Random Picture of the Week #13

He lives in our backyard.

Random Picture of the Week #11

Down the road from our house.

Village Homestay Weekend

A few weeks ago, Al and I participated in a village homestay weekend tour. We got to go for free on a trial run for the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Our boss hooked us up. It was in our province, near the Sirikit Dam, only just over an hour away.

I don't have time for many details right now, so I'll put up a few pictures and captions.

The tour was broken into two parts; first exploring Lamnam Nan National Park and Sirikit Dam, then staying overnight at a village nearby and enjoying activities with the locals. The highlight was definitely hanging out with our host family, especially their two young children who enthusiastically took us on a tour of their village.

Sunrise over the Nan River, Uttaradit

Bringing in the catch, Sirikit Dam

Fish farm, Sirikit Dam

Dinner with the hosts at the local wat/hangout

Our buddies, Kip and Gan

Heading home (note, the hut is a bus stop, not a dwelling)

I'd like to say I'll have time to write more about it later but between final exams, mom visiting, five weeks in Australia and New Zealand and then a move to Taiwan... I'm not going to make any promises.

Remembrance Ceremony

Our friends were kind enough to invite us to a remembrance ceremony in honor of relatives who had passed away. They thought we probably hadn't seen one before and would be interested. It was nice of them to think of us.

I should start by explaining how their Thai-style home is organized. It's a stilt house, where the living quarters are above and open, garage-type area is below. I've seen some stilt-style houses that had living quarters in the lower level as well, but for them, the area was mostly a playground for their nine or so cats. When you take off your shoes and head upstairs, you enter a huge general living and eating area. Smaller bedrooms shoot off to one side and the kitchen and bathroom to another. The houses are usually made of large slats of wood but you do see partial or entirely cement constructions as well. This website about Thai homes has some good pics and info. In the large living area everything is arranged around the walls, TV, shelves, etc. As in other parts of Asia there are not typically any chairs; if there are some they are also pushed to the side. This leaves a huge floor space where you can relax and sit around with each other. The kitchen and bathroom are made of cement and tile, as you would expect with modern day plumbing needs. The biggest difference, I think, between Thai and Western style homes is that Thai homes are very open to the outside. The walls are filled with large open windows or are slatted to be continually open. The kitchen is almost completely open and in some homes it is outside with just an roof overhead (as is the case with our neighbors). It's very comfortable for the climate but I would need some time to adjust to the higher volume of bugs that get in.

Eight monks sat at the head of the house facing all of the guests in a row. They chanted for some time in the names of the deceased. I love listening to chanting monks, it's easy to start being lulled into some sort of a trance. As I don't know the language, I feel like I'm being carried away to an exotic place (as if the setting were not exotic enough). The family prepared a large meal which was presented to the monks after their incantations. We socialized while they ate and then they started another short round of chanting, this time as a blessing for all of us. They ended by splashing holy water on each of us before leaving the home.

Our friends explained to us that they have monks come every year for this ceremony, usually in January since that is when their father passed away. The food is an offering to the monks, as thanks for their service. The ceremony and meal are often held at 10 or 11 because the monks fast from noon until the next morning.

Once they left we were then able to eat as well. Since this was a special meal a lot of dishes were prepared, many that we had never tried before. The highlight was ant egg soup, from the corn kernel sized eggs of red ants. As the soup was so spicy, I can't really tell you what they tasted like. I wish I could have been there when they prepared it that morning though, as they apparently just shook down an ants nest they found in a nearby tree, brushing them off as they swarmed up their arms.

Unfortunately, I do not have pictures from this exciting afternoon-- blame Al, who told me we were invited for lunch, and left out the bit about the Buddhist ceremony and special feast. Haha.

2009, Adventure #1!

We took off on a road trip this weekend to Si Satchanalai Historic Park, a 13th century ruined city of the Sukhothai Period, famous for its pottery kilns. This is a fantastic spot if you're into history, archaeology, adventure, and ruins. You can ride around the park on your own through trees and hills, stopping at the various walls, gates, and temples that used to make up this city (the park's too large to walk but you can rent bikes at the entrance). It's very similar to Sukhothai but, in my opinion, nicer because it has very few tourists and it is not as "manicured" I guess, as the grounds of Sukhothai are.

