Life in Phana

Year of the Rabbit, that was

I was born in the year of the rabbit and that year comes round every twelve years. For me, it has come round six times so far. Traditionally, the sixth cycle (and the seventh) are celebrated more than an annual birthday here in Thailand. It is considered quite an achievement, I suppose, to see your sixth cycle. I certainly feel a sense of achievement, partly perhaps because I can still remember thinking that 30 years old was OLD AGE, and I could not imagine living that long.

My actual birthday was back in October, but we decided that the best time to celebrate it would be close to Christmas. We ended up with Christmas Eve for several reasons, the main one being that the family was asembling in Bangkok the previous weekend for the wedding of Liew and Ashley. By family 'assembling', I mean that our children Dominic and Darunee, with Jay and Adam and our five grandchildren would all be in Thailand for the wedding and then staying on for some holiday time. Liew and Ashley would be here from England too of course. Our Thai family (Pensri's sisters and their children and grandchildren and her cousins and their children and grandchildren) were also able to come up to Phana, as most of them do each year for a tam boun for the ancestors.

Most people arrived in Phana on the 23rd, Dom and Darunee's lot with us in the house, everyone else booked into Phana Garden Resort. Food was organised, monks invited, a stage put up in the garden, and a marquee, plastic tables and chairs stacked up ready for use. In the morning we were going to feed nine monks (one forgot to come!) and then have a baci su kwan ceremony with one of Pensri's second (?) cousins the spirit-caller. The neice of Mom, the woman who spent several months with us in England in 2011, had offered to dance the benediction dance, and three other young women were going to perform another dance for the baci.

Hundreds of photos were taken, none of them by me on this occasion. It is difficult to make a selection,but here goes.

Presents, this one from my senior brother and sister-in-law:

And more presents:

Beautiful dancers -- worth waiting 72 years for this picture, I think.

Our two 'children', Darunee and Dominic, and three of their children, Polly, Esme and Kim:

The monks beginning their chanting; the senior monk here kindly told me I could sit cross-legged. He could see that I was likely to topple over otherwise!

Most of the guests sit outside on these occasions:

The woman on the right is well past her seventh cycle. She must have attended hundreds of ceremonies like this one. She used to give me massages when I first came to Phana, and I thought she was really old then. Really old, but her thumbs were amazingly strong, and she gave me some of the most effective massage I've had. It was good to see her again because she doesn't get out and about much any more.

And then when the monks were eating, the su kwan ceremony began:

And then the sacred threads were tied around wrists while blessings were muttered. It is usual to wish the receiver good health and a long life but people seemed to enjoy trying to outdo each other by wishing me 100, 300, 600, 1200 years of life! I'm not sure I wish any of those for myself, but who knows.

Then we all had lunch and everyone except the families from Bangkok, Abu Dhabi and England disappeared rapidly, as is the custom. But in the evening we had an entertainment arranged and I'll post some pictures of that very soon.

Back to Phana... again

Here we are back in Phana, far from the floods that are ravaging much of Thailand. We have been here a week now, but our broadband connection was only restored yesterday, so this is my first post in some time.

Our journey from Bangkok was uneventful although the train to Ubon was diverted via Chachoengsao, and the journey time was two hours longer than usual. Warin Chamrap, where the train arrives, on the south side of the Moon River, was quite flooded, with the two large lakes overflowing and people who had had to evacuate their homes living in makeshift shelters along the main road to Ubon.

Arriving on the outskirts of Phana, the fields were full of rice and it looked as if here, at least, there is a good harvest in prospect.

At home in Phana we found  the garden hedge in full bloom and  attracting large butterflies:

We had heard that some of the sandy paths in Don Chao Poo Forest had been 'improved' and we were somewhat fearful that this meant more concrete. It wasn't as bad as that, and perhaps is not so bad at all. Certainly if these new paths encourage people to explore the forest a bit more that might be a good thing.

 

The paths lead to the four Buddha images that have been in the forest for the last 30 or so years.

The monkeys seem to have adopted the paths. Whenever they spend time on the ground, they seem to prefer to spend most of it on the roadways and now on these paths. They eat ants and termites and it may be easier for them to spot these and pick them up from the hard surfaces.

There are still some very pleasant, sandy paths, shaded by the tall canopies of the yang trees. This one leads off one of the concrete roads. I took the picture early on my first morning back in Phana, with the sun just beginning to break through.

