John Burdett has written several dectective books about a buddist dectective in Bangkok. i've read most of his work and its quite brilliant.
Here's the auther himself talking about how the first book was concievd

The Power of Difference
by John Burdett


Bangkok 8
by John Burdett

I had visited Thailand dozens of times before I decided to write a thriller based in Bangkok. I had no particular interest in its famous sex industry or the young women who worked in it. Nor did I have any particular interest in Thai Buddhism, which seemed so much less alluring than Zen or Tibetan Buddhism. I thought I was simply looking for an exotic location which had not been "done," or at least not overdone (how many detective thrillers have you read that are not based in New York, or LA, or London or Paris?). I thought I would get a flavor of the city, which the Thais themselves call Krung Thep (City of Angels), by hanging around in some tourist bars, until I made more contacts with the "real" Thailand. I was looking for an introduction to someone working in the Royal Thai Police, who might give me an insight into local law enforcement. I had no idea that the lives of the young women I was talking to in these bars were stoking up a passion in me of a literary nature. The more monumental events of consciousness seem to happen off-screen.

I also decided that I ought to know more about Theravada Buddhism (that is practiced throughout Southeast Asia), so I went on a two-week meditation course in a monastery a few hundred miles north of Bangkok. I had no idea that the radical discipline of vipassana meditation would stoke up another passion.

The world other than as advertised can be an amazing place. These young women who sold their bodies every night were not victims, they were not cheap or vulgar, they were not miserable, they were not desperate, they were not even (and here it really gets weird) promiscuous. It's true, I'm not the first person to make the observation. The girls sell their bodies often as an act of personal and voluntary sacrifice, because they are the only member of their family (almost invariably rice farmers from Thailand's poorest region known as Isaan) who can make that kind of money in the big city. I learned that men who want to be lovers of such whores (as opposed to customers) are expected to have some high moral standards; in particular, they better be faithful (Thai surgeons are the best in the world when it comes to penis re-attachment: they get more practice). The quid pro quo is that she will be scrupulously faithful to her boyfriend too — out of working hours.

I also learned that Buddhism is the most extraordinary psychology ever invented. I'd had no idea that for more than a thousand years after the birth of the Gautama Buddha the very best minds on the planet had dedicated themselves to the study and elaboration of levels of consciousness. People who truly dedicate themselves to Buddhist meditation can be quite exceptional. In the monastery where I was meditating one elderly monk who was dying refused all medical treatment because he wanted to watch his body disintegrate — no way he was going to miss the end of the show by numbing his mind with painkillers. I discovered that Thailand was one of those countries, like Sri Lanka and India, where memory of past lives used to be commonplace. Go back a few generations and you find people talking about earlier lives with total certainty.

One young monk who positively glowed with meta — loving kindness — explained to me that the West was a culture of emergency: "If you didn't think you could control everything you wouldn't have so many emergencies, would you?"

I had found my exotic location, but the nature of the difference was more than I had bargained for. How could I, a Western man who didn't speak much of the local language, put himself in the shoes of a Thai? I didn't have an answer, but I did realize that I was starting to see the world somewhat in the Thai way and decided to let things develop without reference to my original plan. I had to find out more.

The girls who worked the bars were indeed heroes and acknowledged as such in their home villages, where people were deeply impressed by the way a young woman could go to the big city and extract so much money from those exotic and formidable-looking farang men that she could support her whole family, send siblings to university, pay her parents' medical bills, build herself a new house and retire by the age of thirty. I calculated that the average bargirl sends between sixty and seventy percent of her earnings home to some impoverished village in Isaan where she has probably been brought up in what to Western eyes is no more than a shack on stilts. Very often she will be barely literate, having left school in early teens (or before) in order to make a contribution to the family finances, but she dresses like a fashion model and learns English, German, Japanese, French, Malay, Chinese — whatever she needs for her business — with amazing speed. Those who travel abroad become connoisseurs of jails and five-star hotels in equal measure.

Like all true heroes, the girls were tough, too. Not a one of these beautiful women didn't have some serious scarring somewhere on her body from a motorcycle accident, usually sustained when taking a corner too fast whilst drunk. And they loved to fight. Many of them proudly related stories of gladiatorial fist-fights, sometimes with other women, quite often with men, usually conducted in a back alley out of view of the cops, (only a knockout or serious flow of blood ended the battle). They were fiercely patriotic, too. There are sixty-one million people in Thailand and you get the impression that every one of them would happily die for their king.

