Bangkok - Soi Raja Kru - outside our old house

Bangkok - Soi Raja Kru - outside our old house, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Here is a picture of our old house in Bangkok, at least I think that this is where we lived in 40 years ago. Mum gave us the name of the street and said it would have been number 32 or 37 or something like that. Actually, this was number 31 and it has changed quite a lot, the pot\rch with the cocon ut tree and teh maid's quarters at the back having been removed along with the fish pond. The front garden had been tarmac'ed over as well, but somehow, I sort of recognised it, certainly when the servant let us in and showed us inside. I recognised the stairs above all, as well as the dark wooden floors.

We left a qoop visiting card at the house and we received this e-mail response:

dear mr. roffey,

first of all, thanks for leaving your business card
for me to contact you. i've got to say we're sorry if
it seemed to your brother and you that you didn't meet
with the "famous thai hospitality" when you dropped by
our house this afternoon. at first i was confused
when you said you used to live here, but now i've
realized that it was very likely because even though
my parents built this house when they first married
more than 40 years ago, we didn't move in until amost
two decades after that. i just realized that we did
rent it to some foreigners, so it was possible that at
one time your family and you may have lived here in
our house.

i gotta admit that sometimes when we live in this
modern-day society, regardless of how trustful of
people you want to be, sometimes it's just safe to be
more careful. after hearing one story after another
of people who were victimized or harmed after being
kind and opening their door to strangers, both here in
thailand and in any other part of the world including
your country, like it or not, we somehow lose faith in
people.

again, i'm sorry for this afternoon's incident.
things would have been different if my husband or me
were home, and we would have been able to welcome your
brother and you more.

hope your brother and you would not bring bad memories
about thailand and thai people back home to the
netherlands. we thai people may seem colder and more
skeptical these days, but deep down we're still the
same as we were in the old days.

best,
p.

p.s. it's also nice to know that you are dutch. we
love your country. we go there almost every year to
visit our dutch friends, who also come to thailand
every year to see us.


Later we walked down the road which led us to a few places to eat and then to an old market full of greensm, fruit, fish, sweets and the like (just how I vaguely remembered it).

It was a very strange experience to be confronted with the place of your first memries in life, but I am glad that we went there and that we managed to find the place still standing and intact as well as finding another part of old Bangkok.

Tomorrow, the bus to Cambodia.