One Night in Udon

Take me down to UD town

Udonthani is a large regional city in the northern part of the eastern bit of Thailand. I've been there a couple of times, usually just passing through or for an afternoon of shopping. It's about 80 kms away but it takes 2 hours by bus (lots of border-crossing paperwork).

This time it was an overnighter... an adventure of discovery. I needed some burning qustions answered:

• What else is there to do apart from buy gluten free muesli and shoes? 
• Could UD possibly have something else to offer? 

I figured there probably was more to it all as there were several hundreds of thousands of people living there, not all of them UD-born. We seven adventurers set off to find out.

Arriving from Vientiane on the big bus the first sign of Thailand's difference was the dolled up dogs. Sure, it's cold here in Laos, too. But we dress our dogs in old T-shirts. In Thailand, dogs are classier.

Classy dogs

Bitchin'

We discovered that the soup was a bit different too. Pho soup is fantastic. I don't care that the Vietnamese think they own it, Lao pho is the best. This stuff on a side-of-the-road stall in Udon was equally as fabulous. We tucked in.

Noodle soup - what else would we want for morning tea?

I checked out the coffee but waited for one served in a mug. Maybe later...

Green tea, red tea and real coffee - in socks

There were some promising products sitting on footpaths. I started looking for some of these fabled handsome Mansome Thais.

Keep an eye out for some MANSOME!

It didn't take too long...

Now that's one Mansome Man. I've always had a penchant for rescue uniforms.

 We're not in Kansas anymore

Wandering the streets we saw some interesting non-Lao sights:

Something you don't see often these days (no coins in the hatch - I checked)

You could almost imagine you are in London. Almost.

Not something I have ever seen in Laos

Street art! (And some rude words). It's been a long time... makes me miss Melbourne

tuk tuks and art

Cute street sign

Bikies!

We jumped into a tuk tuk with half an idea of finding the lake. And what a lake! Walter Burley Griffin would have been impressed. We hired decrepit little bikes and wobbled off along a bike track (the first bike track I've seen in months!)

                                  

Eleanor took to two wheels like
Cadel on City Road









Julian and Phil enjoyed the sunshine on a bicycle built for two

Chicks on wheels. Dragster handlebars, too!

We found an enormous playground and stopped to play. They had stuff for grown-ups as well as tackers. It was a bit exhausting, slightly dangerous but mostly fun.

Kate and Eleanor building biceps

 

Snack time

A big kid

Some swapped bikes to keep things interesting

looks painful (wasn't)

A big duck and some appreciative Australians

Looks Like Laos

After cycling around the lake, we wandered back into town and saw quite a few familiar almost  Lao-like sights. We were not that far from home after all.

Bean tree - exotic and gorgeously lush. I don't know what it is.

The ubiquitous Tuk tuks - one had a spiderman sticker

Stuff for spirits

Little boys with AK47s, protecting all the stuff

Beef jerky bracelets drying in the sun

Furniture seller at work

Another guy at work (actually working)

Eating, drinking, shopping...

Half the thrill of being in Thailand is eating Thai food. E.g. somtam without the fermented fish sauce in it! (the other half is practicing the switch to Thai from Lao. Tricky and challenging, but fun.) So we ate and drank and chatted like locals...

Thai beer. Not half as good, though.

Thai food. Mmmmm, we love it.

We wandered around UD Town market

Thai shoes - shiny sparkly gold plastic ones. I love them. My taste is changing.

His 'n' hers Tshirts are all the rage

crafty stuff

Gold and gorgeous

I love a bit of hyaluronic acid as a pick-me-up!

Great Balls of Fire!

Just to spice up the weekend, Udon put on a bit of a show for us.

Even though the short-lived thrill of the boom and crash and sparkle is over, I still think that was THE BEST fireworks display I have EVER seen. 

Impressed!

Amazing. Big. Glittery. Sparkly things in the shape of letters and numbers and cat's faces. My camera died half way through. Even it was overwhelmed.

Sunday and the Livin' is Easy

What better way to start the day than with a REALLY GOOD foot massage? The last ten minutes were a neck and shoulder massage which I really needed after the crick in my neck from watching the sky the night before.

A haircut for Phil at the most fabulous men's hairdresser in town. Phil looked quite mansome!

Gilt and gorgeous

And then there is the ever-familiar, Chaddy-like Central Plaza! A whopping, great, mostly empty, modern, air-conditioned, shiny shopping centre.


Shoppin' till you're droppin' - which took about 45 minutes

 

Clean and modern!

...with an ice skating rink.

Heading Home - with the VTMC

Piling back onto the bus with new shoes and fried chicken, we were soon at the border, hanging with some mansome boys on big bikes...

We'd seen/heard them in Udon and hadn't realised they were Vientiane locals. In fact, we'd never known they existed before.

Their leather and denim jackets were clean and neat and the VTMC logo is... well ... not as mean as you'd expect...  unless you remembered that these are probably just your average gorgeous, sweet and well dressed upper-middle class Lao boys...

Not exactly "Son's of Anarchy"

...on shiny, clean but very loud Harleys. (Yes, that is the Lao flag, a dove and some frangipani flowers on their jackets.)

Easy ridin' across the Friendship Bridge back to Laos

(Thanks to Phil for some of these photos... even the one taken while I was squealing for help on that weird exercise machine thing - it takes a committed photographer to ignore screams for help in the hope of getting a funny embarrassing photo)