by Guy Lilburne
until I had returned to Phuket, but because I liked his gentle humour and his writing style I bought another book of his, this time a novel called ‘Thai Girl’ before I was to leave Thailand. Both these books are well worth a read.
The wait at Bangkok airport was a bit dull and lasted for four hours, I think that I just wanted to meet Jee, and was tired of waiting. One thing that I did notice while waiting for the flight to Udon Thani in the departure lounge was that there were no tourists amongst the waiting passengers. There were a few Farangs but they were all with Thai girls. There were no tourists and it was a different atmosphere because of it.
Udon Thani International Airport. The name sounds very grand but I have to say I think it’s probably the smallest airport I’ve ever been to but I liked it. It was small and neat and the tiny airport building looked new. I only noticed one other aircraft, unattended on the tarmac. Maybe they just weren’t very busy today. Most of the people on the flight were Thai girls, but there were also a lot of Farang, some single like me, but most with Thai wives or girlfriends.
As always in Thailand, when you step off the plane you are hit by the immense heat and humidity that makes you sweat before very long. Thankfully it was only a short walk across the concrete to the airport building and the first trolley of suitcases were already being pushed alongside us as we walked. I followed the trail of people through some glass doors into the terminal and that was it, we were already in the baggage reclaim. I realised that the two uniformed officials who were standing near the glass doors nodding and smiling at people were the customs control.
Chapter 14. Meeting Jee and family
I had of course seen Jee on web cam and I had seen photo’s of her but as I waited those few minutes for my suitcase, I suddenly felt slightly nervous about meeting her and I just hoped that I would recognise her but I didn’t think that there would be too many people waiting for one plane load of passengers. My case came round towards me on the belt and I went through a further set of glass doors where two pretty girls were busy wai’ing people and placing garlands of jasmine petals around peoples necks as they came through the doors.
“Sawaddee Kha.” (Welcome.) She smiled as she gave me a garland.
“Sawaddee khrap, Khob khun khrap.” (Hello, Thank you,) I replied.
I walked around the corner though another set of glass doors and I was in the public arrivals area. I tried to walk slowly and calmly, giving my eyes plenty of chance to scan franticly the sea of Thai faces that all seemed to be staring at me. I had been so wrong, there were at least a hundred people here waiting for passengers off the flight.
Then amongst the crowd I saw Jee in real life for the first time.
She was beautiful and had the most amazing smile. I didn’t think that I had been worried about meeting her but I have to say that at that moment I felt a sudden wave of relief wash over me. She was shorter than I thought she would be, and she only came up to my chest, but then again I’m 6’1”, so it’s not that surprising. She was slightly built and had the beautiful eyes that so many Thai girls seem to have. Her smile never stopped as I walked towards her and I found it infectious and suddenly I’m a walking grinning Cheshire cat.
When I reached her we didn’t hug or kiss. Firstly because it was the first time we had actually met, and secondly because in Thai culture people don’t hug and kiss in public. We wai’d each other and said hello. I was very happy to meet her and I hoped that she felt the same way. Jee also placed a garland around my neck and then she introduced the lady standing next to her as her sister, Pon. She also put the waxy flower garland around my neck and the young girl next to her was introduced as “Daughter sister Fon.”
She too placed a garland of petals around my neck. I was very surprised, no more than that, I was shocked that Jee had brought her sister and niece to meet me. We had never mentioned meeting any of her family and I had just assumed that it was just going to be the two of us, and a time to find out if we liked each other enough to try and make a relationship work. I also knew that in Thailand, to introduce a boyfriend to the family was a big thing to do, and if it all came to nothing then she and her family may lose face in their community. I was a bit taken aback and I couldn’t help but wonder if she had thought this through. Somehow this had upped the stakes a little. There was more wai’ing and smiling and then Jee said, “Husband sister wait in car.”
Jee had mentioned her sisters husband many times when we had chatted on the internet, usually along the lines of him getting drunk and hitting her sister, and on many previous occasions Jee had gone to their house to break up fights. I didn’t know if I was looking forward to meeting him and if I had been asked before hand I would have probably told Jee that I didn‘t want to meet him. But here I was, following them out onto the car park, where every vehicle seemed to be a pick up truck, to meet her brother in law, Sak.
Sak was a scrawny looking man. His hair was greying and slightly too long. He had a feeble looking moustache that you could only see close up. He had some gaps in his mouth where teeth had obviously once been. His smile was quick and shy and his movements were fast and nervous and when the quick smile left his face he always seemed to have a worried frown. As we approached his pick up truck he threw down the cigarette he’d half smoked and gave me a quick wai before taking my suitcase off me and throwing it onto the truck. I was happily surprised by the friendliness of his greeting because I had imagined that I wouldn’t like him this much after the stories I’d been told. I guessed he was approaching sixty and not aging so well. I was shocked to later learn that he was in fact four or five years younger than me.
None of Jee family spoke any English at all and my Thai was very limited, so communication might be fun for these next few days. As we left the airport a neat uniformed security guard saluted us as we passed. It was such a relief to be inside the air conditioned truck.
