My mom is coming to visit me! But she won’t be going back with me. I know she’ll make it here without getting lost.
22-25 October
Last weekend: Sukhothai. Yes, I know I’m skipping art field trips and the Golden Triangle, but this trip trumps those because we actually got to hang out with real Thai students. On Friday night, after arriving to Pitsanulok, my entire program went to a banquet hall party with students of Naresuan University. Everyone was spread out evenly to all tables and we got a chance to chat with them; their English skills are as good as that of the Thai buddies. Or humiliation of singing and dancing went without a hitch and in-fact, when the pop songs and karaoke came on, everyone was embarrassing themselves without a care through strange, modern-like dance. There was one point when I was dancing on a chair. It was fun.
The best part, though, was afterwards a load of us went out to a bar-like setting and a club and chatted some more with the Thai students. We were all pretty alike to one another; we talked about families, drunkenness, the election, languages and probably more. Most everyone was in cute clothes and I (and a few others) were still in our school uniforms but I’m sure we couldn’t care less.
Anyway, before that, we were in Sukhothai. I told my aunt about this, and she taught me the word ‘ancestor’ in Thai coz my maternal grandfather is from Sukhothai. The spelling of the word ‘Sukhothai’ is also strangely different yet literal from the ‘Thai’ in ‘Thailand.’ The weather there was nearly unbearably hot and my mosquitos bites actually swelled up. The old city though, is totally touristy (we all sat on this two-car carriage and had a tour guide who would explain and give us strange spellings of the features he was talking about) and very stunning. I have been to old sites before, but for whatever reason this time I was really absorbed by the setting; the curving canopy of the old trees, the solidly delicate-green surface of some of the ponds, the persevering laterite of the structures.
As Aj. Ram explained the histories of these sites, I was imagining people of the past making real use of these places, of them being normal. When I was at the Temple of the Rock Bridge, I walked around the premises, trying to imagine the old building and what the grounds were like when Ramkamhaeng would ascend the hill atop a white elephant to pray to Buddha at the temple. Really though, I was staring at the horizon that still managed to be eye-level and a few boys hurrying up the hill with exaggerated drama, both to much of my amusement. I had stopped sweating profusely by then and even with only a slight breeze I was very comfortable.
