Aerobics on the River, On to India!

Hello there,
How are you? I trust life holding you beautifully and pouring life into you! As for me, Bangkok has been a great refuge for me. Lots of fun, introspective time, walking around and new experiences. First let me start by saying I decided to go to the Weekend Market here, OH MY GOSH! I've never been to a market so BIG! It's HUGE! They have everything, well that I could see. And I only touched only a little part. You can easily get lost, thank goodness I'm directional otherwise I'd still be there wandering around-well not really since it closes at 6 or 7pm. But they have bags, clothes, furtinure, food, entertainment of all sorts, that greatest I saw was a diggeridoo player,he was great and I'd never seen a doo extend in length, it was fun!
I decided to go down to Siam Square, this is no shopping place in the US, well yes it is and no it's not. It's like one of the largest malls I've seen times about 6 or 7. As there are about 4 malls right there in a row or maybe 5 and each one of them is 4-5 stories tall, any where from Thai stuff to Gucci and anything in the US. The electronic stores are heaven to look in, man oh man, Heather do not buy that beautiful little computer, get out now! So I did! I've loved writing so much, computers are just so much easier for me-to read and to write on. Well they have a Starbucks, as someone told me there was one, YEASH, but no Chai Latte, bummer;(! If you are going to have a Starbucks you have to have a Chai, it's the best thing in there for non coffee drinkers!!! ; ) Well I found out there is one on Khoasan Rd too, the main tourist road, but nuttin' in there for me! That's good anyway. I will be getting the real chai from India.....TOMORROW!!! That's right I fly out tomorrow. I'm thrilled!!! Ecstatic and so HAPPY. Yet, the funny thing is the travel agent gives me my visa and tells me my ticket will be in tomorrow morning! YIKES! Cutting it close, but so Thai, they've had a whole week to get a ticket and they wait until today-an Indian Holiday (it's with Indian Airlines) and she couldn't get the ticket. So I'll get it tomorrow at 9:30am-ish and on to the shuttle at 10am ish. I'm sure it will all fall into place.
So this place is so human, a contradiction of terms-aren't we humans!!! ; ) Well Thailand has done something so great for their people. They saw that their people were getting obese, yes most of their children (about 80% or so) are obese from all the Western food. Well Thailand decided to do something I feel the world would be a much better place for: they put in free morning and evening aerobic classes for anyone who wants to show up! How terrific! Well what did I do? Yep, I went on down and had a great kick my butt workout with my favorite music artist, all at ultra fast music! Talk about high impact, these people need low impact but they are doing slow impact since they can't keep up, but they are doing great to be there. How lovely to see so many out doors working up a sweat, their back view is the sunsetting over the river and bridge in the background. It was stunning to turn around and see that in the back of us. Sweat was flying off of me, it was great. Me in my Tevas, getting blisters, just doing my aerobics outdoors, no words were used, just hand motions. I ended with dancing like a mad woman and then people coming up and thanking me for joining them and telling me to come others as everyday there are different teachers. I wonder if the country pays the teachers or what. But how amazing, could you imagine in the US, no excuses of "can't afford a gym" well, it's free! Since I come from a family that is about half over weight this is a real concern for me with my family!
I have another great thing to compare to my life here. There are these 3 wheeled tuk tuks here that are used like taxi's without meters and have big puffs of smog coming out their back end-talk about getting in shape just to take a nice breath in of smog or cigarette smoke, makes sense? not really but it's what happens. Anyway, so tuk tuk drivers are so used to saying "tuk tuk" and before getting an answer they walk off, well it's so like when I was in high school these boys would walk up quickly and nervous and say "would you like to dance" and before I could answer they'd be walking off and barely hear me say "yes" and then they'd freeze and turn around in shock-as if they'd possibly heard wrong. So funny. They'd ask if I said yes and I said yes. I'd ask them "why would you ask if you'd walk off before I answered", they'd resonse, "you are such a great dancer I assumed you must be stuck up". Thank goodness I was far from that and got a few male dancers as a girl in high school! Anyway that's what the tuk tuk drivers reminded me off.
