January - Stonehenge of Thailand
Ingrid asked me if I had any ideas what I wanted for my birthday. These days, as we consider retirement and moving back to North America in the not too distant future, when we think about gifts we might want to receive other than consumables, there are two main criteria: they should have no weight and take up no space. I vaguely remembered seeing pictures once of some unusual rock formations which I thought were in Chaiyaphum Province, so I figured it would be fun to go see them. All I had to do was figure out what they were called and where they were. That turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be. But eventually found our way to Mor Hin Khao (มอหินขาว).
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| Mor Hin Khao in Chaiyaphum Province |
Mor Hin Khao roughly translates as "white rock knoll." While it is sometimes referred to as the Stonehenge of Thailand, Mor Hin Khao consists of natural sandstone formations whereas the real Stonehenge is man made. The rock formations are in Phu Lan Kha National Park.
Amazing Thailand (https://www.tourismthailand.org/Attraction/mo-hin-khao) has this to say about Mor Hin Khao:
Originally, the area was covered with forests, which was later changed to plantation. People saw that there were some large rocks in the cassava plantation (at that time) but were not interested. However, some said there are five extraordinary rocks from which a white light would appear during Buddhist Sabbath nights (full moon, 8th day of waxing moon, 8th day and 15th day of waxing moon). Accordingly, the place was called Mor Hin Khao, the Stonehenge of Thailand. Most rocks at Mor Hin Khao are white sandstone, while some contains siltstone, mudstone and purple sandstone.
There are other rock formations in the park, but this is the most famous one. There is also a nice viewpoint down the road from the rocks and places to go tent camping, if one is so inclined.
January - Making Fritters
Many years, we uphold a tradition of making "New Year's Cookies" aka fritters. We don't always make them on New Year's Day, and this year we decided to make them during one of our Saturday youth gatherings. Many Thai people don't like really sweet snack food, so fritters are a nice choice, because they're not very sweet in themselves and it isn't necessary to coat them with sugar.
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| Making Fritters |
We had fun making the fritters, but they did not turn out well. The gas cooker we had available did not adjust to a low enough temperature for deep frying.
February - Sunrise Over the Gulf of Thailand
In February, we traveled to Rayong Province for a training session for Thai Mennonite Brethren church leaders. (You can read more about that here.) We stayed at the Suan Wang Kaew Resort. While this part of the Gulf of Thailand generally faces west, due to curves in the coast, one could actually watch the sunrise over the water. It seems most of the people attending the conference were not morning people, so there was no one on the small beach when I watched the sunrise.
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| Sunrise From Suan Wang Kaew Resort |
February - Fruit of the Loom
We stopped by to visit our friend, Ngok, to say hello, and found that she was busy weaving floor mats. These thin mats are commonly used throughout Thailand. They are made from a type of sedge and are used either with their natural color or they are dyed. We observed Ngok for a while to see how se managed to get the patterns in the weaving. The plain colored mats were fairly simple and quick to make. Fancier patterns required more time and thought. Just like my mom might knit or crochet while carrying on a conversation, so too, Ngok was skilled enough to do this. The mats they make are either used at home or are sold.
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| Weaving Mats |
Ingrid got involved as well, helping split and trim the reeds.
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| Ingrid Helping Split the Sedges |
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| Some Partly Finished Mats |
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| Sedge Straw, Plain and Dyed |
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| Finished Mats |
While the older people can weave mats almost without thinking, you don't see many young people taking up the craft. So while these mats are common and easy to find right now, it makes you wonder if you will be able to get them in another 20 years. Already, similar mats can be found mage of plastic fibers. Another consideration is that many of the wetlands where the sedges grow are being drained or filled, so that the raw materials to make the mats are getting more scarce. Ngok said that the sedges she was using came from two provinces away.
March - Dinosaur tracks
It was Sunday afternoon and we were coming back from a weekend visit to Phon Phisai. Since Monday is typically our day off, we figured we would detour on the way to do some sightseeing the following day. We visited several tourist sites which appeared to be little visited. I had picked the places we would visit from Google Maps, but that it always a bit risky, since the pins aren't always in the correct place. One of the places we planned to visit was where there are fossilized dinosaur footprints. Google Maps directed us part of the way, then we saw some signs to help us further. We ended up on a narrow road that got even narrower and the signs petered out. The road was in not very good shape, so we had to go slow. Eventually we found a parking place, but there were no other vehicles to be seen. There were signs at this point directing us down a trail to a creek bed where we found the footprints.
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| Dinosaur Footprints |
We did not spend much time at this location, because a storm was brewing. We drove as fast as we could on the way out, because the wind was blowing hard and down and branches were coming down all around us. This made our trip became even more adventurous than we thought it would be.
