We’ve now met all of our neighbours, bar one, but they never seem to come outside. Our immediate neighbours are a mother (Inn) and daughter (Daisy, 1) decided to head out to Chiang Mai ‘beach’. Those of you that have been to Chiang Mai, or know that it’s located in Northern Thailand right up in the mountains might be thinking… ‘beach, what?’.
The place is actually called Huay Tung Tao Lake. It lies at the base of Doi Suthep (‘Doi’ means mountain in Thai). It takes about half an hour to drive there from our house, we headed off in a convoy of Inn’s car and a pick-up truck. Mos and I were in the back of the pick-up truck. The lake is part of a private park. So it’s in the middle of a large forested area.
As we pulled into the entrance gates and paid our ฿40 entry we started to see a couple of small stalls selling inflatables for the children to play with. Then we got a glimpse of the lake. It’s huge. And the beaches that run around the perimeter are lined with little open bamboo huts. Each served by one main, but pretty small restaurant. We parked the car and walked over to an empty hut, we’d packed some whiskey, coke and a few Thai dishes to bring with us. But one the girls (I was the only man of the eight people there) spotted the menu we had fish dishes, rice dishes and a variety of other very tasty looking offerings arriving at our hut.
I went off for a paddle with Daisy. She is one, and completely obsessed with me. She calls for me through the metal fence that separates our gardens, she cries when I go out to get groceries and she constantly tries to bring me food. Anyway, we went for a paddle. She found it hilarious.
On the other side of the lake I could just about make out a paddle boat rental company. But to get there would have taken about an hours walk. And they were shaped like swans. So decided to head back to help tackle some of this mountain of food that was amassing in our hut.
As we came to the end of our food, and more importantly, our whiskey. The sky suddenly got noticeably darker and we got pelted with wind and light rain. The temporary looking shelter on the beach that we’d considered sitting under was now sheltering three scooters from the light rain. But not for long. After the wind and rain increased dramatically the shelter collapsed knocking over the scooters and burying them in the beach. Again, Daisy found this hysterical. She laughed for the whole time the owners of the bikes tried to remove the shelter and dig out the bikes to wheel them to safety whilst still being pelted by the wind flying off the surface of the lake.
We quite rightly decided that it was time to go home. The girls loaded up the car whilst I walked the grandmother (who speaks no English) to the toilets. Most of the path had washed away but the weather was starting to calm down. Whilst waiting for the grandmother, Mos, my wife, decided to dig up some of the plants from the flower beds surrounding the toilet… she said they would look great at our house in some nice pots. I agreed, so she took more.
Once we got home, we all scattered off to warm up and have showers. Overall, I think it was a successful day. I enjoyed it anyway.
Tom Mumford 