Just Bob
Senior Member
I've been inspired to post this by LivinLOS's accounting of his time in Cao Lo, Vietnam in this thread;
http://www.rideasia.net/motorcycle-forum/showthread.php?t=713&highlight=songkran
"I'm sorry, I thought you were a rat"
An hour to LAX, Ten hours to Narita, seven hours to Bangkok, a shower and four hour nap in a cheap Krung Thep transit hotel then another hour to Krabi. While I'm not so sleep deprived I'm really lacking any REM sleep outside the big aluminum tube in the sky so now I'm in a real bed in Ao Nang and I'm just going into that golden moment where you're just slipping into a deep satisfying unconsciousness and it feels fantastic - when I hear a loud gnawing on wood sound from the bedstand by my left ear.
Crap! I wake up and turn on the light. I'm in your typical concrete block Asian hotel and the only piece of wood is the side table and, damn, it sounds like a rat is gnawing on the back side of it trying to get in where it will proceed to bite my foot off in my sleep and it will end in a horrible death and I'll wet myself and all the usual horrers involving rodents and your soft fleshy parts. But hey... I'm used to this and its all pretty usual to the weird things that happen when you travel in the third-and-a-half world.
Out of bed and across the room to grab my single LED keychain size Boy Scout approved ultra light weight don't-leave-home-without-it flashlight. I press it on and look behind the bedstand. What the hell? I pull out the bedstand to find a hole in the wall about the size of a paperback book with a mess of electric wires coming out of it. Ah-hah! Its the wires going to the light switches on my bedstand. Surely Kudjo is in here.
I shine the light in and around trying to see if there are any signs that a rodent has been there. You know, like tiny little rat foot prints or droppings or your tube of toothpaste being stolen [really - it's happened to me before]. In my sleep deprived REM interupted stupor I can't make sense out of it. Okay, its a concrete wall and I see a wood backing and its only about the depth of a limp dick and I shine my light upwards where the wires come down and there's no where a rat could fit and as I'm about to relax a bit thinking I'm just imagining it all, the wood backing in the hole suddenly moves back and my brain goes numb as a voice in the hole says "hello"?
Deep breath...
The hole in the wall goes through to the adjoining room. Apparently the wall is only the thickness of a single layer of cheap Thai brick and the master builders that constructed this Taj Mahal thought they would just use the same wire chase for both rooms and why bother wasting time sealing the hole when it would be hidden on both sides behind the bedstands. The noise that I had heard was my neighbor rummaging on his nightstand, probably turning out his light and when I made noises messing with my nightstand he probably thought the same rat was after him but, surprise sucker, your rat is coming for you with a flashlight! I can't imagine what went through this person's mind when they saw a nice bright LED light projecting around from behind their nightstand. I can't remember what he said. All I could do was say "sorry, I thought you were a rat" and shove the bedstand back against the wall.
As I lay back down, about a thousand miles removed from the sweet sleep state I'd left, all I thought before drifting off was the hole is too small for anyone to reach through and kill me in my sleep. In the clarity of now, the next day in this cheap outdoor internet cafe, I kick myself for not having said "Hello, room sorbeese, may I help you"?
_________________________________
Postscript... The person/s in the other room were in a group of big cc touring machines. If whoever it was reads this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. :RE
http://www.rideasia.net/motorcycle-forum/showthread.php?t=713&highlight=songkran
"I'm sorry, I thought you were a rat"
An hour to LAX, Ten hours to Narita, seven hours to Bangkok, a shower and four hour nap in a cheap Krung Thep transit hotel then another hour to Krabi. While I'm not so sleep deprived I'm really lacking any REM sleep outside the big aluminum tube in the sky so now I'm in a real bed in Ao Nang and I'm just going into that golden moment where you're just slipping into a deep satisfying unconsciousness and it feels fantastic - when I hear a loud gnawing on wood sound from the bedstand by my left ear.
Crap! I wake up and turn on the light. I'm in your typical concrete block Asian hotel and the only piece of wood is the side table and, damn, it sounds like a rat is gnawing on the back side of it trying to get in where it will proceed to bite my foot off in my sleep and it will end in a horrible death and I'll wet myself and all the usual horrers involving rodents and your soft fleshy parts. But hey... I'm used to this and its all pretty usual to the weird things that happen when you travel in the third-and-a-half world.
Out of bed and across the room to grab my single LED keychain size Boy Scout approved ultra light weight don't-leave-home-without-it flashlight. I press it on and look behind the bedstand. What the hell? I pull out the bedstand to find a hole in the wall about the size of a paperback book with a mess of electric wires coming out of it. Ah-hah! Its the wires going to the light switches on my bedstand. Surely Kudjo is in here.
I shine the light in and around trying to see if there are any signs that a rodent has been there. You know, like tiny little rat foot prints or droppings or your tube of toothpaste being stolen [really - it's happened to me before]. In my sleep deprived REM interupted stupor I can't make sense out of it. Okay, its a concrete wall and I see a wood backing and its only about the depth of a limp dick and I shine my light upwards where the wires come down and there's no where a rat could fit and as I'm about to relax a bit thinking I'm just imagining it all, the wood backing in the hole suddenly moves back and my brain goes numb as a voice in the hole says "hello"?
Deep breath...
The hole in the wall goes through to the adjoining room. Apparently the wall is only the thickness of a single layer of cheap Thai brick and the master builders that constructed this Taj Mahal thought they would just use the same wire chase for both rooms and why bother wasting time sealing the hole when it would be hidden on both sides behind the bedstands. The noise that I had heard was my neighbor rummaging on his nightstand, probably turning out his light and when I made noises messing with my nightstand he probably thought the same rat was after him but, surprise sucker, your rat is coming for you with a flashlight! I can't imagine what went through this person's mind when they saw a nice bright LED light projecting around from behind their nightstand. I can't remember what he said. All I could do was say "sorry, I thought you were a rat" and shove the bedstand back against the wall.
As I lay back down, about a thousand miles removed from the sweet sleep state I'd left, all I thought before drifting off was the hole is too small for anyone to reach through and kill me in my sleep. In the clarity of now, the next day in this cheap outdoor internet cafe, I kick myself for not having said "Hello, room sorbeese, may I help you"?
_________________________________
Postscript... The person/s in the other room were in a group of big cc touring machines. If whoever it was reads this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. :RE
