Off To The Salt Mines...

Yesterday afternoon ended with my boss rushing into the Nan Hospital, expecting to find me in the Emergency Room, after receiving a panicked phone call to the school about a foreign teacher being in a traffic accident.

Taking the "Air Blade" out for a first ride

Luckily, I wasn't there. In fact, I hadn't been in an accident, nor had I been injured in any way; neither had any of the other foreign teachers I'd just spent the weekend with. (Not to mention there isn't traffic in Nan Province anyway). The panicked phone call to Prakop was in response to a flat back tire on my rented motorbike - which I'd rented for the long holiday weekend to drive up into the mountains on an epic end-of-year camping trip with the rest of the Nan Farang Bicycle Club. Yep, this past weekend I went "camping" AND drove a motorbike in Asia... There's a first time for everything.

Our unofficial motley social club set off early Friday morning: 3 Americans, 1 Brit, 4 Flemish-speaking Belgians, 1 Dane, and 1 South African on 6 motorbikes, headed toward Pua, a small town an hour northeast of Muang (City) Nan. The drive out of the city was instantly gorgeous; we coasted through fields and fields of green rice paddies, climbed hills of lush banana-trees, and at the top, gazed out an incredible mountaintop views. As our friend Kristoffer, who lives in and we picked up in Pua, later said: "I was just having a Julie Andrews moment the whole away..." Literally, the hills were alive with the sound of music.

After grabbing lunch in Pua (at a roadside shack that served the BIGGEST and most delicious pad-see-ew noodles I've ever had), we powered onward toward Doi Phu Kha, a large national forest in Nan with the highest mountain in the region. Many hilltribe communities - who make up some 10 percent of Nan's population, and who live very remote and traditional lifestyles - live in and around Doi Phu Kha, and their villages and bamboo huts line the roads that cut up through the mountain. We stopped occasionally to hike a path or see a viewpoint.

View from Doi Phu Kha mountain

By sunset, we finally reached the Boklua View Resort in Bo Klua, a town even further outside Doi Phu Kha Park,  whose name literally means "salt mine" (a staple the town is known for). The resort is built into the side of a mountain, and the views were spectacular. Unable to secure (or afford) one of the resort cabins, we asked about the "tent" option, and within moments we were taken to the hillside in front of the cabins where 5 camping tents were neatly pitched in a row. We shoved our backpacks into the tents, sat down at the resort patio bar, ordered a few beers.... and stayed there until about 12 a.m.

Luxurious resort accomodation

The next morning, battling mild sunburn and Blend 285 Thai whisky hangovers, we piled onto our motorbikes and headed for some sightseeing around the town. Further up the mountain, we found a cheap homestay to sleep in, and after setting down our stuff and convincing the owner that, of course, we could fit more than 2 people into those small bamboo box on stilts, we set off for the namesake Bo Klua salt mines. After following a series of wrong directions - (unfortunately, it's very Thai to just affirmatively point off in one direction and give an arbitrary number of kilometers instead of saying "I don't understand you") - we found them. "Them" being a single mud hut room full of wells of salt and as steamy as a sauna. We checked out the gift shop, trying to understand how this place became so well advertised, but soon decided that the waterfalls would be a more satisfying sight.

This time, our directions were slightly more clear. Our only misstep was following a sign up a steep rocky dirt hill instead of the normal road after it... but within minutes a Thai man in a cowboy hat was bumper-butting my motorbike with his, yelling "Hey! You! You! Welcome! Nam dtok, over there!" With his helpful guidance, we reached the entrance to the waterfall.

A short hike later, our group reached the falls themselves - along with a big open swimming hole. The water was absolutely frigid, but the idea of coming all that way and being at a waterfall in Thailand and conveniently having my swimsuit handy meant that I had to dive in. We swam until the pins and needles turned to numbness; then dried off in the still-hot afternoon sun and spent the rest of the time sitting and talking on surrounding rocks. 3 of our 9 club members were technically guest members: a Belgian couple who were visitor friends of our friend Benjamin, and Helen, a girl we'd met at the bus station the day before who was traveling through Nan and wanted in on our adventure. It was fun to have new additions to the gang, and I have to say, the group chemistry was dy-nam-ic all weekend long.

When the sun started to set, we made our way back to the homestay, where the host family was setting up the front yard with large speakers, light strands, and a long table set with the standard Thai blue plastic patio chairs. One of the (presumably) daughters, Ning, came over to us to offer food, and to ask us if we liked music and if it was alright if they had a party going on until 10 or so. Ohh Ning, you have no idea how alright it was.

