sawadee

awoke with a start on the flight to phuket when i looked out the window and the sheets of clouds looked more like glaciers on the sea. what is it about clouds that would make me believe in any religion

the best young couple was assigned to pick us up from the airport. adorable girl with high-pitched voice and unpronounceable name and her boyfriend, more uneasy with his english. they apologized profusely when they had trouble finding our guesthouse. the girl rolled down the window twice and asked people on the street for directions. i find that this happens often, that thai drivers, even taxi drivers, don't actually know where they're going, but will try to take you there anyways and along the way will ask any plethora of random people on the street for help. and even more shocking is that the people on the street will help to the best of their ability, which is very un-chinese. yuzhu told me that years ago in shanghai, if you asked for directions, people would completely ignore you, whereas nowadays they will at least pretend to not know. when we arrived at the guesthouse, the girl immediately jumped out to grab our luggage from the trunk and then accused her boyfriend of being a bad driver for not having been the first to take out the luggage. he was sheepish and couldn't stop laughing.