Novel Journey

Northern Thailand is lush, verdant, and completely ours. We took Lada’s car, equipped with a brand new overpriced gps, and made our way north to Lopburi where the monkeys are sacred. An ancient temple encircled by traffic, dingy buildings, and street vendors is home to hundreds of red-assed monkeys. The people here take good care of the little buggers, which is evident in their mostly relaxed behavior when presented with a peanut-toting farang.

It’s easy to get nervous around monkeys. They walk towards you at unpredictable speeds: sometimes slowly, then a few quick hops and their right under you. And they stare… they stare you down. Looking back you wonder if the same thoughts are going through their head: “are you gonna be nice?”

Turns out they were. They had gotten used to humans. Unlike the monkeys around Angkor Wat, these monkeys had survived because, not in spite, of humans. Lada tells me that every so often the townspeople get together and set up a huge buffet… just for the monkeys. Not a bad life, probably. But then again, the transition from a wooded to a concrete forest must have been a tough one.

I snapped plenty of pics and vids. Lada scrunching her face in fear while the monkeys snatch the food out of her hand is a priceless moment. And there’s the video of a baby monkey climbing my shorts to get at, and steal, the bag of peanuts in my hand, just before another steals the very stick I was supposed to use to keep them at a distance. Sneaky little turds. I’d want one if they weren’t so damn… human-like.

An hour later we had our fill of monkeys, and they our food, so we got in the car and headed on to the next town. After a pretty uneventful night in what must have been a ghost-hotel, we drove to Lampang to check out the elephant conservatory.

This entire country smells of sticky rice. There’s a sweetness to it, mixed with the dense warmth of the tropics, that enveloped me as I walked off the plane. Ah… Thailand. Familiar thoughts and feelings swept through me. Some spectacular, some awful. All unique.

We drove directly to Lada’s apartment last night from the airport. They drive on the wrong side of the road around here, which, mixed with the inherent discomfort I associate with being Lada’s passenger, made for an alert and memorable ride. 25 hours of mostly sleepless traveling won’t take from you a healthy fear for your life.

Through 40 minutes of highway cruising, 4 toll stops, and a number of last second lane changes we made it to the research/industrial/educational complex that houses Lada’s apartment and work. This is a rather exceptional facility, rivaling those of any other developed nation. Tall, white buildings crowned in marble and stainless steel line well-manicured streets. And cafes, barbers, and grocery stores provide the essentials of a complete living package.

Strange though, that just across the main road from here are shanty-town-like clusters of shops and shelter of the less fortunate. Perhaps nowhere in Bangkok is there such an obvious and wide disparity between the haves and the have-nots, the developed and the under-developed. It’s an odd little borderland town between the opulence of the city, and the poor ruggedness of the country.

I met Lada’s friends today. I saw where she eats, works, relaxes, and eats. I’m the only farang (gringo) around. Keep getting those sheltered glances, and giggles when I say ’sawadi krap’ in my farang accent with a hands together bow. I think they’re generally amused. Laughter makes things easier, even if they’re laughing at you.

Lada’s off to work. She has a meeting at 11:00. I’m in the coffee shop with an expresso and internet… so I’m happy. Her friends are going to take me to lunch today. Everyone here speaks English, but most are a bit too shy to give it a concerted effort. They’ll loosen up when they get used to me, and I to them. I’ve been studying Thai a little, so I can ask for some things and make a number of other basic comments. But mostly people around here pick up pretty quickly that I’m a clueless farang, and say things in English.

Tonight we’re going downtown to party. That is, if I’m not stupid tired. I slept reasonably well last night, which was kind of a shock. I half expected the jet lag to mess with me good. But so far I feel pretty normal. Fingers crossed.

This time around I brought with me an arsenal of anti-parasitic/bacterial supplements. Maybe I can stave-off a gut-busting vomiting spree. Again, fingers crossed.

My heart was throbbing intensely, standing over Dave at his terminal, as error message after error message flashed across the screen…

Dave had deleted the entire NovelJourney database, in an attempt to move it to another, but certainly not the last, new server. He does this server-swap thing every so often, for often mysterious reasons… Boredom? Job security?

I suspect it has something to do with reliability, redundancy, security, network segregation, capacity, performance, or any of the other IT blanket words used to confuse and distract the unwary few who venture a question or two about it.

After all, the IT blackhole must be preserved, and at the same time, fed more and more money…

Oh, I kid. Dave did manage to recover the erased DB. So he still holds the high distinction of not having permanently deleted anything of value. Good job, Dave. I’ll dust off my IT chalice, and raise it in toast to you.

On another note, I just purchased a ticket to Thailand. I’ll be there for three weeks, galavanting around with the pootie. Ahh… it’ll be spectacular.

I might even blog a bit about it. We’ll see.