Good-bye, hello ...

It is Sunday evening, less than four hours before my flight out of Chiang Mai, and I think I have everything squared away.

Lian's nonimmigrant visa application is "in process" down at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok and we're almost ready to submit her document package for the all-important personal interview. My big suitcase is testing the airline's weight restrictions with what feels like 40 pounds of faux treasures. My taxi ride to the airport is booked at the fancy-pants hotel next door. And my carry-on is packed with sandwiches for the 12-hour layover in the transit hotel in Seoul.

Thailand is a troubled place, politically. There's so much I'd love to write about it, but I don't especially care to spend decades eating rat meat in a Thai prison. I'm not kidding. The powers that be in this country take lese majeste very seriously, as in super-ultra-extremely.  There's simply no way to write accurately about the political situation here without risking arrest, and that goes for farang and Thai people alike. Ask me about it when I get home.

I hear it's kind of Arctic-y back in Portland. Maybe I should have brought a long-sleeved shirt?

Yippee Tai Yai, mother-bummer

So Lian's 14-year-old son, Dao, has decided to blow off middle school and make the big bucks as a carnival worker, setting up the midway games of skill. Nice to see a young man find his life's calling so early. And in a country that busts out a fresh festival every 20 minutes, he'll never lack for work. Why, in a busy week he might make the equivalent of twenty dollars, almost!

Carny Boy smiles; his mother, not so much.

Monday afternoon Lian gets the usual phone call from the teacher reporting Dao's absence yet again. The boy is not answering his cell phone, either. She has finally had it: "I think he can go live with his father. I cannot control him."

That evening we catch a Red Car to Dao's gig du noir, a cultural festival for the local Tai Yai population. Numbering some 6 million scattered around Burma, China and Thailand, the Tai Yai (also known as the Shan People) have their own spoken and written language, their own traditions and a distinct cuisine. But they share the universal fondness for tacky carnival midways. Arriving at Chiang Mai's Buddhist temple for the Tai Yai, Lian and I pay our 100-baht admission (outrageous!) and quickly locate the boy. Tonight his area of expertise is the knock-over-the-cans game, in which suckers pay 20 baht to toss oddly weighted softballs and miss every time.

As we approach the games, Lian suggests: "Maybe you can wait here?" No problem: I hang back from the blast zone and let the two of them have their Enola Gay moment.

Traditional Tai Yai attire.

Five minutes later, she's finished. We look around at the many festival-goers in their exotic attire and and decide, heck, we've paid our nickel, we might as well make an evening of it and check out all things Tai Yai ... or at least all foodly things.

Our first stop is a noodle vendor hawking a pad thai-looking dish.

Regarding the dining-out experience in this country: at virtually every Thai eatery, on each table you'll find a caddy containing, variously, dried chile flakes, ground peanuts, fish sauce (sometimes with diced chiles), mild chiles in rice vinegar, and granulated sugar. Lian always strafes every dish with sugar and a generous squeeze of lime juice. But tonight we learn an interesting fact about the Tai Yai table arrangement: instead of sugar, the bowl is filled with salt. We learn this the hard way.

Tai Yai food. Beware of the "sugar."

---

Now THIS is a temple of worship!

British Appreciation Day at Central Festival

Just what this town needs, another mega-mall. I'm not being sarcastic here: After months on foot dodging motor bikes, dog shit and crumbling concrete, I really appreciate well-ordered commerce.

Our new shopping destination is Central Festival Chiang Mai, hyperbolically billed as "the largest shopping mall in southeast Asia." Really? Bigger than the retail meccas in Bangkok and Hong Kong? It's a mere 10-minute Red Car ride away, so Lian and I go check it out for ourselves.

Central Festival is everything Thailand could stand a double-dose of: it is clean, comfortable, intuitively organized and pedestrian-friendly. Encouragingly, the place is jam-packed with youngish Thais and farang alike, gathered as one in a universal brotherhood of mall-ratitude. And virtually all signage is in the global lingua franca, English.

