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A beautiful person (looking into her mind), beautiful people

“We are to love in deed and truth, not just word and speech … we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Dan Foster
(Some of the below names are changed for confidentiality.)
3/19/2007 – An email from Leslie to Diane & Marisa
Hi friends,
Maryam was discharged today about 1:00. I saw her yesterday and had a long visit + began trying to make arrangements to have A____ (brother) admitted at Green Oaks as his condition continues to deteriorate. Maryam and Nabilah both want him hospitalized and put back on his meds but he has continued to refuse to go into the Baylor ER altho staff have assured the family that he would be admitted. I did not go to the apt today as they were waiting for the Hospice Nurse so I don’t know if Nabilah and her husband who arrived yesterday were able to take him to Green Oaks after I left yesterday- that was their plan when I left about 4:30.
Leslie in her office, 1982
So see how this sounds for a plan:
Tomorrow while Nora and I finish with patients and close the clinic, maybe the 2 of you could visit her and see that everything is in place with Hospice (I have the # for Vitas but don’t know what Social Worker and Nurse are assigned). I will plan to go on Friday and over the weekend. We need to visit whenever we can- she has begun to have increasing symptoms as the cancer spreads throughout her body. Two days ago, she began having severe pain in her right leg, a result of it spreading to the bones in that leg, and yesterday she began to have difficulty swallowing. So Min predicts that she has only a short time (when pushed for an estimate, she told me 4-6 weeks and maybe less). As the cancer progresses, Min says that she will decline rapidly so we need to schedule ourselves to go by any day we can. If we share and you take Thursday/Friday beginning next week, I’ll take the rest. It is a great comfort to both Maryam and Nabilah to have us so I think we must do whatever we can.
I’ll bring the phone numbers and address tomorrow and we’ll work out the details. Diane, Maryam loved the flowers that you brought and tells me often how much she loves us.
If either of you are praying people, now would be the time. My heart breaks for this family, scattered all over the world, who in the end don’t even have their Muslim brothers and sisters to support them. To my knowledge (and Min’s) there has only been one visitor from the mosque in Richardson and that was at least 2 weeks ago. Of course, we haven’t discussed the irony that this beautiful Muslim girl would die surrounded by a Jewish Dr., his Hindu Nurse, a fellow wounded soul from Burma and her Christian friends from Agape.
I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for your help.  

Leslie

——————–
We ought to lay down our lives for one another
Lay down our lives for one another
Lay down our lives
For one another

More on grief, bereavement, war, bread, randomness

(Some of these photo are unrelated to the words. They’re just pictures I took.)
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Part of my problem is that I had it so good for so long.

Baked October 2015. Rustic sourdough
with pecans, currants, cinnamon (part of my therapeutic work)

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Let us be kind to one another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle. Ian MacLaren
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One of the things I taught in hospice training and courses on hospice and palliative care was that each of us goes through the processes of dying, grief, etc. in different ways, at different speeds, in different cycles – and different at different times for the same person. It’s yet another example of the truth of, “It varies.”
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Seven months into this bereavement I looked at some of what I’ve written in the past about grief. I haven’t looked before now because I thought it best to experience whatever/however it is, without being influenced by external things, such as my own and other people’s previous thoughts about grief.
1967, a beautiful little town in Vietnam
Overall, I seem to have done a good job writing. So far, I like most the grief and bereavement chapter in my first book (1995). How can I “like” what I’ve written about grief? Mainly I like it because it’s accurate and helpful, at least for me. There are a few things I would change in what I wrote, but overall, pretty good. Grief WORK includes the following “tasks of bereavement” – each and all to be worked through again and again and again and…
  • Telling the “death story” and recounting the story of the illness (It’s not that you want to…)
  • Expressing and accepting the sadness
  • Expressing and accepting guilt, anger, and other feelings perceived as negative
  • Reviewing the relationship with the deceased (the really good part for me, usually)
  • Exploring possibilities in life after the death
  • Understanding common processes and problems in grief
  • Being understood or accepted by others

Baby playing by Carroll Street, 1982
I like that in that chapter I wrote about the potential for grief to “precipitate great personal or spiritual growth.”
I see myself working slowly through all of these tasks, but I’m not seeing much in the way of “growth” LOL. It’s a hopeful thing to see that I’m somewhere along the road in each “task.”
I get to easier places of not so much sadness and I get a little strength and kind of take on the next thing. Like today, writing to Dr. Lichliter (first draft). This was the first time I wrote about that last night.
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Phana (age 3 or 4) and me, 1985 or 86
I was in New Mexico to see Jim and Elisabeth a few weeks ago. The day I left, Katy had us over for breakfast (Thank You!). As we left her home, she was talking about attending a ceremony in the next weeks. The last thing I remember her saying was something like “… figuring out what to do with the rest of my life.” Good question!
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I’ve baked bread twice in about the past week. The second time was mainly for gifts. Both times I baked rustic sourdough – plain, with cheese, and with pecans, currants, sugar, and cinnamon.
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la rue sans joie, civilian bus blown up by VC mine
In the last post I wrote about war. A little bit more now – about places. I was at the DMZ (Deckhouse/Prairie), Dodge City (Thuy Bo), Con Thien (outside the wire, but I’m counting it), Gio Linh, Highway 1 (named by the French, the Street Without Joy), Khe Sanh, Lang Vei (How about that! I have several non-violent stories about being there.), Hue (before the bad time), Quang Tri (before the bad). I also spent a total of about four weeks in the rear at Danang and Phu Bai, also a few weeks at Dong Ha in the semi-rear.
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One thing I do is get out every day – usually twice/day. My main places to go are Central

Never too young to start smoking, I guess

Market and Whole Foods. Places with people around. More days than not I spend time with a friend or John (Thank You, Everybody!). Yesterday I went to WF twice – the first time was really good – I ran into someone I think highly of (hospice and mental health social worker from San Francisco). Also a friend from the festival scene, and there was a cute baby who gave me all kinds of smiles and a ~12 year old girl who had such a sweet smile I literally laughed out loud. The second time at WF was also good. I realized today that I could hang out in the café area inside or out and read. So I read for about an hour on the patio.

