Thailand is Booming with Tourism

I can say with certainty that I already love Thailand. Calm, friendly, honest people. A land of Buddhism that entices you quickly with its sweet flavors, fragrance of flowers, polite and gentle landscapes. It is entirely nonabrasive (we have stuck mostly away from the tourist path - 'walking streets,' the seedy brothel lore, the tired 'Cancun' and Disneyesque resort beaches to the south). Anyone with imagination or a taste for its rich history can easily see a charmed past and feel in its recent history, echoes. This is not a blog about that Thailand. This is what I wrote spontaneously on a slow diesel trawler as we crawled along the coast back to the furthest edge we could find away from Thai 'civilization.' After nearly two weeks on islands and in serene mangrove estuarine enclaves along the Thai Cambodian border here it is what I wrote. If it is for anyone, it is for the thoughtful and compassioned traveler. And, it is for the governments of Thailand, her neighbors, and the world community that flocks here. It is not meant as unfriendly. It is meant as a reminder to all of us who can ignore what role we play in the way the world develops.

It goes like this...


What would fix our world: By example from Thailand

Life has only ever taken me to moments.
In clarity in Evolutions.
I would see in a place all I loved and all at once.
Nothing like this ever came to me in Thailand.
Here, a debate with self, of new purpose, new pursuits.
China, India, Louisiana, ancestry vastly more polluted
These all ring with Life for me. Poor Thailand.
I am understanding very little here.
It sticks to my soul like a skin's lesion.

Thus, I reflect on other places, other times.
A first epiphany in Omaha, Nebraska. I am 17.
A urchin's port in Panama's Casco Viejo. I am 29.
Acrid sulfurs of country roads back home.
Distances of time. Memories held still.
Photographic emotional stillness.
Friends and acquaintances long gone.
Distances grown to revolutions.

Thailand, as ill as the planet we are healing.
Now, but now, but NOW, must remain sick, bedridden.
Venezuela, USA, The Indian Res
And all the old Colonies hovering below remark for it.
Darkness, falsely lit, in phantom shallows. A putritude.
Holding good which was evil disguised as good without evil.

A lost time. Dead monks littering roads between Buddhist countries.
Greeds, Pollutions, Degraded, Degrading.
Falsity, lacklusterness, undefined ruination with no common purpose.
Results of organized religion - Capital wealth.
King's of Ancient Nations trading arms and lands and death.
Kunckledusters who let ruin the golden gates.
What would fix our world? By example from Thailand...
"Kill the Buddha!"

....

To our lovely friends and all her kind people, forgive a wit in wrath.

This blog is going to be followed by a short series of positive inspirations about eco tourism, public environmental art, service projects that are self-starters (and work), green development lessons, new friendships and the like. But, I have to get this out there to get started on the rest.

We have two days until Calcutta, India. What can await us there?

Wrapping up Thailand, we have been enjoying the long New Year's celebrations, visiting craft, music, and food bazaars and festivals and wishing we had many of our good friends and family along to enjoy this place and make sense of what is happening here so that we should all become better stewards of the world our children's children and their children's children might one day inherit.

Thailand is Booming with Tourism. What can we learn from their losses and their fate? (A sad and deadly sickness of selfishness and mad advantages)

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Still We Pray

Today, setting out on a one speed bike - no hand brake, formerly foldable (rust) - toward Patrick's garden to weed plants, to the barber, and to follow old friend Marvini's advice and make an appointment for a dental check-up while in Thailand, I was to take my a left at the first stoplight intersection.

Thais drive on the 'wrong side' of the road; or if you are from a British Territory they drive on the right side (left); but they obey all the rules of turning like where I am from. Confused?

When you set out for your first bicycle ride in a totally new country (where street signs, languages, driving etiquette and the like are turned round or indecipherable), you may turn to prayer. I prayed the whole way down main street. This is not to say I was not elated. We love bikes. Passing two stoplights with no visible left turns, only very significant right turning lanes, at the third stop light I turned right and headed in the direction of signs which pointed to a mosque.

When I was passed simultaneously by a very large diesel bulldozer and two motorcycles on a turn with two trucks moving into my lane, I prayed. Then, I pulled into the mosque.

I parked my bike and took in the scene. A man in heavy head-covering was sweeping the yard with a broom made of fronds. [This custom is neither religious nor pious, all over hot climates the heaviest-dressed people - gloves, head scarves, long sleeve shirts and pants - are often those who work outside and need covering from the sun.] Several boys eating and horsing around. Conversation among mosque-faithful involving contents in a truck bed.

I approached the mosque, left my flip flops and tea container on the steps and went in. Inside, the cool airs were delicious. The place was spotless. There was a lone Thai gentleman sitting at a long table. He greeted me in English. "Hello, may I help you?" he asked. "I am here to visit the mosque." I replied. "Are you Muslim?" he asked. "No, I always visit Mosques when I am traveling." Then I added, "I come to pray for peace between all peoples."

"Welcome," he said, "this way please."

This is a point when many of us get nervous. 'What am I doing here?' we ask ourselves, 'Am I invading a sacred space?' or 'Am I being too presumptuous?'

The gentleman took me up the stairs. He opened the doors to the mosque. '"On Fridays," he told me, "this room is full of our people praying."

The room was stark. Entirely open. There were no images, statues, or noteworthy architectural details. I stood outside and said a silent prayer for peace between our peoples.

We turned to leave. Out of a moment of uncertainty, my host suddenly turned back as we began towards the stairs. He reached toward a lock and opened the glass doors to a balcony overlooking the courtyard and beckoned me to join him. As we walked out, he brushed his feet in front of him, scurrying leaves and lizards, (making certain, I imparted, to move any unseen scorpions or venomous centipedes out of our path). "From here," he told me "you can see all of Trat." A carpet of tropical green stretched out in every direction in front of us.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs my host asked me if I would like tea. I told him I had brought my own. He asked me how I had gotten here. I said I had ridden my bike. He asked me where I lived. I said Louisiana.

I pray for the forgiveness of all those who offer their sincere courtesy and graciousness to me and to whom I do not have the courage and manners to accept.

As I crossed the courtyard I received smiles, hello's, and thank you's from all those I passed on my way in. A toothless older man approached me and asked me several questions in Thai to which I smiled. He smiled. We waved. As I got on my bike and rode out of the gates I saw in adjacent shops women in burkas preparing all sorts of inviting snacks. As I made a turn in the bend and saw the main road beyond fields of elephant ears in front of me, I heard the call to prayer rise up distantly behind me. Still, I prayed.

Across the tiny piece of Asia which we have traversed, we have constantly aimed to be good ambassadors, and to encounter our host cultures where they were, and to reciprocate the openness of these holy places with respect, enthusiasm, and deference. We have consistently been met with kindness and appreciation for what it is we do.

This whole trip we have encountered many different religions. At last count, we had been to places of worship for Shintoism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Brahmanism, and Falun Gong. I left out Communism and King Worship (Veneration) off the list, because many would argue these are not formal religions. I know I am leaving other places of worship out - please accept our apologies - there is much we miss and do not fully understand.

For understanding respect and deference still we pray.

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