Diamonds and Rust

I began the week feeling miserable and depressed although I had no grounds for it.

It wasn’t the lack of sun, central and northern Europe have been enjoying an exceptionally sunny February,but I felt nasty and was being nasty to those around me.

Then I heard within twenty four hours from three friends that I don’t see often.

A woman that I met on a beach in Thailand and found that we had so much in common .

A person far away that has influenced me and who I love so much it hurts.

And someone else who over the years has become more and more a friend to me.

I am so thankful.

This morning a note of paper with this printed on it fell out of a telephone book while I was looking for a number.Someone had sent it to me, I don’t know when with the message; ” It would be great to see you again”.

I’d like to share it with you,

The Circle

A ball is a circle,

No beginning, no end.

It keeps us together

Like our circle of Friends

But the treasure inside

For you to see

Is the treasure of friendship

You ‘ve granted me.

How could I have felt so miserable.

Call a friend.

Having struggled through the Summer trying to paint outside. Never quite getting the depth I wanted in the picture, but realising that the wrong nuance of green could ruin it completely, and at last accepting that artists cannot paint what they actually see. It has all to do with the science of colour and optical illusion.

My trees still didn’t look how I wanted them to. My water was improving a little, but the reflections in it still weren’t a lot like reality. In fact as my painting course finished for the holidays I was completely demoralised.

I took off for Thailand late August and carted my Moleskin, water colours, brushes,pencils and even masking fluid around for over a month without doing anything except make a couple of sketches. I really couldn’t, and didn’t want to paint anymore.

Last week I saw that an Artist Blogger Friend had looked into my posts after quite a long time,probably checking out my progress. Somehow it gave me encouragement and I phoned my art teacher to say I would be joining the Autumn Classes after all.

I went for the first time yesterday. We painted Autumn leaves, and I felt I belonged. The painting didn’t look too bad either.

My Asian fever has been cured.Relapses are of course known,but at the moment I’m just enjoying being back in Switzerland where the trees are no longer the colour of best Burmese Jade and today we can almost smell snow in the air.

I experienced so much on my trip to south east Asia.I met so many lovely caring people,saw so many things that the impressions will stay with me for ever.

Nothing negative happened to me in the month that I was travelling,so all I can say is to anyone thinking about it,especially middle aged women who want to go it alone -just do it.

One thing though; don’t even think of carrying weighty guide books with you.Leave all your Green Planets,Travel Know How,Baedecker or whatever they might be called at home. Maps along with historical and geographical information are of course usefull ,but the rest too subjective and usually out of date in this fast changing world.

Greet people with a big smile and you will get to wherever you want to go even with sign language.

I’m looking forward to sharing some of my impressions with you.

The start of my Asian Odyssey is slowly nearing.

I can’t back out of it now without losing face.Not that I want to,I’m really looking forward to the new experience.There are just some days when the little voice inside of me asks if I haven’t perhaps bitten off more than I can chew.

Already I have sworn never to open a travel guide again until I reach Bangkok on the 23rd,and then just purely for reference purposes. To read all the well meant tips is enough to give any woman nightmares.

The problem is,it is completely the wrong time of year to visit south east Asia,and poses a question on what to take with me.

As readers of past posts of mine will know I’m supposed to be backpacking. The Rucksack is now one with wheels and the volume it should hold is increasing daily.

I was never in the Girl Guides but a motto of mine is definitely “Be prepared”. Especially when you are travelling.

I remember after sitting for hours at an airport gate in Saigon on way to Singapore, watching (sorry) an American businessman completely loose his calm when we were told at last we would have to spend the night at a hotel. It wasn’t that he would miss his meeting in NYC, it was because he didn’t have a clean white shirt in his hand luggage to wear to the next one.

Usually I have things in my luggage,hand or otherwise, for every occasion,and at times I have been very glad of it.

