hang chat

We boarded another bus from Lampon to Hang Chat, the small town where Caroline teaches. She picked us up on her motorbike and took us to her house separately in 2 trips. When we arrived, we were both so exhausted from the lack of sleep on the night bus. Caroline took Lisa home first and by the time I got there, she was curled up in bed sound asleep. I really really needed a shower, so Caroline showed me where the towels were and how to work the shower and within two minutes before i made it to the bathroom, I too had passed out sprawled across the bed.

Caroline has a washing machine, which was very exciting for us because we and our clothes were fowl. We got to put on fresh clean clothes that she loaned us and threw everything (backpack and all) into the wash. It was so luxurious.

Once we woke from our nap, Caroline took us into town on her motorbike so we could eat lunch. We piled it 3 deep, a feat which she herself had never attempted. Only owning two helmets, she also suggested that none of us wear a helmet so "we're all in this together". Her logic was flawless so we agreed.

She first took us to a favorite lunch spot of her's where she seemed to had ordered "her usual". We also leaned some more about ordering food, which, at this point, was still a very daunting task at meal time. She said if the place had a wok, we could pretty much order anything: stir fry, pad thai, etc. After lunch, she took us to her friend's coffee shop. We ordered iced coffee over shaved ice- kind of like a snowball. A note about Thai coffee. It is a desert. If you order iced coffee here (or even regular coffee), standard procedure is espresso, condensed milk, and some sort of condensed milk-sugar mixture. So when we ordered it with the shaved ice, it turned into an incredible mountain of sweetness, which she covered with chocolate chips, gummies and cookies. And I ate it all. Once we were all in an acceptable food and sugar coma, we all piled onto the motorbike again and headed back home.

Caroline's house is so lovely. It is on the school grounds, which she shares with a few janitors, but she gets an entire 2 bedroom house to herself. Most Thai buildings are designed to be more or less open to allow breeze but keep out bugs. The upstairs has really high pitched ceilings with open windows all around and an upstairs balcony porch. We took a load off on this balcony porch and it started raining. It rained until dark. And it was perfect because we were tired and might have otherwise felt obligated to be out sight seeing. Instead we just sat in clean clothes watching the rain on the porch and talking for hours. It was a great lazy day.

This particular day was a Buddhist holiday that celebrates the day that the Buddha was born, was enlightened and died. Caroline's friend, Pi Lan came over on her motorbike to help transport us all to the temple. When she pulled up, she said "On behalf of Hang Chat, thank you for comming!" She brought us candles to carry at the temple and instructed us on the process of circling the temple three times while carrying the candle and we were instructed to make a wish. She announced before we started that her wish would be to be Kate Middleton because she loves Prince William. I think she was joking (?). We went inside the temple and she showed us how to kneel and bow three times in front of the Buddha. Then we all went to eat. Caroline had told us stories about Pi Lan frequently telling her how fat she is. We surmised that Caroline and Pi Lan were, in fact frienemies. Once we were at dinner, PiLan began telling Caroline how much smaller we are than she is. She even described us as "Thai size". We tried to say that the three of us are all about the same size, but she wasn't having it. That is, until Caroline suggested that Pi Lan and I place our arms side by side on the table in comparison. Once my arm was exposed she recoiled at the sight of my enormous American forearm and then agreed that, yes, were were all over-sized disgusting Americans.

The next morning was Caroline's first day back at school after her break, so she brought us in with her to show us around. All the little Thai students were so cute in their uniforms. We got dragged into a classroom of 12 year olds and shown off in front of the class. Basically, the kids were totally unimpressed.

We planned to go to the nearby pre-researched elephant conservatory during the day while Caroline was teaching and we were going to take her motorbike. She gave me a quick lesson on how to drive this thing and then left us alone to brave the super highway with my freshly aquired gear changing and foot-breaking skill. I was mildly terrified at first, but once we got out on the road it was pretty ok. The tricky thing is that the scooter lane also functions as an emergency lane/ loading lane/ hanging out lane/ the occasional bicyclist on the highway lane, so it takes a good deal of paying attention. But we made it. Finally: Elephants!

First is an elephant show. We sat in the bleachers accompanied by 2 other people, so it was basically a private performance for 4. We giddily smiled and snapped pictures as the elephants performed a number of impressive tasks including painting (the most impressive), playing musical instruments and rolling and stacking logs as a team. At the end we got to buy corn and bananas to feed to the elephants, who approached the stands expectantly when they were finished with the show.

We promptly made our way to the elephant riding station to fulfill the most anticipated activity of the Thailand trip. It began raining as we paid our Bahts and boarded our elephant into a bench seat on its back. Even though it was raining and we were soaked, we were quite pleased to tough it out for a full hour ride. I think we both expected to be able to straddle the elephant, as one might a horse, and were a bit disappointed by the bench. As a consolation, we removed our shoes and rode with our bare feet touching the elephant's back. It was pretty great. When we were almost back to the center we saw a dog (there are loose dogs everywhere here) happily come across an enormous pile of elephant dung larger than the dog itself. The dog inspected the pile for a moment and then took the opportunity to roll in it. What a find!

After the ride we toured the grounds. There is an elephant hospital on site and we got to see an especially mangled elephant that had been damaged in a fight. Also they have a mother and baby elephant on display and we got to spend a lot of time freely interacting with both. The baby tried to take my camera. It had a soccer ball.

Once it was time to head back, I had to get help from a Thai man when the motorbike refused to start again. We became extremely self-congratulatory when we managed to find our way back to Hang Chat and even stop at the iced-coffee-snow-cone desert place. We didn't even have to place an order- just walked up and she said "Same as yesterday?" Yeah, we're pretty cool around here. The shop's owner, Ann, and her mother were both VERY impressed that we rode all the way there on our own. Apparently the self-sufficient farong on a motorbike is a rarity in these parts.

When we got back, another one of Caroline's teacher friends wanted to take us out to eat in Lampang. Summed up earlier as "a real spitfire" (by us upon meeting her), Pi Pan is a short happy spunky Thai lady in a shiny pink skirt suit. She took charge of the table and ordered us heaps and heaps of food that just kept coming. It was all so delicious and we ate and ate like it was no thing. Around the same time, everyone began to get progressively less comfortable. Faces turned red. Tiny beads of sweat began forming on hairlines. Noses were wipes and tears rubbed away. Oh my god. This food was spicy! And there was nothing to do except keep eating. Stopping only made it worse. "Fight fire with fire!" was our anthem as we plowed through the offerings challenging us from the table. Pi Pan commented that the food was very spicy for her too and that farong don't eat this food. Well, we brushed our proverbial shoulders and tallied another rite of passage into hard core Thai immersion.

Once we had had some time to wash our hands and sit with ice in our mouths for a bit, Pi Pan dropped us off at the Big C because Caroline needed a few things. It was very exciting. Basically a Walmart. But Thai. So different. Same Same, but different. We marveled at shiny new things, florescent lights and skin-bleaching products. As per our first night in Cha Am with Caroline we decided to pick up some beer and do another taste test of cheap 40s available at the Big C. Chang, Tiger, Singha, a few with horses on the front...

Pi Pan returned to take us back home and she had her poodle, MuMu in the car with her. Dog-starved, Lisa and I descended on the creature passing it back and forth and talking to it with huge grins on our faces. Back at Caroline's we sat on the balcony until the we hours eating snacks, sampling a table of beers and chatting to the musings of local geckos, Sarah McLachlan and Phil Collins. I mean, seriously...

Next morning, another day another city, and back into our old travel-stained clothes.