Water Wars

Sawadi Pii Mai! Happy Thai New Year!

Sometime over the weekend it was Thai New Year - people seem confused as to whether it was Friday or Saturday - typically Thail! New Year in Thailand is celebrated with water - lots of water! It is a sign of respect to spray someone with water and rub clay on their face at new year - you can imagine the carnage!

It seems that policemen and foreigners (especially non threatening ones such as me - its Kate writing here!) seemed to be the main target. Every time I have stepped outside a car would drive past and empty a bucket of water over me - usually with a 'sorry' before I was soaked. I had to resort to hiding behind trees to avoid a drenching. I ended up each day with different colours of clay smeared across my face - I'm sure it's good for the skin.

James (hey Waterboy) bought a huge super soaker and with water tanks strapped to his back tried to hold his own, but Thai teenagers armed with buckets of ice cold water were a force to be reckoned with.

Lots of fun, but I'm pleased to be dry again today!

A trip to the Border

I had a great experience last week, traveling up to the Thai Burma boarder at Mae Sot to visit a refugee camp and some projects that the Church we go to in Bangkok supports.

We set off in the mini bus on Wednesday morning and arrived in Mae Sot 7 hours later, a long, hot journey! Mae Sot is part of an area home to the Karen people group, a group whose homeland (Karen state) spans across the Thai, Burner border, with the larger proportion in Burma. However this people group are under persecution by the Burmese military regime.

We visited Mae La refugee camp, which is a mass of bamboo huts climbing the side of a mountain (the mountain protects them from shelling by the Burmese). It is home to 49,000 registered refugees, but there is thought to be around 60,000 people actually living in the camp. We were greeted by the women who run the nursery schools and orphanage that the church support, these women were so warm and welcoming. They lead us through the camp to one of their nurseries where the children sang for us in Karen and English, we also had some time to play, which was great fun. The children were beautiful, full of mischief and confidence.





We had been invited to the closing ceremony of Nohbo Academy school, which the Church funds and is in a village close to the camp. The young people were amazing, the speeches were translated into English buy 13/14 year old students, I was so impressed. One boy I spoke to as he was leaving told me that he now had to cross the river into Burma and walk for 3 days through the jungle (which is heavily mined) to get home to his family. Many of the other students were heading back to the camp for their holiday - puts everything into perspective!

Valentines Day Pie

Bangkok has embraced valentines day - it seems that any excuse to give gifts is embraced here.

My class gave me two boxes of chocolates and a card. They also brought food to the class, I was offered two eclair looking items, the first was filled with custard, the second fish - a bit of a shock!

I gave James a Valentines day pie!

‘sometimes we fix stuff’

Just down our street is a little wooden shack next to the road which we pass each day. Usually there are 2 or 3 older men sitting in the shack or sleeping in the back of the adjacent truck. We always smile at the men as we walk past and earlier this week I saw one of their faces crack into a smile for the first time.

When these men are not sleeping (accounts for more than 50% of the time) they are gathered around a broken pieced of machinery or an electric devise or even an air conditioning unit, either discussing how to fix it or occasionally actually fixing something.

If they had a sign above their shack it should read ‘we sometimes fix stuff’.

So when our iron broke earlier this week, we thought instead of just buying a new one we should try taking it to the men to see what they could do.

James went to see them and presented the iron which was in two pieces, so not much Thai explanation was needed. The Iron parts were taken from him and he was told in Thai ‘come back tomorrow’.

The next day James returned and was given the fixed and cleaned iron back for a cost of £2.

We should fix more old things instead of buying new things.

getting to work…

On Thursday’s I work for OMF publishing, a charity that translates English books (mostly Christian books) into Thai and other local dialects and languages.

I have been helping out with lots of different projects there, they have a ‘to-do’ list for me which is getting very long!

The office is in north Bangkok (we live south east), getting there is always an adventure. I walk to our local sky train station, catch the skytrain a couple of stops. I then walk to the underground station and get an underground train a couple of stops before I get a motorbike taxi the rest of the way.

My journey takes about an hour, uses 4 different forms of transport (if you include my legs), but only costs 68 Baht – less than one pound.

James is lucky, he only has to walk down a flight of stairs to get to his office.

bombacaceae: King of Fruits?

Saturday was another 'first' for me.

Durian Ice-cream!!!!!

Many people have tried to desribe the taste of Durian fruit over the years. The one word that seems to link most descriptions together is "pungent".

In the 19th century British explorer AR Wallace described it thus: "custard flavoured with almond... wafts of flavour that call to mind cream cheese, onion sauce, brown sherry..."

No wonder it is banned from many hotels, malls and public transport.

My experience involved running at high speed to the nearest toilet... trying (unsuccesfully) not to throw-up... drinking lots of water... and complaining about the taste for 24 hours solid!

This so-called "King of Fruits" or "golden pillow" has the 'marmite effect' - you either love it or hate it and guess what????

I hate it!!

Exercise - Thai Style

I'm sure many of you decided that you needed to exercise more in 2007 - us too!

Finding somewhere to exercise, on a budget, in a big city is a challenge, but we have found some fun solutions and our exercise regime started yesterday.

Lumpini park is our 'playground' of choice. At 6.00pm every evening a mass spectacle occurs - public aerobics. The kings national anthem is played across the park (stand still everyone), then the fun begins.

It's free, entertaining and good for you (3 in 1 - like a kinder egg). The whole experience was hilarious, all types of people were taking part, although I think I was the only foreigner (which made me stand out). I was all over the place, I think I need to practice my routines before next week - it all happens so fast!

James has joined the public swimming pool in the park (after a doctor cleared him of having any skin diseases!), and after leaving me with my aerobics buddies went for a swim. He has new shorts and a hat, with matching go faster stripes. I think he enjoyed it, when I meet him I was greeted with 'guess who was the fastest in the pool'!

Thai Roads...

This morning I walked over to the local 7-11 to pick up a paper. The investigations into the bombing and finger pointing at who is to blame were still the headlines, but a small article caught my attention.

The article reported that over the New Year holiday 351 people died in road accidents across Thailand. I guess this is the type of tragic story that doesn't catch the attention of the worlds media because it isn't 'glamorous' enough.

Perhaps if the Thai government invested more into the countries infrastructure, these tragedies would be reduced, the economy would improve, leading to a more stable, less volatile Thailand.

Sorry this makes heavy reading.