English for Tourism

Last week Ajarn A asked me to sponsor his English for Tourism trip to a couple of sites in Bangkok. My wife and I went along to help Ajarn A out and, of course, take some pictures.

We left the house around 6:30 and arrived to ABAC at a few minutes before 7 AM. We were supposed to leave at 7:30 Thai Time. Of course, this meant more like 8 AM.

We met Ajarn A and Dr. H on the campus. They had been invited as guests. We visited with them until Ajarn A showed up. After a few minutes of confusion, we got on Bus * and waited for the last students to get onboard.

Our first destination was the Hindu temple on Siloam Road. We had not been there in over 20 years and we had heard that it had expanded. The trip took around 40 minutes. Two of the buses went to the Suan Pakkad Palace while our bus and bus number 9 started at the temple.

My movie camera seemed to be messing up. Believe it has dirty heads. Oh, well, I have to do the best I can with it.

We were at the Hindu temple about 30 minutes. As the other two buses arrived, we left for the Suan Pakkad Palace. I had never heard of it. It used to be a cabbage farm so the Thais call it Suan Pakkad or Cabbage Patch. It is a very lovely setting with Thai style houses located around a pond with beautiful landscaping.

Of particular interest was the house inside another house. The small inner house was an ancient prayer house where monks would sit to meditate and study. This small one room building was placed inside an ancient prayer hall. These are the last remaining examples of this type of buildings in Thailand. Beautiful wood with lacquered black and gold painting.

I was also interested in the small museum about Ban Chiang. Ban Chiang is a neolithic village being escavated in Udon Thani province not far from Udon Thani town. A very old village that may force the historians and archaeologist to rewrite Asian history.

We had lunch at the Taro Taro restaurant which was very pleasant. A buffet was served but us teachers were given a special room and our food was served. Pretty good combination of typical Thai dishes.



The final stop was at the Vimemek Teak Palace. It is the largest teak wood building in the world. It was build by Rama V (Chulalongkorn) and he actually lived it in for 5 years. The antiques and other memoralia were fascinating and unique. We also watched a traditional Thai dancing with fabulous Thai style houses in the background. Too commercial for my taste, I saw where they would be very interesting to tourist who had never experienced Thai dancing.



The day was hot and I was happy to see the day come to an end. The bus took us all back to Assumption University in Bangkapi. From there we got a taxi back to our house.It is tough being an instructor at ABAC. (YEH RIGHT). This trip was fun and the students were great. What more can I say!

The teak house was as nice as I had heard and the Cabbage Patch Palace was worth the trip. They fed us good and I took some interesting pictures, eventhough my video camera seems to be messing up. We will have to put it in for repairs pronto.

And so ends another day as an ABAC instructor.