Lai Rua Fai - Floating Lit Boats

Lai Rua Fai - Floating Lit Boats

Okay so last night after I got back from the Thai dance performance, Suzanne and I had a two hour nap on my bed and took showers to get all the hairspray out of our hair [it was hilarious, Suzanne's looked like she was wearing a sombrero, and I had a whole bunch of hair I didn't know I had]. We went to buy a ticket for me to go to Bangkok tomorrow [I will explain later] and then we went to Kate and Klao's house to go with their family to see the fire boats. We all piled into one pickup truck becuase there were so many cars on the road and there would be no where to park. It reminded me a lot of the Sound of Music, but just imagine all of Burlington being packed full of cars and people walking everywhere, not just downtown. I have never fit that many people in one vehicle before:

Kate & Klao plus their mom, dad and three sisters
Mi Jung and her little brother [these are Kate & Klao's nephew and niece]
Kate & Klao's two aunts and their uncles
Their grandparents
Suzanne & Emma
Another woman and her two children [I forget how they are related]

Kate and I sat on the edge of the hatchback and dangled our feet over the side of the truck. It was nice driving through the city; there was so much to look at and so many people to say hi to [I find that every time I go out now, I see someone I know]. We drove as close to the river as we could before their dad had to pull over and let us hop out while he looked for somewhere to park. We went on the ferris wheel [it's super small and rickety, but it has a nice view of the temple grounds] and apparently there was a dead cow that had two heads somewhere but I was too lazy to go see it. It felt really different being in a fair that is inside the temple grounds, it felt like we were sinning against Buddha. They were selling icecream, paintings, beebee guns and food all right beside a temple; there was also the cow, a merry-go-round, a giant blow up slide, the ferris wheel and a few smaller games there too. I always thought of temples as a very sacred place where I need to be extremely holy and polite, but everyone was just wandering around visiting stalls, buying guns and playing games. It was definetely weird.

We found a spot to sit where they pulled out a small checkered tarp to lay on the ground and we sat and watched one of the boats being lit. There are so many lights on each one, and watching it being lit [it took about an hour] was nuts! I can't believe how much work they put into it, not only to build the bamboo boat, but to place all the lights in such beautiful designs and then light them was crazy.

After the first boat was lit it started to float down the river and more boats came by afterwards. Some of them had electronics and sections of light would move, and the dragon on one of them sprayed fireworks from its mouth. Others shot fireworks off behind them and the crowd "Oohed" and "Awed". There were some that didn't have electronics or fireworks but were so beautiful I couldn't help staring at them even as they floated farther and farther away.

We didn't get to see all the boats because it was getting late and we started to get bored of sitting and waiting for the boats to come so we went and got some food at a vendor as well as some icecream and headed home.

This morning I was woken up at 8am by the phone in my room ringing - my host mother was calling me from downstairs. Apparently Suzanne's father was going to pick me up at 8:40 so that Suzanne and I could go get interviewed with Ronald McDonald about RMHC who were making a presentation at Suzanne's school. I also had to wear my school uniform. Another unwanted surprise, I had been planning on sleeping in.

Suzanne's father came at 9:15 [only slightly late] and we went to Suzanne's school to find the hall full of people. We sat around and listened to Thai people talking for about an hour [which we couldn't understand] and then they had us come and take pictures with them as they gave free glasses to a bunch of kids. I still wonder why they need us in pictures when we have NOTHING to do with RMHC. Then we were told we needed to help herd students from station to station to get their eyes checked. They didn't really need our help, Suzanne and I just sat by a station for an hour and a half and watched them test the student's eyes. They were giving out free glasses to everyone and we watched some younger kids burst into tears when they couldn't read some of the letters on the poster. We also saw an Albino Thai child, which was really odd but really cool at the same time. I will feel bad if the kid grows up and the Thai people treat them like they treat us - it gets VERY annoying.

We finally got fed up with doing nothing, we hadn't even been interviewed yet, so we found Suzanne's dad and told him we wanted to do the interview and leave. We found the woman who was doing the interview and after I got my eyes checked [they were going to give me free glasses if I needed them - which I don't] we each did a seperate interview with Ronald McDonald himself. I got to speak a bit of Thai and then they invited us to tour with the Ronald McDonald mobile in April when they come around during our next break. We'll see how that works out.

So tomorrow I am off to Bangkok to stay with Bam [a Thai student who was on exchange in Canada last year] and she is going to take me to Dream World, JJ market and a bunch of other places in Bangkok. I am super excited :) I am taking the bus tomorrow morning at 7:30 am to meet her in Korat and then we will go to Bangkok together tomorrow night. I will probably come home around the 26th of October so that I only miss one week of school [it starts again on Monday]. Until then, Peace and Love.

"There are many ways of moving forward, but only one of standing still"