Simple Pleasures, an Anniversary and Camping in a National Park

Nov 30 2014 - Simple Pleasures

Today is our 29^th anniversary. I don’t know how many anniversaries have been celebrated in foreign countries but there have been a number of them. How lucky we are!

Today was filled with simple pleasures. After running an errand this morning to resolve a cell phone issue, we picked up some fresh fruit at our fruit stand then came home. This afternoon we went up to the big house to visit with Pa Cha An, the matriarch who is still bedridden from her fall and subsequent broken leg. She is 90 and her recovery seems to be going very slowly. Ron helped Timm and Tui, two of her daughters, to move her to an upright position to the side of the bed then to a standing position using a walker so she could put some weight on her legs. I could tell the whole process was painful for her. Then we rolled her hospital bed outside to the breezeway which is usually the coolest spot on the property but it was so hot today that after about 10 minutes she wanted to go back inside to her bedroom with the AC. Pa Cha An is blind now so when Ron holds her hand she always feels around for the hair on his arm. Ron is quite hairy and Thais have very little if any body hair. So it is always a joke when she does it with Ron saying “King Kong!”

Afterwards, Hope came to our house. He is seven and Pa Cha An;s great-grandson. He and Ron have become good friends. Our latest activity is we are helping Hope to expand on the English he is learning in school (and we are learning more Thai). He is a very bright kid. Ron taught Hope to play gin (the card game) today. I helped Hope but he didn’t fully understand the rules. Still he won as many games if not more than Ron. Ron says it's beginner's luck.

Being our anniversary, we decided to try a new restaurant. I think I mentioned we got a brochure that features various restaurants in town. Most have been in business for at least two generations. The restaurants in Phetchaburi and much of Thailand for that matter are quite different from ours. Most are open air with simple furnishings: wooden or plastic tables and chairs, plastic tablecloths if there are any, silverware or chopsticks on the table in a container of some sort. Tonight was no exception. We sat down at a table and it took awhile before we were able to identify the staff. No one ever came to the table to take an order. After about 10 minutes two bowls of food were delivered. We clarified that we wanted one of each of the two dishes served at this restaurant so they took one back. I had phat Thai as it is called here (Phad Thai). The serving was about 1/3 of the size served in the US. It included pork, fried pork rinds and tiny dried shrimp. The cost of our two meals was… $2.00 by far the least expensive anniversary meal to date but typical for meals in these type of restaurants!

I think people sometimes imagine our lives abroad as being very exotic but today was a good example of how simple pleasures can fill the day just like at home.

Dec 2

There is a popular breakfast item here called khao mon gai (pronounced almost as cow mon  guy). It translates as rice (khao) with chicken (gai). It is a favorite of ours. Every time we leave the property we pass by a hard scrabble farm that has cows and chickens. The road is quite narrow, barely one car width. Almost every time we go by, there are chickens in the road and on the side of the road. They are tall and skinny with little meat on their bones. Today as we were leaving one of the chickens was slow to get out of our way. Ron, who loves a good pun, said  ‘car mon gai’  not as though he would run over the chicken.

Dec 4

Yesterday we left around 1:00 to go ‘cabin camping’ in the Kaeng Krachan National Park, about three hours from here. Tumm drove and Pair, his college age daughter joined us as she speaks excellent English. Along the way we were joined by a coworker of Tumm’s and two women. We passed many rice farms and were surprised to see heavy equipment harvesting rice. In the north we had witnessed rice being harvested by hand. Almost the entire time we saw a beautiful mountain range on the horizon which was where we were headed. The mountains separate Thailand from Myanmar (Burma) in this narrow part of Thailand. We passed the Kaeng Krachan reservoir which was built to control flooding and provide irrigation water for farmers. It is huge! Upon entering the park we forded three small streams. The road had been paved at some point but now only fragments of the pavement remain.  It was rough going. We climbed the whole way. I don’t know what our altitude was but it was considerably cooler in the park.

We rented a cabin with three bedrooms and no furniture. Each
bedroom had three very hard mattresses on the floor, the hardest I have ever slept on as a matter of fact. There were two bathrooms and ours was in our room which was great. Our bathroom consisted of a toilet, and a very large water reservoir (like a plastic trash can) which you used to dip out pans of water in order to flush the commode. No sink and no shower. There was a floor drain which there always is so we could wash our hands but it was a little awkward since we needed to dip out a pan of water, wet our hands, soap up… …you get the picture. But hey, that’s why it is called camping!

After unloading the trucks, we drove to a nearby scenic spot where we got great views of the park. Thousands of acres of jungle/forest which contain wild elephants, monkeys, tapir, guar, and thousands of birds. Ron captured a photo of a Ratchet Tailed Treepie bird. It was cool and overcast when we arrived.

After taking photos and relaxing in the view area we headed back to the cabin. Tumm’s friends had Pair was quiet as well but the mood was upbeat and friendly. One of the women brought out a big bag of snacks at the end of the meal which made us all laugh. It contained peanuts in the shell, some of nuts were not familiar to us (we didn’t eat any of the snacks since we had just eaten dinner), a potato snack (not quite chips) and I didn’t see the fourth one.
bought dinner for all seven of us. We spread out a tarp in front of the cabin and all of us sat on the tarp along with a wonderful spread: Thai style beef and pork jerky, slightly sweet and not as dry as ours usually is, fish curry, sticky rice and regular rice along with two sauces. Some drank bottled Thai wine coolers and the rest of us had water. Lively conversation happened throughout the meal and afterward, although Ron and I understood nothing. 

We had no electricity, but we had brought flashlights, Tumm provided us with a small battery powered lantern for our room and others had brought candles for outside. We ate early and as we were finishing dinner it was growing dark. It gets dark between 6:00-6:30 here. The bugs/insects started their chorus in the jungle and it was unbelievably loud and there were so many different sounds. But Ron and I also started getting bitten by unseen bugs so retired to the cabin. Since there was no furniture we read in our room until bedtime which ended up being around 9:00.

We woke up at 5:00 and were ready to go at 6:00 as we had agreed the night before. We drove to a nearby scenic spot which was spectacular with the morning mist layered between the mountain ridges. We all took photos until the fog rolled in and totally obliterated our view of the scene.

We drove over to the concession that was serving breakfast. Coffee was instant so we passed on it but the omelet with pork and rice was delicious. It was drizzling out but we were able to get one end of a table under the awning. We were surprised how many people were there although the majority were men.

We went back to the cabin and loaded up the truck. We discovered we couldn’t leave until 9:00 because the road is narrow and only one car will fit. So cars entering the park had the road from 8-9 and those leaving from 9-10. We sat in a shelter as the rain was really coming down and waited for 40 minutes. We had retrieved our luggage back the back of the truck and kept it with us so it didn’t get wet. The ride home was without incident and in good time of three hours. We unpacked, showered and ate leftover spaghetti before heading out for a much needed Americano.  Life is tough here, we know!