It made the perfect welcome back to Phana.

Politics is banned in Isan

 Here in Isan one man has banned politics. At least, he has forbidden all talk of politics on his farm.

  

You can see the large writing in red on the notice on the left of the picture above. It declares his farm a "Politics Free Zone". Underneath, in black, it warns that political talk is forbidden here. And thanks you for your consideration.

The owner of this farm visits it most mornings on his motorbike. I suppose he does a bit of farming before he goes off to school, because  he is a teacher at one of the primary schools in an outlying village. Pensri and I often see him when we are on our early-morning bike ride. He is a distant relative of Pensri and urged us to visit his farm sometime when we cycle past.

 

 

 

The dragon fruit cacti are the only crop he cultivates, but he has created much more than an orchard here. He clearly likes to spend leisure time in this peaceful spot just off the Phana by-pass.

 

He can entertain his friends sheltered from sun and rain. There are books here, a television set, refrigerator, cooking facilities, and so on. And outside the shelter there is more seating and picnic tables. I like the way that he has made use of a variety of furniture that has seen better days and probably been thrown out by his wife.

 

 

 

You can tell a lot about his character, I think, from this little oasis. It is rumoured that he won a fairly large sum on the lottery and spent it here. No Benz for him, but a place where he can relax with his friends, eating and drinking, and NOT talking about politics.

 

 

 

And if he wants to spend the night here, this little room looks very comfortable, and reminiscent of a monk's kuti.

 

Perhaps he is planning to add a door on this little building sometime. In the meantime, I suppose if a queue forms outside they can be distracted by the picture on the wall.

 

I am indebted to Wikipedia for unknowingly supplying me with the following picture and information about dragon fruit (Pitaya); in Thai แก้วมังกร, kaew mang korn.

 

Particularly red-skinned pitayas are a good source of Vitamin C.

Pitayas are rich in fiber and minerals, notably phosphorus and calcium. Red pitayas seem to be richer in the former, yellow ones in the latter.

The seeds are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, and in particular Red Pitayas contain very little saturated fat.

Pitayas also contain significant quantities of phytoalbumin antioxidants, which prevent the formation of cancer-causing free radicals.

In Taiwan, diabetics use the fruit as a food substitute for rice and as a source of dietary fibre.

Pitaya supposedly increases excretion of heavy metal toxins and lowers cholesterol and blood pressure. Eaten regularly, it is credited with alleviating chronic respiratory tract ailments.

Appliance of Science at the Model Agriculture Centre, Phana

The appliance of science was the tag-line on a series of advertisements in the UK some years back. I think it was used by a company producing fridges and freezers. The phrase came back to me when I visited the Model Agriculture Centre in Tambon Phra Lao, Phana. It seems that this piece of equipment is proving of interest to lots of local farmers. It is only of use to them if they are keeping pigs, however. That is because it relies on a good quantity of pig dung to be produced and collected as often as possible. Here are Pensri and  the young man in charge explaining to each other how it works. He explained the day-to-day running and Pensri explained a bit of the practical chemistry behind it. The dog found it all very interesting but made no comment.

The first step is to collect as much pig dung as possible. That is not a problem here as my next post updating the post about livestock will show. The dung is washed into the strong plastic storage tank through this aperture:

The tank is filled to about half its capacity with the slurry of pig dung mixed with water. Methane gas is given off and rises to fill the tank. A pipe connects the tank with a gas cooker through this pipe arching over the water containers. An offshoot of the pipe leads into the inverted plastic bottle which has water in the bottom and a hole cut into the top. The short piece of pipe going into the bottle has a valve which allows gas into the bottle if the pressure is too great. The gas then bubbles through the water and escapes into the air through the hole in the bottle. The purpose of the water is so that if bubbles are seen then it is apparent that the gas pressure is too high. Ingeneous, eh?

Here you see the gas ring, actually a double ring, hence the divided pipe and the two taps. Depending on how much heat you require, you open one or both of the taps. Of course, the gas supply could be attached to a more sophisticated cooker if required.

 

 

About 10 kgs of pig dung is collected here each day and fed into the tank. Enough methane gas is produced to provide all the fuel the half dozen or so workers need in order to cook their food and heat water for tea.

