Leaving Thailand: Reflections 3

On one my last nights in Bangkok, I drank some of my duty free champagne and watched "ZULU" with my neighbors, Richard and Andrea. Richard made a pizza and some salad and I cranked up the a/c. 

I have loved living in Sethiwan Residence and have lured friends to live here with me. Nothing is better than spontaneous dinner parties, movie nights, and hanging out with your neighbors. 

Also, I have a fantastic cleaning lady (Khun Nee) who took good care of Simon LeBon and me after my kidney surgery in 2011. The office managers have always been great and helpful. 

I'll miss my motosai driver buddies out front too - they always took great care of me and remembered where my hair salon was, that I don't like to go down Sukhumvit and prefer the back roads, and would run errands for me. 

It's been a good home to me. 

Leaving Thailand: Reflections 2

When I moved to Bangkok in 2011, I was overwhelmed with choosing where I wanted to live. I saw apartments all over town and in the end - I had to pick one solely based on where they accepted cats as tenants as making Simon Le Bon's arrival comfy was my top priority! I found a place in Sukhumvit in a neighborhood called Nana...right off Soi 13. 

One of the draws was being close to Sukhumvit Soi 11 which was a lively little street which meant I could walk to restaurants and bars and walk home. Soi 11 had lots of little dive bars and two very chic ones (Q bar and Bed Supper Club). 

Every night, little VW buses pulled up and turned the whole street into a party. We used to love going to the Red Wagon. 

My favorite restaurant on the street was the old 70s style American diner at the Federal Hotel where I could get a great crab fried rice and coke in the little bottles for less than $2. 

You could hang out in the alley and drink beer at Cheap Charlie's or the Pickled Liver. Both were great because they didn't really attract bar girls or prostitutes like many of the divey bars in Bangkok. You met a huge variety of people - expats, old thai men, tourists, the young and the old. 

There were two beautiful old houses on the subsoi between 11 and 13 and one was a spa. The closest mall was Siam Paragon. 

Today, as I went down the soi (which is torn up with construction), all of those things are gone and in their place is "luxury" condos, three new hotels, 2 hotels under construction, two big dance clubs (Club Insanity and Levels), an expensive "Argentine Steak House", a Baskin Robbins, a Starbucks, an Au Bon Pain, a Pomodoro, and lots and lots of empty little bars that used to be there scheduled to be knocked down for luxury condos. 

We have Terminal 21 on one side, Central Embassy on the other, and the big giant splashy Emquartier two stops away. The Thai junta banned the VW buses and all the fun character seems washed away. 

Guess its time to go before the whole city turns into a sanitized mall of chains that you can find anywhere in the world.

Return to Myanmar: Kachin State

Another trip to Myanmar in April 2014 - this time to the Kachin State... a place high in the foothills of the Himalayas and filled with Christian fundamentalists thanks to British missionaries traveling through colonial India. There were more Baptist churches than Buddhist temples differentiating it as a foreign land from Rakhine State and Yangon with its sparkling golden temples and saffron robed fascist monks. 

Besides the altitude and the religions, Kachin was a less paranoid experience. The smiles and shouts I received from teenage boys on motorcycles felt more like innocent sexual harassment than anti-UN hatred. Even if the tension is less palpable, the conflict is more active and there had been recent conflicts right before I left Yangon. I was unable to make it to the non-governmental controlled areas or to see the flags of China fluttering over the frontier from Laiza.

The international community, which is quite small, is not seen as a threat to the locals as they are in Rakhine and people in general were friendly, curious and open. The people wear very colorful traditional clothing too and the textiles were amazing. Being so close to the border with China also meant there was a very Chinese vibe to the food and the amounts of cheap consumer items available, even in poor Myanmar. The state felt richer than Rakhine State as well.

Shop in market selling Kachin Textiles

Kachin reminded me more of my time in Manipur, India where I went in 2010 with MSF.Manipur suprised me because it was notning like the "India" of my imagination. At one point, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar were all part of one giant colony for the British and the ethnic groups up in the hills of Northeast India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and China all seem quite similar. Like Manipur, there is a big problem with intravenous drug use, particularly heroin in Kachin. It seems ironic that evangelical Christianity and IV drug use characterize parts of India and Myanmar - opiate of the masses, indeed. The Christianity is a legacy of colonialism but the drug use is more recent and tied to the conflicts and the obscene influence of mining in the region.  

