THAILAND - UDON THANI
- E. McPhillips
- Jan 16, 2017
- 4 min read
After a few days in Pattaya, Moon and his girlfriend Yui invited us to the North East of Thailand; more specifically Udon Thani to meet Yui's family and celebrate the New Year. Udon Thani is a quiet city in the region of Issan, home to some of the best Thai food. It's very slow paced, quite like country/island life. We were happy to go with the flow and have a change from the hectic nature that is Pattaya. We hadn't made any solid plans in the hope we would travel around as the holiday led us, so a journey to Thailand's north was perfect. Initially we underestimated the drive - turns out it was 9 or so hours, by bus. Hearing the travel is almost a whole day you wonder whether flying would have been more suitable. Although it frees some time and makes the trip easier, we would have missed the experience of stopping off along the way; trying some roadside food, and seeing local life. I can't say the same for the trip home though. We got to experience Thai traffic first hand, and that 9 hour ride quickly turned to 15 hours.
We arrived at about midnight on New Years Eve (we spent the countdown on the bus travelling), and were greeted with an amazing spread of food from Yui's mum and family. After a long journey it was more than welcomed. There was different cuts of meat, fish, fried rice with hot dogs and fried chicken wings. I remember the fried chicken wings mostly, as they were unbelievably delicious. There were eskis stocked with Leo, a Thai beer, so no-one was ever empty handed. After a night spent eating and drinking, and getting to know the local Thai's (despite the language barrier), we were ready for bed. Yui organised a hotel for us, and another couple that we were travelling with, which was located just down the road. I actually slept really well that night; that is until I woke up with cold sweats and began riding the porcelain bus. I felt so ill. After vomiting all I could, we went back to Yui's Mum's house for a traditional Thai breakfast.
Safe to say I wasn't overly hungry, but with food like that in front of you it's really hard to refuse. I appreciate the disregard for coffee at breakfast. I mean, beer goes better with Thai food after all.
Despite feeling like my stomach was eating itself from the inside out, I tried as many delicious dishes as I could before sticking to beer. In hindsight water was probably a better option, and probably not eating green mango from the side of the road.
After breakfast, and I use the term loosely, we travelled to the local temple in order to pray for our blessings in the New Year. Yui explained to us that Thai people go to the temples on January 1 of each year in order to pay their respects and ask for good fortune for the coming 12 months. We were lucky enough to be part of the ritual. We started by lighting candles and incense, and laying the flowers as offerings or the shrine outside before entering the temple to give more offerings and pay our respects. The language barrier hindered some explanations of the ritual, so it's now something I must research on my own in order to clarify a few aspects to myself.
After visiting the temple we headed to some local markets in Udon. They were massive, there was so much to see; covering every type of store from jewellery, to toy shops, quirky food stalls and anything you can think of in between. The markets backed on to the Mekong River which was beautiful. As we wandered up the Mekong eating, we were spoilt with the view of Laos on the other side running parallel to us.
We entered the markets while the sun was up high and didn't leave until it was dark. We had a beautiful long lunch which consisted of different BBQ meats and soup after soup after soup. It was amazing. We returned to Yui's family home to continue eating and drinking. I can't express how full I was this entire trip. Constantly. There wasn't a moment where my stomach did hate me for overloading it.
Our other trainer Rock was arriving in Udon, and Yui's childhood friends came over to celebrate the new year. We ate, drank, sang and had an amazing time in everyone's company getting to know one another. Unfortunately I felt like a walking pile of crap so I had to be the fun sponge and call the night early. Early by Thai standards so it was about 3:30am.
The next day we set off to travel to Chiang Khan, a bit further North. We were taken to the Red Lotus Lake on the way, and had been fed stories of this beautiful resort we were going to for the night once we arrived in Chiang Khan. It was a beautiful tented camp - glamping, for lack of a better word. I was unbelievably excited. Couldn't stop thinking about it and how nice it would be considering how sick I felt; but stories aren't made by plans always going to plan, right?
Find out about our Chiang Khan adventures
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