Central Food Hall, a.k.a, Heaven

At last we arrive at the holiest of holies: the ground-floor Central Food Hall.

Think Whole Foods, Zupan's and Market of Choice ... allllmost. I give this market an A for effort just for displaying big wheels of parmiagano reggiano. (Lian tries a sample and her facial expression is priceless!) The clientele is almost exclusively farang men with Thai women, so we feel immediately at home.

Parmigiano Reggiano -- Joy!

Price points are all over the culinary map, topping out on the crazy scale at twenty bucks per kilo for fresh peaches. And artisan-quality baked goods remain elusive, although I see a few croissants that might rise to Albertson's standards.

$20 a kilo? I can wait.

I purchase a Norwegian salmon fillet to cook for Lian that is just so-so; I desperately want her to come experience the real deal, Northwest-caught and cedar-plank-grilled.  Working on that.

---

The civil unrest down in Bangkok this morning is taking a turn for the ugly: one person shot dead in overnight violence, and all TV stations have switched to special news coverage. Essentially it's a power struggle between two elite ruling factions, one that enjoys popular support among the poor and the other favored by the comfortable class. Despite State Department warnings, now would be an excellent time to visit: lots of sudden hotel vacancies and last-minute price breaks to be had.

Still an asshole

Flash back more than 25 years to a reunion party for the old Lake Oswego Review newspaper staff, circa mid-1980s. Most of us then are still on good terms (and some will remain close friends well into the future), but one or two folks left the paper under layoff-y circumstances. I witness one socially awkward moment between the editor's wife and an ex-photographer and am tactless enough to chide her about it a few minutes later. Smiling icily, she responds: "I see you're still an asshole!"

Tis true, I nod; always have been, always will be. But she has already walked away.

---

It is three days before Loi Krathong and well into high season, but Chiang Mai is curiously devoid of tourists. The night bazaar at Anusan Market has more vendors than shoppers, and many booths are empty -- not enough business to make it worth opening. Even the lady-boy revue is closed for the evening. Lian has no customers, so we take time to stop at an open-air coffee shop for refreshments and people-watching. Lian, who is now a teetotaler, sips a lemonade while I sharpen my wits on a surprisingly potent mai tai.

Suddenly before us, a ruckus: A lanky old fellow stumbles on the uneven asphalt and pitches violently forward, flailing to regain his footing. Three off-balance steps and down he goes -- but he manages to protect his expensive-looking digital camera, which he holds at arm's length above his splayed body.

The man's family rushes to his aid and the mai tai, speaking through me, tries to lighten the moment: "At least the camera's OK, right?" But no one is amused. In wide-eyed horror, the man's wife wheels around to me and admonishes: "He has two artificial knees and an artificial hip!"

Launching fire into trees.

"Oh," I stammer. "Uh, that's different. My apologies." I can barely watch the poor fellow hobble away, leaning against his loved ones.

(Long sigh.)

Deanna Kelly, wherever you are, you sure called it a quarter-century ago. But honest, I'm trying to get better.

---

Selling floral krathongs to honor the water spirits.

So Loi Krathong happened. That's the big Thai celebration honoring the water spirits during which people release buoyant floral decorations onto rivers. People also try to burn down the city by launching fire lanterns into the air and detonating blasting cap-sized firecrackers, even in crowds.

Fireworks above the Iron Bridge.

Loi Krathong is one of those festivals that's pretty cool the first time -- especially the night sky theatrically aglow with orange fire lanterns -- but I can see how it might get old after a few years. "Every year many people, and BOOM BOOM all night, make me bore," says Lian.  Glad to hear it: maybe next year we can be in America for Thanksgiving instead.

Many ornate floats, multiple parades.

Plenty of room at the Hotel Buritara

Lian's mom waves farewell.

On Wednesday morning Lian and I, along with her daughter, Eve, bid sawadee khrep to her mom and sister in Bang Khae. Our taxi takes us to a nearby bus station, where Eve will return south to university in Hua Hin and we will go adventuring west, in Kanchanaburi.

