Being Tourists

Our time in Thailand has ended and I am a little late in this post but I want to get in one last offering that covers our last weeks and was our 'tourist' time.

March 26-28 we went with Chris and a group from his school for their end of year outing to Hua Hin, a beach area south west of Bangkok". Quite an experience travelling 9 hours with 130 teen girls on 3 buses. But the girls were really well mannered and the travelling was very interesting. The King of Thailand has a summer home at Hua Hin and we did a quick tour of it. The beach is very lovely and we got to swim in the ocean for a bit.

Beach at Hua Hin

In our last week we went to Chiang Mai with Chris, Yo, and Chama. Chiang Mai is a tourist destination in the mountainous north of Thailand. It is about a 6 or 7 hour trip from Phitsanulok and we went there by bus and returned by train, both very interesting experiences. We stayed at a hotel in the old city which is inside a moat. We went up a mountain to the wat one day and spent most of the rest of our time just wandering around through the city watching the tourists. There were a lot of unique specimens. Jo-Anne and Yo went to a Thai cooking class and learned some good cooking techniques. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures in the city so don't have any to show

On our last day in Thailand we all went with friend Ed and his daughter Eva to a waterfalls in the mountains about 1.5 hours drive east of Phitsanulok. The children had fun swimming, we had a superb lunch of chicken, rice, salad from a vendor right beside the little picnic shelter we used. And only in Thailand do the road construction trucks fill their water tanks, people wash their cars, and the kids swim all in the same swimming hole.

Chama and Yo enjoy a barbecued egg

On our way back that afternoon we stopped at a Chinese temple just outside of Phitsanulok. The decor of the temple was amazing and the view of the valley to the east of the temple was gorgeous. The day was very full and satisfying.

Valley east of the Chinese temple.

That's it for now.

Saturday Market

We live on the edge of a medium sized city. We are about 10 km from downtown Phitsanulok and about 1 km from Naresuan University, a large modern government sponsored university with well managed faculties in all the disciplines, particularly medicine, engineering and agriculture. We have enjoyed treks into the city and just today we spent very interesting hours at the Textile Museum on the Naresuan campus, an extremely informative description and history of the cotton and silk cloth manufacture that has been notable in this region.

However, the highlight of our week always seems to be the Saturday morning market, a very rural and very community centered event that takes place at a crossroad about 2km from our house. The event starts about sunrise and goes till about 9:15 am. We have been there as early as 6:45 and everything is in full swing already, but at 9:15 things just disintegrate and everyone is cleared out within 15 minutes. It all happens along the roadside at a crossroad. The people who sell there are mostly farm folk and I am sure many of them grow their produce. There is no formal organization but everyone just seems to know what is expected and it happens.

The event seems like a cross between a community yard sale, a country fair and a neighbourhood barbecue. You weave your way between people, bicycles, dogs, motorbikes, trucks, and even the local bus that rumbles down the street at 7:15. No one seems surprised at what turns up, except for the two white people, Jo-Anne and I. This is not tourist country and the local people do not see many whites, especially white women. They have a category for the few white men who live in the area with their Thai wives, but a white woman is a rarity.

There is an abundance of delicious fresh vegetables, much of which we are not familiar with, but we are learning, and have found numerous items that we really love. By the way, notice the bunches of fresh asparagus in front of the lady vendor. It is delicious and cheap, cheap, cheap, so eat your heart out, you snow bound northerners.

Jo-Anne likes to buy vegetables from this lady because she always has plenty of high quality produce and she  is always talking. We only wish we knew what she was saying. She is very friendly and always helpful and happy to serve us so we look forward to getting good food from her.

After a little squeamishness we have ventured to buy pork (and chicken) at the street market, and we haven't suffered any ill effects yet. I am sure Agriculture Canada would have some questions if you tried to do this in Canada, but the pig in the picture seems quite content to have given his head to the cause. By the way, we haven't ventured to buy a pig's head yet, and most likely won't. Also, notice the eggs, they are not refrigerated in Thailand and are sold either singly or in multiples of 10.

