kap*KHUN*ka........thank you

I woke up this morning with a terrible cold. The kind that descends on you in your sleep and feverishly sets to work scratching up your insides and turning you into a mucus-spewing machine. In other words, the kind that absolutely SUUUUUUCKS.

I didn't have much appetite today, but I forced myself to wander over to my new favorite restaurant. This place is generally more popular for dinner and is therefore desolate during the lunchtime hours. During lunch, most hungry people tend to make use of the panoply of street vendors stationed right in front, rendering the restaurant nearly invisible through the scented smoke arising from their pans and woks and charcoal fires. This restaurant has some incredible vegetable fried rice--not greasy, not too eggy, and chock full o' veggies--and after some unfortunate incidents with street vendor fried rice, I gladly pay the extra 60 baht without compunction.

Today I found myself alone, as usual, and hacking/sneezing/sniffling up a storm. Clearly the sounds of my sickness were cause for alarm among the restaurant staff, as a few minutes into my meal a waiter emerged with a bowl of hot soup. I looked at him and shook my head--"no, I didn't order that"--and he just pointed to the soup, pointed to his throat, and pointed at me. He had brought me some soup to soothe my scratchy throat. And he didn't charge me for it, even when I insisted.

After lunch--as my food digested, aided by the incredibly warm feeling that I had--I walked back to the school to find that my employer had replenished my supply of Tiger Balm (a.k.a. the most miraculous thing in the world ever! EVER!!), left a list of numbers for taxis, and wrote a note saying that I "shouldn't be walking around in the hot sun" if I have a cold.

I heart Thailand.