Last weekend I found myself in the Northeastern province of Yasothon for the first time in more than 20 years. It brought back fond memories as there was a time ''Yaso" was something of a home away from home.
Long term readers may recall that my late maid was from Yasothon and in PostScript she was referred to as Ms Yasothon. Colleague Tony Waltham and I visited her village several times in the 1980s and 90s. We would travel up from Bangkok early in May to coincide with the Bun Bang Fai rocket festival and would stay in the maid's village.
On the first occasion we slept on the floor of the headmaster's office at the local school. It was a typical small wooden village school fronted by an overgrown football field. The whole place was run down, but what it lacked in maintenance it more than made up for in hospitality. That first morning we were greeted by two of the maid's young cousins with a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee. It felt just like home.
The highlight of the trip each year was the rocket festival. While Thailand has not exactly been on the cutting edge of space exploration, the Bun Bang Fai rocket men have certainly tried their best to put the kingdom on the intergalactic map.
Some of their rockets looked capable of pushing space to new limits. However, you watched them being launched at your peril. Some rockets had the unfortunate tendency of blowing up in spectacular fashion or taking off horizontally, sending the assembled crowds scattering.
The village
Unfortunately I did not have enough time last weekend to visit the village, located about 50km south of Yasothon town. It is called Baan Glang Nah, a most accurate description, "a village in the middle of a field". In those early years most of the village inhabitants had passed through my house in Bangkok in some mode or other. Mothers, babies, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, close cousins, not-so-close cousins and extremely distant cousins had all spent time at my abode.
The only disturbing aspect was that over the years the ones I recalled being kids got married and had kids of their own, while my contemporaries were all beginning to look decidedly ancient. Goodness knows what they thought I looked like.
Showtime with Chalie
To reach Yasothon on this recent foray entailed a road journey from Khon Kaen via Maha Sarakham and Roi-et, two other places I hadn't visited for many years.
It might sound quirky but I was quite excited to see a signpost for Borabue in Maha Sarakham as it immediately reminded me of a cheerful Thai chap called Chalie, a former paste-up man at the Bangkok Post. Chalie hailed from Borabue and at work would often burst forth into song about the place in his rich Isan voice.
The lyrics were usually about how much he was missing the buffaloes and beautiful girls of Borabue. I think he was a buffalo boy in his childhood.
Chalie was not averse to singing western hits either and did a fine job with the 1974 disco number Kung Fu Fighting which was a massive hit in Thailand. Another of his favourites was Guantanamera, although he struggled with the pronunciation and as far as Chalie was concerned the song's title was "Want an American''.
Cabbage alert
On last week's trip I was a little surprised to see a brightly-lit Cabbages and Condoms restaurant on the approaches to Maha Sarakham. It was reminder of how much this chain with the curious name created by family planning pioneer Mechai Viravaidya has expanded over the years with restaurants all over the kingdom.
I was living on Sukhumvit Soi 12 in the late 1970s when the first establishment began operations about 100 metres further down the soi. It proved a very handy place to take visitors and I enjoyed a perverse pleasure looking at the puzzled faces of friends when they first saw the name as they hesitantly entered the establishment.
But they quickly became satisfied customers once they had tasted the dishes. And just as a reminder of what it was all about, each bill was accompanied with a free condom.
Happy hearts
My house on Soi 12 happened to be opposite the Darling massage parlour, although I disappointingly don't have any tales of experiences amongst the soap suds as I never ventured inside. Frankly it looked a bit intimidating despite the invitation on the sign "Feeling is Darling".
Soi Suk Chai (Soi of Happy Hearts) was rather a strange lane in those days. Being so narrow it didn't have any pavements and it was a nightmare for pedestrians. Even worse, it seemed to flood every other day, even when it hadn't been raining. Try as I might while I lived there it never felt exactly like the "Soi of Happy Hearts."
Lost souls
Matters were resolved when our landlord suddenly increased rent by such a ridiculous amount we had no choice but to move out. So we had to say farewell to the soi of cabbages, condoms, massage parlours and soggy socks, not to mention all those happy hearts or possibly, lost souls.
We moved further down Sukhumvit to Soi 49 where we were to experience floods far worse than those on Soi 12. Oh well.
Contact PostScript via email at oldcrutch@hotmail.com
