Morning comes too quickly, and I want to sleep but my stomach is growling for food. I get up and get down to the breakfast buffet about 9:00 AM. Great, another really good buffet! Afterwards I go to the front desk and ask about buses to Udon Thani. Yes, there are buses about every 30 minutes. Just wait in front of the hotel on the roadside and the bus will stop for you. OK, so I get packed, check-out, and by 10:00 I am standing on the side of the road. What a delightful day outside. Sunny, cool! Within 15 minutes the bus has come and I am on my way. Fare to Udon is 30B! I pay the man after boarding the bus.
When I get on the bus is mostly empty, but after a few more stops the bus gains several more customers. One of them sits next to me. I learn that her name is N and she has a 100Rai rice farm in the area. She has been visiting family in Nong Khai, and now she is taking the bus back to her farm. She works the farm herself, and I can see by her appearance that she must work very hard!
The 60km ride back to Udon is quick, and by 11:00 AM I am off the bus and on a tuk-tuk for the ride to the hotel. At 50B the 3 or 4 km tuk-tuk ride was more expensive than the 60 km bus ride! Oh well, at 80B total, about $2.10, I am not complaining!
I check back-in to the Charoen Hotel. After dropping my stuff in my room I find K and say hello to her and thank her for her help regarding the hotel in Nong Khai. I also ask her about finding my friend MC, and she says she will put me in touch with a friend of hers that works for the local newspaper. Maybe he will have some ideas.
I want to fly back to BK tomorrow, and so I walk across the street to a travel agency. The mid-day flight I want is already sold out, and so I have a choice of 8:40 AM or about 7:30 PM. I select the morning flight and get my ticket--1890B. After leaving the travel agency I come across an internet café a few doors down and go in and check my email. I then walk to the Mall where I have lunch at the food court (30B food, 10B soda). I also have a dessert. I have seen food booths on the street and here in the mall selling waffles. So I go to one of these booths here at the mall and get a waffle. It is actually a good size almost Belgian style waffle which is eaten plain--it is already slightly sweet. Cost is 10B. I go to another place where I have a cup of freshly ground freshly made coffee, 20B.
I walk back to the hotel, find that K is away from the hotel for a few hours, and so I go to my room where I work on this journal.
Later in the afternoon I talk with K about finding my friend MC. She says she has talked with the three local papers, and in two of them I can place a 1/4 page ad for 2000B (about $50 US), and the other one will do a news story. Actually I had considered this before but I was not sure that I wanted to go this far. But now, after having come to Thailand and being in MC's home region I felt, why not! Why come this far and not give it a shot? This means, though, that I will have to talk with the newspaper people tomorrow, and so I must change my flight. And, the paper that will run a news story is located in Khon Kaen, about 70 miles south, and so I will travel there and then fly from there back to BK.
For the last evening in Udon I have dinner with K at the regular (not buffet) hotel restaurant. She orders Issan style food: sticky rice; pork laap (spicy); Thai salad; leafy greens; pork short-ribs. Very good and interesting meal. After dinner I draft an ad for the newspapers in English and give it to K, who graciously translates it into Thai and also re-words it to be more Thai style. The rest of the evening I stay at the hotel, visiting a couple of the bars (very quiet) before going to bed early.
The flight back to BK is quick and easy. I did not check any luggage, and so I am outside and in a taxi by 5:30, and by 6:30 I am at the hotel. Great! I check-in, have dinner across the street, and then start getting my packing organized. Per my plan I will fly to Singapore on Saturday. Wow, only 2 more days in BK! Time really flies! But, I am considering delaying my flight to Singapore until Tuesday. I would also push back my flight to London, but then would probably leave the other flights the way they are. After working on this journal, I watch one of my DVD movies, and then hit the sack.
I get up at a reasonable time, about 8:15, but for some reason I don't get downstairs to the breakfast buffet until about 9:05. Boy, am I getting slow! Most of the breakfast food is either cold or already removed, but I make do with some rice, and egg, toast, and coffee. As I am finishing my breakfast I hear some loud drums from the street. There is a parade! So I gulp the last of the coffee and run outside to see the parade and take some photos.
The parade is for and by the local Chinese community. It is mostly young people. I learn that tonight, at the Chinese shrine in the park, there will be a big dinner, over 1000 tables of 10 each! That's a big dinner! K is catering 100 tables! Anyway, I don't really know what the occasion is, but it is an annual thing for the Chinese community. The parade is very colorful, and some of the kids wave or pose for my camera. It certainly tied-up traffic for a while! The road in front of the hotel is a main road thru town, and the back-up of traffic behind the parade was very very long!
After the parade I went in to talked with K. I decided that yes, I would go to Khon Kaen, and I planned to take the bus. However, K recommends that I let T drive me. Yes, it will cost more money, but that way I will move more efficiently, and I will have an interpreter for when I speak with the newspaper people. I agree with her. We call K, I go to the room and get my stuff, I check out, and by 11:00 T and I are on our way to Khon Kaen.
Before leaving town we stop at the local ticket office for Thai Airways and get my ticket changed for the 4:20 PM flight from Khon Kaen to BK. No problem. It is cheaper than flying from Udon, and so I have a credit voucher. I don’t know when I will ever use it, but that's ok. The drive to Khon Kaen is smooth sailing. It is a beautiful day, about 23 or 24C, sunny. As I tell T, this will be my last cool weather until I get to Europe at the end of the month! BK, Singapore, and India will all be very hot!
When we are about half-way there T stops and we buy some food from a vendor along the road. At this one spot there are dozens of vendors selling bamboo sticks stuffed with sticky rice and coconut milk. The stuffed sticks are then cooked over a coal fire. Some of them also have black beans mixed with the rice, which makes them a little sweeter. We get several for 100B. I eat one in the car. It is a bit of an adventure. First you have to open the bamboo stick by prying off the soft wooden cap that plugs-up one end. Then you peal back the bamboo to reveal the sticky rice inside, which you simply pull out with your fingers a bite at a time. It's pretty good! I eat the entire stick-full, and then I must lick my fingers clean.
We get to Khon Kaen about 1:00 PM. We call the office of the XXX newspaper and get their exact location, and soon I am being interviewed by a Ms. Prinz (that's how the name sounded to me). I give her a computer disk with MC's photo and some basic info, and she gets my basic info and takes some photos of me and T. I tell her that MC is a friend of mine. She may be single, or married. If I find her I want to find out her current status, and if she is still single well we can talk about the possibilities. But even if she is married that is OK. I just want to find out and say hello, and whatever happens is OK. The reporter says that the story will appear in the next issue which I think will come out on the 15th. This is a local paper published every two weeks.
The interview over, T drops me at the airport. He has been a big help, and although he was getting paid for his time, his charges were reasonable, and his service excellent. I have lunch at the airport café. I am again almost a witness to some VIP. To board our plane we must walk outside and up the stairs to the aircraft. As we passengers walk outside we are confronted by a large crowd of what appear to be local police officers, and sitting nearby is a large twin-engine prop plane with signage of the Thai National Police, along with a long red carpet that leads to the plane. We never do see who the VIP is, but I think (from seeing the TV news later that night) that it may have been the sister of the King.
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