Attending a Monks Ordination and visiting the monkey village.

This week we were extremely  privileged to be invited to an ordination procedure of our friend's cousin in becoming a Monk, which is a huge deal for the family and to celebrate they throw a big party with all family members and friends invited, as well as the local ordained monks to preform the ceremony. The ordination procedure for Buddhist monks, known, as the 'Going forth', begins with the applicant's formal request (Pabbajja) to a senior monk or bhikkhu for the novice (samanera) ordination.

On receiving permission, the applicant prepares for the ceremony by acquiring a complete set of robes and getting the help of the monks in the monastery to shave his head.The applicant then makes a formal request for the novice ordination. The senior monk acquiescing administers the Three Refuges and the Ten Precepts or training rules. 

The rules to be accepted by the applicant are:

The Ten Precepts:

1. I undertake to abstain from harming or taking life.

2. I undertake to abstain from taking what is not given.

3. I undertake to abstain from any sexual contact.

4. I undertake to abstain from false speech.

5. I undertake to abstain from the use of intoxicants.

6. I undertake to abstain from taking food after midday.

7. I undertake to abstain from dancing, singing, music or any kind of entertainment.

8. I undertake to abstain from the use of garlands, perfumes, unguents and adornments.

9. I undertake to abstain from using luxurious seats.

10. I undertake to abstain from accepting and holding money.

The first part of the ceremony involves the man's head and eyebrows being shaved off. After this, he is dressed in a white robe and is then taken to the temple, carried on a few of his close friend's shoulders, with his family and friends following. Once at the temple, followed by family and friends, he will walk around the temple three times with friends and family carrying offerings for the temple monks.

The whole ceremony lasts a full day and after food and praying the the applicant has his head shaved and then all the family crawl on their knees on the alter up to the monk to tie a blessed bracelet on the monks wrist to show respect. 
We were asked to be a part of this which was an amazing experience as this is not something you get to do by following the guide books or going to the touristy areas. This was an invitation from a good friend of ours (Rainny) and her parents and it was amazing to see this side of Thailand.

When we first arrived we greeted all her family and were shown to a table in the garden where they had large tents set up and plenty of fans directly facing the tables as it was close to 40 degrees and the heat was close to unbearable.

We had only been sitting for maybe 1 minute when out of nowhere, 5 members of her family were walking from the house to our table placing plate after plate of food in front of us.
The three of us sat at the table with Rainny and her sister and we smiled graciously as the table surface was slowly disappearing with the insane amount of food being put in front of us. And then as soon as a plate was cleared by us another one magically appeared in its place. Members of her family would approach us to greet us using their arsenal of English phrases they knew and we would attempt some Thai in return.

 Interesting fact we found out, is that most men in Thailand will eventually become monks. Not for life like priests or monks in western culture. Being a monk in Thailand can be as short as a week, month or as long as the rest of the mans life. Some businesses even offer unpaid leave to allow men to do this process

Once their loved one is officially a monk, one by one or in groups, members of his family and friends will sit in front of him to have their photos taken with the new monk. This will continue until every one has had their photos taken. Everyone except the monk is allowed to smile for the photos too.

Once the ceremony was over it is tradition for the family to do a lap of the town/village singing and dancing as they go (except for the monk). During the day we jumped back in the car and drove 5 minutes down the road to the Monkey village, which is pretty self explanatory but I (Stephen) was hoping it would be a village run entirely by monkeys - not too much to ask for right?. So all the taxi drivers, shop assistants and police would be just monkeys ... possibly in tuxedos... Unfortunately, that was not the case but it was a pretty crazy experience none the less. 

We drove through the entrance and immediately we're surround by easily 100's of small monkeys and some not so small. They seemed tame but a few would come close to us, teeth bared and fully jacked, muscle wise. The odd monkey would retract their lips and cheeks, to show their very scary shark like teeth, if you got too close.  

Rainny jumped into the river for a swim and I attempted to communicate with the monkeys and offered them food. The first attempt was not well planned as I approached a large monkey and offered it food from my hand, which I was not carrying at the time but was simulating to get him close enough for a sneaky up close pic. But once he seen I had no food for him he got pretty aggressive, started swiping the ground and jumped forward to take a swipe at my legs. 
We did manage to get some food eventually and we got some nice up close and personal moments with the monkeys which was very cool to just sit there and watch as they stroll a couple of feet from you doing all manner of unusual things. 

