EXPEDITION TO BRAMAUR

Preparing the jeep for a big trip.
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In April 2005 my Japanese friend Hiroshi and I decided to go on a little trip in my jeep. For years I wondered what was right behind the peaks of the Dhauladar Mountain range, north of the village of Dharamsala, the hometown of the Dalai Lama. I could see the peaks from my little window every day, but what was right beyond those majestic 18,000 ft mountains? So I looked it up and learned there was a valley called Chamba and a small hamlet called Bramaur. Though only a few kilometers and minutes away the way the crow flies, by motorable road it would take a little more to get to Bramaur. The nearest pass was north-west of Dharamsala, near Dalhousie, a small hill town, about a five hour-drive away from Dharamsala. So Hiroshi and I took off and drove to Dalhousie at an altitude of about 10,000 ft. As there was no sound system in the jeep, we talked or sung songs. We stayed in Dalhousie for a few days before we descended into the Chamba Valley to pay a visit to the valley’s capital; Chamba Village. We continued by touring one of the worst roads I had ever encountered in the Himalayas. Weather changed and torrential rain caused landslides that would block the road. On our way to Bramaur we had to stop and wait for 6 hours total for rock and dirt moving vehicles to unblock the road at 4 different locations. We finally reached the vicinity of Bramaur in the evening. We noticed a lovely little village in the far distance, perched against the north side of the Dhauladar… and there was light.

'They have electricity!' I said delighted. I saw images of Hiroshi and I already sitting in the restaurant of a lovely guesthouse, eating wonderful Chamba-food after which we would have a wonderful hot shower and a good sleep in a warm bed.

Only minutes away from the village the main electricity cable broke, almost hitting the roof of the jeep, and all the village lights went out. There was no such thing as a guesthouse or restaurant in the village and we could only find one home with people. The entire village appeared to be deserted. We begged for food and drink, and though the people were hospitable they apologized, as they could only offer us some dry chapattis. There wasn’t even a bowl of rice. The gas cylinder that was attached to the stove was empty so they could only offer us a glass of cold water. They told us there were no rooms for rent in the village; however, we could park the jeep on the helicopter platform and sleep in the vehicle. Bramaur was so remote, they had their own helicopter platform. It was a trip to hell, but for some reason, those trips always result in lovely pictures and great memories. That night I had a dream. For your information; I considered Hiroshi a very beautiful young man, but I didn’t like it when he wore his glasses. I preferred him to use his contact lenses. The next day, when we had a little break atop a mountain pass, Hiroshi got up. He suffered from a lack of oxygen. He felt dizzy, stumbled and knocked his face against the fender of the jeep, smashing his glasses. He hadn’t hurt his face, there were no cuts or anything. just his glasses were into pieces. To be able to see something, he needed to put in his contact lenses.

Hiroshi eating Tibetan thukpa before taking off.

Indians don't have dogs as pets, but cattle.

One of the Dhauladar passes is famous for taking sheep across the mountains from the Kangra Valley to the Chamba Valley.

Snow covered peaks of the Dhauladar Range. Behind those peaks is the hamlet of Bramaur, a three day journey from this location.

Couldn't help it, but I found this young man very photogenic.

Somewhere in the Chamba Valley

An Alpine meadow atop a mountain.

He was a rather tall guy for a Japanese as the jeep is rather high and yet he manage to be taller than the roof.

Waiting for the workers to clear the road from a snow slide.

An entirely deserted village covered by snow.

Dalhousie area.

Time for a snow ball fight.

Beautiful mountain paddies, in this area for wheat and barley growing.

The Chamba Valley with the 18,000 ft Pir Panjal Range on the horizon.

A farm somewhere in the Chamba Valley.

Hiroshi at his best (without glasses).

WRITERS ARE BORING PEOPLE

Driving my jeep through snow covered mountains toward the remote village of Braumaur in the Chamba Valley (Indian Himalayas)
Those were exciting experiences.
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I received an email from a friend in Bangkok. He told me he was highly disappointed in my recent posts as they were so shallow.

“You used to write exciting stories about the mysteries of the universe, how to heal people, about coincidental meetings, about amazing trips in the Himalayas. Now you post videos about your clock? What are you trying to develop into: a cyber exhibitionist? You’re posting videos that show that you have a bunch of condoms laying around in your so called office! What are you trying to do? Advertise safe sex? What’s wrong with you?”

“Errrrrr.”

