Fishing!!!

One thing I love most about being here in Thailand is that I feel like I get to try a variety of new things. At least things that are new to me. I also feel like things happen spontaneously and that life is rarely dull. Another thing I like about my life here, is that I am around quite a few people every day - students primarily - and I find them interesting. I feel like I can learn a lot from them. It follows, then, that I like going out and doing things with students, which I got to do yesterday.

I have been here for five years and never gone fishing. I would hear about students going fishing after the fact, but I never got to go. Well, yesterday a small group of us went fishing up one of the small rivers near the farm. We mostly used a net, but one of the girls was an expert at using her hands to catch the fish. She would just reach her hand under the rocks and - snatch!

My contribution was throwing out the net a few times, dashing to hold down the net, and taking pictures.

The river we fished in.

Bancha dragging the net in.

Pulling the fish out of the net.

The initial catch.

Finding fish under the rocks.

Figuring out what was producing some big bubbles (a crab).

Learning how to throw the net.
(First time not so good - second time okay!)

We had maybe 25 small fish by the end. The students put them in soup that night for dinner. After this experience, I can finally see how fishing is a sport. We were all on the same team, against the fish I guess. And whenever someone got one we would cheer! Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Bangkok Jaunt

A few weekends ago I had the chance to go to Bangkok again. I actually had an informal chat for a potential job. That was Monday morning, so on Sunday, after getting off the bus around 6am, we took advantage of the day and wandered all over Bangkok. I was able to see several things I hadn't seen before.

The first seven pictures below are all located in the Dusit compound. Vimanmek Palace was very interesting and beautiful. It is golden teak wood and is apparently the biggest teak mansion in the world. Much of what we saw looked very European. What interested me the most were the exhibitions of King Bhumibol's photography and the local textiles. I felt like those were the most culturally significant. One because the King is so important here and his pictures captured areas of family, palace, and rural life. The textile museums were interesting because I was able to learn more about the different ethnic groups here in Thailand. The SUPPORT Foundation not only had textiles but wood work and silver work along with other handicrafts.

After leaving Dusit Palace, we walked on to some other sites. But first we were stopped by a group giving out free organic, vegetarian food. We stopped and ate, chatted with a female monk (who was Thai but lived in France) and found that people had been peaceably protesting the government but were taking a break that day.

We walked down to the Golden Mount, saw a view of the city, walked to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, took a tuk tuk to the Standing Buddha and the Marble Temple and then finally made it back to the hotel.

Vimanmek Palace
Photo credit: Tristan

Side view of Vimanmek

SUPPORT Foundation

Local Textile Exhibition Hall

Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall

Funny signs

Love at first...

Free food - and a peaceable protest - oops!
Photo credit: Tristan

Democracy Monument

Standing Buddha

Marble Temple (Wat Benchamabopitr)

Traveling companions and a tuk tuk
Photo credit: Tuk tuk driver!

The day after all of the site-seeing I had my "interview" (which I still haven't heard back from!) and then I met up with a couple of my former students at Future Park Rangsit - a big mall just outside Bangkok. After that it was back to Chaing Mai!

Trip to the countryside Part 2

Not content to see merely one way to do organic farming, we hopped over the river, and headed to Fair Earth Farm a few Friday afternoons ago (just a couple days after our trip to Pun Pun). Here was another awesome learning experience, if only because the owner has been able to do so much with just one acre. Most interesting to me was learning about the different plants, finding out new plants that are edible, and seeing how planting different plants next to each other can maximize benefit. From what I understand, this is agroforestry, meaning you plant things in what appears to be random order, but is much like the natural forest. Combining trees and bushes with crops. We also learned how the animals are integrated into the process. Fish, chickens, a turkey, a guinea fowl, all contribute to the health of the farm by both what they eat and their waste.

Sometimes the rice paddy

Canal with greenery along the side

Looking out towards the lawn

Chicken shade

Wild yam

Sorghum

Fish pond

Banana circle

Pineapple

Hopefully this gives more of an idea of some of the interesting things I am learning here, as well as some alternative ideas to mass production and chemically laden food.