Traveling by Grace: A New Year Festival in the mountains

Monday, January 2, 2012

A New Year Festival in the mountains

We stopped in briefly at a New Years celebration up in the mountains of Thailand. I think we were in "Bawkaew", at least that's what it sounds like. This is about 2 hours northwest of Chiang Mai. Right when we pulled up I heard a Christian english christmas songs being played over the loud speakers. Funny only because I don't think anyone there actually understands English but it was nice to hear something familiar. :-) We saw men and women lined up throwing a ball back and forth to each other. Turns out that this is sort of a courting ritual. If a single guy is interested in a girl, they throw a ball together while getting to know each other. My cousins were quickly found a partner to throw with and got to experience this tradition first hand. I wish I'd gotten a better picture of the traditional outfits they were wearing.
This was way past Bee' naptime though and D and I were trying to prevent meltdowns. We did bribe her with a balloon which ended up being a real pain trying to keep up with. She ended up accidentally letting go of "sharkie" the following day and there was quite the moaning and tears as we watched him fly off. We were sad for her to lose her prized balloon though neither of us were sad to see him go.
Our hosts found us lodging at the local clinic. It's typically housing for nursing students and though very basic, was a welcome bed to lay our tired bodies on. Up in the hills, trees surrounding us and little patches of strawberries everywhere I looked. It was a beautiful setting and we were a little sad to be there such a short time.