White Christmas

Christmas Eve at the Buddy Mart.

How Santa gets jolly.

Thailand is an extremely Buddhist country, but the locals in our farang-ified enclave at least give a cheerful nod to the Christian holiday. On Christmas Eve, the owner of the Buddy Mart -- a retired Thai general who served in Vermont on a military exchange program -- hosts a party in front of the store for local children, complete with balloons, treats, and a very questionable Santa, recruited from among the beer-drinking ne'er-do-wells who loiter outside most evenings. For some reason the Thai children are afraid to go anywhere near him.

Later, the pleasant Canadian fellow across the street invites us to join his mostly-Thai church congregation for caroling and hot cocoa at his house. We stay put on our side of the lane but I do walk out around 10 to lurk in the shadows for a listen. The next morning one of his children bring us cake and cookies; I really need to mosey across for a visit, one of these days.

Home for the holidays, kinda-sorta.

The next morning we activate the dimensional portal that is FaceTime to watch my family back in Oregon, where it's still Christmas Eve, as they open gifts by the fire. Why, it's almost like being there in person! Except it's not.

Christmas dinner with the nabes.

That night we're invited to an east-meets-west dinner of sorts at the nearby home of our Thai realtor, Sandra, and her husband, Patrick, from Seattle. Like just about everyone in our neighborhood, our hosts entertain outdoors on the front patio by the street. Our culinary contribution is the very traditional Christmas dish of green curry with chicken and Thai eggplant. Over the course of the evening do I drink a little too much Thai whiskey? Oh, probably.

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January 12 I fly back to Oregon for four weeks, which is all well and good ... except that my 90-day Thai travel visa expires on January 1. In other words, I'll be making a New Year's Eve visa run up to Burma next week. Stay tuned.

Graduation vacation

Can you guess Eve's major?

Early Monday morning Lian, Dao and I fly down to Bangkok on holiday to watch Lian's daughter, Eve, graduate from college. Except we won't actually get to "watch" anything: the commencement seats go to Eve's father and step-mom, possibly because Good Old Dad paid for most of college. But we will get the girl to ourselves for the next two days afterward.

Not a carnival midway -- a graduation.

Eve's ever-reliable boyfriend, Boy, meets us at the airport and shuttles us to the main campus of Ratchadamnoen Commercial College, where 10,000 students from satellite schools across Thailand are graduating today, and ten times that number of friends and family are here to celebrate.

The campus is jam-packed with proud families toting picnic baskets, straw mats and, strangely, carnival swag. For some reason stuffed animals and gaudy plastic floral arrangements are must-give Graduation Day offerings, and they are hawked by a long row of vendors. Lian buys a double-armload of the junk.

An early lunch, a long wait.

Why we needed to be here so early in the day I have no idea -- it turns out that we won't get to see Eve until after 3:30. So the four of us take lunch and find a shady place to settle in and people-watch for the next several hours. This being a co-ed campus, the scenery is agreeable.



Graduation Day at Ratchadamnoen College is a boisterous affair with much drumming, dancing and chanting by the underclassmen to honor their seniors; drum circles across campus are whooping it up simultaneously under the tropical sun and it's a wonder that no one keels over from heat stroke. Even in the shade I'm starting to wilt.

Eve & Boy have a selfie moment.

Finally Eve is released from commencement and comes looking for us. We all take copious pictures of each other posing with our little graduate, who announces that she has arranged for a special picture for all of us: a professional family portrait. Including me!

Eve, under there somewhere.

So the five of us trek halfway across campus to the makeshift studio where two dozen families are already ahead of us in line. More waiting, and more sun.

At last it is our turn to pose. I try to mop up as best I can, but there's no way to "hide" me: as the elders, Lian and I are seated in the Chairs of Honor up front on either side of Eve. The photographer primps and poses me as best he can but, well ...

Later at the video monitor, as Eve makes her image selections, I peer over her shoulder and am chagrined at the result: a nice Asian family appears to be having its picture taken with Hoss Cartwright.

---

It's getting toward dark and Boy is driving the five of us south: our first stop will be in Bang Khae for Lian's mom to see Dao (it's been years), and then on to the coastal tourist town of Hua Hin, where Eve lives.

