Our hosts at the charming and immaculately clean establishment were Kai and his wife, we called them Mr & Mrs Day.
They both spoke excellent English and guided us through our visa application for our onward trip to Laos. All of us were greeted with cold drinks and snacks including Pon and Song who by now we're checking out the enemy over the river through the hotel telescope.
After wishing them a fond farewell we went out to explore the Main Street taking lunch at a basic pavement cafe that doubled up as a greengrocer shop. The 7/11 was next door so we stocked up on money and snacks, made our way back and spent the afternoon sat on our balcony watching the river life go by - bliss.
That evening we ate in a recommended eatery, The Jam House, where once again you watched your food being cooked. I made the error of mentioning Lynn liked it spicey - much too hot for our delicate western mouths. It was still a good meal though.
After that lip-blistering experience we went off to find the English pub we had seen advertised all over town, Hub Pub. Down a dimly lit side road the lights shone out onto the street, this was it then, Shangrila and possibly Brit beer and maybe that elusive glass of wine for Lynn. We were to be disappointed on both counts as there weren't even the hoards of other backpackers that are depicted on the posters. All that greeted us were two guys and a barmaid, still they got talking to us straight away and offered us the wireless keyboard. This, we found, was to enable you to choose the music off You Tube - very modern concept for this neck of the woods.
The guys ordered food, fish and chips - what else, and served by another young girl. So, there were more of them out the back. Finally the surealty kicked in when we checked out our selfie and noticed they still had Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling. I left them with a line of graffiti - "Come on Morecambe" and we left to possibly find a better watering hole - we didn't.
On the Main Street is Rin's World Bar (although I don't believe the apostrophe was used on the sign). It's owned by a spaced out Belgium guy called, appropriately, Rin! I don't know what he's a throwback from, possibly kicked out of his country, maybe. Anyway, he was friendly enough even to the extent of finding out what all the commotion was with Lynn. She had in fact pulled off the door handle to the toilet, okay, the hole in the ground. I had to stand guard, Rin just shrugged.
The beer was fine, no wine for Lynn though. She had to put up with the dodgiest cocktails ever made by the willing but useless barkeeps (staff training obviously isn't on Rin's list of business priorities). We showed willing and retired to the outside chairs where Rin was holding court with other ex-pat drinkers, not our scene, we made our excuses and left.
Heading back to the hotel we found another bar, the Chiangroy, at last somewhere that looked half decent. No wine for Lynn but the best pina colada she had tasted for a while and bonus, ice cold bottled beer served in one of those insulating covers - we'd found the perfect watering hole at last. The only bad thing going for it was the owner was a Liverpool fan and the back room was bedecked in memorabilia from those loveable scouse rouges - you can't win em all!
Next day (Tuesday 15th) the hotel arranged for us to visit a hill village about 5 miles away. Our Tuk Tuk arrived and off we went out into the countryside with Thai music blaring at us from a speaker - Lynn not too amused. He did well to get the vehicle up some quite steep hills to the village of Thung Nanoi, he dropped us off and pointed up a steep hill and gestured for us to walk up.
Halfway up it became apparent it was going to be difficult. Local village people viewed us with curiosity as this is not yet on any tourist trail and Kai only sends a few visitors to experience it. The view however made all the huffing and puffing worthwhile - spectacular to say the least and eventually we reached the summit to come across the village school.
We were made very welcome by the teachers who seemed to be having a break and were introduced to a young student called Fong who could speak decent English. (Well, far better than my hill village Thai). She showed us a craft lesson that was in progress and we bought some of it off her, boosting the schools coffers by £10, a lot for these people.
Once on the way back our driver broke into song, much to the amusement of the passing villagers from other settlements - you just couldn't make this up.
That evening we went for another excellent Thai meal, said goodbye to the Chiangroy and got an early night - reveille was 6.30am for the start of our journey to Laos.
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