From Wok to Wat: last day pedaling Thailand

Farewell, dear delicious colorful Thailand. Today was our last full day here. We pedaled 80 kilometers and are staying near the Cambodian border on that thin tail of Thailand, in a town called Khlong Yai. I write this from a little internet cafe which is also a coffee-drink shop and a sewing shop. The lack of distinction in establishments here (especially since most of them are the front room of someone's house) always surprises me. Now someone is frying garlic and chilis and I am coughing. A gaggle of irritating boys piles around a computer nearby, playing some sort of killing game, and being loud enough they can hear each other through headphones.

But thanks to this Young Boy Computer Killing Game culture here, I've had a plethora of available internet cafes. I don't know if young boys in Cambodia have as much money to spend on killing games, so I really have no idea about how much internet access I'll have over the next few weeks. But stay with me! I'll do my best. Interesting experiences I'm sure will be forthcoming after we cross the border.

Thailand gave us a generously remarkable day today.

After collecting my sundry sundried undies from Mrs. Laundry this morning, we pocket-knifed apart a massive papaya, then pedaled out east into the countryside bordering the ocean. We encountered only a single intersection all day and enjoyed not having to fluster open the map at every turn, as has been necessary in the past. Although we ride a little more leisurely than I'm accustomed to around Seattle, (due to difference in bikes and leg-length, and because of the heat, and because we are carrying our possessions) I am never bored, because my eyes are the size of frisbees from all there is to look at. A browned man laboriously pedaling a bicycle attached to a cart: his rig has brooms off all lengths and hair styles jutting with angularity from his cart. A mobile broom-selling outfit. Cars might pass him and get a little sweeping off. We pass wats, gloriously yellow and red with more intricacy than I can possibly take in, even pedaling slowly. We pass road-cuts, the red oxisols with meager top-soil showing clear horizontal horizon stripes. A woman squatting by a tarp of watermelons, one cut open before her, incense in her hands with head bowed. A pickup piled with a pyramid of heavy bags, looming taller than the cab roof, with three men sitting unperturbed on top of the stack.

The papaya soon left my petrol-reserves (being chased by an adreline-activating dog didn't help) and Food Was Necessary. But by this time we were out of the town and little food carts were scarce. Finally, we pass a battered shack near the road and see a steaming wok. Point and Hope Breakfast. Buddy Lissy went for a helping of grilled chicken, and I pointed hopefully at two eggs on the counter. Mrs. Shack got busy chopping and frying, smiling at us and our bicycles. Wait and see....

Then she set a papaya salad in front of me.

It did have two eggs in it though.

And it was the most delicious papaya salad I've ever eaten. It was spicy, but not a furnace: topped with roasted peanuts (I've been craving peanuts), sides of long green beans--the dressing was sour and sweet and spicy and salty: a dance of delicious. On top were sprinkled minute dried shrimp--Barbie doll sized shrimp--and their tiny beady black eyes regarded me.

What a fulfilling and complexly tasty concoction from such a place. Now back to pedaling.

Later, Buddy Lissy indicates a little sign at the edge of a gravel road: Beach Naem Eiy Phor Get. We jostle down this for a little break, and find ourselves in a tiny neighborhood. "Hullo! Helllllloooo! Goodbye!" the children playing in the road, the old men sitting in the shade, the women from the open-air houses greet us. We must be quite the entertainment for their Sunday morning. Dead end: no beach. But wait! There is actually a raised cement walkway, winding through the slouching wooden houses and over the river, and this, we find, leads to the beach. Walking this tight-rope of a thing, with our bicycles, we cross a droopy bouncy wooden section, a patch where the cement had failed. Woo!

The beach was beautiful and deserted and we made ourselves sticky with bananas and more papaya and salt-water. My handlebars would be just short of appalling, I tell you, if the sun didn't broil them back into sanitation.

Later, just as my bladder was clearing its throat, we happen to pass a border control hut, which had that universal Man and Woman sign indicating Toilet Yay Rejoice! We pulled up, and Mr. Uniform Guard, all in gray with a rather official hat, came out all big eyes. We can speak no Thai and he spoke no English, and yet through tone and hand motions and various other charades we had this conversation:

Mr. Guard: "You are riding your bicycles! Wow!"
Us: "Yes! We have fun!"
Mr. Guard: "Have some coffee! Have some water! No you don't want coffee?"
[then because of an aerial photograph map, the following was possible]
Sandra: "We went to this island, Kood. It was very mountainous. We sweated a lot!"
Mr. Guard: "Does your back hurt when you ride?"
Sandra: "No, we are fine!"
Mr. Guard: "You must come to the front of the hut for a photograph together!"

All of this communication! And we do not even share a language. Humanity is wonderful sometimes.