Rain

We finally had a bit of rain, and it was a small relief from the horrendous heat we have suffered under for so long.  The oncoming Rainy Monsoon Season will, hopefully, give us a break.  We finally had a day with the high temperature below 100*F, for the first time in weeks (and perhaps in months).  Yet the nighttime low has still not gone below 85*F.  But last night I actually had to put on a shirt and long pants during the middle of the night, and I turned off the fan before dawn.  

Blessed coolness, Zen delight. 

-Zenwind.
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Annual Immigration Nightmare

I am relieved to have successfully completed this year’s annual Immigration Office ordeal.  I got my Extension of Stay in the Kingdom based on retirement for one more year.  New hoops to jump through (as in every single year), new unannounced paperwork requirements, etc.  It is always my worst headache of the year.  I will spare those details. 

It has been blazing hot and humid here, week after week.  Standing in the shade for only five minutes looking for a taxi to Immigration made me drenched in sweat.  The new Immigration Office has great air-conditioning, and as I waited for over two hours I got thoroughly chilled.  That was not that bad, as it is a rare experience here, but I did shiver toward the end.  After finishing my business I reluctantly walked out again into the blazing heat, with the likely prospect of having to walk down the road to the main highway for a taxi home.  But I completely lucked out – a taxi had just discharged passengers and was now empty.  And nicely air conditioned.  I returned home cool and dry. 

-Zenwind.
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Fire at CentralWorld complex

There was a fire yesterday in downtown Bangkok at the CentralWorld complex, one of the biggest shopping complexes in Asia, but it was not overly catastrophic despite there being a couple of deaths. 

I have gone to CentralWorld a lot during my stay in Thailand, but not nearly as much as I go to the Siam Paragon shopping center which is a block or two away.  (I go to Siam Paragon more often because it is at the very hub of Bangkok’s elevated rail system, the “Skytrain”, and extremely convenient for movies, shopping, etc., before taking the train elsewhere during my day in town.  CentralWorld, on the other hand, is a bit harder to get to and requires a walk along an elevated walkway.) 

CentralWorld is huge, the biggest shopping center I’ve ever been to, and I actually have to navigate it with a store map and my wrist compass.  I only go to the original mall building, which is big enough for me.  It has a big cinema complex on about the seventh floor, as well as good bookstores (Asia Books and Kinokunia), and excellent sports shops.  It is a monster building, and they change stores so often I cannot keep up.  I might visit it only once every three or four months. 

Yesterday’s fire happened in an adjacent part of the vast complex, a 57-floor hotel, and it was put out quickly.  Parts of the complex may be closed for a while, and I’m not sure how the separate original CentralWorld mall is affected or when it will be open again. 

During the 2010 Red Shirt riots this original CentralWorld mall was set on fire by the rioters.  The Red Shirts had set up their main camp in the streets right close to it, and the mall had allowed the protestor/rioters to use some of the building’s groundfloor restrooms.  But when the Army came in to clear the streets, some Red Shirt assholes set a fire in the building, and we could see the smoke from up here in Nonthaburi.  When it finally re-opened the smell was there for a long time. 

In other news, it reaches at least 100 degrees F every day, and our nighttime lows are in the high 80s with a wicked humidity all the time.  Even the Thais are complaining. 

-Zenwind.
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Extreme Heat

Our Hot Season began with a vengeance and much earlier than I expected this year.  It is a real furnace.  Nighttime lows are always above 85*F and daytime highs are between 98* and 101*F, and it has been this way for a few weeks now.  Out in the sun it is wicked, and it is hard to find any breeze.  Add to this the ever-present high humidity and you get Sweat City.  It’s likely that it’s going to be like this right through May.  We look forward to the Rainy Season after that for some relief. 

I think that the above complaint about the heat is something I write about every year.  But it always takes me completely by surprise every year, because it is so intense.  However, it is the biggest news item in our lives at this moment, therefore I mention it again. 

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-Zenwind. 

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Mundee Is Back, with their Rock n Roll!

The Rock Pub (“Bangkok’s House of Rock”) has long been my main music mecca here, and I try to get into the city to attend their gigs at least twice a month if possible.  I like the music of all the house bands there – however, me being an old guy I tend to identify more with the bands who play older Rock music, say from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. 

