Road Trip

This weekend my friends--Kali, Rooney, Asa and I decided to rent a car and take a weekend trip to a province about 6 hours away called Nan. A couple of us had heard it was supposed to be beautiful and were intrigued by the idea of a road trip. It was pretty cheap to split the cost amongst the four of us... it ended up being a little less than 30 dollars per person.  I, of course, was the biggest worrier of the group and bought about 3 different maps just in case. But the drive actually ended up being very easy. The roads here in the north are marked really well and are very well kept so there was not much to worry about. We left on Friday afternoon and decided to just take our time, stopping along the way if we saw something that seemed like it could be interesting. While we were driving through this valley that had beautiful rice fields all around we spotted this round, golden thing peeking out between some hills. As we got closer we saw that it was this humongous Buddha statue perched at the top of this big hill. So we decided to turn off onto this little road and try to find it. On the way we stopped at this beautiful temple in the middle of this little village. We pulled up in our car and the temple dogs started barking so loudly... they did not seem happy that we were there. We could hear the monks chanting from inside. But eventually some of the monks came out and talked to us-- at that point the dogs had calmed down and were letting us pet them and play. The monks were kind and let us take some pictures. They also gave us directions to the Buddha on the hill and encouraged us to go and see it. We got back in the car and drove a little more until we reached the top of this hill. There was a series of steps leading up to the statue and dragon-like creatures lining the staircase on either side that had really beautifully carved, but very sharp, scales. It was so cool to stand under this massive thing and look up. It's eyes sort of gaze diagonally down at you and it is this beautiful golden color. The sun started going down and there was some thunder and lightning in the distance and everything cooled down a bit. The sky turned this great pink color--which created a great backdrop. We left before it got too dark. We drove until we hit the province of Phrae and decided to check into a guesthouse there and stay the night. We had a pretty good dinner at this little restaurant and then walked along this main road where there was a small food market going on. Kali and I got some mango with sticky rice that was phenomenal. Then we walked some more and ended up meeting this older man and his wife at this little shop who was from Phrae and we got to talk with him. It was so great because we were actually able to have a long conversation with him... we were so excited to be able to use our Thai and see that we could actually communicate with some one for a significant amount of time. After that we wandered over towards the moat in the center of town and ended up hanging out with this group of kids around our age who were from Phrae. Many of them were lady-boys, which is what Thai people call transvestites. There are tons of lady-boys all over Thailand and it is widely accepted to be gay here. You can hardly tell that many of them are men until they speak. But this group who we were hanging out with was great. They had a guitar so they were singing some Thai songs and they were so into taking pictures. It was a fun night.

The next day we drove the last 2 hours to Nan ended up getting there a little after noon. We kinda wandered around the city a little bit--which was much bigger than Phrae, and found this great guesthouse to check into after a little bit of hotel hopping. The rooms were huge, everything was so clean and there was hardly anyone else there. We drove over to the Nan river where we heard there would be boat racing going on. Nan is known for its boat racing--there is a big festival at the end of every November that is pretty widely known. They race these long skinny beautiful boats that are painted with intricate little designs. We got to see all the little novice racers load into their boat and push off. (It's only men who race) They count and make these cool grunting noises as they go to time when they paddle. Right near where all of this was going on was an outdoor aerobics class with a bunch of middle-aged and elderly men and women doing disco aerobics as this hilarious pump-up music plays. It was great to stand in between the two events and have the disco music in one ear and the grunting of these men in their boats in the other ear. It was quite the contrast. After that we drove across a little bridge and explored this great residential area that bordered the other side of the river. Then we found this cool restaurant that was right on the river... there was not another soul there but they opened it all up for us and handed us some menus. Of course, everything was in Thai but the menu was about 5 or 6 pages long so we knew there must be some good stuff on there. So we decided that we would randomly point to a few dishes and see what happens. A couple of them were really good but there was one that was extremely spicy and weird tasting. It is very possible that it could have been frog or snake or something though because later they found a English menu and handed it to us. But this was after we had eaten these things so who knows. Eventually more people filled into this place as it got later and there was a band playing live music and people were dancing which was fun. The next day, after searching for some coffee and anything resembling breakfast food, we decided to hit the road and just take our time getting back. We chose to take the more mountainous, rural route on the way back which ended up being a great decision because the views and the countryside was amazing. Lots of curvy windy roads and then sometimes it would flatten out as you were going through a valley. It was a beautiful sunny but very hot day and we stopped off to get lunch and see some temples along the way. We ended up getting back around 7 which was good because it meant avoiding the night driving. It was great to get away for the weekend and just see how other people are living their lives and also just to be immersed in something new. I hope I can do more while I am here. 

Here is the link to some more photos. 

http://s438.photobucket.com/albums/qq110/emilyfwolff/Phrae%20and%20Nan%20Weekend/