ארבעה ראשי שנים הם... באחד בשבט ראש השנה לסינים

Greetings from Koh Lanta, on the Andaman Sea (west coast of Thailand)! When I arrived without a hotel reservation, I was warned that due to Chinese New Year the island was packed with Chinese tourists, and I would not be able to get a room. That was very clearly not the case, and I am staying at a lovely and reasonably priced bungalow (a significant improvement over my Koh Tao accommodations), surrounded by what I think are mangrove trees. There are a fair number of Chinese tourists, which makes me appreciate that as vexing as it is when only one of the two parties is a fluent English speaker, communication becomes comically impenetrable when neither party is a fluent English speaker.

Unlike Koh Tao, which is an island entirely devoted to diving, there is much more diversity in the kinds of tourists on Koh Lanta—lots of families, people hanging out on the beach during the day instead of just lining up to get on boats. Koh Lanta is majority Muslim, with lots of hijabi women, restaurants that don’t serve alcohol, etc. I am staying down the road from a local mosque. The beach does not feel overdeveloped at all—it’s all very laid back. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised to find that I don’t feel like I’m treated as a giant American dollar sign—no one tries to aggressively sell you anything, locals go to the same 7-11 that tourists go to, etc.

Backing up to last Monday….

On Monday and Tuesday, I completed my advanced open water dives on Koh Tao. Unlike my one-on-one open water dives with Gus, the advanced course was with two German girls, aged 20 and 25. 25 year-old German girl complained about absolutely everything: water temperature, air temperature, the stickiness of her wetsuit, water in her ears, seeds in her watermelon (I kid you not). Still, it was nice to feel like I was part of a cohort going through an experience. In addition to working on buoyancy skills and navigation (I can read a compass!), the advanced open water course involved a deep water dive (~30 meters), a night dive, and a shipwreck dive at the HTMS Sattakut, a WW2 era US ship that was first donated to the Thai navy, and, once taken out of commission, given to Koh Tao for divers to explore.  On Wednesday, we did three fun (i.e. not for course credit) dives—two at Sail Rock, and one at Shark Island, though, sadly, we did not see any sharks. After our third dive on Wednesday, my left ear started feeling not-so-great, so I decided it was a good time to leave Koh Tao, and head to Koh Lanta, with the hopes that my ear would clear up over the weekend. It is now Sunday night, and while my ear is feeling much better, it is still a bit clogged. I am planning on diving tomorrow (Monday), so here’s hoping it feels better by 8 AM, when my boat leaves.

I opted for the overnight ferry from Koh Tao to Surat Thani on Wednesday night, and then a minibus from Surat Thani to Koh Lanta (the ferry to Koh Lanta can carry minibuses) on Thursday morning.  I assumed that the overnight ferry to Surat Thani would be the same as the morning ferry from Chumphon to Koh Tao that I had taken last week: rows of hard wooden benches. Lo and behold, when I opened the door to the main deck, there were three rows of 30 bunk beds covered with orange sheets. Probably due to the three dives from that day, I slept really well!

On Shabbat afternoon, as I lazed on the sparsely populated beach, a French couple came up to me and pointed out a nearby pack of monkeys that had just stolen their lunch. After ensuring that all of my belongings were present and accounted for, I got to enjoy my own personal entertainment troupe as the monkeys staged a wrestling match, and showed off their climbing skillz.

Some unfortunate news: as most probably know, you are not supposed to wear shoes into Thai homes and some businesses. Since the dive boat captains live on their boats, you are also not supposed to bring your shoes onto the dive boats; everyone leaves them on shore. This led to the mysterious disappearance of my good hiking sandals L Also, as I was leaving Koh Tao my cellphone was stolen. I am interpreting this as a sign from the Ribono shel Olam to spend less time on Facebook/checking email. However, since Shabbat ended I have been unable to tear myself away from the following the horrors of the Trump immigration executive orders. I have been following all of the airport protests, and feeling horrified, inspired by all of my badass activist friends, powerless, incredibly guilty for being here and not there, and a fair amount of despair. I am hoping that once my ear clears, and I can get back to my regularly scheduled 2-3 dives per day I’ll go back to ignoring the world around me. Or maybe not.

Question for y’all—some people have been asking if it’s possible to get automatic notifications when I update my blog. Is there an easy way to add my blog to an RSS feed, or some such thing? I am entirely tech stupid in the blogging department, so if anyone knows how to do such a thing, please mention it in the comments.

*Title is based off of the first Mishnah in Masechet Rosh Hashanah which describes the 4 “Rosh Hashanahs”. Little did you know that the first of Shvat is Chinese Rosh Hashanah.

שאוני והטילני אל הים

One week into my stay in Thailand, and I have found my purpose in life: scuba diving.

Today I swam underneath a school of about 500 barracudas. I have seen Christmas Tree Worms, Long Fin Banner Fish (or Gil, to those conversant in Finding Nemo), a Blue Spotted Stingray, at least three different kinds of trout, 8-banded butterfly fish, a parrot fish (the colors!), 3 Titan Trigger fish (yikes--they will eat your fins!). All this on my 4 training dives. Tomorrow I am  completing my Advanced Open Water dive course, at which point I'll be able to dive to 30 meters (100 feet, I think?). I'm also contemplating taking an underwater photography course, a Nitrox course, which would allow me to stay down for longer, and potentially one or two other things. Once I've completed whatever training I'd like, I think I'll head to the Andaman Coast (Western side of Thailand), which is supposed to be less crowded, with even more beautiful fish.