At Hill Fights, 1967 – wounded waiting for medevac
Look at how dirty their shirts are – that’s not just sweat

I thought going to church today would be a nice opportunity to connect. The sermon was on the Song of Ruth, which was one of the last things I said to Leslie – wherever you go, I will go… So I connected to the grief, my grief. It was a tough one. At least we didn’t also sing In the Garden or That Old Rugged Cross. I went to Open Ring and spent some time with Dan Foster, so that was wonderful
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Things happen, like the Song of Ruth sermon or when I finally started on income tax, couldn’t find everything, and called Social Security re how to get papers related to Leslie and was told to bring our marriage license to the SSA office. Oh. So I’ll be going through things like birth certificates, marriage license, photos, other things from a sweet past life… 

Leslie in Yoeun’s apartment on Carroll Street


Photo: Leslie in Yoeun’s apartment on Carroll Street. Leslie went places not many people went. People would wait on her, knowing that whatever it was, Leslie would fix it.

A screw-up, getting it right, lost, good things, a knight and a girl, song across the river…

Last night I was thinking about how my parents always said I was undependable – couldn’t be trusted – and they were right, where they and their deals were concerned, like school and family things. I was a screw-up.
Angel at La Boulange October 2014

And I thought about how for the rest of my life I’ve been completely dependable – a go-to, get-it-right person – in the Marine Corps/in combat, in rock-climbing, in hippie culture, in my marriage, with my son, in hospice, in the barrio/with refugees, in taking care of patients as a nurse practitioner, in the community…

This was actually a huge revelation for me.
————
A month or so ago I had a conversation with a woman working at Trader Joe’s. It turned out that she had spent a year traveling in Asia, studying Buddhism – on a pilgrimage. Today I was in Trader Joe’s and chose her line. She said she remembered me and I told her I remember her – and in fact, have a small gift for her, but didn’t bring it. She said I would remember it when the time was right. I said, I dunno. She said to have faith in myself; and then told me that yesterday she felt lost and so wrote down some positives in her life (that’s one of her practices).

Street of Dreams, Hue 2005


The day before the above conversation I said to Phana, “Sometimes I feel lost… not in geography, but emotionally.” Yesterday I posted this in my blog: “(a few weeks ago) I was some sad the past few days. It began to lift as we drove on I30 today. I realize now that part of the problem was likely that for several days I had abandoned the practice of each evening writing down three good things that happened that day – because so much good is happening. Ha! So much good, so much sad.”
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So that was one good thing!

Goldy, David, Judo about 2005

Breakfast with Ron Cowart was good. He has been a significant source of support –
I read a good book.
Had a very nice dinner with Shirin yesterday evening – good time, good food.

Contact with David every day…
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The first time I understood about sexual abuse was at the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Transitions workshop in 1978. A young woman talked about having been repeatedly molested by her mother’s boyfriend with her mother present… The woman was talking about this for the first time. She was filled with pain and shame and loathing. I was staggered. I had no idea. It’s not like I really understood, but I did get a clue.
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Welcome!

Monday
I was thinking this might be a difficult day. But it wasn’t all that hard. I kept thinking about why aren’t all the beautiful times Leslie and I had together enough. I don’t know. But I do know how infinitely grateful I am that I never held back telling Leslie how I feel – how I adored her, how much fun she was, how pretty she was, how I respect her, how I love her – all those kinds of things. Other good things that happened today:
Went to the gym for what I call a sedate workout.
David and Leslie, Hue, 2010

Did a complete clean of the kitchen, breakfast room, and back bathroom.

I asked my next-door neighbor for a recommendation for a place to tune a bike that’s been sitting in a shed for 2+ years. He said he’d do it – as a gesture of thanks for all the cookies I’ve given him.
I received a surprise package from Amazon. It was a CD (Shaina Noll, Songs for the Inner Child) from Elisabeth in New Mexico! 
I’m rereading Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. The author sent it to me after he read something I wrote about the book – I posted the following on September 2, 2013:
A book about a knight and a girl
CK at DMZ, 1966

When I got to the end of the book, Between Two Fires, by Christopher Buehlman, I actually cried – not a common response from me. The book is about a knight and a girl during the plague years. Though there are many differences between us, I identified more strongly with the knight than any (literary or living) character I’ve encountered in many years. He had been stripped of his knighthood, excommunicated, and had lost his home and family. He joined a band of brigands and was wandering the countryside, stealing and killing. The bandits came upon a girl at a farm where everyone else was dead. Some of the bandits were getting ready to rape her, but the fallen knight killed them. He and the girl then set out on a quest, for what they didn’t know.

They journeyed through the plague-decimated countryside and towns guided by the girl’s visions. Along the way people helped them and hindered them and gradually, they encountered greater and greater evil. There were temptations and fear and pain and love and joy. In the end, there was a terrible battle, then peace; there was redemption.
It blew my mind the extent to which I identified with the knight, though I haven’t lost anything close to what he lost, nor done what he did. But I have been on noble quests; I have faced death squarely in battle and elsewhere; I’ve defended the defenseless, been face to face with evil, tried hard to do the right thing, had visions/followed visions. I have been redeemed.
Tuesday
Stung Sankae – Battambang

Over the past few years I’ve gotten into the habit of making coffee in the evening and putting it into the refrigerator and then in the morning, having coffee as I awaken. This morning I was playing Songs for the Inner Child (CD sent by Jim and Elisabeth) as I had my coffee. I was reminded of one evening in Battambang, looking over the Stung Sangkae  (a river running through the edge of town) and hearing a woman somewhere across the river singing in a beautiful voice into the mystery of the Cambodian night…

Gym, 30 minute workout.

