Dragon Boat Racing, Khao Tao

[Big Boy]

I've been nursing a 'serious' bout of man flu for a few days now. Imagine my reaction when Mrs BB told me I was taking her to the temple at Khao Tao early this morning.

Dosed up to the eyeballs with cough medicine etc I did what any subserviant husband would do, and I drove her to the temple at Khao Tao.

As we approached, I found myself in heavy traffic. Then I started passing very long, thin boat trailers discarded on the side of the road. I said that they looked like dragon boat trailers, and Mrs BB says, yes, boats, everyone come to see today. It has now become apparrent that Dragon Boat Racing was always the intended activity today, and the temple was purely providing the car parking. Typical telling me now. If I'd known sooner I'd have brought my camera. My phone would have to do.

As we left the temple grounds, we could see the launch site. If you look at the blue shirts in this photo (click photo for full size), there were over 40 of them carrying their boat to the water.

We walked down the road with the lake on our right. There were plenty of stalls selling all manner of goods and food. Also a few areas set aside for children's amusement. We stopped a couple of times on the way through. The first stop showed us a fully laden Dragon Boat hiding in the reeds.

We watched a few colourful practice runs as I imagined what it must have been like for the HHAD crew when they entered the competition a few years back.

We wandered down to where the Tessebahn employees were seated. There was a bit of entertainment going on with a brass band, a Thai band and some Thai dancers.

There was a team of geriatric Thais who did a wonderful bit of singing and dancing from within their mock-up Dragon Boat. This was the first time I'd seen a bunch of old Thais perform

People even took their pets to the show. This chap took his pet kitten.

Well, this was my first introduction to Dragon Boat Racing. It is quite a colourful spectacular. Unfortunately, I did not feel well enough to wait for the Royal Guests and the start of the proper racing, but if I can get advance notification, I will go again next year.

I was really surprised to see only one other Farang there today. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised because of the lack of non-Thai publicity.

[Terry]

............We watched a few colourful practice runs as I imagined what it must have been like for the HHAD crew when they entered the competition a few years back.........

It was pure hell

But ours took place on the Pranburi River.

[Big Boy]

But ours took place on the Pranburi River.

I was wondering about that. I remember the praise for barrys' hospitality after each hard training session, and was thinking that it would have meant a trip in the wrong direction.

[Bamboo Grove]

Actually, I enjoyed all the training sessions and even the competition, although we almost sank.

[Terry]

Actually, I enjoyed all the training sessions and even the competition, although we almost sank.

Almost three times I seem to recall........
Loved every minute - my muscles developed muscles

[buksida]

dragonteam2.jpg (48.88 KiB) Viewed 1388 times

Brings back good memories, I still have the paddle! Hard to believe that it was 7 years ago.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4076

[Big Boy]

Looking at the above photo, you only had a small boat compared with the monsters at Khao Tao today. Was that the same for all teams, or did some teams have additional manpower?

[STEVE G]

I've been to the dragon boat racing at Khao Tao a few times as it always used to be held in late December between Christmas and New Year. That might be a different event but it looked the same with many of those huge boats with an army of paddlers and national TV crews there as well.
They used to also have some fun events between the main racing, in one they have a shorter boat with just one paddler at each end. The one at the front is blindfolded and paddles at a furious rate whilst the one at the back desperately tries to keep the boat straight, sometimes failing badly with both teams wandering around the lake nowhere near the finishing line.

[centermid7]

I've been to the races a couple of different times in a couple of different locations and it was always a good entertainment.

I had not a thing to do today and would have made my way there. Shame they won't tell anyone!

[Big Boy]

Actually, there have been plenty of signs around town, but whenever I asked Mrs BB what they said, she kept saying that she didn't know. Sorry guys, I would normally have posted details, but I think it was being kept as a surprise for me

[JimmyGreaves]

dragonteam2.jpg

Brings back good memories, I still have the paddle! Hard to believe that it was 7 years ago.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4076

Wow, I cannot believe that was 7 years ago seems like a short span since I declined

[hhinner]

There's still time to go. Tomorrow is the main day apparently. According to our ice cream man, today was mainly practice and preliminaries. Ringed in red in picture: "25 - 26". Should be much more traffic as well. At least it's not a weekend.

[barrys]

I remember most of those faces on Buksi's pic - what a year that was!!
We were the first ever farang team in the Pran Buri River dragon boat races and even achieved our objective of losing in the first round so we could get back on The Peacock as quickly as possible to give us time to finish the 2 barrels of draft Chang donated by one of our sponsors.

STEVE G is quite correct when he says that the Kao Tao event (initiated just a few years ago) has otherwise always been held around Christmas.

The Pran Buri river event takes place early to mid November and has been held for many, many years.

@BigBoy: there are generally 2 boat sizes - 30 man and 50 man.

The Pran Buri competition normally includes both sizes.
Race day is from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. and it's great craic!

[barrys]

I've just finished reading the entire 16 pages of the thread from that amazing event back in 2006.
Made me pretty melancholic actually.

It was a fantastic time of people acting in a sense of community, enjoying each other's company with a great sense of fun and joining in with the locals - I haven't experienced anything quite like it since, unfortunately

Don't get me wrong now, I'm not actually complaining - JW's monthly quiz night is very entertaining, though somewhat sedentary by its very nature - although I do realise we are all 7 years older now and no longer in our prime - as if we were then:roll:

However, it does seem rather paradoxical that, as the population here and the activity on this forum have increased vastly over the last 7 years, the social interaction at the non-cyber level has waned to virtual non-existence

Maybe we could try to organise another get-together between the old farts from back then and some of the newer generation of the Hua Hin/Cha-am/Pran Buri expat community - anybody up for it?

[hhinner]

Good tactics getting tossed out in the first round, better than ending up too knackered to enjoy the beer.

According to the ad there are 55, 30 and 23 man long boats. Also 7 man boats and, if I understand correctly, a class where there's a guy at the front guiding a blind steersman at the rear.