Learning to Bow and Curtsy for the Princess

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, from what I am told, takes after her father the highly revered King of Thailand, and longest reigning monarch in the world now. She tirelessly does good works for the poor and represents the monarchy and Thailand. She attended the Peace Corps Anniversary directly after landing in Bangkok from a ceremonial trip to Egypt. While many Americans may see the details of all the protocol as rather archaic, the King and Queen have really been a critical element of Thai national identity. They have worked very hard over his 60 years as King to improve the lot of Thailand, including those people most often overlooked. Nearly all Thais have a very strong respect for the King and would take any slights of the royal family as a great offense.

Part of the instructions before the Princess arrived at the 45th Anniversary celebration of Peace Corps Thailand on March 23, 2007 in Bangkok's Erawan Hotel.


[UPDATE October 13, 2016 - A little late, but here's a link to Part 2 of this Anniversary.]

45th Anniversary Peace Corps Thailand

We're back in Bangkok at the Royal River Hotel, with a 9th floor view of the River. Spent this afternoon at the Erawan Hotel where HRM Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn presided over the opening of the anniversary and the induction of Thai Group 119. Since I was in group 19, this had a special meaning for me too. I got to talk with a number of the new volunteers, with some who are just finishing, and a number of Returned Peace Corps volunteers, including Jim Lehman, the only other person from my group. Jim lives in Bangkok now.

There were formalities - we all had to learn when and how to bow when the Princess came in. But it was, overall, a happy occasion. The Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke about how his life was changed by Peace Corps volunteers in his town. The representative of the new group, Scott, stood up and did his whole speech is exquisite Thai. Doris, who was sitting one person over from me, and was in Thai 2 or 3 and a legend when I arrived because of her excellent Thai, sputtered when he was done, "No one can speak that well in three months." His vowels, his consonants, his tones, were right on and crystal clear. I learned from another volunteer later that he was a linguist and had written his master thesis on how to learn languages. I'm not sure I have it all accurate, but he did an incredible job. And he did it in front of 40 or so former Thai Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as the Ambassador.

Later there was a reception at the Ambassador's Residence.

Joan didn't feel well when it was time to go - headachy and nauseous. I told her she didn't have to go. She didn't. I had her new recorder with me and recorded the event and maybe we'll start our first podcast when we get back. Also some interviews with former PCVs, new ones, current ones, and old PC director and a Thai official who hired PCVs.

Mekong Cruise Part 2

Dinner in Pak Bang after the first day of boating with the Tosas and Nellie, the French nurse.











The main street of Pak Bang the next morning early before getting on the second boat for the rest of the trip to Huey Xai, on the Lao side of the Mekong.











In the Pak Bang market before getting on the boat.











A boat along the river.












We stopped several times at villages to unload cargo. Here we just stopped at the rocks. People came down from the village and carried things up to the village. Most of the stuff was from China, everything from rings to put pots over a fire to huge bags of noodles.






On the left side of the boat is Laos, on the right side is Thailand, since the border is in the middle of the Mekong.






Sunset before reaching Huey Xai.

Mekong

Our boat, #77, from Luang Prabang to Pak Bang.


The slow boat up the Mekong was a great way to slow down and relax. We went into another world. We'd been warned we have that there were backless wooden benches on the boat. We went early and got seats. Actually all the seats had backs, and the wooden ones had cushions. We were early enough to get regular tour bus type upholstered seats. Very comfortable. The dominant feature of the trip - as has been most of the time in Thailand, but particularly in Laos - has been the
smoke from the slash and burn agriculture of the hill tribes. The river was shrouded in thick smoke as you can see in the pictures. But we were in sparsely populated areas and just slowly went up the river. There were people here and there on the shore fishing, panning for gold, in boats, with their water buffalo, in villages. There were lots of interesting rock formations. And time just slowed down as we spent two ten hour days - with a break overnight in a small
village full of guest houses to accommodate the boat passengers.

Some People We've Met In Laos

Here are some folks we met in Laos.

Jamie and Patrick are two Canadians from Vancouver who claim that some friends left before we came and that was why there were so many empty beer bottles at their table.



This is Enrica, one of the Italians we met at the Vientiane Airport who works in Guangzhou, China. We stayed at the Sayo Guest House in Luang Prabang and learned a lot about the textile industry in China, about Turin and Italy. There's a darker picture of Enrica and Cristina on Phousi Hill at sunset. Cristina is also an Italian working in China - Frank, you should contact her. Her Chinese is very good. She's in Beijing. I don't seem to have another picture of her.




We met Thong Souk on our bike ride in Luang Prabang. When we were about to give up on finding the grave of the French explorer, we stopped at a little shop (See the mother and son in a previous post). Thong spoke pretty good English for a guy in a small village outside of LP. He took me over to see the school and then to see his house.






Phonesvan is the Laotion educator I wrote about in a previous post. We taped some of our conversation with her about her work to help kids in the LP area get better education. She's the U of Hawaii graduate.




Here are two more Vancouver guys. These two are law students at University of British Columbia on a semester exchange at Hong Kong University. We met them at the vegie buffet table in Luang Prabang






Tetsugi and Machiko Tosa are two young Japanese we met at the airport in Vientiane and did things with them until yesterday - including the two days in the slow boat up the Mekong. He's a plumber and she was a cell phone salesperson. They quit their jobs and have finished their first month of traveling. After SE Asia and India and Nepal, they want to go to Peru! We hope they'll find their way to Alaska.







