What a Colorful Day

November 21, 2025

From Mae Mo to Den Chai

What A Colorful Day

From Oma's Garten to Den Chai

We took our time leaving Oma's Garten hideaway retreat guest house/homestay farm and generally great place with wonderful people running it. We were given a nice breakfast of jok which is broken rice gruel with tiny pieces of minced pork, smashed tiny garlic cloves with the papery casings included (normal for Thai food) and maybe some green onion pieces as well as a few toasted shallot minced pieces in the gruel. It's a traditional Thai breakfast. In a Thai home there would be lots of little bowls on the table: Salted peanuts, little tiny dried fish, hard boiled egg pieces, some preserved radish, some preserved unidentifiables and some other stuff I can't remember. Lots of salty stuff to get you going into another hot day. But the days have suddenly changed from hot to perfect. We think the rain is finally totally gone, not to be seen in the next few months, possibly. I've seen many winters in these parts where it doesn't rain a drop from mid November to June.

Jok delivery. The owner of Oma's Garten and Homestay on the left and one of his employees. Maybe his wife? Who knows. I would think he would have introduced us if she was his wife. There are always mysteries.

The owner of Oma's Garten and Farm Homestay couldn't have been nicer. I felt he was excited to have us in the way of wanting more foreigner's staying at his place. We've seen guest house owners in all the SE Asian countries who are the same. They are smart, energetic and motivated to be successful. I want all of them to be successful with their businesses, especially guest houses such as Oma's. I just don't know how many foreign tourists a small town in the middle of nowhere will ever get though. I appreciate their effort but I wonder. It's a bit of a gamble for them. However, Oma's seemed to be equipped to handle things like Thai wedding receptions and such. There were dozens of chairs out under trees and on lots of patios. The owner has maybe diversified enough to make Oma's a success. I hope so.

We dawdled because we only had three or four miles to ride to the Mae Mo Train Station and our train didn't leave until 12:40PM. I took photos of the allamanda vine at Oma's front gate, an allamanda which had multiple colored flowers. I have only ever seen bright yellow allamanda flowers, which this vine had also, but there were several other colors on the same vine. I also looked around for that enormous scorpion we had seen the night before but he was nowhere to be seen in daylight hours. He was pitch black, perfect cover for darkness.

There is the normal yellow allamanda flower.

All on the same vine!? Hard to believe. Maybe there were several vines planted together. I didn't track them all down to the ground. I have never seen allamandas with some of these colors.

Dawdling finally accomplished, we said our goodbyes and rode along a small canal swept along by birdsong and a soft breeze. It truly was perfect weather. I mean, it was perfect! Blue sky, a few fluffy clouds, birds, an ideal temperature for humans.....what could be better? Being out in the boonies is where we are happiest. It's so incredibly peaceful. Birds and breezes in the middle of nowhere = happiness. Plus, we were going to have our second little train ride through mountains and jungle!

The tiny settlement that sprang up around the Mae Mo station complete with a reservoir.

There was an interesting kerfuffle at the train station when I tried to pay for two bikes and two people. Each person's fare was 16 baht and each bike's fare was 90 baht. I couldn't understand why the station master didn't want a full 90 baht of what I gave him. I sat there holding the 90 baht he had given back to me wondering why he didn't want it. It looked like pretty nice bills. Then I realized that he hadn't seen that there were two bikes because he hadn't looked around the corner of his little room. I told him there were two bikes and he was a bit embarrassed that he hadn't thought of that but to help him save face I didn't laugh or make light of it in any way. He needed it to just go away, as if it never happened. But privately I thought it was an interesting mistake. We didn't have a tandem bike.

Mae Mo Station. The man I paid for our tickets was inside that first open window. He didn't look out and around to see my bike.

We waited on the platform and watched the two guys who were the entire staff of the station. They were so funny how they were literally barefoot and in shorts and T-shirts until two minutes before a train was to whizz past and then they would put on their uniforms and one would stand at attention near the tracks with a green flag held straight out to indicate to the engineer of the train that he didn't have to stop. That showing of the green flag and the uniform (and I suppose what you might call work) accomplished, they quickly got back into their shorts and bare feet. I love these little stations and the guys who man them.

