Blue Skies
During our search for Kyrgyzstan related travel sites on the internet, for our portal www.links.kg, we came across an interesting little cameo. It’s from a blog called My Thailand Diary, by someone called Lillian. It is subtitled “This is my journal of living in Thailand”.
That’s right, Thailand.
I can’t tell you that much about Lillian – let me tell you some of what says about herself, in her own words:
I love getting to know new people,
I love living cross culturally
I am a Global Nomad.
born and grew up in Papua New Guinea
returned to Switzerland when I was 16
Lived in Thailand since 1999
I am married to a Swiss guy
I have 3 three wonderful children
I love, love LOVE music,
I love singing in a choir, in a band or home alone
with my epiano or guitar.
http://www.mythailanddiary.com/about-me/
Lillian and her family live in Chiang Mai, which is in North Western Thailand. She seems to have started her journal, blog, back in May 2005 with a selection of Thai “old wives tales”. Over the years she has penned a wide variety of interesting posts that cover a wide range of topics, such as: everyday life in Thailand; Thai culture; the other countries in the region; Switzerland; “inspirational moments”; learning life’s lessons; poetry; flowers and, of course, about Chiang Mai and her family. One particularly interesting set of entries describe coming to terms with the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. Apparently, she was in Chinag Mai and watched the shocking news reports on the television and as a qualified nurse volunteered to go and help.
Now, can I sense some confusion arising in your minds? This blog is one woman’s journal about her life and experiences whilst living in Thailand, but we were researching sites about Kyrgyzstan and Travel. So … how on earth did we come across this particular gem.
As far as I can tell, there is only one post that
Well, back in January, 2008, they met a couple of visitors from Switzerland who were cycling through Asia. Although originally from Switzerland, they were based at that time in Kyrgyzstan. As is often the case, (or, rather, was the case until recent events made Kyrgyzstan “newsworthy”), Lillian admits that she had no idea where Kyrgyzstan was but, as she puts it, “that’s what maps are for!”.
Their new acquaintances showed Lillian and her family some photos of their home in Central Asia and these enthralled and excited Lillian so much that she put Kyrgyzstan onto her “list of countries that (she) would like to visit”.
What was it in those photos that so enthralled her? The Mountains?, the wildlife?, something historical?, an example of the traditional nomadic lifestyle? … Apparently none of these … it was the Sky.
As she explains in her post, the sky was “BLUE”. As she puts it, she can’t see the blue sky in Chiang Mai as it is so hazy, the result of the smog which bedevils so many Asian cities.
To be fair to Chiang Mai, however, and put the record straight, I should note that her next post, the very next day, reported: “Its like my complaint was heard. We had blue sky yesterday. This morning my thermometer shows 16C. During the day the Temp will go up to 33C. Lovely.”
But, back to Kyrgyzstan: it’s true that we do have blue skies. Not all the time, however, as we do have rain and our fair share of overcast days an sometimes, especially in the Autumn, I feel quite at home as we joke about the “English weather” that we are experiencing. On the other hand, although people complain about the amount of traffic and the “air quality” in downtown Bishkek, we don’t really suffer from smog. On the contrary, we experience many days of clear bright sunlight. In fact, this was one of the things that attracted me to Kyrgyzstan in the first place. I was “promised” three hundred days of sunshine a year, which makes a very pleasant contrast to the dull grey overcast skies of England that I remember all too clearly, even after fifteen years. That promise, however, that was an exaggeration. Even the official statistics only claim an average of something like 270 days of sunshine a year. Even in the middle of winter, with snow lying on the ground, the sun can be shining brightly and that always makes me feel better and cheers me up.
The morning I read the blog, I had to go out to attend a meeting in another office and as I walked to it I made a special point to look at the sky … and, yes, it was blue. The previous few days had been chilly and overcast so I was well wrapped up against the wind, but sun was shining, the air was clear and the skies were, indeed, blue.
They say that “familiarity breeds contempt” – that if you know someone very well or experience something a lot, you stop respecting them, or take them for granted – and, apparently, there seems to be a wealth of psychological evidence to support this view. Well, I won’t comment on contempt or lack of respect, but it certainly seems that I had become used to the blue skies of Kyrgyzstan and have been taking them for granted.
Thank you, Lillian, for opening my “opening my eyes” for me once more and reminding me of one of the attractions that Kyrgyzstan has to offer!
(It seems that Lillian is moving her blog to a new platform – I’ll try and update the links once it’s done.)
Bishkek