A Temple Festival and A Ladyboy Contest

Wat Chalokum

A little while ago, we heard there was a Ngan Wat or 'temple festival' going on in the fishing village of Chalokum in the North of the island.  I understand these are week-long events that a temple will run, essentially as a fundraiser.  A van had been driving around the island with loudspeakers blaring out advertising (in Thai) for the few days and offering free rides to get there.

So one afternoon after school, just as it was starting to cool off a little, we headed off to find out what it was all about.  We arrived at Wat Chalokum about 5pm and were obviously very early, as almost none else was there yet.  

Nonetheless we had a good look around before it got too busy.   Nearest the entrance were some offering tables.   There was, I think, one bowl for each monk in the temple and people walked around putting money in each of the 50 or so bowls - quite labour intensive.  You could 'buy' a cup full of half baht coins to help do this.

We occasionally do see an orange-robed monk walking along the street with a bowl, seeking alms.  Local houses or shopkeepers gain merit by giving some food to them, and I understand the monk must not thank them else the merit is lost.  I have also learned that one can become a monk for a few weeks/months/years or a lifetime - it isn't necessarily a permanent commitment.  It is almost like a rite of passage for any devout Buddhlist male - it can be a young boy from about the age of 7 or 8 years, and The King of Thailand was a monk for 2 weeks earlier in his life.

We were invited to have a small white string tied around our wrists by one of the monks, some version of a blessing I assume.  We made a donation in return.

There were clothes stalls and lots of fair-ground type games to be played.  Mike won the kids a toy each with a shooting game, we lost a few baht trying to throw a darts to pop balloons.  Typical fair ground activities in fact.

There was lots of food available  - big pots of curries around a central eating area, and various small stalls selling different items such as candy floss, doughnuts and including one which had fried crickets/cicadas of various sizes and a few very large cockroaches - we took a photo but didn't eat !  In fact we popped into the village to a nearby restaurant to find some less spicy & exotic fare for the kids while the festival was getting started.

Candyfloss or ...cockroaches ?

As we came back the festivities were in full swing, with a ceremony taking place in and around the central temple building - a stunning white structure decorated with silver.  The monks were inside, and their chanting was relayed out to the many worshippers outside.  Their voices reverberated in the night air all around us as we observed.  The ceremony finished with everyone walking around the building behind the monks and making offerings at a small shrine outside.  

Lanterns were then freely available to all - hundreds of people lit, then launched them to drift off up into the sky - a truly breathtaking sight.  This was my first attempt at actually lighting one of these lanterns.  Not as easy as it looks, as the first one went up in flames !  A friendly man helped us with the second - there is a real trick to it and it floated away amongst the many others.

Lantern lighting...to join the many others

Watching our lantern float up
...adding to the stars in the sky

To follow this spiritual and awe-inspiring occasion....loud music started BLARING out through enormous speakers on a nearby stage.... we had come on the night where the post-ceremony entertainment was...a ladyboy competition !   

A word from our sponsor...

It was run basically like a beauty pageant.  All the contestants sat in the front rows with their supporters to begin with.   Firstly there was a very long speech by a man (a sponsor perhaps?) of which we understood almost nothing.  Then there was a female cultural dance performance, of which some participants appeared to be more masculine than others.

The cultural dance performance

Performers accepting flowers

Then the MC introduced the judges who sat in front of the stage at a long table and each gave the crowd a wave.  Finally the contestants were introduced one by one.   They came up on stage (often needing help up the stairs as their platform shoes were so high) to parade along the stage, before moving to the rear while the next contestant entered.  

There was some astonishing pageant-style and traditional Thai costumery and clearly a lot of effort had gone into hair and make-up too.  Some were more feminine than others.

We actually didn't watch for very much longer, leaving about 9.30pm as Matthew was very tired.  We heard the next day from another school family that was there it was still going at 11pm, although down to the final 5 contestants by that stage.

What an extraordinary after school activity, which the kids took completely in their stride.  Kind of the equivalent of going to a weeknight church fair, with holy communion, followed by a transvestite show?  (I know that this isn't strictly comparable...but I am not sure anything is.)

However the ladyboy culture is very open here, clearly.  Many do appear to work in the hospitality & tourism industry to which we have had lots of exposure restaurants, travel agents, bars etc.   I understand there are lots of issues though, as transgender people often aren't accepted into corporations, government or educational jobs i.e. may have to choose between staying in a higher paying role or having their operation & resigning to accept a lower paid job.  As a result, many do end up in the sex industry.  They also can't legally change their gender and hence can't travel overseas because a passport for a person who appears female but whose passport says male would likely be considered fraudulent.  

