"When fascism comes to this country, it won't be wearing jackboots; it'll be wearing sneakers with lights in them, and it'll have a smiley face and a Michael Jordan T-shirt on. They learned the mistake of overt control. They've learned how to be much subtler."

- George Carlin

Bangladesh: Where the Rivers End
As Water Flows to Low Places, so Does the Tao Carry Your Narrator

I woke this morning to the sounds of bricks being broken outside my new home. Hammering bricks is Bangladesh's strange cottage industry. First workers make the bricks. Then other workers smash the bricks. Then they do it all over again. Bake 'em, smash 'em. After rickshaw puller, brick smasher is probably this nation's most common form of labor.

The reason for all this baking and smashing is Bangladesh's dearth of stone deposits and bounty of clay. Hence roads, walls, and landscaping projects require hammer wielding crews to wham hardened clay into dust, pebbles and gravel. This clay turned to "stone" is an apt metaphor for the country's geography in general.

Bangladesh is where several mighty South Asian rivers--including the Padma, Jamuna, and Ganges (which becomes the Meghna)--empty into the sea. After the Congo and Amazon deltas, Bangladesh's waterflow is the largest in the world. There's no real solid ground here, nothing outstanding to save this poorest of nations from being swept out to sea with the next monsoon.

A Tough Guy Tumbles, Another Gets His Visa
Two Consular Accounts of Cerebral Fitness

Disclaimer: Even I have a much more interesting visa, I must admit that my former housemmate (from Thailand) has a much better visa story than me.

I got the "American special" Bangladesh visa in Bangkok two days ago. One hundred bucks got me a visa valid for the next five years and multiple entries, all good for 90 days. I doubt I'll be using all those entries as, since I could hardly stomach Bangkok for the two days of running around I faced to get this visa, I doubt I'll have the stomach for Dhaka--a place that is "unfamiliar with clean" as one acquaintance put it. Plus I have a one-year open return ticket from "the Desh" to "the Land (of Thai)". My only problem was that the staff didn't tell me I had only a half hour window to pick up my visa.

Now on to my former housemate's story. I hope he doesn't mind that we entertain ourselves on his pain. Here's Dave...

Wait till you hear this one; it may seem long but it's worth it for the punchline. Following triple-checked instructions given to me over the phone by the Indian embassy, several weeks ago I mailed the necessary paperwork and fee to get my visa. This morning I took a tuktuk out to pick it up--no luck. After an hour of searching, they finally found my letter in a drawer, and my application unprocessed. "We never do those by mail! Never! How could you think that! Four days now before you have visa." This is bad, as my plane leaves on Sunday (two days).

A smarter man would have realized that when the embassy staff starts yelling at you (and it's astonishing how fast they got actually, truly mad) it's time to just hit the road. That I'll grant you. But if you're reading this thinking "this is going to be one of those stories where Dave loses his temper and gets in a lot of trouble for it," I'm proud to say that isn't the case--I approached the whole thing with a Nic-Foxian calm (breathe in the anger, breathe out the peace), knowing that would be the only way I might see a visa that day. I had provided contact information in my letter and asked them to call or e-mail me if there was a problem, so I circled that part and asked them why that hadn't happened. That took them aback only for a few seconds. "It's not our problem." But your job is to help people get visas, right? "That's not our problem. You come back Wednesday." That could cost me hundreds of dollars to move that flight, and I'll miss my friends; I might have to cancel my whole trip... "That's not our problem either. Never by mail!"

More deep breaths outside. I went back and said that I knew none of this was their fault, but since I had followed the instructions given to me, and had even given them contact information for the eventuality that they were wrong, we might be able to find some way of me getting a visa that afternoon. No. I asked if I could pay any special fees (a question with an equal eye toward doing it officially, or bribing my way up the pile) that would place a rush on it. "Never by mail!" I asked if there was someone else I could talk to. "No! Only me! You come back Wednesday."