 

The tank is emptied every few days by running off liquid from the end of the tank. Bacterial action inside the tank destroys the fecal matter and there is no smell from the run-off. However, the tank that collects the run-off is normally covered.

Phana Garden Resort

Phana Garden Resort is the only place of its kind in Amphur Phana. It opened in September 2009 in spacious grounds which have been well-maintained as  the 'garden' in the name of the resort.

The frontage is welcoming by day ...

... and by night.

The building nearest to the road is this open-air restaurant:

 As with many things in Phana, the town's iconic monkeys are represented. Here they figure behind the bar.

As well as the open-air restaurant, there is another room, air-conditioned, which can be used for entertaining large groups to lunch or evening meal, or as a meeting room seating up to 80 people. The resort has only a small number of rooms available for accommodation, and most of their business seems to be providing spaces for meetings and celebrations. There are two snooker rooms which seem to be well patronised and so do the two karaoke rooms, of course.

The sleeping accommodation consists of five small one-bed units like these, three of them with air-conditioning and two of them with a fan only. All have a toilet and hot and cold showers. With air-con the price is 470 Baht per day, and with a fan it is 310 Baht per day.

Two larger units with veranda and carpeted floor are 630 Baht a day, and there is one two-bedroom unit with veranda at 960 Baht a day. Breakfast is not included in the price, but it can be provided if ordered the previous night.

This karaoke room can seat 15 people:

The resort is about 1 km from the amphur office, 2 kms from the new market and bus station. The area where the resort is situated is still green and pleasant as this view looking out to the road from the open-air restaurant shows.

At present, the resort is used mainly by people returning to Phana usually  for some sort of family ceremony that means more people attending than the local family members can accommodate. If some of the ideas being proposed as part of the Community Based Tourism initiative in Amnat Charoen Province came to fruition, then Phana Garden Resort will play an important role. People staying there can be sure of friendly and helpful service and a comfortable night's sleep.

January & February Pictures from Phanaperson

Not so many people have been looking at my Pic of the Day (use the tab at the top of this page) so I have posted a selection from January and February pics. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.

   

 





 

Visitor Week in Phana

This has been a week of visitors for us in Phana. Last Sunday I picked up Darunee and Adam and their three children from the airport in Ubon. After a breakfast with Lao coffee in Dao Coffee shop we made the trip back to Phana. It was the first time for little Polly, who is just 15 months old. Everyone else’s last visit was two years ago. Esme was still the right size for her bicycle but Anna’s tricycle was passed down to Polly and Anna was the lucky girl to get a brand new bike. That doesn’t often happen if you are the second child.

 

 

All three girls really enjoyed exploring our garden, fearless of scorpions and snakes. The adults, though, crossed their fingers and hoped for the best. And everything was fine. The girls especially liked playing with water and love a game they call “ants in your pants” which meant they took off all their clothes and hosed each other down.

 

 

 

On Monday we found two monkeys working in the coconut orchard opposite the house. The men had come from Roi Et, as had the younger (3-year-old) monkey. The older monkey was 7 years old and had come originally from Laos. He cost 200,000 Baht, so his owner said. Like most itinerant vendors and workers, they were staying in a local temple for the week they were offering their services in and around Phana.

 

 
 

On Tuesday we were visited by a new friend, a kiwi, who I had met for the first time in Ubon last Saturday, though we had 'met' originally on this blog. Then on Wednesday Phana was positively invaded by farangs when the Director of Project Trust and the Desk Officer responsible for volunteers in Thailand came to visit the project here. They watched the girls teaching at Samarkee School and stayed overnight at the Phana Garden Resort. We all had a very enjoyable evening at a little restaurant called "Uncle Moustache" after the owner's most obvious feature. The menu: duck laab, fried fish, stir-fried mixed vegetables, omelette, pork and tofu soup, fried sun-dried beef, sticky rice and som tum. The following day the Project Trust visitors were officially welcomed by Tetsaban Phana before going to the volunteers' other two schools. Then after a big lunch with the Tetsaban, they were picked up by people from Tetsaban Loeng Nok Ta where they were going to visit another project there.

Naturally, Ingrid and Nadia were taken to meet some of the monkeys in Don Chao Poo forest.

 

And they saw how much the two volunteers, Lauren (on the right) and Sarah, are loved by the children in Primary 1 class.

