PADI certified diver

A short note on what I've been up too lately. The past four days I was taking a course in Patong to achieve PADI certification as an Open Water Diver. The first two days I was in either a classroom or swimming pool fron about eight in the morning until six at night, and the last two days was on a boat for the same amount of time. It was an incredible experience, and at some point I hope to write some more about it. I especially want to write about Martin my dive instructor as another sign along the way. But for now suffice it to say that I am a PADI open water certified diver.

Last night was another crazy Thailand night. These things are both addictive and expensive, and, again, I hope to write more about this.

In any case, I made the decision not to pursue the Peace Corps Indonesia option. My excuse/rationale was the fact that the book is supposed to come out in the fall and I had promised my editor that I would be available for publicity at the time. But the truth is, once that got put off in the fall, that ship had sailed. I just had a strong sense that this is not the path to pursue. But like Socartes' daimon, although I can often determine what path not to pursue, the daimon never seems to point out anything constructive.

Leave for China tomorrow, and not even sure if I will do that, much less for how long. A month there and three weeks in Nepal seems about right. But there is still the possibility of the semester in China consistent with the Wisdom for All Seasons book project. All I know is that decisions don't get any easier by putting them off.

No place like home?

The owner of the Pineapple Guesthouse is Steve, an affable, rotund Englishman, who runs the place with his Thai wife Lek and two small children. He came over the first night we were here and introduced himself and since has been incredibly helpful, offering flawless advice on everything from fish restaurants to tours to massage shops. Karon Beach is a laid back little place, and we leave today for the much more intense environs of Patong Beach.

Decisions loom ahead, the first of which is weather to do the Peace Corps Indonesia program, which now looks like it will depart in either April or June. My guess is that an April departure is simply impossible to pull off. While a June departure is a possibility, given the fact that the book will be coming out in fall, this is a fading possibilit at best. What does that leave then? I just don't see spending more than a month in China. And then I see the possibility of going to Nepal. But (and I may have mentioned this before) I don't see anything beyond this.

This trip really is like my last Asia trip--a lot of aimless wandering that will just leave me physically and financially and spiritually exhausted at the end. I can really feel my physical condition deteriorting, but it is nore or less a canary in the coal mine for the other parts of my being. Several times I have wanted to click my heels and declare, "there's no place like home." Except that I don't hve a home.

Tiger and Me

The Tiger Woods apology is all over the televsion right now, even in Phuket. While I find the whole thing pretty ridiculous, the one thing I did find that salvaged the pathetic performance ws the references he made to Buddhism. Many in the media were speculating that Tiger might make a move to Christianity where he could more easily invoke an idealogy of forgiveness. Instead, he stuck to his guns and Buddhism In particular he invoked the Buddhist claim that the cause of suffering is desire, which he changed slightly by declaring that 'craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security'. I have no problem with this rephrasing. It captures the spirit of the sentiment, and in any case it caused me to reflect on this insight. Coincidentally (not ironically) being in Thailand certainly has me focusing on the futility of desire.So far, thought, I haven't been doing anything more than reflecting.

Sickness and Decisions

Sick, or at least not feeling well in the words of George Carlin, a condition which caused an early retreat last night. Not really sure what I am doing here anymore. There is the energy of the night, but there is not much more than that. You should not be surprised that you do not find romance in the bargirls or satisfying sex in massage parlor hand jobs. Many frustrations, one of which is not keeping track of how much anything costs, a metaphor, of course, for not keeping very good track of time. Time and money slipping away without making a very good account of either.

Currently, I am debating whether to do a trek in Nepal in early April. Probably need to make a call pretty soon, although there is always the possibility of just showing up in Nepal. Still, if I am serious about the trek, I should probably go ahead and make the reservation. The trek gets me to the end of April and after that I am just not sure. My physical condition is deteriorating. Gaining weight and out of shape. Not sure what to do once May rolls around. Can’t just sit in Tucson. If I go back, I know that will be it, I mean, I won’t soon take to the road. So I don’t want to end this journey too early, though in truth, as I said, I am not sure what the point of the whole thing is.

Printable excerpts from the weekend

Friday
When I arrive at Spicy around one thirty a.m. it is fairly packed. I had earlier sampled Foxy Lady's, which I didn't know is a go go bar with the dancers on the bar and if you want you buy them drink and they come sit with you and if you like them you take them short time there, two hours. Not cheap. Six hundred bar fine and two thousand short time, although I was not clear if it was two thousand all together or two thousand with the bar fie. I learned all this talking to one of the dancing lady's who I bought a drink for and asked to explain how things work.. They are quite liberal with their affections for one drink, obviously hoping to get more. Some beautiful ladies, definitely a cut above the bg crowd, which might explain the prices. Anyway, then went dinner at Riverside and to see Tuk again and then headed over Spicy. As I said, it was pretty packed when I go there and I spent some time surveying the grounds and trying to figure out what to do when this woman walked past me and smiled. What intrigued me about her was that I could not figure out what nationality she was. She didn't look Thai nor did she seem to be an American (incidentally, there seemed way too many young foreigners in the place). Anyway, something drew me to her and I asked to buy her a drink. Well, if you can't figure out that someone who grabs your ***** within the first fifteen minutes is not out for love, you probably don't deserve to be out in the game. We danced and groped for a couple of hours. In the meantime, I noticed Spicy had become wall to wall. I do not think you could have squeezed five more people in the place. Looking around it was Sodom and Gomorroh, the sequel. When she signaled she was going to leave I signaled for us to go together and she said "how much," I demurred.

