temples

I am a dabbawalla. My trips are like a Tiffin carrier. Every compartment is a destination where I store my accomplished wants. I am God and my devotees are happy. They are my inner wants. I am something and my aficionados are happy. They are my inner wants. I am sex and my amorists are happy. They are my inner wants.

People speak English here. Hence, messages are comprehensible and to obtain a temple tour for 500 Baht wasn’t a challenge at all. It was totally different in Bangkok two years back, when I unzipped my pants to make them understand that toilet was what I was looking for after numerous attempts of communication. We jumped into a van driven by a young Thai lad. On his LCD, he played a sex video. He drove us to places where statues live on earth like humans. To Wats.

Around me elephants were blessed with garlands. Lotuses were breathing their final breath. Lips murmured prayers. Gods listened. Monks laughed.

When I noticed a girl in her scanted shorts, incense sticks in her grasp smoking like a chimney environing her bosom, I knew for sure I loaded into my Tiffin carrier a brand new sin. Who am I? A devotee: ardent and pious? A photographer: keen and observant? A tourist: insouciant/nonchalant? Or a sinner?

I arrived in Samila beach with a migraine. I laid down somewhere like as if I was a child and like as if that somewhere was a crib. All I wanted was my hotel bed when the rest photographed themselves beside the Songkhla mermaid. She was the ugliest mermaid I ever seen. And to be frank, my migraine needed more attention than anything else.