The Enigma of Arrival

I love that title of Naipul's, although I could never quite bring myself to pick up the book. Especially not since I misplaced my asbestos gloves. (That's a Frank Kelly line---thanks, Frank.) In fact, the only enigma has been the password for this blog. I had it wrong and so was rendered unchacteristically mute for my first ten days in Bangkok. As some of you know, Joe's arrival was delayed by a week so that he could help the Wheatons clear out their Concord house. He arrived early Sunday with an appetite for tam yam goong and with the blog password. Both have been useful.

A word about jet lag: according to The Times, somebody has invented a drug that may cure it. Good. Jet travel is supposed to be fast, but with layovers at JFK and in Seoul, my journey took 40 hours. Joe's trip via L.A. took 37 hours. You arrive feeling as if you have clawed your way across the planet inch by inch. Bad.

As always, it's worth it. Thailand is as hot and stinky and aromatic and odd and sweet and simpatico as ever. I mostly spent the week before Joe's arrival going around the city and tasting the food to make sure it would be safe for him to eat. I found it to be so. My favorite new menu item, at a place near our hotel called Too Kub Kao by Oscar, is "deep-fried chicken hips." Joe, alas, missed a wonderful event. Our friend Poe bought two tables at his condo association's annual Thai-Chinese dinner party/festival, and I was invited to sit with the fourteen members of Poe's family for the ten-course Chinese dinner and the karaoke and Bingo. No one except Poe spoke a word of English, but everyone smiled---of course---and the Thai language lessons I took last year enabled me to understand the Bingo calls. To those of you who were unimpressed when I went around at home saying "neung seung song see heh," I can tell you that "one two three four five" finally came in handy. I'll resume my language lessons at some point. Yesterday while Joe was getting a haircut (at a place called---this is true---Gay-Cut) I tried to chat up the shampoo lady in Thai, and she stared at me as if I were addressing her in Estonian.

Our plan is to head down on Monday to Hua Hin, the Gulf of Thailand resort town where Poe and his boyfriend Simon have a house, and think deep or no thoughts there for several days. Then we'll return to Bangkok and embark on a more adventurous two- or three-week trip through Laos. There's a new train to the Lao border, and then you get around by boat and bus. The journey up along the Mekong on the Lao side of the Thai-Lao border is said to be gorgeous and not too overly trodden by farangs like us. So, we'll see what's over there.

Then in March we'll go to Burma.

We have followed the Haiti horrors on CNN. It is all barely imaginable.