You can also buy many varieties of fish, either alive, dead or cooked. One day we even saw a whole tub full of big live frogs, quite a lively show.

You can also buy lots of fruit, clothing, dishes, hardware, shoes, and many kinds of prepared foods, especially deep fried, barbecued and baked items.

When we go home I am sure we will always feel a little disappointed with Superstore. They just won't have the drama of a Thai country market.

Rustic Thailand

Last Friday we drove about 50 kms out in the country to visit Yo's elderly uncle and auntie. Yo wanted us to meet them as we had not met them before. Also they have lived all their lives beyond the end of the electrical line and have basically raised their 4 children and lived off of the produce of their land. An interesting anomaly is that auntie does have a cell phone which she charges at the neighbour's generator. The yard was shaded by huge mango trees which were planted when the couple first went to live on their farm.

We were welcomed with great hospitality and made to feel very much at ease.

Uncle and Aunties' house. Living space is all on the second floor. Chickens and farm implements occupy the ground level.

Yo and her auntie who is her mother's elder sister. Notice the charcoal fire pot behind Auntie.

Uncle and Auntie were gracious hosts for a meal they prepared for us. Traditional Thai style is to sit on a low table with the food in bowls in the middle. Eating is done with a combination of fingers, spoons and chopsticks, everyone picking food out of the various bowls. Auntie and uncle had already eaten so they were sitting on chairs hosting us. The table was in the front yard under the mango trees.

The meal was a delicious mixture of bowls of fish, ground pork, jackfruit, cooked with various herbs from the yard such as basil, morning glory and a couple of other unnamed plants. There was, of course a bowl of hot Thai pepper sauce. This was served on a bed of rice. Rice is the base of every meal.

It was a day of contrasts that we will not forget.

English Class

On Friday our friend Noy asked us to help teach an English class. A group of Naresuan University students had a project to teach a class of 11 to 12 year-old children some basic English conversation. Two of the students picked us up at Noy's office and drove us to the school. There were about a dozen university students and about 25 children waiting for us. We were asked to fill one hour. Most of the university students had very limited English except for one girl who acted as our interpreter and did her job with great enthusiasm. The children were very shy and with the exception of one or two, were very reluctant to say any English words.

We ended up singing a lot of action songs with good vocabulary in them, like father finger, mother finger, and one little, two little, three little elephants. This broke the ice with the children and the university students really got into it also. We went back on Saturday morning for another hour and mostly reviewed and taught some sounds that are in English but not in the Thai language, the r sound and the th sound. I don't know how muchEnglish the children learned from it but they had fun and really participated in the activities. One of the girls from the university said, after our last class, I am so happy. When we asked her why, she said because the children and her classmates had fun learning.

We had a big surprise today, Sunday, when a bunch of the students and 10 of the children showed up at the church where we have been going. Just as we were leaving on Saturday Jo-Anne told them where we were going to church on Sunday and invited any of them to come. So a bunch of them showed up. We did an impromptu little conversation class with them for a half hour, then they joined the church service for about forty-five minutes. We hope it left a good witness with them, especially the university students. You never know what a day will bring.

Children and university students

Jo-Anne and Jim with Faa and An our two student drivers

I continue to be impressed with the congested traffic and drivers in Thailand. Although Phitsanulok is not as busy as Bangkok the downtown area has a lot of narrow streets and busy intersections with cars trucks, buses, and motorbikes all clamouring for space. There are some traffic lights but lots of them don't work. After watching An navigate through what to me looked like traffic gridlock I have come to the conclusion that Thai drivers use fuzzy logic in their driving, and they use it quite successfully. Fuzzy logic works on the assumption that there are definite rights and wrongs but within each right and wrong there is a range of probabilities. Fuzzy logic is used in computer control systems, if you don't understand it check it out in Wikipedia. There are traffic rules on Thai city streets but if you obey them righteously you may never make it across an intersection. This is where fuzzy logic enters in. If, at a congested intersection or round about you judiciously nudge your way in between vehicles on the probability that the next vehicle will let you in you will most likely get in. In fact if you sit and wait for your turn you will most likely frustrate all the other drivers. They are expecting you to push in. Yes, there are some fender-benders, but, so what, we have them in Canada too.

