At night, the whole village came to Somchai's parents' house to have a party. This is khun Yoong, Somchai's best friend from when he was just a kid. Today he and his wife operate a driving/tour guide service for tourists coming to see the Golden Triangle.

For dinner, we feasted on local delicacies like raw pork and pork's blood, delicious! Lessons learned: 1)raw pork apparently doesn't kill you after all, and 2)drinking enough of the local Mekhong whiskey allows you to eat anything.

While Chiang Rai remains an important historical city, its greatest claim to fame is recent. Yes, that's rights, Chiang Rai province is also the birthplace of Somchai! He comes from a tiny town called Ban Mai (which funnily enough means Newtown in Thai. Funny only to my sister, actually, pardon the insider reference.) Ban Mai is on the border with Burma, not a good place to be since there are frequent border skirmishes between Thailand and Burma and the ongoing civil and drug wars in Burma often spill over into the area. Here I am visiting the in-laws, Somchai's father, Tong, and mother, Bujin. The first thing his father did when I met him was to reach into a bamboo tree and offer me a worm to eat. Not sure if that was a good sign.