The trip home

Finally, when I was feeling almost fine again, it was time to go back to the other side of the world and run another intensive one month training. I packed my bags compact enough to get to Oaxaca with little or no rearranging and got to the airport in Rangoon with 2.5 hours to spare, passing to my delight and surprise the Vipassana center (I didn't go because the schedule showed a 20 day course taking place... also, doubt I would have had the time and health to make it anyway). Of course, here in The Golden Land everyone and their neighbor practices Vipassana so saying this doesn't really mean anything. I'd have to tell people I practiced Goenka meditation and then everyone would nod-- I literally didn't meet a single person who didn't know about Goenkaji, no matter where it was that I happened to meet them. And they were all very curious to hear a foreigner talking about sila, samadhi, and panna!

It took all of 5 minutes to go past security, immigration, and check in. Suddenly I found myself within a very pristine airport and to my total surprise, not a single restaurant, cafe, or gift shop in sight, not a single one in the entire airport!! I was famished, had more than 2 hours ahead of me, and luckily I had stuffed in a Clif bar and water bottle in my carry on before leaving the hotel. I asked several security agents where I could get something to eat and they said nowhere. With frustration serving no one, I told them I was hungry and I couldn't believe the airport didn't have a single place. About 20 minutes later I happened to notice on security guard sitting close by me and seeming to watch me... I made a mental note not to choose this time to organize files on my Mac. I decided to take another glance to judge what he was doing... as I did, he subtly called for my attention, looked around us, and opened his jacket to reveal a box of cookies. He gestured to give these to me... I was confused to say the least. I saw a price on the box and assumed he was trying to make a profit. It took me quite some time to put the pieces together... this was the security guard I had complained to, he had gone outside the airport to purchase this and was offering it to me, and obviously did not want the world to know about it. I tried to politely decline the box and opened it up to take a few biscuits out, whereupon he scooped it back into his jacket and disappeared and I distributed these to other hungry foreigners sitting by me. I smiled and with that, left the country into Bangkok.

I sat next to a young Burmese boy traveling to London, where he was to study for 5 years. He was from an international school in Rangoon and enjoyed basketball... actually, that seemed to be all he enjoyed! Every few minutes he would ask me how tall I was and what position I liked to play, or ask me what I thought of Steve Nash or Vince Carter. He showed me the pictures he had stored on his iPod of LeBron James' autobiography book cover or 50 Cent pointing a gun at the camera. Like everyone else he also knew all about Goenka meditation and actually his great grandfather had been close to Goenkaji at a young age. He told me all about his successful business practice and subsequent migraine headaches! In Bangkok I thankfully got through immigration and baggage easily and took the shuttle to my nearby hotel, the only one I was told within 20 minutes of the airport. More Rugby World Cup with Japan and Fiji squaring off and a very restless 4-5 hours of sleep. Up at 4.30 for morning meditation and shower and off to the airport. A great breakfast of Korean Bipip-Bop, bought some English tea and was wise to finish it ahead of time, and checked into my JAL flight back to Tokyo Narita, where I watched more bad movies and managed to stay awake for several more hours... sleep on planes really doesn't come easy to me.

It was a late arrival in Tokyo, so I scrambled to jot a few email messages at the free cyber-cafe, bought some candies with my leftover Japanese change from before, and just made the flight. This time I watched my first truly fantastic movie of the trip... about a young man who moves from Kyoto to Edo in feudal Japan to open a tofu shop and saw some snippets of Annie Hall after that. Then I felt like a truck had ran over me... for the next few hours I was somewhere between sleep and awake, knowing only that I couldn't open my eyes or else it felt like burning acid was over them. I arrived in Dallas rather upset that my work had twice routed me through the US, which in the post 9/11 world has some rather tough immigration and baggage details to deal with, especially when on this trip the US was merely a few hour layover for the bigger and brighter world ahead. So I checked out of DFW and then checked back in. I wandered a bit confused around the airport looking for food and nearly fell on some slick tiles in front of a McDonalds as a dozen young men wearing matching matching green and white jumpsuits looked up. Later I was to see them all on my small prop plane to Mexico City and still later I was to find out these were the members of the Mexican National Football (Soccer) team, who had just finished playing (and losing) an Olympic qualifying match to Brazil in Dallas! As we landed in Mexico City, they were swamped with autograph and picture requests.

