Bangkok - Father's Day

His Majesty the King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is the world's longest-reigning monarch currently alive. December 5th is his birthday and Thais celebrate that in a big way, e.g., with boat processions, singing contests, decorative lights on main thoroughfares etc etc

I took a few snapshots on or near Ratchadamnoen Klang on December 3rd.

His Majesty is in fact considered the great father of the Thai people and is thus like the main character in „The Story of Mahajanaka“ written by His Majesty the King.

The Story of Mahajanaka is a story about perseverance, one of the 10 principal virtues practised by a Bodhisattva, and how it brought progress and prosperity to King Mahajanaka’s city.

The story was released in 1996 and contains metaphoric messages that held a special and timely relevance to the economic downturn in the aftermath of the „Baht Crisis“ of 1997. Scholars and social thinkers noted that the royal literary piece provided important guidelines for living in a society seemingly driven by greed, anger and ignorance. The story reinforced the King's visions of self-reliance and his formula for economic self sufficiency.

Surin - Elephant Round-up

The 50th annual Elephant Round-up was held in Surin on November 20th and 21st. It is a three-hour show repeated twice each of the two days.

The shows have 2,000 human participants and 300 elephants performing in six “acts” or processions.

The acts include stylistic re-enactments of the establishment of Surin as a town under the protection of the Siamese king and of the round-up and catching of wild elephants in the forests along the current day border of Thailand and Cambodia.

I had unfortunately not thought about booking my ticket in advance so I got seated to the far left of the Surin Elephant Show Stadium. Consequently, the few pictures I took definitely do not give full credit to how impressive the show was.

So, if you plan to go, book your ticket in advance, e.g., through the Tourism Authority of Thailand, before going to the “elephant town” of Surin.

Chonburi - Buffalo Racing

The annual buffalo races are held in the 11th lunar month – normally in October. This year, it was on October 22nd. The races are held in front of the municipal office in the provincial capital.

The races are sprints – mad 100-yard dashes that somewhat resemble stampedes – with the riders pushing their beasts of burden forward in the hopes of winning cash rewards with beasts of burden competing in large, medium and small sizes.

There were also a beauty pageant for buffalos.

Of course, no such event is complete without a market, a fun fair, some folk music concerts and a beauty pageant. Who wouldn’t want to be crowned as Miss Buffalo?

The week featured slingshot shooting, kite competitions, slimy bamboo post-climbing, cock fighting and Muay Thai boxing filling the playbill.

Oarfish Myth

This picture used to be a very common picture in farang bars in Thailand showing a huge fish supposedly caught in the Mekong River by GI Joes during the Vietnam war.

In reality, the fish – a giant oarfish – was found / caught at the US Navy SEAL training center on Coronado Island, just off the coast of San Diego, California.

Backpackers – Where Have They All Gone To?

The composition of the Western tourists heading to Thailand has changed over the pas 10 years.

The change started in 1998. The value of the baht slumped in 3rd quarter 1997 and occupancy rates at Thai hotels fell. For the 97/98 winter season, a few Scandinavian tour operators got good rates from hotels in Hua Hin, which combined with the favorable exchange rate made Hua Hin tours a huge hit in Scandinavia. For the 1998 and 1999 seasons, mature Scandinavians flocked to Hua Hin while Thailand also became a hit in Germany and then in England.

The Scandinavian tour operators started offering more off-the-beaten-track destinations. An example is Khao Lak in Phang Nga. Over 2,000 Swedes were killed by there by the tsunami in December 2004, but which was a place of serene natural beauty when I first visited in 1999.

Back-packers are now a thing of the past. There are no longer anybody in their early twenties taking a semester or two off for a round-the-world or Australia-to-India low budget trip to explore themselves (i.e., to drink heavily, smoke weed, and have sex with other back-packers). Nowadays, there are a few low budget travelers in their late twenties or early thirties who take 2-3 months off to visit a few countries in Southeast Asia (and to drink heavily and/or have sex with other low budget travelers). However, even these low budget travelers can afford the occasional spa treatment, so they’re not real backpackers although they stick to the back-packer principle of minimizing interaction with the local people.

This principle is followed even more strictly by the package tour tourists. To them, sun & sea are commodities. Whether their package tour takes them to Ibiza, Mallorca or Thailand, is pretty irrelevant. The major tourist destinations in Thailand have thus also become "commoditized"; plastic places filled with plastic people.

The feeling of "original" Thailand almost vanished. It is still there, but one has to look for it.