The north-east Indian states of Manipur and Nagaland, which lie along the border with Myanmar, have ethnic conflict, armed civil insurgency, a heavy military presence and high unemployment which is exactly the same description as Kachin, a state that has been wracked with ethnic conflict and sits right in the "Golden Triangle" In Myanmar. It's also the site of all the jade and gold mining in Myanmar and sits on a lawless border with China.  Some estimate that up to 70% of male youths are addicted to IV drugs in Kachin.  The jade mines of Hpakant in Burma’s northern  Kachin State have long been notorious for high rates  of HIV and IV drug use. A single shot of heroin costs about 1000 kyat or about a dollar. 

But I didn't see much of that when I was there. The weather was a lot cooler than Bangkok or Kachin so I spent my time cycling to the office and training Kachin women on gender-based violence. I adore being a trainer and I always get energy from meeting with women and men working on gender-based violence and trying to instill in them the skills to help the survivors. The Kachin women are so serious and earnest. We laughed a lot and played games but they never stopped trying to learn and they always wanted more. 

Good Counseling!

Importance of Eye Contact or Intimidating stare?

Bad Counseling

Trying out counseling for themselves.

Survivor-Centred Skills

Practicing

The Trainees

I went to the "Confluence" - the place where two rivers meet to form the Irrawaddy. Its going to be a site of a huge dam (a second "three gorges")  that will mostly serve China and Thailand's energy needs. The dam's reservoir will submerge important historical and cultural sites at the Mali and N'mai Hka rivers, as well as what is widely recognized as the birthplace of Burma. The areas is also seen as one of the world's top biodiversity hotspots and a global conservation priority: its a reserve for tigers and the river has an endangered dolphin species that lives in it. Groups within Burma oppose the dam not only because of its environmental impacts, displacement, and threats to cultural sites. But its also near a major earthquake fault line.  If the Myitsone Dam were to break during an earthquake, it would endanger the lives of hundred of thousands of people by flooding Myikyina.

There are some seriously sad photos of how much the gold mining and jade mining have ruined this lovely spot. It's a flashpoint for the conflicts here and the dam has been delayed, but for how long? After a relaxed day there eating grilled fish and picking up some interesting rocks, we returned to Myitkyina to discover that there had been a kidnapping there the same day we were there. The "troubles" in Myanmar are all around but only if you keep your eyes open - no wonder its becoming a popular tourist destination - but as we drove home, we saw a military patrol complete with rocket-propelled grenade launcher going through a local village. Although the women I trained didn't like to talk about it, the Burmese soldiers have been known to rape Kachin women and sexual violence is a big part of the conflict here.  

Me at the Confluence

The town of Myitkyina is very cute and not very big. Bigger than Sittwe in Rakhine but with some small interesting roads to cycle down and on the Irrawaddy river. There's a nice little market and the food is mostly vegetables and lots of fruits. It was mango season when I was there. The food was pretty tasty - much less greasy than the Burmese curries that I detest but I still was able to get my fill of fermented tea leave salads (lapet thoke), shan noodles (Shan Kauwk Swe), and Burmese fish and noodle soup - a form of Burmese Catfish chowder (mohingya). My friend Marise has set up a good life in Myitkyina and loaned me a bike and had me over for happy hour so it was the perfect balance of work, social life, and fun!

Honeysuckle

Road near the office

Training center in the Himalaya foot hills

Harvesting Guavas

Participants at the training

Lychee sellers at the market.

We culminated one long evening of wine drinking and discussion by singing Karaoke with new Kachin friends in a private karoake bar. I sang a heartfelt duet to Endless Love and received some polite applause before cycling home to my sparse little hotel.

I spent one day visiting the Women and Girls Centers that we have set up in Kachin to help empower women there. They are also a place where GBV survivors can receive support and counseling and referrals for services. I was providing some coaching and support to the center managers and met many of the women who were there for activities those days. Its the very beginning of the program but I feel proud to be involved in it and hope that my training helped in some small way to make things better.

