Love and Hookers

We're just waiting around for our shuttle to the airport and then jetting off to China, so we thought we'd share one last little gem from Thailand.

Yesterday morning, we came back from Northern Thailand on a bus which arrived into Bangkok at the ungodly hour of 5:30 AM. Much to our chagrin, all the hotels were booked solid, so with not much else to do, we decided to wait around the hotel lobby hoping someone might check out early. There was also a tiny internet station in the hotel, manned by an upset Thai women. Strange time to be fuming at a keyboard? Yeah, that was the first sign.

Jessica got roped in (as she often does) by the relatively innocuous request for help translating a letter to English. Five minutes later, curious as to what was going down five feet away I got roped in too. Turns out, our young Thai friend was composing a letter to her American "boyfriend," explaining that "He had one week to write her back, or else..." But she liked him, and seemed relatively distraught about that prospect. Should she be more adamant, she wanted to know? Should she threaten to "go with another guy?" Why was he not returning her emails? So this was sad enough, but we also had the sneaking suspicion (as we do about most of the Thai/westerner relationships) that not everything was as simple as it was being put forth. This poor woman was trying to decide whether to give him the full blown anger or tone it down, and somehow we had become her Dr. Phil at 6 in the morning. You can imagine how blunderingly stupid our advice must have been. Just exactly how DO you coach a prostitute to rebuke a client for hurting her feelings, and yet help her snare him back in the same email?? She wanted to know if she should tell him she loved him. We weren't sure. We were in fact a little uncomfortable.

So at this point when we thought we had had about enough weirdness for one weird morning, we started the process of extricating ourselves from the situation by bringing up plans for breakfast. But lest this woman be deprived of the real advice she was after, she then dropped this little bomb:

Thai girl: "But, what should I do about the money?"
Us: "Uhh...."
Thai girl: "What about the money?!" she insisted.
Us: "Uhh.... the what?"
Thai girl: "The money!! He owes me money!!"
Us: "Uh... yeah. Uh, yeah, that's a tough one. OK breakfast? Yeah, Breakfast."

And there ladies in gentlemen was our funny and awkward goodbyed to Thailand. It was an adventure! We'll be back up from China shortly. Adios amigos!