It is however interesting to see that Thailand's Buddhist culture does result in tolerance and acceptance.  As for the contest, I think one was enough for us.



There are 3 books I should possibly reference here for some of my understanding (albeit very basic thus far & possibly including some misunderstandings) of the Buddhist monks, temple festivals and ladyboy culture: Thai Ways by Denis Segalier, King Bhumibol Adulyadej - A Life's Work and Lonely Planet's Thailand.

Our car: christened Robbie the Red Rocket

Robbie the Red Rocket

This is our vehicle for now.  The kids love it !  Every morning Annabelle decorates the dashboard with flowers from the garden.

It serves 4 of us well, with Annabelle and Matthew now very adept at climbing in and out using the wheel as a stepping stone.  It wasn't quite so ideal for Mum and Dad as at least one of them always had to climb into the back - but they suffered it with good grace (apologies and thanks Mum and Dad!).

It is quite battered, the hand-brake is completely ineffective, only one window works and it harbours a few mosquitoes each morning, but it is fully contributing to our sense of adventure and having a different experience.  We have learned from various rentals in the last few weeks, that the wind as you drive can be more effective at keeping you cool than the often underperforming aircon - so open air is perfect.  It also means we can pull up outside our favorite roadside fruit shake stall after school and order without anyone getting out !  

Roadside fruit shakes on the way home from school (20B = 80 NZ cents).
- a far cry from a $7 after school milkshake in Remuera!

The main roads on Koh Phangan are sealed and reasonably good, albeit with the occasional spine-jarring bump, however the side road to our house is more like a pot-holed sand & rock track.  So we take it easy on the worst bits as Robbie's suspension isn't what you might hope for on that sort of terrain.  Similarly, the side road to school requires a bit of navigational skill to avoid the areas where it has been washed out by some previous heavy rain.  (Today as we were driving along this road Annabelle spotted a monkey riding on the back of a motorbike!  They are trained for collecting the coconuts from the top of the palms, which must have been happening in the plantation by the school, as I later saw 2 more monkeys coming in on the back of a ute.)  I feel quite intrepid driving it on these tracks.

The track to school is worse than it looks here !

A couple of weekends ago we decided to go exploring to a beach on the North-East Coast of the island and assumed the roads would be similar to the sealed ones we had already travelled on the West coast.  We were quite wrong.   I was glad Mike was the one negotiating the very steep, corrugated, pot-holed, dirt track.  On the way in we did wonder if we would ever get out.  Especially as every time he switched into 4 wheel drive it popped out again at the first obstacle.

A smoother part of our access road.

It is costing us 10,000B a month, or about $13 a day, so we live happily with the inconveniences.  To get to and from school, and out for groceries or dining at a minimum, would cost us in excess of this each day via sorng taaows, with a fair bit of walking as well.  We managed to coerce the rental woman into not taking our passports as security.  This seems to be common practice here, but seems to me to give the agent far too much leverage if there is an accident.  

One issue I can foresee is that if the rainy season ever actually starts here, it will become wet and unpleasant in the car very quickly.  Because when it rains, it REALLY rains.  It's meant to be raining this month, but hasn't - we have had a few evenings when it has clouded over and blown up like it is about to rain - and we have often seen rain and lightening over on Samui.  But so far it has not eventuated over here on Phangan, apart from one night about a month ago.  (It sounds like there is a drought to me.  Our neighbour says the island will soon run out of water....The school director says the snakes are starting to come down into the villages as they are running out of water in the jungle....And the waterfall we went to see while we were exploring in Robbie didn't just have no waterfall, but had no water at all....)  The good news is that when it does rain, we know the windscreen wipers work because they got accidentally turned on the other day and it took us 2 days to figure out how to get them off (thanks Mum).  Not the usual stick on the steering wheel column which did exist and we did lots of fiddling with, but there was an extra knob half hidden under the dash.

Wind kicking up on the beach in front of us - but the promise of rain never eventuated...

