Tokyo

Tags

Japan, Tokyo, Travel

Not all those who wander are lost: Tokyo (Very rough chapter extract from the book)

I explored my local area on foot. My hostel was in the business district near a big crossroads and I walked in all four directions both in the day and at night, as Tokyo looked so different daytime and after dark.
Usually I thought about stopping and turning around when my feet began to hurt and then always found something just after that point; something that made the walk worthwhile, so that I could say, that’s what I was walking to and turn around.

A memorial portrait gallery and a nice bench; an amazing apartment building with mosaics sculpture up the walls and over the balconies, all different pretty old tiles in the hallway and black metal letter boxes; bright lights and cool buildings; a cat cafe; the Metro station that I often went to.

My first morning I picked one direction and stuck to it, looking for a coffee place. I thought I saw one, it was actually something totally different but it looked like a coffee shop in my home town: wishful thinking.

Then I saw one, a proper coffee shop! It looked like an British cafe or tea shop, a smart old fashioned one, the kind I could imagine my posh Grandma taking me too.

They asked me things I didn’t understand, they said things I didn’t understand, but they brought me coffee, in a dear little cup and saucer, with cream and chunky lumps of brown sugar.

On my left was a woman in a dove grey kimono. On my right was a woman dressed smartly in black and white using an expensive looking black laptop. Opposite me was a little display shelf of pretty little teacups and saucers in different designs.

I counted out what I thought was the right money, feeling very clever, until I realised I had got the coins confused. Anyway, I had got coffee for the first time. Now I need a shop to get food for breakfast, I said to myself. I came to a shop and bought raisin bread and a banana. I tipped out my money and they counted it out since I obviously didn’t know the coins yet. I didn’t have to worry about doing that, being in Japan.

I kept walking. Past a Metro station. I thought, I could just get on a train, go one stop, eat, and return. Or I could do some research and go on a trip. That feeling that I could do anything, the possibilities, the sense of expansiveness. There’s nothing to be scared of.

I kept walking. I saw a ‘forest’ took my bearings, looked carefully at the buildings around me so that I would know the way back, and went up the steps and over the bridge.

I passed a bank of vending machines, there was vending machines everywhere selling drinks but this was a whole array of ones selling pot noodles and even burgers and chips.

It wasn’t a forest, it was a sports area and the grounds of The Memorial Portrait Gallery. I decided to go to the gallery but first I needed to get out of the sun, it was very hot, and eat my breakfast. I need a bench in the shade, I thought, immediately, it appeared.

I sat on the bench and got my food out. My raisin bread bun was long like a hot dog, and was already cut in half and with spread on it, so I made a kind of hot dog with my banana.

Afterwards I went to the gallery and looked at the paintings. There were only two other people there, a Japanese man and a Western tourist. I realised a few days later that I had made a faux pas wondering around in my spaghetti strap vest top; I had wrongly assumed people wore anything in Japan whereas although the shortest skirts and shorts are fine, tops are modest. Some of this is to do with sun protection, women are taught from a young age to protect themselves from the sun, sun protector sleeves are worn, like I saw for sale in Thailand, and necklines are high. And umbrellas are used in the sun as well as the rain, and people wear visors.

The loo at the gallery was very complicated and took me ages to find the flush button; I was sure I pressed the alarm by mistake. The first button I pressed was a fake flush- sound only no actual flush.

On my first day I followed a little hand drawn map to go to the Suga Shrine, the setting of a scene from a famous Anime film. There were lots of people taking pictures of the view, some rails, some steps, it was lost on me, but I was glad I was able to find it. The scene was almost colourless, black and white, warm beige, warm grey, a red bin the only color, but not cold.

I enjoyed exploring the alleys of the local area, I noticed the wires, thick cables with thinner çables bound messily around them, the side streets grey but with a beauty of their own.

I went to another coffee shop on the way back. It had a wooden bread board, tins of tea, wine glasses, tea cups; it looked like an English dresser. I drank coffee in tea cup, a Japanese man spoke to me, he said, ‘I love the UK, I lived there for four years, South Kensington.’ I practiced saying and my name is and pleased to meet you .

Thereafter I got coffee from the mini mart, it was cheaper, and I could sit outside or take back to hostel, which I preferred.

It was often raining, and surprisingly cold when it did. Most people had the same almost identical see through plastic umbrellas with white or black handles. I learned to carefully put mine in a certain place in the umbrella racks, to remember, but even so I lost one and had to buy another. I realised I’d left it and went back but it had gone, there were others the same but I didn’t want to take someone else’s, but B said afterwards that those umbrellas are all kind of shared, by necessity.

Estate agent windows were different compared to the glossy brochures in UK windows, photocopied in mainly black and white, sometimes the picture was in colour but often not, one A4 sheet with small picture or pictures, a floor plan and some writing.

One sunny morning I had a nice encounter on a bench, mine was the only dry one and an older Japanese man was looking for somewhere to sit. I moved my bag and gestured, then said good morning. Unfortunately I’d left my language notes and couldn’t remember hardly anything. We used sign language and his little bit of English. We couldn’t make ourselves understood really but it was such a nice encounter, he and I so keen to chat with each other. It’s not always up to them, it can be up to me too, sometimes.

Breakfast was probably my favourite meal of the day, maybe because it was hard won, involving as it did getting up and dressed, going outside, negotiating buying coffee and breakfast, all before, er, having coffee. On a good day, by rehearsing in the lift on the way down I’d be able to say in Japanese, Good Morning, Coffee, Please, Just as it is/no bag, (although often I’d be eating outside and need a bag to put the rubbish in to carry back…) and Thank you. You couldn’t say it was a conversation, but it was a decent attempt at a polite interaction. The sense of accomplishment I felt sitting down with my coffee and cake felt good. Coffee, you have to say hot, or they won’t know, they expect 50/50 hot or cold.

My coffee came from a machine, but some places even had hot coffee on the shelves, which surprised me the first time I touched it, hot tea and cocoa too. After a while I always had the same cake, vegetarian, I asked, as sometimes there’d be things with meat on the bakery shelf, ‘Yes, potato.’ It tasted sweet, custard infused. Custard infused potato, I promise it was a lot nicer than it sounds.

One day at the bench near me where I often ate breakfast there were baby sparrows, four or six, and mum and dad nearby. I checked the prohibition sign: no wine, no exploding snakes (actually no fireworks), no camping, no fires, no cars or bicycles, no litter, no dog fouling, no loud music. Nothing about don’t feed the birds. I let a few yellow cake crumbs fall, the baby sparrows looked, I made more, rubbing the wrapper of my cake so that tiny bits came off. I looked down, there was loads of yellow on the ground. I hope they eat it, or I shall have littered, I thought. I moved seats so they wouldn’t be afraid, and watched as they ate it all. Mum and dad came and ate at the end before they all disappeared back into the hedge.

In many ways Tokyo was the opposite of India. It was so quiet and peaceful. The buildings were grey or neutral, the clothes too; neutral, black and white, grey, taupe, pistachio; everything ordered and conventional. One day I saw lots of fire engines leave the fire station, they looked brand new, so shiny and such bright red that the scene looked almost unreal.

There were no bins but no litter either. I saw two plastic bags and an empty coke bottle on the street and saw a man drop a cigarette butt on the street (smoking in the street was prohibited); that was it. Everyone must be so well trained to carry their rubbish around with them and then take it home. People don’t eat on the move, so maybe that helps.

Apparently eating while walking down the street is a big no no, although people do eat on benches in parks and public spaces.

There was no obvious pollution. There were hardly any scooters or bikes. Even the cars seemed quiet; sometimes I would be walking down a little side street and a car would surprise me, making just a little purring noise. The taxis were boxy looking, in black or colours, orange or green.

