Let the Traveling Begin!

Our next adventure came Tuesday, February 20 when we traveled with Aranya’s family to Nakhon Sawan for a Chinese New Year festival. Nakhon Sawan has a lot of Chinese immigrants so this is a big celebration for the city and we were told it gets bigger every year. This year, the King of Thailand was supposed to visit the city in honor of the festival. As we drove to Nakhon Sawan we heard that the King would not be able to come but one of his daughters would. There was a route that the Princess was going to take through the city, participating in various presentations and ceremonies. We staked out one of these locations along with many other people. We were basically in an alley way, sitting on the pavement. Aranya’s mother, Saakhorn, told us that in Thailand if you keep someone waiting on you for a long time they say that waiting for you is like waiting for the King. At our location, they had some Chinese performers dressed in traditional costumes. At one point the performers like up ready to greet the Princess and we thought that she mustn’t be too far away, then we waited for another hour. I think we waited for over two hours! Just before the Princess arrived, the security personnel came by several times to remind us of the rules: No Standing, No Photos, No Cell Phones, Be Quiet! The Princess’ arrival was heralded by a swarm of media with their cameras of all kinds. Then as she walked by we caught a glimpse here and there. With all the media, security and other onlookers, a glimpse was all we got. However, we’ve been told that we’ve seen more of the Princess than some Thai people. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience.

After the princess had gone, we walked around the area that had been meticulously decorated and got some pictures. The picture of Karl and I was taken near the location where we saw the Princess of Thailand! The purple flag that I am holding is the Princess’ flag. Purple is her color and there is a special emblem on the flag that is representative of her. Each member of the royal family has a special emblem. Karl is holding the flag of Thailand with “Long Live the King” written on it. If you are wondering why we are all wearing yellow shirts, it is because yellow is the King's color and this year is his 80th birthday and the anniversary of 60 years on the throne. The next picture shows the beautiful paper lanterns that were strung across the streets. After enjoying the decorations, we went to see Chinese acrobats. We have seen a small example of these incredible performers in Disneyworld, but this performance literally made our jaws drop! Due to the poor lighting and quick movements of the performers we weren’t able to get any pictures. So, just imagine kids that are able to bend themselves into shapes that would break a normal person’s bones. They would also balance various things on their heads, hands, feet, nose, chin … well you get the idea! They balanced things like bowls, balls, other performers, really tall flag poles, tables, large pots. I think anything that happened to be available! Some of the most amazing stunts were those done while the performers were dangling high above the stage. There was no safety net if something went wrong, but nothing did. What really impressed me was that most of the aerialist stunts were done while the performers were spinning in wide circles. It made me dizzy just to watch them!

Wednesday was our last day at Wangpikun and I spent much of the day helping some teachers set up blogs of their own! So you now have three more blog sites that you can check. Tangthailand.blogspot.com is the one that I helped Tang set up a few weeks ago and she has posted lots of pictures from the recent school trips. KhuYing.blogspot.com is the site for Ying who teaches the computer classes at Wangpikun. Since her experience is with C and windows based programming, she was excited about having a website. The last one I helped to set up was BoySportThailand.blogspot.com. This site is for Mr. Boy who also owns a shop that makes and sales sports clothes. At the end of the school day we went around and said good-bye to all the teachers then we went to stay at Mr. Boy’s house in Bueng Sam Phan.

Thursday morning our bus was scheduled to leave Bueng Sam Phan at 10:30 am so we had time to drive around and take some pictures. Here are a couple of the pictures Karl took from a temple that is on a mountainside just outside Bueng Sam Phan. Each time we drove from Wangpikun to Bueng Sam Phan and back Karl would say that he wanted a picture of this temple. Well, we got the picture but it’s good we didn’t wait any longer! One of the teachers, Pi Towee, who lives at the school and took very good care of us, drove from Wangpikun to see us off at the bus stop. She is always telling me that I should stay in Thailand with her and send Karl home to work and send us money! We took a bus from Bueng Sam Phan to Korat and then transferred to a bus that took us to Nang Rong.

