Friends of a Long Year is a private mailing list bringing stories to your inbox like it's still 1995. It's written in the spirit of Mary Austin. It was originally called Place Without a Postcard, which does a better job of summarizing what I like to write about. Friends is delivered roughly twice a month.
Doi Inthanan National Park, Thailand –
The light outside the windows was still a pre-dawn inky blue when the freezing cold water hit my back. A cold shower at six thirty in the morning is infinitely more powerful, albeit not at long lasting, as a cup of coffee. After dropping my body temperature a few degrees and having no towel to dry off with, just a dirty shirt and ceaseless ceiling fan, a cup of tea seemed like a good idea so I stopped in at the restaurant downstairs and, after a cup of hot water with some Jasmine leaves swirling at the bottom of it, I climbed on my rental motorbike and set out for Doi Inthanan National Park.
Chang Mai, Thailand –
The all night bus reached Chiang Mai well past dawn, the city already beginning to stir. I considered trying to nap, but in the end decided to explore the town. What better way to see Buddhist temples than in the dreamy fog of sleeplessness? Chiang Mai has over three hundred wats within the somewhat sprawling city limits, most of them reasonably modern and, in my opinion, not worth visiting. I narrowed the field to three, which I figured was a nice round one percent.
Bangkok, Thailand –
The house Jim Thompson left behind in Bangkok is gorgeous, but the real charm is the garden and its orchids. I wandered around the gardens which really aren't that large for some time and then found a bench near a collection of orchids, where I sat for the better part of an hour, occasionally taking a photograph or two, but mostly thinking about how human orchids are.
Bangkok, Thailand –
"The city is a cathedral" writes James Salter, "its scent is dreams." Nowhere in Bangkok is it more so than in the view from the top of the Baiyoke Sky Hotel.
Bangkok, Thailand –
Seasons Greeting from luxagraf. I'm in Bangkok, Thailand at the moment. I am taking a short break from traveling to do a little working so I don't have much to report. I've seen the two big temples down in the Khaosan Rd area, but otherwise I've been trying to live an ordinary life in Bangkok, if such a thing is possible.
