“Shaken & Stirred” Thailand Journal
April 5
The streets were filled with bodies, everywhere I could see, bodies in the streets in cities across the country, the whole world opening up.
“Thanks for the yummy breakfast,” I said to Mom that morning, offering goodbye before our big trip to Thailand for Spring Break. Off to Newark, I took the train, watching reports of friends out fighting for democracy, thousands of people flooding multiple streets, as we make our way, our first stop on our trip around the world. We have not been to Asia in six years. Arriving at Newark, we dropped off our bags, made it through security, and sat to wait for our flight, with a beer in hand, contemplating what was ahead. People worry for our democratic system. Due process is receding, while deportations are increasing. Scary times. Some worry that Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act on April 20th. Watch April 20th, say activists. All spring, we heard stories of activists being detained at customs. A good time to get away as long as they let us back in.
I scroll through articles and books about Bangkok. “We chased the Smoky Dragon,” writes Christopher G. Moore in Dance Me to the End of Time: Bangkok Noir. “We rode the dragon. We were the dragon. Finite time was our dance audition. Eternity was opening night.” Maybe we all were the dragon? My mind trails off to Moby Dick, a book we read every Spring at the college. Are we colonizers chasing the whale or does the whale swallow us, as Johan experienced in the belly of the fish for three days? Are we inside the whale or a part of it, separate or one with it all? I’m trying to make sense of the place we’re going, looking at the map of the country, its land borders with Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia, maritime borders with Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. Its neighbors were colonized, with wars that followed, yet, it somehow found its own autonomous path.
Still Thailand has its fissures, like everyone, a democracy to be won or suppressed, ever receding, contracting, expanding and crumbling. As Duncan McCargo writes:
We’d spend the next two weeks trying to figure it out.
Of course, we were going for more personal reasons. Various friends had passed through, several from there, onto other places along the way, others still there, a best friend in high school, another high school buddy who’d moved there, another who we met in the Bahamas. We’d tried to go before, but our flights were canceled after the pandemic. An earthquake hit Thailand just weeks before our departure, "a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar on March 28…” Others – as high as 6.4-magnitude –followed immediately," declared news reports. Still, our tickets were not canceled.
That morning, Mom recalled her journey to the Middle East sixty years prior with Dad, Fred, and Tad who talked about George Gurdjieff, whose work was associated with the concept of "Middle Eastern thinking," emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, conscious effort, and the potential for spiritual transformation. We are the dragon. He believed that humanity is largely in a state of "waking sleep," lacking true self-knowledge and living largely unconsciously. Gurdjieff's teachings offer a path towards awakening through self-observation, self-remembering, and balanced development of one's intellectual, emotional, and physical centers.
All the while, thousands were out in the streets, in the rain, across the country, drafting notes along the way. By the end of the day, my friend Ken had posted a note from LA Kaufman:
“1) The April 5 Hands Off day of action clearly ranks as one of the very largest mobilizations in U.S. history, by two different measures: -- total national turnout (~ 3 million) -- number of local protests (~ 1400)
2) Size alone doesn't actually tell you that much about a protest's impact. Some huge mobilizations end up just venting frustration into thin air, while small actions have changed the course of history. Today's day of action stands out not only for its size but its decentralized, networked character
3) A massive decentralized movement like this -- everywhere all at once, with everybody pitching in -- is extremely difficult for any regime, even the most autocratic, to derail.
There are too many leaders, coordinating in too many different ways, for a movement like this to be easily neutralized.”
The following are are a few dispatches from the journey, looking for something out in the world, struggling for democracy, here and abroad, shaken not stirred, strangers helping us figure something out of where we came from, where we are going, taking notes about the clashes and conversations, instagram posts along the way.
April 5th and 6th
I read through Democracy Shaken & Stirred, on the way from Newark to Munich, thinking about the hits that our democracy has endured, the ways we struggle to get it right, and compete with self interest, and try to speak up for fairness, even when democracy opens the door for us to elect "a crooked government, run by crooked officials, resulting in a crooked country…” This was the story of the novel by Win Lyovarin about the Thai experience: “Democracy in Thailand was born in Paris, a lofty ideal hatched by a handful of intellectuals. When the People's Party propelled Thailand into a democracy in 1932, most Thai people were not ready for it. They saw it only as a power game that diminished their most revered king and gave carte blanche to bottomless corruption by people in power. The next sixty years saw Thailand going through more than fifteen changes of government, at least tens of them by force. … major rebellions and coups between 1933 and 1992…..”
