Oh my gosh, I enjoy your writing! I went to Bangkok in 1982 on a University tour back when everything was "a marshy backwater, with families crammed onto sputtering scooters, corrugated lean-tos and flimsy fishing shacks on stilts." Our world is so full of amazing history and change! You are traveling and telling us about it all, so that we get to enjoy it through the lens of your pithy philosophy and talented authorship. What a joy to be on the ride with you and your little family. Thank you!
Jealous of your travels. My imagination runs wild at the thought of returning after nearly 50 years given your colorfully descriptive abilities to paint pictures. I only had 24 hours in Bangkok but my memory is clear on that experience of seeing it for the first 12, the next 12 are blurs of narrow streets, narrower alleys, smokey beer bars with western music, and smiling beauties that took your breath away. Next time I'll have the time to get out and see the rest of the country. Thank you.
Had the pleasure of visiting Thailand 2007-10, including Ayutthaya. Just fantastic. Appreciate the reminder. Wondering though: is it still littered with cigarette butts from the French?
Yes, the old is overcome by the new! The excitement of a new beginning... or is it the beginning of a new hatch of elites who will overcome and overtake these naive roots? History portends it is.
Thinking back to when I was helping maintain C-130 Klong Hoppers with the US Air Force at Takhli and Nakhon Phenom, Thailand, in the early 1970s. A buddy and I had a few precious days off and took an exciting trip to visit and tour Bangkok. He and I still reminisce about the experience. I haven’t been back in over 50 years and cannot even begin to imagine the transformation that has occurred there. Thailand referred to itself back then as the Land of Smiles. Life was simple and even backward. I just read that Thailand’s government legalized same sex marriage, joining Taiwan and Nepal as the only countries in Asia to do so. Somehow, I feel a little sad that Thailand is now coming of age and doing so much “better”.
I was a little saddened to see so many masked faces in Thailand... seems a cruel fate for the "Land of Smiles," as you say. I'd say (anecdotally) around 20-25% of adults and 25-30% of kids wore masks. I understand many wore them even before covid, but this was next level. Sad for such a beautiful people to be muzzled so...
We must be cousins. My first trip to Bangkok was in 1973 on a free standby Pan Am MAC flight from Honolulu - it was an R&R trip to get away from Hawaii :-) I've been back several times over the years. You would hardly recognize it.
The tree enveloping the Buddha statue is a Bodhi or Bo tree, sacred to Buddhists because it is the tree that Siddhartha Guatama sat under while attaining enlightenment. In Southeast Asia, when a seed from a Bo tree takes root on the ledge of a building, thanks to the wind or birds, Buddhists will not remove it. Bo trees can be very destructive and if they absolutely must be removed from a building, a Buddhist will ask a Muslim, HIndu or Christian to do the deed. The original Bodhi that Siddhartha sat under is long gone, but a magnificent cutting from it, the Sri Maha Bodhi is thriving in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. A cutting from the Sri Maha Bodhi is thriving in Foster Garden in Honolulu, so it is actually the same tree that Siddhartha sat under more than 2500 years ago.
Chinese the ever pervasive entrepreneurs, adapters to opportunity to survive, excel, learn and how they learn!
And this over the eons of war & peace, scholars and slaves, with the knowledge and the stigma of their own elite emperor ‘gods’ of yore and now, just the same only in different clothes and yet equally as ruthless.
Yes and then we have amazing adaption of humanity to use science, technologies, energy and as always travel, to accommodate 8 billion+ from 1 day old to some of 100+ years.
Historians we all are as we grow, but it’s the writer whom can capture thoughts of what happens today and why, who tickles the brain like Joel does, that makes life much more colorful.
I tend to like the old, to go to those ever-rarer temples that exhibit the glorious past.
I went on a quest to Sitting Bull’s grave in 2016. I don’t know why, but when I stood upon the wind swept plain overlooking the Missouri River, it was much the same as it was 150 years ago. I realized, as I traversed the country, as I did the first time, 60 years before, things had profoundly changed. Sitting Bull and I were born in one world and would die in another.
My daughter came into my office today and professed a sublime happiness. When your children are young, before school when they are pure, you see their potential. She now shows everything I ever envisioned. Five years ago, she was languishing in jail for drug possession.
She had a religious experience, now she has the fruit of that excellence in her life and the peace beyond understanding.
I can attest to the Four Noble Truths, there is a path to happiness, fulfillment.
I made the transition, not drugs to lesson my testosterone or a morbid operation; I transitioned from Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag” to his “In The First Circle.”
It is a glorious piece of literature. I read it many years ago, in high school, as I had read “War and Peace and Brothers Karamazov. I guess, over the years, we change the most.
Life is what we bring to it.
The theme of Solzhenitsyn’s writings is what he learned in suffering. He knows the happiness nothing can bring. He can help you get there.
I enjoyed the ride along memory lane with some segments of familiar track which I took between the 1980 and Covid. Mainly for work and some for pleasure, I remember the ghostly concrete/steel skeletons of a prior economic disaster sticking their gnarly fingers in warm and humid sky. Those scenes were subsequently covered by bustling activity before the next hick-up….. you have a fine touch awakening the memories!
I only wish you gave equally concise instructions how to join your column, because when I hit “Subscribe”, all I get is a note that I can’t do that from my app!
The BowmanFam are inspiration and enlightenment ... Your journey is my journey, thanks for sharing.
AC
Oh my gosh, I enjoy your writing! I went to Bangkok in 1982 on a University tour back when everything was "a marshy backwater, with families crammed onto sputtering scooters, corrugated lean-tos and flimsy fishing shacks on stilts." Our world is so full of amazing history and change! You are traveling and telling us about it all, so that we get to enjoy it through the lens of your pithy philosophy and talented authorship. What a joy to be on the ride with you and your little family. Thank you!
