Songkran

Imagine Times Square in New York City at New Years, people packed into every square centimeter of space on the streets and all in a festive mood. Now picture all these people armed with water weapons. This should give you some idea of what the Songkran festival is like in Central and Northern Thailand.

Over my parents' visit, we got to see Songkran in three different cities: Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Ayutthaya. In Chiang Mai they take the holidays very seriously, turning a three-day festival into a five-day water war.

In Bangkok the downtown area ground to a halt as sidewalks were FILLED with crowds (mostly teenagers) all spraying each other like mad and generally celebrating.

In Ayutthaya there was a street party, complete with the usual spraying of water coupled with loud music and dancing.

Sometimes we liked Songkran, when it was festive and fun and people were shooting water guns at us. Sometimes we hated it, when we were just about to catch a plane and had ourselves soaked with buckets of ice water... Overall it is definitely a one-of-a-kind Thailand experience that is not to be missed! 

Overall, Songkran is a holiday that we would love to bring back to Canada, although it would probably not be best to celebrate it in April (too cold).

 Rambo with a watergun... This kid was serious!

 Getting thoroughly soaked in Chiang Mai

 View from the skytrain platform in downtown Bangkok!

Talcum paste, another Songkran tradition!

Doreamon Day

The bowl-plate (with the fork and spoon in it) is perfect for Som Tam (Thai Papaya Salad), while the plate with Doreamon shrugging is perfect for dipping sauces. You can put your ketchup in one of his hands and it doesn't touch all of your food, ingenious!

I bet everyone is super jealous...  : )

Just saw these pictures in my photo file and remembered that we forgot to post after getting our 7-11 reward! We mentioned in our Doreamon post that we were collecting stickers as part of a program run by 7-11 here, this is the fabulous reward we have earned! We have also redeemed some stickers for a set of cups and a juice pitcher, but there is some kind of back order situation so we are still waiting on those to come in. These are definitely things we will have to bring home from Thailand... I don't know how we got by without our Doreamon flatware set.

Wine and Wild Animals Weekend

Well, it was definitely a different sort of holiday from the island retreats we have been on recently! This weekend we headed northeast to the National Park, Khao Yai. We started off the weekend by waking up at "sparrow's fart" (a term introduced to us by our friends) and taking the first bus up to Pak Chong where we rented motorbikes. Then the fun could begin! We biked up into the mountains and immediately noticed the cooler temperatures and the clean jungle air, as well as the monkeys hanging out on the road! For our Friday in the park we rented tents, blankets and a "mattress" from the park office. Unfortunately the "mattress" was just a THIN woven straw mat, more useful for laying out on the grass for a picnic than cushioning your rest!

Once we had our tents set up we enjoyed some lunch, and got to see what Thai people do in a national park. Unlike National parks at home, where you would get fined for so much as THINKING about feeding the animals or dropping garbage, the national parks here are a little more relaxed. This picture is of some Thai people taking pictures of a deer, they then proceded to bring it all kinds of treats, including ice cream and bananas.

These kids thought that they wanted to feed the deer, but then they got scared.

We had a great day, hiking around following traces of elephants (elephant poop). In the evening we went out on a night safari. This seemed like something that we should do as tourists in Thailand, but we weren't expecting much. We boarded the noisy old truck and headed off with a Thai man holding a spotlight as our guide. Although we didn't expect to see many animals, we saw a ton! We saw: 3 kinds of deer (including a tiny baby barking deer, about the size of a cat! so cute) 2 civets, 3 porcupines, a wild dog called a Dhole and for the finale... 8 wild elephants at a salt lick! It was so amazing to see elephants in the wild, especially since there were quite a few resorts on the way up which has some pretty sad looking elephants that they were using for tourism... sad elephants are a really hard thing to see. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

That night was a bit rough, since it was a long weekend the place was packed and there were people talking ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up groggily in the morning and headed out on a long jungle hike. We were hoping to see some gibbons (another kind of monkey) but unfortunately they seemed to be hiding. No matter where we walked we always heard them 1 km or so behind us! However, we did have a great hike and saw some more signs of the elephants, although no luck seeing an actual elephant.

This second photo is from the observation tower at the end of our walk!

That night we headed out to a hotel, needing a little more comfort. After a much needed night's sleep we went for a tour around Thai wine country. We had no idea that this place even existed! We went to two different wineries, one of which had some really good wine! Hannah even took a turn driving the motorbike. We bought a bottle and then had to head back to check out and get back to reality... a great weekend overall!

