The weather seemed to become very pleasant as the rainy season ended and the winter breezes have started to arrive in Thailand. This gave me more incentive to go for walks in the afternoon observing changes in old familiar areas around Bangkok. The favourite spot for me is Bangrak area where I could do my shopping at Robinson where I knew many staff and they offered surprised reduction in prices every month.
There are so many things and stories happened to catch my attention and involvement in this area: such as stray cats, old Chinese vendors, meetings with old friends in the coffee shop. My life has been centered around this stretch of New Road that I wondered about my past life connection to this road.
This was the first road built in Bangkok, so lots of royalties and foreign diplomats were those privileged people who made frequent use of this road. Perhaps I used to enjoy riding in my horse drawn carriage along this road everyday so the old sense of attachment brought me back to this place again. Then, there was Goldie, the orange cat who always sat at the step of the stairways in front of the famous coffee shop. She became well known among all the old staff of the shopping mall. She had a fan-club of regular shoppers too. She was abandon as a kitten in the shophouse which became the shopping mall.
She was adopted by the fruit vendor but Goldie always went to sit at those steps waiting for the return of her owner. Goldie led me to find out about the fruit vendor and her background story. So, I began to talk to all the vendors who knew about Goldie and looked after her for years. I still visited Goldie’ spot and talked to her there very often. She passed away peacefully at around sixteen years old under the care of the fruit vendor.
I thought I would have no more ‘stray’ cats to talk to any more. But my visit to the temple nearby led me to know one special stray cat. Then two more young kittens came along to ask for some food. Nowadays I had to feed almost twenty temple cats twice a week. I had done some calculations! I knew why my food budget was getting smaller each month! The cost of cat food is three times bigger than my quota for my own food. That’s probably why most people don’t spend money on stray cats or dogs. Luckily, some monks were feeding some of these stray cats. So, they could still survive though they would never get fat!
I love to walk along the narrow alleys behind the main road. The old shophouses built around the same time as New Road could still be seen; these are over 120 years old. They were very well built with double brick wall and teal wood doors. Most people didn’t appreciate the historical importance of these buildings. King Rama V had these shophouses built so that working people would have hygienic dwellings at super cheap rents. My parents used to rent some of these shophouses near Chinatown area for years. They saved so much money to invest in trading and became wealthy later on.
So, walking around these back alleys just brought me back to my childhood years and good old days. Those blissful data could never return back to me just like these old houses which would get older each year. Memories in these old houses would all be lost once those people got old and disappeared. Very few young people are interested in the stories and history of their families. The future seems more attractive and exciting so they couldn’t wait to jump onto new things.
I just hope that changes in our society would slow down a little and become less drastic so that most slower people would have the time to adapt and catch up with these new changes. The future is full lots of uncertainty and the unexpected so I just have to hope and pray for the best possible outcome. Meanwhile I have to remind myself to live in the present and do my best everyday so that I wouldn’t have any regrets of wasting my time and energy on irrelevant things.
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.
@tattoodjay