Daily Archives: July 18, 2005

Superstitions from Thailand

Tourists dressing up in hilltribe costumes to have their picture taken.

Here are some more Thai superstitions:

(1) Do not let your children play with shadows during the evening. The shadow guy will come and take them away.
(2) Do not pick flowers in the temple grounds. You will go to hell when you die.
(3) Do not walk with your face down. It will make your life shorter.
(4) Do not stomp as you walk around the house. You will scare the guardian spirits of the house.
(5) Do not walk heavily. You won’t be able to save any money.
(6) Do not walk across any sharp objects. It will make them unsharp.
(7) Do not hit your parents. You will become a very bad ghost.
(8) Do not boil an egg in a rice cooker. It will make your life worse.
(9) Do not set up a spirit house in the shadow of a house. The owner of the house won’t be successful.
(10) Do not cut your hair on Wednesday. It is bad luck for you.
(11) Do not cut your nails during the night-time. It will be like breaking the bones of your ancestors.
(12) Do not insult a Buddha image. You will go to hell.
(13) Do not get married on odd numbered months. It is a bad omen for your marriage.
(14) Do not spit or complain about the smell at a funeral. Bad things will happen to you.
(15) Do not take off your clothes or sleep next to the closet. A ghost will come to haunt you.

More Thai Superstitions: http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php?blog=5&cat=85

Newsletter for Bloggers

This is a newsletter for registered bloggers. You will only be able to see this newsletter if you are registered AND logged in.

First, on behalf of the regular bloggers and the founding fathers, I would like to say a big “welcome” to all of the new bloggers from the past few months. It has been really great to read such a variety of blogs written by people who have different connections to Thailand. We hope you stick with us and help the Thai Blogs community grow stronger. at present, our daily readership is about 2,000-5,000 people per day. This is really great and has far surpassed our expectations.

To help the newcommers, I have started to put together a “how to..” for bloggers. The first one can be seen here:

http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php?blog=18&disp=howtoblog_01

As we are still defining ourselves as we go along, I wish to share with you some notes and a few minor rules!

* It is nice to see people blogging often, but be careful of “burning out” too soon. It is much better to have a regular blog of say once or twice a week than every day for a week and then we don’t see you for a month! If you blog once a week then people will look forward to reading your blog. For example, you could publish every Wednesday. To make this easier, you can write a series of blogs in one go and then have them automatically appear every Wednesday. You can see how to do this by clicking on the link above.

* Some people ask me what are good blogging subjects. Well, basically any connection to Thailand. Our readership is quite varied and they are interested in many different things. Some are preparing holidays to Thailand. Others want to live or work here. Some are going to marry a Thai person. Others want to know about the culture, language and food. Basically, anything that interests you should be of interest to our readers. I love reading blogs that make me say “I never knew that!”. Or ones that show me places in Thailand that I have never been to before.

* Pictures. It is nice to have pictures on your blogs. If you don’t have any, then don’t worry. Some of you might have noticed pictures mysteriously appearing on your blogs. I have a small photo library which I am using to brighten up the blogs. If you wish to use your own pictures, make sure they are no larger in width than 450 pixels. I think 350 pixels across is a good size and will help the page load quicker. Also, try not to have too many pictures on the front page. If you have more than 4 pictures, try and use the “next page” code to put them on the second page. The link above will show you how to do that.

* Family Friendly. We are trying our best to keep the blogs family friendly. This means students and families can come and read the blogs without being offended. so, you cannot use bad language. You also cannot talk about the seedier side of Thailand – i.e. the bar girls. We are not trying to sweep this under the carpet. But we are trying to do our bit in cleaning up Thailand’s image. The rest is up to the government!

* Email – if you would like to have an e-mail address that says yourname@thai-blogs.com then please let me know. We will redirect this address so mail ends up in your regular box.

That’s all for now.

Happy blogging!

Richard

KanchanaBuri & SangklaBuri Trip – Day 4

Final Part (30-31 August 2004) KanchanaBuri to SangklaBuri

Wat Wang Wiwekaram and the Three Pagoda Pass, my raison principale for visiting SangklaBuri, were the itinerary of the day.

This extensive temple on the southern outskirts of Sangkhla Buri edges on Khao Laem reservoir. The complex is constructed in an unusual mix of Thai, Indian, and Burmese Buddhist architectural styles. The pagoda is modelled on the Buddhagaya of India. Most of the time, my reason for going to wat has been looking around rather than praying for something, as most people do, methinks. I guess I have nothing else to ask for in life or may be I am an easily contented person.



The Wat complex look very simple



This golden color Pagoda can be seen miles away

Three pagoda pass is only a few miles away from the Wat. Disappointment were written on the faces when we reached the famous Chedi Saam Uong (Three Pagada).