 

At some point in the week this plant vendor appeared at the gate. She showed Pensri what the plants would look like when they flowered and we ended up with another 10 plants to put somewhere in the garden.

 

Then twice we were visited by this rather eccentric monk who gave me three round seeds from a large tree. He said I could either plant them and get three tall trees or eat them and be impervious to bullets. I think I'll pass them on to Pensri to see if she wants to use them in the garden.

So the week has ended. The monk is still in Phana (I drove him 'home' to Wat Burapa) but everyone else has left. Not to worry: on Monday Pensri's two older sisters are coming up from Bangkok. They are being driven by P'Saisawarth's eldest son Jeab, and of course he and his wife are bringing Mono. So we won't be feeling lonely or forgotten out here in the sticks.

 

 

Scorpion Invasion

The first scorpion I ever saw in Thailand was in a small village in Si Sa Ket Province a few years back. Then last year I found one when I moved a smallish water jar which had been damaged by a branch falling from a tree next door. The scorpion was hiding under the jar and judging by how slowly it moved and how disoriented it seemed -- unable to make up its mind which direction to scuttle off in -- I think it had been hibernating or at least having a prolonged snooze.

Then a couple of days ago Pensri reported finding one in a sort of pit she had dug to start piling cuttings that would need to be burnt because they were too big to compost (greenhouse effect? in Phana?). Although I rushed over there with my camera, the scorpion had disappeared completely.

 

 

 

 

Then only about 10 minutes later Pensri found another one in a different part of the garden. Possibly it was the same scorpion although it would have had to move a lot faster and much more decisively than last year's specimen to have got to the new location in that time.

 

He is covered in bits of earth so he was hiding under a loose pile that may have been where Pensri first saw him.

 

 

I moved him onto this piece of concrete so that there was a bit more contrast and less tocamouflage him.Two red ants have attached themselves to his tail so there could be a battle of the venoms going on here. Scorpions eat small arthropods and insects so they are playing a dangerous game.

Apparently Thai scorpions (there is only the one species here) are fairly harmless. Their venom is about as powerful as a wasp sting but as with a wasp there is always the possibility of an allergic reaction which could be fatal.  They are nocturnal and hide in dark places such as under rocks and in holes in the ground during the day which is why you don't see them very often. They are preyed on by  birds, centipedes, lizards, mice, and rats.

 

 

Living  in the vicinity of snakes (and now scorpions) which are generally invisible, I have got used to the idea that they are not hiding from me so that they can plot ways of getting at me. I think I have also eliminated the desire to kill such creatures if I should see them. At the same time I have become more mindful when moving about the garden (and the house) so that I will hopefully be prepared if I do come across one. I suppose this makes me more like them, though in the case of the scorpion there was little he could do to take avoiding action once his hiding place had been revealed. He was certainly ready to do what he could to fend me off if I attacked him, though. He wasn't to know that I wouldn't do such a thing. 

 

 

 

 

A day in the life ... or... life in a day

 

The flowering tree which Pensri is most proud of in our garden in Phana is the 'pudtan'. She originally brought three small saplings from Loei 15 years ago. Since then she has taken numerous cuttings and at present there are about twelve specimens in various parts of the garden. It isn't an easy tree to grow and needs a lot of care and attention because it is very prone to aphid attacks, especially in the dry season. Several people have asked her for cuttings but no-one has succeeded in nurturing them for long.

The tree itself is not impresive at all, as you can see in the picture below. The main stem (it can hardly be called a trunk) can grow quite tall (about 3 metres is our tallest) but only produces leaves near the top. But if the tree doesn't impress, the flowers are something else. A classic Thai song says there are no flowers that can compare with it.

The flowers, usually one or two at a time on each tree, open early in the morning. They open very quickly, and are a brilliant white. This is at 10.30am and it has been in bloom for two or three hours:

An hour later a hint of pink appears:

By 1pm it is positively blushing:

And by 4.30pm it is really quite deep pink but still in full bloom:
 

 5.30pm: darker, and beginning to close in on itself:

By the next morning (7.15am) it has closed up but new buds are getting ready to have their day:

 

On another tree, at about 7am you can see how shrunken the red flower has become, but also what a deep, blood red it is. But it is all starting again and tomorrow that will be today's white flower.