Today I went up to Prao. This is a town about an hour and a half North of Chiang Mai. Actually it is a whole Ampoe, or district hidden behind mountains. Driving from Chiang Mai I pass Mae Jo and then later drive over some hills that leads to Prao. It is mainly a farming district and has also some ethnic minority groups in the Northern mountain ranges. I go up there to see how the boarding home is doing and to bring them their monthly support. This time I also brought them some money for the Christmas dinner. Unfortunately I won’t be able to go to their big event. I will be up in the mountains around Fang at that time
This morning when I passed the hills I went into a long curve and in the distant I saw some animals crossing the street. My first thought was cats. But they all had the same color and there were so many. As I got closer I saw that about 30 monkeys wanted to cross the street. As fast as they came out of the jungle, they vanished on the other side.
On the road in Thailand I came across herds of water buffaloes, elephants and of course cats and dogs, but I have never seen a group of monkeys cross the road. So still after all this years driving the roads I get surprises.
Category: Every day life (Page 3 of 4)
There would be a thousand stories, adventures and episodes. I just can’t think of any right now. I’m sitting in bed 11.30 pm. Tomorrow is Saturday and I will drive up North to Prao to meet Mongkun. We will go to a thanksgiving service in a Lahu village. This will be the first time I go to a Lahu village in this area. Even though we support the boarding school that helps a lot of those children from those villages.
This week has been somehow busy with writing an update and trying to send it. E-mail server problems. Preparing a week long teaching for the Karen DTS and recording Midas new song. The next two weeks will be quite full, but I want to keep this Blog and my readers updated.
Actually I wanted to go climbing this morning, but we were somehow to busy. Perhaps on the weekend. We’ll see. At least I was able to make it to the gym twice this week.
What else? Oh yes my Lowden guitar showed her age while we were recording. The 22 year old preamp is finally giving up on me. Am I that old? I bought the guitar when I was 17. Okay enough rambling. It’s time for dreaming…. Good night.
Maybe I read to much, maybe I just get to much information. I just feel overwhelmed by what is happening out here in the world. Through the internet, newspaper and CNN/BBC I have access to the worlds disasters, war, genocide and latest starlet gossip. I mostly get the suffering and the stupidity of the human race. Sometimes I get lucky and there is a story that inspires hope, but mostly I get information about the world going down.
There are big floods in Mexico and in Vietnam. Volcanoes are stirring in Indonesia, a power grasp in Pakistan and the tragedy of 103 children in Chad who apparently were being abducted by an organization called Zoe’s ark, while the news of last week is old news and we forget all that was then because we move on and focus somewhere else.
All the issues that are kept in front of our mind seem to be the Afghanistan and Iraq war, Global warming. Swiss news I neglected all together. Living in Thailand I focus more on the local and regional happenings. I do realize I have a momentous overkill. I know I can decide and select. But I’m just to curious a person to not to get informed. I am also aware that I cannot change anything.
The good thing is that I leave for the mountains for a view days again. Time to calm down and to reflect.
I’m back in Chiang Mai for a view days. Saturday morning I will go up to Hui Kau Laam with Les and Bill from Australia. Bill is an electrician and will install lights in our new toilets. Three years ago he and his wife did the electricity on the main building. This will be a one day job and we will come back in the evening.
Meanwhile all our kids got sick with a sinus infection. Unfortunately I got it too. So I feel a bit down and out at the moment dragging myself through the day still able to do some work. Probably will crush next week.
We did quite a lot of work in the mountain. I will update the questasia web page soon and put some photos of the work on it.
… or maybe not. But one thing I don’t have to regret when I cross over to 40. I have been on the cover of a magazin.
I was hanging about 50 meters of the ground on the crazy horse wall in San kam Peng Northern Thailand.
This was the beginning and the end of my modeling career. So I can say now: "Been there done that!"
It has been a very long time since I wrote here. It is not because I wouldn’t have anything to write. Time would not be an issue either. Though I had a lot of work lately. When I’m not on it, I mean witing, time goes by and I have a hard time to start again.
So once again I’m taking it up again and will try to update mor frequently.
It has been a very long time since my last post. I thought I would stop the whole exercise. But then taking a break is another option. So now I will be back. Even though I probably lost my five readers (perhaps some more), I decided to go on with posting some more. See where it goes for another year.
The last three days I went down with a cold. I felt really week and had an awful runny nose. There was not much I could do than to drink tea and wait for better days.
Fortunately I found time to get into reading "the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy". It actually is a trilogy in four parts and I’m on the second book now. "The restaurant at the end of the universe". I will be honest with you…. I really like it. All about the meaning of life challenging my rather small view of things. In all a very enjoyable story.
Today I feel a bit better. I need to run some errands. Fix the toilet upstairs, and groom the garden and do some cleaning up, without getting to much exhausted.
The kids are off school till Wednesday. It’s the Kings birthday on Tuesday. It seems like half of Thailand is in Chiang Mai to go to the royal flower exhibition.
I hope to feel fit again tomorrow. I really would like to go climbing in San Kam Paeng once again. Take the family for an outing.
Sunday today. I realised I haven’t written for a while. I spend some days up in the mountains with my co-workers. It’s been a good trip. Time is running short for all the things I should do. We are going to Switzerland in four weeks. I look foreward to go and at the same time I know it will be also very excausting. Living cross-cultural going back and forth between cultures and languages is not always easy. There are days I switch between four languages without realising it. There are days I can honestly say I had enough of it. I want to get a regular job back in Switzerland and just raise my family. Those are the days when my batteries run very low and I need to recharge. I think about our lives and what my children have to go through and what the future will bring.
Then I realise it is my choice. I’m not forced to live like this and I know it is the right choice. As my batteries get recharged all those worries dwindle. I realise that it was another day in paradise a little bit overclouded. A new week is starting and it is a gift that we are still here after seven years.
I haven’t made a wish list for donkeys years. Actually since I lost faith in Santaclaus. But of course I never really grew up and I still have a mental list of things I really want. Thinking of wish lists I realise that we only make them because we don’t have the cash to just walk into the shop and relieve ourselfs of the pain of waiting. The weird thing is that after having aquired the thing we wonder what all that anticipation was for.
Chiang Mai has now a GPS shop in Panthip Plaza at the night bazar. I made the mistake of walking into it. Looking at some GPS’s my mind played some tricks on me. "You realy need one of those" it said. The weird thing is I believed it. Fortunately I don’t have the money to buy the modern adventurers gadget. Still to "would like" a certain thing can’t be that bad. So I put it on my mental wish list, left the shop and wished secretly to be as rich as Bill Gates. Now two month later I understood the deeper spiritual meaning behind this expirience. A reason why I need a GPS.
"As I don’t realy know who I am, at least I would know where I am"
Actualy the idea for a GPS came with the last water pipeline we made in the mountains. A GPS would have been a real help. There is always another way to do things. So I used my swissarmy knife with a barometer for the hight messurements and estimatet the distance with the tachometer in my truck and counting the steps walking through the jungle. It was a 8 kilometer pipeline. With all the problems I encountered I would have liked a GPS.