Thailand Travel Information, Cooking and Information about Isaan

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After three weeks of an amazing trip with my lover and family I’m now back! Home sweet home, but for me it’s bitter-sweet because my lover isn’t here with me suffering in an oven… oops I mean my bedroom! It’s about 6x8m and gets very hot during the day. Sadly although we were planning to install air-conditioning in this room, after we did some research we calculated that for a room of this size we would need a unit with a rating of something like 30,000 BTU up…. argh! The electricity bill would go up very high and I wouldn’t be happy! “Alright” I told myself, “Be patient, April is the hottest month of the year but will pass soon, hold on Kitiya!”.

Kit and Terry

I just mentioned that April is considered the hottest month of the year… oh yes! I never get used to it even though I’ve been living here in the land of smiles for thirty-one years. However I do realise that April is many people’s favourite, mainly because there’s a very famous festival in this month, one that I have already mentioned in a previous blog, so it cant be all that bad I guess.

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Oops! did I just say “Winter”?!?

Well I’m sorry if what I‘ve just said upset you guys, because whenever I say this to my farang friends they will always stand up and say (a bit louder) to me that “No way, there’s no Winter in Thailand!”. Haha and they would ask me “Do you have any idea what a real Winter is like?”, to which I would reply “Err… around 20c?”. It’s going to be a big shock for my boyfriend when he arrives in Thailand this time. It’s around 3c in the UK right now, but in a few weeks he will have to cope with 47c here in Thailand, and also the HOT Thai girlfriend doesn’t help.

Hot girlfriend

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So, I woke up today and my body was a bit soaked. I’d only been sleeping under two blankets so I was like… “WTF?”. Last night it was cold, I’d say it was around 21c, and no, please don’t laugh at me guys. You westerners might find 21c warm haha, but this is Thailand where the average temp is around 32-36c, so 21c is considered cold! It gets worse in the summertime, the temperature can reach up to 46c! I suppose I should be used to it really, since I was born and grew up here… but no, NEVER! Still… do I have choice? So I will cope with it the best I can, but I wonder how about my British man?

He is hopefully coming back to see me in Thailand again around April this year, but I don’t want to imagine how hot it will be or how he will cope with it. Hot weather and HOT girlfriend… I doubt it if he could handle both? Actually he was here during the summer last year, but in May instead, and of course the temperatures had cooled down a little by then, so it’ll be interesting to see how he survives in April. I will probably take him to the Songkarn festival in Udon Thani, where hopefully he’ll enjoy himself and be able to forget about the heat, at least for a while.

Kit sexy.

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Isaan, also written as Isan, Issan or Esarn, is the north-eastern region of Thailand and covers 160,000 km² (62,000 sq mi) divided into 20 provinces. I live in Udon Thani, one of the major cities of Isaan. I have been to every province in Isaan in the past, but I’m still in love with Udon Thani my home town. I was born and grew up here in a middle class conservative Thai family and have seen many changes. I have to admit that it has been developed very quickly and many people have relocated to Udon Thani over the years. The traffic jams and pollution have increased as well as facilities like transportation for new business buildings continue to be built. Here in Udon Thani we have more than six shopping centres including most of the western chains.

Phanum Rung Stone Castle

I graduated from the main university here with a BA degree in Marketing although I haven’t really pursued that line of work for along time. I can speak excellent English though, which has led me to teach in the local private school for many years. So yes, I live in the city and have also worked in places in the city, but I have sometimes also visited the countryside which is around 15km from the city. Right now I’m sitting and pondering, thinking about the old days when I spent three years in a high school located on the outskirts of the city… man I had to get up early like 7am argh! nightmare! Every time, whenever I dream about life in that school I usually wake up with tears… it was a big difference with life in the art college in the city centre later in my life. It was brilliant there, I was free like a bird and I’d describe my life at that time to be like this Thai phrase “Eat hot rice and wake up late”. If you guys are curious as to what that phrase means, please check this out.

http://www.expat-visa.com/kitiyasthailand/2011/11/06/10-thai-food-phrases-on-life/

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New year celebrations in Thailand are another two weeks away still, but when the new year occurs, it will be the year 2555 in the Buddhist calendar, or 2012 in the western world (Christian calendar). The funny thing about this particular year is, if you ever come across a public post by a Thai person on an internet forum or say Facebook or Youtube, if you happen to see “555” in there, this is Thai slang for “LOL”.

This new year’s celebrations in Thailand could be interesting, and hopefully one where the Thai people can laugh more often, as unfortunately they haven’t had much to laugh about this year with the terrible flood situation in central Thailand recently.

Here in Thailand, where most people are Buddhists, we may also choose to cleanse Buddha images from household shrines and monasteries by mean of water mixed with a special Thai fragrance (น้ำอบไทย), which is poured gently over them.

Buddha

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