A window of clarity

I find myself back in a local Song-Thaew from Na Thon to Hat Lamai where I wanna spend a few days of relaxation. Some days on the beach to work on my suntan and spend the evening visiting the many open-air bars that dot Hat Lamai like fleas on the fur of Thai street dogs.

It is still early morning with the Song-Thaew stopping every so ofen to pick up more passengers, a couple of young girls dressed in light blue blouses and dark blue skirts modestly falling just over their knees - school uniforms you know - small backpacks holding their schoolbooks and lunch.

An old local woman getting on, bend with arthritis and several baskets full to overflow with durians, no doubt she`s on her way to some village market to sell this typical Asian fruit which has never been a favorite of mine.

I get out to help her with her baskets together with the driver, the old woman waiing me politely. With her sitting opposite me and the baskets occupying the space between the two benches she gives me a curious look before asking me "parlez-vous Francaise, monsieur?"

She has lived here all her life being somewhere in her mid forties when the island first got visited by a couple of long haired farangs who came by local coconut boat from Bangkok. How life was hard for the people then living on a bare braedline excistence...how first the pot smoking alternatives arrived living in self made huts and small wooden bungalows they rented from samui`s local population, dressed in shabby clothes and having no morale whatsoever...how the building of the airport changed everything...planes leaving Germany coming straight to Kho Samui with only a short break at Don Muang Airport in Bangkok.

While I listen to her Samui life story wondering where a woman like her never having left this lush island, has learned such fluent french, her eyes and mind a window of clarity on what happened to this island, realising how strange life can be meeting this woman who somehow mastered an alien language as difficult as French is still at her avanged age selling durian fruit at a local village market, never ever been off the island.

When she gets off at Hat Bo Phut and I help her once again together with the driver to unload her durian filled wooden baskets, she gives me the strangest of smiles from a mounth that has long ago lost its last teeth, telling me in her accentless French "vous-avez Jai-Dee tres bon, monsieur main attention avec sous Karma"., and gone she is swallow up by Thai mysticism. the busy streets of a Thai early morning market, or maybe it only happened inside my Farang head.

written by  heraclio on April 23, 2009 from Ko Samui, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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