11/5/25
The thunder and rain were audible from the early morning. It was soothing. It drowned out the road and gave us the reassurance that we didn’t need to go anywhere in a hurry. It’s hard not to feel a pressure to be moving on. That there’s somewhere else to be.
We got up at 8:30am. The rain still hadn’t stopped. Bouts of heavy rain lashed the roof, the ground, the swimming pool. It was actually cold! An incredibly low 20C. We had to have long sleeves on. Predictably, we ordered banana pancakes again. The woman remembered Jonathan wanted it well done. But she forgot for sure. He didn’t say anything.
A group of young Vietnamese friends and two tall Europeans were staying at the hotel. The latter turned out to be a Dutch father and son. The older man was interesting. Marco was an artist and had got rid of all his possessions bar a single backpack. He’d been involved in projects encouraging young people to draw, be creative and free themselves of the ‘boxes’ that their minds create. But he seemed a little lost now. Unsure of what he should be doing. Levi was technically a tattoo artist by the age of 6. His dad had let him transfer his drawings to his skin. Utterly barmy. We spoke to them until around noon.
The rain was starting to wind down but we weren’t going anywhere. We spent the next few hours in our room. Watching, talking. We ate dinner at the hotel again. Two tofu dishes and a banana blossom salad. The owners also had a restaurant in town, our food arrived in a pickup truck. We’d seen this type of splitting the burden often now.
After dinner we checked the weather again. Most likely, we’d be leaving in the morning. We finished the rest of our fruit, another dragonfruit, mango and some bananas. We had to ask for a duvet it felt so cold now. It was relieving that it could ever be colder here. We’d felt sorry for the population.
Surly They Won't Make It 