Driving Thailand Oct.2012

One thing that we have not done during our time here in Thailand is drive to Northern Thailand. I've taken an overnight train ride to Chiang Mai, I've flown up to Chiang Mai a couple of times but driving up to the mountains of Thailand has always been on Mark's 'to-do' list. Songkran, our driver, agreed to drive us and Ethan, Mark and I are taking advantage of the half-term break this week at their school to do just that! Dustin stayed at home to work on course work for his IB curriculum while Nok, our housekeeper looks out for him. We drove about 9 hours our first day to reach Sukhothai, the first ancient kingdom of Thailand, where the original Thai alphabet was born. We spent the morning exploring the ruins of the ancient temples of the city after enjoying our lovely, Thai, hotel before driving to our next destination of Pai. Mark and I figured it would take approx. 4 more hours to reach Pai. After 11 (!) hours of terribly, curvy, mountain, roads that were at some points not paved; we finally arrived. We LOVE our driver, Songkran, but we were so lost yesterday!! We definitely were on the non-tourist track which I usually enjoy so much, but we had planned to meet some friends in Pai for dinner-we rescheduled for breakfast. Having a driver is an experience, it is quite a blessing for Mark at times, he gets tons of work, phone calls made... while commuting back and forth to work. We only know one other family that has been here as long as we have that have their original driver. We have friends that have had over 25 drivers in 4 years. We are so thankful for Songkran, he has never had a sick day, he has requested a couple of days off to visit his sick father, he has only been late two times in over 4 years. He has a great personality, he likes to laugh-sometimes at inappropriate times but is just a jolly, nice guy. He initially was unsure about taking a week away from his family and driving us up North but eventually said he wanted the work and extra pay. He said he had driven North many times. When we initially set off he handed us a map to follow along and never once have I seen him reference it in the car.I was impressed-at first. Mark was reading, watching the sites, dozing and I occasionally was trying to figure out where in the world we were. I just couldn't figure out the route Songkran was taking but was trying not to fret about it and leave the driving to him. Most of the road signs were in Thai only. It is a weird thing having a full time driver, I never tell him how to drive, I don't screech when we almost run in to someone, I set in the back seat and for the most part am oblivious to where and how I'm being driven around-I wish I could do a better job of that when Mark is in the driver's seat. After driving 8 hours out-of-the-way I wish I would have stepped in and said something earlier. It was a most trying day but we saw lots of things that most tourists will never see that is for sure!!! I was about ready to scream/cry in the back seat by the time we found our resort but am thankful that we arrived safe and sound FINALLY. One other note, we try to speak another language, "Codespeak" when we are all in the car and don't want Songkran to understand what is being said. Our Spanish is very limited so we try to use a 'BIG' vocabulary. It can be hilarious. Yesterday I am saying stuff like, "I think we may need to reference the atlas, as our route seems to be muddled." It can be pretty funny, yesterday, Ethan would say, "What are ya'll talking about?" and I just have to say, "Codespeak" and he knows that we are trying to talk about Songkran without his knowing. Man! I wish I knew more Spanish!but we are working on increasing our vocabulary while having a driver!

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