Through the Looking Glass; a dream of cameras

Last night i had a strange dream, though the whole time i recall being slightly thrilled at each odd turn of events. I had been at a second hand shop. Or was it thrift store, or was it the basement of my parents house, one that i didn't recognize at all? I found a big old film camera, an enormous slr thing, i recall considering buying it as craved the feel and smell and look of good old film. And it was cheap, next to nothing. i thought how heavy is this camera, and bulky! why is it so heavy? As i turned it over to inspect the bottom i now noticed what i took to be a long thin screen running the length of the camera body toward its base. How strange, an lcd screen on a film camera, hmmm...but it was a film camera, what gives? I then realized the screen popped out of a recess, like a detachable car stereo faceplate, and it could extend out from the body on an arm, and it was not an screen but rather a magnifying glass, like those rectangular ones that grandparents have to help them read small print. i looked through it at the camera and noticed that i could see through the actual lens too, and that i could now focus really well on things very far away using the telephoto lens. What an interesting idea, i thought.
Then i noticed a little door where the recess was and upon opening it i discovered stored there the battery charger cord, a spare battery pack, and 3 vials of some liquid- film processing fluid.
Not only that but there were also foam mattresses stored there, and it occured to me that i was now inside the camera body and it had become a sort of storage room, a little light filtered in from what i assume was the camera's lens somewhere above me.
The mattress was in exactly the same place as where my dad and i had left it when i moved away to go traveling. Hey- its been 6 months and no ones moved a thing!
I figure that thoughts of returning home must have prompted this trip to the dream storage area. What the camera means i dont know, other than perhaps the idea of seeing new things with new eye's ( for me almost literally, what with my cornea transplant), and challenging myself to perceive sights with a different attitude in order to open up new doors-the doors of perception- with my soul.
"Be true to your soul, nick! " That is what i wrote on my sky-lantern before i lit its torch and sent it aloft in to a night sky filled with thousands more. Even as i wrote that i asked myself "what exactly does that mean? Be true to your soul". be true- listen to your heart, let that quiet, private intuition be your guide, not just cold rationale. This would be a huge change for me and many people i think, for I have to now be able to let go of many defense mechanisms i've spent a lifetime building up. Some of these are good, but most are actually preventing me from really growing, like a pot-bound plant whose roots need to be totally disentangled, trimmed, spread out and replanted in a new much bigger pot with fresh healthy, rich soil. And maybe the plant, i mean the person, i mean me, needs to be physically relocated to a totally new place, letting go of all my past treasures. Even my old home. Letting go. Lets go. Then just go! When? Now! what? Yes, right now! But....I can't(!?) Yes you CAN! Stop being so afraid. Your going to be just fine, now GOOOOOOO Dude!!!! OK... ummm, bye? Yes, see you later.

First injury of trip! river boat pics!

And i say arrived relatively in one piece because I for the first time in years i took a nasty spill. I was walking up the set of stairs from the river boat which had stopped at the town of Pak Beng for the night. In the pitch dark we had to ascend a steep set of concrete steps of varying height, a few pads which were wobbly broken chunks. As I slowly stumbled up laden with my backpack, guitar in my right hand and left straining with all 4 bike panniers ( though only 2 had stuff in them), I tried to skirt around a clump of 4 little Laos children who for some reason had made camp in the middle of the stair case, blocking the way up. As I squeezed around them I caught my right foot somehow and proceeded to fall up the stairs, the guitar bonged on the steps, followed closely with my right shoulder and then the grand touchdown of my right temple and cheekbone. I shouted something angrily at the kids as I picked myself up. I figured that my toes must be in shreds like when i gouged open my right big toe at 4am in the empty streets of Rio back in July. In the ensuing chaos at the top of the stairs i found my friend Milizza who gaurded my pile of stuff from the mob of Lao guesthouse salesmen and prying little fingers of a small army of kids, as i stumbled blindly back down to the boat to see about my bike which now had been lowered from the roof and into the enclosed bow of the neighboring longboat with a fellow bicyclists bike. Ok, thats fine. Well we follow a man up the steep pitch black road zigzaging up another lane to a guest house that overlooks the river and shortly are shown to our room which is just fine, and only 100,000 kip, or $12, which we split. As soon as i threw all my stuff down I inspected my wounds under the room's one and only ( and horrid) fluorescent light. The situation on the toe is not as bad as i'd thought, minor scrapes on top of the 3 biggest and a blood blister on the tip of the big toe. Phew... Now the shoulder- "AHHHH!!!!". Intense pain to the touch, i cannot lift it more than one inch with out shooting pain. although i can lift it up and all around using the left arm. So I guess its just bruised the bone, as still no external bruising can be detected (and now 2 days later its much better and i can lift it up under its own strength with only minor pain). Now for the head, i feel around the right temple and immediately swoon reaching for the bedside yelping in pain while a ringing fills the right ear and like after a loud explosion or a rock concert. A big bump has formed on the temple and on the cheekbones upper tip. Well that could be a minor concussion but nothing too major. I still know who I am and where i am and what the year is, though as any traveler can identify with i have no idea what the date is, or the day, which is simply the norm when one has no use for such trivialities. After a quick shower i join my friend and a German man at the guesthouse resteraunt which is on a balcony overlooking the dark and swift moving river far below and a vague visage of the farm studded hills opposite our lookout. Fish curry is ordered, and bottled pints of cold Beer Lao is delivered pronto, a native libation that has proved irresistable to everyone in SE Asia, including myself.

Arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos last evening at Sunset

More or less in one piece after a two day river boat trip. spent the night.

Report from Chiang Mai's Festival of Lights

It is Friday the 19^th of November, two nights shy of yet another year’s 12^th full moon. According to my watch the time is 10 of 8 in the pm. More important, though, than the time, is my actual location in space-time at this very special moment. I’ve found myself among the merry multitudes whov’e traveled far and wide to the storied city of Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is a gloriously warm evening [1] on what happens to be the opening night of Thailands most widely celebrated festival, Loy Krathong, known to the West as The Festival of Lights.

In Chiang Mai the highlight[2] are the thousands of Khom Fai, or ‘sky-lanterns’, meter high candle-lit paper cylinders which are continuously made aloft to fill the vastness of the night like a kaleidoscope of red planets. Indeed they are planets, for each and every sattelite embodies the repentance’s, hopes and wishes, and the forgiven sins of the past year. All across the city families and friends gather to air their grievances in a most literal sense.

As I sit at my table at Daret’s Guest House my gaze rises from my heavily sweating bottle of Chang (half full) and crosses a busy street past the blur of tuk tuks, old vw’s and scooters ferrying entire families to fall on a small crowd which has gathered near the bank of the Old City moat. They are watching a man light his lantern and gently hold it out over the moat balanced, just barely, on outstretched hands. The flame is brilliant and surprisingly fiery- more like a fledgling inferno than a mere “candle”. He is lifting it in tiny, cautious tosses, like a new parent their toddler, testing its readiness of flight. Besides saying his prayers he must also gauge whether the flame is hot enough to take it quickly aloft above the reach of tree tops and temple spires.

The crowd waits as if frozen in time. He tosses it now just a bit higher and a flurry of cameras shutters crackle like sparklers, a collective nervous tic. At last he releases it, sending it up high beyond his grasp, his arms outstretched as if in rapture. The flicker of orange firelight washes over his whole body. But alas, something is wrong; the lantern reaches its zenith a mere five meters above the moat and the crowd gasps in horror as it makes a slowmotion descent into the dark water. There it pauses once more as though in a final mocking salute, sputters and sinks out of sight.

The poor[3] man is now on his knees. Silently he stares at where his hopes for the next year have just disappeared. This is an unexpected turn of events, and clearly not a good sign. No one has dared approach him, and the crowd quietly, awkwardly drifts away. I too am shocked, and wonder what thoughts, if any, he could be thinking now. I think, all of a sudden about my future, what will happen to me this next year, and all that has happened just this last year. Not just where I’ve been and what I’ve done but how my attitudes, interests, and even my spiritual beliefs have changed. I realize that no matter how many lanterns we light or how many stars we wish on, ours is a future filled with a cosmic mixture of all our past decisions, and of our parents before us, and the constant implication of circumstance on the course of all our lives.

The man is totally alone now, though people and traffic still rush past all around him. He has risen to his feet now but has not moved from the very spot where he launched his sky-lantern. But now his gaze is turned skyward and I can tell he has left his grief and has joined the rest of us now, to watch in wonder all the other beacons which have begun to fill the sky. For his dreams, he must realize, are all our dreams, his losses we pine for too, and his joy’s we share in shouts triumphant the whole world over. As massive fireworks begin to explode around us and the shockwaves ripple through hearts and minds alike, I take off my glasses and set down my pen, as all lights blur into one.

---

[1] It feels comfortingly, eerily, given the pops,whistles, and booms of firecrackers, like the 4^th of July back home

[2] no pun intended

[3] Poor, quite literally as the lanterns are not cheap.

Onward and Upward ( or NxNW)

