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Creative Writing / Re: Creative Writing
« on: August 17, 2018, 06:16:29 PM »A Letter From Thailand
Thaton, Thailand
January 23rd
My Dear Sister,
We had a long bike ride yesterday, and a slow lazy day today; we thought we'd take a walk up to a temple that we can see from our hotel balcony across the river. But after we crossed the bridge and walked up a little hill, we found ourselves there in ten minutes, so it wasn't quite the arduous hike we had imagined.
However it had started to warm up a bit, so we thought that we'd better return to our hotel, and relax with some drinks, and build up our strength for tomorrow, when we might go somewhere else... that is, not another walk, but go to another town, one on the Mekong River, called Chiang Saen. It's in the so-called Golden Triangle.
I was in that area about a hundred thousand years ago, but don't remember the village of Chiang Saen. We were doing a long trek in the hills. We slept on the porches of bamboo huts, and washed in streams I guess, and ate rice from a pot over a fire. We were with four English women-- three school teachers and a nurse-- and they all sang together, wonderful harmonies. We sat night after night around the fire, and our four English songbirds sang one song after another, entrancing the Hill Tribe people.
On the final night of our trek, they were too tired to sing. I think that disappointed the local people of the night's camp; our guide and porter had been advertising them, I guess. But the four ladies declined, and hit their sleeping bags early. So I stepped up to the plate, and sang loudly and lustily –solo-- for a couple of hours, my voice echoing across the valley and through the mountains, and then eventually a neighbouring Hill Tribe showed up carrying some kind of torches, and what looked like pitchforks, and some firearms, and boy were they scary looking. I assumed of course that it had something to do with the opium trade, or enemies had invaded from Laos--and they had come to warn us. Indeed, it must have been the case, for they made us gather our things and run for our lives down the hills towards Chiang Rai which we did in great haste and thank god it was a full moon, because otherwise I don't know how we would have escaped in time.
oops, I must end here as we are going to dinner soon.
love,
me