Oct 2006

Hi again,

While you were all fast alseep Saturday morning(or still out!) Matt and I took a long (in time, distance only 10km), overcrowded local bus (well, sort of a bus) to Phuket town at 7am. Given that we're at school all week, and neither of us are exactly morning people as I'm sure many of you know, there must have been a pretty compelling reason for this. This reason came in the form of a procession for the Vegetarian Festival here. If you're in a hurry or not interested in the details, just scroll down to the photos!

The Vegetarian Festival is a 9-day annual event celebrated by the population of Chinese descent here in Phuket (and some neighbouring provinces). It originated in the mid 19th century whan a troupe of theatre players fell ill (probably with malaria) but were miraculously cured by sticking to a strict vegetarian diet in honour of 2 emperor gods Kiew Ong Tai Teh and Yok Ong Sone Teh. When the locals heard of this, the were amazed and so the festival began: it is thought to bring good luck to indivduals and the community. The festival involves daily procession and various forms of mortification (which have got more extreme with time apparently).

In any case we can vouch for the fact it is pretty extreme these days. The procession we saw involved many people with their cheeks and faces pierced, as well as people in trances and their entourage. You can see in the pictures that the entourage and many spectators are wearing either all white (as is custom) or white and yellow. Yellow is the colour of the king here and yellow shirts are worn by most of the population once a week to
show their respect (this isn't forced or fake, they truly respect and care for their royal family, who seem to deserve it actually!). Here go the (quite disturbing) photos - try to imagine hundreds of people trickling by, many pierced, as well as loud fire crackers going off every few seconds..

By the way, these aren't even the most extreme, and we didn't even see the firewalking or the climbing of ladder of blades!
Below is a photo of a mini makeshift shrine. Many locals set these up along the procession in front of their homes and shops. They include fruit, sweets and nine small cups of tea. These are either for the pierced people or people in trances to have for themselves or to bless and give back (I got a blessed sweet!)..

After having our fill of extreme piercing we went to do some more tame touristy things! Details in next entry!!!!!!!!!

xxx meli and matt

Hello again.. We thought we'd give you a little taster of our new home.. So we've added some photos of our flat, the view from our window, the pool and patong beach, and also us in the classroom.. Take care..

xxx meli

PS we were just out drinking with some falang (westerners) and some thais that are our students.. and one of them (Moon) just told me I'm her favourite teacher!! But on the other hand they all seem to fancy Matt who they apparently think is very handsome

Just a quickie.

Managed to take my mobile phone for a dip in the pool of our new accomodation. It melted like the wicked witch of the east. In the process of getting a new one!

We've been super busy with the course, and we've even taught our first couple lessons! It really wasn't as scary as we thought it might be, (its been great fun actually!), but the lesson planning is SUCH a drag. And having to come up with new games/fun activities can really do your head in, but hopefully by the time we are teaching full time we will have super lesson planning skills.

As I said, we are really busy, and we STILL haven't been to the beach yet for a swim. We went to Phuket Town last week Saturday, but apart from getting lost and walking about town, all we did was eat, do a little shopping and sit in an internet cafe. We will be back there this Saturday at 8 am for a procession that's part of the annual Vegetarian Festival. It's a chinese buddhist festival but they seem to worship the Hindu gods also... Pictures this weekend.

Missing you all, please get in touch!

Matt

ps meli says hi

Hello everyone..

We've been in Thailand for three days and are two days into our TEFL course (that's Teaching English as Foreign Language by the way) so life's been pretty hectic! We've even had homework already, and our first exam is TOMORROW!! So much for basking in the sun on a beautiful Thai beach! We'll be here in Phuket for the next 4 weeks doing the TEFL course, which is pretty intensive as you might have already guessed, but we're looking forward to it. The weather is great (hot and mainly sunny), we're n Patong which is very tourist-oriented so there's plenty to do and it looks like we'll be staying in an apartment in the hills overlooking Patong Bay, photos will follow shortly to elicit even more jealously frm our beloved friends..
So, I here you cry, what is life in Thailand like? So far it seems full of unfamiliar noises, smells, customs and language. But then there's enough Irish pubs, german guesthouses and italian (and belgan!) restaurants to make it feel familiar too.. And the locals are friendly, the thai food is (unsurprisingly) great and we've got a Buddhist Vegetarian Festival to look forward to next week which involves people piercing their skin live and walking on fire.. Hopefully we'll be delving deeper into Thailand at some point soon but for the moment we've got our plates full with the course, settling into Patong and exploring the rest of the island starting this weekend!
We'll be updating this regularly, you might even be lucky enough to get photos next time! Missing you all.. Matt and Meli
oh, and in case anyone's wondering Matt saw his first ladyboy yesterday.. I have yet to be so lucky!