Deep breaths, deep breaths. I sat for a long time and thought about leaving, but couldn't stand the thought of giving up on traveling just yet. To take the tuktuk back to Khao San meant certain defeat--the trip is halfway across the city and I wouldn't have the time or money to come back that day. Finally I had the brainstorm of filing a complaint--not so much that I wanted to complain as that I wanted to get in a conversation with someone higher up in the embassy. After talking to several people who spoke almost no English, they gave me a blank sheet of paper and asked me to write out my complaint. So I wrote the story that I've told you, except with a lot more detail about the phone conversation where I had asked the guy three times about instructions for mailing in the visa stuff. I didn't complain about any individuals, but just laid out what had gone wrong with my application and asked if there was anything that could still be done.

After another hour or so of waiting, they showed me into a back room. I sat down, smiled at the Jabba-like official behind the desk, and thanked him for taking the time to talk to me, at which point he threw my "complaint form" at me (not very dramatic, as he didn't ball it up first) and shouted "What is this? I want to make a complaint against you!" Thus began the monologue on what a "wrong thing, a very wrong thing, an evil thing" I had done by trying to send in my application by mail, contrasted with the stalwart integrity of the Indian embassy staff. Fifteen minutes passed on my watch without my being allowed to complete a sentence. Finally I got out something to the effect of, "You say that I'm lying about this whole telephone conversation" (no room for cross-lingual errors in Jabba's mind) "Why would I do that? I want to go to India very much, and this will cost me a lot of money. I just wanted to follow instructions. I'm really sorry for any problems that this caused--I just wanted to find some way to work it out." At this point I had (obviously) realized that nothing could be done and wanted only to smile my way back out of his office.

Unfortunately he was looking at my passport photo while I said this. It should be noted here that I don't look anything like my passport photo (which has no glasses, a beard, a shaved head, and a very unusual facial expression). It gives me trouble on every international crossing, and I always have to carry other ID and smile a lot to get past.

So, he decided I was a criminal (and with some not-very subtle references to 9-11, implied that I was a terrorist), and that he needed to report me to the American embassy as an "impostor." And really, who else but a terrorist would make up this crazy story about an Indian embassy official giving the wrong information over the phone? Grasping at straws, I offered to shave my head in his bathroom. He said it wouldn't help, and sent someone out with instructions in Hindi; a security guard came from the front to stand at the door of the office. I explained as calmly as I could that this was a rather excessive reaction to my changing my hair style, but he continued to place phone calls. Finally I took a piece of paper off his desk while he was talking and signed my name on it over and over, then invited him (oh so gingerly) to check it against my driver's license, passport, visa application, etc.

That did the trick; it turns out I'm me after all. But he still did a lot of grumbling about reporting me to the American embassy as a possible impostor--"this is a special favor that I am doing for you, letting you go"--and says he'll still report me for my "very evil thing" of trying to send my application in by mail. I'm supposed to go back Wednesday to find out if I'm allowed to go to India or not. I also got a long lecture on the problems it causes for everyone when someone's facial features change too much (for which I actually apologized... sigh). He also told me several times that I should never, never, never try to mail in a visa application to an embassy again (yeah, no shit). As for my "complaint"--"we are dishonoring this form, and we are dishonoring you, Mr. David."

I really have no idea what to do now, what city or even country I'll be in tonight. Part of me wants to just throw my hands in the air and move my plane tickets up to head home. If Wednesday's second try at the embassy doesn't work out, maybe I'll try Vietnam or Malaysia. And if I want to blow a lot of money (and you have to remember, I'm the sort of tycoon who can afford to buy plane tickets to India that I don't even use) maybe I'll just head down to the beaches for a while.

You know, the real irony here is that I spent the last four months actually being a criminal (like Robin Hood, but with more grammar), and only just quit...

I've gone straight, officer Hutt, I swear...

D

Kerry the Sustainer?
I Like What I'm Reading

We can live in an America that is energy independent. We can live in an America that runs on the cars of the future that we only have to fill up once a month, not every week. We can live in an America that invests in new technology that will make us energy independent and provide good paying jobs for every American.