April 6th,
Munich Airport
Of all places, we find ourselves in Munich, again, for the second time this year, eating breakfast, thinking about the demos around the world the day before, the way we will be received there, the impacts of the tariffs, the hostility to allies, the conflicts whirling from here to there, through history, Munich today, Bangkok tomorrow, a pile of novels and an old friend, my traveling companions. See you on the other side.
April 7th
Arrive Bangkok International Airport
After a yummy bowl of potato soup in a faux Bavarian restaurant in Munich, we catch our connecting flight. The smell of spice filled the plane. Taking in the scents, I knew we were going to be alright. Sweet and sour flavors, a nine hour flight from Munich to Bangkok, flying east past Budapest, to Constanta, the beachfront of Romania, past Bucharest, where James and Rob met me years ago, past Istanbol, where we went for our honeymoon,where Mom and Dad stopped on their journey to the East, over the Black Sea, past Sochi over Tbilisi, where Will and I spent a week two years ago, over the Caspian sea, toward Baghdad, Delhi, toward Hanoi, where we spent one of the best weeks of our lives before the pandemic, toward Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Cambodia, finally arriving in Bangkok.
April 7th to 8th Bangkok
We arrived at 5: 45 am, almost two days since we left Brooklyn. Our hotel wasn't ready till 2pm. Ordinarily we'd ride it out, but Matteo got us a place to crash for a few hours at My House Guest House Restaurant, a simple room to sleep in a hippy hotel, full of expats, a place to dream about escapes, sweet sleep, waking up a few hours later, at this lovely spot, expats playing cards, enjoying a cappuccino, venturing out into the city of temples and massage parlors, street food and banyan trees, alleys and small restaurants, a pool and a lizard, birds chirping about the Chao Phraya River, flowing through the city. Settling in, we walked about the temples, the Wat Pho, a Buddhist temple complex in the Phra Nakhon District, on Rattanakosin Island, enjoying street food, sweet and sour pork and rice flavors, with fresh basil, people selling their wares, others sleeping or drinking beer on the street, a fascinating day in the life.
April 9th
Woke up early wondering where we were. Scrolled through the NY Times, reading an alarming article about free speech or lack thereof in Thailand. The NY Times reported: “American Is Arrested in Thailand on Charges of Criticizing Royalty The U.S. State Department said it was alarmed at the arrest of Paul Chambers, a lecturer in civil-military relations, under Thailand’s strict lèse-majesté laws.” Mental note, don’t say anything about the royals here. People may say the US is no longer a democracy, but a hell of a lot of people were out in the streets on Saturday with a lot to say about the current occupants of the White House. And most of them are fine. The fact that a few activists are not is still a concern.
Made our way out, taking a boat across the river, strolling past the Pridi Banomyong statue at the Thammasat University, Bangkok. "A university should serve as water to quench the thirst of the people," reads a quote below the statue, reflecting Banomyong's vision for the university as a vehicle for knowledge to the public. Prodi established Thammasat University with an aim to educate students about democracy. His memory has come to become inspiration for future democracy activists. “The university has long been a symbol of the fight for democracy and if protesters needed to cut chains to get in, they would do so, said Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul, a representative of the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration” in The Nation on September 11th, 2020. “Students vow to uphold ‘Thammasat spirit’ and defy protest ban.”
