Wan di, wan mai di (part 18)

We have Thai friends in Udon and every now and then it's time to visit them again. The immediate friend, Eak (thirties), is a former colleague of my wife. After finishing university in Udon Thani, he found work as a structural draftsman in Bangkok.

He developed rapidly and soon he was the head of the department, which started to do its work more and more with the computer. Things I don't understand and look at with surprised eyes, such as three-dimensional drawings that can also rotate on the computer screen.

His mother contracted an incurable illness four years ago and because no one could take care of her, Eak resigned and returned to his native village. But not after my wife promised him he could work from home as a freelancer for his old employer.

She promised him a minimum number of hours of work (and therefore income) per week. The other hours he had to find his own assignments. Oak took care of his mother until she died. He then entered the local temple - according to custom - as a monk for three months.

Father

Eak's father did not experience all this directly. For over twenty years he worked abroad as a construction worker to support his family in Udon. He rarely came home but sent money every month. However, he is getting older and two years ago he came back to Thailand permanently and now works as a night watchman in a hotel in Pattaya, until his retirement.

Sometimes he comes to visit us in Bangkok, usually when he is on his way to Udon for a short vacation or for family matters, usually deaths. So when my wife told him that we had plans to go to Udon for a few days, he also asked his boss for a few days off.

Father traveled directly from Pattaya by bus to Udon, we from Bangkok (always with Nahkonchai Air). We transferred some money to him so that he could not take the regular bus but the VIP bus and hopefully get some sleep during the journey. In order not to lose time, he always leaves immediately after his night shift.

The return trip

Since Eak's father still had a few things to do in Bangkok, we booked three tickets for the return journey. The bus terminal of Nahkonchai Air is not far from Mochit bus station, but contrary to my expectations, my wife told me that we would stay on the bus until Mochit.

Why, I asked her. Well, Eak's father would like to speak to his daughter who runs a shop in Mochit. He barely interacts with her, she rarely picks up the phone, and—I just now learned—Eak's father had already tried three times to see her on Mochit.

This time, too, he had not announced his visit. That can also be difficult if your daughter doesn't answer the phone. While we were waiting on a bench, Father tried again. This time also without result. Eak has told him that his sister is more concerned with men (searching) than with the shop, but father does not want to believe that.

He has worked hard all his life to give her a good future, but she has made a mess of her life: after only a year at the university (with a lot of booze and yaba) she got pregnant and dropped out of the study. Then twelve trades and thirteen accidents.

The next day

What I also didn't know was that father would spend the night with us and travel on to Pattaya the next day. Ma pen rai. The next morning my wife said to me: Come on, we're going to visit an aunt who lives in Bang Na with father and then we'll put him on the bus to Pattaya.

To be honest, I didn't really feel like visiting an aunt on the other side of the city who undoubtedly didn't speak English, but my wife looked at me lovingly and yes… then I can't refuse. That is sometimes nice (wink).

We walked to the corner of the street and waited for a taxi. It came quickly. About 280 baht later we got off at a pedestrian bridge (in Thai sapaloi called, not to be confused with sapalot because that means pineapple) near Central Bang Na. After walking for about five minutes, we arrived at our destination. I thought it was strange that my wife knew exactly the way and also the right floor of that aunt's condo. She told me that she had already been here once with Eak.

Aunt

The aunt was not related at all, so not an aunt but a fortune teller; apparently with a family hallmark. We got no further than a kind of vestibule, shielded from the rest of the condo with Chinese wood panels where the aunt (I'll keep calling her) sat behind a desk.

As far as I could tell, the condo resembled the home of Stepbeen and Son from the television series of the same name. For those who don't know this: see YouTube. After noticing that I was a handsome farang man for my age, she started leafing through books and calculating with the help of a ruler and a geo-triangle.

Father wanted to know when would be the best time to retire and start living in Udon AND bring a woman with him as his partner whom he had met in Pattaya. Father had to call her and a telephone conversation ensued between the woman and the fortune teller.

Then the fortune teller started calculating and drawing again. I don't know what the final advice was. What I do know is that the fortune teller wasn't quite up to date, because all the royal calendars in her office hadn't been torn off for months.

Lunch time

When we left the condo it was already half past one in the afternoon. It's high time for lunch. I suggested we eat nearby, for example in Central Bang Na, after which we could send Dad by taxi to Suvarnabhumi where he could take the bus to Pattaya.

Nothing. My wife insisted that we put Dad on the bus at Saitai bus station, on the west side of town and close to our house, so all the way back. You could have a better and cheaper lunch there, according to her. This logic completely escaped me. To keep the peace in the house I kept silent from that moment on.

280 baht and half an hour later we arrived in Saitai, had lunch and bought father a ticket for the bus to Pattaya. Father left and shortly after that a real tropical downpour fell over my wife and me. Of course we forgot the umbrella. And of course the aircon on the bus home was on maximum. Nice day.

Chris de Boer

The condominium building Chris lives in is run by an elderly woman. He calls her grandmother, because she is both in status and in age. Grandmother has two daughters (Daow and Mong) of whom Mong is the owner of the building on paper.