The Party Continues

After lunch I made it back to the stage for the Miss Songkran Beauty Contest. 12 lovely girls were in it to claim the title of Miss Songkran 2006. For me they are all winners!

This is heat. Which one takes your fancy? Sorry I missed one out but they should've stand closer for my camera! Pay attention to these lovely young ladies coz you'll find that they are also the dancers in most of the other Thai dances.

After the first heat, we had the Manoorah Boochayan Dance. This is an elaborate dance-drama telling a story of fabled love between Manoorah, a mythical being, half bird and half human and Prince Suthon, heir to the throne of the kingdom of Pancala. Manoorah was captured and presented to Prince Suthon as his wife. One day, while the Prince was away at war, Manoorah was accused of bringing bad luck to the kingdom and an early death to the king. It was decided that she must be sacrificed by fire. In this scene, Manoorah dances a farewell dance which affords her the opportunity to escape. She flies away to her mountain home in the Himalayas where she is eventually reunited with her noble husband, Prince Suthon. Wow heavy stuff!

This is the Serng Dance from the Isan region in Northeastern Thailand. It reflects the daily life of the people. The dancers wear rice basket on their shoulders and their gestures imitate the rolling of the sticky, glutinous rice that is a typical food in the region.

This is the Chavra Dance, heavily influenced by Indonesian culture because of the closeness of the region to Indonesia where the dance originated. Notice the similarity in the costumes to Indonesian costumes.

This is the Phoo Thai Dance indigenous to the Soaw Phoo Thai tribe of the Sakon Nakhon district of Renoo Nakhorn in Isan. Once a year, the locals pay respect to their deities by offering this dance. Its all just pretty SYTs to me!

After all that dancing more lenglui! This time we have the fashion show showcasing clothes by Australian designer Liz Davenport and materials of silk from Thailand.

OK...more dances! Its the Golden Searching Dance. I think its about panning for gold down on the river bank? That would explain the baskets these girls are carrying. Hmm...gold.

Next we take a break from the dancing chicks and have a Thai Kick Boxing demonstration where this boxer was performing that ceremonial dance he does before the fight. They did have a kick boxing demonstration at the end of the show but I think its too violent so I left. Thai kick boxing is just too brutal for me.

Better stick to pretty SYTs dancing to the Sri Kotraboon Dance. Sri Kotraboon was a satellite town of Vientiane in the olden days. Chao Kota was enthroned and the first ruler was named Phraya Sri Kotraboon. Sri Kotraboon was ruled successively by kings.

Alright lets get back to the beauty contest, 5 will be selected from the 12 if they can speak intelligently! You wouldn't believe how nervous they all were when they had to open their mouths! So funny!

While the judges decide who would go into the final, we had more dancing! This is the Patae Dance. I couldn't find any information on this dance, maybe soohk can help or if anyone can shed a light on my limited knowledge please help!

These are the 5 finalists, what do you think? Which one you think is going to win? Or which one you want her to win? Cast your vote now. Winner gets to go on a date with her, just kidding.

OK the one carrying the oversize Thai Airway ticket is the winner. She also won $500 cash. 1st runner-up was the girl on far right, she gets some prize money too but I can't remember how much. 2nd runner-up was the one in blue. They actually had a tie on the 3rd runner-up and that went to the second and third girl from the left. The girl on the far left won the Miss Popularity title. Chun anot?


And to wrap things up we had one last dance! This is the Dynasty Dance depicting the 4 empires preceeding Siam with each girl representing each kingdom. Man...I've never seen so many dances in one day! I've been at the festival all day but it was fun!