Just Another Saturday

Saturday, June 4, 2011 – AngThong Thailand

Woke up today in a missing mood, missing my family more than I normally would, for really no perfectly good reason.  But who needs a reason to miss their family?  I miss them all the time, I wish they were here with me taking crazy traffic road trips in the Thai countryside, listening to classic rock and arguing our way across some fresh landscapes together.  I took a nice shower and calmed down, chilled out, just relaxed.

My roommate Claire and I grabbed our bags and walked into the sunshine, hooked a right to cut through the short path to town, and hitched a ride from a nice Thai guy on his motorbike.  I’m glad we didn’t have to walk.  That particular path is next to a small river home to a baby crocodile, or alligator, I’m not sure which.  You might think I’m joking, but I am not.  I’ve seen it.  The head was way too large to be a lizard, and the tail was long and quickly disappeared into the thick swampy leaves as our footsteps neared.  It was surreal.  We’ve seen a much bigger one too, in the river a bit further away, striped in light and dark green, it’s scaly, swimming feet seemed more like the bottom half of a mermaid than swamp creature.  Kind of creepy, and yet the local Thais go fish those rivers on a daily basis.

We jumped in the bus headed for Ayutthaya to hit up the giant shopping complex and buy some much needed snacks and groceries.  Our new neighbors Atienne and Peter, South African and British, respectively, also ended up getting in the same van.  They moved in last week in the house right next to ours.  We have already had a lot of fun times with those guys, so of course we were laughing and cracking jokes the whole ride, probably bugging the shit out of the locals.  Oh well, you cant please everyone. 

There are tons of restaurants in this mall, the Tesco/Lotus.  We sat down at a sushi place she said she had been to a while back and we had our fill of cucumber rolls, soft crab rolls, and some giant California roll thing.  So delicious.  We had three excellent plates and two giant sodas for a little over five dollars each.  After that we just wondered around the crazy place.  I bought another teacher skirt, because the first one I bought the zipper broke, and the second I bought ripped straight up the leg when I got into the back of a truck when we were offered yet another ride from a nice stranger (Everyone here knows we are teachers and so most are super nice to us, because teachers are more respected here than other places—hence why we receive so many free rides, which we gladly accept because it is hot as balls in this country). 

I also bought a nice lacey black tank top and a cute white and pink skirt for going out in Bangkok.  A girl’s gotta look good sometimes.  Got sucked into buying live DVDs of Creedence and a John Lennon tribute concert.  This mall has everything from an office depot, to a movie theater, video games, jewelry, grocery stores, a thai cafeteria, and even individual glass karaoke stalls complete with black leather couches, TV’s, and microphones.  Almost every one was taken.  These people seriously love karaoke, it’s the funniest thing in the world.  We wanted to go do it, but unfortunately they only have like ten songs in English and they all sucked, so we scratched that.  After we shopped for all our items (so happy to find a package of salami, gouda cheese, and a fresh baguette!) we had a snack at Micky D’s and went back home.  But we did run into one of our friends from the program at the store, that was just so crazy!  We made plans to hang out next weekend and go to some local bars in Ayutthaya, so excited! 

The walk from the van to the house with all our groceries was only about five minutes, but I was drenched in sweat by the time we got there.  So I just figured I would stay that way and went to work doing dishes, sweeping, beating the dirt-covered rugs outside and general house cleaning.  I was really sweating by the end of that!  What a workout.  There is just so much dirt and grime here that it makes it hard for our floor not to have little bits of crap everywhere that gets stuck to your feet.  Needless to type, I had to take another shower, and now we will probably watch another few episodes of True Blood, to which I have become a chronic addict in just the last four days.  I’m almost done with the entire first season.  Here we go again.  Lemon out.