I know I don't write much, well obviously I havent at all since coming home. Seems like I do most of my writing while traveling, I just want to wish everyone a Happy New year, all my love and encouragement. Still doing Thai massage, did not return to Thailand this year but hoping to go next during the rainy season.

Well I finished my first part of my journey home. In another 1 1/2 I will be back on board for the rest of the way to San Francisco. I am so looking forward to my doggies, my wondeful husband that gives me all the freedom in the world to explore and live the way I want to. To see my clients who I love, the land that I love, the leaves turning colors and get ready for the winter. I am a lucky girl. I really do love Thailand too and had a wonderful last day today . After I have been anywhere for awhile I am ready to move on anyways. I know I will be back mabe sooner this time but not as long....for business :)
I was thinking about what I wrote last night while I was flying away, about the dark side of Thailand. Its not just Thailand. I guess it is the nature of this life. It is both things. I have been trying to think of it in the terms I started out with in Buddhism. Little me can not do too much about this whole world and all its goods and bads or even labeling that is what they are. Its just life and I can only do what I am and thats my part. When my experience is these moments when I feel my heart breaking, the only thing to do is compassion for the way this is. This must be why compassion is the big thing in Buddhism. How else are we to recieve the world but in this manner. Any other way is craziness. I just do what I can......even saying this I am smiling because inside I am laughing at myself. No matter how I think I am fuguring it out, I am still a emotional firecracker at times and I know I will still get angry, happy, sad, joyful. But at least I am aware and working to always grow and be more concsiously aware no matter my feelings....again its all just life. I would rather be alive and love, suffer and die then to never have had the oppurtunity. Thats the way I feel about it.
I am glad you guys who read this have followed along and thank you Jodi for giving me some feedback on things (and being my new friend!)
Now I will wander around the airport and try to find something to eat that doesnt cost a million dollars.
All my love to all,
gretchen

Its about 11pm and I just said goodbye to a new friend. Her name in Lina and she is from Kenya. We have spent the last 2 days together. It was so cool because yesterday morning I saw her and smiled and she asked if she could sit with me I said "of course!" It turned out she is buying wholesale for the first time in Thailand and trying to start her own little import business in Nirobi. She was such a beautiful girl and so smart, I am just so impressed with her. Only 26 years old but very mature and very good girl. So I made a nice connection with someone and I am very happy about that.
I am so ready to come home, I can feel it coming on in ways that disturb me. I know I talk about the beauty of Thailand and it truly is all that I say but there is also a dark side (just like everything) that makes me very sad and hits me where I am quite sensitive, it mostly has to do with the treatment of animals. I know that this is the same in many asian countries. I will never forget going into a pet store in Japan and seeing owls and all kinds of wild animals that certainly shouldnt be sold as pets in tiny dirty cages. The other day at the BKK weekend market I saw all kinds of baby squirrls and other little exotic rodents just trembling away in tiny little enclosed baskets. As well as piles of puppies in cages so crowded there was no room for movement. I was back at that market today and saw a mahout with a baby elephant being used to beg for food that you pay for to feed. I really scolded that man for this.
Elephants sense alot thru their feet, in fact they can sense up to 20 kilometers away as well as their accute sense of hearing. So you can imagine the sensory over-looad on a busy Bangkok street with so much traffic trains, people movement, and who knows what else. I hate it so much! It makes me so angry that there is no compassion in the people that are handling these innocent animals. To see a baby elephant without its mother is horrible. In Elephant families everything revolves around the babies, the poor mother if she ever even sees her little one must be so unhappy.
There are 4 animals that can look in the mirror and recognise that they are looking at themselves, they are; humans, dolphins, chimpanzees, and elephants. They are very loving and conscious beings within their families. They really have no interest in us but in their own groups, its all about family, loving and caring for eachother.
