Minimal notes

It seems this may be all there is to it. 

Last night's TV news showed water flowing over pavement a few kilometers from my townhouse out on the northeastern edge of town, but by far, most of Bangkok is still dry. The government is saying that we're almost past the crisis now, and that if we can make it past Tuesday it's likely that things will get better from here on out.

Outside the condo, streets are still dry--they've never been anything else. Public transport has never stopped, power and water have never been out. The only inconvenience I've seen, and it's mild, is that market shelves are bare, from hoarding. But I've hoarded enough myself, and have food and water a-plenty for probably a week. 

In other news last night, I had the most horrible nightmare. I dreamt that the U.S. Constitution got physically, and irrevocably, shredded. To little pieces. Torn up in a paper-shredder and burned. Do you think this might have some significance? Are corporations people?

Next: waiting for the aria

And awayyy we NOT!

No pictures today, guys, not much point. Still dry as far as I can tell! I'm starting to think we're not really gonna get any water. Anyhow, just an ordinary, quiet day. TV shows images of water rising marginally on the edges of the already-flooded, but I'm not expecting anything dramatic either here or over at the town.

It does appear that the Thai government neglected to note that the city of Nakhon Phatom, next over to the west from Bangkok, would be flooded. Imagine their surprise today!

In the interest of complete recovery from my bout with lung disease, I'm gonna call it a night and get some more sleep. Sleep is good. I've been realizing I'm still a little weak. The big "P" can take it out of ya.

I will be writing daily (nightly) notes from here on, but they may not be long.
Here's the next: minimalism

In search of wet ground

 

Not, you know, that I really want it to, but I wish it would. That is, if it's gonna at all. Flood, I mean. But waiting is hard. Can't plan much, knowing that something big is supposed to happen, but having no idea when, or how long it will last. A flood in slow-motion, where'd they come up with that?

Spent a chunk of the day out looking, figured the water must be closer in somewhere. Rode the SkyTrain out to the end of the line. Still dry. Went back, changed trains, down to Sathorn Pier, where you can cross the Chao Phraya to the Thonburi side. That, at least, showed the river tearing along at a ridiculous pace and

slightly cresting in many places.

I realized this morning that actually I have been on the ground in another disaster, the '89 Loma Prieta Earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. I always had the feeling that I had somehow caused that one. I had just gotten home from somewhere, and walked up to the front door. The second I put my key in the lock and turned, the whole world began shaking and wouldn't quit. Hey, what did I do?

Thinking back on that one, memories are very clear. We didn't have cell phones in those days, anybody remember? All the phone lines were down, or overloaded. I was in Berkeley. The two San Francisco bridges were down. BART (trans-bay subway) was knocked out. My daughter was supposed to come home from school in SF, but there was no way I could even find out where she was. I was supposed to play a gig at the Mark Hopkins that night, and though the power there was out, and all the staff was leaving, and the gig never actually happened, plus the business with no transport and no way to get in touch, I heard the band leader was complaining about me not showing up. Much more exciting than this slow, slow flood.

Well, folks, it's a slow news day. And that's really quite all right. The highest backward tidal surge of the is supposed to be happening right now, pushing levels higher from the sea end, and that was a hump they thought just might bring everything crashing down. If it doesn't, does that mean we might squeak through? 

Bizarre interlude: the grandson of Souvanna Phouma, the leader of a neutralist government in Laos during the Vietnam War, called me up while I was writing this and asked me if I could put together a Halloween band for his supper club. I was happy to say I couldn't do it. He's a nice guy, and all, and if I weren't busy, maybe I'd try to help out, but . . . it's nice that I have all this really cool stuff to do. So you're really going to have a Halloween party in the predicted 1-2 meters of water?

Breaking news says that levels are indeed rising, and that the pier where I took those pictures this afternoon is now slopping over. Will keep you posted, more tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm just sittin' pretty in my cozy little suite, working on my words. 

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we'll have some real fun. 

Tomorrow: well, I thought we would. Don't blame me! 

