The Whirlwind Tour

Thursday Suleeporn and her friend To took us around to a number of sites. We saw so many things in one day, it really felt like a whirlwind tour! First was a temple where Suleeporn went to school and she showed us the shrine of a monk who was very kind to her as a child. While we were at this temple, an ordination ceremony was being held for a monk. We arrived at the part where everyone makes a procession around the temple. At the front of the procession was a small brass band playing music that reminded me of Mardi Gras style music. They were joined by some girls dancing and Suleeporn said they dance to help send the monk to heaven. After circling the temple a few times, the soon-to-be monk threw one-baht coins wrapped in colorful tissue paper into the crowd and then went into the temple. We returned to the monk’s shrine where Karl coaxed some novice monks into getting their picture taken. Actually, they enjoyed it as much as Karl did. They would put on serious expressions when Karl was taking the pictures and then break into smiles when he turned the camera to show them the results.

Our next stop was the city of Samut Songkhram. The resort is actually located in a smaller town in Samut Songkhram Province. We had come to see the MaeKlong train station but we first stopped at temple famous for its very old Buddha. At the temple, there are two elephant figurines about a foot tall each with handles on their backs. Suleeporn explained that if you ask an elephant a yes/no question and you can’t lift the elephant with your little finger than the answer is no. Suleeporn got Karl to give it a try just for fun. We then headed to the MaeKlong train station which services a single route; a shuttle service with two passenger cars between Samut Songkhram and neighboring province Samut Sakon. Along the train tracks is a market that literally covers the tracks. Each day, the train leaves Samut Songkhram in the morning and returns just before noon. It leaves again just after lunch and returns around 5:00 pm. So, four times a day the vendors along the railroad tracks pull everything back away from the tracks to let the train pass. They have less than 5 minutes to do it so we had to come and see this for ourselves. When there is no train the market feels crowded and dark. The only place to walk is on the tracks. The umbrellas and awnings keep the sun out but also keep the air from circulating so it is stuffy and a bit stinky with all the fresh seafood. As soon as the bell for the train sounds, people move quickly to roll back trays on wheels and move baskets holding their products. Then the umbrellas and awnings are folded up and out of the way. Trays of vegetables and fruits that are flat enough are just left next to the tracks. It all happens very quickly and suddenly the alley is bright with sunlight. Because it is not very long, the train goes by swiftly. As soon as it passes the vendors are pulling everything back out and the alley returns to the cramped market it was before. Peeking out from our little cubby-hole along the side, Karl snapped a picture of the train as it came and went. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes and it is really an amusing sight!

Jeap one of the ladies from the resort had come with us, but was feeling tired so she took a bus back to the resort. We know Jeap from our last visit and she is expecting her second child in August. A good month to be born as far as I’m concerned! We had been sight-seeing for almost four hours so it was no wonder Jeap was tired. Suleeporn’s friend To who was graciously driving us around for the day owns a prawn farm and a fruit grove with many different types of fruit trees. He invited us back to his house for Pad Thai made with king prawn from his very own farm. As someone who really likes shrimp this was a nice treat! The shrimp were huge and delicious. It was the best Pad Thai that I’ve had. After lunch, To took us to the prawn fields and let us take a look around. As I mentioned earlier in this post, right after lunch very few people are out and about so there weren’t any workers to photograph. We saw one person who was catching shrimp in the small canal that supplied the shrimp farms with water from the ocean. Suleeporn explained that sometimes the shrimp escape the farm and live in the canals.

Out in the midst of the prawn fields is a small mountain. The people of Samut Songkhram are very proud of their mountain because it is the only one that they have. To joked that it was just a baby mountain as it was only about three-stories high. There was a temple on top so we hiked up the stairs and went to see the temple. In addition to a Buddha inside they also had a Buddha footprint. On the way back down we caught sight of two members of a monkey troop. They kept their distance and we kept ours.

We made what may be our only trip to the ocean to a mud beach that is well known for razor clams. At least that is what we think they are called in English. During low tide, you can walk out and easily dig the clams out of the mud. It was nearing high tide when we arrived so we just admired the ocean and strolled along the vendor shacks. There wasn’t room for the shacks on the sidewalk so they are built out over the sloping sea wall. A scaffold like structure supports the back of the shacks to keep them level with the sidewalk. The first picture is looking out over the Gulf of Thailand and the second shows what the razor clams look like. This little girl liked to play with the clams.

