A weekend in Roi Et

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We decided to go and visit our Geordie friend Amanda who lives 2-3 hours ago in the North East town of Roi-et. We have passed through Roi-et many times on our way to Bangkok but this time we decided to actually stop off and spend the weekend there.

We left Mukdahan on Saturday morning and arrived by bus in roi-et at 2pm. We were picked up by Amanda’s personal tuk tuk driver and taken to her nice new apartment. In the afternoon we had a walk around roi-et and had a look at everything it had to offer. We went to visit a monastery which houses the tallest Buddha statue in Thailand, it was really nice and we walked up lots of stairs on the inside to get to the top. After this we walked across town to the lake and went on the swans, it was nice as we got to watch the sunset from the middle of the lake and were then nearly attacked by the fountains coming on. Unfortunately we soon had to abandon ship as we didn’t exactly feel safe in the middle of the lake on kids toys, there was a lot of water in the bottom of the boat and health and safety in Thailand is certainly lacking… I felt like I was on the titanic!

After finally clambering to safety (these tiny boats are not exactly the most graceful things to get out of) we went for dinner at a western restaurant.. pizza, cheesy chips, chips and gravy, garlic bread – amazing! And I had my first chang of 2013 which went down very well indeed.

We all piled back into the personal tuk tuk driven by the one and only mr dang who took us safely back to Amanda’s where we got ready to go out and started on the Thai whiskey.

We went to a bar first and met up with some of Amanda’s fellow teacher friends, watched the football and had a few drinks there before heading onto a club with two American guys, a Pilipino and we met 2 Brazilians over in Thailand to play football. That is one of the things I love so much about Thailand, you get to meet people from all over the world, people you would never have the chance to meet at home.

We had a really good night and headed home at about 4am. The next morning we all headed out for breakfast (7/11 cheese and ham toastie and a twix bar!) and then to my new favourite place – the 20 baht store! It is like pound land but half the price and full of much better stuff.. everything is 20 baht (about 40p) and they literally sell all sorts… this time I got a bumbag! An actual floral bumbag. I never thought I would see the day when I owned a bumbag, but that day has come. I thought it would come in handy for when I’m travelling to keep all of my important stuff safe so I am now one of ‘those’ travelers who walks around wearing a bum bag. At least it is pink and flowery…

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