And Mundee is that band.  They are veteran musicians with a mastery of those songs that I’m most familiar with, and they truly Rock!  I can identify perhaps 95% of the songs Mundee plays – and maybe, for most, tell you who wrote the song, who covered it, in what year, and where I was when I first heard it on the radio.  (Radio!…Ga Ga.) 

As for the Rock Pub’s other house bands, they are all fantastic, and one with a somewhat similar-sounding name, Munson, is also one of my long-time favorites, playing an early range of songs from perhaps a decade later than Mundee’s repertoire.  I can identify maybe 70% of the songs Munson plays by song name or band.  Munson makes Heavy Metal weigh-in way heavy. 

(I lost track of contemporary Rock by the early-1990s because I was finishing college and beginning my teaching career, and I just didn’t have time to pay attention.) 

For the younger band Jimmy Revolt, who have a stunning range of songs in their repertoire – and whom I love to hear and also consider to be good friends – I cannot tell you much about the majority of their songs’ histories because they are much newer, but I’m a major fan of anything they play because they do it so well.  And they do know an amazing variety of oldie crowd-pleasers for whenever the Rock Pub is filled with old-fart farangs.  Versatile and cool. 

But Mundee speaks personally to my own youth as an ancient devotee of Rock and Roll.  They play classic hard rock that stirs up intense memories.  Mundee had not been playing at the Rock Pub recently, because of some kind of an accident a band member had.  But when I saw that they were finally scheduled back for a recent Saturday night gig, I just had to make a special trip into town for them.  They did not let me down. 

Mundee will probably be slotted again into the regular Wednesday night gig – after many years being the Saturday regulars.  This is good news for me, because Wednesday is often the best time for me to get into the city.  I’ve planned this coming Wednesday entirely around their gig.  Rock On. 

-Zenwind. 

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50 Years Ago: Apollo 8 to the Moon

As a youngster I had been an enthusiastic fan of the American space program, especially in the early Project Mercury years.  These feats were heroic and dramatic, and I followed them eagerly.  I lost track of its progress during the Gemini phase and the early Apollo, because I was a coming-of-age teenager and had a lot of stuff on my mind, such as girls, Rock n Roll, and an addiction to reading.  So it was a surprise when I heard about Apollo 8 much, much later.

Because fifty years ago today I was towards the end of my Marine Corps recruit training at Parris Island, SC.  USMC Boot Camp had been intense, and we had not had any news of the outside world for months.  No radio, TV, newspapers, etc.  Nothing. 

We had finished our basic recruit training then we did the intensive two weeks of rifle science and firing on the Rifle Range.  We had only a Command Inspection and a spell doing mess-hall duty before we were to be graduated as Marines and sent on to Camp Geiger, NC for Infantry Training Regiment. 

A half-century ago on this night we were marching back to the barracks very late after midnight after a very long day working at the Mess Hall getting ready for Christmas dinner tomorrow.  We marched in step but more relaxed, under a bright moon.  The Senior Drill Instructor, whom we obeyed on instant reflex, gave us a puzzling marching command.  Instead of “Eyes Right”, etc., he said “Eyes Up!  Platoon!  Look up at the Moon.” 

Confused, we looked up and saw the bright Moon above.  The Senior DI said:  “Be proud.  Three Americans are orbiting around the Moon right now.” 

I was dumbfounded.  What the Hell?  We had no word of the space program for a long time or any hint of this Apollo mission.  All we could think is that this took real balls. 

They strapped three astronauts unto the top of a massively huge ballistic missile and then lit it and rocketed them up out of Earth’s gravity-well and then around the Moon.  The Apollo 8 crew did 10 orbits then returned to Earth.  What a ride!  In the annals of exploration, this was one of the most audacious voyages of the modern era.  I’m still in awe. 

-Zenwind. 

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Loi Krathong 2561 BE/ 2018 CE

The Full Moon of November is the festival of Loi Krathong, where folks float little baskets on the rivers and waterways which are lit with a candle.  It is a family affair and children are a big part of it.  It heralds the end of the Rainy Season and (supposedly) the start of the drier Cool Season (although I’m still sweating my farang ass off in the still-lingering humidity!). 