So kind, Judy. I'll get to posting some more videos, too. Best to you!
My wife and I were in Thailand & Vietnam last fall and loved both a lot. Would be great to retire in northern Thailand. Chaing Mai was wonderful.
Jealous of your travels. My imagination runs wild at the thought of returning after nearly 50 years given your colorfully descriptive abilities to paint pictures. I only had 24 hours in Bangkok but my memory is clear on that experience of seeing it for the first 12, the next 12 are blurs of narrow streets, narrower alleys, smokey beer bars with western music, and smiling beauties that took your breath away. Next time I'll have the time to get out and see the rest of the country. Thank you.
Thank you, good sir! I can heartily recommend a revisit. This river has changed since we last stepped into it. Cheers!
Had the pleasure of visiting Thailand 2007-10, including Ayutthaya. Just fantastic. Appreciate the reminder. Wondering though: is it still littered with cigarette butts from the French?
Fortunately cigarette butts are not everywhere! At least not that I have seen...
Miss your videos
Yes, I think we are deprived.
Cheers, Jim. I'll get back to posting 'em soon. Thanks!
Yes, the old is overcome by the new! The excitement of a new beginning... or is it the beginning of a new hatch of elites who will overcome and overtake these naive roots? History portends it is.
Enjoy your trip!
Thinking back to when I was helping maintain C-130 Klong Hoppers with the US Air Force at Takhli and Nakhon Phenom, Thailand, in the early 1970s. A buddy and I had a few precious days off and took an exciting trip to visit and tour Bangkok. He and I still reminisce about the experience. I haven’t been back in over 50 years and cannot even begin to imagine the transformation that has occurred there. Thailand referred to itself back then as the Land of Smiles. Life was simple and even backward. I just read that Thailand’s government legalized same sex marriage, joining Taiwan and Nepal as the only countries in Asia to do so. Somehow, I feel a little sad that Thailand is now coming of age and doing so much “better”.
I was a little saddened to see so many masked faces in Thailand... seems a cruel fate for the "Land of Smiles," as you say. I'd say (anecdotally) around 20-25% of adults and 25-30% of kids wore masks. I understand many wore them even before covid, but this was next level. Sad for such a beautiful people to be muzzled so...
We must be cousins. My first trip to Bangkok was in 1973 on a free standby Pan Am MAC flight from Honolulu - it was an R&R trip to get away from Hawaii :-) I've been back several times over the years. You would hardly recognize it.
The tree enveloping the Buddha statue is a Bodhi or Bo tree, sacred to Buddhists because it is the tree that Siddhartha Guatama sat under while attaining enlightenment. In Southeast Asia, when a seed from a Bo tree takes root on the ledge of a building, thanks to the wind or birds, Buddhists will not remove it. Bo trees can be very destructive and if they absolutely must be removed from a building, a Buddhist will ask a Muslim, HIndu or Christian to do the deed. The original Bodhi that Siddhartha sat under is long gone, but a magnificent cutting from it, the Sri Maha Bodhi is thriving in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. A cutting from the Sri Maha Bodhi is thriving in Foster Garden in Honolulu, so it is actually the same tree that Siddhartha sat under more than 2500 years ago.
Chinese the ever pervasive entrepreneurs, adapters to opportunity to survive, excel, learn and how they learn!
And this over the eons of war & peace, scholars and slaves, with the knowledge and the stigma of their own elite emperor ‘gods’ of yore and now, just the same only in different clothes and yet equally as ruthless.
Yes and then we have amazing adaption of humanity to use science, technologies, energy and as always travel, to accommodate 8 billion+ from 1 day old to some of 100+ years.
Historians we all are as we grow, but it’s the writer whom can capture thoughts of what happens today and why, who tickles the brain like Joel does, that makes life much more colorful.
Cheers, JayCee!
I tend to like the old, to go to those ever-rarer temples that exhibit the glorious past.
I went on a quest to Sitting Bull’s grave in 2016. I don’t know why, but when I stood upon the wind swept plain overlooking the Missouri River, it was much the same as it was 150 years ago. I realized, as I traversed the country, as I did the first time, 60 years before, things had profoundly changed. Sitting Bull and I were born in one world and would die in another.
My daughter came into my office today and professed a sublime happiness. When your children are young, before school when they are pure, you see their potential. She now shows everything I ever envisioned. Five years ago, she was languishing in jail for drug possession.
She had a religious experience, now she has the fruit of that excellence in her life and the peace beyond understanding.
I can attest to the Four Noble Truths, there is a path to happiness, fulfillment.
I made the transition, not drugs to lesson my testosterone or a morbid operation; I transitioned from Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag” to his “In The First Circle.”
It is a glorious piece of literature. I read it many years ago, in high school, as I had read “War and Peace and Brothers Karamazov. I guess, over the years, we change the most.
Life is what we bring to it.
The theme of Solzhenitsyn’s writings is what he learned in suffering. He knows the happiness nothing can bring. He can help you get there.
Marvelous. And congratulations to your daughter. May she continue on her path of freedom. Cheers!
I enjoyed the ride along memory lane with some segments of familiar track which I took between the 1980 and Covid. Mainly for work and some for pleasure, I remember the ghostly concrete/steel skeletons of a prior economic disaster sticking their gnarly fingers in warm and humid sky. Those scenes were subsequently covered by bustling activity before the next hick-up….. you have a fine touch awakening the memories!
I only wish you gave equally concise instructions how to join your column, because when I hit “Subscribe”, all I get is a note that I can’t do that from my app!