March - Reunion
While we had been in Phon Phisai, we visited with Pla and Kung, two teenage girls we had taught English and guitar to. It's fun to talk with the teenagers to find out what is going on because they tend to be a little less reserved with their speech. We were encouraged that they were both involved with music in the church they are attending.
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| Reunion With Youth in Phon Phisai |
April - Helicopter-winged Seeds
It was early in rainy season, so our expectations were low, but we felt like exploring on our day off, so we went to visit a waterfall park on the east side of Kalasin province—about an hour drive from our house. Indeed, the creek was dry, but there was a nice trail through the forest, so it was fun to examine the plants, flowers and critters we could find. There were many of these interesting winged fruits on the ground, which I recalled seeing in a park in Udon Thani several years back. Turns out they are the fruit of the Burmese lacquer tree (Gluta usitata)—a tree in the same plant family as mangoes, cashews and poison oak.
Wikipedia has this to say about the species
This species is used in Burma and northern Thailand as a source of lacquer used for producing varnish, waterproof or preservative paint, glue, ceramic and lacquerware. Timber (known as Borneo rosewood) is used for furniture and inlay work.
Both tree's sap and sawdust can cause dermatitis and skin irritation.
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| Burmese-lacquer Tree Fruit |
A side note to this: In October, we were visiting some parks on the edge of Kalasin and Sakhon Nakhon provinces. The foothills there had many trees covered in white blooms, that had a kind of ghostly appearance from a distance. Turns out these were the flowers of the Burmese lacquer trees.
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| Burmese-laquer Tree Flower |
April - Make a Joyful Noise
In April, we had a team visiting from Chachoengsao that came to help put on a youth camp. Khing had not come to our youth activities in a while, so we were happy to see her participating. And I had never seen her play the drum before, but there she was, singing away and playing the drum at the same time. And since we had other people playing the guitar, I was able to snap some photos.
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| Making a Joyful Noise to the Lord |
May - Sea of Isaan Flags
Most Isaan villages have some kind of religious ritual or ceremony each month. In some cases, one of these takes on the nature of an annual festival which attracts people from all over. Ban Sema is a fairly small, seemingly insignificant village about 7 kilometers west of where we live. But it has the distinction of having a significant historical landmark, an old stupa known as Phra That Yakhu. This village is also surrounded by an ancient moat. Each year, on the grounds of the stupa, the villagers set up over 1600 handmade flags known as tung. There are many activities reminiscent of a typical fair, but the main event is anointing the stupa with water.
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| Sea of Isaan Flags |
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| Phra That Yakhu |
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| Moat Around the Historical Village of Fa Daet Song Nam and the Current Village of Ban Sema |
May - Lefty
I've met a lot of left-handed people living in Thailand. Pla, who we mentioned earlier, is left-handed, but she learned to play guitar right-handed. They do make left handed guitars and I've even seen them in a music store in Roi Et, a large city near here.
After the youth camp we had in April, we had several new faces coming to our Saturday activities for few weeks. One young man, Nong was a good guitar player—much better than me. But the amazing thing is that he was left handed but played a right-handed guitar upside-down. This was impressive to watch. In the photo below, Toon is accompanying him. She has a nice voice, and it was fun to watch the two of them singing together.
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| Left-handed Guitarist with Right-handed Guitar |
June - Banteng
Wanting to escape town-life for a day, we drove up to the Lam Pao Dam. This dam impounds a large reservoir that is managed by the Royal Irrigation Department. There is a park area on the east side of the dam, but when we had gone previously, it was closed due to COVID. With COVID restrictions no longer in effect, we decided to check it out.
Upon entering the park, we drove down an asphalt road that in some places was barely possible to navigate with our small car. The 1-1/2 km long road seemed much longer as were steered around or sometimes through massive potholes. The road eventually came to an end at a cluster of buildings that looked abandoned. There were no other vehicles in sight. We walked around the edge of the lake for while and then found an old track through the forest. We saw some movement in the underbrush and were a bit startled by some strange looking cattle. At first we thought there were two different kinds of cattle, but it turns out the cows are reddish brown, but the bulls are dark brown.
Apparently, banteng used to roam throughout much of Thailand. Now the population is reduced to a few semi-wild herds. I call them semi-wild because, while they are wild cattle, they are being managed so as to sustain their numbers.
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| Banteng Bull |
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| Banteng Cow |
June - Home Industry
Many of the people we have met in Isaan are quite industrious. They are always looking for ways to make money, since just growing rice is not enough to sustain their families. One of the big industries around here is sewing. There are many small factories where they make blankets, towels and some clothing. I think every house we have been in has at least one sewing machine and or serger. Women will often make clothing on contract to either local companies or companies located elsewhere. This woman had a contract to make school uniforms. It was amazing that she could even carry on a conversation while putting the outfits together.
