Thailand | Travel and Life in Thailand

During a visit to Chiang Mai this weekend I came across this interesting stall in the lower floor of Kad Suan Kaow shopping Plaza. Foot therapy in the manner of letting lots of little fish feed on your dead skin.
I decided to try it out, even at 99 baht for just 15 minutes. As it was, the girl on the stall told me that a special promotion meant that I would get 30 minutes for the same price.
After first washing my feet, I took my place, dangling my feet into one of the several large tanks on display. It wasn’t long before the tiny fish started munching, and I have to say that this therapy was not as pleasant as I’d hoped.
It felt like lots of mini-electric shocks as the fish enjoyed a banquet of dead foot skin. I’m also not sure of the hygeine factor as I would imagine that, with many different feet going into these tanks, the water ought to be changed each time. This didn’t happen. I watched for a while and it was simply a scooping out of floating dead skin between customers.
As for the after effects. Immediately after my feet were quite sore, although only similar to after a skin stripping pedicure. But the day after I developed a deep crack in the skin of my big toe, where most of the fish had been feeding.Coincidence maybe, as i do suffer such ailment occassionally in this climate, but I don’t think I’ll be trying this therapy again for a long while.

Promoting English Language Learning

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Jan 212010

Part of whats kept me so busy, and with little time to get to the internet shop, is an exciting new project that I have become involved with, after consultation with Huay Sai school English Teacher, Khruu Khemtong Punyoyai.

In an attempt to support, encourage and promote English language learning and use, within the surrounding communities, we have set up a new website, http://www.thaischoolsenglish.org. Through this site we are setting up individual sites for any local schools who wish to participate.

Already we have started sites for Huay Sai School and Pasak School, Lamphun. Its early days and we are still working on the sites. Eventually both teachers and students will be able to post on the sites. There will be links to useful English language learning sites as well as videos and exercises produced by the myself, Khruu Khemtong and other participating parties.

Childrens Day at Pasak School, Lamphun

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Jan 212010

Due to technical difficulties this post is a bit overdue, but see here an example of the effort put in to celebrate the annual Childrens Day.

The official Childrens Day is on the second Saturday of January, but it came a day early at Pasak School with a large event held, to which several local schools came to take part.

There was a big turn-out and the many food stalls and attractions were kept busy all the way through.

All the children were very patient, standing in line with their respective schools on the sports field whilst the opening ceremonies were performed.

Once all the opening announcements were finished it was time for the fun to start and the tidy lines became a stampede for the games, on offer under the various marquees and of course, the free kanom.

Throughout the morning there were various performances on the large stage close to Wat Pasak.
It really is a delight to be at such an event and see the effort made by the whole community to make a special day for the children.
In between performances by children, from all the attending schools, there were prizes given away, ranging from boxed milk to big cuddly toys to bicycles.
The dancing shows were fantastic to watch and it was obvious that all the children had put a lot of effort into practising their routines and they should all be very proud of themselves.
I’m sure also that many teachers and parents worked hard behind the scenes with the wonderful costumes worn for the performances.
From the tiny infants, excitedly giggling their way through their acts, to the older kids turning in very laudable routines, they all put in a huge effort and made a great show.
The traditional Thai dancing always holds me spellbound when performed so well.
The girls from Pasak School did a fantastic job with their lively number(watch this performance on youtube).The lead dancer for much of the routine, Best, looked very relaxed and professional and has that killer smile to top it off.And I can tell you that that smile is natural, brightens my day everytime I go to teach.
Hope you don’t mind girls, but my personal favourite was the traditional dance and drum number. In the heat of the day I think these boys deserve a medal for what was clearly quite an exhausting routine for ones so young. The lead Drum boy pulled off a wonderful flowing performance as did the mock fighting dancers with their cymbals.

All the children appeared to have a great time.

The Bouncy Castle was very popular.
In the marquees there were stands where the children could aim at targets with catapults;

knock cans down with balls;

throw hoops over bottles or roll metal balls onto targets.
There was a large marquee for the infants with lots of colouring books and lots of adults there to help and make a fuss of them.

I also saw children playing some sort of board game that looked similar to scrabble.

The kids were treated to a fly over by a motorised paraglider,(not sure if it was arranged or not).
There was so much fun and excitement to enjoy that alot of children were ready for home by 1pm as the heat got ever more intense.
It was clear that the children in this friendly community all had a wonderful time as do thousands of children throughout Thailand during this great annual event.
Personally I think this day should be adopted worldwide…cliche or not..the children are our future.

Music Therapy at Stratton House Childrens Home

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Jan 072010

Could we be about to form our own ,Thai version ,Von Trapp family? I doubt it, but music will definitely feature high on our agenda after a very successful, impromptu session last weekend.

I have played the flute for many years now, mostly for my own meditation. On Sunday I woke up in the mood to play a little in my room. Suddenly I heard the sound of our congas being played and then the Kan, and then the circular pan pipes. When I went to investigate I found the 3 boys playing a way and making quite an acceptable sound. I was especially pleased to see Jack playing the congas. He was holding a good beat and the other boys were following his lead.

