3.15 to infinity

The end of my trip to Pai was excellent. I did a yoga class at Mam's Yoga. Mam is an "eccentric" Thai woman who spent some time in India and became a Hindu and has been practicing yoga for 36 years. I enjoyed her allot. Before class started she was kidding around with me and I tickle attacked her. The ice was broken. The class was less then excellent though. I can of course blame myself for this to some extent. Mam got in the center of the room and did asana with very little direction and no corrections. After 8 years of practice this is not a problem for me, but the girl to my right was obviously new and after the second time she fell over I could not concentrate on myself alone. I spent more time then I would have liked telling her what to do. I did realize however that I may be more competent to teach then I was. I am thinking about offering a class on yogic cleansing exercises here in chiang mai.
The other highlight of the trip was yoga ball by the river. I will post pictures when I get them from Kristen.

I was laying in bed thinking. Used to be so hard on my self. I hardly slept or ate for years. I torchered myself in the name of yoga and the only thing that kept me from falling over were the hours and hours of asana and concentration practices I did. Then I realized I needed to relax a little. But some times I feel maybe I relaxed to much? Anyway, I decided to try an early morning practice. I will wake at 4am and do yoga. I had planed a date the night of the first day. Of course girls are the reason I ever do anything I know is bad for myself. I thought "after tonight I will stop going out" except on the weekends when I will take a yoga break as mike has always suggested. The date went well and I woke up for practice. The next day I met a girl that was to much to say no to, then another girl who has been flirting with me became more outright, and another... Such is karma. I think 5 girls, friends, school and yoga is too much?





On the school front I am now a student teacher! It's so nice to know what I am doing compared to the people I am working with. It gives me a sense that I have been doing well this whole time, even when I felt completely lost. Also by going over the basics and helping others learn I get to review and catch the things that I missed the first time through.





What I miss more than anything is native English speakers... I only have one friend here who is a native. It is very interesting however to see how non-native speakers use the language. There tend to be common mistakes regardless of whether the speaker is native to french, Spanish, Italian, or German. Some people pretend they understand what your saying all then time and some just refuse to talk about anything more then what is necessary. It is sad not to be able to talk with people about what they care deeply about. It changes my standard mode of relationships dramatically, and limits how close I can feel with some people. I never realized that my main form of entertainment is conversation.

Blogger is sucking with picture uploads... I have just spent an hour trying to upload pictures and have nothing to show for it :( I will try again later.

Woo Hoo

Riding down huge hills on a shitty bike with bad breaks!!! Luckily I am in a small town 3 hours from Chiang Mai and there is very little traffic. No traffic means no pollution. No pollution means happy Daniel. I guess you all know this already because you've studied algebra.

So far it has been an aw sum weekend! Friday I did my first acroyoga class. OMG it's the best thing ever! The class was cool enough but afterward of the the teachers put me up in the air and "flew" me around for god knows how long. All I had to do was relax, Adam and gravity did all the work. It was all about trust. At one point he told me to straighten my legs and I thought "that's impossible" surely I would fall, but I did it anyway... Next I am in the most intense backbend I have ever done, one that I would not have been able to do if I were alone and he said I could grab his ankles for a more intense stretch and I thought "No, Bad Idea" then I relaxed and did it anyway... OMG. Then I gave him some Thai massage. Being able to offer a massage after what he did for me felt so good, and he was very appreciative. My commitment and enthusiasim for both asana and massage grew tremendously that night. One of my near future goals is to study acroyoga and get teacher trained!

Saturday
I went to balance ball class and Hiro (the teacher) had me demonstrate one of the most difficult postures for the largest class I have been to... Not so good. After 2 tries I kinda did it... I woke up late that day and was not ready to show off. :(
Afterward I went to play go. Vi who is a 1 dan told me to take 6 stones. I was not so sure. I did preaty well up to one point when I let my corner get into a tricky position. I could play a big move else where and give up, but could I win if I did that? No. I could try to make life, run, or attack. I decided best to attack to get loose and then run. Attack attack attack! Almost free! Then he played a move I did not see and I thought all was lost. I stared at the board untill Vi fell asleep in the chair across from me. Put down my stone. Vi looked at the board, looked at me and smiled, and took two stones from his bowl and placed them on the board and said "resign". OMG I was so happy!

Next I went to kirtan at my new favorite place in Chiang Mai. The "wild rose". It is run by Rose, a totally hot older woman who has the greatest wardrobe ever. I forgot how I get at kirtans, I want to be able to understand what I am singing so that I can layer imagery with sounds, concepts and stories. When I don't know something I get frustrated. I am getting better though.

Now I am in Pai. I took a long bike ride on the winding mountain roads, had the best Thai food since coming here. Tonight I will be staying in a really cute bamboo hut by a river!

Pictures and more to come when I get back to Chiang Mai!

Pictures!

Sorry I have been slacking on the pictures. It's allot of work and I am fundamentally lazy.

So first let me paint you a picture with words.
It's like rumi said. Something about drinking, and the ears want to hear poetry so the mouth can share... never mind I can't remember. I will just paint a picture with pictures!



I pulled off the road for this one.


I don't know what that says but I am interested :)


This was better in person!


Me after getting back from mae sai... BTW I am posting pictures of me at http://www.myspace.com/danielclough


The orchid show was nice.


Hundreds of different orchids.


Remember, all flowers!!!


Wow. I have never seen Bonzi trees... Wow.


Teachers at the school. She saw me at the market, walked up while I was eating some strange fried beans, and said "GIVE ME THOSE". I was so suprised. She is one of my faviorate teachers, top 5 for sure. He is real quite I don't know him well.


