Fending off a slight cold, I got on my motorcycle pretty soon after returning to Thailand because I received a text message at 3am saying "COME the baby is here." It was sent by Jeow, my Thai - Karen friend who had basically been camping on my couch in March last year. Then I had gone to India for a month and when I came back, I found that she was married and in the countryside of Chiangrai. Surprise! So now the baby had also been born prematurely by a month, another surprise!
Tara is pretty healthy, fat and sleeps a lot as you can see. Jeow tells me her name means river and she didn't know it sounded like an English name too. Two birds with one stone I reckon.
On the way back I stopped at the Charin Resort, a mecca for pies which I've been trying to find for a while now, but kept missing it before. Thanks to the careful instructions of Lydia, I found it, ate a banana cream pie and bought two more to bring back for others. Then I had to figure out how to strap them to my bike without squashing them. I also was parked next to a beautiful custom built chopper hybrid and felt pretty dodgy on my obviously unwashed motorcycle with the handgrip being held on by tissue paper because it kept sliding off.
I did get caught riding in the mountains at night because it took me so long to strap those pies down, but the sunset was worth it on the way.
