Living and Laughing in the ‘Bodia!

The rocket festival is a uniquely-Thai celebration. It takes place annually over 2 days in May in a region called Yasothon in Isaan – the northeast of Thailand. This is an ancient tradition where rockets are fired into the sky as offerings to the gods in hope that there will be plenty of rain during the coming rice planting season. Nowadays, there is also a competition between neighboring villages as to who can build the rocket that stays in the air the longest and the festival is also associated with a lot of fun!

The rockets are fired into the sky from a wooden structure that acts as a launch pad. The rockets themselves are huge - it takes 5 or 6 men to carry one and secure it. The thrill and excitement you feel watching them fire into the sky is worth the journey alone! If any rocket fails to ignite then the team who built it is carried to the nearest mud pool and thrown in as ‘punishment’, but it’s all in good spirits.

There’s also a parade dancing competition and each village enters as a team. Each team performs a dance to the sound of their village musical band and around 50 dancers from 3 generations take part so everyone in the community is involved. The dancers follow a route and make 4 to 5 stops along the way to perform the dance to a different set of judges. At the final stop the band join in the dancing and everyone goes a little crazy – including the crowd! It’s great fun to watch and listen and be a part of the festival. If you’re ever in Thailand around this time then I’d recommend you make the trip.

Hope you enjoy the photos and videos!

Jeab.

Guide Training! Bangkok 2008

This review is not perfect,  because there is no way I can describe how much I enjoyed this year’s guide training! The only way it would be better is if next year we could all travel to Cambodia or somewhere else (hint hint !!)

How lucky I amto be able to work independently here in Bangkok! I wish Andrea could come visit more often (how many people say they want there boss to visit more? – no one else – just me!)

I had a chance to talk to each of our guides and here is what they had to say when I asked them to attend guide training:

Guide Kie says : Training again? I will come for training, but can I please skip the dinner cruise? That way I don’t feel like I’m working ;) I always try to give our guests the very best service.

Guide Ron says : Yes, confirmed – I will be there. (Guide Ron never refuses work…he always there for us.)

Guide Bee says : Yes, I’ll be there. But how about this year we have the training in Cambodia? J

Guide Well says : I am so happy to see Andrea, I miss her so much. (Guide Well’s baby is just 8 weeks old now, so she will stay with her baby most of the time, but she will come by for some of the training)

 Jeab : I had a dream that Andrea was a scary boss! Now I’m scared to go to training!

Finally, I received everyone’s response and everyone is confirmed for training. The training went really well. We learned new things and even got gifts, and some guides received special “Quality Service” awards.

After training it was time for the party J Jeab and I took the guides and the rest of the Journeys Within team who joined in on the training (Kristina, Narla, Mom and Reat) out to a fun Bangkok dance club. Meeting these other team members I felt like I met my new brother and sister.

After all was done I said “Bye.” to my little bosses Callie and Couper. Hope to see you all next year.

Waew.

Here are some photos from Song kran festival. At first we weren’t planning on playing in the water, but two of our friends were visiting and have never gone to a Song kran festival so we made sure to do our best to make our friends enjoy Thailand more… so into the water we went! Joel said “I’ve never been so wet like this…all my life” You can see the photos before and after and see just how wet we got! Every time when someone would throw the water at him, Joel would scream…very loud…which only made it more enjoyable/tempting for people to throw more water…and so we got even more wet! We tried to stay away from him :) but he kept running to us to stay close to the group. Anyways, we really had a good time and I enjoyed this weekend very much. I love Song kran festival. Everyone there is very happy and you are surrounded by smiling faces…

see you next year!!

Waew. 

Samed Trip : 29-30  Mar’08

When I first heard about this trip from my friend Joel…I said NO thanks…because at that time I was at Rawai beach in the south of Thailand on vacation. But when I heard my friend P’Tang (Martin) was coming and all my salsa friends were going too, my decision changed. I think it’s not the place that is important but who we are going with!!

Koh Samed is not too far from Bangkok—just 3 hrs drive.  We took a van from Victory Monument (in front of Pong Lee building) and then took a ferry for about 35 minutes to get to Koh Samed…then we hopped on a small open-air bus just 10 minutes to get to our Bungalow. The room was fine but there was no toilet in the room…but the food was great!!! The services were more than fair for the price we paid, you could not find a place for so inexpensive with such high quality in the world!!!  Actually we did not expect to get such good service.

But I haven’t mentioned the most important thing—the BEACH was more beautiful than I thought…(as you can see the pictures).   We had a great time! It was fun playing volleyball on the beach, but my skin turned dark from the sun :( …we are Thai we love to be white :)

I would go there again…

posted by Waew (April 12, 2008)

One of the things I like most about living in Thailand…is eating!  We are very lucky here that there is a great variety of exotic fruit and vegetables that we can make into so many different dishes.  One of my favorites is Papaya Salad, which we call Somtum. Its basic ingredients are shredded papaya (obviously), green beans, tomatoes, sugar, fish sauce and lots and lots of chilies, which are then pounded together using a pestle and mortar.  Somtum is the most famous food from Isaan, which is the Northeastern part of Thailand, but I think that most Thai people have a special place for it in their hearts…and the spicier the better! 

If you hear a Thai person say ‘aroi mak mak’ then it means delicious, and for a true taste of Thailand I would recommend that you try if yourself from the many inexpensive roadside food stalls that line the streets, especially in Bangkok.  I like Somtum so much I made it myself at home this weekend with rice noodles (called Somtum Sua), and as you can see from the photos you also get good exercise while mixing it together!  Enjoy!

posted by Jeab (April 14, 2008)