The hand off of the all important 'ring'. We have no idea what the ring is all about but it is handed off or put on a pole for the engineer to grab it while going past at about 60 mph. It's impressive. There is always a transfer of the ring for every train that goes by. Since there is only one track this train was moved over to the siding to let another train through.

It looks as though our station's bell took a tumble at some point in its life. But it's still deafeningly loud and the guys in uniforms ring it all the time.

In between train action, and when the guys were in their shorts and white T-shirts, we sat on the old wooden bench and watched white egrets soaring. Andrea said, "Wouldn't it be fun to soar like that?" I pondered and then had to say, "Well, yes, if we could soar but they are birds and I wonder if they possess the concept of 'fun'. Soaring for them is to get from point A to B and to look for food the whole time, I think." We came to the conclusion that we just don't know what egrets are thinking but we like to think they are having fun especially when they soar.

I photographed through one of the big glassless/screenless windows in the 100 year-old building, one of the men in shorts and bare feet pulling the various levers that run cables down the line to physically switch the tracks. With me invading his space he laughed a little and went over into the shadows and put on his uniform, came back and did a series of pulling and pushing long levers in a complicated sequence that of course didn't make any sense to me but was fascinating nonetheless. I did a video of him truly at work and in uniform. It seemed like quite a workout with those long antique levers. He no doubt would have done it in his shorts if I hadn't been such an intruder into his life. I felt a little bad but occasionally I have to be a tourist (my job) and he knew that.

This contraption was fascinating just to look at but to watch the guy operate it was incredibly confusing.

Like stepping back into the 19th century. But wait, we are relying on this technology on our train!

The two train station men were so nice helping us get our bikes and panniers onto our train in under one minute, which is how long the trains are scheduled to stop at small stations. There was only one other passenger getting on, nobody getting off and very few passengers on the train besides a couple of monks sitting in their reserved-for-monks section. Always good to have monks on a train or bus, I say.

A monk in his roped off monk section contemplating life.

Just like the first little train ride, it was like the best carnival ride ever. This trip was just a bit longer than the first which meant that it cost slightly more @ $.50 apiece. The bikes cost the same as before @ $2.75 apiece. The ride was about an hour and forty minutes to Den Chai Station and town.

The little stations along the way were adorable.

Some stations were pretty sparse but still adorable.

Another station! Imagine trains stopping at such a place!

Jungle whizzed by and the mountains got larger. The mountains in Thailand aren't really mountains as such. They are big forested hills. It seems that teak trees really do love this region. All the huge, old-growth, teak trees as well as all the medium sized ones in Thailand were cut down by 1989. That's the year King Rama the 9th made a proclamation of a moratorium on the cutting of any more teak. It was too late but at least he did stop the cutting completely and the moratorium holds today. I thought of cartoons to illustrate such a proclamation: An entire mountain of stumps and a man putting up a big sign that read, "Cutting of Trees Prohibited." Or, a completely drained swimming pool and a sign saying, "No Swimming." I'm sure you can come up with some Gary Larson style anachronistic cartoons as well.

Shortly after 1989 there was a campaign to plant thousands of plots of teak trees on people's land. I figure the government gave anyone who wanted them about fifty teak saplings. You see the rectangular plots all over the north of Thailand; about fifty trees fairly close together in rows in about an acre of space. They were planted close together so the trees would grow straight and tall. Otherwise teak has the habit of growing not so straight. So, the plot trees are now about 35 years old and getting sort of big and it seems the seeds they produce are quite viable and readily take hold because there are little teak trees coming up everywhere now. It's great to see.

Our eyes were glued to the open train windows as lots of jungle passed by and soon we were hustling once again to get all our stuff off the train in under one minute. Again, the worker on the train helped us. Andrea and I each make sure we thank and wai (hands together in front of our faces) guys like him because besides truly being grateful for their help we want to show them that. We always try to be good tourists and you know what, it always shows in their faces. They appreciate our appreciation for their help. It's genuine all around.

Our bikes and stuff finally made it into the staff area that was roped off before we took it over.

It's so great to be able to quickly attach all of our panniers on the train platform, attach my straw hat to a bungee cord on top of the pile and be on our way riding directly from the platforms down the ramps all the stations have and onto the roads. I can't tell you what a feeling of freedom that is. We don't have to rely on any taxis or tuk tuks or samlors or Grab vehicles or little red trucks with benches in the back, or haggle with all of their drivers, nothing. We are our own conveyances.

