Lampang Prison for Drug Addicts

It was a bright sunny day in Mae Sai. See, right off the bat, I'm lying. The sky had so much smoke, from the jungle burning, that we could hardly see the sun.

We had coffee, fried chicken , sticky rice and Pa Thong Ko (Thai donut) in the Ban Pa Meat morning market. We stopped at the exercise equipment on the road by our home and worked out for about a half hour. I found a machine there that helps my back. It has rollers that run up and down my spine as I push back. It's kind of like doing AB crunches in reverse.

We than showered, packed and headed down route number one to Lampang. The trip took about four hours. We decided to stay the night at the Asia Lampang Hotel and travel the other 20 Km to see Chom-nom in the morning.

Lampang is one of the areas in Thailand that has some unusual things about it. One thing is you can still get a horse drawn taxi. They blend in quite well with the cars.

We had breakfast in the hotel and made our way to the Lampang Correctional Institution for Drug Addicts. We did stop at the railroad tracks that link Bangkok and Chiang Mai together. Some men were working to fix the tracks. Where the spikes had come out they were putting a wooded wedge into the hole and then putting in a new rail spike. This is a very tedious job when done the old way, like it was done a hundred years ago.

Then we arrived at the prison, Daeng gave the chief guard our identification and told him who we were there to see. She also gave him a small Narcotic's Anonymous book that had been translated from English to Thai and asked he it could be given to Chom-nom. He looked at us, said no for the book and told us that we needed to wear long pants. He would allow us to see him now but next time wear long pants. We both had on short pants as it was about 95 degrees and only 9:15 AM.

After all the paperwork was done, he sat and talked with us for a few minutes. He looked over the paper bound book and said he felt it was a very good book for addicts but he could not allow any books to be brought into the prison, not even bibles of any kind.

We spent about 20 minutes with Chom-nom talking about what he wanted to do when he gets out, considering his wife is now remarried and has the kids. Chom-nom said he wanted to come back to Ban AYO and continue building the children's shelter that he had started.

We talked about what most men want to do when they get released from prison and how that starts the whole problem of addiction all over again. We also talked about how old friends, that are using, are not good to hang out with as it is way to easy to start using drugs, again.

We told him we would be willing to pick him up upon his release, get him in a new change of clothes and go from there. He is to be released on May 10th. He got Daeng's telephone number and said he will call us a few days before his release to let us know that date is still good and the approximate time. With just that short amount of communications, we were out of time on nour visit.

Daeng and I drove the 70 Km north to Chiang Mai and checked into a very nice hotel in the inter-city of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand. For more information about the town: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Mai

The Wangburapa Grand Hotel has car parking, swimming pool and American breakfast. We were in a cut-up kind of mood so we did the lampshade pictures and laughed at each other. Yes, our hats in this picture are lampshades.

For the night, we stayed pretty close to the hotel, just going out for a little supper and to pick up some milk and cookies at the 7-11, near by.

In the morning, I took Daeng over to see a friend that she has not seen in almost 20 years. We visited a little and I went to see my Canadian friend, Brian. He is very knowledgeable about Thai ways as he has lived and worked here for many years. His website is www.aajewel.com. I wanted his advice on how I could help Chom-nom with his life and the children's shelter at Ban AYO.

One of the kids at Daeng's friends liked my shoes. They were almost bigger than he was.

It was nice to see and talk with Brian but it was almost 3:00 PM and time to pick up Daeng at her friend's home. I did take a picture of Daeng, her friend and Friend's Mother. They seemed happy but busy as she has eleven shoe stores in Chiang Mai.

Daeng and I spent the night as honeymooners. We did get up for breakfast and headed to Chiang Rai to buy a new mattress for our master bedroom and to pick up Boonrean's, Daeng's son, grade book from school. Chiang Rai is a very small town about 60 Km south of our home.

It was a good trip, now shopping for a new mattress in Chiang Rai.