We can do this with a president who leads. America's can-do spirit invented the cars we drive and built the roads and bridges we use every day. Our imagination and sense of discovery took us to the moon. And our determination and perseverance helped us conquer diseases like polio.

When America sees a problem or a great possibility, it is in our collective character to set our sights on the horizon and not stop working until we get there. That's what America does best- and now we need to let America be America again so we can meet this energy challenge. Our dependence on foreign oil is a problem we must solve together the only way we can: by inventing our way out of it.

For decades, we have been stuck on a never-ending energy crisis rollercoaster. Gas prices rise and people talk about the need for a new energy policy. When gas prices drop, people drop the issue. If unrest erupts in the Middle East, people talk about the need to be independent of foreign oil. When prices drop and stability returns, we turn to another topic. It is time to get off this ride and chart a new course to energy independence.

I have a plan to invest in new technologies and alternative fuels to make America energy independent of Middle East oil. As president, I will establish tax credits that help consumers buy and manufacturers build fuel efficient cars. America is America when we lead the world to new inventions and technologies. And I believe America can and should be the place that builds the cars and creates the jobs of the future.

A strong America begins at home-with energy independence from the Middle East. Let's ensure that no young American soldier has to fight and die because of our dependence on foreign oil. This is the great project for our generation.

read the rest here.

At least one of the two presidential candidates is talking about sustainable energy and ending our reliance on foreign oil. Let's just hope this "summer of terror" doesn't bring with it an "autumn of martial law".

Some Call it Madness
Others Call it Bangkok

What was I doing the other morning with my former roommate Ken Hennrick and his adopted Bangladeshi dog "Mintu" on Khao San Road at 7am? Calling Fourth to find a temporary home for the critter, that's what.

Ken was fresh from the airport where a woman from United had flatly refused his dog transport to Japan in its wicker cage. The dog peed at her workstation. It was an unexpected pleasure to meet Ken, even though he looked and smelled like a llamma. I got to talk to him about his ten months on scholarship in Bangladesh and otherwise catch up. Fourth was less pleased than me to have Ken's dog fighting with and humping his dogs while Ken found a metal cage. Unfortunately, the dog escaped from the metal cage the first night and we had to lock it in the back of Fourth's dad's pickup truck. I guess the dog is on a plane now. Whether it's in its cage is another question.

I've been kicking around Thailand's largest cities for the last few days. I feel like a marble in a pinball machine. And it's only going to get more intense. I have a mission: just play it cool. I am in the meditation cave. It may be 40 degrees, the belching busses may be making me near to passing out and the whole thing takes on an unreality that isn't healthy, but I'm with it. I'm awake and I think I'm actually having a good time.

On to a Dry Country During Rainy Season
Not Looking Over My Shoulder at that Fork in the Road

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
--Yogi Berra

My Gram is a consumate quoter of Yogi Berra and I thought of her puns and Yogi Berraisms as I agonized last month over my then-future/now-present plans. When the world gives one so many options, how does one know the best way to procede? After consulting friends, old lovers, oracles, the net, and my navel, I finally made the decision about where to go. Luckily I did it before I left for the forest temple three weeks ago, so that was off my mind while I meditated. I stopped agonizing...because life decisions can't be right or wrong as long as we remember one thing: love.

I used to cultivate anger. It was the easy way to feel powerful. It was what most other white American men did. I tried to change other people and get "control" over a lot of I-don't-know-whats. But it didn't work. All I got were suicidal fantasies, angry fits, broken friendships and sorrow. Now I just try to change myself. I do what little I can. And I do this--as Mother Teresa said--with a big heart.

My choices for my present course of action were varied and attractive. I have spent the last four months looking for short-term employment in Taiwan. I got an offer or two at a cram school on the island and a few more from Mainland China, but when I thought about it, the money and working 12 hours a day at a camp or teaching businessmen wasn't my cup of longcha. I could have flown to Taiwan and worked under the table pretty easily, but tourist visas are good only for a month and (and work visas must be at least one year). Even though I had an offer to stay at a friend's aunt's house, I would not have been able to save much money because I'd have had to spend it all on plane tickets to renew my visa.

