hol-ly (hol-ee)>> defined: Pre-Songkran

Happy New Year

The Thai New Year, Songkran (April 13-15) started early for me (April 11). I attended some of the festivities at The Language school last Thursday to get a feel of the summer camps.

The kids did a presentation with skits in Thai. I didn't understand what they were saying, but they were having fun. Some of the children were dressed in Traditional attire. Later the kids lined up. They then paraded into the courtyard area. The Buddha was placed on on gold plate. Two little girls then passed through and placed pink flower petals around it. Next the children paraded towards some of the new staff, including me. Each staff member was given a fragrant flower wreath. Our hands were held in a praying position (I'm only using one hand in the pic to take the picture) with a pocket on the inside of my hands. A few little girls placed flower petals in my hands, and the white flowered-wreath dangled from my finger tips. The children the used silver bowls to pour water over our hands t wish us luck in the new year. Coincidentally it started to rain and pour. The fun didn't stop there.

With in a few moments, two young boys made eye contact with me. One threw a bucket of water and the other went at me with his water gun. And so the pre-Songkran activities began.

The little girl with the gold flowers in her hair kept filling my bowl and bucket with water. She was getting dumped on, but that didn't stop her - she brought me bucket after bucket of water. Kinda cute. One great thing, no crying kids. The kids were either smiling happy or with determined faces, nothing in-between. I was a target for several kids. No worries, I did my fair share of soaking small, foreign children. As the afternoon concluded, I walked back to my current place, drenched. I received several smiles on my way back as I meandered past several shop owners.

On the way back, I has strict orders to call Chanphen. We had a date planned. She met up with me and we set out for a stroll. She told me that she had somewhere that she wanted to take me. We ended up at a quaint little restaurant. The decor was interesting, while small, it was filled with interesting collections of the shop owner. Chanphen treated me to some fried tofu and fried Thai bread. In Thai, the bread is called salapow - typically steamed. The bread actually originated in China. The bread is white and has some sort of filling on the inside (ie minced/shredded pork, red beans, custard, chicken, etc). From what I gathered, the owners had taken a popular Thai steamed bread and fry it in soybean oil. I am not a huge fan of fried bread, but getting a taste is worth it. I was quizzing Chanphen. I suspected it was made with taro, so it was. Both dishes were served with a chili sauce sauces topped with peanuts, I also reckon it had a bit of a 'tea' taste to it that I couldn't put my finger on. The sauce was different than any I have tried thus far in SE Asia and I have tried several sauces. Good experience. Each plate was 20.