We stopped at one more temple which was unique in that all the interior decorations were done with inlaid mother-of-pearl. The workmanship is very impressive and Suleeporn said that they have been working on the temple for five years and some work still remained to be done.

Our final stop of the day was To’s fruit orchard. To had been teaching Karl some Thai slang through-out the day and they were having a lot of fun with it. The phrase “bawd hag” literally means “burst lung” and it is slang for being very afraid. It comes from the idea that when you are afraid you breathe so hard that you could burst a lung. To said that when riding a motorcycle I am “bawd hag” and I thought that was a very appropriate description for how I felt. The other slang phrase that To taught us was “yut yut” (the “t” is almost silent). This means “very much” and through out the day Karl and To found creative ways to use the phrase. As we followed To through the grove he would call back to us “gin lynchee yut yut” (gin means eat). We did as instructed; picking and eating lynchees as we went along. As we came back out of the grove, To explained his very amusing way for keeping people from stealing his lynchees. Unfortunately, we were sworn to secrecy so I can’t write about it. It really worked! You can see in the picture that the trees overhang the road and yet the lynchees are still on the tree. However, To had lost quite a few lynchees to us. We ate so many that we didn’t want dinner and To picked a bunch for us to eat later.

By the time we got back to the resort it was after 5:00 pm and we were all very tired. It had been a really fun day. Here is a picture of the four of us back at the resort.



Friday we needed a rest. Karl did take some time riding around on our rented motorcycle but I was happy staying in the air conditioning, watching Thai soap operas and getting pictures ready for the blog. I don’t understand anything they say on the Thai soap operas but I find them funnier that way. Friday evening we were invited to dinner with May, Mod and their father Patarapong. Also at dinner was a friend of May’s, Tor who recently graduated from college in Computer Engineering. Tor is very bright; a few years ago he won first place for Thailand in a programming contest sponsored by Microsoft. Dinner was full of good conversation and really good food. We had some grilled king prawn that were huge and very tasty. They had been caught in the river right at the resort. We had several other Thai dishes that we enjoyed but we especially liked the Tom Yum Kun which is a spicy sour soup with vegetables and shrimp. It is a favorite of the Thai people as well and we’ve had Tom Yum Kun before. At Banthip Suanthong it is particularly flavorful. In the picture from left to right, Tor is sitting next to me then May, Mod and Patarapong.

Over the last few days we got some pictures of our friends here at Banthip Suanthong. In the first picture on the left are Suleeporn, Aui, Yong and Jeap (left to right). The next picture on the right shows some of the folks that worked at the resort restaurant. They are Lek, Bo and Dang. We met Dang during our visit three years ago and Bo was kind enough to rent us her motorcycle. The bottom left picture is Somjate and Somsakun who were both very nice to us. Somsakun, the lady on my left, would leave flowers for us at our room and her husband Somjate took us to the bus station on Saturday. The last picture on the bottom right I am with Pacharee who is the owner of the resort and May and Mod’s mother. We really enjoyed our stay at Banthip Suanthong and that is thanks to the friendly people here!

In addition to the human friends we have at the resort, we also made a feline friend. This chocolate calico cat liked to come into our room and play “catch the string” or get scratched under the chin. I’m sure Ernie would be very jealous if he knew that we were giving attention to another cat but fortunately he can’t read!

Saturday we headed to Ayuthaya with a bag of Lynchees in hand (a gift from Suleeporn). Happily it wasn’t a long trip. We took a shared van to Bangkok and caught another one to Ayuthaya. The whole trip took about 3 hours. Here in Ayuthaya we are planning to see some of the historical sites before we go back to Wangpikun for the Songkran festival.

I’ve put more pictures from Samut Songkhram in our online photo album at: Samut Songkhram I’ve also gotten some time to reduce the file size of some additional pictures from Cambodia and Laos and uploaded them. Enjoy the pictures!

It’s Lynchee Season

Samut Songkhram Province is a great place to be for lynchee season. There are groves of Lynchee trees everywhere including on the grounds of the resort where we are staying. Needless to say we’ve enjoyed eating lynchees every opportunity we get. On Saturday, Karl had arranged to rent a motorcycle and spent most of the day riding around the area looking for photo opportunities. He returned with a bag of Lynchees and the announcement that Lynchee season had just begun!