One of my favorite stories at the park is the story of Jokia and Naperm. Jokia was a logging elephant that was pregnant and nobody knew. One night while she was chained up she gave birth. Her baby rolled down the hill into some water, since she was chained she could not rescue it and the baby drowned. She was so depressed that she layed down and refused to work. Her mahout tried and tried to get her up by being very cruel to her abusing her in all sorts of horrible ways. Finally in a fit of rage he took a sling shot and blinded her in one eye. Still she refused and in a few days again he was so pissed off that he gouged out her other eye with a stick. When Lek heard about this she went to see if she could rescue her and was able to make a transaction and bring this sad blind elephant to the park. Naperm was an elephant already there who had just lost her friend (at the park) who had died of old age, she was sad, grieving, and lonely, instantly she befriended Jokia. She is always near her and if Jokia gets worried that she is to far she will trumpet and Naperm comes running to her side. They bath together, graze together, are always caressing eachother, it is such a beautiful friendship to see. The love and care that Naperm gives her friend is truly a very touching to witness.
All the elephants have a story, but they are in a good place now and it is lovely to not only observe but help out around there and be a part of something so good. Lek also is raising 2 of the first elephants to be trained by positive re-enforcement rather then the pujang which is a traditional way of breaking the elephants spirit in a extremely torturous way (40% of elephants that go thru this actually die). It entails being put into a tight enclosure and being beat and stabbed with a nail on the end of a bamboo stick until they figure out to put their feet into the chains. This can take up to 4 days if the elephant is resistant or can't figure it out what its being asked. It is extremely phsycologically damaging not to mention abusive.
These babies are responding beautiful to the training of Positive re-enforcment and it is really fun to watch them because they are having fun and they are never forced to do it. If they are having a day they don't feel like doing it they don't have too. But they will do almost anything for a bit of wonder bread!
I am running out of time on this machine so I gotta go I will try to write tomorrow before I go.
Asta la Vista Babies!!

I just got back from the Island and it was absolutely lovely!!
Because I am well aware of how loud Thailand beaches can be I picked a spot on the otherside which is a bit exclusive and reclusive. It was about $50 a night but I spend more then that on my excursions to San Francisco, and it was only 3 nights. I thought I would do some blogging but they only had WiFi and I didnt bring a laptop.
When I arrived I wasnt sure the place would have a room, so I checked e-mail at the pier in town and they did. The songtao wanted to charge me 500 B to get there and I said screw that and rented a motorbike-well that was an experience! the island has no paved roads, only dirt and since the rainy season, full of huge mud puddles, deep crevases, and just more bumpy then you could imagine, not to mention no signs. It was dark and I got lost in the jungle. I did fortunetly have a headlight but made many wrong turns, could not go fast because I could easily have fallen off my bike on a bump (slower the walking I believe), so it was definetley a little hairy to say the least!!. I was laughing and laughing at my self because of the situations I get myself into, and mind you I had been travelling all day on a bus, then a slow boat, and all I wanted was a decent meal and shower. Eventually I saw someone with a flashlight and it was an Englishman who gave me directions to the Lima Cocoa where my room was.
So the last few days I didnt leave the resort except to return that aweful bike and walk back. Every morning I swam and swam, diving below looking at fish, watching schools of them glint in the sun. I tried making underwater dolphin sounds to see if they too would come to me but they didnt. I heard to try in December when dolphins do indeed come into the bay. The water was so perfect!! Just warm and calm and one day of perfect turquoise because we had sun which lights it up. The other days were a little cloudy but not bad and I actually like that because I can't handle too much sun on my skin. But most of all it was quiet and serene and I so appreciated that. I also appreciated the curiousity of the fish and how we were checking eachother out.
As for reflection on my journey over here. Well the massage thing did not turn out as expected I only studied one week before getting sick. I also wasnt comfortable with Pichest teaching style. I discussed this with a fellow triber privately and decided to blog a bit about it. Pichest is definetly a gifted healer, awesome in this regard, and I am happy for him to teach the people who can handle him. For me it wasnt working well. I drank in all I could while I was there but there was a point where I let my hands go so he could put them where he wanted and he slammed them around on the persons body in a impatient and insensitive manner. This rubbed me the wrong way. Over the years I have come to love and protect myself and require a certain amount of respect for my being. I felt that the respect I gave him wasnt returned and that I was sort of lumped into this ignorant western stereo-type. Other then that incident he and I got along fine but I was a bit fearful of him because I never knew when he would fly off the handle so I just kept my mouth shut and practiced. Anyways, it just didnt feel good and wasnt a good learning enviroment for me.