One evening I was sitting at a bar in Pat Pong, probably the most famous red-light district in the world, when an attractive young woman started talking to me, then a few minutes into the conversation admitted she was a man. She/he was stuck in the middle of the transition from male to female. Her sponsor, a Western man, had paid for the course of medication, most of which consisted of estrogen in one form or another, so that she had grown breasts and developed an impressive luster in her long black hair. Her farang lover had lost interest, however, and now she was trying to raise money for the final step which was surgery. It struck me with some force how radical Western consumerism can be in its effect on the Third World, even to the point of changing men into women. My new friend readily admitted that she did not fit the profile of a transsexual. It had not occurred to her to think she was a man trapped in a woman's body. She had decided to have the operation partly because her lover wanted it but mostly because she expected to be much more marketable to Western men as a woman.

At the same time I thought more and more about Buddhism. I had often reflected in a vague way how infantile Western culture can be when faced with some of the more challenging facts of life, especially death. In the West we pay specialists to keep death out of sight, except when a close relative dies. In my monastery one senior monk used to arrange for the local hospital to send him cadavers, to assist in his meditation on the supreme reality of death — and whatever lies behind. That probably sounds morbid to a Western mind (even in Thailand it's not exactly mainstream), but I no longer find it so. On the contrary, I have at least absorbed the Buddhist lesson to the extent of finding our Western habit of distracting our minds from reality to be morbid and dangerous in itself.

Then one fine morning, about a year after my arrival, I found myself writing a story narrated in the first person by a Thai cop who was half western by blood, who was a passionate meditator, whose mother was a whore and who had grown up amongst those very young women and katoeys (transsexuals) with whom I spent my evenings chatting. I didn't need to think about "voice," it was there every morning, nagging, persistent and quite indifferent to all those rules about novel writing I had so conscientiously studied.

John Burdett, April 2003, Hong Kong

2008 so far, year of sex.
im reading again, start lightly with the dexter series, a serial killer whith a difference, very well written and entertaining, so far i've read the set, excellent.
had some guests staying, was nice but its nice to be solo again, starting to think about the cd again after a long break, i have a few ideas for fine tuning and i also want to redo vocals on some songs.
my sadness is still lingering, but i know in my processing i have reached a conclusive train of thought that meredith and i will never see one another again. certaintity brings peace.
im listening to a great song called angel by a guy called gavin friday, its on the romeo and juliet soundtrack and its the type of song i describe as perfect, theres not many perfect songs but angel is a classic. its somewhat u2 ish when they were experimental and breaking the rock band label, but its alos just a nice vibe.
my friend the proff. is travelling through blade runner territory, hong kong, although the proff. is way ahead of blade runner time, he's in the 30th century.

snappy new ears to you all

despite being an arbitory line in the flow of time i am somewhat releived to see 2007 pass, i feel so much more confident about 2008, as my charkras come into alignment and my aura heals.
im reading alan de botans book, essays in love' fantastic reading, very funny, very true.

i did have a very vivid dream that i found revealing.
i was with some musicians practicing for the live shows, there was a beautiful natural looking girl, natures golden child who carried a drum stick, she grabbed my hand and led me outside into a forest and she told me about the magick drumstick. 'this drum sounds good on anything' she said, 'on the ground' she started to beat the ground and true enough it did sound good, 'it sounds good on trees' and sure enough on the trees its sounded great. then she listed a whole bunch of stuff, 'animal skins' bones, rocks but best of all it sounds good on the sun.'
she hit the sun with the stick and light fell down on us showering us and we danced in it happy and joyous.

beautiful dream

my fave shows on dvd in no particular order are...

the simpsons

the sopranoes

6ft under

deadwood

had a coffee with my friend julie and her new born django, she punched me in the face, nearly blinded me, im sporting a lovely black eye and my vision is a bit wobbely. 'nevermind' as kurt says. im ready for the xmas onslaught but nothing could compare me for the mall. jake and i went there on a book buying expedition, he picked up some mirumaka and i scored a couple of topical journalistic type commentarys on economics and polotics, believe it or not i was top of the school in those two subjects, should have become pm.
anyways i played jules me cd, she said its a bit pink floydy and she likes it. its the kinda music she listens to after a huge night and shes written herself off on booze and drugs and she plays coming down music. i took that as a compliment.

got caught in big storm, sheets of h20, lightning and thunder, gods anger some say, it felt like it. man natures powerful hey, the sky wrenched open, electricity splits the horizon down the middle. lovely.

i had the strangest dream...

