There is a song I like that says that the rains, when they come, bring sorrow with them. Well, I wouldn’t call it sorrow, but rather a temporary depression derived from spending too much time within four walls with the people you would normally refer to as “your loved ones”, only you cannot clearly recall how and why they earned this nickname.
One cloudy day, the rains just started and never stopped since. And by saying they didn’t stop, I literally mean they went on and on and on – non-stop. It ranges from delicate droppings to powerful showers that wash and sweep and create rivers and equals a monthly Israeli rainfall within a single day. Sometimes it comes with winds and storms and in such moments even a slight chill may sneak in to remind an autumn feel. Or maybe this chill comes from the fact that for a moment you thought that the light gray in the sky is actually light blue (because it’s been a while since you last saw blue), put on your swimming suits and even sunscreen (!?!), jump into the pool and then, instead of a pleasant sunshine to come and warm you up, the rains got stronger again. Bottom line – if we thought we managed to avoid the peak of the rainy season, it turns out we did not.
An additional contributor to the grayish atmosphere was the fact that the rains came exactly as we landed our feet at a nice hotel doorstep. Between the first house we rented in advance and the one we found for the rest of our stay, there was a gap of two nights we had to feel in a hotel. We found a great one located on a beautiful beach a bit farther to the north from Sreetanu, called Haad Salad. It was a deviation from budget, but not a very big one. On the bright side, it meant that for a few days our towels and sheets were being refreshed, our room is being cleaned, we have a luxurious breakfast that includes omelets, fruits, pancakes and more, a swimming pool and of course – a postcard beach. So, we figured we are about to have a holiday-vacation-like weekend, such that we did not have so far. Well, this nice little plan went, with all this water poured upon us, down the drain. The rains, with their grayness and stubbornness did not let us go into the sea even once and from the swimming pool, as mentioned above, they threw us out shamefacedly.
So, how do you pass all this time within a hotel room? A good question. You play some, you paint some, watch a movie and another one (well, Toy Story has four parts in the series…). And you wait. Fight, get mad, calm down, go out to the balcony, drink coffee, wait for a proper time for dinner (“what, it is only 17:00? Well – by the time we get there, and order, it will probably already be 17:45 when we eat… let’s go”), go to bed and wake up all night long from the blowing winds that whip the door, threatening to open it (I swear I placed a heavy footstool next to it to prevent it from being opened). In the meantime, in Sreetanu, our intended house suffered damages from the winds and rains and needed repair, which kept us an additional night at the hotel. At noon today we packed our stuff and headed back to the village, hoping that the house will be ready for us. A hope originating in miscommunication – the house belongs to a woman that had been living there so far, but since she barely speaks English, her son, who lives in Bangkok, is responsible for the communication and the contract. He gets his mom’s reports about the house’s condition and delivers them to us translated to Thai-English and we, like in a “telephone” game, try to extract essential up-to-date information and hope for the best.
Well, the house was not ready when we got there. A bunch of experts were working on applying new gypsum boards to the ceiling and a bunch of Korens, loaded with bags and soaking wet, standing there wondering why we didn’t stay one more night in the hotel. We could at least hope for a swimming pool dip during some unexpected halt in the rains… Instead, we deposited a passport to the landlady, borrowed her car and headed for a shopping trip in Thong Sala to get some stuff for the house.
I like rains in the overall. I find it somewhat unpleasant when it is accompanied with chill, but the rain in itself is something I take as a blessing. And still, after four consecutive days of rains, and with the house thing… This grayness started having its effect on me. We came back from the shopping in the afternoon and the house was ready, but there was some unresolved issue with the contract, also a result of miscommunication. I felt this day had already gone with the wind… And then it happened. I went out to breath some air and to find some complementary stuff we still missed. I found a shop as big as our living room that had anything you needed for your home. Kitchenware, garbage can, wipes, towels, detergents, writing tools and of course screwdrivers, insulating tape, pipes and electric boiler. It could be that alone, or the nice lady that owned this place, or the shopping itself that gave me a sense of home, or it could be the way I looked – walking in a rain cape with a bucket filled with all these things, but for a moment there, I was out of the rainy season temporary depression.