I don't remember much of that flight except for how awful so many different parts of my body were feeling. I tried to make conversation with the enthusiastic young Mexican playwright next to me who had been visiting schools in Kansas and NYC and who I tried to explain what in the world I'd been doing in Rangoon. As I moved through the fourth of fifth plane flights, oval Asian eyes were turning slowly into bushy Mexican moustaches and airplane announcements were cycling from Burmese through to Thai, Japanese, and finally Spanish. I was fairly good at separating the different currencies in my passport case and felt like a secret agent as I kept swapping one for the other, like I should get my other passport or identify cards to go with it. I was much less good with the coins, and as I reach in my pocket now I find dimes, nickels, 50 yen pieces, and almost entirely identical 10 baht and 5 peso coins. Also I had to continue getting straight that something like 100 baht was only 3 dollars while 100 pesos was more like 10... much harder when signing off on hotel bills that numbered to the thousands. Then I had to remember when I could say something like “tiene recebo” and when “sumimasen” would and would not be understood, or when to greet someone with “mingalaba” or when to say “sawadee krup.”

I took a taxi through the crowded evening streets of Mexico City and headed towards the Zocalo, where my hotel was situated. It was a building that dated back to the 16th Century. Mexican Independence Day was now only a few days away and the entire square was crammed with thousands of peoples and booths and large lights in the Mexican colors making the images of the Mexican flag, symbols, and people's faces. Here are some pictures:


With my backpacker looks and my backpacker packs, they denied me through the front entrance where a large dinner was going on representing achievements in bottled water (no joke) and sent me through a side door. The pain was almost overwhelming now. I checked in, went to my room and took a shower, watched a few minutes of CNN and the big Bush speech, and then went out to the Zocolo for just a few minutes. As I went back to bed, the speeches were beginning from the bottled water celebration and I had to turn the lights back on to find some earplugs. I woke up several times in the night and set my alarm for 6.30 am for morning meditation, in which it finally felt not like it was a big truck that had hit me but only a minivan or station wagon. I gathered my things, had some greasy breakfast with what I could find that didn't contain meat or fish (and luckily Mexico and Burma are about the same latitude so the fruits are nearly identical) and called a taxi for the airport. Mexico City airport was now being slightly kinder to me... immigration and baggage had taken only a fraction of the time it had taken in previous visit.


I took another prop plane to Oaxaca, landed in the airport and took a "collectivo" to my apartment, where I met the lovely family who owns the pension and my co-trainer. And, with that we went out to an Italian restaurant as my per diem was fading, arranged Week 1 schedules, and within hours I'd be the lead trainer on another intensive TESOL course...

Rangoon

This is the part that, unfortunately, I really can't say much, and even more, I can't really say what I can't say anything about or why. Hopefully it should be fairly evident. It was great to be back in the country, and to pass the glowing and gleaming gold spires of Shwedegon Pagoda. It was a long wait for baggage and more security clearance, and another hotel check in with just a few hours sleep. I was up very early, before 4 am, and finally decided to stop fighting it when I realized with a rush that I was in Rangoon, that Shwedegon Pagoda was literally visible from my hotel room and was within walking distance. I found myself jumping out of bed and stuffed some things into a day pack-- some water and energy bars, a clock, an inflatable cushion, money. I took a taxi to the pagoda and climbed hundreds of steps to reach the top and see the glowing statues of Buddha, the monks and laypeople, the clean marble-like floor where everyone must carry their shoes in bags.

Here are some pictures I took as I walked around the pagoda... and it's a big pagoda, it probably takes a good 30 minutes to walk around it completely. Whenever I took my camera out, the steam from the humidity immediately clouded everything up. Here are some pictures I took before and after clearing the lens with my shirt...


