Loy Kratong

This year we went to (the Buddhist festival) Loy Kratong, at the local school, this involves floating candles and josh sticks on banana leaf boats. There was dancing from some of the students and Thai boxing (which started very young). There was a "May Queen" or Loy Kratong Queen chosen from 4 hopefuls, Puy, Paa's cousin from our village, one from Ban Prow Wing, and two from Ban Ket. Ban Prow Wing won, although I think Puy came second, even though she should have won.

My Village

I realised that most of my pictures were of us doing x or y. So this morning I went out and took pictures of the children playing shop.

The village shop (with Lottie out front with her grandmother, Puk), which sells a few packets of crisps, pop, beer and vegetables in the early morning. Not much really.

The road almost opposite, Charlie's (after Charles Bronson) house, Boon's house and Lord's house can be seen.

And the local cafe, which is opposite our house. A bowl of noodle soup is 10bht (15p).

Rice

The rice harvest is in full swing, we had help drying the rice from some off the village kids. Almost everyone dries the rice on half the road (some dry it on the blue mesh in their gardens), the road is hotter, you may have to leave the rice for a couple of days to get it to the correct moisture content. When I took the rice to the place where they buy it, it all had the correct moisture content.

The interesting thing around here is that rice can be left (even in sacks) over night, no one will steal it even though it would be very easy. Which is great because it means that no one needs to stay with the rice overnight.

Holiday in Pattaya

These pictures were lost for almost a year, I had had them put on CD so that i could take more pictures. Last year around Loy Kratong (annual festival, reoccured last week) we went to meet Mike and Tariq in Pattaya, we visited the Big Buddha on the Hill.

We took a speed boat to an island called Ko Lan.

Went to Nong Nooch, a botanical gardens type place, Paa was obviously pregnant at the time.

Elephant again

Another elephant passed the house the other day. This one is looked after by Paa's cousins' grandfather. The elephant is decorated, I dont know if there is some significance in this. A few weeks later it passed through the rice fields past the back garden.

Lottie as usual

A movie of Lottie when excited.

Lottie with her great grandfather.

Lottie showing her six new teeth.

House and garden

The house and garden are great, the bananas and pappaya are doing especially well. Couple of pics and I am going to try a film.

Birdwatching

Birdwatching or in my case bird-spotting and moving on, is good fun here as many of the birds are not seen in the UK. We dont get that many birds unfortunately, and mostly one sees the same birds as most of the scenery around here is the same. The flambouyant birds are generally in the forested areas. However, here are a few pictures of some of the following black kite, brahminy kite, black shouldered kite, green bee-eater, white-throated kingfisher (i saw my first one today), lesser coucal, little, great and cattle egret, various herons, cinnamon bittern, painted stork (4 yesterday, and 5 flying day before), oriental magpie robin, pied bushchat, black-collared starling, common and crested myna, baya weaver.

Prasat Muang Tam

Another Khmer Temple from the C11th. It is close to Phanom Rung which I showed earlier in my blog. This temple has less tourists, is beautiful, quiet and is very photogenic. Well worth a visit. I will let the photos speak for themselves.

Rice Field Terrapin

On the same day as I found another cobra in the garden, I found a Terrapin outside the back door. Thats obviously lucky, so we put talc on it to see if it had a number hidden on its shell (there was maybe a 9) and then released it into the village pond.

Lottie

Charlotte is doing very well, eating well, sleeping well and nearly always smiling. Here are some pics ...

Independence Day - 4th July

An American friend, Ron, who lives some of the time in the next village to me, had a party for American Independence Day. Fireworks and beer. It was a good night, i was the only one to go home before 12 as I was getting over flu and a bad back.

Phanom Rung

Phanom Rung was built in the C12th AD, by the Khmer Empire. It is in Buriram Province, 60ish miles south of my house. It was on a trail from Angkor Wat in Cambodia, to Phanom Rung and on the Primai in Khorat province. It was built on the rim of an extinct volcano (this whole area is volcanic, the rice fields are littered with boulders shot out of volcanoes). It was built as a religious temple, Hindu/Buddhist, a pathway leads to a Naga Bridge, the 5 headed Naga (snake) is said to have shielded the Buddha, and I believe also brings rain. 52 steps lead up to the main temple building, a pool at either side of the entrance. The building has been restored, rebuilt, one can easily see the stones that were original, the new stones are from a similar rock. It has been restored well. It lets one realise the splendour of the building as it would have been a century ago. A few of the beautiful reliefs above the doors are missing but most are there. As is a lot of the carved rock especially at the front of the building. Temples, smaller buildings and corridors, it is well worth the money 10bht (15p) for a Thai and 40bht (60p) for non-Thai, this is my gripe, farangs as we are called have to pay 4 times the price that Thais pay, usual for all state parks etc. Imagine charging Thai's 4 times the Brit price to go to Alton Towers.