Farewell Cambodia! Sunset from atop Garden Village Hostel (Unedited)
Greetings friends,
Left Siem Reap, Cambodia last Sunday and made my way back to Bangkok. The trip was a long and arduous all day affair involving 3 legs; first a shared taxi to the crazy border town of Poipet, reassembled my bike which was in pieces bungy-corded and barely held into the Toyota Camry's trunk with mine and the other 3 passenger's luggage (soon 2 be 4 of us in the back seat!).
Then the wait in the agonizingly slow, packed and stifling hot customs line for a new 2 week Thai visa, then a 6 km furious ride to the next town, Arranya- Prathet to catch the last train to Bangkok. Then a long drawn out (and in the end vain) argument about paying the extra bike fee, an exorbitant 90 Baht- my train ticket was only 45 Baht! I had met a cyclist who said she just refused to pay and they dropped the subject. Well i tried that but to no avail. It was only an extra $3 dollars anyhow. Sat in the rear of a car full of Thai hipsters and orange robed Buddhist Monks.
Got 2 tattoo's on BKK's notorious Khao San Road late last monday night, my first time under the needle. Very painful, no matter what they say! They are both Salish design's i found on the ole' internet. An Orca whale on the right shoulder, and on the left a Thunderbird. The tattooing process itself feels like being cut continuously with a burning hot razor blade for 2 hours. I am told the traditional Asian method of manual Bamboo needle inking is far more painful. Forget that then!
The results are spectacular, at least i think so! Mr. Yai did a great job. Which is good as yes, "they are real!" which is what i constantly tell the Thai people who stare at them, smiling (when are Thai's not smiling?). They all seem to really like the designs.
At the moment i am in a little cafe my the south moat in Chiang Mai, a city in Thailand's mountainous north. Arrived on Monday after a looooong 17 1/2 hour train ride (which i barely made and only by riding across BKK at night with a flat front tire, dodging Taxi and ignoring all the passerby shouting what i guessed to be "Hey idiot! You've got a flat tire!". Made the train in seconds flat.
I was my first time experiencing a "Sleeper Train", and after stowing my pile of bike panniers and, big pack, and guitar I plopped into my little bed to find it surprisingly comfortable. I drew shut the privacy curtain and fell into a deep sleep from 1am to around 7, awaking only when the sun's rays reached my eye's and forced them open, The view out the half open window to my left was of one of endless steep, vivid green hills rolling by like ocean swells, all draped thickly with mounds of broad leaved evergreen tree's, vines with purple flowers, clumps of soaring bamboo, and random spires of brave lonely Palm trees. I had been told the north was cold, but it seemed even hotter than the south. The whole time I was too enthralled to take photo's, opting to capture the verdant scenery in my minds eye only, declining the unnatural distraction of trying to get "the right shot".
Chiang Mai is fairly big city, filled with University's and their legions of college students whizzing around on ancient Vespa's (chinese made), Honda 70's, ( a vintage design that's still made today, you can buy one (a fake) for only $300. There are long broad avenues lined with big leafy trees, and at the center the jewel of the Old City. The Old City is square in shape, maybe 1KM (or 2?) in width, and surrounded on all sides by an incredibly picaresque ancient crumbling wall, itself protected a tree lined moat 10 meters across. The OC is an enclave of stunning gilded teak temples, old teak dignitary homes, guesthouses tucked down narrow Soi's (side streets) and great little cafes and coffee shops. And the coffee here is excellent! This is due to the perfect climate, where coffee plantations abound in the surrounding hills.
The famous Festival of Lights is in full swing this weekend in Thailand, and the epicenter is here in Chiang Mai where it is known locally as Yi Peng. This annual casting away of past sins is celebrated by lighting candles and either floating them down the river on little wooden rafts or setting them aloft in what look like those huge, oversized lampshades from the 1960's. From all across the city these ships laden with remittances, wishes, and thanksgivings float and soar away. The giant paper lanterns are the most dramatic. Last night i caught one rising up from the far side of the old city wall, filled with a flame maybe a foot high. It was a majestic, profound sight made all the more remarkable in it's solo flight. I was expecting to witness the lantern's setting off in vast herds, as in all the photo's i'd seen over the years. Somehow this solitary beacon, lit and sent aloft by a small inferno, and combined with its sudden appearance above the lip of an medieval wall, grabbed hold of my heart strings and i felt lifted up along with it, high into a vast and unknown sky.
Presently I am waiting for my China Visa which i hope to pick up in 3 hours, for the breathtaking some of $190 US...geeez. I hate even writing that! But i had to Rush it as i'm off to Laos on Monday as my Thai visa expires on Tuesday-yikes! (though they always grant a few days of overstay i'm told). After visiting Laos my hope is to head north into China, and on to the central China city of Chengdu.
Reading a great, hilarious classic travelogue written in the 1950's by the Brit Eric Newby entitled "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush". Nice to laugh my way through a book after the amazing but rather serious minded "Snow Leopard".
Then met up with a South African traveler- the lovely, glowing Melliza, an acquaintance I met in Peru and only on the train ride from Machu Pichu to Cuzco. We'd kept in touch upon discovering our mutual SE Asia travel plans, and finally our paths happened to cross once again. It is great to see a familiar face and we pick up our conversation right where we left off, discussing dreams and goals related to living in harmony with the earth, living off the grid and growing all our food and medicine's, and endeavoring to win more people over to the good side the Force. Also practicing my new guitar. Took a Yoga class last night.
The weather is glorious here, blue sky's and HOT, current temp reads 28 centigrade! (that's 82 on the Fair-end-height Scale, for all my fellow backwards Americans).
Farewell for now.
Nick