Juggling commitments....

“If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.”
Henry Miller

It is late on a balmy Friday evening, something of a relief after the mercury touched 41C mid-afternoon; a slight breeze stirs the air pleasantly. I find myself sitting in the open air Tara Guest House restaurant enjoying a large and very refreshing Chang (Thai beer) and a plate of what are described on the menu as 'Pineapple Flitters'. These come with either honey or chocolate, or even both if one is feeling particularly indulgent. My lifestyle here is generally quite healthy but this, I have to admit, forms something of an exception.
I did actually stay here for a few days on arrival, opting for the very reasonable 'superior' suite at a relatively expensive £12 a night. Normally, by this stage, I have settled into some kind of long term accommodation, usually involving a cold shower and a lack of air conditioning, but this time I have been in somewhat indulgent mood and so the pleasures of fresh sheets, fresh towels and a small but cooling swimming pool have proven too much to resist.
Although such temptations sometimes get the better of one, I still find myself frequenting the much-loved but distinctly down market 'Jolly Frog' on a regular basis. The accommodation may not be the best in town and the service internationally renowned for being terrible, but they do have the most wonderful garden and a peripatetic clientèle of wonderfully eccentric characters, some of whom seem to have become regular visitors over the years.
The garden is also a wonderful place to take some exercise; the air is fresh, the flowers beautiful and the fact that the river Kwai runs so close by all lend a unique ambience to the place that has charmed many a weary wanderer (including your footloose flaneur). When I arrived last week, I immediately headed for the place to practice a little qigong and indulge my current fascination for swinging nunchucks. I have little interest in using such weaponry for any aggressive purpose, but love learning the wonderfully flowing and co-ordinated movements that are necessary if one is to perform with any degree of gusto.
On the first day in the garden, whilst practising a few of the more advanced moves, I met a German guy by the name of Alex and a young French lad called Ansulyman, both of whom were practising juggling in the same garden. A mutual exchange of views on the subject of skill acquisition followed, and so it was that, for the last four or five days at least, an informal school dedicated to such performance arts sprung up quite spontaneously amidst the palms, tamarinds and bougainvillea of the Jolly Frog.

Others guests and various itinerants have happened by over the last week and found themselves drawn into the process. At any given time one can find oneself learning various forms of juggling, particularly with balls and skittles, nunchucks, qigong, tai chi or other, equally exotic forms of martial and performance arts.

The atmosphere is very informal, relaxed and supportive; all in all, very conducive to learning such skills without any sense of pressure and, basically, just for the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of it. For my part, I have focussed so far mostly on picking up juggling and am now, after a few days of trying, able to manipulate three balls at once without injuring the spectators or dropping them too frequently. One young man has progressed from neophyte to attempting five balls in a mere four days, although it has to be admitted that it can be a somewhat hazardous undertaking to stand anywhere in close proximity when he attempts to do so. 

 
When learning new skills is a pleasure, almost an indulgence, such activities become very pleasant indeed. I sometimes think back to the pedagogic horror which formed my own education, to the woefully inadequate methodologies employed, to the stress laid upon discipline imposed from the outside (whilst discipline is clearly necessary, that imposed from within is often far more powerful, and far more effective), to the simplistic 'chalk and talk' methodologies, and many other unpleasant and ineffective conventions, and realise that, for me at least, conventional education was merely something that I had to survive rather than having any real value in terms of knowledge or skills acquisition.
Since those far off days and the daily frustrations and humiliations one suffered in the process of poorly acquiring skills that were often completely useless from that moment forward (working out tangents has not come up even once in the intervening years, and as for the learning of the (mis)doings of various Kings and Queens of England… such knowledge only turned me into a lifelong and convinced republican). Since those happily far-off days I have invariably found myself enjoying learning a range of new subjects and competencies in so many areas. All of these seem to have been acquired relatively easily, just as long as I was given at least a modicum of encouragement and support to do so. Looking around the 'school' in the Jolly Frog this morning, the thought struck me that such learning is so normal, so natural, so enjoyable for all of us, if only the right ambience is created.
Back in the Tara they are closing up for the night and I find myself faced with a pleasant ten minute walk back to my hotel on the river front. Kanchanaburi is even quieter this year; so quiet in fact that one wonders how long the almost deserted bars can survive. On the other hand, those of us who are more open to the less inebriated, daytime pleasures of the place are enjoying the current state of affairs immensely. And so, as this late but still

very steamy hour, I must bid thee a fond farewell and prepare this rather over-exercised body for a night of hopefully recuperative slumber.
Night night….

Too far to walk...

 

"We begin here then, in the very quick of the nightmare, in the crucible where all values are reduced to slag."

