Bangkok with a lot of faces

... As a good tourist I visited today The Grand Palace - a great place indeed with a lot of asians paraying to the smaraghd buddha and hoping for a good life because of that. As usually i went there by foot - to experience the scene of thailand. Bangkok by the way means "city of angels" and Thailand means "country of the free". Anyway that is only a site note. I had some nice time watching all these thai and chinese whorsipping the buddha and then getting some food on the various mobile kitches on the streets. They offer the best food by the way. At least one can see how it gets cooked - but well as a falang (foreigner) always important to say not to cook too hot. We are not used to it believe me - but overall the kitchen is really great here. The major learning I got from The Great Palace is how a good monarch should be - there are 10 rules for a good king that according to my opinion should apply to all humans:

1. Give (Danam)
2. right leadership (Silam)
3. personal readiness to sacrifice materially and spiritually (Pariccagam)
4. Honesty and freedom of superficiality (Ajjavam)
5. Friendliness and Humanity (Maddavam)
6. Concentration on the essential (Tapam)
7. Freedam of anger (Akkodham)
8. Freedom of evil (Avihisma)
9. Patience (Khati)
10. Avoid mistakes (Avirodhanam)

Then i went home and immediately I went to sleep. I still have not overcome this jetlag. But I am sure after I have finished this blog I will sleep well because I had some good drinks. I met some interesting people - the most interesting was Ko a woman her father a japanese her mother a thai. She told me about her 10 year old relationship with an italian that cheats on her all the time. I realized that i can feel pain of others quite heavily. She told me how to look right - as asian women do - to keep my back straight and always keep my cool. Loosing temper is not a good thing here - it is like loosing your faith. Indeed, a very good school for me as I am easily loosing my temper and like to give in to my emotions. It is surprising how women here endure their destiny with a smile - no resistance at all. How can this be? I would fight and shout if a man would cheat on me regularly but here it is different. They just endure their fate. On a site note: I enjoyed it a lot when she put her lipstick on my lips to take care that I look alright :-). Was a very nice feeling - too nice...

I guess I have to learn a lot! Anyway the good thing is as always I managed to get good contacts to the local people - and they will open up for me the real thai culture. About that I am very happy, I think I have a good soul because even asians see something good in my eyes. It will be interesting what happes tomorrow - I will visit chinatown with Ko. I am thankful for that and now I will go to bed.

Mounara