A SimplER Life

By Shelly 

When I was preparing to move to Thailand and trying to figure out what to take and what not to take, I was excited about the prospect of minimizing my stuff and living life very simply.  Then, yesterday, I decided I wanted an even simpler life and opted to rid myself of all electronic devices (very green of me), so that I could live a life without the distractions of things like a cell phone, digital camera, iPod, and money.  Yes, I know what you are thinking, how can Shelly live in Thailand without these things?  How will she take pictures of all the wonderful things she is seeing?  How will she stay connected to her friends and family?  How will she eat without the luxury of money?  Well ladies and gentlemen, I can and I will…have to.  For the time being (until I get back to my town tonight) and figure out how to deal with the fact that my purse was stolen right out of my bicycle basket by a motorist on the way back from the last ruins site we visited in Ayutthaya. 

But don’t worry; I had some help trying to catch the thief.  Matt was ahead of me and tried to get the guy once I called out to him and he realized what had happened by pedaling really fast on HIS bicycle, which prompted his chain to come off and his bike to spin out of control, forcing him to break his fall with his sandal-wearing feet.  We blame his inability to catch him on the fact that he was not riding his Canondale road bike. We only had to cut off 3 of his toes at the hospital, so don’t worry, he still has the other 7. J  It was a painful experience for both of us to say the least.  The good news is that I had just killed BOTH of my camera batteries with my incessant photo taking, and my iPod (which was in my purse by accident of course) had turned on the day before unbeknownst to me, leaving it dead.  The thief was surely disappointed when he figured both of those out and also would have found that I did not have the cash that many foreigners would carry on me, nor did I have any credit cards or my passport. 

All I can say is that in this culture, karma is going to get that guy, hopefully in the form of a bus or train hitting him hard enough to knock some sense into him.  Luckily, since 98% of the people in Thailand are actually really nice and good-hearted people, we had two different cars stop and help us, both of whom were police officers and one with a daughter  who spoke English well and was able to translate and get us the help we needed.  Police reports filed complete with a drawing of my assailant by yours truly.  Maybe they will even end up catching the guy. 

Unfortunately, this is my second incident since coming to Thailand of having things stolen, both times in touristy places of course.  It just goes to show you can never be too careful. 

So here’s to a much SIMPLER life than even I could have anticipated.  Cheers. 

A picture of one of the ruins we visited, Wat Chaiwattthanaram, a Buddhist temple built in the 1630.  This temple lies on the outside of the island of Ayutthaya, but is an easy bike ride from the other ruins. (thanks to Wikipedia for the picture)

More pictures of the ruins we visited:  

I'm sorry, these photos cannot be displayed due to "the situation."

 

A picture of Shelly sans purse

 

Inuries incurred from the incident