We are staying at the P. California Inter Hostel which is where we stayed the last time we came to Nang Rong three years ago. The owner, Wick, speaks English and is very good about making sure his guests enjoy their stay. Wick also sponsors a volunteer program for teaching English in the schools around Nang Rong and most of his volunteers come from the European nations. Thursday evening we were invited to dinner with the director of a local community college. In Thailand, students at a community college range in age from 16 to 21.

Today, we went to a small school outside of Nang Rong to meet with the director of the school. This school is very small and includes Kindergarten, primary school and the first three grade of secondary school. They have all these grades in the same school because the families in this area are too poor to send their children into Nang Rong. After the students finish at this school they are only 15 years old and can finish school in Nang Rong if there parents have the money. Unfortunately, some families can’t even afford the 3 Baht per day for the bus fare to Nang Rong. 3 Baht is about 8 cents. We taught one of the classes for about an hour. In the pictures below, we are teaching the class the song “Ensy Weensy Spider”.




Also this afternoon we met up with some friends that we made last time we were here. We were happy to find that they remembered us and they were happy that we came by. I’m sure we will spend more time with them during our stay here!

This last picture I’m posting just because I think these kittens are cute. They were at a restaurant where we stopped for lunch one day. They were having quite a bit of fun wrestling each other and chasing each other through a pile of junk behind the restaurant.

Visiting the Market

Elizabeth and I have really enjoyed going to the market and talking with the ladies selling produce. I went to the market almost every day. They don’t see many foreigners and they were interested in learning about America. So, we showed them some pictures of our home and families. I gave the ladies prints of the pictures that I took of them. It was a lot of fun. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures.

- Karl

Full Recovery

It took a bit longer for my full recovery than we expected and we left Wangpikun only recently. I continued to rest last week with only occasional trips to the school to check email. Tuesday, February 13 we went to Aranya’s house for dinner and her aunt joined us. Aranya’s aunt gave me some advice about my cold that I really liked! Have a massage! Aranya’s aunt gave me a massage that night and returned the next morning to give me another one. On Valentine’s Day, the students were giving away “Luve” stickers and Karl and I ended up with a small collection. We had brought a box of children’s Valentine cards with us and would give them to the students that wanted one.

On Thursday, February 15 Karl went with some of the English teachers to a nearby primary school and taught a couple of classes. He really enjoyed himself and said the younger students were a lot of fun. Friday there were school elections and unlike American schools where you vote for each office, here they voted for a group of students who would fill all the offices. On Wednesday, the students who were running had given speeches. Since I don’t understand Thai, I can’t tell you what they promised if they were elected but I’m sure it was something like free ice cream in the cafeteria. So during the day Friday, the Wangpikun student body cast their votes and then assembled at the end of the day for the vote count. There were three groups, the “Best Girls”, “Freshy Teens” and “Power One”. The group “Best Girls” was actually a group of all girls. Each ballot was pulled out of the box and the selected group was read off. The students would clap and cheer for the group they supported each time the group got a vote. At first the clapping and cheering was pretty loud but as the count progressed through the 600+ ballots, the students weren’t as enthusiastic. The group that won the election was the “Freshy Teens” and they had about half boys and half girls. In fact, An was part of the “Freshy Teens” group. He is the student that stayed with us a few weeks back when the other teachers and students were at the scout camp. After the students left for the day, Karl got a lesson on riding a motorcycle from To. Karl has ridden a motorcycle before but it was years ago and a refresher course was a good idea. To said that Karl was a good student, but I still insisted that Karl have a bit more practice before I joined him on the motorcycle.

Saturday morning, Karl got to show off the results of his practice and he drove us to the Saturday market on the motorcycle. Since I really don’t like motorcycles and have a fear of falling off, the ride wasn’t particularly enjoyable. This has been the case regardless of who is driving the motorcycle; unfortunately for me motorcycles are the primary mode of transportation in Thailand. We saw many of our friends from the daily market here and stopped to chat with them as we looked for the few items we wanted to purchase. Karl got this picture of one of our friends, Karim, who is Muslim. For such a small town, Wangpikun is quite religiously diverse! After taking me to get another medicinal massage and then home to rest for the afternoon, Karl rode around on the motorcycle and explored areas of Wangpikun that he hadn’t been able to reach by foot. Here are some of the pictures that he took.




