Tuesday, October 30, 2007

7 days to go

Yes, indeed. I was quite shocked when I got an email this morning reminding me that I'm flying to Singapore (and on to London and Brussels) in exactly 7 days. The last 5 months have flown by very quickly. Indonesia and Malaysia seems like ages ago. But I think it was all good. The first 2 months were a bit harder for me, not feeling completely at ease where I was, but it was nevertheless a great experience. And the last month was just great, staying at Mut Mee, which kind of feels like home now. They even offered me a job here, but I kindly declined. In the last few days many friends have left Nongkhai though, so I think it's a good time to leave too. Thursday I'll take the nighttrain to Bangkok for some final days of shopping. Tuesday morning I'll fly to Singapore and wednesday I"ll be back in Belgium...

The Naga Fireball Festival




On the 26th of october, at the end of the buddhist lent and on the full moon, the Naga Fireball Festival takes place in Pon Pisai, about 45km from Nongkhai. The guesthouse organised a trip going there by bus and returning on a late night river cruise with dinner on board. So a big group of us decided to go there and hoped to see some of these mystical fireballs. Three years ago I also went to Pon Pisai, but that night we didn't see any fireballs, apparently they saw some the next day, when I had to do a visarun.
I was quite excited to go back. There were thousands of people, mostly Thai, sitting on the banks of the Mekhong, having a picknick, enjoying some (rather disappointing) fireworks and simply having a good time. People were lighting rice paper lanterns and watching the show on the river with thousands of candles floating down the river and many with fire decorated boats going by. But the fireballs once again didn't show. The Thai people didn't seem to mind though, they were just there to have good time and thats exactly what they got. Around 9PM we boarded the boat and began our long journey upstream to Nongkhai. We had a nice dinner on board, but I think we were all happy to get off the boat when we arrived back in Nongkhai at 3.30 AM...

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Dragon Boat Races


Yesterday the festival season officially started in Nongkhai with the Dragon boat races. Today there isn't much happening, but in the next few days it should become pretty crazy with more boat races, parades, markets and the Naga Fireball Festival on the 26th.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

God is black and grew up in a ghetto in Chicago

I met him two days ago. He came to the Mut Mee restaurant with two of his disciples who hung onto every word he said. Actually the whole restaurant listened to what he was saying because he made it very hard not to hear him talk. He loved using words like "fucking" and "shit" and if this would have been broadcasted on American television you'd probably only hear beeps. He started explaining how he grew up in a ghetto in Chicago and how his mother was a drunk and his father made a lot of money but was screwing around. He became a member of a gang eventhough he was white, but his gangmates called him a nigger too. He was kind of the first white nigger, the original M&M. Oh, and he could use the word nigger, he didn't use it because he was a racist, but he was one of them, he was one of the brothers. He said his gangmates hung out in his garden drinking beer, and his mom would come out being drunk and abuse them verbally, calling them all kinds of racist things, and then she would go out to buy them all a beer. He said that hip-hop now wasn't really hip-hop and that those famous rappers were definitely not as gangsta as he was. And then he started to say he was all spiritual, and that in fact Chicago was a very spiritual place probably the most spiritual city of the US.
He also started talking politics and history, saying that Western Europe didn't like America that much, but Eastern Europe did, since they owe a lot to the US. He said that both World War I and II started in Yoegoslavia. And he didn't like Europe, especially not the Euro. Europe was not good at all. He said Turkey was already part of Europe, though one of his disciples said him straight, so he said Turkey was lucky that they weren't part of Europe yet, and if they were smart they shouldn't become part. He also said that Australia was full of serial killers now, a bit like the USA in the 60's and 70's.
He talked for hours and hours only stopping to have a sip of his beer, and you could see people in the restaurant first trying to move to another table, further away from him and then just leaving, because there was no escaping him in the restaurant.
After some hours he finally got up to leave and pay his bill. He signed it with "God"

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Nongkhai III

Once again I apologize about not writing any new posts for such a long time. The weather has been really bad the last week as the tail of that typhoon that went over Vietnam, swept past Nongkhai. It was raining almost every day non-stop for a week. So there wasn't much to do here in Nongkhai except for hanging out with the other longtermers, watching some movies and reading some books. The internet was down a lot too, because apparently a big fiberglass cable got cut in Bangkok and it took some time to repair it.
But it's all starting to look a bit brighter now. The sun is out again. My friends Frederike and Zeger, who also did the yogacourse in august, came back to spend the last days of their trip in Nongkhai before they return to Holland. And saturday there's going to be a big party in the Gaia Bar...
And I'll try to upload some more pictures in the next few days...

Nogmaals mijn excuses dat ik alweer zolang niets heb geschreven. Het weer is de laatste week behoorlijk slecht geweest omdat de staart van die tyfoon die over Vietnam is gegaan, over Nongkhai hing. Het regende bijna nonstop voor een week. Dus er was niet zo heel veel te doen hier in Nongkhai, buiten een beetje rond te hangen met de andere long-termers, een paar filmpjes bekijken en boeken te lezen. Het internet werkte ook vaak niet omdat er blijkbaar een fiberglass kabel in Bangkok was doorgesneden, en het duurde wel effe eer die gemaakt was.
Maar ondertussen begint het er allemaal weer wat beter uit te zien. De zon schijnt weer. Mijn vrienden Frederike en Zeger, die de yogacursus in augustus ook hebben gedaan, zijn terug hier om de laatste dagen van hun reis hier door te brengen voor ze weer naar Nederland vertrekken. En zaterdag is er een groot feestje in de Gaja Bar...
En ik zal de volgende dagen weer wat foto's proberen up te loaden...