Planting trees, Chinatown, and a blocked road

I just got up, I am preparing to write the blog from yesterday. A Monk just walked by, collecting food. The color of his robes, saffron, is beautiful in the morning light. His collection bag is also a beautiful blue. The sun is coming up a little later now. I see a squirrel like creature in the palms. It is fall light, even in Thailand. A crow just flew by, cawing. Another fall sound. Soon it will be 90 degrees, and that is not fall at all.

Yesterday we had a tree planting ceremony in the park. I think the King's mother is known for her love of nature. The different people from different muu's gathered at the park headquarters, there were many speeches and people picked up palms trees that were ready to plant. There were also some trees that were placed in the ground ready to be surrounded with dirt. I helped Jit and Juke each plant a tree. A few people took pictures of the Farang planting trees. We got a late start for the hospital.

When we got to the hospital we found out that Nuke was going to be released. We ordered Pizza Hut pizza to be delivered. It was good.

We took off to Chinatown. I went with Nick, Nuke's sister, Juke, and Jit. We would be back around 4:00 to get Nuke and Tuke, Nukes mother, out of the hospital.

Juke is great at getting across streets he just barges in during a gap, raises his hand, and goes, it is important to stay under his protection. He grew up in the area and knows his way around. We took one of the green buses to the Golden Buddha and started there. Describing Chinatown is overwhelming, layers of impressions, experiences, sounds, smells, heat, taking pictures is very unpredictable. Everywhere is a decisive moment, which means that it is next to impossible to catch a decisive moment, there is an interesting face, look at that dark store, there are some people talking, look at that family, see that building, look at that sign, see that man, you get the idea, there are things to notice everywhere at all times....I love it.

We went through a dense narrow alley that was renovated and covered with some kind of translucent roof at the third floor level. It was packed, cloth, food, trinkets, clothes were being sold at all areas, Vespa's would navigate through the crowd making deliveries, carts would also come through, even without the extra traffic, it was packed. What is amazing is that it all worked, people moved, deliveries were made, carts navigated, and smiles were exchanged. When we left the alley we entered a hot street, the light was low and the smoke was easy to see. We went through another short alley with a restaurant. The stove was an intense charcoal fire in a stone fireplace, hot to hot! It was amazing. I took six rolls of 36 exposure film. I used some 800 ISO Fuji print film so I could get some faster shutter speeds. I have no idea how the pictures will look, but the experience of picture taking was fantastic. We took a green bus to Silom, walked a little and saw a Hindu like Buddhist Wat, and then took a taxi back to the hotel. It was about 4 hours of intense experience.

We check out of the hospital and started to go home, stopped briefly at Big C. When we started to go through Phra Pradaeng there was a big traffic jam. At the isthmus to the peninsula that we live on, just past the canal, a truck had knocked down four electrical poles, there was live electricity, we were told this, and the traffic was snarled. After much waiting, using a short cut, watching motorbikes navigate through the mess, and seeing long lines of trucks waiting beside the road, we got home. When we passed the fallen poles there were wires draped over a pickup truck with Picnic Gas bottles. My poor imagination could visualize a disaster. For awhile it looked impossible to get through, but we did, people worked together with humor and grace, but I must say I was very tired when we got home. I could feel I was emotionally exhausted.

Random observations and experiences

I saw interesting signs, Smith and Nephew on the side of a truck, Shrewsbury International School, Piron Silp with a picture of Che Guevera on the side window of a delivery truck, Dr. Artist, and Apache Toys on a car.

There are many excellent condition VW bugs in Bangkok, the original air cooled ones. Many of them look modified. I wonder how they handle air conditioning.

I have been noticing a few very ugly cars, modern, that I can not recognize. They are sort of an ungainly SUV. I looked at Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese cars and nothing was similar. I finally found a Thai web site and they mentioned a Korean car that I had not seen before, something like Ssangyong. I looked at the web site and it was there. Another important puzzle solved. I am a car nut and read, or used to read, Autoweek so I recognize most cars.

The uniforms on parking attendants are too much. Some wear beret's, others full helmets, there are even campaign ribbons on their uniforms. I looked carefully to see if they were off duty soldiers, but there was a logo identifying a security company on their uniform. I think our friend Sutep ran the company that helped provide security for Tesco-Lotus. They also, thankfully, do not have guns. The security officers in downtown Fairbanks are also too much, they even were bullet proof vests and big fancy boots. It is really pretentious to me, boys dressing up with their toys. Grrr.....

There has been very low water pressure, or no water, for the last few days. What I think was explained to me is that there is a shortage of electricity. When the electric pump comes on for community water distribution the lack of electricity hurts the motor. They are missing a part for the motor. I guess there is a chronic shortage of electricity because people have air conditioners for their bedrooms. People collect rain water in large tanks so people have some water. We also use rain, or bottled water for drinking. The problem is the lack of water for sinks, toilets, and showers. You can also get water from the canals to use for something. It is much less of a crisis then it would be in an American town. People adapt.

Jit's uncle is helping to clear one of the islands of the "farm" of grass. He is the eighty year old man in the pictures. He is amazing.

Today we will go into Phra Pradaeng to drop off twelve rolls of film. Next week I will go to STOU for a meeting on e-learning with a professor from Australia. I have confirmation from three of the four contacts that I tried to make last week. We will need to call the Klong Toey project because they do not answer their email. After the house is dedicated we will start doing some traveling. It is hard to imagine, time goes fast, but we have only four more months in Thailand.