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A Quick Update
I have been on holiday this July, which has been great. I stayed in Taichung for the first week to run some errands and catch up with friends I don’t often see. Then I went to Thailand for two weeks.
There I first visited Jerry, who used to live in Taiwan, but who now lives in Chaiyaphum, north-east of Bangkok. I met his wife, and she is a truly lovely lady, of limited means, but dignified and astonishingly open-minded. (Asian culture does not encourage individualism.) Moreover, despite a limited English vocabulary, her ability to talk on a vast array of subjects, and to make herself clearly understood, was truly bewildering. Jerry, too, seems to have found some peace in his new surroundings. He was always an agitated man, needing to DO at least something. Now he is relaxed and at ease. He has certainly adapted to what I like to call THAIME, that is, it will happen when it happens.
Jerry and Tong
It was dead hot in Chaiyaphum, and on Sunday I begged for rain, which did come, and lowered the temperature by about 8°C. Sadly, I really got what I asked for, and it did not clear up for the remainder of my stay in the country.
After a weekend with Jerry and Tong, I joined Joanne and Anuschka on the beach on Koh Chang, an island near the Cambodian border. There I enjoyed a relaxing if wet 10 days. There were very few people around, which was both good and bad. Good because there is no noise
at night, no fight for the best seats in restaurants, and low, low off-season prices. Bad because it is nice to meet people on holiday, and because so many of the restaurants and businesses were shut for the season.
I took a more expensive bungalow.
I had actually intended to do a package tour this summer as I have never done one and felt that it was time for a nice hotel room. But the package tour to Palau I had in mind would have cost the same for four nights as my entire 16-day trip to Thailand. My bungalow here would have
cost 2700 baht / night in high season, but I paid only 900 baht a night.
Just as well. On many occasions the rain was too heavy to be comfortable outdoors,
and so I spent a lot of time in the luxury. I also took my computer with me and did some work for my piano classes, in between watching movies and taking long baths with my book. Joanne and
Anuschka had met a British couple, Chris and Helen, who were volunteering at a vet on the island, and they
took a break to spend a week with us at our beach. That helped to reduce the annoyance of the rain.
Joanne, Helen, Chris, Anuschka
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With regard to the loss of Leanne, well, that’s a process. Mostly life is going on as it should, and I am able to both participate in it and enjoy it. Sometimes, however, the pain of losing her is so consuming that I feel certain it will crush me to death. I suppose this is just what one has to go through at the sudden and unexpected loss of someone who made such a difference in our lives. For those of you who know the TV show Will and Grace, Leanne was my Grace (though in character they are nothing alike). In many respects she was my other half. The idea of never seeing her again is pure torture.
In loving memory of Leanne Spencer
Having said that, please don’t worry. I just want to share this with you. I have lots of support, and get through it I must. It will take a long time, years maybe.
Lots of love from Far East Asia
Malcolm