Elisabeth in Santa Fe, 2015

Thinking back on Jim and Elisabeth’s visit to San Francisco. You can tell a lot about people when things don’t go exactly as planned, e.g., a long bus trip to a long walk to an underwhelming destination, followed by a long wait for the next bus. Fine, no prob. Alright! The three of us connected during those days – the connections were/are deep.

How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than beautiful
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle
How deeply you’re connected to my soul…

David, my beloved Son. What peace and love you’ve given to me. 

Books for David

I have a lot of books – several thousand, several walls of them. About 35 of these are in a section I told David I’d like for him to keep after I die. Here is what’s there.


The Hill Fights: The First Battle of Khe Sanh (Edward F. Murphy). I was in the Hill Fights (168 KIA, 1000s wounded). Hidden away in all the struggle in the book a guy described something I did, so that was nice to read.

Refugee and Immigrant Health (Charles Kemp and Lance Rasbridge). Lance and I (not to mention Leslie!) spent countless hours in the streets and apartments of Dallas’ refugee neighborhoods. We wanted to tell some of the stories of the remarkable people we worked with in the bad old days.

Dispatches(Michael Herr). This is a real book about combat in the world’s first rock & roll war. Guns up! Balls to the wall mother-fucker.

Street Without Joy (Bernard Fall). Fall was the preeminent French scholar of the Vietnam War. He also wrote Hell in a Very Small Place, about Dien Bien Phu. I spent a lot of time on and around la Rue Sans Joie, where Fall was killed in 1967.

I Remember Nothing More (Adina Blady Szwajger). A book about the Warsaw (ghetto) Children’s Hospital. “…a testament to the workings of humanity in an era of unfathomable evil.”

The Norton Book of Modern War. British ditty from WWI: “The bells of hell go ting-a-ling for thee, but not for me…” I have a lot of books on war. I didn’t set out to do that. I just pulled together the most important books to me and many of them turned out to be on war.

Barrack Room Ballads (Rudyard Kipling). This is the book where (the road to) Mandalay is found. The last time we were in Burma we went to Moulmein, in large part, for me to sit where Supi-yaw-lat (the girl in the poem) sat “…lookin’ eastward to the sea” and when I looked to the west I saw the damp dirty prison where the donkey cart driver who took us up the hill had been tortured. His wife was a doctor, so I gave him several courses of levofloxacin as a gift to her.

We Were Soldiers Once…and Young (Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway). The Battle in Ia Drang Valley (LZ X-Ray). One lesson is never let the enemy cut your column. They tried to do that to us in our first operation at the DMZ, but couldn’t.

Never So Few(Tom Chamales). This is the only book Chamales wrote. It’s about guerrilla warfare in Burma in WWII. I think I first read it in high school – I learned a lot about being the kind of man I am from this book.

Cambodge(J.P. Dannaud). The “essence du Cambodge” in photos and words, from the 1950s. I spent a lot of time looking at the photos in the early 1980s, but the words are in French, so I missed >95% of that part.

The Stones Cry Out: A Cambodian Childhood, 1975-1980 (Molyda Szmusiak). “That night Robana, Ton Ny’s six year old sister, had a dream in which she saw someone very like an angel who carried an armful of five lotus blossoms and spoke to her. ‘Don’t be afraid, my little girl, I’m keeping your mama with me. But you shall go on living’ … the first to die were the two five year old twins, three days apart, lying silently on a bamboo pallet; then two other brothers… then…”

In Hue, beautiful Hue


Terminal Illness: A Guide to Nursing Care (Charles Kemp). I worked in hospice 1978-1981 (Director, Clinical Specialist), then taught undergraduate and graduate courses in hospice and palliative care – and most of the time was seeing someone as a volunteer. Several publishers wanted this book; I chose Lippincott because they were Bernard Fall’s publisher.

Amazing Dope Tales (Stephen Gaskin). Stephen was my first teacher. This book isn’t aboutpsychedelics; it is psychedelic.

How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service (Ram Dass and Paul Gorman). The book answers the question of the title, mindfully, humbly.

Monday Night Class (Stephen Gaskin). Excerpts from Stephen’s Monday Night Classes. “It answered all my wishes and all my childhood dreams, and it gave me everything I wanted.”

Night(Elie Wiesel). Nazi concentration camps. “That night the soup tasted of corpses.”

Up Front(Bill Mauldin). Text and amazing illustrations, Willie and Joe, fighting a terrible war, in the mud and rain and drudgery. “You’ll get over it Joe. Oncet I wuz gonna write a book exposin’ the army after the war myself.”

Journal(Charles Kemp). Short, really just a few notes.

Hell in a Very Small Place (Bernard Fall). The Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Horror, gallantry, mistakes, death in 1954.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (Jules Roy). Another account of Dien Bien Phu.

For the Sake of All Living Beings (John Del Vecchio). I vow to become enlightened for the sake of all living beings (Buddhist vow). This a novel about Cambodia, the war, the years zero.

To Bear Any Burden (Al Santoli). An oral history (Vietnamese and American) of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.

Everything We Had (Al Santoli). An oral history (American) of the Vietnam War.

Journeys Through Bookland (Charles Sylvester). I inherited several volumes of these well-illustrated old books (excerpts from classics) for boys from my father.

Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson). I read this book many, many times. A great story.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain). Another great one.

Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain). And yet another.

Tuna Fart Funnies (C Kemp). Notes from anatomy and Physiology – courses that were central to me in changing direction in my life.

Time Magazine on September 11, 2001.

Refugee and Immigrant Health (Charles Kemp & Lance Rasbridge). This was the first (shorter and limited) edition of this book.

Holy Bible, RSV. This is the Bible I used writing parts of the terminal illness books and related articles and chapters in other books.

At Khe Sanh


I Protest!(David Douglass Duncan). Dark photographs from Khe Sanh, Con Thien – all the bad places I was. Goddam, it was hard fighting in those places.

The Quiet American (Graham Greene). To me, this is a very realistic novel about Vietnam.

Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, Charles Kemp, Carrie Kovarik). Put it in your backpack and head on into the edge.

The Lover(Marguerite Duras). A short, very beautiful book about a woman and a man in Vietnam.

River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam (Jon Swain). A book about how “whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, or journalists lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong … there are places that take over a man’s soul.”


There’s a lot of darkness in that list – and some hope and light hidden away in there. And obviously I read many other things, but those are the books that I thought and still think are most important to me. To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season.

Hail storm

Goodbye

It was the worst hail I’ve seen and when it was over, water was coming through the ceilings in five rooms of our house, there was structural damage in the attic, and a couple of windows broken (including a small section of a stained glass window). Both cars were trashed, the garden destroyed (except the roses did okay), trees stripped, bird bath broken, and even the charcoal grill was bent. And I keep finding other things.


Front walk in April

Goodbye old Campry. I think you’re totaled. With the back seat out and my feet in the trunk I’ve slept in that good old car in TX, CO, WY, NM, AZ, KS, and OK. It was always a good feeling to get back to a trailhead after 5 or 10 days on the trail and know the car would start right up, and so it did, every time. I loved the anonymity of it. David used the Camry to go out – it was the car he learned to drive in. Really, that Camry/Campry was the best car I ever had.


Similar view of front walk in June

Leslie and I were supposed to go to Cali tomorrow for David’s Birthday and Father’s Day. She’s going and I’m staying here in case of rain and to interact with contractors face to face. Leslie can do her work with contractors, etc. on the phone (she’s a force to be reckoned with) in Cali as well as Dallas.


I keep thinking about seeing people on the news standing in front of their completely destroyed house saying, “We’re alive.” It’s not like that, but it’s not fun. Friday: just got word that both cars are totaled.

Ahh, Leslie

I sent this to you almost exactly a year ago. And here I am again, saying…

(Click here to hear it) There were trains, and we out-run ’em; There were songs, and we out-sung ’em; There were brighter days, never ending; There was time, and we were burnin’; There were rhymes, and we were learnin’ – There was all the love two hearts could hold.

And after all this time, you’re always on my mind; Hey I could never let it end, ’cause my heart takes so long to mend; The dream that keeps your hopes alive; The lonely nights you hold inside; And after all this time, you’re always on my mind – I still want you

There was rain, that we outlasted; There was pain,

but we got past it; There were last goodbyes, still left unspoken; There were ways I should have thrilled you; There were days I could have killed you – You’re the only love my life has known.

And after all this time, you’re always on my mind; Hey I could never let you go, a broken heart that heals so slow, could never beat for someone new, while you’re alive and I am too; And after all this time, you’re always on my mind – I still love you.

And I could never let it in, ’cause my heart takes so long to mend; The dream that keeps your hopes alive, the lonely nights you hold inside; And after all this time, you’re always on my mind – I still want you; Hey after all this time, you’re always on my mind – I still love you.

The food post

We eat cheap. Still, as we’ve gotten older we’re eating more often at more upscale places like where the seats have backs; but often it’s still plastic

stools, standing on the sidewalk, or the floor of the guesthouse or hotel. It’s hard to find better food or have a better time. What could be better than this (Photo at left)… In our Bangkok hotel room – The Ultimate food – mango and sweet sticky rice with coconut milk, and in this case, some mangosteen!


All the food photos are here. Or just keep reading for descriptions and some photos.

We’ve broken the Asian food court code. These food courts aren’t remotely like what Americans think of as food courts – no franchises, just vast amountsof totally ethnic, totally cheap, and really good food. Yesterday, for example, we ate at Big C, a middle-class mall in Bangkok: First, we got some masaman (Muslim) curry and sticky rice at the back of the grocery and some jackfruit. We went up to the food court (aircon, seats with backs, hot water to rinse utensils before using, all the right stuff), where we got larb (fine-chopped chicken, chillies, lime juice lemon grass, fish sauce) and rice. All this was about 100 baht or a little more than $3USD. Today we had green curry with rice, pad se eu (flat noodles with pork and vegetable), fried shrimp, and jackfruit for dessert – again, about 100 baht. So this post is all about the amazing food we had on this trip. ****means Hall of Fame; everything else was excellent to good.



Fruit in various places: Jackfruit, mango (really amazing mangos), mangosteen,

pineapple, papaya, banana (not the same as American supermarket banana), watermelon, rambutan, lychee, pomelo, and mixed fruit smoothie

Photo: Food alley in Hanoi

Hong Kong: Our goal in HK is to have all the duck and pork we want, all the dim sum we want, and all the brilliant shrimp wonton noodle soup we can eat – big wonton dumplings with the best shrimp everDim sum from a street stand in Mong Kok, including hargow (steamed shrimp dumplings),

sui mai (steamed pork dumplings), steamed BBQ pork buns, fried curried chicken rolls, steamed pork with black beans and chillis, stuffed fried dumplings

Roast pork with rice and vegetable

BBQ duck with rice and vegetable

Indian food, including curry, samosas, naan, pickles

Ham and egg sandwiches at Cherikoff Bakery or 7-11 (7-11 not the same as in U.S. – way cheaper).

