Progeny

In And Out Of Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Have become familiar enough with Asia that the usual things you notice on the surface aren’t so eye-catching now. Am learning to adapt to surface cultural differences with less frustration. But adapting for a traveler briefly passing through is one thing. Another thing for someone spending significant time here. Much more difficult if you are having to learn how to navigate the unspoken expectations and assumptions.

“You eat like a monk,” she says. What do you mean, I ask, as I put my strawberries on the same plate where I have just eaten my fish. Monks are not supposed to enjoy earthly pleasures, like the taste and sight of food, she says. People earn merit by dropping bits of food into their begging bowls..food that gets mixed up together. So, not wanting to bother her for a fresh dish, I had put my strawberries on the same plate where I had eaten the fish. I had grossed her out. Caught again…unawares. I was shocked by the comment. And so it goes….

Other than that, have been spending time with mundane activites…dental appointments (teeth have really gone to pot recently) and great medical care at Bumrungrad Hospital…all details no one would be really interested in except me.

News in the Bangkok Post: Backpackers are furious for being blamed for a bed bug invasion. An entymologist at a local university says that Americans don’t like to take baths which has helped create the problem. Good grief! We are foreigners. We are dirty. Don’t we do the same thing to “strangers” at home…?

I spent five days visiting a Thai friend in her newly built home. She is a Professor of Fisheries at Kasetsart University and is encouraging me to accompany her to visit a field project in a small stream near the coast of the Gulf of Thailand…which I would love to do if we can coordinate our schedules. In exchange I am editing some research papers she is writing in English. Catching up on local politics, I mentioned that the Malay man sitting next to me on the plane to Bangkok had reminded me that the Prime Minister, unseated by the military coup last year because of corruption, did help the rural farmers. “Yes,” she said. “A piece of meat between the teeth!” This comment has added impact if you know that Thais take meticulous care of themselves…many using toothpicks after they eat…carefully covering their mouths with a hand so not to offend anyone. She and her university colleagues make no bones about their opinions of Thaksin and they feel that he will still be pulling the strings from the sidelines now that he is back in the country.

Son Doug and his Thai wife, Luk, flew up to Bangkok from Koh Samui to get off the island for a few days. We took a bus last Saturday to leafy Kanchanaburi…a couple hours northwest of Bangkok. Very hot and humid! The peaceful town on the Mae Nam Khwae River (River Kwai) belies it’s role in WWII as a Japanese-run POW camp where soldiers were worked to death building the “Death Railway.” You may remember the movie “Bridge On The River Kwai” telling the story of the brutal plan to carve a rail bed out of the 415km stretch of rugged terrain through the Three Pagodas Pass to the Thai/Burma border that was intended to be a supply route from Bangkok to Rangoon. Close to 100,000 forced laborers, captured Allied soldiers and Burmese and Malay prisoners, completed the railway in 16 months…only to have the Allied forces bomb the bridge across the river after just 20 months. The relatively small nondescript bridge has been reconstructed but you can imagine the planes careening down along the river…taking out the middle iron arcs. Tourists clog the bridge that is now just used by a short excursion train and pedestrians. Yes, it’s a bridge, says Doug when we visited it on a rented motorcycle. lol

I will take the one-hour flight to Samui on April 8 to spend a month there…after which Doug, Luk and I will fly to Kuala Lumpur for our “visa run.” This will be my first visit to Malaysia. Maybe there I can get away from the depressing news about the banking crisis at home…strange days…dangerous days…reverberating all through Asia.

Contemplating Leaving

Posted on by Laughingnomad

My one year visa in Mexico expires August 8. After visiting my son Greg in Las Vegas I should be back in Oregon by the middle of August…driving from Oaxaca to Queretaro to pick up my friend Patty who will be my traveling companion along the way. I have mixed feelings of course. Returning to my home country will be the measure of things great and small. In the fall I will return to Asia to visit son Josh and his wife Amy in Beijing and son Doug and his wife Luk in Thailand.

In the meantime I am reading my irreverent, indepensible, if tattered, “The World’s Most Dangerous Places” by the consummate journalist Robert Young Pelton. After Asia, maybe a visit to Syria? Or…? Then maybe a return to Oaxaca to get that language down after all.

A regular columnist for National Geographic Adventure, Pelton produces and hosts a TV series for Discovery and the Travel Channel and appears frequently as an expert on current affairs and travel safety on CNN, FOX and other networks.

“The United States has a very comprehensive system of travel warnings,” says Pelton, “but conveniently overlooks the dangers within its own borders. Danger cannot be measured, only prepared against. The most dangerous thing in the world,” he says, “is ignorance.”

