Mother’s Day at Ancient Siam

This morning I visited Ancient Siam (formerly Ancient City) in Samut Prakan for their annual Mother’s Day activity. Over the last four or five years, the management have been organizing many different kinds of events at the park during all major holidays. Today is a public holiday for H.M. The Queen’s birthday. Ancient Siam is good to visit at any time of the year but even more so if there is a holiday. The biggest event is held during the Songkran holiday in April.

The event today took place in the Jade Pavilion in the Floating Market area. Local students were giving demonstrations of fruit carving, floral art and traditional Thai desserts. In the first picture, the student is folding back the petals of a lotus bud to make it look like it is flowering. These are often used for offerings at temples. In the second picture, the student is threading flowers onto a piece of string to make a jasmine garland.

The students were also demonstrating fruit carving which I would think needs a lot of practice to get right. It doesn’t look easy. However, the student on the right said it would only take him just over an hour to finish the floral display on the watermelon. The other student is carving a carrot to make it look like a flower. A lot of work is put into these pieces of art work but none of them really last that long.