Siam

Sa wa ti kup. (Greetings)
At first Thailand is not an easy place for Europeans or people from cooler climates.
It is hot and humid and slightly cooler in the evenings. Most people get a little sick in the first few days. Some of the sickness is due to different bacteria than we are used to and some of the sickness is probably anxiety about health and strangers.
Today the day before the wedding we finally met the family of Art, the bride. We didn't know that the tradition is to get to know the family after the wedding. This evening we are being taken to a sunset on a beach somewhere on the Island (Phuket).
At 7:30 am tomorrow we will be all dressed up ready to visit several temples and homes to give prayers to ancestors and family and for the bride and Groom. This will take several hours of driving and standing in the heat in our suits and gowns.
At 5pm the wedding feast will begin and we will greet the guests in Thai each one as they come in. There will be about 400 guests, mostly Thai, with religions from Buddhist, Moslem and Christian backgrounds.
SO I am thinking of Lhakpa's last writing and I try to keep in mind, we can only change the world by facing and tackling our own demons. When the golden light shines from us, it is infectious and that will change the world as it does everyday. Those that would make war for whatever reason and take the lives of others are deluded and very sick souls, the more power and wealth they have, the more wretched they become, they will rot and decompose in their own stench.
Over the top, well I am reading Henry Miller at the moment and grasping some of the Buddhist essence that pervades the air here. It cures the stench of sewerage and petrol exhaust. Every honk of a took took or bike reminds one, life is fleeting and it is a gift. Phuket is being swallowed up in the rush of tourism and decadence, but one can still see here the influence of the Buddha on peoples faces. As greed and the crass develop perhaps that will go, but I think not, It is infectious and even those clawing to the material need only a reminder that our true destiny is Love.