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December 31, 2011

What Happens The Day Before A Thai Wedding?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:42 pm

The day before a Western wedding is the ‘Stag Night’ and the ‘Hen Night’. In northern Thailand it is not quite the same. As soon as the groom-to-be can be off work, the full-on party starts. It is more sedate with the bride-to-be who spends more time with her family.

The son will often just spend most of his time with his mates, usually sleeping ‘under the table’, if you know what I mean. The day before the wedding is reserved for spending with parents for both parties.

The day before the eve of the wedding is also a special day as the parents of both parties set up their parties with the help of friends and family. This is an all-day affair and people drink, sing and even dance as they are making the preparations.

On the eve of the wedding, people, particularly women, will meet at the dwellings of the bride and groom in order to cook. If the wedding is a big one, this could begin at 4-5 AM, but it usually begins at 8 AM.

Guests are welcome at any time after this, but non-cooks or non-helpers will usually stay away until at least 9 AM. The laggards might not get there until midday.

The whole day is a party of cooking, eating, dancing and drinking, usually to the accompaniment of live music or a disk jockey. It is not at all strange to have skimpily-clad dancing girls putting on a performance as well.

The music will be loud enough to be heard a block or two away and no-one would venture to complain about the noise from such a happy event. However, not everybody is invited to most weddings as they are usually held in the backyard.

Bigger weddings might be held in the Temple. I have never been to a village in Thailand that does not have its own Temple. Some small villages of merely 500 inhabitants have two Temples. A Temple used to hold numerous monks, but these days 9-12 is normal.

It is reasonably cheap to hold a wedding or a wedding party in a Temple, but most households do not because Temples are ‘open ground’ and you may have more ‘guests’ than you bargained for. Gate-crashing is not unheard of.

As the evening develops, people will be required to sing a song and there will be dancing. This will go on until around midnight, which makes it a long day and the wedding day for real starts at about 7 AM the next day.

The parents of the groom are expected to help cook at the bride’s home the next morning. This involves meeting all the closest friends of the bride’s parents and is a good way of bonding. it normally results in both families and all their best friends becoming fairly close for many years to come.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on numerous topics, but is now concerned with Khao Phansa – The Candle Festival. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Package Holidays to Thailand.

December 30, 2011

The Build-Up To A Northern Thai Wedding

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 12:26 am

There are different traditions with regard to Thai weddings, as there are in the majority of countries. The two most predominant religions are Islam (in a couple of provinces near to Malaysia) and Buddhism in the overwhelming majority of Thailand.

However, in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Thais are Buddhist, there are regional variations in the process of getting married. I live in northern Thailand in Uttaradit, about 25 km from the first Thai capital of Sri Satchenalai, which implies that the ceremonies from this region are the oldest in Thailand.

The process of getting wed in Thailand begins with a young man and a young woman. That seems obvious, but Thais do not usually undergo arranged marriages. Traditionally, if the couple move in together, they are betrothed, but this tradition is breaking down.

If the young couple are certain that they would like to get married, then they ask their parents to arrange the details. The first thing to arrange is the dowry. In Europe, the dowry was traditionally paid by the bride’s parents, but in Thailand, it is paid by the groom’s.

Until 1932, it was very common for men to have mistresses called ‘Little Wives’. The practice is officially discouraged, but it still goes on. After all, there is no social security and if a woman is left by her husband, voluntarily or through an early death, she has to find a way of taking care of herself and her children.

This is the origin of the reason why the groom pays the dowry. If the man fails to take care of his ‘First Wife’, she can leave him and she has her dowry to sell so that she and the kids are not destitute. It gives her a breathing space to find a job or a new husband.

Most women choose a dowry of pure gold. Thai women prefer less, but purer gold than the average European. Thai gold is usually 98%-100% pure and is normally 24 carat.

So, the parents of the loving couple meet and they discuss ‘a price’ – we prefer the term dowry. The dowry comes in two units: gold and cash. As in English we have a pound sterling and a pound avoir-du-pois, Thais have a Baht as their currency and a Baht as a weight (of gold).

One Baht of gold is 15.2 grammes. Internationally, a Troy ounce of gold is 31.10 grammes. So, one Baht of gold is merely less than half-an-ounce. The Thai Baht in currency varies as do all currencies, but is now , quite stable at 30 Baht = $1.

