Our village

**Norb** · #1 23-08-10, 05:56 AM

Betti's great thread "My Chiang Mai" gave me the idea to start this one: "Our Village". It is not a travel story but a series of photos showing life in a Thai village, pictures normally not seen by many tourists. Ours is Nalao, a small village between Suphanburi and Uthong, about 25 km southwest of Suphanburi. My wife Carol and I lived there with a large Thai family for 3 months in 2001 as part of our US Peace Corps volunteer training. Counting grandparents, uncles, aunts and children there were about 20 - 25 people. Our host, Boonjing, a widow with her 3 children lived in one of 4 houses arranged around a common court yard, not very easy to negotiate after heavy rains. The last two photos show grandma and grandpa in front of their small store on the main road across from the temple. More next time.

Maybe others - like David - would like to add photos showing their village.

**Susana** · #2 23-08-10, 06:13 AM

Thanks, Norb.
I think this is a great idea.

**David_Loves_Ubonwan** · #3 23-08-10, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norb

Maybe others - like David - would like to add photos showing their village.

I actually have very few pictures of our village, but have some of a day spent at the local watering hole last year and others in the local town from around the same time.

They are slides so can't post just at the moment.

David

**Norb** · #4 24-08-10, 12:55 AM

David, I was hoping you had some digital pictures.
And yes, Betti, there are lots of creepy crawlers in a village. One day we found a tarantula in the bathroom. The brick wall to the outside had on top bricks with holes for ventilation.
1. Grandma at her store - it was only a short walk from the house. I often went there to grab a beer from the cooler, a large Chang for 50 Baht
2. Boonjing our host, our "younger sister", worked very hard to support her 3 teenage children.
3. Every day except Sunday, early in the morning she rode her motorbike to nearby UThong to buy supplies, veggies and meat. She spent the rest of the day in front of the house preparing several large pots with meals which she took to a roadside stand with a cart. Aon, her daughter would help after she came back from High School in UThong.
4. At the stand she sold the meals for 10 Baht a bag. It was the same meals she served us upstairs. There were no tables or chairs. We ate sitting on the floor. A chalk circle around the dishes kept the ants away.

migrant · #5 24-08-10, 07:15 AM

Very nice, and interesting!

My wife is from Hua Hin area so we don't get "up north" much.

Thanks, hopefully you have more!

**Norb** · #6 25-08-10, 06:02 AM

It's difficult to select photos by topic. Here a try.

1. Our hosts younger sister roasting peanuts for sale at the market.
2. while her husband spends hours every day in the hammock. I never figured out if he had any kind of job.
3. Some of the family spends the hot hours of the day under the house. A basket is used as a swing for the baby.
4. Here more family, the other grandma, my wife Carol, and ... it's complicated, grandma's sister maybe, a cousin and her kid.
5. A cool bath in a cement tub, the kids love it.
6. All houses are very open, windows have no glass, and from neighboring houses we could hear music, talk, a neighbor yelling for her kids, arguments, dogs barking - and this very loud rooster waking us up every morning a 5. "I am going to wring his neck one of these day", Carol would often say.

**fish** · #7 25-08-10, 06:25 AM

no.5? are you electrocuting the kids i see wires going into the tub

nice pics keep em coming.

**peiyan** · #8 25-08-10, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norb

4. At the stand she sold the meals for 10 Baht a bag. It was the same meals she served us upstairs. There were no tables or chairs. We ate sitting on the floor. A chalk circle around the dishes kept the ants away.

Ok, now I know there are still THB10 bags of cooked food going around today. Some months back, I was relishing Thai writer Onkom's book titled Price of The Life, which is about the life of a boy and his family in a Bangkok slum. The story told of how the boy's parent managed to buy about THB25 worth of a couple different kinds of curries to go with the rice, but I thought that was because the book's first edition dated back to 1997.

Incidentally, there was an account by one of the contributers in Beth Whitman's guide book on female solo travel in India (or was it a book by another person about living and working in India - read it about 2 months back and I had a bad memory about book titles lately

), that said that those chalk to keep ants off is actually poison (apparently, the locals used it in India too)...

**Norb** · #9 25-08-10, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fish

no.5? are you electrocuting the kids i see wires going into the tub

nice pics keep em coming.

hahaha good question! I think the wires keep the tub from being stolen.

**Norb** · #10 25-08-10, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peiyan

Ok, now I know there are still THB10 bags of cooked food going around today....

yeah, if you go to a village. Maybe today she charges more.

Quote:

Incidentally, there was an account by one of the contributers in Beth Whitman's guide book... that said that those chalk to keep ants off is actually poison ...

Yes, it is indeed poison.