trip to the Lao border

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Our teacher OnAnong and her sisters invited me and Julian to their home in Ubon Ratchatani, in the northeast of Thailand (Isaan, or Esarn).

We took an overnight bus, east from Bangkok to Ubon, ate a lovely breakfast of Vietnamese food, then headed east again. From their Isaan home to the Lao border was about an hour's drive, well worth the trip.

As you can see, the water level is high. We had fine sunny weather for our weekend stay, but recent rains as far north as China and down through Laos to Isaan have swollen the Mae Kong (they say Kong as if it's going to be "cone", then end with the "ng" which is a single letter in Thai).

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The above both show the Thai side of the river with a slim glimpse of Laos in the distance.

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At the border, Laotians come across to sell their produce. This woman had fresh (live) crabs on a plastic ribbon.

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And here you see Laos, temptingly close (would've cost less than a dollar to take a sweet little boat across), but we teacher assistants have only single-entry visas to Thailand. Alas!

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visit to two dressmakers

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Today I went to two dressmakers--one recommended by the teachers at Dipangkorn, the other the wife of the carpenter who made my bookshelf.

Above you see my measurements and a drawing (collaboration--her artistry, based on my description). Mostly we communicated with hand signals and my crude drawings; I think she did very well at capturing my concept. Now we'll see how it turns out in real fabric (pink silk!) and in my size (not as drawn).
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The other dressmaker, a former student at Dipangkorn, is a tiny person, seemed very confident that she can make me look nice in a Thai style jacket and skirt. She also seemed confident that she can get both out of the fabric in the package (also silk, the gift of our hostess at Ubon, the sister of our teacher OnAnong. It's packaged as a "kit": enough patterned silk and plain coordinating silk to make a suit).

This woman's shop was much more formally decked out with wish-books and samples. I chose the jacket as shown on the right in the glossy photo...

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dance at Dipangkorn

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I wish I could show you our student dancers in action--the camera only captures a small glimpse of their grace and strength. Imagine exotic music (played by our student traditional Thai orchestra) and flowing motion. The costumes are amazing, too, even more fun to watch as they move.
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There's a clear connection between Thai fighting and Thai dancing. The demo above (first for the student body in informal clothes, then later the same day at a fancy hotel for an international audience) shows the rank-and-file soldier-dancers and then the traditional khon re-enactment of royalty fighting for power (for land and the hand of a lovely maiden--great story).

The man in black watching so critically is the dance teacher. Very talented dancer himself and he exacts excellent dancing from his students. He's also the one who sewed the khon dancers into their costumes.

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The smiling blue girls are the youngest students--

note the short hair.

They danced a special dance for me this morning (a surprise for my last week). The shawls and skirts of both costumes flow and move beautifully.

lesson in flowers and Buddhism

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This afternoon we AFSers were invited by Ajahn Jiaranai (that's Teaching Master Jiaranai, seen above in the peach suit) to participate in a lesson in flower-garland making. Toto (Chile) is the uniformed student holding a needle; the others in white uniform are student kibbitzers, always ready to coach us by saying: "Now, another twenty flowers!" With Jiaranai you see YaJing (China) and Julian (Germany), intently threading tiny white buds (dok pud) onto long steel needles. The woman in yellow is the teacher, attentive and helpful.

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A light coating of vaseline on the needle helps the flowers slide along it more easily. The green is banana leaves, useful as flower trays, as platforms and guides in making octagons. In a later step the banana leaves become "petal pushers", helping to pull the arranged flowers onto a plastic thread which holds the garland shape.

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There are three kinds of flowers in each garland; see final picture. It's also possible to add jasmine flowers or colored accent flowers, but for our first project they kept it simple. In the market I've seen really elaborate garlands (quite inexpensively, I'm now convinced).

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They advised us to put twenty tiny flowers on the needle at a time, trim the stems, then arrange the first eight in an evenly-spaced ring, next ring of eight nestled in between the first, and so on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I discovered that my rings of eight were too randomly arranged, so my garland grew much more slowly than everyone else's. It did go more quickly once I became more strict with my octagons (see demo below). Still, I was not done with step one as my classmates proceeded to steps two, three and four. The Thai girl finished first, Chinese girl second, German boy, then Chilean boy, and still I was threading my twenty flowers at a time onto my needle.

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I was aware of my thought process, from "Wait! They're onto another step! I want to try that, too!" to "Patience, patience; the more I do the more I learn," to gratefully accepting help to finish my garland (more than an hour after we started). That garland truly was an international cooperation project. In the end I was able to try at least a bit of every step, but could not say I made it myself.

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YaJing and Julian took their garlands to their host moms, and I took mine across to Boom. She smiled, silently nodded her chin toward the Buddha shrine in her shop, and I laid the garland at the Buddha's feet.

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downtown Bangkok

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As you can see, much of Bangkok "downtown" looks a lot like the US. There is a distinctive Asian flavor to it, though.
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The skytrain is just like our subway, except above the street level instead of below it. Also new and clean...

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Some views of the Siam Paragon mall. Note the Chinese statues in the store display, and the comfy seating in the restaurant, as seen from above.

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Now I've seen it, I don't need to go back to the fancy mall. I much prefer the temples and the ordinary streets and canals. It was pretty to see, though, and fun to be there with YaJing from China and Irine from the Phillipines.

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We ate at KFC and Combo # 1, my choice, was spicy chicken and vegetables with white rice, and a chopped vegetable salad, plus a large Pepsi. Expensive at 109 baht, about $3. Usually Thai dishes in a restaurant cost between 35 and 50 baht. Exception: I saw an entre of Australian beefsteak for 2000 baht. Moral of the story--eat local food.

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lotus

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The lotus flower is sacred, beautiful, amenable to artistry, and quite tasty. It's planted along the side of the road (the tender blossom above was in a concrete tub along the side of the road as I walked to Wat Sala Daeng), in the canals, in the school pond, and floating down the rivers.
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There are many different varieties of lotus, mainly pink, white or lavender, with pointy petals or rounded, blooms ranging in size from two to six inches in diameter. The leaves can be over a foot in diameter, and lotus gardens can spread over a whole "back yard" of water.
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Flower-folding is quite an art in Thailand; the lotus blooms above were for sale in the flower market. Yes, they are real blossoms, each petal carefully folded back to reveal the central disc of green. These are for use in the temples, as offerings on the altar. The swan vase of lotus flowers is in a temple, sitting at the feet of Buddha.

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The lotus fruits (that central disc after the petals fall off) are for sale in the food market. And the lotus stem is also edible. Those are my fingers showing the cross section; Boom cooked the stems in a soup and I ate them--delicious.

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cooking class

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Each Friday the AFSers at Dipangkorn meet at Boom's kitchen (above, with Boom in the red apron). So far we've had four lessons; Fridays are often pre-empted for ceremonies at school. We've learned to make pad Thai, tofu with pork and veggies, tom yam kung (sweet-sour shrimp soup), papaya salad and pork-tomato-filled omelette. Boom writes each recipe in Thai and we translate together; I'll bring back recipes. It's great fun, and always delicious.
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Julian from Germany is tall, so he stands on the lower-level floor to stir-fry. YaJing from China and Julian chop ingredients as Boom looks on. All fresh ingredients, chopped on the spot, and everything done in the wok over a gas flame. Simple equipment, great results.

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Below you see the two-wok method for a delicious omelette; Toto from Chile points out the various dishes in our feast. His real name is Hector, but the Thai tongue can't manage that so he's nicknamed Toto, which means big, big. He's not, but nicknames here have little basis in reality.