Sleeping in the villages...

[snotface]

Staying in a Thai village is well worth doing for the experience but I found it very stressful. The one I went to many years ago was outside Udon Thani and fairly primitive. I was the first farang visitor in living memory and felt like an exhibit the whole time. On arrival I had no sooner settled into a corner of the family house than a bunch of old ladies turned up and just sat staring at me. I became very self-conscious and in the end just lay down to sleep. In the West this would have been considered rude behaviour but the old ladies grunted with approval and promptly left. My first lesson: different rules apply here.

On my first full day I went for a walk round the village on my own and had soon acquired a small following army of young kids. I wished I had brought some sweets to hand out. The compacted earth path was very slippery after rain and all my concentration went into ensuring that I didn't go arse over tit, which would no doubt have amused the kids but instilled a most unsatisfactory image of farangkind in their minds for all time. Later that day an elderly miserable-looking monk came to visit me at the house and the usual crowd of old crones gathered to watch. Embarrassment hardly conveys what I was feeling. With no more than a handful of words in common we just sat and looked at each other. Somehow or other it eventually came to an end. I slipped the monk a 500 baht note before he left. The boy I was with tut-tutted as at an inappropriate act but I noticed that the monk slipped the note into his robes readily enough.

Sleeping in the family home was extremely uncomfortable even though I was granted the honour of a slim and grubby mattress. I was constantly changing position during the night and the rain dripping through the corrugated metal roof didn't help. Terrible backache in the morning. Toilet arrangements - well, there was a mosquito-infested pool at the back of the house, one sight of which caused my bowels to seize up for the remainder of the stay. I ate enough of the food to keep hunger at bay and no more.

You won't be surprised to know that I was mightily relieved when we left after two days. I wouldn't care to repeat the experience but some pleasant memories have lingered. The boy I was with pouring jugs of cold water over himself for his morning shower, the constant affection given by all and sundry to a baby in its hammock, the happy, excited faces of those young kids following me, the hospitality on offer despite the meagre means. You'd have to be very hard-hearted not to feel humbled. But. yes, I was glad to get away!