Temple tales

My hubby and I had a weekend getaway in Bangkok. I would have been happy to spend 90% of the time sleeping in the hotel (no kids! endless naps!), with the remaining 10% pigging out on awesome, cheap food (no kids to feed!), but, well, since it was our anniversary and all I thought it might be nice to actually get out and see something with my man.

We took the ferryboat that runs the Chao Phraya River, stopped at Tha Tien (pier) and strolled into one of Thailand's most famous temples -- Wat Pho. I love this place, with all its yoga-wellness-sacred-psychedelic vibes and, well, a big, BIG Buddha. Reclining Buddha. A humongous, chilled-out, beautiful golden Buddha.

The serenity of the giant statue is, however, not matched by its visitors, as it's a big elbow-fest with everyone clamouring to get that iconic picture of his enlightened head resting on his hand, and the sublime feet bottoms in mother-of-pearl.

So here's the picture that I and 10,000 other people snapped that day:


And the top of his feet (looks like the Buddha had a good pedicurist).


The statue is an amazing work of art, which overshadows the equally amazing wall murals that cover most every other surface inside the temple hall. I have a shaky grasp of the meaning behind the stories told in pictures spread across meters upon meters of wall. Whatever the meaning, however, the pictures are incredibly whimsical, lively and magnificently executed.

A sampling:








Out of all the people, creatures and deities that caught my eye, this is by far and away my favourite.....
Naughty boy!

Flying babies aacck!

Ummm, call me culturally insensitive but THIS is f-ing horrible!

(you have to watch an ad first, fyi)

I note there don't seem to be any mothers taking part in the action.

I don't think that's just a coincidence.

Cringe-o-meter's cranked pretty high after seeing that.

Comfort?

Or a choke hold?

Difficult to say which...

He, We

Friday marks the fifth anniversary of this impossibly beautiful thing called marriage that my husband and I embarked upon after nearly 8 years together.

It wasn't what you'd call romantic. After having spent weeks assembling the paperwork, we drove down to the local district office, where, in front of an unsmiling Thai bureaucrat, we glanced at each other and said, "Yeah, let's go" before signing the paper that made our union legal. I was wearing khaki trousers and a t-shirt. He was in shorts and flip-flops. We forgot to take a picture.

It wasn't romantic, but it was, how you'd say, "us". Clean and simple. Like his favorite kind of architecture. Like my favorite style of writing.

I fancied him at first sight; his look of quiet confidence and dazzling smile, the slightly dangerous rip in his jeans. He wanted nothing to do with me.

If it weren't for my super-outgoing friend Leah, we might have never came to be. She, upon hearing that I was interested, dragged me along to ambush him in the common area of the dorm we were staying at. I'll never forget the look of pure fear that flashed in his eyes as we invaded his quiet little table, plonked down and started chatting about who knows what.

I guess it worked because I believe it was at that point that a spark came to life.

Yep, it's true. I scared him into liking me.

Now with jobs, two kids, a home, two cats and a suicidal dog to look after, those endless days exploring the sights of Bangkok and beyond are long gone. Conversations get tangled up with business/money, bickering over the kids and the all little things that we drive each other mad with.

What I've learned is that loving is easy but living with the person you love, day in and day out, can be damn hard. Damn. Hard.

What I've learned is that my 13-year social experiment, the one in which I moan and beg and nag and rag, has failed to move him towards my desired direction one iota. That you can set up an entire key-loss-prevention infrastructure, for example (hooks at the door! big keychains! post-it notes! reminders reminders reminders!), and still, on a weekly basis, go through the Where-did-you-put-the-damn-car-keys-this-time song and dance routine as we struggle to get out the door.

We have a great dynamic, he and I. He's the Smiling Buddha rock. I'm the flailing stress-freak from hell.

He drives me nuts.

I love him so much.

"So, um, did you remember the keys, honey?" "Honey?"

I'm ranked. Or some might say just plain rank.

Colleague and blogger extraordinaire The Lost Boy has worked hard to compile a blog rank for Thailand based blogs. And it turns out that mine is up in the top 100.

I'm...(drumroll please)...69!

Some people I know (yes you!) would find this number quite amusing. Because most people I know have their minds permanently stuck in the gutter. That's why we're friends, you see.

Anyway, kudos to M for his efforts in recognizing and highlighting the best of Thaiblogging. If you're looking for a peek into the TOTAL WEIRDNESS OF LIFE here in the Land of Smiles, this list is a good place to start.

And, to all you linkers out there (you know who you are) please note that I've packed up and moved over to a new URL: http://serratededges.com (used to be saneroad.blogspot.com)

Please be kind and update your links and maybe someday my ranking will break the 3 million mark! (Not that I care, of course, because you know I'm above all that nonsense...oh, who am I kidding?...)

Anyway, here's the list: Thailand's Top 100.

Enjoy!

Update (Apr 28).

Right, so I didn't realize this before but the ranking is a dynamic thing that changes as people vote for their favorites, and I've moved down. So I'm the Hillary Clinton of Thai blogging. Ha ha!

Tough ol' bitch

My dog Mee got run over today by a truck.

I saw it happen.

I feel immense guilt that I didn't do more to prevent it from happening.

My husband, daughter and I were having lunch at a little roadside hut across the road from our house, like we often do on Saturdays. My dog, the community dog, tagged along since the nice cook lady always gives her scraps and bones.

We don't do the leash thing here as there are no laws about it and everyone knows her so I'm never worried about her getting into trouble. She's been on the loose in the 'hood for years and years.

She was sitting by our table when suddenly she jumped up and began trotting across the road towards a dog that was hanging out by the phone box. As she was crossing the road I was thinking, "Ooh that's not good..." when the truck smacked into her.

She was knocked down and her hind leg got caught under the truck's front wheel as it screeched to a stop.

She hobbled off as fast as her three working legs could take her back towards our house. We rushed out of the restaurant, loaded her up into the pickup and took her to the vet, who is thankfully just a mile or so away.

Amazingly, no broken bones, and only a small skin puncture that will be stitched up tomorrow after the swelling goes down.

Anyway, lesson learned. No more restaurant outings for the dog. She'll cry and whine to be locked in the yard, but I can't risk that happening again.

Poor thing!

Update Apr 27. The Girl's Alright

Black widow of journalism

I've been going over some of the articles I've written for various magazines and newspapers over the years and realize that three out of the dozen or so middle-aged Caucasian men I've interviewed have met untimely deaths within a year of my meeting them (drowning, heart attack, skin cancer).

Coincidence?

I hope so...