Jack and I spent another night in Lampang this weekend. It’s the capital of our province and only about 15 minutes away by motorbike. Whenever we need something that we can’t find in Hang Chat, we can get it here. It’s also not a tourist-y city like Chiang Mai so we can experience authentic Thai life. We love it!The first weekend after I began teaching we headed to Lampang for a little stay-cation. As a reward for bearing the jungle house for a week, we splurged on a night at Auangkham Resort. At $20 it was a little pricey but well worth it. It was beautiful, clean, and very high-so.
This time around, we’re living on my Thai salary (can you believe I had to move across the globe to get a salaried job?) so we were a little more budget-conscious. Our friend Pii Pan recommended the Riverside Guesthouse, but they were booked when we got there. We hopped down thanon talad gao (the street that hosts the weekend night market) to the next nice-looking place, which turned out to be Tonnam Guesthouse. The place was totally empty except for a young boy. We used our broken Thai to ask if there were any rooms, and he started talking in Thai. Having not understood anything he said, we shrugged and looked at him blankly. He motioned for us to wait and ran off. We waited…and waited…After about 10 minutes, we wondered if we misunderstood. Five more minutes and we started to head out to the next guesthouse. Just outside the gate, a man waved us down and said he had a room. He spoke English! He showed us a room and said it cost $10. Sure! No A/C but we could live with that.
We dropped our stuff in the room and headed out to Grandma’s Café. We’d been there before for drinks and wanted to try the food. That grandma sure knows her stuff. We shopped around a little bit and relaxed at the guesthouse until the night market started. Seriously. Awesome. Pro tip: A local told us not to eat too much at one stand—best advice ever. There are so many place you can get a little of this and a little of that for 5 or 10 baht (15-30 cents). You’re going to want to try a lot, so pace yourself!
So many desserts! Thais seem to like the sweets just as much as Americans. Lucky us!
This curry place (below right) is on our list of must-tastes. All different flavors & they smell amazing!
We got one of these bananas, not knowing exactly what they were. Turns out it’s a banana covered in flavored bread that’s fried to order. We were not super adventurous and tried a chocolate. It wasn’t as tasty as we thought it would be…well, that’s what we get for having expectations!
Why in the world do these children need mittens?!
Buy and paint!
Yep, we wanted to take this little guy home. Jack wouldn’t let me so we bought some dog treats from this stand instead. We like to give them to the stray dogs we meet and the ones that live at our school.
How random that I would find this shirt in the middle of Thailand! The book was a great find as it’s probably my second favorite story of all time. This copy is a graphic novel and of course in Thai so hopefully it will help me learn the language and writing system a little faster.
We had a great time shopping. When we couldn’t eat anymore, we enjoyed the A/C and free internet at our guesthouse until we fell asleep. We will definitely be doing this again!
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