Laos #2 — staying there was very nice.

Patt found us a small "villa" (8 rooms) on the banks of the Nam Khan River which joined the Mekong River just about ½ mile down "river street"  from our villa. That is Patt talking with one of the villa employees across the street. We ate breakfast just to Patt's left on the "deck".

View from the table — only small boats could make it past this point on the Nam Khan apparently at this time of the dry season.

Breakfast coffee before a good American style breakfast with fruit bowl and I do mean a good American style breakfast.

While we appreciate eating local most meals. You find an improvement on the American breakfast in Asia, and we w ill gladly try it. Asians eat the American breakfast too if available and if they have enough money- and it is called "American breakfast".  Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, fruit.  Improve that!   Though I do go French if I have the chance and order "French toast"  too. Those French are also famous for their cooking.

And even I can get lucky with a camera. Top that James! While eating eggs and bacon (not really, I was waiting on my order) Patt calls this "man fishing with net" or "Paul's luck shot"

You want to hear a foreign language spoken by western looking people, just follow me towards those tents. You want to hear a variety of Oriental languages. Heck we even saw Chinese license plates on cars. Nice cars too. BMWs Audis, Lexus and so on. No Hondas for them.

Not all temples are on Church Street. At least one was on top of the highest mountain/hill - in a city in the mountains — even if it is in the delta where two rivers meet. 350 + steps up.

We had been to the mountain top. Climbed up on the sunny side of the hill — if we had only known there was a shady one.

We would have missed the days-of-the-week Buddas. We will spare you the other six. Not all were documented. We like Tuesday anyway. Fits the way we feel sometimes. Especially from 1-4:00 PM as the heat index sets new records for discomfort.

But ah, the early morning and late afternoons, such pleasure, such delight. We like them a lot and spend our outside time then. Mid afternoon, little children is nap time and pool time.  

A highlight of our trip to Laos was to the Kruang Si waterfalls.  There are a series of water falls that are quite the tourist destination. They create many tiered swimming pools and play sites. This is one of the lower tiers or first ones you come too. I'm the shirtless white muscled chest wonder with my right 'hard as a rock bicep' in the falls.

The further up stream you went the less crowded the swimming and playing became. I actually walked on some of those escarpments in this photo and floated and swam or walked between some of them. Quite fun.

and climbed up to the water fall. Later I leaned that one of the reasons there were so few swimmers at this site is that there are a few "no swimming" signs posted. Oh well, I truly did not see them. Patt did and tried to signal me without yelling and calling attention to what I was doing.

and there were some remote from the trail pools and water falls that I walked too as well. I got some sort of skin irritation later that night on one arm that I think came from brushing agains plants as I cam away from this one. ( I went up via the escarpment). Man I was having fun.

and this is at the top of the rather long trail — 80 meters, which means it is high in real language.  The top is somewhat shrouded in the slash burn smoke of the fires in the area, but it is still impressive. Being there is awesome, thrilling — this ought to be in more books. James got another one on ya!  (we are not talking about the ones you have on me in this blog)

and I am voting for this to be Patt's new FaceBook photo.  I really like it.

That night we ate dinner on the banks of the Mekong. That mostly eaten dish is dried buffalo, water, of course, and the Lao style larb had not come yet. The dish on the left is spicy sweet and sour fish.  The second BeerLao is about gone. Sticky rice on the right rounded out a ----well this makes the one of our "top five meals" on the trip list. That, by the way, is a pretty long list.
,

Changing the subject — going into the Sweet 16—  on yhe ESPN challenge, I have 9 of the 16 teams correct (picking ACC worked this year, which means I was pretty bad on picking the field)  and am  only the 59.7 percentile and have a rank of 4,886,509 or something out or the 11.5 million or so in the challenge.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang is in northern Laos, an ancient city and one time kingdom in its own right. Sometime in the early 1800s it came under the influence of the Kingdom in Vientiane, the current capital. Currently it is a somewhat sleepy tourist town / Laos Buddhist center, and UN World Heritage site. It is a beautiful, comfortable, slow moving small city of 50,000. We liked it very very much. Disappointed, however, to find it also covered in smoke from slash and burn practices, but not nearly as bad as Chiang Mai.

The World Heritage designation comes from the merge of French and Laos architecture that has remained. For some reason during the long years of the Vietnam War (American War here) and the bombing that went on in Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and elsewhere, this province and Vientiane were spared. Patt and I even went to Vientiane for a few days (illegally) in late 1974 or early '75 during the coalition government period.

Also after Laos fell to the communists, the Pathet Lao did not destroy their culture as many communist armies of that period did and as a consequence the old King's palace was remarkably well preserved. Below is one of the temples on the palace grounds as seen from a terrace across the street.

Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside any of the palace buildings. The actual palace was awesome! the artwork (mostly mirrored mosaic tile paintings on red enamel walls with detailed gold leaf carvings, lintels, etc.) depicting ancient battles was gruesome. The peaceful scenes were, of course, serene.

Artifacts on display from the last king's coronation in 1967 were elaborate including many tiered gold crown, shoes, belt, sword, etc. (all were made of gold). Also on display were beautiful coronation gifts from nations around the world.

Some more French colonial influenced architecture. French influence on the food choices was obvious. The bread, oh the bread. French people can obviously teach baking. There were lots of French tourists in the city too.

And you should here these guys chant.  Intriguing yes, beautiful, no, haunting.  Around 5-6:00 PM it was the dominant sound in parts of the city.  (also at times during the morning)

Temple or wat (Thai) or vat (Lao) where the above photo was taken.

And another vat - some streets could have been named Vat Street.

And inside yet another. In this one a group of white dressed older Lao women were seated in the back all in a row.

An old stupa left over from an old vat. The Chinese invaded and burned the city in the 14th century.  It has since been rebuilt.

While getting a pedicure, Patt took this photo of a monk gazing out a temple window.  (I was at the same time getting a manicure in the recliner beside her - life is good.)

The town had some interesting characters in it too. This old lady just beamed and nodded yes when I asked if I could take a photo — body language ask. We do not speak Lao, though it is similar to Thai and many Lao speak or understand some Thai.

And like I said, some of the characters are foreign. There were a bunch of us. Especially on this main street and at the night markets. All languages. Mostly European and Oriental, not so much English other than British/Australian English.

However, I did hear one young American couple somewhat arguing with the boy saying "No one cares what I look like" as we were bunched up in a crowd in the night market and no one was moving, I responded, "but I care".  She said,  "See".  I said, "I think he looks good in those glasses".  He started explaining about the glasses and I interrupted and said "it is the pants I am worried about".  He had on "elephant pants" similar to what I am now proud owner of.

Tak, the visit continues.

This highway view was not unexpected. I had seen it on the google. The road right in front of Patt's old school, and where we used to live on campus, a major multilane road now exists. Used to be quiet two lane road. Stoplight intersection, divided highway and all that stuff. Just this side of that post of the pedestrian cross over used to stand a wonderful restaurant that sold moo-dang (red pork with rice). We would get it "take out" wrapped in a banana leaf.  Oh so good.  

This is the guy, Ajan, (teacher) Kriangsak, who got us started on finding people. We are so indebted to him, his friendliness, willingness to help, and just being a nice guy was just a great way to start being in Tak.  He lives in the house next to our old house on campus.

And some time in the recent past they snuck an "h" in Padung Panya and have made it one word.  Unless the old sign maker is in error — another possibility.  So we are unchanged on the spelling of Patt's old school despite what the sign may say.

And these halls, pre-paint, and pre-walls, certainly pre- a/c, Patt once walked to get to her office and a few of her classes.  Most were in the bamboo building (long gone) just up the road.

The woman with Patt is also in the photo Patt is holding.  Wattana, Patt's student, is now a home economics teacher at Padung Panya and remembered Patt of course. Wattana called several of her friends and of course there is now much talk in town about teacher Patt.

This is what Wattana used to look like.  These current students loved having their photo taken. There were lots of them here back then and still are- in fact over twice as many now.

Patt and Laura on the main street in front of some of the old buildings.  Stop sign, new.

street view again

After many phone calls made by lots of people and talking to lots of people we finally made connection with Patt's best Thai friend, Siriporn, who now lives in Mae-Sod, about 90 minutes west of Tak on the Burmese border. Siriporn had been lured out of retirement to manage the English language program at her former school in Mae-Sod, but school had let out and she was in Bangkok. We are making plans to meet her in Bangkok in June.

At Tak Pittayakhom, we walked into, by accident, a graduation ceremony of the English immersion program.  Met their current foreign English teacher a guy named Paul from Philadelphia, a contract hire. Also there were language teachers from Burma and Guatemala. We had lunch with the three of them.  They thought there were over 20 full time foreigners living in Tak, quite the change and up by a zero at the end of that number from when we were last there.

And the graduating boys. And quite large too. And a year older as a year of school has also been added.

That building was under construction while I was there and I taught in it my second year. Ground floor just behind Laura was my classroom. I taught pre- exterior walls on the ground floor and pre-windows on the rest of the building.

It was good to ride a bike in town and back on campus.

