Visiting friends in Namsom

Jenga House
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For my last weekend in Thailand I went with Alex to visit some friends who are volunteering in Namsom.  Namsom is a small town about 4 hours to the West, fairly equivalent to Phon Phisai but with some small mountains.  Jenny, a volunteer from Switzerland who started the same time as me, also joined us Friday morning for the trip to Namsom.

We were greeted on arrival at the Namsom bus station by waving tuk-tuk drivers offering to take us to "Ban Falang" - foreigner house.  As you can see the town gets few "Falang" visitors other than the volunteers at the dorm (Ban Falang) or occasional Western husband.  The Namsom volunteers, Tanu, Ilona, and Olga arrived at the station a  minute later and took us to the dorm.  They have a nice set up, a beautiful wood house a block off the town's only main road.  As we rested and talked a few of the neighbor children came over to play.  As you can see from the pic, one of the little girls built a very cool Thai stilt house from the Jenga pieces.

Birthday Party at the Korean BBQ
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That evening one of Tanu's friends invited us to a birthday party being held at the local Korean BBQ restaurant.  We walked over there in the evening - 2 Thais, 6 Falang, and a pregnant Thai dog that lives at Ban Falang (like her mother and grandmother before her).  At the restaurant large plates of cabbage, uncooked noodles, meat, and green leafy vegetables were brought out.  We cooked the food over a large bucket of hot coals that fit in a cut out hole in the center of the table.  Delicious, but I don't think the vegetarians at the table had much fun watching the meat cook while munching on their steamed vegetables.

Start of the 700 steps
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After supper we returned to the dorm and began watching Thai soaps while Jenny and Olga went out to get some ice cream on the only 2 working bikes.  They were laughing when they returned with the ice cream.  They told how they stopped at a store for ice cream, but how the store was very weird looking - empty in front and with a long hallway with many rooms off the sides.  The place was full of attractive woman, and sleazy guys out front.  Unfortunately, we were never able to discover the true nature of the shop, but there were many jokes going around about a brothel / ice cream parlor :)

Climbing, climbing, climbing ...
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On Saturday I awoke to the sound of very loud crowing roosters.  There isn't a lot to do in the small town of Namsom, so while everyone lulled around the house I indulged in one of my favorite activities - reading in a hammock.  Later in the afternoon we set out to visit a local temple set atop one of the nearby mountains.  The one problem with the temple is the 700 steps it took to reach it - what a workout!  We mechanically climbed and climbed the steep rock stairs that led to the temple.  At the top we were rewarded with a splendid view of the plains and the tall solitary mountains rising up arbitrarily from the flatness.  Eventually we had to make our way down, as the sun was setting.  I felt like I was in an Eschar painting while going down (after awhile it seemed like up) the countless stairs.

The top of the mountain
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The next morning we left fairly early to make the trip back to Phon Phisai, and sniff, my last week before leaving.  As we rode I watched the people working in the field.  It is rice harvesting time, so everyone is busy cutting down the long stalks pregnant with rice.  Family members from Bangkok have returned to help their families take in the harvest.  The formerly green fields are now a golden brown and being hacked away and bundled, in order to be taken to the factory so the rice can be separated by a large machine.  I will miss Thailand, but I'm also looking forward to going around Lao for a few weeks.