We keep walking to the Amulet Market, a "bazaar selling Buddhist amulets, totems, coins & good-luck charms." Walking through stall after stall of totems, buddhas, statues, dolls, masks, one starts to get a sense of disease, a whiff of black magic, says a local friend. "The thinking behind the amulets is so convolute so full of superstition, replete with layers of their understanding of themselves, their identity, their curses, their saviours..." I love exploring there, shop after shop selling their wares and totems, picking up a few pieces for home. Out to Warehouse 30 and to Siam Square, we wander through a store selling us military gear, seemingly procured from Vietnam Era us military buildup here, eerie. I recall the cab playing the Eagles greatest hits. Soooo bad. One bad song after another, the American cultural empire stretching across the globe we are trying to escape. Out to Siam Square, we walk about a strange mega shopping mall, a striking contrast with Amulette Market, old world and new, worlds shifting, screens of adds, pop culture trash ads for makeup, snail oil, kpop boy bands, makeup, food, sex as subtext, "suck it and see" says the neon sign in the bathroom. People here are gorgeous. A third gender is out in the streets, working in the shops in the malls, the airlines, no prob. There is a Blade Runner Tokyo feel to it. We are trying to understand the history, the deals with empires, Britain, and geopolitics. What distinguishes this place from its neighbors, colonized by the French and British Empires? What arrangements? Afterward, we get a tuk tuk ride through insane traffic, holding on for dear life making our way to Madam Somtum, joining Karyn and Ott for a conversation about the city and hard reduction, sex worker rights, harm reduction friends world wide, from the old days of harm reduction. Thai Drug Users Network now and forever. Karyn was at my book reading in March. Ott used to come to New York, but got busted copping in the park. Now he doesn’t come. We snack away, drinking a few beers, trying to understand it all. Finishing dinner, we go out for four hand Thai massages, my brain buzzing. Jazz in Chinatown at Brown Sugar, a legendary jazz club near the streets of Soi Nana in Chinatown. We sat outside to take in the scene, a man cooking on a walk, everyone eating outside, restaurants with ivy, rooftop bars, people eating on the street. It's like New Orleans, says Baby C. The waitress brings us beers in the coolest glasses. We chatted with her for a bit. Caroline looks up. "So close to the Equator the moon is directly above,” she says in awe; we're lucky to be here. We cruise through this city with Mexico City, Athens vibes, crumbling buildings, old sidewalks and trees. Thank you universe. There is so much to learn from the road.
April 10th
We walked for hours, through the heat, to and from the National Gallery on Chao Fa Road in Bangkok's historic Phra Nakhon District, housed in the building of the former Royal Thai. People are passed out, sleeping on the street, in between construction sites, the heat oppressive. We find our way, between the construction into the National Gallery. Sparse offerings, inside, the mother of one of the artists whose work was shown, walks up to us, introducing herself, taking a snapshot. And on to the Bangkok National Museum, where we explore rooms of artifacts, art, ancient sculptures, and decorative arts, from prehistory to the modern Thai Kingdom, tracing the history of Buddhism, Hinduism, the Silk Road, the Khumer people, the evolution of faiths practiced by much of the population, deeply interwoven with Thai culture and life. Grab a cab up to Chinatown, where we keep walking, stopping for food and beer, munching on a snack, on some plastic tables, behind a small stall, our host helping us pronounce a word or two of the language, watching the pace of the city. A young high school kid arrives, wearing a cat t-shirt, with a look on her face, apparently a relative of the shop owner. Who knows? Some pigeons join an elder cooking pad thai on a wok. I recall Doris who used to be joined by them in Washington Square Park. Baby C says I embellish my stories. I know no other way. On we walk from stop to stop, some eleven of them on our tour, taking in curry after curry, chicken pork and rice, papaya, pork, sweet and sour with basil, sweet sticky rice made with coconut milk and mango, a version of beignets like the ones at Cafe du Monde. It's a whirl of deliciousness. Chatting over chicken satay, our host tells us about a brother and sister team who cooked and faught. What happened? She made the sauce; he cooked the chicken. They stopped talking. I guess she wins, says Baby C. But it's sad they couldn’t work it, I think. Always ego, always conflict. We tell everyone about the Boris and David nights at the Russian and Turkish bath in the East Village. “For years, the two Russian owners, Boris Tuberman and David Shapiro, have split the bathhouse business down the middle, running it on alternate weeks,” reports the New York Times. The topic does turn to tariffs and the way this will impact the businesses here. It's embarrassing. We chat about the ways the US president will probably profit from this, as everyone suffers. We need a US, says another observer. It's not over, I say. There are millions of people in the streets fighting this. One of the rights to those in a democracy is to vote for a bozo. The electoral college was supposed to prevent this. But the people really wanted their jackass. Midterms are coming, markets cycle up and down. We hope the administration does not invoke the Insurrection Act, says another man. It's been a crazy long day, through a wild array of food and people. More and more are in the streets as we make our way home to swim, to sleep.
