The monarchy here is highly regarded. Some still view it as divine. The present king, His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej, has been on the throne for over 60 years and is the longest-reigning current monarch in the world.
His picture is everywhere - in shops, outside important buildings, in homes. Larger pictures are surrounded by splendid gaudy, gold frames, often representing the sun, which is his emblem. His colour is yellow, and there is a day of the week for Thais to wear yellow in honour of the king (this isn't something that we've noticed).
At 8am and 6pm every day, the national anthem is played in all parks, public places and every radio station. Last weekend we were at the massive Chatuchak market in Bangkok. At 6pm, a whistle was blown and the anthem played. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stood up. It was quite amazing.
At the cinema, before the film is shown, the King's anthem is played along with a little video demonstrating how great he is. Of course, we all have to stand while it is played.
I think that amusing signs provide entertainment for every traveller. Here are some of our latest.
1&2 - outside our accommodation in Bang Saray. To the point.
3. Shrine ettiquette,
4. Speaks for itself. We didn't see any on the road, sadly, but there were some alarming posters of cars that had..not pretty.
5. At the Palace in Bang-Pa In. I was wearing pant and had to borrow sarong.
6.This no farting sign is seen on public transport and taxis. We're not sure if it's meant as a joke or not.
Buddhism is quite important in Thailand. "Spirit houses" can be seen outside bujildings or at the end of streets. We have one opposite our house. Spirits are encouraged to live there and to bring protection to the area. Food, drink and flowers are regularly offered to the spirits to keep them happy.
Most Thai males will spend some time serving as a monk. The family earns merit when the son "takes robe and bowl". Merit is also obtained by giving to the monks. Gifts of food, clothes etc. are offered by Buddhist believers.
In today's modern, busy world, enterprising shops make donating easy. Whole areas of supermarkets are given over to "monk buckets" - pre-prepared buckets containing everything that your local monk might need. As much as possible is orange. This makes things like Bic razors and Fanta particularly popular. They also contain things like candles, joss sticks, pens, pencils, cooking utensils and dried food...the more orange the better.
One of main areas of work here has been helping to set up the "Happy Community Library". The charity has already had donations of hundres of books, but the library wasn't yet properly set up.
The first thing was to build a database (I love databases) and make a record for every single book in the library. We then needed to label cards for each book for when they are "checked out" of the library. Getting hold of envelopes/pockets to stick in the books was tricky. But our hosts solved the problem by buying some back home in the Philippines - brown envelopes from Manila!! These have now all been labelled as well and we've printed and chopped over 700 "return date" inserts (they've got a proper date stamp like a proper library!).
The only job that remains is sticking these into each book and stamping them with the "Happy Community Foundation" stamp. We've done around 100 - only 526 to go!
I'm also working on some "recommended reads" displays. I'm hoping to prepare enough reviews so that there are six a month for a year. I'm about half way though...
It would make me very happy to finish all the work on the library before we leave here next Friday. Thankfully a couple of ladies have been helping me out...otherwise I'd have no hope.
Every Monday, we've been doing a morning of craft with the kids. They are really imaginative when it comes to craft - especially drawing. Often, when you do stuff like this in the UK kids just stick to your examples. These guys aren't afraid to think outside of the box. The "jugglers" were a great example of his. I came up with a classic clown, these guys did a ballerina, a kind of Manga character and a rock star. Even the 7 year old who used the idea of the clown adapted hers to be different from mine.
One of the things that we've been doing here is helping with the homeschooling programme. We ran a week-long IT workshop with 4 children helping them to use programmes like Movie Maker, Publisher, PowerPoint, Excel etc. Interwoven with their IT skills were things like writing newspaper articles and how to give an effective presentation. We were really proud of them at the end of the week when they presented their work.
One of the things that has amused us on our travels is the way that big chains will adapt to their surroundings. Often this involves a menu change, but here in Thailand it means that Ronald McDonald must be very polite and give a wai not sit lounging around on a bench.
Everyone that we've met in Thailand has been very lovely and very polite. People give the wai to greet you and to thank you - and it was a really great way for us to respond when we didn't know any Thai. The people that we've met have all been really helpful, keen to help us over our language difficulties, keen to practise their English if they know any, and very patient with our stumbling attempts to speak Thai.
Sawadi-krub (sawadi-ka if you're a girl) is the polite way to greet on another.
We've actually been in Thailand (Amazing Thailand accoring to the tourist board) for 3 weeks now, but we've still be catching up with Malaysia on the blog - we also still have some Malaysian postcards to post!
The photo shows the shopping part of the area that we're living in. We're staying in the guest house/office of the charitable foundation that we're working with. It's super nice, a 3-storey town house in a lovely, quiet bit of the city. The transport is really good - and the taxis are cheap. Actually, everything is cheap! We have lots of little shops and food places near us - and a laundrette.
As you can see from the picture, when it rains, it rains. At one point, Ben and I were wading in puddles that covered our ankles. It's hard to know when it will rain, and the concept of it still being hot during and after rain messes with the British sensibility.
When we arrived in Malaysia, I made a bold declaration, "Malaysia smells of sick." And it did, a strange smell lingered at immigration. I smelt it again at KL bus station. "Can't you smell it, Ben? It smells of sick," but Ben never does smell the things that I can. It wasn't until my hand touched something soft and squishy in Ben's rucksack that I had to retract my harsh judgement on the entire nation of Malaysia.
Rewind a little. We'd asked our friends in Thailand if we could bring them anything that they missed. We were in New Zealand and confident that we could get hold of anything that they were after. They asked for cheese. Doesn't transport well, I hear you say. Ah, but, when we were in India we met a Dutchman who was making cheese in Kashmir. He sealed his cheese in wax and it travelled brilliantly. We took it all around India without the hint of a problem - or a whiff. So, we bought cheese in wax, perfect.
Except it would seem that the quality of our Dutchman's wax was somewhat superior to that of the New Zealand supermarket. In the heat of Malaysia, the wax on Ben's block of cheese had cracked, cheese had oozed out and melted in his bag. We thought that removing the cheese (and leaving it for the hostel's cleaners to discover) would get rid of the problem, but we soon found that the smell of cheese can infiltrate everything. In fact, it wasn't until we arrived here in Thailand that we were finally able to empty the bag, wash what we could and spray everything with de-ordoriser. But even now, when you walk in a room, occassionally you can detect a faint aroma of cheese, and it smells a little like sick...
