25 December 2023 - morning
Today was Christmas day, though we did not celebrate this festivity. The weather was chill in Chiang Mai. I was not certain why I was here in first place. One thing I knew was that I need to hand a wedding gift to one of the sisters. I bought the gift eight years ago when I heard that she was getting married. I was very pleased to hear that she found her other half she wanted to spend her life with. More than that we did not need to fulfil our crazy promise dated in 2011 when we were university student.
I woke up this morning in a fairly old wooden house, which I had found in Air BnB app. It was nothing special about the place, but it was cheap and affordable I guessed. The owner was nice though--a tall, elderly guy with gray hair. He was gentle by the way he spoke. Perhaps, because English was not our mother tongue. So, we spoke words by words, slowly and carefully. We chose simple and easy-to-understand vocabularies that did not need further explanation. It was important to be able to communicate in a common language both people understand each other. Plus, it was not a public speaking competition that we had to play around with fancy, technical vocabularies.
I sat down for breakfast at 8 o'clock or so. I usually did not have breakfast back home. But I had to have something to fill my stomach before my mission. I thought it would be light breakfast, something quick and easy like eggs and toast. To my surprise, it was not. It was freshly made fried noodles and mango sticky rice. In fact, it looked like more of my lunch. Since I could not pack it. I just needed to enjoy this big breakfast. Silently, I whispered to myself that tomorrow I would get out of the room for breakfast at 10 o'clock so that it would be my lunch instead of a breakfast.
After finishing the big breakfast, I brushed my teeth and took a shower. It was embarrassed to admit that I had not taken any shower since last night because the weather was too cold. A hot shower made it up for a cold morning. I then put on clean clothes and backpack. I took backpack for I thought I would visit Chiang Dao and spend overnight there if I felt like it.
On the road, I went. I roam the road to her place based on the direction shown on the maps. Thanks to it, otherwise, I would not find her place. My hands were shaking, so were my legs, because I had neither gloves nor shocks. I drove bare hands and wore flip-flop shoes.
I drove about one hour to reach her village. It was not her hometown so to speak, but a place she relocated with her family after her home country fell into internal arms conflict. It was unfortunate for her, her family, and hundred thousands of others, who had to abandon their home and settle in a foreign land. In contrary, I was lucky to be able to lead my life in my motherland. It was chilling along the road.
She lived in a small, one storied house by the foot of a hill. There was no gate. When I reached there, I saw her sitting in pink, plastic chair in front of the house as if she was waiting to welcome a long lost friend. I smiled (with my facemask on) as soon as I saw her. Her husband was there, but her two boys were at school, attending classes. I parked the bike and handed her oranges I bought along the way.
We then sat down, talked, drank tea, ate some local snack from her hometown, and laughed, despite the fact that the land we were sitting on was foreign to both of us. I asked her if she was hopeful about the future of her country. She said, "yes." She furthered that positive change would be attained soon. I did wish so too.
We then changed the subjects. We talked about life, what future may hold. Thinking about it, I felt a bit sad inside me. I was not sure, at that moment, what future may hold for me. I felt that my future was uncertain and out of reach. I was scared to think about it. I was scared that I would become an old man, leading a lonely life without anyone sitting by my side when the sun went down. Come to think of it, I felt even sadder.
We had lunch together, talked a bit more, laughed a little longer, and paid goodbye. I left her house. I still thought about her. How peaceful it was to live a slow, quiet life. But I was not sure if she felt peaceful inside given that she had to give up her home country, temporarily.
