Father's Day (or Sunflowers, Dams and Food Poisoning)
December 5 (this past Wednesday) was a big Thai holiday, the king's 80th birthday and, therefore, Father's Day. My friend Tawan (Anita's roommate) took Anita and I to Lopburi province, about 150 km from Bangkok, to see some sunflower fields and the Pasak Jolasid Dam. It was a wonderful day, relaxing and refreshing to be out of the big city for a day.
Here we are at our first field!
And here's an overview of the first field (we discovered as we visited other fields that this one was past its prime though still beautiful).
Anita--and Tawan, I might add--got their first elephant ride ever, while it was my second time.:)
The next 4 pictures are just a few of MANY photos we took at various fields.
Anita and Tawan are both very photogenic; I had to laugh at the many creative poses they invented.
One other fun little incident occurred at the last sunflower field we visited. UBC TV, Thailand's main satellite TV operator, was filming there. I believe it was a promotion for tourism in that area; at any rate, as Tawan forewarned us, UBC asked us if they could interview us. So they asked questions in Thai, which Tawan translated, and I managed to mess up my Thai in answering the questions. It would be interesting to see what they actually air of their interview with us, but I have no idea when that might take place.
Sometimes being farang makes you feel like a star.:) It's not unusual for people to ask to have their pictures taken with us; that happened a couple times in the sunflower fields. I think this destination is not one that foreigners visit very often; I saw no other foreigners there that day.
From the sunflower fields we drove to a little road-side shop to eat a tasty lunch of barbecued chicken, somtam, sticky rice, and something called waterfall pork. Then we headed for our final destination, the dam. For a description of the rest of the day there, please click on extended entry.
The dam reminded me very much of parks in the US on Labor Day or Memorial Day. The place was covered with picnickers. Only these picnickers weren't grilling anything; they brought their standard rice dishes and spread out on their mats to eat, talk, and relax.
Tawan and Anita decided to rest for a bit, so I eventually wandered off with my camera (big shock there, eh?:).
Following are various views at the park.
Behind the dam were fishermen catching fish.
There are something like 14 kites in this picture; kids and their parents were having lots of fun flying kites in one area of the park.
It was while I was walking around taking pictures that I first felt slightly ill, a bit lightheaded and a little weak; however, I figured it was from being out in the sun for an extended period of time. But as we got back in the car and headed the 2 hours for home, I began to feel increasingly nauseous, till I eventually emptied my stomach's contents "gracefully", as Anita described it, into a plastic bag in the car.
Then we managed to find a place to pull over and rest and wait...till finally we got back in the car and made a beeline for home. Let's just say I made it home with no further episodes, but the exertion of going up 5 flights of stairs to my room re-ignited my stomach's protests.....
I took Thursday off from doing anything, hoping that would cure me. I am certainly much better, though not completely back to normal health. I am just glad not to be as sick as I was Wednesday evening. It's been years since anything like that has happened to me.
SO. I honestly had a great day; it just ended on a "sour" note (pun intended).;)