Arriving in Thailand... cut and pasted from email written end of november 06 from pai.
landing at lamphu house in bangkok was great to start. if you're ever in bangkok do stay here - it's like a wee haven amongst the chaos. it's great to see tui, kwan and opart again.. and chris had been on some fantastic adventures with lots of stories to tell. he's been like my walking thai dictionary/food identifyer. on the subject of food... mmm, i'm in heaven! the tastes and smells are unreal and i love putting 5 different condiments on my food everytime i eat. at lamphu house we gave afternoon conversation classes to some of tui's employees which was amusing. they're very sweet.
we took a very dodgy night bus to chiang mai where we stayed with friends of tui and opart. they were really welcoming and looked after us very well. almost too well sometime... breakfasts of rice and fish porridge and fried eggs awaited us some mornings and refusal seemed too rude!!
the highlight here was the wedding we went to... my australian friend andrew happened to be marrying his thai partner nisaluk so we joined in the huge celebrations. it began with a convoy of brightly decorated horse-driven carriages from nis' mum's house through a historic village to the new house built especially for nis and andrew. beautiful house, big garden... decorated with lanterns parasols and gorgeous flowers. we (andrew and nis' family and friends from australia and america) were given elaborate gifts to carry in procession behind some great musicians which we then presented to the families of the bride and groom. the ceremony took place inside the house, with prayers and blessings and swapping of gifts. then a big 'appetizer market' in the garden... lots of people cooking amazing things behind wee tables, serving it all in small boats made of banana leaves. then a big meal, laid out on mats on the lawn... a slideshow, thai dancers, speeches, thai whiskey, fireworks (which were let off 2 metres away from us and showered the party with ash and burnt cardboard containers).. then my favourite part - lighting 99 huge paper lanterns and sending them into the sky with our wishes. a line of lights dotted into the distance.. it was really magic.
now we're in pai which is a small travellers town.. very laid back.. lots of bars with live music and yummy fruit smoothies. we're staying just out of town (town is small - we're only 10 minutes walk from the centre) at a gorgeous guest house called paddy fields. bamboo bugalows set amongst the rice paddies. until 9am you can't see through the mist, then in about 10 minutes it suddenly clears and the sun burns brightly. the bathrooms are jungles and there's a fire to sit around every night. and 5 gorgeous puppies and a lot of chilled out happy travellers. up the road is a place with divine hot pools and there are lots of missions to be made on motorbikes. a group of us drove to sappong recently - about 2 hours away - to visit some beautiful caves. we floated through on bamboo rafts and at dusk we sat at the cave opening and witnessed millions of birds circling in to sleep, then hundreds of bats flat out for the night. fascinating!! i've been doing lots of yoga and making decisions about where to head next.
the decision i've made is to do a 21 day vipassana mediation course. i'll be starting on saturday, so i'll be out of contact until christmas, when i'll head down south to meet up with chris and tui. waking up at 4am and meditating til 10pm.. for 21 days!.. it's scary and exciting.
so that's my news... and i hope it finds you all well. will be in touch again from someplace new and exciting... quite possibly with new eyes and an energized heart and mind. if you want to check out where i'll be, the website is www.watchomtong.sirimangalo.org
i'll leave you with a great wee poem called happiness, from pai poems, by I.D. Garuda - a long term resident of this gorgeous town.
big love
george/ana xo
one day garuda asked the master to speak of happiness.
the master contemplated.
then he smiled and said,
"when you no longer want a better present moment,
then you will know what happiness is".
could it be that simple?
to realise it's always as good as it can be.