Young men die in motorcycle crash

It’s nearly 7am and the news here is that two young men died in a head on crash at 9pm last night. They were drinking together and went out on the newly sealed section of road on the other side of the village. They drove their motorbikes without lights and somehow managed to crash. I know these young men, 18 year olds, at least indirectly. Every evening I ride Waree’s mother’s jakayan (bicycle) for exercise. The countryside is very beautiful with the setting sun always a deep red. Sometimes I loop around and come back into the ban (village) via the new road and at one of the houses on the left there are frequently groups of young men drunk drinking Thai whisky (rum). Sometimes they shout out at me “Farang” and sometimes they are too drunk to even say the word properly. Waree tells me that the young man who lives there is “no good” and both his parents are working in Taiwan so he has been left to run wild on his own. He gets into fight frequently and she worries about me going past his house. He was one of the young men who died. Their bodies are at one of the temples and they will not be burned but will be buried. As we talked about these young men Waree warned me not to say anything bad about him or his ghost will come to see me tonight. She was joking but she believes completely in ghosts and I am sure she thinks it can really happen. Maybe it can, this is a strange country. The men frequently get drunk on cheap rum costing under two dollars a bottle. It tastes foul to me but is OK if you want to get drunk. I drink Sang Som most evenings diluted with a glass of water. This is a superior rum costing about four dollars a bottle, not bad either. The children are all back from Bangkok as school started again today, so they are all neatly dressed in clean clothes. Deum is a very cute 2 year old but a bit put out by her grandmother’s adoration of the new baby, Adam. Joi (about 7) is always looking for food a bit like her mother Doern who is largish. Pang (just turned 13) is looking very pretty and when I commented on this to Waree she explained that Pang had become a woman while she was away. Pang arrived yesterday and her mother Jit will come today. Its quite complicated to get here from Bangkok by bus and takes a day but Waree’s brother and sister and their spouses turn up every month or so. I drove the motorcy with Waree on the back the 20 odd kms to the nearest town Phompisai yesterday. I always enjoy driving through the countryside and avoiding the potholes in the roads, its very stimulating. Phompisai is a bit quieter now as the visitors for the fire ball festival have departed but they were putting up large stages for a show together with much fun fair equipment. Occasionally I see other farangs when I visit Phompisai and outside the bank I saw two farangs sitting on the curb, one of whom I recognised as being John the Kiwi (New Zealander) who has a guest house on the banks of the Mekong in Phompisai. I chatted to them and met the other man, Tommy, a Pomme (Englishman) who lives in Phompisai and has rented a shop which he may turn into a restaurant serving English food!! Tommy made a joke that they were sitting on the kerb to beg for food and it turned out that he had lost 150,000 baht ($4,500) overnight. Apparently somebody had stolen his bankcard and skimmed his account of that amount before they had managed to contact the bank (Bank Bangkok) to stop it. He was not happy. It was good to talk to some farangs as it is many weeks since I spoke to an English speaking person. We had lunch at my favourite Chinese restaurant where they serve pork pieces with the crackling attached on a bed of rice with vegetables. Then a fast ride back as we had been away from the baby for four hours.