Smiles
November 20th, 2008, 10:56
Loy Kratong this year was supposed to have been spent in the great park at Sukhothai where we had heard the lake there is a magnet to Thai folks from all over on November's full moon. Lovely rolling fields of cool green grass surrounds the water, and the kratong-floating-with-fireworks is apparently a terrific venue beside which to celebate this beautiful festival.
Alas, it was not to be. The best laid plans often screw up, and this early November the hatched plans were broken by a call from Suphot's father in Surin that he badly need his son's help with the rice harvest.
The old guy is in a terrible state, brought on by eons of Thai whiskey and 40 heavy smoking years, and can hardly walk anymore . . . but a call of this nature is rarely refused anyway, so off Pot goes into the wilderness to hack away at the rice stalks while I sit alone in the home (kind of ... on one level) enjoying the solitude.
However, ideas were brooded over in the quiet of The Bed . . . and I phoned to tell him I'd be grabbing a bus to Surin (Prasart actually, down south by the Cambodian border) to join him for Loy Kratong deep in the rice paddies and cassova fields.
As luck would have it, the rice cutting was finished the day before I left (which was Nov. 12) and in the meantime he'd received a job to transport a customer to Bangkok.
So we met up at Mochit Bus Station in Bangkok and hopped into the relative luxury of his truck (relative against the scraggly old bus from Hua Hin that is) which ended up giving me oodles of time to screw around with the camera and it's special little built-in anti-jiggle device.
ON THE ROAD TO PRASART
This big song taeow was full to the rafters with Thai dudes and dudesses heading off to work. But one guy was lying in a very precarious position. Lucky the highway was in fine condition, as his ass would have been hamburger had we been on a back road.
One would have thought a small rail or a heavy box of Singha might have been placed between his feet and the hard asphalt below, but ... (see below)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0153_resize.jpg
Thais have quite idiosyncratic concepts of 'personal safety'. I much prefer to observe such foolishness rather than partake: it makes for some great photos.
But I often wonder what the stats are related to hospital "events" derived from such crazed crowdings and natural joie de vivre On The Road. Especially among the younger and more demented age.
But these kids were having none of that angst, and were making do quite well with gossiping, laughing, contemplating, studying . . . all the things a normal person would do while dangling their feet 4 inches from disaster (one good bump away).
There seemed to be a smidgen of homoerotic behaviour going on on the back bumper there, but perhaps I'm reading too much ... 'up to you' :blackeye: . All I know is that if that kid was ever to do a face plant on that road, the medics would be busy pulling a lovely pink straw out the back of his head.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0055_resize.jpg
. . . and then there's the poor old oblivious cows!! In the same wanton-style boat as the Boys On The Bus ~ and unknowingly on the road to imminent demise ~ one suspects that they deserve somewhat better than the crowding and the standing in each other's shit they must endure before the inevitable shot to the head.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0054_resize.jpg
THE RICE HARVEST
These shots were taken out in Paw's rice fields at the height of the cutting season in southern Isaan (Surin Province). Simply nothing is as evocative of Thailand as this annual agricultural orgy (Isaan generally has only one rice crop per year ... unlike the Chao Praya valley or the south).
Once the rice turns from an emereld green to a healthy brown colour, the cutting starts . . . sometimes by a mechanical rice harvester (if the field is large enough and free of trees), but more often than not, by hand. Covered from head to toe in layered clothing, a cobbled together mask, a large sun hat, these folks spend day after day hunched down with sickle in hand. I could probably last an hour at this job ... Suphot's younger sister did it for 9 hours a day, for two weeks.
This is my old man tying up a (sheath?) of rice. Him and his brother Suban were the head honchos for this project, with most of the rest of the crew being hired at 200 baht a day.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0250_resize.jpg
Pot thinks this photo makes him look like a monkey. I tend to agree, and feel quite guilty that I had to sit by the pool sipping a Tiger Beer at our hotel in Prasart while all this monkey work was going on.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0249_resize.jpg
This is Suphot's cassova crop on one of his own private rais. It has a very healthy 'look', but unfortunately the rains have been heavy this autumn and it looks as though at least half the cassova roots have gone to rot.