This stupa and the buildings in the back of it were, by happenstance, in several of the photos we brought.  So we knew where we were for sure.

And we also knew where we were at dinner that evening by the wonderful visit we had together.  Pirrom and I tried to show one another photos of our grandchildren on our cell phones. His daughter now lives in Bangkok.

Pirrom worked hard at taking a selfie of the two of us and sending it to his daughter.  Imagine me doing that — now imagine me being successful. (Note he has on his flashlight). He was successful and did text with his daughter but it was a slow process.  Like I said imagine me doing that — successfully.

We did indeed have a wonderful dinner evening and visit with everyone and Laura was such a good traveler with us and took so many good photos — (as did Patt),  It sure helped make this post a better one than relying on my efforts with a camera.

Back in Tak — again

 In the spring of 1974, we moved to Tak, Thailand and lived there until early spring 1976. We returned for the first time just a few days ago, 40 or so years later, unfortunately having lost contact during the intervening years. Consequently our return was unexpected and we did not know quite what to expect. Or who we would see.  

Whatever expectations we may have had they were blown away. They were exceeded beyond any expectation that I had. So much so that we were once again made aware of how richly blessed and how highly favored we must be.  

Within an hour of being on Patt's old campus, and meeting the teacher who lives next to the house we used to live in, I was on the phone talking to this man, Pirrom, our former neighbor and my best Thai friend.  

The neighbor was looking at some old photos I brought and the neighbor, said "teacher Pirrom"  ….  Patt and I were amazed, and lo and behold he had his phone number and soon we had a dinner date.

The reunion with Pirrom later that day was joyous as is obvious from the photo below.  There was sadness too as we learned that his wife, Mutchalin, whom Patt and I both liked a lot too, had died 9 years ago.

At Padung Panya, the girls still wear blue skirts and white sailor tops. One difference though is they are larger.  That is true for Thais in general. They have gotten larger, taller and heavier, as a population in 40 years. I used to be noticeably taller than most any given group of Thais. Not even close now.

Downtown looked similar, but different, road paved sidewalk to sidewalk, more concrete buildings and of course different ones.  Also few restaurants on the main downtown streets remain. The entertainment, evening activity area has moved to the river front that has developed.

One thing for sure has not changed - I still can not read this. The sign was in front of my school so we are assuming that somewhere it says among other things this is Tak Pittayakhom School.

We brought a few photos from 40 years ago and they proved to be a hit. The man to my right was a first year teacher my second year at Tak Pittayakhom. He taught 32 years retired 8 years and came back this year. The woman to his right was married to a man who was in one of the photos of a group of us who had been playing basketball. He died some years ago.

Patt and I did enjoy walking past some of the buildings that were there when we were.

Patt taught in this building. It has since had windows added, air-conditioning. been painted several times, and the trees have grown. The bamboo and thatch huts she taught in just up the road are long gone. The school now has over twice the number of students and is co-ed.

The Foreign Languages Department Head "Teacher Bonnit" taught by some of Patt's predecessors in the Peace Corps at Padung Panya, now heads a department that teaches, English, Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, French and seems like something else. They also have an accelerated program of English immersion of all courses in English. Yes, a lot at the school has changed.

Bonnit helped us make connections that helped us make more connections that lead us to meeting people that we wanted to see. She was one of the wonderful people of Tak who helped us have such an exceptional time there.

Sadly it appears that maintaining faculty housing is not a priority. This is where we lived and it looks like it is getting a little old. We were the first tenants of this brand new house in 1974. There were no trees or grass. Just a new construction site. Two bedrooms upstairs and one large room downstairs with a small bathroom in the downstairs room.

A single faucet brought water into the house most of the time. A single light bulb was in each room.  that made three as I recall, but I could be off by one or two. There were no windows Just wooden shutters. We had screens in the bedroom.    

No surprise here. This is we are pretty sure is a great grandson of our dog Spot— well actually the janitor / rice cooker's dog too. But she stayed with us — Patt—most of the time. Patt fed her chicken parts, like heads, feet, lungs, hearts, all the insides that come when you buy a chicken but you don't eat the whole chicken. We gave her high quality left overs and she got real good looking — and had at least one litter of strong puppies while we were there so we had two dogs - mother Spot and daughter Speck (weren't we clever?). The dogs reverted to the janitor when we left.

Could be Specks's grandson in the background. We were all about fancy pants dog names.

Patt and Laura coming out of the market.  Yep, same place, much of the same stuff.

More of the market place— most is inside the building.

And the pork satay is still very very good, bought one, came back and bought more. The chef enjoyed my compliment and I enjoyed her food. I hope I have mentioned how much we enjoy Thai food.