Long Weekend in Thailand

Friday was Asahna Bucha Day and Saturday was Buddhist Lend Day.  Asahna Day was when Buddha gave his first sermon in a deer park at Benares India over 2500 years ago.  It is a day when Buddhists "make merit" and visit a local temple.  Traditionally candles were amongst the majority of items given on this day as there was no electricity back then and extra candles were needed in order to see out the long, wet and darker days and nights.  Judd's school asked us to donate candles last week in order for them to take to the Wat on Friday.  Saturday was also the beginning of a 3 month Buddhist Lent.  I have been told that devout Buddhists will not drink any alcohol during this time.  Both Friday and Saturday were "dry days" here in Thailand where no alcohol was permitted to be sold so if you hadn't stocked up prior then you were "left out to dry" so to speak.  However there is always a loop hole and after speaking with a couple of people I easily discover that there are some restaurants and bars that shut their doors but stay open serving out the back.  There is a local we eat at often that was doing exactly that on Saturday evening when I went to collect our dinner.  They weren't serving in the restaurant but were directing their customers around the back of the bar out of sight of the street where the party was in full swing.  It's funny when people are restricted from drinking or at least buying alcohol for a mere 2 days they seek ways of doing it anyway.  Now it wasn't the Thais I saw hiding out the back it was all Western men and their bar girls, the Thais are obviously smart enough to buy earlier in the week.  I imagine it would be annoying if I was a tourist here on holiday to be told I couldn't buy a cocktail on my holiday and the streets in town looked awfully quiet and sad with all the bars closed and the bar girls off work for the night.



View from the hill at Nong Nooch Gardens




Thai Cultural Show

 Friday we spent hanging out at home, swimming and enjoying the warm and dry weather.  Saturday we took the kids to a botanical garden called Nong Nooch (pronounced Nong Noot) as I was politely informed yesterday at dinner.  It is a wonderful place that we all enjoyed.  There were small animal attractions, rare birds in small cages, drugged Tigers posing for pictures and Elephant rides but the best parts was the Thai Cultural Show which displayed Thai dancing, Thai boxing, sword fighting and even traditional Elephant fighting where the Elephants are rode into battle with the warriors sitting on their heads with super long swords (more like machetes) tyring to either maim or kill their opponent.  Of course it was all show and the Elephants weren't in any danger of being harmed and it made an awesome show especially for the kids.  They really liked it when the Elephants came out at the end to dance and blow their trumpets.

After the show we had lunch then took sight seeing tour bus around the park to different types of temples, gardens and maze like areas with statues and traditional buildings everywhere.  I don't know what they were called exactly as the tour guide spoke in Thai but they were sure nice to look at.  We got some lovely photos too.
On the way out we stopped to show Judd the huge statues of Mammoths in a garden.  He loved it as he is really into Dinosaurs and those sorts of creatures at the moment.  Then of course we stopped by the Elephants on the way out to feed them some bananas.  Judd also loves Elephants, so does Lillie but she wont go near them.  Judd was so brave standing right near one feeding her.  I just love to touch them, their skin is amazing.  As we walked about the park I found it fascinating that the Elephants giving the rides would be walking right through the centre where all the tourists walked about and ate lunch, people just walked right next to them and around them without the slightest bit of amazement that this huge animal that had the potential to kill most of them with its massive foot should it decided to get angry.  I mean Lillie and I were walking right behind one for some time as it was too wide to pass, I was just praying it wouldn't decided to poo on my feet.  Never in Australia would you see a fully grown Elephant wandering around Melbourne Zoo while its mahout hung back having a cigarette barely paying any attention and while children scampered around yelling and playing.

We ended the day at about 3pm and of course the kids fell asleep instantly, as we arrived home I popped in to see the manager of our village in his office to ask if he had any houses for rent with a swimming pool that we could look at.  We have been discussing lately about whether or not we want to move to a different house and whether or not we were ready to have a pool for the kids.  The only problem was that we really like our village and we have come to get to know people here and we feel safe with the guards and the park and lake are so pretty to take the kids up to play.  Not many villages have what we have here and not many are maintained as well as this one is either.  So luckily we did get to look at a couple of houses but one was a 2 story that we definitely didn't want as we want the kids to run freely about the house and not be restricted by stairs or balustrades or for us to stress about them falling down or over the balconies.  The other didn't have a pool as yet but he said he could put one in for us no problem but the house itself was too small.  So we ended the day not sure if we would have to leave the village or resign ourselves to staying in this house minus a pool.

Marcus headed into town that afternoon to sign up for a marathon and what should have been less than a 2 hour trip in and out turned out to take nearly 4 hours as the city was so busy with tourists here for the long weekend.  It took him 45 minutes to get to Central then when he went to leave they had double parked so many cars into the multi story car park that once he reversed out of his car space he literally could not move another meter as the traffic has piled up so much that he was stuck on the 6th floor and it took him 3 hours to get out!  I kept called him to see what was happening and he sounded so frustrated.  The car park people just kept on letting people in and the whole building got completely jammed up plus as he tried to reverse out of his space some idiot had pushed a metal box up against his car and he didn't see it and scratched a huge gash down the side of our rental car that we were supposed to be returning the very next day.  What a mess, thank god we didn't all go in together, imagine being stuck in the car with 2 tired kids for 3 hours unable to move and some wanker a few cars back keeps honking his horn!  OMG!  NO thank you.

On Sunday our friend at the office called to say he had a house up the road from us in our village that will be vacant in September and it has a pool and is the same size as our current house.  Of course we jumped on it but we had a bit of a problem negotiating rent and pool maintenance.  It turns out to be alot more expensive than what we pay here and we have to pay for a secure pool fence to be installed out of our own money but we still think it will be worth it.  I haven't seen inside yet as the tenants are away but I will get to have a look on Wednesday afternoon and fingers crossed it is well fitted out with decent furniture and then we will be able to sign a new lease and be living in our new house and hanging by the pool drinking a beer in a months time.

It was a good weekend and good family time and we made some nice memories.