Chiang Khan

I worry that everything I write about our stay here will sound hyperbolic, but even if I did indulge in hyperbole, it still wouldn't accurately capture it. We were planning to stay five nights, but a couple of hours into our first day, we decided to stay for seven, and we're so glad we did. The place we were planning to go after this could only suffer terribly by comparison, and we would've been unhappy there and missed this place. First, here it is:

Night view of the back of the property -- all glass, that wall.
Mekong River-facing, pool to the left in the photo, beautifully
lit at night (the building and the property itself, and the pool!).

Upstairs -- dining table to the left, seating area/couches to the right 
(facing a big flat-screen TV, not visible). 
Straight ahead, kitchen to the right, lounge chair to the left, 
terrace straight ahead.

Kitchen! Breakfast bar. Barbecue grill just out the door.

Having this kitchen was such a big deal, because Marc
has always talked about a dream of going into the market
each morning for ingredients, and cooking our meals.
It was also nice for breakfasts. And it was extra nice
because we didn't really find many places to eat in Chiang Khan.

There's the Mekong -- window above the stairs, Laos on the other
side of the river.

The tall papaya tree, which Marc said always reminds him of
a Dr Seuss tree (it does!), and some seating areas. We sat in the
two lounge chairs facing the river pretty often.

The pool, just for us. The whole place was just for us!

The terrace off the kitchen. We usually ate our dinner here.

The second bedroom, where Marc kept his exploded-out
suitcase. :)

The pool at night

Lee, who we thought was the property owner but we came to think was simply the very lovely caretaker, seemed to live in a small building semi-attached to our house. We never could figure him out, his relationship to the property (and to "his partner" in Pattaya, who seemed to own this place?). There is another house that looks just like this one, minus the pool, right next door -- and there's an opening in the fence between the properties, and Lee passed back and forth regularly. But he was so, so kind and helpful. I guess most people rent a car in Loei, but we couldn't really do that because we weren't flying out of Loei to our next destination, so the cab dropped us off here. The first night, Lee drove us into Chiang Khan and tried to help us negotiate a tuktuk to bring us back later, but that was a bit of a disaster. He was so sweet, offering to drive us to see the Crystal Bridge if he had time during our stay.

So the first night, we just needed to find a place to get some dinner and then find a way to get back to the house. 

The walking street

The view from our dinner the first night

After some false starts, we ended up at a place that translates to Home Luang Prabang, where we had a nice enough meal (and I got a BeerLao!). The owner/manager talked to us after dinner and said the granny came from Luang Prabang and the grandad came from China, and they met during WWII and moved to Chiang Khan, and opened the restaurant, I guess. He got us a tuktuk, but I guess most tourists stay at a place called the River Tree Resort, because he told the tuktuk driver to take us there. Since our place isn't a hotel, just a house, it was very confusing and hard to explain where to take us, once we told him we weren't at River Tree. He just kept driving -- who knows what he was thinking, were we making him take us to Loei? Who knows! -- and we had him stop at the house. 

The next morning, Lee called a tuktuk to take Marc into Chiang Khan to rent a motorcycle, which we desperately needed, given how difficult it is to do a tuktuk here, and it's too far to walk. Marc walked around a bit and ended up renting a motorcycle from a woman who only wanted to take a picture of Marc's passport, and that was that. No driver's license, no insurance, no deposit, no "where are you staying," just $7.13/day. CRAZY. Marc found the morning market and a supermarket, did some shopping, and came back with his version of a huge, happy smile. "Oh honey," he said as he unpacked food from his backpack, "look what I got for our dinner!"

He made us so many good dinners, shopping at the market each morning for fresh ingredients. Our second night, he made stir-fried chicken, garlic, mushrooms, and onions, on rice:

Our third night he made us pork (red) curry and cabbage in green curry. IT WAS SOOOO GOOD. The kitchen is stocked with tiny pots and pans, and two gas and two electric burners, so he was greatly handicapped, but you'd never know it.

GOSH this was delicious.

Our fourth night, he made us fried fish with an incredible sweet-sour-spicy sauce that I'm still moaning and groaning about, rice, and a green vegetable that was really a bit too tough to eat. OMG that fish, that sauce.

The fish were dusted with toasted rice, and THAT SAUCE OMG.

