Bangkok Trip

Hello from Bangkok! We are here in this amazing place after a very long trip - but then, it's a long way away. Yesterday we went on an interesting tour of a number of places. Before we went to this floating market outside Bangkok, we drove by salt fields where they"harvest" the salt from the sea and to a "typical" Thai home (which had been opened to the public in a very commercial way). As we traveled our guide, Tim, told us some interesting information about a variety of things.

Thailand produces both white and brown sugar. The brown they keep for themselves because it is so good, and the white they export. We tasted some of the brown sugar - superior!

Thai families are traditionally quite large because they need lots of people to help with their farming. Tim is one of 10, and he grew up in a home without plumbing or electricity. The families, mostly, continue to live together even after children marry. They share one large communal living space which is used for everything. There is often a separate room for the grandparents - who are venerated (excellent custom).

It is interesting that the sand is white now as opposed to brown where the tsunami hit and the water is much clearer.

Elephants are very intelligent animals. They like to have only one owner and very loyal and sensitive. They are excellent swimmers and very fast. They eat 270 kg. of food a day and drink 70 liters of water. They are very useful and work hard in the jungles, etc. They even go to elephant school when they are 4 years old. There is a story about an elephant who saved a number of children during the tsumani. They are making a movie about it. They love to eat sugar can and apples. Normally elephants work in the fields and forests. They start at about 12-15 years old. They don't have more than 6 babies and wait 5 years between pregnancies. If the pregnancy lasts less than 20 months, the baby will be female. If it's 20-23 months, it will be a male. Why do you think that would be the case? Elephants live 60-75 years. They have such close relationships with the owner or trainers that frequently when one or the other dies, the other dies soon after.

Monkeys are also very useful and are much more than pets. They climb the trees to get the coconuts. Bananas are their favorite food.

They also have pythons and cobras. They have cobra shows where a boy battles 5 cobras at a time - we are not going to see one of those.

Crocodile meat is apparently quite delicious. The best meat is in the tail.

Thai people like to eat insects - particularly grasshopper and scorpion and something called cactu or sea worm - We won't be trying those, I don't think.

Outside the Thai home we saw a small shrine - there are similar shrines all over the place. This was called a spirit house and was dedicated to the spirit of the land upon which the house was built. Every morning, the older people put some kind of offering in the small house (which looks kind of like a bird house).

The family farm is almost totally self-sustaining. They use every possible part of the coconut. They make the delicious brown sugar from the coconut flower. Birds even build their nests from the fibers of the coconut. They used to use the fiber for toilet paper. Which reminds me, they call bathrooms happy rooms here!

Something, about city dwellers. They find it more economical to rent out every possible space, so they don't have kitchens. They buy all of their food on the street every day.

They are totally devoted to their king. Yo see pictures of the royal family everywhere. In their homes, they have a "rouge's gallery" like we have. The people who are the most revered are at the top - the royal family, then the grandparents (again, a good idea), and then the other generations.

The king was born on a Monday and his favorite color is yellow, so on Mondays aboaut 70% of the people wear yellow!

We went to the Damneum Saduk Floating Market. We got their by gondola type boats that went up their manmade canal system. Just about all of the country people have water front homes! We were bombarded at the market but resisted buying anything but post cards for Brittin, Ginny, Annika, Emma, Carter, and Gracie. They are in the mail.

As you will see in the postcards and in the pictures we took, they have all kinds of fruit here. They have 13-14 differnt species of bananas. Tim said the best are the fingernail bananas - they are the kind we made banana bread out of at the Roths. We saw a tapioca tree - I didn't know tapioca grew on trees!

We went to the Royal Thai Handicraft Center where we saw the most amazing wood carving. We took some pictures that we'll try to post later. We also saw the process for making paper out of the bark of the Mulberry tree.

So...there is our first rambling blog. This really is a very fascinating place. There is more to come...