A typical dowry may be two Baht in gold and 50,000 Baht in cash. The two Baht in gold goes to the bride as an advanced divorce payment and the 50,000 Baht goes to the mother-in-law. She can do what she wants with this money.

She would normally spend most of it on the wedding party and the remainder, she would normally give to the newly-weds. Honeymoons are not normal in the rural north, but as the economy is growing, young people do increasingly like to take a honeymoon.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on numerous subjects, but is now involved with Khao Phansa – The Candle Festival. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Package Holidays to Thailand.

December 19, 2011

Why I Moved To Thailand

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 12:53 am

After my first night out in Pattaya, Thailand, when I met a lady on a blind date organized by one of my best friends, I sat up in bed and I thought about the details of the night before. We had begun in The Pig and Whistle, where I was residing on Soi 7.

The Pig is a nice, peaceful, tranquil, air-conditioned oasis of serenity in a street, which is one of the most raucous, noisiest and busiest streets in Pattaya.

We ventured outside into the soi (lane) and into a torrent of people not dissimilar to that of a queue heading for a football match, except that all the women were dressed in skimpy clothes. We had called into one of those outdoor bars, where my friend had a surprise awaiting me.

His girlfriend of a time, whom I knew nothing of and a friend of hers who wished to meet up with me. The four of us had dallied there an hour before walking the thirty metres to Beach Road.

The traffic is one-way on Beach Road, so we took a Baht Taxi North (a pick-up truck) going with the flow and got off two or three kilometres further on just before Walking Street, which is the most famous street in Pattaya.

We had gone into a complex of bars and sat in one at random. It was only then that I realized that the bars were all set out surrounding a Muay Thai boxing ring, where the fighting was uninterrupted and free, although foreigners are expected to give a prize to the winner of each bout of 20-100 Baht ($1-$3).

We stayed there an hour and moved on to Walking Street to have something to eat. We ate at a seafood specialist restaurant which has a pier or jetty as its dining region. The food was fantastic and the mood was romantic with the moon reflecting on the sea and the atmospheric lighting.

I don’t believe that I had a opportunity in reality, I fell for my beautiful date that night and I saw her every day for the rest of my 30 days holiday. We had a magnificent time and when I had to go, I decided to find out if I could settle in Thailand.

I went home and calculated, that if I was careful and a few things fell in my favour, I would most likely have enough money to live there for ten years.

Six weeks later, I went back to Thailand and Joy was waiting for me at the airport. Nothing had altered between us and we took a bus to visit her family in northern Thailand.

We slept in a room that her brother had given up for us and everyone made me feel very comfortable. Joy’s family live in a traditional teak home built on stilts and everybody lived and slept in one room in the traditional manner, with the exception of Joy’s brother, who had built an extension, because he was eager to get married soon.

I really like that village and still live there now, seven years on. Joy and I are married and have our own home – a traditional, European, concrete-block bungalow not five metres from Joy’s mum, who is a fantastic mother-in-law.

Her family appear to appreciate what a big step it was for me to come here alone and are determined to be there for me, if I need help, like my own family in the UK would be. The job at hand is learning Thai as no one else in the village, except for my wife, speaks English.

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July 27, 2011

North Eastern Thailand

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 9:52 am

I met my wife while on vacation in Pattaya, which is about 45 minutes south of the new international airport by taxi and the airport is about halfway to Bangkok. I met her on the first day I arrived on a double date with a friend who was already there. Within a fortnight she took me back to meet her family in what I later found to be north-eastern Thailand.

Isaan is called north-eastern Thailand too, which is actually confusing because where we are is further north but not so far east. Anyway, most people who call Isaan the north east live in Bangkok and Pattaya, the two big hang-outs for foreigners (called farang or falang in Thai), and we are all north-east from there.

One look at the map and you will see what I mean. If you travel north out of Bangkok, in due course you will come to Phitchit, which is officially the beginning of the north and the northern race as they call themselves.

Then comes Phitsanulok, once a capital of Thailand. A further 40 kilometres north is Sukhotai and Sri Satchenali, Thailand’s first capital and the spiritual home of Thailand. The original city is still there, uninhabited and mostly restored.