Sat

It turned into another strange night; it certainly didn’t start out like it was going to be a strange night. In fact, after the previous evening I had planned on taking it pretty easy. Actually, I did not even have a plan. By the time I got up and got going on Saturday it was past noon. I am not sure where the inspiration to rent a bike came from, but in fact it turned out to be a pretty good idea. I can’t say I made any major discoveries, but I did develop a little better sense of Chengdu. It was hot, really hot and at some point I got a gelato and a massage. I had been told that there were to be festivities for the Chinese New Year, but when I went to the location where the alleged celebration was supposed to occur, in fact it turned out there was nothing going on—at least nothing that I could see. So I ended up walking back to the hotel, which turned out to be quite a bit more distance than I imagined. But it turned out to be the basis for at least one act of kindness. As I was walking back, I was pretty sure I was close to the hotel but thought I still had a little ways to go, so I decided I was going to bite the bullet and get a tuck tuck back to the hotel. When I approached a driver, he informed me that if I turned around it was only a couple of hundred more yards to my place. Clearly, he could have drove me around and charged me something for the trouble.

When I got back to the hotel I decided I really needed a sauna, even if it was going to be 200 baht. Unfortunately, going down to the sauna room I discovered there was only 45 minutes left. Nevertheless, I made the best of my time and enjoyed a pretty good sauna. But when I got back to the room it was, I think eight p.m. and I was exhausted. I knew I needed to lie down, so I put on the only thing I could find on tv and set my cell alarm for nine p.m. By the time nine rolled around I was still exhausted and opted against getting up. When I looked at the clock it was 9:30 and knew it was either get up or go to bed for the evening. But as I had rented the hotel room just to be near the action for the weekend, I forced myself to get up and headed to (where else) LaKroi Street. Out of force of habit, I wound up going to the two familiar places, B&B and #1, By the time I left #1 it was almost midnight, really too late to even see Tuk. I was planning on headed to the third place where I am a familiar face, Cherry Club, when I veered into the bar right before the Cherry, which I will refer to as the bar right before the Cherry. There I ended up sitting next to am aging bg who spoke non-stop about Burma, I think, though in truth I was not sure what the hell she was talking about much of the time. Whatever it was, she seemed fairly passionate about it, and I think it had something to do with politics. But it was two beers—or rather, a beer and a Johnny Walker—before I could get out of there, and already past one’ a.m.

I decided at that point to make my way to Spicy, although I was not quite certain about what direction in was in. I was fairly confident and figured I would walk in the direction I thought it was and that if all else failed, get a tuk tuk. First, however, I had to veer into a couple bars. The first was the corner bar on LK, where I got a beer and realized pretty soon I was going to have to drink it alone and so got up and hit the street and veered into the next place, where I at least had company although it cost me a 150baht maitai. When she asked for another, I got up to leave.
Fuel, I kept thinking, recalling Mickey Rourke’s line from Barfly, Fuel. However, my favorite burrito stand was shut down. Fortunately, the hamburger place next to it, Mike’s Burger, was still open. That’s when it started getting weird. There was a row of four or five seats parallel to the street and another four or five seats at a right angle to these. He sat katty korner from me while another young man sat next to me. The two of them struck up a conversation. My sense was that they were both from the same country—if I had to guess it would be England—and they started comparing notes. Actually, it was mostly the guy across from me talkinig. He had been in Pattaya seven years he said and began to regal his mate with stories designed to show his knowledge and experience of the country. Somehow, though, when the guy working the counter told him a Pepsi was 200 baht or about six dollars, he handed it over without question. The two rookies across from him could both tell the guy was just shitting him. So how experienced was he really? In any case, it turned out he was headed to Spicy and we decided to go together. On the way, he told me a story how the other night he and his friend were involved in some huge fight, except I had been there last night and had witnessed no altercation. In the bar, he kept saying how everyone knew him there but he did not know them, and how he was a champion at seven classes in Thai boxing. So I followed him around for a while because he did seem to know people. After a while we got separated and I ended up with some Eastern European chick, buying her and her friends a drink and then getting propositioned. For a while, I actually thought this was the girl from the other night. But this one it turned out spoke good English, or good enough, and when she propositioned me I decided I was too drunk and tired to do anything.

Last night

LeCroix Street, Foxy Lady, Riverside, Brassiere, Spicy...not the way I would want to spend my last night on earth, but perhaps the next to last

Notice Things

I am thinking that it would be good to travel with the notion that it did not matter so much where I travelled; rather, the important thing would be to write in a concrete and specific way. To notice things, as it were. A good antidote to the abstraction of philosophy. Notice the rows of chairs across the street, which is not just a street but is La Croix street. And the chairs are not just chairs, they look like lazy boy loungers. And of course they have a color, which is blue, almost a bright blue, a sky blue. And there are about fifteen chairs lining the sidewalk against a six foot white wall. Right now there are five masseuses there. At one end a middle aged man with short hair is sitting by himself under an umbrella meant to shade the sun which now has an electric light shining underneath the rim. At the other end a young man and woman sit side by side and chart. In the middle are a couple of foreigners getting massaged. In front of the chairs are parked a row of motorcycles perpendicular to the street.