Sunday we went to church once more and got to say goodbye to our friends there. My arrival at church this week prompted the question that I had been hearing all week “hi lao?” Which literally translates as “lost already?” and it means “Is your cold gone?” In the evening, we went to Aranya’s grandparent’s farm a little ways outside of Wangpikun. These are her grandparents on her father’s side of the family. One of the ways they make money is by baking wood in earthen ovens called turtle ovens. In the picture below, I am standing between two turtle ovens at the farm. The baked wood is then used as charcoal in what amounts to a concrete bucket. The charcoal is placed in the top half of the bucket and started on fire. The bucket is constructed so that the ashes fall into the bottom half and there is an opening where they can be scoped out. When it’s hot enough, a wok, cooking pot or any type of pan is put on top of the bucket over the fire. Aranya’s grandmother made dinner for us using this unique stove. In the picture, she is stir-frying some vegetables in a wok. We also had steamed chicken which was cooked in a big double-boiler balanced on the stove. The farm was nice and quiet since they were so far away from anyone else. When it was time to go, we found that it was also very dark when you didn’t have many neighbors. However, they have a glorious view of the stars at their house!

Keeping Busy in Wangpikun

It’s been a while since my last post so this one is going to be a long one. I’ll try to keep it interesting so don’t let the length scare you off!

Our lesson for the last week of January was about Summer Vacation. In Thailand the school year is from July to February so in a few weeks the kids will have their summer vacation. For this lesson, we planned a race game where the students selected a piece of paper from a bowl. If the paper had something good on it like “You are going to the beach for a week’s vacation” or “You won first prize in an English speaking contest” the student’s team moved ahead the number of spaces indicated. Some of the papers had something bad like “You caught a cold while on vacation” and then the team moved back. We drew the game board on the chalk board as well as pictures that helped the kids understand what they were reading on the pieces of paper. I think “Your family is going to Egypt to see the pyramids” was by far the most difficult one. Sometimes the game was a real drama with teams pulling ahead only to fall back again and other times one team just flew to the finish line. It really was a hit with most of the classes. I did have some difficulty trying to explain the game to my 12 and 13 year old classes since they hadn’t yet learned enough English to understand what I was trying to have them do. So I modified the game a bit for that class and had Karl join me for a subsequent class with them. In the picture, I am helping a student read what is on the piece of paper that they drew from the bowl. The boy with the smile on his face is gloating that his team is going to move forward. The students would quickly check whether they were moving forward or back and how many spaces before reading anything else then share it with their team mates. The other teams figured out whether it was good or bad from the giggles or groans. This other picture is of the school as they go through their morning routine. Ever played “Where’s Waldo”? I’m in that picture somewhere!



This week was also very cold. Well, cold by Thailand and Florida standards anyway. I got a letter from my parents and they reported below freezing weather in Illinois so the cold weather we experienced here would be considered a heat wave in Illinois. Our problem was that we weren’t prepared for cool weather. We had brought jackets but only light ones because we knew the air conditioning on the airplane would chill us. We resorted to layering our clothes to keep warm. Fortunately, in the afternoon it would warm up and that is when we spent a lot of our free time with the students. I spent some time with students showing them how to set up Hotmail accounts, use Instant Messenger and get information on exchange student programs. In the picture, I am working with Kob and Tuk to get them an email address. Tuk invited me to play basketball with his class on Thursday, which I did. The students were much better at the game than I was! It was still fun and they didn’t seem to mind that I never could make a basket. Karl spent a lot of time taking pictures of students. He particularly liked taking pictures as they played a popular game which is a mix of soccer and volleyball called Takraw. They have a net like volleyball and a light weight plastic ball is hit back and forth over the net until one of the teams misses or sends the ball out of bounds. It is like soccer in that you can’t use your hands. The boys were pretty excited that Karl was taking pictures while they played and their kicks and jumps were probably all the more daring for it. The picture shows just how acrobatic these kids are! Karl also liked to just sit and talk with the students. One day when I joined him, some girls showed me how to make a special bow that has a coin woven inside. I’ve noticed that they are always making these and I understand that they are given as gifts. This last picture is of a bus as it departs the school. It is called a “Song Toow” which means two benches. It is given that name because there is a bench along each side of the truck bed for people to sit on. I think they should devise a different name for this bus. Something that means “stuff as many kids as possible inside, throw some of them on top and the rest can hang off the back”

