What is an interesting thing you've done in Thailand?

Some years ago, Mrs. Admin and her younger sister were taking part in this old fashioned Thai fayre. They were both dressed up in old fashioned clothes and the food they were selling had to be totally organic and cooked without using gas or electric including microwaves. This fayre went on for a week and after a few days I was pulled into to do one night with them. So, I donned some traditional Thai clothes and helped serve these foods while the gathering crowds literally 'gawked' at the strange creature selling their traditional food. Cameras going, me sweating but all in all at the end of the night I had actually found myself enjoying it.



As an aside, the Mrs and her sister actually came first in thetraditional dress section and all three of us got our photo in the local paper.

I went to a wat not too long ago to watch somebody - not a monk - exorcise a few people possessed by "black magic."

He was inside the wat and some people and were there or outside in a tent. There was some chanting going on for a little while. For some reason, and I don't know why, there were several yards of yarn strung up in squares right above our heads.

After this chant, this man (the healer?) started making loud animal-like sounds. I'm not sure what animal, but it was a lot like a monster sound that people make to scare children. He did this for, I don't know, at least half an hour.

Then I saw a few men in the crowd who got up while this man started making the monster screams. They started throwing their bodies around, pushing people, crashing into chairs. With their eyes shut, of course. Other people were smart enough to get out of their way, and some monks tried to hold them to get them under control. It was pretty wild. One man was dancing...like something I've seen done before by a hippies at a Phish concert. Was he doing acid? Shrooms? Or was he really possessed?

A few women (including one girl who my girlfriend knows from work) were out of control, screaming. I mean screaming! Judging from the looks on their faces, it was like they knew that they did something really, really bad before and they were being sent to hell or something. Was it really legit? It was very good acting, if it was acting. Maybe Kate Winslet should give her Oscar to one of these women.

Weird night. Plus it was raining quite heavily during this time.

I think that the both of you have a wierd life... Admin in local clothes (what did you do wrong, since you were being punished?) and teabagger, won't even go there...

The most interesting thing I have seen is the monks when they try to cut people when their buddha images protect them. It is quite interesting to see when you look at the Thais and they are all sure it is for real.

Best time I have had here was around Mae Hong Son in the early nineties. I spent about 4 months up there. I was supposed to spend my time at Chulalongkorn university as I was here as an exchange student studying Thai and ecology. Chula was such a load of crap, stuck up students, lecturers who didn't know what they were doing and officious management that all of us on the exchange program walked out after three weeks. I went up north and wound up doing research on forest ecology. Met an old French guy up there who had two WW2 vintage Jeeps, one of which he lent me. So spent my time bouncing around the forest in it doing my studies and sampling the local herbs! Time seemed to fly bye, not sure if I was totally concious all the time in the Jeep but the combination of some real off roading, the surroundings and the studies was brilliant!

I collected everything that came out of my nose for a month and made a small sculpture of a giraffe smoking a hookah pipe. Haven't really done anything more interesting than that yet in Thailand.

richard donkey wrote:I collected everything that came out of my nose for a month and made a small sculpture of a giraffe smoking a hookah pipe. Haven't really done anything more interesting than that yet in Thailand.

Some folk lead interesting lives hey?

Freebird wrote:

richard donkey wrote:I collected everything that came out of my nose for a month and made a small sculpture of a giraffe smoking a hookah pipe. Haven't really done anything more interesting than that yet in Thailand.

Some folk lead interesting lives hey?

That doesn't interest you? Surely you'd like to see it if I offered?

Actually, there could well be a market in sculpted giraffes. You might well be onto a winner there! With the right marketing, you never know .....

I'll try something other than a giraffe next time, maybe with my toenail cuttings.

I can see several sculptures of many animals every day... So there is a market for them...

What size is it??

the giraffe is approx 4 cm tall. However the jumper I knitted using my own pubic hair would fit an average sumo wrestler.

ohh... well the animals that I see in the gardens around here are a bit bigger... You might want to get the flu so you can make a larger figure!

I prefer to make large quantities rather than large sizes. I have my own terracotta army of bogey giraffes.

I went to Ayutthaya again few weeks back, I was last there about 18 months ago.
I was not in the least bit impressed, the builders don't appear to have made any progress on them walls since last time I was there.
I thought they'd have finished it by now.

I know they say "Rome wasn't built in a day", but come on. It looks like they made a start with the foundations then gave up.