Thai's are total slobs. They throw there trash everywhere. But the city is super clean. This is at the flower festival but they have people clean all the streets. It's really quite nice.


That guy is mostly rice. Cute huh?


So cool!


Friend from school.


Vi, He speaks no English and I speak no Thai... He is a 1 dan, and plays very differently then my friends in the states. So far much less predictable in style.


I wonder why Asians are so good at go?


My favorite coffee shop!


This is at the Airport mall when you walk in.


Herbal compress class. Those bags are hot!


This is where mike will be going to school!



At dawn a cry through all the tavern shrilled,
"Arise, my brethren of the revelers' guild,
That I may fill our measure full of wine,
Or e'er the measure of our days be filled."

So many cups of wine will I consume,
Its bouquet shall exhale from out my tomb,
And every one that passes by shall halt,
And reel and stagger with that mighty fume.
-Omar Khayyam

Burma

I met some Austrialian chicks, started smoking opuim, quit school, and ran off to Myanmar!

Internet is diffificult to find here so I will be posting less often...

Just kidding.

This last weekend I had class on saturday, afterwards I went to the flower festival. Some places make me think of certine people. Certine markets remind me of flea markets as a child and I think of Dad. The best clothing stalls make the think of Crystal. This event made me think of Merrin. It was like nothing I had seen before. Each float was decorated with almost nothing but flowers!

Sunday I had to do my first visa run. Every month I have to go to the border, drop off my visa, and spend 30 min in another country before coming back. Next time I will plan to spend 3 days or more. This time I did it in one day, not fun. Let me tell you.

I woke up late, had a lesuirly morning, and then went to rent a motor scooter. On my way I ran into Kristan who told me I was crazy, and then the scooter lady told me I was crazy.

I relized I had made a mistake when 30 min out of town I started on a dirt road. Luckly it only lasted about a half a kilometer through a construction area. The curvy mountain roads that come next were very beutifull, life was looking up. All the best spots were at places to dangerous to stop for a picture though. Just as I was reaching the height of joy I I got to the land of dust and potholes. I thought it was going to be just fine, another short construction project... No, it took over 30 min to ride through. I don't think there was anything to see but I wouldn't know because I was looking down trying to avoid the worst of the holes. One particularly large whole shook the bike so hard the left hand mirror broke loose. At least I was ruining someone elses bike. Then more mountain roads, very nice, except that my eyes were still burning from the dust. Then came the urban sprawl through the valley all the way to Chiang Rai. Mae Sai was only an hour away! I got to the customs house and the sign on the door said closed saturday and sunday! Oh boy was I pissed. Well about as pissed as I get. Then I noticed a sign that said "passport control has moved to the border gate", thank god. I found a Thai and asked "Border gate yutinai krap." He smiled and in perfect english he told me where to go. Boy did that make my day! A short ride and I parked at the border which was also a huge market. I fumbled into Myanmar, and walked around for 2 hours. Burma is just like Thailand except prices are a little lower and people grab at you and follow you and really want to sell you ciggeretts. Or as one friend puts it "Just like Thailand only under an oppressive millitary dictatorship." They had lots of things I have not been able to find in Chaing Mai, like french wine, and good camping supplies, but I was not in the mood to buy anything.

"When your going through hell, keep going." At one point I had to remind myself of this as encoragement on my ride back. It was dark and cold. I stayed in Burma for to long and it was almost sunset by the time I left. I had brought my rain jacket, thank god, but when your flying down the road at speeds over 80 kmh wind chill gets damn cold so I went preaty slow. Then there was the fact that I couldn't see the road ahead of me so I slowed down a little extra around bends. I kept immagining hitting a rock or something. They say you have bad luck if a black cat crosses your path. Does it count if you accidently run over a dead one? It took me a while to throw off the heeby jeebies after that one, not that I am superstishious or anything like that. At one point I looked up and saw the stars. I pulled over and looked at them for a while, OMG, incredible! So I'm all blissed out and happy again, then I hit the land of dust and potholes, like I wasn't expecting it. I was thinking "wow its getting smokey, but it doesn't smell like smoke", strange I wonder... Then it hit me like a ton of bricks! Wam! My first pothole was a dusie. Maybe it was not the biggest? I was going way to fast for the foresaken land. The dust seemed much worst this time through and I couldn't see to avoid the big holes. My only consolation was that I was going slow enough to be warm. On the way out of town there was a huge smoldering fire, it seemed apropriate, almost like they were doing some sort of satanic ritual to ward off the good spirits that might try to fix the roads. That's what came to my mind anyway. Then mountain roads, at this point I was fed up. I decided to follow a truck at kill me speeds. Maybe not the best Idea, but I thought at least I could see the road ahead of him during the turns. Something about the final suprise of that last construction zone, game me a realization about my eternal optimisim and bad memory. I forgot what it was though. Finaly, Welcome to Chaing Mai! I can not express the feelings I had when I realized that I was 15 min from my bed. I thought about the stories Dad would tell about going back to the ship when he traveled with the Navy.

Another day done.

So, pasathai (the thai language). It seems to be absolutely silly. They borrowed heavily from sanskrit and pali so the alphabet has a simalar layout to sanskrit, but the reasons for the sanskrit layout are not there. They took sounds, then over time they stoped using the original sound. The results are either redundent or extra complex depending on how you look at it. Oh, and you should here them say things in sanskrit... It's a tonal language. They sound preaty funny after listening to Panditji and John for so long.