The Loy Krathong festival came with the full moon near the end of November this year. Everyone seemed to be out to celebrate at the big reservoir in the center of Nang Rong. For such a big deal it seems strange you can’t find it in the Wikipedia list of Thai Holidays. I asked someone and they said “Because it’s not a holiday! We just celebrate it for one night so no one needs to take a day off from work.” There is some religious significance about an offering to the river goddess for granting water, etc., but most everyone these days are just out for the good time.

You can look up “Loy Krathong” (literally “float bowl”) in Wikipedia if you want more general information. Notice the third picture down in the article. I saw that in Chiang Mai a few years ago. I looked up and saw a great number of stars showing brilliantly in the sky. I finally realized that the sky had high overcast and no stars were showing through, but a thousand students at Chiang Mai university had all launched khom loi, 5’ high hot air rice paper balloons using a fuel cell ring underneath. The fuel cell flame is bright and shows strongly from a long way up.

Part of one of several parades that night.

There is a long straight wide street in front of the reservoir with restaurants on the other side. This night there were a great many food carts and sellers along that side also. Several parades, each complete with sound carts (see my article on that) came by during the time we were there. My camera is not made for it, but I caught a small section of one parade with local ladies dancing. A lot of tents, a performance stage and other things were on the peninsula out into the lake. We did not get out there but I show a picture of it from across the lake.

More activity across the lake.

We got snacks from the vendors, floated some Krathongs and my favorite, launched a few khom loi balloons. I hope this tradition can go on awhile more, but you never know. Last year a house in Nang Rong burned from a balloon that went the wrong way. This night was great with no wind so the balloons could go right up while travelling very slowly out into the lake.

I drove one of the vehicles to haul all our kids and some staff the few blocks to the lake. Later I took the 3rd family back home. They are the family that had just moved into the new house. I took a picture there just before I drove off.

Our new family home at night. Just moved in!

Yesterday we went to the “Baan Song Muang” children’s rights conference in Baan Kruad about fifty kilometers southeast of Nang Rong. It is a two day conference with children invited for the first day. Most of our staff and kids went, and I went along as well. We rented a large song taew for transportation.

Countries in this part of the world have various ways of transporting groups of people on the road. Of course the bus is present in all of them, but if you do not wish to meet the bus lines schedule and route, the distance is not too great, and you want to save money you may end up riding in the back of some sort of truck. The less well off in India often ride long distances standing room only on large flatbed trucks with wooden fencing stuck into the holes around the beds edge. The roads are so bad, and the trucks sprung so harshly that I doubt you would want to sit anyway. In Myanmar the small sized pickup (I can’t remember seeing any full sized ones) is often used. It has a rack placed over the pickup bed and benches along the sides and center on the bed. I’ve seen 20 on the benches down and another 12 on top. Add to that three or four in the front seat and you have 35 people as seen in the photo taken on our second trip there.

Traveling third class in Myanmar. Taken on the way to Moulemein. Would you feel safe sitting on the tailgate?

In Thailand we have the song taew. In small form this is like the pickup seen in Myanmar except I’ve never seen people seated above on a small one and the center bench would only be there if children are carried. For more people the large song taew is a standard flatbed truck with the song taew framework over the bed. There are benches down the sides and center, although with about 20 people we did not need the center bench. I think they ease up on the suspension a bit as well. With that and the better roads in Thailand and just a small amount of padding on the seat the ride was not so bad.

It certainly is breezy. Usually the wind is welcome in place of air conditioning, but for our trip we closed the front vent and a few of the side windows. With a light jacket we were quite comfortable.

In the back of the framework there are ladders up to the roof. I see the students up there often when a song taew, the common form of school bus here, pulls out at the end of a school day. I would have liked to try that, but the school kids take the bus every day and know where the low hanging branches are and lately the police will stop you if they see someone up there. Besides we don’t want our kids doing that, and I have to set an example.

A nap before we get there.

It’s handy not needing the middle bench. We left a bit early, so on the way we spread a mat out in the middle and some of the kids rested. Having our new two year old girl was great, as each of the girls wanted a turn holding her. In fact, we really could have used her twin sister as well, but unfortunately she had a touch of flu and had to stay home.

Anyway, we got to the conference fine. I’ll describe that in a subsequent post. When we returned the lack of the middle bench was again appreciated. The kids first held a dance game. One starts dancing and then points to someone else who must get up and dance briefly before again pointing. Dancing was never my strong point but the kids seemed much amused when I was called upon. Next came the “heavy load” game which I won’t describe and finally some practiced their traditional Thai dancing. Maybe some of the grace and ease seen in this dancing comes from practicing on the deck of a moving song taew. It should be pretty easy on solid ground after that.

The little one crashed on the way back.

With no seat belts I’m not sure what U.S. lawyers would think about it, but speeds are less here, so I did not feel as unsafe as I do in my car facing the faster traffic on Thailand’s major roads.

The first picture was taken at night just as I left my landlord’s house. This elephant goes around Nang Rong in the evening with a reflector tied to his tail, stopping at the restaurants. Since the restaurants are open to the outside, the elephant just comes up close, but not close enough to grab anything off your table or tap you on the shoulder with his trunk. If it is dark outside you don’t notice him until he’s there. His handler sells a bag of sugar cane you can buy and feed back to him. My wife always goes for it.