I thought I had made it safely past the tourist police who demand five US dollars to visit the pagoda. I actually had a letter written for me in Burmese from Dhamma Jyoti, the Vipassana center in Rangoon, that said I was here for Dhamma-- this was from my last visit of 2003. This got me out of paying the “tourist prices”, as my intention for being in the country was very noble and it would not be correct to charge anyone additional fees who is coming for Dhamma. But silly me, I was coming to Oaxaca for a few months and had no idea I'd take this side swing into Rangoon so it was left safely home in Boulder. So, instead, I smiled and told the men asking about the money this with as much metta as I could... “how can you charge me for coming here, I am not here for taking pictures but for Dhamma and meditation practice. Now please be so kind as to tell me the best place here to practice sila samadhi and panna.” Eventually I was charged 500 kycat, about 40 cents. Here are other people sitting various forms of Vipassana:

With a scattered mind from much travel, little sleep, and reduced sittings, I sat for some time in the pagoda. Later on I made it back to the hotel for another buffet breakfast, and then went to sleep until 1 pm when I was to have a meeting. I woke up feeling a bit out of it and that the past number of days had finally caught up. For the rest of the day I fared no better and was having a hard time concentrating... after several hours we grabbed some food and tea at a stand as the rain struck, and I caught a taxi back to my hotel. I watched a few minutes of the Rugby World Cup, which would follow me through Mexico, Thailand, Rangoon, and back again, and was out at 7 pm. With a quick breakfast the following morning and a call to my friend, I went back to sleep and didn't get up until I was called at 2 pm. By now I was rather feverish, weak, and dizzy... the last several days had definitely not been accounted for and it was now that my book-keeping had to be straightened out. We met for lunch and I managed to stay awake a few more hours, then had another early night's sleep and late morning... I counted I'd now slept 25 hours in two nights and could barely keep my eyes open when I wasn't in bed.

It wasn't until the trip was nearly over that I really began to feel in better shape... a shame given how extraordinary some things were that I could not give one hundred percent. I made another trip to the pagoda for meditation, then picked out some nice Burmese gongs to donate to the Rocky Mountain Vipassana Association and somehow stick in the small luggage I'd brought. I made a trip to the Bogyoke Market as well and picked up some nice Shan style shirts, as well as some women's styles lungyis. This I was thrilled about, as I use this for the Culture module workshops on the Cert courses, and have only had the men's fabric and folding style as an example. I also made several quick videos on my camera of the woman showing how to tie it... though despite my best (and repeated) efforts, she simply couldn't do it slow enough to adequately catch it. Also, the camera kept fogging up because of the steam and blurring the images.

Here is the view I had from my hotel room of the pagoda:


And here is a picture of people cleaning a Buddha statue:

A couple days in Bangkok

Day 1 morning in Bangkok: I went to the 31st floor again for my executive breakfast and unhesitatingly slow wireless connection with the view of the city behind me. The food was delicious and plentiful and I kept eating until I packed my Mac away and took a taxi to the Myanmar Embassy. Here I dropped off my passport and visa application, was told not to book any tickets until I was approved to enter the country, and by noon that day found myself with nothing to do for the next 24 hours.

I followed my map in the absolutely sweltering and steaming air and black pollution and got hopelessly lost in a few minutes. So I used the new (or new to me since 2003) Bangkok Skytrain that was as modern as you'd see anywhere in Tokyo, and which they were only building last time I was in town, and took it to the canals. I wandered over to the water and tried to avoid the tourist boats for the boat metro I'd remembered taking years ago. I was told it was on the other side of the river, and drenched in sweat and exhausted was shown a very large stone stairway I'd have to climb, a traffic-filled bridge to cross, and another stairway to cross. Exhausted from travel, dehydrated with my bottle of water, and weakened by the super humid climate, I went to the other side and was then told I was again on the wrong side and most assuredly needed the other. So I went back over and finally found the right taxi, and with a boatload of monks and Thais went north up river 13 or so stops. Here are some pictures I took...

