All good things come to an end... but will have a sequel!

The 'Big Buddha' of Wat Huay Mongkol

The last few days in Thailand ended with a bit of a bummer.  There is currently a destructive tyfoon going on above Vietnam and that has its consequences on the weather here in the Gulf of Thailand.  The weather is very stormy here, lots of wind, some rain, clouds and no sunshine.  Temperatures are as low as 25°C instead of the usual 32°C.  It actually feels cold due to the wind.

I wanted to visit the Pa La U waterfall near the Myanmarese border, but I'll have to postpone that to a next trip.  The weather is too bad to go up into the mountains and the national park is probably closed for tourists.  My last 2 days I spent driving around a lot.  I drove to Wat Huay Mongkol with my family to do some praying and meditating at the temple.  Wat Huay Mongkol is a temple complex with a very big statue of a praying monk.  The statue was built on demand of Queen Sirikit by my late stepgrandfather (I never knew him, but he's got his own mausoleum on the premises).

Feeding the fish at the floating market

After prayers and meditation we continued to the floating market.  Well... floating market... let's call it shops around an artificial pond.  There's actually nothing much too see, it's a tourist trap.  Except for the boat ride and the "train" ride, there is nothing mind-blowing going on there.  Many of the shops are even empty or just closed.  But my stepsister likes it a lot, because she can feed the goats and fishes there.

Thai boats

The next day I drove all the way down the coast towards Prachuap Khiri Khan, the capital of the province ("changwat").  I found that this part of Thailand isn't as developed for tourists yet as other parts, but development is slowly going on and soon this part will also be under influence of tourism in Hua Hin.  I drove up to a river mouth, which was a natural harbour for fishing boats.  Thai fishing boats are quite nice to look at, they're very colourful.

My last day I did a few things I haven't done yet: I had my stepmom's delicious som tam (spicy papaya salad) on the beach and we had moo ta ka in the evening (Thai barbecue).  Eating moo ka ta was a feast for all, my father, who doesn't like Thai food that much, really appreciated it, my little sister Kai-Mook loved it and it is one of my stepmom's favourite meals.  Thai barbecue is a very simple concept: hot charcoal is placed in a pot in the middle of the table, on top of it they place a kind of lid with holes in it surrounded by a 'gutter'.  Through the holes the hot air escapes, it is there that the meat-baking happens.  The gutter is filled with broth in which vegetables, noodles, seafood, eggs and tofu can be boiled.  They serve it with a variety of spicy and less spicy sauces.  The place where we had it this time is the best place where I ever ate moo ka ta.  Instead of giving a plate with a standard assortment, we were allowed to choose ourselves what we wanted to eat from a buffet, the meat and seafood were then weighed and billed at 300 baht per kilo (7,5 euro for 1 kilo).  This price also included a separate plate with an assortment of vegetables and noodles.

Thai roads

This was a very good way to end my last day in Pran Buri.  Tomorrow I'll be driving back to Bangkok for my afternoon flight to Abu Dhabi.  About that driving, I love driving in Thailand, at first it was a bit stressful driving at the left side of the road in busy traffic with different habits as in Europe, but after a few minutes I really started enjoying driving here.  Most roads are actually in a pretty good state and highways are very straight with almost no curves, gasoline is not so expensive as in Europe.  I actually drove 1343 km here in Thailand, whereas the last year in Belgium I only drove 195 km with my car-sharing programme.  This journey now comes to an end, but I'm already planning a road trip through Thailand next year, after my February trip through Vietnam.

Ready for an enjoyable flight back home (in an almost empty aircraft)

From Cambodia back to Thailand

Preparations for the water festival in Siem Reap

In the mean time I'm back in Thailand.  I spent the last few days with my friend Mark doing some work in the school and discovering the vicinity of Siem Reap.  My readers might wonder why I didn't visit Angkor Wat.  There is a very simple reason: I already saw it a few years ago and the entrance fee has doubled since.  I would visit it again if I were there with someone who didn't see it yet.

