“Anyway, they were drinking some rot-gut lao bpa that they had bought for fifty Baht a bag. The five of them had a bag each and each person had flavoured his bag with his own favourite herbs, spices, flowers and bark, you know, as they do. Well, I was going through my routine, quite tipsy by now, I will admit, and they were all nodding and agreeing and passing me their lao to taste, which I did.
“The next thing I remember was seeing you and wondering where I was.”
“Oh, Ayr... that stuff is lethal and on top of everything else? You’re lucky you didn’t die.”
“Yes, maybe, Lek, but that’s Karma for you, isn’t it? Just look at our lives... We were schoolgirls thirty years ago and what did we want out of life?”
“Just the same as everyone else, I suppose,” replied Lek, “to find a nice husband