Sorry. I ran a little dry on exciting stories. Writers are very boring people who sit at home behind a computer most of the time, creating characters that are far more interesting than they are, experiencing things they can only dream of. There was a time (7 years in India) when I could produce a new epic novel a year. The most exciting thing that happened to me this week was when I was walking in a shopping street and stepped on what felt like a Coca cola bottle. I produced one more step forward, looked behind me to see what I had just stepped on, and saw a big brown rat limping away, looking at me with an expression of pain and “you bitch!” on his face.

Apart from that exciting moment, I have been trying to improve my skills as a wanna-be digirati. Yesterday, an elderly friend of mine and I agreed in the cafe that we need to keep up with modern technology. I want to be able to fix my computer myself, figure out how I can get rid of viruses, how to resize 8 MB photos to 50 KB photos so they are easily uploadable on the Facebook, Blogger or as email attachments. I want to be able to do what kids do with their computer. I want to be able to speak and see moving faces of loved ones on the other side of the world. Yesterday I learned how to upload a few videos on youtube. Not because it matters, but because I want to say: I can! So I uploaded 4 videos on youtube that probably nobody is interested in, but I just wanted to know if I could. And I could.

To conclude this post, I must admit that travellers experience a lot and I feel I am no longer a traveller. Though I had homes in India and wasn’t a traveller all the time, I travelled a lot in the Himalayas in my jeep which gave me ample experiences and encounters to write about. I am already looking forward to spending three months in India next spring. I expect a lot of posts and videos with exciting material. So hang in there, my dear reader; I am working on getting a more interesting life. For this year I have a few trips planned. I intend to go to Laos, as well as to my favourite Thai town called Prachuapkhirikhan. I also feel the need to travel all the way to Surat Thani in the south, just to visit the night market, which is the best in Thailand.
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Below I show you how I just learned to paste two clips together with Windows Movie Maker. Wow. This short video shows my 1 sq foot Japanese garden and my bowl with lotus flowers.

PRAY, DRINK, EAT, LOVE, SLEEP

Our "kitchen". We only have a microwave oven to boil water or warm up food. We don't have a sink or stove. We wash our few dishes in the shower.

We pray first for the fishes rebirth before we eat it.
Health, healthy, healthy.

Eating on/off the floor like most Thais.

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After a day on Dongtan Beach we walked home and got ourselves some food from the evening market. As most Thais don’t have a kitchen, including us, we/they tend to get out and pick up some food from any (night) market. In Thailand you can always find cheep ready made food within walking distance from wherever you live. Cooking at home is actually more expensive. Only the rich have kitchens and eat at home.

Every street has little eateries where you can sit down on a plastic chair at a foldable table with complementary free water with ice cubes, or you can buy food from stalls where they grill anything for you, from crunchy cockroaches to squid, chicken, pork, duck, and take it home. The Thais eat many times a day and portions are small. Also, they eat a lot of raw materials. I think all these things combined keep the Thais slim and healthy. Fat Thais get that way because they may drink to much beer or Thai “whiskey”. Most Thais are alcoholics. Oy.

In my home, there is only water for drinking. Milk is ridiculously expensive and we can’t afford it. We get the water from a reverse osmosis water machine that you can find in every street. You put a jerry can in it, put 1 baht per litre into the machine and press a button.
We boycott the Coca Cola Company, Pepsico, and Nestle thus we do not buy their bottled water, nor a coke, Pepsi, Fanta etcetera. We do so because those companies cause much trouble for the environment and local communities, whilst drinking soft drinks are just not very healthy for your teeth and the rest of your body. Also, bottled water often contains more toxins than regular tap water or water that has been filtered by machines, not to speak of the insanity of drinking 40 baht tap water from plastic bottles: what’s next, breathing city air from containers provided by those companies?

When we eat, we use our hands or chopsticks, depending on what we eat. Today we got a local fish, mussels, noodles and a variety of raw vegetables and herbs and two types of fruit (chompoe and melon). We need to get everything fresh every day, as we don’t have a fridge. The way we eat this stuff is buy getting a piece of lettuce, put some noodles on it, a bit of fish, herbs and other veggies and wrap it up in a bundle and stick it in our mouth. We normally use old newspapers as a table/floor cloths but we forgot the steal the old newspapers of our neighbour. All the food costs no more than the equivalent of 2 US Dollars. Tomorrow I will try to take a photo of the water machine in our street. As I have lived in India and now in Thailand, water is our number one priority in our lives and I have a few more things to say about drinking water.

CHINESE FABULOSITY

Tibetan artists are known for their intricate Thangkha paintings, often depicting images of the Buddha, the monks are known to make beautiful mandalas out of coloured sand, depicting the universe (and destroying them upon finishing), but today I came across some Chinese fabulosity in the form of a crystal hollow sphere which inside was painted through a hole and depicting an entire Chinese village. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my good camera with me to zoom in onto the details, but I will soon do so.