I live in the next province to the east called Uttaradit, which borders on Laos to the east and the old mountain kingdom of Nan to the north. About 10% of the population of Nan are of the various Hill Tribes. One of these, the Mlabri, are nomadic hunter gatherers who live in temporary shelters fashioned from branches and leaves. Until very recently, they were living a stone-age life and their language had never been heard by Westerners before 1978 as far as we know.

This is 250 km north-east from where I live. Sukhotai is around 30 km east. So much difference within 300 km. This region was part of the old kingdom of Lanna, which means ‘ a million rice fields’ or even ‘millions of rice fields’. Phichai or Fort Phichai, 12 km away, used to be the capital of Uttaradit province. Phraya Phichai Dap Hak (Phichai of the two-handed swords) fought here in the late 18th Century. He is Thailand’s most esteemed and famous warrior.

In any case, I live in amongst all this lot. Unfortunately, I do not speak Thai well enough for anyone to give details of it to me and nobody that I know speaks English well enough to do it either. Even my wife. I wish I knew more about this fascinating place where very very few foreigners ever come.

There are five of us here at the moment in a 20 km radius. An English teacher, a Canadian teacher, a retired Dutchman and a retired Englishman and me. Usually there is an Irishman and another Canadian, but they have gone home for a while. I usually do not see a foreigner or hold a full conversation for weeks on end. And I love it here.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now involved with Khao Phansa – The Candle Festival. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Package Holidays to Thailand.

July 18, 2011

Why Move To Thailand?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:33 pm

After my first night out in Pattaya, Thailand, when I met a lady on a blind date organized by one of my best friends, I sat up in bed and I recalled the details of the evening before. We had started in The Pig and Whistle, where I was staying on Soi 7. The Pig is a nice, quiet, serene, air-conditioned oasis of tranquility in a street, which is one of the liveliest, noisiest and busiest streets in Pattaya.

We went outside into the soi and into a torrent of people not unlike that of a queue heading for a football game, except that all the females were dressed in bikinis. We had called into one of those outdoor bars, where my friend had a surprise waiting for me. His girlfriend of a while, whom I knew nothing about and a friend of hers who wanted to meet me. The four of us had stayed there an hour before walking the thirty metres to Beach Road. The traffic is one-way on Beach Road, so we took a Baht Taxi North going with the flow and got off two or three kilometres further on just before Walking Street, which is the most notorious street in Pattaya.

We had entered a complex of bars and sat at one at random. It was only then that I realized that the bars were all set out around a Muay Thai boxing ring, where the fighting was uninterrupted and free, although foreigners are expected to donate a prize to the winner of each bout; 20-100 Baht suffices.

We stayed there an hour and moved on to Walking Street to have a meal. We dined at a seafood specialist restaurant which has a pier or jetty as its dining area. The food was fantastic and the ambiance was romantic with the moon reflecting on the sea and the atmospheric lighting.

I don’t believe I had had a chance really, I fell for my gorgeous date that night and I saw her every day for the rest of my 30 days holiday. We had a wonderful time and when I had to go, I resolved to find out if I could live in Thailand. I went home and worked out, that if I was careful and a few things fell in my favour, I would most likely have enough money to live there for ten years.

Six weeks later, I returned to Thailand and Joy was waiting for me at the airport. Nothing had changed between us and we took a bus to go to see her family in northern Thailand. We slept in a room that her brother had given up for us and everyone made me feel very welcome. Joy’s family live in a traditional teak house built on stilts and everybody lived and slept in one room in the traditional way, with the exception of Joy’s brother, who had built an extension, because he was eager to get married soon.

I love that village and still live there now, five years later. Joy and I are married and have our own home – a traditional, European, concrete-block bungalow not five metres from Joy’s mum, who is a brilliant mother-in-law. Her family seem to realize what a big step it was for me to come here alone and are determined to be there for me, should I need help, like my own family in Britain would be. The job at hand is learning Thai as no one else in the village, besides my wife, speaks English.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a lot of topics, but is now involved with Khao Phansa – The Candle Festival. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Package Holidays to Thailand.

