Chapter 35

Rain:

When I first came here to Bangtao a year or so ago I was amused by the rain and the local’s attitude to it. Yes it rains, but it is a warm rain a rain that may soak but does not chill. And yet at the first sight or sound of it everything stops. I would laugh and point out that in England if we stopped for rain nothing would ever happen. I would recount stories of camping holidays when it did not cease raining for two weeks and all our clothes were soaked. When we would eventually realise that there is a limit to how many wet slate-mines and Welsh castles one can visit, only so many quaint old steam trains one can create puddles in. When we would pile all our soaking clothes, tents and general camping gear into the car, together with a family of argumentative children (and sometimes adults) and head for civilisation, or at least home where it would be dry.

Here in Thailand people are much more sensible. As I said, when the rain starts nearly everything stops. When driving a car, as the rain starts there is even a delightful ten minutes when the roads are denuded of motorcycles. Motor cycling pauses while a million motorcyclists halt to put on their plastic macs. Then the chaos continues. If it really, really rains then even the motorcyclists stop.

I am sitting in my room listening to the rain and watching it form great rivers down a nearby corrugated roof. As a child in England I would watch droplets on my window merge to form tiny little streams. Here in Thailand I think the droplets merge somewhere up in the stratosphere. By the time they appear at ground level they are bloody great rivers. Shall I make a dash for the Coffee Shop - or for a massage? I don’t think so. It is unlikely that there will be anybody there. It is likely that Bangtao is more or less deserted as the locals hide from the rain and sit indoors watching their Tvs.

Now Thai television is another story and not one that I can raise much enthusiasm for just at this moment.

Maybe I’ll save it for a rainy day - another rainy day!