Hopefully I’d stop sweating soon. I sat in the front with Sak, and Jee. Pon and Fon sat on the back seat. They chatted away quickly and excitedly. I knew they were talking about me, but they spoke too quickly for me to understand much of what they said, although I did hear Pon say
“Khao raw. “ (He’s handsome.) And
“Yim narak. “ (Nice smile.)
“Khao jai dee, “(He has a good heart,) said Jee with some obvious pride in her voice.
I don’t know what else they said, but Jee seemed to be growing in stature and proud to burst, so I guessed the compliments were continuing. Sak said nothing. The road coming out of the airport was wide and well maintained, edged with lawn and low cut hedge. It all looked very well kept and my initial impression is ‘what a nice place’.
Jee asked me if I wanted to stay ‘house sister or hotel’. I opted for hotel, but told Jee that I hadn’t planned on meeting her family and I hadn’t brought any presents for them. I told Jee that I had something for her but would need to stop at a shop to buy things for her family.
“Ok, can do, no problem,” she smiled. It was a phrase that I would here a lot during the coming days.
We went to Tesco Lotus to buy some presents. Sak waited with the truck to smoke another cigarette and Pon and her daughter Fon went and ate some food in a self service food hall inside the building. Jee walked around the supermarket with me and I brought some clothes for them all. Well Jee chose them, I just paid. I had suggested buying Sak a nice bottle of Whisky but Jee said it was a bad idea, so we got him a bright orange and white patterned shirt, which Jee assured me was the height of fashion and good taste in this part of the world. The thing I couldn’t help but notice as we walked around Tesco Lotus was the amount of white middle aged Farang shopping with their Thai wives or girlfriends, just as I was doing with Jee and just like Jee, all the girls were half the Farangs age. I didn’t know how this was making me feel. Was I now part of a club? What did people think when they see all these old men with young attractive women? They probably think the same as I thought looking at other couples ‘she’s not with you for y
our looks mate’.
Maybe I’ll come to some sort of realisation in the near future but for now I think Jee and I like each other, and I hope she likes me for more than my money but then again I have always been a romantic fool.
After our shopping trip we went to a local hotel. It was brand new and situated just off the ring road that surrounds Udon Thani. In fact it was so new that it still needed finishing off and cleaning up. Sak, Pon and Fon all came with us to look at the room. It was basic and had a new paint smell, but the room was full of mosquitos, both alive and dead. Jee said she would get the hotel to sort it out ‘no problem’.
I unpacked with the help of everyone. Maybe that was a Thai thing because they just joined in. Then Sak and Pon went and waited in the truck while I had a shower and changed my clothes.
I had to change in the bathroom because Fon was sitting on the bed with Jee. I felt so much better after the shower and wearing fresh clothes, although I have to say it wasn’t a power shower, in fact it was more like a dog piddling on me but at least it was cold. I told Jee that the shower wasn’t very good and she said she would get the hotel to sort it out ‘no problem’.
The relief from the shower and change was short lived. By the time I had walked down the stairs and outside into the oppressive heat of the afternoon, I was hot, sticky and sweating again.
Chapter 15. First day/ culture shock.
When we resumed our seating positions in Saks pickup. Jee’s family chatted away in Thai and I just returned their smiles as and when any of them glanced at me. After a little more discussion Jee said;
“Darling we go city, later house sister eat.”
This made it quite clear to me; we were going to have a look around the city and then we were going to eat her sisters house. Oh well!
The first day in any new city anywhere in the world must be very disorientating and Udon Thani is no exception. The ring road which surrounds the city centre is dissected by another carriageway that looks exactly the same and then this road splits into two somewhere in the middle of the city and both roads again cross the ring road. So every time we drove around the city I actually had no idea if we were on the ring road or not and in which direction we were travelling.
Hopefully if I do end up living here I will master it, but my initial impression is a scary one.
I know that in Thailand they drive on the left, the same as we do in England, that is they are supposed to. But it seems if you are riding a motorbike you are allowed to also drive on the right hand side so you get motorbikes passing you and coming the other way on both the right and left hand side. If there is no room left on the roads then they simply just ride on the pavement if there is one. For the traffic that is travelling in the same direction and on the same road they are allowed to overtake you on either side and all this is done at dare devil speeds.
The other thing that I think will take some getting used to is turning right. In England oncoming traffic has priority, it seems that here in Thailand the vehicle making the right turn has right of way and the oncoming traffic stops or slows down ….sometimes.
I also have to mention traffic lights. It has always been my experience in any country that I’ve driven, that a red traffic light means STOP. In Thailand it means stop, but sometimes it still means you can go. If you are turning right or left. How would I ever master all this? It didn’t make much sense to me and I really didn’t understand the traffic system much at all. It was bigger and busier than the small town roads around Phuket, which so far had been my only experience of Thai traffic. So to sum up, in Thailand you can drive on which ever side of the road you like as fast as you like and driving on the pavement is ok too.
