"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase"

So said Martin Luther King Jr.

For this quote, I’m indebted to Bob Beaudine, author of an extraordinary book ‘The Power of Who’; I’d not come across it before and I’m an avid quote collector! So, if you have little-known quote gems that I’m not likely to come across on-line, or in quote compendiums, please email them to me.

Anyway, thanks Bob, for the book and the quote.

The quote caught my eye because I’ve just returned from another stint in Thailand, living in the home that I’ve established; and I took the first step to living in Thailand in the same spirit; I took the first step without knowing exactly what was ahead on the staircase.

So, for the last five weeks, as I’ve been careering though traffic from hell on my motorcycle, and as I’ve been strolling along golden sands looking at the reflections of towering storm clouds in the damp sand at ocean’s edge, and as I’ve been making boon by giving offerings to Buddhist monks as they wander dawn streets and laneways, and as I’ve floated and drifted in a cove that comes from the picture book of paradise – I’ve been taking stock and considering my decision.

What are some of the things I’ve discovered in moving to another world?

- You can’t foresee every issue and occurrence – there is inevitable risk,

- Racist behaviour is only a few seconds away, by someone, in numerous, perhaps most, encounters,

- It’s unlikely that the government of the country you are leaving will make it easy,

- There’s one way, and one price, for the foreigner, and another for the local,

- The outcome of any process is completely unpredictable, except that …

- Everything will take longer that you expect, and

- You will never have all the correct documentation on the first or even second encounter with bureaucracy,

- And away from our secure and, oh so sterile world, it is not a cliché to say, life is cheap.

I suppose these could be the first in a very much larger list of experiences; despite these discoveries, I’ve loved just about every minute of my adventure, which is what my life has become, so far.

Now you may say that if I couldn't foresee these discoveries then I must be very stupid or naive, and that may be true; but there’s a difference between assuming and knowing.

And I think to know is infinitely more rewarding than to presume.

So, I’m glad I made a leap of faith. I’ve been rewarded with a million new experiences.

I’ve made some very interesting new friends, who accommodate my almost complete lack of ability to communicate, because I don’t speak their language.

I’ve seen some astonishing things; and I’ve been to some extraordinary places.

And perhaps most of all, I’ve been allowed to share in the lives of others as they make their way through life circumstances very, very different from mine, with great honesty, dignity, and a tremendous amount of good humour.

So, back to my impulsive decision to move to Thailand. After five years of discoveries would I, as an aging warrior, do it again? Yes - in a heart beat.

It's been six years.

In 2005 I decided that escape from where I was at in life was the only option if I was to be happier - and probably healthier. But how? Like many I didn't have unlimited funds and still needed to work - not just for the money - but for my sanity and self-respect too. But to balance my lack of significant funds I was unencumbered by family or insurmountable commitments. And I could continue to work for my employer; now that's pushing the work-from-home concept to it's limits.

So, as I have previously explained, I bought a house in Thailand as a first step to a new, and as I dreamed, a better life.

I jotted in my journal at the time that I had no reason not to try; once I explained my plan, my friends asked why not? Balance my life appropriately between two countries. And recover my investment if the idea turns to crap - and retreat.

So how is it turning out?

I am currently in Thailand so I hopped on my motorscooter this morning and headed to a small cove right at the southern tip of this lovely tropic island; I head south, Chalong Bay on my left and on my right the range that separates my side of the island from the Andaman sea. Yat Nui is beautiful but rocks make it unattractive for swimming at low tide so first I checked the tides online at the 'Phuket Gazette' - high at 11am - perfect! And it's sunny for the first time in quite a few days.

The road is wide and climbs to a crest from Chalong Circle, where it descends to Rawai - on the Chalong side of the hill the temperatures are higher and the winds gustier than the Rawai side and cresting the hill is always a welcome relief; at Rawai I ride along the esplanade where the temperatures are noticeably lower again as I skirt the beach; but this is not swimming territory.

I ride a narrow winding road through  lush Thai countryside - and then I'm there - less than 15 minutes from home.

Once I reach a hundred metres or so from shore - with maybe four metres of crystal clear water below me - I look around. Away to my left a small school of fish leap from the water - silver scales reflect the blue sky. To my left a small island.

And to my right, in the distance, a forested headland where the waters of Phang Nga Bay and the Andaman Sea meet. A blue, cloudless sky. Boats beyond me are bobbing - a couple of brightly painted long-tailed boats - and some sail boats litter my horizon.

To my immediate right, a towering headland with a small sala to provide viewers shade, and a tall wind turbine which generally turns lazily in a constant breeze - but today stilled  by maintenance. Behind me it's a golden sand beach with a fringe of palms - and there's another long-tailed boat moored on the water's edge; these boats are the Thai workhorses of the sea.

I muse. Have a made a good decision? I think it's turning out OK. Although my companion, a devote Buddhist, always says, in a perfect demonstration of the 'middle way', that everything has two sides; and paradise does have some dark corners! But more of that later - maybe.