Laughing at the WGC in Wai Maung

Feeling like a movie star in Myitkyina WGC

WGC provide day care too

Hungry WGC workers at the training

Unlike the dramatic events around the census and the attacks on aid workers that I experienced in March 2014 in Rakhine, I had an uneventful and fulfilling trip to Kachin. While I struggle from time to time with my decision to be a consultant and I feel so tired from traveling and airplanes and contracts and working from home, I love being in new places in this fascinating world of ours. I adore meeting and connecting with people from different countries. I'll always remember certain images that you can't capture with an iPhone: 

• the kind and lovely case worker from the Wai Maung center who always brought me lunch during the trainings - her kind and calm face made me wish she was my therapist. 
• Singing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" in one of the women's centers in Myanmar, Jingpho, Japanese, and English. 
• playing "obstacle course" with the participants, teaching them to trust each other as we wandered around the church to the amusement of the local contruction workers. 
• watching an enormous beetle that looked like a prehistoric creature wander towards my brand new computer and freaking out until my male coworker got rid of it for me and then having to endure his jokes about my gender discrimination the whole trip
• cycling home at 11pm on a completely empty street with a mild buzz from Myanmar beer and the wind in my hair and a million stars in the sky.
• listening to the sound of the whistle from the train to Mandalay and imagining myself in the footsteps of George Orwell and climbing aboard to go backwards in time.

Myanmar (or Burma) is a special land. The people are amazing and beautiful and its fascinating and heartbreaking to see what the neglect and political corruption has done to this land. Trips like this remind me to be grateful for having the opportunities I have in my life and inspire me to see more and more and more. 

Monsoon Living in the footsteps of George Orwell

Aerial view of Rakhine State.

I am sitting in rainy monsoon struck Myanmar (i.e. Burma but we’re not allowed to say that because that’s politically not supporting the current regime) in Rakhine State (formerly known as Arakan State) where I’m working with the Muslim population of internally displaced people (or as they call themselves, the Rohingya – but we’re not allowed to call them that because that acknowledges that they are an ethnic group that belongs to Myanmar and not a bunch of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh as the government calls them).

Sittwe Town from my hotel

Sittwe is a beautiful little village. Just what you imagine a rural decrepit town in Myanmar/Burma might look like. Old colonial houses dripping with dark patches of damp, overgrown and lush green gardens, gorgeous mango trees and coconut palms and people walking by in their lungis with things balanced on their heads and carrying umbrellas to shelter them from the rain and the sun. There is a golden stupa in the middle of town with a giant golden standing Buddha next to it peeking out over the top of the tree canopy and gazing at the Bay of Bengal.  The sense of neglect is visible in all the buildings, the few newer ones are garish and cheap looking with that weird reflecting tinted windows that seems so common in the Middle East and China. There aren’t many cars here. People can travel around town on bicycle-driven rickshaws  where they can sit two very very thin people – not Americans- , one facing each way and the bicyclist wearing a conical bamboo hat, cycles alongside you. Or there are lovely Burmese ladies perched on the back of bicycles always carrying an umbrella to shade themselves from the sun or rain. Or you can ride in a “tuktuk”. These are different than the ones in Bangkok - more of a sort of truck bed with two benches in it and a canvas streteched over the top driven by a motorcycle or a tractor . There are a few scooters and the cars that are here are old jeeps or Landrovers from the NGOs. Men wear button down shirts, flip flops, and lungis – the patterned long piece of material that they wrap around their waist and constantly have to adjust. Many women wear traditional dress and put this pale yellow clay on their faces to protect it from the sun and wear flowers in their hair. There are police and military officers as checkpoints all over the city. The sense of a military dictatorship is still very prevalent as we all have to wait on travel authorizations and permits to leave the town.

Riding to work in the rain

I am supposed to call this country Myanmar (its official name) but I like saying Burma better and most of the human rights activists still call it Burma because that was its name before the military coup and dictatorship here. I spent a week in Yangon – the capitol (formerly known as Rangoon). Yangon is lovely – very green and lush and I’m lucky to have been able to sublet a beautiful old house with a garden. I posted some photos on facebook of the orchids in the garden. I’ve also been reading George Orwell’s Burmese Days from when he was a
colonial policeman here and Finding George Orwell in Burma which retraces his footsteps and analyzes Burma during the height of the military regime (before the recent “reforms”). “Everyone falls in love with Burma except George Orwell” claims the author and I think she might be right. Yangon is a beautiful city and as far away from the skyscrapers and malls and convenience of Bangkok as it can possibly be - definitely more my style than Bangkok. Maybe I’ll get a job here and settle down for a bit which is what I would like.  However, people are
still quite terrified of the authoritarian regime, no matter what the “reforms” say so it’s an odd feeling to be part of the lucky who are benefiting from the opening of Burma and not really aware of the realities of the regular Burmese. And although I love colonial architecture, thinking about the abuses that took place here under colonialism puts a damper on tea or gin and tonics at the Strand.

