Today is my friend Bahn’s birthday. She works at the restaurant on the campsite near my house with my other friend Boom. I visit them almost everyday. Bahn has two daughters in high school but, similar to Jambee, Bahn’s kids live in other towns while they go to school. Bahn’s husband lives and works in Bangkok, so it’s just her here. Bahn moved to Khao Yai two years ago because her older brother found work for her in the park. When I met her, a year ago now, she didn’t know most people around Khao Yai and people didn’t know her when I spoke of her with others. “Oh, that’s the girl with the big face, right?” is how they would reference her. Four days every month, Bahn has vacation days and on those days she travels around to visit with her family.
When Bahn first arrived at Khao Yai she lived with her brother’s family on the other side of the park, but it was too crowded with 6 people jammed into a one-room townhouse. All the houses in the park for the staff who live and work here are divided into only one room per family within the house. Usually there are 3-5 families in one house and a joined kitchen on the back of the house for everyone to share. Since her brother’s place was too crowded, Bahn moved into the restaurant for about a week and slept on a table until Boom offered her the extra room in her house. So Bahn moved in with Boom and Boom’s husband in the two upstairs rooms of a house at the other campsite in the park, with another couple living in the downstairs room.
For Bahn’s birthday we wanted to celebrate with a birthday feast of moo-ga-tah and cake, which is fast becoming a growing tradition amongst my friends around the park now. (So much so that the people at the moo-ga-tah store comment on how I eat it so much and the people at Swenson’s, where we buy cake, recognize me and say Happy Birthday to whoever I am with when I go.) But since it’s the weekend we decided there were too many tourists and the restaurant couldn’t be closed early today, so no cake today :( Instead we will wait until Sunday and we will go into town for a buffet dinner "moo-ga-tah style".
Everyone is looking forward to it. So much so, in fact, that when Bahn said goodbye to me as I left the restaurant this afternoon, she said “I will see you Sunday for buffet dinner.” And then we all teased her that if I show up to eat tomorrow, she will not notice me because Sunday is still two days away.
About an hour ago, Bahn called so excitedly yelling into the phone that I could barely understand a word she said, but of it what I did catch was “Dang-Moo (her daughter)… bought cake… restaurant now.” Not expecting to be eating cake this evening I was already in the middle of making dinner, but I packed everything up and headed over to the restaurant where Dang-Moo and Dang-Mee (Bahn’s two daughters) sat waiting for Bahn and Boom to finish closing up the restaurant so we could eat cake together. After school today (they go to different schools and live in different towns), they met up and travelled all the way here by bus, bought an ice cream cake in town and hitch-hiked a ride into the park to see their mother.
When I walked into the back of the restaurant, I asked Bahn if she knew her girls were coming for her birthday today. She said: “There was all this commotion and people were singing Happy Birthday but I was in the back, I had no idea, I was peaking out to see what was going on, I didn’t know it was for me!” She was extremely excited, rushing around to put things away and get to the cake, she continued: “My girls bought cake and came to visit… usually I have no friends, no one to call, but today I called Jackie, because today I had a friend to call...hurry up, let’s eat cake.”
She divided the giant Swenson’s ice cream cake into 3 enormous pieces – one for me, one for Boom, and one for her and her two daughters to share. Nice. We ate cake and she gave me some socks for her birthday :)
… and Sunday we will go into town for a buffet dinner.
When Bahn first arrived at Khao Yai she lived with her brother’s family on the other side of the park, but it was too crowded with 6 people jammed into a one-room townhouse. All the houses in the park for the staff who live and work here are divided into only one room per family within the house. Usually there are 3-5 families in one house and a joined kitchen on the back of the house for everyone to share. Since her brother’s place was too crowded, Bahn moved into the restaurant for about a week and slept on a table until Boom offered her the extra room in her house. So Bahn moved in with Boom and Boom’s husband in the two upstairs rooms of a house at the other campsite in the park, with another couple living in the downstairs room.
For Bahn’s birthday we wanted to celebrate with a birthday feast of moo-ga-tah and cake, which is fast becoming a growing tradition amongst my friends around the park now. (So much so that the people at the moo-ga-tah store comment on how I eat it so much and the people at Swenson’s, where we buy cake, recognize me and say Happy Birthday to whoever I am with when I go.) But since it’s the weekend we decided there were too many tourists and the restaurant couldn’t be closed early today, so no cake today :( Instead we will wait until Sunday and we will go into town for a buffet dinner "moo-ga-tah style".
Everyone is looking forward to it. So much so, in fact, that when Bahn said goodbye to me as I left the restaurant this afternoon, she said “I will see you Sunday for buffet dinner.” And then we all teased her that if I show up to eat tomorrow, she will not notice me because Sunday is still two days away.
About an hour ago, Bahn called so excitedly yelling into the phone that I could barely understand a word she said, but of it what I did catch was “Dang-Moo (her daughter)… bought cake… restaurant now.” Not expecting to be eating cake this evening I was already in the middle of making dinner, but I packed everything up and headed over to the restaurant where Dang-Moo and Dang-Mee (Bahn’s two daughters) sat waiting for Bahn and Boom to finish closing up the restaurant so we could eat cake together. After school today (they go to different schools and live in different towns), they met up and travelled all the way here by bus, bought an ice cream cake in town and hitch-hiked a ride into the park to see their mother.
When I walked into the back of the restaurant, I asked Bahn if she knew her girls were coming for her birthday today. She said: “There was all this commotion and people were singing Happy Birthday but I was in the back, I had no idea, I was peaking out to see what was going on, I didn’t know it was for me!” She was extremely excited, rushing around to put things away and get to the cake, she continued: “My girls bought cake and came to visit… usually I have no friends, no one to call, but today I called Jackie, because today I had a friend to call...hurry up, let’s eat cake.”
She divided the giant Swenson’s ice cream cake into 3 enormous pieces – one for me, one for Boom, and one for her and her two daughters to share. Nice. We ate cake and she gave me some socks for her birthday :)
… and Sunday we will go into town for a buffet dinner.
Comments
Glad you were a part of it.