Loy Kratong at Sukhothai - November 2010

Each year one of the nicest holidays of the year is called Loy Kratong. This year we decided to go to the place where - according to history - the festival was started. Click here to read more about the festival We spent 3 days visiting many temples but they were just the tip of the iceberg as there are probably 1000s of Wats (temples), but many are lost or in ruins. On our way there we visited our good friend Dwaila who has a nice resort near Phrae called Punjen Hideaway. See http://www.ruralthailand.com We had not visited for 3 years and she has made many improvements, including a beautiful swimming pool, and the gardens are more mature and beautiful. After a short visit we headed on to Sukhothai and just happened on to a boat race in a nearby town called Wang Chin. Apparently these races happen every year during Loy Kratong. Here is a video of the races: The Sukhothai kingdom (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรสุโขทัย (Pronunciation) was an early kingdom in the area around the city Sukhothai, in north central Thailand. The Kingdom existed from 1238 till 1438. The old capital, now 12 km outside of New Sukhothai in Tambon Mueang Kao, is in ruins and has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage historical park. In Sukhothai the Loy Kratong festival is a 3 day affair getting bigger and busier each day. They have Light and Sound shows, fireworks and other activities every night. There were ceremonies to make merit with the monks too. The approach roads, ponds and ruins are lighted with torches which makes the scene magical (at least until the crowds grow too large :-). There are many, many shops selling all kinds of clothes, handicrafts, demonstrations of traditional crafts, food, food and more food (this is Thailand after all). Their efforts to make this a memorable experience is impressive, and our only complaint was the competing sound systems that were ten times louder and closer than they needed to be! The ruins which are located in what is called Old Sukhothai are surrounded by double moats and there are lots of other ponds throughout the site. Loy Kratong means "float Kratong" and so the whole purpose is to create a kratong, decorate it with incense and candle, wish for forgiveness for the years' sins and float those sins away. Traditionally it was a simple affair where a banana stalk was cut to make a round disk and then it was decorated with various leaves, flowers, some money and other natural products. Of course with time comes change and now you see everything from the most basic banana stalk styles to some huge gaudy plastic enormous ones. Here are some photos from the trip: Here are some other photos ... Now a video of the parades. The last day (Sunday) had the biggest parade and it was HOT. We had to wait about 45 minutes in the HOT sun just to get a semi-decent location for watching. There are a lot of villages that participate in the parade and people from all those villages come to see the parade. Some of the older, more "mature" groups had the best dancing and music whereas the "fancy" ones seemed more contrived and created for the Kodak moment and the tourists. If it wasn't glitzy it was probably more genuine. I liked the music and drum playing the best.

Thurs Nov 18, 2010 morning walk

One of the things that we "try" to do is walk or ride our bikes each morning when the roads are quiet and it is cooler. Walking is the best way to see things and people. Today we started to do a walk around the moat which is about 4 miles making the walk closer to 5. Frequently we get side tracked and today was no exception. The first exception was to visit a wat we had not seen before to "check out" their bathrooms :-) Wat Ou Sai Kham is on the East side of the moat and off the main road. We saw a sign to "visit the jade Buddha temple" Like most Wats there is a mix of the old and the new. In fact the Jade Buddhas were from 2003 but there were other older gold Buddhas in the temple and some pretty stucco pictures on the outside. The following pictures will show them. Then hunger set in, which is not unusual on our walks. We were looking for eggs and toast but early in the morning the tourists don't seem to wake up so we had Bamee noodles and pork which was probably better anyway. From there we headed west across the inner city and decided to stop at Wat Chedi Luang the most important Wat in the city which was recently renovated. As we approached we heard the monks chanting it sounded great. (See attached video)

Here is the video: (turn up the sound to enjoy the chanting )


Here are some Photos:

Visit to villages in the north, a school makeover and sunflowers

It has been a busy time! Last week we went up north to help fix up a school and visit our other projects. We had visited this village earlier in the year to see if they were using the biosand filter that was installed by HiHopes and as a result met the teacher and saw that the school was in pretty bad shape. So when Rita asked Annie where we could use a budget of about $ 1000 she immediately thought of this school. With the $1000 we were able to cover the concrete floors with linoleum, buy cupboards and shelves for storage, books, medicines, cups and toothbrushes for the children as well as kitchen utensils, and a desk for the teacher. We will return with a stove and warm jackets for the children, about 40 total. The teacher is very dedicated and both the teacher and the students were VERY appreciative. We worked most of the day on Thurs and then visited other villages on Friday - driving back Friday night.



On Sunday we decided to go the sunflower festival west of Chiang Mai. Ya one of the staff had gone home for the weekend so we planned to pick her up since her village is on the way and then drive on to the festival. None of us really looked at the map or the distance or we would probably not have gone! On the other hand we got the opportunity to meet a student that Bev and I sponsor and had never met in Mae Sariang. We stopped by her house and met her grandother and heard the sad news that her mother was at the hospital, near death because of AIDs. I asked her if she wanted to go to see the flowers and her face lighted up and she said "sure". What she didn't realize was that there were a bazillion curves between her home and the festival and she was going to get pretty car sick.



On our return trip we visited her mother who looked very frail and weak and was on a "drip" and oxygen. A sad ending to a fun trip but I think it was good for her mother to see that we would support her daughter's education.

