Saturday Night and We Got Somebody...(Sorry, Sam Cook)

 

I first met Dr. Nirund Jivasantikarn in 2005 at a conference of university international program directors and then visited him and his wife, Petcharin, for a few days in 2007 while on a trip to Qingdao, China. Over the intervening years they have become good friends of ours and whenever they are in the Charleston area we get together for dinner. (Nirund loves the Iceberg Lettuce Wedge at Oscar's Restaurant in Summerville.)

Nirund is founder and past president of Nation University (formerly Yonok University) - the first private university in Lampang. He is also Director of the American-Thai Foundation, which role occupies the majority of his time now that he has retired from university life. In his position with the Foundation, he travels to the U.S. once a year visiting colleges and universities recruiting graduates to come to Thailand to teach in local public schools for a year or two. Since his two children live in the States, his wife, a highly regarded Lampang physician, usually accompanies him. Beth and I enjoy spending an evening with them whenever they visit Charleston.

After picking us up at the Lampang Airport, Nirund and Petcharin drove us to our  lovely Thai hotel, the Wienglakor (http://lampangwienglakor.com) and left us to unpack and nap before we headed out for a walk through Lampang's Gaad Gontha night market.

Gaad Gontha market is only open on weekends and occupies several streets in downtown Lampang. As is the case everywhere in the world where there's a night market, the streets were filled with people and vendors buying and selling everything imaginable. The sights, sounds and smells were wonderful!




We had a lovely time eating some street food, checking out vendors' wares, and making a couple very minor purchases (that's the "royal" we).





We were even serenaded by a local youth orchestra playing traditional Thai music in the exact same location where I had listened to an earlier generation of this group a decade ago. 

Leaving the market we drove a short distance to Ahlampang Restaurant - one of Nirund's and Petcharin's favorites places - where we had dinner on an open veranda above the Lampang river. Unfortunately, Beth's reading glasses got knocked off the table and over the side of the veranda onto a roof below. No problem; one of the waiters simply climbed over the railing, grabbed the glasses, hopped back over and gave them to their happy and relieved owner.

We returned to our lovely Thai hotel, the Wienglakor, happy but very tired campers and enjoyed sleeping in a bed rather than in an airplane seat.

A Very Good Night, Indeed