I also came to realise some of them were pure evil, as one monkey chased another out onto a branch over the river and proceeded to shake the branch with all his might to make the other drop, jumping and laughing as he did. 

We made our journey through and came to a large market they had at the exit, which was also over run by these monkeys but also a ridiculous amount of rubbish (garbage for my American friends) and we don't know if it's from the people at the market or if it's all the plunder that's been stolen by the monkeys and brought back by them to make their pile, as they are happy to eat absolutely anything that's available to them.

On the drive home we got a bit of shock as we were overtaken by.. well I don't actually know how to describe it so have a look at the pic. We got out to get a closer look by flagging him over to find out he was selling stickers and decals and only had a small slot at the front to see out of. Did we mention we were driving on the highway and this thing was doing easily 70-80 mph? 

But hey it's Thailand, where road safety isn't a priority. We have seen many insane things on the road, from sugar cane trucks stacked 3 times the height of the front cab and swaying from side to side as it goes, to pickups with 40 cages filled with live pigs squealing down the highway. But we made it home safe after the long day.



In a few weeks it's Songkran, the biggest water fight party in the world and it goes on for 3-6 days here, so we will have to get water proof everything, if we want to take pics.

Here is a Songkran video from 2 years ago and even the cops aren't safe. I seen videos were elephants walk the street spraying people from buckets..cant wait :-)

Kristine's directorial debut and the Black-light party!!

So for the past week Kristine has been teaching her 5 and 6 year olds the hokey pokey.. or is it hokey Cokey.. hang on, let me Google that.. .. .. .. .. ... ... ... ... ..   OK here we go: Its called  "The Hokey Cokey" ( United Kingdom), Hokey Pokey ( USA, Canada, Ireland , Australia and new Zealand) also known as the Okey Cokey and the Cokey Cokey except in the Philippines were its called the "boogie boogie"... Classic Philippines. Any way it has about 12 body parts for the kids to remember and involves shaking them all about!!

So she has already had her acting debut in the critically acclaimed Xmas show as Mrs Claus, which some reviewers (me), gave an astounding 10/10. However being in the spotlight was not for Kristine and she found her passion was in the background, organizing the show :) 

She had to select 20 of her       kids to preform in a 10 minute show and 4 other teachers would be doing the same. She had to get them all dancing in unison and doing the correct moves as well as understanding all the lyrics, all while keeping the attention of 20, five year olds. 
So you can imagine it's tough and requires a lot of patience, but she said she "had a ball" teaching them and they all loved the part of the song, when it got to "you put your back side in and you shake it all about" I (Stephen) said I would come down for support and to take pictures. Definitely not to get any embarrassing videos of Kristine doing the dance to the right of the stage without her knowledge :) oh yeah here are the videos ;) click the link -  Hokey pokey dance 1 and Hokey Pokey dance 2 

She was also showing the other teachers the dance as they were not familiar with the song. A few friends came down, bright and early on a Friday morning to watch the show. All the other teachers' students preformed their mini shows but even though im biased, Kristine's was by far the best, as her kids were not stopping during the performance to pick their noses, fight with other students or to stare blankly at the crowd, well most of them anyway.

One other show did Muay Thai performance and another did a "waking up" song, with all the things you do before school when you wake up.."but in song form".. well you get the picture it's not rocket science the kids are 4 and 5 after all. One class had a girl easily a foot shorter that the rest of her class who had a bone marrow disease causing her height and she led her whole group in the performance even having to throw a stern look at other kids who were not following the routine and pull them back into place... adorable to watch.

As Kristine's show finished they then brought in the kid from the pre kindergarten class to watch the show so she was the only act to get an encore for a second performance.

