Mark Odegard

Bali paradise

Brothers,

These adventures keep getting deeper. Bali is amazing on several fronts.  The quality and craftsmanship of their arts and furniture and batik is extraordinary. Old wooded hand carved furniture is a mix of sculpture, spirit, and SE Asian design rolled into one. There are long beaches, terraced rice fields, jungle, active volcano, wonderful food.  I can see why this place has that mystical ring just in saying the name.

You can get lost in the tourist shops on the main streets.  The surfers and Aussies are all a little too much, but turn left, and you are in a surreal landscape temple.  It’s all Hindu here, with a pool filled with lotus flowers and vine covered walls with statues of gods and this little cafe over looking all this with really beautiful and tasty food.

This sounds like tourist brochure words, but this place has captured me.  It’s off season right now, maybe too hot, and some of the beaches were closed to rip tides.  Many of the villas and hotels were empty. But the gamelan music was every where, with fresh wild looking fruit and flowers.  I am coming back to this place. 

I may buy a container of large stone carved Buddha heads, 5 feet tall, and sell them to pay for another trip back to Bali. This is an eyes wide-open dream.

Back to Bangkok and work, got to get this exhibit farther along, feeling some pressure to get it right, but it is coming along. 

Brother Mark

Bali Beach

Woolly Bro’s

Scott, I have my feet firmly planted in the sand, listening to the waves here in Bali. Your assignment helps me ponder this dream I am deeply involved in. The sun is setting gently, a beautiful young Balinese woman brings me a cold lime and fresh coconut drink, when this man walks by with his bass. The melody I hear being carried  to me on the wind is gamalan music, so perfect here. I am captured in the breath of the moment.

Brother Mario

Photos from Mario

Brothers,

Enjoy these photos.

Here’s our favorite cafe.

 Cleaning the moat.

Mario – – – – !

Twenty five feet tall statue.

Eliz swimming.

Bali wedding.

Cambodia – Angkor Wat

brothers

We took a little break from Bangkok, and flew up to Cambodia, a short 45 minute flight. We had to see Angkor Wat. This was the capital of the Khmer Empire for over 500 years, 800-1300AD. A million people lived here then, One of the great and remarkable civilizations of Asia. What makes this place so unusual is it contains the world’s largest concentration of religious monuments, over 60 square miles of religious temples and ruins, large deep moats, still with water, long narrow causeway’s in to these temple compounds. At the height of the Khmer civilization, they controlled all the way to the South China Sea, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and the Malay Peninsula. The temples were home to Hindu Gods Shiva and Vishnu, then later Buddhist kings added more elaborate architecture, some temples have both Buddhist and Hindu carvings. We both were moved by the jungle settings, the sacred feelings, the mysterious harmony, it’s surreal.

Today Cambodia is trying to inch forward after the Pol Pot years. Those times eliminated the educated, the wise, and the motivated, then it eliminated the few who were still loyal to the Khmer regime, paranoia ruled supreme. It will be a long while before this country heals. There is a Peace and Reconciliation Museum being planned with some of the people I am working with at UNESCO. I hope to be involved in a small way.

We loved the gentle open hearted people there, they have an elegance in the way they walk. The town of Siem Rep seems like a small village, compared to gritty Bangkok. We rented bikes and explored the town, small open air restaurants from the entire globe were represented. We ate Cambodia, and had the best meals of the whole trip so far. It was about 95 in the shade, we got to the ruins at 7am, the sun was already hot. Village ladies selling cut pineapples and cut up mangoes on the side of the road satisfied our thirst.

Mark

Elephants in Bangkok

Brothers

My vote is in, I vote for a true Zazen 3+ day retreat at the SE tip of Minnesota at the Zen Retreat Center. It would be a inner challenge for us all, and a unique spiritual place for the Woollies to explore.

Tonight Eliz and I went to the Foreign Correspondence Club for a lecture on Elephants. There is a problem in the city of Bangkok with mahouts and their elephants. This city is not a place to raise an elephant; many traffic accidents, begging for food, the wrong kind of work and food. There is an organization that raises money, and buys the elephants off the streets, sometimes has to rent them, and moves them to the Golden Triangle in Northern Thailand, where Burma and Cambodia all meet. There they have a large area for these domesticated elephants to work. Once a year there is an Elephant polo match, sanctioned by the King of Thailand, sponsored by IBM, it’s all a bit strange. This isn’t conservation, they are not saving wild elephants, but domesticated city elephants, and they love to play polo, they understand the game, and chase the ball and help set up the shot. Humans seem so unusual sometimes.

Long ago, Chinese ship came to Thailand, with tons of pottery in the hold has balllast. Often they arrived broken, this is a large temple complex made entirely of broken plates. It’s beautiful.
 
Mario

Challenges

Men,

Bangkok continues to challenge us on many levels. We spent 7 hours yesterday in lines trying to get our visa extended, hot, 100’s of people in small sweaty rooms, no air con, and I think we got a 7 day extension only, we want a 60 day. So we need to leave the country next week and come back in to get 30 more days. There is a system here of doing things, we just don’t know what it is.
Last Thursday, I gave another presentation to this exhibit committee, mostly Thai women in their 30s, representing UNESCO and the Museum, and one other westerner like me. I have a large video screen behind me with my designs. I showed a panel about masturbation facts, normal for teens all over the world, both sexes.I am up for this challenge, my designs look good.  This is an exhibit on safe sex, and sex education for teens. What proceeded was an hour long talk in two languages about how this translates into the Thai language, and just what is appropriate in Thailand. They know there is a mandate from both institutions to design this exhibit on sex education for teens.
One person wasn’t sure this was common all over the world. One person wanted to show these designs to the Minister of Education to sign off before we go farther. Maybe we can’t talk about sex in this sexual education exhibit. There may be a language gap here. I am realizing why there is no sex education in the schools now. The meeting ended, I hadn’t got to my other panels yet, on gender or sexual abuse, or dating, condoms, HIV, or the beauty of love and touching. There is a Thai system of doing things, I am still finding my way. I left the meeting very confused, and mellowed out with a jack daniels on our balcony over looking this hazy city.

Mario

Thailand

We are moving toThailand in Feb for 4 months, more later…..

Rain and dark spirits

Its been a rainy week, and school has its ups and downs. I have been visualizing this new move to Thailand, and doing some research on exhibits. Its been a few years since I have designed exhibits, so I have to get up to speed. The weeks go fast, teaching takes all my energy. I am glad its the weekend. I will get some new photos ready, and check out CBE new look. As much as we love it here, and are fascinated with China, the big city gets to us sometimes, especially in the rain.

Mario