Falong

Our night out at the bar went surprisingly well. It was a place deep in the market called Monkey Island, it was right on the bank of the Maekong river and directly across from Burma. I'm not sure if you could even call it a bar because there was almost no alcohol there. Anything we asked for they shook their heads at, and eventually Hannah informed us that all they had in the place was beer, some wine cooler things, and whiskey (but you had to buy the whole bottle). We couldn't communicate enough to order anything besides a beer tower, which we split 8 ways. I'm pretty sure we ordered 6 of those throughout the 3 hours we were there, each costing less than $9 and consisting of 8 good pints. Once we split our tab the next day I had spent only about $1.50 for the whole night. You really can't beat Thai prices.

While there I also met 4 different Frenchmen and chatted with them for a while about what they were doing in Thailand. Some were our age and volunteering like us, some were just bumming around Asia. The group of French volunteers were led to the bar by some leathery ex-pat with a ponytail, who pointed to us and told them "see this place is good, full of falong." (Actually spelled farang but is pronounced falong. R=L hahaha) I recently learned falong means white foreigners, namely us. Now that I know that I hear it all over the place. Anyways, Molly soon after referred to this guy as Crocodile Dundee, which inspired me to teach her about Crocodile Done-deal. If anyone will bring that back home and continue it, it's Molly. We had earlier been discussing how Neil should skinny dip across the river and over to Burma, and she used it in the sentence "so swimming naked to Burma would be a Crocodile Done-deal." Exactly.

I went to bed as soon as we got home because we were getting up early once again Sunday morning. Ava arranged for us to go to the Golden Triangle, the House of Opium, and some gardens dedicated to the royal family. We stared at the House of Opium which is a pretty cool museum all about the huge poppy fields and opium trade that used to dominate this area. Overall I learned that making and smoking opium is a really involved process, like ridiculously complicated.

We drove from there down the road to the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Laos, and Thailand all meet at the Maekong river. Look it up on a map, it's pretty cool. There was a giant market there and we spent the whole time shopping for funny looking Thai style (or as Ava would say "Thai sty") pants. I bought 3 different pairs, which I will look ridiculous wearing anywhere but Thailand. Now I need more shirts desperately.

From the Golden Triangle we went to some place called the Dei Tung gardens, which is a giant museum/garden/villa dedicated to the royal family, specifically the Princess Mother or the King's mom. I need to do more research about the current royal family since from what I gathered they have a pretty interesting recent history. I guess at the turn of the century the King didn't have any heirs, so they had to figure out the lineages and find the next closest distant relative. Then they called them up and told them their sons were going to be the royal family. Out of the blue. Can you imagine? Then the first son mysteriously died early in his reign and the next son had to take over. I need to google it all once I have more time.

To go into the Princess Mother's royal villa at the top of the mountain we had to be in modest dress. And since all us girls were wearing tank tops and shorts we were given denim fisherman's pants and shirts. We looked like Asian lumber jacks, and were sweating like crazy in denim suits in that humidity. We all looked fabulously ridiculous. I had a hard time taking the audio tour of the villa seriously because it sounded like a bunch of propaganda. You can't say anything bad about the royal family here, it's pretty serious. Like jail time serious. So listening to the audio tour go on and on about how wonderful and beloved everyone is was a little comical. I just kept rolling my eyes in private.

Photo credit Molly

To finish up we went back to Mae Sai for dinner at a nice buffet place. This meal was expensive, 300 baht or $10 per head. But it was the most variety I have seen yet in Thailand. You could cook your own meat again or eat the stuff already cooked. I opted for already cooked and went through picking out everything I recognized. That meant sushi, tempura, bamboo soup, yakisoba, hum bao, and gyoza. So many gyoza. It was wonderful, the most full I've been yet

Upon leaving the mall we realized it was pouring yet again, making for a quiet Sunday night in. We are all currently sitting out around our meal table journaling, writing postcards, and getting bit by mosquitoes. I am scheduled to teach a 3 hour block of English tomorrow with Amy, and as of yet we still can't come up with what we're going to do. I don't think we'll wing it but I don't know what these kids already know, so I'm sure it will be largely improvised. At least it's not the wall...



PS. I just snagged this gem from my roommate Lee. This is the kind of thing we wear to work in. Or at least I do; I look like a man most days. A man with jelly shoes.