Friday, March 4, 2022
7:00 a.m. Room 4, PLP Guest House
Mae Hong Son, Thailand
My little lime-green Benka is busy bringing my morning coffee water to a boil. I’m so happy about that. It feels like it could use a medium setting on the dial, though. It only has three settings: Off, 300-watt, and 600-watt. And the 600-watt setting is very powerful. It boils hard. And the 300-watt setting is a bit too gentle. It needs a setting right in the middle. I’m also not sure I trust the dial at all. When I click it to Off, it seems to still be on for a long time. It just keeps boiling and boiling. And then I eventually hear a click, and it seems to shut off. But it takes a long time. I’m worried that this click will not happen at some point and the Benka will just stay on. So now I have the habit of unplugging it as well as turning it off. That seems wise. The switch is always the weak point on these cheap appliances. The whole cooking pot costs $10 US, so you can’t expect great durability. It’s an astonishingly good cooking pot for such a low price, to be honest.
And as I wake up this morning, another Skinny Doug Fasting Day comes to a close. Unfortunately, I don’t have any food. So the fasting will continue until I go out into the world later today. My plan for today is to pack up and ride my scooter to a town called Pang Mapha. Pang Mapha is only 66 kilometers away, so it should be a relaxing day. I reserved three nights at a guest house called the Jungle Guesthouse. It seems like a nice place. More to the point, it is listed on Agoda and Booking dot com. There are other places to stay in Pang Mapha, but I don’t know how or if I can reserve a room at any of them in advance. And you really need to do that this time of year in this area. I just checked on Agoda, and if I type in my dates now, nothing shows up. Everything is booked. It still feels like a weird thing to do, though. I haven’t generally booked anything in advance in my life. It just wasn’t something you did. But now it is standard.
I haven’t checked the news yet. I don’t have the habit of checking the news first thing in the morning, but the whole Ukraine situation is kind of fascinating. It feels like anything could happen. And with nearly the entire world uniting against Russia, it’s very dramatic. My entire life, I’ve heard about economic sanctions and boycotts. But I’ve never had the impression that they have any effect. But this feels different. The sanctions feel drastic. And large companies are cutting off their services. And the effect of that is also immediate. I believe even Google has turned off Google Maps and other services in Russia. And Apple is refusing to sell their products. Movies won’t be released there. The international finance world has been shut off for them. The Russian network RT has largely been banned in the US, and the whole network closed. Russia has been banned from FIFA and every other international sports organization. It’s crazy. And if random stories are to be believed, many of the Russian soldiers themselves are not thrilled to be invading Ukraine. They don’t want to do it, and they didn’t even know that is what they were being sent out to do. And all the EU and NATO countries are selling and giving weapons to Ukraine and supplying other equipment and resources. It feels like a brand new world. I never would have imagined something like this happening. And I keep seeing that story about a massive Russian convoy stalled on its way to the capital. Yet, it feels like if Russia wants to invade and take over Ukraine, that’s what they’re going to do. I can’t see Ukraine resisting for long, despite all the stories of grandmothers making molotov cocktails and ordinary citizens taking up guns. That’s all well and good, but that won’t really matter in the face of a determined modern army. So, what will happen? I’m very curious. Based on the tone of the news, you are almost expecting a feel-good story where the brave Ukrainians manage to fight off the Russian army. Yet, reality will almost certainly assert itself and Russia will eventually take over the whole place. And they will claim it as part of Russia and keep it. And that will be it. How can it be otherwise unless NATO members also declare war on Russia and send in troops? And with the nuclear threat, that is highly unlikely.
Listen to me babble on as if I know anything about anything…