Overnight Outing

On Thursday afternoon we took the bus into Phitsanulok with the intent to stay overnight at P1 House, a hotel that Chris recommended to us, and then go to the early morning market with Pung Pond as our guide. Pung Pond is a 15 year old student at Chalermkwan school where Chris teaches who loves opportunities to practice her English.

Our trip into the city went well but when we got to P1 House they were full up. We were momentarily stymied but they gave us a couple of suggestions in the neighbourhood. We settled on a pleasant enough room at Kraesang Place. It was clean, comfortable with hot shower and air conditioning for 400 baht a night ( about $13) so we were happy. We went to a recommended Vietnamese restaurant nearby for dinner and enjoyed fish, pork, vermicelli cooked in unique ways. This was served with a big bowl of fresh leaves of lettuce, mint, basil and one other green that I don't know the name of. In North America you get a tray of dinner rolls and butter to nibble on as you await your entree, no wonder we North Americans have trouble with the waist line.

We got up at 6 am, had coffee served by the hotel receptionist, and then went to meet Pung Pond at the school gate at 7. She gave us a brochure that she had designed and written for the tour and we took a 15 minute walk along the Nan river to reach the market. Pung Pond was very chatty and told us lots of things about the river about the market and about herself and her family. The marke t is open from 5 to 11 am every day and has a fascinating array of food and most everything else you might want to buy.

The busy market

JoAnne and Pung Pond

We went back with Pung Pond to school for 8 o'clock and school assembley. When the assembley was over we were invited to join a group of students on a river boat tour. The students had a project to practice English as tour guides on the boat as it went along the river. Our job was to be the tourists. This was an unplanned for surprise, but we thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride and enjoyed the students. They ranged all the way from very shy to real performers.

Students boarding the boat

Along the river

We got back to our hotel room about 11:30, just in time to check out. We had had quite a full morning, much more than we had expected. We found our way to the bus stop for the bus back to Mono Naresuan. We had to wait for about 45 minutes so we had a banana and some ice cream. We arrived home about 1:30, tired out but happy to have made our little journey with no major calamities and lots of good memories.

Morning Bicycle Ride

This morning before the sun was hot, (around 7:15), we set out on the bikes to explore a road running south along the bank of the Nan river.  It was a beautiful scenic winding drive through a rural area, with lots of colourful flowers in front of many of the homes, and along the roadside.  We forgot to take the camera, but will try harder next time.

Across the river we saw groves of banana plants and other crops too far away to identify.  We came upon a narrow bridge that crossed the river and was being used by motorcyclists.  That might another spot to explore.

As we journeyed, many motorbikes passed us, with people heading out to their days work or transporting children to school.  We went by an impressive looking establishment, a wat (Buddhist temple), with a lot of open space, some ornate buildings and people arriving for school.  Many of the government schools are located at the local wat.  On the way back we noticed what might have been a water pumping station. In front of it was an outdoor gymn, some exercise equipment, seen quite commonly here.

Got back around 8:00, inspired to inspect some of the things growing in the yard around the house: Mango trees, just beginning to form fruit, a huge jackfruit tree (I think), some cacti, and numerous others we cannot identify so far.  The basil seeds we planted two weeks ago are growing in a pot,and we will transplant them to the ground when they are big enough.  Love to see things growing!  "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it." Psalm 24:1

Here are some of the plants in the yard.

O yes, we must tell you about the acrobatic squirrels inhabiting the large trees across the lane way.  Not sure how many there are, but the two I can now identify are very unique.  One is a very light beige, and another is beige with a light ring part way down tail, ending in a chocolate colour.  They entertain us when we are sitting on the patio, by running along the power wires, skillfully balancing with their tales, and leaping back and forth between the thin wires and the trees.  

