Carabao!

We all had the 8th off and what a day it was. First on our agenda was to head to Khon Kaen, the nearest “city” to the sanctuary. It is about a 2.5 hour drive but we were severely delayed by a trip to the post office in Chum Phae. Apparently long lines at the post office occur outside of the States, too! Since PKWS is on the plateau of a large hill, going to down means a drop in elevation and a substantial increase in temperature. Also, Khon Kaen and Chum Phae especially tend not to have much greenery so it gets even hotter because of all of the concrete and tin roofs. It was Richard’s 24th birthday so we celebrated by going to the really nice bakery in the lobby of the Sofitel Hotel for lunch. All of the breads and cake were delicious and the hotel is gorgeous and delightfully cold from the A/C.
Our major goal when we visit Chum Phae and Khon Kaen tends to be food shopping. We ended up in a huge grocery store called the “Big C” that featured such luxury items as a produce section and bakery (neither of which are in the “2000” store in Chum Phae). However, the language barrier makes grocery shopping quite the adventure and it takes a long time to find everything on your list! After a little tour of what Khon Kaen had to offer it was back to Chum Phae to meet some of Team Macaque and Khun* Kitti. We went out for a great dinner by the lake in Chum Phae and then it was off to the “red club” for the rest of the evening. Khun Kitti had gotten us tickets to see Carabao, a really famous Thai rock group. 1400 Bhat got us a table for four and a bottle of whiskey, which ended up being a pretty sweet deal. There were several opening bands playing all sorts of music. One group even covered “Imagine” in English! One of the highlights of the evening was getting one band to sing Rich “Happy Birthday” and then all of the staff came out with a sign and gave a traditional Thai birthday blessing for good health, long life, etc. This made the night more amusing because any Thai who could wish Rich “happy birthday” in English did, and made us stick out as farang (foreigners) even more than we had before.
The night wore on and Carabao had yet to appear, but around 11:30 pm they finally came on and played until 2 am! (at which point we had a 1.5 hour drive back to PKWS . . .) We couldn’t understand any of the Thai and it was a little confusing who Carabao actually was (they are brothers, Lek and Ed), but we had a great time making Thai “friends” on the dance floor. Carabao’s logo is a longhorn steer skull, so as long as you make this sign with your hand, i.e. pinkie and thumb extended, it is considered dancing. I ended up getting a sweet sticker for my bike helmet too and the night proved very memorable.


*”khun” is Thai for Mr./Ms./Mrs. and Thais tend to refer to you and each other as “khun” + first name