Wednesday evening we were invited to Aranya’s house for dinner. It was a really nice evening. The food was excellent and we felt very welcome in their home. Even though we just met them, we feel as if we have been friends with them for a long time. On Thursday, we had dinner at a teacher’s house. Pi Duk lives very close to the school and is one of the few people to own an oven. The purpose of this dinner was to have pizza. We ran into a snag when it came to finding cheese. The Thai word for cheese directly translates as “hard butter” so when reviewing the recipe Tang thought we could substitute hard butter for cheese; an easy mistake if you aren’t familiar with cheese. Unfortunately, pizza just isn’t pizza without cheese. I did make some banana cake for the dinner and I had to be a bit creative with that recipe as well. It turned out well; it just didn’t taste the same as when I make it in the states. On Friday, we went to the market planning on buying some dinner and returning home to eat. While at the market, we met one of the students, Al, who invited us to her house. Her house is by a beautiful garden and lake that Karl had been to earlier in the week. When we arrived at her home we saw Pi Nuan who works in the school shop and is the student’s aunt. This night the whole family was gathering to honor 100 days since Pi Nuan’s mother passed away. In Buddhist tradition, this is done by inviting the monks to the house for a ceremony and giving offerings to the monks. After the monks finished their ceremony, we had dinner and then went to see the lake behind the house. It was very beautiful. The family had an ingenious fishing system set up where anytime you wanted fish you just lifted a net out of the lake and you had fish to eat. The first picture is of Pi Nuan (lady in a yellow shirt) and some of her family; Al is the girl in the yellow shirt. The second picture is of the fishing net with Al and her younger brother standing at the end of the pier.

Saturday was a busy day. In the morning, we went with some students to the Saturday market and then onto the “Cow Contest”. The “Cow Contest” is a fairly new event and it has only been held the last few years. It is similar to a county fair. Many people bring their best cattle in hopes that they will be judged the most beautiful. Some of the larger farms brought their prize bulls in hopes that they may find customers for … bull semen! These prize bulls were quite valuable even when you converted the baht to dollars. Their value is in their ability to produce prize-winning and delicious offspring! We didn’t get a good picture of Mr. Big Jo the grand champion because the lighting in his coral was pretty bad. When you’re the grand champion you get a coral in the shade! We did get this picture of some of this year’s contestants at the Wangpikun “Cow Contest”; some future contenders for Mr. Big Jo’s title. It seemed like the whole town was out for the “Cow Contest” and everyone wanted to be a cowboy. We saw a lot of people wearing brand-new cowboy hats purchased from one of the many vendors on the grounds. Some hats still had the sales tag dangling from the back! Here is the director of our school in his cowboy clothes.


Saturday evening was “Cowboy Night” and we were invited to go with Mr. Boy one of the English teachers. This was another multi-course meal with on-going entertainment. They had some singers and dancers performing popular Thai songs, a dance troupe of young girls in cowboy hats and boots and the Miss Cowboy contest. Just to ensure that this was truly a “Cowboy Night”; the band did play a few classic country songs but sang the words with a Thai accent. It was an enjoyable evening, though a bit chilly. In the picture are Mr. Boy on the left and Suwan next to me.