To celebrate that weekend we had been helping out in decorating our friends bar for her Psy Trance dance party she was hosting. She had invited some Dj's from Thailand, Finland and the UK to perform on the night and they had advised one of the guys would be doing fire juggling and Poi for everyone also. Rainny wanted to make it a festival style atmosphere, so borrowed some tents to set up in the garden for people to stay over if they wanted, which some happily agreed. Its very easy to sleep outside as the temperature throughout the night, is close to the hottest summer in Ireland's history at the moment only dropping to 24 degrees, so its no problem once you have plenty of mossie spray :)

The whole place was covered in amazing string, printed and painted art work and with the black lights to illuminate them the place looked amazing. It was a great turn out and she had purchased some UV face paint which I began to just paint on some of the guys in our group but that turned into a queue of people asking me to paint them, including a Thai cop which I was at first a little bit hesitant but they said he may be just here for fun so I obliged. 

The reason I was not pushed was that the cop and his friend had been in the previous night and they can't ask for a hand out direct but they kind of imply it. 
Usually if a bar wants to stay open passed midnight they have to pay money to the cops but these guys just wanted to drink for free so weren't too much trouble. We usually avoid cops at all costs as there are unfortunately quite a few who just want bribes so its hard to pick out the good ones but Kristine's teaching a kid of one of the top cops in her school, after a class he gave her a wink and said if you have any trouble contact me and it will be sorted, so I took that as I have Immunity right?


So I painted a few faces and they came out really well against the black light, even tried my hand at a Pac man design but not easy painting over eyebrows and beards but gave it a go. We knew it would be busy, so we helped out the owners and Kristine helped behind the bar for the night til she went home, then I helped them finish up serving drinks with the other staff, well drinking drinks would be more accurate, but I was there :). 
We have helped before in the past when they went away to Hong Kong by opening and running the bar with her friends and family and it was good to get a feel for it again. This is what Kristine and I would like to do in the future, is to  one day, own a bar/restaurant and small guesthouse somewhere. Its' a pipe dream at this time as we are just enjoying life at the moment with no set plans while we teach, but as future ventures go, it's top of our list. 

So work wise Kristine has 2 weeks left then she gets a nice 2 months paid vacation. She is going to teach private classes Monday to Friday for 2 hours a day as she was approached by one of her kids parents, who wants us to go to their house to meet and have dinner and to work some Summer camps. As for me, I have been doing teaching in language schools so my heavy work is only beginning as summer camps start next week. So this week my job is to sit in a reception area behind a desk and wave... yep wave, I'm doing the job of a cardboard cut out and smile.

The reason behind it is that all week students and parents are coming into sign up for the camps so the owner believes if they see me they will be more likely to sign up as I'm not some creep in my 80's and I'm white so that makes me handsome here.. crazy right. 



So I'm getting paid a lot of money to sit on my laptop writing blogs and watching movies for this week and I was able to pop out at lunch time to go to the pool around the corner to meet Kristine for some Indian food. Its the job I was born to do. 

Next weekend we have been invited by Rainny to go to her cousins ceremony as he is being ordained as a monk. We are looking forward to this as we will get to see a part of Thailand you wouldn't usually get to see doing the usual touristy areas. As an added bonus the temple is beside the monkey village so the next blog shall be about monks and monkeys... cant wait.

Valentines day at the zoo and the new water park in Khon Kaen

So this year, Valentine's day was falling on a national holiday. It was Makha Bucha day which is an
important Buddhist festival celebrated on the full moon day of Magha in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, and on the full moon day of Phalguna in Myanmar.
The spiritual aims of the day are: not to commit any kinds of sins; do only good and purify one's mind. Magha Puja is a public holiday. It is an occasion when Buddhists tend to go to temple to preform "merit-making activities", which I hope is some kind of Wipe-out style competition involving all the games from the TV show "Gladiators", with the finale involving something akin to the travelator. 

So what this basically meant for us, was no Valentine's day meal or drinks, as most bars and restaurants were closed, so we decided to go to the Zoo which was 50 km from the city. "That's just as romantic".. right?  In saying that, I want to clarify I do hate Valentine's day and think it's a ridiculous holiday. You go for a meal and you are hurried out the door and that's if you can book anywhere that's half decent. I read that 190 million cards are sent each year and 198 million roses were produced in 2010 for the day and it is increasing yearly. Meh!

