Back in Australia now, I feel terribly cold pretty much all the time. Somehow I must have acclimatised to the constant heat and humidity of Thailand, or perhaps this is just an overly cold winter. In any event, I don't like it and now I have a head cold.

There is a lot we have to do over the coming months. Ann had a medical for her visa application last Tuesday in Parramatta. Wheels are turning, albeit slowly, concerning all matters to do with immigration, with more documentation required now and in the future. The process is like being near a giant whirlpool, with all manner of flotsam being sucked down and no apparent means of escape.

Just before leaving for Thailand, I was waiting for Ann to finish college in a nearby Wynyard foodcourt. It was peak hour and the whole area was teeming humanity. I wrote this.

rush-hour crowd-
like an ant I push and push
set in winter honey

This is our last night in Thailand for the time being. Today was a tale of many modes of getting places. We caught trains, old and new, a songthaew, a canal boat, a taxi and a tuk tuk, as well as a couple of buses. We walked to the top of a golden mountain in the late morning heat.

Tonight we strolled from our hotel room to a local shopping centre, buying some fish cakes and a prawn noodle salad from street vendors. Bags are pretty much packed and off at 5.30 in the morning.

Our return to Australia inches closer. Tuesday morning we fly out of Bangkok. Ann is growing increasingly sadder as the time nears because this is her natural home and her family live here. But I will support her through the grief that I know she is already manifesting.

A few days ago before we left Phetchabun, Ann's mother tied a white woollen length of string around each of our wrists to symbolise our union. It was very sweet and she wept throughout. It was terribly difficult for Ann to say goodbye to her daughter JJ, knowing that she is unlikely to return anytime soon.

This morning we did a little souvenir shopping at the Chatuchak Markets. Thai arts and crafts offer a pretty creative range of inexpensive options.

Phetchabun is a middling-sized city in the plains north of Bangkok. It is bounded by a mountain range whose ghost-clouded slopes can be seen from anywhere in town. Phetchabun puts me in mind of any similar sized Japanese town, except that it's hotter, dustier and less well maintained. Thai towns are also more disorderly, with road rules created on the spot by every motorist and revised several times a day by every motor cyclist. But it's a nice town and has a real sense of place, with day and night markets, a number of Wat and soi that meander into rice and banana fields.

This is Ann's hometown and I could not have made this trip without the help of my loving wife, who has handled money, language, accommodation and much else besides with aplomb. My friends know only too well that I am quirky at times (stark raving-ed.) and she has been my most faithful companion. I love you darling.

Most days I buy the Bangkok Post. It's a great pleasure to open a broadsheet on the table and read from page to page.Unencumbered by flashing banners and screen-mediated text, one can sit with the texture and content of the pages. It is intelligent and it is tactile. But I digress from the central purpose of this post. I buy the Bangkok Post and Ann usually buys Thai Rath, a Thai national newspaper.

Every day she asks me the same question, "Is it today's newspaper darling?" It's an odd question, don't you think, for who would not buy the newspaper of the day and who would stock yesterday's news?

Today I got an explanation. Upon pointing out to Ann that the Post was dated today's date, this being Wednesday 14th June, she astonished me by saying that her paper was dated June 15, that being tomorrow. Thai news is very fast and constantly updated, she informed me by way of explanation.

Now I may just be a dumb foreigner but it strikes me that the Thai press are trying to subvert the laws of physics, as I understand them. I thought it prudent, however, not to press Ann on the issue. It's just one of those quirky things.

It makes no difference to me whether tomorrow's news can be had today. I am happy enough with the black print spilling across the table, the omnipresent fan lifting the sheets like gentle sails, the creases forming where I have read, where I imperfectly turn the pages.

Today Ann is attending local government offices. I am in tow. There appears to be a different office for everything, land title over here, motor vehicles there, social matters elsewhere. Within those precincts are yet more subdivisions so even the locals seem uncertain where to present themselves. But it's keeping a lot of people gainfully employed. We should be careful, I think, before being critical of overmanning, when the alternative in the West has often been an over-reliance on technology at the expense of people. Some inefficiencies are perfectly tolerable.

Business transacted, we headed out of town in search of the small parcel of land Ann bought some years ago. She has been vague and elliptical when pressed for detail and today I found out why. Even though her land is only a kilometre or so from the main road, it is well and truly in the boondocks. Rutted lanes narrow to barely apparent crisscrossing soi, unmarked and bestrewn in foliage and fallen branches. Eventually an abandoned cottage gave Ann a clue to the correct lane, so it seems we might have found her overgrown lot. You judge for yourself.

Coming to Phetchabun meant coming to Ann's hometown, for although she spent over 20 years working in Bangkok, this is where she had her roots. So we are staying at her sister Pinoys house, an empty white terrace close to the fresh produce markets.

Today and yesterday we took a side trip to Phisanolouk, stopping to visit some gorgeous Wat. Buddhism is part of the fabric of Thai society, so despite the trappings of modernity and consumer culture that are apparent here as elsewhere, one cannot begin to fathom the nature of Thailand without explicit and constant reference to it.

Another aspect of this trip (and one that sits uneasily next to the last paragraph) was to allow Ann to spend time and money on her daughter JJ, who is in junior high school. Hanging out, as we did, in shopping malls is not my idea of a cultural experience, the product being almost universally the same in any town, anywhere. But it passed the time and beat the heat.

Thrre is such a thing as temple fatigue, I am told, though I am yet to experience it. What I can attest to is the sheer beauty and wonder of entering spaces that are designated sacred, and spending time in silence and reflection.

such a drenching, 

the yowling dogs drowned out

flower-cups 

                    spilling

Since my last post, Ann and I have covered a lot of bases. Coming to Thailand was only secondarily a holiday, and a lot of our time had been taken visiting banks, police headquarters, and clinics to transact the business that Ann had planned for. I have remained both a faithful companion and interested onlooker to the proceedings, humdrum as they may sound. 

But in between we have also done some sightseeing, taking in a lot of temples. Last week we paid respects to the late monarch, Rama IX, who is awaiting cremation in October. We were very lucky, I am told, that we were in and out of the Grand Palace and environs in about 45 minutes. Queues only a few months ago stretched hundreds of metres. Like Hamlet, we were dressed head to toe in unrelieved black garb, the suit of woe. Unlike Hamlet, we had no revenge to carry out and so, free from the chains of procrastination, we hasty caught a shuttle bus back to the train station.

Now, we are in Phetchabun, Ann's hometown. It's very warm and I am tired out from all the travelling. Today is a day of rest I hope, for tomorrow we leave for two days in Phisanolouk.

It's true. I don't like flying. I know that there are people who do, who still find some glamour in the whole experience. But to quote Biff Loman, it's "a measly manner of existence." 

Not to bang on though, but we arrived safely in Bangkok. Ann drove her car across town through heavy traffic to our basic hotel near Nonthaburi. I began the slow acclimatisation to the heat and humidity. 

We are now further west in a gorgeous riverside town called Amphawa. I have just returned from the morning markets, the only farang in sight. Earlier I was kindly included in a party giving alms to a monk adjacent our guesthouse. 

I am writing on a  mobile keypad so matters are necessarily constrained for the time being.