Another Weekend in Thailand

Friday: THAI TIME

Well, Friday was the beginning of the adventure that was this weekend. I went to school and taught two classes in the morning. Both of them were my babies so I got to sing Twinkle Twinkle for two hours. One child was able to sight read two verses without any help. You don't know how proud I am of him. Then at lunch, the school driver took me to the bus station, rattling off Thai like I completely understand the whole time. Get to the bus station to find that my bus is running two and a half hours late, mai pen rai. This meant there was no way I was going to get to my hotel in Lampang in time for check in before the meeting but when there is nothing you can do about it, just let it go. I wait and then finally get on the bus, only to realize that halfway there I forgot my passport. Again, nothing I could do about it then so I just kept going. I get to Lampang after longer than usual since it was raining all through the mountains and there were some accidents on the way.

Once I arrived in Lampang, I got a suntow to take me to my hotel. Or what I should say is, take me on a 45 minute tour of Lampang before taking me to a hotel that was actually close to the bus station to begin with. But hey, free tour. I arrive an hour late for the meeting with my organization, oh well. I was also on the first panel to talk about and share my experiences with orientation, training, adjustments and experiences while being here. After my panel and a few others, we were let lose on the city. That night was the first time that most of us traveled together to a bar rather than split into groups. We had a little fun, caught up and listened to a live band.

Saturday: WELL IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY

So Saturday was a day of panels and sharing. One teacher put her opinions about everything into a series of cat pictures that were amazingly adequate and made all of us laugh. I was awarded my TOEFL certification so cheers! After further sharing, we took a break and I got a massage by Oh Shin, my original massage lady from my first week in Thailand. She remembered me! And also popped every bone in my back while telling me I am sweet because the bugs eat me.

Okay, so after the massage I come back for our group dinner to find that they are celebrating August birthdays. And they included my name. In a presentation. In huge letters. And made a cake(ish). So I went with it. They even used trick candles on the banana crusted strawberry pineapple crisp topped with what is Neapolitan ice cream only by name.

So, since it was my friend's birthday and, well, it is my birthday as well, we went to an arcade. The running joke that entire night was "well it is your birthday." But yes, a group of farang teachers had so much fun in this arcade. We pressed buttons until things worked since directions were in Thai. They did not have ski ball, which almost made half of us walk out, but the throw balls at ducks game was fantastically fun. Especially when the balls bounce off the screen and fly around the arcade. Then we played a Thai version of DDR that even shows you how many calories you burned. Private karaoke rooms were available for 10 baht a song, which is super cheap and we did not get to race on the toy motorbikes because some children were being game hogs lol.

After we closed out the arcade (yeah, totally happened. They kicked us out at 10 pm), we went back to the hotel. Unfortunately the internet was out, and remained down for the entirety of our stay. However, this just meant we had hours to talk to each other. There was laughter, tears, head scratches, tickling, and the throwing of pillows but overall very good discussions.

Sunday: THAILAND TATOOS AND THE DAY I LOST THE VOLCANO

Okay, Sunday was one of those days that you could never have predicted, if you can't tell by the title. So, we finish up our meeting and sharing. Of course, the end of the meeting meant we all separate again, sadly. Only a few of us were staying for visa stuff the next day. Each group is assigned their own day for fun at the immigration office and my lucky day was today. But back to Sunday. I forgot my passport and had to go to Uttaradit and come back again on Sunday. Sounds simple enough, right? Take a bus, grab my passport, maybe lunch, take a bus back to Lampang. And really, all of those things roughly happened.

I took a bus back to Uttaradit in the morning. I had lunch with a friend that picked me up from the bus station. I got my passport. And then I went to Lampang on the back of a motorbike. A friend of mine likes motorbike rides that are a decent ride and Lampang is only 2 hours away. It may have taken us a little bit longer than two hours to get there. We stopped to take pictures of amazing views, often. Honestly, I thought the bus ride was gorgeous but it does not even do it justice. I even got to stop at a few places I have really wanted to, but was never able to since I was riding the bus every other time. There were times when my friend would turn to me and say, "Left or right?" Sometimes there was not a sign to show us the way to Lampang, so we went on whim. The weather was great. Cool mountain wind blew on your face and hot Thailand sun warmed your back. Not a bit of rain!

After numerous stops we were about 45 kilometers from Lampang when I saw a sign for the Lampang Volcano. Of course, I exclaimed, "Oh cool, a volcano! I want to see that!" My friend's response? Already turning onto the side road indicated by the sign. I question our spontaneous detour, mainly out of surprise. The response was: "When do you like to do things? Later?" So we went to the volcano. But got lost. Yeah, somehow we managed to not be able to see the volcano on a stretch of flat land. Sad. So we turned back, that day, and continued to Lampang, where we had dinner, dessert, and live music and drinks at the riverside. Both of us have absolutely agreed that going to Lampang again is going to happen. Beforehand we will look up directions for the volcano, go earlier in the day so we can go horseback riding and also take a lovely, refreshing trip down a lazy river. I do not have money for that this month but all of this will happen.

Oh, I left out an important detail of that day. Thanks to a careless dismount from the motorbike when we stopped for coffee early on in our trip to Lampang, I have now be initiated into the Thailand Tattoo club. If you don't remember, we call motorbike burns from touching the hot exhaust pipe Thailand Tattoos. There are more members in this club than the Got Hit By A Motorbike in Thailand club. And I also got my first decent sunburn since arriving. My last motorbike trip burnt my legs ever so slightly but this is a decent burn on my face, though it is not super red and is repairing itself quite quickly.

Monday: PALES IN COMPARISON

I spent three hours in an immigration office and got called an alien. Then I had lunch at a mall in Chiang Mai (which has an aquarium on the first floor, as all malls should). And finally, I took a bus home. And now I am recounting my crazy weekend and am thankful for internet. Here endeths the crazy adventures of another weekend in Thailand.