And awayyyyy we go!

What was unimagined is becoming real. It is a bizarre sensation. For months we've been hearing about vast waters unleashed, and shown pictures of horizon-to-horizon floods right near home, but--except during some of the torrential rains--haven't seen any of this up close. Even today, when I had to go all over this sprawling oriental metropolis doing regular old stuff, I still haven't been able to imagine tomorrow, when things are supposed to start getting damp around here.

I spent much of the day in the condo, also, just working on this fascinating translation project. The fictional characters, their imagined words and feelings, seemed much more real to me than the prospect of not being able to go out without getting wet, or maybe even having to swim.

The glacial progress of this flood is probably responsible for this sense of detachment than anything. Floods just rush in and wash everything away, don't they? They're not supposed to warn you first. Here, you saw the pictures at the top. Those are from Bangkok and from today, too. Just different parts of the city. It's just inching its way in. If we want to leave, we've got all the time in the world to do it.

My Condo, my magnificent and beloved domicile . . .

Here are some scenes I saw today of life that was nearly normal, only a little different if you went in a store and found half the shelves empty because water, juices, and a lot of staples sold out, or if you paid attention to the new construction of water barriers, sandbags piled here and there with no use for them yet, things like that. 

And now it's late at night. A few minutes ago, the streets were just as dry. But then a rain started. A hard rain. They may not be dry again.

I've never been in a "disaster zone" when a disaster was actually happening. I'm gonna try it on for size this time. We're pretty well stocked on food and water here, and if anybody around will have power, I expect the condo management will make sure that we do, too. And somehow I think we will have power, and it won't be a complete disaster, just inconvenient as hell for awhile. But if we don't . . . well, I spent three weeks without electricity, and at the end, nearly without food, in the California mountains in summer of 2010. Nearly inconvenient as it gets. Did me a world of good. Whatever happens, it should be fascinating.

Rather than discuss in the abstract, I think I'll wait and see what it looks like tomorrow, and give you the glacial blow-by-blow.  But in the meantime, here are a couple more pictures taken in Bangkok, today, in places where it was not dry.

Some of you have asked about how the Thai novel I'm translating is coming along. I am going to make time to talk about that soon. Short answer: coming along just fine, and the process is wonderful and absorbing. I'll do a whole post, at least, on the problems I've run into and how I'm dealing with them. I wish I'd been doing things like this for the last 40 years. Maybe I can even throw in some talk about that while relating these earthly and waterly experiences, we'll see. 

But for right now, let's keep on topic. This one's fascinating, too. And it's past my bedtime, I hear my mama callin', so I'll give you another shout when we see what tomorrow's gonna be all about. So for now, guys, ta ta!

. . . Oh . . . and I'll try not to dream about all those crocodiles that have apparently escaped from the croc farms and shows around town. There are already enough folks thinking about that one. And the crocs ain't the worst of it . . . .  

Tomorrow's installment: Lookin' for some action.

A flood of awareness

Kids came for the fun, adult vols were pruning congesting vegetation 

Greetings, all. It's been too long since I last wrote, but I've been trying to avoid Catholic or Jewish guilt, though, really, why should I have to? I'm neither Catholic nor Jewish. Maybe guilt is just flat-out part of human nature.

Anyhow over the last months I've had so many thoughts and experiences I felt needed to be laid out and articulated properly for interested people to see that I just . . . felt . . . GUILTY AS HELL about not doing it. Hey, now what do I do with the "hell" part of this? Metaphysics again. See, writing is just too hard! (But the translation project is doing great guns, giving me some real focus). See, I'm still just plain doing too much stuff!

But now, with the floods, I suppose it's inevitable.

This, even though I am just recovering from a mild second bout with pneumonia. I contracted it down South in tsunami country, where I've been for the past couple of weeks immersing myself in another writing project (an eco-volunteer program, that's where these 2 pictures are from.)

