padme

The Buddhist mantra "Om mani padme hung" has to do with the lotus (you can breathe that sigh of relief you've been saving up--I don't remember exactly what the mantra means and I'm not going to try to make something up). Yogis sit in padmasana, or lotus pose, for meditation. We also revere the lotus, in our way.

Tesco Lotus, that is.

Tesco Lotus is one of two chains of big-box department stores (the other is Big C) around Bangkok. It's as close as Thailand gets to Target. We have bought everything from particle board furniture to bedsheets to banana muffins at Lotus. Every couple of weeks we take a taxi to the nearest Lotus and stock up on toiletries, snacks, and whatever else we need.

Today we got into the taxi and told the driver "Lotac Bangyai" as usual ("Lotac" is the Thai pronunciation for "Lotus," and Bangyai is the town in which said Lotus is blossoming). However, instead of continuing down the main street of the town to the expressway, which is the normal route we take, this driver turned down a side street.

Husband and I raised our eyebrows--where were we going? We decided to wait and see--we were going in the correct compass direction, after all.

As it turned out, the driver knew a shortcut. A real one, that was both shorter and faster than the expressway. It was a meandering, narrow road with one lane in each direction...theoretically. The driver, however, preferred to drive on the right, or incorrect, side of the road. Rules, schmules! When he saw a motorcycle coming towards him (you know, going the direction that one should be going on that side of the road), our taxi driver did not pull over. He did not slow down. He did not get over into the correct lane. No, our driver actually honked his horn at the other, law-abiding driver! Now that's chutzpah.

Anyway, this shortcut was actually very enjoyable. We saw a part of the area that we'd never seen before. Farms, isolated houses, people in wide-brimmed straw hats and loose blue clothes actually working in the fields (think back to the travel books on Thailand you've seen--there is a picture like this in all of them, but as a tourist you're never going to see anything of the kind). Best of all, several extremely ornate temples. We were only driving past, of course, but they were still spectacular.