Day two of this irrational diet: I am hungry! This morning I had an orange and some coffee for breakfast (no sugar) and had rice in some vegetable broth for lunch at OPC.
Somehow I became involved in a parade to celebrate the beginning of the Buddhist season of lent. Blaise and I accompanied our fabulously attired children through the sloppy rice paddies and knee-deep brown water of the river to their wat (temple) and ended up walking with them across town with a parade of hundreds of other Thais who were beating drums, singing, dancing, dressed in wildly bright shades of pink, yellow, green, and blue. The sun was shining with relentless heat and the kids, who had by now been standing for over an hour, were starting to wilt. Suddenly a sharp breeze blew and over the hills came massive gray clouds that within ten minutes of their appearance began to sprinkle and then send torrents of rain on our heads. Still, the parade marched on. We tore leaves from some nearby trees and the kids made hats to keep the water off their heads. The rain fell harder. My bright yellow “God Save the King” shirt was completely saturated. My long purple skirt wept large purple tears and dyed my legs a ravishing shade of bluish-pink. The water in the streets rose higher and faster, but still the parade marched on – drums beating and people cheering. The harder it rained the more excited the Thais became, until the once dignified march became a whooping and hollering party of wet people dressed in their best clothes, flinging water at each other and dancing. The women near me grabbed my wrists and flung me into the midst of their dancing crowd, so I pranced with them…past the 7-11 store…down the main street of Mae Hong Son…in front of a crowd of camera clutching tourists.
It is now 9:30 p.m., one hot shower, and two bowls of rice with fish sauce later.
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