I wake up late. Again it’s 40 degrees. I’m glad Mod turned me down: last thing I want is to make her feel bad in the morning. It was just a fleeting moment, although I’ve only learnt this as the day progressed. As for Vientiane girl, she’s doing her thing and if you want you can follow her. I doubt she’s a keeper, not in her current job anyway, but she’d be a great companion for a few days, I’d imagine. I will call my girlfriend soon, and she will ask 1000 times why I didn’t pick up the phone last night. It’s OK, she’s got these farang friends from Chicago. She can think of them. She doesn’t want a Thai man. This is not negotiable. She’s one of those Thai women (a small minority) who would never ever marry a Thai man. I bear no grudges against Western women. I only know I fancy Asians, physically but also because they have a way of making me feel home. She met these men, friends of a friend whose wife is from her hometown, now raising a child and freezing to death in Chicago, just before we met, a couple of years ago. She’s a natural host, she likes people, she took these men around Thailand, they came here on holidays from Korea, when they finished their year teaching English there. Lately she’s been chatting with them on Facebook, a habit she quit a long time ago when I asked her to in a bout of jealousy. I’m not jealous now, I think, although I’ll miss her when she’s gone.