Welcome to Dangerous Places…”no walls, no barriers, no bull” it says in the preface. “With all the talk about survival and fascination with danger, why is it that people never admit that life is like watching a great movie and–pooof–the power goes off before we see the ending? It’s no big deal. Death doesn’t really wear a smelly cloak and carry a scythe…it’s more likely the attractive girl who makes you forget to look right before you cross that busy intersection in London…

It helps to look at the big picture when understanding just what might kill you and what won’t. It is the baby boomers’ slow descent into gray hair, brand-name drugs, reading glasses, and a general sense of not quite being as fast as they used to be that drives the survival thing. Relax: You’re gonna die. Enjoy life, don’t fear it.

To some, life is the single most precious thing they are given and it’s only natural that they would invest every ounce of their being into making sure that every moment is glorious, productive, and safe. So does “living” mean sitting strapped into our Barca Lounger, medic at hand, 911 autodialer at the ready, carefully watching for low-flying planes? Or should you live like those folks who are into extreme, mean, ultimate adventure stuff…sorry that stuff may be fun to talk about at cocktail parties, but not really dangerous…not even half as dangerous as riding in a cab on the graveyard shift in Karachi.

[A big part of] living is about adventure and adventure is about elegantly surfing the tenuous space between lobotomized serenity and splattered-bug terror and still being in enough pieces to share the lessons learned with your grandkids. Adventure is about using your brain, body and intellect to weave a few bright colors in the world’s dull, gray fabric…

The purpose of DP is to get your head screwed on straight, your sphincter unpuckered and your nose pointed in the right direction.”

I love it.

About Me

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Backpacked The Hippie Trail In The 60’s? If Not It’s Not Too Late!

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Taking the kids to Mexico, the grandparents to Hawaii and ourselves to Central Asia in the mid 1990’s on an 18 day trek in the Atlas Mountains had pretty much been the extent of our international travel together. Bob had climbed Mt. Rainier and Mt. Kilomanjaro and some of the lesser mountains in Nepal and Tibet but he thinks climbing mountains is a thing of the past for him. “Crossing borders and boundaries…climbing cultural mountains much less painful and ultimately more rewarding,” he says.

So in 2002, after Bob retired from 35 years as a pediatrician in Salem Oregon and I retired as an educational administrator and after raising our three sons, Greg now 41, Doug 39 and Josh 35, we rented our house and set off for a year around the world with only our backpacks. But we didn’t honestly do the “Hippie Trail.” Landing in high-rent London in February, we forged our own trail and moved quickly through France, Spain and Portugal. Looking for warm weather we finally found it in Morocco.

Then back to Southern France, Spain and Italy before moving on to Athens, the islands of Sifnos and Santorini in Greece, Cairo and Luxor in Egypt and finally to Nairobi Kenya where we took an overland truck with about 15 twenty and thirty-somethings from England, Australia and New Zealand for a month and a half through East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Botswana) and across to Namibia on the Atlantic and down to South Africa where we, desperate to be in one place for awhile, rented an apartment for a month in the beautiful Cape Malay district of Capetown.

After a few days in a bed and breakfast in Soweto, the Black township near Johannesburg, we flew to Mumbai, India…in hot July…which, after Rajistan and New Delhi, made Bangkok Thailand feel luxurious! After backpacking through Thailand, Burma, Laos and Vietnam and Cambodia we spent two months in a cold wintery China with no central heating and gratefully ended the year on a beach in the Philippines.

A year eventually became four years. A few months after we returned home, Bob took off for Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

When Bob returned home, and with our then unmarried sons living in Las Vegas, Thailand and New York, we found ourselves ready to hit the road again. So in July 2004 we rented the house again, flew to Frankfurt Germany, traveled across Eastern Europe including my maternal ancestral home, Poland, and on to home stays in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Then we took the Trans-Siberian Railway across Asian Russia and through Mongolia to Beijing…spending two more months in China before going on to Southeast Asia again (Burma, Viet Nam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos). After a month driving around the island of Bali we returned to Thailand.

In the meantime, our son, Doug married his Thai girlfriend so we spent several weeks in Krabi Province visiting them…Doug and Luk having barely escaped the tsunami with their lives the day before we arrived! They now live in a little Thai-style bungalow on the island of Koh Samui and welcome visitors.
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We emailed our renters to not pack up anytime soon, however, and we sublet a furnished apartment from September 2005 to January 2006 in Brooklyn so we could be near our son Joshua who was a chef at the Tocqueville Restaurant near Union Square in Manhattan at the time. Upon arrival Josh and Amy, who was getting her PhD in history and was teaching at Rutgers University, surprised us with wedding plans that would take place at the Brooklyn courthouse in two days!
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Our oldest son Greg who is an anesthesiologist in Las Vegas, visited us later in New York.
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January 2006 saw us in Thailand again…I spent a month in Bangkok getting dental and medical work completed and then to Koh Samui Thailand to spend a month with Doug and Luk while Bob disappeared somewhere in the Thai environs. After Bangkok I went to Chiang Mai in Thailand for a month and on to Laos for the rain festival in April.

