"Bpai Tee-o"

We’re hard working teachers in the middle of nowhere, but that doesn’t mean we don’t let loose on the weekends. Only three hours away by bus, the city of Kon Kaen is a perfect getaway for falang teachers like us, whose personal lives have become the focus of the local gossip circles since day one. In our hometowns (Buakhao for me, Khao Wong for Hale and Taraneh) we have to be careful what we say in public, what we buy in local stores, and what we wear outside of the house, as it will all become common knowledge by the next day of school. Therefore, when we need to be irresponsible for a couple hours, the local watering hole is not an option.

More than just escaping the range of the Buakhao gossip net, we go to Kohn Kaen because of its legendary (at least in Isaan) night club: U-Bar. Why do they call it U-Bar? Well, because it’s U-Bar. Or Ur Bar. Or Your Bar. Right? I don’t know, but we sure feel at home when we go there. It’s a classic Thai discotheque where we buy our liquor (cheap Thai rum) from the local 7-11 and bring it into the bar, and then have it served to us as if we had just purchased the most expenisive bottle behind the bar. Though we're drinking bad rum (Thais call it whiskey), our service makes us feel like it's something paletable, and we only have to pay for ice and mixers. But this particular night, for us, was a special one. Somehow, somewhere on the Thai black market, because the Hale and Taraneh scored a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka. That's so rare around here, we might as well have been drinking liquid gold. Brave Thais even asked for a taste of the clear liquor just to know what they're missing, and we, the alcoholic falangs, drank so much of it, that we thought it tasted just like water.