Driving here is not too bad, few drivers are super crazy, most are fairly safe - and perhaps not quite trusting their fellow driver, occasionally toot to warn you that they are passing.  I haven't a clue what the speed limit is, some cars do travel scarily fast for the size of the road.  However our speedo doesn't work anyway, so knowing wouldn't help me much.  A favorite of all the scooters seems to be to undercut the turn into a side road in front of you as you are coming out.  Bigger intersections seem to be a bit of a free-for-all - apart from at the one set of traffic lights on the island.

There doesn't seem to be an enforced limit as to how many people can travel in one vehicle (or on one bike either actually), so with Mum and Dad here, 6 of us seemed perfectly acceptable  Neither do any of the cars (this one included) seem to have seat belts in the back seats.

Many families do travel around on a motorbike, often with young children and babies, and frequently with no helmets.  The preferred method of drop-off at Si-Panya school appears to be motorbike.  We decided against, in the interests of safety.  I had a bit of a motor-scooter accident in Thailand about 20 years ago, from which I still have a scar or two, so I know how quickly it can go wrong, even through no fault of your own.  The kids have been promised a scooter ride before we go though !

Robbie has certainly served us well over the last week or so of Mum and Dad's visit as we have been a couple of times to the North of the island, to the fishing village Chalokum and the nearby beach Haad Salad with its gorgeous crystal clear water.  We have ventured into many different restaurants and found our new favorite and somewhat special place - the Beachlounge in Thong Sala.  We have shopped in the markets for our daily supply of divine fruits and even done a cooking course too (more later on this).  The numbers in the car have fluctuated as we have variously been knocked out with stomach upsets and migraines.  We even stopped in at a quintessential English pub !  So lovely to have Mum and Dad visiting us here, with nothing more pressing to do than chat, as we do all these things.

Every week or so I drop by the rental agent and they fix up the latest problem, check the oil and water and then off we go again....

How much more fun can your car be, without windows? 

Creating a birthday for a seven year old

Almost 2 weeks ago now, on Tuesday 7th August we caught a ferry (just half an hour) back over to Koh Samui to meet Mum and Dad off the plane (en route from Alaska & Canada !) and to celebrate Matthew's birthday.  Koh Phangan does not have too much in the way of activities for children, other than what we have been doing everyday - creating our own fun on the beach, in the pool, exploring by jeep around the island, markets and so on.  So we had spent a bit of time researching options on Samui and come up with a few for Matthew to choose from.

Our first day there was spent organizing a few presents, a cake and finalizing our activities - "Football Golf" and a water park.

Matthew had originally voiced that he wanted to go to an animal show - preferably a monkey show as "a monkey show will be funnier than an elephant or bird show".  Whatever one's view on animal shows, they are on offer in Samui in abundance, and we were prepared to go if this was his preference.  However, after checking out the monkey show on TripAdvisor and sharing the reviews and scores with Matthew, he decided against going to it -  as the ratings were very poor and there were lots of comments about terrible conditions for the animals.  Many of the other animal shows appeared to be in the same vein, although not perhaps quite as bad as the monkey one.  Matthew was quite affected by the information and it took him a while to get over his sadness that people would do this to animals.  Another learning experience.

Mum and Dad arrived in good spirits on the 8th, having started their acclimatisation to the heat and time zone with a few nights in Korea and an overnight at the Bangkok airport hotel.  So our first night together we went to an amazing restaurant called Spirit House - in an open walled brick building that had been moved down from Chang Mai, set in a tranquil garden and pond environment, then all gloriously lit with candles and lamps. The service and food was equally divine - including many salads and dishes we had not seen on other menus.

We had rented a lovely spacious 3 bedroom villa just north of Chaweng for a few nights which was perfect for catching up, cooling in the pool and creating a birthday ambience for Matthew.

Matthew's birthday breakfast started on the morning of the 9th August with his requested chocolate croissants (he had developed a taste for them in various hotel breakfast buffets & had been recently suffering withdrawal!).  These were sourced from at one of the French bakeries nearby, which we consumed with an ever divine selection of fresh tropical fruits.

Next up - a treasure hunt around the villa for his presents.  These included, as highlights - a remote control boat (which worked well in the swimming pool) from Annabelle, his first watch from his Nana and Grandad, and longed after birthday-money from his Grandma and Grandpa in NZ.  Mike and I had idiotically left our gift in the house in Phangan so had quickly collected a number of smaller items which he also enjoyed - a catapult, Muay Thai boxing shorts (& a promise of a lesson at Mike's gym), an Angry Bird t-shirt, a dinosaur puzzle, glowsticks, some lollies and so on.

