night moves

Last night we took the night train from Ratchaburi to Suratthani. We left around 9pm and got in around 5:30am; a genuine on-time arrival which took our hosts by surprise. We were in sleeper bunks, but there was not a lot of quality sleep to be had with the intermittent rocking of the train.

We now find ourselves in an area where 'farang' like us are fairly common, so I think it will be interesting to see the behavior difference in ths area of Thailand. In the previous provinces the reactions were quite warm and sometimes surprising - I have never been so praised just for being pale (at home people usually ask if I am feeling ill). I'm sure that any puffed egos we have developed will deflate once we start walking around here.

But first, maybe a nap.

Sights, sounds, smells, and maybe most importantly, tastes

Hello to all of you back in America and our new Thai friends. We’re having a blast. This is my first blog and we’ve seen and done so much already, so this will be by no means chronological. I’ll try not to dwell too much on the items already discussed.

Sight

Thailand is a sensory feast. Everything is adorned with color: buses, Wats, people, buildings etc. Things that might be considered tacky in America are celebrated and ubiquitous in Thailand. Colors have significance beyond aesthetic appeal too. Different colors identify political factions, days of the week, and Kings past and present. In Tha Muang, Kanchanaburi, I walked down a side street after having lunch and just about every man I saw was wearing a pink shirt. You could arrive at many conclusions about this experience; strange choice of gang color, business convention, fire-sale on pink shirts, etc.; but the truth was that the color pink is closely associated with the King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, and the men were showing their support. Or maybe it was just Tuesday, I’m not really sure.

Smell

Street markets are a daily occurrence and provide the most amazing smells. Most Thais eat and buy food at these locations, and they are definitely preferable to the Wal-Mart of Thailand, Tesco. Some markets are open only in the morning, others until late at night. There are baskets overflowing with rose apples, dragon fruit, and mangos; live fish, crabs, and oysters piled high on ice; and dried meats, spices, and fruits hanging like wind chimes.

Sound

Attempting to speak the Thai language has provided an endless (and probably hopeless) fascination for me. A big thank you to everyone who has helped (many times to no avail) me navigate this most interesting language. It’s a very fun language to speak and the different tones (5 in total) used in speaking make a rhythm and meter that sounds almost melodic. Unfortunately the tones also cause me to mix up words by using the wrong inflection. This can result in a benign malapropism or sometimes be as embarrassing as calling somebody bad luck instead of beautiful. And in Thailand, bad luck is no small thing. Some words make more sense in Thai than they do in English. In Suphanburi, I would awake to the cook shouting, “meow, meow, meow…” as she called the cats for breakfast. Later, and to my relief, I learned that she was not trying to speak to the cats but rather using the Thai word for cat. Unknown onomatopoeias and misused tones aside, I love the language and the people who speak it.

Taste

I won’t dwell on tastes, even though that is the main focus of our daily activities, but I will say that if you only visited Thailand to have lunch you would leave happy and entirely satiated. All of our hosts have been incredible cooks and each meal whether at a restaurant or sitting around a kitchen table has been amazing. The communal or family-style way of eating is perfect and allows everybody to try all the different dishes and eat until you are eem mak. Many conversations throughout the day are concerned with what everybody is going to have for the next meal. It's a beautiful and gastronomical way of life.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Ratchaburi

Wow! An incredibly jam-packed day.

After the usual all-you-ever-hoped-to-eat-and-then-some breakfasts at our hosts homes we set out for the Kubia Prehistorical Museum. This museum housed an amazing collection, some of which was more modern than the name of the museum would indicate, of life sized (and life-like) mannequins of people, depicting the history of the migrations of cultures into what is now Thailand. As you rounded each corner you would come face-to-face with people from different eras arranged in situation settings. You almost wanted to say, "Sawahtee krup" ("good morning") to them.

At the museum we were treated to a dance performance of traditional Thai dance by a teacher and his students. After a beautiful dance where the performers held lit candles n each hand, weaving them behind their back and around their arms, the instructor invited our team to join him in a tamer dance, this time holding fans rather than candles. Upholding the dignity of District 7570 the team responded affirmatively and performed admirably.

The museum is parially supported by the sale of beautiful hand-woven silk fabrics and, although we already have fully loaded suitcases, some of the team added to their collections.

We next proceeded to the Ratchabury National Museum which contains historic and archeological treasures from prehistoric through Dvaravati (7th century), Khymer (12th and 13th centuries, Sukhothai-Thonburi (1370-1767) and Rattanakosin (1767-1932). These later two periods each ended as a result of waefare, first with Burma and then with Japan. The museum also contained exhibits on Ratchaburis cultural and natural heritage, famous people in Ratchaburi history and Ratchaburi today.