...for two days i have been in some sort of training, a course, its been a class of about 30, very relaxed introduction to some sort of spiritual, healing group or theraphy, the teacher is a lovely woman in her early 30's, she is spending a lot of time introducing the main lecturer a man whom has written a number of books, may be part russian, but she is coy about him, focusing on the content of the course not the person. when he arrives he's an eccentric old man with an amazing haircut, white shock of hair with various upright dreads, he does have an accent and is remarkably funny, he laughs and makes us laugh, he's hysterical. At first he is presented on a film as the auther of a book and the prize winning respected and emminent best proffessor, he steps out to accept the award and squirts water on the audience.
somehow he materializes in the classroom ad starts to interact with us all, he is amazing and hands out our workbooks. part of my workbook is incomplete, as are a few other students and we are told to complete them, the first part is a tree of yggrassil.
the proffessor wanders around the glass talking to people, he sometimes jokes and laughs and sometimes asks us serious questions,
its very strange.....

im pottering around at home, my mood low, angel stone picks me up to take me to the city where i buy two charles stross books from galaxy bookshop, the sci fi bookshop. i eturn home, potter around. i'm feeling sad and lonely today, im vunerable and sensitive.

the ultimate magick, to command love,
yet is it love if it is under command?

the best answer gets a prize

im feeling lonely
alone and vunerable
my humanity is bleeding
and i got an open wound
im loveless in the plaza
hated and despised
my elementary particles
refuse to get organized
im chaos baby chaos
filled to the brim
on the edge of the plank
looking at the sharks fin
my world is ended in betrayal
my honour abused dispised
these lovers are really rapists
in a beautiful disguise
i'm worn out and exhuasted
in loves battle ground
im ready to throw in the towel
if there is one to be found
becuase i have no fear of death
just of being alone
these people have scared me senseless
becuase they are brutal to the bone

im listening to the panics cd, its fantastic, go get a copy now. i really love the songs, just the right amount of melancholia. ah its certainly been a year for sadness, whats old shakespear say, its better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, well he didn't have a bashed frontal lobe..
okay the music seems to be okay, i sort of feel that some of the tunes are better than others and its not a masterpiece but its a good first effort, and there's lots of room to improve. the artwork is almost complete and we are just tweaking the images slightly, playing with the fonts.
i'm writing for the second cd now, it's a strangely different process, less unconcious, i need to find my inspirational connection in female form, having lost the last one.
a muse a muse my kingdom for my muse

i have a new car, its a lovely blue colour and it has leather seats, its going to cost me a fortune but its a nessessity, being the mother of invention, my intention is to design a hover car. don't you feel cheated, when i was a kid i expected the future to have a few hover cars in it, but where are they, 40 years on and we are still fighting over oil. i want my hover car and i want it now.

i recently recieved three speeding tickets, thats 7 points lost, i'm hoping i don't receive any more for the next three years.

here we are somewhere further down the time line, are we in a different space than before, or perhaps just the scenery moves, who knows, i certainly feel different. i feel sensitive to humanity yet detached from it, an observer, yet we all know the observer cannot observe without effecting the results.
i recorded my cd, its out in march next year, i'm happy with it but i'm already writing the next one, the next one is really exciting, now i have a much better idea about what i am doing.
The first cd 'adventures' was written through me,, i was a vessel. this time i am concious of what is occurring, much more awareness goes into the writing and the music, although i am driven by instinct and intuition and love the idea of spontinaity creeping in to the mix. it's like cooking, one can follow the reciepe but you know what your going to get, something similar to what you had last time, or you can just experiment, substitute cream for water, add sultanas, use organic mayan chocolate instead of hundreds and thousands, you know what i'm saying.

mmm, hello. yes reserrected again.
okay well in grief and mourning, broken hearted and strangely intensified feelings due to my brain injury i found myself in the full exaggerated emotional meltdown that goes with a broken heart, very powerful. couldn't do anything except write songs and record some music, this operation took two all consuming weeks, i didn't even sleep really, just wrote songs and designed some music, the result being 14 songs.
i sent the cd off to a producer who responded favourably, and i am now in the studio recording them.
its a strange process but my producer is amazing, he really believes in the music and his qualities compliment mine perfectly. I have named him the alchymest as he has turned lead to gold.
the cd may take some time, to perfect, i want quality not quantity and we think there may be two cds worth of music, i will probably have an ep out as a pre cursor.
so far the response has been overwhelming although i am so nervous when its time to record my vocals again, i am fine at home when im comfy and relaxed but in a studio my body tenses and my voice changes, have to learn how to relax a bit.
okay well there you go, from something awful something wonderful developed.
i'm feeling much better, i feel positive and healthy and have spent the last few weeks working on my mental attitude and surrounding myself with positivity.
i am delving back into the magickal process, letting my subconcious guide me, under love, the profound results are worth acknowledging, trust the process, hounor thy muse and follow thy heart.

