Nam Mae Kon Noi

A couple of days between gigs in Bangkok and Chiang Mai gave us the opportunity to be Stephen's Thai tour guides. The white temple in Chiang Rai was an obvious choice to me but it involved more traveling. I described it on last year's Find Penguins so I won't bore you with my enthusiasm again.
When we first arrived at the roadside beside the temple I was rather underwhelmed and worried that the detour wasn't worthwhile. My fears were short lived, the temple took my breath away again. In fact, the whole experience was even more memorable this time because there was no need to take photos. It was startling to realise how much deeper the experience was without being distracted by the camera. Perhaps as a consequence, I have few photographs from the next 2 weeks and this update is very late.
There was a clear message to me from reflecting in the temples. The futility of worrying about the man-made evil on earth and the deep freedom of focusing instead on the love here and now, love that I will see in its complete beauty after being released from this mortal body. The message came from the stunning, intricate paintings that so graphically depict the evils and horrors of the human condition here on earth contrasting with the content, knowing smile on the face of Buddha.... which for me translates into the loving, accepting smile on the face of the risen Jesus.
A bus journey later and we were back in our favourite city, Chiang Mai. It felt like home from home. The music scene had morphed slightly since last year after the end of nightly music at one venue, but there were still plenty of musicians of all styles gigging everyday. We were soon bumping into familiar faces. It seemed crazy that we would ever want to leave perfect Chiang Mai... and then....the music scene changed dramatically almost overnight. There was a police raid at the Pai Jazz House and 4 foreign musicians playing there regularly were arrested and deported. The fear trickled down through the small music community and one by one venues cancelled gigs and stopped hiring bands with foreign members. Fortunately, 2 out of our 4 gigs still went ahead and were perhaps even more special as we were among the last foreign bands for the foreseeable future. It seems that the reasoning is actually a problem specific to Pai but nonetheless it's likely that there will be police raids throughout Thailand for the next couple of months. The Pai trouble has been wittingly nicknamed 'Pai..lestine'. The small idyllic mountain village of Pai became a safe haven for young Israeli's after their military service or as a way to dodge it. The youth are troubled and have caused unrest up there. The last straw was when the local hospital was treating Israeli moped accident victims and their friends vandalised inside the hospital. It's leading to anti-semitic feelings throughout Thailand which is very sad. If only the kids had respected the peaceful buddhist way, or better yet, they had never needed to serve or dodge a vicious military.
For our part, we met folk from China, Israel, Russia, Australia, the UK and Thailand who made a point of telling us how touched they were by our music. Inbetween gigs, I often feel like an old fraud, the musical equivalent of 'mutton dressed as lamb', but music smashes through preconceptions and judgement. I can feel the sharing of non-verbal connections with audience members while we play which are confirmed when we get to talk afterwards; when they repeat our lyrics and explain why they resonated with them. How blessed I am to be used as a conduit for acceptance and joy.
We spent just a couple more days moseying around Chiang Mai and the mountain streams and temples before heading back to Cambodia to boost our band funds before the next big leap to the Far East.
Arriving in Cambodia from Thailand is always an assault to the senses. The chaos, honking, shouting, vehicles driving at you, hawkers, beggars and the dust and dirt.... but then I start to be infected by the smiles again. The food isn't as tasty, the buildings aren't as beautiful, the streets aren't as calm but the smiles are dazzling and genuine. We made the mistake of saving a few dollars by taking a tuk tuk from the airport into Siem Reap, it went on and on and on... in fact it took longer than the flight from Chiang Mai.
Our gig back at Laundry was another legendary one until the bass guitar that I was borrowing stopped making any sound at all. I tried to make up for it with no holds barred vocal performances and we still had a great reception despite my pantomime! An insight into the supportive music scene in Phnom Penh is that there was another bass made available to me the next night at Oscars and yet another for the following 2 nights. We met friends old and new at the 3 PP gigs. The honour of playing our versions of Cambodian songs in Cambodia still gives me 'Goosebumps on my brain'. It's especially lovely to see the bar staff and children look up and sway to the familiar melodies.
We bade farewell to our stand-in drummer brothers, friends and home from homes in Bangkok, Koh Phangnan, Chiang Mai, Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. We wondered whether we would come to call Koh Samui, Koh Tao, Hua Hin, Bandung, Kediri, Solo and Mangelang home from home in future winters.... and now I sit on a flight to Tokyo wondering what this Japanese adventure will lead to.
Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were resounding successes. I feel like my patience is greater (perhaps from travelling without a SIM card) I don't squirm at cats, rats and cockroaches, and I realised last night that I hadn't had a moment of desperate sadness of missing Paul for the whole day. I'm starting to believe that this new life is indeed real.Read more