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| Home-based Sewing Industry |
July - Storm Chasing
One day, we were chatting with Moe, the intern who works with us, about what we did for fun the evening before. She said that she had gone to a movie in Kalasin with some friends. We told her that we had a pastime that was cheaper than going to the movies—we went cloudwatching.
We get some pretty impressive and beautiful clouds in the rainy season. The afternoon that Moe had gone to the movies, we had looked out the window and seen some very dark clouds gathering to the north. I said to Ingrid, "Let's go stormchasing!" There was a massive cloud system passing to the north of Kamalasai. We only got a few drops of rain from this in our home town, but it looked like some places got a good drenching. We drove along the southern edge of the system and only got a few drops of rain on our car.
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| The Big Storm |
July - Ba Luang Waterfall
Moe had suggested we take a couple of the teens on an outing somewhere. We knew of a waterfall park that had covered places to sit and chat.
Ba Luang Waterfall is located in Khon Kaen province just outside the northwest edge of Kalasin. We had a time of worship and Bible study and then walked around the waterfalls. By this time, the skies were getting quite dark and the rain started to come down pretty hard. We had a couple of umbrellas in the car, so Moe and the teens used these to walk down the stairs to view the waterfall more closely. The orange umbrella contrasted strongly with the somber environment.
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| Ba Luang Waterfall |
August - Water Buffalo
Water buffalo are a common sighting in Isaan. In the past, they were used for animal traction, but now most of that kind of work is done by tractors or rototillers. These days, the water buffalo are raised primarily for meat.
One day, we were out exploring and we stopped near a reservoir. As we walked down to the dam, a flock of water buffalo that had been grazing nearby came over to greet us. It was a bit unnerving, because they are large animals and there were so many of them. Even though they were just friendly and curious, they could still be dangerous. Their owners were sitting under the shade of a farm shed, enjoying watching the scene play out.
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| Water Buffalo |
August - Ho Kaeo Tower
For a youth activity during the month of August, we hired a van to take a trip to the city of Mukdahan, so that the kids could climb up the Ho Kaeo tower, located on the banks of the Mekong River. By the time we got to Mukdahan, the rains were starting. Most of the young folk used up some of their energy racing up the stairs to the top. We could have gone faster than we did, but we were hanging behind, trying to encourage the stragglers of the bunch—there were a lot of stairs. Because of the rain, the views were not particularly good.
On the way home, Moe had picked out a coffee shop where we could have a brief Bible study afterwards. However, by the time we got there, it was raining quite heavily and the gazebos were not conducive to doing anything but getting a shower. We did get some coffee, however, and we got a sighting of Herbie, the Love Bug.
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| Mukdahan Tower |
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| Herbie Look-alike The bumper gives this away as a 1968 or older model-the original was an earlier version. |
September - Murmuration
It was hard to pick photos for September. We made a vacation trip to Canada, and it ended up being a time to spend our last hours with Ingrid's mom before she passed away. An especially memorable moment, though, happened early on during our time in Canada. We spent a few days in BC before continuing on to Alberta. I think it was our first evening there when we went for a walk in one of the parks in Langley. Towards the end of our walk we caught sight of a huge flock of birds doing something like a well choreographed flying dance. We joined several others in watching in awe as the winged creatures put on their awesome display. It seems we stumbled upon a flock of starlings doing something called murmuration. (I even got to learn a new English word with that.)
September - Reading Mom's Memorial Blog
From Langley, we flew to Alberta—well the plane did the flying, we just sat through the whole thing. While there, Ingrid's mom got sick and ended up in the hospital, where she passed away after a few days. I wrote a blog-eulogy about my late mother-in-law. One evening, while we at another relative's house, Ingrid showed her dad the blog on the iPad. Her dad isn't really a technology person, so he doesn't interact with internet based material unless someone shows him. It was an emotional experience for the two of them as they read my reflections on Betty Engler.
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| Reading Memorial Blog |
October - Pao River Flooding
It was the end of rainy season and the rivers we already running full. Then, we got a couple big storms blowing in off the South China Sea. The reservoir managers had to work to keep dams from failing, so they released lots of water into several of the already full rivers that flow through the southern part of the Isaan Region. Two of those rivers converge in our province. The Pao River, which runs right through our town, saw levels that they have not seen in years. Some of the routes I like to take on my bicycle became a bit more difficult to navigate. The bad part was that it was only a few weeks to rice harvest. Thousands of acres of rice crop were lost.
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| Bicycle on Road Flooded by Pao River |
But that wasn't the worst part.