Eliminating the stone.

Right now I’m in fortress Thailand – my primary, as I like to think of it, home; in 1644, English jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) was quoted as saying: 'For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium' ('One's home is the safest refuge for all'); so, as it has become interpreted, 'a man’s home is his castle'. So it is here that I am taking refuge from my pc21*.

But I digress.

Riding the motorcycle back from ‘Roti Chaofa’, my habitual breakfasting place, I turned right off main road 4024, taking care because in the land of smiles drivers and riders are very combative, and immediately my view changes from relentless commercial development to the green slopes of the range beyond which lies Patong and the  Andaman Sea – or hedonist's heaven as I like to think of it; as a part time resident it’s not somewhere I venture often. Whisps of pure white cloud settle on the upper slopes, and away to the left the brilliant white 'Big Buddha' smiles serenely in my direction.

But where I ride, the local road winds towards the range, there is a temple spire in the distance, the sun is shining, and on some days water buffalo stare at passers-by.

I got to thinking about the role of the motorcycle here – and I found a piece I wrote some time ago that muses on riding not on a morning like today - but rather in the rain.

A splash of colour – reflections on morning rain.

A single sandal bobs quickly by - headed for the nearest unclogged storm water drain on a racing, rippling torrent that is, coincidentally, cleansing the gutter of debris and dust.

Riding a motorbike in an Asian deluge has many hazards - sandal-loss is just one.

Other hazards include engulfing waves created by carefree drivers careening along inundated roadways. At the very least - saturation. Unsteady riders engaged simultaneously in umbrella managing while handlebar manipulating. And oil-slicked road surfaces combined with worn tires add spice to notoriously competitive Asian driving.

There really are many hazards - ranging from potentially lethal to just downright inconvenient - and collision between bike-riding and torrential rain in the wettest months is inevitable - and unavoidable.

On Phuket Island - as everywhere in Southeast Asia - motor-bikes are generally an essential for every family, typically - mothers ride to market - students, of all ages, ride to school - fathers ride to their workplace - and grandparents often ride around doing family chores. Often the entire family rides around together - on a single bike - and pigs, bags of cement, cages bulging with various livestock, very long stepladders - all can be seen precariously placed on the pillion seat.

The world's major motorbike manufacturers have managed to make motorbikes - well, frankly - sexy - sensuous - even hi-so, as they say in Thailand. Vivid colours never conceived for anything as utilitarian as a motorbike - neon lime, aubergine purple, gasoline orange, and Florida pink. Sleek curves - mysterious finishes. Model names more akin to galactic science fiction than earth-bound machinery. And colourful decals and accessorising treatments more worthy of those airliners that masquerade as vast and mobile murals than two-wheeled transport for the masses.

And truly they are transport for dummies. My somewhat coy silver-coloured Mio is fully automatic - it's so damn easy to ride in the dry! But in the wet?

During torrential rain, two wheeled, al fresco transport may create questions, but never - will I ride - or when will I ride? These questions imply choices - and for most there are none - riding is life - as it must unfold this day.

It is for this reason that torrential rain lifescapes feature thousands of haloed headlights, in close formation, distorted by a water curtain; riders, grotesquely bloated by ballooning wet weather wear; hastily converted garbage bags donned raffishly, but entirely inadequately; below-thigh-saturated, high-heeled femme fatales in short stylish raincoats; and sometimes those that brave the elements with no special protection, either through poor judgement or capricious disregard for the certain outcome, a very uncomfortable start to the day.

All are fully engaged in the necessity of getting on with life. As Morgan Freeman's character in the movie 'Shawshank Redemption' say's, 'get busy living or get busy dieing'.

Despite their immediate and unavoidable consequences, climatic conditions are more likely to cause comment among Farangs than indigenous folk.

English author Somerset Maugham once famously remarked of the streets of Bangkok during his visit in 1923, '… their dust, their blinding sun…', and '… they are hard and glittering …'

It is 6.30 in the morning, a morning when Maugham's observation does not apply to Phuket - towering charcoal grey, brilliant white and lacquer-black thunderclouds roil and boil above, unleashing a seasonal downpour. The hilly spine of the island is wreathed in low hanging cloud drapes.

This morning my partner and I left home on our motorbike - but a quick reconnoiter of the sky had us backtracking to get the car.

We stopped at one of the numerous roadside food stalls to purchase our daily morning offering to the monks that tread the highways and byways around Phuket - and across Thailand.

A column of these blessed men approach - seemingly unmoved by, but totally aware of - overtures of an impending downpour - we place our offerings, one to a bowl, and kneel for a blessing. This morning their bold orange-coloured robes are incandescent against the gloomy sky. Nearby, the towering Wat Chalong dun-coloured spire stands proud against the looming gloom.

The colours of this paradise - with its Gauguin or Van Gough palette - are intensified by rain. The green of tropic broad-leaved plants become deeper and more lustrous. Blossoms brighten. Water droplets gather pewter-coloured light.

