Daily Archives: September 20, 2005

“TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both …..”

Sawasdee Krab!

Robert Frost, my favorite American poet in high school. Also my favorite poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’, the perfect title and beginning of this weeks Thai ‘fanatical’ tale. Yesterday while knocking about and browsing the shops in my neighborhood I unexpectedly stumbled onto my blog for this week.

For days I had thought about, half written in my head, reviewed and discarded several ideas for my latest but nothing seemed to fit! For one reason or another several ideas were good (in my humble opinion) but could not be written yet because of timing. Trust me on this that timing always works best for me. One idea however kept coming back to me and had for several months but up until now I felt it was the one blog I could never write without giving Richard and some readers a heart attack!

Still the more I thought about it the more I saw a challenge to tell my tale without causing cardiac arrest. So what was this great but terrifying blog about? Nothing less than the true story of how Wit first met Thailand.

As an ‘out’ Thai Fanatic I run into the usual questions a lot. Someone sees the book about Thailand I am reading on the train and is curious. Someone at the coffee shop notices the strange language I am writing notes in and asks me what it is. A co worker stops by my desk and notices the Muay Thai background on my computer or the Suriyo Thai poster on my wall. Thus begins a short discussion about Thailand before they ask the usual questions.

Someone: “When (or how long) were you in Thailand?”
Wit: “Uhm, actually I have never been there before.”
Someone again: *Curious pause* “Oh, so why do you like Thailand so much?”
Wit: “Well I like Thailand because (insert what pops in my head that I like about Thailand at the moment) …..”

Sometimes though someone will ask THE QUESTION which is not really why I became so into Thailand but HOW. Ah yes, theres a story for you but usually for time, and to protect the innocent, I brush over the question with a heavily censored Readers Digest version and let the subject drop.

Still I am the type of person that mai chop go hok (don’t like to tell a lie) even when it’s probably the best thing to do in a situation. I’ve wanted to tell the truth about how I found Thailand for awhile but for a long time felt that was a secret to be kept, well secret! Plus I just wasn’t sure how to do it anyway I mean how do you tell a secret? You whisper it of course! So if it helps you dear reader as you embark on the rest of this missive just pretend I am whispering my secret in your ear.

I have a feeling that this blog will undoubtedly be controversial with some folks on here and for that I do apologize in advance. All I ask is just hear me out before you want to run my tail out of Thai Blogs on a rail!

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