Rohingya man in IDP camp

In Sittwe where the humanitarian crisis is  - it definitely feels like the place that time forgot. Time moves slowly here and I’ve had to detox (which is a good thing for me!) - I’ve maybe had internet access for 6 hours of the week since I’ve been here and I was issued a mobile phone that works very poorly so I feel very cut off from the world.
Poor little UNFPA, the UN agency that has hired me as a consultant, is relegated to an old storage facility in the basement of a building. The room reeks of mildew and has no ventilation as its two windows open onto the latrine and a garage where they park cars. I am outraged on behalf of my national counterpart – a young Myanmar doctor who is pregnant with her first child. She’s energetic and smart and working really hard with almost no support.  I’ve started squatting upstairs in the UNDP office and spending as much time on the balcony as
possible to breathe in the fresh air when it is not raining and using the time when I have the internet to lobby for a cleaning woman, a dehumidifier, and better office space. We don’t have our own car either so I travel by “tuktuk” to my meetings –it’s a far cry from most of the NGOs which have normal offices and houses and cars here. I
don’t mind the hardship of crappy offices. I’ve worked in tents, in mud huts, and in skyscrapers. A desk is a desk after all  - but the crappy office is a bit of a symbol of how little attention and care is given to the needs of the women who are displaced here in Rakhine State, in my mind. Of all the UN agencies in emergencies, UNFPA is one of the smallest. It doesn’t receive much money from the donors and its’ staff don’t seem to know how to respond to humanitarian emergencies – there is NO urgency. The staff in Yangon don’t prioritize the hinterlands and every request for something is challenged or ignored. Ahhh – life in the field. It’s frustrating being a consultant because I have no power at all but I’m going to use my voice to lobby for a healthier work place for my colleague. After all, I leave in 2 months but she has to work here.

UNFPA office - behind garage

If you haven’t read about it, here’s a brief synopsis: the humanitarian crisis here is a symptom of ethnic and religious violence in Burma – the majority Buddhist population here has been fighting with the Muslim community and burned down their houses and villages in October of 2012 driving them to live in scattered and remote IDP
(internally displaced) camps on rice paddies throughout this area. Most of the Moslems make their living as farmers or fishermen and as you might imagine, living in a rice paddy during the monsoon season is
miserable. I visited one of the best organized camps on Friday and it was very depressing. Because of the rains and the humidity, nothing remains or stays dry, most people only have one set of clothing and the children run around in the mud and rain with nothing but a small pair of shorts on. People have to live 10 to 12 families in a long bamboo thatched hut and most are not free to leave their camps so despair has set in along with the accompanying domestic violence and child beating. That’s why I’m here – to try to support the humanitarian community with training and advice on how to provide services for these women and children.

Rohingya girl

Many of the people are just waiting for the rains to stop so they can try to board really unsafe ships and seek out work in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and next door Thailand (where an immigration official was recently arrested for trafficking them to work on fishing boats as slave labor). They are known as the “Rohingya” and are a separate
ethnic group from the “Rakhines” in this area although they have been here for over 400 years. The Burmese government calls them “Bengalis” and claims they are Bangladeshi citizens and threaten to return them there although most have never been there and have no ties there. They are basically stateless (not recognized as an official ethnic group in Burma and therefor have no citizenship and belong to no government), persecuted by the governments of neighboring countries as well as the government here and are unwanted by everyone. It’s a really tough situation with no real solution at hand.

Rohingya boys in IDP camps

However, it’s a great group of people working here. The humanitarian world is really small – I got here and word got around and an Italian colleague from MSF who I met in Colombia in 2009 reached out to me and invited me to dinner last Friday night which was nice as there’s not much else to do in Sittwe. There is a movie theatre here but I think it only shows local films and is un-airconditioned (in this humidity and heat –it would be like sitting in a steam room with 100 people and watching a movie). There are a few local restaurants and tea houses but since its raining like mad, I’ve basically been holed up this weekend in my hotel room watching the BBC World coverage of the unrest in Cairo and Battlestar Galactica on my computer and reading training manuals and reports. I’ve caught up on any sleep I was missing in Thailand which is nice but I miss Simon, the Siamese cat and a variety of food. They have interesting salads here – and I am fond of a seaweed salad with sesame seeds and chilis that they make here. But mostly they use half a bottle of cooking oil to make anything here and
the food is swimming in oil and not very flavorful although seafood is plentiful since we’re on the sea so I eat squid and shrimp every day. I have been dreaming of spaghetti Bolognese and chocolate bars. But actually I’d be happy to have a big green salad.