To find his best route through Bangkok, Boy trusts the GPS app in his iPhone and follows its every direction. But a quick glance at a dumb old paper roadmap would have served him better: instead of choosing the elevated freeways, the so-called smart phone casts him down onto the capillary streets of the world's most notoriously traffic-jammed city. For hours we go inching in every direction except south. Finally, just after 9 we spot a familiar landmark and race for the family house in Bang Khae. We just hope everyone's still awake.

Grandmother and Dao.

At the house, Lian's flasher-mom is happy to see grown-up Dao, and she greets me warmly as well. I pat her hand and ask: "You're keeping your shirt on tonight, right?" The old woman makes no promises but soon indicates to Lian's sister that she's ready to go abnam (bathe). Whoops, time to go!

Three hours later, at almost 1:30 in the morning, after a full day of flying and driving and waiting and sweating, we arrive at our Hua Hin hotel and collapse into bed.

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Buying fresh crab.

Kudos to Eve and especially Boy for being such attentive hosts. Tuesday they drive us north to the fishing docks in Cha-am to buy crab, shrimp, squid fresh off the boat and cooked while we wait. Elbow-deep in crustacean gore, we consume our haul with fried rice under beachside umbrellas. Sometimes life's not so terrible.

Seafood lunch on the beach in Cha-am.

Holiday's over: Eve has to work on Wednesday morning and we leave for home late in the afternoon. But Boy remains ever at our side, chauffeuring us around town and getting us to the bus station in time for our 5:30 coach to Chiang Mai. Really, this young man has gone above and beyond: he could have dumped us off at the bus and gotten on with his life at any time, but instead he's hung in there good-naturedly, even waiting with us in the station. A gentleman.

Hanging with Boy in Hua Hin. 

Travel tip: when choosing a bus in Thailand, spring for the VIP luxury coach -- it's worth it. Better seats, more leg room, infotainment unit in the facing seat-back, and most especially a decent-size blanket. You'll need it: Thai people LOVE their air-conditioning, even at night when it's not at all warm. Most of the way home, despite being bundled tight, I am freezing my ass off.

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Yes, McD's has invaded Thailand, too. Kuhn Ronald has been here for a long time. But at least the big ginger knows to show the proper respect.

If the boys want to fight, you better let 'em

Baker Pete, meat man Tom.

A wood-burning brick pizza oven is not something you normally see in northern Thailand, but Ricardo has acquired one from God-knows-where and is eager to try it out. And so, on Sunday evening the beer-drinking cohort that hangs most nights outside the Buddy Mart will gather at Ricardo's house for homemade pies. Pete the baker will create the dough, Tom the sausage guy will bring meats and sauce, and everyone else will chip in for beverages. It'll be fun!

Around 5 on Sunday, hoping I'm not late, I pedal three blocks over to the demolition project that is Ricardo's house. Ricardo, a chain-smoking Swiss bear of a man, is tearing out his front porch and concrete rubble is strewn everywhere. The afternoon got away from him and nothing is ready for outdoor pizza-making: no prep table, no place for diners to sit. Worse, there's no fire in the pizza oven, which takes hours for the bricks to fully heat. Ricardo is pacing to and fro through the devastation, muttering unintelligibly, cigarette smoke trailing him everywhere. I get the impression that he has no idea what to do.

Ricardo: he didn't start the fire.

Pete arrives shortly and throws a conniption when he realizes that nothing has been set out for him to make dough. After a tense exchange with Ricardo, the baker gathers what he needs and sets to work assembling flour, water, salt and yeast. But the dough needs time to rise, and the brick oven remains cold. Pizza is not happening anytime soon.

More mates trickle in and we extricate tables and chairs from inside Ricardo's dronestruck-looking house. Tom shows up with sausage, marinara and mozzarella from his shop; a few other goobers bring beer (for themselves) and appetites.

Finally, about the time we should be pulling pies out of the oven, Ricardo goes to start the fire ... or not. He tries and tries but keeps killing it. Now it is getting dark and few guys shake their heads and leave. The pizza party has dwindled to five of us and tempers are the only things burning.

