16.03.19

It feels inauspicious to begin with the bad news, but our black MEC bag containing our Pentax K-1000 manual camera, our journals (including Rod’s elaborate, coin-covered sketchbook which he’d been working on for almost a year), our Thailand guidebook and 30,000 yen (about $350CDN) was stolen from us yesterday.  We had rented bicycles to tour the temples of Ayutthaya and the bag was in Rod’s basket when a motorcyclist came from behind and snatched it.  Rod tried to catch him, pedaling at top speed, despite my worried screams for him to let the thief go.  Unfortunately neither of us could get a good description of the robber.  We spent the better part of yesterday afternoon at the Tourist Police Station filling out a statement and waiting as they translated it into Thai.  We were naturally quite shaken up by the event and particularly concerned about having lost the cash which was part of our India budget.

Still we continue on.  This is our last day in Ayutthaya.  We’ll be checking out of Ayutthaya Guest House shortly to catch the train back to Bangkok.  Once there, we plan to check in to Chart Guesthouse again which is close to the travel agency handling our air tickets and visas for India.  Our flight leaves for India (with a stop in Colombo, Sri Lanka) tomorrow night at 8pm.  I’m sincerely hoping that the expression: “Lightning never strikes the same place twice” holds true over the next two weeks.

the evening…

after waiting for a train to Bangkok from Ayutthaya for the better part of today, we are finally back on Khao San Road.  Not sure if that’s a good thing, but with a tummy full on falafel, pad thai and pineapple, it feels just a little like home.  In a few minutes we go pick up our visas with Wanida.  We have also been trying to locate a charity where we can donate the ESL books we have with us.

We’re back at Chart guesthouse in a fan room (350baht).  There’s yet another nesting pigeon on our balcony (in another room a few days previous, we discovered a female guarding eggs and a male guarding them both at this same hotel).  We have fed her dried watermelon seeds.  So far this trip has been a bit of a waiting game, but there’s something good to be said about the peace of sitting still, consuming little.  I hardly ever think about our little teaching gig in Japan and have a much easier time seeing the larger picture of my life.  In Bangkok, with fewer belongings and onward tickets, I stand at a crossroads.

Earlier it rained and the air is fresher for it.
If I wasn’t so weary I’d write a poem
in honour of Bangkok rain
in honour of beggars
with plastic legs and silver bowls…
 

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