Nothin' to do in Nan...

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Nan is a boring place for tourists. If you like to party, don't go there. There are some nice parks, but they are far away from the city and cost 400B/person ($13). We did, however, see a wild ceremonial opening-day parade for a new Chinese wat. We awoke to the sound of a vicious battle happening outside our window. At this, we got up and ran outside to find a parade in full force at 7am...and it's no joke that these guys like firecrackers. They have these long strips of loud ones that they hang from signposts and the last five are M-80's. Loud noises! Lots of kids with drums and long strings of dragons going up and down the street. It was very well organized and beautiful, though, with the parade stopping at every Chinese businessperson's shop. The streets were a mess with red (they love red in the north) and smoke. Not being able to go back to sleep, we tried to find a motorbike, and people thought we were aliens. We don't speak Thai, so we can't be upset with them for not understanding, but damn.... I was doing the whole 'arms up, motorbike pose', thing, and no one got what I was saying. After a while, we found one and cruised out to the mountains, which were beautiful, but not many tourists go out there on their own, so the villagers looked amazed that the milk-faces would venture out that far. There was a Chinese party with fireworks that night, and they busted out the dragons again and lined the streets with tables for the Chinese citizens. We thought the party would last till very late, but the whole thing was cleaned up and put away by 9pm. So we headed for 7-11 for a couple beers and found a small unpretentious street bar with a couple local girls serving proper drinks and delicious fried chicken kebabs. The next day, we headed for Phitsanalok, on our way to Loei, on our way to Laos....

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Comments

[Roger Heine]

Hands up, motorbike pose
This was funny, Alex. Maybe I should try that on my Yamaha. "ok boys, this is a stick-up" now hand over the 125 CC bike.!