I sent this postcard to my grandma in June, 1991.
I am in a small town in the northeast of Thailand. It is a very quiet, relaxing place! The guest house where I am staying is right on the Mekong River, overlooking the country of Laos (on the other side of the river). I will meet my dad in Bangkok in a couple of days.
The postcard actually shows a drawing of Wat Arun in Bangkok, but as I wrote to my grandma, I sent it from the Thai-Laos border. I’d taken a train to Nong Khai to see Laos. Poor planning kept me from obtaining a visa to go to Vientiane. Nong Khai was the closest I could get.
Completely cut off from the rest of the world, the guesthouse had neither television or telephone. The owner, a Thai woman who’d lived in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, cooked delicious banana oatmeal for me every morning and told me about her travels.
For lunch one day I wandered to a riverfront cafe and ordered the hottest item on the menu, too naive to realize I needed rice to cool the burning in my mouth. The waiters laughed while I gulped ice water, to no avail, and brought me a plate of rice–on the house.
Another day I rented a bike and rode out to see enormous mythological statues. On my return trip, I stopped at a weavers’ guild that employed young girls to give them a skill and keep them out of prostitution.
Returning to Bangkok by overnight bus, I ate golden raisins for dinner and chatted for hours with the man seated next to me, an Indian of the Bahai Faith. When he heard I grew up miles from the Bahai Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, he spoke to me like an old friend.
And were you surprised to find a person half way around the world from your home who knew about Wilmette and the Baha’i House of Worship there? It is very likely the structure in Illinois that is most known around the world.
I’ve taken my children there so often, from Kansas, that my daughter was surprised to learn how far it actually is from Kansas. No surprise to me – she slept while I drove!!
I can’t wait to return when the restoration is completed, then a new visitors center will be built.
dlh…
I was surprised at first, but this man was of the Baha’i faith, so he knew about their temples all over the world. He could even describe the Wilmette one in great detail although he’d never been there at that point. Thanks for your comment!!