And what do you want to do when you're older?: Marry a cyclist? - The Really Long Way Round - CycleBlaze

January 3, 2015

And what do you want to do when you're older?: Marry a cyclist?

When I woke up in the morning the car was gone and there was no sign of anyone at the house, and so I packed away my tent and then walked over to the house where Jonas and everyone else was. I felt very bad about having been rude to Batong and Ploy the previous night, and hoped I would have the chance to apologise. A still-half-asleep Jonas made inquiries on my behalf, and discovered that Batong needed to go back to work in Bangkok and had been driven to the airport by his wife. Ploy had gone with them, presumably because Batong had had a 180 degree change of opinion and no longer felt safe about leaving the two of us alone together.

No sign of anyone when I woke up
Heart 0 Comment 0

I decided to hang around until Ploy and her mother came back. I still wanted to apologise to Ploy and there was a small chance that Batong actually never intended to marry off his youngest daughter to a filthy cyclist that slept in his yard one day, and really he did just want me to talk to Ploy so she could practice her English. I felt fulfilling this small obligation was the least I could do for the man, and so I waited around for Ploy's return. Besides that, I also didn't really want to cycle, Jonas was great company, and there was more free food. It was a no-brainer really.

Tui was hard at work, showing no signs of a hangover. He made signs for the front of businesses, and he made good money at it too
Heart 0 Comment 0
Jonas and his eldest daughter, Natalia. She really loved horses.
Heart 1 Comment 0

Around midday I noticed that the car had returned and so I walked back over to speak to Ploy. She came out of the house with a cold compress or something on her head, explaining that she was sick. Her English was perfect. She told me she went to an English school. She certainly didn't need to practice her English at all - maybe her father really did want a falang husband for her after all. Well, she was too young for me of course, and I considered myself taken, but she wasn't exactly unattractive, and it couldn't hurt to get to know her a bit, just for future reference, you understand, in case Dea should ever come to her senses. I asked Ploy what she studied. "Chemistry, Physics, Maths" she said. "And what do you want to do when you're older? As a job?" I asked. "President" she said, deadly serious. At this moment I believe I realised her ambitions in life might extend beyond marrying a tramp.

But she wasn't finished. "Or a Petroleum Engineer" she added. I asked her why and she said for the money. We were definitely on different paths in life. She was also avoiding eye contact with me and probably wanted to get back to her I-phone. She definitely didn't want to talk to me half as much as her father had implied, but I found her ambitions interesting, and so I pursued the conversation for a little while.

"And why do you want to be the President?" I asked.

"Because I like Barack Obama."

"Oh, you want to be the President of the United States? You know that you can't, right? That is impossible." I thought it best to kill this dream early.

"Yes, I know."

"So, would you like to be the, what do you have here, a King. Well you can't be the King either. How about being the Thailand Prime Minister?"

"Yes. I want to be the Prime Minister."

"Why?"

"Because I want to change Thailand!"

"Great. And what do you want to change about Thailand?"

"I don't know. I just want to change it."

Well, it seemed she needed to do a little work on the exact specifics of her policies, but she certainly had time on her side.

I think Ploy could be played by Selena Gomez in my movie. Speaking of which, Ryan Gosling marrying the future Prime Minister of Thailand seemed like it would be a really great plot twist. It would be so unexpected, I don't think that anybody watching the movie would see that coming. The trouble, as ever, was that this was real life and in real life people don't marry the future Prime Minister of Thailand. Well, they do I suppose, but I don't. So I just said goodbye to Ploy, thank-you to Jonas, and then I got back on my bike and I left.

Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 35,196 km (21,857 miles)

Rate this entry's writing Heart 3
Comment on this entry Comment 0