Thailand-Day 5-Khon Kaen

I wrangled myself out of bed in time to take a walk through much of the city to meet John for lunch. Upon getting there I was greeted with innumerable hellos from the cheery students. Like all Thais, they were super friendly and donned wide smiles. I eventually found John, who was unfortunately laying down in the nurse's office-with some weak flu-like symptoms. So I had a brief lunch at the cafeteria, which was pretty good for cafeteria food, but lacked behind the delicious meals I'd been getting at restaurants. It was very interesting to note that all the teachers wore military-esque uniforms, with different bars and epaulets noting status (or something). It was actually a pretty interesting school. It was outdoor, which is pretty standard considering Thailand's climate-but included a small museum of things important to the city, an adobe meditation hut, and an art room covered from floor to ceiling in various murals (many dinosaur themed-dinosaur excavations are a big deal in Khon Kaen).

John headed home to rest, so I wandered around town just really enjoying watching foreign people speak a foreign language, do foreign things, and generally be foreign. I sat on the steps of the 9 story wat and read my book for awhile. I didn't get too far, as people watching the groups visiting the wat was more fun. My colleague Peter has commented about this in his blog too, (and the feeling continued throughout Thailand) but it was very interesting (and relaxing) to visit temples that actually seemed as interested (if not more) in preserving a holy atmosphere for the parishioners than raking in tourist cash. Of course, I say this mostly because, living in China every "temple" I visit is generally a recently constructed edifice trying to figure out how to best place donation boxes to maximize intake without killing traffic flow. Nonetheless, the distance from the temple observed by the vendors, the lack of any hawking inside made the temple and its grounds a great place to sit and read.

In the afternoon, with John feeling better, we headed to the slums of Khon Kaen. We went to visit a family that John had briefly stayed with during his study abroad time in Khon Kaen. His study abroad program was focused on social awareness, and it used homestays with all sorts of families to help the students learn more about Thai culture. Again, I was looking at Thailand with more Chinese than American eyes. Thailand, by GDP per capita, is about 1.5 times wealthier per person than China. But, via its resident permit system for all citizens, China keeps poverty pretty isolated in the rural areas-where I think poverty tends to be more romanticized. So, visiting the slum, even after living in China, was an eye-opening, valuable experience. The houses were sometimes nothing more than a plywood lean-to with a corrugated tin roof, and all of them were in various states of getting foundations, floors, and stable walls. Rather than the shabby structures, it was the plethora of dirty kids, dirty dogs, and chickens milling about in front of most houses that made the biggest impression on me. Upon finding the house, John and I were invited to sit down with some of the family he stayed with, and the neighbors, who were sitting on a blanket, eating some papaya salad, smoking, and drinking some rice wine-to celebrate the new year. As seems to always happen, even when the people I visit are much more in need of a good meal than me, they insisted on feeding us (it was around dinner time) and we had some very tasty fried rice along with some chicken curry soup and boiled pork that wasn't bad. A few of the kids ate with us, as well as a weathered grandma, that John said had been really kind to him when he stayed there. We only had to brush an errant chick away from the food a few times during the meal, as the coop was inside the house and not 10 feet from where we ate.

Later that night, John's appetite was coming back, and I'm always up for a late night snack, so we met up with P'Ped again and had some amazing papaya salad, sticky rice (necessary to calm down the spicy salad) and some succulent roasted chicken. I again enjoyed chatting with him, his English wasn't as good as some of the other teachers, but he was super laid back and had a good sense of humor. I didn't quite know what to expect during my time in Khon Kaen, but I ended up really liking the city. It was a relatively small, hot, dusty yet vibrant city. It had lots of stray dogs (but that ended up being true everywhere in Thailand) but what was most interesting was the range of development among the businesses and homes. There is some money from the manufacturing there, and it was evident in some areas. But, along the wall to a big gated community, would be untended trash piles and basic shacks. It was great to spend some time walking around on my own, but even more rewarding to have some chats with John's friends. The one tough part about getting to know a country through tourism is you pretty much just meet hotel, restaurant, and site staff. I'm happy to have been able to ask some more personal or deeper questions to such friendly, open, well-spoken and helpful people. Talking with people like that in a laid back culture-while sipping a Coke slurpee or fresh fruit juice made me want to stay for awhile, and made it clear to me why so many foreigners have settled in Thailand.