Royal Flora Ratchapuri

Don’t miss the photos of this amazing event. Words can’t begin to do it justice.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kyotesue/Day12RoyalFlora#

Today, the smog lifted a bit, and once more, Mo and I opted out of the group tour to some Chiang Mai factories and decided instead to find the annual flower show I had read about before we left the US.

There are some memories of this trip to Thailand that will stay with me always. Our day at the Royal Flora Ratchapuri was one of those memories. We used the bus, which was easy, and got to the show before it opened, to stand in line with the other local people waiting to enter. Royal Flora was mostly in honor of the King’s birthday, and was beyond amazing. Royal Flora turned out to be something like a combination Disney World, Epcot, a World’s Fair and the Philadelphia flower show all rolled into one. We stayed 8 hours and didn’t begin to see it all. For those of you who have been to Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver, just one display called the Shade House was five times bigger and more fantastic, than the entire conservatory, and that was only one display of hundreds. Don’t miss these photos, they are beyond amazing!

Also amazing was that it was mostly Thai people, we were one of very few non-locals. That was fun, too. Everyone was incredibly friendly, and helpful. We just happened to be there when many school kids were also there in their school uniforms, in groups, all giggling and laughing. Several of the groups had been charged with practicing their English, and Mo and I were easy targets several times, while they gathered around and asked us questions, filling out our answers in their notebooks. English is taught in all the schools, and the Thai kids are encouraged to become proficient.

Family Home Visit

Families. In Thailand it was such an eye opener to see how close families remained. No one moved across the country, they didn’t even move across the town. They lived in big family compounds. We visited one such family, and the rest of our group visited several others, in small groups of 6 or 7 people. The story was all the same. Mother was a public relations specialist for a big company, Father brokered coffee beans.

Their home was spotless, lighted with flourescent bulbs that are bright and dim at the same time. Two children, 20 months and three. Little girls that were the apple of their eye. Mother’s mother had a pumpkin farm nearby but stayed with the kids while mom worked and Fathers mother stayed when grandma one was away at the farm. Auntie and Nephew were there for dinner as well, and lived upstairs. Various grandparents lived in the houses next door, and other assorted relatives.

All sharing common values and common lives, picking the papayas and bananas from their compound trees, eating fresh vegetables, taking food to the monks at 6am.We sat on her floor and made pyramid cakes, special food that the monks loved. Father had been a monk for several years. It is expected in Thailand that men will serve as monks for at least some time in the lives, from months to years. As monks, they learn the proper way to live. They learn the 8 precepts of Buddhism, and how to live in peace and equanimity. We asked how the women learn these values since they can’t be monks, and were told that all people are taught from childhood the peaceful, calm, gentle way of the middle path.
The pyramid cakes are made from a paste that is kind of grayish purple, a bit like poi, but made from sticky rice flour and palm sugar, about half as sweet as american sugar. You brush oil on a perfectly cut banana leaf, form a patty of the paste, put in a spoonful of shredded deep fried coconut that has some kind of other stuff in it, and then wrap it perfectly with specific folds that end up in a perfectly folded little package. Amazing. They are then steamed for 15 minutes and served up warm for dessert or saved for the next mornings offerings to the monks.
I thought about my family, and how scattered we are, and this very different way of living and how good it felt, how close they are, how strongly they support their families. If I were Thai, I would have taken my grandmother and dorothy into my home, I would have cared for them no matter what it took. I couldn’t do that, and I don’t expect my kids to do that. And yet I wondered at what we have given up with all our independence. That kind of family and community.
The back side of the lack of conflict is the lack of self expression. It is considered uncouth and totally unacceptable to speak poorly of your family, or to raise your voice. Conflict is avoided at all costs. What is lost in this is really having any idea what anyone really thinks. Can these people be any different than all the rest of us, with anger and frustration, and grupmy thoughts about all the expectations? Probably not, but you would never know it.
Sitting in a huge gridlock traffic jam that Bangkok is well known for, I saw that calm and peaceful demeanor of the Thai people. Bikes and trucks and even a cement truck pushing in for space, people not exactly getting cut off, but gently pushed as the gridlock got tighter and tighter. No horns honking, except that little toot to let someone know you may be a quarter inch from their bumper

To Chiang Mai

http://picasaweb.google.com/kyotesue/Day11ToChiangMai#

This morning we had breakfast at the hotel, put out the luggage and boarded our bus for the drive to Chiang Mai. The trip was incredibly beautiful, winding through the mountains, with more teak forests, farms, rice fields, flowers everywhere. We stopped for pie and coffee at a lovely resort on the river, than again at a dragonfruit farm. The dragonfruit grows on a plant that looks somewhat like a very large Christmas cactus, but they weren’t blooming this time of year. We then stopped for lunch at a truly beautiful new resort that had developed a magnificent botanical garden. Lunch was a bit boring, but the gardens were amazing, especially the palms. Mo and I spent every possible minute at this stopover walking and seeing as much as we could before we needed to board again for the rest of the trip.