With the renters out of the house by this time, Bob flew back to Salem on March 29, 2006. I flew back to Bangkok to catch a flight to the States at the end of April. I visited my son Greg in Las Vegas before continuing on to Salem to pack up my stuff for my move to Oaxaca Mexico June 1 2006. Bob rented the house in Salem for two more years and returned to Thailand with a year-long visa in August 2006.

Josh and Amy and about a dozen friends celebrated their “real” wedding on Poipu Beach Kauai Hawaii in July. Josh then took a position as Chef de Cuisine of the new “One East On Third” restaurant at the Hilton Hotel in Beijing China. Amy followed at the end of her term teaching at Rutgers in September 2006. She taught history at an international school in Beijing.

A year became 6 years. I obtained a one-year Mexican visa to live in an apartment in Oaxaca City. Oaxacan teachers were striking and had been camped out in the Centro for a month when I arrived June 1 2006…at once educational and harrowing. They have been striking every year for the last 26 years. They were finally driven out of the city on November 25 2006 by Federal Riot Control Police using tear gas and arrested and beat scores of people…many were innocent bystanders.

I drove nearly 4000 miles from Oaxaca to Salem, Oregon in August 2007. Being in my house in Oregon felt like I was on vacation.

I returned to Asia in February of 2008 for Chinese New Year and visited Josh and Amy in Beijing China for 12 days. It was unearthly cold so I went south to Kunming and then Jinghong China.  Next was Bangkok Thailand in March for unending dental/medical care. In May Doug, Luk and I flew to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to renew our visas.

Josh and Amy since moved to Hong Kong in August 2008  where Josh is the Executive Chef at the American Club and Amy taught school at the HK campus of the same school where she taught in Beijing.

Bob and I separated in 2005 and he is living in Thailand in Jomptien, south of Pattaya. He returned to the States in May 2008 to visit our oldest son Greg in Las Vegas and his mother in Portland, Oregon and take care of some business.

I returned to Oregon in June 2008 to spend the summer and fall of 2008 in Oregon.  I rented out the house in Salem and  returned to Oaxaca Mexico on November 1, 2008 where I live in a beautiful apartment in the Centro with a veranda overlooking Conzati Park.  I returned to Salem on December 17th, in the middle of an ice storm, to pack up some kitchen and personal belongings on December 29…via Las Vegas where I spent Christmas with my son Greg. After returning to Oaxaca, I then took a short journey through mountain villages in Guatemala for two weeks…returning to Oaxaca through San Cristobal Chiapas.

The end of September 2009 I joined Greg’s father in Las Vegas and then up to Salem Oregon for a month to see son Doug, some friends and Bob’s 93 year old mother. Then Bob flew back to his home in Jomptien Thailand and I flew to Hong Kong to see son Josh, (newly divorced) then Thailand for 5 months…a good amount of dental work…and a month on Koh Samui with my daughter-in-law and her mother to help them set up the new beach restaurant that my son rented. Watched the demonstrators rally but left before the burning of Bangkok. Then back to Hong Kong for a week before flying back to Oregon for a couple weeks and home to Oaxaca via Las Vegas. Whew! I didn’t care if I saw another airport again!

However, I missed having a car to visit mountain villages in Oaxaca, so in September 2010 I flew to Oregon where I spent a month with my son Doug who was visiting there from Thailand, negotiated the purchase of a Nissan Xterra, and drove to Las Vegas where I spent 3 weeks with my son Greg. Then picked up a Oaxaca expat friend near Palm Springs and drove across the border at Nogales…no searches…no stops! 🙂 On to Guadalajara, Guanajuato and then Queretaro to see an old expat friend. Then took the new toll road from just south of Queretaro straight across to Puebla and down to Oaxaca.

You can view pictures and videos I made of our travel by clicking on the links under “My Links” on the right side of the screen if you scroll down a ways.

With kids scattered all over the world, thank goodness for Video Skype.

Eunice “Zoe” Goetz

Oh, I forgot. I hitch-hiked through Europe with a friend the summer of 1965.

Update on Living In Oaxaca

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I have almost finished my application for a Mexican FM3 year-long visa. Forms have to be filled out exactly right…with copies…and money paid to a bank. About $200 for the visa and another $40 for them to examine the forms. I have to show an income of $1000 a month. Four pictures, side and front. Two Mexican references, a letter of invitation (I’ll use my landlord) and a copy of his “credential” which is usually the voting card. And a copy of my rental contract. All this monkey business has taken a lot of time but my initial 90 day tourist visa I got at the airport upon arrival expires the end of August so I have some time.

