Spirit of Thailand

Every year the city of Chiang Mai, Thailand, hosts several huge festivals. Visitors come by the tens of thousands from Thailand and abroad. The performances are truly spectacular. While wandering around the festival site I came across a group of  students who were showcasing martial arts, dancing and drumming.

Every evening I go for a walk near the university of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Most of the students don’t cook much, first because almost none of the apartments here have kitchens. And second, you can buy food very easily and cheaply right on the street.

There is a wonderful little juice place where I get my daily fix of fresh squeezed orange juice and carrot juice. Every day when I show up, they start pouring the juice for me. I don’t even have to ask. Then they give me a little stool to sit on and I watch the students getting their food and drinks. Read the rest of this entry

My home town of Chiang Mai, Thailand, gets unbearably hot during the months of March and April. This is the perfect time to escape to the beaches of southern Thailand where the climate is much more pleasant at that time. This time I spent a few weeks in Phuket which is Thailand’s largest island. It is not exactly an unspoiled hidden gem, but it is highly developed and quite expensive. But on the upside there are great beaches, lots of different restaurants to choose from, the scenery is beautiful, and there are many interesting excursions you can go on. If you are looking for an undiscovered remote island with budget prices, and you don’t mind roughing it, then Phuket is not for you. But if you like the combination of great beaches and a large variety of things to do along with the convenience of all modern amenities, then Phuket might just be your ticket. I had fun with my camera and even more fun putting together this beautiful video. If you like it, please leave a comment.

Every year Thailand celebrates a nine day long vegetarian food festival. When I tell a Thai person that I am a vegetarian, the usual reaction is something like: ‘Very good, that’s great for your health, I admire that, but I could never do it”. But during those nine days of the vegetarian festival many Thais actually switch to a largely non-meat diet. They consider it quite a sacrifice which is quite amusing for those of us who have been vegetarians for many years or even decades.

There is another aspect to this event. In some areas of Thailand members of the Chinese community practice quite weird and gruesome body piercing rituals while they are in a trance state. This allows them to perform severe mutilations on their body without feeling the pain and without suffering any physical consequences. I wrote an article which shows pictures about those trance piercings.

There are quite a few videos on youtube that show the piercings in action, but I have to warn you – this is not for the faint hearted!

This year I made a video which shows the food festival in action in Chiang Mai. No piercings here, nothing to ruin your appetite. Just the opposite, you will wish you were there and could taste some of the great food.

Recently I went shopping in my local produce market here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and there was a band of blind musicians performing for donations. I thought they were quite good, and I captured one of their songs on video.

There are quite a few blind street musicians in Thailand, but you rarely find any that play quality music. This band had a really good repertoire. It was evening, so there was not that much light, but since this is the best musical street performance by blinds that I have ever heard in Thailand, I thought it worth sharing.

Thailand is known as the land of smiles, but it is also the land of beautiful faces. Here is a stunning visual presentation of one the most endearing aspects of Thai culture, the naturally beautiful faces of the Thai people.

Elaborate Version of a Spirit House in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Anyone who has traveled in Thailand has probably noticed a little “toy house” near most buildings. Those are spirit houses. Thailand is a Buddhist country, but the Thais have retained quite a few of their animistic beliefs that stem from pre-Buddhist times. So Thai Buddhism is mixed with a spirit based religion.

The Thais hardly ever talk about their spirit beliefs with foreigners. It is almost like a well kept secret, and the only obvious evidence is the omni-present spirit house. The idea is that there are spirits everywhere, and some like to cause trouble for the humans. Therefore they have to be appeased so that they leave the humans alone. One way of doing that is to build them a separate little miniature home which is just for them only. Read the rest of this entry

I have spent the last eight months developing a unique Thai massage video course. It enables anyone to learn Thai massage from home in a gradual and relaxed way over a period of a few months. I had to focus all my energy on the development of this massage video course. 35 course modules, 15 hours of Thai yoga massage video training, written course manuals, and the creation of an entire website to support this video course – lots of work, but the result brings Thai massage training to a whole new level. Read the rest of this entry

Recently I went to my local fruit and veggie market here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and to my surprise there was a stage set up and there was a whole big show going on. It was put on by a phone company to promote their products, but the unusual thing was that they had some “ladyboys”, transsexuals, do the show. Luckily I had a camera with me and I caught the action. There are some pretty amazing things going on in Thailand, and that was definitely one of them!

So what is the secret? Unlike western countries where you really need to know the traffic rules if you don’t want to get into trouble quickly, in Thailand you might be better off not knowing too much about the traffic rules. This might be a little tongue-in-cheek, but there is definitely some truth to it.