Football Golf Champions !

We then drove (in our hired, purple, pope-mobile, with Matthew and Annabelle enjoying riding in the boot) to Football Golf, which is a great game, apparently invented here.  It consists of a small 'golf' course around which you each kick a soccer ball, the object being to kick it into the hole under the flag and counting up your score/kicks as you go.  I think it was par 63.  It was quite hot - but coconut tree shade to stand in while waiting for your turn, reviving drinks bought to us on the 9th hole, and the motivation of getting the best NZ score of the month on the countries results board spurred us on.  Actually - the only NZ score at that point !  It was great family fun - and would certainly go down well in NZ.  We finished, with Mike the champion of our group, and Matthew in second place, so all was well - and Mike indulged  the birthday boy, so Matthew got his name up on the board.

Waiting for our turn on the fairway

We definitely needed food at this stage and had been unable to find Matthew's request (yum cha/dim sum) so popped into a favorite inexpensive Thai place in Chaweng for Pad Thais before heading a further 20 minutes South to a small waterpark.  It consisted of a number of waterslides, several aimed at the younger end of the spectrum but 2 of them thrilling enough for our 7 and 10 year old and Mike and I too !  We spent an hour or two there keeping somewhat cool in the water, while mum and dad took the opportunity for a rest in a shady spot.  At that point we drove back to the villa arriving hot and dusty and ready for another swim and cool down.  Aaah !

Double the fun on the waterslide

Matthew had chosen his own cake at Swensens (yes it is here, right beside Starbucks and Macdonalds in Chaweng!) which we had managed to bring back to the villa without melting the previous night.  I had to redecorate ie remove the disliked cherries which seemed to be the standard decoration on them all - so replaced with Oreo cookies,  M&Ms and candles and it then looked like a fine cake for a 7 year old.  And an ice cream cake was indeed a perfect choice for the climate. 

Another quick swim and we were on the move again in a busy birthday agenda.  We headed off to one of our favorite areas - Fisherman's Village in Bophut for a massage and dinner.  Dad and I went off to choose the Italian restaurant (pasta and prawns had been Matthew's request) and sort out ferry times for the following day, finishing these chores with a Plantation cocktail on The Pier - the lovely spot where we had spent the 50th birthday drinks.  Meanwhile Mum, Mike, Annabelle and Matthew enjoyed their massages and then we all walked down the street to dinner.

The restaurant we had chosen hadn't kept the table we booked less than one hour previously (?) which was rather disappointing, so in order to still enjoy the beachside location we got rather crammed in a corner.  However, the birthday boy was happy, ate the meal he envisaged and we all headed home.

The day was capped off by the lighting of a floating lantern which took off into the sky and a couple of big rockets on the back lawn.  What a lucky boy !

Breakfast on Chaweng Beach

The next day we breakfasted on the beach, shopped, swam some more and in the late afternoon travelled 'home' to Phangan, where Matthew got to open his forgotten present - a camera which he is now enjoying using.  (Although he was hoping for an iPod touch or a DS.)

It had been an interesting exercise to create a birthday that was to be so very different from the ones Matthew had grown accustomed to in Auckland.  The big thing for him was no party and no friends around him, nor all the accompanying presents.  However he definitely appreciated his Nana and Grandad coming for his birthday.  The trickier thing for us was that as we were all together virtually 24/7 he necessarily got to be much more involved in the planning and decision making - even down to selecting his own cake out of the freezer!

A few more football golf shots:

Si-Panya School

Matthew said to me on Saturday morning, " I wish I could go to school today".  I guess this is a sign they are settling in well.  Annabelle has been very keen to go back every day, since their first short visit.

The school I described in some detail - SLC - on Koh Samui is not the one we have ended up at. That school was one of 2 or 3 sizeable international schools on Samui.

Koh Phangan however, has a much smaller expat community, and Si-Panya School school was opened this year by the Director, Nicola.  Nicola is English, has lived here for about 7 years and has a son at the local secondary school.  

The ground floor is classrooms, the upper balcony is where they eat.

The school hours are 9am to 3pm and they follow the British curriculum, plus have a Thai language lesson every day.  There are 3 classes, each with about 5 children in.  Matthew is in a composite Year 2/3 class and Annabelle in a composite Year 4/5 class. For some classes they all come together eg art, sport - a grand total of 15 kids !  

