Trip Report V
1) Introduction to this email.
2) Ayutthaya.
3) Money.
4) Drinks revisited and languages.
5) Royal Barges museum.
6) Rama's death.
1) I've included a history of events to do with Rama's death in this email which I am sending to my 'Family' & 'Trip' email address groups, so if you're in both groups you might get this email twice (sorry 'bout that), because some of my family haven't heard what happened clearly and some of my friends might like to know, if you don't already. Also if you're family but haven't been getting the trip reports you can see if you're interested, but if you don't want to know the details of my brothers death it will be easy enough to skip those paragraphs (just stop reading after the Royal Barges museum visit).
2) 25/7/02 Went to Ayutthaya today. Saw my 6th & 7th palaces, being the ruins of the Imperial Palace at Ayutthaya and the complete (& still in occasional use) palace at Bang Thit. Several of the palaces I've visited are about a square km in size. I wasn't planning to take a tour so I figured the 700 Baht I had on me on Wednesday night would be fine, but a 450 Baht tour ticket, tuk-tuk ride home & taxi ride back, breakfast & some postcards later I was all out of Thai money. I had figured that it would be OK if I ran out because lunch was included & Kaosan Rd (where the tour departed and returned) is the best place in BKK to change money, but I forgot about water (drinks weren't included with the free lunch) & charges on loos. Fortunately one of the tourists on the tour gave me change for the loo & I had a bottle of water at the beginning and pigged out on Rambutans at lunch. Ayuttaya (amazingly I can pronounce it as well as spell it) has signs for money changers and ATMs, but the actual facilities haven't arrived yet.
3) Changed the last of the money I brought with me from Australia when I got to Kaosan Rd. This means by the time I hit Cairo I will have spent $570 AUD all up assuming I spend all I changed but no more (a fair bet), except for duty free presents, accommodation, a steak & my mobile bill which went on credit cards. All the accommodation I've booked for the trip cost about that much, which covers 6 nights in Bangkok, a night in Amsterdam (or Den Haag, which was as close as I could get), 2 nights in Paris & 9 nights in the USA staying in Youth Hostel dorms (which aren't too bad really). It doesn't cover Cairo, which you can't book over the internet, or Fiji, which doesn't have a youth hostel. The rest of the time I'll be staying with friends or relies'.
4) Forgot to mention raspberries, blueberries, oranges & watermelon in my list of drinks in my last email. Started the day of with a raspberry milkshake at breakfast & had watermelon & coconut milkshakes after arriving back from Ayuttaya. I then successfully directed a taxi back to the Youth Hostel in Thai using my map & phrasebook. He had no idea where it was and didn't understand any directions in English (but he did understand I was visiting family). I've found 'hello'/'good day', 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me'/'sorry', 'right', 'left', 'straight ahead', 'stop', the numerals from '0' to '9', 'where are the toilets,' 'please wash my clothes,' & 'train station' will get you an amazingly long way in a foreign country.
5) 26/7/02 Walked to Kaosan Rd this morning and found it only took 20 minutes. Had an orange shake while waiting for my cousin (I was very early) (the shake was something between an OJ & a milkshake). Caught a cab to the Royal Barges museum, wandered around, Suman went back to work & I caught a ferry & a skytrain to Siam Square (the heart of downtown BKK), had a steak for lunch & did some window shopping before getting buses home.
6.1) Rama had been renting a room at Katoomba. On the 18th of August 1993 the police in Katoomba found Rama's wallet at the top of a tourist lookout near Echo Point (although this was a different lookout). About 2 weeks later a police car arrived at the house and 3 constables informed mum that they'd found Rama's wallet. Not realising he was missing, presumed dead, mum said "oh well, we'd better let him know then" and rang Daniel. Her comment to us was how ridiculous to send 3 cops when they could have just rung her from Katoomba. Thinking that since Daniel was living nearby (whom is like family & I've known since we were both 4) he would have let us know if anything was wrong, mum still wasn't alarmed so she asked if he could let Rama know about his wallet. Daniel informed mum that Rama's lights hadn't been on for about 2 weeks and he hadn't seen him, but had thought he must be in Sydney at our place. Daniel went with the police to Rama's place where they found a suicide note. One of the constables was amazed at how close Daniel was to Rama and thought he must have been his brother. When considering the note in the light of what I will say later you should know that Rama suffered from depression and you could have filled an attaché case with all the suicide notes he'd written at various times. At this point we suspected he had committed suicide.
