Thailand - One Year Anniversery - Thai Living, and Life is Good

Hello Everyone!

Family, friends, mates, blokes, comrades, pals, sidekicks, fellow travellers, chums, buddies, and well-wishers....I'm back!

Yes! It has been a long time, one year to the day =) I can't say I made it all by myself, no one ever has.

I could spend the time here to tell you how much I've grown and all the lessons I've learnt here. But, that makes for stale, trite writing and reading. So I wont be spending any time here recapping my favorite moments (midnight mountain climbing) or creating "best of" categories of all the wonderful places (Lake Toba) and food (Indian) I've experienced in the past year. This is more of a recap from my last four months hiatus away from the bloggesphere.

Why hasn't fresh blog hit your emails in months? How have I been treating life? Why do I never pop a flat when I want to and always when I am running late? All these questions and more will be answered. Some directly, some with accompanying photos. Penultimately, I want to say that I do miss you all on this day and am constantly wondering what exactly you are up to.

Ultimately,  the short and sweet answer is that life is something of a shade brighter than amazing. Sure, I've picked up a few Thai words and phrases, expanded my wardrobe beyond three cycling shirts, and have a home to call my home. So what? I sold all that stuff when I departed America a year ago. What makes my life amazing is the people I surround myself with. How appropriate, then, to illustrate how life is than to share the people who make it that one shade brighter.

Nick and Harmony. For a reason I can not explain, this is one of the few pictures I have of them together. But do not misunderstand me, they are inseparable. How many times have I witnessed one in the other's class lending a hand with art projects, dance rehearsals, songs, and the such. Here we are enjoying an impromptu wilderness picnic by a waterfall. (See future Holidays post for more pictures from this series). Who are they? I met them at a Friday night bar, they invited me into their home, gave me a job, and I've been with them ever since. They both are true blue jazz listening, craw fish eating, Saints football cheering, New Orleans faithful - right down to their survival stories around and after Katrina.

I can not lie to you. I love their dog. Kunta is a big black bundle of loyal Labrador love. He drinks (water) like a fish and never ever backs down from a game of fetch. I can remember seeing one day that his back legs began to limp from having returned the stick from throwing it over and over again. Limping, practically unable to walk, his eyes were screaming for that stick. Yet, he never whimpered, never pouted. He wanted that stick beyond pain- he was going to get that stick. So much were his instinctual desires that we had to call the game off and put the stick away before he killed himself.

One in a million, and loves to snuggle. Here he is lounging and yawning on my bed when Nick and Harmony are away.

And! and here is the wonderful house I call home. The only pink house in Uthai. You cant miss it - especially with all the music, food, satellite TV, and foreigners here. Can't find my address? Just ask for the "farang" house and the locals will keep pointing you in the right direction.

I have family, back home, who live in Salinas, California. They too live in a pink house. I never thought I would too. And you know what? It has grown on me.
 

Here is our cement yard, more for the dog than for us. Though, we do make good use of all the space. You can see my attempts at growing a few plants and trees to liven up the dull grey cement juxtaposed against the electric pink that is our home. Difficulties arise. The soil is not great, and we've had a bit of a freak winter this year. Temperatures dropping off down to about 11 degrees. Haven't felt cold in a while, and it was cold....
 

Amongst the native plants that I let grow into our home are these vines along the fence which, as you can see, have begun producing fruit this week. They seem to be a mix between a kind of tomato and pepper. The birds love them.
 

And here you can see my little seedlings. Thanks to Mom back home for sending materials and seeds. They've grown up to be big and strong in the trays here. However, something about the soil (and maybe the weather) don't make for good herb growing here. They have all, sadly, fallen victim as critter fodder or death by exposure.
 

Nothing says BBQ like a used grill. And oh man, does this thing get used. Ribs, fish, chicken, shrimp, veggies and all the rest, enriched with Nick's knack for marinate, succumb to the white coals of the outdoor grill.


