Celebrate

May this find you celebrating life holidays with friends, family and complete strangers in beauty and mystery. Elf trusts your 2011 was filled with blessings and peace.

A traveling Elf completed 84 days at a private elementary school in Vientiane, Laos.

29 teachers taught Elf how to focus and pay attention.

Kill the television and distracting electronic gadgets, they said. Laughing.

They taught Elf about Character. Trust, fairness, responsibility, citizenship, and respect.

Elf cried and thanked them.

Elf feels great returning to Luang Prabang. He will investigate new teaching ops in the new year.

Funny seeing all the neurotic Europeans dazed and confused. They wander Disneyland. Lost and looking. DOING the Southeast Asian circuit. In-out. Bye bye.

Tourists find. Travelers discover.

Collected the Mystery 21-speed bike from the bus station. Had four months of grime and dirt sprayed off. Oiled. 

Spin them wheels. Excellent rolling elevations. Taking his time quickly. Expanding the adventure indeed. 

May all your adventures in 2012 be light and love. 

Ash fallout

Greetings,

As hostage travelers get a grip and get a life discovering the diverse thrills of living in airports, bus and train stations along life's tortuous path Ash flies merrily along, singing a song, Blow Wind Blow.

Humans are learning how to mill around. They are learning how to adapt, adjust and evolve in situations and consequences outside their control. Many practice meditation. They know that suffering is an illusion. They make new international friends in transportation hubs. They learn how to share. Some are grateful. They get married, have kids, get divorced and attend correspondence schools in transit lounges. Some mature. A few are beginning to understand that air travel is not so exciting. After all.

The soul travels at the speed of a camel. Walking is the way.

Such a terrible hard unpleasant fact. Life goes on. Nature loves the drama. Especially at the expense of humans. 

Comments from the ground echo through thin atmosphere. Ash is all ears. 

It's a crying shame how Nature does this to us. 
It's all about money and greed, citing airline, hotel and food suppliers. It's about supply and demand. It's about taking advantage of the situation. It's about PROFIT.
People scream, "I hate the government." People cry, "I want my government to save me, to get me home, to get me out of this horrible mess."

Artists slow down and create masterpieces.
Sue Iceland.
Throw all the bankers into the volcano.

Sam, an African farmer from Kenya believe it, drinks a Bloody Merry in Asia and yaks on his cell phone to friends about his boat and how difficult it is here to live and get decent food and how he's not REALLY interested in the 19-year old bar girls.

He is surrounded by smelly containers filled with rotting fruit and wilting flowers destined for white rich folks in Europa, a brand of Confusion. He leaves messages on answering machines. He orders another bloody drink.

Old frail Sam wobbles away on thin legs thinking, "I don't get home until the 3rd. I'm going to die before I see my boat."

He's one of those terribly sad rich men reading the fine print, NO EXIT. Lost and alone he strums his sad guitar. "I look at the world and see it is sleeping while my guitar gently weeps." Ash understands with empathy. Empathy is a circle. 

The reality on the ground is that international travelers are not starving. They are not homeless. They are not begging in the streets. They are not whining, sniveling idiots. No. They are learning a hard fast lesson about the vagaries of travel. They are learning why it is important to always have a supply of energy bars and a towel.

Lost and alone in a vast empty Departure area is a little girl in a white dress. She wears bright red shoes. She clicks her heels together three times and says, "I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home."

Fly the friendly skies. They call it ADVENTURE TRAVEL. 

Metta.