Henry Miller - The Air Conditioned Nightmare

This evening I find myself enjoying the slightly salubrious yet subtly seductive comforts of the 'Jolly Frog'. This particular guesthouse, perhaps more than any other, was responsible for putting Kanchanaburi on the map as a backpacker's destination. That was many, many years ago now, and of more recent times it has become something of an emblem of Kanchanaburi, despite an ongoing process of delightfully delapidating degradation that has rendered its décor somewhat dated by modern standards . To say the rooms are basic is to understate the reality. This is not the place to come if one requires high levels of opulence in order to enjoy a break. On the other hand, its throwback decadence to its glory days of the seventies has an almost timeless appeal to a huge variety of travellers. The clientèle this evening are an odd mixture of the geriatric remains of a peripatetic generation and a cosmopolitan group of footloose and fancy free youngsters trying to reinvigorate the bygone days of backpacking yore.
In short, the Jolly Frog has a rather pleasant way of attracting the outlandish and the eccentric. Its garden is perhaps its most notable feature, sitting as it does aside the River Kwai. Unlike the rest of the establishment, it is always looked after with great care and, perhaps, even love. As I tap out these notes on a hot and steamy Wednesday evening I cannot help but overhear the delightfully bizarre conversations of the youngsters sharing a beer or two and swinging to and fro in the hammocks in the centre of the garden. From the accents I am guessing we have several Spaniards, a Frenchman or two, a young American with a predilection for swearing every time he wishes to emphasize a point and several girls, perhaps one American, one French and one English. They, much like myself, are enjoying the late night delights of a bottle or two of 'Archa', a cheap but cheerful Thai beer that sells for the very reasonable 49 baht in the local convenience store, and the soporific atmosphere of a warm night relaxing beside the river.
Actually, I have to admit to being pleased to be back here this evening after a very unpleasant sojourn into Bangkok over the past couple of days. In my years of travelling I have visited many, many cities from Moscow (very dull) to New York (very noisy), Barcelona to Venice (both fascinating), Cairo to Izmir, and many others far too numerous to mention, but I cannot think of any city over decades of travelling that is quite as unremittingly unpleasant as Bangkok. It is a dirty, dingy, dilapidated dystopian disaster of a city that has few, if any, redeeming features.
I spent last night in a hotel 2.5 kms from Don Mueang Airport, chosen for its proximity. In practice, it took nearly an hour and a half to find said hotel (the Pool House Guest Residence). My first resort was to attempt to hire a taxi, but trying to communicate with the drivers of these vehicles proved to be almost impossible. None of them seemed to recognise the name of the hotel, even though I had it written in both English and Thai. None of them seemed to have the foggiest idea of how to read a map, the very concept seeming to throw them into a state of confusion. None of them seemed to want to go on the metre, even though the law requires them to do so, preferring attempts to arrange a hugely inflated price beforehand instead. 

 
After several efforts that merely resulted in increased frustration, I resolved to walk to the hotel. This was probably a mistake as it took vastly longer than expected owing to the lack of anywhere to actually walk. What pavements there were were invariably broken up to the point of unsuitability, the rest of the journey being a case of either walking through a seemingly endless building site or against the stream of a apparently never ending cascade of recklessly driven motor vehicles.
Eventually, I found a 7-11 store that I knew to be in the vicinity of the guest house. I asked the girl behind the counter if she knew the hotel. She did, but she assured me that it was far too far to even consider walking. Instead, she suggested I take a motor bike. Tired, sweaty and a little fed up (a rare emotion for me), I took what I perceived as a rather desperate option and clambered aboard a Honda 90.
The rider rode thirty metres to the West, twenty five metres to the North, followed by one hundred metres to the east and…. we were there. As an expression of the idea of 'too far too walk' it seemed to be lacking something vital that, in the West at least, we tend to call 'distance'. 

 
To be fair, the Thai conception of 'too far to walk' is very different to the British or American. To those of us in the West, the expression would indicate several miles of challenging perambulation, whereas here in Thailand 'too far to walk' means anything above 40 yards or so. An old joke sprang to mind: question“What do you call a person walking in Thailand?”, answer “A tourist!”.
(Actually, I was tempted to use another, very much similar, line earlier, It was along the lines of 'what do you call someone hopelessly lost in Bangkok', the answer being, obviously, 'a taxi driver').
It is hard to conceive of a form of words that will convey just how hopelessly unpleasant Bangkok is. It consists of street upon street, road upon road, of sheer, adulterated ugliness. Even the centre of town, the area around the Royal Palaces, are notable for just how tacky the use of excessive gold leaf can appear. It comes across as a depressing display of unjustified opulence in a land where most of the population are struggling even to put a meal on the table.

