I have a lot of hair. Even with half my head being shorter hair because I had it shaved last year, I have piles of hair. But on this day, my "lot of hair" was unmanageable. I spent 15 minutes trying to brush it before school. Then we drove to school and I spent my first prep trying to get through it.
I eventually gave up after two episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race.
After school, I got home and set off looking for assistance.
There are piles of places to get your hair cut everywhere in Nong Khai. Every block has four places to get massages and three places to get your hair done.
The first step was to determine who on our block was a barber and who did women's hair. On our block alone, and we do not live in a busy part of town, there are two barbers and five stylists. On my third walk around the block, I decided on the one for me. There was a smiling woman sitting inside. We're going to call her Yai Hair.
I showed her my braid and made a cutting motion across the bottom of it.
We proceeded to have a "conversation" between her twenty words of English and my ten words of Thai. She pulled me down onto the bed with her and we "talked" for the 15 minutes it took her granddaughter to finish with the woman who was already in her chair.
I was then guided to an odd contraption where I was laid back into a large basin and she started washing my hair.
She called Buddha's name no less than three times in frustration. It took her over 30 minutes to get through what Yai Hair was calling "yellow knot".
She then brought me over to her chair and started trying to comb my hair.
25 minutes and a broken comb later, she had gotten through the top portion of my hair. There was still the bottom five inches that she and Yai Hair were now just explicitly calling "yellow knot". She walked to her cart, picked up a pair of scissors, and said: "YELLOW KNOT." I nodded encouragingly and she cut off five inches of my hair.
It was miraculous.
At this point, 4 other Thai ladies walked in and started touching my hair. They all worked together to give me a blowout. I think they were having more fun than I was and I was getting my hair played with!
Two hours after I walked in, I walked out. My hair looks fly and while walking away, Yai Hair yelled after me: "goodbye, Yellow Knot!"
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