Incheon my way home

"Lian, pull over!" I shout.

"What?" she calls back over her shoulder. "I am not understand."

"Pull over! You know, Pull over! I mean, stop ... motor-bike! I don't have my reading glasses!"

I see the Night Bazaar through new eyes now. It's still tacky.

Finally she veers off the road and parks. It is early evening on the main drag along the hated Night Bazaar, tourists and tuk-tuks everywhere. I rifle my backpack, my pockets -- no readers. Damn, I must have left them in the locker room at the gym. Lian waits with the bike as I rush back to Centara Hotel's fitness club three blocks away. No luck. But on my way back, on the corner where I hopped on Lian's bike, there they are ... or what's left of them. No frames, just two chewed-up lenses, dead in the street.

And so my next and final day in Chiang Mai is spent on an emergency quest for an eyeglasses shop that can turn around a decent pair of prescription readers in a pinch. While we wait for my new specs, we pop over to a nearby spa run by a friend of Lian's for Thai massage -- a nice little final-day splurge for all of seventeen dollars for two people, including overly generous tip.

Sunday evening I bid adieu once more to Lian and walk down the lane to catch my prearranged Red Car to the airport. Valuable travel tip: when flying to or from Thailand, avoid Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport if you can and instead aim for the much more laid-back Chiang Mai International Airport. Customs and security take five minutes, tops, and you don't feel like you're walking for miles to get in or out.

Now I'm midway through a 13-hour layover at Incheon-Seoul Airport in South Korea ... and loving it. As it happens, there's a gorgeous transit hotel in the airport, just a five-minute walk to my gate: modern and comfortable room, shower, TV, business center with all-important Internet -- perfect! I'll need all the R and R comfort I can get: I'm assigned a middle seat on the long leg back to the states, and it's a full flight. (I already checked.) Probably stuck between Haystack Calhoun and Refrigerator Perry. Wish me luck.

But there's booze in the blender ...

"I want to try drunk," announces teetotaler Lian one evening. "With you." Isn't that sweet?

In 30 years of adulthood Lian has maybe once or twice tasted (and disliked) beer. And she's certainly observed all manner of inebriate behavior, Thai and farang alike, on the streets of the Chiang Mai tourist zone. But ever since watching me party down with her Thai whiskey-proffering relatives outside Bangkok, Lian's been keenly curious about the experience of getting a buzz on. And so the planning begins.

"Maybe we drink wine?" she suggests. But I think not: one sip and the rest of the bottle would be mine.

For the briefest moment I consider tequila shots with the salt and the lime wedge -- but oh good God, no! Even after three and a half decades my body still shudders from the memory ...

Finally I settle on the ideal alcohol delivery system: mango daiquiris. Fresh local fruit, lime juice and crushed ice to soften the double rum kick -- perfect! Lian even has an ancient but serviceable blender from when she owned a laundry and fruit-drink shop years ago in Kanchanaburi.

Thursday evening, after our market run for dinner fixings, I set to work peeling and chopping mangoes.

I am a bad, bad influence.

"We take dinner first?" Lian asks.

"No, no," I reply. "Always have cocktails before dinner. It, uh, helps the appetite." Yeah, that's exactly what drinking on an empty stomach is good for, heh-heh.

This turns out to be one stealth bomber of a daiquiri for a girl who weighs in shy of 100 pounds. Pretty quickly the natural Thai attitude of mai bpen rai ("no worries") is dialed up to 11. Everything is hilarious! And Lian whoops with surprise when she catches a glimpse of her face in the mirror: her normally cinnamon-colored skin is glowing bright red.

I step into the kitchen for a quick rinse-and-clean and come back to find Lian sprawled across the bed, comatose. So I dig into the plastic takeaway bags for handfuls of grilled fish, salad rolls and white rice, then settle in to work until midnight.

The next morning, Lian is up and moving ... slowly. I open the freezer and offer her the cupful of frozen daiquiri that's left from last night's big blender batch.

"For you," she says, not looking at it.

Torn between two lovers

"I'm in love with an elephant!" grins Albert, back from his weeklong elephant rescue mission among the hill tribes.  Albert is still pretty buzzy and emotional about the experience -- touching those horrifically damaged but forgiving creatures, his camaraderie with fellow volunteers, his interactions with native villagers, and especially his bonding with a frisky young pachyderm named Naughty Boy. He professes his love for this elephant more than twice.

Albert in holiday mode.

Albert is also ga-ga over a winsome Thai shopkeeper whom he met the other night in Anusan Market and with some persistence lured out on a dinner date. To hear him describe the magic evening, it sounds like the start of a profound romantic relationship ... if it weren't for the small complication that tomorrow he flies back to his real life on the other side of the planet, possibly forever.