Originally I wanted to do what the travel books recommend, which is to roll through the countryside up to K'buri aboard the funky, antiquated third-class train that costs just a few dollars for the four-hour trip. But the clickety-clack charm escapes Lian, who has endured a lifetime of grungy backwoods railcars. "Is slow-slow and dirty, have a stink," she protests. "Toilet very terrible. Bus is fast and comfortable, I think you like more." Yes ... I will like the bus more.

By early afternoon we arrive in the pleasant town of Kanchanaburi, just a few kilometers away from the not-really bridge on the not-really River Kwai. I am impressed: clean streets, unbroken sidewalks, scrubbed edifices, a real sense of order that still maintains its Thai-ness. Kanchanaburi is what Chiang Mai could look like if it took a shower, brushed its teeth and put on a clean shirt.

Excellent place to stay in K'buri.

And now a confession: I did not do my homework before coming here: no TripAdvisor check, no Expedia inquiries, nada. So once we step off the bus, we have no hotel waiting for us nor any inkling of what's available, leaving us at the mercy of the songthaew drivers who prowl the bus station like cheetahs at the watering hole, waiting for fresh meat.

The grounds at U Inchantree.

Lian explains to the first driver to close in that we are in need of lodging. He nods and we pile into the back of his passenger truck. I notice that the neighborhoods get tattier and more backpacker-y as we go bouncing down side streets until we arrive at a squalid clutch of houseboats dropped in the muck of a swampy backwater near the river. Dark, depressing rooms. A huge hole punched in the door to the bathroom. Lian asks me what I think.

"Baan kii," I grumble, marching straight back to the taxi-truck.

"Not polite!" gasps Lian. "We never say!" But it really is a shithouse.

Now the challenge is thrown down for this driver to find a hotel suitable for a finicky farang. He delivers us to the open-air reception lobby of the upscale U Inchantree Kanchanaburi Resort, where the highly professional hospitality staff checks us into our tastefully appointed (but tiny!) superior room. After unpacking, we stroll the grounds, scope out the pool and locate tomorrow's breakfast buffet veranda overlooking the river. Now it feels like we're on holiday.

---

On the train into the jungle.

I won't make the same mistake twice: before we depart U Inchantree, I go on Expedia and locate our next night's lodging. Most places are full, but I settle on a rustic-but-charming little resort called Buritara, an hour or so up the tracks and a ways into the jungle. The pictures on the website look like just the ticket, and for only $34 a night it's worth a try. The next morning we catch the train west toward the jungle villages up the line, Buritara-bound.

Tasteful twin portals.

About the train, the bridge and the river: yes, this particular bridge over what used to be the Klong River really did get bombed during the war; yes, the Japanese really did use brutal forced labor to build a rail line through parts of Thailand and Burma. It was only after the hubbub around the 1957 movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" that Thailand cleverly renamed this stretch of the river Kwae Yai (downstream from Kanchanaburi it's still the Klong River) and proceeded to rake in lots and lots of tourist moolah. The nutty part is, the movie was set in Burma, not Thailand ... and it was fictional!

Looking across at where we should have stayed.

At last I get my train ride across the bridge and into the jungle, and it's exactly as I used to imagine Thailand would be before I came here: green, lush, exotic. Best of all, unspoiled. We get off at the end of the line and go in search of a ride to our glorious Buritara Resort.

No one has ever heard of the place.

Finally we talk to a non-licensed taxi driver who might know where it is, but it'll cost us 1,000 baht to get there; we talk him down to 500 and we're off. Turns out he doesn't know after all, but he makes some calls. Curiously, the Buritara desk is not answering its phone. Three hours and many kilometers later -- this guy really makes an effort -- we locate the resort down a long and deeply rutted dirt road, way deep in the jungle. The signs leading in are tiny and ominously deteriorated.

Resort accommodations? Really??

At last we arrive at ... shantytown.

The girl at the open-air reception desk smiles apologetically and I can tell she is thinking: "You poor bastards, what cruel god delivered you into this hell-hole?" We learn that the phones are out of order, which is why our calls didn't get through earlier. But if they had, would she have warned us away?