I was visiting some new friends in a neighbouring building and they had been to Beijing. They had picked up so many beautiful artifacts that were now on display in their fancy cabinet that I spent an hour observing in awe. The crystal sphere was phenomenal. Imagine a painter with a one-hair paintbrush painting an entire village through a little hole inside a ball. Those Chinese folks keep surprising me. I had never seen such a piece of art ever before. I do not feel the need to learn how to paint Bangkok inside a glass ball; for now, I’ll keep it simple and paint bamboo and fish. Perhaps it’s time for some koi tomorrow.

My dear teacher Haiying Yang in the USA has been very nice and told me she would send a package to me with a proper paintbrush and rice paper. I guess it must hurt her feelings if she sees me trying to make something beautiful with Hello Kitty nylon kid brushes. Meanwhile I have sent the request out to some Chinese friends in Hong Kong to buy me some materials as well and bring them with them when they visit me in Thailand some time in the future. I can only dream of getting my hands on real Chinese ink, a real ink stone and perhaps a hand carved seal. My seal is just a plastic stamp that I had made by a Thai at the shopping mall down the street. Nothing noble about that. I guess all those Chinese folks must travel to China now and then and buy everything they need in their own country. I wish I could travel there too some time, but I am still blacklisted by the Chinese Government, my books are banned, and my websites, even this weblog, are still blocked by the Internet Security Police. I guess posting photos of bamboo paintings are considered a threat to China’s national security!

I made a photo of my working material. Weep when you see this. I also made a photo of the Thai cushion I sit on when I work. We don’t have furniture in the house, so we all sit on the floor when eating or watching TV, or we lay on our mattress for sleeping and other activities. We are indeed very simple, poor people haha.

As all the cafés are closed for two days (Buddhist holiday), I wasn’t able to get drunk tonight. I was forced to stay home and make some more paintings. Tomorrow koi and the day after I really need to lay in bed with my laptop and start writing the next chapter of my novel. I am a very lazy writer these days. Thank the Buddha I am in between publishers and I do not have a deadline, but it's not very helpful to get literarily active.

On the left a 89 baht plastic paintbrush made in Korea with nylon hair but it has a nice fine tip. Plastic stamps from the local shopping mall and a bottle of black 90 baht ecoline Made in Holland from the Chinese supermarket and a 60 baht kitchen plate from Carrefour as my pallet. The plastic beaker is a 10 baht thing from Carrefour as well. The paper is watercolour paper Made in Holland. Those Dutchistanis must ship containers full of their paint materials all over the world.

O, by the way, I got rid of my natural Barbra Streisand finger nails with French manicure as I was unable to type on my computer lately.

My Thai cushion. 500 baht from Carrefour, but they tend to last for generations.

GENEROSITY

Some people amaze me because of their generosity. They are often people I have never met personally, but they are people I have contacted because I sought their help. It amazes me how many people are willing to spend their time, even money to help me.

Recently I have been helped by a few Chinese comrades, some of them spent hours and hours helping me out. One such person is Dongfeng, a Chinese military expert in England who taught me everything I needed to know about Chinese tanks and combat training. (I am currently working on a novel in which the protagonist is a Chinese military officer who, at one point in his life is a tank commander). So when I asked Dongfeng to explain tanks to me, he would send me long explanation, often accompanied by photos like the ones below.

I contacted Jeff Widener, a witness photographer of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I asked him per email about his experiences. And Jeff wrote back to me within a day, and explained to me that he stood on a balcony of the Beijing Hotel when in the street below him, a lone man stopped an entire tank column....

Recently, I contacted a Chinese brush painter in the USA who later learned that I don’t have the right materials to make proper Chinese brush paintings. This kind lady offered to send me a parcel from America with paper and a proper brush. I am baffled. What a kind lady.

It’s weird to receive Chinese materials from the USA, while I live in Asia. However Thailand is still in many ways a Third World country where it is just difficult to find a shop that sells a proper paint brush for adults. Most art stuff is meant for children who don’t care about a plastic thing with nylon hair and Hello Kitty images.

During my nearly three years in Thailand, I am still unable to find a shop where I can buy 100% cotton bed sheets. All bed sheets in Thailand are made of 70% polyester and 30% whatever (very sweaty in the jungle). And this stuff is expensive and only for the rich. The poor sleep on bamboo mats or on nylon sheets, believe it or not.
Thailand doesn’t produce much else than sex and rice, and most “luxury” products, including chocolate are imported from Europe, Japan, and Korea (and the prices are very steep). It’s easier to find a doctor in any street in Thailand who is able to change someone’s gender for a 1000 USD than to find a shop where they sell a proper paint brush or comfortable bedding.

