Cupid Homestay, haha what a lovely name!

April 4-6, 2007

Just only one and a half hour from bangkok but it was like i went back for 23 years. Ampawa brought back an old time when i was with grandpa and grandma. Swimming in a river. Travelling in a long tail boat. Sleeping in a wood house. Eating local Thai food.  What a wonderful moment.

When i was asked to join this trip, at first i denied because i had a job to be done by that weekend and i needed a quiet place to focus on my job but i said yes at last after friends called me everyday to join, everyone in my gang were agree to go (which it's hard to happen)  so why not me?

Ok ok, so i had to take my laptop there which it's not possible if i travel alone.

We started from bankok at 9am with three cars, think how many people in my gang!!! A way of thai people travelling as you can see many in Thailand. Travel with group, travel with friends, travel with family. Kids don't allow to go anywhere far from bangkok alone or with friends even when we're teenager. Mom was just  let me travel with friends when i was 21!!! ( Lucky that it wasn't too late for me.)  

To go to Ampawa, you can take bus at Sai Tai Mai bus station at Pinklao, bkk. Take bus from bkk to Mae glong, samuth songkram. Only 1 or 2 hours. But we took cars. One of my friend has found a place to stay on an internet. Very nice. I called mom because she went there before and she told me to see it with my own eyes.

I wasn't sure what she means but hope it's a good way.

It was hot even we sat in the cars but the homestay we have booked had made us forget about the damn weather. Cupid Homestay, what a lovely name. Antique Thai style houses as my grandpa home. Wow, lucky that i said yes to the trip.

A favorite place to visit here is Ampawa floating market. It was a former original floating market where stopped for century. Now we got it back, Ampawa floating market is open on Friday-Sunday from 4pm-8pm. You will see locals sail small boat with full of Thai food, dessert and suvenior. The shophouses along two sides of canal are made by local people. I took a long tail boat from my place to the floating market. 20 minutes on the boat reminded me of when i took it to my grandpa home when i was about 7 years old.

It's really nice although the river now is more dirty than the past but the feeling of the old time got back to me. At the floating market, we all stopped at every shop to try each food. Yummy!!! Tod mun (fish fritter), Loog chin ping (Beef or pork balls), Padthai, Noodle with pork, O-Leang (Thai coffee), Bualoy (my favorite dessert), Roti, etc. yum yumm!!

We took about 2 hours for non-stop eating. That day was Friday, about thousand people there along the way. Most of them are Thai, i haven't seen foreigners much. Do they love the beach more than the river?  Do you? Maybe :)  Another reason i think it's not easy to go there from bangkok if you don't have a car, maybe.  

The sailor picked us up at 8pm to go for dinner and see fireflies.

We went to Lampu restaurant, one of my friend who came here first told me to go there but the sailor suggested another restaurant. He said it's better but we don't believe. We thought that he has a connection with the one he suggested so we went to what we decided. 

Only us in the restaurant, the food is not fresh and just ok not delicious. We told the sailor that sorry that we don't believe him. He said he never tried this one but he heard that the one he told is more tasty. We knew at last that he doesn't has a connection with those restaurants at all. 

*Lesson : better trust local people*

After dinner, time to sail for fireflies, Hinghoy in Thai. Ampawa is a favourite place to see fireflies.

You can take the boat trip, it's around 1 hour, 80 baht/person, depend on timing.  They light up the night, blink blink as a christmas tree.  Yes, very beautiful. We sailed along the river for one hour, stopped over and over again at every Lampu tree to watch. One of them fell down on my hands. The green light reminded of those green eyes. Woo hoo. Then my friends wanted to hold it, too many hands try to catch him. I had to let him go before he died in someone's hand.  

Friends went to bed, i had to finish my project. I laid down under this Ancient Thai house. I miss grandpa home. These homestays were belong of local people. After the city became a tourist city, they had developed and rebuilt to be a homestay.

A style depends on the owner. Some are nice but some are not. Our homestay is great, lucky us. No wall, only roof. Very nice to sleep there. Next of the house is a field, fool moon shown over my head, a lullaby song from many flies made me slept tight. Beds have mosquito nets to protect us but i didn't sleep inside, better slept outside the bed to feel the old time. 

Ok, goodnight. I had to wake up at 6.30 in the next morning, we're agree to "Tag-Bat" (to put food in the bowls of Buddhist priests in the morning). It's Thai culture. I always do it on my birthday didn't do it for more than 5 years so this might be a good time to do something good again. Thais belife is  it could help life better. It's like to  forgive to whom does bad thing to us, to devote to the ancestors, to be at peace for good and bad as we did in the past. After Tag-Bat, we have to pour water slowly onto the ground or a vessel with a bhuddist pray before dawn.

Sleep tight!