Greater Northeastern and Northern Tour [PART 1]

I guess I should start from the beginning, but it has been a long trip - full of excitement, craziness and 50 teenage falangs. It was amazing, I wish I could do it over and over again. So, those who are reading are in for a bumpy, long and exhausting ride.

Day 1 - Suzanne and I left Nakhon Phanom at 7:30 am for Korat. Khun Pornchai [he will be referred to as "Papa Pornchai" or "Papa P" for the rest of my trip] picked us up at the Korat bus station after our 8 hour drive and I knew he liked us immediately. We had a nice talk with him about what we wanted to do in the future etc. etc. as we drove towards the Sripattana Hotel. When we arrived I saw some familiar faces - Clayton, Micheal, Tati. But there were also a bunch of unfamiliar faces that I could only recognize from Facebook pictures. I felt really awkward at first, as the “new girl”, but everyone was super welcoming and I made friends right away. After everyone had arrived, after I had introduced myself to everyone and we had moved our things into a hotel room with Emily [a girl from Michigan USA] we went on a 7 Eleven run. The first night set the ball rolling for the rest of the trip – everyone hung out together, I made a bunch of new friends and we went to 7 Eleven at least 4 times.

Phanom Rung Historical Park
Day 2 – We were up bright and early for breakfast, onto the buses [the boys were split up from the girls and had a completely different bus – the tour guides said it was because of “Thai culture” however I didn’t think that sitting next to a boy on the bus was such a big deal; oh well] and headed towards Ubon Ratchathani. On the way we visited Phanom Rung Historical Park which had the most beautiful architecture I’ve seen. It is an old Hindu religious site turned Buddhist site built over an extinct volcano. Apparently it’s over a thousand years old. We spent quite a while wandering the historical park, had lunch and shopped at some vendors and then continued to the resort. It was gorgeous! Every room had comfortable beds with canopies, a nice shower [I’ve missed one of those] and the rooms were set in a jungle of trees, tiki huts and flowers with a view of Laos and the Mekong River. The pool was massive, the dining patio sat looking over the river and everything was decorated with lights, gongs and tradition Thai fabric. A bunch of girls and I got all dressed up in our fanciest outfits to go and have Banana Flambé and Deep Fried Ice cream on the patio. It was heaven. That night I got stung by a hornet the size of my fist and my arm swelled up for the first week. It was very painful, very itchy and very annoying. I hate bugs in Thailand. Then, that night I hopped over Kalie’s balcony into her bedroom and sprained my toe – it was a good start to the trip I think.

Sao Chaliang

Day 3 – We woke up early, had a buffet breakfast of the most delicious food and left for Pha Taem National Park. First we visited Sao Chaliang, stone towers and a hilltop with a giant crack down the center. We all ran around taking pictures, resting on the rocks looking over the cliff and climbing down the crack. When it came to the group picture with THE BANNER [oh the horror] we were not interested in taking pictures. There were probably 25 cameras, and no one understood why one person couldn’t just take the picture, put it on the internet and send it to everyone – instead we had to endure the mass photo taking experience [it reminded me of dancing at Phra That Phanom] and about halfway through most of us just gave up and walked away from the scene. Then we went to the giant cliff where there were signs telling you to “Be careful of bees,” “Danger, No poke,” [??] and the tour guides ran around telling you to be careful. I think we realized we needed to be careful – we’re not THAT dense. I injured myself even more by walking full on into a hanging tree branch when I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking. I joked that by the end of the trip I would be in the hospital at the rate this was going. Before returning to the resort we visited two waterfalls. The first one had zero water and the pool at the bottom was just a bunch of rocks we jumped around on. However, the second one had a nice little pond that we went swimming in and a waterfall that we could stand under. We got back to the hotel early so a bunch of us decided to get a spa package for only $30 after we ate grilled cheese sandwiches. They were probably the most expensive sandwiches we have ever paid for, but they were delicious. The spa treatment was great. We had “time for tea” and then we had a nice bubble bath [I shared a bath with Kalie – funniest experience of my life], a body scrub, shower and then aromatherapy with coconut butter. That night everyone brought their instruments out and we played. My friend Friederike taught me to play “Twinkly Twinkle Little Stars” on the violin.

Day 4 – We left the resort and headed to Nakhon Phanom – my host city. This day was mostly driving but we did stop at a tower in Mukdahan to overlook the city and the river. We stopped again at Phra That Phanom, but since I’ve been there about 6 times before it wasn’t anything exciting for me. At dinner Khun Prapart [referred to as “Peter” or “P Dog” (except not to his face) for the rest of the trip] pulled me out of our hacky sack circle and made me read the Thai names for all the buffet food to show his Rotarian friends. He was really proud that I could read them, but it was really embarrassing and frusterating since my friends were standing right there. Dinner was good; Papa P serenaded us with his karaoke talents and a bunch of people got up and sang Abba and CCR. After dinner Suzanne and I took everyone to Meurang, our favourite coffee place for dessert. We fit 16 of us into a sam law normally suitable for 8 and the rest followed in the trunk of a pick up truck. I feel horrible for the people at Meurang – we took up almost all their tables and moved them around – I don’t think they’ve ever had that many people in there at one time. But they probably made a bunch of money from us that night so I don’t feel too bad. We walked back to the hotel and then a bunch of the Korat girls and I enjoyed a nice adventure on the elevator and touring the hotel. We found a deserted floor where there were no lights on and so everyone piled up there to hang out. It was pretty creepy – there was only one blue light on and there was a big set of double doors at the end of the long corridor that were locked. We told ghost stories and jokes before running back to our rooms for curfew.

