Dear friends and family,
Not surprisingly, I have learned something. About the Thai to be more precise. Something quite distracting really, 'cause I am not so good at dealing with this weird custom of theirs. Let me explain. Thai and most Southeast asians don't admit misunderstanding or ignorance. Instead they will jump to a different subject, avoiding your question or even worse, give a random answer. For instance, my trekking guides, had never walked the path before. It took us three days to figure that out. And suddenly it became clear why one guide would say that we had an hour of walking left while the other claimed that we had three more to go. And we understood why they refused to admit that they didn't have any water for us. 'We will boil it for you', but when we asked for it... 'In one hour'. They have water, but we needed to wait an hour before we could get it... yeah right that basket of theirs was just as empty as can be. Thanks to my understanding of this habit, I now see why communicating with Kam Chuen wasn't always that easy. He sometimes made you wonder if he didn't understand or hear what you just said or if he just doesn't want to answer the question! This whole thing pressumably has something to do with loss of face. Still I find it hard to believe that people can be ashamed to say 'I don't know'!! But then again look at the taxi or tuk-tuk drivers, if they don't know the place you're naming, they might well bring you to a random spot or, more often, ask you to wait a minute and then ask around (or so I presume they're doing, 'cause I never wait more than a few minutes, seeing the number of other cabs in the area)
The save start Mae Hong Son month has now really come to its end. I have said my goodbyes to the kids and the volunteers yesterday and I reside now in Chiang Mai to arrange my visa before departure. Unluckily I hadn't realized that 'one day express service' meant leaving your passport before 5 pm on tuesday and only receiving the visa on thursday at 10 am! So I had to change my flight, but by good fortune I could via internet and it wasn't even really expensive to do so.
The next time you'll hear from me, it will be from Saigon.. I can't wait!!
Yours,
lotje
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