April 10th
Don Mueang International Airport on the way to Ko Pha Ngan
On the road again, we take a cab, arriving early for the next leg of the journey, stopping for a snack, kids watching videos with their mom, travelers about. Love this airport. The KFC here is apparently with Thai special spices. The Lay's chips sushi style are just delicious. The adds something special in an up and down time. And we pile on the small plane for our afternoon flight from Bangkok to Koh Samui where we jumped on the 430 ferry to Koh Phangan. My old Texas buddy Matteo picked us up. A hostage of a Christian fundamentalist family, my Dad asked him to stay at our place that fall of 1986, when he was working, traveling, leaving us to make due, as we’ve done ever since. Matteo lives with Fattima on a zero waiste compound. We enjoy a swim and quiet night with their crew, talking about Thailand and its unique relationship with the world, its philosophy of humor and society understood as "sanuk" (fun) , a positive, friendly demeanor, and avoidance of conflict. Is harmony possible? I'm not really sure. What an adventure, lots to experience and share and discuss, listening to the waves, sitting in the trees.
April 11
Between morning yoga, the drum circle on the beach and the summer storm, the conversations were many. A few of Fattima’s friends tell us about the Myanmar Civil War, 2021–present. Refugees, they lived it. We’re trying to make sense of it, which side was what. We’ve all heard the stories. The Democracy leader in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest at her home on University Avenue in Rangoon, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later. And then seemed to turn her back on state persecution of the Rohinga minority, falling from grace. “Derek Mitchell, former US Ambassador to Myanmar told the BBC: "The story of Aung San Suu Kyi is as much about us as it is about her. She may not have changed. She may have been consistent and we just didn't know the full complexity of who she is….We have to be mindful that we shouldn't endow people with some iconic image beyond which is human." You see a lot of hostilities toward the refugees of this conflict, many who have come to Thailand. Fattima recalls family stories, her grandfather’s tales of the formation of Pakistan, the partition that divided the British Indian subcontinent into two independent nations: India and Pakistan, primarily based on religious lines, in 1947. Fattima’s grandfather recalled the trains coming from Punjab; he was horrified by what he saw on those trains carrying Muslim refugees during the Partition of India on 22 September 1947. The stories of the Partition are many, the oral stories dying along with collective memory. But we lost a country and a part of ourselves, says Fattima, reflecting with a great sense of loss.
April 12th
Aerial vertical yoga came as a surprise. So did the ride around the island. The tiki bar and late night dancing under the full moon, by ourselves away from the crowd, jumping into the water on a gorgeous day, talking about all our adventures through the years, the waters we've sailed through Sardinia and Lake Maggiore, through decades of friendship, losses and cities.
April 13th
New years here started with a long swim, ecstatic dance at the pyramid, a sunday tea dance celebration, off to lunch and more swimming, in the warm water, fishing boats nearby, a group of kids were swimming outside, before the restaurant owner ran to scold them, running them off their play area. Beaches are always contested spaces. Fattima knows some of these kids. They don’t like the kids because their parents are Burmese, she says. Some conflicts feel universal. Is public space for the people or the few? All afternoon kids were out and about playing, grownups throwing glasses of water on each other, greeting each other. "Songkran is deeply rooted in traditions and is one of the most important events in the Buddhist calendar marking the beginning of the Thai New Year. Every year, the festival is celebrated from the 13th to the 15th of April which also marks the beginning of the new cultivation period in Thailand."
April 14th
Woke up for a long swim, and out for yoga and a post yoga healthy snack at Seven Eleven before we made our way across the island. We stop at Nai Temple Pagoda at Nhuer Village, the oldest temple on the island, a space for sharing offerings, also referred to as Chedi Wat Nai. And out to Nong View restaurant for some hot amazing food. Matteo confesses he’s taken shrooms. Back in the pickup we drove, taking in majestic trees, old villages, shacks, shantis, shops, markets, could have been Mexico or Puerto Rico, old world mixing with new, people from around the world together. Then caught a ferry, driven by a guy who looked like he was running an engine made for a mad max movie, to a remote island. Someone died the week before so we all wore life jackets, before arriving at the bamboo party. Welcome to the wild side said our hosts, leading us to a cliff side disco, full of half clothed people dancing to techno and house, half dressed, shaking it into the night, raw, awake, moving, alive, feeling everything, surreal, the full moon above, hours blurring, bodies moving, tripping, dancing, lunging, shaking, greeting the dj, the dj greeting us, back to the ferry, a ride across the island, stopping at the temple market, enjoying a snack of bugs, larva, back home for swimming, looking at it all, taking in the mysteries in the trees, our lives here, best dancing ever.