There were lots of bicycles, vintage style with baskets or bags, one painted bright pillar-box red, one with a dog in the basket. The bicycles were often left unlocked, or if they were locked, it wasn’t with a big D lock and heavy chain padlocked onto a railing, instead just a thin bike lock like I used to use as a child, and often just around its own wheel. But more often they were simply left unlocked, including a child’s one, new looking, rose pink with wicker basket, left for days in the business district of central Tokyo untouched.

It felt safe to walk about anytime, and no male attention whatsoever. Walking about I was generally ignored, by everybody, but that didn’t mean people weren’t friendly, they just weren’t all falling over themselves, and I had to make an effort to be friendly or ask for help. Tokyo is a busy city like London, which isn’t known for being overly friendly.

Health and Safety appeared to be taken very seriously. I had seen a sign at a construction site saying ‘Safety first.’ Nearby my hostel were some road works with a temporary walkway made by coning off part of the road. In the UK, there’d be a sign saying ‘Pedestrians’ with an arrow, and that would be it. Here, people were guided off the pavement and onto the road path by a model waving man with a lit up wand. All the cones were lit up from the inside by lights and the end ones had flashing lights on top as well. There were two actual men, one at each end of the path waving wands, like truncheon sized light sabres, directing the pedestrians, plus all the many road workers. Everyone was wearing hi vis, of course, and their hi vis had lights built into the waistcoats.

People clean their hands before eating-a wipe is provided, which I thought at first was for afterwards- and use chopsticks. People wear masks. I held a full conversation with a Japanese woman staying at the hostel in the lobby with her wearing one. B told me that people are very concerned about catching colds and flu, and are expected to wear a mask if they are unwell.

A large part of the reason I went to Tokyo was to see B, a fellow writer and blogger I met on WordPress. We met out of town for our first meeting, she sent me detailed instructions about the trains. ‘It might seem a bit daunting, and Tokyo station is very large, but there are signs everywhere in English,’ she said. The lines and the times and the platforms were all just as B had said, and when I was unsure of my way in Tokyo station, which is huge, and with lines that seem divided sub lines, I asked at the office which has an English speaking tourist counter. I got stuck at one of the ticket machines, but someone came to my aid, but otherwise, it was straightforward. Trains run on time and standing at the station waiting for trains was peaceful, with just the sounds of approaching and departing trains, the announcer, and the sound of fake cheeping presumably to discourage birds. I probably look terrified, I thought, but I’m actually not.

On the first train, a crowded commuter train, I was surprised when I felt people press into me. I first thought well that wasn’t as polite as I’d expected people to be. But then when we were back in India and talking about the Tokyo Metro and the London Underground with a New Yorker, my husband said, people in London aren’t polite enough to squash into each other to let people in, we like our personal space too much. Whereas in Tokyo, people know the trains are busy and that everyone needs to get to work, so they squash up so other people can get on.

It is frowned upon to eat on the metro; the only people I saw doing this were tourists. Talking on your mobile phone or having loud conversations is also not done. In Tokyo, where people work hard and there are lots of people, the commute and travel is made as peaceful as possible.

Just as in the middle of Tokyo the buildings are designed so beautifully, and there are trees and parks and banks of green designer hedges in the middle of business areas.

With B, I travelled on the Sky train, and saw the huge and amazing buildings of the centre of Tokyo. We went to temples and saw the huge Green Buddha. We went to parks, green oases in the centre of town. At one of the parks I saw big Japanese crows, at another I saw swan paddle boats, and vending machines selling tins of emergency earthquake food and toy hamster purses. B told me that at the weekends people bring their musical instruments to practice, even full size harps, Tokyo apartments not having the space or sound proofing for at home practice. She said she even saw someone bring a basket of (presumably indoor) cats to the park.

I didn’t see this, but in the restaurant in the park where we went for a late dinner, I did see a dog in a pram. Not a dolls pram or an old cast off childs one. This was a super smart new looking pram, with a medium sized pug faced dog lying quietly in it. Two women arrived and sat at a nearby table, one had a dog in a bag, it squeezed itself out of what looked like a small tight bag. The dog in the pram sat up to look at another dog. No one (other than me) batted an eyelid. B told me it is common to see young couples walking happily together with a pram with a dog in it.

I found out from reading that tattoos are not really socially acceptable in Japan, despite my previous impressions of Japan as a great place for tattoos. Lots of bath houses do not let people with tattoos in, but others are ‘ink friendly,’ responding to demand.

B told me that outsiders’ ideas re Japan and technology is also a bit off. She pointed out how many people on the trains were reading paper books and how few using electronic readers. It was true, and wandering into a bookshop at the weekend it had been very busy. B said that at her work they use very old photocopiers and fax machines.

The reputation of Tokyo’s working hours culture though, was accurate. Employees such as teachers are expected to stay until the most senior person goes home, which could be ten pm at night. ‘They can’t have a family,’ I said, appalled. ‘Yes they do, they just don’t see them, their kids are in bed when they get home, maybe their mum lives with them and does the cooking,’ B said. People go jogging at midnight because that is their only time. B worked with one Japanese person who didn’t follow this convention but was kind of ostracised from the rest. And then there is after work drinking, particularly on a Friday night, where people say and do anything then it isn’t mentioned afterwards.

I told B about my anxiety at airport, my confusion re the loo flush; she said she still gets confused sometimes as they are always somewhere different, sometimes on the wall, sometimes as part of the control panel of options, but not particularly marked out, considering its the most essential one, and sometimes just a regular handle. She told me that brushing teeth in public is absolutely fine, everyone brushes their teeth after lunch and she sees colleagues walking about with toothbrushes in their mouths. Later in my stay I saw women brush teeth in public bathrooms after lunch.

B said that women are very shy about people hearing them urinate, it’s not okay to just let out a stream of wee, women in Japan rattle the loo roll holder or door handle; hence the privacy buttons on the toilet panel, the sound of flushing or music, not just for poos!

B corrected my pronunciation and we discussed similarities between Japanese and English. English has many different words for the same things, especially around social politeness, but even if they mean the same things if they are said wrong it sounds funny.
Like Thailand, people don’t say ‘no’ in Japan either, you hear a lot of ‘maybe,’ which can confuse foreigners as it actually means no.

Even on my first couple of days, I never thought the black and white and grey was cold, it was just very different to India; and after almost two weeks I began to see it for what it was, beautiful.

The difference between the clothes and buildings of India and Japan was like the difference between butterflies and moths. The longer I was there the more colour I began to notice and the more beauty I began to see in the buildings.

I saw a lot of circles, big circular brick designs and windows in the walls of buildings, curved balconies set on top of each other like a cut out cyclinder, and black metal spiral fire escapes.

The ascetic is not to clash with nature hence the neutral colours. Nature is revered, planted or allowed to be, clothes follow seasons, umber, maroon. I saw trailing bindweed with pink flowers making fine curtains over the side of a building, and planted walls at the Metro station.

‘Everything’s beautiful,’ B said. ‘Of course it is,’ I said, ‘A rough bit of plaster on the wall can be beautiful if you look carefully at it, and if you are a writer, you can describe something like that and make it beautiful.’

Travel update
Staying put in Pushkar, happily.

Thank you very much for reading.
See you next week.

Travel update

Tags

Delhi, India, Pushkar, Travel, Travelling

Photos of Delhi by my husband

Everything took a bit of a wobble this week, due to three things: an outbreak of Zika virus in Jaipur where we were meant to go to next; getting sick; and realising being in a horribly polluted city is, well, horrible.

We had a train booked to go to Jaipur in Rajasthan in the early hours of Monday 15th. However, there was/is an outbreak of Zika virus there. Zika, whilst it is very dangerous for pregnant women, is not fatal as far as I am aware, and most people who had it have recovered, but we still didn’t want to risk getting it. It’s transmitted by mosquitos and they just love my husband.

