Twice ,recently ,in my travels in Thailand , I have made the mistake of discounting people , and not being open to communicating with someone sitting nearby.
The first time was a week Sunday, on a VIP bus going to Burma. I was doing my mandatory VISA run- a 12 hour ordeal.
The chap sitting across the aisle from me was unshaven but in good shape otherwise. I didn’t have an impulse to reach out to him. I’m not sure what happened ; but at some point we began a conversation. He turned out to be a most fascinating man. He was German. His dark colouring had me thinking that he was of Latin descent.
His family owned a number of natural therapy clinics in Germany. This chap worked at the one in Berlin. They deal exclusively with hearing issues. We exchanged contact information and promised to keep in touch.
The second man I met only yesterday. We were sitting under an umbrella in an outdoor restaurant called,”Khun Churn”. There were two tables underneath underneath the huge umbrella. I felt my little turf was being invaded as the waitress escorted a party of three- a father,mother and a daughter to our area. I carried on the conversation with my partner and ignored them ,assuming that they didn’t understand English.
At one point I had to use the washroom. Upon my return I heard classical music coming from an ipad on the table and my partner , Marie Line was chatting with the father.
He turned out to be a most interesting man. He and his family are in the midst of moving from Bangkok to a place in the country outside Chiang Mai.
His English was flawless as he had gone to university in Australia. For some reason he had not adopted the Aussie twang that is most difficult for me to understand with some Australian folks.
He has done translations and communication training session for INTERPOL. He talked about the 35 million cases of human trafficking that take place every year from asia to Europe. This not include the numbers from Africa and the numbers to North America.
A good day is when I learn something about myself. Yesterday was a good day.
