Buddha lives in Bangkok...

Oh yes he does, I see him smiling everywhere…every corner I turn, he is there in some form or fashion, whether it is in the smiles of the young children playing in Lumpini park ...



or in the blind beggar who is singing “Feelings” for the 10th time that morning in the blazing heat under the noisy train tracks that reeks with the smell of heavy incense and stale urine….




Buddha really is alive and well in Bangkok and after coming to this city for over 12 years, I think I finally have it figured out. Bangkok is sort of like life: If you don’t like it, you can leave, passively watching it from the sidelines, numbing yourself from the reality of what “is”. But if you choose to be a part of it, to truly dive into the beautiful ebb and flow of all the chaos that is here, you can’t help but take delight in all the wondrous surprises that await you with every corner you turn.



Bangkok doesn’t try to be anything else than what it is; there is no pretentiousness about it whatsoever. It is big, it is crowded, it is noisy, and there is traffic on the roads that just never ceases. Street beggars are scattered everywhere though they are all very polite and do not come to you or bug you in any way; they sit or stand quietly on the curbs, singing a song, holding a baby or two, or just calmly rock back and forth crossed- legged waiting for the next jingle of a coin to hit their bucket.



Its people are some of the hardest working people I have ever seen; day and night they are out on the streets selling their foods and wares, always with a smile, and always with the knowledge that there might not be more than a few customers that actually buy something for the day. But they show up. Day after day. They do not give up.



Their physical and spiritual resilience is palpable-for only 6 months ago, this city was under a state of shock and siege as opposing political forces fought each other the good ol’ fashioned way- on the streets, with sling shots, bombs and stones. Government buildings were shut down as were some of the cities largest shopping malls. It was devastating to see a city full of so much love come to this point of emotional and physical eruption. I was moved to tears every time I saw images of the violence blasted on the world wide media. This just wasn’t the Thailand I knew or loved.



Yet it is now peaceful again- to a point where it seems more calm than ever. Perhaps the Thai people realize they went a step too far and instead of shooting off the opponents, they all shot themselves in their own foot instead. The violence had gone too far and I believe they now realize this.



Yesterday, I returned to the very same spot where the center of all the riots took place and upon seeing the sign above my head that said : “Welcome to the World of Happiness”, I broke out in tears, reminded once again that life does go on and things do get better and that the Thai people personify this resilience like no other culture I have seen....




Sawatdee Ka Thailand….it is nice to see your smiling face again…

t-minus 60 days....

So it just really hit me that in 8 weeks time I will embarking on my 3-month adventure back to Southeast Asia again. It is my 6th year returning there and I feel the excitement already kicking in (and yes, I am already thinking of how little I am going to be bringing on this trip and am excited to live out of one bag again for awhile ! call me strange, or just call me a "gypsy" at heart but I absolutely love this part of my travels !... :-) )



I always have new places to visit when I go and this time will be no exception. I have a couple of Thai islands that I want to explore (and will keep them "my secret" for now:-) ) and will return to Laos and VIetnam again to visit new areas I did not make on my last visit there. India is also an option now as I recently had an invite from very good friends who live there for 6 months of the year- there is nothing like seeing a new place through the eyes of the locals ! and India has always been one of those places that has hauntingly beckoned me for many years..I think it is time...





I am also excited to conduct my second annual "Live Laugh Love Tour" that will take me and my group to Bangkok, the Thai island of Ko Lanta , Kuala Lumpur, and Bali. It is a dream come true for me to show friends some of my favorite spots in the world and I can only hope they will return home with wonderful stories and memories to share with their friends and loved ones...check out this link if you want to come join us ! www.livelaughlovetours.blogspot.com



But perhaps what I am most looking forward to on my trip is the "detaching" from my usual day-to-day "busy-ness" and taking more time out to take care of "me"...I have realized that these trips have been amazingly useful for me in that I always come home so much more energized and rejuvenated with so much more creativity and energy to give to others. It is like I leave Hawaii with my "vessel" almost "empty" and return 3-4 months later on "full". It feels like such a wonderful reward and gift to myself after working so hard all year.




and yes, I feel an amazing amount of gratitude as well...

for my health holding up so I could work all year to get to this point..



for my friends and family who support me 100% and who understand why I need to do this...



for all my friends overseas in Thailand and elsewhere who always welcome me as if I am family when I return...









and of course there is always a special feeling of gratitude for my mom and dad who instilled the spirit of fearless exploration in me at such an amazingly young age.

I am forever indebted to them both..



thanks Mom and Dad....

and to all those of you who are reading this- know that the world is always your oyster...

just make a plan and make it happen..

happy birthday John Lennon...

So today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday...hard to imagine, really, what a 70-year old John Lennon would have looked like today. I suspect he wouldn't have grey'd much and would be still wearing his wonderful thin-rimmed glasses and still be smirking and shocking the cameras and media on a weekly basis with yet another wonderfully creative antic to bring attention to a world issue at hand.



He talked about a world where there were no countries, only peace..."no hell below us-above us only sky"...a world where there were no possessions nor no need for greed or hunger..only a brotherhood of man....



a world where we could all travel the globe , wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted, without a cell in our being experiencing the slightest sense of fear-only love, acceptance, tolerance, understanding and compassion....



now there is a world worth imagining....



Happy Birthday John...

we miss you...

never underestimate the power of your smile..

for in a matter a moments, you can change someone's life..



or at least make their day....








(Luang Prabang temple, Laos- Feb, 2010)

be here now....

Don't let your mind get weary and confused
Your will be still, don't try
Don't let your heart get heavy child
Inside you there's a strength that lies

Don't let your soul get lonely child
It's only time, it will go by
Don't look for love in faces, places
It's in you, that's where you'll find kindness

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

Don't lose your faith in me
And I will try not to lose faith in you
Don't put your trust in walls
'Cause walls will only crush you when they fall

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

less is more...

I love animals (and not necessarily zoos) because they rely on their instincts only. They are not rewarded with a paycheck for a job well done at the end of the day nor do they complain if they don't have a new blanket to sleep on when night falls. They don't have mirrors where they tell themselves daily "I look too fat" nor do they have neighbors they envy because "their cage is bigger than mine". Nope, animals are pretty darn simple creatures who seem to take whatever is thrown at them (both literally and metaphorically) with a grain of salt.



I am always reminded of a most valuable lesson when I am around animals and it is this: "Less is More." Plain and simple. The less physical clutter you have in your life, the more room you have to roam free like a dolphin playing passionately in the ocean ...




I am not sure where I first learned this valuable lesson but it is one that I hold very near and dear to my heart. I do know, however, that I often attribute my sudden shift to a literal "lightness in baggage" in life to a moment when I was about 10 years old.



My family was on its way to the airport to catch a flight to Greece (I believe this was my first time there) and I was carrying a HUGE yellow vinyl suitcase ( I swear it was bigger than me ) with about 8 pairs of girly-girl shoes and every summer outfit one can possibly imagine a 10 year old Greek/Brazilian girl would be wearing in 1974 . Halfway down to the family station wagon, my dad stopped me dead in my tracks, took one quick look at my oversized Samsonite, picked it up , opened it up with 2 quick "clicks", and dumped out its entire content right there on the ground in front of me.



All I could I hear my dad saying at this point (through my tears and heavy dramatic sobs) was this : " one pair of shoes, one pair of shorts, one bathing suit- now go back and pack- hurry up- we leave in 5 minutes !"

Well, needless to say, I have never been the same since.That wonderful lesson of "less is more" was truly ingrained in my brain from that day forward. I have never packed more than a couple of pairs of shoes in my luggage since and I have yet to check a bag in on any flight I have taken in about the last 15 years.

The liberation of having so little on your back when you travel is now something I crave. Knowing your whole world is in a 2x3 ' bag keeps one mind and heart focused on the more important things in life: the world around you and the inner "stuff" you always carry with you in your heart and mind. Now that is the kind of baggage I don't mind checking in. And you never get charged an extra cent.

what are you waiting for ?

there is no time like the present- seriously, this is all you and I got.