Going to town

We live close to Naresuan University which is about 10 km from downtown Phitsanulok, a busy city of about 90,000 in central Thailand. There are numerous little villages between us and the city which makes it seem like all urban area, but it really seems quite rural around our house with all the cackling chickens, honking geese, and banana groves around us. Phitsanulok is not in the tourist routes of Thailand so there are not many conveniences here for English speaking-only Falang (whites). But the people are very gracious and helpful.

Yesterday morning we ventured out to catch the number 12 bus from the university to downtown. We got to the bus stop in front of the university hospital at about 7:20 and after a while a 12 bus stopped. We told the conductor we wanted to go to the railway station (in the downtown centre). After a while she figured out what we wanted and she shook her head and she showed us her route schedule and pointed to the next arrival time at 7:50. So we waited. Shortly a pleasant little Thai lady came walking along the sidewalk. In very minimal English she greeted us and asked us where we were from. Then she asked us where we were going. We told her we wanted to go into the city and were trying to get the bus into the city. She did not know about the buses but she kindly went across the street to ask the university security guard about the buses. When she came back she told us we had to catch the 12 bus with the blue banner on the window. We thanked her and she went on her way into the hospital.

Shortly the blue 12 bus came by.. We got on paid our 21 baht (about 70 cents) and had a pleasant air-conditioned ride into the city. We first went to visit Noi at her language school. We met her at a Thai church here and she speaks and teaches English very well. Then we walked along the Nan river for about a km to the girl's high school where Chris teaches English.

A lovely blossoming tree along the river and a view across the Nan river

We visited Chris in a class of teen age girls that he was teaching. Then we had a good Thai lunch at the school cafeteria and met some of his teaching colleagues, some teachers from the Phillipines.

Then we walked to Topland, an indoor mall in the centre of the city. We did a little shopping and had a smoothie at the Black Canyon coffe shop. North American style and with North American prices. It was mid afternoon and getting hot when we went outside. We decided to get a taxi home rather than wait for the bus on the hot sidewalk. We went down to the railway station to find a taxi. We stopped a taxi and tried to tell the driver where we wanted to go. W e kept telling him we wanted to go to Naresuan University but he thought we wanted to go to a hotel. We weren't getting any where in this interchange but he wasn't giving up. Then I thought of calling Noi on the cell phone. Fortunately she answere right away and when I told her our problem she talked to the driver and he understood right away. He had a big laugh and all the way back to the university he kept practicing us on how to say the local idiom for Naresuan university (mono Nalesuan, Thai language does not have an r sound). We paid him our 150 baht, same price as the 2 smoothies. We retrieved our bikes took the hot 10 minute ride home and arrived tired but satisfied that we had survived the day, with the help of friends and kind people. We are learning our Thai numbers and a few phrases but are a long way from being able tocommunicate  in Thai sensibly. But it is fun trying.

Pictures

Since I have figured out how to get pictures into the blog, I will try a few pictures from around where we live.

The house where we live.

Patio and front door of the house

Chris and Yo picking tamarinds from the tree in front of the house

Yo and Chama leaving to go home on the motorbike

We had a warm Sunday afternoon and we went on a bicycle ride by the Nan river. We stopped to feed the fish, big hungry catfish that are used to people feeding them and they put on quite a show.

Have a good week.

Life and death

We are half way around the world from home in a different culture, a different language and a different climate. I suppose we have experienced culture shock, disoriented by the differences, longing for the familiar, although I can't say I have been longing for the snow and cold of Thunder Bay. In the Thai mind early February is the beginning of summer and it is getting hotter, 30 to 35 in the mid part of the day with the the nights in the mid twenties.

Lots of differences yet on the basic issues of life similarities. Two days ago Jo-Anne's cousin Maureen in Thunder Bay died suddenly. Yesterday Prince, a Thai friend of Chris's died of cancer. We knew Prince a little bit and have become acquainted witha number of his friends who loved him dearly and greatly respected his faith in Jesus. This just reminds us that we all grieve and suffer loss no matter who or where we are. Our common humanity binds us together more than the surface differences separate us. We grieve a loss with our family in Thunder Bay and we grieve a loss with our friends here in Phitsanulok.

