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decreaseThat title isn't really true, I quite enjoy showing people around Northern Thailand, even commonplace sights take on new interest when seen for the first time through someone else's eyes.
Last week two Johns arrived who I'll call John R and John V, because... well I'll let you work that out yourselves. I'd known John R for a long time and he asked if he could bring his mate up for a week and spend time with me and my wife. I booked them into my usual hotel on Lower Sukhumvit Road for the Bangkok leg of the trip and sent several emails full of helpful advice.
I first heard from them after their arrival through an excited phone call demanding to know if the ladies loitering in the street were... "err, you know". I assured them that most of them were definitely "err, you know", but warned that a high percentage of the ladies weren't exactly ladies, and enjoyed the lengthy stunned silence on the other end of the phone.
What eventuated after that I know not but they turned up at Chiang Rai Airport on schedule a couple of days later and we drove through the unseasonably early haze to my home in the countryside near Chiang Rai.
We spent a lazy following day, just driving around nearby then headed for the Mekong the morning after. The first stop was Chiang Khong, too early for lunch so the travelers picked up a couple of splendid silk shirts each and we fell into conversation with the local policeman who was enjoying a coffee in the small riverfront market. We admired the .357 Magnum revolver he carried proudly on his hip John Wayne style and he suggested we take a side road that followed the Mekong to Chiang Saen. Neither my wife and I had been that way before and we all enjoyed the scenic drive before pulling up in the sleepy river port. Lunch was in order so we went into a nearby restaurant where the boys requested fried rice while my wife and I had boiled rice and Thai omelet followed by chicken and cashew nuts with dried chillies. John V wasted no time striking up a conversation with the owner's daughter, totally incomprehensible to her I suspect, and ended up sitting with the family telling them about Australia. They took his blood pressure in return. Now I know that the last sentence doesn't exactly fit in with the rest of narrative but that's what happened. I raised a querying eyebrow at my wife who refused to either look at them or discuss it. Only in Thailand.
It was growing late and I wanted to get to Mae Sai in plenty of time to cross the border and do a little shopping. There had been internet rumours of border closures but we arrived to an open door and were soon sitting for our temporary passport photos at Myanmar immigration while I warned them of the dangers of Tachilek.
Whether the touts, Viagra sellers and beggars had heard the rumours also and were desperate to make as much money as they could before it happened I do not know; but they proved impossible to shake off until I spotted a tout I'd known for a couple of years and accepted his offer of guidance. He soon scattered the following horde and we allowed ourselves to be led to a silver jewelry shop where several bargains were actually obtained. He made further commission on an expensive fishing reel John R wanted and when we left for the border we gave him fifty baht each for his services. I've known him a while, he speaks excellent American accented English and seems well educated, admitting to speaking "Indian", possibly his ethnic origin, English and French while denying knowing a single word of Thai. A man who could possibly have a very interesting history.
We passed back through the border with only minor confusion (they filled out the wrong side of their immigration card), woke my sleeping wife and pointed the big D-Max south towards Chiang Rai.
End of part one
© Julian. All rights reserved by the author.
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