The Thai women here really blow me away, so many of them are bigger then the boys, not fat, just bigger boned, they hate to look in the mirror and think anyone with white skin is beautiful, but not them. Where as the boys are feminine, every chance they get to look in the mirror, primp or check them selves out or fix their hair they do it. They love it. It's liket the opposite from what I'm used to when I was young. Even the bus drivers check themselves out in their mirrors in the bus and they aren't even young.
I have met up with 3 people now from Bali. Two of them really felt stuck there also, couldn't stay or leave. They felt it was the black magic that they do there. Well what ever it was it was powerful enough for me to almost extend my visa, thank goodness I didn't-thank goodness Amma spoke to me and told me to come to India as I'll have enough time to spend a few days in Calcutta and then take a 20 hour train trip down to Madras, stay with that family I met on the train and then go the 16-20 hour train trip to Kerala-I may break it up, but who knows how, as I won't know until I get there! Luckily Amma has extended her stay so I have a little time to play with! The Universe is working in my favor! Thank goodness! Anyway, back to Bali, I won't say all of Bali is "bad" or tranced, I'll just say the Ubud has an intense energy, it hit me everyone I met that loved Ubud stayed outside of Ubud and only came into town to do business and go back home. It's like a magnet to keep you there. Anyway, I'm happy for the great people I met and the batiks I made and the classes I took! Plus some of the day trips and Gili was just brilliant-everything happens for a reason! Just funny to hear others that have gone through what I went too.
So I went to my first movie theatre on this trip. Well it starts out with 15 minutes of previews-so those of you whole like being a little tardi, this is perfect for you! Then they start showing pictures of their King on the screen, everyone stands up at attention to honor their King,that means tourists too! Can you imagine if we had to do that with our president. I wouldn't go to a movie for 8 years, no thank you, I'd rather puke! Just my opinion. But they love their King so much. They have photos of him every where and the line from the Lion King, "Long Live the King" all over. And they have it written on those yellow plastic bracelets that we have in America for donating to I forget what. But the King is getting old so they are concerned. So dedicated to their leader and love him so much.
Well I'm not sure how you are about loud music or even more distorted music, well I know how some people feel about this. But I have gone into some restaurants, markets, and malls that their music is completely distorted from blown out speakers or too loud of music. So you are sitting their listening to all of this music from these vibrating or is it lack of vibrating speakers that sounds, let's say not so great. It's funny, they don't seem to notice! I love this. America seems to have everything so perfect,here, no way! It really makes you look and think, why do we do things "this way" or "that way". I mean speakers are different. But they'll do other funny things like sit you at a table, walk off, and go do a few things before you get a menu (as you are hoping you'll be on time for the movie!!!). The thing that kills me is these waiters that will serve you your meal and there is no way he could tell you what you look like? He's there and gone before you know it. You are saying Kop Koon Ka (Thank you) to no one by the time you look up. It's such an empty feeling to know that you are just another thing they serve with no care. It really feels sad to me. I mean really we need to look at our lives, where are we not seeing the people around us, caring for out customers, really hearing the other person speaking or focusing even on what we are talking about. Are we on automatic and care about what we are saying or are we just talking to talk? I sometimes catch myself talking and half the way through I realize I'm not even interested in what I'm saying, how can they be if I'm not? Yikes! It makes me think, if I'm not passionate about what I'm saying why should I open my mouth? I get more and more that there is less to say if you take out all the filler talk-the non important things. It's like rice-filler food! Not much nutrition (if it's white and some others) but it fills you. And here boy does it fill you. I have to limit myself to only one rice dish a day. Otherwise there goes my girlish figure!!! ; ) I'll be cleansing it all out in India thank goodness! I've spend the past few days going in and out of bookstores researching Ayurvedic clinics, resorts and every where in between in India. I'm very excited that I have found amazing places from free to over $55.00 a day for treatments! There is also some kind of martial arts there that I may look into. There is a ton of creative stuff there too-painting, pottery (free classes on these), on top of yoga and the list goes on....
