Mother and the Bicycle Men

My train ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was enjoyable, though I didn’t do as much sleeping as I would have liked.

So far when I have traveled by train, I have always traveled second class sleeper. On such a train the seats are arraigned in groups of four. On this trip the three people completing my group of four were a woman and her two daughters. They were all friendly people.

The mother’s voice stood out to me because it seemed to have lost its volume knob. Her voice was always kind of loud (loud by Thai standards). She would be talking with her daughters and I would hear her loud and clear, I could scarcely detect the voices of her daughters over the noise of the train.

This made me wonder how often my voice is a cause of annoyance to Thai people. I am confident that unconsciously my voice is often louder than the voices of those around me.

The next group of four in the train were a group of Thai cyclists. They had ridden there bikes to the train, and they got off the train ready to get right back in the saddle. They talked among themselves about different places they had ridden. Apparently there are some great places to ride in Vietnam.

I’ll confess to jealousy. It would be a lot of fun to see Southeast Asia from behind the handle bars of a bicycle. It would be particularly enjoyable if it could be done with a group of friends.