"Jeez, Ricardo!" hollers Tom, gnashing his cigar. "If you'd been in charge of the ovens in Germany, six million Jews would still be alive!" And then a flare-up between Ricardo and Pete threatens to escalate into a full-on Old Man Fight. Could this evening get more awesome?

 At last the charcoal is ignited (by Tom) and we assemble our pies. But now we have a practical problem: the firebox is full of embers, leaving no place to set the pizzas. Ricardo neglected to make room for a pizza stone. Our half-assed solution is to cook the pizzas on a baking sheet laid directly on the fire. We throw in a test pie fully expecting to pull out a monstrosity, nuked on the bottom and raw everywhere else.

But you know what? The resulting pie is ... perfect! And so are the next six we bake. Thin, crispy, delicious. Suddenly all is forgiven: we congratulate Ricardo for a masterful pizza party "in spite of everything." And the moment the last slice is gone, everyone gets the hell out of there. We'll see if Ricardo can talk anyone into another pizza night anytime soon.

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Thai people love their king with the most heartfelt reverence. In honor of his birthday on Friday, everyone turns out wearing yellow, His Majesty's favorite color. Even at home.

Flying the colors while watching the king's birthday festivities.

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Families in northern Thailand make good use of the dry season and no one in our neighborhood is shy about airing their laundry in the afternoon "big sun." Even the big fancy houses around the corner set their unmentionables out front to dry.

A club so private, we're its only members

Friday night lights ... but where are the players?

It's late Friday afternoon and Lian is called to stand by in the spa at the brand-new North Hill Golf Club. A group of 50 guests of the club, weary from a complimentary 18 holes, will be arriving at any moment. Maybe. So the spa needs to be all staffed up for Thai massage, mani-pedi or whatever it takes to impress these prospective new members.

Our dinner plans are trashed, but no problem: we've been wanting to try the fancy clubhouse restaurant anyway, so this is our chance. Lian goes ahead on her motor bike to don her uniform, and 20 minutes later I pedal along behind. It's a beautiful ride along the wide, empty road that divides the old nine-hole course and the new links. At sunset the megawatt floodlights illuminate the fairway for night golf. But I see no players.

The side road to the clubhouse is all but deserted. A quarter-mile down I wheel into the parking lot and leave my bike next to Lian's cherry-red Honda. No one else around but the gatekeeper and the doorman.

I want this lamp!

Inside, the lobby of this gorgeous (if a little gaudy) clubhouse is quiet as a library. I walk to the spa, where Lian is at the front desk with the manager, awaiting the first wave of massage-needing bodies.

"They say many golfer come soon," she tells me. "You can wait me upstairs for dinner?" Which I interpret to mean: Darling husband, you should go see what the bar looks like.

The Happy Hour crowd in the clubhouse bar.

Here's the first word that comes to me as I walk into the bar: grand. As in, look, there's a baby grand piano in the corner equipped with a vocal mic. Are you booking your plane ticket to Thailand yet, Tim Trautman?

I settle into a plush couch with a tumbler of Jack over ice and wonder: how many millions of baht are they losing on this place every day? Because I have three servers fussing over me and I am the only customer in this huge room.

Forty-five minutes and two drinks later Lian tracks me down -- the golfers' massagapalooza failed to materialize, so the spa cut her loose. Jack Number Two and complimentary peanut dish in hand, we step across the hall to the HOLY GOD IS THIS ROOM WHITE!!! restaurant. I neglected to make reservations but the waiter manages to seat us anywhere we want because we are tonight's first and only guests.

Our new favorite place for Date Night.

Our dining experience is sensational for its ambience, the view of the fairway at night, our deftly prepared entrees, and the bill that comes to a shade over twenty bucks, including bar tab and gratuity.

As we are ready to leave, the long-awaited golfer stampede comes rumbling in, but it's not 50; more like seven, and only half of them sit down for dinner.

"That manager, he tell me they want to have a new promotion for more customer," Lian shares. Hmm ... maybe I could work out a copywriting trade?

---

From the inside looking out, I totally get the allure of gated communities.

This week I finally got around to buying a bike lock, but I have yet to use it here on the rez. Tom, the Sausage Guy around the corner, says he routinely leaves his keys in his truck at night. Thanks to diligent security, aided by the decorative bars across every door, window and driveway of every house, the crime stats in this placid bubble of non-reality are pretty much zero.