It didn't take long after sunset for the old Thai men to arrive at the house with their whisky... the spicy pork and fried rice platters to come out.... the outdated-but-never-tiresome American pop songs to play on repeat over the speakers. It also wasn't long before we'd all been asked to join the party - and join we did. We started a full on dance party in the middle of the lawn, twirling around old Thai men and small Thai kids alike - the men giving us shots of whisky, the kids challenging us to hula-hoop contests (and always winning). When I grew exhausted from our increasingly intense and hilarious dance party, I sat down with some of the Thai woman and rambled off every word or phrase I knew in Thai, which inevitably makes you besties-4-life with your audience, regardless of whether you make any real communicative sense. The women were soon were putting babies on my lap, photographing me with extended relatives, and feeding me. Standard.

Six peas in a pod

The next morning, we downed our 'free breakfast' of instant coffee, hot water, and boiled peppered rice, and left the salt-mined Bo Klua for Nan city. We took the opposite way down the mountain as we'd come. The drive was again stunning, but also long, hot, and full of steep construction zones when we'd have to drive several kilometers over loose gravel and guardrail-less winding dirt roads. It wasn't so bad, especially for my first weekend ever driving a motorbike - but it took a serious toll on my bike tires. By the time we reached the flat ground of Nan city, my inner back tire had completely blown and was drooping out of my deflated outer tire.

We pulled over to the side of a road, and although it was in a quiet back area of town, within 30 seconds two women were at our side pointing to my back tire and looking around for help. They were followed by a third man on motorbike who gestured for me to follow him on my broken bike to a nearby garage. There was a lot of back and forth at the first garage, which couldn't fix my tire; so a fourth man took me on his motorbike to fetch a mechanic from a different garage. As the mechanic assessed the damage, two more sunhat-clad ladies had come out of their houses, to offer us food and ask us endless questions in broken Thai-English. They confirmed that we were American and worked at Bandon Sriserm School, then called yet another woman out to meet (or just stare at) us. While we sat on a house stoop dodging all the Thai questions we couldn't understand, one of my 6th graders biked by and shouted, "Hello Ajaan Caitlin!" The whole gang shouted after the poor kid and made him turn around, yelling in Thai, "Speak English to your teacher! Speak English!" Sadly, said student is possibly the worst English speaker in all of 6th grade... so he just stopped, smiled, and was of no help to the women.

When I eventually got back to my room and charged and turned on my cell phone, I saw I had a missed call from Aj. Prakop and called back. She said the school had received a phone call earlier saying a Sriserm foreign teacher was in an accident. Unable to get ahold of me, she went to the site where the caller had said the accident was - a temple right near, but behind a wall from where we were then sitting waiting for a standard tire replacement. Seeing nothing at the site, she and Aj. Anne had rushed to the hospital to ask about an injured foreigner. The hospital staff assured her that no foreigners had been to the hospital that day, and so Prakop returned home until I called and straightened our stories out.

All in all, it was a weekend that epitomized everything I love about Nan: stunning scenery, friendly people, delicious food, and a gossip highway more efficient than any you'd ever find in a big, salt-mine-less city. I'm lucky to call it home - for just another 8 days, then not until I'm back in June!

Roses are Red, Ajaans are Keychains

This past weekend started with an 'unveiling' (or more actually, a totally unannounced overnight construction) of an 7 x 11 ft. banner outside our school, featuring yours truly and the other 3 ajaan farang, along with the directors and a group of my students who placed at a national English competition. I remember clearly the morning the photo was taken a few months ago; the showers hadn't worked in our apartment for about 48 hours prior, and a moment after we trudged into work feeling more disgusting than usual, a student informed us we were needed downstairs for a photo-op. I've had a lot of photo-ops during my time in Thailand - all unprepared for, and most after a long day of sweating... But this is the first to wind up on an enormous billboard that faces a main intersection in town. Already I've had random acquaintances tell me, "I saw you! Very big!" The thing looks like it's there to stay for a while, so I guess I best be getting used to seeing a 7-foot tall unflattering image of myself on my way to work everyday....

