20100509

100509 Thaikarl - Bang Fai was a blast!

friends, 

woke up this morning to what sounded like jets flying over. it was Bang Fai launching - a few km away at the park site.  woo hoo!!!! we got ready, took a pedal-cab out there.  same scene as last year, zillions of people, umbrellas held right at my eye level watching the rockets roar into the air.  the big rockets are made from 10 foot sections of 150mm PVC pipe with a long long bamboo or spliced banana tree tail.  packed with black powder rocket fuel, they haul them up one of the three launch towers, rope them in, light smoke, and run away.  tok just told me that the announcers would tell everyone to "go away go away" and all the thai people would leave the launch area, but there would still be a falang in the trees, taking pictures.  when they launch, they ROAR!!! smoke pours out, and they take off into the sky trailing white smoke, up, up , up!  the big ones were piercing the clouds later in the day.  awesome!  the champion rocket stayed airborne for more than 300 seconds... 5 minutes of airtime. This year there was a group of rocketeers from japan. they had these fabulous complex rockets. after they launched, they shot colored stars from the stems as they went up, ejected  parachutes and colored cloth and at the apex, they blew apart into color stars, parachutes and smoke streamers.  tok said that a delegation of thai rocket men will go to japan for their rocket festival to exchange experiences and enjoyments.

it was very hot today, sunny and dry.  there are speakers shouting everywhere - from the launch announcers, from the snake tents, from the vendors, from music stages- over load.  even for me.  we watched 15 or so launches, went to the tents where they  prepare the rockets.  drank a couple of liters of water.  i knew tok was having a difficult time in the sun- but she didn't complain and when i asked her if she wanted to go back she says "up to you"  what a sweetheart. so we came back mid afternoon and took shower and napped.  we upgraded to an air-con room yesterday. noisy thing, but tok likes the coolness. and we could actually snuggle when we slept - something we rarely get to do except in the winter season.

tomorrow we bus back to home.  i can upload pictures and video then.

Upwards on a tail of fire and smoke!
Nu and Tok

(p.s.  my blogsite http://www.thaicountrylife.com is still being hijacked by some nefarious Chinese code breakers.  they get in thru some weakness in the blogger code, or in the "gadgets" that are on the side of the page.  i'm having to delete things, change the layout etc to try to eliminate hole they are using.  VERY annoying.  those of you who get these postings from my email list, but readers on the blogsite only will get the crap - redirecting to some money-making internet scheme crap-ola.  if you read online, try subscribing to the RSS feed. that may avoid the hi-jack code entries.)

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