Unfortunately, we were not permitted to bring our cameras into the museum, so if you want to enjoy it, you will have to visit Ratchaburi yourself.

After lunch at the Rotary club of Ratchaburi, we attended their meeting. Rotary club meetings in Thailand are very different than those that I have attended in the USA. The officers sit at a head table, the President looking very official wearing his presidential medalion around his necxk. The other officers also sit at the head table with the primary chairs sitting at long tables perpendicular to the head table. Each officer or chair has a rather large name plate in front of him, with his name and position indicated. The rest of the members sit on chairs behind the primary chair holders. The meeting starts with the singing of the Thai National Anthem (about a sinaable as our own) and ends with the singing of the Rotary song, to the tune of Disney's "It's a small world after all".

We next visited the Aran-yik temple, scene of a huge stone reclining Buddha, which was mostly covered with drop cloths because of repair work being performed on it. An old, bald, toothless nun sold incense sticks and small pieces of gold leaf, which we attached to the Buddha. As we burned the incense, the nun offered prayers for our health, long-lives and happiness. The adjacent tower, which was the actual temple, though in poor condition, added to the austerity of the occasion.

After a brief rest stop at our hosts' homes, we gathered again in diming light of early evening at the Khao Chonhpran bat cave. There, more than one million bats all swarm out of huge cave. The sky is completely filled with bats, like the world's largest flock of starlings. There are so many bats, it takes a full hour for them all to leave the cave, only to return again each dawn.

Our final activity was dinner at a restaurant, with the entire team, their hosts, and sorted other Rotarians. After eating ourselves silly, we finally were able to call it a day.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Ratchaburi

Today was a short day for us. A lengthy "farewell" to our new friends in Kanchanaburi and then the drive to Ratchaburi, arriving just in time for lunch with a new greeting committee. Before we could even move into our new hosts' homes we were spierited away to an Interact club meeting at a local high school.

This meeting had been specifically requested by me because of my long involvement in our District's Interact activiites and those at Sherando High School in Frederick County. The students had prepared a huge welcome banner for us and greeted us with the shyness that one would expect from a group of teenagers faced with meeting a new group of strangers (and the entourage of local dignitaries who accompanied us.)

Although the students had all studied Englsh, they were a bit reluctant to try it out, until I started asking them about which sports they enjoyed. When I told them that I was a Dallas Cowboys fan, I got a lot of smiles and some giggles from the girls.

We were shown a Powerpoint presentation about some of the many projects that the Interact club was doing in the community, many of which focused on environmental matters. It was personally encouraging for me to see that these students were as dedicated to working towards a better world as were our students at home.

After finally checking in with our hosts, we attended yet another Rotary club meeting - this one with the Ploy Ratchaburi club - an all-women's group. Although we did not get to deliver our formal presentation, we each spoke briefly (through an interpreter) about ourselves, and I talked to them about my own club and District 7570. After trading club banners, we each received small gifts (mine was not so small - an XXL flaming pink polo shirt) and later joined the members for dinner.

Now to rest up for a full day of activities tomorow.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Kanchanaburi

It seems only fitting that, for a GSE experience laden with food, our vocational day in Kanchanaburi should begin with a trip to one of Thailand's largest bakeries - the Cifra Bakery, which produces not only small packaged goodies, similar to Little Debbies in the USA, but also fancier layer cakes and pies.

After a meeting with the owner of the business, his son showed us a short promotional film about the Sifra Companies which, in various locations produce not only bakery products, but also a variety of frozen food items. Naturally, you cannot leave a meeting in a bakery without sampling the product. The freshly baked apple pie, still hot from the oven was a real treat.

We viewed the production floor from second floor windows which overlooked the production floor. Gleaming metal, spotlessly clean mixers, ovens and conveyors were manned and monitored for quality control by workers dressed in, what looked like, Hazmat uniforms which, in fact were worn to preserve the sterile enviornment on the production floor. This need for 100% clean environment for the food production was the reason that we could only view the production floor through windows.

From the bakery our hosts drove us to Wat Tamsua, an incredibly beautiful complex of wats (temples), perched high over Kanchanaburi on a hill. Although the team members chose to walk up the long steps up to the top. I chose to ride the incline railroad, which brought me to the same spot as the steps, but with both my lungs still fully functional. At the top of the complex we had an unobstructed view of the city, rice fields and mountains.

As beautiful as was the view, the temples themselves were even more impressive. Gilded spires, adorned with mosaic glass glistening in the bright sun, surrounded us. These wats, built in separate but adjoining sets by Thai and Chinese Buddhists, were inspiring statements of faith, no matter what one's own religious beliefs might be. Although Wat Tamsua was not part of our "vocational" experience, our hosts correctly believed that this was a part of our exposure to Thai culture that we should not miss.