That evening we went to a night floating market in a nearby town. Samut Songkhram is a favorite weekend destination for people escaping Bangkok’s heat and the streets were really busy. At the market there was actually more vendors on the streets than in the canal but tourists still crowded the foot bridge that spanned the canal to take pictures of the boats. There were also a lot of boats taking people on tours of the surrounding area and promised firefly sightings. I suppose fireflies are a novelty here, when we lived in Virginia we had them in our backyard every summer evening. Because the area was so crowded we were happy to find a restaurant that offered an upstairs balcony where we could eat. At the restaurant we met a group visiting from Bangkok and they shared with us their perspective of the Iraq War. They felt that it had precipitated some of the increased violence in southern Thailand and they were very adamant for us not to travel there. We assured them that we had no plans to do so. They were concerned about what would happen as a result of the recent detention of British marines by Iran. I found the conversation interesting because they were so aware of American politics. In America we don’t really hear much about other countries unless it has some bearing on American interests and then it may only be a five minute blurb in the newscast. I don’t think that before this trip I truly understood the impact America has on other countries; politically, economically and culturally. I think it is a responsibility which we should take seriously because the actions of our country can either help or hurt people around the world.

Thailand has three seasons: the cool season, the hot season and the rainy season. We are officially in the hot season. The Thai people deal with the heat in the same way that we did while we were in Cambodia. Just after lunch the streets are very quiet as everyone who can is inside where it is cool or in the shade taking a nap. We are also scheduling our activities for the morning and evening and staying in during the middle of the day. So, Sunday morning I bravely agreed to join Karl on his motorcycle tour although I’m not exactly sure why because the ride to the floating market the night before had been nerve-racking with all the traffic. Karl kept his speed down and we checked out a few of the temples along the Mae-Klong River. We stopped for some time at Wat Bang Kung which was an army camp in the 1700s and then restored in the 1960s as a Boy Scout Camp. Now it’s a tourist attraction with dozens of life-size replicas of Thai warriors. The most interesting part of the temple is a sanctuary that is almost completely engulfed in trees. Only the back wall remains mostly free of the tree roots and branches. On the upper part of the back wall you can see the faded remnants of the carved stucco embellishment. Many of the windows are framed by or partially obscured by the trees which provided for some interesting picture taking opportunities. The doorway to the sanctuary was kept free from tree branches but was filled with tourists going in and out; paying their respects to the Buddha inside.



My courage has its limits and Sunday afternoon I opted for the comfort of the air-conditioned internet café while Karl rode around town. I wasn’t there very long when Karl returned because he had made arrangements for us to take a boat ride through the canals. As Karl usually does, he had made friends with Mali the boat’s owner and got a reasonable rate for an hour ride. The evening turned out to be a good time because many people were out enjoying the day as it cooled down. There were a lot of kids in the water and I’m sure this was supposed to be their evening bath. There was so much laughing and playing that it didn’t really seem like a bath at all! As we rode along we got calls of “Hello” from adults and children alike, to which we happily responded. We also saw a lot of boats starting their shrimp fishing for the night. The shrimp boat was identified by the plastic basket (usually blue) that allowed water in but didn’t let the captured shrimp out. A long bamboo pole that was much longer than the boat was also an indicator of a shrimp boat. The pole was used as an anchor by jabbing it into the river bottom and holding onto it while they fished.

Monday morning I spent some time sharing some western recipes with May and his sister Mod. Their family owns and operates Banthip Suanthong Resort and we met them at a party for Mod on the evening that we arrived. Their father invited us and proudly announced that Mod had recently received a scholarship from the Thai government to go to college in England. Both May and Mod like cooking and were interested in the recipes that I had brought along on my computer. May would like to become a chef and help carry-on the family business. He particularly likes cooking Italian pasta dishes but laments that good Italian cheese is very expensive in Thailand. Both May and Mod speak English very well and since Karl wasn’t needed as a translator he was off taking pictures. The heat eventually forced Karl to return and he shared a few photography tips with May.

