Saturday, February 21, 2009

Thailand trip, part 2

Here's some more of the things we did in Thailand, when we went out of Bangkok. We went to the Salt Farm at Samhoot Songfram. It was really fun - we watched people collect salt. They make the salt by letting the sea water dry and then after about a week they are left with salt.
We went to another place and saw some people making sugar from coconut flowers at the Orchid Farm in Rachaburi. They make it by boiling the flowers.

Then we went to another place called the Floating Market in Damnoen Saduak. There were lots of shops on water. We went on a small boat and when we wanted to buy something the people in the shops on the water would grab our boat and pull us to their shop.

It was very crowded with shoppers in boats but it was really fun. It was hard to get back to the shore because it was so crowded with boats. At Elephant Village we got to ride on an elephant. If you have a camera the elephant master will get off the elephant and take photos and videos of you. When the rider gets off he sometimes lets you ride on the elephants neck, but my mum did not let me. That wasn't fair because my dad let my big brother ride on the elephants neck for their elephant. I liked riding the elephant because it was very high. For me, this was the best part of the holiday.
We went to Samphran to see more elephants. They played elephant football and all but 2 of the elephants scored a goal. Then they did a pretend battle with the elephants to show how they went into a war with elephants in the old times. They fired pretend canon balls that made a big bang and made real fire. But they didn't hit anybody.
Then we went for lunch at Rose Garden and we went to see a show there. The show was about Thai people and how they lived. First they did traditional Thai music and they also did Thai boxing, which they didn't actually hurt each other in. Then they had a fight with real swords and when the woman's sword got knocked out of her hand she kept slapping the man's face.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Holiday in Thailand, Bangkok part 1

We've just got back from a holiday in Bangkok in Thailand. We were there for 6 days and had a great time. We went to lots of different places.

On the day we arrived we went to Jim Thompson's House. It was really fun. First we went to the garden and saw lots of plants. We went on a tour and we got to go in his house. The lady told us about Thai wooden houses not being made with nails, but Jim Thompson made his house with nails.
He came to Thailand in the 2nd World War. She also spoke about Thai people believing that people with long ears live long and healthy lives and people whose ears curve in a certain way at the top being clever.

The next day we went to Wat Arun. Wat means temple. It was very high and big and took over 60 years to build. We went up a very steep staircase and my mum took some photos of me and my little brother, then we went up more stairs and took more photos.We did not climb to the very top because the stairs were very steep. So we went down to the bottom where there were Buddha statues and a place where you could pray with a monk. We didn't do it though.
At last our dad and my big brother came down. He said we were chickens for not going to the top. I said it was because he was taking too long taking photos and I would have come if he didn't take so long.

I liked Wat Arun because we got to climb up lots of stairs, take lots of photos and it was very interesting.

Another day we went to the Grand Palace and looked around. It was very hot that day. We went around and took lots of photos. The Grand Palace is very big. We saw the Emerald Buddha in the temple.On the last day we went to the Snake Farm. The man took out a King Cobra and said it was the longest cobra in the world. Then he asked if anyone wanted to help catch the King Cobra but no one put their hand up. Then he took out two cobras and said they were one of the most venomous snakes in the world. They also had Pit Vipers. After, we went to the mini snake museum.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Camping fun in Dubai

I went camping in the desert yesterday.

On the way to where we were camping we went up loads of big and small sand dunes, the big ones were very steep. There were 6 cars in the convoy.



When we got to the camp we put up our tents and made a big fire. Camels came into our camp. Six camels were near our tent.

In the night I made a sculpture out of dead branches and my friend Matthew thought of making our own fire, so we took some of the grownups fire and lit our one. A few minutes later our fire was doing better then the grownups fire!

At bed time me and my big brother tried to stop going to bed because we were having so much fun.