Parental Pah-jahn-pie, Part Sawng (Two)!

This past weekend was Mr. & Mrs. D’s long awaited trip to Hang Chat…duh, duh, duh! Because of their beach getaway (too many topless old European women if you ask Mr. D) they couldn’t make it until Sunday, so Emily and I were left to entertain ourselves on Saturday.
At night we were able to rope Dart, Lan’s nephew, into driving us to Lampang for a buffet dinner, along with Lan and Dream. This was not any ordinary buffet, but a Korean-style “moo ga ta” buffet, which literally means “meat in a pan”. It’s the Korean version of a barbeque, but do-it-yourself. A little grill surrounded by boiling soup over a charcoal fire could be found in the middle of each table, and an endless supply of meat and seafood in different marinades, along with vegetables and noodles to cook in the soup were available to choose from. Along with the items to cook there were also dumplings, French fries, fried rice, chips, etc. that were ready to eat if you were too hungry to wait. And I can’t forget about dessert…or at least one dessert in particular, coconut ice cream, one of our favorites. It’s not like normal American ice cream but instead a mix between soft serve and Italian ice, and peanuts are added on top for the perfect finishing touch. We may have had 2 or 3 bowls of multiple scoops each…oops, blame the buffet, where self control goes out the window. Basically, Emily and I thought we had died and gone to heaven and Lan was getting a kick out of how much and how quickly food was disappearing from the table. We all ate until we were about to burst…and we think Dream may have, as after her nearly 10^th plate of food we watched her rub her stomach, run to the bathroom, and return with a smile. It’s surprising “moo ga ta” buffets don’t exist in America, but it’s probably because they are quite the liability…an unsupervised fire in the middle of the table, raw meat being cooked by non professionals, etc…but America has too many rules!
Finally it was Sunday and the big arrival of the farang parents! Mr. and Mrs. D arrived via driver to the Hang Chat Wittaya gates and we walked them to the infamous Jungle House. Mr. D was quite surprised that it isn’t actually in a jungle, but visible from the road. Sorry, no monkeys or cheetahs either, but we do have spiders, for those who have seen Emily’s pictures! Mrs. D decided that the outside of the house is a poor representation of our rather cute abode, as it is painted dark brown, poor choice. Don’t judge a book by its cover! Lan arranged for two cars to pick us up, one driven by her nephew (we assume bribery was used to get him to agree to hang out with us two days in a row) and the other by her brother. They were our trusty chauffeurs for the day. The first stop on the tour was Lune Dang’s for lunch. We frequent his little restaurant at least once a week, if not more, and told him in advance that we wanted to bring Emily’s parents when they visited. He seemed honored, pulling out all the stops for the celebrity parents. He got all dressed up, tossing aside his usual oversized tee for a crisp polo shirt, and he dug out some of his best dishware. He also created a special menu with some things he doesn’t typically offer, including green chicken curry and a cashew chicken dish. Just the thought of this cute little man buying special ingredients to share with people he had never met was adorable. He was so happy to see that everyone enjoyed his creations that his eyes were watering as we left. Aww!
The rest of the day consisted of the typical Thailand tourist routine: elephants and temple-hopping! You just don’t get more Thai than that! Although we insisted that it wasn’t necessary to go to the elephant center since the Duval’s had ridden elephants earlier in the week, our chauffeurs insisted that THIS elephant center was different. Other than the fact that it’s in Lampang instead of Chiang Mai, I’m not sure I agree, but we go where the chauffeurs take us. So although Emily and I had already been on 5 different elephant adventures, we gave in. With Pee Sak’s police connections we got in for free through the back entrance and even got front row for the elephant show because the head of our school board happened to be there. I even accidently ended up sitting next to the governor of the province and therefore was part of his paparazzi photo shoot, so keep your eyes peeled for my Thai newspaper front page debut! It was the Duval’s lucky day because it happened to be some sort of elephant holiday this past weekend, which meant a special performance even we had yet to see. It included Thai dancing, sword fighting, a play about Thai history, all done in beautiful traditional costumes. Some dressed-up elephants were also thrown in there somewhere, as it was an elephant center and all. Lan’s comment of the day, and she always seems to have one, occurred at the show while she was watching Mr. D take some photos and said, “Oh, he looks just like a movie star!”…settle down Lan, he’s a happily married man!
Next, we did some temple-hopping. Don’t get me wrong, the temples, called wats, in Thailand are quite beautiful, but once you’ve seen a few, you’ve seen them all. Emily and I have even started “double-watting”, our name for visiting the same wat for a second time. This is due to the fact that “no” is not really the answer any Thai person is looking for when they ask you if you want to visit their place of worship, and therefore our response is more along the lines of “Well of course we do, how did you guess?” We also can’t remember the names of the wats, so we are never quite sure if we have already been until we get there, see it, and realize that we have. We have gotten pretty good at pretending its all new to us, though…Emily even snaps pictures that she already has from the last time we were there. We have now, after the Duval's visit, officially begun triple-watting, as we have been to one wat in Lampang three times. A bit painful…I mean beautiful. I think even the Duval's were getting watted-out…but they still smiled, conducted some mini photo shoots (how else will Mrs. D fill up her Asian-inspired living room unless Mr. D takes close to 400 pictures in 2 weeks??), and asked some thoughtful questions…success! As I rode with Pee Sak and Dream throughout the day, I supposedly missed some ridiculous conversations in the other car as a result of Lan’s interaction with the Duval’s. Lan was still laughing at dinner this week about jokes from the ride, her favorite being Mr. D’s response of “too long” when she asked how long he had been married to Mrs. D. Oh Lan, you’re so easy to entertain!