October - Levee Break
In early October, one of the levees on the Chi River gave way. The water began pouring into rice fields and villages in the district where we live. Our mission agency, along with many other groups, put together bags of food and supplies to assist those who were affected by the flooding. (You can read more about that here.) After helping in one village, we were given a boat tour. We boated down the inundated road past the village temple to the town hall. Along the way we met on man walking down the road, towing his boat.
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| Walking Along the Road. in Ban Sa-ad Village After Levee Breach |
November - Jewel Bug
There is this interesting small tree growing in a forest near where we live. I have yet to be able to identify it, so when I noticed it was beginning to set fruit, I stopped to examine the plant more closely. That is when I noticed these metallic green and orange bugs living on the tree.
Jewel bugs (Chrysocoris stollii) are members of the order Hemiptera, or "true bugs" (as opposed to beetles or other insects). These kinds of insects change their appearance as they mature. The go through several stages of being a nymph before they become an adult. Between each stage, they shed their skin. Another term for this is molting. The Jewel bugs, before they molt, turn bright red and orange. Once they reach the adult stage, the jewel bugs have no orange on top, but instead have some red on the legs and are red underneath.
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| Jewel Bug Nymphs and Molting Nymph (Red) |
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| Adult Form of the Jewel Bug |
November - Visit With Yai Urai
Yai Urai is one of the members of our fellowship in that meets in Kamalasai. She lives right around the corner from us. Though she has multiple health issues that make it hard for her to get around, she is a hard worker. She spends most of her days making Dok Mai Chan—paper flowers that are handed out to people who attend funerals that are tossed on the coffin of a deceased person before it is burned in the crematorium. It is quite an effort to put these together. White scrap paper is either cut into flower head shapes or into long strips. Yellow paper is cut into circles that are glued to center of the flower. Bamboo is cut into thin strips about 5 inches long.Another special type of wood that doesn't discolor easily is purchased as a log. A small plane is used to cut shavings from this log about 1/4 inch by 2 inches. The shavings are glued to the top of the bamboo, which is then wrapped with the white paper strips in a spiral fashion. The flower-head is then glued to the top and a small strip of black paper is wrapped around and glued to the bottom. She sells these in bags of 100 for not a whole lot of money.
On this particular day, we were visiting our team leader who joined in the process while carrying on a conversation. Yai Urai has a great sense of humor and a beautiful smile, though we sometimes need someone to translate to Central Thai so that we can get her jokes.
We first met Yai Urai over 1-1/2 years ago. Her brother, who lives next door, had been in the hospital, first in Kalasin city, then in the local hospital. We visited him and prayed for him in both places. While he was in the local hospital, he decided to become a follower of Jesus. We went to visit him when he was released and his sister was there with him. She decided to follow Jesus as well. But just a few weeks ago we heard a story about that first visit that we had not heard before. At that time, she also had been having health issues that the doctor was not able to help her with. We prayed for her that day, but then didn't hear anything more about it until this past month. Apparently, the night that we prayed for her, she had a dream in which we appeared. The next morning the pain she had been having was gone.
The day Yai Urai shared this story with us, she told us about some leg pain she was having. The doctors had been unable to help her, but she found some relief using an herbal cream she bought in another part of the province where her children live. She was out of this cream, and was unable to buy more locally. We prayed for her healing that day, and Moe ordered some more cream online. When we went back to visit the following week, Yai Urai said she had not had any more of that pain since we prayed for her. We had the cream, but she didn't need it!
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| Visiting With Yai Urai |
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| Completed Dok Mai Chan |
December - Smoke and Sun
In this part of Isaan, the rice farmers harvest their wet season crop in mid to late November. Those who have access to irrigation water will then get busy prepping their land for the dry season crop, which they will plant in January. Part of this prep means burning off the old fields. It can get a bit smoky, though not as bad as April. However, when the sun rays break through the trees and smoke, it is like God is shining a spotlight on our path as if to say, "this is the way walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21)
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| Sunbeams Breaking Through the Smoke |
December - Christmas Dinner
This year, Christmas fell on a Sunday. Ajan Nat decided she wanted to invite some of her relatives over for a Christmas Party/dinner/worship service. We played some games and then sang some songs, after which Ajan Nat shared the story of Christmas. This was followed up by dinner which was prepared by Ajan Nat and one of her nieces. No turkey or ham, just stir fried basil, stir-fried Asian kale, rice and papaya salad. We sat on the floor, Isaan style.
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| Christmas Dinner |
Note: we did begin the day with a more traditional (for us) breakfast of home made cinnamon rolls, fried eggs and sausage.
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| Traditional Breakfast |
There were so many other things we saw and did during the year, but the best thing was getting to work beside our Thai partner as we shared the love of Jesus with many who had not heard of him before.
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