You can go to Si Satchanalai on a day trip from Sukhothai or, as in our case, from Uttaradit. It was a 2 hour motorbike ride straight on highway 102, past the Lotus supermarket. The only trouble we had was as we neared the destination, when we accidentally followed signs for Si Satchanalai National Park--- not the Historical Park. Don't make the same mistake as you can end up going pretty far in the wrong direction.

Anyway, we packed a picnic lunch and took off at around noon, as we had slept in pretty late. It was a wonderful drive. It's sort of autumn here, which is strange, I always thought of Thailand as being perpetually steamy and hot. It's dry now and cool, even cold. Leaves are falling from many of the trees and if you squint your eyes the scenery passing by could almost be upstate New York. Let everything come into focus though and you realize it's all completely different-- the red and brown trees are varieties of bamboo and other monsoon forest species (we are not far enough south for rain forests), the cows are not the hefty black and white dairy cows but the gaunt Brahman cattle of Southeast Asia, and the smell of a wood fire is coming from a stilt home along a muddy river. It's these days-- not when I'm plodding along at my office or sitting at home all day waiting for my internet to get fixed, that I'm really glad I chose this lifestyle.

We passed signs (in English) for more historical sites and a museum which we plan to visit next time. There will definitely be a next time since we only had an hour and a half at the park before we had to turn back to beat the sunset.

Below are some of my favorite pics-- enjoy!

Wat Chedi Chet Thae

Al, Wat Chedi Chet Thae

Wat Chang Lom (back)

Wat Chang Lom (front) The animal statues were elephants, but most of the identifying features have eroded.

Random Picture of the Week #10

Railroad crossing, near Sila-at Station.

Random Picture of the Week #9

Phraya Phichai Dap Hak Monument, Uttaradit City Hall, Uttaradit, Thailand.

(the weird light effect is because of all the incense in the air, this was during a festival)

Random Picture of the Week #7

Snake charmer at the local night market, Uttaradit (cobras!)

Random Picture of the Week #5

Pork satay (satay moo) with peanut sauce and ginger broth with chicken and noodles (bumee naam gai). One of our favorite meals in town.

Satay Restaurant Location: I find it hard to describe the location of things in town due to my limited Thai, but here goes it. Looking at this map, from the intersection of Inchaimee (Injaimee) Road and Th. Samranruen, go south on Samranruen to the point where the Nan River bends toward the road. The river will be in clear view to your left and down at the bank will be a statue of a woman with long hair. Across the street, facing the river, will be the large, open air satay restaurant. Enjoy.

Adventures!

OK, minor adventures. We decided to go for a drive down a road that leads out of town to see what we could see. We took Thanon Samranreun (click here for maps) north figuring we'd stop at some wats (temples) along the way. It was a holiday for the King's birthday, so the streets were fairly empty and a lot of businesses were closed. Of course, once we were sufficiently far from home we got a flat tire. Haha. We walked the motorbike down to an auto shop. They couldn't fix it for us but pumped it with air and sent us down the road to a bike repair shop. When we got there we found it impossible to explain that the tire was flat and that it needed to be fixed (the poor guys there clearly thought we were nuts). They kindly pumped a bit of air in both tires and oiled the chain. We had exhausted our miming abilities and decided to just drive around until it was flat again, which only took another 20 minutes.

All was well though, with the Nan river to our right and the train tracks to our left the route was rather picturesque. We eventually came upon a huge golf course and what was apparently a military site of some sort before turning back for the day. We stopped at two of the four wats we spied, enjoying being the only visitors that day. I'm not sure the names of the temples, will try to find out this week. Pics below:

Starfruit trees outside the walls.

Old-looking wats are the coolest!

If you peruse my Flickr pages you can see I'm obsessed with wat roof spires.

Nagas guarding one of the entrances.

Random Picture of the Week #4

The entrance to the university library.

Random Picture of the Week #3

Samlor in Uttaradit.

Random Picture of the Week, #2

A gift shop, specializing in stuffed animals, in Uttaradit.

Loi Krathong

We got to attend a really fun celebration Wednesday night, called Loi Krathong. It's celebrated on the night of the full moon on the 12th lunar month. Wikipedia can tell you all the historical details. Someone at work told me that traditionally it was meant to thank the river spirits, now it's thought of as more of a good party and a way to make wishes and shake off any bad things that happened in the year before.

