Delightful Isaan - Small Notes

Mukdahan

Jingle bells.... it is a lively christmas party in Old Europe. Anke next to me munches away on fat greasy chocolate biscuits. She wants some conversation: "So in Asia - what do people eat over there?" I remember my visit to Mukdahan's pleasant night market, so I go: "Oh, they like fresh fried cockroaches, black and oily!"

A spattering of semi-chewed fat greasy chocolate buiscuit goes all over the table.

Anke covers her mouth with both hands. Her eyes scream horror. I hand her a napkin. 20 people around us send uncomfortable looks. But now I feel compelled to explain further. "Yes", I go, "customers squeeze the fried black oily cockroaches with one finger to check if they were fried correctly, you know, consistency and all, like we do with a mango."

One more chocolate spattering.

Anke is really really upset. She looks sick. But what's the problem here? Now, I feel responsible to keep up conversation: "I think, a well done cockroach Mukdahan style is actually a more healthy snack than those industrial fat greasy chocolate biscuits you are munching all evening." Alternative-minded Anke, who likes to think of herself as an open-minded lady agrees, still with a pale face: "Yes, I guess so". So I ask her: "Then, would you like to try fried cockroach?"

One more spattering.

Loei Province

About 200 schoolkids in blue and white uniform practice gymnastics on the dusty schoolyard. Huge old trees protect them from the scorching sun. Their movements are quite precisely in sync, it even looks like some military exercise. It is sleepy old countryside on Isaan's outer reaches, west of Chiang Khan. Roads are empty except for just one farang, on his fake 125 cc Honda, roaring about in a semi-clean shirt, doing pothole research on Isaan's rocky roads. The school kids do their exercises very nicely, simultanously. Just another sunny day in Isaan...

Suddenly all hell breaks loose on the schoolyard. The youngsters give up their formation and jump in every direction. All discipline is gone. What a mess. They scream...

Obviously, farangs are thin on the ground in that part of Loei province. When the schoolkids see me bumping along their schoolyard, they forget their teachers, their exercise, their surprising discipline. 200 young ones scream: "Hello mistAAAH, farAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAng, hellOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" I wave back, hit some more potholes, avoid to look at the teachers' faces, shake my head, withhold tears, roar on - "HellOOOOOOO mistAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Only in Thailand.

Nong Khai Province

Tuan is a cute little boy, about five years old. Initially he is shy towards farangs or maybe towards everybody, but his lust for some rough action is stronger. So whenever his Thai parents start one of their rude marital arguments, I suggest a football match or a bicycle trip to him. Little Tuan obviously is not sure about this farang, but anyway has fun playing football or riding the bike with me.

Another very disturbing marital quarrel, it is really disgusting. Tuan is watching his parents with very big brown worried eyes. "Play football, yaak mai?" I ask Tuan. We can communicate like that. Yes, good idea for him, so we venture out into the garden. But the football has disappeared. Too bad that the bicycle is broken, too. Now what? I remember a game that is called "helicopter" or "carousel", Italians call it "giratonda": With my both hands I take Tuan's hands. He looks sceptical as ever, but definitely wants to know what's next. So I lift him up and turn around myself quickly. Tuan is flying horizontally through the air like the seat of a chairoplane. He is shrieking with joy - first time is see him extrovert like that.

Of course, after a few rounds I am tired. I have to stop, l lie down under a tree. Little Tuan waiting patiently, his eyes saying "one more round, ok, yaak mai?" Ok, ok, young one - just one more session, ok? I take him up again, turn him around faster and faster, almost smash him into a tree. Tuan again is shrieking with joy, while I soon will break down. I am too dizzy, I have to lie down again.

With big brown eyes, little Tuan is watching a heavily breathing farang in the grass. "One more round", his eyes are saying. But I cannot: "Sorry, Tuan, I am tired now - mai dai!" Tuan turns away. Boring adults, boring farangs! He walks off.

Cat "Didi" passes Tuan's way. Tuan smiles. With a few sweet sounds, the cat can be convinced to walk right into Tuan's hands - he might have some delicious fish or meat for her? Not so: Tuan takes Didi's forelegs and plays helicopter/carousel/giratonda with the poor animal. He is turning the cat in the air in ever faster circles...

The feline is shrieking, not with joy.

Khon Khaen Town

The big Isaan provincial capital and university place boasts the best live music pub of Thailand. Around me there, 200 Thais only. The band plays a very very spicy luuk thung, local style party music. While I'd never do something like that in the west, here it is easy for me to stand up with the others and move my hands in the air like a classical Asian dancer; and I drink only coke and water (not at all local party style).

A Thai man screams into my ear: "The band just said into the microphone you farang move your hands very well." Chai mai? They pity me for coming alone, so arms from all directions pour whiskey into my glass.

Later, I write on a serviette: "I love luuk thung, but could you play a slow Carabao ballad, too?" I slip the serviette plus 20 baht to a waiter. Requesting tunes like that is common here. I see my tissue arriving on stage, some mouth-to-ear among the artists while they are playing. A little later, the band plays one of my favourite tunes of Carabao, the famous Thai rock band.