We go to the street market tomorrow morning. Lots of cheap fresh produce, and almost everything else. Never know what we will see.

People we meet

The Thai people have been very kind and gracious to us. We are not in a tourist area so most of the Thai people we meet are just ordinary people going about their daily round of activities. We are a bit out of the ordinary for them, but we are just rather innocent and harmless Falang (whites) so they smile and try to be helpful.

The lady at the hardware store was quite mystified when I was there looking at paint. I just wanted to see the colour selection and she was doing her best to sell me some paint. Finally we both gave up. I redeemed myself the next day when I went back to get a new tap. I took the old one to show her. She was very happy to show a new one at a very good price which I bought. We were both happy.

We attended a cell group Bible study from the church we have been attending. The cell group has about 7-9 members and they are young university types. They like to practice their English on us and they are quite fun to be with. We are just struggling with names, but we are learning. The church they attend, and where we have been going has been very welcoming. We recognize a good number of the songs they sing and one of the ladies who is an English language teacher has been very graciously translating the sermon for us. We feel cared for there.

We buy eggs, bananas and papaya from an old lady down at the corner usually early in the morning. I don't know what she thinks of us but her produce is good and she pretty we'll knows what we want now. The day starts early, the roosters wake up at 4 am, the geese start honking around 6 and the loudspeaker with the community news comes on shortly after. It really is the best time of the day so we should get up and enjoy it. Everyone else does.

Two Weeks In

Jo-Anne writing this time!  We have been here for two weeks now and I think our bodies have accomplished the twelve hour time change.

The mornings at this time are very pleasant, with cooler temperatures. This morning I went out for a bicycle ride before breakfast.  The house Chris and Yo rented for us is not too far from the River Nan,which although having many twists and turns, basically flows south. The river is to the east of
the house, so in the misty morning sunshine, I rode along a road that follows the river.  The first section of the road shows evidence of flood damage with erosion along the high banks, and a pile up of refuse.  Jim and I had walked along that section last week, but this morning on the bike I went
further and discovered what appears to me like a ritzy new housing development along the newly
paved wide road along the river.  The area between the road and the river was being beautified.  Must be some rich people living there!      

There are always a lot of dogs on the roads, and this morning two showed their displeasure by barking at me and taking pursuit as I increased my speed!  No dog bites yet!  I had a similar
experience a few days ago.  Must be sure to pray for protection from dogs and traffic while out bike-
riding.

I am finding it interesting learning how to cook some different foods. Yo brought me a bag of purple
sweet potatoes, which  I have been experimenting with.  Tried them boiled, deep fried and in a pork
stew.  Also found a recipe on line for mashed with coconut milk and maple syrup.

First Days

We arrived here on Jan 17 in the early evening. All the travelling went well. 28 hours travelling from Thunder Bay to Bangkok went fine, just very tiresome. Watched movies too long on the flight from Chicago to Tokyo. They made my head ache. Next time will try something else for part of the time.

A friend of a friend picked us up at Bangkok airport and gave us a bed for the night. The were very kind. Manuela helped us get to Don Meung airport on Friday afternoon which had some excitement. Taxis in Bangkok were reluctant to travel that direction because of the protests but we made it and had a nice flight to Phitsanulok. Yo, Chama and Fann met us at the airport and we arrived at the house at 7:30. Chris was there waiting for us. We like the house. Convenient comfortable and cute.

Had a pleasant weekend getting acquainted with the neighbourhood. Quiet. Except for the roosters that wake up about 4 am and announce their presence very boisterously. We are finding the food and other things we need. We enjoy having access to an abundance of fresh fruit and produce. And there are lots of little shops with prepared foods. Tasty and cheap.

The early mornings and the evenings just before sunset are the most pleasant times of the day. The air is so soft and fragrant with smells of life. Right now the nights are almost cool. The Thai people are all complaining  about the cold.

All in all life is quite gentle and pleasant.