Luring me with all the people I love above all else – 3rd September 2020

September 3, 2020December 9, 2024 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Now is the time of change. After a long sticky summer and apparent death to all plant life suddenly the rains come. Despite the cooler temperature the humidity rockets making one wish for the drier heat of summer. After a week or so of the rains, those apparently dead plants now threaten to destroy everything built by humans, house swallowed up by jungle. Thankfully, the snakes go and hide from the rain; somewhere…they are always hiding. We call the gardeners, they do their work but it looks like they need to come back again the following week, the week after and so it goes.

And soon the rain deluges. Not much thought seems to be given to drainage. Perhaps it’s just an inconvenience for a month or two and not worth the investment but a lot of shoes get wet or you may choose to stay at school until the water has eventually seeped away.

Some creatures have little care for the foibles of the weather. They always find the right spot.

At the tail end of the season we head to a hot spring where we can soak our legs for free at varying degrees of insane heat. Kids play and splash in the 30 degree water while we suffer in the 45. No one is even close to the 85 degree water – who would be!? Predictably, whilst we are there, it starts raining. Later, at a restaurant, I can’t feel my legs. They are either relaxed or in shock. Either way, the no-feeling is good.

As if to signal the end of the rainy season (after a brief 6 to 8 weeks, though thankfully much more rain than last year) critters emerge.

Weird hairy caterpillars bumble about and the snakes make a reappearance. One morning as I’m leaving for work I’m surprised to find a couple of small crabs standing guard in the driveway. Amy says they usually live in the rice fields but to me it seems so weird to see crabs about 500kms away from any coast.

And so it seems the rain has ended until next July. We get out and pay a visit to the border market town of Mae Sai and shop for more socks and underwear and visit our favourite cafe/bar/restaurant.

This parrot announces our arrival like a door chime fog horn and I jump out of my skin. Other birds step out but thankfully don’t squawk.

The cafe is hidden away in a market, down a hallway that then opens out into this fantastic courtyard of artwork and decorations. All sorts of obscura adorn every space. In a shed area the owner keeps his batches of homemade hootch though he tells us that he was recently fined one hundred thousand baht and forced to pour it all away.

However, he disappears off somewhere for a few minutes and re-appears with a couple of bottles of plum shoju which are duly purchased. He remembers us from our last visit back in October and doesn’t seem to phased about his fine and lose of illegal merchandise. In fact the cafe is only open for 4 hours a day and I’m not sure anyone goes there to eat.

He potters around rearranging things, happy to chat about life but also happy to be alone by himself. He owns the whole market area and can easily survive of the income from rent. Nice life.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the toilet paper at DeLanna. Sometimes I forget to take paper to the bathroom at school and have to sit and wait for my bum to dry. Luckily, today the timing was right and I could use the facilities at DeLanna.

To-do list

Compliment someone ✅
7-minute workout again ✅
Write a blog post during the day ✅

It’s now the 21st! I have gotten busy with my normal routine things but also added some yoga practice to my day. As well as home workouts, meditations and Thai practice getting a bit longer as I get better at them.

I’ve made myself busy again but I am also mostly happy these days. Writing here has gone by the way for now. I’ve even committed to some Thai lessons on Tuesday afternoons.

There are still some feelings and emotions that I would like to explore further but I’ll not push myself with them much at the moment. I will try to write here more often – maybe focus on particular things.

I’ll dig myself a hole and I’ll fill up that space – April 14th 2018

April 15, 2018May 26, 2018 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Ok, let’s start with some toilet talk. It had to happen sooner or later.

Having some experience of South East Asian countries I was already aware of the ass blaster but never really used it. In one of the toilets at Amy’s parents, toilet paper has to be thrown in a small bin instead of down the toilet. This presents difficulties for those of us used to just dropping it into the bowl and flushing it away. I actually first came across this on a trip to Rhodes, Greece just before moving to Australia and I probably talk about it in that diary (whenever I get back to it!).