And should something need baking or nuking, we have the technology. That coffee pot there on the counter is the first thing I bought.
 

Even more counter space in the indoor kitchen - and a refrigerator! I know you Western friends of mine are not impressed. But believe me, this is a big deal.

Like I said, you might think our outdoor kitchen keeps exempt from special mention. Take my word, it does not. Its a big deal. As close as I can figure, cooking is trait comparable to the those of yester-centuries. As there were blacksmiths, poets, engineers, architects, and priests, cooking is very much an isolated devotion here in Thailand that you leave to the experts. Experts who've passed on their secrets down to there children. Hence, you will not find many many people preparing their own food. Cooking is left to the chefs the way your broken computer is left at the shop. 
 

A desk I use to compose emails, letters, and the such. Nice to have a laptop and a bureau again.
 

Here we begin to really see the great inside of the house. When you keep in mind that the outside is painted a bright pink, rooms (we have five) like this one bring a smile to my face. Images of small Mexican towns colored in similar combinations fill my mind when I see the these bright walls.
 

I live here, in the Blue room. Books, a few clothes, and a balcony with a lot of sunlight, a fan for the hot nights. Cant really ask for much more, nor do I.

What's great, to me, is waking through our house and stopping at intersections, like this one, where the bright colors that are our walls cross over each other to provide a vivid background, which adds color to the otherwise mundane daily activities. Walking to the coffee pot in the morning, then, is like walking through Rivera painting. 

 

The colored bedrooms are all located on the second floor. From the top of the stairs, you can see down to the front door and yard, as well as this, our living room where we do most of the day's talking and laughing.
 

There is a recently emptied yard across the street from our home. Because of the destruction of trees and shrubs, a few birds like this one have come to adopt our window sills as adequately safe locations to build their nests. I count three eggs today, we should see baby birds soon. 

UPDATE: birds hatched! Check out the size differential between the egg and the new born. They grow fast.

 

And there she is, stripped of the great load shes carried with me for the last year. I keep the racks on because we do live a bit out of town and need to make trips for food, coffee and beer. New red bar tape keeps the bike like Christmas, red and green, all year long. Now I'm never sad.

The following are more people who've made my experience here so memorable.
 

Meet teacher Daniel. Here he is holding a rose, as we all were that day, to give to the school director for the holiday.

James "Bobby Dallas" is a character. Always laughing, perfect hair, he speaks with a mild Texas accent that makes you listen even when he's not saying anything important.  

Nothing for nothing, I've picked up a few strays along the way on an unordinary ride to the market for a weekend meal sometime between lunch and dinner. Cycling down a long straightaway fringed with paddy fields, I saw those unmistakable rear Ortlieb panniers shining their reflective stickers in the tired sunlight. So, I threw my bike into a higher gear, caught up to these two, and next thing you know they are exactly where I was about five months ago: sitting on that burgundy sofa, excited to have real cheese on my plate again, and stunned by the depth of a stranger's hospitality.

The final section of this wrap up are photos are worth an honorable mention.

Kunta and I watching the Super Bowl.

Can you say twenty baht bike repair kit?! That's amazing, especially when you see two tire levers included on top of the regular patch, glue, and sand paper.

Hell ya. You think you know, but you don't. I love paying with 1000's. Throw whatever Freudian classification of ego you want at me, nothing nothing nothing feels like breaking thousands in dirt cheap markets.

Nothing says "new day" like sunrises. As if you had to guess, this is what I ride into every morning on my way to work. Kinda hard to have hate in your heart when you start your day like this.

Can you believe it? They write cover stories about my 9ers. Never seen the Seahawks on the front...win!!

 

What can beat a beautiful sunest to close out the day with? Not anything I can think of (short of a trip into space). This shot was snapped down the street from our home which I hope that you now feel a little closer to. That is it for now. But fear not. There are more posts coming. Check your emails again soon for more blogs; including: Dre's life at work, food, and a all the Holiday fun.

 

Much, much love my friends. It feels good to be back.

 

-A