Nobody Wants To Know Him

LVIII - Here, There, And Everywhere

Thursday 1st August 1974
Kanchanburi, Thailand
2.07pm

It was the fifth day of our honeymoon, the preceeding day having been spent visiting the Death Railway - a railway built by prisoners of war during the First World War. It was both a fascinating and emotive experience. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians had died during the construction of the railway, and the best we could do was honour their memory. Walking along the tracks and afterwards getting the train down to Nam Tok station (meaning waterfall in Thai) provided me with both an experience and an abundance of information which both John and I were extremely grateful for - it allowed us to get a view of the War from an Eastern perspective rather than our Western point of view, and being reminded that there was an entirely separate war going on was humbling.

After the heavy day yesterday, we had then decided that today would be spent relaxing. After breakfast, we had started the day with a trip to the village to grab some things for our last few days in the jungle (it had flown by), and then returned back to the house. John had been sat on the veranda with his guitar, softly plucking away while I dissected (whether that's the correct terminology or not doesn't matter, it was pretty much the same principle) a jackfruit in the garage area. The jackfruit was something we had seen in the village market - a huge green fruit covered in small spikes, not unlike a durian (although we had tried durian earlier on in the honeymoon, and if the smell wasn't enough to put us off, the taste certainly was). We had bought a few ripe jackfruit pods to take back, and I was excited to try it.

The flesh of the fruit was yellow, and it had an almost rubbery texture to it. Back home, I had occasionally seen it in the shop shelves in tins, but I had never tried it. Once I had fully sorted it and laid the jackfruit out on a plate along with a couple baby bananas (those things must've been sent from the heavens), I walked round to the front of the house to find John scribbling down what I could only assume to be lyrics on a piece of paper, guitar resting precariously in his lap.

"Hey, love," I said, sitting myself down in the chair opposite him. John looked up "I've dished up that jackfruit we got today. Wanna try?"

At the sight of the fruit, John perked up a bit. "Of course I do," he enthused, setting aside his guitar and reaching forwards to take a bit of the yellow fruit. As I took a bite, I watched as John did the same across from me. "Oh!" he mumbled through mouthfuls. "That's fuckin' good!" And he was right, of course.

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4.32pm

We had decided that today would be the perfect time to make that trip down to the hot spring we had found on that first evening we spent at the house. We had been meaning to head down since we had found it, but had been rather busy. So we put on our swimming attire, grabbed a towel, and, with excitement, rushed down that path which we knew led to the spring.

"It's still here," John said matter-of-factly as we arrived, as if he had expected it to disappear overnight. I understood what he meant, though. It was so beautiful, almost unbelievably so. It was almost as if it was a figment of our imagination, but the fact that it wasn't and remained a real, tangible place was something one couldn't even put into words. 

We set our towels (and John's glasses) on the side of the pool-like area incorporated into the spring. It was clearly made for the very purpose of relaxing in as there was a step that ran the entire border of the stone tiled box which served as a seat beneath the water. As we settled into the warm, mineral-rich water, the steamy mist swirled around us, creating an ethereal cocoon of privacy.

It was so inconceivably relaxing. I could feel the warm water on every part of my body, and it eased and loosened up every limb. There was a calming quality to the water, and that combined with the heat and steam in the air gave a most soothing atmosphere.