April 11, 2011

Thai Visa Runs: Vientiane, Laos.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 8:09 pm

In order to qualify for a year’s visa in Thailand, you have to have a precise amount of money in the bank: 400,000 Baht if you are married to a Thai and 800,000 if you are not married. (I have heard many times that two can live as cheaply as one, but never for half the price). Another condition is that that money has to be in a Thai bank three months before you need the visa.

This time my bank in Britain was slow sending my money to Thailand so I lost my year’s visa. There are a couple of alternatives open in this case but all need travel. My wife and I decided to go to the nearby Laotian capital of Vientiane, which is about 500 miles (800 kilometres) from where we live in northern Thailand, because neither of us had been there before.

The bus goes from Phitsanulok, which is about 75 kilometres in precisely the opposite direction from Laos, that is south-east. Since the bus was departing at 22:00 there was no suitable bus to take us there and we had to book a taxi.

The journey to Phitsanulok took us four hours, because the taxi driver wanted to stop off and check that his mother was all right. He was not a real taxi driver, just a farmer with a car. There are no real taxis where I live and his mother was not sick, he merely wanted to take advantage of the fact that he was going to be passing nearby her village to check that she was all right.

None of that is out of the ordinary here, you take it in your stride as part of travelling through ‘the country’. The bus was clean and comfortable and on time, which, to be fair, they frequently are. When it came to saying good-bye, why wife’s daughter did not want to be left behind. Luckily, there was a chair left on the bus, so we took her along as well.

The journey to Udon Thani was pleasant but long; seven hours of winding through the mountains of north-eastern Thailand, but in the dark so you could not distinguish anything. Udon was cold – the first time I have ever been cold in Thailand in six years.

Although it was probably around ten degrees Celsius, I have become acclimatised to a minimum of 20c and an average of 30c. We had no warm clothes and the daughter did not have a change of clothing at all. Nor a passport. And she had left at home her ID, which has to be carried at all times.

My wife rang a friend in Udon and she arranged a taxi to Vientiane, which is 22 kilometres over the border from Nong Khai, which is 50 kilometres north of Udon – a total of 72 kilometres. This time it was a shop-keeper with a car who wished to go to Laos to buy some duty-free cigarettes.

Once across ‘The Friendship Bridge’, we parted company for a time as I had to use a different route through passport control. My wife and her daughter were waiting at the other end for me, but the taxi had deserted us and gone home. I have no idea how the daughter got through without an ID, but I know money changed hands. Procuring a taxi, a real one, from there to Vientiane was easy.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with Vientiane visa run. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Package Holidays to Thailand.

February 13, 2011

Pattaya, Chonburi, Thailand As A Holiday Destination

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 4:00 pm

Pattaya is a city built for fun on the northeastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand. It is situated in Chonburi Province around 150 kilometres south of Bangkok. In the Sixties, Pattaya was hardly known, but the American soldiers fighting in Vietnam started using it for R&R and it started to boom. Pattaya is most famous for its entertainment and its nightlife, yet in fact it has a lot more than that to give.

As far as only sport goes, Pattaya offers horse riding, swimming, diving, wind surfing, golfing, tennis and jet skiing among others. However, not like most sporting towns or cities, it does not begin to go to sleep when the sun goes down.

The bars, restaurants, discos and strip bars begin to open in profusion at around four o’clock. The bars are of each persuasion to suit each niche market.

There are Welsh bars, American bars, Irish bars, Lady Boy bars and each other sort of bar you can think of. Similarly with the restaurants, there are specialized restaurants for each country. There are bush game restaurants, Chinese, Japanese, American, French, German and fish restaurants. In fact there are thousands of restaurants and bars all attempting to be unique.

I am certain that you could remain in Pattaya for months without going the same bar or eating the same type of food twice. This is just as well because there are representatives from every country in the world there too. You will hear English, Russian and every European and Asian language spoken in Pattaya on a regular basis.

Pattaya receives over one million visitors a year. Most of these visitors are men, and the local government is trying to do more to attract women and families by relocating the girlie bars back away from the beach.

Despite it being quite big, you can stay in your favourite part of Pattaya yet find nearly everything you desire near-by. However, if you do want to travel around, nothing could be easier. Most people just hop on a ‘Baht Bus’. These small open-backed pick-ups can be seen going about the city by quite predictable routes when you understand the layout of the city.