During this last week along the street to the river they have been building rides for children, booths for selling loads of carnival stuff, and a stage at the river for a band with tables for revelers.  (During the political riots of 2010 and the Great Flood of 2011 this festival was locally absent; but now it’s back to normal and thriving.) 

This year I chose not to go out into the neighborhood under the moonlight.  The crowds are just too packed for my tastes, too many slow-moving crowded sidewalks with small kids.  The bands are not to my taste either, and it’s impossible to find a spot in which to view them anymore.  In the past I could view the band from the bridge, but the crowds are too dense now. 

So I watch the Full Moon in private, absorbing its tranquility. 

-Zenwind. 

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US Marine Corps Birthday 2018

The US Marine Corps celebrates its birthday on 10 November.  On this date in 1775 John Adams proposed, and the Second Continental Congress approved, the formation of two battalions of Continental Marines.  Appropriately, the first recruiting locale was a tavern, Tun Tavern in Philadelphia.  The rest is history. 

Fifty years ago today, I was in my first week of Marine Corps Boot Camp, a Hell I had been warned about but could never even imagine how horrendously cruel it would be.  (I wrote a bit more about that time HERE.)

It was the first chapter in the true overall Marine experience, summed up as: 

“And when he gets to Heaven,

To Saint Peter he will tell:

‘One more Marine reporting, Sir.

I’ve served my time in Hell’.” 

-Zenwind. 

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Seasonal Changes

I am aware that the seasons in my original home town area of NW Pennsylvania are in radical change right now, and I miss those changes, the sights and smells and the feel of the air.  As October matures and the leaves change color and then drop completely by Halloween, the ancient Seasonal Turn comes about when pastures no longer grow and one must have already filled the barns with fodder for livestock which must last until the greening of May. 

The seasonal turn in the north temperate zones – when pasture grass and green leaves come around once more after May Day/Beltane, and then half a year later the green world dies again at Halloween/Samhain – this is an ancient timetable more basic and earthy than solstices and equinoxes. 

Here in Thailand we are also about to experience an important seasonal change, that of the end of the Rainy Monsoon season and the beginning of the general Dry Season which includes the shorter Cool Season.  By this coming mid-week (Halloween) the dew point is forecasted to be much lower and far more comfortable than anything we have seen for many months.  I expect to see some stars in the night sky again.  (For so many months, I have only seen a star a couple of times a month and the Moon only a bit more often.) 

I’m looking forward to not packing an umbrella every time I go out, to walk even short distances without being drenched in sweat, and to turn off the a/c at home for long periods of time. 

-Zenwind. 

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New Immigration Office

Today I did my obligatory in-person 90-Day Report of my current Thai address (although it has not changed in 12 years).  The new aspect of this routine is that my province’s Immigration Office has just moved to a new location.  It is more spacious with enough seats, is much closer to home and easier to get to, and has much better access to taxis for getting back.  I like it.  (So far.) 

The last provincial immigration office – which had opened within the last 10 years or so – was located far to the north and way out in the boonies amongst rice fields with no taxi traffic, so I would have to pay a taxi driver to stay to take me back.  This meant the driver would have to wait anywhere from a half hour to three hours.  I hated that aspect of it, but I admit I did like the country scenery of the trip.  That building was rather new and was air conditioned, but all immigration business was done in just one room, so there were many times when I could not get a seat and had to stand for an hour or more, packed shoulder to shoulder like a sardine.  Nightmare. 

But the immigration office I went to in my first few years here was even more of a terrible nightmare.  It was in an old area of Bangkok, and the building had no air conditioning and was absurdly crowded.  The smell of fellow aliens offended even me!  Tuk often went with me in those days – and she still always does for the major annual April visa extension – and we would celebrate finally getting our dread business done by going to The Hard Rock Café for lunch.  We are glad that first office is behind us, although we do miss The Hard Rock Cafe. 

This new office promises to make immigration ordeals more bearable.  (We hope.) 

-Zenwind.
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