After lunch. we set out on our separate paths exploring our individual vocations - Amanda to a hospital, Brooke to view a municipal center, Kip to a "green" home designed and lived in by one of the local Rotarians. I joined Jennifer as we visited a school for 450 children from poor homes who "paid" for their education by performing tasks, many of them agricultural in nature, at the school. On the school grounds were vegetable gardens, fish ponds, pigs, chickens, ducks and even ostriches.

The children not only get a good education, not only in basic subjectsncluding computers, but also to learn skills in which they may eventually chose to work. (As an aside, for many of us who chose to send our children to school on a bus or by car, these children walk or ride bicycles to school every day, from as many as ten miles each way!} After our tour of the school, we were treated to a concert by the students and ice cream.

Finally, Jennifer and I were taken to the photography portrait studios of one of our hosts. Displayed on the first floor were fine examples of his worksmanship. We were also shown his collection of old cameras and the most up-to-date computerized photo processing equipment.
Up stairs we were taken to the actual studios where his subjects were posed and photographed, which he then proceeded to do with the two of us.

After a dinner that included fried frog legs and fried frog skin (which tasted somewhat like fried pork rind) I was taken to another Rotary club meeting where I rejoined my team. The meeting, scheduled to run from 7:00 to 8:00 PM, didn't actually start until 8:30. We were not called upon to make a formal presentation but,rather, to just tell a little about ourselves.

On the way back to our respective hosts homes, Brooke purchased fried grasshoppers for us all to try. They were quite tasty - salty and crunchy. And with that, the end to another full day.

March 1, 2010

Monday, March 1, 2010

Kanchanaburi

We began the day with a long train ride through the countryside, passing mountains, villages, rice fields, banana plantations, corn and always, the River Khwae which, towards the end of our 2½ hour journey flowed into the Mekong River, somewhere near the border of Myanmar (Burma).

After a pause for lunch at a roadside outdoor restaurant/souvenir shop we proceeded to the second elephant ride of the week. Unlike the one that we took at Ayutthaya, this one took us up and down steep jungle-like trails and even into the river, just below the level where our feet dangled. It was a much more realistic experience than walking around the paved walks at Ayutthaya.

Speeding by vans back to Kanchanaburi, we arrived with just enough time to change into our team “uniforms” for our GSE presentation to five Rotary clubs from the Kanchanaburi area – which was held on a large raft that was gently towed for several miles down the River Khwae. While a large buffet dinner was being offered, we circulated among the five clubs, each of whom was wearing different colorful shirts to designate the club.

Our presentation went over quite well and I got much further into my speech in Thai before succumbing to English than I had in Suphanburi. The clubs seemed genuinely appreciative of my attempt at their language and rewarded me with applause after my first paragraph. The reception was equally enthusiastic for each member of the GSE Team.

After the presentation, we exchanged banners with the presidents of each club, and they presented us with gifts, including t-shirts commemorating our elephant rides that afternoon.

It was then that the real fun portion of the evening began. After months of telling me that none of them had any talent or aptitude for performing, when the karaoke started, they all got up and sang a rousing version of YMCA, which brought down the house. I am going back to my computer and re-writing the “American Culture Show” that we will present at the District Conference.

Karaoke was followed by dancing by both the Thais and the Americans until the very late hours of the evening. Despite everyone being exhausted, with evening temperatures still in the high eighties, we all had a wonderful time.

Success! While there is wifi widely available in Thailand, until now I have not had it at the private residences where I have been. Now that I can see what John has been posting, he is doing a such a thorough job that instead of trying to replicate him, I will try to offer my own brief observations on things that have particularly struck me in my short time here.

So where to start? Food, of course!

1. It's cheap. And when I say this, I do not mean by US standards. Even for Thai, food is relatively inexpensive.
2. It's everywhere. In my guest room, waiting for me. On the side of every road. Much like for Americans, Thais offer food ALL the time. First thing in the morning. Before bed. On the train. In the van. Soon I can envision them waking me up in the middle of the night just to bring me fruit. Food is hospitality. Food is love.
3. It's all good. Correction: it's really good, or as the Thai say, arroy mak! Curries, coconut drinks, hot soups, rice, noodles, fruit, coffee, and too many others to list. Made fresh, often from local ingredients. Street vendor food is some of the best.

I could go on and on about cao nio ma muang (sticky rice with mango), but now it is time to go visit my host family's rubber tree farm. And then to dinner. And then a snack. And then perhaps some coffee ...