It turns out that in our house, the builder recommends not putting tissue down the toilet too which initially was a bit of a disappointment. This drove me to pursue learning the art of the ass blaster. In case you can’t guess from my description, this tool is usually part of any toilet system in Thailand and it’s pretty much a jet hose with very slight control of pressure. I was dubious about the ability of this equipment but after using and wiping up the water with tissue it usually does a good job of any leftover bits that might have accumulated around your bumhole. It’s pretty easy to fold up the tissue and chuck it in the bin and can usually be done in one wipe, saving paper. Unless you’re drunk. Or the day after you were drinking. And you’ve been eating lots of chilli. Potentially, every day.

The other thing about the ass blaster is that it is quite powerful. It can sting your haemorrhoids. It can also stimulate your anal sphincter and help push out that last little tricky bit that sometimes can’t decide which side of the door it wants to be on.

Of course, if any situation becomes too sticky, the shower is usually just a step away and it always being hot, any time is a good time to have a shower.

I still haven’t really complained about the weather but the last few days have been torturously hot. We’ve also been busy and having to get things tidied up in the garden. Amy’s parents and brother coming to help out early in the mornings.

The reason for all this was that April 12th was our house blessing. Amy had to do some negotiating with her family about meeting this requirement that her dad insisted upon. A big house blessing can involve up to 9 monks, all family members and all the local villagers. And you have to feed them all too, as they sticky beak around all your belongings and criticise colour choices etc.

Amy negotiated down to one monk and about 20 family members and for it to be done as quickly as possible. This still took about 3 hours and a day and a half of food preparations and another day to clean up.

I was introduced to one of the guys from the local temple who was really nice. He would lead the ceremony whilst the monk did all the chanting and er….things. It was both beautiful and ridiculous. I was expecting a solemn affair with everyone paying undivided attention but people seemed to come and go, fuss about and fidget as even for the experienced here, sitting cross-legged on a tile floor for an hour or so is not easy. My mind wandered a lot but when all said and done it was fine. Now, everyone – get out of our house!

We had moved in a couple of days earlier as we had mattresses delivered and despite our bathroom still needing re-tiling, painting touch ups ongoing and various other dusty bits of work required, we couldn’t wait to get out of our limbo land with Amy’s parents. They insisted we took the cats with us though which was a little traumatic for them and quite stressful for us as we had to keep them calm with work and people around all during the days following. But they’re fully settled now. Maybe we are too, though it doesn’t quite feel like it yet.

I did get a bit emotional one evening though. As I was watering the garden and looking for the fish in our pond I realised that here I am, I’ve achieved a dream, a plan fulfilled. A beautiful new house, in a beautiful location, with my beautiful Amy.

I just wanted to show my mum. I wanted her to see what her son had achieved, wanted to make her proud. A few tears were shed but I was soon back to whatever backbreaking chore was next on the list.

The day after the house blessing we went off to the city to enjoy the Songkran water festival. My first time experiencing this event, it was a fun family day with smiles everywhere. We were camped in a restaurant that turned itself into a bar just for the event and it was jam packed when we got there around 2pm.

We set to drinking and jumping and dancing and talking and getting wet, inside the bar and outside on the street. I made the rookie error of carrying my can of beer out on the street with me and it was impossible to keep out the water so I was chucking down water from who knows where along with the alcohol. I videoed my walks up and down and people responded with smiles and yells and shouted appropriate English phrases, inhibitions lost to the fervour.

Amy’s brother, Oh, who had a couple of hours start on us fell asleep in his chair and somehow we decided it was time to depart, even though it was still light. Oh was pretty far gone, even by the time we arrived and had soon become unintelligible in both Thai and English. We took a minicab back to Amy’s parents and I managed to get Oh up to his room where he passed out in his wet clothes for the next 15 hours or more.

Whilst I was doing that Amy was throwing up in the bathroom and then the garden. I was drunk but was still semi-coherent enough and when Amy’s dad dropped us off at home at around 9pm I plugged my phone into the stereo and listened to some music for another hour or two. Eventually, I dozed off for a while before waking with indigestion which I took a tablet for. A couple of hours later though and it came back so I went off to get another tablet. It was then I realised that maybe it wasn’t indigestion and that, in fact, I needed to throw up. So I did. A lot. All I could think about was ditch water that I swallowed with my beers and wondered if I’d have to be taken to hospital in the morning.