He's pissed!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0116_resize.jpg
And these are three of the hired hands ... the kid on the left is apparently the best worker of the lot and was paid a few more baht than the 200 the rest were getting.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0253_resize.jpg
LOY KRATONG IN THE BOONIES
"Release the kratongs!!!" THe little lake in the centre of Prasart was soon awash in candlelit kratongs ... most by lovers-in-the-night hoping to receive an auspicious sailing omen.
As the evening wore on the numbers of candles in the wind was quite beautiful, and my natural inner cynic turned to romantic mush.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0095_resize.jpg
Myself surrounded by two of Pot's sisters. The sister on the right had a consession at the festival selling delicious 'Som Tam' with barbecued chicken and black sticky rice ... Lao food at it's most scrumptious. Her profit for the night turned out to be a measly 300 baht, but I suspect a lot went down the throats of her 2 brothers and 5 sisters who were hovering around like drooling soi dogs.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0267_resize.jpg
A dozen BIG kratongs bobbed tethered to the shore for awhile. Put together by employees of some Prasart town businesses, a contest was held for 'Best Kratong' . . . to go along with another contest going on on stage for 'Miss Kratong', who, at the designated time, in her tiara and ladyboy best, pushed aside the hoi poloi gathered at the waters edge and with great fanfare released the winning kratong into the lake. Quite enchanting, and hugely attended with great "ehwwwww's" and applause all 'round.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0076_resize.jpg
This Loy Kratong was 'small town' stuff with rickety tables, a bad sound system, a scary hong nam, and slippery slopes leading down to the kratong launching site.
Mr Pot looking a bit jaded at it all: worried constantly about how much profit he was losing on his beloved cassova debackle. But his mood picked up when the place filled in a bit and the music and dancing started.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0080_resize.jpg
Sometimes the balloons had happier faces than the real folks. This lady was drunk though and had consumed that bottle of hooch between herself and one other friend.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0084_resize.jpg
My kratong's light did not go out (it was also bigger and more auspicious than most), but Pot's extinguished itself along the way. The most important part though is 'do they stay together?' ... and in that endeavour we were quite successful: they hung in there for a very long time and drifted out of sight into the darkness, joined at the hip. Nice to know, and exceedingly good luck for our future.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0093_resize.jpg
PRASAT PHANOM RUNG
I'd been to Phanom Rung a few years before, but that was in February and the grounds and folliage had by then turned to a deadened brown. So, being so close to Suphot's village (about a half hour drive) I took the opportunity to re-visit while all was green and flowery . . . a decision I don't regret, if only for the quite nice shots I ended up with.
Mr Pot in his non-monkey outfit, posing in the 800 year old doorway.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0115_resize.jpg
A pond loaded down with lotus. A photograph I didn't think much would come of, but it turned out beautifully.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0109_resize.jpg
The great main stairway leading up the the central temple.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0100_resize.jpg
Looking back the opposite way from the temple.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0105_resize.jpg
The whole place was inspiring, so I felt like dancing. And so did my shadow.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0127_resize.jpg
The reason I came back: a perfect shot (in my humble opinion) included a blue sky (cloud-flecked), a green carpet, some old red stones, and a central spire.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0131_resize.jpg
Naga-with-chapeau.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0134_resize.jpg
Mr Pot gracing a rock.
He'd lost his taste for rice cutting (it was finished by this time anyway), and ready to head home to Hua Hin.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0125_resize.jpg
I'd originally been somewhat disappointed that the Sukhothai plans had come to nothing. But all turned out to my great enjoyment: we did the dinner thing with Mom and Pop, brothers and sisters, assorted neices and nephews, cats galore, a well-fed dog and sat outside in the cool air beside the gigantic sugar canes growing right beside Suban's porch and drank beer galore and a bottle of Red Label, eating a great grilled bass and a boatload of several types of fruit for dessert.
Ma talked the night away to me in Khymer, and this time I didn't bother with getting a translation .... she blabbed on happily, and then I had my turn regaling her with my own Mom and Dad stories back in Canada.