Day 5 – After checking out we visited Ban Chiang National Museum where they had lots of artifacts dug out from archeological sites. Most of them were pots, but they also had skeletons and tools. After looking around we shopped at some vendors on the side of the road and then went for lunch in Udon Thani. We had Vietnamese food – I was in heaven. On our way to Loei we stopped at an Orchid Farm which wasn’t good at all – there weren’t any flowers. I bought some Orchid tea thoughJ. I really lucked out at the Resort in Loei - 6 of us girls got an entire house to ourselves. We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a porch. It was awesome. Before dinner we went on a walk to this convenient store where we sat and hung out with some of the Rotarians and the convenient store owners. They were really cool. At dinner a bunch of people came around handing out pins and business cards from their home countries – I’m excited to see what my jacket turns out like at the end of the year when I have it covered in pins and trinkets. Kat gave me a free foot massage while we watched a Thai TV show and drank tea. She has been taking a massage class and after getting 150 hours of massage work on other people she gets certified – I was her guinea pig for the week. That evening we sat around the resort talking, contacting spirits using a Ouiji board, playing soccer, laying on the hammock and watching TV.

Suan Hin Pha Ngam Park
Day 6 – We left the hotel and drove to Suan Hin Pha Ngam Park where we went up the mountain in groups of 10 and walked through the rocks and tunnels to reach the summit. It was lots of fun – I was with Clayton, Kat, Colin, Chris, Adrian, JP, Lena and Veronica as well as Papa P. It was one of the most enjoyable things we did the whole trip. When we reached the bottom we got in a song taew attached to a tractor and tried to race the other group to the bottom. Even though we were eating lunch soon we all went out and got sticky rice, grilled chicken and som tam for a snack. For some reason Exchange Students really love sticky rice. We were supposed to visit a temple on the way to our hotel in Phrae but we were running behind so we skipped over it. That night we took a song taew to the night market and wandered around. Kalie and I bought pomegranates for a snack and had a real mission opening them without a knife. When we returned to the hotel we went out to a Gay Disco Tech. The singers let us jump up on the stage and dance and they played a bunch of songs that I recognized! We danced all night, screamed and sang along to the parts of the songs that we knew and all piled into a song taew when we returned to the hotel. It was the best night of the trip.

The White Temple
Day 7 – The 4 am bedtime the night before really bit me in the ass the next day. We had to be up at 6 am and we left for Chiang Rai where we saw the “White Temple” [Wat Rong Khun]. This temple was the most amazing I had ever seen. It was all white, covered in mirrors and silver. Around the base were ponds full of pure white fish and the bridges and architecture were all white as well. Even the trees planted in the lot were white. Some of the statues were very odd – they had two red statues right at the gate, both made of skulls and demons; one was holding cigarettes and the other was holding a bottle of whisky. The temple was covered in the most grotesque and fantastical creatures I’ve ever seen. There were sea demons coming out of the ponds and spraying water from their mouths, little gremlins at the base of the stairway and underneath one of the bridges were hundreds of stone hands reaching up, some of them holding skulls and others holding coins people had thrown in. The inside of the temple itself was the most amazing. Along one wall was a mural combining all of the most popular fictional characters with demons, smoke, and death. On the mural were characters from Superman, The Matrix, Star Wars and War of the Worlds. There were images of cell phones, sumo wrestlers, the Twin Towers, planes, taxis and alcohol. All of these were intertwined with long fingers, the faces of demons, teeth, blood and fire. It was intriguing, yet unsettling. After lunch we went to the Golden Triangle – the place where the Mekong River splits between Laos, Myanmar and Thailand forming a triangle. It was cool to see, but shopping there was more fun. Everyone ran around looking for presents for their Secret Santas while I sat down and had a long conversation with a street vendor selling tea. She gave me and Audrey some free tea for sitting and talking to her and her husband, but the coolest part was the way she made the tea and then made us roll this ceramic tube along our necks, our hands and our fingers. It was very queer, I didn’t quite understand it, but it was really interesting all the same. After we checked into our hotel at Mae Sai I went shopping with Kat and Kaitlin as well as some others. We got separated and so we decided to walk up a giant staircase [probably 200 of the largest stairs ever] to the top of a hill overlooking the city. Before the climb I saw some Thai girls playing badminton and asked to play with them. I wasn’t very good, but it was still fun. When we reached the top of the staircase we made our merit at the temple and then wandered. I found a tree around the perimeter of the temple with a pile of Buddha and monk images that must have been discarded. It was the weirdest mixture of images at one time – a beautiful blooming tree, under which there laid colourless and broken images. We went to the Disco Tech that night too, but it wasn’t very good so when we returned we pulled our mattresses into another room and had a sleepover on the floor.

I will write another blog entry tomorrow about PART 2 because there is just SO much to write, and this blog entry is already much longer than it should be.

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" - Bob Marley