Around Mahasarakham
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Hak Na Sarakham
Maha Sarakham University, where my wife works, paid off the right people to make a sappy love story movie (the kind that makes the most money here) about the university and our town in general called “Hak Na Sarakham” (Laotian for “Love Sarakham”). It opens today at SermThai Plaza in downtown Sarakham, and we saw a steady stream of motorcycles heading that way from the university. It was fun trying to guess all of the locations shown in the trailer; our favorite bar, Play Bar, is shown towards the end.
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Wat Ban Donnad
A couple months ago, when it was still “cold,” we visited a temple that we’d been hearing of for a while, Wat Ban Donnad (Wat Ban Don Nad?). At the end of a long, broken dirt road that runs through several villages, we ended up here: You can see our destination out on the island: We honked our horn, and a young monk on a small outboard came putt-putting out. Max saw the boat and it was on. Max was wearing his inflatable life jacket all day in anticipation of riding on a boat. The monk was shy, so I spared him the embarrassment of a face shot. There’s no…
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Global House Maha Sarakham
About a month ago, Maha Sarakham received a power up in the form of a real home center – Global House. Previously, our only choices for hunting hardware in this province were a pitifully small and understocked Home Mart, and a great number of mom & pops. I’ve visited this place only once, for a quick purchase, and noted that it will take at least a couple hours to properly check out every aisle.
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Back Home Again, No Time Again
It’s still quite cool during the days in Maha Sarakham and actually cold at night. Last year we only had a week or two of this weather, so it’s been great to have it continue for almost two whole months. These past two months, I’ve been all over on family trips to Phimai, Chiang Mai, and Surin, and for work to Nam Nao, Saraburi, Trat, and Koh Chang. Next weekend I’m taking my Master’s class to Wang Nam Keaw for a weekend survey. Then hopefully, I can take a break from too much traveling for a while. The babies miss me when I’m gone (or so I like to think),…
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To Surin
Donna and Keilie are rolling with us to see M&M’s great grandmother and visit the big elephant village in Surin province. As a sidenote, it’s always great to come home to my trusty rainhead shower and flash water heater. 220V FTW.
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Back in the ‘Kham
We are back in town, and all of the comforts and familiarity of home are just made so much better with one of the best bowls of noodles in town… So I bought take-out kway chap for the babies in between the last classes of the year, and this insolent cat drinking the water offering on the spirit house in front of the shop caught my eye. Tomorrow, we have kin from the states coming, so it looks to be a special new years!
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Cool season
Last night was the first night it felt a bit chilly since last “winter.” From now through January is the best part of the year in NE Thailand. We start the new term at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University on Monday. I teach weekend classes all tomorrow; today’s class was cancelled because we were locked out of the building. Nobody complained, because my students are also teachers preparing for next week.
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Watching the Nam Chi
Thailand has been suffering from record flooding in recent weeks. What sets this situation apart from years past is that previously safe areas have also been flooded out. Rainfall has been heavy in some areas, but what seems to have caused the problems this time is the steady meddling with waterways and ignoring what might happen when they overflow. Maha Sarakham is said to be at risk from today until October 31st. I think the area where our house is should be okay, but of course there is also the possibility of the roads being wiped out, so I went aggro at Big C last week and stocked up on…
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max’s wittle bitty (part 2)
Getting rid of Bitty turned out to be a mistake. Max demanded to know where his pet had gone. Upon learning that Bitty had been returned to the pond (“to be with his friends…”), he threw an epic fit. It was so incredibly heart-rending and long, we all piled in the car. Destination: Pet store. The main pet store in Maha Sarakham is five minutes from our house, but it seemed like ages with Max screaming the whole way. The last time I’d been there was a few years before, to buy charcoal for my DIY air/water purification project (mission status: Incomplete). I had been horrified to see the neglect…
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The Boobie Mushroom and Leafy Mothra
Both recent finds when all I had was a crappy cell phone camera. This is the first time I’ve seen this type of mushroom here and one can only wonder if licking the nipple would be deadly or not. I found Leafy Mothra in our driveway and captured it in an empty mustard jar for Max to see. He was duly impressed, as the entire body was blaze orange. Leafy Mothra was about 2″ long.