Me w/Youth International Volunteers and Andaman Discoveries Staff on Koh Phrathong

The only other time I got pneumonia was three years ago, in exactly the same southern places, doing the same sorts of things. Exciting, productive, fun things, but that somehow exposed me to a tropical germ my body hasn't learned to handle right. Some freaky coincidence.

But I'm over it now, breathing freely and full of energy, and here to tell you about another naturally destructive event I'm now perfectly positioned to report on: the imminent Bangkok flooding.

I'm a latecomer to the topic, because of my trip and consequent derailment, but maybe I can give some perspective, since I've got two properties of my own on the ground here and am watching them closely. One is a townhouse towards the very furthest northeast boundary of the city, and the other is a 12th-floor condo a kilometer or two from the Chao Phraya River, which sluices and twists through the Bangkok Metropolitan Area very much as the Mississippi does for Greater New Orleans, each ending in a nearby ocean.

New Orleans had Katrina. Bangkok is about to experience the worst flooding in all of Thai history.



Brief background: If you've been following the news, you'll know the flooding has actually been going on since mid-September. The rainy season here started late, but came in with an unheard-of intensity in August, and just didn't stop coming. The tributary rivers of the northern mountains swelled to record-setting volume, first flooding the beautiful northern city of Chiangmai, and scaring the bejeezis of everyone downstream. Downstream fears became a horrible reality, as water poured from everywhere into the Chao Phraya basin and had no way to get out quickly enough, so they spread out . . . and out . . . and out, engulfing huge chunks of Central Thailand, and now is just sitting there, dribbling slowly out as even more water comes in to push from behind.
Hundreds have died, but the pace of the water gives time for plenty of warning, so the greatest loss has been to homes, belongings, crops, transport, and commerce in general.


Many major cities and towns are still in great distress. And these are all waiting for the water to drain out . . . through . . . Bangkok, of course!


Bangkok, of course, has had some history of flooding, and because of this has built around itself an elaborate system of canals, dikes, and drainage canals to divert floodwaters around the city--ironically at the same time as filling in most of the canals which more than a century ago gave rise to the moniker of "Venice of the East," turning them into impressive congestive, polluted, and poorly-maintained city streets.

This system worked pretty well at keeping the levels down, and was steadily becoming more efficient. The problem now is that there is just too much water behind the walls, and this is combining with a seasonal tide surge, highest of the year, which is predicted to come in from the opposite direction over the next four days and breach the defenses, inundating Bangkok.

The government is trying to control things somewhat by opening floodgates in certain areas first, telling everyone well beforehand when and where. It's now pretty generally accepted that some effects of the flood will reach everywhere in the city, but heroic steps are being taken to protect power supplies, and the SkyTrain and  subway transportation systems.

Right now it's dry most places, but it's also definitely here in some places, witness the "minimart" and "styrofoam" photos posted here which another former Peace Corps guy shared with me.
Anyhow today areas around both my townhouse and my condo are bone-dry.

It's late. I started late, and have been writing this thing entirely off the cuff, after being released from the hospital today. I feel fine, thank you, just a little tired. I'll continue talking about developments tomorrow, and hopefully have time to touch on some other topics as well. Be well. I wish I could talk to each of you in person . . . you're welcome to comment here, or e-mail me, for that matter . . . ! Till soon, then.

Next installment: Real or imagined?

Another watershed or two . . . what a great word, it works so many ways . . .

Night has just come on. Under bulging dark clouds I look out the 12th-story window of my newly-purchased condo on Soi Wachiratham Saathit, admiring the impressive Wat Tham Mongkhon beyond the bushy lot across the way, the illuminated chedi of the temple now blurred and lined as if by brushstrokes: dense sheets of rain whip and plunge onto the traffic below and into the lush herbal forest that this rainy season has brought to life in that "vacant" lot. I'm overwhelmed. This is the kind of thing I came here for. Natural intensity. Release. New growth.

Here is another watershed, ‘tis time to resume the blogging, it seems. Two subjects today. For me the second is, again, what I came here for. The first . . . well, we’ll see.

