Thailand

We arrive in Vientienne thirty minutes late and are dropped off at the pick up point for the Vietnam bus. Maps are handed out for those heading to Bangkok. We have to find our pick up point. We (11 Westerners) take a few wrong turns and end up on a street I recognise. As the pick up point is the Swedish Bakery by the fountain, it is me that ends up guiding up us to the bus stop! Although we are very late our bus hasn't yet arrived. So, while my group goes nuts for supplies from the Swedish bakery (I am not taking any chances of missing this bus) I begin questioning those already waiting at the bus stop as to the reliability of the bus from here. They don’t know if it’s straight through from here or if maps are involved. But I do find out that one of them is also only going back to Bangkok to pick up a new cashcard, another is hoping to find work in Bangkok teaching Japanese and another is German and volunteering in Cambodia. Our bus arrives just as it begins to hammer it down with rain. After fourty minutes sat stationary listening to the bus window wipers, we finally drive to the border. We climb off the bus manhandling our backpacks through the door and on autopilot head straight to the outdoor Immigration booths, filling our paperwork in on the way. Other side of the booths a guide suddenly appears. He describes the process from here, hands out the relevant forms and then we follow him to a VIP bus. Five minutes on the bus and we pull into a restaurant car park. Our guide accompanies us to our free dinner which comes with the bus ticket. He sees us all back on the bus and then he disappears. I look at my watch - it’s 6.20pm. A bit early to sleep but I am so tired. At 3 am I am woken to shouting: “Bangkok, Bangkok”. We are supposed to arrive at 7a.m. So, at 3.15 in the morning, the German girl, the Japanese girl and me are sitting outside a bar drinking watermelon shakes waiting for the sun to come up. (Too tight fisted to pay for a hotel for a few hours.) The next day I collect my cashcard and it works (hooray, hooray, hooray); I meet Krungthai, a friend (from Koh Chang) whose family's house I am going to stay in and we take a bus back to where I've just come from. As I am traveling with a Thai person, we get to take a Thai bus rather than a tourist bus and this is even better than the tourist bus. Arm Chair seats like those in Malaysia but these ones massage your head, back or calves at the press of a button. We get on the bus at 5pm and after trying out all the buttons, I go into another one of my deep sleeps only half waking to take the bottle of cold water, fried rice dinner in a polystyrene tray, bread buns and various other snacks handed out by the male hostess (free with the bus ticket). Too tired to eat or drink I just put these in the net attached to the back of the chair in front of me (for when I wake up). We arrive at 3 am (supposed to be 8am) and half asleep wait at the roadside for Krungthai's family to pick us up and drive us to their house in Kukaew.

Krungthai's family have no idea that I am staying with them but apparently it is fine for me to stay as anyone can stay without prior arrangement. As we drive up, I can see standing on the porch at the big wooden doors are Kringthai's parents. Upon being a meter way from them Krungthai drops his bag, puts his hands in prayer position and slowly moves his forehead to his finger tips. His parents do this back and nobody says a thing. So I shout “Sawadee Ka” (hello) and they say nothing back. The house is huge. It is tiled top to bottom with bright blue tiles and it is full of glass cupboards packed with tiny fold up mattresses and tiny pillows.

I am shown to my room and handed by Krungthai's mum one of the beautifully coloured fold up beds, one of those tiny pillows and a duvet. Now it’s time to meet the family at Grandma’s house across the road. (Can’t I meet them in the morning?)
As everyone has been rubber tree farming (which apparently takes place at night), the family are all awake lying on the floor (on their sides), propped up on their elbows and a tiny pillow chattiing away as if it were the middle of the day. I greet everyone with my “Sawadee Ka” hello and there are lots of nods and Krungthai tells me to Wai them. I repeat the nodding and Sawadee Ka - ing with my hands in prayer position and a little nod and the greeting is returned by each person followed by smiles. (This is a little more ceremonial than I imagined and I am not sure if I am going to be OK.) I sit on the floor and answer lots of questions (interpreted to me through Krungthai's aunt who speaks excellent English - Phew! I am then handed a little pillow which I put my elbow on and adopt the same positioning as everyone else for talking. I manage this for an hour and then make my apologies as once again I need to sleep.

At 5.30 a.m. there is this banging on my bedroom door. Do I want to take food for the monks? I hear myself say, “No, not today – maybe another day.” I wake at 11 a.m. to the sound of cocks crowing and pigs grunting. Krungthai has not yet been to bed, everyone else is rice farming and there are eggs, bread and coffee in the cupboard if I want them. So as Krungthai goes of to find for me another English girl he hears is in the village, I sit out on the big porch (rather like a big balcony), with my boiled eggs and coffee thinking how lovely this is. Lush green rice fields, tree lined red dusty roads. It’s sunny but cool and the air is fresh, it’s quiet and there is nothing I have to do. An hour later, Krungthai returns with Ali and her baby Meisa to keep me company. Ali goes back to hers for supplies of fresh coffee and coffee filter papers and Meisa is left with me. We drink one cup of coffee after another, boil up more eggs for Ali and Meisa and then our leisurely afternoon is abandoned as Krungthai turns up saying it's my chance to go rice farming.

We drive out to a field in the middle of nowhere and all of Krungthai's family are there dressed like scarecrows (woolly hats, scarves covering their faces, anoraks, jeans and boots) and they’re all holding machetes like my Gran used on her vegetables in Hong Kong.

rice farming

Again next morning at 5.30 a.m. there is that banging on my door (Do I want to take food for the monks today?) and again I hear myself say “Not today, thank you” as I sink back into the deep state of sleep which I seem to be spending a lot of time in. I wake in the afternoon and over my coffee and eggs consider that I may have developed that condition where you sleep all the time or I maybe I am sick with no symptoms other than the need to sleep (to recover). Having woken too late for a lift to the rice field, I sweep the floor, do the washing up, and fill the water buts ready for people’s showers once they get back from rice farming. I read my book on the porch, have more coffee and daydream as I wait for the others to get back. Late afternoon we meet friends from Koh Chang for beer on a bamboo table outside the local shop but before long, I need to sleep again.

The next day I wake up naturally at 5.30 a.m. Perfect timing for taking food for the monks, buying breakfast for the family (from a woman who turns up on a motorbike with everything for breakfast hanging from it) and I even feel up to farming. We eat breakfast sitting on a mat on the porch floor. (I didn’t realise they also sat on the porch for breakfast.)

I farm till 11a.m. when I am sent to the shade of a tree because my face is burnt. As lunch is hanging in carrier bags from the branches of this tree, a herd of cows surround me (I have issues with cows since a freesian ran after me last year). Though eventually they wander off to another field they return and terrify me every thirty minutes. So I spend the two hours (until the family breaks for lunch) planning escape routes (up the tree), counter attacks (loud clapping) and negotiation (handing over lunch).

I farm for a few more hours after lunch and then I am driven home earlier than the others – perhaps I am a liability in this heat with a small machetes. I have totally lost my cutting technique (I am now cutting towards as opposed to away from my stomach). I am no longer laying my rice down in lines as I can’t see the laying down pattern anymore).

written by  Yee Ling Tang on December 12, 2008 from Udon Thani, Thailand
from the travel blog: the break
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