Korat - Christmas time stay with a Thai family

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Welcome back to the village

Tuesday December 23rd

I arrived from Bangkok to a warm greeting at the Korat bus station from the Thai family I stay with in their home and village near Chock Chai. This time we caught a taxi all the way to the village instead of the local bus which is a bargain for 400 baht and saves an hours waiting and travelling time.

Everyone was happy to see me back and there was a large gathering around the table for my first night back including youngsters Fah, Poi, Pim and Gamling who are always teaching me new Thai words and walk with me around the village. Tonight six of us went to my favourite disco/restaurant Da Wang Deng for a meal and then on to Bar Nana which has a funkier style of live music playing till we left at about 1.30 am as Uw a family friend needed to be up for work early in the morning.

Christmas Eve was a rest day until I went for a walk with next door neighbour Yot-Far who has become a bit of a celebrity going out with the farang (foreigner) for his long walks for exercise, something unusual in the village. The weather is perfect at present with relatively cool days and nearly cold nights although there are still plenty of mosquitoes about the place. I really enjoyed the night time watching television with the family and sitting around on the straw mats as they checked out the flash cards that I have made for learning the Thai alphabet. We went through all the sounds and apparently I had missed one of the consonants so they made me a new card. These are the best times when I am alone with the family away from the usual large gatherings. Even though the family speaks little English and me nit-noi (little) Thai we can still communicate well and I was very happy to be with them.

On Christmas day I was awake at 6.00 am and went for a long walk to the next village towards Chock Chai. The seasons have changed since my last visit and most of the rice fields are now dry and have been harvested with the rice drying on large plastic mats in nearly everyone’s front yards. There is little rain at present which means that water is being conserved and I will be using the water from the dam for my showers like everyone else instead of the luxury of using rain water on my previous visits. I had a farang style breakfast of burger, hot dog, bread, jam and fruit which young brother Sek picked up for me at the 7/11 in Chock Chai. I told everyone it was Christmas Day today which is not celebrated here but the lady from across the soi (street) brought me a bunch of bananas as a present which I thought was very nice of her. Sek had some fun by giving me a very fancy gift box which when opened was empty but we had a good laugh about his gift giving exercise.

Every day from early in the morning the sound of Isaan beats out of the large sound systems that everyone seems to have in their house. The music is usually upbeat and everyone loves to see me dancing to their traditional regional music and I must say it is my favourite sound in Thailand besides the famous band Carabou.

Lunch was my favourite noodles and meat pieces which costs 20 baht and again delivered by Sek from a local street vendor. In the afternoon my Thai language lessons continued which is always fun with everyone trying to get me to make the sounds properly amongst continuous laughter directed at my efforts. I took the automatic motorcycle for a short run in the yard which is a first for me and I am tempted to buy my own machine when I return to Australia. I have had a re-think about that after seeing that 143 people died on one day on the roads in Thailand (Bangkok Post) during the holiday season.

Later in the afternoon all the younger kids got home from school and as per usual wanted to know what I was up to, usually following me around the house or up and down the street. I tried to sing some Christmas Carols and the kids wished me Merry Christmas although they have little understanding of this foreign celebration.

My Christmas evening meal was at a very large outdoor bbq restaurant on the outskirts of Chock Chai. This time it was only myself and the direct family plus two more who managed to fit on to our three motorbikes making a total of eight for the 6km trip into town. At the restaurant you can select your own food and cook it on the small bbq plates on your table and it is a very low cost and delicious meal.

When we returned to the village we walked down the soi to cousin Bell’s place, another great guy who always makes me feel welcome and I watched as everyone played cards for an hour or so until it was time for bed. It was a wonderful Christmas day for me, reminiscent of the times when my parents were both alive and all the family were together at our home in Adelaide. For me to be able to spend the whole day with a Thai family and friends was really great.

If you stay in a rural village don’t expect to sleep in too late as everyone is up just after 6 am with the television or radio going at a loud volume. Sometimes Ben goes to sleep upstairs with his television still turned on which is a bit unsettling if you are trying to sleep. There will also be random trucks and other vehicles flying past outside in the middle of the night and the dogs will start barking at any time, still it is all part of the experience of staying in the village. The father of my house has given up smoking and drinking after the recent deaths of his father and father in law from cancer so he is finding it difficult to sleep and was up watching television at 4 am in the morning until dawn. I sat with him and read some more of my Thai writing exercises and had a nap later in the day.

The next morning on Boxing day I walked to another village and found the residents there also to be very friendly and I stopped to chat with three families and many others waved at me and I heard the usual ‘farang, farang” as I went past one house and everyone run out to see me. It is always nice to see the local’s smiling faces and they are very warm to this stranger who has entered their world far away from the tourist spots of Thailand.