The ‘fixed fare’ is ten Baht for as far as you would like to go on the route, although some drivers will attempt to get more out of you if you go a long distance. Thais pay five Baht. If you do not feel confident enough to predict where the bus is going, you could hire on one of the thousands of motorcycle taxis.

They are dearer at about forty to sixty Baht, yet they will go anywhere you like. Ask for a quote before you set off to avoid disappointment on both sides. If you do not want to rent a car, there are other choices. You could rent a motorcycle or motorbike. A motorcycle costs around 100 Baht a day at the cheapest, but beware the traffic in Pattaya it can get pretty chaotic.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on several subjects, but is now involved with Songkran – the old Thai New Year. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Package Holidays to Thailand.

December 27, 2010

Tips On Growing Orchids – Thai Style

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 6:46 pm

Orchids have the reputation of being difficult to grow in the West. Gardeners shy off from trying to grow them because they think that they are difficult to grow and because they are costly. This is easily understood, but there is more to the story than that. The fact is that most countries have their own native orchid species, so it is not that difficult to grow orchids wherever you live, if you select the right variety.

The other side of the coin is that what most people in the West think of as orchids are orchids from exotic countries and they can be difficult to grow. I say a problem to grow, but that is not the whole story either. If you can make an environment similar to where the orchids come from, it need not be a problem at all.

A lot of the spectacular orchids are parasites, like mistletoe is a parasite plant in the temperate countries of the West. These orchids often grow on trees. In trees and on trees, that is. So, their natural environment is to become attached to the bark of a living tree or to be lodged in the fork of a branch.

The orchid will then draw its nutrients and water from the inside of its host much in the same way as does a flea or a bed bug. Another thing to be aware of is that if a plant lives under the canopy of a tree, it seldom, if ever, experiences direct sunlight. Wooded areas are also fairly humid. It is also worth mentioning that exotic plants usually come from warm or hot countries.

Therefore, if you can reconstruct these conditions of providing warmth, humidity and a host, growing foreign orchids should not become that much of a problem. And in truth, it is not, although in the West it might necessitate a greenhouse.

Thailand is home to numerous parasitic orchids, most of which grow on trees in the forests, which are warm to hot and humid, but most people do not live in those conditions. Most Thais live in either open villages or cities where conditions are not favorable to growing jungle orchid varieties. However, most Thai gardeners do not need or even have greenhouses.

Instead, if a Thai gardener is interested in nurturing jungle orchid varieties, he or she will purchase (or acquire) the root complex of a dead tree which also has a tree stump of, say, a metre attached. They will then move this tree stump in to a very shady place, say, under a canopy and grow their wild jungle orchids on that.

How is that done?, you may ask. Well, it is actually simplicity itself. First you acquire a sample of the orchid and then you attach it to the stump with a ’strap’ of something that will both permit the plant to expand and to breathe. Most Thais use some of the fibres from inside a coconut.

The gardener will belt the baby orchid to the stump using the coconut matting as a band-aid with either staples or small nails. By the time the orchid has sunken its roots into the host, the matting will have rotted away, as will probably the staples.

The only thing left to do is to keep the tree and the baby flower well watered so that it can suck the remaining nutrients out of the dead tree. They will thrive for numerous years under these conditions and the tree stump will be a living flower pot, of sorts.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several subjects, but is now involved with Loy Krathong. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Package Holidays to Thailand.

December 24, 2010

The Profession Of Landscape Architecture In Thailand

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 10:58 pm

Landscape architecture plays an important function in the improvement of all contemporary cities. The principles of landscape architecture are used in order to create open ‘breathing spaces’ so the city has some fresh air and does not look cluttered. Landscape architecture is taught in Thailand and is acknowledged as a profession offering professional qualifications at degree status.

If someone wants to practice as a landscape architect in Thailand, then he or she has to have a bachelor’s qualification in landscape architecture from one of the two universities offering the course. Chulalongkorn University and Thammasart University turn out around 100 post graduates between them in landscape architecture each year.

Bangkok is home to most of Thailand’s landscape architectural firms. There are around thirty substantial companies and about eighty freelance landscape architects.Numerous of the post graduates would like to continue their study or gain more experience abroad before settling down to work in Thailand. In order to effort as a landscape architect in Thailand, one needs to derive a license from Thailand’s official Association of Architects.

