The journey out of Trang had been full, starting with a gift of three green-skinned mandarins. That night I found rest in Wat Huai Nang, with seven monks fussing over me. As I ate their offering of noodles, I see the strangest image: a wholly unbuddhist angel. Where I slept, there were seven. In the morning after bindabhat, I was given three fat clusters of a fruit whose name eludes me. Sometime later I waddled into Thung Song wet and accomplished, and spent the night in a cheap guesthouse watching North Korean propaganda TV to sleep. Sometime again the next day I waddled out. That day I was given a gift of exactly three bananas plucked from a bunch. And then offered a ride by a man on a bike with a side car full of recyclables. After the last decline, I said yes, and just as well: he could have been the Boatman, for minutes later amid clear skies, a dark engorged and spiralling sky river cut right across us carving out invisible sky canyons, and as he upped it to 80km/h with me precariously balancing on a sideboard with nothing for safety, I swear my testicles too were gripping so hard when I got off they mustve looked like Hersheys Kisses. And that night was spent in a cell in another Wat, with ants, flies , mosquitoes and a lot of spiders. I was not molested once that night, even if I woke up howling like a banshee when I saw a fat spider on my pack, and once more another on the light switch. Now, I am in Surat Thani, but the sun had left me drained and empty. What a grand entrance I was given, on its west end, the most fiery sunset and on the east end, the most ominous rain clouds. But tonight the dark will win this battle; already all I can hear is just thunder.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 12:47:39 +0000
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