Yesterday I met two incredibly interesting men. They were both Anglo-saxon and both between 70 and 80 years old. One was a true Scottish gentleman, and the other a true subversive north american. Apart from the kindness, and the interest in different cultures that was common to both that was nothing else that made them alike.

The Scottish man was gentle and spoke softly. Everything about him was soft. He dressed like what I imagine british civil servants doing safaris to dress like. He was a patient man. And did not mind waiting for my slowness, nor the fact that other people were taking all of my attention. As a true British gentleman he waited in total stillness. When i was finally able to help him I was mesmerised. Not so long ago I had helped here a very nice Canadian couple that had taught in Morocco and in the UAE for 10 years. they were now teaching in Thailand and they had nothing really of positive to say about the UAE. This Scottish gentleman, close to his 80 had taught English in Saudi Arabia decades ago. As I asked him about it his face lit up. ” It was wonderful. The hospitality! I was invited to houses, and when the women would hide away their fathers and husbands would tell them to not be silly because it was me.” I was moved, he did not feel entitled to be invited to houses, he did not feel people should be behaving in that or that way. He talked like someone who was thankful for having had the chance to be there. I asked a thousand questions and as he spoke I could see the excitement of a little boy. I kept wondering about what makes someone leave Scottish mountains to go to the desert of saudi arabia but I did not ask. Even at almost 80 years old keep going learning about different cultures.

The second man was completely different. All that the first one was slow the second was fast. Million thoughts and million words. He was a physicist and had worked in many different projects. As a child he had had a Buddhist vision but at that time Buddhism was not popular in the West as it is today so he did not know what it was. In fact, he used to think all children had these Buddhist visions but simply did not talk about. This man moved in fast speed, carried a Buddhist monk bag and knew all that I possibly could want to know about Buddhism. I was amazed. He could actually answer all of my doubts about the lines of Buddhism, about the separations, about the different Buddhist, mystic and Tantric practices practice… All that had never remained clear from my conversations with lamas and monks he could answer. As we talked and talked I discovered he had been studying with the Tibetans for the past 40 years. He had been a monk, and considers himself a mystic. He had met the holiest of the lamas and had no respect for tradition. ” because something is tradition it does not mean is right. It simply means it has been practiced for a long time.” although he identifies much closer to the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism ( of which Tibetan Buddhism is part), he had also lived with the Theravada monks in Thailand as a monk for a year. He has an absolutely brilliant mind. One of those that is hard to follow because can think in abstraction just as well as in concrete terms.

What makes people like these two men keep crossing borders? Is it the life that they lived that made them this way kind of accidentally? Or is something they could not escape? Have they chose this life or has this life chosen them? They seem happy, and have lived intense lives. Would they do it again? Are they happy? What is the price they have paid to see other words from within? Everyday I wonder more and more about these questions. Does happiness come from belonging or from detachment? Where does it come from? I look at these two older men healthy travelling and living abroad in fascination. I look at them half mesmerised, half terrified. I want to see all they have seen, I want to see it all in the hope to dissolve all boundaries that separate me from others, but while I am successful in daily braking a little bit more these arbitrary language and cultural separations, I simultaneously feel more alone.

22- Lady Bar

A German physicist, a British scaffolder and I seat in an a lady bar. The physicist has just landed in Thailand. He wonders what a lady bar is. “a mix between a bar, a disco and brothel” answers my British friend. “So are all this girls “? ” Apart from that girl, and her mom who owns the bar yes”. That girl is Lolita. She is a girl, she wears a navy blue dress poked with white dots, it is tied on her waste. She smiles in that true discrete, and laughing Thai way. She looks like an Asian doll. She is the daughter of the owner of the bar. She is playing pool, she is amazing at it. Around the bar are mainly older Farang ( literally guava, but it is the word for white foreigner) men. “Are all these women prostitutes?” asks again the German physicist? We nod.

These Thai prostitutes are lovely. They are pure laughter and I just wished I could understand what goes inside their minds. Just as I could never really know what went behind Tibetan monks smily faces, I also do not know what goes behind these girls smiles. And probably to find out you have to ditch a whole bunch of preconceived ideas of what happiness entails.

