Am finally settling in for a while, anyway, back at
Wanasit Guesthouse. This year my shower is better - hotter and more pressure - than last year. And my room is on the end on the 2nd floor instead of 3rd where it was hotter last winter. And the view? Well, instead of the meditative one of last year, looking out over the city to the largest, oldest chedi, lit at night, the balcony is somewhat
blocked by large banana-type trees - I know, cry me a river. It is great to be surrounded by green. [The green-blueish color is not a swimming pool, just a tarp protecting an outside kitchen area.] This year, I have 24-hour Al Jazeera which is even better than BBC World which I also get. The two movie channels are likely to show anything from the fabulous
Little Miss Sunshine to the D-level
Croco-Dino. One movie channel has a different theme each day of the week - drama, scifi, history, adventure, animation, romance, and comedy. And of course, the cartoon channel shows
Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Popeye - dubbed in Thai.
My home this year is really a good-sized “bedsit” with bath and balcony. I pick up ice each evening which I keep in a small cooler for beer, water, yogurt, and that's about it for "cooking." And I keep lots of fruit around, too. I picked up a small table which is much more conducive to writing on my laptop than sprawling on my king-sized bed. I have begun typing up my research notes gathered for my book over the last 5+ years and that feels good - altho still a long way from "writing." I am getting ideas, pulling together stories and throwing out bad writing and assorted junk.
I have finished two books since leaving Maine and am on the third.
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight - An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller. It's a memoir about living with her family n Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and later Malawi and Zambia (after being born in England. Someone here told me that a movie was made from this, "Nowhere in Africa", but I haven't checked imdb yet to see if that is so. Very interesting book and I'm hoping she has written another one. The second one is a mystery/novel by Jodi Picoult,
Plain Truth, that takes place in an Amish community – an easy read altho I did learn more about the Amish. [I have also read
The Pact by her which I liked a little better but guess I won't be reading any more of hers.]
The book I'm on now is another one by Dervla Murphy,
South from the Limpopo. In her 60s (?), she biked 6000 miles through the nine provinces of South Africa during dangerous times in the 90s before, during and after Nelson Mandela's election as president. She survives the most harrowing experiences, unimaginable biking conditions, and beastly accommodations - and yet never complains except when she has a bad hangover which is not infrequent. Highly recommended although if you've not read any of her books yet, I would start with
Full Tilt (her first trip through Europe and the MidEast) or
One Foot in Laos.
Several days last week, we had somewhat heavy rains here - quite unusual for this late in the year and almost festive in its rarity. This is my fifth winter here and I was sprinkled on just once, I think, further north and in the mountains from here. It was very refreshing and cooling. The only downside to the rain was I didn't get clean sheets and towel dried because there wasn't enough constant sunshine to dry them. A first.
"Some journeys take us away from it all, to places no one knows us; some take us to where it seems we've always been. And whether we venture to a new part our country or into an entirely new culture, travel forever changes the boundaries of the world we once knew."
Loi Kratong is a festival celebrated on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar, which usually falls in November in our western calendar and took place last weekend in Chiang Mai. “Loi” means to float. “Krathong” is a small raft about a 5-6" in diameter made from a section of banana tree trunk and decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, thousands of loi kratong are released on rivers around the country. 
The Thai tradition of Loi Kratong is celebrated throughout Thailand, with the festivities in Chiang Mai and Ayutthaya being particularly well-known. There are a LOT of fireworks, especially of the noisy kind, at least in Chiang Mai, that went on well into the wee hours both Saturday and Sunday nights. There were also many hundreds of lanterns released around the city - for many hours the night sky was filled with them as it is at New Year celebrations.