This woman was weaving in shop at the weaving village of Ban Panom when we were on our bike ride in Luang Prabang. There was something about her - we connected and bought several scarves she had woven.







Edwin and Yvonne are biking. They've been thru Cambodia and Laos. We were on the slow boat up the Mekong with them. They work in Rotterdam for a social service agency that builds and maintains housing for the poor.


This monk is training at the Wat across the street from our Guest House in Luang Prabang. The Wat has money from UNESCO and New Zealand to train monks in the various skills - wood carving, sculpting, painting, etc. necessary to maintain the temples in the area. At the work table there was also a farang monk. He had gone to Luang Prabang when he was 16 and studying at the international school in Bangkok - about the same time I was teaching in Kamphaengphet. His kids have all grown up and now he's become a monk here in Luang Prabang. My monk friend was delighted to be able to talk to a foreigner in Thai, but we weren't able to talk too long.

Luang Prabang Day 3

Went to the pier to check out how to catch the slow boat to Pak Ban tomorrow. We bought our tickets and then looked for a seamstress to sew up a hole in my levis. I asked a woman, in Thai, at a shop on a main street and she pointed me up a small street to the house on the end. Joan saw the dog barking and waited on the main street (where she got a fancy coffee). The pants got sewn, but not as nicely as they did the other side in Thailand. As we walked back to have breakfast, the lady who told me where to find the seamstress opened her garden gate and asked in incredible English if I’d gotten my pants sewn. Turns out she studied Education in Hawaii and knows a Lao teacher Joan knows in Anchorage. We talked for a long time about the projects she’s working on to help various schools in the area. She’s teaching at the College here in town now and appears to be the senior teacher in town.

As we finally made our way back to get some breakfast we ran into our Japanese friends who are taking the same slow boat we take tomorrow. We had breakfast with them and then went back to see make an audio recording of Phonesvan in the exhibit area near her house where they are developing products and figuring out how to do fundraising.

After that we ran into our two Italian friends and had an Indian lunch with them. And we met some monks at the temple where they are learning how to restore and maintain the temples here. This is a UN – New Zealand funded project. More later.

Luang Prabang Pics

Here are a couple of shots of the first evening. Here are our Italian friends Enrica and Cristina.









The vegetarian dinner spot where everyone sits together. See the first Luang Praban post for more.









The evening market set up on the street.















Joan at the riverside restaurant where we hand light snack.

Luang Prabang Sunset

Here are some shots of Luang Prabang from Phousi Hill the first evening.

Luang Prabang 2

I'm figuring out how to use this machine. Sort of. These are pictures from yesterday's bike ride. Here's the lady at the shop with her son who got us pointed in the right direction to the grave site. By the way, that extra woman in the picture yesterday was a German woman who was biking alone and also couldn't find the spot.

You can see how hazy it is, and how nice it could be from this mountain view.

Luang Prabang

Our 10:10am flight left at noon - the smoke in Luang Prabang was too bad to fly in. But eventually we got there. Then several of the people we got to know waiting at the airport - Enrica, a Japanese couple, and Christina - got a taxi together to a guest house in town. At the guest house Enrica and Christina discovered they were both Italians working in China.

Luang Prabang - what to say? I've wanted to come here since back in Peace Corps days, but it was tricky back then and I only made it to Vientiane. This has been designated a world heritage site - the whole town. It is full of temples. It is a beautiful little town, former royal capital of Laos, sitting on the Mekong. I'm not sure what it is - narrow streets, not much traffic (mostly motorcycles). I think it's the details - the buildings and the streets are nicely finished, clean, and plants and trees are everywhere and blooming. And of course the people are delightfully friendly. But this place has been discovered and is crawling with tourists. And it has obviously changed to accommodate all the tourists. It seems that every fifth house is a guest house and there are outdoor restaurants everywhere aimed at tourists.

Last night after watching the sun set over the Mekong and Luang Prabang from the temple on the little hill in the center of town, we met all the folks from the taxi ride and while looking for a place to eat, stumbled on the vegetarian buffet. Fill your plate for 5000 Kip (about .$50). The amazing part was the long tables filled with people from everywhere. There was a Canadian next to me who had worked summers in Cordova. Two others from Vancouver who are taking a semester abroad from UBC law school in Hong Kong. One of them started speaking great Japanese with our Japanese friends. Joan was talking to a customs official from Holland.

And then we walked down through the night market that was filled with displays of various local crafts. On and on and on.

Today we biked to see the grave of Henri Mouhot, the man who found Angkor Wat buried in the jungle. He died up the road from here of malaria at 35. It was really just a destination for us that seemed like a reasonable bike ride. We couldn't find the sign. We finally stopped at a little shop - a shack really - and asked. It turned out we could walk to it in 15 minutes from there. A young man led us to it. When I got back we met the headmaster of the school and visited a few classrooms and one of the men took me into the village to see his house. I have lots of pictures to print and send them.

And I have lots of pictures, but again, I can't figure out how to reduce the image size to post them in a reasonable time. I'll try a couple. Anyway, Luang Prabang is truly an incredible place. Don't know how long it can last with the influx of tourists, I know it must have been much more interesting 5 years ago. It is really an unexpected jewel of a town way out in the jungles of Northern Laos.