งานเทศกาล - Long Boat Festival

Our town, Phichit, is really only known for two things: Alligators and boat races. The boat racing festival only happens once a year and teams from all over Thailand come to compete. Tang's husband, Ake, told us that there are teams from each county or district. We were aware that the festival was getting close when we decided to go paddle boating (50 cents a person) one day and we saw a team practicing.

If you look close in this picture you can see the team behind us.

Super duck?

Old man giving us a thumbs up!

Later in the week we went to festival for the boat racing. The racing was only on the weekend but vendors from all over came to Phichit to set up, in the rain, and sell their products, whether that meant food, clothes, toys, lottery tickets, you name it. Tang and Ake were great, they wanted us to try everything!! They spoiled us until we were full and couldn't eat any more. Here are some of the foods that we tried.

Thai dessert

Coconut juice

Alligator bread... with shredded pork inside.

Sticky rice made in bamboo with coconut, SO yummy!

Foods we did not try:

Octopus

Sausage... and Angry Birds sausage?

Frogs

Self-explanatory. 

Common sights at the festival:

Restaurant with people sitting on the floor

Tarps to keep the rain out

Traffic jams

So this was a game that we just called "feet volleyball." We passed a small tournament 

going on. Here is a picture and a video. It is unreal. 

After making it through the vendors we went to the Phichit Buddhist Temple. It was beautiful!!

This is a money tree where people can leave money for the monks

Inside the temple

First, we shook these little canisters and until one stick came out. 

The stick had a number on it which correlated to these drawers that had fortunes in them. Ake

 translated mine and it said that I will not be having children anytime soon (true), 

if I ask for money I will get it (I can live with that), and that I am like a young tree only 

starting to bloom. He said that it didn't sound too pretty in English but it was a beautiful poem in Thai. 

We were blessed by this Monk after making an offering and repeating some kind of prayer with Ake. 

The monk then sprayed water on us with a bundle of sticks to bless us. It really 

was an amazing experience that I will never forget.

When we left the temple we saw these monks making little ants and beetles for money. They were so cute and just because a monk made it I couldn't resist buying one. Monks are very sacred and respected here. Some of us teachers don't really know how to act around them. We were told things like, "Never look a monk in the eyes" "Dress EXTREMELY modest around them" and "Because you are a woman you cannot make any offering to them." But Ake informed us that some of this was false. But one true thing we were told was that you can never touch a monk or put anything in or take anything directly from their hands. When I started to look at the little figures, one of the monks came up and asked if I spoke Thai, I told him no so then he spoke to me a little in English. He asked where we were from and why we came to Thailand. I told him America and that we were teachers here in Phichit but he got a little confused, I must have talked to fast. Well I remembered that I can't give him money so I put it on the table, but then we were both talking with our hand to communicate and our hands touched! He pulled away pretty quick but he knew it was an accident. I felt so bad, and he could tell, but he just kind of laughed a little. Ake teased me all day.

This is the beetle I bought. 

Another treasure I got was a shirt with my name written in Thai. The man at the booth was so patient with us and wrote my name in Thai so if a Thai person sounded it out it would sound like "Jessi." Here are some shots of him and the front and the back of my shirt.

"Jessi" in Thai and the back of my shirt

Front

Him starting my shirt

Finally, the actual boat races! They were quick but intense. We watched a few and then it just got too hot sitting in the sun, but it was really neat! I with I could have understood the announcer because he was incredibly enthusiastic! 

These are cheerleaders, and I have to admit my favorite part of the racing! They were all dressed to match and did cute little dances during the entire time we were there, it was so cute!!

A team that sat in front of us and stared at the six white girls for about twenty minutes.

It probably would have weirded us out if that wasn't the norm for us in Phichit.