The last days in Siem Reap preparations were going on for the water festival.  Actually that is the reason I'm returning to Thailand, as I want to celebrate this holiday with my family there.  In Thailand they put small self-made boats with 3 incense sticks, a lucky candle and some coins in the water.  In Cambodia they perform rowing races in the river.  Totally different and the preparations for it were already very fascinating to admire.

My little stepsister is always happy to see me again

From Siem Reap I traveled on a direct bus to Bangkok, which dropped me off at Hua Lamphong railway station.  On the way back there were no border scams, apparently this is only done in one direction.  I spent one night in Bangkok, had the usual cocktails and foot massage and the next day picked up my rental car from the airport and drove the 300km route to Pran Buri, where my family lives.  I checked in at a very nice guesthouse in Pak Nam Pran: Happy House on the Beach.  Reviews online weren't so positive, but they were very untrue.  I was received as a very welcome guest, got a welcome drink and the rooms are quite alright.  Pak Nam Pran is a small fishermen village near Pran Buri.

This weekend the peace and calm at the village will be quite disturbed for Loi Krathong, the holiday which marks the end of the raining season.  All festivities will take place right in front of the guest house.

Pranburi Dam & Lake

I arrived in Pak Nam Pran in the late afternoon and met up with my family right after checking in to the guest house for dinner.  The next day I decided to visit the Phraya Nakhon cave in Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park.  My father wanted to join me, despite the warning of it being a heavy climb.  He's almost 70 years old and isn't as fit as he used to be when he was 20 years younger.  Still I allowed him to join me and take up the challenge.  The walking route to the cave consists of 2 parts: the first part is climbing over a steep rocky hill next to the sea, arriving at an enclosed paradise-like white sandy beach.  From the beach it goes up another steep hill and back down into the sinkhole which is the cave.  When we got to the beach after the first part, his energy was already almost entirely gone, after an already very astonishing achievement.  We decided not to go further to the cave, but to climb back up and down to the car park.  On the way back we were helped (read: my father was carried) by 2 park rangers.

The Phraya Nakhon cave

A monkey near the cave

The next day I decided to return to the cave in the early morning and do the entire trek myself.  The stairs leading down to the sinkhole were guarded by playful monkeys (probably they were on the lookout for tourists with bananas).  The beauty of what I found down the sinkhole is impossible to describe in words, it was a cathedral made by nature.  I was the first tourist of the day down there and it was only me and the sound of drops of water falling down in a billion year scheme to create stalagmites.  High above the sinkhole the wind was searing (there was a storm going on up there), the light of the sun entered the sinkhole and shined bright on the small pagoda.  This is nor God, nor Allah, nor Buddha making you feel small in a huge religious building, this was nature telling us IT is the greatest power on earth.  I was amazed by the beauty of it all.  This is definitely the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life.

View on the vineyards

At noon I picked up my father again and we made a road trip to the Pran Buri Dam and the Hua Hin Vineyards to do some wine-tasting (which is a more suitable activity for a man his age).  The lake which is created by the Pran Buri Dam is used to supply water to Hua Hin and Pran Buri.  From the dam it was a nice 30 minute drive through the mountains and hills to arrive at the Hua Hin Monsoon Valley Vineyards.  We did our wine-tasting at their restaurant 'The Sala'.  For 650 baht (about 16 euro), we got to taste 3 premium wines each accompanied by a small dish.  The white wine came with a crab salad, the rosé wine came with a lobster claw and the red wine came with duck breast.  The wines were actually very good, so I decided to buy some bottles to drink at home.

Loi Krathong boats

After our wine-tasting I drove back to the city-centre of Hua Hin, where we were to meet my stepmom to celebrate Loi Krathong with a good dinner and then put our 'boats' in the water near the local temple for a year of good fortune and luck.