****Shrimp wonton noodle soup almost every day at Tsim Sha Kee – the shrimp here have a wild taste, unlike the bland shrimp we get in the US – and vegetable with oyster sauce

Chicken tikka masala, naan,

pakoras, vegetable samosas, and milk tea in a hallway at the Chungking Mansions

Photo above: Binh Thanh Market food court; photo left: bun cha

Vietnam: Porkarama! Vietnam is the place where pork, especially grilled, reaches a pinnacle of porkdom.

****Banh cuon (steamed big crepe with pork, vegetables, served with herbs,

fish sauce, and massive amounts of smashed fresh garlic in vinegar)


Photo: That’s the banh cuon lady in her little queendom; following photo is the banh cuon served with fish sauce, garlic, chillies, herbs, and nem.

Nem (like egg roll but all meat)

Banh xeo (like a big crepe with shrimp, pork, vegetables)

Bun bo Hue (spicy beef stew with noodle)

Bun thit nuong (grilled pork on cool noodles and vegetables)

Nem nuong (grilled pork wit

h sauce and vegetables)

****Grilled pork chop on rice with egg and vegetables; always with strong iced coffee

The coffee!!! – $.50 for large iced strong

Banana pancakes


French fries

Noodles with vegetables, chillies, and garlic

Fried bread stuffed with shrimp

Cha gio

Garlic bread

Omelet with baguette


Photo: The people who make roti in Chiang Mai


Banh khoai – kind of like a fried pancake folded over pork and

shrimp – cut it into strips and wrap them into rice paper with steamed bean sprouts, cucumbers, lettuce and dipped into nuoc mam-based peanut sauce.

Chicken fried with garlic and chillies

Fried dumplings, one stuffed with

yellow bean and some coconut and the other a “salty mystery mix” including meat


Photo: Part of the food area in the “walking market” in Chiang Mai


Cambodia: Most of our meals were with Samnang’s family – a blur of good food and good company

Various soups


Stir-fried beef, chicken

Chicken with garlic and chillies

****Raw beef salad

Red curry with noodles and baguettes


Picnic food (written by Leslie): We ended up with whole fish (1 large and 4 small) fire-roasted on skewers; chicken with ginger (every piece perfect with its fair share of bone); a whole roasted chicken; hot pot with soup, vegetables and assorted meat; lotus seeds; whole steam
ed tamarind; rice steamed in metal tubes served with sugar, cinnamon and grated coconut; other gelatinous, sweet morsels. Amazing!

Photo above: Food court food in Bangkok at Siam Paragon – Red curry, chicken with cashews, satay, larb, vegetables, rice, all kinds of sauces – about US $5 for everything

Thailand: Here is where the food fun really takes off. We experience Thai food as a brilliant melding of sharp, sweet, sour, spicy, sometimes rich, and always fresh. Fish sauce with chillies and some variation on lime and ugar is part of almost every meal; other sauces usually available.


Photo below: Khao soi stand – serve yourself to vegetables


****Mango with sticky rice and coconut milk –

I had this every day in Thailand

Red curry with steamed rice

Green curry with steamed rice and lots of herbs, etc.

Panang curry with steamed rice, cucumbers

****“Meat curried in sweet peanut” – turned out to be masaman or Muslim curry – this was from the Big C grocery store, served in a plastic container, 39 baht. We took this + some unsweetened sticky rice up to the food court where we also got some larb and steamed rice and various fish sauces. Finished the meal with jackfruit.


Photo below: Meal at Big C food court – pad se eu, green curry, fried shrimp – US$3 for all


****Khao soi (red curry soup with noodles, crispy things, chicken and various vegetables


Jungle curry, which was okay – red curry soup with a lot of different vegetables

Satay (chicken, pork, beef in various marinades)

Grilled chicken, grilled sweet beef

Pad se eu (fried noodles with chicken or pork and egg and vegetable)

Spicy fried noodle with pork

Chiang Mai sausage – grilled, spicy, with lots of cilantro

Rice with chicken, Chinese sausage,
ground chilli paste, egg

Ground chicken with chillies and peanuts

Ground pork with chillies


Photo: Pad Thai street stand – 45baht for pad Thai with shrimp – good!


Tom ka (spicy coconut soup with chicken)

Tom yum (very spicy clear soup with shrimp)

****Larb, chicken and pork

Fish cakes, fried (this was just okay)

Sticky rice, sweet, flavored with fruit

Peanuts with garlic, lemon grass, citrus leaf


Photo: Entrance to a lane in Chinatown – ladies are cooking it up!


Northern Thailand sampler plate, including Chiang Mai sausage, eggplant and chillies, fried sour sausage, steamed vegetables, pork roll, pork crackling

Banana roti from the Muslim couple who set up a stand every night outside a wat

French fries

Pad Thai

Som (papaya salad with green beans, lime, tomatoes, etc. with dried shrimp – [the ones with little beady black eyes]; also with crab)

All sorts of vegetarian breakfast things at the Lanna House in Chiang Mai, like noodle, soup, pizza, pineapple, watermelon, banana


Photo: Rice with two things place in Chiang Mai – 30 baht!!! (US$1)

Phnom Penh

Rolling into Phnom Penh, into the “bus station” and looking out the window to Sokhom waving. There’s Samnang. Far out, we’re here. Load our stuff into the Camry and make our way across town to the family’s new house, the front of which is exactly like the old one – a small cafe where motorcycles drive right in between the bar and the 3-4 tables. Chanmony and Sophear are waiting for us, along with Than, Jeudi, and Uncle Da. Up the steep stairs, into the room where we’ll stay, wash up, have some (really good) dinner. We’re here. Photo: Children I saw on a walk (described later) Phnom Penh photos are here

In the past we stayed a block from Psar Tuol Tom Pong (Russian Market). This time

we were further out, but still, an easy 8 minute $2 tuk-tuk ride to the market. Phnom Penh this time was mainly spending time with Samnang’s family, including the totally Cambodian family outing described below. Jeudi’s food was stellar as always – it was a really nice, relaxing, homey time.