I was also offered a cushy job at a Shanghai hotel, but, despite the great money and perks--luxury room, free laundry, free food, free net access, a classroom with all the amenities--I could not see myself doing this for a year, which was the contract they offered me. I realized that I like my current life. It's simple. It has very few creature comforts. And I realized that is what I need right now. I need to keep cutting away the superfluous in order to see my true nature. I need fewer distractions, not more. Sure, I could have taken this job and learned Chinese and spent every night soaking in a hot bathtub watching pre-revolutionary Chinese cinema, but what's the point of that when I could die tomorrow and I would have only lost bits of myself in all the sense pleasures?

I also got an offer to live on Cortes Island in British Colombia near Vancouver from a couple who spend their winters in Thailand. This place of alternative healing, microclimates, meditation, drumming, hippies, hicks, no police and a beachfront garden with my own apartment to live in sounded like paradise. How tempting...but it was not for me right now. As much as I liked the idea of gardening for this lovely couple and sitting in their log-fired hot tub and picking oysters from the sand for my lunches, I have chosen to continue what I'm doing now, but on the other side of Burma.



At the end of this month, I'm travelling to the alcoholicly dry and H2o-ically rainy South Asian nation of Bangladesh to work with communities in the Ganges Delta region. I'm curious to see what it's like living in a predominantly Muslim country with no particular animosity toward America or the West (though who doesn't hate the American government now that it's got no moral leg to stand on?). I'll spend most of my time in the capital, Dhaka a pretty multicultural place. I hope to find some quiet temples in this smoggy city and settle into the work there for at least the next three months.



I don't know what it will be like to live in the most densely crowded nation on earth the during rainy season. I just hope that none of the Arctic or Antarctic ice shelves fall into the sea while I'm there because most of Bangladesh is right around sea level. Though wouldn't a flood of biblical proportions be fun?

Don't worry about your narrator. I'm not going to the Middle East. I pass for Swedish more easily than most, and I know the people I'm going to be living with. I'm going with the flow. This position came at me from all directions in just the right way as a continuation of what I'm doing now...and it's being paid for.

Last night I had my going away part with my students. They gave their thanks, their appologies, their regards. And then they gave me a longkyi (a traditional Burmese article of clothing that looks like a skirt--basically a beautiful tube of cloth tied at the navel).

Now I'm off to meet with more people who'll have an impact on my future and hopefully see some old friends in Bangkok. Thailand has been a wonderful place to live these last four months and I will miss its friendly people, open society, free culture, and cheap street food. Bangladesh is a thriving third world democracy that's likely to give me dysentery rather than cheap and healthy prawn cakes. I'm going to gather more than a few life lessons there too, which I hope to be able to share with you.

Peace to all. An end to all domination. A tear for the victims of my country's hubris. A hearty "howdy" to all I meet, even if you're halfway around the world.

Some New Additions to the Buddhist Monastic Code
Is Every Blog Post Inching me Away from Enlightenment?

The new Pratimoksha (Buddhist Monastic Code) is out, and it has lots to say about spending too much time with the internet and not enough with your Buddha nature:

44. A bhikshu who has his private e-mail account with the result that he spends an inordinate amount of time in making unnecessary communications or communications which foster attachment commits an offence for which he must express regret...

46. A bhikshu who plays electronic games including those on the computer, commits an offence for which he must express regret.

from Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Greetings from Chiang Mai, the "Rose of the North"
A Northern Thai Folk Tale

Years ago, when forests still thickly covered the north of Thailand, there was a distant village where an old woman lived who was exceptionally honored by people for miles around. Having asked why she was so honored, a traveller to that region received the following reply:

"I am a child of nature and have much merit, but it was not always so. As a young woman I was angered by a thoughtless act. My heart was hot, and as the days passed it became hotter, so my hatred of all around me caused me to leave my village, to strike out into the forest, feeling that the beasts I would find there would be more kin to me than my own folk.