So I would like to thank all of you for your generosity. I would like to thank my dear readers in America, Europe, Japan, the Middle East and Asia who visit this site on a regular basis. Most of my readers are actually from the USA. So thank you Americans for your generosity and interest in my scribbles. Bless you.

Thanks Joel for being my number one follower and a consitant commentator.

While I am watching Michael Jackson's memorial service I couldn't help but do some meditative painting. It just clicked in my mind, last night, that painting bamboo is all about "keeping it simple".

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE CHINESE

Learning Chinese from Google and Youtube can be very rewarding.

I am a woman with many faces, perhaps because my birth sign is Gemini. Between sunrise and sunset, I dress as a nun or yogini, and at night I can be quite the opposite of what a nun is supposed to be. Yet I always hold on to my 168 Buddhist vows that I took years ago in the Tsuglakhang or Dailai Lama Temple, no matter what I do.

I am a writer and a painter, and as you know, I have been learning Chinese style brush paintings these past few months. I am not even sure whether I am good at it. Firstly, I don’t have the proper material. The local Chinese shops only sells 7-Thai Baht brushes that fall apart when you look at them. Forget about trying to find Chinese ink or proper rice paper. I have tried my best finding the right materials in Chinatown… but no, they only sell plastic rubbish “Made in China”. So painting bamboo with inappropriate materials is like trying to build a car with bicycle parts and make it run like a Ferrari.

I also don’t write Mandarin, yet I do my best to calligraphy some characters that I Google. My dear Chinese friends say they can’t read them, but I guess they are all from Canton and missed a few lessons at school. Even I can recognize the words for Love in Mandarin!

Anyway, insecure as I am I always need my sounding boards to check the words I write for my novels, and today I thought that I needed an opinion of an expert Chinese brush painter. I contacted a nice Chinese lady who has videos on Youtube and teaches people Chinese brush paintings. I wanted to know what she thought of my bamboo. There are really nice people in this world, because the lady sent me this lovely letter.

Dear Pantau,

I immediately fell in love with you as soon as I opened up your website. Please do not misunderstand me. Your beauty, your grace and your faith radiated through space. I was deeply touched by your extraordinary life. I salute you for devoting yourself to the cause you believe in.

I went to your blog and saw some bamboo paintings there. They are beautiful. They are you. Each of our painting is a reflection of our heart. The elegance, the strength, and the softness, tenderness is the description of yourself.

I love them. Please go ahead and do more. Totally free yourself, let your hand be the messenger of your heart.

Send me picture of your later works, I will do a video to point out some techniques if you do not mind.

Love and repect to my dear lady,

Haiying Yang
http://www.yanghaiying.com
http://www.youtube.com/yanghaiying
http://chinesepaintingclass.blogspot.com
http://silkpaintingclass.blogspot.com

Isn’t that nice? I am always so surprised to receive lovely letters from Chinese people, because I always fear that they may think I must be anti China, because I am pro Tibet. Those who know me know that I love China (despite the fact that I am blacklisted and unable to travel to China). I love its people, its culture and arts and many of my Thai friends are actually of Chinese descent. Even the man I love happens to be 100% Chinese.
So here is a painting I just made for Ms Haiying Yang. I hope it will find her approval.

My most recent attempt at painting bamboo.

Thai-style birthday party

Tonight I had a birthday party of a friend of mine in Pattaya. It was held in a gay bar and the entertainment was provided by (off off) Tiffany and Alcazar ladyboy showgirls.

A Japanese Love Story, sort of....

Last night I was interested in watching a movie. My friend Matthew is very good at downloading movies illegally from the internet and I had asked him to put some Japanese movies on my flash drive, preferably with English, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Hindi or Tibetan subtitles, so that I could understand what they were saying, as I don’t speak Japanese.

Matthew had downloaded 16 movies, including some stuff from History Channel about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, as well as Angels and Demons, and three Japanese movies. I was particularly interested in the Japanese movie “A Love Story” with Koike Teppei and Eji Wentz. I first clicked Angels and demons but after 15 minutes I got so bored, I deleted the movie and prayed to the Buddha for Hollywood never to release such boring rubbish ever again.

So I clicked a movie that didn’t have a title. I enjoy a good surprise. It was a two-hour and four minute movie.

The opening scene.
Fade in.
Office worker works at a desk, dressed in a suit. Camera shifts to door. Someone enters the room and tells the young man that the CEO wants to speak with him, as he’s not happy with the man’s performance.
The boy gets up. Fade out.

