Trip to Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University
Dr. Wichidtra Sudjarid (Jeab) visited Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Taiwan twice for both of her MS and Ph.D research work. Her research was under supervision of Dr. Jin Anotai of King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi and Dr. I-Ming Chen of Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science. After she earned her Ph.D. degree from Chulalongkorn University, she is now working with Sakhon Nakhon Rajabhat University, Thailand. Since as a visiting scholar I am teaching in Khon Kaen University a subject of Nanotech, I was invited to give a talk in her University on January 5-7, 2014. In addition to the academic speech, she also brought me and Michelle to see some famous scenic points like downtown Sakhon Nakhon, Royal farm, and Nong Han Lake.
Sakhon Nakhon Rajabhat University
It’s been late in the evening when arriving Sakhon Nakhon Rajabhat University (SNRU) hotel, the Phuphan Place. It took around 3-hour car driving to get to Sakon Nakhon city from Khon Kaen. This hotel is located right in the campus, and it’s quite convenient to have an easy walk in the campus and grasp some feeling about this university, a school for teachers nurturing in the earlier times.
History
SNRU is located in the west of Nong Han Lake. I was told that Nong Han Lake is the second largest lake in Thailand. The current university has gone through 3 stages of transition which were Teachers’ Training School in 1964, Teachers College in 1970, and Rajabhat Institute in 1995. The campus area is around 245 acres, and the student enrollment was 14800 as of 2011. SNRU consists of 6 Faculties, including Humanities and Social Sciences, Education, Agriculture Technology, Industrial Technology, Management Science, Science and Technology.
Campus
Walking around the campus, soon you will find out a featured convention hall building. If seen from its side face, it looks like an air fighter, ready to take off and full of battle force. In the front, a rising sun is right in the centre of front panel. I also found that this building faces east, welcoming the morning rising sun. Looking into this front side carefully, it’s like a spaceship sitting erectly on the launching platform. Anyways, when you see it you’ll have much imagination on this splendid building. The second featured building catching your eyes will be SNRU’s museum; its appearance is classic and elegant. Inside the building display the Issan's log cabins, daily articles, weaving, indigo dyeing, pottery, cooking wares, fishing tools and etc. The third one will be the green forest in the lake and canal area. In general, visitors will gain an impression of this university, clean and neat and peaceful.
Talks
In the campus tour, we got some opportunities to talk and take photos with SNRU’s students, friendly and smiling. Also we had a dinner talk with faculty members of SNRU, including Dean Marlee Sriprom, Director Tosawat Seetawan, Chair Pithak Wongchalee, Phalapha Thanwised, Pichai Srimanta, and Songsub Arungamol (Tuk).
A longer talk was my 3-hour speech in the conference room, Faculty of Science and Technology. It’s all about my past experiences of advising graduate students and my research focus on nanotechnology. In the beginning of my talk I shared what I observed from campus and scenic tours. Because of abundant natural resources in the surrounding area of SNRU, e.g., lake, forest and farm, there’s much research which can be conducted locally or through inter-university collaboration. At the end, we have a group photo, marking the end of my trip to Sakhon Nakhon.
Downtown Sakhon Nakhon
Before my talk, we had a chance to drive through and around downtown Sakhon Nakhon. There’re no tall buildings in downtown. The streets are all clean. it’s a small town, and it’s a clean city or rather it’s a people loving clean environment. In downtown, a special scenic point is this unique and golden shiny temple. As for the meals we ate, it seems to me that they were slightly different from what I usually eat in Khon Kaen though both of them are Issan style. For example, meal materials for papaya salad look and taste different, fish was from Mekong River, and there’s one kind of bitter herbal species used in the soup. Another special dish of western style was spinach wrapped and baked inside the cheese. It tastes just excellent.
Royal Farm
In addition to touring around downtown, we went to a royal farm, where you can see rubber tree forest, livestock of unique and colourful species, fish farm and weaving workshop. In the rubber tree forest, you’ll see something special hung on the tree stem in the distance. After you have a closer look, there’s a bowl hung at the bottom for collecting liquid latex. The skin of rubber tree was peeled off in a way of downward spiral surface. So latex flow, due to gravitational force, can be easily collected. Another special species is the rooster with white ear lobes. "In most cases, the colour of the earlobes will indicate the colour of egg that the hen will lay. A chicken with white earlobes will produce white shells, and brown shells, with red earlobes. The offspring of a rooster will have the same earlobes colour as the rooster."
Nong Han Lake
The climax of this trip was the boat cruise on the Nong Han Lake in the afternoon. After we journeyed through the royal farm, Jeab and Tuk took us to this big lake. As I mentioned earlier, it is the second largest lake in Thailand. We were so lucky to be there and enjoyed its beauty, peace and sunset.
It’s about one hour cruise on the lake, and the boat charge is 100 Baht each person. On the boat trip, the first feeling is its huge open space and emptiness.
You will see only a blurred horizontal line of lake bank area in the faraway. The reflections of tree clusters in the water tell you that the lake is calm because the weather is not windy. So, this make you feel very peaceful there.
When we passed by a hand-paddled boat, I took quite a few of photos in a series, trying to catch this very moment. When I saw those photos, I thought of a movie “Life of Pi" by Ang Lee, born and educated in Tainan, Taiwan. It’s about man and tiger on a boat. Is the presence of tiger on a boat posing a threat to this man or creating a situation which helps this man survive in such an endless and helpless ocean? Indeed, this can be worthy of much thoughts of yours.
In the centre of this lake, there’s an isle, a piece of so-called "land of heaven". According to the owner of the boat, the towering trees have been there for more than 500 years. It could be easily caught on fire when struck by thunderbolts because of their fuel-like composition. Walking along the trail of this isle was relaxing especially in the very moment of sunset.
Concluding remark
In this 3-day trip, Tuk was our driver. He is working in the Faculty of Agriculture, SNRU. He and Jeab drove back and forth to Khon Kaen, and drove us to tour around Sakhon Nakhon. His hard driving is really appreciated.
