The following morning I asked about getting a room for the weekend the festival had been moved to and they were fully booked. I was not sure what I was going to do but the lady had told me about the rockets in Ku Ka Sing on Monday and that suddenly changed from something I might do to something I was going to do for sure.
I had picked a couple of things I wanted to see while in Yasothon and I planned to see them before the Rocket Festival started on Friday evening. Now I had 3 days and 2 things to see.
On Friday morning, I headed out to Phra That Kong Khao Noi. The ancient stupa that enshrines holy Buddhist relics was sort of interesting but it took me about 15 minutes to walk around it a number of times and I was done.
I saved the 2nd place for Saturday and spent the rest of the day soaking up the AC in my hotel room watching some videos on my tablet and drinking some beer. Not such a bad way to spend a day.
Saturday, I headed down to Wiman Phaya Tan which is a park that has the Toad and Naga Museum. I enjoyed going through these museums.
I did a short video of the park from insides the toad's mouth.
When I returned to the hotel there were a couple of flyers posted at the reception desk in Thai. I took pictures of these flyers and tried to figure out what they said using google translate. One was the times of things in the Yasothon Rocket Festival but the other seemed to be other places having festivals on different days. This gave me an idea of what to do. I would spend the week trying to find these different festivals and then attend the Yasothon city festival in a week.
The wonderfully helpful lady in Ku Ka Sing had said something about a parade and I thought she had said it was on Sunday. I had no idea what time of day the parade would be but hopped on the bike and headed to Ku Ka Sing for my 2nd visit. I never did find a parade and think I misunderstood about it being on Sunday. I did find a sign that seemed to list the rockets on Monday.
I stopped by a stand selling grilled chicken, bought a piece and some sticky rice and tried to ask about the rockets the following day. It took a while but he got what I was asking and said they would be launching them about 2 kilometers that way and pointed.
I hopped on the bike and rode about 2 kilometers in the direction he had pointed and saw this field. Doesn't that thing behind the cow look like a rocket launch pad to you? I would find out tomorrow.
I headed back to Yasothon and started the 2nd part of my plan. When I first booked my hotel there where only 2 hotels that appeared to be on a booking site but the city had a number of hotels. I typed in hotel on google maps and I proceed going from hotel to hotel asking do you have a room for the next 8 days? I caused a lot of confusion and almost all of them said yes at first and when I pointed to a calendar and counting the days when I hit the 19th and the 20th (Friday and Saturday) they would say no full. I did learn the world for full in Thai. I repeated this at about 7 or 8 hotels and then went to one about a kilometer out of town. The guy in the office did not want to try and talk to me and just called someone on the phone and handed me the phone. The guy on the phone spoke English and understood what I was after.
He said you want to stay until the rocket festival is over and I said yes. He said he has a room but I would have to pay twice the price for the Saturday. I said OK and what is the price of the room which he replied with let the man show you the room. Hand the phone back to the guy that did not want to talk to me and follow him to a room. The room was OK so I asked how much again. Call the guy back on the phone and the phone guy tells me it 1,000 baht a night and 2,000 for Saturday night.
I say to phone guy after a second of thinking no that is too much. Phone guy then says to me since you will stay 8 days, I will lower the price to 800 baht a night and 1,600 for Saturday. If he would have started at 800 I might have accepted it but I now feel he is just taking advantage of me. The office had a sign saying something about 500 baht. I just tell phone guy thank you for showing me the room but that is still too expensive.
Phone guy says wait, we will show you a smaller room. The phone goes back to no speak guy and off we go to another room. It is also an OK room and not that much smaller but only has one bed where the other had 2 beds. Phone guy says this room is 400 baht a night and 800 for Saturday night. I say OK. Phone guy then tells me a 100 baht deposit for the key. I again say OK.
The phone goes back to no speak guy and the 2 of them talk. While they are talking, I do the math in my head and count out 3,700 baht and stick it in my shirt pocket. No speak hangs up on phone guy and we walk back to the office. No speak plays with his calculator and then plays with the calculator some more and then turns the calculator towards me and hits 400 x 7 + 800 = 3600.
I say yes in Thai and point at the keys and say the word for key in Thai and 100 baht in Thai. He types in +100 on the calculator and points at the 3,700 on the display. I pull out my money from my shirt pocket and hand it to him. He takes the money and counts it 3 times and finally says Thank you in Thai to me.
I went back to the hotel I had booked, packed up my stuff, checked out and moved to my new place. My 3 or 4 night planned stay in Yasothon turned into 11 nights. Even with me screwing up and not knowing the election would cause a change I got to see the Yasothon Rocket Festival. More on Rocket Festivals in the next post.
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