Fade in. The CEO’s office. Shot of the door. Zoom out. Boy enters the room. The CEO is dressed in a black suit, white shirt with French cuffs and he is wearing a mask.

(Oy. What the heck?)

CEO sits down in his CEO chair and orders the boy in the suit to sit down.

There is only one chair in the room.

Boy asks: "Where should I sit?"

“You sit on my lap,” the CEO orders.

Boy is mystified, but he sits down on the masked CEO’s lap. The CEO starts to fondle the boy.

Zoom in on the chest of the boy.
“Do you like me to touch your nipples?”
"No, please don't touch me there!"

"Would you like me to touch you there?"

CEO touches the young man on his private parts.

(Okay. I took a deep breath. Interesting.)

CEO continues to rubs the boy on the nipples and sticks his tongue in the boy’s mouth.
The boy protests. CEO orders more staff in suits to come in.
Zoom out. Total shot of the room.
The other staff members in suits undress the boy, kiss him, rub his private parts, take off their ties and tie the boy’s hands to his feet. CEO starts to orally work on the boy’s private parts while the other staff members start to spray the boy with lubricant from a very large bottle. All sorts of vibrating plastic toys “Made in Korea” appear and they soon disappear into the boy or are being used to rubs him on the nipples.

(Oy. Now I am hooked.)

Five more staff members wearing only underwear are ordered in and after the CEO has seriously intercoursed the boy, he orders the 5 staff members to urinate on the boy’s face. And so they do. Zoom in.

(Oy.)

CEO says. "I think this is enough punishment. I hope you will do a better job. You can go back to work now."

(Swallow. Really... should I move to Japan and be lousy at my job?)

I am forty minutes into this movie and wonder whether I am still interested in watching History Channel’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

My husband walks in.
I switch off my computer.
“What are you doing, my little princess?”
“Honey. I think you are going to get very lucky tonight,” I say with a big smile. "Where are my Korean toys?"

I know the above is quite a strange thing to write for a former nun, but what the heck. I live in Thailand now.

Recycling Thai style

They recycle in Thailand. They separate plastic from paper, batteries from latex, paint from glass. They just do not separate it at home or in containers down the street. The garbage collectors who collect the rubbish at the end of the day stand in the back of the garbage truck, opening garbage backs and check the contents. Plastic, food left over, condoms, needles, other sharp things, rotting fish left-over, fetuses, whatever (without gloves or protective clothing). Whenever there is a dead baby in the garbage, they call the police. The police call the media stations and they send camera crews over to report on the discovery of dead babies. I do not know how they find out about the origin of the baby, but they always claim that the dead babies are from Cambodian, Lao or Burmese descent. Perhaps because Thai people would never put babies in the garbage?

Welcome to Thailand.

Soon a story about the IQ of Thai people and why the Ministry of Education feels embarrassed that Thailand ranks as low as they do (and why the number one university offered me a job as an English languague professor, despite the fact that English isn't my mother tongue and that I am not a qualified or certified teacher).

AM I REAL OR FAKE?

Is this a real photo?

Rejected

Shortlisted but rejected

Rejected

Rejected

Accepted but needed a little retouching
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Today I received a letter from someone who had bought my novel Pantau in India. She wanted to know whether everything in the book is true and whether the photo used for the front cover was real.

Errrrrrr.

I have had a few similar letters over the past years, and I was even asked on live radio and during television interviews whether the information I provided in my autobiography was real or true.

Errrrrr.

Regarding the photo. I don’t really understand why people think the photo is not real. I asked them about it.

“Well, it looks as if you have been cut out of another photo and placed among a bunch of Tibetan monks.

“O”.

So, it appears that I am not really sitting for real among those monks eh?

Let me enlighten you. The photo is real. It was taken by Angus MacDonald, a Dharamsala photographer. The concept of the photo and book cover was mine. I thought it would make a lovely cover if I would sit among a bunch of maroon clad monks. I intended to ask some monk friends to pose for the photo and be very Streisand about the light and composition, but there was a teaching going on at the Dalai Lama temple and there was no need for posing and the light available was natural. I just sat down on the floor surrounded by monks while Angus hovered around me with his camera taking about 300 pictures of which 299 were rejected. The monks knew me and I just told them “Keep praying and listening to the Dalai, Angus is taking a photo for a book cover.

So here are some rejected photos of the same photo shoot. I must say that the photo that got shortlisted was a little retouched as I had some nasty shadow on my face and I asked the photoshopper, a nice Japanese girl, to get rid of the rings under my eyes as well. As for the rest, the photo is real as you can see for yourself.