The Megapost -- Almost a Year

Almost a year has passed and no news? What has happend? Well, a big change in plans for starters, and then laziness set in.

While still in expectation for my departure from Thailand in Spring 2009 the visa processing priorities for Australia changed and processing of my own application will be delayed into the distant future. This made me stay in Thailand, exploring life and culture more in-depth and halting any travel plans.

So a year and no news, no experiences, nothing? By far not! For all that are still trying to figure out what I've been up to during that time here's a quick overview before I try to hit the keyboard more often in the future.

March

In march I had finally begun to make some more friends here in Sukhothai as I got out of my brother's house more often and so extended my reach into this little town beyond his family bonds. They had invited me to a wedding and I went to experience a whole night of official celebrations at first and wild party after. Many bottles of whisky lost their lifes that night and I had my first "civil" flirt with an average Thai girl, to set it apart from all the money-crazy girls who like to sometimes appear out of nowhere to hit on you, even that becomes less, once you live in a steady pace in a steady pace.

With the kitchen finished and the bathroom not yet in sight, there was no work to do, nevertheless we were still busy somehow every day. An unfinished house has a lot of potential and once you go into details, it's a never ending story. Good it's not my place.

Towards the end of march, we had to start planning for the upcoming month. It would be the Songkran festival and the whole family would come to celebrate at Sukhothai. Thony would go to Bangkok to start school there and soon after my brother and Tuk were to set off to Germany, leaving me here by myself. We constantly on the road, going to nearby Pitsanulok nearly on a daily basis and to Bangkok forth and back a couple of times.

April

Another visa run was due and this time, my brother joined me. It was not nearly as exciting as the first time. We only went to Vientiane and had to stay five days to get my visa done, spending much time looking for good places to eat and a nice place to stay. As usual, we still had a great time and we enjoyed the little break we got from our everday Sukhothai.

Not long after we returned, Songkran was already at our doorstep. Some last installations at the house had to be done before the family started to come. It would be a week of drinking and partying before the festival would end in a three-day water battle climax. I sneaked by the first two or three days, laying sick in my room, not too sad about missing all the drinking. After that I joined in and was fully fit at the first day of water battle.

Before going, we would load two barrels of cold water into a pickup, load our water guns and then join the car convoy between the new and old city. As cars were passing each other on the opposing lanes, you got everyone else as wet as possible, with water as cold as huge slow-melting ice blocks can get it. It was a lot of fun, but quite exhausting. In the evening, drinking, eating, chatting continued through most of the nights. When everyone was gone after the end of the festival, we really needed a rest.

I had been on the phone with the girl I had met that wedding night every now and then, and sometimes I had visited her in Pitsanulok. Then she came to celebrate Songkran with us for a day. After that, it seemed pretty much as if we were a couple, even though I didn't mangage to see her much more often. That would soon change.

May

My brother and his wife were busy preparing their visit to Germany after the Songkran festival. They went to Bangkok for a week and I used the time to relax in Sukhothai. Jard, my new girlfriend from Pitsanulok, had annouced she would come to stay in Sukhothai, so I went looking for cheap rooms in town.

At first it would be her room, but as my brother left towards the end of May I would spend a lot of time with her and soon only be at the house to work on a movie about the sailing trip we had done half a year before. When my brother returned in July, it was almost finished, and then my computer failed, leaving me with an anfinished project on a caseless harddisk.

I got to know, what was left of Jard's family. Her parents had died long ago and she'd grown up with her great grandmother. Besides that, there were only a few ants and uncles, not much in terms of a Thai family. They all came from a very rural background and so I got to see the joys of farm life whenever she could convince me to join her on her family visits, which, I must admit, wasn't too often.

Jard started working in Sukhothai, at a variety of places, never for too long. I got to know quite a bunch of new people, but actually I was mostly busy cutting my movie. There wasn't much more than a quick trip to Chiang Mai, where I discovered some rock climbing places and found Jard's long lost brother with her. It wasn't until cutting was done that I would really be socializing again, but then my brother was already returning and a friend of mine had planned a visit to Thailand.

August

Time went fast. My brother spent his time between Sukhothai and Bangkok, and I spent time everywhere, applying for an Indian visa for me and my girlfriend, after having her a passport made. My friend Niko was coming to visit and I had made plans to leave Thailand with him, but going to India instead of Germany. My girlfriend would join me. I was travelling forth and back between Chiang Mai, Sukhothai and Bangkok for about three or four weeks, before I finally had all paperwork done and the tickets bought and stood on Bangkok Airport to pick up my friend and his girlfriend Corinna.

Our two week round trip through a large portion of Thailand took us from Ko Samed through Pitsanulok, Sukhothai, of course, and Chiang Mai. We had it all, from swimming in the ocean, boat rides, beach tours, caving in flooded caves, rural farm stays, historical tours, temple talks, bug meals, kayaking, jungle walking, panda watching to rock climbing and geysir cooking. On the way, there would be even so much more, from crocodiles, to boat races, to suit tayloring. We made an uncountable number of experiences in those two weeks for an unbelievably low budget. Really, you wouldn't believe it.