I.    Thai Politics
First, Thai political life in Thailand is getting close to the boiling point again. There’s an election tomorrow, July 3, so by my next post, we’ll have some kind of resolution, be it boiling over or going back to a steady simmering. If you go back to my single series of “political” blogs, you’ll see that last year’s April-May crisis here centered on a demand for dissolution of parliament followed by early elections. Well, the dissolution and election are upon us, not as early as might have happened, but still earlier than required by law.
   
If you do go back and read those blog posts from May 2010 you’ll have an idea of what this is all about. The players and the issues are largely the same. So I won’t rehash those here, except to note that Thaksin (remember him?) has his sister running for Prime Minister. And, wow, is she a lot cuter than he is! Great figure . . . I mean figurehead . . . anyway Aphisit, the current PM and the guy I want to see there, is probably history at this point, but let’s wait till Monday and see.

But just briefly, here’s an excerpt from a chat conversation I had with a friend, one of the most thoughtful and knowledgeable expats I know. Right now he’s in the States, so we chatted on Skype. By “Institution,” we mean “the monarchy.”

P: Conventional wisdom has it that Pheua Thai will win. I guess that's probably right, hate to say it. But I doubt they'll have an absolute majority, so we'll probably be back in the doldrums, as between the yellow airport closures and the red "sea of fire." Pheua Thai won't be able to get Thaksin back in the country, and will they be able to do anything else? Doubt it, not much, anyhow. So there will be unrest on all sides. Maybe another coup? But if there is a coup, THAT is when all hell will break loose. And, of course, there's the king's health. When that story concludes, let's hope it comes gently and not with great convulsions of its own.

F: Perhaps Phua Thai and Thaksin will be able to buy off the Army.  A large infusion of cash to the military leadership may cause them to change sides and might give the Army white-hat status with a large segment of the population.  The Army has to see the writing on the wall with the continued weakening of the Institution.

P: Who knows? I don't think that's too likely, though. The "Institution" appears to me to be already a separate problem, though a complicating one. I think Thaksin simply has too many enemies. He can't buy enough of them off, they have money, too, and position.

Really interesting are the election posters. Yinglak, Thaksin’s sister, would make about as beautiful a prime minister as the world could hope to see . . . outwardly, anyhow.

I really like Chuwit’s series. Chuwit is from the “Rak Prathet Thai,” or “Love Thailand” party. He’s shown making faces as if he has a headache from all the corruption, clearly running on an anti-corruption platform.

Then there’s the “Just Say No” series. I think this got started from people in the South, and it is focused on getting people to mark the “No Vote” box as a protest against the whole system. The captions say “Don’t let the animals loose in Parliament!”


Enough for now on politics; I imagine there will soon be a lot more to talk about. But on to topic 2:

II.    My Life
Going well, folks. Playing music here in Bangkok three nights a week, down from four because it was distracting from some important thing, now will soon be moving to just 2 nights, Thursday and Friday. Doing a lot of singing in a lot of styles because after all these many years of being self-conscious, my voice is finally coming out and into its own, and I actually like it. Trumpet-playing was getting steadily stronger and better for awhile, but in past months practice has suffered, not because of laziness, but because of something really, really cool that has happened. So why don’t I tell you about that?

My friend Susan Kepner (hi, Susan!), who is well-known for her translations of Thai literature, especially Thai women’s lit, got a call last year to translate a rather long Thai novel into English. It was a tempting project, but after thinking about it for many months, even doing some preliminary work on it, she decided that first of all, the contract terms weren’t as good as she’d want, and secondly, that it would take her away from writing plans of her own. So she approached me about doing it, and put me in touch with the author and the publishing company, and we all seemed to hit it off pretty well, and my standards as a completely unknown literary translator allowed me to accept a contract offer that wouldn’t do for someone more established.

So that translation is what’s going to be taking most of my time for the next six months or so.