And then we got sick. I’ve had one or two days of a funny tummy quite often, even recently in Varanasi, Tokyo and Thailand, but this was the first time of being proper sick since the last time we were in Delhi, when we first arrived in March.

So we decided to skip Jaipur and go to the next place on our Rajasthan itinerary which is Pushkar, but could only get there by bus, it wasn’t possible to get a train at such short notice. This meant we had to stay holed up in our hotel room in Delhi until we were well enough to manage an overnight bus journey (no loos on bus!).

We’ve been holed up in our hotel room- for six days!*- not only because we’ve been sick but because the pollution levels of Delhi, whilst always bad are currently appalling.

They apparently implemented emergency plans, ceasing the burning of plastic and enforcing factory regulations, which sound to me like the kinds of things that should be happening all the time anyway, let alone other things like electrifying the auto rickshaws etc… I really feel sorry for the people who live in Delhi all the time.

Here is a link to a photo of a Bryan Adams concert that took place whilst we were there, and information about the problems and control measures.  

Anyway, this has made us reassess our plans, which had involved going from city to city in Rajasthan, a week in each, then Kathmandu, another very polluted city, for two weeks. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but the reality of being in a polluted city has made us question if that was such a great plan.

*Watching funny X Factor auditions on YouTube, watching Dear White People and Big Mouth on Netflix, and sleeping like a cat.

 

But, as my husband said, ‘Things change quickly in India,’ and here we are in Pushkar. We arrived Thursday morning and oh do I feel happy! Lovely big light room, comfy bed, super friendly staff, beautifully painted guesthouse with gorgeous roof terrace with food. We’ve met nice people at the guesthouse and out in Pushkar. Pushkar itself is lovely with its holy lake, well fed cows, lots of cool stalls and good food.

See you next week, and thank you very much for reading

Photos of Pushkar by my husband

Thailand Part Five

Tags

Borderline Personality Disorder, BPD, Emotions, Fear of abandonment, love, marriage, mental health, Personal growth, Shame, Thailand, Travel, Travelling

YES TO EVERYTHING:  THAILAND (PART FIVE) Draft chapter for book Sri Thanu, Koh Phangan,

We’d started off in the party area for my step daughter, moved into a proper town for the middle part, and for the last week we moved to the yoga area. We thought we might go to a yoga class- we didn’t- but the main reasons were that it was quiet and there were lots of good vegan food places. We’d thought it might be expensive which was part of the reason we’d had the week in the town, as well as to have some variety and not stay in any one place too long in case we didn’t like it.

Our first introduction wasn’t that great, our taxi driver accidentally pulled up at the wrong property and an unfriendly Westerner leaned out from his balcony and told us all off for parking on the grass. Luckily, the place where we were staying was more friendly. Owned by a Belgium family, the son, who worked behind the bar said, ‘It’s a dream life.’

The accommodation was beach hut style bungalows, with a bar-restaurant on site, coconut palms, lots of greenery and little paths that led directly down onto the beach and tasteful sunbeds. A small swimming pool was on site; at night it was beautifully and temptingly lit up but out of bounds after seven pm.

The toilets did not have bum guns or even a jug and tap near the toilet like we’d grown used to in India and the rest of Thailand. Plus the bum gun is really useful for sluicing down the bathroom floor and getting rid of sand. It’s interesting to see how quickly or how slowly we adapt to new ways of doing things. We’d got used to the bum gun or jug, the water way. This made the seat wet though, and so I said to my husband, can we try and remember to lift the seat up, so it dries and we/I don’t get a wet bum. ‘I’ll try, but it’s going to be hard to undo years of conditioning,’ my husband said. I thought of all the arguments men and women have about this, and how it can change in an instant when your environment or culture changes.

There was a cute but fairly out of control puppy that some tourists had brought back from the street and then just gone home, leaving the guesthouse owners- who already had a dog and who had told the tourists not to bring the puppy back- to feed it. Though they fed it and were going to get its jabs done, the puppy was now not part of a dog pack or a human family. It used to scratch at our door in the night, as our room was where the tourists had stayed.

There were tiny birds in the bushes outside our room, they looked almost like hummingbirds. Around the place, hanging from trees, were strings of shells interspersed with pearlised pink beads, they looked so pretty. We’d seen a similar thing in Haad Rin, a kind of string and shell sculpture hanging from the low branches of trees at the edge of the beach.

The street with a 7/11 was at the end of the entrance drive. Along the ‘main road,’ which was very quiet, were lots of yoga places, lots of restaurants, a freshwater lake, and jungle just off the street. There were lots of scooters and jeeps. Some of the motorbikes had side cars which were like a metal frame or a cart, once we saw an old lady and three kids sitting in one. Others had been made into mobile grocery shops, selling all kinds of fresh fruit and veg, the driver would stop outside a restaurant and ring a bell.

We needn’t have worried about food and prices, as well as all the vegan places there were lots of little Thai places that were relatively cheap to eat at. I say relatively, because everything seemed expensive compared to India. The little Thai places were simple wooden structures at the side of the road, our favourite one had a tiny kitchen made from old blue wooden doors, and inside had everything hanging neatly on the walls, and jars packed onto lots of little shelves, like a cabin. Outside were a few wooden tables and chairs, plants and tree decorations, one a little wooden sign saying, Let it go.

What I read up about Thailand said to try and avoid saying the word ‘no,’ as in Thailand there isn’t a word for no. Although I had all good intentions this proved difficult, almost impossible to stick to; being offered massage and taxi at every turn, as well as being asked questions requiring a yes or no answer, eg would you like a plastic bag. We thought that in tourist areas they had probably got used to tourists saying no, and it didn’t seem to be a problem. What we realised was more important though, was not putting Thai people in a position of having to say no to us, as it appeared to cause discomfort.

One evening we’d finished dinner. I’d had coconut milk and tofu soup and a banana shake. We chatted for a while before my husband decided he’d like a banana shake too. He asked, the woman broke into giggles, hopped from foot to foot, wrung her hands, appearing very uncomfortable, before eventually explaining that the kitchen had, ‘Been cleaned.’ We quickly realised, the kitchen was closed! ‘Oh, okay no problem, we’ll come back in the morning.’ All smiles, harmony restored and my husband did as he’d promised and went back at breakfast and got his shake.

The same thing happened during a big power cut when we were going around finding out if anyone was still cooking, people were unable to say no, so we started saying, ‘Is tomorrow better?’ ‘Yes, come back tomorrow,’ they said, until we found one that was cooking.

During the daytime I wrote in the onsite restaurant, where there was good internet, charging points, water, coffee and food if I wanted it- homemade Belgium fries, tofu and vegetable rice- but also the staff were happy for me to just sit and write.

It was mostly quiet in the daytime, but just like in some places in India, even when no one was there they had the music turned up really loud. After a few days I got up the confidence to ask them to turn it down when there was only me. And just like at the Cactus Bar in Haad Rin, they played really inappropriate music for little kids, I watched/listened as a family with young kids arrived, I was so tempted to say something, but the staff did change it, after a while.

The staff were really nice though, the main person we spoke to was from Burma, he spoke very good English and Thai. He said that Thai people speak very fast on the islands so it’s very hard to learn; he said people speak slower in the North, so that in Bangkok, it is much easier to learn Thai.

The beach, whilst not huge, was very beautiful, and in the evenings we were able to watch the sun set over the sea. It was so beautiful that it felt surreal.

