My trip to Central Thailand.

I've been trying to figure out what to say about my trip to Paew's family's house. I doubt I can put it all into word, but I'll give it a try. I learned so much about Thailand from this trip. To begin with I learned how to drive on the wrong side of the road. Over the four day trip I drove 1200 kilometers. By the end of the trip it felt OK, but at the beginning it was rather unnerving to make turns and go into what feels like the wrong side of the road.

As we drove through the countryside I got my first look at the non tourist part of Thailand. The places where life in is unfiltered for foreign consumption. Farms, factories, and family run businesses lined the road as we traveled. In my former posts I said I was going to Petchabun. I was wrong. That's the nearest big city. Where we actually went was a very small town called Si Thep. This is the town where Paew was born, and the town where her family still lives. As we traveled Paew explained that the house we were going to was hers. She bought it a few years ago, and at the time it wasn't much more than a concrete post frame covered with corrugated tin roofing material. While that doesn't sound like much, for Thailand just the fact that her family lived on land they owned was a pretty major deal. The next thing I found out was that the money that Paew has got from me has all been spent on re-modeling her house. Now it has a blue porcelain roof, and walls made from concrete block covered with a smooth skin of plaster. The floor is a concrete slab, and a very Spartan but complete bathroom is to the rear of the house. Since it's my money that did all this, Paew keeps referring to it as my house. Her family is just the same, they really expect me to come and live there. All that was pretty difficult for me to deal with when I got there. Her family is so totally welcoming, I felt really comfortable......we’ll socially comfortable, Thai lifestyle is not really something I'm used to. They really don't use furniture except for closets and dressers. When you sit down it's on the floor with a rice mat under you. The same for eating, food is brought to the center of the rice mat, and you eat right there. During the day the family,(and most of the neiborhood) hang out in a Palapa out side the house. It's built with an elevated platform where you sit, and a roof made with a bamboo frame, and palm frond shingles. When I first got there it was a little uncomfortable, but as I spent some time I realized it's really a comfortable was of life. It's kinda hard for me to sit cross legged for hours and hours, but they brought me a cushion and after a while I got used to just reclining on the rice mat either in the house or out in the Palapa. They were constantly trying to feed me, and they eat a lot of fish, so I had to decline as politely as I could quite a bit, but they didn't seem to take offense. The first night I was there, they put a bowl of what looked like a spiced and deep fried string beans in front of me, so I tried one. The flavor was pretty good, but it was way crunchier that a string bean should be. As I got closer to the middle of it I realized it was not vegetable.........not chicken, not pork, not beef.......oh shit, I'm eating a little fish. Well it turned out I was eating some sort of mudfish, that had a spicy stuffing. I politely finished it, but I didn't have another. When the family and friends sit in the house or outside the men sit on one side, and the women and kids sit on the other. That meant I was sitting with the a bunch of guys who didn't speak a drop of English, but nonetheless were very interested in talking to me. I did lots of nodding and smiling. Sometimes Paew was close enough to interpret for me but most of the time I had no idea of what was beng said, but I got the general idea that these were really sweet people who really seemed to like me. The second night we arrived at the house a little late, and the guys had worked their way through almost two bottles of Thai whiskey, so they were pretty buzzed, and even more talkative......great! They really wanted me to drink with them, but I was driving(on the wrong side of the road) so I really didn't want to drink too much. I had a little of the whiskey, but mostly just drank beer, and smiled and nodded a lot. They really seemed to want to take me out, either to go to a Karaoke bar, or to go play snooker. I wasn't really against going out with them, but not with them so drunk, so I told them I'd go out with them tomorrow night. So the next day I was outside on the palapa, and a group of guys showed up to take me out to play snooker. Paew had no intention of going to the snooker hall, so off I went by myself with all these Thai guys. Well we arrived at the snooker hall, and it really was snooker....not pool. Snooker is played on a huge table. It's like six feet wide, and twelve feet long. Ya know I had no idea how to play snooker, and there was no one there who spoke English to explain it to me. Anyway I just watched and did like they did, and actually had a really good time. Even without speaking their language I could tell that they liked hangin out with me, and I really liked them too. Paew eventually showed up to take me home, and I think she was a bit surprised that I was enjoying myself so much.

The next day we went to a local waterfall and had a picnic with Paew's Mom, her sister, and her two kids. This place was really beautiful. The water flows over limestone rocks it dissolves the rock as it flows over them. The rocks tend to shape themselves to the flow of the water giving the whole area a very soft and gentle look. Much like this whole country.

All in all I have to say it was a really eye opening trip. I think the experience of getting into the local lifestyle is like getting to level two of my travels. I'm not sure I could really move to Si Thep, and live there permanently like they want me to, but the idea of it swirls around in my head. What an interesting turn that would be in my life.