The girl leads us along crumbling walkways to our cabin, if that's what you care to call this pink stucco box. Buritara looks nothing like the clean, vibrant resort I saw in the pictures. Or maybe it did 15 years ago. Now the ruins are being consumed by the jungle.

We ask about dinner and are appalled to learn that Buritara has no dining facilities, except for breakfast that will be brought to us in the morning. Also, we are the only guests in the entire resort, and it is the cusp of high season. So we pay a staff member 200 baht to drive us into town for a bite to eat and a 7-Eleven run for provisions.

Not long after we retire, rock-and-roll drum practice starts up in the squalid staff cabins behind our pink box. We lie there in the dark listening to hours of thumpa-thumpa-crash-boom.

"This is terrible," we moan to each other, laughing. "This is terrible ..."

Early next morning we pay for a ride to the nearest bus stop that will carry us back to civilization: to Kanchanaburi, to the immense superstation in Mo Chit, and finally back to Chiang Mai via luxury coach. But not before using Buritara's own wi-fi to write scathing reviews to both TripAdvisor and Expedia. Hmph!

Thai nicknames are awesome

Here's what I should have done: I should have told Lian I'd be in Bangkok on Wednesday night, not my actual arrival date of Monday. That way I'd have two full days to poke around Chinatown in search of craft jewels for my sister, and pop across the river to the big Buddhist temple, Wat Arun, for jade beads for my sister-in-law. In fact, those twin expeditions were my whole point of flying into Bangkok, not Chiang Mai, in the first place.

Ornate gates such as these

at Lian's sister's townhouse

 protect most Thai dwellings.

But I wasn't thinking, I divulged my real schedule. And so when I arrive close to midnight at my favorite funky little hotel, La Residence, Lian is already waiting. She is excited to let me know that our itinerary is all planned for us: in the morning we can move to her sister's house 30 minutes away in Bang Khae, where a room is prepared for us. And then that night the tribe wants to take me out to celebrate my belated birthday. "Stay there just one night. And after, we go to Kanchanaburi for holiday, yes?" Kanchanaburi is where the fake River Kwai is, four hours west of Bangkok headed up into the jungle. (More on that later.)

My Thai birthday dinner: Lian's
brother-in-law and sister dig in.

I put on my best "mai bpen rai" face and nod agreeably. But I quietly start planning a solo bead-and-jewel run, maybe in a few weeks after the long Loi Krathong holiday is over.

The next day our trip to Bang Khae turns out to be a bit of a family reunion: besides us, Lian's daughter-not-niece, Eve, has come north from Hua Hin. And her mother the notorious 89-year-old topless flasher is now living here.

That evening we call for two taxis to take the six of us (minus the mother) to the family's favorite seafood restaurant for a great feast. All through the evening Lian's brother-in-law is taking cell phone calls and scribbling furiously on crumpled sheets of paper he keeps in his shirt pocket. I ask Lian about it. "He bet football," she tells me. "Make good money many year." So it turns out Lian's sister is married to a bookie. We bond over many watered-down whiskey and sodas.

Really a very nice girl.

Joining us at dinner is the sister's fetching 18-year-old daughter, whose name I don't catch until late in the evening. I should explain, Thai people's given names are crazy-long, so most everyone goes by a short nickname. I lean in to ask Lian if I heard this girl's name correctly.

"Yes," she replies. "Name my niece Fook."

Lian explains that the name Fook (rhymes with kook) means approximately: "One Who Prevails Over Great Odds." After her first two children were born, Lian's sister had her tubes tied, but Fook managed to come along anyway. So the name really fits, at least in Thai. Nevertheless, I lament that her sweet young niece can never, ever go to college in an English- or German-speaking country. Lian offers: "Maybe she can change her name first?"

New adventures begin Oct. 22

Coming up: jewel hunting in Bangkok's exotic Chinatown ... a 'River Kwai' expedition to Kanchanaburi ... and another trippy Loi Krathong celebration in Chiang Mai. Big fun!