04/24/19

Sitting in the lobby of the hostel, at a long table set against the large windows that look out onto the little square where this hostel and another, several restaurants, and the karaoke bar next door are situated. It is a quiet morning, late, nearly noon. A woman sits on a bench beneath the awning of a Korean bbq spot playing with her phone. Occasionally someone passes through the square: a tortured soul stumbling along the shores of hell, submitting to some past life’s sins. Creatures forced to endure these temperatures for eternity. The heat out here is incredible, and the humidity nearly so as well, and yet all the Thais are seen in jeans or long pants. The woman across the way even has on a denim jacket.

I’m amazed.

Though, if one were to drag them to the north or central U.S. during a winter they would not be able to put on enough layers to keep warm.

A cat has just crawled out from beneath a car. It looks a lot like the cat, Chibi, at the other hostel, Kamin Bird House, which I actually miss a bit. A lovely Japanese name for a cat. I like it very much. It is common practice that if you own a cat here you have its tail docked. Unless these cats are bred this way. I’m not sure what the reasoning would be (for the former, not so much the latter), so I suspect perhaps it it a particular breed.

I have just finished breakfast: simple “food” consisting of toast, bananas, and instant coffee. No plans for the day. Real coffee somewhere eventually, and “work”, and take a wander through Chinatown perhaps. A fruit seller has just setup shop in in a parking spot in front of the bbq joint. Immediately the woman under the awning gets up and purchases a bag of papaya or watermelon, and an employee of the restaurant makes a purchase as well. And just that quickly the fruit seller moves on. I though I might get a bag of something. Well, the city is full of these guys. I’ll find one later.

The woman at the check-in desk is watching a Thai soap opera. In it a woman is speaking while a melancholy guitar is plucked in the background. When I see people watching these things sometimes I wonder if they’re reliving a time in their past. An incident, maybe. Or a relationship. What is the draw to these shows that are so heavy with contrived drama? My mother used to watch this sort of programming when I was a child. All My Children, As the World Turns… I believe there were a few others, all with the same general premise, all quite dark, and dripping with an over-the-top drama and phoniness that one wonders how they could be taken seriously. Yet they all had their followings, and were all quite popular for a while.