Before returning to fabulous, glamorous places, let’s stop off in Sakon Nakhon, the place I’ve called home for three months now. Sakon Nakhon is in Isan, which is a massive region in Northeast Thailand characterized by super friendly people, small cities, and a strong Lao influence. Sakon Nakhon is the capitol of Sakon Nakhon province, but only boasts about 70,000 people, and feels smaller. I love it.
I have good friends here! My bestie is Kate, a gregarious goofball from Michigan. She’s incredibly friendly (we joke that she’s running for mayor because when we’re out around town she says hello to everyone) and has made my time here immeasurably more fun than if I had been here alone. I’m lucky to have her.
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| Such a nerd. |
Also, Ben! Ben and Kate met in college, became buddies, and came to Thailand together. Ben and I also have a blast.
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| Ben is the dude in this picture. Also introducing Kate's cleavage. |
He’s a sweetie, and has an sharp scientific mind that makes for good conversation while hanging over the balcony of our apartment building.
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| How can this not make you want to talk about stem cell research? |
To the right in that photo is Carinne, a liberal Texan who Ben met and fell in love with in Phuket, and is often in Sakon Nakhon because her job in Bangkok (which she recently quit- woo!) was absolutely horrible. So we get to hang with her sometimes!
Thai friends! Ben met Thon while looking for apartments (here on the left with his friend Doo).
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| Represent. |
Thon speaks superb English, and until he left to go south and translate for the U.S. Military (which he does whenever they're training in Thailand - his English is that good), he was our main man in Sakon Nakhon. We miss him and hope that he comes home soon, although Kate and I plan to visit him while he's translating for attractive American men in uniform... In any case, we would have been adrift much longer without him there to show us the best things in town.
Speaking of which! The following are all within five minutes of our apartment building:
The largest lake in Thailand, which is incredibly beautiful:
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| It's much bigger than this, but the lake stretches to the east from us, so this is a sunset view of a sort of inlet thing. |
An adorable coffee shop where they know us by name:
where you can get this:
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| Ignore the cupcake in the background. I have no idea how that got there. |
A gorgeous park full of flowers built around a pond:
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| Photo courtesy of Carinne, who has spent more time there while we're in school than I will ever have the opportunity to. |
A fabulous, gilded wat:
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| This is, incidentally, where I watched a full lunar eclipse. |
We get from place to place by bicycle (jak-gra-yan in Thai, in case you were wondering). Kate and Ben and I terrorize this town on our bikes- we're a regular farang bicycle gang. We tear through the alleys and frighten unsuspecting Thais when we pop out on the street (Kate: "Hello!! Sawadee-kha! Sabaidee baw kha? Gin khao young?").
I’m in love with my bicycle. I want to ship it home to the U.S.
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| My precious. |
Biking another fifteen minutes brings us out of the suburbs for scenic views and encounters with local fauna:
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| The Thai word for "stupid" is the same as "buffalo", and these vacant stares demonstrate why. |
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| Homeward bound. |
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| Maybe they're not stupid- this momma seems to be contemplating the sunset. |
And just the other day we went out aimlessly biking and stumbled on the ruins of a tenth century, Khmer influenced wat.
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| Same era as Angkor Wat- no big deal. |
Just another day in Sakon Nakhon.
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