The following from Leslie’s email to David: Yesterday was Chinese New year and Tet is today, so the big markets, etc. were closed yesterday and today. We had planned to spend several leisurely hours down by the riverside. The girls wanted to join us (a day completely off because it’s Happy New Year!) but then Samnang took over the “plan of the day” and announced it at breakfast this morning – a family expedition to Udon, the old capital, lunch there and a tour of the ruins.

We brought water; beer; soda; Samnang’s bottle of liquid herbal medicine; and my frozen bottle of tea. The girls actually wore long sleeves and Sokkhom brought (and wore) neck scarves for all the women. Needless to say, I just carried mine.

So off we went at 9:20, six of us in the Camry and three on a motorcycle, missing only Than. We arrived at 10:40 after only one short stop for gas, and entered the “park” area which is free for everyone except foreigners @ $1.00 per head. Photo below: The street where we stayed

The road that lead to the way up the mountain was lined by umbrella-covered

food vendors. The opposite side of the road had long thatched-roof pavilions with wooden platforms covered in mats for families to rent for picnics. We unloaded water, etc. from the car onto one of the platforms and David, Jeudi, Da, and Sokkhom went off to fetch an assortment of food from various vendors. We ended up with whole fish (1 large and 4 small) fire-roasted on skewers; chicken with ginger (every piece perfect with its fair share of bone); a whole roasted chicken; hot pot with soup, vegetables and assorted meat; lotus seeds; whole steamed tamarind; rice steamed in metal tubes served with sugar, cinnamon and grated coconut; other gelatinous, sweet morsels. Amazing! Photo below: One of my favorite photos – children in a temple

We ate at 12:15 after all the above was

assembled. Jeudi served as always and ate last, but she, Samnang, and Sokkhom all ate tons which I’ve never seen before.

About 1:20, after lunch and naps, your Dad, David, Mony, and Sophear started up the mountain while Samnang, Sokkhom, and Jeudi all napped some more while I wrote this and caught up trying to balance $4 million VND – I’m not kidding!

The hikers returned about an hour later, soaking wet and tired. After quickly packing up loads of left-over food and fixing a doggie bag for Sali, the dog, we pulled out of our spot at 2:30, and the Camry occupants arrived back at the house at shortly before 4:00. The poor three-some on the motorcycle had their 2nd flat of the journey and didn’t get back until about 6:30. And you guessed it, Jeudi then prepared and served dinner. It’s incredibly hard work to have her job in this household.

A couple of observations: shortly before we left the park grounds, a hit-and-run driver struck and killed a woman on a motorcycle about 50 yards from where we were. It drew large crowds from far afield, but there was no outcry or anger at all. Samnang didn’t explain

that there’s been a death until I asked again in the car on the return trip. It was surreal. Photo: The family outing

Your Dad told me that on the mountain top, there was a woman responsible for cleaning around the stupa; but she just threw all the trash over the railing. Why would that even cross your mind?

It was a long, hot interesting day.

So that’s it for the day here. We both had a cold shower that felt wonderful and have crashed watching the Australian Open. Hewitt is doing a beautiful job holding his own against Djokovic, and the home crowd is going wild (me too!). Photo: Sophear

CK’s account of the hike up

the mountain: After lunch, in the heat of the day, cousin David, uncle Da, Chanmony, Chansophear, and I headed up the hill to the stupas. It was a hot walk, three hundred and some odd steps past quite a few beggars to the stupa, but not bad. Oh, there’s another stupa, up more steps and past more beggars and another and another, so by the time we got to the last one, I was pretty hot – we were all hot and sweaty, even cousin David (the one who set the pace). From the last stupa we could see far across this flat, green watery land – it was like we could see across Cambodia. The stairs down were very crowded with fellow holidayers (that’s the short way up and down) and more beggars and even some monkeys. Photo: The view from the mountain


My internet friend, Henning and his partner, Mint picked us up one morning for breakfast at Jars of Clay, one of the aircon places near the Russian Market. It was good to see them. This is the third time we’ve gotten together in Phnom Penh. Henning is a world traveler since he was a child and has vast knowledge of Cambodia and the near and far east. Photo: Random family on a moto. I wonder why MVAs are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Cambodia…

From there we spent a few hours in

the market. Interestingly the woman we’d bought silk from before remembered Leslie and asked after David. It was hot in the narrow, crowded aisles, but it’s been hotter. Another nice thing was

that I saw a woman with some serious burn scars who before had always walked around selling on foot; now she has a small stand. When we were done we went back to Jars of Clay and had some coffee and then some food – in comfortable chairs and air-conditioning.

