'Stumbling through Thailand'

While on holiday in beautiful Thailand, things can often go wrong for the undersigned.

Something I have been able to do to you several times, usually encouraged by liters of coffee extract and unwanted night vomits.
But sometimes the holiday train derails long before that, on the kerosene-soaked avenues of Schiphol.

Because waiting there is usually annoying enough, but especially if you want to take a departure pee and all the piss boxes appear to be occupied.
Impatiently awaiting my turn in the toilet area, another visitor, undoubtedly visually far from my superior, walked straight towards a toilet door that was green.

Giving myself a mental slap for missing such a detail on the road to sanitary salvation, I had no choice but to let the newcomer go first.
Who then, when opening the desired space, found an Asian young person in it. At the moment of discovery, he was dressed in an Adam's suit, and the superlative degree of embarrassment.

Immediately closing the door again, and taking a seat next to me, somewhat dismayed, Arendsoog let slip that it was apparently tradition in some cultures not to set the toilet door to red, but instead to set one's own face.
From my own vantage point I could wholeheartedly confirm this.

Adding that the one-legged dancing of a scene from Les Misèrables while raising the underwear was also part of it.
United in our anthropological reflections, we said goodbye as good friends after this short but intense stay in the tiled trenches of the country's airport.
The fact that I was unable to remove the images of the astonishingly white behind of the said young man from my retina in the following days is another story.

But even once there, in that sun-drenched hothouse called Thailand, things do not always go as desired.

Visiting distant and vague acquaintances of Mrs. Oy, living in Chumphon, our host, local hotemetoot and phuyai job, thought that soaking up some local culture might appeal to the farang.
Refusing turned out not to be an option, so later that evening I found myself on an extremely barren lawn, surrounded by a crowd of other sniffers and clouds of unrestrained vermin.

Attacked by many test-boring mosquitoes and chewing gum-advertising tradespeople, I became acquainted with the Likay phenomenon. The kind of Thai popular entertainment that, I now know, I would have liked to have missed.
Because not only did the guest mayor manage to place us in the front row of the make-up spectacle, but also within touching distance of the speakers installed there. This one, to my unspeakable pleasure, is the size of a small apartment building and already in full operation.

The other attendees, including my wife, thoroughly enjoyed this costumed fun, but after a few minutes I felt twofold apprehension.
Namely that my organs would become available to science that same evening through acute crushing, and sinking on the spot into the Thai soil due to the liquefaction of my seat.
My memory of that long evening is therefore similar to being locked in a very hot vat of Thai underwear fun, while the neighbor unleashes his new claw hammer on it.

I only managed to prevent permanent damage by regularly going to the toilets, begging a certain Buddha to fire up a nearby transformer house, and reminding myself to check in with my sanity on the next flight to Thailand.

But sometimes you complain of luxury, as it turned out shortly afterwards.
That same week we settled in the hamlet of Lawo, near Phimai, where an aunt of woman Oy has her home.
The next day we were asked to drive the youngest member of the family to the school down the road for his graduation ceremony. Never shy of supporting the family, we set out in good spirits.

However, some suspicion arose when I could hear the headmaster giving his welcome speech far beyond the boundaries of the said site.
So shortly after the cultural enrichment in that other province, my hearing had only just come out of the bandages and there was fear of aftershocks.
It soon became clear to me that local regulations regarding marrow-splitting noise pollution or terrorizing growing children were not followed here.

After parking the car, my diploma-eligible nephew headed towards folding chairs filled with other students, while I tried to save my life by visiting the far corners of the school complex.
Looking for Thai marble holes, preferably big enough to hide in.

Not that it helped.
The chief was determined to reach the renegade sheep as well, and increased his decibel rainfall to monsoon level. Whereupon I, feeling dejected, went back to the car, hoping that both the radio and the air conditioning, both of which were set irresponsibly, would drown it out.
A last straw, which turned out to be just as effective as taking shelter behind a wet newspaper during a mortar attack, or feigning fear of contamination during a Salvation Army collection.

Desperately longing for the sweet sounds of a Likay performance, and kudos to the Toyota factory for a paint job that refused to flake off under this oral barrage, I decided to boost my foreign vocabulary by following the speech.

Although my knowledge of spoken Thai had improved over the years from terribly bad to only terrible, I could actually decipher snippets of it.
Analyzing sentences about diligent students and the golden future that awaited all if they followed the speaker's example.
Which ultimately achieved its goal and left many people in built-up areas numb, haggard and on the verge of suicide.

After which the presentation of the much-coveted piece of paper followed, accompanied by endless wailing and more deafening bleating from the pulpit.
However, the director could be satisfied and look back on a successful mission, because the next day it turned out that the nephew had actually learned something from his rhetoric.

Being an irritating whistle in the youthful head, which did not want to budge.

Fortunately, not all family visits are so nerve-wracking.
Because later, back at the base and wandering around the furthest corners of my mother-in-law's Isan property, this half-jungle, overgrown up to hip height with grass, thistle and stumbling stump, turned out to be a true treasure trove.

If only because of the chance of receiving handfuls of deposits, as my brother-in-law once used to deposit his lost bottles of brain softener there. Donated generously to Mother Nature after thoroughly combating his dry liver, fully mastering aerial cycling and playing any drinking organ virtuoso.
Kudos for that, because few artists leave their entire oeuvre to posterity during their lifetime.

As I wandered further through the undergrowth I soon came across another disturbing image.
Immediately making it clear that our once solid plan, to hide the badminton rackets from the view of young players by keeping them in my mother-in-law's linen cupboard, had not had the right effect.

Trying to free the racket I had to deal with a deep-seated fear of abandonment of the tree, surprisingly inhospitable ants, and many a skinned knuckle due to rough bark and inattention.

Looking at this cabinet of curiosities from some distance, it soon became clear that the plastic would one day be completely swallowed up, the chance of its rescue being nil, thus forcing me to make a tactical withdrawal.
After emerging from the jungle in a sweat, and extensively scratching my shin and skull, the only thing left for me to do was visit my mother-in-law.

To ask her kindly whether some family members had ever appeared in an investigation report.
And if so, to posthumously shower them with eternal shame.

For beating a hungry mango tree at speed.