The year levels are a little different to those in NZ, Matthew should actually be in a Year 1 according to age, however fits into the Year 2/3 class in terms of what he is able to do, plus this class is mostly boys, which suits him well!  Annabelle's class is covering ground she has done before, but she is definitely benefiting from the repetition and her class is mostly girls.  They both have the advantage of having English as their first language. 

Year 4/5 timetable

The other kids are from French, Swedish, Russian, Portugese and mixed Englsh/Thai and American/Thai backgrounds.  As well as Teacher Nicola, Teacher Genene is from South Africa and Teacher Phom is from Thailand. So a very mixed group.  What a melting pot of accents, cultural backgrounds, communication styles and behaviors.  It is interesting to see our guys adapting !  

However, the constants are : Matthew playing soccer with the boys and Annabelle looking after the younger kids.

Teacher Nicola in front of the combined classes

There is a reward system which involves being credited points for good work or behaviour and on alternate Fridays they add up all the points and get to 'buy' treasures - Matthew with his fascination with the power of money - is loving this.  They can also be debited points - something I don't think we'd see in an NZ school these days.

Annabelle deciding how to spend her points

The building is a house, with the classrooms on the ground floor and open walled, so they are kept somewhat cool by breezes and fans.   Annabelle is finding it a bit hot, so she is allowed to go and take a friend to eat in the one air-con room for a bit of respite.  We also have to spray on mozzie repellant with their sunblock in the morning.

I am enjoying not having to prepare school lunches, as they get morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea each day at school.  They are enjoying sharing a variety of cooked meals, as supposed to sandwiches every day.  It is too warm really to have food sitting around in a lunchbox, it wouldn't last well.

Students proudly displaying their Victorian projects !

One slightly surreal sight on Friday, and the result of following a British curriculum, was seeing these children from various backgrounds with little or no English or Commonwealth connection, in the middle of Thai island, all turning in their projects on England in the Victorian Era !  Next term they are learning all about food production on the island, which somehow seems more relevant.  I am hoping to learn a little as well, one topic is the many food uses for coconut.

On Friday, Matthew celebrated an early birthday at school with a cake and we took in a pass-the-parcel.  Some children had never played this before, so that was good fun.  Similarly, musical chairs.

Pass the parcel

Annabelle's turn

The term ended on Friday, so after about a month of traveling holidays, Annabelle and Matthew are on holiday again for two weeks!   However they are doing 2.5 hours two-on-one with Teacher Genene each morning, to cover some ground that will help them next term and ensuring they don't forget what they have learned in NZ either.  The first morning was today and they seemed to enjoy it.

However, we are going to Samui for 3 days tomorrow afternoon.  We're going to celebrate Matthew's birthday there - as there are a few more activities for him to enjoy - likely soccer golf and a monkey show.  We are also going to meet Mum and Dad off the plane and spend a short amount of time with them there, before coming back over to Phangan for most of their 10 day visit.

Hard at work

Annabelle, the second-eldest child at the school, working beside Tara, the eldest.

end of term book tidy-up job

From where I sit, I see this......

It is a divine location.  The view changes with the tide, light and weather.  That is Koh Samui in the background, the odd ferry passes through the deeper water in the distance and the lagoon is mostly about knee to waist deep, protected by the coral reef.


We have a lovely beachfront house here on Ban Tai beach in the island of Koh Phangan on the East Coast of Thailand. Here is a map of where we are.

Our house is 2 bedroom and small, but ample space for the 4 of us, and our living space extends to the outside shaded patio, when it is not too hot.  To cool off, we have a bath-temperature plunge pool, the sea, and a larger pool behind which we use when another house is unoccupied.  We also have sea breezes, aircon and fans.


For the first few days we had no hot water, which meant that the shower was still quite warm, but that the sea and pool were warmer !  And now we have figured out that the hot water comes out of the blue tap and requires a little patience, we also have hot water.  Although last night we had no water at all, but fortunately Mike had been briefed on how to fix that !


The kitchen is small with a big fridge and a small cooktop, and has a bare minimum of cooking implements, so we are continuing to eat out for most meals - no hardship - dinner for four generally costs about $15.  And we have not yet tired of Thai food.


There are no clothes washing facilities, but we can take laundry down the road for just over $1 a kilo, so why would you do anything else?


Also not a brush, cloth or vacuum cleaner in sight, so we have to let the managing agents take care of the cleaning !


We also have a dog called Billy !  More on him later