Krabbi

The blind man plays his leaf song in the town square. He is old. He is crippled. He sits cross legged on a mat. His hair is white. His skin is like hand tooled brown leather. He has a plastic cup filled with spare leaves in front of him. He holds the leaf between his lips and blows. The song he makes is as tunful as the wind and as soulful as the last unmated cicada. If you make a donation he might loan you one of his extra leaves. Maybe he will even teach you how to play it.

The sea park stretches endlessly along the Krabbi bay. The night market is there and you can buy anything you want to eat, even a plate of fried grasshoppers. There is an old woman who makes paper thin cookies, dabbed with meringue, then coconut, then finly shredded baked carrot. Other than the shopkeeper with the ice chest full of western style ice cream treats it is the only sweet in town and everybody knows it.

The main strip is filled with trucks and motor bikes and motor bikes with side attatchments that almost qualifys them as trucks.The Thais do not honk their horns much. Even in Bangkok. At the main intersection there are two bronze statues on two meter high pedestals. They are half man, half ape like, and they face each other.

The pharmacist, who spoke English was happy to tell me where I might buy a CD I was looking for. The driver on my kakyak trip was playing it in his car. I made him write down the name in Thai script. This is a very helpful trick.

The buildings in this part of town are all of poured concrete. They are of a utilitarian post modern style. Built probably a half centuiry ago they are streaked with great stains of black mildew. Johannes would love the architecture. It reminds me of East Berlin.

There is only one movie theater. It is somewhere on the edge of town. It is a great hulking empty place with a giant curved screen. It must have been quite the thing a long time ago. There is only one show daily at eight o'clock. Before it begins you must stand to honor his majesty the king. They play a trailer promotion which can only be described as: creepy. You never see his eyes, only his tinted glasses. I went to see The Island there. It was dubbed into Thai. After the show the motorbike driver who had driven me there was still waiting. He demanded to take me home for the same price for which he had driven me there. His friends were lurking a little too near. I didnt want it but then I did the math. We were talking about $1.25. Better to pay him and walk away.

Today I do some shopping as my stay winds to the end. The shops and streets are plastered with colorful signs. The people who fill them are small, brown, smiling and endlessly friendly. You can imagine why. They are home.