Big Adventure - Part 13

Well, the interesting stuff just keeps on happening.

Monday morning coffee at the beach before work, and the girl from Sunday that was just being friendly is there - waiting for me I think. I think that because she came up into my yard and said “I wait for you.” Gee, really friendly. I said I go to work now and left her there with Ja. My plan was that Ja – who happens to speak fluent Thai – would once and for all explain reality to her. I while later I noticed she was gone. I’m hoping my plan worked, but if not I’m sure Jacquie can make her understand when she gets here.

Monday also saw the arrival of a new and wondrous bug here on my island. I’d say it looks a fair bit like a flying ant, only it’s green, about one inch long and has about a two inch wingspan. Impressive looking when there are a whole mess of them on the glass door I enter and exit through.

Speaking of bugs, I left the empty wine glass from Sunday here in my office. Tuesday as I walked past it the large gecko that had taken up residence in it moved. Yes, I jumped. I threw the gecko outside and took the glass down to be washed. There on the floor near the sink there is a huge swarm of little ants devouring one of the new green bugs. I guess they aren’t that tough.

Every meal here is served with rice, which is cooked in an electric rice steamer in the morning and kept warm in it all day. You spoon it out as needed with a big plastic spoon on a holder on the outside – after basketball I usually do it myself. Well, today I walked by it at about 4:30 pm and there were about 50 flies on the spoon, enjoying some rice. Sometimes it’s better not knowing. Damn.

Since Ju is gone, Ja is cooking just for me, and I am tending to finish what’s put in front of me. Well I think that she thinks I’m not getting enough, because each meal seems to be larger than the one before.

I’ve booked a flight to Bangkok. Direct from here the cheap (about $60) seats were sold out, so I am taking the ferry to Suratthani on the mainland and getting $30 Air Asia flight from there, instead of the $100 flight from here at a worse time. I arrive at Suvarnabhumi at about noon, with about 5 hours to explore and find the animal place. I pray that wife and beast will arrive okay.

The woman next door says they hope the apartment will be ready for us by Saturday. If we arrive back here as planned on Saturday after an all night drive from Bangkok, maybe Jacquie will want to jump right in to moving.? I think we should wait at least until Sunday.

They have done a beautiful job. I’ll send a photo after it’s all done.

A motorbike with four kids on it just drove in. The driver looks to be 8 or 10 years old – I guess the rule is the oldest one gets to drive.

When I booked my flight out of Suratthani, I new from the map that the ferry terminal is a little ways from the city. Well, last night at basketball one of the guys who plays told me it is over 100 km. from the ferry to the airport, and it will take 2 to 3 hours to get there – a bus must be pre-booked from the ferry to the city, then a taxi from the city to the airport. He STRONGLY suggests I take the 5 am ferry if I want to be sure to make my 10:45 flight. And I do want to be sure to make my 10:45 flight. I’m awfully glad I talked about the trip at ball – I was trying to decide between the 6 am boat and the 7 am boat, and I probably would have been screwed. So I guess Jacquie will be leaving at 4 am on Thursday, and I’ll be leaving at 4 am on Friday. Hopefully we’ll both be in Suvarnabhumi International Airport by 5 pm Friday.

I have not shared with Jacquie that the driver is coming to get us from somewhere else, and Kris says he won’t be there till 7 pm. Now if I believed that, 7 pm wouldn’t be too far off, by the time we get the dog sorted. But I’ve been living here a little while now, and I will be a bit surprised if we see him much before 9. I figure I’ll break that news to what I expect will be an exhausted Jacquie as it happens.

Speaking of that, Ju is due back here by Thursday morning for work. It is now Thursday at 2 pm and no sign of her and no phone call. What is cool about all of this is that Ju or the driver or the contractors next door don’t have the faintest idea why there would be any problem with any of that. We westerners take awhile to get used to it, and I doubt I’ll ever really understand.

Fried rice for lunch with what looks and tastes like squash in it. Man, even fried I’ve got to draw the line somewhere – and squash is somewhere.

Ju just called, at about 2:45. “Ju stay in Chiang Mai today. Ju come back Saturday. Or Sunday.”

So I guess I’m driving myself to the ferry and finding a place to park the car and hoping it’s alright when I go retrieve it. On Saturday. Or Sunday.

I just spoke to Jacquie on the telephone as she is about to leave. It is instructive to realize how hard it is, having the woman you love and your dear dog heading off on such a long and difficult journey. The shoe doesn’t fit so well on the other foot.

I am sending this off before I leave here on my mini odyssey. I won’t get back here until Saturday – what time will depend upon when we leave the airport for the 10-12 hour drive (see above). So sometime on Saturday an email will go out to everyone advising how it all worked out.

It is 4:40 Thursday afternoon here – 6:40 am in Nova Scotia – and Jacquie’s plane is scheduled to leave Halifax for New York right now. This seems like a perfect moment to end this and press “Send”

God speed Jacquie and Sami.