Two Sets of Relativity

Having your relatives come and visit you in Thailand is a very good deal all around. I miss my family very badly and had forgotten what good friends they really are to me. This is easy when your communication is mostly through worried phone calls or emails with lots of things to do listed in them. Not to be a materialistic beyotch, but they pay for everything cause it's cheap to them--you just need to handle the money, cause it's easier. Of course, the real reason to love having la famiglia in Krung Thep is because you miss them as part of your life.
My parents were here in January and Hurricane Pishi just blew through here last week.

We had an absolutely wonderful time with my folks who were the gamest people in the whole world--they had Thai massages, ate street food, and rode on motorcycle taxis. I was really proud of them for thoroughly enjoying their experience. I certainly threw them in at the deep end. Most favorite moments:

-Dad's face when I jumped on a motorcycle taxi sidesaddle in a skirt with an enormous bag of laundry balancing on my lap as I sped down the soi.

-"What do Thais eat for breakfast?"
"Umm, rice porridge, like, um, congee?"
"Oh no. Dia, are you saying you have no toast?"
"Well, we don't eat that here, see..."

-Dad telling the tour guide at Wat Po--"The Buddha was a Hindu prince--no WAY was he born under a tree." HM the King and the Buddha, Dad. JUST.DON'T.SAY.IT.

-Mom and Dad talking to each other getting side by side Thai massages and then snoozeville zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

-Dinner at the Isaan parking lot restaurant of friend Pi Thuy with my friends Benjamin, Craig, Yona, Kimberly, Amy and Dean. I wished I could have bottled my happiness that night.

-Mom to Ben: "Oh she's not Indian." Referring to me, natch.
Mom to Kim: "But you don't looklike you're from Philadelphia."

-"My name is Arun, so I really want to go to Wat Arun."

-The Floating Market. Mom saying it was the most "awesome" lunch she'd ever had. Dad buying a grilled fish stuffed with herbs and eating it out of a plastic bag sitting on the pier.

Mom asked if I was thinking of coming home. I said today I rode on a motorcycle, a song taew, a taxi, a sky train, a long tail boat and I could have ridden on an elephant had I wanted to, so no, I am not coming home. Of course, in a moment of Bangkok magic, just then an elephant lumbered in front of us on Soi 38.