There was a small town, Den Chai where the station is fifteen miles from the nearest larger town of Phrae. We knew we were not going to try to get to Phrae since the train was a bit late and we didn't want to be stuck riding in the dark. So, we thought we had better eat something. We stopped at a restaurant that was closing and asked if there was another restaurant somewhere. The nice woman actually called one to see if they were open and then sent her son on his motorbike to lead us there. We are in the hands of Thais and their kindnesses all the time. We got the kinds of food we love to eat in Thailand such as pad siew and pad krapow. We also had Thai iced tea that tasted like flowers.

Full of fuel we propelled ourselves back onto the small roads where there are birds and breezes and tall grasses bending over the cement or asphalt.

Speaking of the sides of the road, at one point a black snake suddenly emerged from the grasses and was about to cross the road right in front of me but at the last second, before I certainly would have tangled with him, he changed his mind and nearly tying himself in a knot retreated back into the tall grasses. I swerved and then pointed at the spot so that Andrea could avoid him too. It was a really close call. One of my worst nightmares; A snake tangled up in my spokes or worse, my legs! I'd die, not from snakebite, just fear. It's not even fear though, it's more like I'm just completely repulsed by snakes. I don't like the way they move, how fast they are, etc. It freaked me out because the snake was not exactly a small one. It would have been horrible. I would have been damaged for life, if I had lived.

But I didn't tangle with the black snake and the perfect day prevailed. We had to leave the small roads we love so much to get onto the big huge roaringly loud highway for only one mile in order to find our guest house for the night. The young woman who was at the front desk had a look of dread on her face when she saw that she had to deal with foreigners. She didn't speak English and I understood how awkward it would be. I knew the necessary few words of Thai needed to secure a room at a guest house but she didn't know that at first. I got her to tell me which bungalow, which was furthest from the noisy highway, was still available and I told her we wanted that one. But the woman kept up the pretense of what a bother it was to deal with me.

The whole process of letting her look at our passports, paying, and getting the key to the bungalow only took about the same amount of time as unloading bikes and panniers from a train but she still had 'bugged' on her face. As I walked away from her open-air desk with the bungalow key in my hand she walked around her open-air office and I heard her say to her friend in Thai, "It was fine. He spoke Thai." I laughed because I had spoken all of five words of Thai. I was glad knowing she wasn't actually bugged by me, the foreigner, but because she had initially acted like it was a huge bother she had to save face and keep up the pretense all the way through. We are all funny.

The bungalow was basic but painted a beautiful green on the outside and the neighboring bungalows were also painted bright colors. It had certainly been a colorful day too.

lovebruce

A basic little bungalow with everything a person needs costs $12 these days.

Today's ride: 10 miles (16 km)
Total: 187 miles (301 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	6

John SolemIt’s 4:41 a.m. November 25th here in Massachusetts (where I believe we have no egrets. No egrets man). Woke up an hour ago — partly due to a nightmare with a huge disgusting snake in it so I share your aversion (I believe in this case the snake is a metaphor for the stress I’m having with the approach of Thanksgiving). Love the description of the train guys and their uniforms —it’s like a comedy skit. And exactly what I do when I have a Zoom call for work! Love you guys. Stay safe!
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2 months ago

Bruce LellmanTo John SolemOh man, snake dreams are the worst. I'm sorry to have brought that on. Or, are you fixing snake for Thanksgiving? That would have me nervous too.

Side note - We have now experienced those train guys constantly changing their clothes at two different stations. It's a thing.
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2 months ago

Marsha Hanchrow"It was fine. He spoke Thai." But she had to pretend that you were a problem. We humans are very strange.
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1 month ago

Andrea BrownAnxiety comes in a lot of different flavors. She was perfectly pleasant the next morning.
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1 month ago

Bruce LellmanTo Marsha HanchrowSaving face over here is a really big and intricate deal. It's like a game that I'm totally willing to play along with. I think everyone knows it's a game which makes it secretly a lot of fun.
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1 month ago

Charlotte FloryThat snake image is pretty epic. I’ll probably dream about it tonight. That and the big black scorpion.
I love the changing uniforms and all the lever pulling. I think that was a Charlie Chaplin movie? (Hee hee)
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1 month ago