April 15th
Everyone was a little discombobulated after our trip to the bamboo party. A grasshopper stopped by for a visit along with the rain. Our boat trip was postponed for a day so we swam nearby and read all afternoon. Visited Haad Khom beach, a quiet undisturbed strip of beach, chatting about Italy and the war, Matt’s uncle who was shocked about brutality of the Nazis; ever resourceful, he deserted, passing as a woman the rest of the war, before he rejoined his family. After swimming, Matteo told us we were going to stop by a Kirtan. Whats that we asked. Phangan tradition. You shall see, Matteo told us. Meditative Hindu songs and chants, lots of clapping like a hippy revival. Olga leads her devotees. We kinda love it. Out to the market we grabbed some food, wandering about the village. Another amazing day here. Still horrified about what we are hearing about the camp in El Salvador, where the US is sending immigrants. The cruelty is unending. It's hard to hear about the news back home.
April 16th Mu Ko Ang Thong National Park
Spent the day, running away from a storm, journeying out by boat to The Mu Ko Ang Thong National Marine Park, an archipelago of 42 islands in the Gulf of Thailand. This protected area is filled with pristine beaches. We stopped at several, one of which was filled with thousands of plastic water bottles, styrofoam, and plastic debris. Sad. Environmental regulations matter. Fossil fuel companies don't seem to care. On we chatted about refugees and Trump's deportations, the push for biodegradable plastic, and plastic bottles in our water, in our minds. Still a gorgeous day on the roam in the calmest waters, roaming between island after island.
April 17th Mu Ko Ang Thong National Park
Slept outside on the boat, greeting the moon, woke to light drizzle, crisp air, the view of the archipelago in the distance. After coffee, we found our way to Thale Nai, (Emerald Lake) – A hidden saltwater lagoon encircled by limestone mountains and forest, six thousand years old... the layers of stone seem to reveal a story of geographic time...Island after island we swim and explore all day long, talking about exploits and adventures from long past, favorite books and stories. I'm still reeling from the death of Mario Vargas Llosa. I think about the lives he opened for me, the reassurance it was ok to think, to imagine, to blur genre and realities, stories and lives, embellishing, twisting, re imagining what it is to live. His story connects me to Marquez and his time in Barcelona in the 1960’s and 1970’s, to Baldwin in Paris and the United States, who seemed to understand something in all of us:
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive,” wrote James Baldwin.
As Mario Vargas Llosa explained:
“We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to somehow live the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.”
We invent fictions. And then live them.
Matteo says read, A Bend in the River, a 1979 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul tracing struggles following the end of British colonialism in Africa. Island after island, we swam, hanging out, chatted, explored, and told stories, before we loaded back on the boat, and made our way back to the bamboo compound, sunburned with lots of stories bubbling through our minds. Those empty beaches of blue green were some of the most beautiful we've ever seen. Each of us has a story of our experiences getting here, swimming there, dreaming here. Matteo from Italy to the US where we met four decades ago. Fattima from Pakistan and the partition, a queer kid dreaming of freedom, Baby C and her mom from Germany, my parents from Thomasville and Columbus, who wanted to see the world, bringing me into the same wanderlust. We swam in the outside pool listening to a symphony of crickets and frogs and found our way to sleep.
April 18th
I didn't really know why we were coming to Thailand. But there was personal business to attend to. We loved Vietnam, Hong Kong and the region. Had friends here. We've been to dozens of cities together, always laughing, trying to figure it out. So we begin the journey back. A ferry to a flight to Bangkok for a couple of days, before a midnight flight back, a layover, and another flight. Our last day here, we woke in the bamboo huts, packed, and made it out for our guru Vanessa's yoga class. 'Tits up buttercup," says Vanessa, in her South African drawl, doling out messages of personal power, the importance of gratitude, the power of laughter, our best medicine she tells us between downward dog and crow poses, telling us about beating cancer, heckling the cute Italian man by us for not being in shape, reminding the young woman from Russia to work on her love handles. “It's the perfect antidote to hypochondria,” says Matty, refling on her lessons over a bowl of risotto at the restaurant next door. Gonna miss the island and Olga's sing alongs, the bamboo parties, and late night swims. Onward. We listen to Lucio Battisti “Aqua Azzura Aqua Chiara” on the way to catch the ferry, “Good Guys and Bad Guys,” our old Camper Van Beethoven theme from Spring of 1987 in Dallas, when we lived together the first time, Dad gone, lives and dreams long passed, still friends, even now. And say goodbye, before grabbing our ferry.