I even tried sunbathing; habitually I cover up from full sun, but I just thought, ‘Yes to everything.’ I dropped a factor of sunblock on the white bits, missed it out altogether on the tanned bits, went swimming, paced around the pool about twenty times, (have I mentioned I’m not that good at sitting doing nothing?) thought, that doesn’t seem to have done anything, so laid on one of the tasteful sunbeds with J for a bit until hot/bored and went in.

I got burned of course, my skin went wrinkly and I thought, well that was stupid.

Stupid of me, I mean. I do have some respect for people who make it their mission to tan and do it safely and slowly and thoroughly because I now know it takes a lot of dedication. (Just like having really nice hair and nails and a good coordinated wardrobe, other things I also don’t do/have.)

After my sunbathing, later on I went for a walk by myself. It was still hot but I covered up and took water with me. I walked past a beautiful shrine, yellow and gold with mirror mosaic that glinted silver in the bright sun.

I had bought new shoes in Kerala on a rare trip to a shopping mall. Alongside my flip flops they were my only footwear. When they were new they had given me huge bloody blisters. In Thailand I started wearing my shoes without socks they had become so comfortable.

Further along the road there was a yoga place, I went in and picked up a programme, they had a huge range of different yoga classes and meditations. It felt too hot for yoga really, but if J had wanted to go to anything I would have gone with her.

I carried on up the road as it became a hill. I said to myself, just to the top and back. I reached the top, said, just over the brow, and then, just a little further. As the road curved to the left suddenly everything opened out to a beautiful view down to the sea. The sea was a beautiful deep blue, there was a little bay, islands, and the sunshine making stripes on the sea. There was even a little stony layby where I could stand and stare safely away from the path of passing jeeps and scooters, and a flat rock to sit on and look down at it all from up high.

On the way back a yoga woman actually said hi and talked and walked with me, unthinkable in India. ‘I thought, she’s been to India,’ she said, recognising my lungi dress. This gives me cred with the Thai yoga people, in the hierarchy India comes top!

We went back to same place where I’d had the coconut soup and I realised in comparison how ill I’d felt when we went there the first time. I’d only dared eat soup and been really anxious about needing the loo. You don’t know how ill you’ve been until you feel well; in a turn around of this song they played everywhere, ‘you never miss the light til its getting low, never miss the sun til its starts to snow, never know you love her til you let her go,’ which may or may not be a good song but I heard it way too many times during that holiday.

Days of writing, maybe I’d been working too hard, and long evenings of sociability when I am a natural introvert, had meant that when I experienced a moment of peace, I really experienced it. We’d all retired early to bed after dinner. I sat on our bed which had a navy cotton ribbed bedspread, it had a familiar quality, I might have once had one like it at home. It was in a pause before we were going to watch Battlestar Gallactica. Quiet, comfortable, no pressure. A rare moment of absolute peace.

Towards the end of our time I had an emotional day, so happy in the morning, so sad at night. My husband and I went out for a vegan breakfast, just us. Just like in Eat Pray Love when she eats the pizza in Naples, it was almost a religious experience. Even the tiles on the floor were so beautiful, of flowers and grasses, just like the floor of heaven. The place was even called something to do with heaven. In the evening before dinner we went onto the beach, sungazing, paddling, watching the unbelievable light and colors in the sky and on the water, like pearlised nail polish.

Then the three of us went out and had dinner at the place we’d discovered during the power cut, a basic looking but busy and popular place at the side of the road. My husband tried a bit of my dinner and saved me some of his. The waiter came and offered us their speciality, mango sticky rice, we protested, ‘Maybe you leave Koh Phangan ten kilos heavier!?’ he said. We agreed to have just one plate to share.

My husband made a joke about me not saving him any of my dinner; J laughed. Even though he was only joking, and even though she was only laughing at him not me, it triggered this awful feeling. First I thought it was simple embarrassment, then I realised it was shame.

The mango sticky rice came with one fork and one spoon, my husband and J picked them up and started eating. ‘You having any?’ he said to me after a while. I had no implement. I could have shared his, I could have used my fingers, actually that is the done thing, but in my shame-state I couldn’t eat. I tried a tiny mouthful just to act normal-it tasted like the best food in the world, perfectly ripe mango and sweet-salty rice with a little bite to it- and then punished myself by not eating any more. I was paralysed with shame. I needed to go for a wee, but didn’t, just left with them and walked back, sitting outside the 7/11 while they went in, waiting to get home.

Here is where I have things in common with the features of emotionally unstable or borderline personality disorder (BPD): emotions that are triggered seemingly easily, come on strong and last a long time. Shame is a particularly important one as many BPD patients will have experienced being shamed as children.

Of course, rationally, underneath all this I realised that my husband was just trying not to let J feel left out; throughout the three weeks we were obviously both aware that we were a couple and of the need to make sure she didn’t feel isolated.

Yet shame, being left out, being left behind, are all big things for me, even though I didn’t name and experience them in so wide awake a way before.

On a previous evening we’d been walking home, my husband and J up ahead, me lagging behind, when my earing fell out and pinged across the ground. Instead of calling them back, I had a half hearted look and then gave up and walked on a bit sorrowfully, only mentioning it when I caught up. ‘Why didn’t you call us?’ My husband said. Immediately they both set off walking back with me and the three of us had a thorough look. We didn’t find it. Although they were my only pair of ‘dangly’ earrings, they were just the cheap gold hoop earrings I’d bought in Haad Rin and had since gone almost black, so it wasn’t important in itself, only as a teaching or a light.

Once I had been on holiday with a group of good friends, on our way home we had all decided to stop off at a certain beach, prolonging the holiday, and all drove separately. For some reason there was some confusion and they left without me or went to a different beach. It was a complete accident but I remember being really upset about it. I think it was the first time I’d really showed that side of myself to them, and they were people I’d known for years.

I even remember during the same holiday, when it was my turn to look after the dinner, someone else had made it, then I stayed in to stir it until it was finished, whilst the others sat outside on the decking with wine and cigarettes. The dinner seemed to take forever and I remember feeling really lonely and left out, even though I love solitude. Another thing I have in common with BPD features, an intense fear of abandonment.

I can trace the origins of some of these characteristics back to schooldays, but right now it’s not about analysing the past, it’s about shining a light on my emotions and responses and ironing out the kinks in as present a moment as possible.

After we got home after the mango sticky rice and 7/11, we went for a walk on the beach. I remember turning my head towards the sea and breathing; it smelled warm, and salty.

Back in the room, lying in bed, feeling my low mood, tearful, letting my emotions play out without suppressing them. Watching them, looking for a positive, use emotions.

We watched Battlestar Gallactica ‘You learned the wrong lesson from your mother. You confused the messenger and the message.’ I don’t know what that means for the character or me but I hope to find out both.

In the semi darkness, my head turned to the wall, I stared at the picture on the wall. It looked like a thing, a white creature with a crumpled face and paws. Paws resting on a table or keyboard, a surface of some kind. As if it were feeling, or controlling, what’s going on below.

I couldn’t find the right words to talk to my husband about it until the next day. I wanted to explain it from the point of view of, look what I found out about myself, and so that he would know me more rather than less.

After I talked to my husband, and with the addition of daylight, I looked again at the picture on the wall. It was just a bowl, and some unidentifiable white things.

But of course these things are never easy to discuss and sometimes things get worse before they get better. My husband said he felt ‘devastated,’ that something he’d said had made me feel so bad, and spent the day feeling like an awful person. I spent the day in a battle to force myself to go swimming. I knew the exercise would make me feel better but at the same time I felt anxious, hopeless and paralysed.

The closer we got to me going off to Tokyo, the worse we seemed to get on, bickering over the smallest things. Maybe it was the pressure of, ‘Oh it’s our last few days, they’ve got to be good.’ Or maybe we were living up to what we’d been saying mainly as a joke, ‘We need to build in a break from each other during this trip as we’ve been together almost 24/7 for six months.’ But I think we were both just sad really.

