Thai Music Festival

This weekend I traveled to a Thai Music Festival called Chick Mountain.  It was a one day show with 10 of Thailand's favorite bands playing as well as 2 DJ's. 

The show started at 5pm and lasted until after 2:00am. I left at 2am as I was so tired I could not stay up any longer.  The festival was in a town called Kanchaburi and is approximately 9 hours by bus away from my home of Surin.  It seems a bit extreme to travel 19 hours for a concert on the weekend but nonetheless that is what me and 10 other foreign English teachers did last weekend. We all decided to dress up in crazy costumes as well.  The theme of the festival was army but we decided to do our own things.  Each person did something a bit different and it definitely drew attention at the festival. 

We had our photos taken from a number of professionals there and even got a 30 second tv skit that is to appear in a month on Thailand most popular TV station TruTV.  If I ever see the video I will post it on my blog! 

To get to Kanchanaburi we had to take a 6 hour overnight bus to Bangkok and a 3 hour bus to ride to Kanchanaburi.  We left Surin at 11:30pm to arrive in Bangkok about 5:30am and got a 7:00am bus to Kanchanaburi arriving at about 10:00am.  After a quick brunch at the hostel Jolly Frog it was naps all around.  My costume for the festival was a sort of Emo-Pop theme, a very asain thing!  I has clear classes with a green plastic bow and at the festival they were selling green plastic mickey ears that matched perfectly with my glasses.  My friend bought it for me as a early birthday present!

A songthaew

We left for the festival at 2:00pm on a Songthaew which we rented between the 10 of us.  A Songthaew is a pick up truck converted to a type of bus. The backside of the truck is covered with a plastic roof and two benches are placed on the 2 side of the truck. The Songthaew is the most used kind of transportation and is the cheapest. 

Our sunplay sunscreen advertisement

We had a photo because we had the same glasses

At the festival we were the only foreingers in a crowd of about 5,000 people.  There were lots of people wanting to take photos with us.  It was a little bit like we were celebrities.  We even got a picture taken for a sunscreen ad.

Motorcycle with sidecar

On the way home we had less options and the prices had doubles as it was the middle of the night and they knew they could raise the prices as we were 25 kilometers outside of the city, away from our hotel.  The way back I was with 2 other teachers, (the others went back a little earlier), we took a taxi motorcycle with a sidecar seat.  It was quite an experience.

The next morning we ate some breakfast and headed back to Bangkok where my friend Kira and I spent the entire day shopping at the market and then a 6 story air-conditioned mall.  It was a perfect weekend for me.  Sunday night the 10 of us took the 11:30pm bus back to Surin arriving around 5am and began work at 2 hours later.  Although we were all slightly tired and some sick it was all worth it for a great weekend.

Some of my favorite performances were from a Thai band called Slot machine and Palmy a Thai-Belgian singer.  Of course all the music is in Thai so I don't understand it but its still fun music.