Which makes reading the day-to-day news from my neighborhood back in Portland all the more depressing: car break-ins, bike thefts, burglaries, all manner of intrusions. There's a lot I miss about home, but not that.

I know it'll be there in the morning.

Saturday night's alright, alright, alright

It's Saturday, mid-month, time to go pay the rent. But neither of us wants to venture out in the afternoon "Big Sun," so we keep putting it off until early evening. After dinner Lian and I walk up the street to the house of our landlady, Tuk. Tuk is a single mother, mid-40s, who looks like she could be Lian's fun little sister. Last week I bought my almost-new bicycle from Tuk.

We'll be back in a few minutes, we tell Lian's son, Dao.

Beer, Thai style

Halfway there we can already hear party music coming from Tuk's streetside dining patio: she and a few neighbors are taking a late supper and we're invited to join in. Thai people are big on impromptu gatherings and it's impolite to refuse, so we sit down to a whole second supper. And lots of beer, served Thai-style: in a glass over ice and mixed with club soda. A brilliant way to self-pace.

We get to meet a few more of the nabes: the mild-mannered software engineer who lives next door to us, the Chiang Mai cop with the imposing physical presence of Frodo Baggins, and the housewife across the street. We learn that the folks on our lane take turns hosting potluck dinners every few weeks, and that Tuk always hosts an epic New Year's celebration. (New Year's lasts about 10 days in these parts.) I am warned: there will be karaoke.

"Chai-oh" -- A Thai toast with the new neighbors

Tonight's music is mostly '70s American rock, in honor of the farang new bitch, me. Tuk is the perfect hostess, keeping all beer glasses brim-full -- even Lian's, whose mai ao, kaas go cheerily unheeded. (Luckily I am here to help my wife keep up.) As I've mentioned before, Lian's skin turns radiation-burn pink when she drinks any amount of alcohol. But it turns out to be a Thai thing: every other Asian face at the table is equally incandescent. Fascinating.

As the evening wears on, Tuk leans across the table and asks me a most endearing question: "Do you like whiskey?" I answer by showing her the Dalwhinnie single malt on my iPhone wallpaper, and she presents a just-opened bottle of Chivas. Graciously I accept a taste or two.

Eventually we say our good-nights and find our way home, the glow of Lian lighting our way. By the time we fall into bed it is almost midnight.  And we clean forgot to pay the rent.

---

This morning Lian is off running errands on her motorbike and I am upstairs figuring out how to dislodge pigeons' nests from the awnings above our back bedroom windows. (We're tired of cleaning pigeon crap off the patio twice a day.) Suddenly Lian bursts into the room gibbering with agitation and darting around the room, unable to sit still. Finally I get out of her what happened: as she was making a U-turn on the big highway, a car sideswiped her and almost tipped her bike over in heavy traffic. Stopped in the middle lanes, she had a heated argument with the driver, a young girlie going too fast. They both left before the police arrived to complicate things further. (Very little damage, Lian was only slightly hurt, and the police would want a bribe to make everything go away.)

But here's what really has Lian steamed: this was the third time she's tried to pick up her new business signs from the printer, and each time he's been closed. So, by her thinking, it's his fault that she almost got wiped out. She fumes: "I hate that man."

Koolpunt & the Gang

I want a job writing almost-coherent Thai tag lines.

I get around.

One day blends into the next. Lian jogs as I ride my bicycle through the architecturally themed neighborhoods of our gated community, or past its brand-new golf course. We promise ourselves that sometime soon we'll try (insert Thurston Howell III voice here) "dinner at the clubhouse."

"Buddy!"

Most days we stop in at the Buddy Mart around the corner for bread or frozen passionfruit bars or whatever. For lunch we might visit this fine little guittio (noodle) joint off the main drive, just a five-minute walk from home.

Soup is good food.

Crews of thickly dressed landscape workers in rice paddy hats groom the public areas and sweep the sidewalks with fan-shaped straw brooms. Uniformed security personnel man the cross-barred checkpoints every quarter-mile. Need a lightbulb changed or a toilet fixed? You call the Main Office and a handyman arrives 10 minutes later. (The service is free but we tip the guy anyway.) Private landscapers are available to spruce up individual yards, for a price. In my case, that price is eighteen bucks. And they do a damn fine job!

