Karen Connelly

Whenever we travel I always try to find an independent bookstore and purchase some books (novels or otherwise) written by local or national authors about the place I'm in. Sometimes they are rather poorly written and locally published, but still help me to learn more of the flavour of my temporary home, but occasionally I've hit upon a real gem.

Such was the case in Chiang Mai last month. I found a wonderful little bookstore with an excellent selection of English books, and much to Ray's chagrin (he tends to worry about the weight of everything I buy) I chose 5 new books about various aspects of life in Thailand. One was actually written by a Canadian, Karen Connelly, about her experiences living for one full year in a small village in Northern Thailand. Not too unique in itself, except Karen was only 17 years old at the time, had never been to Thailand before, and was awarded this experience by her local Albertan Rotary club.

It caught my attention as I wondered about the courage, maturity and determination a young person would need to embark on such an adventure. After reading a few short passages, the intelligence and insight of the young writer were quickly evident ... added to which she definitely wrote with a poet's touch. I was hooked, and the book did not disappoint on any level.

"Touch the Dragon" was a fabulously refreshing read, and I travelled with Karen Connelly throughout her year in Thailand as it touched and changed her on so many levels, similarly as Ray and I continued on our own travels through the same countryside, also being touched and changed by our own experiences. "Touch the Dragon" won the Canadian Governor General's award in 1993, and I couldn't wait to get home and get on my computer to investigate this new (to me) Canadian author.

I found out that Connelly has since written 5 books of poetry which have won a number of awards (I knew she had to be a poet) and after Thailand she went on to travel, live and write in Spain, France and Greece as a young woman, returning many times to her beloved Thailand. She recently lived for two years on the Thai-Burma border among Burmese exiles and dissidents, and visited Burma many times until she was denied a visa by the military regime. When I saw that she had published her first novel in 2005 called "The Lizard Cage" I immediately ordered it, and have just finished reading it.

This is an extremely horrific book (made all the more so knowing that although a fictitious story, Connelly used information gathered from her interviews with many Burmese dissidents) At times it grabs you by the throat leaving you gasping for air, but just as you can't stand any more the story retreats into the safe sweet past, and allows you to breathe once more. Yet, strangely, there's beauty and hope here too. It tells of a young political prisoner, a popular singer who dared to write and sing songs against the Burmese military regime, now serving 20 years in solitary confinement in a brutal Burmese prison. "The Lizard Cage" is so graphic and raw at times that I just had to put it down ... but, after a break I was always drawn back to it's pages. Why? Why continue with a book which equally repelled and fascinated me? I think because of it's overwhelming power, it's poetic compassion, complete integrity, horror yet hope, and the author's poetical heart which shines through with every word. It's also a psychological thriller which keeps you hanging and hoping almost to the last page!

This is a book which had to be written, and should be read ... in the same way as Auschwitz has to be visited and remembered. These things are happening now, (see my blog Wednesday, 26 September 2007 "We watch and wait ...") - and unfortunately not only in Burma.

But, how glad I am to have found this amazing author, one who writes with such flair, such intelligence, and with such a social conscience.

Christmas?????

How does one settle in to the Christmas season after experiences which are so outside one's realm of being??? I'm finding it very hard ... we picked our tree and decorated it today - but I am only going through the motions. Our family arrive in 5 days to celebrate Christmas - but my mind is still in Thailand ...

How can you forget an exceptional day like the one we spent with Suwanna, and the other 199 children at the Children's Centre in Chiang Rai???

I first met Suwanna 2 years ago when I visited the Children's Centre with a friend who volunteered there, in the very north of Thailand. It's a huge complex run by a wonderful Italian Catholic priest and a small group of Thai nuns. These children are all from nearby Hill Tribes, and are sent by their families to live at the Centre 10 months of the year so they can attend the local village school, and hopefully educate themselves out of a life of poverty. Suwanna had only recently arrived when we first visited, she was 5 years old then, and her personality and spunk immediately attracted me. She became an easy choice for our family to sponsor ... and we have been sending money ever since to pay for her food, school uniforms and other extras. It was so wonderful to see her again ... and Br. Gianni met us in a large van with 10 of the youngest girls from the Centre and drove us to Suwanna's village for a visit with her mother.



Her mother was very sweet, and Suwanna showed Ray and I her hill tribe home, her little brother and the other members of her village. She was so proud of it all, and we were so overwhelmed ... Each member of the little village came and shook our hand, and in their own way thanked us for helping one of their children. We saw red chillies and peanuts spread out to dry in the hot sun, chickens running freely in the dust, sacks of rice piled up in her one-room home, older women carrying their grandchildren on their backs, and bare foot toddlers everywhere.



