Maya - Illusion. Owen Jones

took the proffered spoonful of curry and rice in his mouth.

      “It’s OK. Not as hot as you like, I know, but it is all right for me. Maybe they make it like that here because of all the foreign visitors.”

      “What about all the Thai foreigners? Don’t we count? I have heard before that Lao food is not as hot as Thai food, now I know that it is true.”

      Craig thought that it would be hard for any country’s food to be hotter than Thailand’s, but he judged it prudent not to say so at that juncture in time.

      After the meal, they walked up and down the Waterfront for a few hours. Lek bought a parasol to shield her skin from the sun and then they went back to the hotel for a rest.

      Lek lay on the bed, watched TV, dozed and pretended to be dozing, while Craig checked his web sites, answered his emails and wrote an article on travelling to Laos for his web site on Thailand. She didn’t want to talk lest it led to more squabbling, especially since they had had such a pleasant walk along the bank of the Mekong.

      It seemed to her that everything that she had done had been for nothing. Nearly twenty years before, she had gone to work in Pattaya because the bank was threatening to foreclose on the farm, due to a loan that her father had taken out on it, but now that she needed money, where was the farm to help her?

      She had worked in the sex tourism industry for ten years and actually saved money for her daughter’s education, but she had squandered it playing cards. Well, not all of it, but most. Her friend Goong had left her a lot of money, but now it was all gone and with nothing to show for it.

      She had relied on Craig to save her and to be fair to him, he was doing, and always had done his best, but they were still broke and now he was having to sell their pension fund ten years early. Again through no fault of his own, but it did now mean that they always would be hard up.

      Nothing that she had hoped for and dreamed about was going to come about, except that Soom would go to university and sit the exams. It was something, but it was only a small fraction of what she had wanted. The books were right, it was all Maya. Hopes and dreams were all illusion. There was nothing you could do to change your future. Nothing helped except your behaviour towards others. People got what they deserved, they got their Karma. The rest was all smoke and mirrors – Maya.

      What had she achieved? She wanted to cry, but it was beneath her dignity. Not many people and certainly not many things could make her cry.

      Not any more, not after ten years in Pattaya.

      She looked at Craig’s back. Eight years older. Eight years of slaving over a machine working on a medium that would cease to exist if there were no electricity. She couldn’t even remember how many web sites he had now. There was something sad about that. She ought to know what her husband was working so hard at, but it was all pointless too since it was not paying for their lifestyle, which was not lavish by any Western standards. She would never have the jet-set lifestyle that she had thought having a foreign husband ensured.

      She had been so stupid and if it wasn’t for Soom, she would happily be dead. Her mother could take care of Soom, as she always had and if she faked an accidental death, her life assurance would pay Soom a million baht, which would see her through university and buy her a good job.

      That was something else that Craig didn’t know about yet. It was one of those embarrassing things that Thais only discussed with Thais. They were ashamed to admit them to foreigners. Corruption. No matter how well Soom did at university, she would never get a very good job if she didn’t have the money to buy her one.

      And they didn’t have any money and they didn’t have any reserves or a pension pot. Soom would discover bitter disillusionment early in life, when she realised that university had ensured her an office job, but not a good one. There were several glass ceilings that only money could smash and they didn’t have any and never would have.

      She was too old to go back to ‘work’ and earn good money now, but in five or ten years, she would have no chance at all of working in Pattaya. If she were going, she would have to go now or forever hold her peace. Could she rely on Craig to get her out of this awful situation? She would truly be happy to go to sleep now and not wake up again.

      Craig woke Lek up at seven o’clock as it was getting dark outside.

      “What’s the matter? Why are you waking me up? Oh! I forgot. We’re in Laos. What time is it?”

      “Seven. There are a lot of people walking around outside. Shall we go out and have a look? Are you hungry?”

      “Yes, OK. I’ll just brush my teeth. Five minutes.”

      “OK, Lek. Say, don’t you think we should get some Lao money, some ‘Kip’? We paid in Baht this afternoon, but I think they just round everything up when you pay in Baht. Let’s get five thousand Baht’s worth and see how it goes. I can pay for the hotel by credit card. I don’t know about the visa. What do you think?”

      He could hear her gargling in the toilet. When she came into the room, he asked what she thought of the plan.

      “I couldn’t hear a word of what you were saying! I only heard ‘blub, blub, blub, blub, blub’. You knew I was brushing my teeth, why were you talking to me? What did you say?”

      He told her again.

      “Yes, OK. We can get some Kip. You have very many Kip for one Baht, I think. You want to get now, tonight?”

      “Sure, as soon as possible, eh? Do you have my new Lloyds ATM card? The green one they sent me last month?”

      “Yes.” She rummaged in her bag and handed it to him.

      “And the PIN – you know the number – security.”

      “I don’t have. You not give to me. You have.”

      Craig wanted to blame Lek, but he couldn’t remember having given it to her. She might be right, but that made the card useless.

      “Oh, shit. We cannot take money from the UK bank. Do you have your card?”

      “No. I not take any gold or cards with me, I think it is not safe in Laos, because I do not know here.”

      “Right... so we cannot get any money from the banks and we are on holiday in Laos. Great! I’m not blaming you... I am just saying. I am thinking aloud. How much money do you have?”

      “Thai money?”

      “What else? Do you have any Chinese?”

      Lek was already counting out some notes. “A little more than seven thousand Baht.”

      “OK, the visa costs nineteen hundred, I believe, so we have money to last for now, but we either have to go home early or.... This is bloody daft, eh? Who goes abroad with no money, eh? Only us! Come on, let’s go out. We can change a thousand Baht and enjoy ourselves. We can deal with it all tomorrow. Are you ready? Come on then, my dear.”

      They turned left out of the hotel and walked the three hundred yards to the bureau de change that they had spotted earlier in the day. The exchange rate was two hundred and fifty-one Kip to the Baht and Lek was as delighted as a child at Christmas to be given a quarter of a million Kip for her one thousand Baht note.

      She felt very rich and very superior, which were sensations that she was not accustomed to.

      “Look at all this money, Craig! Look!”

      “Yes, Lek, it’s a thousand Baht in Kip. The numbers don’t matter, it is the value that counts.”

      But she wasn’t listening again, just counting the notes over and over.

      “Where do you want to eat, dear?” asked Craig.

      “Oh, we can eat anywhere with this sort of money,” she replied. “How about that open-air restaurant on the pavement near the hotel? The food looked very