The two of us went out and I ate a whole portion of mango sticky rice, it was a re do, like buying the earrings from the shop in Haad Rin was.

My husband came in the taxi with me to the ferry, which I was glad about; and because we arrived early we got to spend a few hours alone together. We sat on a wooden platform looking out to sea, talking about our year, and watching big lizards sunning themselves on the rocks before disappearing into the gaps the moment we tried to take their picture.

So we ended up spending five weeks in Thailand, most of it on a paradise island. No travelling other than to and from the island. No taking the night train to Chang Mai from Bangkok with the lady boys, which apparently is meant to be fun. It wasn’t really planned but that was just how it all worked out. I had my hair done and got to wear (relatively) skimpy/fitted clothes. We stayed at easy places. I did lots of writing and relaxing. We ate great food. My hair looked thick, my eyes were sparkling, my face was clear and radiant. If you are travelling in India for a year, if you have a visa like ours where you have to go out after six months, I recommend a month or a fortnight in Thailand. Go stay on a holiday paradise island. You don’t even have to tell anyone, you could just pretend you’re at an Ashram or something. Or just say that you’ve gone there ‘to write.’

Personal update
Agghhh! Son’s dental surgery postponed until 10th November.

Travel update
I’m going to schedule this as a separate post for Saturday. My posts are far too long and at least people who can’t or don’t want to read the chapters can easily just check in on where we are if they want to.

Writing update
This, which means the draft of Thailand is finished! Next up, Tokyo.

See you next week, and thank you very much for reading.

Throwback Thursday

Tags

angels, confidence, depression, Hope, mental health, spiritual awakening, spirituality, Suicidal, suicide

I can so clearly remember that period of work related trips, seeing the beauty in an Enfield Business park, there was even a sign saying Electric Avenue, and driving to Sussex, negotiating tunnels and toll roads and the sense of achievement it gave me.  

Feeling suicidal now and again was almost a habit, maybe brought on by PMS, overwork, or perhaps a deeper awareness that my life wasn’t quite right somehow.  I’m much better now.  

My spiritual awakening was triggered by meeting and falling in love with my now husband, we used to spend hours talking on the phone.

WHAT MY ANGEL SEES  (First published October 2014)

I used to wrap my arms around you all the time so I know how your husband feels when he folds you into his arms. You could never feel me holding you but you can feel him. Seeing that makes me so happy.

I watched you hurt yourself, not feed yourself properly, be careless and stubbornly ignore all my signs and advice. Just like you watching your son when he was younger; so you see I know how much it hurt.

I introduced you to potential teachers and to sensible people who might have been helpful or supportive but you would only listen to people in black jeans with spiky hair. So set in your beliefs that you were flaky and incapable that you acted it out and made it true: getting up late, being disorganised and letting people walk all over you.

Watching you suffer, all alone. I suffered, feeling the moments when you felt incapable. Other times I wanted to yell. I think once I actually knocked a cup over.

I tried to get you to be spiritual. Angels hummed around you. You’d find it in music sometimes, but you drank too much and it dulled your senses. Maybe you’d have been better off getting into raves and ecstasy (not that I am allowed to prescribe that kind of thing), but you hated the orange and yellow clothes and so you stayed miserable in black.

There were dark moments but I always had faith in you. But oh, you were stubborn! I used to throw snowballs, shatter sunbeams before your eyes, line up twenty cats along a road for you to say hello to… But you were blind and gradually it all cemented over until all I could do was watch; I couldn’t even try to communicate with you anymore.

And so when it finally happened, when the cement was scraped away and the well lid was forced open… it was like witnessing a miracle- and I’m used to them. To watch you sitting cross legged on the floor, phone in one hand, the other hand clutching your chest, feeling like your chest was being cracked open with an axe, love and light flooding in… I will never forget that.

So when I hear you thinking about hanging yourself, alarm bells ring loudly. Of course, I send Love blazing down to you but it needs more. The best treatment is to give you something to do that is a bit scary and challenging, quite safe but enough to cause a little nervousness and get you into a minor flap. Something work related; you are so conscientious that you’d never not do it. So, it distracts you, gives you something to worry about like the M25 and the Dartford Bridge and afterwards it resets your mood and emotional state and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

The reason you have to ask angels to help you is not because we are meanly sticking to some kind of protocol; it’s because by asking you open a channel, it is closed otherwise and we cannot help. Even the ‘Oh God, help me’ in the toilet bowl we respond to but alcohol clouds consciousness and most people don’t remember or keep the channel open.

When an angel’s person commits suicide, it’s the hardest thing. If that person does not ask for help the channel is closed and although we are showing signs and sending messages all the time, if the person doesn’t believe anyone is thinking of them or that there is any help to be had, their angel’s wings are tied. I’ve seen angels whose people have killed themselves tear themselves apart.

You’re so easy really, nowadays. Rewarding. A little challenge and the sense of achievement you get is out of all proportion to the challenge itself; wide eyed you wander around a business park in Enfield as if it’s Wonderland. So happy, so full of optimism, noticing red berries on a bush, finding a pond, seeing a beautiful sunset and then sorting out your entire life over a Premier Inn dinner for one. You’re so easy now, it makes all the past worthwhile.

Thailand Part Four

Tags

awareness, Body image, happiness, India, meditation, Self esteem, spirituality, Thailand, Travel, Vegan, Vegetarian, writing

Yes to everything:  Thailand Part Four (Draft chapter for book)

Photograph:  My husband saved this cat from some dogs and got scratched, luckily the scratches healed up with no ill effects.

THAILAND PART FOUR
Thong Sala, Koh Phangan

Just around the corner from where we were staying was a street market. We bought nice little pastries; savoury vegetable and sweet pineapple and banana. There were lots of clothes stalls both new and second hand. I tried a free size summer dress on, it fitted and looked nice. I tried a short skirt on, it fitted exactly. I tried on another top, it didn’t fit. I can try things, some fit, some don’t. That man in the shop in Haad Rin was wrong. Maybe nothing would have fitted, but it wasn’t ridiculous to want to have tried.

One night I was on WordPress, looking at which blog posts had been read that month. See yourself as beautiful, from earlier in the year before we left the UK appeared in the list. Later that line came into my mind in bed. It’s a mind game, I thought and that includes what you look like or how you feel about what you look like.

Away from the day glo hordes, albeit friendly enough, I can begin to be still and catch the quiet moments again. They are so distracted, there’s so much to see and do and so many people around.

J and my husband had gone out for a second breakfast. I stayed home and did a full, proper yoga session outside on the veranda undistracted with unlimited time; invigorating for mind and body. I had my period and reminded myself this is the time when ‘the veil is thin.’ I did the warrior pose (where your fingertips are outstretched and your gaze follows the path of your fingers). On the index finger of my left hand was my blue ring, I followed it to the exact place the stone was pointing at: a tree, its roots and branches and hidden behind the tree, the exact tip of a little red boat.

We chatted to the manager of the place at the bar-restaurant. He told us that he’d been to UK to see his friend who was at university in Portsmouth; while he was there he’d been to watch Leicester City play and been to Stonehenge. ‘Did you like Stonehenge?’ My husband asked. ‘Noooo!’ The man said and laughed; the barman laughed too and we all joined in. ‘Its not Wat Po is it?’ I said. ‘And so expensive,’ the man said, shaking his head.

The paving in Thong Sala was like the paving in some places in India, most memorably Pondicherry; tessellations, paving bricks with curves and diagonal lines, shocked parallelograms.

Like in Goa in India there was gasoline for sale everywhere for the scooters, sitting outside in sun but this time in glass bottles not plastic.

Walking into town from our place we heard What’s going on playing from one of the bars.

