Day 36 Phayao
Tip:
if you want to get up early and ride up a mountain don’t pop out for a quick beer at 9.20pm especially when there is an impending storm that could trap you in the bar for hours.
The owner of the bar was obviously a football fan who mercifully did not want to talk to me about it. Large photos on the wall of men tugging at their shirts with their mouths open and in large print, ‘Fearless and proud together’. Not sure what they have to be fearless about. Getting hit in the face with the ball or slipping up on damp grass? Proud of being able to make ludicrous amounts of money kicking a ball?
It took OAA until he was very pissed until he realized he spoke English and joined me. I had noticed his group earlier when a loud crash resulting from his wife making a sweeping gesture ending the existence of an empty bottle of whiskey and a large porcelain pig displayed on a shelf. This caused some amusement but the owner seemed to miss the funny side. We established where I came from a number of times as Oaa kept forgetting he had asked me and it was his best English sentence. Also that his wife’s name was Kai which did not mean egg or chicken as I pronounced it. He had two daughters of which the youngest was three months and this was the first time he had managed to escape her since she was born. Grandmother was baby sitting. Both daughters looked like him rather than his wife who was particularly attractive. This gave him some amusement but perhaps less to them later in life. He worked for the government and liked bodybuilding. He loved his friends who he had known for 20 years and who all would take a bullet for him as he would for them. This became a bit of a theme with big gestures of jumping in front of a bullet and me saving few ornaments and glasses. Apparently one has to jump sidewards with ones arms stretched out. Concerning the problems in the south of Thailand he felt strongly that Thailand was Buddhist and loved his king. He emphasized this by punching his chest. It was heart warming. He stressed that he was not gay and just wanted to talk to me. These topics revolved but the storm stopped and the bar closed after a few revolutions. I told him where I was from again and left.
Oaa
I sat eating rice porridge and drinking coffee looking out at the mountains I should have been riding up and felt no regret. Later with explosive diarrhea from something at breakfast I had even less regrets.
Visitors like to have picnics besides the lake and locals arrive with mats and all the food and drink on motorbikes. Dried squid is also sold. I don’t recommend it. Some people react badly to it and I still shudder at the memory of the polluted atmosphere when a friend innocently ate one. It caused a bad atmosphere over a surprisingly large area.
Listened to nice music in the evening and watched a drunk policeman, gun bulging from T shirt’ drive away. Also got the chance to watch the women dance to the kissing fish again. Don’t think I fully understand the religions significance yet.
lake from breakfast
Everything you need for a picnic arrives on a motorbike
Heroes shouting a lot
A hero that is worshiped. Not sure what he did but suspect it was killing and conquering for personal benefit rather than helping the poor. Still the Uzbek national hero is Genghis Khan.
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