I had been in that music pub one time with Thai friends, but some days later I return kon diao, alone. I sit down in the dark, order khao pad and a lemon soda, and then the band sees me. The lady singer smiles to me, her smile burns a hole into my very solid wooden table, and into the microphone she goes: "Sabai-dii khaaaaa khun Hans!! We know you like Carabao slow songs - so here is one more for you."

My Thai friends must have passed on my name days ago. The band remembers me some days later. 200 people are applauding me. I could cry.

Roi Et Province

Frolicking about in Isaan on my rented 125 cc, I see this beautiful longhaired one sitting on a shop front in a remote village. My concept of having fun in Isaan is "exposing yourself": Just make yourself visible, and some curious and always entertaining Isaan people will ask you something - and it's never boring. Some of those askers are beautiful females. So I see that beautiful lady sitting in front of that shop. I stop, park moto-sai, fight my way out of the helmet and ask her for directions towards Yasothon (I actually want to go that way). There is somebody sitting besides her, but I only see her.

Of course - like I had expected - I am not sent away after her road directions. Iced water appears in front of me. We talk-talk. I only speak ridiculous tourist Thai, but they happily try to explain everything ten times and praise my 20-words-vocabulary. Then I learn that this somebody sitting besides her is her husband. Kao-chai laeow. They give me their business card and I learn: In their common shop, she sells wedding dresses, and he sells offroad motorbikes. All in one shop. And why not.

Her hair is so beautiful, and her smile is warming. They have the usual question: "Mi mia mai khaa?" No, I have no wife. But I promise, should I marry I will buy the wedding dress at this place somewhere in Roi Et province, and an offroad motorbike, too. All smiles and full of good vibrations, we say sabai-dii khrap/chok-dii kha, and off I roar on my fake 125 cc Honda, out for more pothole research on Isaan's rocky roads, following her directions towards Yasothon.

Khon Khaen Province

Thai girls know how to pose for a photograph! These young college girls posing in front of Ubonrat dam for their friend's camera - god, it looks sexy and innocent simultanously. It is another sunny weekend in Isaan, and I am making me "exposed" on a Thailanders' weekend place.

I'd really love to take a picture of these beautiful girls posing so cutely. But I am shy, even though I know they do enjoy being photographed. So I sit down nearby on a little wall, just playing with my camera and watching their wow shooting session. 

Then they sit down 2 meters away from me, playing with their camera either… should I dare to ask for a picture…? Well, after 10 minutes of by-the-way camera swinging on both sides, some shy smiles go across… I go "Aeh..", they go "Oeh…" Turns out, they find me as exotic as I find them exotic! They want to take my picture! I can take their picture!! We take pictures with everybody on one frame!!! Ten minutes of animated talk-talk, lots of good vibrations, and we go apart I think everybody sabai maak-maak.

Mukdahan

I meet staff of a small private English school. They invite me to their school for the afternoon, when many customers turn up. I pose as the farang-on-charge, they show me off as an evidence of their contacts to the mundane anglophone world. Not that my rusted school English is so impressive, but their English is even worse.

They also ask me to take some pictures of teachers and kids with my digital camera. They plan a web site and want to print a few pictures for the blackboard in the lobby. They just love posing for the digicam and checking the pix on the camera screen.

After some time I have to go. I know very clearly these people have "chai dii", good heart. So I tell them they can keep my camera for some hours and I'll pick it up when they close at 6 p.m. They agree happily. I think, well, and then I also show them how to do videos with that camera. So they keep my camera, a card reader and an empty memory card, all about 1000 USD worth.

I roar off on my fake Honda 125 cc. When I return around 6 p.m., my teachers lie on the couch in the lobby somewhat exhausted. Of course I quickly get camera and everything back with no trouble at all. They have a happy, slightly delirious smile on them. They had taken 100s or 1000s of pictures in a growing state of frenzy. Obviously, they had to empty the full memory card several times onto the computer before they could continue.

And they had taken dozens of videos, then watched them on the PC. "First time I saw myself on TV", says one especially beautiful lady teacher with dignity, anticipating a career on a channel 7 soap opera. Do they need the digicam any longer? No, no more photographic libido finally.

I say sabai-dii khrap, go back to hotel for shower and dinner, then hit town for spicy Thai live music. When I return to the hotel after midnight, the receptionist smiles: There are several presents for me - some small Thai souvenirs like wooden elephants etc., and some printed pictures that "my" teachers took that afternoon. The teachers knew I was southbound the next morning and had brought the souvenirs to the reception. I found that very sweet. Some very friendly letters and cards, too. Chai-dii khrap.

Obviously, several of them had brought presents to the reception independently and I am not sure who brought what and - most important - if the one especially beautiful lady teacher was among them? Anyway, this was a delightful end of my stay in Muk'.

© Hans Meier. All rights reserved by the author.