The other part was that I also learned that I have reached a level in my skills where I just need to trust myself and give myself alot more credit for all the years of learning and practice I already have under my belt. I felt perfectly at the same level as everyone else in the class including the long timers who had been there months and months. Of course I will always learn but if I wanted, I have alot to teach. I have thought about this alot over the last year anyways. Not teach Thai massage but to teach Deep Tissue. Although I think teaching a couples Thai massage class would be fun. One of the things I did while at the Elephant park was to work with a bunch of women from the village doing Thai massage. At first they were showing me stuff but in the end it was me who was teaching them moves from Wat Pho and Sunshine. Their education was from Chiang Mai University and it wasnt at all the same. But we had lots of fun and were falling all over eachother and laughing. It was a great experience. (Tomorrow I will talk about the Elephants, there is alot to say there),
So what else did I do? Well I ended up doing alot of wholesale shopping to further exploit my fellow Americans inquechable desire for the consumption of things they don't need. Dragon Pearl Imports has been born.
I found a artist who make the most beautiful hand bags I have ever seen, when I get home I will post some pictures. I also bought a shit load of fisherman pants, some beaded mandala t-shirts which are very touristy but we have nothing like them in California, and just a bunch of other stuff I loved. I spent alot of time with a man in the wood carving village who has been importing and exporting furnature for the last 15 years and he spent hours with me discussing the business and teaching me all the ins and outs of shipping etc. It was facinating and he was a good man I could tell. He told me "dont do it unless you have a love for it and certainly don't but anything that you wouldnt have in your own house or love yourself. I liked that philosophy. I am so in love with the Thai creativety, the beauty of their textiles, the embellishment on their clothing, how they can just figure out how to do anything and make it beautiful. For such a poor county it is fantastically decorated with color, statues, plants and pottery, wood carvings, iron work, twinkeling lights. It is very inspiring and very beautiful and one of the most things I love about here. I thought how can I have this in my life all the time? Well I can work with it and I am going to try my damnest to do it. The first thing I am going to do is take these beautiful treasures of handbags to high-end retail importers and see if I can get some interest. Oh I also bought Asian doggy dresses which are adorable and we have nothing like those either in the states. Through this process I have met some great people who I wish to help. It was funny because on my way to the bus, the Tuk Tuk driver was treating me like a tourist he could pull the wool over, I looked him directly in his rear-view mirrior and said "I am not a tourist" He gave a little bit of a laugh and asked what I was then and I told him a Massage teacher and a business woman. Then we really talked. It was cool.
So my dear ones on that note I will sign off until tomorrow. (2 days left)
love,
gretchen

I took a late flight to Bangkok lastnight. I am about to leave here and take a bus to Rayong and then a boat to an Island called Koh Samet. This Island is know for the purest white sand in all of Thailand and suppossedly it is so pure it squeaks when you walk on it. It is also known as "crystal Island" because of the sand. The water hopefully will be turquoise and beautiful but because of monsoon season I don't know. I choose this Island because it is supppossed to be nice even this time of year. So we shall see. I am checking myself into a really nice place for 3 days just to relax, be pampered, mostly be in the ocean alot , and reflect on my time here before I go home next Monday.
A little update: I went to check on that little dog before I left. To my suprise he wasnt dead but a bit better. Not crying and when one of the other dogs ran by he hap-hazardly got on his feet and tried to follow but then I guess it hurt to do this so he began to cry but still continued the effort. I pet him, held his head for awhile, and cooed at him what a good boy he is. Talked to the owner and I am almost sure from what I gathered it is a tick disease. I pulled a tick off him and the owner indicated that he pulls many off everyday. I was pleased to see that he is getting better but I think it will be a long time. I told the man what a good heart he has and tried to give encouragement for the compassion and care he was giving his dog. As an animal lover and owner I know it is extremely difficult to take care of an animal that is sick.
I expect I should be writing quite a bit over the next few days because this is quite a laid back place with not much to do and I will be a ways away from any action. I feel alot of things right now, mostly inspired, a lttle sad saying goodbye to Chiang MaiI, I want to go home but a little of last year is happening again, where I love home but I love here as well. The energy is something special in Thailand. I will write further later, for now I have a bus to catch. All my love,
gretchen