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coletteleeblog · 5 years

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Nong Khai, Thailand

Saturday, March 14, 2015

At 7:00am Saksay came to get us and drop Colette and I off at the van depot so we could travel with Nong to Udon Thani and then on to Nong Khai to meet up with him and the four girls who went in his car. We paid 160 baht each (about $7.50 Cdn) to make the 3.5 hour journey north to the border and what would be the first glimpse of the Mekong River.

This was very exciting for me because I have known Saksay pretty much for as long as I can remember and I my limited understanding up to this point is that his family had escaped across the Mekong River in 1974 to get away from war torn Laos. I have a much better understanding of his trip to Canada now and am so much richer for getting to know this side of Saksay. He is an amazing person and I can only say that what he is doing to show us around is not easy for him and that it is a very self less thing he is doing. Traveling by yourself is one thing...adding another 6 people into your winter "escape", like he is doing...is a whole different experience.

He brought us to a little alleyway right behind the walking street where the night market is held each Saturday evening. We walked down and found a guest house that was able to accommodate our family of six in a traditional Thai house. It came complete with two king size bed's, so we are tripling up in each bed. I unfortunately have Colette and Madeline in my bed… Which makes for a pretty rest less night! They are definitely the two most interesting sleepers in our household and I'm stuck with them!! LOL. The cost of this little slice of Thai "paradise" is 1000 Baht/night ( about $40).

Time for an epiphany from Colette and I quote her words. "We are definitely learning to adapt to a whole different set of standards, in order to do the things that are becoming important to us, to make each of our dreams possible. " I must remind her of that the next time we have another livestock scare...oh... here is more, she wanted me to add this also.

Also from Colette "I think the biggest thing we are seeing & learning on this trip, is how people here live happily with fewer possessions , they spend their money very wisely, and they use whatever skills they have to earn money, every little bit counts. When we see what, as little as, 50 cents can buy over here, it really makes you see the value so much more. I've also gotten used to living in conditions that I first thought to be very uncomfortable and I now have a deeper understanding for how lucky we are in Canada." Erik's interpretation..." WOW, life is going to be more appreciated when going home...no bugs...and I probably won't buy anymore stuff because I am so happy with what I have" Hee Hee LOL. Probably get in trouble for this!! JK

Colette is right. We have learned how to be content and happy wherever we are. With much or with little. I am so impressed with all my girls and how adaptable we are all becoming. Other than the stress that accompanies trying to get 5 women moving out the door I believe we might be starting to squabble less. I definitely can say that we are one close family and that we are having a ton of fun with Saksay and Nong.

Back to our Nong Khai trip. After we got settled in our guesthouse and had a bit of a rest we went to have lunch and see the indoor covered market. More rest and then we ventured back out in the evening to see the night market which had absolutely taken over the walking street. This is where we ate our supper, managed to snag about a dozen free Pepsi's and watch some entertainment. Some was good, some was just bad. I will post a video of the "good" and just explain that the bad takes English humor to a whole new level of sexual perversion that would have been best left in someone's head!! The Thais seemed to flock to the "bad" and Saksay said it is comedy!! Let's just say I fear Peter Saunders may have enjoyed it!! Yikes.

After that it was off to bed because Saksay said he would be here to get us at 8:00 to go for an outing. True to his style that was the understatement of this Nong Khai trip. What he did was ferry us (it takes two trips in his Opal Swift (Geo Metro) to take us anywhere) to one of the most amazing thing I may have ever seen. It was right up there with my trip to Casa Loma in Toronto. We went to Sala Kaeo Kou and it was amazing. Things are so different here. Where else could your climb to the third floor of the museum part of the temple and see the mummified remains of the person who put this together.

Here is the story I was told...I probably will not Google this but choose to believe this account of Sala Kaeo Kou (which is probably correct). The wealthy Laotian man responsible for this had wanted to build it in Laos but was not allowed so he came to Thailand and created it. The communist Laos party had him killed before he was able to finish it (I don't think he intended to ever really finish it, given the magnitude of what he was creating) and the Thai government chose to keep it in this unfinished state. They charge about $.80 Cdn to help with the upkeep of the grounds. Absolutely astounding. For those of you following us @ our https://instagram.com/thailand_adventure_2015/ page you have seen some of the pics already.

Here are the way the workers were cutting foliage out of one of the monuments. They had first set up a ladder barely high enough to hack off the first tree that had started to grow out of a part of the monument before finding 2 VERY long pieces of bamboo that the worker was going to tie himself off to and shinny up to the very top to get the last tree hacked back. I estimate it was about 6 stories high...definitely not up to Canadian safety standards. Not that I am at all in favor of the ridiculous rules we have at home but this may have been easier with a lift of some sort!! We left before I was able to witness the (I hope) successful accomplishment of this task.

After the two trip ferrying of the Lee's ( and Nong) back to our guesthouse for a nap Saksay had another treat up his sleeve. He took us to the big Nong Khai night market over by the train station where we bought Hailey a new pair of Crocs and another soccer jersey and short set. She looks absolutely adorable in these and now has 2. Her crocs were to replace the set she was wearing which had a hole worn right through the bottoms...yes she has been walking ALOT.

He wasn't done yet though and for the foodies out there this one would have been right up your alley. We went to a traditional Korean BBQ where we were totally out of our comfort zone to start with. They put a propane fired grill/cauldron on the table and you go up to the buffet and grab whatever you want to cook yourself. It would not be an exaggeration to say that we only recognized a third of these "potential" ingredients...but with help from our benevolent tour director we were soon on our way to creating a masterpiece of supper. I was the most adventurous trying a lot of the available food, including shrimp, stuffed squid, 3 types of mushrooms (including the apply named pigs ears that grow as tree fungus), bacon wrapped straw mushrooms, side pork, chicken, beef, glass noodles, Chinese spinach, cabbage and to finish it off...self serve hard ice cream. Why don't you comment and ask Emma what it feels like the morning after when you eat 4 bowls of ice cream!?!

2 Opal trips later and home we were to get ready for the monumental VISA run. Monumental because this is officially a milestone in our trip. We have been in Thailand for exactly 2 months. What a blessing to be able to experience this trip.

Well I think Colette will write the blog entry for our trip to Laos tomorrow so stay tuned...

Hailey's quote of the day, "Here dad let me give you a kiss...(smack's a kiss on my cheek)...there now I'm married." To who I ask. "Daaaad,to you of course!!"

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