Trip 2, Day 2 in Mae Chan: Measuring and Marking

Hey all, it’s Cassidy this time reporting on another full day in Mae Chan for the BLUElab Thailand travel team. Of course we had to start our first morning back in Mae Chan with breakfast at our favorite breakfast spot, Mae Chan Coffee. On my plate today was pad prik gaeng tua (stir fried pepper curry with beans) and something else I didn’t learn the Thai name for because two new dish names in one meal seems to be too challenging at this point in my Thai language learning journey. All I know is it was delicious and contained banana flower.

Following breakfast, we headed to the district government office to meet with Mr. District. Once he arrived Tay and Benjamin presented our four proposed project ideas to him to get some of his feedback. He was able to provide us with some valuable insights and give us an idea of the priorities of the district government which will be helpful moving forward. We then took a trip to the Mae Chan municipal government building to meet with Rong Daeng and one of the city’s architects briefly before lunch.

Tay explains some stuff in Thai as I quench my thirst and contemplate the whereabouts of my missing bottom button which I noticed this morning.

A very “candid” photo of two intelligent, engineering students examining a piping diagram book.

Lunch was served at a local Northern Thai food restaurant and it was excellent. Some of my favorite dishes that I’ll never be able to accurately spell were present such as fuc tong, laab mu, gaeng hung lae, and naam prik ong. My only regret of the day was the last 23 bites I took after I started to feel full. Mr. District left us at that point and we went to go meet Kun Na’kohn for an exciting day spent taking measurements of things and marking the locations of other things on a map!

We sent Tay, Ben, and Prince into the drainage pipe and then Dr. Paskorn, Nicole, Gam, Gift, and I rode upriver in the van to catch a boat with two members of Kun Na’kohn’s team. We drifted downriver for about an hour and marked the locations of 26 different drainage gates. While we were floating down the Not Lazy River the other part of the team split off to take measurements of catchment basins and stormwater drainage pipes.

P. Prin always looks fly, even in a stormwater sewer.

And then there’s Ben….

The moment when the knee deep water suddenly became waist deep water…

We rounded out the day by visiting a local Aka school to watch some student performances with Mr. District and his family. We hung around for awhile afterwards and brought back the game Ninja and also learned a neat Aka dance/balancing act that involves three people each hooking a leg into a triangle and holding each other’s hands. The highlight of my day was definitely watching Dr. Paskorn get his dance on and join the students during one of their performances. Practicing at home alone pays off folks!