House, Songkran, Both and more…

In the house and at the garden a view changes have been made. Thanks to an extra NL Tax refund we installed an aircon at the room of Benz and we are preparing for a concrete drive-way for the car (step 1 was to high-up the ground with red sand). In the garden some of the dying trees/plants were replaced.

Siripron started Songkran with a party at the Sawang Hospital and a dinner party of old school friends. Songkran day, 13 April, other friends of Siripron visited us and we did a “birth celebration” of Bena, daughter of Benze Benz & Tannakrit (they came from Bangkok). The next day, Family day, we did a water ceremony at the community building in our village. Piauw & Both did the ceremony with Papa, Siripron and me (Benz & his “girlfriend” did it the next day).

April 15, the last Songkran day, we went to our Temple where we did water blessing with Buddha’s statues outside and at the “grave stone” of Mamma. In the afternoon we visited a Temple in Phanna Nikhom and a Temple in Sakon Nakhon. In Sakon we first had to driving through a street where people we throwing water & white powder to the cars and each other. At the Sakon Temple we did again water blessing with many Buddha’s statues outside, got Songkran blessing of a monk, walked around and signed a tile for the roof. Siripron did this every day with many tooth pain and the next Monday we went to a dentist in Sawang.

On Friday 21 April in the late afternoon we went with a big part of our family to the house of the Mamma of Piauw in a village nearby. There we did a ceremony for the “Buddha Marriage” of Piauw & Both !!! Papa & Siripron gave the money for “Sin Sod” to the Grandpapa & Mama of Piauw, there was a “food gift” and Piauw & Both exchanged rings. After that we did “Sai Sin”, this is a ceremony were the visitors tie small strings around the wrist of the “married” person. We ended the evening with a dinner.

Because my 90-days Visa report failed on the Internet I had to go to Immigration in Sakon Nakhon. After that I did a 80 km detour to find a Geocache. On 20 April I planned a day, again on my own, to find caches in Nong Khai (city on the border of Thailand and Laos at the Mekong River) 135 km from our home, where I found 3 “boxes”.

Other things that happened:
– TomTom send me a navigation device with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for testing !!!
– Our monthly visit to Kham Ta Kla for bread and sausages.
– With Jan I went to the testing and lottery of new army recruits in Sawang Daen Daen.
– Chok Dee is doing well, he got his “monthly” injection and he visited Duvel & Trippel.
– The Birthday of Madmie & Madmai, a BBQ dinner at Aunt on 16 April.
– Max from Germany visited again our “aunt Nattapat”, the neighbor of Warunee.
– Warunee went 23/24 April to Sweden for a 2 week visit to her husband Thomas.