So back to the day, we are not usually big fans of most zoos as a lot of the ones we've visited, end up being depressing and the enclosures are not very big or fitted for the animals. This place however, had more of a safari style feel and we would highly recommend it. It cost 150 Baht for entry (4 euro ) for the day (Kristine showed her work permit and they let us all in for 100baht each) The zoo is open from 9-5pm. 

Our friend Rainny drove out and I (Stephen) was spending my valentines day with 3 girls (lucky me). incl. Kristine, just to clarify :). The zoo allowed you to rent golf buggies/cars to drive around the grounds or you can pay 20 baht (50 cent) to take the hop on/hop off bus going around the compound. 

We started in the Madagascar section and it seemed like a fairly normal zoo until the next section were you go into a huge Avery the size of a warehouse with 100's of exotic birds and animals just walking around past you and animals we have never heard of or seen before happily walking side by side with the humans wandering around their house. The second section was a large area and was home to 6 black bears, which I'm still not convinced isn't just a couple of Thai guys in costume, because the way they walk and move is very unusual and looks slightly unnatural. 

We spent a few hours walking around the grounds and at every stop they had more animals to take pics with or feed which gave you a more hands on feel rather than staring at some depressed chimpanzee through a foot of glass. They had a Lions and tigers section with large enclosures and all the animals looked very healthy and well cared for. We got up close with Rhinos, White tigers, Bears, Deers,  and of course our favourite the  Meerkats, Rainny did a few impressions before we left. Oh!! slightly off point. If you haven't watched "Meerkat Manor" do yourself a favour and get it/download it. They are amazing little creatures and it's an awesome documentary following the survival of one tribe of Meerkats in a constant battle with other tribes in the Kalahari Dessert over the space of 6 years.

Part of the bus tour is you can hop off in Deer-land, which is an enclosure with up to 300 adult and baby deer's, reindeer's ... and ... well I guess that's the only types of deer I know. 
But you don't need to know the types, just that the minute you step off your surrounded by 100 Bambi's and they are all docile enough to pet and feed... We now both want a pet deer.

There is some amazing view all around the zoo as it's situated on the side of a mountain and we have been telling every one to visit when they can, so we may take another trip back here once the water park is fully up and running. 

We finished the tour and got our pics taken with some snakes, Iguana's, birds and mice, which after leaving I was unsure why they had mice and a huge python in the same area for people to hold, I can see that going horribly wrong as some poor child goes to pet or pick up a mouse just to see a 10ft Python coming towards his face.  

After the zoo we drove 2 km into the park and came to the water park. The water park was not open yet but they let us and a few other groups to walk around and check it out but the heat got to us and we went for a quick dip when no one was looking. 

The park is only a 40 minute drive so once it's up and running we will be spending every second weekend there :).  We also heard they are building another water park in the city only 10 minutes drive from us so it's exactly what we need with the temperature going up so rapidly. Driving to work I was quite shocked to see the temperature claiming 38 degrees and was told that next month it could rise as high as 48 for the summer.... now that just aint normal. Don't think I have experienced that kind of heat before. If we were travelling from Europe to that temperature I may have canceled the flight, but as we are currently being acclimatized to the 

stage that when I seen it was 38 degrees I was wearing a shirt, tie, black trousers, shoes and socks and not a bead of sweat in sight. Thank the stars for Air-con because before my only chance to cool down was driving the bike, but it's already at the stage were even at high speed it's like driving through a thick wall of dead heat.

Beside the park was another enclosure were you can feed giraffes, camels and donkeys... but we've seen a million donkeys (slight exaggeration, but hey, who likes donkeys). 
They were advertising Zip line swings, huge trampolines and what we're looking forward to doing is Zorbing, If you haven't done Zorbing before, it's basically 30 minutes of getting to live as a hamster. They put you into a large inflatable ball and throw you down a hill, sometimes filled with some water.

Next week there is a Black-light UV party in Supan's House in Khon Kaen and we said we would help with decoration, so we are looking forward to that. Kristine has also been told that in 1 week she has to have her (up to 20) kids perform a 10 minute show with some choreography. Kristine is currently teaching them the full Hokey Pokey and said when you get to the "put your backside in and shake it all about..." part, she feels like she is teaching 5 year olds how to tweerk.

I will be going to the show to take pictures and of course a video for the next update.
Looking forward to that... ;-)