The packing experts say we should never take more than we can carry comfortably for a distance of two blocks, but with weather conditions in the north of Thailand I might even need my Wellingtons. Then of course it might not rain continually and so my once so lovely red hiking shoes might be the the shoes to have up in the golden triangle, except they do tend to give me blisters. I could fall back on myTeva’s although I might get very dirty feet. My Crocs might be useful and I could also wear them on rocky beaches. Naturally I need a pair of decent looking flat sandals so I don’t seem too much like a tourist when I’m walking around on town streets.

And of course I will be staying three days in Bangkok- someone might just ask me to have dinner at “The Oriental”. Maybe my Ferragamo heels should come along too.

So I do have shoes for every occasion, it’s just that there is no room for clothes.!

Sometimes I’d like to be a man.I’m sure they don’t have these problems.

It would be a dream but it’s way above my budget,a ride on the Eastern and Oriental Express.

Yesterday I saw a programme about it again,and it showed a sequence over one of it’s passengers; the British Lord T. who was more than half way through his nineties,and had only started to travel at the age 87. !

Admittedly he could afford to do it in comfort and with a wheelchair in easy distance,but at least he was going the slow way between Singapore and Bangkok.

It made me feel a lot better, a lot younger and a lot more courageous. You see I havn’t got rid of my travel bug,and my friends all think I’m mad. But I’m retired,I’ve got time and my husband doesn’t want to come with me.

Yesterday the printer spat out a piece of paper .

ZRHDXB-DXBBBK.

Does anyone have any tips how I should stay out of trouble apart from stay at home?

Would you all say I was a little mad that after my ‘coming of age’ on the 19th 0f March-(and its not my 21 st Birhday,but the day on which I never have to work again) I might consider packing a rucksack and getting myself on a flight to somewhere in Asia.

Yes, I do mean backpacking.To those far away places with far away names.

For those who might now be saying,’just do it’ I must admit I have during my married life been a 5*person and roughing it would be a little unusual.

My budget would of course under the circumstances be restricted,so only if absolutely necessary could I pull out a credit card that even in an unwashed and unkempt condition would give me entrance into one of the aforesaid abodes.

The second handicap-and for me probably the greatest, is that I have a hysterical attitude towards anything that creeps or crawls, especially in showers or bedrooms,and to get around this problem have always had a man within shouting distance.

But still the urge to tramp through Asia is very big.

I was a hanger on 68er and while my colleagues were sitting it out,or running away to Goa I was following the rules. Now I feel it’s time to break some of them and do mad things. Do these things have an age limit?
I’ll keep you all posted.And if there is some old 68er out there who would like to come along.I’d have nothing against it provided he could remove unwanted guests.

”Clay lies still,but bloods a rover;

Breath’s a ware that will not keep.

Up, lad: when the journey’s over

There’ll be time enough to sleep.”

A.E Housman 1859-1936

A Shropshire Lad 1896

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,

There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, an I know she thinks o’ me:

For the wind is in the palm-trees, an the temple bells they say:

‘Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay’

Come you back to Mandalay,

Where the old Flotilla lay;

Can’t you ‘ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay?

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin’ fishes play,

An the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘ crost the Bay!

This poem of Rudyard Kiplings was as a school child one of my great favourites.It definately awakened my fascination of the east.

‘If you’ve ‘eard the East a callin’, why you won’t ‘eed nothin else’

No you won’t'eed nothin’ else

But them spicy garlic smells

An the sunshine an’ the palm trees an the tinkly temple bells!

On the road to Mandalay.

Ship me somewheres east of Suez where the best is like the worst.

For the temple bells are calling and it’s there that I would be-

By the old Moulmein Pagoda looking lazy at the sea.

I didn’t get to Burma but read about Aung San Suu Kyi , and I read today that a 400 000 signature Petition for the release of 1100 political prisoners had been handed to the military rulers. It was the first without the influence of the Nobelprize winner.

I’ll be going soon.