A house to ourselves (oh, and a few cows)
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2007
1
154
220
Trip End
Ongoing
Udon Thani, Thailand
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Well, we don't think that there is too much here (in Udon Thani) to see but we booked a flight here for two reasons:
1. The Lao Airlines website doesn't work and we couldn't find a decent fare into to Laos as a result. This town is 2 hours from Vientiene, the capital of Laos and is also the most busy land-border crossing between the two countries.
2. We found an amazing house to rent in Udon Thani with a private infinity pool overlooking the rice gardens and cows grazing in the distance.
We didn't do much at the house except hang out by the pool, watch TV, and play the occasional game of Trouble or shoots and ladders. Amazing the things you end up doing when you have no job. What we did like is that the house has it's own chef and we were prepared 3 absolutely incredible Thai meals every day.
SHE SAID:
After spending 9 days in crazy hectic Bangkok arriving in Udon Thani was just what the doctor ordered, with nothing around but miles of rice fields, red dirt roads, Brahmin cows, bamboo trees and small villages. The gecko villa was very charming with 3 separate buildings, pool, wrap around deck and outdoor shower built in the traditional thai style. The highlights of the villa centered around my contact with the animal life. First there were the two cows the owners kept for pets on the property. They were the white kind with long droopy ears and necks, they wore these very fashionable red and black collars with large bells attached so you could hear them meandering around the property all day long. When you walk up to them with food the female cow is very friendly and comes right up to you and sticks out her black tongue reaching for the leaves. The property also was home to a dragon fly colony. They were bright green, yellow, and red about three inches in length. At any given time there were about 20 of them flying quick sporadic oval patterns a couple of feet above the pool. Why do these guys fly around all day in circles anyways? Then there was the cook's dog, Kem. He would arrive with women and while they were cooking he would sneak into the living room to see us for a head scratch. He was some sort of terrier mutt, very cute. Lastly there was the villa's vermin. All day long on the second day we kept hearing some sort of mouse/rat fight going on somewhere in the vicinity of the bedroom building. It was high-pitched squeaking noises and I was not very happy about it. Then that night as we were falling asleep there were chewing scratching noises coming from some where really close to the bed and I started freaking out a little bit. I did not want a rat in the bed! We spent several minutes listening to the noise and trying to figure out where it was coming from and I finally realized it was a rat alright, a big one named ADAM. I must admit he got me good.
