We celebrated Canada Day here on Sat. ( a week early, on Jean Baptist, because everyone leaves for home now school is out for the international kids) in the British Club grounds. Needless to say it poured with rain twice during the afternoon and evening resulting in a mud patch instead of a lawn. Fortunately it was still very warm around 80C so all the wet feet didn’t really matter and yes they had tent awnings but the ground still got wet. Anyway we had fun and now Canada is 139 years old, almost!
February and March and April were busy for me with my sudden awakening to South East Asian culture through the vehicle of the National Museum Volunteers. I did a six week course consisting of 2 mornings each week studying the history and religions of Thailand and the artifacts held in the National Museum Bangkok. It was a wonderful time, I learned a lot about Buddhism (a name made up by Europeans as is Hinduism, not really religions, more philosophies), Hinduism and how it has been absorbed into the Buddhist belief system here in Thailand, also about the time periods and art pertaining to, about the great power that was Ayutthaya, all the wars with Burma and its final destruction by Burma. About the rise of Bangkok and the present Chakri Dynasty. All fascinating stuff. At the end of it all I am now a guide for the National Museum in Bangkok and I took my first tour around on 19th May, only five (it is not the tourist season at the moment because of all the rain and summer in the west) but they seemed to enjoy it and I remembered a lot so it must have been ok. I take my next tour on Thurs 29th June.
I ended up going out later today and saw two baby elephants, Dave saw one so that is at least 3 in the city probably more. It seems they are coming into town because their is a Thai movie out right now which is about a baby elephant and the mahouts think they can get money from the public which is true. Also the floods are making it hard out on the land for the elephants. It is still not a great place for elephants in Bangkok but they sure are cute. I got to feed sugar cane to one of them and the other one I gave the sugar cane to a street kid to feed the elephant, he liked it.
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