October

The end of September marked my departure from Thailand. My plan was to spend three months in India, my girlfriend joining me for the first month. We landed in Kolkata and were lucky to share a taxi into town with a Spanish girl who'd been here before. India was crazy, overcrowded, dirty, fast, and definately needed some getting used to. Jard was shocked, not in a good way. I was, too, to some extend.

After our first shock, I got along with the country, but I couldn't really come to terms with it. We took the train from Kolkata to Delhi, travelling north by bus from there. It was my plan to see the Himalayas, but as I got there, the clouds around Ganj McLeod, the current residence of the Dalai Lama were not giving too much away from it. We stayed three nights, trying to organize some trekking for a decent budget, but I finally gave up.

The next stop was Manali, further east into the mountains, a lovely place, but not any more suitable for finding a cheap trekking trip, so we made our way further east, through Dehra Dun and then north to Gangotri, where we were able to set off on our own. Here everything was easy. We had all the gear now, after having purchased all missing items in Dehra Dun's trekking market, we had maps from Dehra Dun's state mapping bureau and enough dry food to last for a while.

We made it onto 4000m through beautyful scenery, always puzzled by the Indian carriers passing us on their way up to the mountain camps, sometimes loading up to 50 kilos. Just before the camp it started snowing, giving Jard the memory of a lifetime and a cold to cope with she had never known. Actually, she wasn't really able, so we were lucky to hit the mountaineer's basecamp and sit with them in their warm kitchen tent sharing stories and a typical Indian meal before retreating into my little tent.

Back in Gangotri, we decided to make our way to the desert and went south first, then west to Rajastan, from Jaipur to Jaisalmer, where we went on a little camel safari. The camel drivers loved the little Thai girl, who spoke almost no English and the similarities in Thai and Indian sounds, but not extending to their meanings, produced the most hilarious misunderstandings.

Besides having had several good times, travelling in India had tired me. Everyday I saw more details about the country that made me not like it. I even tried pulling inspiration from other travellers, who mostly found India amazing, overwhelming, simply great, but they could not wash away my insights, but rather started questioning some things themselves. India, as a religious cultural megacountry to me was a thing of the past. I could not help seeing the struggle of the individual as well as the country itself, far from the places like Bangalore, that might give different impressions. Religion seemed a farce, imposing a caste system designed to keep the poor poor, and the rich rich, and give justification to keep them apart. Religion produced manyfold Disney-World-like statues, but seemed to fail to give the poor individual anything to cope with life, fueling a greed, insentibility and selfishness that I have never encountered anywhere before.

As for culture, India certainly has a lot, but I goes hand in hand with religion and so comes from an ancient depressive system designed to keep people accepting their fate. Cultural achievements are limited to ancient history. I just wouldn't come across anything new, apart from a few modern living enclaves outside the bigger cities designed for the few well-off.

After all, the Indians lived in dirty, overcrowded, stressful and very competitive surroundings, always egotistically chasing their next few rupees, with a deliberate short-sightedness that is still looking for a match. I had grown tired of it and finally changed my flight, to return to the save heaven of Thailand, as it appeared to me now.

November

I hadn't decided how long I would stay in Thailand, for my Work and Travel visa for New Zealand had been approved. Thus, I entered on a normal 30 day visa exemption. I decided I finally wanted to do some climbing, so I went a week to Chiang Mai hitting the rock. Arrival in Thailand and preparations for the trip and the trip itself had quickly eaten up my thirty days, so another visa run to Laos was in order. This time, I went alone and by bus, and upon return I was prepared for another six months in Thailand.

December

I had agreed with my brother to continue my stay and build the bathroom with him. The granite was waiting in front of the house for over a year now. While I was on my visa run, he had already started tearing the old tiles from the walls, but we would be busy with that another three days after my return.

Planning and preparing the room for the final design took most of the December. We raised to floor, built a platform and a new wall, all cabling and piping had to be redone. Then it was Christmas time and we had to stop working, as the family came to visit for the festivities. We managed to have the bathroom usable for the three days the family was here. Again, it was three days of drinking and feasting every night, chatting away with all the people we hadn't seen in a while. When they were gone again, we needed another couple of days rest before going back to work and finally start cutting some stone and putting the floor into the bathroom.

January

We worked all January, not giving much time for anything else, but a short tip to the border to extend the visa and an occasional beer in the local pub after work. We got into the habit of playing table tennis on the table Thony had gotten for christmas and were getting quite good at it. Still, the whole day we'd be working, mostly even trading a proper meal for just a sandwich, but progress was unbearably slow. By the end of the month, we had only managed to put most of the floor and a console in. Cutting the stone precisely without big machinery was very time consuming and some days, we wouldn't see any progress at all despite having worked all day.

February

With the beginning of February, the cabling was done and one wall looked almost finished. Now the work ahead seemed graspable. We were now seeing a progress every day and I had developed the plan to finish the work by the beginning of March and then go travelling some more.