When I returned home from my walk I was directed to the rice fields by Sit and everyone was at work setting up a pump to fill the fields with water for the new crop. It is interesting to see the workings of the rice farms from season to season and I wonder what will be happening next time I come to stay with the family.

When we returned from our meal on Christmas night we had stopped at a store to pick up a large selection of gift wrapped cakes. I had no idea what was happening and as always I go along with most things as in time all may or may not be explained. The next morning Ben took me on the motorbike to present the gifts to the grandmothers and older ladies and family friends in the village. We stopped at each house and I said “Sawatdee Bpii Mai” (Happy New Year) to each lady and they bowed and wished me “Chock Dee” (Good Luck) in return. This was an unexpected but very nice ritual, I just never quite know what is going to happen at any time in the village which makes my visits even more fun and enjoyable.

I wanted some toast for breakfast and Sek spent half an hour making a fire and cleaning the fish holding griller just to make me three slices of toast. He is fourteen years old and nothing is a hassle or a problem for him, all he wants to do is cheerfully help me whenever I stay with the family. All the family, relatives and friends treat me this way and I am so fortunate to have this chance to spend time in the outback of Thailand. It shows me how selfish I may have become with all my foreign style facilities I take for granted at home.

I decided it was a bit much to ask Sek to spend all this time whenever I wanted toast so we went to Chock Chai and purchased a toaster, something that a Thai family does not usually use in their house. On the way back we stopped at another roadside restaurant where you cook your own lunch and five of us were fed for 150 baht or about $A6.00 including the best Thai desert that I have ever experienced with the small fruit jellies, syrup and ice mixture.

Later in the afternoon the mother of my family decided to deliver the rest of the New Year gifts to her relatives which I thought would be a short local trip. We were gone for about 3 hours as most of the relatives lived way out in a remote location and it rained which meant we got wet and covered in dirt from the muddy roads. It was certainly an adventure as some of the roads here are extremely dodgy with lots of pot holes. It was good to meet all the relatives and to see their houses in this very poor part of the country. I met great grand-father who must be at least 90 years old and he was really surprised to see a foreigner come into his house as he lay on a straw mat watching Thai boxing.

The family told me it is fair to say that I am the only foreigner to venture into this area that we visited for gift giving and it is only recently that a Danish man has become engaged to a girl in my village. All the ladies keep asking me when I am bringing them a boyfriend from farang land but it may spoil the authentic cultural value of the village if too many foreigners come here to live. Maybe that’s me being selfish again and want the place to myself as I am amazed at the experience of staying in a Thai village.

Saturday 27th December

I slept most of Saturday morning after another early wakeup call courtesy of the father of the house who was watching television at 3am. A campervan parked in the yard would be the best way to ensure a reasonable night’s sleep in the village but I guess you would get used to the disturbances if you stayed here long enough. Every village leader has an outdoor P.A system which can be heard kilometres away but thankfully these are only used occasionally to blast out some music and community announcements. In the afternoon I went down to the local pond with Doi and his sister Fang who live in the shop across the soi and watched the other kids swimming in the muddy coloured water. I nearly got trampled upon by a large herd of buffalo on their way back home after grazing in the fields and was invited to take some photos by a family loading their bags of rice ready for the market.

Saturday night was spent sitting on a mat on a raised platform drinking beer and listening to music with neighbour Yu and his friends Buhm and Chai. The platform was light by one small flame in a tin which seemed to keep the mosquitoes away. It was a very pleasant evening as these guys had not been too sure about me when I first visited the village but now their shyness has gone and they are great fun to be around. It is handy having two shops across the soi selling beer, ice and snacks. Everyone seems to have a large I - Phone which they can play mp3s or plug into the bigger sound systems and pump out their favourite tunes.

The Danish man and his Thai bride from around the corner came to visit and he was very friendly but speaks no English or Thai which may be a good thing in some respects as they say the more Thai you can speak the less money you will have. I will have to take a risk on that one as I am learning more everyday about the Thai language and this also gives me something to do during the quiet times of my stay.

Sunday 28th December

I went to the next village for my morning walk and many families are now coming to greet me after seeing me walking at that time every second day and cars full of families stop to have a chat. One old lady opened her front gate and shook my hand and we had a nice chat with my limited Thai speaking ability. I make an effort to wave, smile and say sawatdee krap (hello) to everyone and it is certainly worth the effort. On my way back to my village I noticed most of my Thai family out in the rice fields flooding some newly planted rice so I had another insight into farm life. It was fun riding back on the motor cycle with Sek over the bumpy dirt mounds in the fields.