All the first day I ran as fast as my feet would carry me, so that by the time darkness had closed about me, feeling the pains neither of weariness nor hunger, I lay myself to rest, satisfied I had passed beyond where anyone could find me. I slept without fear, deeply, but in the early hours felt the breath of a beast upon me. Waking, I saw by the light of the moon a tiger, sniffing me from head to foot. Unafraid, I waited for what would come next, and the tiger seated itself close to my head, watching over me till the morning. When I woke again it had left, and with a quieter heart--but still not forgetting my grievance--I journeyed on, unattacked by the beasts of the forest.

Day after day I wandered, eating the abundant fruits of the forest, sleeping beneath a tree at night, while the wild beasts watched and guarded me, keeping evil at bay and doing me no harm. The day came when my heart had grown cooler in my bosom. I no longer hated those who had offended me. I came to a prosperous village and decided to stay. At first alarmed at the sight of one who had passed through a tiger-infested wilderness, when they heard my story the people marvelled, brought rich gifts, inviting me to stay. And so I did, for a year and a day.

By then the time that passed had healed my injured heart, and I wished to see again the faces of my friends and family. The villagers loaded me with treasures, seated me on an elephant, and guided me back to my village, and here I have lived these one hundred years."

A Week and a Half Meditating in a Thai Forest
Information for Potential Meditators...or Just the Curious

The journey north of my home of three months was long and hilly and there were times when I thought the pickup truck would not make it. Just as the mobile phone conversation between me and my mom broke up as I passed between mountains, there came a screeching and a thump. We halted and I looked behind the truck to find a motorbike overturned by the guardrail. The driver had flown over the side but his bike hadn't. He'd been driving on the wrong side of the road.

We all piled out of the truck. The front bumper was dented in and covered with a strange mucus. We flagged down a truck passing in the opposite direction people lifted the unconscious driver into the back. No way to call an ambulance from where we were.

Another time the truck was so crowded that the engine ground so hard it started to smell like short circuiting electronics. Half of the people in the truck jumped out and the truck crawled up the hill. There had been 30 people--literally 30!--in a single small cab pickup.

I wasn't planning to make such a long trip to meditate, but a bit of serendipity brought it about. I called my teacher one night and found him at a new monastery inaccessible by any modern electronic communications device. He as just in town for a few hours. He gave me scant directions and I set out head shaven and walking on 3 hours of sleep two weeks ago.

The monastery was absolutely stunning. If anyone is passing through Northern Thailand, they need to check this out, even if they're not into vipassina meditation. The temple-- Wat Tam Wau -- was founded five years ago by Phra Ajahn Luang Ta, a monk famous for his twenty years of wandering and cave dwelling in southeast Asia. He was a master of meditation and made sure that one got nothing but a pure stream of that instruction while there at Wat Tam Wua.

If anyone is passing through, here are directions: Wat Tam Wau is on the only road between Mae Hong Son and Pai. The address is:
Wat Tam Wua Forest Monastery
Ban Maesuya, Amphur Muang
Mae Hong Son, 5800
Thailand.
It's about an hour from Mae Hong Song and maybe two from Pai, give or take.

If you're an English speaker, you best contact Udi, my teacher. His English is not great, but he's so much better than going to once of the urban meditation centers where the treatment is not so personal. Udi can be reached via email at: udilyon@yahoo.com and his mobile number is 06-2060638.

I won't say anything about my meditation experiences, just that the setting was amazing. The monastery was settled between two mountains down a little stream-lined path about a kilometer from the small road between Pae and Mae Hong Son. The mediation huts, grounds, salas, all other aspects of the operations were well-maintained by Ajahn Luang Ta and the families who lived on the property. These people gardened and cooked two wonderful vegan meals a day. Some days I felt downright spoiled! All one needs to bring are two changes of white clothes and a flashlight for going into the meditation caves. Even if one isn't there to meditate, it could be a great place to write or just unwind. And it all works on donations, so anyone is welcome.

Now I'm back in the big city, on from here on out to ever bigger cities. I make short glances at the little fork in the road that I just passed and I'll update the blog about my decision-making process in the near future.