Back at the Centre we watched Suwanna and the other 199 children eat dinner on the concrete floor, and she showed us her 12" by 12" cubby hole which was all she had for personal possessions (how was she to fit all her gifts from Canada in there??) but all too soon the time came for us to say goodbye and return to Chiang Rai.

Suwanna clasped my hand on the drive back to our guest house, and as she had all day long, she did not let go. We had not exchanged a single word all day, but we had communicated continually - our smiles and mime gestures had said it all. Suwanna kissed me on the cheek when we parted, and I tearfully wondered how long it would be before we meet again.

I'm finding it so hard to get excited about Christmas ...

Loy Krathong

It is a beautiful full moon tonight, and it reminds me of being in Chiang Mai just one month ago for the celebration of the Loy Krathong Festival. Not only was this a feast for all our senses, but we had some wonderful random acts of kindness paid to us during this time which will always stay with me.

Loy Krathong is celebrated annually in Thailand on the full moon night of November - although in Chiang Mai celebrations continue almost all week. It's origins, like so many such festivals, are a bit ambiguous ... but thought to originate in Hindu India. The Thai people float krathongs, or little boats made of a slice of banana tree trunk covered and decorated with banana leaves, flowers, candles and incense sticks (I was told it had to have 3 sticks). The sailing of these krathongs seems to be for various reasons, 1. a means of letting go of all your anger or grudges, or 2. to create good luck for you and your family, or 3. to thank the goddess of water. (Or, maybe just to have a lot of fun!!)

They were amazingly beautiful works of art, with banana leaves folded intricately around the edges and orchids or marigolds as decorations in the centre around the candles. They were on sale everywhere for about 20 baht (about 75 cents!) Of course I bought one, and joined the throngs of people who were placing them in the water to let our grudges go/bring good luck/thank the goddess of water ... how beautiful mine looked, and how proud I felt - until a splash of water put the candles out about 2 mins. after I let it go - I suppose there is a knack to it!

Along with the water-bound krathongs were the stunningly beautiful paper hot-air lanterns which were lit and released to sail up into the dark night sky. In the northern city of Chiang Mai we were lucky to find out about the "Yi Peng" ceremony which takes place just north of the city, and unlike the celebrations in the city, this had more of a Buddhist connotation and was not touristy in any way. There was a lovely parade followed by a Buddhist ceremony presided over by a large group of Buddhist monks, then on a signal about 5,000 of these lanterns were lit and released in unison. The sight was unbelievable!



Everywhere we looked were luminous lanterns floating into the air - thousands of them ... and excited squeals all around us. Ray and I were wishing we could participate, when suddenly a nearby young Thai man motioned to us to please come and help him launch his lantern. We carefully held the lantern's edges as he handed his lighter to Ray and indicated that he should light the flammable pellet which hung in the centre. As the air in the lantern grew hotter we felt it straining to get away from us, to lift and fly into the heavens. Suddenly, our new Thai friend counted 1, 2, 3, and we all let go at the same time and watched mesmerized as 'our' lantern drifted slowing up to join the thousands which sparkled in the sky above us.



Excited and exhilarated we slowly edged our way along with the huge crowd back to where the shuttle bus had dropped us off, vaguely wondering how we were going to get back to the city that night. As we reached the parking lot, a young Thai woman who had been near us in the slow-moving mass of people came up and asked us (in very good English) if we had a ride back to the city. Did she read our thoughts??? She said she had a truck and we were welcome to ride with them. How kind, we thought. Then, she and her two friends hopped into the cab of the pick-up truck indicating that we were very welcome to climb into the open back.

Hmmmmm, coming from a Western (and extremely safety-conscious) country like Canada, neither Ray nor I had ever sat in the open back of a pick-up truck - and certainly not when it is hurtling down the highway at very high speeds. But, since arriving in Thailand we had immediately observed (and who could miss it) that safety often flew out the window there to make way for practical needs. If a family needs to get from A to B and they only have one motorbike, then all 4 (or 5) members will squeeze onto the bike ... what could be simpler???(!) We assumed there were laws against this sort of thing, but the police seemed to be busy chasing bigger crimes...

Well, our motto is "when in Rome ..." so we hopped into the truck and had a very exciting ride home. The young lady staunchly refused when we tried to help pay for the gas, so we could only say a very heart-felt thank you, and off they went.

What a night it had been ... I simply couldn't sleep ... images of those lovely lanterns, beautiful krathongs and the very kind, gentle people we had met filled my head. Those are times one never forgets ...

Reflections of Thailand 1

Hello again!!! I'm back!!! (Hope you like the new look) Let's roll ...

