23 April 2011

April is the cruelest month

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April is cruel for us, although not for the same reasons given by T.S. Eliot. April is the hottest and most humid time of year here (although we have had many unusually rainy days lately which block the sun and cool things off a bit). It is also the month when I must complete my work on my annual visa renewal by the last week of the month.
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I just posted a couple of very short book reviews my Zenwind blog, one on With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge and one on the Earthsea novels of Ursula K. Le Guin.
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I managed to get into town a couple of times for US Embassy paperwork visits, to talk with friends, and to see a couple of movies.
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Winter’s Bone, an independent film that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Film, was very good. It featured a strong teenage girl who must be the care-giver for her younger siblings and also stand up to the threat of death to protect their impoverished Ozark home. The young actress also was nominated by the Academy. It is a low budget film and is a bit of hillbilly noir, dark and ugly at times but ultimately redeeming.
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If I survive the coming ordeal with the Immigration Bureau, I will post again.
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-Zenwind.
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09 April 2011

Pit-Viper in Our Kitchen Tree

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Last week I saw a pit-viper at close range, slithering up a tree in our courtyard which supports our outdoor kitchen’s small tin roof over the propane stove. A beautiful light-green in color, it crawled with reptilian leisure and disappeared between several tin sheets making up the roof. One look at its triangular head told me it was a poisonous snake.
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I was sitting outside in my lawnchair reading in the shade of this tree, and I only noticed the snake because one of our cats alerted me to it. This cat, Silly Willy, also alerted me several years ago to a huge monitor lizard who was basking in the sun about 10 feet behind my chair. Willy may be silly, but he is a good hunter, and I can always tell by his eyes if he is looking at either prey or predator.
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Willy was sitting high on the wall on the other side of this tree, and I noticed him looking quite attentively at something with his look of apprehension. Following his gaze I saw the pit-viper move slowly up the tree at a height of about 7 feet from the ground, camouflaged very well against the underside of the leaves when one looks upward. I got up and stepped closer to look at it, and all my old Boy Scout training told me it was venomous.
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After it disappeared between the layers of the kitchen roof, I went inside to consult my Guidebook to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Thailand and Southeast Asia. That and some web searches narrowed it down to a couple of pit-vipers: The white-lipped tree viper or the large-eyed pit-viper. I didn’t have a long enough look to tell if its lips were white or its eyes big.
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I alerted my wife and her family, but no one seemed to be impressed. I’m sure they believed my sighting, but it just didn’t seem to be a big deal to anyone. Although living here for 5 years now, plus doing a year’s tour in next-door Vietnam 40 years ago, I guess I’m still a bit of a boot to tropical life. But I’m still watching my every step and every branch above me.
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-Zenwind.
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08 April 2011

Express Boats on the Great Chao Phraya River

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Again I sing the praises of my favorite transportation in the tropics. Sorry if I’m repetitious and have written this before.
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Taking express boats to downtown Bangkok is slower than going by taxi and much hotter, although sometimes river breezes give a bit of relief. But the boats are much cheaper and are an adventure in themselves. One gets to see Bangkok at water-level, at its roots.
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Sometimes the boats are so crowded that there is standing room only. If that is the case, I like standing in the back squarely in front of the engine-box. Let me explain:
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An express boat is about the size of a bus, an aisle going up the middle with pairs of seats on both sides. The pilot is up front. The forward two-thirds is seating; the aft third is engine-box plus steps up to the deck in the stern where folks embark and disembark as the boat briefly hitches to the piers along the way.
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If I have to stand during the voyage, I prefer the times when the standing customers are not too packed together, so that I can pick my spot, standing squarely in the center, just in back of all the rows of seats and immediately in front of the engine-box. To me, that is the boat’s center of gravity, its very soul. Standing there, I can feel every bit of the boat’s flex as the wooden structure twists and bucks with the waves. Looking up the length of the vessel from this spot, I can watch the pilot turn his wheel and then feel the slight delay of the craft’s response. It is the organic center of the ship.
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On those days when it is not too crowded, this standing spot is also the coolest place on board because the breeze funnels right back to you.
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Blessed coolness. Zen delight.
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-Zenwind.
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