///. It's as close as I can come to a symbol to represent a tropic downpour.

///. The air is noticeably fresher. And cooler too. But within moments of rain ceasing, temperature and humidity soars.

///. Sitting in our favourite breakfast dim sum restaurant - rain drumming on the roof. Rain cascades off the modern awning flooding the sidewalk - whilst perversely, next door, a sagging fabric awning of an open-sided food stall is seriously threatened as water pools.

///. Millions of droplets plunge kamikaze-like leaving a momentary indentation on frenzied puddles before ricocheting skywards - and when the downpour diminishes, fat lazy drops plop into pooled rainwater and sluggish ripples radiate.

///. Dark clouds and glinting headlights.

///. And the sandal floats by.

Southeast Asia's climate is as exotic - and quixotic - as are so many other aspects of Asian life. Rainy days create unique lifescapes.

So what? You ask. Good question. It's just a meditation that helps me decide how I'm doing when it comes to me dealing with my pc21; it helps me put my decisions in context. It helps me realise that by working at circumventing my pc21,  life is the better for it.

As singer/song-writer  John Denver wrote, 'Some days are diamonds and some days are stone' - but I'm working at minimising the external influences that cause my days of stone. And as I think about it I'm sure I'm doing all I can; what more can be done?

Are you doing anything in response to your pc21?

* pc 21: my shorthand for 'personal conflicts in the twenty-first century.

Buying a house. Creating a home. Phuket Island, Thailand. Pt1.

After visiting Thailand several times I wanted very much to spend more time in this wonderful country. Who wouldn't?

Thailand is a silken web of temptations. Welcoming, relatively kind-hearted people. A way of life that basks in Buddhist wisdom. Numerous exciting ways to play all day. Warm scented nights that murmur - unwind. It's a sensuous, partying melting pot. Spicy cuisine is ever a whim away. Limitless shopping. Inexhaustible temptations. I wandered into this web and was snared - my struggles have been, at best, half-hearted.

Thailand straddles fifteen degrees north to south and ten degrees east to west - a broad stage upon which parades a colourful cast. Lush rain forests; rainbow plumage; sunlit hills and shaded valleys; blossoms of every hue; sunflower-coloured beaches; butterfly wings like ancient silk; ocean and bays of sapphire and jade; and silent pools, sparkling streams and tumbling waterfalls.

And if all this were not reason enough to spend time in Thailand, life in my adopted country of more than forty-five years is now so beset with bureaucratic pedants, mindless aspiration, celebrity mania, opinionated self-serving, self-proclaimed experts and other media mindlessness, bad manners, and 'nannying' by a bloated governmental apparatus sustained by unchecked avarice - it is time to move on.

So I dreamed of having a home in the ancient land of Siam and with all this in mind I spent fifteen minutes in a small 'village' of ready-built, modest but modern cottage-like houses - and bought one. Mind you, there's so much you don't notice in such a short time.

I went from dreamer to owner in about the time it takes to prepare Tom Yum Goong!

So - I sound half-witted - but it really did happen that way, because I was, and still am, dazzled by nearly everything Thai.

Why I have chosen the Buddha background?

A fair question.

Especially as from my earliest childhood I was brought up a Christian and, until my mid-twenties, I regularly attended church; now I don’t, but deep down I have faith that there is some greater purpose for us than to be born and ultimately die.

Whether that greater purpose is to be pursued or realised during life or after death, I’m not sure. Islam, Jainism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, or any other philosophy – I’m not sure there’s one expression of any such great purpose. More about this shortly.

Battle Plan. As part of my battle plan to survive what in these pages I’ll call ‘pc21’ (the emerging personal conflict of the twenty-first century – the outcome of governmental intrusion, bureaucratic imposition, naive liberalism, and the wiles of unscrupulous big business), I decided to leave my adopted home, the great ‘nanny state’ Australia, and choose another home for my future; and within the limitations of inter-governmental regulations I’ve chosen Thailand which is where I now spend around five months of each year. In short I am leaving the sinking ship!

Buddha. And in large part it’s this move that alerted me to Buddha, and Buddhism. And my growing conviction is that there could be no better guide, no better plan, for responding to pc21, than the way for living life as proposed by the Buddha.

For more on Buddha read 'Buddha', a 2001 published book by Karen Armstrong.

What you'll find here

If you’re reading this you may just have too much spare time on your hands; but you’re very welcome.

My screen name: I suppose the word aging is self-explanatory. Warrior? Because that’s how I feel, and I imagine many others young and old must too – in a sense we are in a constant fight to protect what many of us believe is our reasonable lifestyle expectations; an expectation being eroded daily by government and its willing bureaucracy, big business, and warped social liberalism like the idea of unchecked multiculturalism. I think that those of us that are ‘senior citizens’ are confronted by these changes more – simply because we have a greater capability to recognise these changes.

So I’m meditating – musing if you will – on what I believe are the issues I’m confronting, and how as a warrior I’m fighting back.