Ray and I have just returned from 31 days in Thailand (literally just returned - last week)and my head is still so full of sights, sounds, smells of all we did and experienced that if I don't get them down on paper soon I will quite possibly burst!!! So, what I intend is not a travel log of "we did this on day 1 and this on day 2" but more, as the title says, my reflections of what we did and saw. This will often be about the people ... because I always feel that it's the people who make a place what it is. Even with my extremely limited Thai, and most Thai's limited English we were able to have marvellous interactions using mime language and facial expressions, and it's those interactions which I still see in my mind when I try to sleep at night - it's like a video playing over and over in my head.

So, these reflections will be fairly random, and you can dip in and have a read at your leisure.



Having said that - where to start??? Maybe at the end ... because on the evening of Nov.25th Ray and I finally packed up a month's worth of grubby clothes and souvenir treasures, ordered a taxi for 8:30am to take us to the Bangkok airport, and settled in to get a good sleep before the long flights home. But, I was too excited to sleep ... so got up and was surfing the Internet when I clicked onto the 'Bangkok Post' website and saw that protesters had taken over the airport and all planes were cancelled!! With Ray snoring soundly in bed, I had no-one to share this devastating news with!! Not much sleep that night ...

Wed. 26th we went down to breakfast at our guest house to be greeted with sympathy from the wonderful owner and her staff. She had the news on the TV and everyone was watching as the startling events unfolded. Well, first things first, they had room for us to stay there for another night - but we had to change rooms, no problem as everything was packed up anyway!

That first day no-one was really worried, as the feeling was that this would blow over in 48 hours, the protesters would leave, and planes would resume flights. There was even a giddy sense of adventure at being caught-up in such a world-wide event. We decided to make the most of our extra day in Bangkok, went out to do some more sight-seeing, and had interesting discussions with many other stranded tourists from around the world. But, I have to say that as the days dragged on, any air of adventure totally evaporated, and frustration and mild panic set in ... this looked like it was never going to end - and with a huge group of opposing protesters setting up camp in a different part of Bangkok, there was even talk of civil war!!

GET ME OUT OF HERE!

We gave up any thoughts of more sight-seeing - even though Bangkok seemed totally normal, we didn't have the heart for it, and Ray spent long hours on the telephone trying to get through to Cathay Pacific. There were rumours of flights leaving from a military airbase; people were arranging to travel by car/bus to Malaysia and Singapore then fly onto Hong Kong; a travel agent we visited was extremely creative in her plans for our travel back to Toronto and maybe if we were 20 again and with just 2 backpacks we might have taken her advice; we received panic emails from family back home - some saying stay put don't go out in the streets, others saying just get into a taxi and get out of the city; my poor elderly mother thought we were in India and caught up in the dreadful attacks taking place at the same time in Mumbai!!

Thank goodness for the local massage parlour close by our guest house, they kept us sane ...ooooh, I so love those Thai foot massages!!! The girls there got to know us well, and were so sympathetic and sweet (or, as sympathetic and sweet as you can be with about 4 words which you can both communicate with!) I even screwed up my courage and had a proper full Thai massage during that time. Now, if you're not familiar with this type of massage, let me tell you it can be quite painful as they apply pressure on your body with various parts of their body, and push and pull your limbs into yogic positions. But, my young girl said quietly, "Soft??" I nodded with relief, and it was wonderful!!!!

I must say that when Ray finally got through to speak with a Cathay Pacific representative they were very helpful ... and finally on the 5th day we were told that they had booked us on a flight from Phuket to Hong Kong, and a flight from Hong Kong to Toronto. Hallelujah!! All we had to do was get ourselves and our grubby clothes half way down the country to Phuket.

But, the wonderful people at our guest house helped us again and arranged for a taxi driver whom they knew to drive us the 12 hours south to Phuket, leaving at 6am the next morning. He wanted 8,000 Baht to do the trip ($270), and we could probably have bargained and found someone cheaper, but at that point we were so exhausted we would have paid him a million $$$ to get us there! He turned out to be quite a character, and drove like a madman - hitting speeds of 160km hr. on the straight road to Phuket - he made the journey in 10 hours!!



When we arrived at the airport and Ray was paying him, all the other local taxi drivers gathered around as he counted the 1,000 Baht notes Ray had just given him - a huge roar of approval and slaps of congratulations rang out as he reached 8 ... we felt a little odd ... obviously we had just grossly overpaid him and he was being congratulated for 'sucking' the silly tourists, but for us $270 for such a long trip was a very low price. Anyway, we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we had made him very happy, we were there in one piece, ... and the Bangkok nightmare was over!