Thai pop music was very fast, lots of sounds, upbeat, playful, almost discordant to our ears.

We saw a sign saying ‘F***ing good bakery.’ Again we wondered, is that what they think we want?

The three of us went to a pub, above the bar were three big screens, all showing something different, luckily without sound: a film or documentary about Nazis, a football programme, and the BBC news. On the BBC news the politics looked so trivial, so grey, and the news seemed so alien, so far away. An advertisement came on the middle screen, or the end one, football or Nazis I can’t remember. I caught the final seconds: ‘Incredible India, find the Incredible you.’

One evening my husband went into a shop, I waited outside, not being bothered to undo my shoes. A turn of phrase the man used made me prick up my ears, ‘Indian,’ I thought. I looked at him, he looked Indian but before I said anything, he said to me, ‘You’ve been to India,’ recognising my dress-made-out-of-a-lungi. He was from Delhi, he said he had come to Thailand because it is much easier to run a business there. ‘It’s (India) alright for you, just visiting, but to live there and run a business…’ he said.

I was super excited, I said pleased to meet you and thank you in Hindi. He however wasted little time before trying to sell us something: as well as the shop clothes, fortune telling, meditation and chakra unblocking sessions, but my husband was hungry so we made our apologies and left. It made us realise that Thailand isn’t so pushy and that we’d probably got a bit soft! Nonetheless, I was as excited, possibly more, to meet and talk to an Indian person as J was to find an English bar that sold her favourite brand of cider for a taste of home.

One day my husband was sorting coins out, going what’s this, what’s that, that’s such and such, Thai, that’s a rupee, Indian. ‘I don’t know what that one is,’ he said, holding one up. ‘That’s a 10p!’ J said laughing, ‘I can’t believe you don’t know your own money!’ It really was true, and after only five months away.

There was a food market in Thong Sala which consisted of lots of stalls outside and inside a food court with permanent stalls and seating. From the stalls outside I bought fresh spring rolls filled with avocado. Inside there was a vegan place, we had huge portions of green lentil curry and brown rice, a solid substantial lentil dish like we would make at home. And brown rice! I couldn’t eat it all, but I felt really nourished.

There was a weird trek outside and beyond to the toilet, it reminded me of a car boot, walking down a muddy deserted track to a kind of run down prefab building where the loos were. On the inside of the loo doors were stickers, photos of pigs. Each individual pig was encased in an oval tunnel made from what looked like green garden wire. Totally encased, to the size of the pig. Rows and rows of them. ‘You don’t eat, this won’t happen,’ said the writing. I feel sick even writing it, weeks later. J, who eats meat, probably didn’t even notice them, if she did she didn’t mention it, whereas I’m still haunted by those images.

Another sad sight was all the birds in cages, outside homes and shops and at pet shops.

On a happier note, one evening we were walking past a house, their door was open and we could see inside; a man was ‘training’ a black and white cat in the centre of the room, holding up some food for it while two women looked on smiling. We all caught each others eyes and laughed.

It seemed people had a high tolerance for noise, like in India. We went past a kid on a toy bike which was making an awful noise, playing a really loud nursery rhyme; no one seemed to mind. The 7/11 door triggered a tinny automated ‘Sawadi-ka’ every time anyone came in, it would be enough to drive me insane, again the shop staff seemed able to ignore it.

At a restaurant one night, we watched a big metal pot of dinner being carried out to a scooter. One man got on the back side saddle, a second man put the steaming hot pot of food on him, got on the front and rode off. We often saw kids standing up on scooters. Health and safety wasn’t such a big thing as it is in the UK. It was nice to see that work and home life seemed mixed up altogether. We often saw kids with their families at massage places and at restaurants, and sometimes boys shyly served us or brought menus.

Often the family home was on the same site as the restaurant and to go to the loo you had to go into the family home. At one place they got the boy out of bath, covered in soap suds, I protested but it was too late. The bathroom floor was wet, a child’s version of a baby bath full of soap suds and clothes, washing clothes at same time, which made sense. There was a big water butt full, catching drips from a tap. The whole set up just struck me as so totally functional. Outside the bathroom the curve of the concrete floor was icy slippery under my wet bare feet and my feet slid although fortunately I kept my balance.

But apart from these odd glimpses, things you have to look really hard to see or be lucky to encounter, apart from these occasional glimpses, the real Thai culture seemed drowned out by the tourism. I’m not saying it’s not there, I mean I couldn’t see it for Westerners and for them having opened bars, started businesses, taken over, in a way you couldn’t imagine them doing in India. We only went to Koh Phangan though, and to Ko Samui to extend our visa, and Bangkok, maybe the rest of Thailand is different. On the ferry to Ko Samui there was almost all Westerners. A group of hungover Brits behind us were talking and swearing loudly. At the immigration office, where they expressly ask people to dress respectfully and not wear beach clothes, we saw several tourists in tiny shorts and tops, and I heard a woman getting annoyed at the counter. Keeping your cool is really important in Thailand, it is confusing and offensive to get angry.

Near our place, out for a walk on my own, I met a man who used to be a monk (it is common in Thailand for men to have spent some time as a monk). The conversation started with him offering me motorbike hire and tour guide services, but we ended up talking about meditation and enlightenment. ‘I can’t get there,’ (enlightenment), he said, because, ‘I can’t do it, one meal a day,’ the life of a monk. As far as he was concerned, there was only one route there. I felt sad for him but I didn’t want to risk offending his religious beliefs by disagreeing with him. He told me about the local temples, about how important it was to be in nature, and how if only we could roll back all the development of the island by twenty years….

During our stay in Thong Sala I felt that I had all the time in the world to do anything. It didn’t matter what time I got up or went to bed, as long as I wrote and got some exercise, I had no guilt and I was happy. I wrote, did some yoga, and spent time with J and my husband. It was the opposite of, ‘I don’t know where the day went.’

Just meters from our door amongst the trees was a log to sit on. Sometimes late at night before bed I sat there and looked out at the lights out at sea and in the town and the pretty coloured boats on the shore. It was a moment of peace and quiet to close the day with.

Sometimes we’d be woken up by the national anthem or loud Thai pop music, and often go back to sleep until later. We ate breakfast in the little on site restaurant. We bought little cartons of soya and almond milk from the 7/11 and put them in their fridge and ordered bowls of muesli with fresh fruit, and good black coffee.

The variety of milks in Thailand was incredible, soya milk with green tea, soya milk with chai seeds in, the seeds had obviously soaked so drinking or rather eating was almost like eating tapioca. We also enjoyed eating packets of dried seaweed instead of crisps. One day we went to a Tescos, it was the first supermarket resembling the ones in the UK that we’d been to since leaving and it felt quite exciting. There were huge bottles of Pantene shampoo and conditioner, popular in Thailand, and packs of regular cotton knickers which I was excited to buy, although unfortunately they didn’t fit, Thai sizes were too small for me.

I did my writing sat on a bench at a big wooden table facing out to sea. Around me on the sand floor were cane chairs and tables and beyond that the decking area. To my left, the wall of the bar, to my right the grass, the coconut palms and the bungalows and behind me the bar. When I took a break I had a Red Bull and a cigarette with J.

In Thailand, the home of Red Bull, it comes in little cans or in even smaller glass bottles which look like medicine bottles. It contains B12 and all sorts of other vitamins, different bottles and cans have different combinations, one has Zinc, another has Vitamin C; and it tastes significantly better than the stuff you get in the UK. It was possible to buy the big UK style cans in Thailand but it was much more expensive. The barman told me the Red Bull man used to be the richest man in Thailand, but he’s dead and now it is the man who owns Chang, a brand of beer and water. I spent a few days writing fuelled by Red Bull, before just, stopping…

The restaurant had a simple and limited vegetarian menu, for lunch I almost always ordered rice with tofu and vegetables, it was a small portion, just right for lunch and came with little side salad, big slanted thick slices of cucumber with tomato and lettuce.

