An American in Asia: His Quest for Cosmic Truth (or at least a Decent Espresso)

 

Pancakes to Tragedy

I went to the Atlanta Hotel for breakfast on Saturday. I ate really great pancakes with tropical fruit in them, enjoying the ambience of early 20th century Thai Art Deco beautifully restored. The pancakes were a little funny as there was no maple syrup. No maple trees in the tropics. But bees make honey from some crazy flowers here and it was a fine substitute. There is a vendor who sells cakes of beehive up the street and I'll have to remember to buy one. Honey from jasmine flowers must be delicious. They've still got the bees swarming on them so they must be fresh.

I read the end of Ashenden by Somerset Maugham. It's a great book of true stories of his time as a spy during WWI. He is one of the more famous writers who has stayed at the Atlanta Hotel in its heyday and it was a funny feeling to reach the climax of his story in a cafe where he had written some of his Southeast Asian stories.

On my way back up the street I passed a construction site. There were around 30 or 40 workers gathered at the front with some of the local food vendors. As I got closer I saw in their midst a worker sitting on a chair holding a female worker in his arms. She had blood streaming from her head. Her body was very still. Not limp but stiff as if she was holding it that way, afraid to move. She had a very worried look on her face, though I don't think she was feeling pain yet. The fact that her face was mobile enough to look worried instead of just stunned and blank was probably a good sign that she hadn't suffered brain trauma.

I guessed she had fallen from the building. It was already 10 or 15 floors high and I sure hope she fell from a lower one. No one seemed to be doing anything much but watching, and I could only assume that an ambulance, or better yet a taxi, was on its way. Ambulances are too expensive for average people here, and as they belong to the hospitals, they may not even bring you to the nearest one if it's not their hospital. In any case no one moves for an ambulance in traffic and a good taxi or tuk-tuk will get you to your hospital of choice much faster.

Of course I wanted to do something to help, but an emergency is one of those times when a foreigner feels most foreign. I realized if I came up and tried to help, I'd only cause a mess. People would be trying to understand my babbling instead of doing something constructive. And since I can do little more than speak directions and haggle over prices, there was no way I could tell a cab driver the simple fact that someone was hurt and needed a ride.

So I walked on and hoped for the best. I walked by the same site today and they were back at work.

Fun With New Software

As you can see by the above silliness, I have been playing around with Macromedia Flash software. I spent most of my free time this week slogging through the little tutorial and this weekend I tried to add a few whistles and bells to the site. Sorry if it takes an eon for the page to come up. Let me know if your computer has problems reading the Flash file. It was fun to do anyway.

Elephant Reprise

I mentioned last week I saw an elephant while eating spaghetti. I was eating the spaghetti, not the elephant. Though it's pretty funny to think of an elephant with strings of spaghetti shooting up his nose.

I have found where the elephant is living. Yesterday I got off the boat at the pier near my apartment. There's a field with a bunch of shanties nearby and as I was crossing the bridge towards that side, out came the elephant with his keeper riding on top. We were going the same way so I got to walk behind an elephant for about a quarter mile.

I kept wondering if it's dangerous to walk behind an elephant. I had to keep telling myself that they can't kick like horses and the only danger from there is huge elephant turds. After a few minutes it got pretty hypnotic, watching that huge gray butt swaying back and forth with profound patience and immense grace. It was actually pretty beautiful to see. His padded feet scuffed softly on the pavement with no more sound than a tired child shuffling home.

Two men were talking in front of a store and as the elephant passed, one of the men reached out absently and brushed the elephant with his fingertips. I wondered what kind of a guy just reaches out and grazes an elephant without looking or pausing in his conversation. Did he see that many elephants? Is he a weirdo or is it a cultural thing? Was it for good luck or just idle curiosity?

An elephant went on a rampage in a village this week and killed three people before disappearing into the jungle. 'Trampled' is a word I hope will never apply to me.