I went for a walk yesterday morning, the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday, the Year of the Dragon… through narrow lanes, past children playing and some just standing, past a few food vendors, people selling this and that, then unpaved alleys (faint sound of drums), past people eating, sitting, washing in front of houses, past some apartments – a narrow walkway with cell-like rooms on each side, then through narrower passages with a few people standing and sitting, some pretty hard looking, staring at me or not, hearing he sound of drums louder and louder and

the passage opening up and out in to an open area next to a large market and some people around and lion dancers leaping and whirling and shaking their heads and of course the weird round-faced mask guy fanning ghosts. Photo: The round-headed guy who’s always a part of the Lion Dance

I walked up out of the market area to the dusty road, even though it’s now paved, that leads to Choeun Ek, a few miles away where mass graves have been emptied, but with shards of bone and scraps of rotted cloth still in the dirt – I was there in 2005, never having imagined that I would ever see mass graves and planning on never seeing any again, remembering that it was an unpaved, much dustier road then, and a mentally hellish ride back and now I walk across the road to a kind of wooden dock perpendicular to the road with 8 or 10 ramshackle 1-2 room houses on each side 20-30 feet above muddy, polluted water and from there back up to the road, past a couple of life-ravaged prostitutes in an open-fronted “massage” place with a sign saying 10,000 Riel ($2.50USD) for services,

just the two of them, sitting on low chairs, singing karaoke about 7:45 in the morning, loud. I’m not making any of this up. Photo: Houses built over the water


All in all, it was a low-key, relaxing visit. On the way to the airport Leslie saw a sign that said “Orphanage, Tourists Welcome” – part of the new orphanage industry, I imagine. It was on the road to Choeun Ek, a lucrative location, no doubt, what with tourists leaving the mass graves and thus vulnerable to guilt-inducing pitches for donations. Motherland, cradle me. Away we go.


The bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh

We’ve ridden buses all over Southeast Asia for many years now – a lot of good trips, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes a little long, but always good, always good…

Notes taken on the bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh, staring out the window, in a dream… On the road again, through the streets of Saigon where there are more trees in some (older) neighborhoods than one might expect. The streets aren’t nearly as full today as on days before – Tet! Drummers and dancers coming through the neighborhood yesterday. The dancers wear silk robes – one dancer has a jolly, but kind of menacing mask and the other has a bearded sage face; both carry fans and one of them fanned bad winds or spirits out of Leslie. Photo: Sunset over the Mekong

Endless streets thinning out…semi-rural now with gardens and some padi (what people call rice paddy)…different varieties of palm trees…tile roofs, tin roofs…banana trees, bigger gardens, mango trees…small river, padi, bamboo…many businesses closed, many yellow-flowered trees in pots (for Tet)…big market open…Catholic church with a large statue of the virgin dressed in blue and pink.

My iPod playing Loser by the Grateful Dead. It’s live and Jerry is playing one of the hottest solos I’ve ever heard him play. Chinese cemetery, people burning paper money, padi, water buffalo – yeah! Only a few people working the fields today.

Now the Stones from the ancient Got Live! Album. I know I’ve told this story before, but here I go again. Through a series of events I ended up my time in Vietnam 1966-67 in an Army “psyops” unit because they needed a few Marines to go on Marine operations. That’s how I ended up in the Hill Fights – bad shit. One of the things we did on operations was at night to haul some pretty big speakers up into trees and broadcast stuff to the enemy, like Buddhist funeral music and how hopeless their situation was so far from home, and so on. It wasn’t part of the plan, but we also had some rock & roll tapes, including the Got Live! album. We liked to play stuff for the Marines, like, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows.

But right now it’s, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, and despite all the blood and darkness, yeah, Vietnam, I’ve been loving you too long, “I can’t stop now, too late, I can’t stop loving you now, no no no…” A school – pale yellow stucco, like schools all over Southeast Asia, one story, in a U, with a veranda all the way around the inside dirt playground. Goats…trees with clusters of white flowers.

It’s time for lunch – egg, cheese, cucumber, cilantro, and tomato baguette sandwich from the woman who sets up at the end of our alley for a few hours every morning. Each of our sandwiches is wrapped in half a page from a phone book and each cost 15,000VND ($.75). Tabasco completes the picture. This last morning the woman came out from behind her cart and hugged Leslie.

Cao Dai temple…guy across the aisle takes his shirt off. Fortunately he’s young and don’t smell bad. Visions of Johanna – “Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles.” Huge padi and one person out there – white conical hat in the green, IN THE GREEN. Some kind of orchard…bougainvillea cascading over a gate…red lanterns, yellow flowers – Tet!

We’re rolling through a small town, over a big river empty of everything but brown water and water hyacinths, no boats, no people…huge padi, empty empty, stretching far away – who ever saw an empty padi in Vietnam! Now I see two people standing together in the green and Robert Earl Keen is singing Feeling Good Again – “I looked across the room and saw you standing on the stairs” – this trip is intense. Photo below: Children begging at door of bus

Here we are at the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Everybody off the bus. Back on. Off. On, and five minutes after clearing the border pull into a bus stop cafe for 20 minutes, now on the road again, past the casinos, hotels, and brothels. Cambodia dustier than Vietnam…fields mostly

fallow, dry…more palms, houses different than in Vietnam, most set above the ground on pilings or stilts, smaller, most are wood, painted blue or ochre or gray or unpainted and weathered, shutters, not a pane of glass anywhere, tin roofs, some tile. And these days, only the countless little roadside stands have thatch roofs…big shallow lake and the water shone like diamonds in the dew…stucco school…more new houses every year…ox cart…motorcycles – motos”…Angker Beer sign (many of these)…water buffalo…blue and white Cambodian People’s Party sign…

Huge sere fields dotted with the single tall palms that are so perfectly Cambodian…massive fall of bougainvillea…houses, all with dirt yards. Black Angels, a psychedelic neo-hippie rock & roll band…bus swerves..shoot-em-up on monitor at front of bus…turn it up Black Angels.

