It's not always easy being a vegetarian: Are you sure this sandwich isn't off?

January 5, 2015

Oh now here was an accommodation upgrade! I spent the evening writing blog posts on the upper floor, in the morning I made a fried egg sandwich in the kitchen, and in between I slept downstairs in the master bedroom

My morning was spent heading south on a really nice peaceful road through more farmland and occasional slow-paced villages, as I continued to try to come to terms with my sense of lonely solitude. Perhaps sensing this loneliness a motorcycle with two men on it slowed down next to me and the driver smiled at me and said hello. Then he rather mysteriously said "follow me" and they sped off ahead, much faster than I could possibly keep up with.

But it wasn't long before I caught them up. They had stopped at a little roadside shop, and I pulled up next to their bike in the hope of making some new friends. Under other circumstances I might have thought the driver somewhat suspicious, dressed as he was in a dark ski hat with low-slung trousers, but as in the present circumstances he was handing me a bottle of Mountain Dew I considered him to be quite alright. He made eating motions and said "noodles?" and then pointed up the road and said "two kilos" which seemed like a lot of noodles for just the three of us, but I was getting pretty hungry, so I followed him when he sped off again.

Two kilometres later I located the two men again, and they invited me to sit with them at a table outside a restaurant. It was a slightly strange arrangement, because the table really was outside the restaurant, in fact it was on the other side of the street, and it seemed to be blocking someone's driveway. I fetched a piece of paper from my bags, on which I had got someone to write in Thai about my being vegetarian, and showed it to the man, whose name was Lon. Lon seemed to think this meant that I couldn't eat noodles, and the word 'salad' was mentioned instead, which was just fine by me.

As I waited for my salad I tried my best to talk with Lon and his friend, Sing. The latter was a much more serious fellow who sat rather solemn faced as I talked with the cheery Lon. Lon pointed to Sing and said "police." They made an odd pair, with Lon's slightly criminal-like appearance, and Sing apparently being a member of law-enforcement. Come to think of it, maybe Sing was Lon's parole officer.

Well conversation was slow, but I passed the time with the usual pointing at maps and showing of photos, until this too got boring, and then we sat there in silence for a while. Hoping that our food would arrive soon, I thought about how I really should have paid more attention to Robin's magic tricks. Whenever he met people like this he would show them his card tricks, and I imagine it sure would be good for filling this empty time. On the other hand, however, no one that I saw Robin showing card tricks to had been the least bit impressed. Except maybe the elephant. Oh, an elephant sure would have been welcome now, to break the silence at this street table. Still no sign of the food. Speaking of Robin, I hadn't heard from him in a while, I hoped he hadn't really gone to Leonardo DiCaprio's island from 'The Beach.' I imagined him in all kinds of trouble there, awaiting a rescue from me that would take some considerable time before I could implement, if at all. Finally I asked Lon about the food, and it became apparent that nobody had actually ordered anything, and so we left.

Lon seemed to think that this restaurant could not cater to vegetarians, and so he took me instead to a shop across the road. Here he bought and gave to me three sandwiches wrapped in plastic. I tried to pass them around, but neither Lon or Sing were hungry, or so it seemed. So I just sat down and unwrapped one and inside I found the most peculiar sandwich made of green bread, with a filling of a mysterious green gloopy goo. It was a quite spectacular lunch.

All over Asia motorcyclists buy oil in bottles at shops like this and pour it straight into the tank

Lon and Sing had to leave soon after, perhaps Sing had to return Lon to the cells or something, but my friend-making day was far from over. Not so very much later I was cycling through another little settlement when I saw a big parade of people walking in the street ahead of me. A lot of the people were wearing black and it looked like maybe it was a funeral and I didn't want to cycle past them on my silly bicycle in my bright orange t-shirt, so I stopped at another little shop to sit and have a drink in the shade. A young man at the shop who could speak some English confirmed that it was a funeral, and so I decided to sit here and talk with him a while until it had got where it was going.

The young man was named Aon, and he was very friendly and we sat and talked about the usual things. He worked as a designer of some kind and was just passing through here. The topic of conversation got onto marriage and girlfriends and Aon suddenly blurted out "I am gay!" I wanted to say he should call himself 'Gayon' but I stopped myself because this hardly seemed approprite behaviour, and Aon probably already had enough name-based-trauma with the fact that his parents seemed to have got his from the front of a Manchester United shirt.

I was making so many new friends today. As well as Aon there was the lovely woman who owned the shop, who gave me a most welcome bowl of vegetarian noodles and refused to accept any money for it

In the afternoon I reached a main road and, unsure of where to go next, I cycled along it for a bit. Almost immediately I saw a gas station with a sign advertising that it had free wifi, and so I pulled into the forecourt and asked the attendants if I could use it. They were yet more lovely people, and they said that I could, and pulled me up a chair. Dea was online and we chatted for a long time. Soon it got dark, and I asked if I could camp on the grass at the gas station, and without hesitation I was told that of course I could. It was a perfect place for camping with toilets, free wifi, what more do you want? And my conversation with Dea was a great one, that took away all of my bad feelings and replaced them instead with hope. The future held so much promise, it teased us both, the idea of seeing one another again a tantalising reward for our patience. But I also realised that I was lucky to be in such a wonderful situation and that I should enjoy where I was in the present before enjoying the future. I was in a good position now. Thailand was great. I resolved to not wish my life away, but to appreciate the fine country that I was in.

My talk with Dea was interrupted by an invitation to eat dinner with the gas station staff. From what I could make out the business was owned by a youngish couple, whose daughter also joined us, along with the two people that were pulling the pumps. We sat outside under the dim lights of a building, on the walls of which geckos darted about eating flies. Our table was filled with an array of delicious looking and smelling foods and I was invited to tuck in. Then I explained that I was a vegetarian and suddenly almost all of the food became off-limits to me. Instead a plate of chopped up bread was handed to me, along with a small bowl of mysterious green gloopy goo. It's not always easy being a vegetarian.

Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 35,312 km (21,929 miles)

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