It had been a year since my wife died. I had been invited by a friend to go to Thailand with her and her husband as part of a small tour group. I hadn't done any traveling during the preceding year, just not feeling quite up to it. This was an opportunity, however, to complete a voyage that my wife and I had talked about doing together but never quite got around to doing. We had wanted to travel to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Angkor Wat was just a hour by plane from Bangkok.
Dot and I had traveled to a number of places around the world that seemed to be places of natural "power"--where previous civilizations had concentrated for both living and worship. We had been to Machu Picchu, Anasazi cliff dwellings in the American Southwest, Menehune sites in Hawaii, and abandoned desert cities in coastal Peru. Angkor Wat seemed a natural place to want to visit.
Because Angkor Wat wasn't part of the tour I was on, I flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia and toured the Angkor Wat area on my own. I stayed in a nice, modern French Colonial style hotel in downtown Siem Reap (for about $50 US per night, breakfast included) and hired taxis ($25 US/day plus a generous tip) to take me to several of the various archeological sites nearby, including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and the "Pink Palace." Angkor Wat is a UN International Heritage site, so tour guides were available for a few dollars a day, although I didn't use them. I've included a few pictures of those monuments in the "Pictures: Places and People..." section of this blog. Because the area was partially flooded from a Pacific hurricane that had come through a few days before and there was still some rain falling, not many tourists were out so I got to see many of the ruins by myself. The rainy weather seemed to add to the mystery of the abandoned structures. I felt Dot's presence, knowing how excited she would have been to have been there with me.
Overlooking Chiang Mai, Thailand
Returning from Cambodia to Bangkok I joined the tour group of about 14 other people and we toured the country together from the big city of Bangkok to the floating markets to the Bridge over the River Kwai, to visits with mountain tribes, rides on elephants and river rafts, dinners in Thai homes and visits to 20 or so of the thousands of temples, both ancient and more modern. The Thai people were wonderful and the Thai food was spicy and delicious. We were near the end of our trip in the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and visiting a very famous temple on a mountain overlooking the city when I realized that time had come for me to end my active mourning of my wife's death and say goodby. I wrote the poem "Chaing Mai Farewell" that evening.
That trip was a milestone for me. I met people there who I now count as some of my best friends. One of the people I met was my friend, Ernest Palomino, a professor of art, emeritus, at Fresno State University. I will write more about Ernie in a later blog. The poem, "Expression In Bronze," also included in "Returning: A Short Book," was something that I wrote after hearing Ernie's' life story and being inspired by it.
That time in Cambodia and Thailand marked the beginning of a new path for me.