Hang Chat Spotlight: Lung Ween and Lung Geet

With just a few weeks left in Hang Chat, we're happy to present another Spotlight feature on our favorite people and places in our little town. 
 
In this post, I'll introduce you to three of our favorite adoptive family members: Lung (Uncle) Ween and his wife (Mrs. Lung Ween, of course) and Lung Geet (we think that’s what he said).  

Lung Ween and his wife run a typical Thai restaurant in the giant front room of their home. Sara and I love their fried rice; it is the most flavorful in town by a mile. They are always happy to see us, and we go see them once a week for lunch like clockwork.

Why You Should Take a Cooking Class When You Don’t Like Cooking

I don’t like cooking. It’s time-consuming and I don’t like cleaning up the mess when I’m done. Not to mention the risk in trying out a new dish. I’ve had hours and dollars wasted on food that turned out to be awful when I followed a recipe, but somewhere along the line, created culinary poo. Well, lucky for me, Thailand is very conducive to my distaste for it. I haven’t had to cook once since arriving here (well, except that one time I made scrambled eggs in Mae Wang).The food is so cheap at about $1 a meal, so Jack and I enjoy signature Thai dishes everyday. This leaves our most complicated meal preparation as cereal or toast. (Yes, be jealous.)

New Year’s Doubler (the conclusion you’ve been waiting for)

After two nights home to refuel and get the laundry done, we started the second half of our vacation by heading to Nan, one of our favorite cities in Thailand (you can read about our last visit here). Because Nan is so far northeast, it is sort of an undiscovered gem inside the country. We took a LONG bus ride to the Nan bus station outside the city and walked to our guesthouse. We stayed at Nan Guesthouse, which was a good deal for the money, with a great location and a cafe with delicious breakfast right across the alley. We spent our first two days exploring the city, catching up on our internet surfing, and eating a lot of good food. We visited Poom 3, a nationally known restaurant with a famous chef/owner who appeared on a number of Thai TV shows. Sara ordered their signature dish, massaman curry, complete with apples, pineapple, and naan (in Nan!) It was so delicious, in fact, that she forgot to take a picture. We did find one in the paper though.

Back to Base Camp

After three days of intense relaxation, I was still not ready to go to work. But alas, putting in some time with OEG was going to help fund our month-long vacation. It turned out to be fun to meet two new groups of teachers, scare them shitless with spider and snake stories, and assure them they’d probably suck at teaching because we all do at first.

The most amazing part was going to Siam Niramit, which we did not attend when I was in orientation. It seriously blew my mind with a little bit of Thai history, theatrical depictions of heaven and hell, and a sampling of Thai festivals. Before the show, you can wander around a faux Thai countryside complete with crafting stations and musical entertainment.

Hang Chat Spotlight: PaPan

May I present a new section of our blog, Hang Chat Spotlight, where we’ll give you a peek into our daily lives by introducing someone very special to us. Today I’d like you to meet PaPan (Aunt Pahn).

Lampang: The Big City (relative to Hang Chat)

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.

เชียงใหม่ (Chiang Mai)

This weekend Jack and I made the first of probably many trips to Chiang Mai. I had an extra day off of school because of the Buddhist holiday Wisaka Bucha, so we headed out early Saturday morning. Turns out that probably wasn’t so necessary as the earliest A/C bus we could get was 11:00. (We may or may not have been lied to about this.)

In hindsight, we probably should have asked around to other companies. The way the bus stations work here is that each line has its own booth. Since everything was written in Thai, we had no idea which buses go to Chiang Mai at what time. Jack had bought a second class ticket on a previous trip to Chiang Mai, so we knew we wanted first class. Turns out the difference is night and day! (Bus station pro tip: Don’t trust people if it looks at all like they work for a bus company. Only the information desk will give you unbiased reliable advice.)

Our bus ended up being on Thai time, which meant it was about 40 minutes late. Once we got on, however, all our troubles dissipated. We purchased VIP tickets which, it turns out, are even better than first class. The A/C was refreshingly chilly, they served us water and a snack, and we each had our own little TV with music, movies, and games. All for less than $5 each! The ride was incredibly pleasant and we arrived in Chiang Mai in about an hour and a half.

We grabbed a tuk-tuk to bring us to the Tawan Court hotel. Since we don’t have A/C at the jungle house, we always splurge on it when we travel. We dropped off our stuff and headed out for some exploring and eventual dinner.

Chiang Mai was nice. You can tell it has been designed to cater to foreigners—almost everything is also in English. There are McDonald's, KFCs, and Pizza Huts. Tuk-tuk and songtaew drivers are constantly asking if you need a ride. Every third shop is a travel agency. It was almost annoying how many white people were there. Ok, maybe Chiang Mai wasn’t for us. I enjoyed visiting but now I’m glad my placement wasn’t here as I requested.

Tha Phae Gate into the old city:

Orientation

So, I've been holed up in an intense orientation for the last few days while Jack has been exploring Bangkok. My training consists mainly of Thai language, teaching ESL, and the Thai school system. The upside to the long, exhausting days is the food...every few hours. We get a buffet breakfast, coffee/snack breaks twice a day, and a buffet lunch. Yeah, we're pretty spoiled. Here are some samplings:

Day One of Bangkok Fun

How bizarre it felt to wake up this morning thinking, oh yeah we're in Thailand now! Once I heard one little noise this morning, I was wide awake and totally excited again.

Not exactly what I had in mind for my first Thai meal
but hey, we have places to go, people!

Jack and I got ready and headed out for some breakfast. We'd read that Thais don't really eat what westerners would consider breakfast foods like eggs, toast, pancakes, etc, so we decided to just get a few quick things at the 7/11 on our corner (they are everywhere here). We ended up getting yogurt, chocolate milk, iced coffee, coconut cookies, water, chopped mango, and spongey cake for about $3.50.

Most everything was better than we thought it would be (we didn't know what to expect so we kept our expectations low). I realized after we got back to the hostel that the mango bag said pickled mangos--uh oh! The ingredients list was also in English and I didn't see anything about vinegar so I suspected it might be a translation issue. Oh well, let's try it!

Why Thailand?

As if you really need to ask that question, here are a few things we are looking forward to.