Miss Udorn Sunshine

Udon Thani

Day One

Well our time in Udon Thani came and went. We arrived early in the afternoon and decided to take it easy. We spent the afternoon wandering around the city. We didn't realize how much we took for granted seeing other tourists because we saw NO ONE in this city. The eastern side of Thailand doesn't really get much in the way of tourism and Udon Thani gets pretty much none of it. One thing we did see a lot of was expats (thanks Dara for my new word) - these would be ex-patriots (people who are citizens of another country - usually the U.S. and live in a foreign country, in this case Thailand). The way to tell an expat from a tourist was pretty simple - they were usually married or "with" a Thai woman (and not in the prostitute sense). Due to the lack of tourism there were no guesthouses either. We stayed in our second hotel of this trip and for the price we were pretty impressed (300 baht for airconditioning and hot water). Our walk around the city lasted about an hour because there wasn't much to see. We went back to the guesthouse to get changed for dinner (it gets cold at night).

Our book recommended this restaurant and it caught my eye with the words "seven scoop sundae" - WOO HOO. So far neither Paul or I have been too impressed with the food in this region of Thailand (known as Issan food). There were no vegetarian options which made matters difficult for me and the taste just wasn't what we were used to from the rest of our trip. This meal was luckily probably the best we have had since arriving back in Thailand and the desert certainly helped.

Day Two

Our plan for the day was to visit Udorn Sunshine Orchid Farm - which was our only reason for coming to Udon Thani. The walk was long and didn't have much in the way of scenery, but it helped to work off that ice cream. We finally found the farm (which wasn't easy because none of the signs were in English) and were immediately impressed by how beautiful the plants were. We realized right away that this was in no way and "all day" affair and that we probably could have done it on day one and only stayed one night, but that's why they say hindsight is 20/20. There were over 15 different breeds of orchid and that's just what we could identify with our very limited knowledge of orchids (let's be honest - no knowledge). The owner of the farm is famous for breeding his own special flower which he calls Miss Udorn Sunshine (apparently the flower is even registered - who knew you could register flowers??) He is also known for the healing properties of his plants and the energy was apparent the moment you were near them. After a frustrating walk to the farm all of our troubles seemed to melt away once we were surrounded by his orchids. He has also taught plants to respond to the human voice or music. There was this one section of plants that moved when you talked - it was amazing. His wife called them the dancing plants.

On the way out of the farm there was a section where you could purchase perfume (which he has cleverly named Miss Udorn Sunshine) and tea made from the dancing plants. I picked up some tea for myself and a bag for a friend of mine (that's you Christy) and we were on our way. On the walk back we decided to take some time to enjoy the city's reservoir which was quite beautiful. Calm water surrounded by park benches and trees almost made you forget that you were the only tourists in the city :) And that was all she wrote on Udon Thani.