Nong Khai lies on the border of the Mekong. It is the border town that leads to the “friendship bridge” into Laos. When I few years ago ( that now seem like in another life time) came to Thailand to volunteer I was asked to choose between a city, a town or a rural village. Seating on my very comfortable couch in London I decided for the rural village. I obviously had no idea what the ruralness of the village meant. I somehow thought in my mind that bc I was an anthropologist and came from south america I would cope just fine. As soon as I landed in Bangkok I realised I had been probably quite naive. It took me a while to accept that being in a less than 50 houses spread around village surrounded by rice fields where no farang went, with no running water, sauna like heat, not understanding language or culture was way more challenging that I had previously imagined. My catharsis happened then in a Buddhist funeral. Then things suddenly fell in place and I learned to love the simplicity of it.

It is strange how some knowledge is just embodied. Many times I was asked how was it that I got along in that little village without really knowing the language at all. Actually it took me weeks to find out they spoke Lao and not Thai. Yet all I remember is that we did communicate. Last night, as I sat in between two people on the back of a motorbike all these memories flooded me. I could really remember in my body taking these rides before. As I sat again in a lady bar puzzled by it I remembered the clandestine relationships I had seen taking place here when I first arrived.

I enter the kitchen and the Thai ladies who work here offer me some food. it is Jeh (vegetarian) they say. It is Coconut milk, bananas, sugar and salt. I don’t really want it but how can I refuse such an offering. I seat and we eat. We attempt conversation. they laugh the whole time. Suddenly I remember how it is that you start to understand things. You just have to ditch all that you know, all your preconceptions. Then you can have whole conversations even when you don’t know which language you are speaking.

21. Nong Khai, Incoherence

. I seat at the the communal table that lies under the straw like roof in the middle of the Garden of Mut Mee Guesthouse. When I look up I see the white light bathing the Mekong. On the other side of the river I see Laos. Behind me are lush green vegetation, trees, and some of the houses that host our guests. I look up again, turn around and I see the people. Some Nong Khai victims, some tourists.

Most people here have been here before. Nong Khai victims are those who have just stayed. Some have been here now for years. This place is crazy I think. In front of me I see some of those who just stayed. Computer geniuses, university professors, yogis. I see the Dutch sadu looking like painter who has been living in India for the past 25 years. There are also the temporary victims those who come to stay for one day and are now for over a week. What is it about Nong Khai?

Nothing really I think. There is a really interesting sculpture park. The promenade along the river is nice. In some places you see low tables on the pavement, some people who seat on the ground. Mainly thais having Thai food. You also see the older Europeans with young Thai girls. Lady Boys who you cant ( at least not at first) tell are boys. Prostitute bars that are really friendly like. There is the people who come to volunteer, the people who are crossing to Laos. There are the massage parlours offering more often than not happy endings. There is a total difference view on sexuality. There is nothing really that is that special about Nong Khai and yet it holds many here.

It must be Mut Mee I think. The communal tables, the craziness of the stories that go around, the fact that people suddenly connect and stay. It must be Julian and his story telling. I really don’t know what it is. The surrealness of all that could go on and just be normal here. This morning for instance we all watched a snake snatch a HUGE gecko from the wall. We watched the snake constrict it. It was like national geographic live. Ambivalent feelings from all. “It is nature” said someone so children, young, old people all looked and observed for hours the slow process of the fight between the gecko and the snake. The snake constricted, the gecko made noises, we looked anxiously, shocked, curiously, marvelled. The fight for life in both sides. I don’t know how many hours it took for the snake to manage to swallow the whole gecko. And as it finally did, this Thai man who no one knew grabbed a broom, and got the snake, took it on his hands, open its mouth, removed the gecko. It couldn’t be alive we all thought. He threw the snake away in the jungle and released the gecko who petrified at first barely moved. Then after the Thai man encouraged the gecko to recover from the whole shock somehow it did. The crowd was divided. Some were happy for the Gecko some felt pity for the snake that worked for hours for nothing. He was a monk. Barely spoke english had once been bit by a tiger in Kanchanaburi. We all wondered whether he had then removed food from its mouth as well.

It is strange Nong Khai. Watching that battle for life was strange. It felt like it was arbitrary my decision. Why was I supporting silently the Gecko, why did I also think it was wrong for the monk to intervene in the natural process of that snake finding food to survive? I wanted both things to happen simultaneously. I wanted both the snake and the gecko to win. That is it I know what is it about Nong Khai: it is ok to be completely incoherent here. It is ok for you to want completely contradictory things at the same time. Everybody does it everywhere but here they just don’t hide it.