Life in Phana

Phana wins again! (well, almost)

Phana municipality has won lots of prizes (and money to go with them) in the last few years. I think its small size has something to do with it, making it perhaps easier to organize, plus the need to assert itself that often goes with lack of stature (think Napoleon). A phone call back to Phana on Sunday found some of our friends travelling back from Bangkok after attending an English-speaking contest for primary schools. The Tetsaban-run Samarkee School had already won through several qualifying rounds and seemed to be representing lower Isan.

Anyway, they came fourth, after Chonburi, Suphanburi and Nakhon Phanom. This led to the usual question.

Where IS Phana?

The rest of Thailand should really know by now.

Portraits of Phana

If women and girls predominate in this photo-blog of Phana people, it is because there are more of them around. Honest.

Anmyway, here are some of the people I know, some of them I know better than others. Maybe you can tell that from the portraits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wat Nong Bua, Ubon

One of Ubon's most distinctive landmarks is Wat Nong Bua, although it is only really visible from the north and north-west. The main chedi is a replica of the one at Bodhgaya, India, where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. It was built to mark the 2,500 year Buddhist celebrations and was completed in 1969, 2512 in the Buddhist Era.

 

If you were born in the year of the little snake, this is an auspicious wat to visit, especially so if you can do so on your birthday.

 

Wat Nong Bua is reached by turning left at traffic lights 4 kms north from Tung Si  Muang on Chayakul Road and going 600 m along Thammawithi Road. Samlors and tuk-tuks both seem to charge between 60 and 80 baht for the trip. There are samlors at Talad Nong Bua back near the intersection with Chayangkul Road for the return trip. Buses (songthaews) numbers 2,3, and 11 go as far as the Thammawithi turn off, and bus #10 turns down Thammawithi Road and goes past the Wat.

 

This new chedi is 17m in width and 56m high and encloses the original chedi which was only 5m wide and about 17m high.  The inner chedi is gilded and surrounded on all four sides by Buddha image shrines. The new structure is plain and unadorned inside (scruffy, in fact) but impressive outside. There are four smaller versions of the chedi at the corners of the compound.

 

 

 

 

 

These tudong monks form part of the exterior decoration of the chedi.

 

A beautiful viharn elsewhere in the grounds has glass walls, dark green, which mirror the trees, sky and clouds most effectively.

 

 

 

 

 

This illustration of an incident from one of the stories of the Buddha's previous lives decorates the main entrance gate to the wat:

 

The compound is spacious, with plenty of shade and seating. It is quiet and peaceful except when children are being dropped off or collected from the school opposite. The insects here are very noisy, too.

Multi-cultural Grandchildren

Sitting here in England awaiting the arrival tomorrow of our two grandsons from the Middle East, I find myself musing (not for the first time) on the strangeness of the family I have spawned. And feeling very thankful for it, too, I must say. So this is a very personal and self-indulgent blog, but that's the way granddads are, I guess.

 

Pensri and I have two children, both born in Bangkok back in the 1970s. We all moved to the UK in 1976 so they were both largely brought up and educated in Britain. But after university their lives somewhat diverged.

 

Dominic went to Thailand in 1992 and stayed for 14 years, before moving to Hong Kong and now Abu Dhabi. In that time he married a young woman whose mother came from Samui and her father from China. Dom and Jay have two sons, our grandsons Kim and Ben, now aged 9 and 6, who are flying by themselves for the first time tomorrow, well looked after, I am sure, by the airline staff. Dom and Jay will follow a week later.

 

Darunee has made her life here in England, although she has also lived and worked for spells in Australia and Bangkok. She is married to an Englishman and they have three lovely daughters. Oddly, the girls call us Ta and Yai, while the boys call us Grandad and Granny.

So our grandsons are 75% Asian and 25% European: Thai, Lao, Chinese and English.  Our grand-daughters are 75% European and 25% Asian. A brave new world. The boys are not quite Tiger Woods yet, but they are working on it! We are very proud of all of them and writing this has helped fill some of the time before we see them all together again.

 

This picture shows our two children, Dominic and Darunee. Darunee is holding her first daughter, Esme, her only daughter at the time. Ben is looking beligerent while Kim prefers to see life through blue-tinted shades.

  

Here are Kim and Ben at the Hong Kong Rugby 7s, 2008:

 

And three blue-eyed girls (but with certain isan characteristics in evidence too!):

 

 

House-dwelling Snake

The snake video clip has finally made it onto my blog. I hope. After finally learning how to post video clips I think I'd better give my new knowledge some practice.

 

A while back I showed some photos of a bronzeback snake eating a frog at the washing space behind the house (Wildlife in the home). A   long time later the same snake, or a close relative, appeared inside the house. I first saw its head looking out at me from a small crevice at the top of the stairs. With the help of a thin pointy stick we encouraged him to leave, which he did quite dramatically by hurling himself down to the ground floor through the open treads of the top step. It didn't seem to do him any harm, and off he went.

 

A few weeks later we had someone doing some work to repair some termite damage and mentioned the snake. He said he would fill in the crevice but when he went to do so he found the snake back in there. Before he did the same poking around with a stick I got my camera ready to film the event, but unluckily missed the bit where the snake hurled itself over the edge. I was quite relieved to see how difficult it found it to make speed over the shiny floor surface. I think I can move faster than that! And yes, I know this snake is not venomous, but I'm not very keen on snakes anyway.

 

Before I post the video, here are a couple more photos from the series I took of the first snake having a frog for lunch. There is no doubt it is a very beautiful creature.

 

Phana Song

This is an excerpt from "Phana 300 Years" performed by the people of Phana at Wat Phra Lao Thepnimit in April 2008. The young girl singer is a student at Phana Suksa School. The 3-day celebration was sponsored by Phana Municipality. I think it is rather lovely. I hope you enjoy it.