Such tasteless decoration accounts for only a small area though, the vast majority of Bangkok being an endless chaos of cars and cables, broken pavements and unrepaired holes, officious policemen and self-righteous military men. From East to West South to North, inside and outside, over a vast distance, there is barely anything that one could recommend to someone about this truly atrocious city.

Luckily (I survived!), I now find myself back in the far pleasanter environs of Kanchanaburi where, if all goes well, I intend to spend the next couple of weeks reading, writing and learning to juggle. The last being the result of meeting Alex, a professional German juggler who was happy to pass on the basics to me in return for a few lessons of twirling nunchucks (I am no master, but sufficiently competent now to start a complete neophyte on the path towards a level of competence).
The hot season has arrived, with rumours of temperatures in excess of 40C on the way in the coming week. This seems a good enough excuse to me to curtail the more physical aspects of flaneurial activity and to concentrate instead on the process of writing, both this blog and a book I have been planning for a year or so now. The prospect of afternoons spent in air conditioned cafés slowly imbibing Americanos and fruit smoothies whilst tapping away on my netbook seems pleasant indeed in this heat...

Lazy Bones

On a pleasantly warm but occasionally sticky Saturday morning I find myself once more in the reassuringly cheap and cheerful restaurant (seems too grand a name...) of The Jolly Frog. I seem to enjoy the ambience of this place more than most, perhaps because of its slightly tropical atmosphere and the rather lovely gardens at the rear. Customers, as ever in this place, seem to be considerably outnumbered by staff. As I tap out these words there are five guests, two of us on laptops, one texting away on a mobile phone and two actually eating. To cater for this demand we have, in sight at least, some nine staff most of whom are also happily tapping away on mobile phones. Two of the staff have chosen to bring their sproglets into work with them and are currently showing them off to their colleagues who, as ever in these situations, are making the appropriate cooing noises.

Oddly, given the plurality of staff, it is strangely difficult to get one to actually serve you. A tall lass of about 40 did make the effort originally but then the menu she was carrying fell apart in her hands and this distraction was enough to make her forget her original purpose. She returned to her seat and resumed her semi-comatose state until steadily more desperate hand waving from yours truly alerted her to the presence of, surprise surprise, a customer waiting to be served.

This situation is not untypical of my experiences so far in Thailand. Justifiably it is know as 'the land of smiles'. People do seem to be quite genuinely happier and more relaxed than many other places I have found myself in during my travels. There is often a delightful warmth and friendliness here that renders Thailand, apart from the ever-present heat and stickiness, a pleasant place to be for the most part. It is also the land of an all-encompassing laziness that has to be seen to be believed.

A couple of examples may make this point clear. Firstly, Thai don't walk. If the distance to be travelled is greater than 75 metres they will invariably take a scooter or some other form of convenient nearby transport (jump on the back of a friends bike, take a songthaew, climb into a tuk-tuk, etc. There is a plurality of choices because, in basic economic terms, the demand is so great here). When I first arrived in Thailand I took a coach down to Hua Hin, a busy seaside resort on the Western side of the Gulf. The bus dropped me a couple of hundreds yards from my hotel and I had to walk alongside a busy road full of cars and bikes for most of that distance before turning down a side street. Something struck me as slightly eerie straight away but I could not put my finger on it. I went into the town centre later that day and again had the feeling that something was a little different but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. In conversation that night I was discussing the situation with an ex-pat when he immediately responded pointing out that the pavements, apart from food sellers, were empty. After that first observation I began to notice the phenomenon everywhere I went in this land. You could have a busy little town like Kanchanaburi buzzing with shoppers, diners and café goers and yet the pavements, apart from the immediate environs of these places themselves, would be almost totally devoid of people.

Due to some physical challenges in my life there have been times when walking even short distances was very challenging. In the last couple of years these things have improved greatly for me so I very much appreciate the joys of being able to walk relatively normally once again. As a flaneur, one's duties entail partaking of the occasional slow stroll but my pleasure in indulging in this activity seems not to be shared by the average Thai. Where I am currently residing the owner's family live some 70 metres from the office and cafeteria at the front of the establishment. If they have any need to go there, even if only to pick up a coffee or take some rubbish to the bins, they will utilise one of three mini motor bikes at their disposal. If evolution takes its normal course we may well be witness to the phenomenon of Thais growing wheels in place of legs in a few thousand generations...

