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Thailand

October 2001

The ants are taking over the place, so it must be time to leave. Not little meek ants that follow each other's trail, but large flighty black ants that wander individually around our house at will and scuttle off at surprising pace if startled. Are they the forward reconnaissance for a future mass invasion? I hope not to be here to find out.

After four years in Thailand it's time to leave, professionally and personally, but despite that clear fact, it doesn't feel any easier. 

Four years ago I came with my girlfriend, six boxes and no experience of living together. Now I have a wife and enough possessions to stretch a 20-foot container, which reassuringly confirms that we have made material progress on building a life together.

Four years ago we showed up at Don Mueang Airport having never been to Thailand before and made all the naive mistakes. Now we meet newcomers and they gaze at us in awe believing us to be beyond the awkwardness of confusing customs, tricky pronunciations and completely mastering the one-way street system; some of which is true.

Now as we head off, I feel a growing sorrow because I know I'm going to miss this place. Despite cursing footpaths, traffic policemen, repetitive news stories about politician's sons, the country has gotten to me and is going to linger and haunt me.

I'm going to miss the little oases of tropical gardens that dot this place. Out our back door there is a small patio that overlooks a moat, a garden and the landlords house that has surprisingly been built with a rare pride in Thai architecture and has a beautiful peaked roofline and red handmade tiles.

I sit there and throw forgotten bread to the fish, watch the restless birds pause and bathe in the gutters and try and follow the athleticism of the squirrels and they cross the garden without touching the ground. You forget how easy it is to forget that you are just a kilometre or so from that dark, polluted, hellish world that is below the Saladeng SkyTrain station.

I'm going to miss the smiling that I've tried to learn to copy. I'm going to miss the forgiveness that the smile can mean, whether it's letting you off for mangling their language or for letting you know that there are things more important than the damage you just did to the rear of someone's car. I hope I can be faithful to this with my smiles in the future.

I'm going to miss the beauty of the rural countryside that is often hidden beyond the decaying line of shop houses or is over the fence from the factory compound. I'm going to miss the green that almost hurts your eyes as the afternoon light hits rice fields and illuminates the underside of big banana leaves. 

Although most of the good friends I have made are fellow expatriates, I'm going to miss my noodle man who remembers me when every six months or so I cycle by his shop and stop for some food and drink. I'm going to miss the fruit seller who cut me watermelon everyday and despite a lack of much common language we still managed to share a bit of the important and unimportant things in life.

It's not easy to move on, but it's time for four seasons and footpaths we can stroll lazily on. 

And how do you know when it's time? Perhaps it's when you start building conspiracy theories in the roaming of ants.