New Years Eve

New Year's eve in Amphawa is a really special experience.  This is normally a sleepy fishing village, but it comes alive on New Year's eve.  People from all around the area come to town to enjoy the celebration, including the floating market and all the food available from local vendors.  We are just about the only farangs (white westerners) here because this is not a tourist area.  We ajarns enjoyed the activities until around 9:00, then went back to the hotel, but passed the students who were on their way to town.  So I don't have pictures of them yet.  But I'm posting photos that I took this evening. Even though I don't know what a lot of the food is, not much text is necessary... the photos speak for themselves.

Thais prepare and sell food from the boats

Phad Thai nachos!!!

horseshoe crab with veggies and other stuff.

I have no idea what these are.

I see tentacles....

The same singing group comes to town every year.  I'm told that this is the best singing group in Thailand and they're from this area, so they return home to celebrate the new year in Amphawa.

Suk sahn wahn pi mai !

The kids found a neat little place next to the floating market where they ordered food and drinks, sang karaoke and danced for most of the night.  The guy that owns the place would not let our kids pay for anything.  Everyone had a great time and two of our students said it was the best New Years Eve they've ever had... or ever will.  The Thais are such happy, warm, and inviting people...  The world would be a much better place if it were inhabited only by Thais. 

Mangroves

We left Bangkok at 8:00 and headed southwest along the coastline to a mangrove conservation area at Samut Songkram.  Here is where the students got first-hand experience in mangroves after learning about this ecosystem in our fall class. 

We went out into the Gulf of Thailand in a longtail boat to the mangroves for two activities.

The first activity was to kayak through the mangroves to observe the wildlife and growth patterns of mangrove trees.

Here's Ajarn Wayne and Shanon.

Grace and Elena.

Maddie and Sabrina are back in the vegetation getting a close first-hand encounter with the mangroves. 

Maddie and Sabrina.

Long-tailed macaques watched as we kayaked through their habitat.

Dani and Kelsey 

Someone should tell Julia that we don't stand up in kayaks or canoes.

After the hour-long kayaking, we found a spot where we could plant mangrove saplings in a mud-flat area.  This female macaque with her baby watched as we approached.

Getting out of the boat and across the mud to plant the saplings was an adventure.  Dani is enjoying it.

Elena.

Ally and Cam.

Ally showing the mangrove sapling that she is going to plant.

Shanon got out of the boat briefly for the photo op.

Dani, Ally, and Cam.

Here come Kelsey and Liz, after feeling peer pressure to join the rest.

Ajarn Wayne keeping his distance from the group.

Dani is heading back to the boat as quickly as possible because the inevitable mud-slinging began.

Maddie.

Hannah and Grace.

Charlie.

Alexis.

Elena.

Claire.

Elena and Alexis.

Back in the boat to head for lunch.  We probably did more damage to the mangrove than we helped by planting the saplings.  However, the point was to make the kids aware of mangroves by giving them first-hand experience in this critically important system that provides protection for the shoreline and habitat for young marine fish to grow up.

Off in the distance is an open-ocean platform on which we will have lunch.

We had a delicious meal of sea bass, tom yum soup, phad thai, cashew chicken, stir-fried vegetables with shrimp, and more.