Neither one of understood a word the other said, but no matter ... she was just happy that he middle son was happy.
Cheers ...
Alas, it was not to be. The best laid plans often screw up, and this early November the hatched plans were broken by a call from Suphot's father in Surin that he badly need his son's help with the rice harvest.
The old guy is in a terrible state, brought on by eons of Thai whiskey and 40 heavy smoking years, and can hardly walk anymore . . . but a call of this nature is rarely refused anyway, so off Pot goes into the wilderness to hack away at the rice stalks while I sit alone in the home (kind of ... on one level) enjoying the solitude.
However, ideas were brooded over in the quiet of The Bed . . . and I phoned to tell him I'd be grabbing a bus to Surin (Prasart actually, down south by the Cambodian border) to join him for Loy Kratong deep in the rice paddies and cassova fields.
As luck would have it, the rice cutting was finished the day before I left (which was Nov. 12) and in the meantime he'd received a job to transport a customer to Bangkok.
So we met up at Mochit Bus Station in Bangkok and hopped into the relative luxury of his truck (relative against the scraggly old bus from Hua Hin that is) which ended up giving me oodles of time to screw around with the camera and it's special little built-in anti-jiggle device.
ON THE ROAD TO PRASART
This big song taeow was full to the rafters with Thai dudes and dudesses heading off to work. But one guy was lying in a very precarious position. Lucky the highway was in fine condition, as his ass would have been hamburger had we been on a back road.
One would have thought a small rail or a heavy box of Singha might have been placed between his feet and the hard asphalt below, but ... (see below)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0153_resize.jpg
Thais have quite idiosyncratic concepts of 'personal safety'. I much prefer to observe such foolishness rather than partake: it makes for some great photos.
But I often wonder what the stats are related to hospital "events" derived from such crazed crowdings and natural joie de vivre On The Road. Especially among the younger and more demented age.
But these kids were having none of that angst, and were making do quite well with gossiping, laughing, contemplating, studying . . . all the things a normal person would do while dangling their feet 4 inches from disaster (one good bump away).
There seemed to be a smidgen of homoerotic behaviour going on on the back bumper there, but perhaps I'm reading too much ... 'up to you' :blackeye: . All I know is that if that kid was ever to do a face plant on that road, the medics would be busy pulling a lovely pink straw out the back of his head.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0055_resize.jpg
. . . and then there's the poor old oblivious cows!! In the same wanton-style boat as the Boys On The Bus ~ and unknowingly on the road to imminent demise ~ one suspects that they deserve somewhat better than the crowding and the standing in each other's shit they must endure before the inevitable shot to the head.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0054_resize.jpg
THE RICE HARVEST
These shots were taken out in Paw's rice fields at the height of the cutting season in southern Isaan (Surin Province). Simply nothing is as evocative of Thailand as this annual agricultural orgy (Isaan generally has only one rice crop per year ... unlike the Chao Praya valley or the south).
Once the rice turns from an emereld green to a healthy brown colour, the cutting starts . . . sometimes by a mechanical rice harvester (if the field is large enough and free of trees), but more often than not, by hand. Covered from head to toe in layered clothing, a cobbled together mask, a large sun hat, these folks spend day after day hunched down with sickle in hand. I could probably last an hour at this job ... Suphot's younger sister did it for 9 hours a day, for two weeks.
This is my old man tying up a (sheath?) of rice. Him and his brother Suban were the head honchos for this project, with most of the rest of the crew being hired at 200 baht a day.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0250_resize.jpg
Pot thinks this photo makes him look like a monkey. I tend to agree, and feel quite guilty that I had to sit by the pool sipping a Tiger Beer at our hotel in Prasart while all this monkey work was going on.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0249_resize.jpg
This is Suphot's cassova crop on one of his own private rais. It has a very healthy 'look', but unfortunately the rains have been heavy this autumn and it looks as though at least half the cassova roots have gone to rot.
