September 13 to 14—Udon Thani, Thailand: Martha’s Dad’s Old Stomping Grounds

Dear Family and Friends,

Thursday, September 13, Martha awoke to Dani’s tippetty tapping on the computer at 10:00 AM. Late-sleeping Martha had hoped to get up much earlier to start their day of finding where her Daddy used to live! But, Dani figured that a little extra sleep wouldn’t hurt, considering how badly Martha felt the day before. We quickly got ready and were out the door, though, stopping at the open-air eatery nearest the King’s Hotel for a nice ‘brunch’ of rice and chicken curry for Martha and rice with beef concoction for Dani.

From there, we walked to the prince’s statue several blocks away and hopped on saang thaew #6. The sang-thaew–bus system in Udon Thani is a great set-up of small trucks with converted truck beds--seats in two rows line the sides of the truck bed along the back; they circle the city in patterns and arrive often, making navigating around this large city space particularly easy. We headed South out of town, where we passed some buildings that looked like they could be army barracks, conjecture based on their repetitive simplicity, and past the US military planes that marked the outside of the old Air Force base. Martha’s Dad had come through the night before, sending a few details about his living space, saying that he had particularly enjoyed a reservoir where he would walk often to see the water buffalo at play and that it was nearby the largest hills in the area, which were actually the largest ammunitions dump in Thailand.

We couldn’t remember for certain if Martha’s Dad’s email had said that his base’s location was 5 KM South of the Air Force base or 5 KM South of town, so we stopped about 4 KM out of town where we saw a body of water and a few hills that might have been the arms deposits that he had mentioned. We passed a school yard where the kids all waved and said ‘Hello’ from the playing fields and classroom windows. While walking through the school grounds to see what we could see, we came across giant old clay jars in the muck. Heading back towards the perceived hills, we found ourselves in a wat area where locals were gathering for an event; one monk filled us in that there had been a car accident and they were preparing for a funeral. We headed off of the grounds to let the mourners have their peace, eventually arriving back at the street.

At the Fort Prachaksinlapakom Hospital, we thought, ‘Well, Fort means Army, right?’ and headed back around the hospital walls to the reservoir behind, imagining that this might be where Martha’s Dad once walked and watched the water buffalo. We did not encounter any water buffalo, but we did have to manage our way around a group of cows out grazing, slowly moving around them in hopes of not being sat upon or worse. (Martha’s uncle was once sat upon by a cow on her mother’s childhood farm, so she is always a bit wary of the beasties.)

As we neared the end of this harrowing journey around frightening, calm-faced cows, the smallest of the cows started walking right towards Martha!! Standing still, she was fine as it turned out the little guy just wanted his head to be rubbed. Martha obliged, even having opportunity to learn that a cow’s tongue is rougher than a cat’s (for those of you who always wondered).

We walked around the reservoir, and took a wrong turn, somehow ending up on the grounds of one of the military bases! We walked all the way through, back towards the road with guards watching us, but no one contesting our presence … until we reached the main entrance, where an MP-type guard ushered us into his room, telling us that photos were not allowed on base and taking down our identification information (albeit, on a newspaper, which did not make us feel too officially overseen). We waited for the hammer to drop, for us to be thrown in the clink for trespassing, for the rifles to be brought out in proper firing-squad fashion, but instead we were simply ushered out the entrance, never to return again.


Dani had trouble not giggling until we were well outside of the fort’s walls. But it seemed that they knew we held no malicious intent. They did not even check Dani’s camera to see if she had taken any photos! Martha left hers in her bag just in case they chose to confiscate Dani’s. Oh, the unfounded paranoia!

We passed the actually Air Force base before catching a saang thaew back up North into town. Martha’s belly was still not feeling very well, so we had a bit of a ‘from home’ break and stopped at KFC in the mall for lunch. Martha recalled that the first time she had ever had one of the KFC chicken Zinger sandwiches (known at home as the spicy chicken sandwich) was in Malaysia with Capt’n Harry years before. So, really, we were having Asian food, right?