IDP camp of Rakhine Buddhists also displaced during fighting

Well that’s it from here -  not much news to report. One year down as an independent consultant and the future is still unclear. I’ve got another 6 weeks work in Burma and then I’m back to Thailand where I’m presenting a paper and chairing a panel at an international conference on sexual violence. Then it’s back to Papua New Guinea for another month’s worth of work and then I’m free! I’m not enamored with the life as a consultant. The supposed “freedom” is not there yet as I still feel like I have to hustle for work and can’t turn anything down but I prefer being busy to not having enough to do. I think that makes me go a bit crazy. I still think I’d like to find an interesting
permanent job and settle down and stop traveling so much in 2014. I’ve been thinking of going back to graduate school – maybe in public health or social work but I’d also just like to have a steady job in a nice organization with a decent office and a nice house so I can hang out with Simon LeBon and have a normal life again. What’s that like? It’s been fun running around Asia but I’m a bit tired of always being on the move and fantasize about taking classes and setting up a routine and getting bored and longing for travel. It’s a vicious cycle, I guess!

Work Commute

Japanese Cat Cafe (Neko Cafe)

Wanna see the photos from my visit to the Japanese Cat Cafe (Neko Cafe)? Just go to  Part 5: The Cat Cafe!!!!!  

Things you can do in Bangkok but not in Amsterdam

• Go to the Grocery store and have the clerk greet you with a smile and say - Home Delivery, Madam?
• Pick up a super sweet Thai Iced Tea from a lady in a cart by the side of the road that she carefully wraps in a napkin and puts in a special little plastic bag "Sling" so you don't get your hands wet from the melting ice.
• Get an hour foot rub while drinking a cheap "Chang" beer for less than $3 complete.
• Have the lady at the work cafeteria remember you and greet you by making your favorite salad of chopped chicken "Laab Gai" with "Extra spicy, kap khun ka" (a far cry from the MSF Cafeteria)
• Be thankful for a 32C degree (90F degree) day .... because its a break from the heat!
• Consider going to a tropical island for the weekend idly and discard the idea because you can't be bothered to sit in a taxi for two and a half hours.

As popular as Durian in an Airplane's overhead compartment

Ever get the feeling that no one wants you around? I'm trying to get to Pakistan to help with the "Gender Marking" process and its rather unfruitful. Difficult to get visa, difficult to get anyone to respond to emails or phone calls, I feel rather useless...  In a bit of a funk, I went to the grocery store at lunch and bought some durian on a whim. For those not familiar with durian, its a delicacy in Thailand and SE Asia and rather notorious for it's "aroma".

According to Wikipedia, "the edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as almonds, rotten onions, turpentine and gym socks. The odour has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia."

But that's not all! 

'While  "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable", later descriptions by westerners are more graphic. British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory."^[23] Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions."^[24]Anthony Bourdain, a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."^[25] Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:

“

... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.[26]

”

Other comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray and used surgical swabs.^[27] '

So I had a couple of bites. Creamy - sort of the texture of a ripe avocado or a steamed artichoke heart. And a perfume-y taste... I would say similar to almond/rosewater. But three bites was enough. Its rich. So what do I do with it now? I need to segregate it from the rest of the house. 

"Throw it away," advises my friend Lauren, "Preferably in another country." 

I double-bag it and put it out on the balcony. I gaze over at the pool - 12 stories down, maybe I could toss it down there. 

Then I realize - I should keep and finish my durian. Because today I feel unwanted, ignored, and useless - about as popular as a durian in an overhead compartment of a plane on a long-haul flight.  So maybe instead of that old childhood song "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I'll eat some worms" - I'm going to eat some more durian.

Reunited!

So this weekend my friend Mike kindly delivered my cat Simon to me in Bangkok. Simon is a world traveler. Simon came into my life when he was three years old. He was born near Washington DC and a woman who worked with my friend Jeanne had him since he was a kitten. She developed terrible allergies to him and had to find him a new home. He bounced around a bit through a couple of people and then Jeanne suggested I go and meet him. I had been missing a cat in my life since my cat Dante went to live with my father when I was in Guatemala (and my father refused to return him).

