Saturday, September 13, 2008

At 6:30 am, the truck filled with children, the headmaster and Uncle Jew picked me up for us to take the road trip to Sarat Thuni for traditional Thai music.

Note: A lesson in Thai time. If given a time, the schedule may run late. As Headmaster says, it's "Thai time." I told him no problem... it's now "My time!" :-)


We drove the 3.5-4 hours from Yaowawit near the city of Kapong in the province of Phang Nga (also the name of a city nearby) to the province (and city) of Sarat Thani. At Sarat Thani we went to one of the local schools (arrived about 10:20am) to hear a concert presented by the children. Various schools were being graded on their performance. The music was traditional Thai music. The instruments are traditional Thai instruments and one student sings. The music itself is very "complex" in nature in that there are multiple melodies being played at once. What might at first sound almost annoying to my American ears, is actually very beautiful and rather intricate. I took a couple videos so that you could hear the sound. I will post the shortest one I have in hopes that you will at least get the idea.

We left about noon and then went to a local "mall" with a "food court" for lunch.

One of the nice things about not speaking any Thai is that everything is a surprise. Destinations, food, ... all of it. What I didn't realize is that we were also enroute to a famous Buddhist Monastery, Suan Mokkh (The Garden of the Power of Liberation). This is in the Chaiya district of Surat Thani and north of the city of Surat Thani (on the road to Bangkok).

This is one of the places that westerners flock to for better understanding of meditation and Buddhism. There is a 10 day monthly retreat that I had hoped to do here (begins the last day of every month) so arriving here and not knowing we were going was REALLY cool. I would still love to go but am not sure I could do meditation for 10 days. Here's the website for those interested... check out the retreat section too:

http://www.suanmokkh.org/

From there we drove a bit (again I'm thinking we are headed home to Yaowawit and that we have a 4 hour drive ahead)! Nope. Not so. Next stop, Ratchaphrapha Dam. We spent about an hour here admiring the view. This is an incredible location. There are some very nice hotels at this park as well as boat rides and tours (I think). The boat rides take about 3 hours and sound like a lot of fun. The mountains surrounding this lake are absolutely beautiful. I'm curious to know more about the dam though and the power it provides to the area. How much of the area does it provide power to?

By the time we left the dam it was dark and again, I'm thinking we are on our way home. Nope. Dinner time! Dinner was at a small restaurant about 15 minutes from the dam. The restaurants are all open air. This one had tables that we put together. There were about 12 children plus the 3 of us adults. A tv was nearby that had most of us (me included) rather engaged! It was a Thai show about a "jungle" girl and her troubles with "the bad guys" and a nice boy trying to save her... cute and rather funny actually! Dinner was soup, omelet and a pork dish with rice and we brought our own water.

Last stop! 7-11! I bought a coke slurpee and oreos!! I don't drink slurpees at home but HELLO it's nice to have the flavor of home in a foreign place.

Driving back through the hills was absolutely beautiful. The stars and constellations are different here but they were phenomenal. The moon was out and almost full. Seeing the hills silhouetted against the sky with palm trees in the foreground was an incredible sight. I drank it up.

The road we were on did not have as much traffic. The traffic here is very different. Motorcycles ride on the shoulder of the road (left hand side) and as you pass them you move into the lane for oncoming traffic if you're on a two lane road. If there are cars in front of you going slow, you ride their tail and then pass when it looks safe. The only problem is that they may decide to pass a motorcyclist while you're passing them! It's different. Uncle Jew is a good driver.

I much enjoyed this trip.

Things we passed:
Red God Mountain
Banana trees
Coconut trees
Rubuta trees
Rubber trees
Palm trees (palm oil tree and trucks carrying the "fruit" as well as a palm oil factory -cool! I'd love to visit).
Papaya trees
Mangotan trees
Phang Nga (city and province) means Female Elephant. The hills look like "elephants rising from a flat forest plain to beautiful hills with cliffs.
A cardboard factory
A shrimp farm
"Big Buddha" not sure exactly what this temple was or where... somewhere enroute to Surat Thani. And fields and fields and fields of rubber and palm trees...

Pictures later...