Tour de Nan

This past weekend, I got a visit from my good friend Hannah, who is teaching through PiA in Vientiane, Laos this year. She swung through Nan at the tail-end of her month-long teaching vacation, and like any good Thai hosts, we showed her the utmost hospitality. We provided fine amenities (a child-sized bicycle with faulty handle bars on which to get around); sampled traditional Thai cuisine (D-Milk and regrettable sticky rice logs); and showed her the historic sights of Nan (The Fifth nightclub). It was a classic Nan weekend of being gawked at by the locals, casual drinking, and relaxation... but with the added bonus of catching up with a friend from afar.

My Southeast Asian Other Half in the N-a-n

Hannah arrived on Friday afternoon - about an hour before I finished teaching and could make my way through a sea of high-fives to head home. Since I don't have an exact home address, and since we only had a vague idea of when the bus would get in, and since our Thai and Lao SIM card cell phones can't connect, we were going with a just-see-what-happens approach to meeting up. Everything worked out, though: Hannah ran out of a noodle shop - where she'd been sitting enjoying a Coke and studying Lao flashcards - and flagged me down as I turned down my street.

Friday night, Emily, Nicole and I took Hannah to our favorite riverside joint, which we call Ricky's - partly because we can't read the Thai restaurant name, and partly because we've befriended and nicknamed the waiter there "Ricky." Ricky doesn't speak any English, and never understands my attempts at Thai, but between charades gestures and a lot of smiling, we've formed a special bond with him. We even gave him our Christmas card last month, with our names scrawled on the back; he practically ran to the kitchen to show the rest of the staff, and now calls all of us "Anna?" (the only name he can pronounce).

In with the in-crowd

Ricky did us right with our usual order of cashew chicken and tom yum soup, and afterwards the four of us hit up a few "bars" (huts-that-serve-beer-and-whisky) and headed to The Fifth. Hannah was introduced to our motley crew of singer/DJ friends who work at the club: Gookgai, Poo, Tee, Pi Pong, Koko, Golf. They were excited to meet a new farang, and Gookgai even jumped off stage to sing at our table during one of his sets. Ajaans by day; groupies by night.

The rest of the weekend was spent pretty lazily. Saturday was Thailand's National Children's Day, Wan Dek - a holiday that sounds like it would solicit the celebratory equivalent of Grandparent's Day in America, but being a Thai holiday, is celebrated with great vigor here. Kids with balloon animals and paper hats and other free loot roamed the streets, play parks were set up at almost every public space in town, and a lot of businesses closed all weekend for the holiday. Of those that were open, I showed Hannah my favorite spots in Nan ... and was quickly reminded why Nan's appeal lies in its charm and personality, not its tourist attractions.

Cows, river... Welcome to Nan!

Monday morning, Hannah came with me to school before heading to the bus station. I asked my 6th grade class to "interview" her, one question per student, as a warm-up activity. Questions ranged from "When is your birthday?" to "Who are your best friends?," and a lot more kids wanted to know about the weather in Laos than anything about America.

Over the course the weekend, Hannah and I talked a lot about our respective experiences living in Asia so far. Even though we're in the same program, and living pretty close to each other on the Southeast Asia map, it sounds like we're having pretty different experiences in terms of work and daily life. But the appreciation for meat on sticks, stray three-quarter cats, and abundant mistranslations appears to be just as strong across the border. It's a small continent after all.