Bodies and Brothels

Liddy
It seems a while since I last posted but it wasn't really, we've just had an eventful few days. So, we left Chiang Mai and headed to a small provincial town called Phayao. This was nice enough but we were only really there for a night as it was where we were starting cycling towards Laos from. We stayed in a hotel which was fine, but stank to high heaven.....sewage, or so we thought.
Anyway, the next day we cycled on to a place called Pa Daet - don't bother looking on a map, you won't find it! The cycling was lovely, much nicer than further south in Thailand. The roads were in tip top condition but there was comparatively little traffic and the views were stunning, of paddy fields backed by distant hills. Arriving in Pa Daet, where we intended to stay the night, we were told that the only hotel was 10km out of town. We decided to have some lunch and then consider our options - didn't fancy another 10km but on the other hand, didn't fancy sleeping rough either! After about 10minutes in the local noodle joint, a foreigner (Rudi) pulled up on a motorbike and introduced himself. It turned out that the woman from the noodle shop had called him as she knew we were looking for a place to stay, and he was married to a local Thai woman and she knew he spoke English so................in he was drafted to assist. He promptly helped us find a place to stay and we invited him to dinner.
In the afternoon, Meg and Sam played with the children at the hotel (aged 12 and 14); Meg had her hair done up like Minnie Mouse in two giant bunches and they all disappeared off to a local playground for a couple of hours, leaving us without childcare responsibilities for the first time in a couple of months. Bliss.
That evening, over some beers, we talked with Rudi and his wife about what we had been up to and happened to mention our hotel in Phayao.
'Ahhh, the Tharn Thong Hotel, yes that is very famous' we were told.
'Yes, many people die at this hotel'.
'Huh?!'
'Yes, this is a mafia hotel, people are invited to stay there by the local mafia but then they are killed'.
Harumph, and there I was thinking it one of the classier places we had stayed. Was the smell sewage or worse??
It also transpired that the place that we had been advised to try, 10km away, was in fact a brothel, and they would have charged us by the hour.
Anyway, we had a very pleasant evening with our new friends.