It’s been a highlight reel 24 hours. Last night we walked next door to drink a beer and shoot pool. We met another foreigner, Andy, and as we played we slowly took notice of the Thai women aimlessly standing around and a handful of overweight expats caressing well made-up Thai women. We finished up our beers and skidded out.
The next morning I woke up at 8 am and ate a breakfast of eggs and sausages from a street stand. The food was catered to foreigners but I was grateful to avoid another make-shift 7/11 start to the day.
We left on the scooter and crossed the bridge into the countryside. Louise spotted a massive buddha in the middle of a small village, and we turned off the road to investigate. The Buddha (aptly titled, “Big Buddha”, on our map) seemed to be in the midst of its construction. We paid 40 Bhat each, Louise donned a mandatory kimono-like garment to cover her shoulders, and we ascended into Buddha’s skull.
The walls inside Buddha’s head were covered with intricate cement and plaster bas-relief (Louise’s french vocab coming in the clutch here). Everything was white. We spent a few minutes peering out of Buddhas eyes and debating the structural integrity of a Buddha shaped building before taking the elevator the 25 floors back to the ground.
Louise targeted the Huay Mae Sai waterfall and we weaved through rice paddies until our arrival. The waterfall is located at the end of a short hike, and we doused ourselves in the water. Eventually another group of foreigners arrived with some local kids in tow, explaining that they are working in the region teaching English with the Mirror Foundation.
We stopped at a collection of street stands afterwards for a snack and bought what we thought were fried chicken legs.
Side Note: Thai food includes phenomenal sweet fried chicken. Flaky and succulent. Who knew?
Upon further inspection we determined that we were actually sucking on sinewy chicken necks.
After another waterfall pit stop we turned towards Pong Phrabat hot spring. The “hot spring” was a series of four interconnected wading pools, the largest of which containing a fountain spouting near boiling water and digressing to the coolest pool filled with bath temperature water.
Of course, we had no idea about this system when we arrived. We plopped down at the hottest pool available and proceeded to submerge our legs in the scalding water. We recoiled, steaming. The people at the pool laughed and laughed and an older man fully submerged in the cauldron pointed towards the smaller pools.
We started at the bath water pool and gradually made our way back to the sizzling section. After giving our legs time to acclimate to each temperature the fiery conclusion was pleasant. I couldn’t help but think that we, collectively, were monkeys enjoying a communal bath.
Next door to the pools an open air room offered Thai massags for 150 Bhat an hour. We put our names on the list and ate coconut milk based ice cream while we waited.
The woman running the area motioned us towards a partition and we changed into loose fitting, psyche-ward like garb. A dozen elevated mats lined one side of the room. I took my place laying on the mat as the woman assigned to me sat at the base of the cushion and performed a brief bow (and or prayer?) before starting the massage.
She expertly identified my sore spots and quickly exploited them. The massage was as much assisted stretching as it was massage. Louise remarked that it appears that the Thai people receiving the massages alongside us were there not for personal pleasure but for their health. Or maybe it’s one and the same?
As the massage progressed a storm rolled in. Thunder erupted directly overhead, but oddly it did not begin to drizzle until we left for Chiang Rai. For dinner we ate Japanese Curry, effectively glorified gravy, with fried meat from a nearby street vendor. Tomorrow we’ve got the Laos border.
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