Misadventure

At the end of last year, my friend Sunny had the brilliant idea of planning a girls’ weekend getaway to Kanchanaburi at the start of the school year, kind of a small group bonding trip for her team since she would be working closely with three different teachers this year (two returning and one new teacher). The other three members of her team are all married so Courtney and I were invited along [in part] to ensure that talk of marriage and children did not dominate the whole weekend. Martha (names have been changed to protect the guilty parties), another new married teacher who lives in Sunny’s complex, was also invited.

The projected date for the trip turned out to be the first weekend in September. The weekend was rapidly approaching and nothing had been planned yet so I took it upon myself to do some of the organizing. I sent out an email to the ladies inviting them to a girls weekend away to Kanchanaburi for a rejuvenating day swimming in the seven-tiered Erawan waterfalls and then luxuriating for a day at a quaint spa run by a British woman where you can get a six hour pampering package for $75 (massage, facial, body scrub, hair treatment, steam room, and more massage with lunch included). I myself was damn excited about spending a day at the waterfalls and another day at the spa. And after the initial hectic month of school, this kind of break was much needed.

Well, what I had not anticipated is that there are mothers and wives who cannot spend any time away from their children or spouses. What originally started out as a girls’ weekend away quickly morphed into a mega-family extravaganza. First off, Molly insisted that her husband and two year old son tag along. She hardly gets to see little Joe enough as it is during the week so she couldn’t bear to be away from him for even a weekend. And if the baby comes, so must the husband. Who else is going to watch the baby while she is at the spa? Okay, whatever. We can make it so that papa bear and baby bear are otherwise engaged at, say, the tiger temple or on a boat ride down the river Kwai. No problem.

Martha, another espoused parental unit, gets wind of this and does the same. Add another husband and a four year old daughter.

Then one of the other marrieds, Marilyn, sends an email saying that she heard Molly’s and Martha’s husbands were going and if it wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, she would like her husband to come as well.

Let me pause here for a minute and count to ten. No, better count to fifty. I need to explain to the reader that for whatever reason there seems to be a surplus of couples this year at my school. Now, despite the short-lived-but-often-recurrent “love sucks” mindset I have endured at different stages in my life, I have nothing against couples who still manage to preserve their own identities as well as wield the identity within a matrimonial union, but I have little tolerance for the people who cannot function unless their partner is at their side. And we seem to have an abundance of these super-glued-together-type couples this year. More often than not at the numerous beginning of the year social gatherings, I found myself surrounded by blissfully happy, hand holding couples that made me want to throw up (yes, that is a bit of adolescent regression…my apologies).

So, back to the main thread of this narrative—I get this email from Marilyn and I’m feeling slightly miffed. What part of girls’ weekend do you not understand? Do I need to send out an addendum email to clarify NO PENISES are to be in attendance for girls’ weekend? Actually, I did just that. I put my heart on the table and addressed a message to Marilyn that explained my insecurities, how when I am surrounded by couples I feel like my aloneness is magnified, that it is nice to get to know couples away from each other as individuals, that this is supposed to be a no testosterone weekend, and the men who are coming are coming to tend after the children. How much more clear can I get? Being that she specifically said that she wanted to invite her husband only if it wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, I thought that she would understand.

I was wrong. Her explanation: since she already invited him, she couldn’t uninvite him. Ha! In case you got lost in all my minutia and ramblings I may need to remind you that we are talking about her husband here—not the prime minister. So the tally for the “girls’ weekend away” has climbed from seven to twelve, the last four additions being of the male variety.

Turns out, Sunny can’t get a sitter for the weekend so her ten year old son is to come along, too. She decides to ask Mark, another new teacher, if his son, Dave, would like to come along, more or less to keep Daylin occupied. (Dave is here alone with his fourteen year old son until his wife and ten year old son can come in January.) Sunny was thinking that the father would jump at the opportunity to have a weekend to himself. Wrong again. Mark invites himself. So now we are up to fourteen people, nearly as many guys as girls. Alas, the weekend before we are supposed to leave, another couple invites themselves along with their two daughters who are in kindergarten and first grade. Grand total: nineteen.

But, I’m a flexible person. I understand that plans change. I told myself that this would still be an enjoyable getaway. I like all the kids that were going (except maybe the toddler who is in that two year old megalomaniac phase) and no matter what, I would soon be relaxing at the waterfalls and getting the royal treatment at the spa. It was going to be a fantastic weekend.

Sunny gave me the number for a driver that she hired when she went to Lopburi for the monkey festival last year. Two of the families would be driving up separately so we needed a fifteen passenger van. I called the driver and encountered a minor stumbling block: neither of us was proficient enough in the other’s language to communicate effectively. It felt like I was just hanging up on him even though I had explained that I was going to find someone who speaks Thai so we could make arrangements. Headed out the door to do just that, the phone rang and it was an English speaking friend of the driver. He was Thai, but his English was pretty good. I explained to him that I would like a van and a driver to take a group to Kanchanaburi the following weekend. We arranged a price and a place for pick up and all was well.