Visiting Sriphat - a very different Thai experience

As many of you know we lived in Thailand in the 70's and both of our children were born in Bangkok. For the last four years we have been escaping New England winters and volunteering at Kids Ark Foundation, enjoying Thai food and many interesting experiences with the Red Lahu ethnic minority etc. After living here all those years and returning for the 4th time we are feeling more and more at home. Still there are times when we find ourselves outside our "comfort zone" and last week was one "learning experience" for me (Tom).

A couple of weeks before leaving the US I was having a hard time sleeping through the night, frequently waking up with a lot of indigestion that would persist for several hours preventing me from sleeping and getting a good nights sleep. I had been seeing a great naturopathic doctor who was trying to help me with the symptoms but we decided that maybe it was time to visit a GI doctor. The naturopathic principles and treatments really make sense to me and I will certainly use that approach when at all possible but it now seemed time for a look inside and that was outside the scope of her expertise. I was told it would be a month before I could get an appointment so I decided that I would visit a GI doctor in Chiang Mai.

So if you don't want to read about my colonoscopy now is a good time to stop reading!

One of our friends who lives here has Crohns disease and he gave me the name of a contact to find a doctor to consult. We had arrived on Monday and once we were finally settled I called Sriphat Medical Center on Thursday morning to see a GI doctor. I was told to come to the 13th floor at 6pm that day to see Professor (Ajan) Piset. Sriphat is part of the Chiang Mai University medical school. Bev and I walked to the center which was only 30 minutes away. I registered and went into a big waiting room with maybe 50 people sitting in rows of seats outside a series of maybe 8 numbered rooms where apparently each doctor saw patients. Each patient is given a colored numbered card and I was assigned green number 15. Each doctor had a color and we saw that Ajahn Piset was seeing number 1 so we prepared for a long wait. Considering I had just called that morning it didn't seem unreasonable to wait, compared to a month in the States! The nurse took my blood pressure with an automated pressure machine and my weight with a broken scale because it said I was too heavy :-) and told me to wait. However, within a few minutes my number was called, almost on the dot of 6:00 PM. I calculated that Ajahn Piset must have been at least in his late 40's, though he looked like he was in his 20's, who had studied in Boston. He asked me questions about my symptoms and had me lie down on his exam table and did some serious pressing on my stomach where there were all kinds of sore places. At this point he suggested I have an Xray.

So I was told to wait and then called to prepay for the Xray and reading - cost $21 Then off to the 4th floor escorted by a nurse to an empty waiting room and right into the Xray room. Remember it was now about 6:30 pm so I suspect that room is not empty during the day! The Xray equipment was an older vintage but everything was clean and they took a standing and reclining film, and I returned to the 13th floor. In about 20 minutes I was called back into the exam room and Ajahn Piset showed me the Xrays on a big LCD screen and pointed to (according to him - to me it was a snow storm at night) intestines quite full of gas - hence my discomfort. At this point he suggested a closer look which meant a colonoscopy which I had had 5 or so years ago. He also suggested an endoscopy since we were "looking" so that we would have covered both ends of the "system". They took a blood sample and sent me home with the drugs needed to clean out my system. If you have never had a colonoscopy you can rest assured that it is not big deal BUT the preparation the night before, while not terribly painful, is no fun. It basically consisted self inflicted diarrhea by drinking some chemicals that left me sitting on the toilet from 11pm to 2am and from 7am to 9:30am just in time for my 10am appointment on Friday. So now it has been a little over 24 hours and we are back on the 13th floor waiting room where I am handed a hospital plastic bag, a shirt and a sarong and told to go to the mens' room and change. Luckily I have learned to tie a sarong as I had to walk back though the length of the waiting room full of people to a wheel chair. At this point they started a saline drip and rolled me down into the elevator to the OR on the 2nd floor.

I was then wheeled into a special sterile area while Bev waited outside. Then I was transferred to a gurney and wheeled to the OR. They hooked me up to pulse sensor on a finger and an automatic blood pressure cuff that took my pressure every few minutes. After 10-15 minutes they told me that Ajahn Piset would be late due to an emergency so they "unhooked" me and I was rolled out of the OR to wait my turn. After sometime the doctor appeared and we headed back to the OR. He then asked me if I wanted sedation and how much, and I took the slightly stoned option (my description). From there I have some recollection of things being poked into both ends of the intestinal tract but no pain really. Not my idea of fun but I just wanted the procedure to be over so I could go to eat! I had not eaten from about 4:00PM the previous night as Bev and I had planned to have dinner after my appointment. Even worse I overheard the nurse ordering a fantastic lunch while I was waiting.

Once the procedure was over I was taken to a recovery room where I practiced my Thai and learned that the Thai word for colonoscopy is "colono" and endoscopy is "endo" :-). After about an hour they rolled me out of the sterile area and I felt good enough to walk to the accounts dept and the pharmacy for my follow-up medications, and most importantly to EAT LUNCH! However, the nurse would have none of it, and insisted that I be wheeled down to pay my bill. One consequence of the "colono" and "endo" is they pump your system with air so it takes a while for it all to escape! The doctor had reported to Bev that things looked very good though he did take a small sample for a biopsy but didn't expect anything from it. Conclusion: a long term bad case of constipation! and a slew of meds (6) to take for a week. Everyone was very nice, total cost for everything was about $800. More importantly was the quality of care which was great. While the hospital didn't look so fancy as what we are used to in the US the care was professional. Now we will see if the insurance company will apply it to my deductible. The doctor had me call him the night he did the procedure, the following day, and now I have a follow up appointment next week.

So I had the best sleep I have had in a long time and hope to not visit Sriphat soon again!