We didn’t venture out until later in the afternoon when it was time for us to take another boat ride. We’d liked the ride Sunday evening so much that we had scheduled to go out again. This time we were joined by Mali’s dog Nam-dahn, which means sugar. She is a very smart dog and had been trained to carry a little cooler onto the boat. Nam-dahn seemed to enjoy sitting at the front of the boat and sometimes Karl had to tell her to “come here” (in Thai) so that she was out of the way when he wanted to take a picture. Occasionally, dogs on shore would see Nam-dahn and run out barking, safely on the boat Nam-dahn didn’t even seem to notice them. We were also joined by a lady who owns a home stay and wanted to practice her English with me. I took the opportunity to ask her the names of the flowers that I saw growing along the shore. She didn’t know the English name of my favorite one, which I was later told is called Bird of Paradise. She did tell me that it represents the god that brings the rains and ensures a good crop. While we were exploring some of the smaller canals, Karl spotted a huge lizard swimming to shore. We caught a glimpse of it as it crawled out of the water into the brush and we think it was a monitor lizard. We were pretty excited to see some wildlife!

When we returned to Mali’s house, we spent some time chatting with folks that lived on that part of the canal. We learned that one of the gentlemen was the math teacher at the village school. He was very interested in the fact that we had been teaching English in Thailand. He offered to let us stay at his house if we’d come back next year and teach at his school. I’m sure that if it weren’t the summer break, he would have had us teaching the very next day!

We started our day early on Tuesday and gave food to the monks. The alms giving is similar to what it was in Luang Prabang only here the monks come one by one in small boats. After you give each monk the food you have prepared, the monk will offer a prayer for you. There are only three monks who come by the resort opposed to the 300 in Luang Prabang. Karl got this picture of one of the monks as he approached. The little boats are just big enough to accommodate the monk and a few dishes for the food they receive.

After a quick breakfast we met up with our friendly math teacher who had agreed to take us to the salt fields. Karl wanted to get some interesting pictures of the people who worked in the salt fields. I thought it was interesting the extent that some of the women would go to protect their skin from the sun. They were completely covered including their face! All I could think when I saw them was how hot they must be. As we went around to the different salt fields, we got to see each step of the salt production process. First, you have to fill up shallow ponds with salt water. Then you let the water evaporate and the salt collects on the bottom of the pond. Next you scrape the salt off the bottom and pile it into little salt pyramids. The little salt pyramids are scooped up and carried closer to the road where a big salt pyramid is made. Finally, you hire a truck to come and pick up the salt, which is loaded onto the truck using baskets. At some of the salt fields, they had stands set up where you could buy all bags of salt in varying sizes. I’m not sure what someone would do with a 20 pound bag of rock salt but it is available if you want to buy it. You can also buy little souvenir packets of salt. They were a tempting purchase but I refrained!

We actually didn’t do much the rest of the day and by Wednesday morning Karl was anxious to get out and take some pictures. Fortunately for him, it was the second occurrence of the Tha Kha floating market. The schedule for this market is based on the lunar cycle so you have to plan your visits accordingly. Karl opted to take the motorcycle this time because renting the long tail boat is more expensive. I was an reluctant participant but I thought I was doing pretty well when I could find the humor in the misspelled street sign “Charp Curve” instead of worrying about the results of rounding the curve too quickly on a motorcycle. I followed Karl around for the first couple of hours as he talked to the vendors and occasionally bought something as a way of getting permission for a photograph. Since I usually ended up carrying the purchases because Karl needed his hands free, I finally decided to find a place to sit and wait for him to finish. It wasn’t such a bad setup. Karl had bought lynches and some Thai sweets so I was quite happy sitting and munching. Occasionally, Karl would bring by some more goodies that he had purchased. The lady who sold the Thai sweets actually remembers us from our visit three years ago. I sat next to where she had tied her boat off so she and Karl talked each time he stopped by. We finally left around noon and most of the vendors had left as well. By then I think I’d had my fill of Thai junk food. The first picture is the lady who sold us the lynchees and the second picture is our friend from three years ago who makes really good Thai sweets. This last one is another lady at the market and I just liked the picture.

On the way back home we ended up going the wrong direction and got lost. In getting lost it seemed we went around a lot of “charp” curves and I didn’t find them so humorous. Karl said it was because I was carrying a bag of lynchees from the market. Whatever the reason, I was glad when we finally figured out where we were and got back to familiar territory. We did see another monitor lizard and Karl was able to get a picture of this one!