Days before I return to Thailand, my "bring" list grows to Costco-size proportions, literally, after a customer gives Lian a hot tip on American healthcare supplements. "Kirk-Land Vitamin C she say really good!" Lian enthuses. So I try to explain how private-label marketing works, and how Costco puts its house brand on everything from batteries to men's boxers but doesn't really
make anything, and blah blah blah. Silence. Then, "You can bring Kirk-Land OK? Five bottle?"
So, one Costco expedition later, I pack five enormous pill bottles into my luggage, along with the usual supply of moisturizers and other girl-glop, leaving me space for a change of clothes and not much else. My rolling bag rattles like maracas through the airport terminal, attracting "what the ...?" looks from other travelers.
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| Thai Yoko Ono goes the extra mile. |
I am in Bangkok this time, not Chiang Mai. The plan is to meet up with Lian in the next day or two down in her hometown of Nasan, where she is caring for her elderly mother while other family members are out of town. After a few days we will wend our way north, getting home in time for Chinese New Year the following weekend.
I arrive very late at La Residence, my favorite hotel located in the Silom district where I got my English teaching certificate two years ago. The next morning its proprietor, Thai Yoko Ono, solves a huge problem for me: my credit union is having online banking issues and I cannot use my debit card to secure a flight down to Surat Thani. Yoko's solution: she puts my ticket on the hotel account and I pay her back in cash. Now
this is how you build customer loyalty!
My flight south isn't until early evening, so I have lots of time to visit the enormous Chattuchak Weekend Market to acquire jewels for my sister's craft work. After hours of meandering through the labyrinthine market I finally track down the shop I was looking for ... right next to the entrance I came in. D'oh!
At La Residence I somehow manage to pack the jewels into my tight-as-a-drum roller bag by cramming my single change of clothes into my also-tight day pack. After thanking Thai Yoko Ono profusely and pledging to return again and again forever, I flag down an honest taxi driver (it takes three attempts) to connect with my domestic flight south.
I am met in Surat Thani by Lian and her brother, who has been roped yet again into chauffeur duty and looks none to thrilled about it. Halfway along on the 50-minute drive back to Nasan, he pulls into a gas station and tells the attendant to put in 500 baht worth ... which I guess is my cue to reach into my wallet. But I am happy to accommodate.
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| Nasan Botanical Garden |
The next morning we go walking. Nasan is just as sleepy and Marcola-like as I remember it. Children and old people gape with astonishment to see a big, sweating
farang lumber through the open-air market with that girl who used to live here. Some sights are picturesque in a not-good way and Lian is not happy when I snap photos. "Not beautifoon!" she objects.
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| Durian chips, cooked old-school |
But this is a farming community and the local produce is spectacular, and so are the foods they make from it. My absolute favorite is young fried durian -- what we would call durian chips. Slightly sweet, with a complex aftertaste, fried young durian is highly addictive. A number of squalid-looking storefronts are small-batch durian frying operations.
We visit one and I buy a half-kilo bag for 200 baht; the next day we come back for a full kilo. The equivalent of $17 for 2.2 pounds of chips might sound extravagant, but those same chips would fetch twice that price up north ... and much more outside Thailand. And we are buying them still-warm from the cauldron.
---
Lian's mother must be almost 90, but that's only a guess: according to Lian, Thai people are not big on remembering birthdays, including their own. The mother is largely housebound -- she lives with Lian's sister and her family -- and is only vaguely aware that Lian lives in Chiang Mai, hundreds of miles north, so that she imagines that Lian is angry with her "because she never comes to visit." My presence must baffle the heck out of her.
That afternoon as other family members are away and Lian is busy with laundry, it's just me and Meh (the Thai word for mother) sitting across from each other on wood benches in the living room. Social turd that I am, I keep my eyes focused on my laptop as Meh just sort of looks around. After a bit, she rises to her bare feet and shuffles slowly into an adjacent bedroom, closing the door behind her. I continue working. The door re-opens and out comes Meh, naked from the waist up. She pays me no mind but continues on to the bathroom. Then I hear running water.
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| Dramatic re-creation. |
"Uhhh ... Lian?" I call out, slightly panicked. "Your mother? No clothes?"
In a while the running water stops and Meh totters back through the room, paps a-swinging.
Lian states the blindingly obvious: "She old. She don' care."
---
Not only is it high season in Thailand, the Chinese New Year is nigh and many people, tourists and Thais alike, are traveling. Lian and I make a last-minute decision to head north to visit her daughter-niece in the coastal resort town of Hua Hin. At the railway ticket office we learn that all the trains are booked, except for one first-class compartment on the next day's evening train that arrives in Hua Hin at 2 in the morning. We book it and say to ourselves: "It'll be an adventure." I mean, a train stops there at 2 every night, so they MUST have somebody or something on hand to greet late-night arrivals. Wouldn't you think?
Before we leave Nasan, we go say good-bye to Meh. Smiling and making the prayer-hands-under-the-chin display of respect, I tell her in English: "Thank you for showing me your tits yesterday. Please don't ever do it again." She nods and smiles, not quite looking at me.
Lian's brother loads us up with produce from his orchard: a huge bag of
longan fruit and a whole ripe durian the size of a pineapple. Add this to the 1.5 kilos of durian chips, the kilo of southern curry we bought at the open-air market, the jewels, the vitamins and Lian's own luggage and we literally cannot carry one more thing.
As it happens, Lian's brother lives behind the Nasan railway station, which is where he drops us. So we must be a sight, toting double-armfuls of suitcases and grocery bags across four sets of tracks and up onto the platform. Before we board our train, Lian buys fried chicken and sticky rice from the open-air market across the street -- early dinner before catching what sleep we can. Eight hours later comes a rap on our compartment door, the 10-minute warning for our 2 a.m. arrival in Hua Hin. We drag our belongings to the front of the rail car and wait.
But the engineer overshoots the station and we must disembark into weeds and darkness beside the tracks. Still half-asleep, we lug our belongings back toward the lights of the platform, 100 yards distant.
The Hua Hin railway station is brightly lit but almost vacant. No sign anywhere of an open cafe or hotel lobby. Across the darkened street we can make out a few tuk-tuk drivers smoking and eyeing us back. And it is almost five hours until sunup.
Lian sets her bags on a bench and looks at me. "Adventure you say. Now what we do?"
