Sabbatical Journey: Return to the "Golden Bowl"

From 1990 until 1993 we lived in the small provincial capital of Angthong which means ‘golden bowl.’ I’m not sure why it has this name but it was our home for three years. Angthong is one of the smallest provinces in Thailand. It is about 100 km north of Bangkok and the province is filled with rice fields and temples. Our son, Matthew, was born during our time there and many fond memories remain as well as some hard-learned lessons. We got a chance to go back for a day but we wondered if we would be able to find anyone we knew since it had been almost 20 years since our time of living there. This, of course, was before the days of email, internet, cell phones, facebook, etc so it was difficult to stay in touch with people.

We did not have our own vehicle so we had to rely on public transportation, motorcycle taxis, and our feet on a very hot day. We ducked into a few shops that we used to frequent to see if some of the same store owners were there. That didn’t go very well. We then decided to go to the area where the first house we rented was but we found that it had been torn down. However, the neighbor across the street was a well-known man in town that we knew so we went to his house. The woman who came up to meet us while the dogs were barking turned out to be Somkit’s wife. We recognized each other right away and had a good time visiting. Somkit died eight years earlier of a brain aneurism. His wife told us that just the week before we showed up she and her daughter were talking about us after seeing an old picture. It was a picture of Ann (their then 18 month old) and Christina (about 3+) with Matthew in the background. She pulled out the picture a little later which you will see below. Ann now has an 8 month old daughter but she was out on business. We asked about locating the father of my best friend, Itti. We were reminded how to get there. His house was still the same. As we approached the house a policeman asked us what we were doing. After I told him he smiled saying that he was an in-law of the family. Going in we met Itti’s younger sister and his father. They treated us like royalty. Itti tragically died in a car accident less than two years after we left Angthong. We have been very concerned about Noy, his widow, and their son, Geng. Itti’s insurance had lapsed and so Noy was saddled with paying off the totaled truck that Itti had been driving. We wanted to stay in touch with her but had lost contact. Itti’s sister called Geng and we talked on the phone. He has gone on to graduate from college and has been very devoted to his mother. We got Noy’s number and we talked to her later! She has been working in the same factory job for almost 30 years. We hope to get a chance to see her in person.

We walked back to Somkit’s house and got to see Ann. They invited Christina (who wasn’t with us) to come to visit them. Later, we tried to find some other old neighbors but we were not successful. However, we left Angthong very glad that we had the opportunity to meet some people we cared about. Our hearts and minds were flooded with a ton of memories from many years before.