Rain!

It continues to rain on and off every day, which makes it pretty much impossible to do anything. And this is some serious rain - the skies just open up. I have been spending my days reading or watching movies on TV and then I go out at night for some socializing. That has been fun, although I am definitely the granny around here.

About half of the couples that you see on the street here consist of a western man and a young Thai woman. The more I see them, the more I find it disturbing. They are certainly all consenting adults who know what they're doing, but it's hard not to feel pity for the men who are paying for a girlfriend and the women who need the money badly enough to put up with it. In cases where the man is much older, the women often don't even pretend to be interested and they'll totally ignore the men who are fawning all over them. (There was one such couple on the bus with me from Bangkok and in 7 hours they didn't speak one word to each other.) I'm not sure how Thai society as a whole views this situation, but my guess is that the women are viewed as resourceful rather than as prostitutes. These relationships appear to be initiated by the women and Daniel told me that he's been approached a couple of times. Sad to think that they believe that this is the only path out of their poverty.

Despite my best efforts, no cute young Thai boys have approached me for such a relationship as of yet. Perhaps I'll have to start showing them the balance on my ATM receipts - I'm actually a multi-millionaire over here!