What you do is put a small float made of banana leaves and flowers, topped with incense and candles into the river to float away, carrying with it your wishes for the future and any bad feelings from the year before. Some people put bits of hair or fingernails in the float to further symbolize getting rid of the old. A big party surrounds this tradition, with beauty contests, parades, music and drama performances, fireworks galore and, our favorite, the release of lanterns into the air. Our boss gave us a beautifully made float to send out.

We went to town where a ton of tents had been set up by the Nan river, centered around a pavilion and monument to King Rama V. There was a big stage with music performances and later, a beauty pageant, a huge square of food and drink stalls, an open courtyard where people were setting off fireworks and releasing lanterns, and then the pavilion to look out over the river. Under the pavilion you could access the river to set out your float. If you hadn't made your own there were plenty of people selling them; they weren't all high quality, but they were all beautiful! You could also buy little bags with live fish, eels, or turtles in enclosed to let loose in the river-- where they were probably caught earlier that morning!

The lanterns in the air and candle-lit floats in the water really gave a magical feel to this beautiful festival. We spent most of the evening there, stopping on the way home at a wat and another small point along the river where people were setting out floats. As this is a Buddhist festival (although it likely has roots with the same traditions that the Hindu Diwali Festival stems from) there was a lot of activity at the wat (temple) as well. As a fundraiser you could pay 10 baht (30 cents) to fish a little capsule out of a pond. In the capsule was a number that corresponded to assorted raffle prizes. It was good fun. As the main festival was very crowded it was nice to stop at the smaller point further up the river, near home. There, people were selling floats that I would guess were made by children for a donation of your choice. The peope we met there were incredibly sweet, so we bought another float and got our knees dirty sending it out from their floating platform.

Setting out floats on the Nan River, Uttaradit.

Children nicking coins out of floats.

King Rama V statue, lanterns galore.

The river pavilion.

Floats for sale.

Al, getting ours lit.

Hopes and dreams, floating down the river.

It was a great time!

Random Picture of the Week, #1

I take tons of pictures and not all of them go along with any of my regular blog posts, so I'm starting a one-a-week post. Enjoy.

Animal balloons at the OTOP Fair market, Uttaradit, Thailand.

Back to Thailand

Image by robstephaustralia via FlickrAlthough I have one more post about Mongolia, and posts about Beijing and Ko Samui, I will interrupt now for some Uttaradit updates.

The Langsat Festival (pictures below) is the biggest celebration in Uttaradit. This province is known for the langsat fruit--- a small, round fleshy fruit that you have to peel-- similar to lychees. The festival lasted a week and included rides, concerts, markets, muay thai (kickboxing) and the parade. We went there every night for the food stalls.

Catching my first muay thai match was one highlight of the week. I never had a huge desire to see any kind of fighting but, I must admit, the atmosphere was rather exciting around the ring as the fight geared up to begin. In Bangkok and any of the tourist spots in Thailand muay thai can see a bit gimmicky as they try to bring in the crowds but here it was all locals, just crowding around the ring, standing in the dirt, and placing bets. From what I could gather the older competitior was a champion from Vietnam who was being challenged by a young, Thai guy. Although the younger dude got in a few punches, the Vietnamese man was clearly the better fighter and seemed to defeat him easily. It wasn't shocking, brutal stuff at all, like I hear it was in the old days--- actually, it was quite entertaining and exciting.

The other highlight was the parade, which showcased all of the things Uttaradit Province has to offer. Floats represented different fruits from the region, high school marching bands participated, and men and women walked in formation promoting their trades, from loom weaving to fishing. Good show!

IMG_0352

IMG_0352, originally uploaded by MacKensie!.

Miss Langsat.

Langsat Festival, Uttaradit

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IMG_0305, originally uploaded by MacKensie!.

The parade showcased local produce and handicrafts.

Langsat Parade, Uttaradit

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IMG_0343, originally uploaded by MacKensie!.

My favorites in the parade... monsters!

Langsat Parade

Langsat Festival Photos

IMG_0300, originally uploaded by MacKensie!.

Sticky rice baked in bamboo with slices of coconut.... insanely delicious!

Langsat Festival, Uttaradit