January 7-10: Nan
My bus from Chiang Rai wound its way through the mountains surrounding Nan, making pit stops along the way so the driver could bargain for rice with farmers on the side of the road. Finally, I arrived in Nan, the small provincial capital of the Nan province in northern Thailand, and the temporary hometown of my friend Caitlin (better known as CP), who has spent the last year there with PiA teaching kindergarten and sixth grade at a local elementary school. Nan makes Vientiane seem like quite the bustling capital in contrast–there are few foreigners in Nan, so the PiA girls are novelties all over town, and good Western restaurants with cheese are much harder to come by.
CP and the other Nan girls had quite a weekend in store for me, to prove that even their small town had bundles of excitement to offer. I stopped by the elementary school, Bandon Sriserm, to pick up my chariot for the weekend–an undersized, unreliable bicycle recently won at a school raffle. Seeing Caitlin in her element in the schoolyard after work was quite the experience. I felt as though I was walking down the red carpet with Justin Bieber, or some other teenybopper hero. CP was literally treated like a rockstar: adorable Thai six-year olds ran from every corner of the playground to desperately reach for a high five, or offer her some token of appreciation, like a half eaten bag of squid chips or twinkies.
The Nan River.
For my first night in town, CP and her roommates had arranged a “Nan Bar Crawl,” which basically entailed a BYOB stopoff to their favorite restaurants/bars to meet Thai friends who communicated with us in a combination of broken English/Thai and lots of smiles. The “bar crawl” culminated at a visit to the Fifth, the best (of two) nightclubs in town.
Nan’s finest entertainment at The Fifth Club.
Given their celebrity farang status in town, the PiA girls were naturally best friends with all of the staff and the band, who basically sang to us for much of the night and came to hang out in between ridiculously costumed sets.
On Saturday much was closed in celebration of Children’s Day–just one of many holidays that would be meaningless in the US, but are celebrated with intense fanfare in Asia. We dodged the gaggles of families and spend a lot of the day eating (including regrettably large rolls of sticky rice), catching up, and reading at a cafe near the Nan River. Sunday was a day of indulgence: two hour massages and D-Milk, which is an indescribably delicious Thai chain creation. Imagine frozen, sweetened milk, topped with sugary cereals and mini Oreos. Basically a hybrid between a heaping bowl of frosted flakes and a frozen yogurt.
Sent from heaven: D-Milk
On the way to D-Milk, the Nan Bike Club (as they call themselves) inadvertantly found itself in the midst of Children’s Day parade. We turned a corner and suddenly realized we were biking alongside a parade in the opposite direction. Thai traditional music was blaring from speakers overhead, marching bands were filing past, Thai girls in full makeup and costume shimmied down the street…and four farang girls biked through the middle of it, perhaps attracting more attention than the absurd spectacle we were biking through.
Before my departure on Monday I made a guest appearance at Bandon Sriserm for CP’s sixth grade class. Her students wrote questions for me during their “daily diary” class opener, and then each stood up one by one in front of the class and interrogated me on things like my favorite Thai food, how Lao students are different from Thai students, the name of my best friends, my favorite color, and what the weather is like in Vientiane.
Bandon Sriserm 6th grade puts on English skits.
I also got the chance to witness the performance of some of their legendary English skits. Some students went all out with costumes that involved powdering their hair white to enhance their two-line performance as a lost grandmother.