard to believe our time here has come to an end. Tonight we take a night train to Chennai on the East coast of India in Tamil Nadu. Tomorrow we fly to Thailand. And around the corner, a new chapter: Bangkok!
Stay tuned...
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
A HOLY DELUGE
This week we went to a Hindu Festival in which the six hour long "Parade of the Gods" preceded a three hour firework show. Indians really know how to throw a party for their gods! The parade included floats with paper mache statues: Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva and all their homies painted in bright colors. We were surprised to learn that every year the rain gods show up to the festival for real, bathing the streets in demonstration of their approval.
Sure enough, it happened. As soon as the parade started the skies darkened, lightning darted about, and thunder cracked. It rained so hard we couldn't hold our eyelids open to see under the pressure of the falling water. We resorted to wearing our sunglasses at dusk, in effort to protect our eyes from the vertical buckets. It was the most voracious rain either of us have ever seen. "The Gods are happy", one man explained.
Suddenly the power went out and the whole scene went black. We ran to take refuge under a random tin-roofed hut as people lit candles all over the dark streets. First there was the sound of distant symbols clashing, growing louder and louder in the darkness. Then five of the largest land mammals approached, right in front of us. It was so dark we could only see the candle-lit silhouettes of the Holy Elephants. Until lightning struck and the flash illuminated a giant creature staring down at us. The procession of the Holy Elephants commenced in this way. Crack! Strobes lit up the street to reveal a gargantuan elephant decorated in holy regalia, heaving by like a dinosaur. Riding on top of the creature was a man dressed like a maharajah. Lightning eerily flashing in the sky above his head. Think "Aladdin" meets "Jurassic Park". Then it all went black. Crack! Crack! Another elephant passed and we'd gasp. Black again. And it went on like this until the elephants approached the Hindu Temple, after which the storm abruptly stopped and the weather returned to it's normal equatorial smolder. Every single summer it mysteriously rains on this most auspicious festival day.
But this is not the only time the rain gods show up. India is full of auspicious spectacles.
Where else can you see villagers make a wedding ceremony for two frogs, spending loads of money just like for a human marriage? With the whole village in attendance, a holy man gives the vows, and two frogs dressed like royalty in gold frills are wed... all this as a ritual to bring on the rains when the crops are thirsty. Only after the bride and groom have been sent to a nearby pond for their honeymoon does the precipitation arrive. It rains hard. Every single time they do this.
Where else can you see that?
Where else can you see a shoeless man herding his sheep and talking on his cell phone?
Where else can you see three major oceans converge on one beach, where the sun rises and sets in the same horizon and thousands of pilgrims come to pray... and yet be surrounded with homeless children carrying homeless babies on their hips and sleeping in garbage piles on the sidewalk?
Where else can you visit the site of the tsunami and meet people who's entire families were lost in one wave, and then watch them cavort in the surf like its the first time they've seen salt water?
Where else can you see dark skinned natives in designer jeans, wearing skin-lightening makeup, walking down the street next to white Americans wearing bindis, working on their tans, and searching for God in a foreign deity? India is is full of paradoxes.
It's impossible to reason anything out here. You'd be amazed at the lack of logic in the lifestyle and the utter craziness of it all. It has reduced this writer to teary cries of empathic pain followed by cathartic belly laughs at how sturdy God has made us humans.
Sure enough, it happened. As soon as the parade started the skies darkened, lightning darted about, and thunder cracked. It rained so hard we couldn't hold our eyelids open to see under the pressure of the falling water. We resorted to wearing our sunglasses at dusk, in effort to protect our eyes from the vertical buckets. It was the most voracious rain either of us have ever seen. "The Gods are happy", one man explained.
Suddenly the power went out and the whole scene went black. We ran to take refuge under a random tin-roofed hut as people lit candles all over the dark streets. First there was the sound of distant symbols clashing, growing louder and louder in the darkness. Then five of the largest land mammals approached, right in front of us. It was so dark we could only see the candle-lit silhouettes of the Holy Elephants. Until lightning struck and the flash illuminated a giant creature staring down at us. The procession of the Holy Elephants commenced in this way. Crack! Strobes lit up the street to reveal a gargantuan elephant decorated in holy regalia, heaving by like a dinosaur. Riding on top of the creature was a man dressed like a maharajah. Lightning eerily flashing in the sky above his head. Think "Aladdin" meets "Jurassic Park". Then it all went black. Crack! Crack! Another elephant passed and we'd gasp. Black again. And it went on like this until the elephants approached the Hindu Temple, after which the storm abruptly stopped and the weather returned to it's normal equatorial smolder. Every single summer it mysteriously rains on this most auspicious festival day.
But this is not the only time the rain gods show up. India is full of auspicious spectacles.
Where else can you see villagers make a wedding ceremony for two frogs, spending loads of money just like for a human marriage? With the whole village in attendance, a holy man gives the vows, and two frogs dressed like royalty in gold frills are wed... all this as a ritual to bring on the rains when the crops are thirsty. Only after the bride and groom have been sent to a nearby pond for their honeymoon does the precipitation arrive. It rains hard. Every single time they do this.
Where else can you see that?
Where else can you see a shoeless man herding his sheep and talking on his cell phone?
Where else can you see three major oceans converge on one beach, where the sun rises and sets in the same horizon and thousands of pilgrims come to pray... and yet be surrounded with homeless children carrying homeless babies on their hips and sleeping in garbage piles on the sidewalk?
Where else can you visit the site of the tsunami and meet people who's entire families were lost in one wave, and then watch them cavort in the surf like its the first time they've seen salt water?
Where else can you see dark skinned natives in designer jeans, wearing skin-lightening makeup, walking down the street next to white Americans wearing bindis, working on their tans, and searching for God in a foreign deity? India is is full of paradoxes.
It's impossible to reason anything out here. You'd be amazed at the lack of logic in the lifestyle and the utter craziness of it all. It has reduced this writer to teary cries of empathic pain followed by cathartic belly laughs at how sturdy God has made us humans.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
APRIL FOOLS!
There are certain ways in which India has snuck up on us and changed us. We've stopped keeping track of what day of the week it is. We take long beach walks in utter introspective silence. We shop in local markets and stay away from the other tourists as much as possible. We no longer get frusterated when we have to go to five different places to find one yoga class. We don't stomp around anymore when the power goes out at the cyber cafe in mid-email. We don't get pissed when half the menu items are unavailable. We've grown accustomed to the mosquito infested toilets with no TP and brown rinse water. Indeed our ankles are covered in mozzie bites. We've travelled by car, bus, rickshaw, bicycle, plane, train, ferry, houseboat, and moped. We know nothing about the next town we're going to accept that the train for it leaves today at 3:30pm. We've slept very little in the last two days. And yet we are happy. Happy enough to sing homespun ballads odeing to mango juice. Happy enough to bathe unashamedly in the same river with elephants. Happy enough to run hootin and hollerin down the road during a pre-monsoon torrential downpour. These are just a few of the ways in which India has snuck up on us...
Sunday, April 1, 2007
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