Tuesday, February 8, 2020
6:06 a.m. Room 1102 Phannu House
Mae Sot, Thailand
My neighbor has already woken up. In short order, he crashed and banged in the bathroom, retched and spit about twenty times, and then slammed his door three times on his way out. I’ve often wondered what the reaction would be if people like this got an anonymous note at some point in their life. Someone could gently point out that he is a disgusting and annoying human being and perhaps he’d like to alter his behavior a tad. Maybe people like that don’t even know how much they annoy people around them. I always wonder about that with door-slammers. Don’t they know? How could they not? Perhaps they would appreciate someone telling them. I’ve heard of people who, through no fault of their own, have nasty breath. And they aren’t aware of it. And it would be embarrassing for someone to tell them. But telling them would be doing them a favor. Then they can take steps to correct it.
One of the first things I do by instinct when I move into a new room is judge how sound travels. If I can hear my neighbors, it’s logical that they can also hear me. And I adjust my habits accordingly. If I hear nothing at all, I assume that I can play my podcasts over a speaker instead of through earphones. I won’t be bothering anyone. If I hear every little sound from the adjoining rooms, I try to stay quiet.
I had many moments on my trip around the Mae Hong Son Loop to ponder these mysteries. I was witness to countless examples of rude behavior in many forms. And each time, I wondered if the person knew how rude it was. Do they know and they just do it anyway because they are selfish and don’t care? Or are they simply oblivious?
In one place, my neighbor fell into the interesting category of the horrendous snorer. Horrendous. So loud. And I just happened to be staying at a guest house with very thin walls. I could hear every sound from my neighbors. And that snoring was like thunder. It shook the walls and my bed. And you have to feel some sympathy for that person. They can’t help snoring. It happens while they sleep. But at the same time, thoughts of murder can’t help but dance around your brain as you lay there listening to that snoring. Murder would be too good for them. They should be tortured first.
And I wonder about the lives of these people. Assuming they are normal people, they will eventually get married. My somewhat awful neighbor at the moment is a relatively young man. I assume thoughts of marriage and family are on his mind and in his future. So, some poor woman out there is going to be subjected to his morning retching and door slamming for the rest of her life. Same thing for the eventual life partner of my loud snorer.
In another place, a man from a neighboring room sat on the steps right outside the door to my room and proceeded to have a 3-hour very loud and boisterous conversation with a woman over the phone in Italian. This went on until 1 or 2 in the morning. The weird geometry of our rooms and the door placement meant that my head lying on my pillow was a mere five feet away from his head just on the other side of the door, and I was forced to listen to his loud voice and her loud voice the entire time. I think he had her on speaker. I could hear her almost as well as I could hear him.
What possesses a person to do something like that? Is he unaware? Does he do this all the time in his life and no one has pointed out how rude it is?
The alternative, of course, is that most people in the world don’t actually care. I’m a light sleeper. And the snoring and the loud phone conversation affected me. I think I’m also relatively aware of my surroundings. I notice things. I hear things. I see things. I like to think I’m a bit of an observer. Perhaps all these people that make loud noises and slam doors aren’t really bothering anyone else. Maybe they are only bothering me. My father would not have been bothered in the slightest by all the rude behavior and loud noises I encountered on my trip. He would not have noticed any of it. He could sleep through anything. In fact, he would have been the one doing the loud snoring. And he wouldn’t even see the rude behavior in other situations. He was a natural at living his own life and wasn’t overly concerned about what people around him were doing or thinking. I think it’s a judgement call whether he was even aware that other people existed.
The special thing I have to do today is return to immigration. Assuming all went well with my application, I should be getting the official 60-day extension-of-stay stamp in my passport. That will allow me to stay in Thailand until March 25th. And I should also find out today if there is a possibility of getting yet another 60-day extension after that, one that will allow me to stay until May 25th. I saw news that this extra extension is available. But they tightened up the rules surrounding it, and it’s not entirely clear that I still qualify. Only the people at immigration will be able to tell me.
