Advertisement
Published: April 19th 2009
The Kitchen
Na Vee and Na Ting cooking up a feast.Last week was not the best week for Bangkok. The Red Shirts had organized a large scale protest in the city during one of the busiest times of the year, Songkran, or the Thai New Year. They speak out against the current Prime Minister who they think is undeserving of his seat in office. This week it got ugly, though. When we landed in Bangkok at around 11 PM on Thursday, April 9th, it was the first major day of the protests. The airport was packed with tourists who were scared to venture into the city. Those who were willing to brave the protesters were facing four hour cab rides to the locations outside the city and then taking public transportation to their hotels, when normally it would have been a 40 minute ride to get to their destinations. We hopped a cab to Betty’s Aunt and Uncle’s house just north of Bangkok, a fare that would normally have cost less than 400 Baht, but that night we ran into Red Shirt blockades on the Toll Way and had to keep circling around to find other routes. It finally ended up costing us almost 900 Baht until we arrived safely. Over
Fishin'
I got the catch of the day! (Can you see him?) the next few days the protests became larger and eventually turned violent.
Good thing for us, as soon as we arrived at Na Vee and Na Gig’s house we loaded into their car and headed for Bankhoi, a little village far away from the action and the hometown to Betty’s family. Betty’s entire family made the trip to celebrate the Songkran Festival which is a festival to celebrate the upcoming year and give good luck wishes to all of your friends and relatives. Songkran is celebrated by throwing water and tossing powder at anyone nearby (a little more violently nowadays than in the past!) and most times entire families will gather in their hometown to pay respect to their elders as well as their ancestors. These five days included a lot of eating, drinking, water throwing, eating, fishing, and eating some more.
We headed back to Bangkok on Wednesday and another lucky break for us, because the Red Shirts had decided to take a break and head home for the last few days of the holiday. We had seen enough of the city though, and instead everyone went to Dream World (Thailand’s version of Disney)! We all had
Fishin'
A spectator sport. a great time, but before we knew it we were back in the car headed for the airport. We are now in Hong Kong and ready to take on China. A huge “Thank You!!” to all of Betty’s family for showing us such a great time, but especially to Na Vee and Na Gig who so graciously hosted us, taxied us and fed us for the last seven weeks. We will miss you all! See you in 3 years.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0395s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Cheryl
non-member comment
Glad we didn't know you were in Bankok when things were dicey. Especially my mom. Looks like a really cool celebration. Can you imagine loading the family up in a pick up truck and riding around spraying people with water back home? I also liked how they honor the elders. Remember that Brandon, especially as I get older. Seriously, we are loving your blog and looking forward to reading about your journey to China. Love and miss you guys.