The seat on the elephant suggests you could get a ride if you wanted. We’ve never checked into that. I’ve driven an elephant in the jungle, but driving one in the city is probably beyond my capabilities.

We have a volunteer family visiting for three weeks. The night after their first day it rained. Then there was a light drizzle all day for their second and third days. It is finally leaving and should be back to normal sunny “dry season” days soon.

Now I’m thinking you may not believe me after all I have said about continuous great weather here during “dry” or “cool” season. This is the first time in my three years here that I remember it being like this. If it does rain, which is rare, during this season, it usually rains hard for about ten minutes and that’s it, just like in rainy season.

We are just getting started on our first child home in Opportunity Village. In April the first of our two families, now in rental homes, will move into the new house. We are looking to add one or if possible two more families in rental homes this year. The second picture is not going to be the new home. It’s the temporary shelter, and perhaps home, for the workers building the house. It’s over by the main canal on the west side of the property.

The final thing to report is that I ran into another parade two days ago, on the street that crosses my street five houses down. The flatbed trucks you see coming held monks and nuns sitting in rows. Something to do with buddhism, of course, but other than that I don’t know. Now just about every street around me has had a parade in the last year except mine. Some weddings, a few ordinations (kids becoming a monk for awhile) and buddhist house warming celebrations, but no real parades.

I have never noticed anywhere in this part of the world that has a noise ordinance. In Nang Rong many wats have big outdoor speakers and play music, sometimes western music, in the evening. This normally does not last very late, but may if there is a special festival. The Red Cross of Thailand and others hold the equivalent of a county fair at the field in front of the Nang Rong School. In fact there is one still going on right now, connected with the festival I just described in a previous post. Here again there are plenty of booths with sound systems. It can get pretty difficult to use your cell phone outside.

Weddings (seen above), ordinations (nearly every boy in Thailand is ordained as a monk for at least a week or two), and other occasions have a speaker system or two somewhere, with the Thais out in the streets dancing to it. I attended the celebration for the new Nang Rong nigh amphoe (equivalent of our county commissioner) and did he use the P.A. system for a speech? Not that I remember, but he did sing. He was good, but I’ve heard that the previous holder of that office was really great. The previous governor has a good singing voice as well.

Right now several people, including our contractor for our foundation land fill, are running for mayor. For this you see billboard trucks with big speakers all around town. For other things there are cars with speakers tucked in the trunk (as seen in the day before yesterday’s parade), motorcycle speaker platforms, you name it.

I asked various local people what they think about all this sound and the consensus is: They like it. Thai people like to have fun, and music and other sounds are part of that.

From my American point of view, I don’t think it is carried too far. It is fun, and the atmosphere is perhaps an upgrade from a typical, somewhat dull, American small town. More like our movies (the happy ones) show American small towns forty to sixty years ago.

There is still a lot of quiet time, unlike Bangkok, where, except for your hotel room, it is continually noisy with traffic outside and music/advertisements inside. I started trying to learn Thai in Bangkok and found it impossible, since it was always too noisy for me to hear anyone well enough to distinguish unfamiliar language sounds.

Where do all these speakers and sound systems come from? Less that a two minute walk from my house is the largest speaker store I have seen just about anywhere. I couldn’t get the whole store front into the picture, it’s too long. He sells just about everything related to P.A. systems and professional sound. What I did not find there were home theater/hi fi type systems. There are a few, considerably smaller stores that sell smaller home systems here, but they don’t amount to much. I thought this had to be the largest store if its type in the area, but no, the owner said there is a larger one sixty kilometers away in Buriram city.

How are Thais different from Americans? Well, if we follow the money, Thais appear to spend much more for public sound than for anything they put in their homes. I think we Americans are the other way with our big home theater surround sound systems. Who enjoys it more? Thais dance in the streets. Can we match that?

Well, that is no longer completely true, but maybe not completely false either. A new Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened there around the end of the dry season (March) this year. It is located within the Tewikit mall which is out on highway 24. Tewikit is a small department/discount/grocery store, part of a small chain whose two main stores are in Buriram city. KFC’s are located in each of those, so I guess Nang Rong was the next biggest store and the next place to try. It is really half a KFC with only about half their offerings available. The front counter area seems very small, hardly there. There was one employee that I could see and I don’t believe there were any customers present when I checked it out.  

Are the other chains watching, ready to move in should the KFC prove successful? I wouldn’t mind a Pizza Company or a Dairy Queen here. They sell food that I cannot get without traveling to Buriram city or to Korat. I sometimes eat at KFC when in Bangkok or other cities, but in Nang Rong I know places to go for good chicken. The very best chicken I’ve had in the area is barbequed at a roadside place across from the Chalearm Pragaid regional hospital just a few miles east of Nang Rong. With their low overhead the cost is about a sixth of KFC and the view is great. I was standing with my back to a lake when I took the picture.

Some of the more knowledgeable Thais in the area give a low probability for success for this new KFC venture, and I think the franchisers of the fast food places in Thailand are quick to close down outlets that don’t meet their sale minimums.

We won’t change that website entry just yet.