10 April 2015

On the Great Chao Phraya River

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I haven’t been on the Chao Phraya River express boats for a long, long time until the other day. I haven’t been going to Bangkok as much in recent months, and when I have gone into the city I’ve taken a taxi in to at least the closest Skytrain (light commuter elevated rail) station and then a taxi back home late. I’ve been opting for the coolest rides in air conditioned comfort. I must be getting old.

Yesterday was my annual trip to the US Embassy to get a notarized document for my annual big visit to Immigration in two weeks to apply for an Extension of Stay in Thailand based on Retirement. I intended to take the boat in the morning, but I was running late and it’s hotter than Hell here, and an empty taxi happened to come by. There are no good movies playing, so after the embassy visit I made a quick bookstore run and jumped on the express boat for the afternoon trip home.

Standing outside for 10 minutes I felt like I had just taken a swim with all of my clothes on. The other day gave us a freak hard thunderstorm which made the night cool. The following morning wasn’t too bad while the clouds blocked the sun. But when the sun finally came out, all that moisture just hung heavy in the air. Sweat city, without mercy.

Looking at the city from the lowest elevation, at river level, I could see a lot of changes. Bangkok is a dynamic place. Buildings and infrastructure are going up everywhere. One new bridge for elevated rail is already finished not far down-river from us, and I got to look at the new bridge(s) closer to us. I was amazed that there are two double train track bridges being built together. These rail connections will soon make express boat travel antique, as air conditioned fast rail stations will be within walking distance to us in a couple of years.

But you cannot beat the scenery experienced from the river’s level. You see the extreme poverty of collapsing tin squatters’ shacks on stilts on the river’s edge right next to luxurious new high-rise condos going up – that’s Asia in a nutshell.

The Great Flood of 2011 still has its reminders left along the banks. Wooden structures are now showing their immense foundational decay from that deluge. And a couple of riverbank temple monasteries are finally showing their damage as debris is slowly being shoveled out of their ground floors.

Ah, I long for coolness.

-Zenwind.

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Silly Willy, R.I.P.

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[This post was moved from "Zenwind" to this blog.]

Silly Willy, our silliest but beloved cat, died recently after a year-long struggle with some kind of a feline virus. The vet had tests done in late 2013 and told us it was a terminal case, but Willy didn’t give in without a fight and lived much longer than expected. He was seven or eight years old.

Willy was a favorite of ours, and he always wanted to be close to Tuk – until the last weeks of his sickness when he would snuggle next to me because I sleep more. Right from the time he was a kitten, he was always doing silly things, hence his name. He just looked silly. I would always greet him by saying, “There’s that silly little guy!” and he seemed to like that.

He liked to hear us talking to him, and during his last days and nights I would recite a short Mahayana verse to him that I got from reading Jack Kerouac. Although I don’t believe in the Mahayana ideas of rebirth, etc., I do admire their sense of compassion. I really like some of their ideas – which I look at as metaphors -- of a long series of karmic rebirths that have the potential for all sentient beings who think and act virtuously to work their way up to the state of complete Buddha-hood. The Kerouac verses, into which any name can be substituted, went like this:

-- “Willy: equally empty.” [“emptiness” meaning that our individual natures are not fixed; we can overcome ourselves, improve ourselves, and climb higher]

-- “Willy: equally to be loved.”

-- “Willy: equally a coming Buddha.” [even Willy may, in some far future eon, reach that highest of moral heights]

Willy would weakly look at me as I recited this, appreciating the attention. I couldn’t resist assuring him that after his final rebirth he would become famously known as “the Silly Buddha.” I don’t think he took my humor in the wrong way. We sure loved the little guy.

-Zenwind.

01 April 2015

Over 100 Degrees F. and Humid

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The title of this post says it all.

And yet what did I do at noon? I took a march around the neighborhood and down past the river.

"Mad dogs and Englishmen/ Go out in the midday sun." All the dogs I saw were sane; they relaxed in the shade. It was me who was the April Fool.

-Zenwind.

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