English spoken here.

One or two evenings a week while Lian cooks dinner, I wander up to the Buddy Mart for exactly one beer with the rotating cast of ne'er-do-wells who gather at the wooden tables out front to solve the world's problems. Occasionally I buy a frozen package of farang chow from the Sausage Man, Tom, whose storefront is two doors down. Chorizo, andouille links, lasagna, cottage pie ... it's all good, and a necessary relief from my life sentence of rice-rice-rice with no possibility of parole.

Somewhere in this hectic schedule I manage to pencil in a few hours of work ... and dream of the blessed day when I can finally retire.

---

My charitable side wants to interpret this as a deliberate play on words, a clever way of exhorting readers to "Be Living." But likelier it's the work of a HomePro marketing editor who alllmost knows English.

Another Roadside Attraction

Wedding party ...  or traffic hazard? You decide.

It is Saturday morning before 7 and our Red Car arrives early to shuttle Lian and me to the airport. We are flying down to Bangkok for her nephew Jo-Jo's wedding. After two days of 3 a.m. phone conferences -- the downside of trying to keep west coast business hours in Thailand -- I am profoundly sleep-deprived.

By the time we reach Lian's sister's working-class row house in Bang Khae, most of the clan has gathered: her brothers and their wives, various nephews and nieces and miscellaneous kinfolk. At the center of this swirl of family activity sits Lian's 88-year-mother, drowsily taking in the wedding prep.

It's a full house, so we'll be staying at a nearby hotel that the sister has scouted for us. I am skeptical: our previous sight-unseen lodging she found for us in Bang Khae turned out to be grimy, threadbare and not-secure ... but that place was the Ritz compared to this awful tenement our taxi pulls up to. It looks like every crack house you ever saw on "The Wire." A sullen rag of a woman shows us to this dank, pissy-smelling room with a sheetless bed and no other furniture. Eight hundred baht, about $25.

"Is this OK for you?" Lian asks me.

"No." Without so much as a sawat dii khrep we are outathere and back to the street. Our taxi is long gone, so we start hoofing it back to the row house. I put my hand on Lian's arm and look into her eyes: "Honey, I promise you I will never, ever force my wife to stay in a terrible place like that. I would rather sleep on the tile floor with no pillow or blanket in your sister's house."

As it turns out, that's exactly what we do.

---

Making wedding dessert.

On the walk back, Lian shares with me tomorrow's Wedding Day schedule: "Tomorrow we all go for Thai ritual at 3:30 morning."

"Wait -- you said ..."

"Get up at 2:30 to get ready," she continues. It sinks in: my third 2:30 wake-up call in as many nights!

Six sleepers, one room.

Lian's sister takes our return to the madhouse in stride, assigning us to an upstairs bedroom that has only four other people in it: Lian's daughter, Eve, and her boyfriend, Boy; and the delightfully named niece Fook and her man friend. Hey, no worries, we're all family now!

Why are we here? What are we doing?

Two-thirty arrives way too soon. Fifteen people jockey for potty/shower time in two bathrooms, and then off we drive into the dark. Lian and I ride with Eve in Boy's car to who-knows-where. An hour or so later at a wide spot in the road, our caravan pulls off along the muddy shoulder. Everyone piles out and starts setting up for a party.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t.

We are in front of a mechanic's shop; on the opposite side of the road I can make out a backhoe dealership. Big trucks go rumbling by every so often. We assemble in ranks of two for a procession. Someone hands me a gift box on a tray and pins a corsage on me, and then we march to the front door of a modest dwelling nearby, whooping it up in falsetto all the way. I am utterly mystified.

At the doorway celebrants lash together palm fronds as an archway and we all file inside. It turns out to be the apartment of the bride. We present our gifts and watch as the bride and groom kneel to pay respects to their parents, seated on the sofa. The moms and dads pat the newlyweds' heads like they're good doggies. Jo-Jo showily displays the gold jewelry and cashbox that are all part of the Thai sin sod, the dowry that the groom pays to the bride's family. It's getting toward sunup as we all go back outside for the big breakfast feast.