I got off at the pier and let instincts take over as they guided me back to the familiar haunts of Koh San... for some reason I'd just wanted to see what this monster had become in the past few years. A bit of history... some odd decades ago, before Thailand became the tourist hotspot it is today, Koh San started out as a few ramshackle guesthouses where hippies and backpackers stayed cheaply when passing through town. I first heard about it in 1999, through my proximity in living in Tokyo and from the book The Beach that was big at the time. Having not even stepped foot in that part of the world at that point, my friend Carl and I learned about it as the crossroads of South East Asia, a place you had to go anytime you were going from one place to the next. We heard all about how much it had changed in the past decade and grown from a talk among travelers to a Lonely Planet mainstay. We first investigated it on a 14 hour or so night layover while traveling from Tokyo to Kathmandu. I remember hanging out with friendly Thai kids selling trinkets on blankets, listening to an American strumming his guitar on a streetcorner, a very intoxicated and slightly angry German who was inexplicably drenched in water (or some liquid), avoiding the pit-holes in the sidewalk and being stopped and searched by several Thai police who disappeared when I asked if I could take a picture with them. All that and then we were off to Nepal. When Carl and I came back separately just a couple years later, we were both totally blown away how much it had changed... both of us felt like it was almost unrecognizable and the place we'd seen no longer existed... now, what would 4 years bring!! Walking amongst the wild gangs of dogs, the cheap guesthouses advertising new movie showings in the evening, the massage parlors, the barber shops and tattoo places, the overwhelming and overcrowded stalls selling everything from cheap clothing to woodworks to thousands of pirated DVDs and CDs, the alternative backpacker scene that seemed so mainstream to me now... it was like no time had passed since I'd last been here and it wasn't so much a nice feeling! Suddenly I wondered why when I was staying in a nice hotel downtown I found myself wandering in this rather unpleasant place, and felt rather foolish... but before leaving let my sense guide me yet again and found my way down several side streets to May Kaidee's, a cheap outdoor stall/restaurant that must have 75 totally vegetarian dishes. There now seemed to be an internet site, cooking classes, and a nearby full restaurant with air conditioning! I ordered a meal and then hopped in a cab to my hotel downtown after having a Thai foot massage and buying some thin pants for work in Mexico. Here's a shot of Koh San...


The driver complained when I asked him to put it on meter and I soon found out why... Bangkok traffic was now much worse than anything I'd remembered. There were times we must have stood stopped a light for five minutes or more, with the exhaust fumes everywhere. What was amazing was the motorcycles... at every stop light they'd weave through traffice (as in the picture I took), so by the time the light would change to green, there were literally dozens and dozens of them at the head of the intersection, feeling almost like a growing swarm of insects... I arrived back at my hotel at dusk, where a stone's throw away and mixed all together were fancy malls and restaurants, abandoned housing projects, food and clothing stalls, bars and dance clubs. I took a late dinner in the hotel and took far too long getting back to the room and to bed, and had another night of restless six hour sleep or so.

The next morning I had a leisurely breakfast and went to the hotel staff to figure how to kill the several hours I'd need to take up until I could call upon the Burmese Embassy at 3 pm. Eventually I went to the Jim Thompson house, which was down a side alley and near a canal. Jim Thompson was an American who'd settled in Bangkok after WWII and, from the scant information I learned by visiting his house, seemed to have single handedly brought Thai silk into the world market it's found today. It was a Thai style house and interesting to walk around. I had lunch and then took another taxi through the afternoon mazey mess of Bangkok traffic to pick up my visa, which was thankfully all in order. Here are some pictures of the lilies at the Jim Thompson house:
I then shot over to the Thai Airways office (getting lost again with my Bangkok map) and bought tickets for the following day to Rangoon-- Thai Airways being the only airline I could fly for various reasons. I hit an Internet cafe and emailed my itinerary to my contacts. I also received an email from another contact at AUA (American University Alumni) in Bangkok, a large language school that also runs SIT TESOL Certification courses. The lead trainer, who I'd been wanting to meet for some time, was up in Chiang Mai training on a course, so I was put in touch with his colleague, who also happened to run something called the Self-Access Center. It was evening and I was exhausted and leaving the next day, but this was his only time available and SIT had asked me to look into it. So I took the Skytrain over to the school and introduced myself, with the little information I had been given myself: “SIT told me to look at this thing you are doing here called a self access center because they said they might want me to replicate this later [which also happened to be a surprise to the Rangoon contact where this replication was to take place].” With a typical Australian “ok, right then” he showed me around the impressive facility. It was similar to a concept I had taken part in while with Tokaidai High School in Tokyo but much more developed and extensive. It was basically a library where students were in charge of identifying their own challenge areas in language learning, and were to take responsibility for using the resources available for educating themselves. The native speakers were wholly functioning as facilitators of their learning or guides who could help them proceed. It was all very exciting to see, especially looking at how much work and growth had gone into the organization, presentation, and materials.