From one set of Thai babysitters to the next, we got passed off from Lan’s family to Pan’s at the Duval’s guest house. Pan and Poon would be taking us to dinner. We had gotten the Duval’s ready for Pan in advance, as she and Lan are complete opposites. They were a little nervous for her high energy personality as we were all very tired from the long day of Lampang site-seeing. We did give Mrs. D one important task though: she must get Pan to say “little noodles” because she says it so hilariously, sounding more like “leaden nooden”. Don’t worry, it’s all in good fun, and Pan is always laughing at Emily and I. The task was completed, good job Mrs. D! Dinner consisted of, well, whatever Pan ordered and then whatever we could yell out loud enough for the waitress to hear. For example, although we had had green chicken curry for lunch, Pan insisted we have it again. Ok Pan, whatever you say! We warned Mr. and Mrs. D that Pan sometimes liked to have late nights, and with their early wake-up for school the next day they weren’t sure they could handle that. Mr. D’s used a subtle comment of “Well, I’m getting pretty tired” to bring the dinner to a close.
Bright and early on Monday morning the Duval’s hitched a ride to school with Pan for their first day of Thai high school. They stuck to the strict dress code assigned to them by Emily…no Dad, you may not wear shorts, your legs are far too hairy...you’ll scare the children! They got plenty of stares as anticipated…Who are those old farangs? Mrs. D and I could be found rolling our eyes at each other throughout the day in response to the gasps by every last teacher and student of “very handsome, very young…TOO young!” when they saw Mr. D. No one could believe that he was Emily’s father, but thought that he had to be her brother. Do not fear, I have faith that Mrs. D will bring him right back down to earth so his head doesn’t get too big, although I think he now understands what we mean when we say that Asia is a major self esteem booster! Enjoy the footage of Mr. and Mrs. D introducing themselves to one of the Emily’s classes and fielding a few questions. Mr. D quickly realized the language barrier/lack of interest of our students when he tried to ask one student a question and he ran out of the room… welcome to our lives!

Overall, it was great to see Mr. and Mrs. D, my “second parents,” who have been feeding me dinners ever since third grade when I wouldn’t get the hint to leave their house when Mrs. D started to set the table. They were like our little newborns, discovering the world for the first time, or at least Asia, and their sense of wonderment and awe at all things Thai was very entertaining to watch. Their excitement and ohh’s and ahh’s in response to what has been our everyday lives for the past few months was a great reminder of how truly one of a kind this experience is. So thank you Mr. and Mrs. D for letting me crash your family vaca and treating me like part of the fam once again J!