Questions to consider when travelling in Thailand

Happy New Year!

We have just returned from ringing in the new year with a little island vacation full of reading, relaxing, snorkelling and taking pictures with our new underwater camera! We spent the long weekend on the island of Koh Tao in a beautiful little resort away from the party beach (time for some peace and quiet!). This place was ideal for spending our entire weekend just staring at fish and other sea creatures.

Sting ray!

 Snorkel mask rings...

 Diving

 Sea horse!!!!

 Our bus on the way to Koh Tao

Shane diving

 Christmas tree worms

 Parrot fish... or as Hannah has called them "Rainbow fish"

A lonely yellow fish... mostly these little guys travel in pairs.

After such a wonderful relaxing weekend we shouldn't have been surprised when we encountered a few tiny mishaps on our way home...

First of all we wondered, what do you do if it starts to rain while you are riding on a songtao (a pickup truck with two benches in the truck bed)... well, we found out that you just get wet. Luckily the rain wasn't too torrential so we arrived at the pier to meet our ferry in relatively good shape.

Unfortunately on the ferry we found out the answer to another important travelling question, does Shane get seasick? Sadly the answer to this one is yes. However, he wasn't as sick as many of the other passengers, particularly one poor girl whose sickness seemed to follow her (and us) from the boat to the pier and then even on to the bus. To get to (and leave) the island, the most economical option is to take a night bus, leaving late in the evening and arriving early in the morning, coupled with a ferry to or from the island.

On our way home we were finally being lulled to sleep (sick girl had finally settled her stomach) when suddenly there was a POP and a hiss, and the bus pulled over with a flat tire. Now, you might be wondering, what do you do if your bus has to pull over with a flat tire at two in the morning in some small town in Thailand? Why, drive slowly down the road stopping at every garage-looking place and knocking on doors of course! Our bus drivers spent the better part of an hour yelling at houses and getting barked at by soi dogs as they attempted to find someone who could fix the busted flat. Luckily they were eventually sucessful and we got safely back on the road no worse for the wear.

T'was the day before Christmas

and we saw through the fog, every creature was busy -even the soi dogs.
The stages were being decorated with the utmost of care,
in hopes that the President of the Obejaw soon would be there.
The children ran wild as is usual here,
For them to suddenly get struck with nerves was the teachers' biggest fear.

I in Reindeer antlers and Shane in a Christmas cap
were wishing we could take a hard-earned Christmas nap.

Yes, yesterday was our big Christmas eve spectacular at school. Each campus had a seperate show, sharing one Santa (who may have developed heat stroke during the event) to hand out small gifts and candy. Shane's side (Matayom or highschool) had a Rockin Around the Christmas Tree song and dance followed by "T'was the night before Christmas". Hannah's side had a KG1-KG2 nativity scene and song, a Prathom1-3 Rudolph sing-along and a Prathom 4-6 Jingle Bell Rock.

Everyone worked really hard to get everything ready on time and Shane's show even had to restart as the guest of honour, the president of the temple schools arrived! Both shows went off without any problems (despite the fears of all of us teachers!) and were super adorable. The kids were amazing and we are so proud of all of them!

Here are some pictures from the Christmas show... video to follow when we have better internet connection! (Hopefully this week!)

 My little KG1 angels! lol

"baby Jesus" in his manger...

Some of my students hanging out on our Christmas/New Years party day at school!

Handing out presents... Sweatiest santa ever lol.

Adorable...

Our little tiny Christmas tree!

Long Weekend in Paradise

Wow, these Thais sure do love their holidays! This weekend was another long weekend in a row, this time we had Friday off for Constitution day. Our friends suggested that we head down south to the beach and we were more than happy to agree! After a long bus ride followed by a ride in a songtao (basically a pickup truck with two benches in the back) a long wait for the ferry and a speedboat ride over to the island of Koh Mak, we arrived in paradise.

Koh Mak is a small island near the more popular destination of Koh Chang. It is home to more beachside resorts than convenience stores and as such has a fairly small resident population and a healthy dose of tourists. It is a quiet beachside getaway, unlike its nearby neighbour Koh Chang which is renowned for its nightlife! We decided on Koh Mak because we felt like we could all use a little R&R.

