Song Kran!!

Have you ever felt like you love something so much you couldn't possibly love it any more? That's what I felt about the phenominal place of Ban Phon Sanuk until Song Kran happened, and I realised that my love has no limits!! I stayed with Pippa and her family over the festival, and had an immense amount of fun. Song Kran in Nakhon Phanom is celebrated from the 12th to the 15th of April. Before the celebrations began on the 12th I spent the day helping Pippa's parents on the farm by taking black seeds out of fluffy stuff. I did get told the name of it, but it escapes me I'm afraid. The fliffy stuff is white and comes out of quite large, green pods and Pippa's mother uses it to stuff pillows with. Not quite sure what she does with the pillows, there is a huge cupboard full of them in their living room. When we were done and Pippa was out of bed, we headed to another small village a few kilometers away called Ban Phiman. The journey here is absolutely stunning - through all the rice fields and farms and it looks so naturally beautiful. In Ban Phiman there was a festival procession with floats covered in flowers and people dancing going through all the little roads, and ending in a large field where much dancing, soaking and fun was going on. As soon as I arrived I was surrounded by dancing people and had talcum powder smeared all over my face - it seems to be a Thai way of saying "welcome to the party!"! We went to a large tent and watched part of a beauty pageant that was going on, and there I found Nong Print, who is the most adorable little girl in the world. We have met her a few times and she seems to get cuter every time! Of course I got soaked by her. We headed back to Ban Phon Sanuk in the evening, and I got told that the next day the Song Kran party would move to Ban Phon Sanuk, and believe me, it did! The next day we all got up at the lovely time of 5.30am and headed to the temple next to the lake in Ban Phon Sanuk to pray and make merit. Before coming to Thailand the thought of this would have scared me to say the least, but I have to admit I actually really enjoy the merit making ceremonies. The whole village came together and prayed, then gave food to the monks. Outside the temple after this the waterfights began. It was at this point that I realied how happy I was to not be in Chiang Mai - it was the most amazing thing to see everyone in the village having fun together. I can't help thinking that if this sort of festival happened in the UK there would be groups of people who were friends ganging up on th un-popular kids, and it would end up being very clique-y. Here, there wasn't a sniff of that. All the kids in the village were soaking each other and even older people who are very respected, like Pippa's father who is one of the most respected men in the village, were getting attacked by kids and water guns. One of the highlights of this part of the day has got to be one of my students pouring a HUGE bucket of water all over Pippa :P. Because we are in a more rural part of the country where Buddhism plays a larger part of everyday lives, there was as aspect of paying respect to the Buddha in the waterfights, in that people were blessing each other with (very cold) holy water. There was a small ceremony where people poured holy water over a wooden Buddha's head and then into the hands of respected and older people in the village, and from that people were blessing each other. I'd like to pay a special mention to the "coyotes" - three older woman dressed in crazy outfits dancing crazilly pretty much all day! After following a truck with a band in the back through the back roads of the village, we arrived back in Ban Phon Sanuk to begin the car soaking. Two large buckets of water were set up at the side of the road, as was a decking to stand/dance on. Music was blaring loudly, and the rule was if a pickup goes past and the back is full of people, soak them. It was brilliant - pickups were going past constantly, so full of people that the sides were down and people were literally hanging off the edge, and when they saw that we were ready for a waterfight they would jump down fromthe pickup and soak us all or cover us in talcum powder. Again it showed here how considerate people are in this part of Thailand. I've heard a lot about the festival in Chiang Mai and apparently people are knocked off motorbikes and if you go outside, you will get wet. Here if someone went past on a motorbike and didn't want to be soaked for whatever reason, they weren't. By the end of the night Pippa and I were both completely drenched and covered in talcum powder. The next day I got to experience actually being in the back of one of the pickups! Lots of the people from the village were going on a Song Kran Soaking Spree to That Phanom and then to Renu Nakhon, with the pickup so full that 4 people were sitting on the edge hanging their legs off. Despite it being so hot, with the water and the breeze from travelling it was actually quite cold! It was brilliant fun, we were stopping every few minutes to be doused in water and talcum powdered up! When we got back to the village it was the same deal as the night before, but this time with more dancing because Pee Ying came who is absolutely crazy! Every now and then I went to sit and have a drink, but was soon back to throwing waterand dancing! Big thank you to Pippa who took on the job of taking lots of photos as she was deliberately not getting wet - camera wwas definitely much safer with her! Day three of Song Kran saw another early morning as Pippa and I were heading to Bangkok inthe evening and I had to go to Na Kae to get some stuff from the house and she had to pack up everything for another two months of learning German. By 8am I had been to Na Kae, packed up all my stuff and got back! I spent the morning helping (watching) Pippa pack before the watering began. I tried to not get too wet as I had to take my clothes to Bangkok, but despite trying to stay at the side, drink and chat, I still got soaking wet, mainly because I couldn't resist the waterfights once they started! After a few hours of soaking and being soaked I got changed and packed up my wet clothes into a plastic bag to head to Bangkok. Back to Na Kae full time in a month - I can't believe that it's only 4 months until I go home!!

Trapped on Koh Tao!

When Caitlin's friend, Jake, arrived to visit on Thursday we thought that it would be brilliant to head south and see some of the islands. This plan would have been flawless if Thailand hadn't decided that it would bring freak monsoons! We arrived on Koh Tao on Saturday I think, and planned to spend a few days here snorkelling. It started to rain as soon as we arrived, and literally has not stopped since. After about 48 hours of constant rain, all boats to and from the island were cancelled, and floods were causing havoc all over the south. Soon, almost every road on the island was a river and every building we passed had some sort of damage - knee deep water on the floor, roofs caved in, tables and chairs broken and floating... it really was crazy. It was so bad in the south of the island that an entire resort literally floated away - building and all! Some parts look like a tsunami has hit with trees uprooted and roads and rivers blocked with sand washed in from the sea level rising. It continued to rain until yesterday when it held off for just enough time for people to start getting things back in order, but then today more rain came and the forecast is for even more. When it became clear that boats would be cancelled for a good few days, a navy ship was sent to take tourists off the island. However, due to Thai disorganisation, this didn't go to plan and most tourists were left here, including two friends of ours who have now missed flights! So Caitlin, Jake and I are still stuck here. We are booked on a boat that leaves tomorrow morning, and hopefully that should leave, but if it continues raining I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. I must give credit to the Thai people on the island and everywhere in the south - this sort of situation should that Thais are survivors. Everyone is just getting on with it - their house is flooded, so they do whatever they need to do to sort it and deal with it as fast as possible to get back to normal. When floods happened in the UK the chaos was incredible and it went on for weeks, but people here who have literally had enire streets washed away in places like Surathani, are just getting on with doing whatever they have to do. I can't explain how crazy the weather is - I can understand that from the UK it might just seem like a lot of rain, but even in the wet season it never, ever rains like this. In the wet season there is maybe an hour or so a day of torrential rain, then it disappears. This is constant torrential rain, in the hot season! We spoke to a teacher in Na Kae earlier today who said that the temperature there has been between 7 and 11 celcius - it should be nearing 40 by now! Hopefully things will get back to normal soon, but for now the south of Thailand has to just keep surviving.