The Mekong River Levee
I say the word 'hotel' because it's owned by a lovely couple (an Oxford educated Englishman who has lived in Thailand for 30 years and his lovely Thai wife) that rent out these little pieces of houses to people like hotel rooms. In reality, they own about an entire city block of houses and have turned the alleys between the houses into these beautiful walkways covered in plants. Next time we're there, I'll take pictures, but my eyes were too busy taking everything in to bother thinking about my phone. Imagine walking through old, colorful houses on cobblestones surrounded by hanging plants, palm trees, and the sounds of frogs. Colorful lizards poked their heads out at us and we saw the craziest beetles. Honest to god they were 5cm long and 2cm across!
We ate dinner in a giant, open-air hut. We had a green, fish curry that was one of the best things I've eaten since coming here. It was also one of the most expensive things we've eaten since coming here. It was 150B or 4.70USD.
After sitting and chatting with Fred, Lloyd, Sue (Lloyd's mom), Manders, and this horrific British expat, we abandoned the British expat and wandered off to find a little Australian bar. We didn't mean to end up there, but we saw one of the other English teachers from our school (who works for a different company) and he waved us over. His name is Rob and he's been in Thailand for almost 20 years. We sat and talked for hours about his favorite places and were joined by Julian (the owner of the Mut Mee) who also contributed to all the places we should go see.
By the time we wandered home it was around 22:45. We walked about three blocks to the front of the hospital and tried to get a Tuk Tuk. Unfortunately, it appears that the city's public transit shuts down before 22:45. On top of that, we're struggling to explain where we live. So when we finally ever find a Tuk Tuk driver, most of the time we end up walking anyway. This is exactly what happened last night.
We had to walk 5km home.
Now I like walking, but I'm getting a touch sick of having to because I can't communicate how to get home. This is what I'm learning first in Thai - directions.
So the walk home was pretty straight-forward. Walk 2km on one road, turn and walk about 3km until we see the road for our apartment. All was going well until we got to the end of the 2km road.
A Place My Mother Would Encourage Me To Avoid
The best and worst part of Thailand is the dogs. Dogs are all outside here. They wander in packs and it's rather like packs of wolves wandering the streets. The clearly dominate the roadways after dark. I've always been afraid of dogs and last night was no exception. I can't express the terror that is walking down an unfamiliar, dark road and being followed by a pack of growling, angry dogs.
When one pack's territory ended, another would pick up. The would follow us, walk with us, and guarantee we left their area before backing off.
We walked through six different dog districts last night.
When we finally got home, our hearts were racing, our clothes were a sweaty mess, and we were both a bit shaken. It's definitely something I'm going to bring up when we're at school to see what the students know about the packs of dogs. Honestly the M3 students are the MVPs of helping me learn about Nong Khai.
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