Arriving in Koh Mak was like arriving in exactly what we pictured Thailand to be like. Turquoise blue water (so clear that in some of our pictures it LOOKS like we're standing on a beach when really we're in the water!) white sand and coconut palms everywhere. We spent the remainder of the day of our arrival checking out the area around our resort and figuring out where we could get some good snorkeling in on Saturday! We had a relaxing evening, some dinner and drinks and then went out for a nighttime walk on the beach where we found one of the most interesting things on Koh Mak -bioluminescent plankton! When water is disturbed near these little guys they give off a bioluminescent liquid which apparently is designed to attract other predators that will eat whatever is trying to eat the plankton! This results in really cool effects when you move your hand or feet through the water. We managed to get one of these little guys on film -not an easy feat as they seemed to be a little camera shy!

Saturday was snorkeling day and we set off at 9 in the morning with Steve, the island's resident hippie farang dive instructor. His employee Anuk -a colourful dutch hippie, took us out to the dive spots and we dove in to a whole new world. There were all different kinds of fish, big fish, little fish, colourful fish etc. They were swimming around by the thousands on top of rocky outcrops covered in coral and beautiful sea worms (look like neon coloured christmas trees). We could have sat and watched fish all day... but sadly eventually we had to head back to the resort. Equally sadly, we do not yet have an underwater camera, that may have to be someone's Christmas present since it looks like it is something that will really come in handy out here!

We spent the rest of our weekend in paradise relaxing on the beach and enjoying our new favourite treat -coconut fruit shakes. We also got to taste some of the delicious fruits of the ocean -freshly caught prawns by the kilogram! We weren't aware that you had to order ahead so we had to take a half a kilo between the bunch of us and eat them as an appetizer, and they were delicious! We dipped them into a chili lime sauce and spent the walk between the seafood place and the swiss restaurant (where we had dinner) licking our fingers. Yes, that is not a typo... there is a Swiss restaurant on Koh Mak. A Swiss man recently moved there with his Thai wife and they have opened up a little restaurant on top of a hill serving absolutely delicious Swiss, European and Thai food. We shared a plate of Jager Schnitzel and a tomato salad and then Shane and Harry split a spaghetti bolognese for dessert while the girls shared some fried bananas and iced cream. Then it was off to play in the plankton again (less spectacular the second night) before bed and catching the ferry home early the next morning... :(

At home we could travel for around 7 hours and go to Ottawa, Michigan or possibly nearly to Sault Ste Marie. Here in Thailand we travelled for around 7 hours and ended up in Paradise. We wish that we could bring everybody over to share this with us!!!!


The boat ride on the way in... other islands near Koh Mak!

The water was so clear! This is a picture of some tiny fish right off the pier.

 In this picture Shane's feet are actually under water but it is so clear you can hardly tell!

 A fishing boat. They use the lights to attract the fish at night.

 Our first snorkeling spot of the day. This island is surrounded by rock formations and coral reefs and tons of beautiful fish!

 The pier down to the beach where we had lunch :)

 Beautiful swing... so peaceful!

 Delicious delicious prawns!

 Beautiful emerald beetle :)

 Melly Thai Clissmas :) Shane with the coconut santa

 Hannah pointing at a huge crab!

 Morning beach walk :)

The inside of our little bungalow.

Kanchanaburi for the King's Birthday

What a busy couple of weeks! There have been two long weekends in a row. Yes, that's right, on December 6 we got Monday off for the King's Birthday and then on December 10 we got Friday off for Constitution day (more on that in the next post). As a result we have been travelling up a storm! For the King's Birthday we decided to check out Kanchanaburi, the province home to the famous River Kwai Bridge.

We were told by friends that Kanchanaburi is a quiet little town, perfect for a relaxing weekend, but this was not the case on the weekend of the "War is Over River Kwai Bridge Festival" and the King's Birthday! Our first night's stay in a guesthouse called Sugar Cane Two was sadly an epic failure (if you feel that the main purpose of a hotel room is to sleep) due to the SUPER LOUD music blasting from the River Kwai Bridge festival. However, there is no time for napping when you have exploring to do! We rented motorcycles again and headed out to Erawan Falls, a famous 7-level waterfall with a beautiful trail following the river up into the jungle to the top of the canyon (and head of the falls). Since it was the King's Birthday weekend, admission to the park was free and a LOT of tourists (Thai and farang) were taking advantage of the opportunity for a little relaxing by the river. Luckily, tourists like relaxation -not an hour and a half hike uphill into the jungle, so the top of the waterfall had many fewer people than the bottom. We found a secluded spot that looked nice and after a little jungle bushwhacking we were swimming in the beautiful blue waters of a river in the middle of the jungle. However, this is no ordinary river! This river is full of tiny little fish that just LOVE to nibble the dead skin off your feet and legs. It sounds weird, and at first it really was! It is a feeling somewhere between a tiny pinch and a scrape... but eventually we got used to it and sat in the river for some relaxing fish pedicures! Unfortunately we have not yet been able to aquire a waterproof camera so for pictures of these little fish actually at work you may have to try google, but here are some pictures of the river and other sights in Kanchanaburi!