The novel is Uthis Haememool’s Lap Lae, Kaeng Khoi, a 444-page opus which won the S.E.A. Write Award for Thailand in 2009. The plan is to publish it early next year and put it in competition for yet another award, the Man Asian Literary Prize, which is for novels by Asians either written in or translated into English.

I’m very honored that 1) Susan recommended me, and 2) that Uthis and the Amarin Publishing Co. trust me to do it right.

I’ve been having a ball with this. It feels as though I should have been doing this kind of work all my life. Yeah, yeah, there were plenty of reasons I didn’t, like raising two kids and trying to keep afloat financially for all those years, but damn! It feels as though I should have been doing this kind of work all my life. (repetition intentional, but you’re smart, I shouldn’t have to tell you that)

I spent several months going over the novel word by word, making sure that I understood the book, its meanings, and how it was put together. Finally my two Berkeley degrees in comparative literature are having some utility in my life! ‘Bout time, hey? Like the M.A. was 41 years ago, hey? Anyway, since then I’ve just been digging into the actual work of translation, thought by thought, page by page, and making good progress. It really should be done in the time planned.

To me, maybe not to others, but to me, there is something so quintessentially cool and fun about trying to bring these thoughts and images to life in a completely different form that it gives old proverb a powerful reality: “Learn a new language and get a new soul.” In my next blogs I’ll be exploring the meaning of this as it pertains to what I’ve been doing.


Another thing that I feel is that this is, in a way, my real “Peace Corps” work. I came here when I was 21, and was only a marginally effective English teacher, and felt Thailand had given me much more than I ever gave it. But now . . . I would not be doing this project if I hadn’t done Peace Corps back then, so it really does feel that this is what it was all about. Learning Thai, getting to understand Thai life, getting connected with the place in the first place, set this up. Now I’m able to do something really kind of significant and unique: bring a little something of this elegant and ancient Thai culture, as it grows with the modern world, to the experience of those who would otherwise never, ever know it.

I wish I could give you a little excerpt of what I’ve been doing. There’s a little fable in Chapter 3 I’d love to post. But no can do, this one’s gotta be done by the numbers, copyrights and all that. I guess y’all haveta wait till it’s out, if you’re interested.

Anyhow, Wheee! This is the beginning of more posts, I’ll be talking about the pleasures and perils of translation . . .

And then, there’s always the election, if you get bored!

It’s good to be back bloggin again.

TIME FOR A HOT BATH

DAY 19 - August 26, 2010: This is the end, my friend

Today enjoyed the lazy luxury of sleeping in . . . meaning didn’t get out of the tent till about 7:30 AM, later than ever! However, this was the most inhospitable place I had camped on the entire trip. Worse than Helen Lake. It was so freezing and windy that I stayed out just long enough to see other folks shivering while they broke camp in preparation for their own assaults on Whitney, then went back in the tent and waited another half-hour for the sun. I was done with all of that assaulting mountains stuff.

I suppose it felt good to be finished, but it was still freezing. And I wasn’t really finished, quite.

Didn’t have anything remotely appetizing in the food stash, no coffee or miso left, either, so I forwent boiling water and feasted on the remaining half of yesterday’s peanut butter sandwich, now nearly two days old. It was gonna be all downhill, only about five miles, figured I wouldn’t need all that much energy. And there would be hot food at the other end this time, whoopee.

The day felt oddly like any other, just throw on the pack and start slogging. I’d expected to feel a sense of completion, satisfaction, anticipation, you name it. Probably it was just that I was exhausted and fairly burnt-out. Tearing down the tent was hard, because the wind was gusting wildly. The day had started bright and clear, but was quickly clouding up. For nineteen days and nights I’d had great weather, no rain, only occasional cloudy skies, and heavy winds just the once, at Glen Pass. But yesterday I’d heard thunder when coming down from the summit, and by the time I’d walked a few hundred yards today, I was already hearing it today, early in the morning. Thunderstorms are no joke up there: every year people die in lightning strikes on Mt. Whitney. Signs everywhere warn you to avoid the summit if there is thunder. I wondered if the climbers today would make it up all the way.

