thai time

Appropriately titled for two reasons... first, thai time does not follow an actual time line. It varies from thai to thai. One thai will be pretty close to the time frame promised, while another has absolutely no concept of time. Last week I experienced this multiple times... one incident in particular I will share because it was a serious lesson on patience. I'm a pretty punctual person, hate being late. I had things to do, and places to be one particular morning and needed to go shopping for project supplies. (I'm very important here)

Some friends plus one of the thai staff came along. No big deal. We took a student to the airport to catch her flight home, and the thai staff wanted to stop by her home to pay bills. This was totally ok since we all really wanted to see her home, and also because it was "right around the corner". Thai distance is similar to thai time. After a 30 minute car ride, we arrived. Her village was awesome with a huge pond/small lake in the middle. Her home was really cool too... we were only slightly stressed until she brought out 6 photo albums. Then we knew this was not going to be a quick trip...

To cut the story short... a 2 hour shopping trip turned into a 4 hour adventure. One of those adventures where you may just lose it, but look back and can't do anything but laugh.

Second... I planned on writing this about a week ago... thai time is wearing off on me