Isaan road trip: Searching for normalcy in Thailand's northeast
CNN
19th December, 2020 03:41:18
An overweight dog naps by an open-air som tam (papaya salad) shop. The scent of chicken grilling over charcoal fills the lane. A chorus of children's voices rings out from a schoolhouse. No one is wearing a mask, though an old man dons a straw hat on his bicycle.
Here in the village of Ban Nong Doen Tha on the Mekong River in northeast Thailand, it's almost like the pandemic never happened.
A week earlier, as our first chance to travel beyond Bangkok in six months approached, my partner and I asked ourselves questions that never would have crossed our minds before the pandemic.