 

Living larger than life in Nan

The rest of our weekend was a bit more... low-key. After being away for weeks traveling and vacationing, our Thai friend Lak and her American husband Matt were finally back in Nan this week. Lak and Matt live permanently here, and were among our first and most welcoming friends when we arrived. In Lak-style, she rang in her return weekend by taking us to a delicious dinner, coming out with us for drinks Friday night, and on Sunday, showing us around the jewelry 'factory' she and Matt run. Regrettably, it had taken us almost 9 months of living in Nan to visit the factory, even though it's a gorgeous property on the lake, and only about a 10-minute bike ride across the river from us. 

What it looked like, before moms got tucked in bed.

Sunday also happened to be the annual Nan Fishing Festival (that's a non-official, CP-coined term) at the lake: a day when apparently once a year people come from all over the city to fish, drink whisky, and then eat or sell the fish they catch on the banks of the lake. There are no rules or regulations as to what you can catch or keep on this day: whatever ends up on your line, is yours. The fishing action was winding down when we arrived Sunday afternoon, as was the drinking action... There were just a handful of old men wading into the brown water with fishing rods, and a few women squatting with grills piled with fish. Around 5 p.m., Lak's 50-something year old father swung by the factory to report that Lak's mother had already gotten sick and been put to bed. (Lak's translation: "When he drunk my mother takes care of him, so he says he do the same for her!" Secret to a lasting marriage? I think so). 

Can I move in?

Lak and Matt are building a house on the fishing lake, and the site - already a year or so into construction - is absolutely stunning. It overlooks the water on the front side, and towards the back, endless green fields of rice and tobacco crops. Lak said it stays green like that all year long, and she's planted a huge and gorgeously messy garden with mango, coconut, rambutan, and durian trees in it. The whole house is being built around a swimming pool in the center, which overlooks the garden. Soooo basically, I'm gonna try my best to spend all possible free time here when I return to Nan in hot, hot June.

Monday back at school felt like the culmination of all our hard work in the office this past month, with a school-wide Student Exhibition Day. Parents and school supervisors came to campus to view portfolios of student work - everything from science experiments to painted rocks to Thai exams. A huge stage was set up on the field, and one by one, each English Program class put on a performance - either a song and dance, or in the case of 6th grade, a production of Beauty & the Beast. The 6th grade kids practiced unbelievably hard, and the end product turned out amazing. The best part was seeing some of the "wallflowers" in 6/1 (I use that term relatively, since 6/1 is a full cast of characters) step it up for the show. Tay, a tubby kid who typically isn't the most 'talented' English student, went all out to memorize and play the part of handsome and self-centered Gaston, while James, a gumpy shy class-monitor type, won the part of Belle's crazy inventor father, and my vote for Best Actor. I firmly believe all Thai kids have a serious future career  in the theater.

Funny Valentines

Since Monday's Exhibition coincided with Valentine's Day, it was also filled with showers of heart candies, paper roses, real roses, sticks of chocolate, and other various goodies kids could buy at the school store and deemed an appropriate ajaan gift (I got my very first Valentine's soy milk!). Bam, possibly the sweetest kid in first grade and now nicknamed The Giver, ran up to us after school to give Aj. Emily a rose. She realized she didn't have one for me, and so for a consolation gift hugged me, slowly placed a single baht coin in my bike basket, and cooed, "Aj. Caitleen beaoooootiful!" I'll take it, Bam.

Ajaan keychains: get 'em while they're hot!

One of our Thai co-teachers came up with a brilliant Valentine's Day sales idea for the 5th grade English booth: she printed and laminated miniature photos of the four foreigner teachers, had the kids attach them to key rings, and sold them to parents and students at a table alongside porkballs on a stick. Some photos of us were headshots; others were blurry candids taken from Facebook or random school events. There was even a deluxe 4-Ajaans-in-One photo keychain, and my favorite, the Anna "shuuushing" action shot keychain. We'd heard rumors of Aj. Wandee's plan last week, and started to wonder about whose face would sell fastest, and whose likeness would be relegated to the surplus pile. At 5 baht a pop, though, they sold like hot cakes and were all gone by 10 a.m. 

Aj. Tu - an older Thai teacher who is my morning duty bestie, and my future mother-in-law if she had it her way - found me after school on Monday (drinking Spy wine coolers with the other teachers... typical) to give me a personalized plastic red rose. The handwritten tag reads:

'Happy' all

with you

everyday

'To Caitlin'

From Tu

old teacher

Teacher in Thailand

Quite possibly the best Valentine's Day sentiment I've received to date.

X's and O's to all!