Back to the people here, it is so sad to see so many Thai women with these Western men. They really look to be with someone that can take care of them, they get a mans number and call them constantly, until the men throw out their sim cards and get a new one, but then they catch one or a man catches one of them and then they look miserable. Not all of them but so many of them. I can't imagine. And so many of these men are leaving in days, weeks, months or coming back every few months and who knows if they wait around or go find another, they just look so unhappy. The difference my friends and I have seen is that in Bali most every one puts on a happy face no matter what and here you can see what they are feeling. The men always look happy or some don't speak or can't speak to their mates, who knows which. But something feels off. I just realized that most of the guesthouses in the area say "no Thai's upstairs" or "no Thai's without permission" to keep the prostitution out, thank goodness. But then some women who are not Thai are stopped and told they can't go to their rooms, as they think they are Thai but they aren't. Pretty crazy for those girls. The women here with Western men don't seem to have a voice, they seem so small, but my sense is once they would get their men they'd become themselves again. As so many of them are out spoken, but around men they are being courted by they become different.
This is something I noticed in my early 20's women being nervous about going on a date. I couldn't understand it. I talked to them about it and it came from not really being comfortable in their skin with themselves and feeling they weren't enough and they didn't have a choice, only the men had the choice. If we always keep in mind, we are choosing too then there is no problem. I have felt that feeling in my life at times of feeling like "will they choose me" but when I turn it around to "will I choose them" all of a sudden it brings my power back to me. How many times have we either gone out with someone as they wanted to or taken a job as we felt like we had no other choice? We always have a choice. I realized I walked into a job interview and they were shocked that I had just as many questions for them as they had for me, if not more. They were taken back realizing that they were being interviewed too. Some people actually like that as they know that you care and want to like where you work-work takes up so much our time, we might as well be happy where we are and with the people-the people make the place you work. I can deal with crappy work (well I don't think I've had crappy work before, always doing massage, hair, personal training and one deli job as a kid)as long as I get along with the people I work with. That is why I just couldn't do hair in LA, the people in the industry are too much to handle and everyone who comes in to get their hair done has this gorgeous hair with curls and they want me blow it out to straight so they can look like Jennifer Aniston (I love her), but let her be her and you be you. It was just too much attitude and not enough heart for me. I'd try to talk to them about their hobbies, passions, things they do for fun and it's like they weren't their or understand or just wanted to talk about the Biz or negative things. We need to really look at where we are happy and not and see where we can change. That is what I'm doing on this trip. Man or man, and I have encountered some resistances this week, YIKES, I had no idea I could be so resistant to the next step. But it's there, really there. So on to letting go and finding the way to forgiveness for the self. My system is struggling with it, not sure how but I'm sitting back, feeling it, seeing it want to run, feeling the tears, breathing and breathing some more and just watching to see if I get the answers to myself forgiving me. I feel self forgiveness is one of the hardest, as we are so hard on ourselves. I mean, to forgive another sometimes is really hard especially when people do such horrible things as rape people, kill people, etc but how do we forgive ourselves for putting ourselves in those positions? No one teaches this, forgiveness of the self. This is my next step, so I'll keep listening and loving and see what's next. It's funny I walked down the street today and every sign I saw I breathed in forgiveness-it's Bangkok, lot of breathing here and forgiveness in those breaths but after a while you can hyperventalate!!! (sp?) So maybe every street sign next time, and it keeps you present too, instead of thinking of yesterday or tomorrow.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, the movie I went too....I went to see Miss Potter, if you haven't seen it, it's so sweet. Touching and well, it's a great story that turns love story in a oldies kind of way, for me a tear jerker, but that is me with.....well you'll have to find out for yourself. Talk about some who knows what they want and go for it no matter what! At that time it took a powerful woman to go through what she went through and bust through to the other side. Another great movie to tell you to do what you love, what your heart wants to do and all will fall in line, it' powerful, she had no idea how successful she was at first as she wasn't doing it for money but she was able by the end to help so many in the end saving land, it was just so wonderful, what a great story of faith in ones self, ones art and going for it! And YEAH for fathers for stepping in and encouraging their daughters!
So my friends I really am loving it here, I'm so thrilled about India, but right now I'm pooped and need my bed. Considering a massage before bed, who knows if I will. But my pillow is really calling me though! I miss and love you so much and send you many hugs. Be well, be in love with your life, keep breathing, and keep in touch, I love hearing from you. Love and blessings, talk to you from India next, Heather
Mal and Jade, yes I promised you photos of me on my blog, but this place doesn't allow that from here, maybe next time. I haven't forgotten!