if ya read my profile thing it acually has a little prose about me, a sort of metaphor for where i was when this whole thing started, my blog i mean, it actually says 'no time for love' well, i have to tell you all, i have plenty of time, i mean fuck. love is where its at.
i lost the love of my life and I'm so sad. i don't think i ever been this sad before.

Giant badgers terrorise Iraqi port city

The Iraqi port city of Basra, already prey to a nasty turf war between rival militia factions, has now been gripped by a new fear — a giant badger stalking the streets by night.

Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans and was allegedly released into the area by British forces to spread panic.

Iraqi scientists have attempted to calm the public but, amid the confusion and mistrust spawned by the ongoing guerrilla war, the story has spread like wildfire in the streets of the city and the villages round about.

Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, director of Basra's veterinary hospital, has inspected the corpses of several dead badgers and tries to reassure his fellow citizens that they are not a new post-war arrival in the region.




"These animals appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known as Al-Ghirayri and locally as Al-Girta," he said. "Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific."

British troops have been based in Basra since the 2003 US-led invasion overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, and the 5500 that remain still face the threat of Shiite militias battling for the region's oil resources.

They also have to battle the Iraqi rumour mill, as locals are quick to blame them for almost any calamity that befalls the area — including an apparent plague of vicious badgers with long claws and powerful jaws.

British army spokesman Major David Gell said the animals were thought to be a kind of honey badger — melivora capensis — which can be fierce but are not usually dangerous to humans unless provoked.

"They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They're nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don't stalk humans and carry them back to their lair," he said.

Both the scientists and the soldiers agree that the badger ought not to be a danger to humans, but so far they have failed to reassure the populace.

"I was sleeping at night when this strange animal hit me on my head. I have not seen such an animal before. My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer," said Suad Hassan, a 30-year-old housewife.

"It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey. It runs so quickly."

Cell phone video of the badgers circulating in Basra shows a stocky skunk-like animal with long front claws.

The honey badger, or ratel, is known as a brave predator capable of killing a cobra. It weighs up to 14 kilos (30 pounds), not usually known as man-eater.

Sattar Jabbar, a 50-year-old local farmer from Abu Sakhar north of Basra, believes the badger can tackle even large prey.

"I saw it three days ago at night attacking animals. It even ate a cow. It tore the cow up piece by piece. I tried to shoot it with my gun but it ran away into the orchards. I missed it," he said.

In Iraq there can be only one explanation for an animal so vicious.

"I believe this animal appeared following a raid to the region by the British forces," said Ali Mohsen, a farmer in his 40s from Karmat Ali, near the air base used by the multinational force.

"As we are close to the airport, they probably released this animal into the area," he reasoned.

Amid such tales, there is little experts like Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy dean of the veterinary college, can do to reassure his neighbours.

"Its nature is to eat small animals like hens and rats. It has powerful senses of hearing and smell. It gets aggressive if senses danger, but it doesn't attack man unless threatened," he said.

Azzam speculated that the badgers were being driven towards the city because Iraq is trying to re-flood marshland north of Basra that was drained by Saddam in order to persecute local Marsh Arab tribes.

For all that, the British army thinks Basrawis have little to fear.

"If you cornered it and poked it with a stick, then the smart money would be on the badger," warned Gell, who has faced many rumours like this one in his tour in Iraq.

"We have not released giant badgers in Basra," he said, "and nor have we been collecting eggs and releasing serpents into the Shatt al-Arab river."