Saturday night, we stayed with Mr. Boy’s family in Bueng Sam Phan and Sunday morning Aranya’s family took us to church with them in Nongphai. On occasion several congregations will come together for communion and this Sunday was one of those occasions. After resting Sunday afternoon, there was a birthday party for Mr. Boy that evening and into the night. It was a lot of fun and they had this breaded and fried fish topped with a sweet and sour sauce that was really good! I only know some of the people in this picture. Mr. Boy is third from the left and his wife is the lady in an orange shirt standing next to me. (She is an excellent cook!). Pi Seewan, another English teacher, is the lady in dark blue standing in the back. Her husband is sitting in front of Karl with their daughter on his lap. Their son is sitting next to them. The little girl standing next to Karl is Mr. Boy’s oldest daughter. He has another daughter who must have already gone to bed by this time.

Monday, February 5th we were back at school and this week our lesson plan was about occupations. I ended up only teaching my first two classes on Monday because I had caught a cold! I stayed home on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, Karl and I gave away some uniforms that we had purchased for the needy students at the school. My family had provided the money to help out in any way it could. Thank you family! Since Wednesday was officially our last day of teaching, we were invited to have lunch with some of the students. We have had lunch with the students before and Tuk is always the student who organizes it. He likes the opportunity to practice his English. So in this picture, Karl is with Tuk, Kob and their fellow class mates after eating lunch.


Wednesday evening was a Goodbye and Birthday party. The teachers were saying goodbye to us and celebrating all the birthdays that had recently passed. So there was more good food and of course some Karaoke! Karl sang four songs but I only got through one and then I started coughing. With my cold my voice was lower than Karl’s!





Thursday, I was completely out of commission. This cold turned out to be a bad one and one day of rest wasn’t enough. I had completely lost my voice so it was good that we had finished our teaching assignment. While I was sleeping through the day, Karl was running errands for me. I’d lost my appetite so he was trying to find something that I liked and could eat. What I really wanted was ice cream but the other teachers insisted that eating ice cream and drinking cold water would make me more sick. They forbad Karl from bringing me any more ice cream. Fortunately, he found a way to bring me a little anyway. Karl also made arrangements for me to get a hot shower at Pi Seewan’s house. When I wasn’t significantly better on Friday, Karl made arrangement’s with Aranya’s mother to take me to the doctor. We had to go to the hospital in Bueng Sam Phan to get the medicine we needed. The hospital isn’t a place that anyone wants to go, but if you are a traveler in a foreign country it is the last place you want to be. Karl had to learn some new words in Thai in order to explain my medical history so that they didn’t give me anything that would make me sick. It did cheer me up to see a dog and a cat in the hospital waiting room. The hospital is their home and I’m sure you won’t see that in the states! We returned to our home with a variety of drugs to combat the symptoms of a common cold and the entire visit to the hospital only cost us about $12! Also on Thursday and Friday, we received several visits from students bringing small gifts and asking how I was feeling. Karl has been having some fun telling students that I have a “frog in my throat”. They are very confused and concerned until Karl explains that it is an American expression and don’t take it literally.

Saturday and Sunday, I spent my time in bed recuperating and Karl continued to try and make me more comfortable. All I can say is thank goodness for a good husband! I also have to be grateful for all the caring teachers who provided lots of advice, brought food and treats and always helped Karl find something I needed. On Sunday, Karl went to church with Aranya’s family. After church they had an auction to raise money for the church; they would like to get it painted. Karl bought a few things but when bidding on a bag of cookies he found some stiff competition. A young girl (about 3 years old) wanted those cookies and she topped Karl’s bid every time! Karl says that she bid on and won many items at that auction. This picture is of Aranya’s grandfather playing a Thai instrument called a Khaen.

I am feeling much better now and we will soon be leaving Wangpikun to continue our travels. The exact day of departure depends on my full recover. We also want to make sure that we are able to visit each of our new friends to say “goodbye” or better yet “see you again”! Over the last week, Karl got pictures with the students he taught. Click below to see the album of the pictures that turned out the best.

Wangpikun Students

Finally, here is a picture of a real Thai cowboy. No fancy hat, just what happens to be available at the local market for the best price. No plaid shirt required and in Thailand, shorts and flip flops are much more practical than jeans and cowboy boots.