Monday 14 November 2016

Bus Station at Ubon Ratchathani


It looked familiar as I stepped down onto the sunbaked concrete. The single line of coach parking. The platform with rows of seats, food stalls. Where the public phone had been, there was now a blank wall.

  


The experience was the same as eight years before, but this time I was prepared. The tuk tuk drivers crowded round, some shoving to the front, others hanging back. The more in my face someone chooses to be, the more I tend to be disinclined to consider their services. Adopting the detached mask and unfocused eye of a Tai Chi practitioner, I slowly moved through the bustle, pick up my rucksack which was already deposited on the ground by the bus driver and walked away - anywhere - but away. 





My companion, Greg, apparently looked like a better bet, but the reverse baseball cap and macho stance of the driver, posturing, close up, cut less than no ice with him. May, our Thai co-traveller, intervened, but with a clear message from Greg that if a tuk tuk it was to be, it had to be anyone other than the pushy man before us. We were a little surprised when, after a brief exchange, May had turned on her heels, walked away to the other side of the station platform and was opening a taxi door. We followed with the bags and were soon pulling out onto a busy road, heading into the city. This was May's home town and we relaxed in her capable hands as she engaged the driver in laughing conversation. 


Sunday 13 November 2016

Twenty-five thousand days



Alone for the first time in a month of my Asian travel, I sat in the small garden restaurant across the street from the condo. Last night my travel companions had raised a glass to my twenty-five thousand days on the planet.

I finished the meal of khao pad moo and pak boong fai daeng (pork fried rice and greens with chilli).

The second bottle of Beer Lao eased the pain in my knackered foot.

The waxing moon was within hours of its perigee, closer to Earth than at any time since I was five months from entering this wondrous world.  

King Bhumibol the Great, Rama IX had been less than two years into his reign. The National Health Service was not yet begun. A catastrophe was about to unfold on a peaceful people in the Middle East. 

One John R. Pierce was soon to suggest a name for a new device, the transistor, that would eventually lead to the transformation from fifty ton valve computers to the small laptop and smartphone sitting on my table.  So I had flown ten thousand kilometres to sit in an atmospheric local eatery in an exotic country - and what was I doing with these amazing tools?  Scrolling through a day's Facebook posts.

I was rescued from my banal idleness by a small lizard, taking a chance against discovery, that darted out from under a kitsch table ornament to check out the remains of my meal. 

The ascending moon lit  the silvern scene.  If that was not enough to nudge me into a greater consciousness, a yellowing leaf fluttered onto the keyboard, followed by another. 


No more tapping or scrolling tonight. It was time to wake up.

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Bereft

การไว้ทุกข์ - Mourning
On the death of the king, Thailand, October 2016



At sunset over the water meadow
buffalo settle - an occasional bellow.



Geckos chup-chup-chup
to a crescendo of cicadas.

The cockerel waits 
for its moment and

flitting bats 
are silent to my ear

A doleful bell and evening chant 
for the people's beloved king.

There is no comfort 
in the Land of Smiles.



Roi-et, Thailand, 31 October 2016