The trail was rocky again, for the most part, so it wasn’t really fast going. After a bit I passed a couple of women going down and we talked for a bit. Turned out they were expecting a ride to be waiting at Whitney Portal to take them to Mammoth Lakes, 70 miles north. I couldn’t help but ask if they’d have room for me, since my car was at Mammoth and I still had not firm plans on how to get back there and had been hoping for a break like this. Amazingly, they said that would probably work. At that point I did indeed experience a sense of completion, relief, satisfaction, however tentative and mild. I’d thought I might need to camp another night, hitch out, and catch a bus up the next day. Hot bath! Warm bed! Oooooh! What nice peopleses, gollum gollum. Nancy and Mary.

The sky continued to cloud over. Right after passing the last really scenic section, a beautiful little lake, it actually began to rain. felt the cold rain on my arms for a while, it was pleasant. Then it began to come down hard, and I pulled on the poncho for the first time in the trip. It seemed the Great Spirit, having kept me comfortable in the sun for three weeks, was giving me a farewell cleansing, and closing the curtain on this wilderness journey. I sent back a big good-bye, full of gratitude. Thanks for the lessons, Big Guy. Or whatever you are. I’ll keep them in my heart for good and ever, promise. I mean that.

My new friends and I leapfrogged each other all the way to the parking lot, which came into view maddeningly long before we reached it. I happened to get there first, and saw a lone woman, looking rather lost, protected from the rain only by the scant eave of the public restroom. Needing shelter myself, I asked if there was room for two, and she said to come on in. Turned out she was Robie, the person waiting for Nancy and Mary, perfect! A few minutes later they turned up, and we all went to grab something to eat at the little café which the Park Service had had the foresight to put up there.

All this reminded me of coming home to the U.S. from the Peace Corps when I was 23, unimaginable conveniences. But eating this new food was strange. Had a burger and fries, and it was tasting something I’d never had before, almost not at all familiar. And my stomach had shrunk and couldn’t handle the whole thing. Mary had a beer, but I wasn’t ready for that. Had just a little sip of hers, but just really didn’t want a whole one. And I’m a beer drinker.

It turned out plans had changed, and they were only going as far as Bishop today, but Robie was willing to take me that far. This was fine with me: I could get a motel room and get to Mammoth the next morning on the bus. So we hopped in, headed north, and enjoyed each other’s company for the next couple of hours. But as we were coming into Bishop, Robie said she’d decided to drop the other ladies off and take me up the next 35 miles to Mammoth, that she had some business up there she could do. I wanted to refuse, half-heartedly tried, but couldn’t completely, the offer was just too honest and too nice. She must have seen how utterly wiped out I was and taken pity on me. Human nature certainly has its good sides. Thank you again, Robie!

So that’s the story of my John Muir Trail walkabout. I suppose I should add that I got to the car OK, and got two nights in a very comfortable but inexpensive motel which had wireless internet, and had a long hot bath and shower before catching up on e-mail and starting this blog . . . note the first entry is August 27, the day after we came down to Whitney Portal. Food was still tasting strange.

There is much more I could write. The lessons I learned up there were many and powerful, and I’ve only shared a few. There are a lot more stories in there, too, but I think this is enough for now. Probably too much, actually. I doubt that many folks will even read more than an entry or two of this blog, anyway. Thanks to those of you that have actually followed along with me for the journey, it makes it every so slightly less lonely and gives a shade more meaning to it, as well. It has actually taken me more days to chronicle the trip than to actually walk it, and in fact it feels as though I am just now finishing up, that it’s been going on for 2½ months now, ever since I first arrived in Tuolumne Meadows July 7 to get ready for the Big One until this moment, writing these words. It’s been a great adventure, and it will stay with me till the end of my days, but it’s time to move on now, and that’s a good thing. Can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner.


Note: Anniell and friends made it out OK a day later, I was relieved--see her comment below under "amill1."