April 19th Bangkok
Wow, Bangkok, such a city. Arriving, it's hard to see where to manage after our week on the island with our friends. We always miss the kids. But they are onto their journeys. We swim some and caught a cab to Chinatown for dinner. The cliche of travel is the cabbies will tell you everything about a place. And every place has a story, a conflict, someone they don't like. In our cabbie's case, it was the Chinese. 'The Chinese all they want is eat. Eat eat eat,' he says. 'They don't pay. Thais no money' he screems. 'Chinese rich. They don't pay. I hate Chinese! They don't pay.' We have said nothing to goad this guy. All we said was Chibatown. He goes on, 'Thailand Mom, Pop. Chinese 7-Eleven.' Mind you there are tons of 7-Elevens. It's like the global commons of junk food. And you can see its local vendors running out of business.
Finally after 15 minutes, we arrived at Brown Sugar. The young woman we met a week prior, smiles, disappears, and comes back with the Chang beer mug we tried to order the week prior. This is for you, she smiles. We love the Thai people. A man is cooking delicious noodles, fired up right on the street, that we have for dinner. The bar next door has Matteo's fave martini. They have no room for us. So we made a reservation for the next night. And walk next door to the Wallflower, a bar with three floors. We sat in the middle floor taking in the sounds of the very cool five piece Thai blues cover band, the feeling of New Orleans enveloping me, along with the taste of my sazerac. The young person at the door next door calls to say they have a seat. We love the Thai people. The cops bow to you. Imagine that happening in the US. I can't get into a club as I'm wearing shorts. The door guy offers to drive to get some pants. Imagine that happening in Berlin. Streets are filled with people. Elegant women, tourists, vendors, ladyboys, people sleeping, the homeless, all part of the cultural landscape. According to Andrew Zeng, 'Thailand is a Buddhist country, where Katoey, Gay, Bisexual, Tomgirl, Di and Lesbian are more accepted by society ...' Nasa Saze explains, 'easy to be accepted as ladyboys in Thailand. Some ladyboys open themselves at the young age and their parents don’t force them to hide. It is normal to have a ladyboy as a friend, coworker, or family member in Thailand…”
April 20th
Masses of people in the street in New York, bodies in the streets saying, hands off, you’ve next, says one sign, everyone showing up, struggling, beating back depression, recognizing democracy is not a spectator sport. We all have to be involved. Everywhere we go, people pull us aside and ask, what the fuck is happening to the USA? I'd love to come to New York, but not now, said a woman from Norway. I have to work two years longer now cause Trump tanked the stock market, said another woman from Australia. Will the US invoke the Insurrection act and out law protest, or send more people to the camp in El Salvador?
The conversations are many here, walking the streets of Bangkok. Sawasdee krap / kaa, we greet each other, saying hello, hi, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, goodbye. Kho Thoht (sorry), Kop khun krap / kaa (thank you). Bowing, telling stories, asking about what we ate? Did you eat anything delicious today? Our host at Brown Sugar told us about the soup. It's a bad word, called fuk soup. Rummaging about before lunch today, a young man offered us clitorious tea, always a favorite. Seems like a joke. But it was wonderful. Spent most of the morning at the Chatuchak Weekend Traditional market, with over 15,000 stalls offering an eclectic variety of goods, from antiques to pets. I explored the amulettes. We ate lunch noodles in the rain. Swam, napped, planned for our last night in Bangkok. Made my way to the Speakeasy upstairs, listening to swing music, looking at the gorgeous rooftops and skyline. And we made our way to Chinatown, for Charmkrung wine bar, where the flavors exploded, more sweet and sour savory flavors than I knew were possible. Commenting on the food, the Australian couple pulled us aside to ask if the U S was ok, genuinely concerned. I've never had so many express so many concerns to us as Americans. We laughed, lamented, compared notes on the food, bonded on Hannah Gatsby, and bid adieu. Next, we strolled to GOD, standing for Genius on Drugs, a Bar in Chinatown. With a piano above the bar, shadows and graffiti like a 1980’s New Wave movie set, it's been compared to a "deconstructed gothic cathedral." I'm having flashbacks to scenes in Anne Rice novels, vampires on the move, lurking about, recalling club nights in the 1980's, seeing Bauhaus playinging "Bela Lagosis Dead" in Berlin. The piano player sounds like Cecil Taylor, meets Harlem 1920. And off to the Apartment 101, where we danced with the Norwegians at this "immersive, multifunctional nightclub that pays homage to the nostalgic lifestyle of fashion icons in 1970s New York City." Ahh Bangkok, your dancing bodies and bodies of all sorts, your disco, transgressive international vibes. Thank you for the concern for our ever teeterring democracy. Thank you for your arts and street vendors, food and people. Thank you to the multitudes in the streets pulling it back. Action, reaction, maybe something good will come of all this, says Baby C. I hope so. But as Kate says, holding a sign of the camp in El Salvador, democracies don't do this. They are coming for you, says another sign at the hands off demo. You're next. Arriving home from our long night out, we read that the supreme court is stepping in. But due process counts. Do your job Supreme Court.