Secondly, there is an inherent laziness in the approach to life in general here, a love of simply hanging around and doing nothing. For my own part I have to confess that I am not the right person to dare to criticise such behaviour as I am quite fond of such a lack of activity myself. The joys of simply being are often unappreciated in the West where there is a constant and almost obsessional need to be constantly doing something. Yet few of us are unaware of the simple pleasures of lying in on a Sunday morning, swinging in a hammock on sunny afternoon or sharing a coffee and a chat with friends for no other reason than the simple fact that we enjoy it.

Buddhist meditation is very popular in Thailand; many Thais spent a portion of their lives in the practice and people come from the world over attracted to schools and retreats where they can learn these simple yet profound techniques. Yet, thinking about it, could there be any clearer demonstration of the joys of sitting around and doing nothing? Meditation takes this attitude and promotes it to a discipline, a spiritual practice. It is no coincidence that Thailand is perhaps the world's leading centre to learn the subtle arts of these disciplines. One often hears people criticise meditation on the grounds that you are really doing nothing. How right they are! But in that criticism lies the germ of a simple truth that is often overlooked by such observers. At times in one's life it is no bad thing to desist from the constant need to do and just simply allow oneself the chance to be. It is no accident that many of Thailands most beautiful Buddha statues are reclining...

Laziness has its benefits in the political sphere too. The ongoing political death match between the red shirts and the yellow shirts seems to have quietened down for now. Not that the situation has been resolved in any way, the same bitterness still divides the two sides, the same issues remain. Yet a few weeks ago it looked as if we were on the brink of a civil war. As far as I can tell nothing was resolved, no great changes were made, no one won and no one lost. Yet it has all become a whole lot quieter now. I think that this relatively peaceful period has not been due to any political initiatives or any movement in the situation whatsoever, rather the amount of energy involved in keeping the intensity going is far, far too much for the Thais. This 'can't be bothered' attitude may be saving the country from all sorts of potential problems. The Thais are a passionate and intense people, they care deeply about their politics and the affects that these things have on their lives. The intensity and the passion do not tend to last for very long though. In temperatures that are consistently above 30 C it is hard to maintain that kind of commitment. The temptations of 'what the hell' and going back to the hammock are just too great. It seems that in this area, as in many others, the benefits to laziness are manifold and subtle...

Back at the Jolly Frog a few more customers have turned up and the speed of service has climbed considerably from fully comatose to a snail's pace. The girls still spend most their time perusing catalogues and magazines and the customers are also far too hot to be that bothered anyway. It all gets done somehow or other. I would imagine that the denizens of New York or some other such fast-paced metropolis would be driven mad in such a place as this but, for my part, I know where I would rather be. I spent a few days in that most awful of cities a few years ago. I remember it as being perhaps the rudest place it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. Almost every place I have found myself in the last twenty five years tended to have its compensations, its reasons for looking back fondly on and perhaps hoping to have the chance to re-visit one day. New York was one of the exceptions (Soviet-era Moscow was another). Its speed, its noise and its general rudeness were singularly unpleasant.

The Big Apple seemed to be full of people busily doing, doing, doing, without even a second to spare to acknowledge your existence. They were far too busy and their business far too urgent even to stop and help with directions, as I remember.

 Given the choice between the fanatically busy lifestyle of New Yorkers and the laziness of the Thais, I think I know, for all the frustrations of slow service and the like, where I would rather be...

Working ourselves to death...

Saturday morning in Kanchanaburi catching up on the news from the UK on the BBC. Seems that yet another storm has shed yet more rain on an already saturated Britain. I find myself feeling almost guilty as I look up through the eaves of the Jolly Frog to the relentlessly blue sky beyond. This is the place that started the backpacking boom in this part of Thailand. It is looking a little dilapidated now and probably needs a facelift but... there is something comforting and really rather pleasant in its state of easy going neglect. The main eating area consists of a vast roof supported on tree trunks, the sides completely open which tends to lend a freshness to the place which is aided and abetted by several huge fans hanging from the ceiling. Plants have run wild over time and now hang down in curtains of creepers that create natural partitions between parts of the restaurant (that seems too grand a word for this place – maybe 'cafe' would be more accurate).

This has become my favourite place to write during my month in Kanchanaburi. I order the requisite coffee for the princely sum of 20 baht and usually a watermelon smoothie and some roles (no butter, as I am presently experimenting with veganism) to supply the much needed refreshment that this process requires. The whole lot totals some 65 baht (roughly £1.20), not at all bad. I remember some years ago, in my early flaneurial days, having a coffee in St. Marks Square in Venice – the coffee alone was somewhere in excess of £5. I have to admit though, the setting was wonderful!