Duck: it's what's for breakfast.

Lian's sister & niece display sin sod box,
narrowly escape death under big truck.

Yes, the feast ... on the muddy shoulder of a busy road. Gazing at the backhoes, as traffic police direct 18-wheelers away from creaming the wedding party.

I ABSOLUTELY want to get Thai-married in this outfit!

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Chinese ritual.

Early afternoon back at the sister's house, we participate in the Chinese wedding ritual (Lian's parents were both born in China), which consists of more groveling and head-petting. The elders each take their turn in the Chairs o' Honor, partaking of tea before dropping their cash-stuffed envelopes into the newlyweds' swag basket.

After the Chinese ritual is finished, Lian and I use technology to find a hotel that is not dreadful. Thank you, Expedia! Thank you, TripAdvisor! Despite its Kloyingly Kutesy name, Kozy Inn is just about perfect; my review is here. And the best part? It cost only 100 baht (three dollars and change) more than the shooting gallery we fled earlier.

At long last, I finally enjoy a full night's sleep.

---

The wedding-night party is my kind of fun, by which I mean the 10-course dinner and the bottomless whiskey-and-soda service. (You should understand that Thais mix their drinks at a ratio of one thimbleful of whiskey to a half-gallon of soda, so it's impossible to do any real harm.) Jo-Jo has changed out of his Nehru jacket and king-of-Siam gold lame parachute pants in favor of an equally restrained silvery tux. Turns out he and his new bride are with the band; I love it when newlyweds have musician friends who let them sit in.

So, uh, what are you other nine people having
for dessert?

Here's how I know I am not in America anymore: servers distributing the wedding cake leave a single slice at our 10-person table. "Really?" I ask Lian. "Just one piece for all of us?" I mean it as a joke.

"Chai, one is OK," she answers in all seriousness. "Thai people can share-share." The sugary western-style cake goes mostly uneaten. But the ginger-and-tofu soup? Gone, baby, gone.

---

Before our flight home, Lian and I pay one last visit to her mother, who lives in the sister's house. The siblings chat in the front room while I finish lunch at the kitchen table. The mother shuffles into the adjacent bathroom, where she stays for the longest time. From the sound of running water I know she is abnam (showering).

Good God, it's happening again!

The bathroom door starts to open, but this time I know to drill my eyes into the tabletop. But damn you, peripheral vision! Lian comes to the rescue, gently ushering her half-naked mother back to her day bed. As they pass by, Lian tells me yet again, in what could become a familiar catchphrase for us: "She old. She don't care."

Room to Move

Tight quarters for two adults and a 15-year-old. I mean, this is it!

After 2½ years of literally stepping over each other in “the room,” it’s time for the three of us to stop living like we're in lockup.

The very next day after returning from four months in America, Lian and I begin checking into rental houses in the gated communities that ring Chiang Mai. Quickly we settle on a three-bedroom, three-bath place on the southern outskirts of the city, in the village of Hang Dong. (Official motto: "Stop snickering!")

So they loaded up the truck and they moved to ...

Lian hires a Red Car, which arrives on Saturday morning at 8 sharp. I'm certain that it will be a two-trip move, but incredibly our driver manages to cram the entire household into and atop his small covered pickup in under an hour. The driver lives in “Hong Doong,” as the locals pronounce it, and he knows the back roads that lead out of the city. Our tiny truck meanders through the almost-countryside before arriving at the back entrance of Koolpunt Ville 9, our gated community. We pass through two security checkpoints on the way to our new digs.

We have the truck unloaded just before 10. The entire move takes under two hours and costs 800 baht, less than twenty-five bucks, including tip.

---

Here’s what 15,000 baht (roughly $470) per month buys you in these parts:

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In our rapture for this house, we might have glossed over a few realities – like the fact that we’re more than a mile inside the front gate and it’s another mile to the nearest supermarket, and I don’t have a car or motorbike. Which means our food options these last two days have been limited to the mini-mart around the corner and the community center restaurant, a 15-minute walk. (On the plus side, it’s a really good restaurant, and reasonable.) Our solution will be to hire a Red Car driver for weekly grocery trips to the Big C Market. Also, there’s probably a bicycle purchase in my near future.