The hangover wasn’t grotesque and as we still have a million things to do we didn’t have time to contemplate it too much and zoomed off again for the rest of the day.

Tie a rope to the back of the bus – 19th April 1989

April 19, 1989March 1, 2022 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

22nd Feb 2021 – I’m not sure how long the ferry journey took but it was light by the time we were back in the van driving in France. Starving and sleepless we pulled into a bakery at a service station and enjoyed the warm French hospitality that non-French speakers probably deserve. But we ate a little at least.

Without telling anyone in the van, I’d stashed a smidgen of hash in with the tins of beer, without considering the consequences for myself or everyone else. Feeling happy with myself that I’d gotten away with it I announced my achievement to everyone and was met with much (deserved) criticism. I know we were on our way to Holland but what if we couldn’t find any smoke!? Be prepared!

A little journey, following the coast and passing Dunkirk (no time for any sightseeing) we found the Belgium border. Expecting a quick passport check, armed border guards approached the van and got irate with us when we all poured out. They took our drivers into a room and the rest of us waited nervously and impatiently, counting down how long we had to get to Hoorn to play our first show.

Sometime later, the boys returned looking gloomy and pissed off. Because we were carrying musical equipment we had to have a piece of paper with a list of all the items. Well, we had that, but what no one told us was that it had to be stamped or signed by the customs people in Dover. The boys had argued that they’d been allowed across to France as it was but the guards were having none of it. Perhaps they were waiting for a bribe?

As we contemplated going back to Dover, maps were investigated and it was decided to drive inland a bit and try to find another way into Belgium. I forget if there was even a crossing with guards but, whatever there was, we just drove straight through and were on our way again, seriously running behind time.

Looking on a map today the drive to Hoorn in Holland appears to only take 3 and a half hours but I’m thinking it took a bit longer 30 years prior. Also, our van, full of amps and smelly people, wasn’t racing anywhere. It was amazing to watch our two drivers plough on through and I think it was only after the tour had finished that I discovered they had been on speed for the journey so far. Only once did they take a turn into oncoming traffic, forgetting which side of the road to drive. Not bad!

Somehow we arrived in Hoorn without any checkpoint entering Holland but there was no time to settle in. It was straight to the cafe where the show would be held. This is where I discovered many cultural differences between the UK and Holland. Cafes in Holland were also bars and the focus wasn’t really around drinking but more just hanging out, with a snack, coffee or a beer. In 1989 UK, cafes and bars were totally separate things.

The place was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday evening. Tonight, was just us and Corporate Grave playing so there was little stress with timing and changeovers. The only adjustment that needed to be made was that the toilet door had to be removed to allow space for the players on stage. Fatty ended up playing with the head of his bass stuck into the doorway and having to move out of the way for anyone desperate enough to need a piss. It was quite an amusing sight.

I enjoyed the whole evening, especially after the long journey and stressful border situation and it was nice to receive a warm welcome from The Vernon Walters and their crew.

After the show, we went back to Mark’s place. I had connected well with Mark and enjoyed his company and it was a pleasure to stay with him for these few days. Our band was all here whilst Corporate Grave and Rich stayed with someone else.

Our next cultural difference was discovered in the bathroom. This was the first time I’d been in a bathroom with an open shower and just a drain in the floor, no bath. It somehow felt quite liberating but also a little insecure with no cover protecting my modesty in this big room. I don’t think I’d ever been naked in such a big space before.

And then there was the toilet. I had never imagined that toilets were different in other countries. Here in Holland, you didn’t shit into some water at the bottom of the bowl but instead onto a shelf, where you could safely inspect your work should that be necessary. In my 22 years up that point, I had never found it necessary. I was worried about the pile of poop stacking up and smearing all over my ass cheeks though I really had no idea of depth and proximity. So, I just squatted up a little and got it done and dusted as quickly as possible. I was too shy to ask exactly how one should use the toilet. I don’t think anyone else mentioned it either.