Thai Food Cooking Lessons » Thai culture

Happy Songkran 2552

Jules — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:06:17 +0000

Here we are again but you can’t actually see us this time, with just a bit of fun revolving loosely around Thai culture.

In case you didn’t know…. Songkran (Thai New Year) was last week and unfortunately we were unable to make a video this year but if you want to know what it is all about take a look at this post SonKran 2551 it really is a great fun video of our last years Songkran. We were a little tipsy, she was anyway!!

The weeks leading up to Songkran were marred by civil unrest which made the main news all around the world. It did no good for tourism in Thailand as foreign nationals were advised not to come to Thailand.

Basically, it started last year some time before Christmas the “Yellow Shirts” as they were know, closed the Main Bangkok airport you may remember (amongst other things), in an effort to oust the PM. It worked and a new one was installed.

The “Red Shirts” who had been surprisingly quiet then get angry over the new PM and the way he was chosen so they start protesting to get him ousted and just before Songkran disrupted the SE Asia Summit Political event.

Well I have photographic evidence that Thai Politics are now on a cordial and even Keel …

On to more serious matters:

Following my recent TickerTack and subsequent recuperation we did a little travelling with some friends from the UK.

Anyway we won’t bore you with the holiday snaps. “Whew!” I can hear you sigh!

It’s just not our style is it? ……

We’re going to bore you with our holiday videos instead!!

In Nakhon Ratchasima where we live; The King of Thailand keeps (just a few) race horses, we thought you might like to see them in the bath!

Sorry we couldn’t film the Horses racing but we did manage to get some rare footage below

Thailands Racing Pigs

Truth is stranger than fiction and to prove it look what we saw at the zoo. Edited highlights including Thailand’s famous “Racing Pigs” ~ “Feeding Tigers with Piglets” and the “Elephants Day Off”!

Have fun in Your Kitchen

Warmest Regards

Jules and the voice that must be obeyed!

Comments and questions below please

Thailands Sky Face

Jules — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:30:17 +0000

Most of Thailand was treated to a stunning night sky last night (Dec 1st 2008) there were only two stars visible in the night sky plus a crescent moon making a smiley face

It was such an odd occurrence that it made national news headlines and on every TV channel. Experts say it will be visible again in 3 years. Curious!…. as Khwanjai says she never saw or heard of it before we spotted it last night. When it was first visible the right eye was much more feint then the left but over 30 minutes it caught up as you can see in the photos

See? It really is the land of smile.

However, there are a naturally few mystic types proffering other many weird and wonderful explanations for the occurrence most of them based on superstition and myth. Personally I’m just glad we saw it because it made us smile.

We hope you do too!!

Below are some photos I took last night. The last two even show the dark section of the moon. Taken with hand held camera.

Click to enlarge them

Happy SongKran 2551

Jules — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:33:05 +0000

Happy SongKran to you from Jules and Khwanjai, Thailand!

If you’ve never heard about SongKran before it’s the name of the Thai new year celebrations. If you want to go anywhere in Thailand during SongKran be prepared to get wet and covered in powder!

It’s all very good natured and kicks off most days mid to late morning until it goes dark, I say most days because SongKran isn’t just a new years day thing, it lasts for anything from 3 -7 days depending on which town you are in, some start on one day and others on another, so the watery part is not about one specific day

The traditional aspects of SongKran are ones of cleansing and renewal (hence the water) and folks will clean their houses and their household shrines, cleaning the images of Buddah etc. before performing a lovely family ritual of respect.

The elders of the family will sit down (me included) while the youngsters of the family come and pour water over your hands and wish you good luck fortune in the coming year, tell yo they love you etc. and you then reciprocate by pouring the water from your hands back onto them offering similar sentiments and advice for the youngsters.

Next comes the powder which is often just talcum powder, it is mixed with water to form a paste and they smear your face as you do the same, but with two men, one does powder as the other pours water over the shoulder to each other saying something along the lines of “Good Luck for You” That’s how we do it and of course it varies from family to family as it does from town to town.

After that we loaded up the Pick-up with 2 barrels of water and about 8 youngsters on the back, Khwanjai and her Mama inside the car and with that, drove slowly into town, only stopping to buy some huge blocks of ice for the water. Having drained the two barrels within and hour we headed home for some roadside fun. Had a few beers and made some new friends, as in the video.

I am amazed that even the youngsters respect those who are plying their trade, selling food etc. (remember they sell food from motorbikes) so not everyone gets a soaking. Also as we walked from one spot to another folks who soaked us also gave us water to do it back to them, one chap had some icy cold water and filled my pail as we left, the next young lady 20yds further down got a shock as she gently poured water over my shoulder and I did the same for her, you should have seen her face! Her family were howling that a passing Falang (foreigner) should have Ice water for their daughter.

As I just mentioned, it is all very good natured; so good natured that I can’t help thinking if we tried in the west, it would become competitive, factions would form and the whole thing would turn into a water fight, in some of the touristy towns, this is starting to happen, influenced by high numbers of Falangs I guess, inventing water bazookas etc. but the police in those towns do keep a close eye on such things and the bazookas of last year have been banned.

Final word, a very happy new year from Thailand and let us know if you enjoyed this and would like to see more posts about Thai culture in the comments box below

Warmest regards

Jules & Khwanjai