Albert is a vigorous, enthusiastic and engaging guy, but I suspect he might secretly be fifteen years old.

Albert's return coincides with the start of Songkran, the three-day Thai new year celebration. You dress for Songkran the way you dress for a monsoon or a day at the beach, depending on how soaking-wet you care to be. On Friday afternoon we wander up Loi Kroh Road toward the party zone along the moat in search of beers and spectacle. The first day of Songkran does not disappoint.

---

Albert is flying out on Saturday afternoon, so we meet up for his last lunch in Thailand. We try a brand-new place that I've watched being built for months next to the Iron Bridge over the Mae Ping River. It looks kind of fancy, but it's a farewell celebration so what the hell.

An insanely expensive river view.

The appropriately named River Market is gorgeous, the service is top notch, the food is excellent, and the bill when it arrives is jaw-dropping.

"Fifteen hundred baht," I marvel. That's more than fifty bucks for a casual lunch for three -- a couple of sushi plates, a soup, a salad, a fish course and three beers. The manager, a gregarious Dutch-sounding fellow who chats with us, says they're hoping to base their regular business not on tourists but middle-class and upscale Thai locals. Yes ... those many, many Thai one-percenters who love to blow their money on, of all things, Thai food. In a town that's stinko with amazing and inexpensive eats. I think: "Good luck with that." If this place is still in business in a year, I'll be surprised.

After we bid adieu to Albert, Lian and I walk up to Nawarat Bridge to watch the Songkran parade, a much more religious observance during which the crowds sprinkle scented water on the passing Buddhist-themed floats.  Complete with drumming!

---

Sunday morning Lian and I meet our prearranged 5:45 Red Car to the Buddhist temple near Mae Jo where Lian's son, Dao, is fulfilling his child-monk service. We are toting the crepe-paper money tree that Lian has populated with donations from friends and associates, as well as nonperishable foods for the little monkettes.

I am privileged to be one of but two farang observers at what turns out to be a colorful and moving donation ceremony, complete with singing and rose petals strewn at the feet of the saffron-robed holies.

March of the money trees

Of course I look and feel like a huge, ridiculous, dimly comprehending doofus. But I'd gladly come back again because parts of it are just so awesome. And this is the video.

Laying out the food donation for hungry children-monks.

Halftime, and nothing's happening

At the midway mark of this latest tour of duty in Chiang Mai, it's time to report in on miscellaneous this and that:

---

Albert shoots nothing in particular.

Rewind to a week ago, and the arrival of new pal Albert on the midnight flight from Penang. At the tail-end of a business trip, Albert is spending a week in northern Thailand as a volunteer at an elephant rescue and rehabilitation park. There, he'll work with the hill tribes to wrangle and care for elephants that were once abused in illegal logging, street begging and other practices. For this sweat-stained, mosquito-bitten week of drudgery he is paying $500. Terrific. Now I can never again enjoy five days at a beach resort in southern Thailand for that same amount of money without feeling selfish and despicable. Thanks a LOT, Albert!

We meet up Sunday morning at his guest house and set out on foot to see the sights, steering way clear of the farang ghetto that is the moat area. Instead we aim for Warorot Market and Chinatown, where Albert and I are practically the only white folks in the crowd. For hours we wander up and down side streets and through the market, snapping pictures and soaking in the thai thai ambience.

We meet up again later in the afternoon and, for contrast, aim straight for tourist central.

"You want massaaaaaage?" the parlor ladies sing-song as we make our way along Loi Kroh Road, past the  eateries and pubs and tuk-tuks and travel agencies toward the east moat, stopping for a beer or two along the way. Near Thapae Gate we connect with Lian and the three of us stroll the Sunday Walking Market, dining on cheap eats in the temple yard at Wat Pan On and indulging in one-hour foot massages. Most tourist stuff I detest, but Sunday Walking Market, with its live music and handicrafts and wonderful food, never gets old.

---

One evening I turn Lian onto YouTube.

Giving of myself to advance professional development.

"Whatever you can think of, YouTube has it: cooking, travel, anything! Many, many videos," I enthuse. "Tell me what you want to see."

She eyes the MacBook screen and replies instantly: "Want video Japanese facial massage." Tap-tap-tap, and darned if we don't pull up a slew of tutorials. Out come the moisturizers and other glop, and for the next hour or so I am a totally willing practice dummy as the earnest student imitates the action onscreen. God, I love technology!

---

More food porn.

This awesome salad is thrown together during a crashing thunderstorm and downpour as the power keeps blinking on and off. The sausage, brought back from the south, is candy-sweet, and Thai chiles dot the greens like tiny landmines.