Angkor Tree Project

The flooded street leading up to the school

I'll start this blogpost with some facts about Cambodia I've found online.
Did you know that 22,8% of Cambodians live on less than 1.2 USD per day?
Did you know that 1,500,000 children between 5 and 14 years old (45%) are working to support their family?
Did you know that about 40% of primary schools and 35% of hospitals don't have any safe drinking water facilities?
Did you know that teacher salaries are often very low?

My first morning in Siem Reap I woke up to the sound of children's voices spelling English words: "What is this?  Pot.  How do we spell it? P-O-T.  What is this?  Spoon. How do we spell it? S-P-O-O-N."  At home this would make me grumpy for the rest of the day, but because I'm staying at my friend's place, who lives right above the school, I didn't let it ruin my mood and got dressed and went down to see the activities going on in the school.

The school gates open at 07.30 and the first kids enter at that time, they are served breakfast (which they mostly don't get at home) and at 08.00 classes start until 10.00, in the afternoon a second group comes and get the same courses.  Children are divided by their level of knowledge and once registered at the school they are obliged to follow classes regularly.

Friday is always a special day, because the second hour at school is movie time.  The children get to see an English movie or cartoon with English subtitles and they also get a sweet snack during the movie.  At this school they only get (free) English courses.  After their courses here they go to a normal state school for all other classes (as well as the low-quality English courses they get at the state school).  In Cambodia children only go to school for a half day everyday except on Sundays, so the project is a very useful way for them to fill up the other half of the day.  Otherwise they would be working to support their families or just be spending time outside on the street.

The importance of English knowledge in a country as Cambodia is not to be underestimated.  Most of the children coming to this school will probably have a good job later, thanks to their good knowledge of English.  They are the future of this country, it will be them building on the future economy to pull Cambodia out of its poverty.  Knowing English will help them in establishing international contacts and attracting investors.

Flooded volleyball fields across the school

The project works with local teachers, paying them a good salary, so to be sure of a good teaching quality, but also to be sure that teachers stay within the project rather than changing schools when a better opportunity presents itself.  The project will soon start up a free teacher training as well, as in many public schools teachers don't have the right knowledge to teach English.  They will be thought how to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL) and they will be officially certified upon finishing the course and passing the exams.  The only condition is that these teachers already have a decent knowledge of English as the course is about helping them on how to teach English, but not about giving them English courses.

Currently around 150 children attend classes at Angkor Tree Project.  All children live in the neighbourhood and there is no distinction between rich and poor, everybody is welcome.  This is a very local project and means a lot for the local community.  The school itself has 3 classrooms and currently there are 4 teachers (of which 1 foreigner who volunteers and 3 Cambodian teachers who are paid a fair salary).  The school also has good drinking water facilities and actually produces more drinking water than it needs, so it provides drinking water to the surrounding families who don't have access to drinking water themselves.

The entire neighbourhood of the school is currently flooded due to the raining season.  Some houses are flooded and water comes as high as just under the beds.  Still, the children come to school (sometimes they have to walk through knee-high water), because they are very motivated to learn English and they actually love coming to this school.

One of the classrooms

The school is quite modern, every class has a television screen on which exercises can appear, there are normal whiteboards and teachers have a laptop and use audiovisual content in their courses.  The project is very local and rather small, so it doesn't need huge amounts of money, still every cent is very welcome as there are the fixed monthly costs (such as the rent for the school building, teachers salaries, electricity, food for the children, ...).  There are also one-time and unexpected costs such as buying teaching materials, repairing defective school equipment, etc.

If you'd like to financially support this project, please visit the website www.theangkortreeproject.org.  Gifts starting at 40 euro are tax-deductible in Belgium, which means that for a gift of 40 euro, the Kingdom of Belgium will refund you 18 euro via your income tax declaration (only for Belgian citizens and money should be transferred via the account of SOL vzw - instructions on the Angkor Tree project website).

Note: I decided not to make any photos with children on them, as this is a serious school, not a zoo for tourists.