Ja Poa Festival

Last Tuesday there was a big festival for the founder of Chaiyaphum, Ja Poa Phayalae. We woke up before 5am to make it to the center of town, where the Ja Poa statue is. When we got there we didn’t really know what was going on so joined in with everyone who was walking around the statue (we found out later we were supposed to walk around the statue three times and make a wish). As we walked around we stopped and watched the many elephants dressed in Thai silk dancing to the music. They came up to us and would put their trunks around our arms and one baby was sucking on my foot. Later in the day we went to an elephant performance with about 20 elephants. When we arrived the biggest of the elephants were sitting cross-legged on the field. We watched while people volunteered to lie down on the field while the elephants would pretend to stomp on the people three times, a couple times they actually touched the person, good thing it was a baby elephant. We saw an elephant throwing darts at balloons but missed the elephants playing soccer. The festival lasts 10 days but other than the first day it’s pretty much just a huge county fair. There are a bunch of fair rides and games, lots of food, and some Thai crafts. When I asked my students what they did at Ja Poa they told me ca bum which I just assumed was Thai, later to find out it was car bump. Of course we had to check out the bumper cars so Friday night we went. Turns out bumper cars in Thailand, well at least in Chaiyaphum, is the teenage hang out. Everyone was dancing on the ledge of the bumper cars or on the bumper car floor.