The day passes and Trump does not invoke the Insurrection as people worried he might.
Still Tony Pentimalli warned, “This Is Not a Drill: Trump’s Day-One Order Sets the Stage for Martial Law…On January 20, 2025, while the press focused on the optics of Donald Trump’s indoor inauguration, something far more dangerous was set in motion—off-camera, away from ceremony, and beneath the radar of a public lulled by spectacle. Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border. But the most alarming part? It gave the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security just 90 days to deliver a joint report on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act. That deadline is April 20. This wasn’t about immigration. It was about power. The Insurrection Act, passed in 1807, gives the president the authority to deploy the U.S. military on American soil. That means troops in our cities. That means bypassing governors. That means suspending protest rights. That means the death of democratic dissent—under the false pretense of restoring “order.” And Trump’s not hiding it. He’s preparing it. We’ve seen this before. In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, millions of Americans rose up in protest. Trump didn’t respond with compassion—he called for “domination.” When the military hesitated to invoke the Insurrection Act, Trump sent federal forces to violently clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could wave a Bible in front of a church. Not an ounce of remorse followed. He was angry the generals didn’t go far enough.”
April 21
Slept in and strolled through Chinatown, enjoying a final afternoon in Bangkok. Karyn and Ott met us at Wat Mangkon Kamalawat (Wat Leng Noei Yi) a Chinese Buddist temple, for lunch, and a final check in about our journey, strolling through the alleys, talking with vendors, locals dropping bits and pieces of info, discovering the Talat Noi neighborhood, in the periphery of Chinatown, Talat Noi has been home to various ethnicChinese communities since soon after the foundation of Bangkok. A Portuguese outpost, Talat Noi predates the founding of the city itself. Portuguese settled the neighborhood in the 18th century. Today, murals fill its walls. A vendor sells me sliced ice with purple flavor; teenagers snap photos of each other amidst the old buildings in what feels like an old Chinese quarter. Car parts are strewn about, plastics are repurposed into art. We stopped for noodles, comparing notes on the city, the proliferation of Seven 11s here, the five meals people typically eat here a day, its struggles and historic tolerance for others, what makes this unique. Baby C and Karyn mention Sam Rockwell's soliloquy on ladyboys in the White Lotus, a ridiculous show people are watching today:
"Are we our forms?" wonders Sam. "Am I a middle-aged white guy on the inside too? Or inside, could I be an Asian girl? I don't know. Guess I was trying to fuck my way to the answer. Then I realized I gotta stop the drugs, the girls, trying to be a girl, I got into Buddhism which is all about spirit versus form, detaching from self, getting off the never ending carousel of lust and suffering." We sat drinking coffee in plastic cups, looking at ourselves, still on the carousel. What is it about this place? Could it be culture, philosophy, reverence for Guanyin, a bodhisattva, or "awakened being" who choses to hang around us sentient brings. She is commonly viewed as the "Goddess of Mercy" due to her association with compassion, often formed as a female figure, with origins as a male. We feel her in countless conversations here. And make our way to the airport.
