Morning Walks Isaan Thailand

If you are a reader of this blog, you will know of my Thai niece Nong Ja. She usually stays with us on a fulltime basis, but at the moment she is staying with Miss Noot’s mum from Sunday to Friday. We venture out each Friday and pick her up and she stays with us for the weekend.

When Miss Noot finishes university later this year Nong Ja will be staying with us on a permanent nature again, but until then she is going to be shuffled back and forth.

Every morning Nong Ja and I go for our early morning excursion, last week it was a little chilly early on. A plane was rumbling off on its way to Bangkok. People were heading to the concrete jungle and hustle and bustle that I don’t really care for nowadays.

Nong Ja and I, walk down our street and along the way Ja will pick up anything laying on the road and put into one of the many drains.

It is funny as we have done this walk so many times now, but she still stops at virtually every drain grate, stares into it and runs off laughing or chatting to herself.

Nong Ja at times worries me, we pass by some rather large cows and at times buffaloes, I worry as she isn’t frightened of them and when they are on the road she makes a shooing noise at them. I am not scared of the cows but am careful as they are big heavy animals.

We hit the small dirt section of the shortcut to the market, Nong Ja will pick up as many rocks as she can hold and throw them in all directions. She also stores a few in her pockets at times. She knows that throwing them at things is wrong as she has been told off for this and crocodile tears appear but quickly go.

At the back of all these food shops that are very busy each night, we can encounter a few stray dogs. At night time there can be as many as 20 or more roaming about the place. I always have some big rocks with me as the dogs that want to stand up and growl and walk towards us have a rock thrown at them at a fast rate of knots. I am against stray dogs 100%; they should be caught and euthanized. I am not even sure if they have a dog pound here in Ubon Ratchathani.

Nong Ja loves our walks, here her hands are full of stones as she trudges on towards the market.

This is a newly renovated part of the market, it was still pretty much a ghost town and it wasn’t even early. This was around 8.30am but many were still obviously in bed. Nong Ja and I had already been up for a few hours.

Nong Ja knows her way to the market now, and wanders ahead looking here and there taking all the information into her developing mind.

Here Nong Ja is looking at a market stall owner who is chatting to her, it was a not so sure look but when we were on our way, she waved goodbye and blew a kiss to her.

Last Saturday when we arrived at the market, it was gone. Where we usually buy our food was just a shell of itself.

Now this did scare Nong Ja, she was clinging to me like it meant life or death. The backhoe was breaking up the concrete floor.

On the end of the boom was a rock breaker, tapping away through the concrete floor. This noise I think scared Nong Ja as she has never seen anything like this before.

The backhoe operator was getting instructions; the other man inside the cab was using the hydraulic sticks, showing the operator how it all worked.

Other workers were removing the rafters and beams.

Looking across from the market to “The Modern Zone” that sells telephones and accessories and there are now a few shops also selling computer gear as well. This too has been undergoing upgrades. And Big C shopping centre across from it. I am in a great spot, so close to everything I need and just over a minute away.

And this was yesterday, a week later the old building is completely gone. The food shops have just been moved across a little and new building will be completed within two months.

I will keep an eye on this completion date time, as Thai and time really don’t go together at all. So we will see if what the foreman told me comes to pass, or not.

It was funny when I was chatting to him and I was looking at the plans, he was amazed that I could read them. (I was surprised they had plans) After chatting for a while, a little in English and also in Thai I was given the thumbs up at knowing so much about building.

I think if the guy had seen some of the construction projects we had done back in Australia he would understand better why I can read plans. I used to spend so much of my days doing “take offs”, counting how many plasterboard sheets, metal studs; plywood noggins were needed (just to name a few) for a floor.

I seriously used to dream about this sort of stuff at times, I remember vividly having dreams where I had made a mistake doing a take off and the job running out of sheets and studs and all hell had broken loose with the workers. This is a nightmare as some of the guys were big, mean and didn’t like losing money by standing around with nothing to do.

A weird nightmare, huh.

Brunty

Remembrance Day Information Ubon Ratchathani Thailand 2009

I wrote the other day about a Remembrance Day ceremony being held here in Ubon Ratchathani Thailand. It is the 4th year it has been held here in Ubon Ratchathani.


I had monument before when walking in the park but never actually walked up to it and checked out what it was until a few years after I had first seen it.

The Remembrance Day ceremony will start at 9am with a 2 minute silence at 11am.

This is the plaque at the monument. It tells you a little on how this monument all came about.

The monument is in the North-east corner of the park, under trees and this is why it looks a little worse for wear. The first time I looked at the plaque many years ago, it was near impossible to read for bird droppings.

So if in the Ubon Ratchathani area, and you would like to pay your respects to fallen soldiers of the past and present. Make your way to Thung Sri Muang Park, Ubon Ratchathani’s main park on 11th of the 11th 2009.


View Ubon Ratchathani in a larger map
The monument is the pink marker in the corner of the park.

Brunty

Noppamas Queen Isaan Thailand 2009.

I had ventured to the local university for The Loy Kratong Festival, at this festival apart from floating your kratong, there is of course a beauty pageant. I have never been to a country where there are so many beauty competitions. On TV there is an endless stream of girls parading around and then a number to text for your favourite.

At Loy Kratong there is a contest held called The Noppamas Queen, This story I have written about before and a lady, a King’s consort named Nang Noppamas; was supposedly the first person to make a kratong and float it, and this was 700 years ago.

This is of course a fable, but sadly some government ministries refuse to let the truth be told about this story and will not let the real story be told in Thai history classes, like many things to do with Thai history, much of it is moulded to how they wanted it and not as it really happened.
There are thousands, no tens of thousands of the Noppamas Queen Pageants held across Thailand. Here in Ubon alone I would not be able to count them, many small villages have them, local government departments, and also schools and universitites just to name a few.

Rajabhat University has a big Noppamas Queen each year, many girls put themselves through what would have to be a torture test, there hair is extended, moulded and a millions hair pins used, the dresses, though beautiful are restrictive and near impossible to relive yourself once in.

And then the competition itself takes an enternity, 4 or more hours as the girls’ parade onto the stage 4 or so times to be judged, receive flowers from well wishers and so forth.

Miss Noot and Benjawan have won this title at their local government area office. But this is more serious here. This title is highly sort after and the girls will spend a small fortune (or a sponsor) to have the girls looking their best.

Below are pictures of the 30 girls. I myself cannot see how a girl who has lovely olive skin, being plastered with white makeup and made look like a ghost is in anyway beautiful.

I always get a good laugh out of the shoes, some are absurd and the girls have to shuffle in tiny steps and turning becomes a health hazard.

The dresses are always breathtaking though, Thai silk is a beautiful product and I always end up judging on the outfit and not the girl and so many are alike, being ghostly and looking petrified with a false glued on smile.

Anyway, below are pictures of the Noppamas Queen 2009 from Rajabhat University here in Ubon Ratchathani Thailand.









If you would like to see all the pictures, go to my Flickr account and they are all there.

Brunty