He's pissed!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0116_resize.jpg
And these are three of the hired hands ... the kid on the left is apparently the best worker of the lot and was paid a few more baht than the 200 the rest were getting.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0253_resize.jpg
LOY KRATONG IN THE BOONIES
"Release the kratongs!!!" THe little lake in the centre of Prasart was soon awash in candlelit kratongs ... most by lovers-in-the-night hoping to receive an auspicious sailing omen.
As the evening wore on the numbers of candles in the wind was quite beautiful, and my natural inner cynic turned to romantic mush.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0095_resize.jpg
Myself surrounded by two of Pot's sisters. The sister on the right had a consession at the festival selling delicious 'Som Tam' with barbecued chicken and black sticky rice ... Lao food at it's most scrumptious. Her profit for the night turned out to be a measly 300 baht, but I suspect a lot went down the throats of her 2 brothers and 5 sisters who were hovering around like drooling soi dogs.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/DSCF0267_resize.jpg
A dozen BIG kratongs bobbed tethered to the shore for awhile. Put together by employees of some Prasart town businesses, a contest was held for 'Best Kratong' . . . to go along with another contest going on on stage for 'Miss Kratong', who, at the designated time, in her tiara and ladyboy best, pushed aside the hoi poloi gathered at the waters edge and with great fanfare released the winning kratong into the lake. Quite enchanting, and hugely attended with great "ehwwwww's" and applause all 'round.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0076_resize.jpg
This Loy Kratong was 'small town' stuff with rickety tables, a bad sound system, a scary hong nam, and slippery slopes leading down to the kratong launching site.
Mr Pot looking a bit jaded at it all: worried constantly about how much profit he was losing on his beloved cassova debackle. But his mood picked up when the place filled in a bit and the music and dancing started.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0080_resize.jpg
Sometimes the balloons had happier faces than the real folks. This lady was drunk though and had consumed that bottle of hooch between herself and one other friend.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0084_resize.jpg
My kratong's light did not go out (it was also bigger and more auspicious than most), but Pot's extinguished itself along the way. The most important part though is 'do they stay together?' ... and in that endeavour we were quite successful: they hung in there for a very long time and drifted out of sight into the darkness, joined at the hip. Nice to know, and exceedingly good luck for our future.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0093_resize.jpg
PRASAT PHANOM RUNG
I'd been to Phanom Rung a few years before, but that was in February and the grounds and folliage had by then turned to a deadened brown. So, being so close to Suphot's village (about a half hour drive) I took the opportunity to re-visit while all was green and flowery . . . a decision I don't regret, if only for the quite nice shots I ended up with.
Mr Pot in his non-monkey outfit, posing in the 800 year old doorway.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0115_resize.jpg
A pond loaded down with lotus. A photograph I didn't think much would come of, but it turned out beautifully.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0109_resize.jpg
The great main stairway leading up the the central temple.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0100_resize.jpg
Looking back the opposite way from the temple.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0105_resize.jpg
The whole place was inspiring, so I felt like dancing. And so did my shadow.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0127_resize.jpg
The reason I came back: a perfect shot (in my humble opinion) included a blue sky (cloud-flecked), a green carpet, some old red stones, and a central spire.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0131_resize.jpg
Naga-with-chapeau.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0134_resize.jpg
Mr Pot gracing a rock.
He'd lost his taste for rice cutting (it was finished by this time anyway), and ready to head home to Hua Hin.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/Thailand_Sept08-Apr09/IMG_0125_resize.jpg
I'd originally been somewhat disappointed that the Sukhothai plans had come to nothing. But all turned out to my great enjoyment: we did the dinner thing with Mom and Pop, brothers and sisters, assorted neices and nephews, cats galore, a well-fed dog and sat outside in the cool air beside the gigantic sugar canes growing right beside Suban's porch and drank beer galore and a bottle of Red Label, eating a great grilled bass and a boatload of several types of fruit for dessert.
Ma talked the night away to me in Khymer, and this time I didn't bother with getting a translation .... she blabbed on happily, and then I had my turn regaling her with my own Mom and Dad stories back in Canada.
Neither one of understood a word the other said, but no matter ... she was just happy that he middle son was happy.
Cheers ...