The Thai Association of Architects plays an vital function in maintaining standards of landscape architecture. The Thai government, both local and national, use landscape architects to help with the design of such projects as motorway development, inner city renovation and airport design. On a more understandable level, landscape architects are concerned with the Royal Flora Expo in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand.

The Association of Architects in Thailand is a private organization but it works hand in glove with the Ministry of the Interior. It assists the government control four professions which can have an effect on the environment and one of these is the occupation of landscape architecture. However, landscape architecture does not make up 25% of the Association’s work. At 15% of the association’s workload, it is valid to imagine that landscape architecture is under represented in Thailand.

The Association of Architects grants licenses to applicants based on the results of three concepts. These concepts are education, experience and examination. The principle of education is satisfied by gaining a BA in landscape architecture. Then the applicant has to supply evidence of work experience and finally, the association has its own examinations which the landscape architect also has to pass.

Landscape architecture is still in its infancy in Thailand. That is to say that, landscape architecture has just recently started being applied to public developments. There have been landscape gardeners working on the gardens and palaces of wealthy Thais for centuries, just like in every other country with a more affluent ruling class.

Two of Thailand’s most well-known landscape architects are Somwang Leevanjikul and Chanvudhi Varavam, both of whom have been concerned in substantial government projects in Thailand using their skills in landscape architecture to make Thailand’s cities and countryside a better searching place to live.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on several topics, but is now involved with Loy Krathong. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Package Holidays to Thailand.

November 7, 2010

Thailand – The Land Of Smiles

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 11:09 am

Thailand is the most well-liked tourist destination in South-East Asia and has been for decades. This is because the climate varies throughout the year from hot to cool and even cold, if you would like to look for it; Thai food is world-renowned; the range of wildlife is broad as is the flora; the diving is fantastic and the people are friendly and hospitable. Thailand is not known as the Land of Smiles for nothing.

There are also a lot of festivals, some of which are religious, which means Buddhist, and others are not. Thailand has been Buddhist ever since the country came into being in the Thirteen Century, but the people were Buddhist long before that. Or at least the majority of them were. There were also throw-backs to older religions the same as in the West.

In the West Christmas and Easter were moved to cover up pagan festivals, but in Thailand they simply have the old festivals as well. One of the biggest festivals is Loy Krathong in November (the first full moon in the twelfth lunar month). Loy Krathong is a charming festival to appease the goddess or water, Ganga, for using and abusing (polluting) her.

Nowadays, people still remember the old significance of Loy Krathong (‘Floating Boats’), but it has been taken adopted by lovers too. People float symbolic boats out onto the water and ask the goddess to pardon them and to grant a wish. Lovers push their boats out together and many believe that if the boats, krathong, float out side-by-side then they will have a trouble-free year together.

Numerous women don traditional Thai costumes for the evening, particularly if they are going out for a meal or to a party. Some men do as well, but not so many.

Also in November is the world-famous Elephant roundup in Surin. The elephant roundup is also well-liked with foreigners and Thais alike. The city of Surin is full on this weekend so if you want to go it is worth booking your hotel with your travel ticket otherwise you may be stranded. Not that it is cold or likely to rain.

Bridge Over the River Kwae week is in November. The bridge is a moving reminder of the horror that prisoners of war from all around the world underwent at the hands of the Japanese overlords at the time. More Thais died than foreigners although Thailand was thought of as ‘friendly’ by the occupying Japanese.

In December it is the King’s birthday and Fathers’ Day on the 5th. The king is very extremely well esteemed in Thailand and many people will light candles in their garden on the roadside to the king in the early evening. This is a very pretty sight, particularly in the villages where street lighting is normally negligible. Constitution Day is on the 10th and is a bank holiday, which usually means a celebration.

Christmas is celebrated in the cities by tourists, ex-pats and young Thais although it has no real religious significance outside the Christian churches in the larger cities.

New Year’s Day is huge. There are parties that will last all night, dancing, feasting and fireworks.

Thailand is a great place to come to in November and December and although it is considered high season, I am sure that you will find it cheaper to come on vacation to Thailand – The Land of Smiles – than it is to stay at home in the cold.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on numerous topics, but is now involved with Loy Krathong. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Package Holidays to Thailand.

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