Fireworks over the bridge! Wow do they have a big explosion sound to go with them! 

On the left hand side of this picture you can see some big versions of the little fish that were nibbling on our feet! This is closer to the bottom of the falls.

Our swimming spot! All it takes is one bunch of people and others will come. Luckily we had the place to ourselves for about an hour and a half of uninterupted swimming first!

The bridge over the River Kwai. Accompanied by one of the worst museums we have EVER seen... Luckily it had one redeeming staff member (see next picture)

A giant iguana that hangs around the River Kwai bridge museum! Even though the museum was terrible we did get to see this guy, the sleepiest lizard I have ever seen! There was also luckily another museum further into town which had some really interesting information on Thailand's involvement in WWII and the bridge over the River Kwai.

This Trip is B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Last week, our friends asked us if we would like to go with a group of people to the Monkey Festival in Lop Buri. How can you say no to a question like that? Our only response other than, "of course" was "there is a festival for monkeys?".

Yes, there is a whole festival dedicated to monkeys here in Thailand. Some genius Thai businessman discovered that if you encourage monkeys to hang around your city, you will very quickly see an increase in foreign tourists who think monkeys are adorable and hilarious. Since this was such a sucess they have a festival every year to thank the monkeys for the prosperity that their town enjoys. They tell the story of Hanuman the monkey god and feed the monkeys a giant monkey buffet.

However, even when monkeys are offered a giant buffet of fruit, vegetables and other monkey delectables, there is one thing monkeys like even more. Vendors had set up tents at the edge of the ruins where the festival is held to sell drinks and such to the festival goers. Monkeys, as it turns out, prefer pepsi to dragon fruit. They monkeys were skulking around casting dangerous looks at anybody who decided to have a drink and if one was silly enough to doubt the monkeys' seriousness they would leap from the ground onto you. It was smarter just to put down the beverage. Shane was monkey mugged in this way carrying a nearly empty water bottle around, the monkey looked at him, looked at the water, and made a threatening step forward. Shane is no idiot so he dropped the water bottle and stepped back.
(Picture below is from a palace/temple ruins in Lop Buri)

 Another sweet Lop Buri surprise was the performance staged in another set of ruins the night before the monkey festival. We were walking around looking for a place to eat when we chanced upon the area and were drawn in by the music, lights and crowds. Inside a performance of what can only be described as people-puppetry was going on. This traditional form of Thai dance features one person as the "puppet" who is attached to strings or poles, marionette-style.  The dancers at this performance were incredible and we stayed to watch for quite a while. They also had some high-school aged children performing and playing who were quite good given their respective ages.

 Monkey drinking out of a small water feature... this picture was taken while we were having breakfast at a little cafe.

 The monkey food pyramid!!!

 Mommy & Me -monkey style.

 Monkey to the right enjoying a coke and the monkeys in the foreground are enjoying a delicious Thai iced tea (milky and sweet, really delicious!).

 Sunflower fields! You can see the mountain where the temple was located in the background.

Lop Buri is not only the home of the monkeys, it is also home to other attractions like the sunflower fields and various temples and such. On Saturday we explored some beautiful temple ruins (sooo peaceful in busy, noisy Thailand) and on Sunday we rented mopeds and hit the open road for a tour of the area, stopping to take in Sunflower fields, a temple on the mountain and a somewhat disappointing lake. The views were beautiful, the driving was fun (except in those crazy traffic circles! yikes!) and all in all an excellent adventure was had by all.
Monkey video -An overview of monkeys in Lop Buri!

Shane also got a chance this weekend to try out Sepak takraw. Youtube this for more information! It is basically a form of volleyball played with the feet and is really wild to watch. We stumbled upon a team practicing at night and after they took a break they allowed Shane and a friend to give it a go on the courts.