April 22
And the trip around the world, one that began in Brooklyn with a layover in Munich, a few days in Bangkok, before a week exploring Koh Phangan and the islands around it and back, includes a ten hour layover in Tokyo on the way to NYC. The plan is to grab the train out into the city for lunch. Simple. Not simple. No sleep. Out of customs, we enjoy a precious coffee moment. The first person we see wandering about is the original owner and co-founder of Brasserie Les Halles Philippe Lajaunie, the running buddy of Anthony Bourdain, looking as lost as us, stumbling for an exit, walking to and from. We stop at Lawsons, Tony's favorite, for an egg salad sandwich and grab a train to the city, then a metro to Shinjuku, thinking about Haruki Murakami and his novels, Norwegian Wood, Wind Up Bird Chronicle, stories of the streets and record stores, locations on Munatsuki Hill, where he used to commute, and the DUG Jazz Bar. We say other cities are like Tokyo, but nothing is, says Caroline commenting on the crazy sounds, postwar buildings, rebuilt after the war, tiny alleys, sex shops, luxury bars, etc. How do you not go crazy, wonders Baby C. Walking, I'm thinking about Midnight Dinner, my favorite tv show about a late night place here. We make our way to Shinjuku Golden Gai, walking among the genius little dive bars. Grab a train Harajuku, renowned for colorful street art and youth fashion, cosplay and Goth, punk and vintage clothing stores along Takeshita Street, the contact high grasping us, with salary men and Godzilla movie posters, hyper commercialism and a commodity fetish everywhere we look, it all feels like a movie set, Tokyo contact high, peaks valleys and a rush for a flight back home. Tickets back lost in the hustle. Let's get more. There’s an hour-long line to the machines. Gotta get a cab or we miss our flight, says Baby C. A huge line to re enter, chaos, and then a smooth entry back through, off to a beer, noodles, our gate. This is the final call for your flight to New York, says the airline. Time to go home.
April 22
From Tokyo, we flew East across the ocean, past Anchorage, Vancouver, across the continent, to Newark, reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle, a teenage golfer to my left, two Star Wars convention attendees to my right. Walking through Shinjuku, looking at the restaurants and bars, BabyC said she could see how you could stumble into another reality here, like the Murakami novels. Looking at the tiny streets, I can see that place. Murakami seemed to understand, "The very thing that had led her to 'find' me on the streets of Shinjinku was this mark that we possessed in common. Everything was intertwined, with the complexity of a three dimensional puzzle..." It was hard leaving Tokyo. Hard finding our way out. I look at the map of the world, to Chicago where I studied, as we pass over, to Lima where Mario Vargas Llosa lived, his writers reality hatched, inspiring as my favorite living writer for years and years, me up in Dallas where I first read him forty years prior, chatting with friends about Aunt Julia, curious, wondering about that mark that we all possess in common. Landing two weeks later, after we flew around the world, back to the chaos of our crumbling empire, thinking about our ways in Bangkok, off to the most beautiful islands we’d ever seen, from Berlin to New York, back Tokyo, rebuilt through the years, back to NYC, now in our psychic disrepair. China had Mao, now we have our cult of personality to attend it, our Mad King George.
Back in town, the child of Dad’s buddy Tad, from college, who Mom, Dad, and Fred traveled around the world with, continued a correspondence. I told her what Mom had been remembering about Tad and his thoughts about Gurdjieff's teachings before the trip. Yes, we all knew about him, she tells me. Attached to her email, an article she found from The Columbus Ledger (Columbus, Georgia) Sun, Sep 5, 1965. “Destination East, Rotterdam to India is Land Route of Couple.” With a picture of Mom and Dad from all those years ago, the story was miraculous. The author interviewed everyone, including Richard, who is still alive. Something about this story from years and years prior, about Tad and Dad and Mom and Fred and Richard, that fell in our laps, a reminder about the lessons of the road, why we are compelled to travel, to learn about the road. “Jack summed up their trip by saying,” wrote the journalist, “People travel because they have an incurable curiosity to see things…” Dad was the one who told me about the trip, Mom wrote the journals and took pics. Dad invited Matteo to come live with us in Dallas all those years ago, inviting us all into that curiosity that helped Matteo and I become friends all those years ago. They both shared that curiosity. It was hard leaving Matteo thinking about Dad and the friends from the road, back to New York and our democracy, shaken, not stirred. That weekend, I told Mom about the trip, looking at the picture of Matteo’s family and ours, from all those years ago in Texas. After I got back, I met Mom, sitting in her garden. As usual, we talked about things from a long time ago, places we plan to go, as well as places she's been. She recalled that trip from Rotterdam to Afghanistan in the summer of 1965 with Tad, Fred, and Dad. 'Life goes on,' she told me. 'The way we do things is not the only way to do things,' Says mom, thinking about the trips to the east, looking at the flowers in her garden. And I made my way back to Brooklyn.
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