Sunday afternoon turned into another drinking session with Bell, Buhm, Yu, Chai, Bom, Nook and A on the same raised platform as the previous night and later they took me to watch them play football at the local school ground. I was thinking the football would be just soccer but they also played the game where you can kick the ball and header it over a net and I was amazed at the skill of everyone especially since most of them had been drinking beer and whisky all afternoon.

Sek picked me up from the school to go to the Sunday market which is a real authentic outback style market and a great place to pick up some take away style food for the evening meal. After dinner six of us crammed into Bell’s room next door to watch Thailand play Vietnam in soccer style football.

It was another sleepless night with the dogs barking continuously outside and at 2 am I had had enough. The Thais will not get out of bed to quieten the dogs so it was up to me. It was pitch black outside and I only had my small torch but I was so mad I went out into the street without any fear and yelled at the fairly large German Shepherd style dog to “shut up” a few times and I was not that surprised when it cowered under a table away from me. The soi dogs make heaps of noise but will rarely attack or bite anyone as they know fully what the consequences will be and they usually retreat in fear at the sight of a stick or someone yelling at them.

Monday December 29th - Tuesday December 30th

One day flows into another without much happening as the kids are at school and there is little work being done in the fields. The families here could really make use of their down time better to make some extra money as they seem to have plenty of spare time. I guess that relaxing and sitting around outside chatting is a big part of the culture and the way it has been for centuries.

There has been lots of Isaan (Northern Eastern Thailand) style music playing in the house lately and a lady came in from the front yard to have an impromptu dance with me in the front room which brought about some laughter from outside. I love the Isaan music so it doesn’t take much to get me dancing which the kids and everyone else seem to enjoy watching.

Meal times always involve the whole family sitting around a table in the front yard and there will also be a few cats and the family dogs hanging around for left over food. The village is a great place for the kids as there are lots of animals around and other children to play with. My house seems to be the centre of the village with many kids coming in after school to watch television or to just hang out with their friends. Their parents must wonder if they have any children as they seem to spend all their time here.

The best time of my day is the early morning walk and Mik the family dog has started walking with me again until the next village or we meet some other dogs which tend to send him into retreat back home again. I seem to meet someone new on every walk and there are new parts of the surrounding area to discover including the lock system for controlling the water flow which I found today. It is also interesting that families breed fish at home which they feed into the water system to grow in the fresh water to provide meals in the future.

After lunch I watched the most skilled bulldozer operator clear a block of land and demolish a huge tree to make space for a new home. The kids were soon all over the tree as machinery buzzed around the block with no one too worried that they might have an accident.

Late in the afternoon I went down to see Bell and all his friends who are apparently the “bad boys” of the neighbourhood according to Grandma and that is probably why I love being with them as they are so much fun. There were nine of us there and we were all dancing to the Issan style music and I drew a large crowd of onlookers as I danced on the platform next to the street. Today we were drinking the sticky rice whisky which is mai dee “no good” for a foreigner to be drinking in the afternoon sun.

It was then decided that we were going to the Update disco in Korat which is about 45 km away and I did not really feel like going but got changed and jumped into the truck with 12 others for the trip into the city. We had a nice time at Update and were back in the village by 3 am with everyone in the back of the truck laughing at me on the way back when I needed a long pit stop on the side of the road. The toilets in the discos are often very crowded and I did not have time to visit there before we left.

On New Year’s Eve I could feel a cold coming on and I think my resistance was low as I have not had much sleep in my 8 days in the village. Everyone wanted me to stay but I knew that I needed to get some sleep in my quiet Silom hotel. Bell drove myself and some of the family to the bus station for the trip to Bangkok. I was a bit emotional when saying goodbye, partially because I was tired but mainly because of the way everyone in the village has been so welcoming to me and genuinely pleased to see me and be with me every day.

I enjoyed New Years Eve in Bangkok which is a great city but I was thinking all the time about what is happening back in the village and I already miss everyone and the fresh air and my early morning walks through the Thai countryside. The beat of the Isaan music is still ringing in my ears and I am sure that it will not be long before I return.

Click on the pics if you want a larger view and select next to see all of the 37 pictures.

I don't put many pictures of the family or friends in the village in these posts in respect of their privacy.

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Photos

My lunch
Foriegn style meals are made just for me

Thai flash cards
I am trying to learn the language- the new card is white "kor kon"

Mik and Mor Mor
Our dogs

Thai style meal
Very hot !!!