J talked to me about her life and I talked to her about what my life used to be like. She’s twenty years younger than me and I related to a lot of what she said from the point of view of having been there and how I’ve changed.

There’s a tender balance though, between using all this as a way to reflect on how far I’ve come in twenty years, what I’ve learned, and thinking that if only J follows some of what I’ve done it will help her, rather than accepting that people have to find their own way.

So I probably did push my opinions more that I ought to have done, on the benefits of having a television and smart phone free life, sticking to a vegan or at least vegetarian diet, not drinking (mostly), not being in touch much with home whilst away in order to have a fuller experience, doing yoga and meditation, and my belief that all this reduces the chaos and drama within one’s life.

Putting draft chapters up on the blog, the comments make me realise where I need to explain more, often where I kind of knew but didn’t know how to fix, and the comments I do back help or even write it the additions for me. I love it when people say they can picture it, or feel like they are there, that they feel it through the senses. That was my intention, I stated in Panaji, Goa, ‘use the senses.’ I used to actually write it at the top of the chapter, use the senses: sight, sound, touch/feel, taste, smell. Now it just comes naturally. India made it easy for me though, of course.

Outside our bungalows we heard hard fruits dropping on ground just like at Osho’s. Near the restaurant we saw a coconut fall to the ground right in front of us, reminding us to avoid sitting underneath the coconut palms. Around the restaurant were sweet little birds with yellow beaks, just like at the Haad Rin restaurant, they made a pretty cheep cheep sound. Another bird made a sound a bit like an English wood pigeon. All around were the sound of voices, mostly quiet, sometimes loud, conversations in German, French and Thai.

In the evenings our neighbour played The Beatles. One night, after we had gone to bed, I heard Let it be coming from next door. If this was a film, I thought, we’d all start singing. Us, J next door, the people in the bungalows opposite would join in, and before you knew it the whole site would be singing along in imperfect yet beautiful harmony… But my husband was almost asleep and it was just a little too quiet to follow the words, and in any case, we’re not in a film.

Personal update
My son’s dental surgery has been rescheduled to tomorrow Saturday 13th. Thank you so much for all your good wishes which as well as helping him afterwards will I am sure help him get there tomorrow.

Travel update
Had six nights in Varanasi then an exhausting overnight train journey to Delhi last night (Thursday).  Now in Delhi, we’ve had breakfast, and now I’m sitting on the hotel bed posting this. All is well.

Writing update
Just the draft of Thailand Part 4 (of 5) this week, as well as handwriting and some typing up of ‘India Part Two.’ I’ve clumped this bit, Kolkata and Varanasi and at least for a while onwards, into one document with subheadings. This feels more manageable than a separate document for each place. We will be moving to a new place on average once a week until the beginning of December so tricks that stop the writing task feeling overwhelming during this time are going to be helpful.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

Instagram
For pictures of Tokyo see followingthebrownrabbit
For pictures of Kolkata and Varanasi see travelswithanthony

 

Throwback Thursday

The downside of hedonism?

My son completed art school and recently sold a painting for £1,000!

Are we living in a simulation, with ‘the real us,’ ‘the observers’ or ‘controllers’ somewhere else?  In a tank plugged in, or as mist in space, or…  If anyone has a clear idea, do let me know!  

I dreamed I was dead (first published September 2014)

It was so vivid and believable that it stayed with me for days and forced me to question the nature of reality; not for the first time, but for the strongest and most frightening and potentially disabling.

I thought we had died in a car crash on the A47.  A bit of me thought we might still be half alive but very badly injured and for a while I half tried or thought about whether or not I should, or could, get back.  Even if I could, would I want to?  The pain, the long journey of rehabilitation.  Then I thought, well, you probably can’t choose anyway.  Then I felt bad for not trying harder, for my son.  I thought about him just about to start art school, how awful, but then I saw everyone wrapping around him, friends, the teachers, fellow students, and I thought, he would be okay, it would become part of his biography when they describe him as an artist.

What do the dead people do?  Just live on in the world with the alive people, pretending to be alive, or do they move into another universe that looks the same, where they carry on just as if they were alive, seeing their children growing up, even though they weren’t real. Eating and drinking and going to the toilet even though they don’t need to be doing any of that, going to the supermarket, all the things we do, when none of it is real, it’s just made up to pass the time.  Are the dead people held there, trying to learn, to see what they would have done, like in Deal or no Deal when they play on even after it is over?  But why would we be given a fake world to live in, what would be the point?

After a few days I came to the conclusion that I had just experienced a glimpse of reality-as-created-by-us: our thoughts and actions.  Whether or not it is real it is the only one I am in.  Whether or not I should be in another one, was in another one, left it, died, whatever, right now I am here.  Whatever we are in must be treated as real; it is our thoughts and actions and spirituality that are being practised, tested and developed.

Thailand Part Three

Tags

Best life yet, escape the matrix, Kolkata, Manifestation, Personal growth, Tarot, Thailand, Travel

 

 

 

 

THAILAND PART THREE (Draft chapter for book) 

My husband said, ‘Oh by the way, J said she’ll deal with any spiders we have.’ ‘That’s great,’ I said, ‘Yep, I’m okay with them,’ J said.

The first night we went out and drank. Many years ago I used to drink to excess to try and ‘get somewhere,’ into some alternate reality where everyone was really themselves and we all connected. It took me a long time to realise that alcohol doesn’t really raise consciousness; in fact it was a long time before I was even interested in raising my consciousness or knew what it meant. Now, even if I am a bit drunk, there’s a bit of me looking down, outside of it all asking, ‘What are you doing this for?’

Earlier on we ate dinner at one of the places in town that did 24 hour breakfasts for party goers. It was the night of the Full Moon Party and there were lots of people wearing what looked like a fancy dress uniform of white t shirts with UV paint splashes.

The loo was upstairs, up a flight of steep steps, each step was really high, it was something we noticed a lot in Thailand, how high the individual steps were, like giant’s steps. Opposite, across the alley was a row of touristy fast food places. Above one of them was someone’s home with washing hung out on hangers, the way I’d seen when we first arrived in Bangkok.

We had to buy party tickets to go onto the beach, we were early, most people don’t go until midnight, but we were just taking a look. On the beach, J walked along picking up rubbish, she picked up a plastic cup at the edge of the sea. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said, ‘I think, What if a fish got stuck in it… But then I eat fish, so…’ We both laughed. All the bars had different DJs and along the beach were different sound systems. We picked the best one, J went off to dance and my husband and I sat on the sand.

He said, if we can get any, do you want to take some MDMA? Me being me, I anxiously discussed all the risks. I really am the least cool person to do drug deals with, as I said before I like taking drugs sometimes, but I don’t like to get involved with the getting of them. A Thai man approached us and offered us some Ecstasy, we let him go. The three of us went off the beach, to a bar in a side street that was quieter. J texted her friend who had spent a lot of time on the islands for advice; they messaged back, deal with Westerners only. A likely person appeared, J approached them- she being younger and cooler looking than us. J did the deal and we left. We got home safely, just as most people were starting to go out. J and my husband tried a little bit of the MDMA but it made J feel sick on top of all the cocktails, and we put it away for another time.

We had breakfast at the 24 hour breakfast place, which did healthy food as well, oat and almond milk smoothies and big smoothie bowls of ice cold pureed spinach and fruit, too much to eat.

We ate dinner at a local place. J and I were bothered by them playing a horror movie, even if we didn’t look at the screen we could hear the screaming… ‘Well we could try to ignore it, or I could ask them to turn it off,’ I said. A group of women at the next table were also talking about how they hated horror films. ‘Or we could just leave,’ my husband said, so we did- we had finished our meal. It was a good metaphor for dealing with people or situations that upset your equilibrium, you can work on accepting it or on trying to change them, or you can just… leave.