I was then brought into the academic office and met a fellow who was a SMAT (summer-MAT) who had finished his second and final session at SIT, and had just returned from Vermont the past week. He lit up upon being told an SIT-er was in the facility and we gossiped for some time about all the common people we knew and the far off places we had met them at, and the far off places where they were now. I made it back to the hotel and checked out the Japanese restaurant... I figured it would be more authentic than any other Japanese food I'd had lately. I stumbled into the restaurant and eased into one of the tables with a sunken floor where you must first remove your shoes. I decided to get the buffet even though it was late and I wasn't all that hungry, as I could put it on the company tab and all. I have to say, the sashimi slices were just about as tempted as I've ever been to come out of vegetarianism for just a night! It was a rather baffling procedure. The supply of very authentic and very delicious Japanese food was endless and everyone seemed to be helping themselves as one does in a buffet. Somehow the Thai waitress working there kept following me around and somehow organizing plate upon plate to be delivered to my table. It seemed to confuse her, and her confusion quickly spread to the others whenever I tried to adjust something I had been given. Thanks to this arrangement I ate far, far too much at a late hour... veggie sushi, ramen bowls where you pick everything you want raw and it gets cooked before you, fried rice, miso shiru, gohan, much more and plenty of desert and ocha. With the endless night city 27 stories below me, I went back to my room to sleep.

It was a long sleep and a good one, and left me with much less time to take care of some last minute details before leaving. I took advantage of the last reliable Internet access I knew I would have before Oaxaca and made some more arrangements regarding the upcoming schedule and SIT TESOL course when I was to return to Mexico. I paid the bill and hit the streets to buy some more goodies... some very cool wooden or teak balls to use in the classroom, a shirt or two, some Thai gossip magazines to surprise the participants with next course during a couple modules, and then skipped lunch to get to the airport on time. A quick check in and past security and some more food on the company tab... and took advantage of some good Japanese bottled tea (although the brands seem to add honey in Thailand), except the Bangkok Airport is absolutely maddening... the final security check is not until just outside the gate where your plane is. What this means is that you cannot take anything that you have just bought in coffee stands or gift stops to the gate or on the plane. So after complaining about the ridiculous system to the security guards with bottled tea in my bag and a fresh cup of hot chocolate in hand, I had to down both quickly to catch my flight in time. Another hour later I was crossing the border in the air, and then everything changed.... here is my last view of the Bangkok airport:

First Day of Travel: Oaxaca to Bangkok

I should preface this thread and the threads that follow by saying that there are many details I cannot include. To make it even stranger perhaps, I can't even tell you why I can't include them. But if you put two and two together it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. It's unfortunate though, as some of these aspects are by far the most fascinating parts of the whole story!

So I spent a couple of days *trying* to relax AND get everything together... get things together for going half way across the world, for preparing for the upcoming Oaxaca course, and for leaving things in order in my Oaxaca room as well as in some other places. Finally, at about the 11th hour I heard much of the information I was waiting to hear, which told me everything from what to bring and not to bring as well as other pertinent information I was waiting on. I made my hotel reservations for across Bangkok and Mexico City and wasn't able to secure Rangoon for some reasons. Then, with my bags packed, I walked towards a rooftop Italian restaurant I'd been wanting to try out, started my new book by Rory Stewart about his time in Iraq, and ventured to the closest market to pick up some more homegrown Mexican and Oaxacan items I'd been instructed to find. Nicolas, the caretaker where I am staying, had been trying to get me a van pickup that would take me straight to the airport. He couldn't call the place on the weekend and on the weekday found out that he'd actually have to arrive there directly in person, so that morning he'd bought me my round trip shuttle tickets from my pension to the airport.