6.2) Jan's mum and brother were staying with us at the time in Redfern. People have assumed this must have been a comfort, so I'll just use mum's words and say that her brother Cyril is very bombastic. The next day grandma, Cyril & I were visiting dad when mum rang the police to find out that they had discovered his body at the bottom of the cliff. A guy had to be winched down on a helicopter to get it. That we were away gave mum the freedom to run around the house screaming for a while, then she rang us and let us know what had happened. Then the business of organising the funeral and contacting people began.
6.3) Rama had dropped head first close in to the cliff face (which is a difficult way to drop yourself off a cliff) and had hit his head on a rocky outcrop part way down the cliff killing him instantly. Mum and Daniel went the next day to identify the body. There was a sheet covering all of it (he'd been in a wet area for 2 weeks), except for a small spot on his leg which mum was always concerned about in case it turned cancerous, so she had measured it to make sure it wasn't changing, so she knew it was him. Also they found a ring and an earring belonging to him. The police had prepared us for the worst and Daniel and mum were surprised that the sheet was normally shaped except that where his face would have been it was flat.
6.4) At the time Soli, Daniel's sister and at one time Rama's best friend, had a dream where this angel came and spoke to her and she said "Go away, I don't believe in angels" and it went away. Then she thought if they were there speaking to her she had better investigate and went looking for them but couldn't find them. Finally she found an angel but he was a dark man, unlike the first angels or any angel she had seen pictured before. She said "You're very sad." and he said "Yes."
6.5) Rama and I were very close (as often happens with siblings who grow up in traumatic circumstances) and the shock of his death and my inability to grieve openly at the time (I just didn't know how to grieve) meant I got non-specific liver disease and the CFS relapsed. With regards the non-specific liver disease - I got a feeling (I just knew inside myself) one day that if I didn't express my grief it would affect my liver, but that was OK as I would get better and one day I would learn how to grieve. Several months later I was diagnosed with non-specific liver disease. Regarding the CFS - at the beginning of 1992 I was studying full time while working part time, and I continued to study full time until August. 1994, but I failed everything at the beginning of 1994. I have not been as healthy as I was before Rama died since then, when I was well on the way to a complete recovery. I was the saddest thing that ever happened to mum and she could burst into tears about it easily for a long time. Dad was in denial and would talk about Rama playing some big prank on us and how he might turn up somewhere someday (which is why those of you who heard these events through him may not have received a clear picture).
Blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran
2) Ayutthaya.
3) Money.
4) Drinks revisited and languages.
5) Royal Barges museum.
6) Rama's death.
1) I've included a history of events to do with Rama's death in this email which I am sending to my 'Family' & 'Trip' email address groups, so if you're in both groups you might get this email twice (sorry 'bout that), because some of my family haven't heard what happened clearly and some of my friends might like to know, if you don't already. Also if you're family but haven't been getting the trip reports you can see if you're interested, but if you don't want to know the details of my brothers death it will be easy enough to skip those paragraphs (just stop reading after the Royal Barges museum visit).
2) 25/7/02 Went to Ayutthaya today. Saw my 6th & 7th palaces, being the ruins of the Imperial Palace at Ayutthaya and the complete (& still in occasional use) palace at Bang Thit. Several of the palaces I've visited are about a square km in size. I wasn't planning to take a tour so I figured the 700 Baht I had on me on Wednesday night would be fine, but a 450 Baht tour ticket, tuk-tuk ride home & taxi ride back, breakfast & some postcards later I was all out of Thai money. I had figured that it would be OK if I ran out because lunch was included & Kaosan Rd (where the tour departed and returned) is the best place in BKK to change money, but I forgot about water (drinks weren't included with the free lunch) & charges on loos. Fortunately one of the tourists on the tour gave me change for the loo & I had a bottle of water at the beginning and pigged out on Rambutans at lunch. Ayuttaya (amazingly I can pronounce it as well as spell it) has signs for money changers and ATMs, but the actual facilities haven't arrived yet.
3) Changed the last of the money I brought with me from Australia when I got to Kaosan Rd. This means by the time I hit Cairo I will have spent $570 AUD all up assuming I spend all I changed but no more (a fair bet), except for duty free presents, accommodation, a steak & my mobile bill which went on credit cards. All the accommodation I've booked for the trip cost about that much, which covers 6 nights in Bangkok, a night in Amsterdam (or Den Haag, which was as close as I could get), 2 nights in Paris & 9 nights in the USA staying in Youth Hostel dorms (which aren't too bad really). It doesn't cover Cairo, which you can't book over the internet, or Fiji, which doesn't have a youth hostel. The rest of the time I'll be staying with friends or relies'.
