Handball anyone?

Usually, my favorite daytime adventures are somehow related to a run.  Feet are two of the best modes for stumbling upon new things.

            A few days ago, Allison and I went for our evening jaunt, but decided to take a new road and see if  we could follow the river.  The road lead us to a path, which meandered to a small dirt road.  The red dirt lead us through a few small farm patches, a pig pen, corn fields, and past a small Buddhist shrine.  It was a beautiful, clear, and breezy day to begin with, and this little road only added to it.  On our way back through the neighborhoods towards our house, we came across a big neighborhood party (celebrating who knows what), complete with whisky-filled men ushering us in to join the festivities.  We ventured to the table and they gave us water (and probably would have fed us the entire feast too!), but then we weaseled our way out and headed for home.  Then we had the brilliant idea of eating dinner across the river from our house, where we had spotted some food stands and some top-notch sunsets a few weeks earlier.  Now was our chance—the sky was clear and it was dinner time. So we ran home, showered, turned around, bicycled over the bridge and made it just in time for the sunset. We happened to also have our ukeleles so we played a few tunes with the last glimpses of sunlight.  We cruised down the riverside to scout out a good dinner spot, and as we were checking out a stand and deciding whether to commit, two young girls in blue sports uniforms popped up and asked, “What do you want to eat?”  Apparently we were not too subtle and looked a bit unsure.  So, Pum and Tiew, our new highschool handball-playing friends helped us decide what to eat.  There was a lady selling tilapia (one of my favorites), but you have to commit to buying the whole salt-encrusted flapper, and there was no way that Allison and I could eat the entire thing. Conveniently, our new friends were sitting with about 10 of their teammates, and soon we were sitting on a mat with ten of our new best friends, chatting, charading, playing a uke song or two, and eating.  It was just a delight.  They even offered to take us around Nan, so we may meet up to go to the museum in a week or so. (p.s. the word for museum is Pee-pee-ta-pan. I think it’s my new favorite Thai word, second only to Blah bak a baw—blowfish).

Anyways, here is a picture with our new friends: