"Miss, miss where are you going?" asks one.
"I'm still trying to figure that out," I say, "Give me a minute."
When I give him the address the cab driver says, "Well, you have three choices: you can take my cab for 400 baht, take a mini bus for 100 baht or the city bus for 85 baht."
For a moment I am speechless, but when I regain my composure I tell him, "I think I'll take the mini bus. Sorry," I add.
"No problem, miss. Come with me," and he leads me to the mini bus line adding, "It will be long time though. He must have ten people before he goes."
I shrug. "I've got time."
As I watch him walk back to his cab I can't help but think I'm going to love Thailand.
In the end I take the city bus and, just as it drops me off near the old town, the rain begins. It's a warm drizzle, really, and I'm not all that bothered by it as I wander the streets trying to find my hostel. A tuk tuk driver pulls up beside me and asks, "Where you going miss?"
I tell him the name of my hostel and he says, "Oh, very close. Go two streets straight. Very close."
I thank him, he smiles, nods and drives away. Without even trying to scam me into paying for a ride.
I begin to relax and, in the absence of the tension, the alertness, the guardedness, I become aware of just how low, how beaten, these last few months have left me. I begin to notice all the happy, smiling people. I notice a conspicuous absence of litter, garbage and waste. There are no open sewers; I can almost smell the rain. There are no men raping me with their eyes and no women admonishing me with theirs. In fact, if anyone takes notice of me, and hardly anyone does, they smile broadly at me and I at them and we continue on our way. There are no photo shoots, no baby blessings, no stroking of my skin.
This, is going to be a vacation.
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