Quest to See the World

oh no, i don’t even know where to start. it’s so difficult when i get so far behind, and i don’t even have my notes with me. i guess i’ll start with the palm reading since you all are son interested. here goes….

So Dale’s dad met us at the bus station and drove us to many temples around town and showed me the correct form for praying in the temples, i hadn’t realized that there was a specific form, but there is and i was doing it incorrectly the first few times i tried. oh, yeah, we also went to his school and talked to 3 classes of students who were all very giddy and excited to have farangs (westerners) in their school. All of the girls are required to have the same haircuts…bobs. The class clowns made themselves known right away. After the visit and tour of the town we had dinner at a place in the country. We went back to our hotel and rested, i guess, i don’t quite remember because it seems like ages ago. the next day was exciting… Tawi (Dale’s dad) picked us up after breakfast at 8:30 and took us to another temple. across the street from that one was a big hill with steps going all the way up, i’d say that there had to be at least 407 steps to the top and there was another temple up there. i had seen a postcard of the steps with monks walking down and therefore was interested in this particular spot. after we went into the first temple (still at the bottom of the hill) we were headed back into the car so that we could drive to the top of the hill rather than walk, and that’s when i noticed a woman there sitting in a shady area on one of the those grass mats, you know, kind of like the ones you can buy for the beach at home that fold up, but much larger. She was an older woman with rotten teeth and a very big smile. i asked tawi if he would mind interpreting for me and he didn’t mind at all.

ok, so i sat down and she took both of my hands in hers and looked at my palms very closely and intensely. she began by [read on]

Yesterday morning we woke up, got some breakfast, and caught a taxi to the bus station. Everyone is soooo helpful! When we arrived at the station we were quickly spotted, I said the name of the town, and we were guided to the right window to buy the tickets. The lady inside of the window came out and took us to another window on the other side of the station that had the name of the town on it too…it was the first class bus window. We got the tickets, $6 for a 4 hour ride in an a/c bus and the lady from the first window took us to the bus and explained to the driver where we were going. We were supposed to call Dale’s dad before leaving Bangkok, but the driver held his hand up to show 5, Stacy said “5 minutes?”, and he shook his head yes, so I didn’t think we had time to run and make a call. We grabbed some bottled water and got on the bus. The bus ticket checker lady asked to see our tickets a few times before it left 30 later.

A lady sat beside me and as the trip began, I started reading the Thailand Lonely Planet guidebook. I had noticed that a guy across the aisle in a window seat had a phone, but i was also at a window seat and that would mean that i’d have to talk over two other people. I listened to my mp3 player and read for bit. I understood that the trip would be 2.5 hours. I took a little nap about an hour into the ride and woke up about an hour and a half later. When i woke up I started thinking about how I was going to ask to use a phone. i pulled out my handy phrasebook and pointed to “Do you speak English?” and showed it to the lady next to me…”no”.    ok, i waited about ten minutes and started looking in the dictionary section at the end of the book and pointed to the word “telephone” and showed it to her as I pulled money out of my pocket, she got a confused look on her face and slowly began to pull her phone out of her pocket. i then quickly found the word “friend” and pointed to it, then to myself, and said the name of the town where we were headed, “uthai thani”. I pointed to a phone number on a piece of paper and again said the name of the town. She dialed the number and handed me the phone…yay!! it was ringing and dale’s dad answered…bingo!!! I told him that we were on the bus and we had left at 11am from bangkok. he informed me that the bus would take a total of 4 hours, not 2.5, so we still had about an hour to go. I hung up and offered the lady money, but she wouldn’t take it.

to be continued…must catch next bus. we’re now headed to nakhon sawan to catch an overnight train to chaing mai. adios.