4) Forgot to mention raspberries, blueberries, oranges & watermelon in my list of drinks in my last email. Started the day of with a raspberry milkshake at breakfast & had watermelon & coconut milkshakes after arriving back from Ayuttaya. I then successfully directed a taxi back to the Youth Hostel in Thai using my map & phrasebook. He had no idea where it was and didn't understand any directions in English (but he did understand I was visiting family). I've found 'hello'/'good day', 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me'/'sorry', 'right', 'left', 'straight ahead', 'stop', the numerals from '0' to '9', 'where are the toilets,' 'please wash my clothes,' & 'train station' will get you an amazingly long way in a foreign country.
5) 26/7/02 Walked to Kaosan Rd this morning and found it only took 20 minutes. Had an orange shake while waiting for my cousin (I was very early) (the shake was something between an OJ & a milkshake). Caught a cab to the Royal Barges museum, wandered around, Suman went back to work & I caught a ferry & a skytrain to Siam Square (the heart of downtown BKK), had a steak for lunch & did some window shopping before getting buses home.
6.1) Rama had been renting a room at Katoomba. On the 18th of August 1993 the police in Katoomba found Rama's wallet at the top of a tourist lookout near Echo Point (although this was a different lookout). About 2 weeks later a police car arrived at the house and 3 constables informed mum that they'd found Rama's wallet. Not realising he was missing, presumed dead, mum said "oh well, we'd better let him know then" and rang Daniel. Her comment to us was how ridiculous to send 3 cops when they could have just rung her from Katoomba. Thinking that since Daniel was living nearby (whom is like family & I've known since we were both 4) he would have let us know if anything was wrong, mum still wasn't alarmed so she asked if he could let Rama know about his wallet. Daniel informed mum that Rama's lights hadn't been on for about 2 weeks and he hadn't seen him, but had thought he must be in Sydney at our place. Daniel went with the police to Rama's place where they found a suicide note. One of the constables was amazed at how close Daniel was to Rama and thought he must have been his brother. When considering the note in the light of what I will say later you should know that Rama suffered from depression and you could have filled an attaché case with all the suicide notes he'd written at various times. At this point we suspected he had committed suicide.
6.2) Jan's mum and brother were staying with us at the time in Redfern. People have assumed this must have been a comfort, so I'll just use mum's words and say that her brother Cyril is very bombastic. The next day grandma, Cyril & I were visiting dad when mum rang the police to find out that they had discovered his body at the bottom of the cliff. A guy had to be winched down on a helicopter to get it. That we were away gave mum the freedom to run around the house screaming for a while, then she rang us and let us know what had happened. Then the business of organising the funeral and contacting people began.
6.3) Rama had dropped head first close in to the cliff face (which is a difficult way to drop yourself off a cliff) and had hit his head on a rocky outcrop part way down the cliff killing him instantly. Mum and Daniel went the next day to identify the body. There was a sheet covering all of it (he'd been in a wet area for 2 weeks), except for a small spot on his leg which mum was always concerned about in case it turned cancerous, so she had measured it to make sure it wasn't changing, so she knew it was him. Also they found a ring and an earring belonging to him. The police had prepared us for the worst and Daniel and mum were surprised that the sheet was normally shaped except that where his face would have been it was flat.
6.4) At the time Soli, Daniel's sister and at one time Rama's best friend, had a dream where this angel came and spoke to her and she said "Go away, I don't believe in angels" and it went away. Then she thought if they were there speaking to her she had better investigate and went looking for them but couldn't find them. Finally she found an angel but he was a dark man, unlike the first angels or any angel she had seen pictured before. She said "You're very sad." and he said "Yes."
6.5) Rama and I were very close (as often happens with siblings who grow up in traumatic circumstances) and the shock of his death and my inability to grieve openly at the time (I just didn't know how to grieve) meant I got non-specific liver disease and the CFS relapsed. With regards the non-specific liver disease - I got a feeling (I just knew inside myself) one day that if I didn't express my grief it would affect my liver, but that was OK as I would get better and one day I would learn how to grieve. Several months later I was diagnosed with non-specific liver disease. Regarding the CFS - at the beginning of 1992 I was studying full time while working part time, and I continued to study full time until August. 1994, but I failed everything at the beginning of 1994. I have not been as healthy as I was before Rama died since then, when I was well on the way to a complete recovery. I was the saddest thing that ever happened to mum and she could burst into tears about it easily for a long time. Dad was in denial and would talk about Rama playing some big prank on us and how he might turn up somewhere someday (which is why those of you who heard these events through him may not have received a clear picture).
Blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran
posted by Joe at
Friday, July 26, 2002
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