I boarded the short hop of a flight to Mexico City sitting next to a woman who'd been vacationing with her family, and when I answered her that I was heading to Rangoon, she proceeded to tell me all about her family's romp in the beach and how she used to be a model in Mexico City. I got through baggage and made it out of the MX City airport, one of the most confusing and frustrating of the world I've found, and crossed a skybridge and boom, was at my hotel! I checked in, had dinner, used the steam, repacked my bags, and settled into a few hours of sleep. At 4.30 am I was up for meditation, recrossed the skybridge, renegotiated the frustrating MX City airport, and grabbed some food and Starbucks before boarding my flight to LAX (Los Angeles.) Here is the view of the MX City airport from my hotel

Although my stay in the US was not more than 4 hours, I still had to clear customs and reclaim my bag, and find my new terminal. The customs agents weren't too keen on the fact that I had just been “hanging out” in Oaxaca for a month and oh, I was going to Rangoon now to just “hang out” as well. Such is the life of traveling across the world on tourist visas. I was red flagged and went through more lines to explain why “hanging out” was my middle name. And then it only got stranger. I should have had ample time in LAX to engage in my favorite hobby of “hanging out”. Instead I had several tasks, the first which was withdrawing $300 from the ATM. Money was just being wired to my account and this was my brief window to get solid American cash. Unfortunately I was given it in all 20s and my instructions were strictly hundreds. Well, they were more than that... I needed 100 dollar bills with only certain serial numbers acceptable!!! So, jet lagged and exhausted and rather delirious, I wandered through the terminal trying to convince cash register people to change 15 twenty dollar bills into 3 C notes. I can only imagine how it must have sounded and I didn't need to look further than the various expressions I encountered... one gave me 5 full seconds of silent bewilderment before giving me a flat “no.” Finally I somehow managed to achieve this part of the mission, and boarded my plane for Tokyo.

Here on the plane I indulged in 12 hours of terrible movies from the screen in the seat in front of me. The plane was quite large and was probably only one quarter full. I arrived in Tokyo overjoyed at setting foot once again in Nippon, a spontaneous smile all over me. I wandered into every shop I could find and spoke Japanese to just about everyone I could find under any context I could think of... asking a security guard for the time or inquiring about menu choices in a restaurant. I had a very average bowl of ramen (but was overjoyed to do so!) and marveled at the conbini-style gift shops and especially the amount of omiyage boxes, which I took a picture of:

I went into a free Yahoo cafe and emailed my good friend Carl now in Beijing that I'd just arrived back in Narita. Here was that cafe:

I got several bottles of tea and walked up and down the terminal looking at everything I could and how natsukashii it was... the green and gray telephones, the formal uniform wearing 20 something Japanese girls whose sole professional function seemed to be bowing at people both real and imagined, the irashaimase's upon entering a store, the sento (which ah, I did not have time for), the formal way of announcing the price and my change and presenting me the purchased good with a neat fold over of the bag, a staple, an enclosed receipt and bow. Exhausted I stepped into my Japan Airlines (JAL) flight to Bangkok. I felt rather special to even be on a JAL flight... JAL is the Yomiuri Giants of airline travel in Japan, meaning that it's the popular choice-- even that is a huge understatement. When something becomes popular in Japan, it's really really popular, and despite any rationality of quality or expense, this is the one to chose (besides for the inevitable but small “anti-Giants” and the like that spring up). I'd never flown JAL before because living in Japan, it was always a good $1-300 more to anywhere I ever wanted to go. And it seemed over half of my female students career hope and dream had always been to be a JAL flight attendant. Oh, and here was my ramen!

And here I was on a JAL flight at last, and yes, all the attendants were attractive young women in neat uniforms and with impeccable manners (though as the flight went on I realized just about all of them were Thai... another not-so-much shock after living in Japan-- though Pinay may have been even more appropriate!) The style was also undeniably Japanese! Extremely formal and rule driven, and when the seat belt sign went off, everyone must be in their seats at that instant! A far cry from Air India. I was immediately (and experientially) reminded of the many times in Tokyo my friends and I would try to not follow what we considered ridiculous rules, only to be made to feel like the arrogant and brutish gaijin that we were! The JAL plane had a video screen in each seat, and in addition to a dozen movies in several different languages, there were also several video games, as well as a live shot looking ahead and below our aircraft!