Our fifth night he made us shrimp with long beans on rice, and a tomato salad with a dressing that was a bit better than the tomatoes were, but yum yum yummmmmm...

I've always said, from the very first meal he ever made for me,
that he excels as a saucier. He really makes exquisite sauces,
including dressings. He had to peel and de-head the shrimp since
I can't really deal with doing that, so the shrimp look more ordinary
than they actually were, but the meal was just so good.

He also made me breakfast -- my favorite meal of the day, and a real pleasure when we travel. As he put this breakfast in front of me, he kept saying, "Honey, I don't know why you're making such a big deal, it's just a bit of breakfast. It's just scrambled eggs." But it wasn't. It was the trip(s) to the market for eggs and onions and peppers and watermelon. It was making me this breakfast in Chiang Khan on a too-small burner with too-small pans just because he knows I love breakfast. It was chopping onions, dicing chilis, slicing melon, chopping cilantro, all for a meal he doesn't eat, just because I enjoy it. To me, that's a big deal and worthy of appreciation and gratitude.

So, so nice. I ask you: If this isn't nice, what is?

One very frustrating night he'd planned to make stir-fried rice, and had bought chicken and scallions and lemongrass and mushrooms and ginger, but we had too little rice, and no pan that was big enough, and the burners suck, and bumping up against all those limitations was definitely frustrating, but I'm telling you it was still delicious! I ate it so fast I didn't even get a photo of it, unfortunately. On our final night, in part because we need to turn in the motorcycle, we're eating in town, and will take a tuktuk home. Tomorrow morning at 11 we're taking a taxi to Udon Thani, 84 miles, 3.5 hours, where we'll spend the night before going south to the beach.

While we were here, I mostly stayed in the beautiful house, swam, read (Moby Dick, and listened to Moby Dick Energy podcast), played with my art supplies, and napped. Every day Marc took the motorcycle into town to buy ingredients for our dinner, and once he went a second time to get beer for me. Thailand has very bizarre rules about buying beer: you can only buy it between 11am to 2pm, and 5pm to midnight. He tried two different times before we figured out this weird scheduling.

OH -- the end of the massage story! Whatever happened to my back in that massage got worse and worse. One day I got a migraine headache from the pollution, which was so bad we couldn't see Laos across the river. The migraine and hurt back were really the culmination of that trouble. Finally my headache went away and my back quit hurting, except for a particular movement that will give me a twinge, but that's OK, I can deal with that. Marc's knee still hurts him a lot, and I suspect that massage made it much worse. We learned that we will never again get a Thai massage, nope nope nope.

One morning Marc went into Chiang Khan and texted me that the walk along the river is really so beautiful, if he got a helmet for me, would I come in on the motorcycle with him? He did, and I did, and it really is so beautiful. The river walk extends a pretty long way, and we walked from Street Nine all the way up to where it turns into a bike trail. Even with unpleasant air pollution, it was wonderful, and I'm so glad I went. Being on the motorcycle was scary to me, but I just settled in and tried to relax, and said over and over to myself, I trust Marc. I trust Marc. Inside me, alongside the anxiety, was fun. I'm so glad I went with him, so glad I got on that motorcycle, and so grateful for the way he always pulls me out into the world. Left to my own devices, my world would get smaller and smaller until it existed entirely in one room. 

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Us, in native dress. Marc would
never in a million years do something like this, but he 
did it with me. :)

Our week in this beautiful house just outside Chiang Khan was so dreamy. One late afternoon we were sitting in those chairs, facing the river, and Marc said that this was the dream. And I know just how beautiful that dream is, his dream of living in SEAsia, going into town to the market every morning to buy fresh ingredients for our dinner, making dinner for us, getting to know the ladies in the market, and it chokes me up so much that we had that here. I want that for him, so much. (I'd like it even more if we had a dishwasher, good hot water, decent soap, and better gear for his kitchen....) As we travel, we usually, at some point, say that a place is now our favorite, even more than X, or Y. This week in Chiang Khan is now our favorite, I think, for both of us. The long stay also made our vacation slow down and seem longer -- not hopping from place to place, just sticking and relaxing. It will be sad to leave. After this we have a night in Udon Thani, then a night in Trat, before heading off to Koh Kood, an island with sunny beaches.