A Lucky Break Part II

I feast on some spectacular food during my time in Chiang Mai and get to know the city with the help of my new friend

My love affair with Thai food had started in the 90s when my husband du jour and I went to Thailand in an effort to rescue our marriage which was somewhat past its use-by date.

We even went to the trouble of being part of a mass Buddhist wedding at a hospital for old monks in Bangkok and had bought a ring specially for the occasion. Being a feminist, I’d eschewed the ring thing when we’d married in 1979.

Unfortunately, rings played no part in the ceremony, so I slipped it on anyway, hoping it was a symbol that might somehow save the marriage.

But it wasn’t to be and we parted painfully a few years later.

By the time I arrived in Chiang Mai for the conference in 2013, I had been on my own for seven years and was pretty contented with singledom.

I’d also developed an addiction to Thai food and was chuffed when Chao took me to places where I experienced tastes I didn’t know existed. The fragrant flavors transported me to new culinary heights.

I’d always had an adventurous palate which got started with mum’s cooking and her curries which she’d learned to make while we were in India when I was a baby. And then later I’d done some food writing for the Sydney Morning Herald which was fun and got me into some pretty good restaurants.

So delicious

Chao seemed to delight in my delight. He would always do the ordering and sometimes struggled to tell me in his rudimentary English what some dishes consisted of.

One time he said, ‘It come from under sand.’ I had no idea what I was eating half the time, but it was all delicious and I lapped it up.

I would revel in the myriad tastes and he would beam at my delight.

He was unusual for a Thai man, let alone one amongst the legion of Chiang Mai’s small, wiry tuktuk drivers.

The first time he got out of his tuktuk, I marveled at how his body unfurled from the tiny space behind the wheel. It was amazing that such a big man could fit into such a small space.

I guessed he was probably around 6’ 2” and built like a security guard — very large forearms and huge brown hands. His black hair stuck straight out from his head, and his well-worn T shirt was a bit ragged around the edges.

The next day we were crossing a busy lane on the way to another market and he gently wrapped his huge left hand around my right forearm and started leading me across the busy street.

He gestured to an oncoming car to slow down and let us cross.

I felt safe with him.

I couldn’t lose him in a crowd because all I needed to do was scan over the heads of the other people and there would be his, a good head and shoulders above everyone else.

He always kept an eye on me and would wave to me to follow him.

He explained that his wife and daughter were down south near Phuket; his daughter was a teacher, and his life was ‘a bit lonely’.

I wondered if this meant he was separated from his wife, but didn’t want to ask too many personal questions.

Those three days went by in a flash and by the time I had to leave, I’d covered a fair bit of Chiang Mai and eaten some very good food. Chao had taken me to see some very beautiful Buddhist temples and I’d done some good shopping.

Back home in Auckland, I had to have a quiet word with myself when I found I was missing him. He was married after all and that was a bottom line.

He also called me at one stage, and said ‘I miss you SO much!’

I wondered, cynically, if it was me he missed or my baht. Sometimes my tips had been way bigger than the tiny fares he charged me for all-day excursions around the dusty, bustling little city that I’d grown to like a lot.

Another time he called and asked if I could send him some shoes: it was hard to find himself big shoes in his land of tiny people.

My ex-husband happened to wear size 12s and was happy to hand over a couple of pairs that were still in good nick.

I mailed them off to Chao, chuckling to myself. It felt good to help in this little way.

I got on with my life and tried to forget this gentle giant and a way of life that I’d gotten to love in a very short space of time.

After working in an Auckland residential treatment centre for about five years, it was time to move on and a job came up in a similar place across the ditch (as we Antipodeans call the Tasman Sea that separates New Zealand from Australia) in Adelaide.

I’d lived in Sydney for nine years spanning the 80s and 90s, so was accustomed to the ways of Aussies and counted several of them as good mates.

So I lobbed into South Australia full of hopes and dreams, only to have everything come crashing down after about three months. In those wonderful words of Dickens, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’

The pay was good but the treatment centre was dodgy as anything and came to a sticky end very suddenly one day because the boss refused to pay the rent and we were evicted unceremoniously when a sheriff came to visit and gave us a couple of hours to get out.

That meant having to ease the exit of around 16 very sick people and get them on planes or into alternative accommodation or other treatment places PDQ. Needless to say there were a few relapses.

But everyone survived.

Trouble was, my Aussie dollars were running out and I needed to find another job ASAP.

I’d stayed in touch with the people I’d met at the conference in Chiang Mai. They ran a rehab there and were in the process of expanding.

I’d been to visit their treatment centre on the outskirts of Chiang Mai and it looked pretty impressive — set in a beautiful location alongside a river.

I wanted to work there.

More to come

Find me at www.solutionsauckland.com

Find my e-book novel here: