Leaving home
I came to Thailand with no idea of what I was going to do. I had my Thai wife and baby, the stuff we could get onto the plane and a bit of money. We squatted with her family until I found myself a job as an English teacher and my wife opened a beauty salon.Thai food is spicy. I am living on a staple diet of chilies and rice. But you get used to the spicy food. I loved the faces of those Indian chefs in Malaysia: "How do you like your curry, sir? Mild or a little spicy" "Hot!" I would reply. "It"s very spicy, sir," they would caution me. "Why not try medium?" "No. I like it hot!" I countered. And then I eat it like it"s a walk in the park. Thailand made me tough.
If you are a foreigner in Thailand, you do the inevitable visa run every few months. During my last run we were waiting for our visas in Penang (Malaysia). There were about a dozen of us. The consulate"s new printer had some glitches and we were stuck in Malaysia for the weekend. Money ran out (and so did the beer) and we just sat there all miserable. One guy starred at the buildings and said: "What do you miss?" He answered himself: "The cables. There are no cables." Malaysians bury there cables safe and neat underground. In Thailand, they hump them together and suspend them on pylons or against shop houses, a real photo spoiler. Ja, we missed the cables.
"What do you miss?" a bloke asked me. "Sexy girls," I said without hesitation. There was silence. Sexy girls, he missed sexy girlsтЂ¦ True, there were no sexy girls in Penang. They might be pretty, but sexy? No. They slump forward on their scooters and they wear baggy clothes. Thai women are oh so sexy. They wear tight shirts and short skirts. They sit upright on their scooters, their straight black hair blowing in the wind. Their little breasts pushed forward and the shirts so tight that you think a button is going to pop. I was missing sexy Thai women. We were missing sexy Thai women. Someone ordered beer on a company account. We were going back on Monday. Back to the spirit houses and the smiles and the sexy Thai girls!
What do I miss about South Africa? Pap and chakalaka. And to speak English to normal people.: Talk about a braai, have a dop, turn at the robot, that"s lekker man! I lve in a small town on the Burmese border. Traders, farmers and smugglers make up the bulk of the population. There are few foreigners here. Life is different. I never see a South African, never speak my language, nor do I hear the church bells on a Sunday morning.
What don"t I miss? Violent crime.
Did I make the right decision to come to Thailand? Will I go back? Т Т Т I got the answer on one of my cross country trips. There was an old Thai man and a very frail old woman next to him. His wife I assume. She was pushing a cart with two heavy pine logs. He was walking next to her, giving her no help other than moral support. I stopped to take a picture. As they notice me, he fell behind her and started to speak very loud, probably cursing me. It was clear to me that feminism has not spoilt this beautiful Kingdom. Besides, I paid an awful lot of money to get Sheeba here.