It seemed like a bit of a long day, though, and we were glad to arrive at our hotel in Chiang Mai, the Empress. Chiang Mai is a mountain town as well, and somehow I imagined it to be cleaner and fresher, but once more the exhaust from all the deisel engines makes the air rough and my eyes burn constantly. In the distance, from our hotel room, we can see the Buddha at Doi Suthep. I know this is a beautiful city, but at the moment it just felt big and dirty, with lots of traffic and bustle. Especially after the beautiful trip through the mountains to get here.

This evening I tried to write to my daughter about our travels, but looking back at the email, I can see how tired I was, and a bit overwhelmed with so much input and so many images. Sometimes on these trips, with so much to see it is hard to find down time. Time to regroup and let things settle a bit. Something to keep in mind.

The Golden Triangle

http://picasaweb.google.com/kyotesue/Day9#

Again, words seem to falter, and only the photos remind me of all that I experienced on this day. Traveling through what is called “The Golden Triangle” (a corner of Thailand where the border is shared with Burma and Laos) was long and fascinating and left me with complex images in my mind.

Burma (Myanmar) is very different from Thailand, even just across the border in a small border town, that brought to mind images of Tijauna when I used to visit as a child. Poverty and squalor. We were allowed in the border village only, since the rest of Myanmar is basically off limits to westerners. We saw incredible poverty, truly a third world country here and we were the rich tourists gawking. It felt strange. The market was noisy and incredibly smelly with fish, and the waterways between houses ran with garbage and fresh sewage.

I actually tried to chew betel nut, more adventurous than most of the group, and it somehow reacts in your mouth and creates huge amounts of saliva. Ick. Not a good experience, but I’m glad I did it. There were women in dirt floored hovels, with old sewing machines making things and Ray introduced us to one of his friends. Here the young boys were all monks, but in Burma, they beg constantly, something not encouraged, as it is quite different from the genteel gifting to the monks in Thailand.

It’s amazing how different the people are even so close to each other. It was the same in Laos, a country I barely know anything about at all. My greatest treasure is a heavy dark stone from the Mae Khong River. I carry so many mental images from deep consciousness and stories of Viet Nam, Cambodia, and hearing these names on the news as a young girl. It was rather incredible to be riding on this river as we crossed the border into Laos.

We had lunch in some farm village after a rough ride in a farm truck over dirt roads. I loved it. The lunch was BBq chicken and pad thai and rice in banana leaves, and as usual, was beautifully arranged and presented. The countryside reminded me of movies I have seen of Viet Nam and other places, that were probably filmed right here in Thailand. We drove through mature teak forests and rice fields that were dried up for the season.

The air was not very clean either, since they were burning the rice straw all over this part of Thailand. I am beginning to miss clear air. Somehow this was a full, and somewhat challenging day, with mixed emotional responses to all that was around me. But it was also a day that I hold in my memory in a different way than some of the other parts of this trip, and I’m glad we took the extra time and money to include the Triangle in our tour.

Gliding down the Mae Khong River we saw a huge golden Buddha along the shoreline that dominated the entire skyline. Something about the huge size of the Buddhas adds to the mystery of the landscape. Maybe because a giant statue of Buddha isn’t something that you see often along a river in the US.

Home late to rest a bit beore our shared dinner at the Chinese restaurant in the hotel, another break from the local Thai food but certainly not memorable. This time, however, we drank beer.

The Hill Tribes

The days are running together, my travel journal is becoming more and more abbreviated. It seems that words are failing me, and for this day it really is worth the side trip to the Picassa album

Today we traveled into the mountains to visit to the hill tribes and villages, including the Yao, the Akha, and the Longneck Pad Gung. We had lunch in the high moutnains very close to China at Doi Mae Salong. Riding the vans through the mountains was wonderful. Many mixed feelings about the hill tribes in Thailand, since it seems that they are exploited considerably for the tourism trade, especially the longneck women. But the countryside was beautiful and the villages fascinating.

I bought a lovely silk shawl that was woven by a village woman, the real thing this time, and the people seemed very happy to have us in their village taking photos. It seemed a bit incongruent to me that a lovely woman with her neck rings weaving in her hut was decked out in very good western makeup.

The skies were lovely, lunch was another group family style meal of good Thai food which I love and Mo is getting seriously tired of eating.

Home late to dinner at the coffee shop on our own. for an American style meal. We ordered white wine and salads. Wine was 200 baht (about $20 us) for 2 small glasses. Beer is definitely the beverage of choice while in Thailand, and I have learned that although I am not a beer drinker, I truly love the Thai Singha beer.