At the CREATE alternative education program in Hillsboro/Forest Grove, I worked with two Mixtec indigenous cousins (see “One Oaxacan Family” entry). The parents are back in their village here.

Catalina says in yesterday’s email: “I wanted to talk to you on exactly where you are located. The reason why is because maybe you can visit my parents in Juxlataxca, Oaxaca. My mom and my dad are there now as we speak and I am not sure how far away you are from them. I know they would love to have you visit them. I know that there is hardly any tourist where they are at and my mom was saying that a few years ago they had a lot of asian tourist which was suprising.”

I am excited about the prospect of visiting the parents in their village, but can’t find it on my Oaxacan map. I will call Catalina, who is like the daughter I never had, on Saturday. She is working, going to school at Portland Community College, living with her significant other and has a little 2 year old that I haven’t seen yet. If I go back to Oregon to pick up my car as I am hoping to do I will definitely see her and her family.

Then I will be returning again to Oregon in January or February to attend to the sale of the farm in Salem.

Last night I talked to my son Doug and his wife Luk who are living in an isolated beach area of Koh Samui Thailand. They are planning on moving to the small town of Lamai. It will be better for them there…closer to things to do and they won’t have to ride his motorcycle so far in the wind and rain during the monsoon season to get to the market. A week ago, a palm tree fell on some electrical lines and shorted out their electronics and fans so hopefully they can get it all repaired.

Josh has been busy opening the “One East On Third” restaurant in the Hilton Hotel in Beijing China so don’t expect to hear much from him for awhile. Josh and Amy will be in China for at least three years so when my year is up here in Mexico I will return to Asia for a year…traveling back and forth between Thailand and China…taking an apartment somewhere as a base.

I found a great mail service in Oaxaca. Mailboxes Etc. has arranged to have U.S. postal mail go to an address in Miami and then to Oaxaca…bypassing the lousy Mexican postal service.

Update 12/2016: Mailboxes is no longer in Oaxaca

House Cats In Las Vegas

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Flew From Thailand to Las Vegas the end of April. Then flew youngest son, Josh, who is between jobs, in from NYC to spend a week with oldest son Greg and I. After Bangkok and NYC, we just wanted peace and quiet. Just hung out in Greg’s new home…didn’t even go down to the strip. I was in my glory with the two progeny.

Then Greg’s friend, Mike, drove in from Phoenix with a car full of all his belongings. Josh returned to NYC and Mike and I hung out some more. House cats, Greg called us.

Familiar Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Arrived in Bangkok on Jan 3rd on China Air after 17 hours and stops in Anchorage and Taiwan. There has been a cooling in Asia (northern India actually falling below freezing) and it has been mild with a nice breeze here.

Bob is somewhere else in Thailand I guess…he left a New York a few days before I did.

But it has been fun to have Doug and Luk stay with me in Bangkok this last week. We have been running errands…went to American Consolate to get more pages added to my passport and Doug ordered a new passport as his got wrecked when he was drenched in the water festival last spring. Then to Thai Consolate. Luk is delighted to have a new Thai passport with her married name on it! Now there are two Mrs. Goetz’s in Bangkok!

They will return to their home on Koh Samui Friday on the train. I will meet them on the island at the end of the month when my remaining dental work will be completed.

Na Pali Trail Kauai Hawaii

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After our son Josh graduated from Whitman College, he joined his former roommate and friend, Phil, in Kauai where they were to spend a couple years working and repairing some cottages that belonged to Phil’s dad near Poipu Beach that were damaged in a hurricane September 1992.

Hurricane Iniki caused more damage than any other hurricane to affect Hawaiʻi since records began. It hit the island of Kauai as a Category 4 on September 11. Iniki caused almost $2 billion in damage, mainly to Kauai. It remains the second costliest East/Central Pacific hurricane on record, only behind Hurricane Paul in 1982. Six died as a result. Iniki brought winds of 140 miles per hour (230 km/hr).

Phil’s dad’s house, closer to the beach, was lifted clear off the concrete pad. For weeks afterward people were finding papers and objects they knew belonged to him because he was a well-known Methodist minister on the island.

Bob and I took the opportunity visit Josh while he lived on the island. We hiked the Na Pali Trail, which, in retrospect probably wasn’t a good idea. But what did we know was up ahead. Namely a trail along side the mountain…very very narrow trail…with a vertical drop of 300+ feet to the ocean rocks below. At times all we had to hang onto were branches of bushes and trees. Alas we turned back before we got to the hippie beach.

When the work on the cottages was done, Josh worked for a restaurant in the nearby Hyatt Hotel. He was offered a promotion but opted to quit and go to culinary school. Phil, who had been an art major is an artist and stay at home dad while married with two children in Seattle. For Josh the rest is history.