Why did I stop?

Was it the single near-neon-purple lotus bloom poking through the pavers? Did I catch the contrasting brilliant yellow center? Did a flicker of motion catch my eye? That memory has faded. What I remember is standing directly over this flower, bent at the waist, completely entranced, with time suspended, one of Asia’s bustling, loud, smoggy cities on sensory mute.

In my 1990 lust for travel, I convinced my girlfriend, now my wife, to travel from Pittsburgh to Thailand to a beach. Billie had crisscrossed the country in a VW bus before she met me, but had only been out of the US to Canada, albeit sailing Lake Erie to Toronto. I first convinced her to foreign-travel to Negril, Jamaica, – two hours on a plane and again a beach.

Thailand was an order of magnitude (or maybe three) more. The Thai embassy mailed me brochures. I found a beach cottage with a shower for $12 per night. We could have stayed for fifty cents per night with no bathroom or shower, but I sensed a limit to the adventure I could suggest to Billie. We flew for twenty-four hours with a three hour layover in Narita airport, Tokyo. The only food available was a bowl of ramen, and the challenge to our American only-English was considerable. From Bangkok airport we cabbed to the train station, somehow managed to buy tickets for a 12 hour train ride to Surat Thani on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, staying overnight at a Thai version of Motel 6.

The next morning we shuttled to the Koh Samui Island ferry. These days Koh Samui is a luxury resort with huge hotels memorialized on the HBO series The White Lotus. There were some large hotels even then, but there were a plethora of fifty cent wooden beach shacks and twelve dollar concrete block cabins across a dirt road, with in-room toilet and a half-enclosed shower just outside.

The Lord Jim level overloaded ferry docked and we walked a literal plank from the dock to the shore. There were about fifty Toyota pick-up trucks with benches in the back.

“How are we going to figure out . . .”

“Lamai, Lamai”

“That’s where we’re going – quick . . . the red truck.”

Getting into and hanging on in the pick-up taxi was challenging even in our early forties. When the driver skid-stopped, he pointed down a dirt road. It was not quite 9:00 a.m. and already Thailand-hot. We weren’t experienced world-travelers; we each struggled with our over-full garment bag and a rollaboard for fifteen dusty minutes. The whole staff came out to greet us.

I had telephoned from the United States. That would have been a fifty dollar phone call if placed from Thailand. Everybody wanted to see the idiots who spent fifty dollars to make a reservation for a twelve dollar room.

Lamai was an end of the universe beach, with a “town” of two streets crossed perpendicularly, lit at night by 1950s multi-colored Christmas lights. There was an open-air market, two restaurants, a craft shop, and a bar where they could have filmed the scene from Star Wars.

We were on a twenty-six day vacation, the longest of either of our lives before or since. We spent a little over two weeks at the beach, complete with “Thai food with every meal,” and four dollar per hour Thai massage on the beach. We then flew north to hill town Chaing Mai with a hundred step temple staircase and then to Bangkok for five days sight-seeing before another full-day-long flight.

Billie and I have since learned that we have different traveling styles. I prefer to cram every day chock full, maximizing every sight-seeing minute, and come home exhausted. Billie’s view is slo-mo, rest and relaxation, “Why-do-you-think-they-call-it-vacation?” She also wants to participate in the planning. We did not know this about ourselves then.

So when we finally arrived in Bangkok and taxied from airport to hotel at two o’clock, I was up for a tuk-tuk to a famous Wat. Billie balked.

“But it’s the Emerald Buddha.”

“No. It’s not. No more Buddhas. It’s just a lot. I have to lie down. You can go.”

Later in our relationship, I might have said, “You’re right. Let’s just rest.” This time I went by myself, sucked in the two-cycle engine fumes and Bangkok cacophony and journeyed to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

The ride was harrowing. Bangkok traffic is horrendous. The air is a gray-brown eye-burning muck. The tuk-tuk driver wore a once-white-snot-gray-green K-95 mask and “practiced” his English, looking back over his shoulder to continually make riveting eye contact, all the while racing his rickety motorized rickshaw like a fugitive demon, up on sidewalks, the wrong way around roundabouts. He stopped with a screech on the second step of the entrance to the wat.

I paid and penguin-wobbled up the steps, across the plaza into the temple. Monks with shaved heads and saffron robes and soldiers, mixed with tourist Asians, Europeans, and Americans. Suddenly, it went flip-switch quiet. People placed shoes in cubbies and sat or squatted.

I remember being disappointed by the Emerald Buddha. It was smaller than I expected. It was a milky green jade, not emerald at all. We had seen a lot of Buddhas. Perhaps I was jaded. Still the wat was serene. I quieted. I breathed, in through my nose and out through my mouth. Over the susurration of worshipers and sotto voce tourists, I heard running water. My eyes closed.

I don’t remember the particulars of my leaving. Retrieving my shoes? Other people? Hurrying back to Billie?

I just remember the solitary lotus – a purple cup on single stem poked between the plaza pavers. I remember looking over the rim of the flower at the yellow center and seeing movement. I bent, hands behind my back in an ‘L-like’ parade rest.

In the center of the flower was a gold-yellow dust storm. Looking closer I spied two small bees frolicking, splashing each other with pollen, tumbling over and over. First one was on top then the other. I projected my smile onto their small faces or perhaps they projected their smiles upon mine.

Time stopped. I watched these two insects play, seemingly intoxicated in a tiny pollen party. I don’t know how long I stood there. Two minutes? Twenty?

I do know that when the universe started up again, I had drawn a crowd. Surrounding me at a respectful nine feet was a two deep crowd circle, silently watching me, watching the purple lotus mini-rave.

“Oh,” I said sheepishly smiling . . . “bees” . . . pointing at the flower.”

As I departed, members of the silent crowd peered over the petal rim. Some lingered.

If I came upon this scene today, I might whip out my iPhone and snap a pic or two and hurry on.

And . . .

I might miss a wrinkle in space-time that captured my spirit in a magical scene, that has stayed with me – lo – these thirty-five years.