I no longer have my wonderful scooter, so I have to get to immigration in some other fashion. I don’t mind that, to be honest. I’m in the mood for walking, and I’ll just walk the five or six kilometers to the office. It’s not what you’d call a pleasant walk, since I have to walk along a quite busy highway. But it’s not without its interest. I’ve walked that stretch of highway a few times already. It’s the same highway that leads to the border crossing with Myanmar, and those times that I walked over the bridge from Myanmar, I just kept walking and walked all the way to Mae Sot when I came here for my new visa.
People get quite concerned at the distances I routinely walk. Eddie, completely out of the blue, anticipated that without the scooter I rented from him, I had no way to get to immigration, and he contacted me to offer me a ride. In his mind, it is impossible to walk that far. But as I’ve noted many times, there is an odd psychology surrounding the perception of distance. I’ve noticed that when you drive to a location, the distance actually feels farther than it is. If all you ever do is walk there, the walk feels fine. It feels reasonable. But when you cover that same distance in a car or on a scooter, it suddenly feels much farther, and you can’t imagine walking it. It feels unreasonable to walk that far. But it’s a matter of perception, not reality.
And, of course, choosing to walk anywhere is also a result of how you view the alternatives. For me, the physical effort of walking is nothing compared to the hassles of the alternatives. There are local motorcycle taxis that I can hire to take me there. And most people would do that. But I dislike all the uncertainty and the communication that has to take place. I have to walk to wherever these guys hang out. I have to find them. And they are usually hanging out in groups under trees and on benches chatting. So I feel like I’m bothering them. And it’s always weird to have to choose one guy to approach. I feel bad choosing one and ignoring the others. Then I have to communicate where I want to go. There will be confusion and misunderstandings. We will have to talk about the price. He will try to overcharge me. He will tell me one price and then try to charge me extra when we arrive. There will be problems. And all of that is such a hassle to me that walking is a more attractive alternative.
And you’d think I’d take Eddie up on his offer to drive me there. Why not? But I know that would be equally problematic. We’d have to talk endlessly about what time to go. He won’t be able to go at this or that time. There will need to be discussions. He will then suddenly have a change of plans and won’t be able to go at our set time. We will have to adjust our plans. He might never show up at all. He will forget. He will be late. I will end up just sitting around waiting all day. This is what always happens with people. The offer of a ride anywhere is a trap. Just walk there. It’s always easier. And at least walking is under my own control. And I can trust me. I’ve learned not to trust most other people. Plus, I have my own ideas of when is the appropriate time to go anywhere. I like to leave early and arrive early. Eddie offered to give me a lift, but I’m sure that in his mind, he was thinking that lift would take place at ten-thirty or eleven in the morning, maybe at two in the afternoon. But when it comes to something this important, I like to get it done as soon as possible. I can’t sit around all day worrying about it. The immigration office opens at 8:30. I like to give the clerks there thirty minutes to settle into their day and get comfortable at their desks. And then I show up at nine. And I’m pretty confident that if I told Eddie I wanted to leave at 8:30, he would have quickly regretted offering me that lift. So, in the end, it’s best to simply decline and say that I need the exercise and I’d like to walk instead.
My neighbor is back in his bathroom for his third retching session of the morning. It’s so awful. I’m joking about it, but I might actually have to ask to move to a new room if I stay here longer. That sound is just too much. The problem is that I already put in so much work rearranging this room and cleaning it. I’d have to start all over with a new room. And you never know what new horrors will be connected with a different room. The situation there might be worse than the one here. You never know.
It is now 7:15, and I must set aside my rambling thoughts for this morning and start getting ready to go. If I leave at 7:30, I should arrive at nine. And it would be nice to leave when it is still cool and perhaps the roads will be quieter. Time to set off for my little walking journey. It could be a one-way walk. I’ve done this before, and for some reason, taking a motorcycle taxi back from immigration to Mae Sot is easier than going there. I’ve never had trouble coming back. So I could walk there and take a motorcycle taxi back. We’ll see how I feel.