Thai Dawn

The dawn comes up early in Thailand.

The hills take on their misty silhouette and a cooling breeze pushes it’s way through the mosquito screens.

Then suddenly, as though observing a conductors baton the birds twitter and sing in unison,hundreds of them.

Depending on your mood and at what time you found sleep the night before you might call this early morning chorus a God awful din, or the most beautiful sound in the world.

It lasts perhaps eight minutes,then as suddenly as it began it stops.Silence.

A new day has begun.

There But For Fortune

“There but for fortune” Is one of my favourite Joan Baez songs.

When I see under privileged human beings her words are always there. Here in Thailand she sings for me every day.

For the women,smothered in clothes,working in the scorching sun as labourers on the building sites.

For the emaciated people trying to make a living by selling a handful of household items and drinks in their tumbledown shacks.

For the Fishermen and their families living amidst the unbelievable stench down at the creek.Their wives cleaning fish and sea food all day,the small children playing with the stray and diseased dogs.

They all manage to smile and say “Sawadee” in their lilting Thai as I pass.

Other foreigners don’t seem to venture this way.

When the sun slips down in the West, the hills in the distance, and the nearby temples seem to have something mystical about them.The golden Buddha statues compete against the last light of it’s rays, and Buddha wins.

With nightfall I walk slowly back to my little apartment in a luxury 16 floor condominnium,complete with reception and security guards.

From there I can look down on another Thailand while Joans voice sings in my head.