Adventures in Thainapping

Thainap (v.) – to kidnap a farang (foreigner), with little or no warning to join in on a bpai tiao (trip), usually of unknown length with an undisclosed destination; may include a sizeable group of people from the community, lots of pictures, many stops, naps in the car, and a constant sense of confusion with no discernible return time

Thainapping is a common occurrence with PCVs in Thailand.  It can include anything from a meal in a nearby town to an all-day excursion in your pajamas (because you don’t know what’s going on, let alone where you’re going/what you’ll be doing).  The weekend after sports week I was looking forward to a free schedule and time to relax and recover from the exhaustion of sitting around in the first hot week in quite some time, talking to almost everyone I know.  At 7am my phone rang, and seeing that it was an unknown number I just glanced at it, muted it, and went back to sleep.  I subsequently got phone call after phone call until I picked up and was greeted with an enthusiastic voice of a teacher I had just met earlier in the week  (the Thai approach to phone calls: if the person you’re calling doesn’t pick up, keep calling until they do).  She asked what I was doing (sleeping because I'm so tired!) and if I wanted to go bpai tiaoing with them to a nearby province (no, I want to sleep).  I’m not any sort of a morning person and am definitely not eager to engage in any sort of conversation immediately upon waking, especially one in my non-native language.  After being unable to go back to sleep, I got up and shortly received another phone call from another teacher I had just met, telling me they were picking me up in 20 minutes.  Sleeping and relaxation were no longer an option – I was bpai tiaoing. 

I grabbed the few bpai tiao essentials I thought of – camera, snacks, kindle, water – and headed out for a day full of unknown activities with no idea when I’d be back.  I was told we were helping a teacher move to a new school, and then we were going to bpai tiao after that.  We stopped to pick up some of the belongings of the teacher who was moving, and were subsequently invited to eat breakfast.  I got to experience red ant larvae soup for the first time, and I can’t say I really enjoyed it.  I also ate something that looked like dark green vomit and tasted kind of like salsa (I’ve long since learned that a lot of things that might look terrible can actually taste good, so everything is worth trying). 

We finally got on the road a couple hours after the designated time of departure.  We went to the new residence of the teacher, but no one was there yet with the rest of her belongings, so we bpai tiao’ed a little bit instead – a stop for lunch and a quick visit to a school located in the middle of nowhere in the mountains.  After getting back to the house, unloading the teacher’s belongings, and some idle chatter, I think it’s time to head back home.  It’s getting late in the afternoon, and it’s already been a full day.  At this point everyone loads up into two cars – apparently the bpai tiao has just started.  We stop for coffee and hit the road for another hour, driving through winding roads to visit a temple located on a mountain top, that was actually pretty amazing.  We took plenty of time for photos and exploring the temple before loading up in the cars again.

Mountain top temple

Part of the group - we rearranged this picture no less than 5 times so different people could stand next to me and swap in/out of the picture

Inside with the Buddha

Dogs with pearl necklaces and cats in Santa hats are prohibited

Hike up to the Chedi

Bpai tiao companions

Just when I think we’re finally headed home, we make a stop for neua yang, a special occasion dinner of grilling meats and vegetables that is usually at least a 2 hour event.  I was exhausted by this point and had long since given up on my day of relaxation and nothingness.  The meal was great, we had some laughs, and I was finally returned home at 10:30pm.