From this picture, you may be thinking that this pagoda is really majestic

I was hoping that the one in front of my eyes were a replica and the real one was further away. With the Myanmar Immigration next to them, these had got to be the real one. Tourism Authority of Thailand ought to be commended for an excellent job of promoting this place.



Compare with other objects hereby, you now have a better perspective of the size

The tour guide told me that there are controversies on who actually built the Chedi, and how many times it was destroyed and rebuilt.

The Myanmar immigration officers, having reasonable good command of English to converse with us, allowed us to cross over to Myanmar side to take some photographs of the Dead Railway tracks. For Malaysian, we still need a Visa to visit Myanmar but I heard that things are changing and ASEAN citizen will be allowed to visit Myanmar sans Visa from 2006 onwards.



Myanmar Checkpoint with a section of Dead Railway Track



Shouldn’t it be “Japanese Old Railway in Myanmar Thailand <1942>” like what American like to say “An American Canal in Panama”



Group Photo for the hero who reached the Peak. By now you will be able to guess which one is the author

The usual sight that is franking all border crossings is market selling cheap goods. There are a lot of Chinese products sold here beside the handicraft from Myanmar. I picked up a teak wood lantern for my home garden for about 200 bahts. There are too many souvenirs dotting my home now.

We headed for KanchanaBuri with a brief stop at a hot spring for a drip. From the bus station at KanchanaBuri, we took a bus to Bangkok arriving late in the evening.

Spending a night at a cheap but noisy hotel in Keosan Road, we took a NokAir flight the next morning to HaadYai and board another bus to Kuala Lumpur. That’s the end of the story on my trip. Thanks for the following.

1/2 + 1/2 = 1?

Firstly, a สวัสดีทุกๆ คนนะค่ะ (sawatdee took took kon na kha)! :p

It’s been a couple months since I stumbled upon thai-blogs and I visit this site practically every day because there are many interesting stories to read from people who share a love of Thailand or anything in relation to it.

I’ll introduce myself. My nickname is Jen, I’m 18 and born to a German father and Thai mother as we’re currently living in England (the math title was a hint). I’ve lived in Germany, the USA, Thailand and more often than not, traveled and moved with my family for most of my life, which, in itself is a slightly complicated story reserved for a rainy day, lol.

Being “well-traveled” as some have put it, I’ve also come across many different but exciting cultures that have opened my eyes to the wider world. I speak German (first) and English fluently, but I’ve also had some of my share of practice in Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese and of course Thai.

But, can you believe that Thai is only my 6th language? Why is it not in the top five? Well, it was just over 18 months ago that my interest in my mother’s culture started peaking. It’s another one of those stories where a Thai marries a Farang, moves to a foreign land and forgets to teach her kids the “Thai” ways because we were to fit into the society we lived in.

But things have changed since the early days and so have I. I’ll conclude my first post by saying thanks to Richard for allowing me to blog here. I think it’ll be a good experience to share with others and hopefully I’ll reveal more in future blog entries.

Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. ยินดี่ที่ได้รู้จักทุกๆคนค่ะ (Yin dee tee dai roojak took took kon ka) Nice to meet you all 🙂

My dull Sunday in different sights (1)

A dull Sunday in town
A dull Sunday in town

Having been stood up by a senior friend at work who promised to take me to Pratunam, Bangkok’s shopping center for people from all walks of life, I felt that my Sunday was going to be so boring for me. You know women love shopping. So do I. For a window shopping most of the time, though. I’m not stingy; I just know the value of money I earn and just think over and over before I come to buying something. What should I do? I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth like my Prime Minister’s children. But the pasted Sunday, I did intend to go shopping in Pratunam, not for a window shopping as usual.

I had planned with that senior friend to go shopping a week ahead. She was supposed to take me to Sum Peng and Paohurat as well. I felt happy deeply to have a guide to show me around Bangkok for free of charge since I don’t know Bangkok well even though I’ve been here for 3 months or so. But the beautiful plan had to be put off just one day before the trip came.

I woke up around 1 PM with a headache because some cool movies on HBO kept me up all night. I slept in for a while and got up lazily to take a shower. It was such a dull Sunday, but my feet urged me to go out, say, I couldn’t be a lazy arse sleeping in all day. I looked at my wall clock with my eyes open wide. 15 mins to 3 PM!!! How did my showering consume so much time?

“I still had some time. There was no hurry,” I talked to myself wearily. I was dead wrong. Never say no hurry in Bangkok. You know why.

I am used to living my easy life in upcountries – from Phitsanulok to Uthaithani, Nakornsrithammarat, Buriram, Khon Kaen and Samuprakarn – where people do not struggle to live from hand to mouth much. Of course, poor people still struggle to live their lives, but I don’t think they do hard like those who live in a big city such Bangkok. My life was so nice back then. My life has changed since I started my first career in Bangkok. Actually, in Samutprakarn. I have to get up at 5 AM every morning even though I go to bed after midnight as always. I’m a night owl!

I’ll be right back. My boss is here.

To be continued…