Zoloft sunrise

Hey
I came undone
Didn’t mean to
hey
You know me i’m the one
Who pulls through
Fate
Has other plans
And faith
waits for her man
Now please
You hurt me deep and wide
As I get swept up by your tide
I came washed up on your shore
And wow
Some how
I survived
These days
crushed my strength
Hurt my pride
Maybe I need a
Zoloft sunrise
To brighten up my life
A Zoloft sunrise
To cast some extra light
To make me smile again



Hey
I apologise
Didn’t mean to make you sad
Hey
You’re my special one
when all is said and done
chance he believes in all she is
and chances are she’s his
and please
these nights are long and strange
a time to rearrange
almost everything
and wow
some how
I survived
These days
crushed my strength
Hurt my pride
Maybe I need a
Zoloft sunrise
To brighten up my life
A Zoloft sunrise
To cast some extra light
To make me smile again

time out time passes fades and melts days and nights blend into some kind of weird backdrop, my head sometimes aches and sometimes seems clear, my heart sometimes heavy and sometimes light, all is still now.
i read the power of now, it took me quite some time and effort, but i know its a book that speaks volumes to me, and if now is not a good time to read it then i don't know when is. actually reminding myself is healing, i feel like i am sending out a lifeline to myself, something to hold on to, something true.
agent stone has proven once again to be an amazing friend, something i can never forget or diminish.
my anti deppressants are stabalizing me, i can feel them surge through my blood and brain, seritonin levels kicking over a bit higher, these drug companies know how to get ya reeled in, i hate the fact i am on them, its depressing, but right now i'm looking for all the support i can get lest i fall into an abyss.

brain scans indicate slight bleeding, no hemorrage, therefore i'm looking forwards to full recovery within two years, however very deppressed, unable to focus, concentrate on anything, somewhat lost.
meredith seems to think it will be 6 months before i see her again, therefore i have to start organizing my own life for the next 6 months. i was thinking maybe of taking some time out and going AWOL but being a semi responsible citizen, i can't. so the next few days i need to really think about what i want to do for 6 months. being in a holding pattern like this is soul destroying, it's not really the relationship i had in mind but meredith is worth it so i guess i have no choice.

after a brilliant morning in the surf catching the most magnificent waves with my dolphin friend i emerged feeling amazing, for the first time in a long time i felt myself, ordered some flowers for meredith then went to work where it all went slightly nuts. firstly the dude i was working with had left the place a mess, and then from the very start things went wrong as he abandoned me with 5 very difficult clients all deciding to act out at the same time, i was dealing with high level noise plus aggression various screaming and threatening behaviours. under normal circumstances this would never get to this point, i have never seen the clients acting like this en masse before and it was quite disturbing, at one point i ran to where the screaming was coming from and found one of them had been left in a huge bath, with the taps on and she was drowning, the look of horror on her face was shocking, i lunged in and pulled the plug. then i froze, the stress hit my head fast, just like a bullet, i was immobilized when the phone rang, it was meredith, we had a conversation i can't recall then i found myself beginning to swoon, a pounding in my head, a throbbing like helicopter stalling. i knew i had to get out.
i left work and arrived home, sat in darkness alone while i felt a numbness envelope me, my head still pounding, unable to move i was frozen with fear.
the next morning i spoke to my shrink who said i was experienceing 'competing attention syndrome' which is very common in head injuries. anyway i spoke at length about my feelings, fears and needs. she suggested i consult my dr. re the head ache as it could be serious, i did and underwent a ct scan that afternoon, results in two days.

there was a lot of sadness hanging around for a couple of days as i made my way through the mess of frontal lobe damage and considered the fact that somewhere deep inside me was a bad personality that had now awoken, but it appears that the dr.s and specialists have all said that this is not me and is only cuased by my brain swelling up. anyway i started to do the mindfullness and meditative excersises and can't begin to explain how great i felt, almost immediatly. this is becuase these exercises are close to the true nature of myself, therefore i'm feeling much more in control and certain about the direction i am heading towards.
things with meredith are excellent, each day i love her more, we talk on the phone and i feel close by, it's very rare that the distance bothers me.

Bad Personality

I gotta bad personality
Slipped in on your kitchen floor
I fell through good fortunes way
Missed the peace and harmony door
You say what’s wrong and
Ask me what is up
I say I had a blow to my brains
And I don’t give a… (fuck)

I got a bad personality
Making my spliffs, king size
We smoke them in the night
And then we close our eyes
You ask me which ways up
And I say I don’t care
Ask me where we are going
And I say going somewhere

My concentrations fucked up
And my shrink thinks I am a lost cause
But we know that my mind is torn
And we are in for the long haul
Smile and laugh
but don’t cry with me
Goodbye Mr. Nice guy
Hello bad personality

I got a bad personality
Went falling up the steps again
Yes I look a little dazed
But I have such crazy friends
Some come in from interstate,
But all are out of their trees
And there is only one thing
On which they all agree

I’m not a bad person