The motorcycle is a Honda Phantom, smaller than before, perfect for now. One of the signs along the way was a gift from young French Nicolas after our Vietnam bike trip: “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” He was reading it. I had been meaning to read it for a decade. I didn’t know much about it, just that it was more about life than motorcycles. The first chapter was frightfully familiar. The author was on a trip from Minneapolis to the Red River, through North Dakota, on a journey west. Nicolas gave me the book in Ha Noi, which straddles the Red River in Vietnam. I’m completely into it.

The book is about the journey, not the destination. It’s about the art of maintenance balanced with the technology of the machine. He speaks of ghosts and phantoms: “The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It’s all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It’s run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousand and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living.’

Now I’m on the present Honda Phantom and the past Vulcan phantom is a figment of my imagination, just one of the thousands of ghosts guiding me. Perfect. On the speedometer of my Phantom, it reads “The Spirit of the Phoenix”: the mythical beast that rose from the ashes to fly again. Perfect. My father lived outside Phoenix. One day, twenty years ago, when he joined me in the performance lane, we talked about death. He said, “Just take me when I’m happy. Quickly.” We soon passed Crater National Monument. We decided it would be great to go under a huge meteor striking the earth, when we’re happy. Quickly. Painlessly. He went that way. He was in his car, near his home, with his soul mate MaryAnn, when destiny took him in a moment. Quickly, probably painlessly.

I am the Phoenix, reborn from the ashes. I have wings that I trust. I am flying through mountains near my home. The ghost is a distant memory that gently haunts me and reminds me that life on earth is only one, temporal chapter of the journey. Take me when I’m happy. Quickly. Today I’m happy. I’m into it. Take me where you will.

The next day I walk the Walled City, the old section of Chiang Mai where I’m staying, to find a new guesthouse. Within two blocks, I “accidentally” pass AUA, the school everyone has recommended as the best place to study the Thai language. I walk in. It’s the last day to register for the Beginning Conversation Thai starting the next day, April 1. There are no accidents. I didn’t have an “accident” eight months ago. A ghost of destiny gave me a dramatic slap to the body, a shout in my soul saying, “Don’t go this way anymore. Change your course.” I listened. I felt. I changed. A phantom fortune cookie said, “You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust the sails.”

[So it’s 9:30PM and I’m sitting in the open-air restaurant/bar of my guest house, overlooking the pool, trying to capture the moments of the last few days. My room has air-conditioning, fan, hot water, private bath, balcony with utilitarian metal security bars where my Ab Straps and rubber tubing portable gym is installed. 350 baht per night = once again $9 USD, yes nine, with a 10% discount if I stay a month. A cockroach the size of my thumb saunters onto the table, perhaps wanting a glimpse of my computer screen. It’s light. He, or her, likes light when it’s dark. I try to flick him head-on with my finger, like Miss Julie Hit-and-Run did to me, but he changes course and disappears under the table. Two minutes later he reappears to meet the Hand of Destruction, which flings him onto the cement floor, two tables away. Unflinching, he scurries back under my table, ready for another attempt to see what I’m writing. The Spirit of the Phoenix. One of my kin. He and his kin were here before us and they’ll be here after. The cockroach can live for six months without food or water, surviving on air and the glue from the labels of canned products. It’s easy to get rid of them. Just remove all the air from your house.]

Today I had my first Thai lesson with Jeremy from California, Eric from Norway, Ann from Singapore, Matt from Australia, Alan and Benjamin from France, Terrance from Canada, Jessica from Holland, Steve from America/Thailand, Rudy from Switzerland but living here with his Thai wife of twenty years. I know all their names and I know they all feel good because that’s what we studied today. I’ll be with them for a month, every weekday from 9:30 to noon. After the class Eric took me to a restaurant to meet the owner Greg who knows “everything” about motorcycles and has lived here for nine years. Next stop was a real estate agency, which is checking on six-month rentals in the area. Eric is also looking for place to live while he studies Thai kick boxing. Tomorrow I meet the agent again to view a teak house, outside of town, a six-month rental for 6,000 baht = $150 USD per month. Yes, one hundred and fifty dollars. (The agency’s name, and I’m not making this up, and I’ll keep his business card for the rest of my life, is The Profeessionals Phu Ping, pronounced Pooping. If they franchise the States, they should keep The Professionals and lose Pooping. I haven’t discussed that with him yet.)

The Phantom sets me back and sends me forward for $400 baht per day = $9 USD something. $18 a day for a great place to stay and a steed that takes me away. Considering a new Phantom costs about $80,000 baht = $2,000 USD, it makes more sense to buy than to rent. As usual, the advice varies: “Foreigners with tourist visas cannot buy motorcycles.”  “If you have the cash, you can buy anything. My friend bought a $15,000 Harley.” That’s why I need to see Greg. The truth, or reality, normally comes through a series of people, questions and answers. And intuition.

Yesterday I rode to the top of the peak that cradles the town, up past the University of Chiang Mai, to Doi Pui National Park. Modern, smooth roads, unmarred by war, through villages and thick forest, to a ranger station and beyond. I parked the bike and walked for a couple of hours, bypassed the H’mong village trail, headed to the top of the mountain. I saw no one after leaving the bike. Trees and ground cover new to me, clear vistas, birds I’ve never heard. Maybe they were birds? Monkeys? Insects? High voiced H’mong ladies selling their wares around the bend? I finally found the solace I’ve missed throughout this trip: a silent forest to soothe my soul. Home.

Today was another joyous bike journey through the mountains. I practiced my Thai lessons in real life. No one in the villages really expects tall white guys to say, “Sawatdee, khrap.” Hello. “Khun cuum, khrap?” What is your name? “Phom cuun Scott, khrap.” My name is Scott. “Hok siip baht?” 60 baht for the gas? “Khawp cuun, khrap.” Thank you. “Phop kawn mai, khrap.” See you later. (If you’re male, you politely add khrap to each sentence. If you’re female, kha. Just like everywhere, men have an excess of crap to get rid of.) I’ve learned languages in the past but it was always for some nebulous future experience. Now I’m practicing my Thai lessons where they matter, where the returns are immediate and the connection is direct. 

If you speak in a level tone, or speak in a high tone, or speak in a low tone, or speak in a falling tone, or speak in a rising tone or speak in a rising/falling tone, the meaning varies. Depending on how you pronounce “mai” it can mean five different things. The traveler’s text book “Lonely Planet” says: “Depending on the tone, the word ‘mai’ can mean ‘new’, ‘burn’, ‘wood’, ‘not?’ or ‘not’, from which we can make the sentence [without the tone marks, which I don’t know how to teach my computer] mai, mai mai mai mai, or ‘New wood doesn’t burn, does it?’” A custom you must be careful in Thailand is “Never point your feet at anyone. It’s the lowest part of your body and an insult.” Normally my feet are in my mouth so I don’t have to worry about where they’re pointing. Mangling their language makes the locals smile so they never look at my feet or care if they’re in my mouth. ( Previous page ) ( Next page )

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