Thailand

About Thailand 4

Thai Foods and Fruits62

Thai Foods and Fruits

Summary of Activities 8

Pictures11

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Thailand

Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been taken over by a European power.

Thailand is known as the land of smiles. It is bordered by Myan-mar, Laos, Cambodia, and Malay-sia. The current king has been in power since 1946. Currently, he is the longest serving head of state in the world. The king is well loved by the Thai people. Almost every house that you enter will have a framed picture of him on the wall.

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Muslim (4.6%)

Buddhist (94.6)

Christian (.7%) Other (.1%)

Religious Distribution:

Average Thai Salary : $8,200 a yearAverage American Salary: $26,036

Thailand is slightly larger than the size of Wyoming at 198,115 square miles (513,115 sq km).

Thailand’s national language is called Thai, which many scholars believe is a form of Chinese that was gradually brought to the area between the 7th and 13th centuries. Like Lao, Vietnamese, and Chinese, Thai is a very tonal lan-guage. Its alphabet has 32 vowels and 44 consonants.

Christian .7%

Muslim 4.6% Other .1%

In Thailand we wai instead of waving. It is a polite greeting.

Even Ronald McDonald can wai.

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Thai food contains many different flavors. Most Thai people do not think food has flavor unless it is spicy. Here are some of our Favor-

ite Thai dishes.

Khao SoiThis is one of our favorite dishes. It is a curry noodle soup served with fried noo-dles, lime, onions and your choice of meat.

Kow Pod GaiThis dish consists of fried rice, egg, chicken, and an assortment of vege-tables. This is our “go to” dish. We can order this almost anywhere.

Moo PingThis dish consists of barbequed pork on skewers. It is reall y delicious and goes great with sticky rice. Sticky rices is another type of rice that is grown in Thailand. It has a sticky texture and is usually eaten with North Eastern food.

Thai Food

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Unique Thai Fruits

Durian Durian makes it to the top of the list of unique Thai fruits. It has a spiky outside with yellow flesh. This fruit has a distinct smell. It is a repulsive smell. Many public places do not allow durian. Although it has a pugnant smell, many people think it is de-licious. We have not joined that group yet.

MangosteenMangosteen is also called cartoon fruit. It has a hard purple outside and you peel it like an orange. The flesh looks like an orange ex-cept for it is white. It is quite delicious. Kara loves them, so do the monkeys. We made the mistake of leaving them on our porch and the next day there were only peels left.

Rambutan or Hairy BerryA spiky fruit that must be peeled. The peeling work is worth the reward. The flesh is similar to a grape, but sweeter. There is a seed in the middle, so there is not alot of fruit in each bite.

Star FruitA fruit that is shaped like a star when sliced. The flesh and the outside are eaten. The taste is quite sour. We were able to pick them off of some trees in Mae Cham. It was a fun experience

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Thanksgiving with Gethsemane.We celebrated Thanksgiving with Gethsemene at the church. We put on a play about the first Thanksgiving. We also ate traditional Thanksgiving food. The kids looked so cute in their indian and pilgrim hats.

Mostly we teach English,volunteer at Gethsmane children’s home, and work with the college group. Here are some other activities we

have done since arriving in Chiang Mai.

We went to Pai for a week to teach the court staff basic English.

We went to MaeCham to visit Na’s vil-lage. Na recently graduated from Payap and now works as the church secretary. We were able to see her family’s rice fields, and livestock as well as meet her fami-ly and see the church where she grew up.

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Helped with and English camp for the kids of Burmese workers.About 20 teenagers came to Chiang Mai to participate in our En-glish camp. We taught them English using faith based content. When we were not studying, we went to the movies, to the lake, and went on a scavenger hunt. For some of the students, it was their first time to go to the movies!

We went on a border run and were able to visit our friends at Thew Mwaa Kee and see Wijit’s home village.

Church retreat We went on a church camping trip to Doi Intahnon. We hiked 5km through a cloud forest. It was fun to hang out as a church family in the great outdoors. Sunday morning worship was held outdoors. It’s such a great feeling to worship God surrounded by his beautiful creation.

Birthday party for Champu.The cleaning lady at our church has a daughter named Champu. Her mom invited us over to their house for a birthday celebration. The whole neighboorhood came and we had a devoitional before we celebrated her birthday. It was really great to see where they lived and get to know them better.

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Handed out blanets for Christmas

On Christmas evening we handed out sandwiches and blankets for the kids in the slums. It has been usually cold here in Thailand. Most families are not prepared for the the cold weather.

Shared the Joy of Christmas with Gethsemane home

During the week of Christmas break we went to Gethsemane to celebrate Christmas. We had a great time eating moogata (bar-b-q) and felloshiping with our sweet friends. The kids are always so joyfull and our hearts are always full when we leave.

Wijit’s baptism

Our friend Wijit was baptized on December 1st. We are so excited that he has made the commitend to follow God. We know that he will do great things in the name of God.

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We hope that you have enjoyed an insight into our life in Thailand. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at benandkarawilde@gamil.com. Check out

our blog thewildesinthailand.blogspot.com.