Sunday afternoon at the beach...

At the beach, our wait-staff (?) was the same as yesterday – a kid of about 14, kinda skinny with a haircut that’s approaching a mullet but is probably more a result of neglect than any particular styling.  He’s wearing long denim jeans and a faded red shirt with a n advertisement of some type on it.

He recognized us from yesterday and was right there to get our umbrella repositioned so that our chairs were in the shade (this is included as part of the service).  He wanted to know what we wanted to drink and was quick to rattle off the list of beer and soft drinks that they had.

2 Singha Beer were 160 Baht ($4.85) the first time, although prices seem to be somewhat in flux.  The kid spoke a little English, and had to stop and count on his figures when tallying up a bill.  Change also seldom matched up correctly, although it wasn’t enough difference to worry about.

We decided it was safe enough to order sandwiches after a while, which were advertised at 100Baht.  $3.30 isn’t bad for the equivalent of a 6 inch Subway sandwich.  After a little debate, ham and cheese seemed to be the safest of the choices (Tuna salad being the one most likely to lead to food poisoning in the heat), and he was right back with them.

Here’s the interesting thing.  We didn’t tip him during the day, and it wasn’t as though he expected it.  He was back smiling and checking on us every half hour or so, and even started to kid with us after a while.

People here seem to like to rub or poke Larry’s belly.  Maybe it’s because he looks like a Chinese Buddha, especially with his shirt off – it’s not derogatory, though, and is always good natured and done with a smile.  They don’t do it to Eddie – maybe because he’s hairier?  It is somewhat reminiscent of what a pregnant woman goes through, though, continually being patted or touched unexpectedly.

Anyhow, the kid came through one time when Larry had dozed off and giggled as he patted his stomach and asked if we wanted anything else.

At the end of the day, when we were packing up at about 4:00, he walked by and we called him over and gave him 200 Baht.  At first, he thought we wanted more drinks, until we finally explained that was a tip, for him.

It was like he was almost going to cry – this tiny bit of kindness, something that was really insignificant to us, caused him to sit down and talk to us.  He said his name was “Boi” (which we’re spelling phoentically – he said it like “Boy”, but with an uptick at the end) and wanted to know our names, which he then worked to pronounce until we were satisfied.  He wanted to know if we were coming back and how long we were staying, and then he shook our hands – several times, in fact.

It was really very touching, and he was quite sweet, although you could tell he wasn’t quite sure about it.

With that, we headed back to cool showers and to get the sand out of places where grit isn’t appreciated.