You can try to tell me every dam excuse in the book of why your life is so miserable, why you haven't been somewhere, why you haven't made this amount of money, bought "that" car, found "that" girl, learned "that" skill, lost that weight, etc...the list goes on and on and on and ON...

We have all been "there"- some more than others. A place where we wallow in our self-pity and present to the world a person who has been a victim of some sort of circumstance that has put us" there" in the first place.



Many of us create incredibly detailed reasons in our mind why we just can't do something- why we are just not "good enough" or "smart enough" to make our dreams come true :"My mother beat me." "My girlfriend left me." " I only got C's in college" . Go ahead- write down your "why I cant do this" list now or think about what excuses you have used in your past or are currently using now- you may be surprised at how negative your mindset really has been for much of your life.



So what is it that REALLY stops us from going for our dreams ? Is it fear of failure , of looking like a "loser" in others eyes ? Is it maybe a sort of "depression" comfort zone we get used to after thinking this way for so much of our lives ? Or maybe what really stops us are the massive amounts of fear-based negative messages that bombard us daily from the world around us (i.e. " the world is a big and dangerous place and you are weak and small." )?



Okay, so here's the scoop.-I am here to let you know first hand that the best thing you can first do to start making your dreams come true is to JUST DO IT. Yes, that is right. I know this may not seem like such earth-shattering news and lord knows Nike made enough off this expression so something's gotta be kind of corrupt here but honestly, this is it. This is all you have to do. Start with one thing you want to have or get accomplished in your life and make this your priority with all else you do.


For example- you want to go to Bali. I don't blame you. Bali is a magical, spiritual, beautiful place filled with amazing culture, people, landscape and food. I had always dreamt about going to Bali as well and I didn't just want to go there for a week or so- I wanted to live there for awhile, explore its neighboring countries and be totally immersed in its culture for awhile.

So about 15 years ago, I made it a priority. I took on a couple of extra jobs teaching, playing music, and directing shows and drastically reduced how much I shopped for "meaningless stuff". No more going to Costco on Sundays for "bulk" shopping or eating out every night because I was too lazy to cook at home...Nope, I had enough of all the basic physical comforts in my life and just needed to focus on having enough cash to get my butt off the island that i lived on to another island about 5,000 miles away. (seems kind of funny now as I write this as I just realized so much of my life has been filled with traveling from one island to another- hmmm....I see another entry coming on this topic soon:-) )



So I worked my butt of for about 6 months, sacrificing on some of the modern comforts I was used to but knowing full well it was all for one goal: to go to Bali. And yes, I did end up living in Bali for a month and saw just about every corner of this magical place. New friends were made as well as a newfound connection to a spirit world within me that was waiting to be set free- Bali did this for me and I will be forever grateful.



My suggestion to anyone reading this right now is this: if you have a dream, please go for it. Your mind is the ONLY thing that is stopping you. Please turn off those demons in your head that keep telling you all the reasons you "CAN'T" do something and instead start writing down daily lists of all the things you are doing towards making your goal come true.

It is not just a one-day process either- you need to sometimes literally "re-wire" your brain into how it sees "you" in the world and this takes time. Yes, visualizing is always good- Try actually "seeing" and "feeling" yourself in the situation you are dreaming about from every little detail to how your body and breath feel to how you will feel when you wake up in the morning, I have done this countless of times and on a daily basis and I can tell you that when the dream finally does "come", it often feels like a bit of a "deja vuz" as my manifestations are often very similar of what I first dreamt about.

So start that list. Start it now. And start with number one. And please do everything you can possibly think of to make that first dream come true. Then start working down your list. You will start seeing these dreams come true quicker than you could have ever imagined.

See you in Bali.




