“I bet you don’t get good pizza in Thailand?” Doctor Neil Nepola asked over the telephone. The connection was good. Not like when he was attending medical school in the Philippines.
“I would have agreed with you four years ago, but the pizza from Scoby’s and Donovan’s are as good as anything I’ve eaten in New York.”
“Better than Staten Island?” The GP was incredulous, then added, “Goes to show you how homogenized the world has become.”
“Not all of it.” And certianly not where my wife lives with our daughter.
I’m heading up there within the next few hours. Bus from Pattaya to Morchit. Another bus to Chai-nat. 4.5 hours. My wife will drive from the bus station to her village. Once across the Chao Phyra River I won’t see another farang for days.
Rice paddies, water buffaloes, wooden farmhouses, pick-up trucks, rural living. We eat at home. No restaurants. No 7/11s. TV is strictly Thai, I’ll read books. Lights go out at 8. A million stars blanket the velvet black sky. I kiss my daughter good-night. She lies between my wife and me. All is at peace, until the chicken greet the false dawn and loudspeakers blare out the village news.
Not much to do on the weekend.
The kids play in the yard. The women cook and eat. The men drink beer. I’ll take a drive to the mountains. The Thais on the road will gaped at me. Farangs are rarity. I’ve never seen one in the 5 years I’ve been going to Ban Nam Poo. Not even Khmers or Burmese laborers.
This could be Thailand 1935 if you took away the electrical wires.
My wife says, “If everything stop, life goes on here the same as before.”
And everyone is happy about that certainty as long as they don’t think about money.
Me too.
So I’m heading up-country. Maybe we’ll be back in 3-4 days. In the meanwhile have a good weekend.
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