Now the Mekong, rolling on through Asia and the ages…bus straight on to the ferry with beggar children running along beside the bus and on to the ferry to beg through the ride…children being given the (incredibly sweet) canned drinks and the crackers that had been given to each passenger by the bus company and the children clutching desperately at the cans and cracker boxes, fighting for them at times and the sun setting over the Mekong and the Dead doing Dylan’s It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – “Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, he’s crying like a fire in the sun … The vagabond who’s rapping at your door, is standing in the clothes that you once wore…strike another match, go start anew, and it’s all over now, Baby Blue.” Photo: Sunset over the Mekong

A trance trip on the bus, into the Cambodian night…


And now, for our listening pleasure, Dengue Fever – Uku (the Mekong) in case we needed some more trance

Saigon – taking it easy in the tropics

Mostly I photograph what I see as we walk around vs. “the sights.” Photo: the food court area at Binh Thanh Market – Action! Saigon photos are here

We had an inauspicious start to Saigon (and a sweet ending): At the airport, long a notorious den of taxi cheats (notorious even for SE Asia), we were caught up in the new dispatch system. Still a cheat, but only for a few dollars; even so, there’s an ill taste to being cheated. Through the rain and insanely crowded streets to the “backpacker alley” where our hotel (Kim Hotel – $20/night) is – too narrow for cars, so we got out at the entrance to the alley. I waited with our luggage under an awning and Leslie went down the alley and pretty soon here came the two young women who’ve helped us before and down the alley to the hotel we went, splashing through the water.

Checked in, bought water, went looking for something

to eat. We met a promoter and d-j who recommended a place. It was okay, but a little over-priced like a lot of places on this alley, which is on a steady march to mid-prices in food and lodging.


Photo: al fresco dining on Bui Vien Street

The next day we went to the alley where the people sell stellar pork chop and egg on rice with some vegetables. A great breakfast with more and more powerful coffee – WooHoo! From there to a bus place to get tickets to Phnom Penh. The buses are so full that we couldn’t get seats together, so took what we could get. Lots of foreigners headed out of town as most of Saigon closes down for Tet.

One of the things that’s happened with both of us in aging is that we remember less and less of our night dreams. More often than not all either of us can remember is that there were dreams. Now, in Vietnam, both of us are dreaming more and remembering more. Last night Leslie dreamed this (from an email she sent to David and copied to me): “I had a wonderful dream about you last night. When it began, you were your current age/appearance, but after a nap, you were a beautiful baby boy again (wasn’t a surprise at all in the dream). I wrapped you in a soft blanket and took you for a walk in your stroller, held you, etc. and it was incredibly happy and serene. I sat and watched your sweet

little face, especially your mouth, while you slept – just wonderful.

It was a rare gift to have the dream and to be able to remember it in great detail; both of us are so happy you’re our son.”

That was a nice one to hear about!

Photo: pork chop and egg on rice, with vegetable and coffee for breakfast

Back to the Kim for a lazy hazy tropical afternoon. This from email to Jessica from Atrium Obscurum: Back out to the streets, Leslie and I walking around – going a way we hadn’t gone before, through labyrinth alleys and passageways, just digging being there, stopping in at the “bauty shop” to get my beard trimmed (everyone having a good time with that). Stopped at a street vendor for noodles with vegetables, chillies, and garlic +

cha gio and cooold Saigon beer for dinner (little blue stools and metal table on the sidewalk of course). The Vietnamese variation on chilli oil is knocking me out! It’s hot here, after Hanoi and Hue – Ahh, Hue. Now back in the room listening to Solar Fields, feeling good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJKB6knW4FY

Photo above: flower vendors and customers in the rain – talk about sweet!

On to Binh Thanh Market. To get there you walk through a big park which is currently filled with flower and bonsai vendors in the most amazing display I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a few flower shows. We wandered through the flowers for awhile, then to the market where we got pretty much over-heated. Binh Thanh is the main tourist market in Saigon, so in addition to areas set up for locals, there are many stalls selling the same old stuff for tourists. Since this is Tet season, there are quite a few Viet Khieu (overseas Vietnamese) in town and the joint was jumping. I had decent Bun bo Hue, but Leslie was so over-heated she didn’t eat.

Photo below: Pham Ngu Lao, the backpacker area of Saigon

The next morning it was more pork chop and egg on rice, more coffee, more coffee, talking with the old lady who’s always sitting in the alley – not that we could understand much of what either of us could say. She walks (assisted) up from wherever she lives down the alley, sits in one of the three chairs

with a back, the coffee lady brings her a glass of coffee, she has a cigarette, someone sits with her, talking, drinking coffee, smoking together. The good life.

Photo: flower delivery

More flower market, more food court, this time for bun thit nuong, banh cuon, and fried bread with whole shrimp in it (I gave a pass to the heads). Back to the room for a nap and later for a walk, this time to a different part of the park, where we watched guys playing an amazing fast hacky-sack kind of kick game with a shuttlecock.

Photo: who wouldn’t love a Vietnamese girl on a moto, with her mask, her gloves

Then an exercise class led by a compact, muscular woman and then a different exercise class that was pretty sexy. Then along a street past the “open tour” buses, and on to the same place as last night for more noodle, cha gio, and beer. This place, by the way, was where last year when we were walking to catch the early morning bus to Phnom Penh, there was a huge dead rat about six feet from where we were eating this trip.

But that was then, this is now.

Photo: lots of women and girls posing for photos at the flower show.

Really, once again, it’s just being here. I don’t think there many of the “sights” we’ve missed over the past seven years. Here’s a big event for us: Today the woman who makes the banh cuon at Binh Thanh market came out from her stand and cuddled Leslie. Saigon travelers will know what an unbelievable thing this is like anyone

ever got affection from one of the food women here. Sweet. So that was the high point of the day in our exciting life.

Tomorrow we catch the bus to Phnom Penh. On the road again. Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

Photo: this is the woman who came around the counter to snuggle Leslie – uninvited, unexpected, such a beautiful thing to happen.