letters to thailand - part 9

To the boys and girls of the LEO CLUB
C/o the honourable chairperson BeeBee,
The Construction View Hotel Ao Nang, Krabi

THREE WOMEN

My last bowl of noodle soup on Thai soil I had in Bangkok at a food stall underneath the Phetburi road overpass.
It was more than a food stall; at night some extra canvas created a shelter that Lek stubbornly called “our house”.
The husband of this courageous lady died of aids, leaving her behind to take care of their five wonderful daughters. He left her two more things…the HIV virus and an enormeous debt created during his numerous visits to brothels. Scattered all over town, Lek eventually managed to make the rounds to all of them, paying off the money her beloved husband owed.

Lek very much reminded me of another brave woman I’d met in the deep south of India, her name is Amba… never shall I lose her face from the vault where I keep the fondest of memories.
‘Untouchable’ yet raped for a fee a million times over she lived at the outskirts of Pondicherri, a former French colony still populair with confused souls from the west as it is the base of just another sect, the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo. As I know most of you followed the old hippie trail from Kathmandu over Goa to Bangkok and Denpassar, I trust you all know the type, dressed as a native, tikka dot and all, I found in front of Amba’s house, shaped somewhat like an igloo it was created out of sun-dried manure… the house, not the type.

Hailing from Maastricht, a town in the deep south of the Netherlands she thought the igloo “sooo cute, sooo picturesque” and I…I couldn’t think of anything else but inviting her to collect her own crap and build a fucking igloo on the steps of one of those famous churches in her hometown, where you are expected to pay a handfull of silver before you can go in and reboot your karma. In tears she went back to the compound of mama’s ashram.

This week I was in Maastricht; as I walked along the banks of the river Meuse I came across a a spot where the ground was strewn with syringes, inside many of them brightly coloured blood was glistening…still.
Overhead there was this ancient tower connected to a wall…there was a hole in the wall…I stuck my nosy head in and stared. It was as if I was looking inside a cave…at the far end I could just make out the candle lit face of a woman…it bore no expression.
After I crawled my way in we first just sat there and watched eachother, sometimes boldly staring, then studying the medieval walls, pretending not to be there…catlike. Suddenly she spoke: “We’ve met before yet it cannot be said that you realize…I see it in your eyes.”

In India, at the time, heroine was cheap. Once slipped out of Mothers arms, back in her hometown Katya quickly found that not only would she have to pay a hell of a lot more, she couldn’t even make the money by selling noodle soup…to get a license is harder than connecting with your local dealer.

letters to thailand - part 1
letters to thailand - part 2
letters to thailand - part 3
letters to thailand - part 4
letters to thailand - part 5
letters to thailand - part 6
letters to thailand - part 7
letters to thailand - part 8