Jack has some problems in many aspects so life so I was so happy to see a natural ability show through and will be doing my best to introduce regular music therapy into his routine.

Huay Tung Tao Revisited

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Jan 062010

With New Years day done with we decided on a Saturday trip to Huay Tung Tao.

Unfortunately we had had a few behavourial issues that meant that our original 3 children remained at home with House Mother Wasana.

I’m happy to report that the clear message that the trips out are a reward for good behaviour seems to have worked as things have improved again, with the children keen not to miss out.

As expected the children that did go had a wonderful time.

We were there for a total of about 5 hours so they had lots of time to enjoy the water and run around and play inbetween times.

There was plenty of Kaow Pat in the lunch box as well as snacks and drinks.

Look out for the video link coming soon.

For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.

Don’t Do This At Home

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Jan 062010

To celebrate New Years Eve we decided to treat the children of Stratton House to a evening out at the Chiang Mai Cold Season Festival held at the grounds of City Hall.

This a huge event, very popular with the locals, with hundreds of stalls where you can find food, clothes, toys, etc.

There are also many ‘fairground rides’ , as well as several stages with live music acts.

Our children had a great time looking around this fantastic spectacle.

They had all received a little pocket money to be able to buy snacks or drinks and then we allowed them to choose a few fairground attractions to enjoy. They all did very well, considering the vast variety of stalls and tempting things, in not asking for too much.

During their time there they enjoyed rides on a merry go round and a ‘Big’ Wheel, and spent time in the Bouncy Castle and House of Horrors.

Tai and Dtu, the older boys tried their hand at bursting balloons with darts and Dtu managed to win himself a cuddly Panda, which he gave to his sister, May, who has also joined us at Stratton House.

The most popular event of the evening seemed to be a snake show we came across by chance.

Tucked away behing the food stalls young Jack noticed the snakes being prepared and pulled us towards the show.

I’m not quite sure ow I felt about watching the first section of the show which involved a boy, of about 12, baiting a very large snake, which I believe was a Python. The snakes very large fangs could done some nasty damage had the boy made a mistake.

Later in the show and older guy performed with a large Cobra, sometimes appearing to hypnotise it and other times outright baiting it to attack.

Certainly not something I want the kids to try at home!

Tamboon At Wat Pasak, Banthi.

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Dec 242009

Wat Pasak Banthi is where Pasak School is also located. This, you may know, is where I work as part time, volunteer, English Teacher. Whilst at school this week, I noticed the construction of large marquees in the school sports field and was informed that there was to be a Tamboon ceremony, to raise money for new building work at the Temple.

Last night was the first night of the ceremony, which involved several Monks from many different Temples in and around Chiang Mai. We took the children from Stratton House up, knowing that many of their school friends would be there.

I thought that we may see the start of the ceremony, but discovered that it would not start properly until 9pm, and by then we had returned to Mae Salab so the kids could get their sleep.

Still they had a good 2 and a half hours playtime with the other children there and May and Yong made merit by putting money in the collection bowls.

This is a particular method of merit making and the smallest denomination coins are placed symbolically into each of the many bowls laid out on the tables.

To take part you pay 20 baht for a bowl of the small satang. There were other ways of giving, such as the slot machines that when fed played recordings of Monks giving blessings. There was also a catch net held by a group of straw village folk.

This morning was time for villagers to come to make merit by offering food to the Monks and listening to the blessings.

All the school children were involved.

Our lad, Jack, had taken 4 packs, prepared by Wasana, our house mother, and shared them with some friends who had less to give.

The Monks chanting was very relaxing and for a while I sat in quite deep meditation.

I am not sure how many days this ceremony will run for but was interested to see the temporary accomodation for the visiting Monks.

Very simple cubicles constructed with rough wooden poles and brown paper, straw laid out inside for sleeping on.

There was a big turn out and I felt lucky to witness this cultural event.

At the end of the mornings ceremony all the people stood in line, forming a pathway and waited for the Monks who walked through collecting the food offerings.

For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.

Smog a Real Issue

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Dec 192009

Late start for me this morning(17th) fire 2 . Well 7.10am instead of 6.45. I was woken from a very deep sleep by one of the children knocking on my door.
I wouldn’t have thought much of it, if I had had a particularly hard day yesterday, but that wasn’t the case.
Being an everyday early riser my first morning thoughts were ,’why didnt I wake normally’ and ‘why does my head feel so thick’. A little sniff of the morning air gave me my answer. The air was thick with the acrid smell of something nasty being burned, plastic or maybe rubber, old tyres. I must remember to close my windows tonight.
It is a real issue and regular problem in some of the rural areas, such as the one we are in, where rubbish collection has not been established and the cost of getting rid of the nastier rubbish often leads people to resorting to burning.
On the flip side a benefit of a lack of refuse collection means that many people save their bottles and cans for the recyclers, who do collect, and pay a little for what they take.
If and when rubbish collection is established we can only hope that this does not lead to everything going into one bag and off to landfill.
Hopefully with the recycling culture well established this would not be the case.
At present we have 3 ‘bins’, one for plastic , one for metal and one for glass. The recyclers don’t pay much but 2 months worth got us 65 baht which went straight into the holiday fund…every baht counts:)

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