I try exploring outside the gates on foot and end up getting hopelessly lost until an American expat gives me directions back to the compound. He even tells me about some local mates who gather for beers most evenings outside my mini-mart. (I’ve seen them.)

A sign we never saw in the old 'hood.

This is turning out to be a whole new slice of Thailand for me – heck, for all three of us. After years of living among the proletariat and navigating crumbling infrastructure, we’ve moved up to the middle class – to wide flat streets and late-model cars and people toting golf bags and walking their not-feral dogs. Will they accept us?

---

Sunday night I walk up to the restaurant for take-out and order a beer while I wait. Apparently "a beer" in these parts means a 1-liter bottle, and my order is ready almost immediately. So, glug-glug and into the night I go, toting bags of terrific food and feeling no pain. At the mini-mart I stop for bread and get to meet the Thai proprietor, who speaks better English than I do. We chat. His name’s Ed. Ed asks: “You like sausage?” It’s not a non sequitur question: on our first visit, our rental agent enthused about The Sausage Man in the neighborhood. “Want to meet him?” So Ed walks me outside to the beer-drinking fellows and introduces me to The Sausage Man, who’s actually a dude from Tacoma. Handshakes all around. And then somebody asks me: “Hey, are you the guy that got lost? Walt told us about you!”

I’ll join up with these fellows in a day or two, but now I need to take dinner home while it’s hot. I go back in and pay for my bread. Ed walks me to the door.

“G’night, Jeff,” he says.

“See you later, Ed.”

I think we’ll be fitting in just fine.

American Woman

Just when Lian is acclimating to life in Oregon, just when a decision on her Green Card application could arrive any day, her nephew Jo-Jo goes and gets his girlfriend pregnant ... which means there's a hurry-up wedding in Bangkok that we must attend. So, six weeks earlier than planned, it's back to Thailand we go.

On the taxi ride from the airport late Saturday night, we look out at the jumble of shops and street vendors and winding lanes and motorbikes and crusty, crumbling buildings and crazy traffic zipping by. "Thailand and America really different," Lian says. "Really different. I never know before."

We arrive back in our working-class studio apartment, three big bags stretched tight mostly with American skin-care products. We drop our load and I watch Lian look around the room after a five-month absence, then at me. Her expression says it all: "Was this place always so small?"

The next day we walk to our favorite lunch place. Lian, who is now accustomed to flat, spacious Portland sidewalks, stumbles badly on the broken, treacherous Thai walkway not once but twice; in three years I've never seen that happen before.

The afternoon is not particularly hot, but Lian looks wilted and even a little sweaty. "I think Thailand is humid more America," she laments. "I like air in Oregon."

But it's the allegedly "fresh" produce in the open-air San Pakoi market that Lian now sees through American eyes: table after table of sad, droopy, oversprayed greens, when we've just spent a summer cruising organic farmers markets and gorging in family gardens. Thai corn on the cob is practically silage, whereas American sweet corn is just about the most amazing thing Lian has ever tasted. "I eat more vegetable in America than I do in Thailand," she realizes this morning over breakfast.

Will I have any trouble getting this girl on a plane back to the US of A, especially come late spring? I think maybe no problem.

Jeffy gets his culinary groove back

A fish called Batthu. Feh.

I really hate this ugly-ass fish.

It's called batthu, near as I can make out. Vendors at the open-air San Pakoi market sell them pre-cooked and sitting out uncovered at 80+ degree room temperature. Shoppers walk by and prod the flesh for firmness with their nasty bare fingers. At least twice a week Lian buys two batthu for the dinner table, to be served with rice and soy dipping sauce. They taste as good as they look.

Truth be told, my problem isn't with just the batthu: most of the food and produce we encounter at San Pakoi is slop, pure and simple, and I'm increasingly under-enthused with our day-to-day choices.

So, perfect timing for a change of scenery: six days down south to visit Lian's family in Hua Hin and Bang Khae. Early Sunday morning we board the first Nok Air flight out of Chiang Mai. (Surprisingly, air travel for two to Bangkok is actually cheaper than the train, and 13 times faster.) We connect with a dilapidated third-class train that drops us at the Hua Hin railway station late in the afternoon. There, we are greeted by Lian's daughter, Eve, and her boyfriend ... or, friend Boy. That's really his name. Boy, as in son of Tarzan. (Go ahead, have fun with it.) Boy manages the fitness center at the tony Intercontinental Resort, which is where he met Eve when she was an accounting trainee.

