If you couldn’t read that, it says Thur-thob-shan-korn! That’s what I would have said to the judge. I’m getting ahead of myself here, imagining myself in a courtroom setting, facing some serious consequences.
There are some hair-raising tales out there about people who have been imprisoned in foreign countries. An American caned in Singapore for vandalism, an Australian in Thailand for stealing a bar mat (what the hell is a bar mat?), two unmarried English tourists in Dubai, imprisoned and expelled for having sex (if that were a crime in the States, you’d have to appropriate a few major cities to serve as jails).
I was luckily spared of being another statistic in the news (not to mention my husband hauling my sorry ass out of a Thai jail), because of an urgent need as expressed by my bladder.
On the way back from Vietnam and Cambodia, we had a short layover in Bangkok. I had joined a group of women from India and while it had been a lot of fun eating bhel and thepla on the bus and playing antakshari, it had also been very exhausting to deal with their total lack of regard to the sight-seeing, the frenzied shopping and… the innumerable pit-stops. Were I to visit Cambodia again, I could lead you not to Angkor Wat, but the exact location of the WC (close to the South Gate, on your way to Phnom Bakeng).
A word about toilets all over the world… if you can excuse the digression. Those a bit queasy about this topic can skip this paragraph, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There are instructions on how to use a squat toilet - instructions your mother failed to give you, if you were brought up in the West. Travel to the East often enough, and you get to be a professional squatter. In many of the Asian countries, you do not need to look for the sign, but just let your nose lead you. Should you find a Western type, consider yourself lucky, but in most places you will find your typical hole-in-the-floor squat toilet, with the two porcelain, ridged foot-steps on either side. Basically, you put your feet on the steps, squat and aim into the basin. You would be well-advised to stock your pockets with wads of toilet paper, this being as rare as soap near the sink.
In Vietnam, the toilets were dirty enough to rival those in India. Rolling up their pants or lifting their saris, the women tread gingerly inside, squealing in disgust at the wet floor (they squealed a bit louder when I suggested it may not be water).
And…back to my story. The tour guide was becoming increasingly incompetent as the days passed. Leading a bunch of menopausal women around South Asia can do that to you. We just wore her down with our incessant needs for vegetarian food, firm mattresses, constant information about the itinerary, etc. All this, plus having to deal with their indifference to punctuality - a concept totally alien to the Indian psyche.
The group was verging on total anarchy by the time we reached the airport and I was fairly frothing at the mouth. We stood at the immigration, holding up the line. Some women couldn’t find their passports, some couldn’t find their glasses to look for their passports and the rest couldn’t find their purses to look for their glasses to look for their passports.
Passing through security, it was much the same story. To speed up the process, I started to help the ladies, the incentive being that the quicker we got out of there, the quicker I could go relieve myself. I stood at one end of the conveyor belt, handing the carry-ons and the purses back to their respective owners. Common sense not being a prerequisite to getting a job at the airport, and blind to the fact that we were all together, the security woman thought I was stealing the purses. What part of seeing me handing them back to the women couldn’t she see? Gesticulating wildly and shouting in her dipthonged Thai, she then, gasp! had the audacity to smack me on my bottom.
Stunned for a second, I stood on the cusp of going postal or turning the other cheek (pardon the pun).
Now, in certain countries, this would be considered sexual harassment and if she ever brought her Bangkok butt in my sue-happy country, my soon-to-be lawyer daughter would have her ass in jail before you could say Pad-Thai.
I came out of my shock and did what any mature, self-respecting adult would do. I smacked her back. Then I shook my fist in her face and said “Don’t you dare hit me!”
Still seething with anger, I grabbed my own purse off the conveyor belt and stormed off to the bathroom.
When I came out, my sister caught hold of me, quasi hyper-ventilating. Two policemen, hands on their holsters, had run past the bathroom in search of the brazen tourist who had dared strike one of the government-employed security guards. (Even if she did slap the tourist first).
My anger fizzled out of me like air from a popped balloon, replaced by sheer cowardice and agitation. I sat at the gate waiting for our flight to be called, with my big, fat American ego tucked between my shaking legs and only remember breathing once I was safely back on American soil.
Glossary:
bhel: snack
thepla: spicy, tortilla-ish snack
antakshari: or antyaakshari is a combination of two words "Antya" (last) and "Akshari" (letter). A musical game where two or more teams sing songs one by one, following a certain sets of rules. In its simplest form, the two teams just sing songs starting with the last letter of the previous one.
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