Life is indeed very relaxing in this part of the world. There is an easy going ambience that pervades so much of life here. The people are friendly and generous, the culture interesting and the flora and fauna fascinating. It certainly feels very different after China with its feverish chasing after economic success. I am told that Japan, in many ways, is even worse. Despite the success of the economy in China it seems that people are required to chase ever harder just to keep up. Rather than bringing increasing leisure and other benefits to the society, the vast majority find themselves required to work longer and longer hours while the benefits are reaped by a smaller and smaller section at the very top of the economic pyramid. This same process seems to have been experienced in many economies around the world. As a certain politician recently put it: "They used to say 'a rising tide lifts all boats'. Now the rising tide just seems to lift yachts."

This increasing insecurity for the general populace has been experienced particularly keenly in Japan with its deep acceptance of the work ethic and the fundamentally hierarchical structure of its society. After the sixties and seventies boom Japan found itself entering a prolonged period of economic stagnation which has only ended in very recent times. Job security became increasingly tenuous. People were required to work longer and longer hours, the extra time often being unpaid as the employees more or less felt obliged to work in such a way to keep their jobs. This eventually led to what started out as a typically Japanese reaction; the phenomenon of 'Karoshi'. The Japanese word 'Karoshi' can be simply translated as 'death due to overwork' although this does not tell the whole story. There is an element of suicide in this phenomenon, of deliberately working to the point of precipitating one's own demise.

This attitude to work is perhaps unique to the Japanese mentality although there have in recent times been examples in the West. Increasingly employers seem to have the same expectations as Japanese companies. The notion that your whole life should be based around your employment is implicit in these assumptions. Increasing economic insecurity, despite the recent turn around in Western economies, has led to the expectation that people will indeed work longer and longer hours simply through the fear of losing their jobs.

A very close friend of mine had a job that required her to work thirty hours a week in a school in East London. Even though her hours were 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, with one hour's unpaid lunch, she often found herself working until half past three or even four. Some years ago her employer decreased her hours to 25 per week but, oddly, she still found herself working from 8 in the morning until well after 3 in the afternoon. A year or two later the hours were further decreased to 20 per week. Hmm, I think it is unnecessary for me to repeat here as you'll have worked out how this 'reduction' actually functioned. Now she works 18 hours a week. She often starts before 8 in the morning now and often finds herself there until after five at night, five days a week. Mathematics have never been my strong point but I am pretty sure that works out to something substantially in excess of 18 hours a week.

I see my friend when I am back in the UK. She is a decent, honest person with a sensitive and intelligent nature. Every time I see her she looks a little more tired, a little more strained. Occasionally I will talk to her about this process. She understands what is happening but feels obliged to go along with it. So many these days feel themselves trapped in such situations. It may not quite be Karoshi but it is not far from it. We often hear businessmen and politicians, particularly those of the right, arguing for 'more flexible work practices'. Another fine sounding euphemism! What is actually desired by such folk is the power to demand more and more for less and less, often relying on job insecurity as a way of squeezing blood out of a stone.

It seems to be rarely pointed out but there is something fundamentally unsound in all of this, something fundamentally wrong. The shortcomings of the Japanese 'work until you drop' philosophy were amply demonstrated during WW2. Recently I visited the 'Death Railway' near the small town I am staying in, Kanchanaburi. The railway was built using allied Prisoners of War and Asian workers (Romusha) from occupied territories. Those unfortunate to find themselves working on this project were subject to the most awful privations and, frankly, quite inhuman treatment by the Japanese. They were ill-fed, brutalised and overworked. Very shortly the men would weaken and fall ill because of the demands placed upon them. As this continued their productivity dropped. Working when you are tired, in pain and underfed is pretty commonly accepted not to be the ideal I think. The Japanese response? They worked people harder, fed them less, imposed longer hours, etc. To the mentality of the Japanese captors this made sense. The result? The project fell further and further behind schedule as the decreasing workforce found itself under greater and greater pressure. Maybe there is a lesson here?

Visiting the site of these atrocities one is struck with just how peaceful it is now. Indeed, one may even say that the views from Hellfire Pass are beautiful – a huge valley through which the Kwai Noi river flows beneath the shade of lush forests and the most delicately exquisite flora that one could wish to see. All is quiet now and it is hard to imagine the kind of scenes that once gave the pass its name.

 Back in The Jolly Frog the cafe has become busier now and the day a little warmer. Ex-pats read newspapers with two day old articles about the terrible weather in the UK. Others, like myself, sit here tapping away at our laptops, communicating with a distant world so different from where we find ourselves. I slowly sip at my banana shake (one has to be aware of the need for constant hydration in 30+ degrees C) thinking about the implications of this piece. The unhappy world of job insecurity and virtual karoshi seem like they are from another and very bizarre reality. There has to be a better way...