Speaking Isaan

Sometimes it is best to accept that you are going to get charged higher prices as a farang. It doesn't bother me to pay extra, but I don't like being ripped off! Ubon bus station, I found out later, is well known for this amongst locals. I got off the bus at Ubon at 11am and instantly I had a swarm of taxi drivers around me trying to find out where I wanted to go. It didn't help that I wasn't quite sure myself, and the leader of the group took advantage of this. I thought it would be best to head down to the nearest market and then I could find some friendly locals to help me. I told the head guy that I wanted to go to the market and he said this was very far away and would cost a lot of money. I asked about a few other places and eventually settled for the nearest market which apparently was still 20 minutes away, and so we settled on a price of 50 baht. The head guy got me a driver and sent us on our way. I could tell something was up as the driver wasn't very friendly, and sure enough a few minutes later the driver told me we had arrived. We had not even been in the car 5 minutes. I told him this wasn't the right place, it was a tiny market down some back alley! The driver didn't have much to say and remained quiet. I told him what I thought of him and his leader! Even with my limited Thai, I managed quite well to get mad for the first time in Thai. It was a useful experience in itself. Anyway, once I got out into the market it wasn't so bad. I got some lunch and wander around buying lots of fruit. The locals found me quite interesting as they obviously don't get foreigners around here. I got a much cheaper tuk-tuk back to the bus station and jumped straight on a bus to the small village 30 kilometres out of Ubon.

When I arrived at the village, several people said hello to me; either they knew I was coming or they remembered me from last year. At the house I said hello to the Mother and headed straight for the shower. For the next few hours I practiced more Thai, mixed with a lot of Isaan words. I visited Aunt and Grandma, getting completely confused about what they were saying. When the children got home from school we went for a trip around the village and said hello to more people, and then we returned home for a lovely dinner of rice and fruit.