I arrived in Bangkok having watched several more incredibly awful movies without sleep. It had now been about 34 hours of travel from Mexico City alone, not including the first or last flights of my trip. I waited in a long customs line and went out in that indescribable Bangkok air... that steamy and seamy atmosphere that seems to grip every pore of your skin and lets you know exactly where you are and where you have been lest you ever forget. The shuttles had closed so I avoided the limousine lines and took a taxi. The driver was like any other Thai cab driver I've known and let me know where I was after a few years once again. He laughed and said few words between his few teeth and dropped me off at the very high class Landmark Hotel in downtown. Koh San no more for me... at least not this moment. I hauled out my two backpacks and checked into the counter, which took me to the Executive counter on the 31st floor, got my keys and fell into bed. Here is the view I saw:

I was far too agitated to sleep and could have run around all night, though far too exhausted to move all at once. I was in bed after one am and up again about 6 am wide awake, not aware if I'd had any sleep at all. I parted the blinds and saw Bangkok in all her urban and polluted glory before me. I saw something like this:

Santa Fe music videos

Here is the music video that the notorious John Kongsvik and I made while "training" in Santa Fe.... (there are some problems playing this.... I'm working on it... you can also click the links below to download this!)

(hehe... don't tell SIT we were really just dancing the whole month!!!)

http://www.mediafire.com/?e1q3zybix3b

http://www.mediafire.com/?5itby0w6mwa

An update!!!!

Ok, so it's been some time... thanks for the email reminders I still had this thing! When I get more time (sigh...), I'll try to add some more details and pictures. Here is the brief overview of my last month...

So after I got back from Mexico, I found out that the TESOL course I was scheduled to do in Chicago did not have enough participants. This was the first time in five years they had not had more than 6 participants (the work is so intensive that it is a 1 trainer to 6 participant rule). So, I stayed in Colorado for some time.


Then, I went to the Midwest. First I went to see a friend in Milwaukee.


Then, I served about 3 weeks at Dhamma Pakasa, the Vipassana center in Rockford, Illinois. The Canada geese were very vicsous here! (even though they looked sweet)

Then I led a one month training at DePaul University in Chicago... first time doing this course with no support!

Then I went to Los Angeles and saw family.


Then I went back to Colorado and spent time with my adopted Nepali's family's extended family visiting for the first time from Kathmandu.


Then I went to Santa Fe to work with the legendary John Konsgvik doing an SIT TESOL course there.

Then I went to Oaxaca, Mexico to train solo again, this time with a group of five participants. Here is a Oaxacan street scene outside of the chuch Santo Domingo.


Here I am setting a good example for them.

Then we made a Bollywood video in the mountains surrounding Oaxaca.

Then, in the last week of the course, I was hosting both the Oaxacan site director (visiting from Toronto) as well as the course assessor, who came from the coast to formally assess this course and report the results back to SIT in Vermont, as is usual. Months ago I had expressed my interest in the SIT office concerning my being in Burma some day. This was casually said. This led to an email from someone the next office down who just happened to head a program in Rangoon and was waiting on overdue news concerning when an agency would get back to them on their proposal. Well, they picked the last week of this course. So as I'm doing closure (which is an involved process with lots of responsibilities) I find out that not onl does it look like the grant is approved and that they might want me to go, they want me to go immediately. A fever came over me and went away and suddenly I have plane tickets bought for me from Mexico City to the US to Japan to Bangkok. I bought the Oaxaca-MX City leg and made all my hotel reservations, to be reumbursed later on. My mission, if I choose to accept it, has still not been quite explained. I'm leaving tomorrow, I don't know what to bring, what clothes I need, who I'm meeting, how long I'm staying in Bangkok (where I need to buy my BKK-Rangoon leg and get my visa), what my schedule is in either place, etc. I'm hoping to get another email by tomorrow morning when I need to ship out of here. Until then, my bags aren't even packed! I get back next week, a day before the next Oaxaca course starts (Oaxaca-Rangoon plane flights aren't exactly easy to come by). We have 9-10 participants and I'll have a co-trainer. The next day is Mexican Indepedance day, and there are ALREADY Mexican flags everywhere. That's the news.