One evening we’d eaten at the on site restaurant, on returning to our room I decided to stay outside for a few moments. I sat on the bench outside the room and ate some little lychee type fruits. J and my husband went inside. A few minutes later there was a shout or a scream. J came out, ‘F***ing hell, that’s huge,’ she said, shaking, ‘Is that what you’ve had to deal with?’ ‘I haven’t even seen it yet,’ my husband called out. ‘Oh yes, now I have…’ He came out a few minutes later. ‘I thought you said you were good with spiders? ‘Yes, normal ones, not ones that big!’ J said.

My husband had found a place for us all to go and look at. It was away from the party bit and more in a normal town. We got a taxi there. There were no rickshaws on the island, only big four by four jeeps that were expensive. We got dropped off in town and walked to the place.

It was perfect, with a simple, quiet bar-restaurant, with decking and floor cushions, grassy grounds with palm trees, right on the beach. The accommodation was little chalet bungalows, we could have two next door to each other. It was the perfect setting for taking the MDMA. We paid a deposit and stopped and had a drink, excited to be moving soon.

On the way back I, who isn’t always that good with directions, said, ‘Look out J, I think this is the monkey place,’ two seconds later, and there they were, a group of three monkeys, for J! Earlier I had manifested scrap paper when I needed it, although that isn’t quite as exciting as monkeys.

One evening we walked along the beach towards town, beside a resort, and heard an incredible noise. We wondered what it was. Ciccadas? Someone learning to play the didgeridoo- very badly? A man was in the grounds, so I asked him. He said a word we couldn’t catch, then spelled it out f-r-o-g. ‘Oh, frog! How many, many frogs?’ ‘No, maybe three or four. I show you,’ he said. We followed him up some steps, the sound stopped immediately. He shone a light and beckoned us to look. A little brown and white frog sat looking at us under the light. It seemed incredible that just four or five of those little creatures could make that much noise. ‘Not for eating,’ he said, ‘Not dangerous, but not for eating.’ We reassured him we had no intention of eating them, thanked him and went on our way.

One evening playing pool we heard another strange noise, it turned out to be a big gecko that lived outside on the back wall of the restaurant. She spent most of her time behind a sign, we just saw the tip of her tail and nose. ‘She is the mother’, the staff told us. It was only in Thailand that I realised they make a sound like Gek-oh, gek-oh. We saw lots of little ones around, like the house lizards we had seen in India.

On our last evening in Haad Rin, I went for a little walk by myself on the beach. The sea was unbelievably still, exactly like a lake. The colours of the surface, milky opal green, mauve-blue, looked like oil or glass. Above the sea, a sunset and at the shore, a little red boat. It was picture perfect paradise but it lacked the emotion of India.

Later we went to the party beach for the last time. J and I had our Tarot cards read. My husband had had his done the week before. The tarot man looked cool, with a thin curled moustache, sat cross legged on a blanket on the sand.

He turned over the first card. His face broke into a smile and he looked at me. ‘Ahh, sexy lady! Sexy when sleeping, sexy when wake up, sexy walking down the street. Everyone loves you.’ He turned over another card. ‘Good family, man loves you. You love everyone.’ He looked at my hands. ‘You are strong!’ He exclaimed. ‘You look after everyone.’ Another card. ‘You make money, September, October, November.’ Another card. ‘You worry about a young one. Okay, everything okay.’ Another card. ‘You the boss, work, home. You do stuff. Another card. ‘You like to cook? At work? You could do, for money.’ Another card. ‘Look after your heart, and your blood. Smoking not good for you. Bad air, sleeping, working, dirty air, not good for you. Potatoes good, cool, warm.’

I’d just eaten potatoes and actually commented, ‘Very grounding.’ Potatoes, in fact any vegetables that grow below ground, are meant to help ground you if you feel your spiritual awakening/frequency rising is going a bit fast. Conversely, if you want to speed up the process, the advice is to only eat vegetables that grow above ground. Sounds crazy, but in the midst of such an experience, in the absence of any advice from elsewhere, I’ll take it, and because I believe it works, it works for me.

In the taxi, almost at our new place, my husband said, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I forgot the MDMA.’ He almost went back, but we decided it wasn’t worth the risk that they’d already found it, even though he was sure they wouldn’t have done as it was hidden well out of sight on top of the very high wardrobe and right at the back where it could potentially stay undiscovered for months.

We wished we could have put it on social media as it was in the party area, the whole complex was full of party goers, no kids or families, we wished we could tell people, stay at xxxx make sure you get room xx. But we couldn’t, so we had fun imagining people who had been desperate to get some but been unable to getting a very nice surprise, or people on it and wanting more thinking they’d conjured it!

Personal request
On Monday my son has major dental surgery scheduled, followed by recovery and then implants work to be scheduled. Those of you who have been here for a long time/read old posts or who know me face to face will know that this has long been a source of great anxiety and heartbreak for me, let alone for him. If anyone feels inclined to send good vibes, kind thoughts, include him in your prayers, spells or healing thoughts, from Monday and anytime afterwards, that would be gratefully appreciated. His name is Siris. Thank you xxxx

Travel update
Back in India. Tokyo to Kolkata was quite an adjustment, after six plus weeks out of India. Kolkata is really something else, for pics see my husband’s Instagram travelswithanthony
But after three nights in Kolkata and one overnight train journey to Varanasi, I am back in India and back in love. Not to mention reuniting with my husband after the longest we’ve spent apart in seven years. Altogether now…

Writing update
What with all the travelling I haven’t managed to do very much, just the short piece posted today, as well as some typing up of Tokyo notes. I am also writing notes on Kolkata, the journey, and Varanasi, by hand in my notebook, for later.

PS If you have Netflix, here’s a recommendation: BoJack Horseman

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

Throwback Thursday

I was a young single mother and my son had a serious bowel disease and  lots of very unpleasant doctor and hospital treatment as a toddler and child.  When he became a teenager he refused all treatment.  He also started refusing to go to school which caused problems with school and social services.  Bad times.

I had a few bad incidents at school as a child which I shall try and include in my book and blog in the cause of letting go of shame. 

This blog refers to a few days of hedonism at home with my husband. 

And now, I move every week or so….

Recalibration (first published September 2014)

I like to be stopped sometimes and when I restart I start again with a clean slate, or the feeling of a clean slate.  Old habits, worries, beliefs that bother me, all gone, for a little while anyway.  Used as a springboard, changes can be made that carry forward even as normal life resumes.

My son came round and I was able to let him talk about the past: painful memories, but talking about them didn’t make it any worse.

My mother in law asked me about my schooldays.  She had to invite me a couple of times then ask me explicitly, but for the first time in years I dragged myself back there and came up with some reasonable answers.  Again, it didn’t make it any worse.  And it let her know me a little more.

As I said, I like being stopped.

Oh, I know we are occupational beings.  I know it’s not good physically to lie on the sofa for three days and not swim for a week, but mentally and psychologically it has its benefits.  It recalibrated me.  Like the defibrillator shocking an erratic and dysfunctional beating heart back into a healthy rhythm, this is what enforced stopping does for me.  Weekends are not long enough, not intense enough and still part of a routine to an extent.  The pause button needs pressing on all of life: the working week, weekends, exercise, leisure, writing, the lot.

ENJOY!  That’s what my mantra should be.  Rather than my rather earnest: awake, authentic, calm and centred.  Whenever I go anywhere I look in estate agent windows and fantasise about living there.  But I can live there; I can live anywhere, for a few days at a time.  It’s all living.