Eve and her Boy toy at Udom Pochana.

For the next five days I am privileged to eat in amazing Thai places where farang rarely set foot. On our first night Boy and Eve chauffeur us in Boy's brand-new Honda sedan 30 minutes south to an outdoor oceanside seafood restaurant in Pran Buri. Udom Pochana has been serving locals forever, but it has exactly two online TripAdvisor reviews. We order plate after plate of terrific seafood and the tab comes in a shade over thirty bucks, including tip.

Shady characters.

The next day our young hosts drive us to a beach frequented solely by locals. It looks nothing like a tourist beach: whereas white folks would be splayed under the tropical sun working on their carcinomas, Thai people cover up and hug the shade.

That evening Boy and Eve want to treat us to dinner at the Intercon, where he works. This resort, I should mention, is absolutely stunning and I will save my nickels to stay there, next time we are in town.

About dinner: for some reason, Boy has selected an Italian restaurant for us, which is assolutamente delizioso for me; but for the three Thai people at the table, not so much. Lian's priceless expression here sums up the majority opinion of the buffalo mozzarella in the caprese salad. I am happy (obviously, gorge-gorge!) to make a welcoming home for it on my plate:

Me, after three days eating in Hua Hin.

For our final evening in  Hua Hin, Boy and Eve take us for a nature walk at Wat Thum Khao Tao, the colorful temple on Turtle Hill, where we climb many staircases to gawk at the big golden Buddha at the top and to take in the view of Hua Hin way off to the north.

Ascending to a higher plane.

After I am good and sweaty, it's time for a fancy sit-down dinner! Boy drives us to ... oh, who the hell knows? It is now dark as we traverse back roads to a secret outdoor destination where locals dine under rattan huts. Once more we fill the table (and ourselves) with impressive seafood entrees. A couple of hours later back in town, we cap the evening at a Thai ice cream joint.

Curiously, in the last 48 hours my trousers have shrunk at the waist. Must be the humidity.

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Wednesday on our way back north, Lian and I stop in Bang Khae, on the outskirts of Bangkok, to visit Lian's sister and their elderly flasher-mom. As always, I wai politely to her and thank her in English for not showing me her tits again.

Lian's brother-in-law, the bookie, has arranged a room for us at a nearby hotel -- very good and affordable, he assures her. It is nothing of the sort: the lobby is dank, the bellman who walks us upstairs is almost certainly casing our valuables, and, oh, the stink on that room! The bedding is threadbare and ill-laundered, the bathroom has no toilet paper or sprayer, and bath towels are M.I.A. "This room very terrible," mutters Lian, Olive Oyl-like. On the plus side, it IS just twenty-five bucks a night.

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Yui.

Meet Yui, Lian's oldest niece. At 30, Yui is a chemist for a Bangkok-based cement manufacturer that sends her on business around the world. (She aspires to a Master's degree in the UK, paid for by her company, if she can get her English skills up.) On our final night in town, Yui wants to treat the family to a special dinner at Lom Talay, a wildly popular (among Thai people) seafood restaurant 45 minutes outside town. If we can get there without dying, that is.

Fook & her mother.

The five of us -- Yui, her sister Fook, their mother, Lian and me -- are propelled at warp speed by maniacal nephew Jo-Jo, who is a 20-something male and therefore invulnerable behind the wheel. The women HATE riding with Jo-Jo, who makes the most crazed Bangkok cab driver look like a pussy. But somehow we survive the trip and are gloriously rewarded.

Only the first course: Many more to come.

Situated in the middle of a small lake, the hut-like Lom Talay is accessible by a covered footbridge. We settle in for two hours of the most splendid Thai cuisine -- wave after wave of soups, grilled sea bass, huge river shrimp, seafood salads, and more, and more.

I am almost to Heaven. Then the soup tureen arrives and I see my old nemesis:

It is Batthu.  Otherwise, a perfect evening.