Simon came to live with me in Washington DC where we lived for four years on 18th street in Dupont Circle/Adams Morgan. He was very happy in our little one bedroom apartment and our biggest problem was figuring out how to keep him from being too fat. I traveled a lot for my job at Refugees International and my friend Brian who lived down the street was his "baby daddy" and pitched in.

When I took the job in Amsterdam, Simon made the flight over to Europe. Despite not enjoying European kitty litter and developing extremely expensive tastes in wet food and a neurotic hair pulling problem, we were relatively happy there for almost four years. The cold weather meant that Simon developed the habit of sleeping under the feather duvet at night with his head on my pillow. He was a very good winter cat as his body temperature kept me warm and he loves to sit on laps or stomachs. He adjusted to the changes and like any good Dutch person grew to love those few days of sunshine when we would sit on the roof deck and soak up the sunshine.

When I got the job in Bangkok, I wondered whether or not I should bring him with me. He's 11 years old and the separation time plus the time in the cargo hold of the plane can be very stressful on cats. He had already developed a hair pulling problem due to stress in Holland so how would he handle the international flight? My friends Jeremy and Marjolein acted as foster parents while I found a suitable apartment in Bangkok.

I was a nervous wreck the week of the flight - I sent copious numbers of check lists, emails, skypes, text messages, and phone calls to make sure Operation Simon Le Bon went smoothly. I first had to get time off work to go to the airport. My contract says I cannot take any leave for the first three months that I'm working here so getting a day off was a bit of a challenge. Luckily my supervisor is a pet lover and imported his own dogs in from Colombia so let me bend the rules. I left around 11am to get to the airport for Mike and Simon's expected arrival time of 12: 45pm. It was strangely cold in Bangkok that day and I hadn't brought a sweater with me. I was waiting for a taxi to take me to the sky train and there were tons of people in front of me. As I was so anxious, I decided to throw caution to the wind and take the motorcycle taxi.

Off we zoomed over the flyover and weaving in and out of traffic at a high speed. The mototaxi guy took us headfirst into oncoming traffic, up onto the sidewalk, and seemed to be relishing my clenched face in the rearview mirror. Again, I thought, I said I would NEVER DO THIS AGAIN! And I thought - what good will this do for Mike and Simon if I'm in a hospital or dead? But I made it to the skytrain and jumped on the Airport link for a smooth 30  minute ride to the airport.

While at the airport, I started to grow anxious as I stood with the hundreds of chinese, Russian, and Israeli tour groups welcoming people in from immigration. I found an office that said "Customs Control" and went in there to show them my pet import license. After many phone calls - they lead me behind security and customs onto the baggage claim floor where they warned me not to show anyone my passport and get out of there as soon as possible. I went to oversize baggage, a giant freight elevator opened up and there sat the tiny little kennel with a very pissed off looking Simon crouched in the back.

I tried to pet him and he let out a piteous meow and then turned his back to me and went to sleep.

I stood with Simon by the baggage claim until Mike made it through immigration. Not a sound was heard out of the kennel. We took off to the Animal customs/quarantine office. The two Thai officials who had been there before were nowhere to be seen but my import permit was sitting on their desk. Someone came in and called them for us where they were out taking a smoke break. They came in and started filling out lots of forms, rifling through Simon's forms, and fifteen minutes and 100 baht later - we were sent to the customs line. Mike showed his passport (they didn't even look at Simon) and I paid 1000 baht and we were free to the taxi. A 45 minute taxi ride home, I opened up the kennel and Simon popped out.

He took a quick saunter around the apartment and smelled everything. He drank a little water. Let out one big meow and then curled up on the bed to go to sleep. He's a trooper! He seems to like the warm weather, he hasn't vomited, pulled out any hair, or even yowled since he got here. He found a nook he likes in my sweaters (of course) and happily sits under the dining room chairs and explores the balcony.

We're renuited! And it feels so good!

Old emails: 2005 Sri Lanka

Old post I found from Sri Lanka which has a lot to do with my time in Bangkok so I thought I would re-post it:

September 8, 2005
Colombo, Sri Lanka

I did a (stupid? fun? adventuresome? foolish?) thing yesterday. I was a little tired of riding the buses
from town to town. While they are cheap, they are often crowded and I was afraid I wouldn't get a seat on this last bus. But first a little back story...

