Daily Archives: March 13, 2005

National Thai Elephant Day

Elephants are fed with banana trees, sugarcane and fruit during a feeding ceremony on the grounds at the Maesa elephant camp in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand Sunday, March 13, 2005. The ceremony was held to mark the country’s ‘Elephant Day’ participated by nearly 100 elephants. (AP Photo/Vichai Taprieu)

A Thai mahout watches his colleagues bath elephants in a stream at Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang province, northern Thailand. The center, located amidst the teak forest just outside Lampang city, is one of the country’s tourist destines, besides daily showing the performance of the pachyderms, it also housing the world’s only elephant hospital. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

QUICK FACTS

* In May 1998, the Cabinet approved the designation of March 13 as Thai Elephants Day to raise and sustain public awareness of the importance of elephants.

* Elephant are recognzied as the national animal of Thailand.

* The flag of Thailand used to be a white elephant on a red background

* On 19 February 2005, the most expensive painting by an elephant sold for US$39,000.

* There are between 3,000-4,000 elepants in Thailand. Around half of these are domesticated, the remainder living wild in National Parks.

* At the start of the last century, there were over 100,000 elephants in Thailand.

Transportation

Life at University here is very tough as your work and assignments pile up on you. I haven’t blogged for a long time because my workload here is enormous. Now, I have a chance to blog and I choose to talk about transportation today.

As everybody knows, in England, everything is very expensive. This does not exclude the transportation cost. Every day I go to Uni, I use the bus service. I know it takes more time but it is the cheapest way of getting around. The fares for buses here is 1.20 pound (90 baht) where you can sit the whole ride or just one stop. It would cost the same. In Thailand, bus fares depend on the distance you go to. If you go far, they would charge you more. However, the most expensive bus fare would be no more than 25 baht.

For the tube and the train. I think the train would be the fastest way of getting into the city but the tube takes you around more. The fares are quite expensive as well – if you travel around zones 1-2 for tube it is about 1.80 pound a ride. For the train, it would cost you depending on your journey. Here you can also buy a travelcard which you can travel on anything including the train within the zones you buy. However, 1 day travelcard fare is expensive as it could reach up to 5.40 pounds if you travel all zones. You can also buy bus passes which are 3 pounds daily. However, if you buy the week’s ticket, it’s cheaper than the daily one and if you buy the month or the year. It is accumulately cheaper. I would like to see this system developed in Thailand. It would help the organisation of pre-paying tickets.

Thai Food Signs 01

I have some more pictures for you to decipher. This time on the theme of Thai Food. When you are in Thailand you will find many food stalls by the side of the road. One way to see what is on the menu is to look at the food other patrons are eating. However, a better way would be to read the signs which will save you a lot of time. (You can learn how to read Thai for free in our sister site at learningthai.com).

(1) This is one of my popular street food stalls though since the bird flu scare there are not so many around these days. Do you know what they are selling?

(2) This is a popular dish yet very simple. As you can see, it only costs 10 baht!

(3) Again, this is another of my favourites. If you cannot read the sign then look out for the mortar and pestle! The last word in Thai says “aroi” which means “delicious”.

(4) The last one for today is not really one of my favourite foods but you will see this sign everywhere. My students like this one very much.

If you think you know what food is being sold then click on “comments” and let us know! You don’t need to register to leave a comment.

Win Thai Music CD – Best of 2004

This is the second of our weekly competitions to win a Thai Music CD full of the best songs from the year 2004! We will be giving away a CD each week now. All you have to do is answer the following question:

Question 02: Name the World Heritage Site in Thailand that starts with the letter “A”.

You will find the answer in one of the Thai Blogs posted within the last month.

Send your name, nationality and answer to: competition@thai-blogs.com

The deadline is the evening of Saturday 19th March 2005. The winner will be announced that same evening. You can only enter the competition once. However, if you don’t win, you can enter the new competition next Sunday.

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QUESTION 01: When you give food to the monks by the side of the road who should be barefoot

ANSWER 01: Everyone should remove their shoes, not just the monks.

The WINNER was Juraine from Chonburi in Thailand.

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The competition is sponsored by our sister site at www.ethaimusic.com.