Most people seem to drive in the shade and give way to anything that probably isn’t going to give way to them. There are hundreds of thousands of motor bikes, the roads are clogged with them and it’s illegal to ride without a helmet, but absolutely nobody wears one. I see three and four people at a time riding on motorbikes, whole families, grown ups and kids. Women passengers breast feeding and sitting side saddle. Babies as young as twenty months, clinging onto their mothers backs. People reading books or knitting as they are being whisked along on the back of a motor bike.
These people just have no fear. The other vehicle of choice around here is the pick up truck, everyone seems to have one and saloon cars are few and far between. There are also lots of Tuk-Tuk’s and open sided buses and there is something very appealing about both these modes of transport. Udon Thani is a big sprawling city.
There seems to be a lot of concrete, and street after street looks the same. They have all the big shops that you would expect to find in a big city and many, many smaller ones.
Overhead, as everywhere else in Thailand, there is the usual mass tangle of black electric cable. There are street markets everywhere and the whole city is alive and buzzing with busy people.
I think it was the lack of land marks that was making it so difficult for me to orientate myself with the city, but slowly as we drove around I began to pick things out, a Buddhist shrine on a corner, a bridge over the road with a huge photo of the Thai King, a Wat (Buddhist temple), a river, a park, bus station and railway station, hotels and bars, but would I ever be able to find any of these places again?
“What you think darling?” Jee asked me.
“Dee khrap,” (Good.) I replied.
I didn’t know what else to say, my Thai wasn’t good enough to have a discussion about anything and Jee’s English wasn’t as good as her written English over the internet. Besides anything else, I really didn’t know what I was thinking. It was all a bit overwhelming and I was just looking and trying to take it all in. What did I think? It was a big city and It would probably have everything that I could ever need but it was far too soon to be able to say whether or not I liked the place.
It’s not the prettiest city I’ve ever seen, but it had a nice feel about it. A lot of people noticed the Farang being driven around by his new Thai family. Being looked at was something I was going to have to get used to, it was the very same feeling that I had when as a brand new Police Officer walking the streets, you are aware that everyone looks at you. You are up for public inspection.
We drove out of the city towards Chiang Phin; I think this is where we are going to eat at her sisters house. As soon as we leave the city limits everything changes. The buildings are different, no more big concrete buildings, there are some nice modern western style houses mixed in alongside typical Thai style wooden built houses on stilts.
There are still lots of shops but getting smaller and of course everywhere inside and outside the city, there are the endless selection of road side vendors selling fresh and cooked foods, hot and cold drinks, BBQ’s smoking everywhere and people eking out a living by cooking and selling every possible food imaginable.
Country side and fields opened out all around us and it lifted my spirits, I thought it was beautiful. The other thing I couldn’t help but notice is the further out of the city we drove, the more the roads deteriorated. The roads in Thailand can be very bumpy and dusty and sometimes little more than a dirt track.
The drive to Chiang Phin was a short one of about ten or fifteen minutes. I think this place is a town, although it looks more like a village. Sak pulled off the road onto a concrete drive in front of and old and tatty looking building. The top half was made of wood and sat upon a breeze block and cement box with metal shutters at the front. This was her sisters house. I don’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t it. I was shocked. The house looked poverty stricken and neglected. Thank God I had said that we would stay in a Hotel. I hoped that my obvious shock hadn’t shown through to my hosts.
As soon as we got out of the air conditioned pick up the intense heat and humidity once again engulfed me. Sak pulled up the rusted blue coloured shutters. Everyone kicked off their flip flops or sandals and went inside. I had to undo my shoes and take off my socks.
The house was very basic. The shutte
rs opened up one big room with blue tiled floor. The grey cement of the walls had never been painted. There was one window on the left hand wall with no glass but a metal grill and wooden shutters. In the far right corner was some rickety looking bare board stairs which disappeared into a hole in the ceiling. Next to the stairs at the back of the room was an open doorway which led into a small kitchen area. On the right hand wall just before the stairs was a wooden door leading to a covered workshop containing tools, cans of motor oil and stripped down engine parts. Sak was a mechanic. The only furniture in the room was a big old fashioned looking sewing machine under the window with a blue plastic stool. A wardrobe on the opposite wall. Just past the window was an old fashioned display cabinet with a colour TV and a telephone on top of it. Behind the cabinet was a metal double bed with a thin mattress and a mosquito net. There was a portable electric fan in the middle of the floor. Pinned on the wall next to the sewing machine was a map of the world and photo’s of the Thai King adorned the other walls. There were family photos on display in the cabinet.
The kitchen was tiny but had a two ring portable gas cooker, a sink, a washing machine, a fridge and a pantry cupboard. Pans and dishes were stacked neatly under the sink. There was a small open window looking out to the fields at the rear of the house, but the view was blocked by the lines of drying laundry. To the left of the kitchen was a metal door which lead into the bathroom. The bathroom consisted of a big metal tank full of water and a big ladle for scooping the water.