Sunday, after taking the bus and a tuk tuk to Sigiriya (about 3 hours from Kandy), I decied to go on safari. We took a jeep out to the national park and I saw three herds of wild elephants, some monkeys, wild peacocks, and tons of painted storks. It was really fun and a little expensive on my budget ($50). I then went to the posh $200/night hotel to have a drink and hang out and soak in the ambience rather than sit on the porch of my rather seedy run down rest house and drink lime and soda. The guesthouse workers told me that I need to "watch out for elephants in the road' at night so its not safe to walk (which is probably a lie - these guys would squeeze money out of a turnip)
so they gave me a taxi (not a tuk tuk for 80rupees but a taxi for $35 a day). The fancy hotel is about a 2 minute drive down the road from my rest house. "Pay what you like Madam", they said. I said "Okay, I'd like to pay nothing."

Anyway, the one gin and tonic I drank made me loopy. I blame not drinking for a week and the incredibly
intense ayurvedic massage I had which made me feel like a side of Kobe beef being tenderized for the
slaughter.

On the way back to my guest house, after almost running over a cobra, I agreed to take a motorbike to Polonarruwa yesterday. Thats' right, ride on the back of a dirtbike with my backpack on for two and a half hours. Now the reason why this is foolish is that the cars in sri lanka practice "trickle" style driving. If there is a hole in traffic, they trickle into it. Nature abhors a vaccuum and all that. So, as I clung to the back of my slightly fat Sri Lankan driver in a helmet that turns out to be made of styrofoam, we zoomed in and out of traffic with buses, 18 wheelers, tuk tuks, army jeeps, and cars alternatively passing us (while sometimes passing anothr truck simultaneously) on a two lane road  that winds up through the jungle. I was scared out of my mind (not to mention in pain from my backpack which has too many books in it and breathing exhaust). It was, in the words of Jonathan Coe or somebody "a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again". We also had to dodge people, dogs, a water monitor, cows, and a goat while driving along. I was also told to keep an eye out for elephants as we took a shortcut through a national park.

I'm lucky to be alive. all of this took place after I climbed Sigiriya rock fortress (which takes two hours) and climbed another mountain to look at some buddhist caves. My back, legs, and arms are dying but I'm too afraid to get another ayurvedic massage.

I wrote that yesterday, today I took the 5 hour bus from Polonnaruwa to Colombo. I think our driver might have actually been a demon from hell. He drove like a crazy person. I began laughing fiendishly whenever
some new unsuspecting soul got on the bus - GOOD LUCK SUCKER! We made it somehow and I'm now having culture shock as I sit in our luxury hotel that Joel reserved for us. 

Some photos from Thailand

 My new office, the United Nations building. I'm on the 3rd floor in the UNHCR Regional Office.

 

One of the most fun parts about moving here is using the public transportation - in this case, the canal water taxis. Not many farang (white people) on it and it MOVES unlike Bangkok's auto traffic. Downside - toxic water splashing you in the face. These canals are not too clean.

 The view from my new apartment down into the pool. It's got a proper pool where you can swim laps. And yesterday, after a harrowing day shopping in grocery stores and department stores crowded with people, I relaxed by taking a swim and then floating for about half an hour, just looking at the sky. Now that's a way to come home.

 My new apartment - beautiful hard wood floors and balconies. I'm ITCHING to get to the plant shop and buy some jasmine, basil, tomatos, and chilis for the balcony. There's actually two balconies - one off my bedroom and one off the living room.

Everywhere you go in Bangkok, there are people selling and consuming food. Here's a snap from the street next to one of the big malls here - they sell giant prawns which they grill and the tables are set right there on the sidewalk next to the traffic.

 Here's a view from one of the overpasses on the canal or Khlong. The contrast between old Bangkok on the water and the modern crazy obsessed with new city is most marked here.

Jim Thompson's House. He was an entrepeneur (and probably a former spy for the US) and he built this gorgeous house from traditional thai houses. It is so lovely it made me want to cry. How can I live like that?

Tropical flowers....

 Here's the Erawan shrine. It's a very popular place with Thais waving joss sticks, buying garlands and garlands of marigolds and jasmine, and Thai dancers performing for those who are thankful that their needs were attended to. This shot is from the skywalk overhead that I was using as I transited from one shopping mall to another. Again -the contrast between the traditional and the modern really intrigues me. Cultural Hybridity indeed.

Cool tropical fruit drinks.... I am obsessed with Lime Sodas but this passion fruit, mint, cocktail was pretty impressive too.