Bangkok (Burma dreams)

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  Bangkok, Thailand
Friday, June 1, 2007

I seem to have lost an entry - mysterious are the ways of the internet. We're back in Bangkok and I have a few things left to write about Burma. 

Life, except for political prisoners and minorities, seems better now than before. What we saw of the country is cleaner than before. In 10 days we saw only 2 live mice and one dead rat. They swept the leech out of the restaurant. Before, rodents of all sizes were everywhere.

Burma is a police state and there is fear in the air. Here is an entry from one night (notes from the little travelogue I carry everywhere - late night wanderings) ... trouble sleeping tonight. On this trip, talking with people so careful of the secret police - can't say too much - long arm of the law and all that - it's real (the fear) in this place - I look around and see a man with secret cop written all over his dead-eyed face - specialist in brutality - in spirit destruction

01 Our room at the Mother Land (2) in Rangoon

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What to do? Well, I'll start with prayer. Nobody has ever heard me ask this before because I've never asked it before this moment (This moment, is different, from any before it. This moment, is different, it's now). Will you join me in prayer for Burma and the Burmese people? I'm praying steadfastly and have prayed more in the past days than ever before. And after this, we'll see. I know of someone who might be able to use some help - a contact in the States ...

I can smell the sorrow,
taste the sorrow,
feel the sorrow,
this place,
this crazy place.

Sitting in this dark room, sweating, Ipod on, writing in a ray of light coming through from outside, wondering, what can I do? All my life is doing. Being by doing, doing by being. Maybe I'm too old now. We'll see.

Leslie asleep with her "sleeve" (an old favorite t-shirt) over her eyes

02 Street outside Mother Land

. Thinking, except for at the GH in Rangoon and at the Bogyoke Aung San Market we've seen one other westerner in Burma and here is this 60+ year old woman trucking along. Hey man, that's my girl. Oh cool, it's Attics of my Life ...

In the book of love's own dream
Where all the print is blurred
Where all the pages are my days
And all my lies grow old
When I had no wings to fly
You flew to me
You flew to me.

In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When all the secrets all are told
And the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine
You dreamed of me ..

03 Street outside Mother Land

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Gonna be a long night and I don't care - a long sparkling night in this room. I held hands the other day with a man, whispering, saying I'm praying for you. I'm asking people to pray for you and your people and your country. An intense conversation, life-threatening for him ...

Freedom - speak it like a vow. How many have died for it and forget the imperfections, the yes, buts. They died, millions, for a dream of more. Off in the distance and dark, lightening flashes.

Immortal, Invisible

Our last night in Burma I go to the little store in Rangoon where I've been buying water and snacks. I tell the man we're leaving tomorrow morning, so goodby. He gives me a deep discount on my last purchase. Burma.

"Whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, journalists ... lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong ... they are places that take over a man's soul" (Jon Swain, one of the last westerners out of Cambodia in 1975).

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04 We're on the train that runs in

05 On the circular train

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