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"aren't you afraid of traveling alone ? "

If I had a dollar for every time I have been asked this question, I could have bought a round the world air ticket by now....Seriously, this is by far the most common question I get asked from almost everyone I meet when I tell them I am about to embark on yet another trip to a faraway land. Usually there is a second question that comes right after this one, something to the effect of "Do you feel safe as a woman traveling on her own?" and before they go on to the next question about whether or not I get homesick, I begin to smile, and gently shake my head "no" and begin to explain to them something I have been sharing for most of my life.



No, I am not afraid of traveling alone. This is an absolutely foreign concept to me. I have been on airplanes since I was 4, traveling alone on buses since I was 10, and living on my own since I was 18. I am not afraid of my own company. In fact, I actually like and often prefer my own company. I am usually pretty fun to be with and seem to have honed some pretty good survival skills over the years to cope with whatever situation is presented to me (and there have been many...more on that in another entry or two..)

Sure I have some fears in life (riding rollercoasters comes to mind right now) but getting on an airplane and landing in a country where I know no one and no one knows me continues continues to be one of the most exhilarating experiences that I have in my life. It is hard for me to describe the adrenaline I feel days (sometimes even weeks) before I am about to go on another trip. My sense of adventure for the unknown is so heightened that I often have to make sure my mind's eye doesn't take over and create a whole scenario for me before I even get to where I am going.



I am a believer in letting things "unfold" as they need to though I do believe in at least booking a hotel room or 2 in advance (tripadvisor.com is really good for this) so I can just land, get to my room, and start exploring with no time wasted. And yes, I still have whims (that I often act on) of getting on a train or plane and just going "somewhere" and not knowing much about what I am about to see. I did that in Vietnam 2 years ago and for a month I traveled up the entire coast from the Mekong Delta to Saigon and then onward to Hanoi with nothing more than a lonely planet guide book in tow and the recommendations of fellow travelers I met along the way.



"There are never any strangers in life- only friends you haven't met". These were the words I saw on a worn wooden plaque over our dining room table in my childhood home in Orange, Connecticut. These words continue to ring true for me and I often recite them to myself as I make my way down cobblestone streets in unknown cities and villages where heads often turn from cafe tables and store windows and I am greeted with warm smiles and gentle nods of "sawatdee ka" and "guten morgen".



Perhaps what makes me feel most safe in any foreign country is connecting and playing with the children. Truly this has been my playground and the many moments of laughter and joy I have with these kids will continue to inspire me to travel more. Kids just aren't afraid, plain and simple. They still haven't been told that some people are "bad" and some people are "good". Their sixth sense is completely intact and they just "know" when you want to be friends with them and play. There is no second guessing with them. Just the other day, I was playing with a 2-year old adopted Chinese girl who had never met me before and within 5 minutes of me talking and laughing with her, she gently grabbed my hand and asked me to walk her to the pool to play. An hour later, she gave me a kiss on the lips and said "bye bye" in broken english...a trust was built and then shared....if only everyone got along so easily and well.



So the bottom line is this: traveling alone is safe and often a great deal of fun. If you are open-minded, friendly, and willing to start up a conversation with strangers, you will never feel alone. If you are resourceful, have done some homework on where you are, even better. You will get a good sense of the lay of the land pretty quickly and there always seems to be someone just around the corner that can at least point you in the right direction of "somewhere"



Knowing the language is always helpful but what I find even more helpful is being really good at pointing to words in a dictionary when asking for help. Being clever with nonverbal gestures can also be a lifesaver as has been the case for me in dozens of foreign places around the world where the locals did not speak a word of English. ( Chau Doc, Vietnam comes to mind right now)



And yes, being a woman that travels alone also has some challenges but I sense I really don't need to lecture you all on how to "be" ; Just be yourself, walk with confidence, smile a lot, and just know when to walk away from a situation that might seem "dangerous". Most important of all, trust your instinct- it is usually spot on.

But do remember this: once you get the hang of traveling on your own and have rid yourself of those "demons and fears", you will feel the whole world is literally at your fingertips. No one or nothing can stop you. And that is a pretty darn cool place to be.



If you have any experiences and helpful advice that you would like to share from traveling alone (either as a woman or man !), please share. I would love to hear from you.

until next time....be safe but dont be scared.