Day trip to Chachoengsao

Wat Sothon

Change is a good thing, indeed - but the time to break with Mr Ball and my friends from the ya dong stand has not yet arrived.

The other day I was musing about the prospect of cutting my ties with them.

Tch, tch! That was silly of me, as our ties already run deep.

I forget myself from time to time; I forget my friends, too. I hope they forgive my lapses, for I don’t mean ill-will. I just go a bit silly in the head.

I visited a temple in the central province of Chachoengsao yesterday with Ball, carer R, his girlfriend, and a few friends of hers. I mentioned this trip the other day, and told readers resolutely that I wouldn’t go.

Well, bugger it, I went anyway. And it felt great.

I am ashamed to admit it, but our day trip by train to Chachoengsao was my first visit to a province outside in Bangkok in years.

It was also my first time in a Thai train. As we pulled out of Hua Lumpong station, after a frantic half-hour, peak-hour dash to make our rendezvous, we passed a train which had just made the journey from Butterworth, in Malaysia, to Bangkok.

‘That train comes from Malaysia,’ I told R and Ball. ‘I took a train from Butterworth a few months ago with my parents,’ I said.

They found it hard to believe. A train from Malaysia, arriving in Bangkok?

It is good to teach my Thai friends a few things. Normally, as the stranger who lives in this land, I am the one who feels like a student sitting at their knee.

We went as a group of seven. Carer R’s girlfriend went on ahead to meet her friends; our little tour party finally came together on the train itself, with but minutes to spare before it headed off on its cross-provincial journey.

She sat with two young women friends and a guy who belonged to one of the girls. Carer R, Ball and I sat separately in our own party of three.

Carer R occasionally left our group to exchange a few words with his girlfriend, but for the most part there was little contact between us. I spoke to carer R’s girlfriend once; the others not at all.

Ball spoke to her in the taxi, on the final leg back home. He did not exchange a word with the other two women, even though, he told me, he fancied one of them. Odd.

So why did I decide to go? I met R and Ball at the ya dong stand the night before. Mr Ball, who fancied the idea of a day away from his troubles in Bangkok, pleaded with me to join them.

I decided I had better drop my opposition to the plan, so the following day turned up at the ya dong stand at the appointed hour of 9am.

Carer R was waiting, looking splendid in a pair of long shorts, white T-shirt, and sunnies. However, Mr Ball, who had sworn repeatedly that he would rise in time to meet us, was nowhere to be seen.

‘I have woken him. I went right up to his bedroom, and shook him awake. He and his girlfriend were sleeping. He should be out shortly,’ said R.

R had dropped in to Ball’s place, to give him a prod. Ball is a solid sleeper, and needs help if he is wake early.

‘You know Ball can shower for two hours...and can take another hour to dress for the day,’ I told R.

We waited for our young friend...and waited. The train was due to leave at 10am. If we missed it, we’d have to wait three hours for the next one.

At 9.15, I walked down to Ball’s place myself, and knocked on the open door. Ball had finished in the shower, and was standing in front of the mirror with a towel around his waist.

‘Hurry!’ I said.

‘I’ll be just a tic,’ he said.

At 9.30, he emerged, wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and flip flops. However, in a nervous moment he decided he had better fetch his ID card, just in case someone at the subway asked to see it.

So he went back again.

Finally, we headed off.

We caught a sam lor (three-wheeled taxi) to the local subway, and ran down the elevator to the ticket counter. We were both lucky that carer R knew his way around, and could get places at speed.

We raced to the platform, and caught our subway train. No one asked to see his ID card, of course, but it had been a while since Mr Ball ventured into the subway.

During the 10–minute journey, R’s girlfriend called constantly. The calls grew more terse as the departure time drew nearer. She and the other were seated on the train, waiting. Where were the hopeless males?

We did make it, with a few minutes to spare. R and Ball left the train briefly to buy beer. Then we were off.

It was a fun trip. I enjoyed seeing the countryside outside Bangkok. I breathed in the air deeply; it was clean.

‘Are those people gathering rice?’ Ball asked R, as we passed a rice field towards Chachoengsao.

‘They are,’ he said.

‘There are slums out here as well,’ said Ball earlier, as we left the station, and passed a string of slum houses, squeezed up against the railway line.

Only 50m away sat inner-city high-rises; but along the tracks, squatters had put up shacks as their homes.

R looked after the cellphone camera, and his needs for beer. I looked after Ball. When we ran through the subway station, I held his hand. As we crossed the road in Chachoengsao, I took his hand again. Hand on his back, I escorted him here, helped him there.

I paid for most of his needs, such as the subway ticket, beer, food at the station, even a small gift for his mother after we had made merit at the temple.

At Wat Sothorn, the Thais wai-ed to the gods, while I watched. They bought flowers, and knelt before Buddha statues.

As I watched Ball pray, I knew he was thinking about his Dad, who died a few years ago. I wept, as it was sad to watch.

‘Why don’t you pray?’ he asked.

'I don’t know what to say in my prayer,’ I said.

We signed a get well book for the King. At the last minute, I had an attack of nerves. I couldn‘t read a word of the scrawl which Thais had written. I thought it might actually be a visitor’s book for the temple, rather than book left for the King, so signed my name, without leaving any message.

I didn’t want to look stupid, but missed the chance to do something useful. Silly farang.

We took the public train back, followed by a taxi.

I dropped in to see the boyfriend, then headed out again, to join R, Ball and regulars from the ya dong stand for a few early evening drinks.

About 10pm, farang C invited Ball and I back to his condo. We watched football videos, and I showed Ball around.

It was done up only recently, and C himself has only just moved in.

‘I’ll probably never be able to afford a place this beautiful,’ said Ball.

‘I can look after you in little ways, like an uncle. But you are not my boyfriend, so I can’t give you a place like this either,’ I said.

Ball was pleased to hear this, and shook my hand.

Farang C gave Ball a taste of an Irish stew he had just whipped up.

I thanked C for being such a good host, and escorted my young man home.

‘I had a great day,’ he said.

It was eye-opening for me, too. Our next day trip? Ayutthaya, at a date to be announced.