I also called the spa to make sure that there were openings for appointments and that there would be enough staff working to handle the group I was bringing. It was difficult setting this up because I wasn’t sure who of the thirteen adults wanted to go to the spa, when they wanted to go or what they wanted to have done. I couldn’t assume that only the girls would be going to the spa, or even if all the girls would be going to the spa since so many kids were coming. I also didn’t know which husbands were amenable to watching the kids while wifey received a much needed spa treatment. I sent out an email that asked who wanted what when but it did not garner much response since everyone (but me it seems) was busy teaching class or working. I understood too, that people may not want to commit to anything since you never know how the day will turn out, especially when kids are involved. Having the group size nearly triple had definitely complicated things. Fortunately, the owner of the spa was very kind and had plenty of experience with this sort of thing. I was able to give her tentative numbers and she would make sure there were enough people there and that she had enough food to feed us since more than one of us would be taking advantage of the half day treatments.

Phew. The hard part was over. Everyone would be able to find their own accommodations when they arrived in Kanchanaburi since there are plenty of guest houses along the river and booking ahead is not necessary.

Everyone showed up at meeting place at the appointed time and we were on our way. Our destination was two and a half to three hours away. Once the whole crew was settled in the van with the driver, I realized that none of the passengers were fluent in Thai. Not a good move. I did have my Thai dictionary with me and the phone number of the driver’s friend, which for the moment appeased me.

When I went to Kanchanaburi by buss last year to see the tiger temple and floating market, I collected some travel information on the area to share with people who visited me. Revonna had picked up some brochures from the spa when she went there in May so I had those to share, too. In the van, I passed the information around and everyone was excited about the upcoming adventure.

I felt like a virtual tour guide, despite the fact that I am geographically disadvantaged. Stefanie is the one with a geography minor and who has experience working at AAA as a trip planner. I, on the other hand, do not enjoy maps in the least. Sure, I passed ninth grade geography class, but that was because I had a crush on Mr. Perry and I didn’t want him to think I was an imbecile.

About the time Martha’s four year old daughter started up with the “are we there yet” mantra, I started to be aware of my surroundings. We had been trucking along for the better part of three hours, and I began to look for some signage that would alert us to how much further we had to go. The signs were in English as well as Thai, but much to my dismay, I did not see anything reporting the distance to Kanchanaburi. I did, however, see several signs marking the way to Chanaburi. The dawn of understanding was reluctant to arrive but soon enough it did. Oh no. Oh no no no no no!

Oh yes. After consulting a map I discovered the little town of Chanaburi. A seemingly nothing town, landlocked, no waterfalls in sight. Chanaburi…a place I had never heard of before, a name I have never before spoken. The map beautifully illustrated that Chanaburi is due south of Bangkok whereas Kanchanaburi is due west of Bangkok. I learned enough in Mr. Perry’s class to know that we were indeed screwed.

I did not yet make my revelation known to my fellow travelers who had blindly trusted me to lead them to Kanchanaburi. Instead, I wiggled my way around to the front of the van with a brochure for the tiger temple that was written in Thai and English. I pointedly underscored the Thai writing with my finger, Kanchanaburi. I wasn’t getting very far in making my concerns known to the driver. I crawled back to my seat and called the translator. When I told him the situation, he laughed. HE LAUGHED! (This might be a good place to add that I was suffering from my monthly hormonal issues; oh yes, they are real.) I asked the amused translator how long it would take to get to Kanchanaburi from where we currently were. His reply—five hours. Somehow I was able to end the call in a civil tone. Seconds later, the driver took a call from the translator as we pulled into a gas station.

The tears started to prick their way into existence from behind my eyelids. The rest of the crew knew by now that we were not on the proper course. The mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, even the children were taking everything very well, laughing, tossing around the ubiquitous phrase “mai ben rai” which translates into it doesn’t matter, everything works out; e.g. shit happens. And normally, I am a proponent of this attitude. But not this time.

We all climbed out of the van and my mind was swimming. What about the people who drove separately? What about the spa staff that is showing up to work a crowd of ten guests? Are we still going to get charged for this royal mishap? Are my colleagues going to be upset that our plans were rapidly changing course?

I walked around the back of the van, not that this was exactly a private place, but it seemed more private than anywhere else at the time, and I just started sobbing. Body wrenching, shaking sobs. The kind of crying where your chest heaves and the rapid intake of air sucks in your bottom lip, making it shudder either violently or comically, depending on if you are the one crying or the one watching. I was aware that this was a very un-Thai display of emotion, but at that moment, I really didn’t care. I knew that the intensity of my reaction was not proportionate to the reason for my distress, but I could not stop. “I just want to go to the spa!” I wailed into the open.

Not one of my finer moments, to be sure.