Wow what a couple of days!

On Tuesday early I go to get the bus to Bangkok for the first of my school interviews. The 5 am bus is not running - no people- although the clerk assured me yesterday that the busses ran on the hour. The 6 am bus is not running - no people. I sit in the dark, go over the 7-11 and get a can of Birdy - canned coffee (made by Nestle, btw.) And wait. I watch the flouresent vested motorcycle taxi drivers get ready for a day of sitting and spitting interrupted by the occassional 15 baht fare. I watch a young man ride the back of a motorcycle with a hot coffee in each hand, held out to the sides like Jesus on the cross as he hangs on with his legs.  Finally I get on the 7 am bus. Although there are only 5 people on the bus, I must sit in my assigned seat, #4. The bus girl (think stewardess) gives each of us a chinese bun, bottle of water, and a blanket.

The sun is rising, I put on my mp3 and listen to travelin' music that I recorded before I left. Arlo Guthrie and "Comin' in to Los Angeles" and  "City of New Orleans."  Peter, Paul and Mary and "500 Miles."  Joan Baez and "Boots of Spanish Leather."  As I watch the scenery go by - rows of shophouse doors wide open to reveal sparkling clean marble floors, marshes full of pink lotus flowers, freshly scrubbed kids waiting to take the songtaew to school, electric blue tile roofs, wild dogs sleeping in the cool middle of a dirt road, rice fields, pineapple, tapioca fields, row after row of rubber trees, an occassional wat sparkling gold in the sunlight - I am suddenly hit with the magnitude of what I'm doing. Holy mother crap, I'm living in Thailand! I feel like Easy Rider.