More than the fish, the feeling of being underwater is the most relaxed that I've ever been. I forget about the state of the world, my anxiety--nothing exists except for my breath.

Backing up to last Tuesday...

My first impressions of Bangkok: The highways look like LA, but with more tin roofs.

 I stayed in a guesthouse in Rattanakosin, which is a few blocks from uber-touristy Th Khao San, but I was surrounded by locals homes. The doors to people's homes are left open all day. Some people have mini shops there, or you can look in on a family watching TV.

While walking around Rattanakosin on Tuesday night, I noticed scores of Thai adults, mostly women, ranging in age from mid-20s-80s wearing fancy black clothing, with silver jewelry on the left lapel/breast pocket. After the first 10, I assumed that a Philharmonic concert had just let out, but by the next 20 I was confused (also, no one was carrying instrument cases). On Wednesday, I figured it out--these are mourners who are coming to pay their respects to the recently departed King Rama IX. Rama's body will lie in-state for 1 year, with thousands of mourners waiting on line for hours to visit each day. Each mourner gets fed at the expense of the King's family. I learned all this while visiting the Grand Palace, where the King's body lies in-state. Fun fact: Three times a year, the king is responsible for dressing the Buddha in the temple within the palace in the appropriate garb for the season (summer, rainy, or winter). Rama IX was king for 70 years, and was immensely popular--he did a lot to address poverty, and worked on environmental and water-related issues. The next king, who will be coronated next October, is pretty skeezy--he has been married three times, kidnapped his daughter from his second wife, manipulated the lese majeste law to get himself a no-fault divorce, has a number of illegitimate children, etc. 

Following the Grand Palace, I went to Ananta Samakhon Throne Hall, which looked like a Renaissance-era European building plunked down in the middle of Bangkok. Turns out Rama V really like Italian architecture, and he had it built. Anyhoo, I saw some really incredible wooden mural sculpture depicting Buddhist and Thai legends.

Shortly after arriving on Tuesday, I found a local travel agency where I could book a bus/boat combo to Ko Tao. They told me that the bus would pick me up at my guest house between 6-6:30 on Wednesday. This is somewhat confusing, as cars can't pull up directly in front of the guest house, but whatever, we'll go with it. At 6:20 there was nothing doing, so I walked over to the agency to check in. They told me to head back to my guest house, they'd call the bus company. Half an hour later, as I'm in the process of writing an email to the travel agency, a guy walks in to the guest house lobby. "Ko Taa?" he asks. Yes! I grab my pack and head out. That's when I notice that he's on a motorcycle, and is waiting for me to jump on the back. Adventure time!

My first thought: Huh, this is my first time on a motorcycle.

My second thought: Huh, I'm not wearing a helmet.

My third thought: And he just drove into oncoming traffic

That's when I started saying Tehillim.

I lived to tell the tale, I got to Koh Tao, and I went diving. Gus, my dive instructor, is a Scot, and insisted on mocking my countrymen for proving that, despite Brexit, Americans are still stupider than Brits. Thus, I have been unsuccessful in avoiding all mention of Trump. I have been similarly unsuccessful in avoiding Facebook and email, but I have been getting chizuk from all of the pictures and posts that you all have been sharing from the Women's Marches. Shabbat, which was between dives 2 and 3, was quiet--I read, slept a lot, and got rid of all of the nitrogen that has been gathering in my blood.

*Title comes from Yonah 2:12: Pick me up and throw me into the ocean

And it was in the last days of Obama's administration....

Hello Friends!

I had initially planned on beginning my blog with a retrospective of fond and not-so-fond memories from my 4.5 years in DC (Sermon Slam, a CSF leak, walks up and down 16th Street, Prime Meridian, the S Street Beit Midrash, Masechet Beitzah, IfNotNow actions, harassing members of the City Council/the Mayor, bawling at plays with Becca and much else all featuring prominently). But I head out to to the airport in about 15 minutes, so nostalgia will just have to wait, in favor of explanations, and blog kick-off.

The name of my blog is a play on Esther 1:1, which describes the kingdom of Achashveirosh as stretching MeHodu VeAd Kush, from India to Ethiopia. My blog is entitled MeHodu VeAd HaKibush, from India to the Occupation (h/t Sarah M. for the idea).  Admittedly, my trip starts in Thailand, then goes to India, Israel, somewhere in the Mediterranean, Palestine, and then somewhere else, TBD, so the description works neither geographically nor temporally. Still, the title gives you the gist of the blog's purpose: I will both be describing my adventures and also sharing thoughts about politics, Torah, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Photographs are also a possibility.

The goal is to post ~once a week. Having never blogged before, I'm not totally sure how well this commitment will hold up. My goals for this trip include unplugging, and seeing how long I can go without saying or hearing the name Donald Trump. This means that I will be less electronically available than usual. Commenting here is probably a good way to get my attention.

OK, time to head out to JFK. More soon!