Next stop was the train station to check on the time for the ride to Bangkok planned for the next day. The early-morning train left at 6:47 AM, and Dani decided it would be better not to buy our tickets right then, just in case we didn’t get up on time. Then we tried to make it to the Orchid Farm located Northwest of town before 5:00 PM when they would close. Besides being a wonderful place to see the orchids that Thailand is famous for, it was also reportedly right next door to one of the local veteran hangouts. Martha thought it might be an opportunity to learn more about th elives of military personnel in the area. But the saang thaew that would carry us that far across town never appeared, so we ended up just walking back to the hotel, unsure of whether we had seen any of the landscape of Martha's father's youth or had just been chasing our tails for the day.

Martha took a nap as her body continued to fight the bug in her belly. Around 6:00 PM, we headed down to the café that offered Internet the day before, ordering coffee and tea once again and spending a couple of hours online. Luckily, Cindy Stew was also online at the time, so we were able to email with her to firm up plans for the next day, including details of what to tell the cab driver who would bring us to her place outside of Bangkok in Salaya, Thailand!

We dropped off the computer in the room before heading out to find dinner at a local Thai/Chinese restaurant. Dani had the prawn pizza (which was a fried, stuffed pizza), and Martha had egg noodles with pork in a delicious gravy. We got back to the room and to bed pretty early (even though one of the local guys tried to coax us into the dance halls along the street past the restaurant) for our early-morning departure and return to Bangkok!

Friday, September 14, we made it to the train station with plenty of time to catch the 6:47 AM train from Udon Thani to Bangkok! Dani even had time to grab us some water and yogurt drinks, but lamented not having purchased anything to eat as we finally sat in our second-class train seats. Unlike other recent travels, we decided to upgrade for the day to air conditioning, non-crowded conditions, and lots of leg/backpack room for 472 baht [about 15 USD] since we were about to cover almost 600 KM in the day. Within five minutes, our prayers were answered as a kind Thai lady across the aisle offered us some tasty little breads with meats in the middle! SO NICE!

Martha fell asleep almost immediately, as her belly ache and some related bad nights of sleep caught up with her. During her three-hour nap, Dani watched the scenery and read her book, eventually purchasing a little snack of rice, egg, and meat. She ate only half of it, gifting the rest to Martha when she awoke from her nap. The afternoon passed delightfully as we quickly made the trip to Bangkok. The scenery changed from the open lands where cows grazed and people fished to the cluttered homes of the city. We disembarked at Don Muang station, where the police came up to help us almost immediately, then enlisted a gentleman who spoke some more English than they did. After negotiating the price (which turned out to be more than twice what it should have been based on what we confirmed with Cindy! UGH!), and we were soon in a cab towards Mahidon University, where Cindy teaches.

The ride took a bit more than an hour in the rush-hour traffic, but it was so nice to be out in the countryside away from the big city for a night! Cindy was waiting for us at the pre-appointed location where we had the cab pull over, and it was soooo very nice to see her smiling face once again. We loaded up our bags into her little car and arrived in short order to her beautiful row home a block off of the cleanest klong (river canal) that we had seen. Her home is gorgeous, decked out with the reminders of her years as a backpacker, the worldly collection and cleanness making for a comfortable and colorful space. The guest room upstairs contained comfortable beds and air conditioning, and we settled in to make the room smell like backpackers. By this time, we were mighty hungry, and Cindy let us treat her to dinner at her favorite place within walking distance, which overlooked the klong.

From the deck-like dining area outside that overlooked the klong, we could see three or four trains pass by on the horizon line on their way to Malaysia. The rumble of the tracks was the only sound to break the tranquility of our conversation as we caught up with Cindy and told her about our travels in the time since we had last seen each other in July.


And boy did we feast! Cindy chose our menu, and we enjoyed a spicy eggplant salad; a prawn pizza similar to the Chinese-style that Dani had the night before; a plate of spicy, garlicy greens; and fish miang kham, a local favorite of leaves and lettuce that you stuff with pieces of fried fish, peanuts, chilis, thinly sliced lemon grass, onion, chunks of lime, ginger, and dried prawns. Once the leaf is filled, you pop it into your mouth for an extravagant ‘ricochet of flavors,’ and we all closed our eyes as we took our first bite to experience the richocet.

Back at the house, we talked into the night, eventually parting to sleep before our next day together exploring the klong!

In love and light,

Martha and Dani