YOU AND I WELL KNOW how Thai tourism is portrayed, right? Synonymous with the sex trade. Yes! Travel columns are especially guilty of this crime. Writers almost never forget to draw the reader's attention to the red light districts of Thailand, like Bangkok's Phatpong. And these write-ups always come with gaudy and raunchy illustrations. Is it any wonder that the thought is deeply implanted in popular myth?
And myth I now know it is because a friend gave me such a surprise when she came back from a family vacation in Phuket, South Thailand, flushed with inquiries of a spiritual nature. Not something triggered off by tight butts and long legs in skimpy bikinis, I'm sure. Or even tanned Greek gods in hip hugging trunks. Anyway, this is a girlfriend and the average woman can well keep her mind off such base distractions.
My friend was this hotshot corporate lady who reacted violently to the loud ticking of her biological clock, unlike fortunate me. I did not even have time to hear the body clock ticking. My body got happily going without prompting. By the time I was 23 my family was complete, replete with challenges and all, fighting for the right to develop healthy under circumstances struggling to stay ordinary.
But I digress. Back to my friend. She responded to the urgings of bodily timings and became a full-time, stay-at-home mum and must now rank as a top hotshot housewife, what with prize-winning, handsome, robust sons.
Well, let's cut to the chase. She called me and asked about Koranic exegeses; where to get the kind that reflected her current mood brought on by her recent experience. In Phuket!? If she had said, "I think I'll become a mama san when the children grow up," I would not have batted an eyelid. If it had been me that is exactly what I'd be saying after Phuket. (At least that is what, I think, I'd be repeating for all ears to hear. But do bear in mind, I have never been to Phuket.)
And so she related the story behind, what to me was her encounter of the mystical kind at the most unlikely place. The upshot of it was that she had chatted with a doctor friend she and her family were holidaying with. He had, according to her, found the scientific evidence for taboos and practices enjoined by the Old Testament on the Abrahamic religions. Things like "lay off the pork" (which, for the information of the insular ones among us, is actually common to all three monotheistic faiths) and the Jewish practice of circumcising boy babies on the eighth day after birth. "NO, she did not mention homosexuality and STDs!" to those of you readers whose mind maybe racing ahead of me.
Granted she had a wonderfully relaxing time at the Marriott with enough moments of quiet periods allowing for high brow intellectual intercourse between a-cut-above consenting adults with highly inquisitive minds. The sun, sand and beautifully tanning bodies were no match and neither was the shopping. The hotshot corporate lady had mentally returned and was truly turned on and has stayed that way since. Like a bloodhound she is following the trail laid down by a curiosity well piqued.
The interesting thing here is not that she may have re-discovered religion, or God for that matter. Rather, her experience tells of how positive all things are. The story would, of course, be more dramatic if she had stumbled on all of this while at a strip tease joint or something similarly salacious. That would be an epiphany and a half.
All the same, even in this instance of luxuriating redolence, the mind is actually miraculous. Just try taxing yours sometimes and you too will see beyond the forest to the tree; past handsome hunks to a matchless soul; and, behind seeming absurdities to its hidden truth.
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