Andy Chatman’s Thailand Adventure

Bert came to town on Friday from the River in advance of our boat trip today. A group went out to La Villa for dinner (Italian), including Dong, Maew, Captain, Holly and Fah. After dinner a bunch of us went out to a couple of clubs. The first was The Monkey Bar at Fallabela. Inside the Monkey bar was western style music while outside in the larger club hundreds of teenagers were listening to live Thai music. After a bottle of champagne, we left for another club, The Met (at the Metropolitan Hotel). The girls and Captain used to come here when it was trendy, but apparently it’s gotten less so. We had some more champagne, and Lek left to head home. The rest of us started dancing and didn’t stop until they closed down at 2AM. I can’t think of a more fun and beautiful group of women to have welcomed Valentines Day with. It was too late to be let in to Mike’s apartment, so I stayed in an extra room in the apartment Bert is using.

It’s Saturday and I’m headed to the gym before our trip to Pattaya. I’ll be offline while there.

Night Out - Dong, Bert, me, Holly, Maew

Last night Lek let the guys crash her monthly party night with the girls. There must have been more than a dozen of her friends over. They had a feast on the terrace under a clear sky and comfortable breeze. There was a karaoke machine set up complete with DJ, and once the ladies got started they didn’t stop. There were plenty of guest appearances by some of the men too, as well as a special one night only performance by Michella and Bert of the Singing Flying Kikkerts. Once again Lek proved to be the fun and charming host, and her friends are absolutely wonderful! I will miss them when I leave but I can keep in touch with Facebook.

Lek gets the party started

Michella of the Singing Flying Kikkerts

Sweet Princess Holly

Claire (c) and Dong (r)

Fah

There was time for salsa and cha cha

Lek closed the show with style!

Yesterday was a restful day. I chose not to join the Flying Kikkerts on their second day of tourist activities and allowed myself to sleep in!! It’s a good thing — When their van reached the floating market they were stopped for having a tour guide in an unauthorized vehicle and they were all arrested and the car impounded. Mike was able to make a phone call and have them released.

Mike and I had lunch and then drove to the Emporium to do some shopping. When we got home, we decided to have a casual dinner at home, and we invited Lek’s friend Holly to join us. After dinner, I mentioned that I had wanted to see the view of the city from Vertigo, a bar at the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel (my friend Mark Frisk had sent me an article about this before my trip) so off I went with Holly, thankfully transported by her driver! The hotel was a block away from the Met where we had been dancing on Friday. 59 elevator floors + 2 climbed flights later, we were at a beautiful open air bar on the roof of the hotel enjoying the view. I hadn’t brought my camera, so I asked the group at the next table if they would take our photo and email it to me. I hope they don’t forget to send it.

We were talking about how my trip was ending in a little over a day and how I wasn’t ready for that, and Holly suggested that if I was enjoying myself I change my flight. Those of you who know me well know that I often don’t consider such major changes in plans, especially when so many others will be affected (I’d be imposing on my cousin for several more days, my brother has been taking care of my dogs, etc.). But the simple fact was that the second she made the suggestion I knew that it was what I was going to do. I got up very early knowing that Mike would be up, and after clearing the extended stay with him I changed my flight home until Monday.

So right now I’m back at the river house until Saturday, getting to know an incredible 8 week old Malinois puppy named Elan (hmmmm), and then Sunday I will enjoy my last day in Bangkok before leaving on Monday.

Once Mike and Lek left for Bahrain, I tried to figure out what “Buddhist-Casual” clothing was and prepared for my day of meditation. At 9AM Holly picked me up and we drove to a Buddhist Spiritual Center near the Emporium where we were going to meditate with Ajahn Brahm, a famous teacher of meditation originally from England, now living in Australia. We got there early and met up with Holly’s friend, Na. Na spoke terrific english, and when i asked why he told me that he was raised in California, and had gone to undergrad school at the U of R! That was quite a surprise. Ajahn Brahm is impressive. although his style of speaking is at times so calm that it can be difficult to keep attention. After an hour and a half lecture, he led the group in a 30 minute meditation session before breaking for lunch. We weren’t keen on the box lunch so we ate Vietnamese food at the food court at the Emporium while deciding whether to go back for the second half of the program. We ultimately decided not to, but when holly and I got back to the car we found ourselves blocked in by 4 vehicles. Fortunately the practice is to leave the cars in neutral so for 10 minutes we moved the cars back and forth until Holly was clear (there was a very nice guy in the garage who helped us out).

The afternoon was spent back at the apartment, where Holly and I relaxed and listened to music. At lunch Na had recommended Arun Residence, a beautiful restaurant on the River near the Royal Palace and Wat Pho, for dinner and had made reservations for Holly and I to have a ringside view of the sun setting over Wat Arun. My attempt to plug the address into her GPS, which is completely in Thai, didn’t go so well, but ultimately her brother (over the phone) got us close. We were able to zero in on the restaurant based on a sketch I made from a map on their website. The view didn’t disappoint. After dinner, we went by Tuk Tuk (a small motorized open-air taxi) to an area not far away known for it’s nightlife — clubs, bars, outdoor bands, it’s a lively place. We ended up at a jazz club where we met up with Y who works in the attached art gallery. From there we collected Holly’s car and drove to the home of another friend, Monika, who was being visited by B. Monika opened up a delicious bottle of Dom Perignon, and after that was gone we headed out to Bed, a nightclub with great dance music and beds instead of tables. After a while we were exhausted and called it a night.

Lek’s driver took me to the airport at 9AM for my flight home. I can’t believe I’ve been here for just about 3 weeks. It feels like I’ve taken several trips in that time period. I was hoping for certain things on this trip and they were all realized and then some! I had wanted to travel to places I had never been and begin to see the world differently. I wanted to get to know my cousin Mike better, since I had only seen him a handful of times in the last 20 years. I was hoping to meet interesting people and make new connections in my life. I wanted to photograph beautiful sites that I had never seen before. I wanted to remind myself that there are such incredible opportunities and possibilities out there that I didn’t need to limit myself to the life I had been living. All of these have been accomplished. Then there were the unexpected things — getting closer to Mike’s wife Lek than I thought I would, creating some real friendships with exciting and interesting people (not the least of which is Bert Kikkert but including Mike and Lek’s great group of friends as well as Holly’s friends), deciding to bring home a puppy from Mike’s kennel, having some wonderful and educational conversations with Mike who has memories of my family’s past that I don’t, and extending my trip to spend time with a wonderful and special person. Mike is a terrific person, with varied interests (many of which overlap mine, such as astronomy, photography and dogs) and a desire to share them with others. While he lives a lifestyle that i will likely never reach myself, he is most happy when allowing friends to share that lifestyle with him. Lek is quite something. She’s interesting, dynamic, and her classy group of lifelong friends are a testament to the type of person she is. The two of them are such gracious hosts and they made this trip into something I could never have imagined. And I have to say something about the dogs. I absolutely fell in love with Lucky the Dutch Shephard. He is a special animal. And the joy of having puppies around wherever we spent our time was a happy unexpected bonus. I’m glad I blogged this trip as events unfolded, I’m afraid that after having experienced so much that there is no way I could have remembered the details and nuances without writing them down. What is most exciting for me is to see what happens next. The only thing I’m sure of is that from here on out nothing will be quite the same. To those of you who have taken time to read my posts and even comment back, I thank you for maintaining my connection to home while I was away.

With Holly along the river overlooking Wat Arun

Traveling by Tuk Tuk

This is Y

At Nightclub Bed

B and Monika at Bed