21.12.12

Bangkok is Alive!

There's one thing about Bangkok, it's alive! It's not the biggest or richest or most modern city but they set out their stall to celebrate their festivals and the festivals of others and off they go!

Just by Central World/Bangkok Exhibition Centre there are Christmas and New Year displays. Fountains that light up with different colours. Cartoon characters. Model Reindeer. Model Angels.

Remember, Thailand is essentially a Buddhist country but for relations among peoples and for their tourist trade, they happily celebrate with everyone.

No one threatens anyone because of their religion or faith. No one says, you shouldn't do that here because WE don't believe in it or WE don't like it.

I like this approach to life.

I wish we had more of this spirit in the UK too where the miseries turn off Christmas lights when things turn down a little so that the have nots won't feel so miserable. Read A Christmas Carol by Dickens and then say, God bless us ALL ..keep the lights ON! Anyone can go to look at some lights and a tree ... they are FREE to look at! They are uplifting too. Good for the spirits!

Here i am this evening, in the spirit!

DW










Old Cars in Bangkok

Don't be surprised to see the older model VW Beetles here as well as the newer models.

There are lots of these Mercs too ...

DW





How Common!

We intended just to stroll along the road for lunch but the restaurant was closed. A taxi drive found us in iBerry: very nice too.

Following lunch it was too early to come back so we went to the cinema to watch The Hobbit ... what a load of pap. Wait until the film is free to watch on the telly.

Then we bought some food from a stall here and had a picnic in the park ... see the photo below.

What's common about any of that? Well, i was dressed in jeans and vest since i thought we would just be going round the corner ...

DW



Bangkok Safari World ... Warming up the Crowd!

Recognise the song? Everyone bouncing to it!!

Spy War was a hoot too ... action packed James Bond spoof!

DW





18.12.12

Rock Hard!

After TWENTY YEARS I made it here again ...

DW



17.12.12

Bitten but not Beaten: Driving in Thailand Two!

All ready to set off on the drive back to Bangkok: it should take a LOT less than 9.5 hours, even allowing for a one hour stop at a lake ... Lam Takhong, at the Gateway to Isan.

The lake is gorgeous and seemingly unspoiled. Until i do my research i could see no evidence of hotels or motels, although there could possibly be one across the lake ... that MIGHT be a railway station, though!!! See, research needed!!

Completely accidentally i went through a red light but got away with it I am happy to say for the sake of everyone. Some lights here are arrows rather than full lights and once i saw them they looked rather dim to me let alone very high off the ground. However, i had seen the sign warning of their presence so i cannot excuse my error.

Some drivers here drive at very high speed and others are inattentive. So slight chances taken can result in exaggerated swerves and blared horns.

Curtains could have been drawn, though, as we entered a right hand bend to be faced by a full size single decker bus with headlights flashing but on our side of the road. The bus driver made no attempt to get out of the way so my very short term decision was clear cut: continue as normal and be smashed to bits or swerve to the left onto the hard shoulder. I am able to type this so i clearly took option two!

The service centre at the Lam Takhong lake is essentially a picnic spot served by street food stalls. Papaya salad is not for me but it was ok. Stir fried veg with steamed rice was good with especially nice tomatoes. Wherever one eats outdoors the axiom seems to be that one is never alone with a fly and a dog ... both turned up. The pestle hung from the stall whence our food came was rather unusual: see below. Other photos to follow!

Left at 09:05, arrived 16:50, stops amounted to a total of 1:30, so driving time 6:15. It's a LONG WAY!!

DW




16.12.12

Mango Agogo!

Now THIS is the real McCoy.

March to your nearest mango stocking supermarket and complain. DEMAND that they stock mango from THAILAND instead of the utter rubbish they find from the rest of the world.

I had some fresh mango today and

a) it's relatively cheap here
b) it tastes of mango, funnily enough

If ever you've been on holiday here and tried the semi ripe mango I'm talking about or had mango with sticky rice as a dessert ...

I had mango with sticky rice in a restaurant in London earlier this year and had it been here I would have sent it back!!!

UPDATE: in the bowels of The Mall there is a fresh food court. We bought mango with sticky rice that came with little sachets of coconut milk. Dreamy! Perfection!!

DW

My Eye!

Grrr!

My left eye has come out in sympathy with my right eye now. Monday evening at 5 pm I could see the signs of a posterior vitreous detachment (pvd). I went see an eye doctor and was told that she could not see the detachment itself and that I should see another doctor in two weeks.

I will almost certainly do that even though I will be seeing my own eye doc in Halifax early in the new year.

DW

Here Comes Santa Cl ...

Who? WHO?

Here in this part of Thailand there is no evidence at all suggesting the existence of Christmas and Santa Claus. No 30 degree heat with "Let it snow" blaring out!!

Good or bad? Neither, that's the way it is and i wonder if the software that plots Father Christmas around the world takes this into account?

DW

Driving in Thailand

I have done it before and will do it again: driving in Thailand. I have hired a locally built Toyota Vios for the week as I came to Surin, about 450 km north east of Bangkok.

Getting out of Bangkok was not difficult but it takes a long time and the SatNav kept trying to send us to Bang Na ... even when we were 300 km away from the place!

Driving in Bangkok is no different to driving anywhere and don't let anyone say any different! With a slight exception, that is: the usual capital city extra 10% assertiveness is called for or you would get trapped at every junction and overtaking opportunity.

The road to Surin beyond Bangkok is motorway and there are two things to beware of: cars here are right hand drive but keeping left is a mystery to the locals.

Expect to be overtaken, undertaken and wovertaken. Wovertaken is where a driver weaves in and out of traffic, left and right, across all lanes, to get past you.

On the smaller dual carriageways, keeping RIGHT is so rigidly applied that they effectively become left hand drive roads: lesson learned and away you go.

On these smaller roads, overtaking opportunities come in waves as lorries are the limiting factor to steady progress: as they come along from time to time, cars are stuck behind then. Then the lorries go and whoosh, off we go again!

It took 9.5 hours to do the journey including two stops. Nakhon Ratchasima is a bottleneck as are the dual carriageways. Otherwise lessons learned, easy driving!!

DW

Annoying Characteristic

How often do you strike up a conversation with someone who will go on at length about themselves? Then tell you about their high achieving children. Then worm their way into name dropping. etc

The fact that you might have heard their stories at least once before is of no consequence to them, they blether on and on.

Then this happens: you might feel that you are part of a dialogue so you begin to respond with stories of your own ... but you are confounded by your companion's immediate response of greeting other people, something on the table has just caught their eye or making it very clear that the two young women who just happen to be passing are far more interesting than you and your little stories.

A variation of this is to be told, that's nothing, hear this!

If you mention a book they haven't read they are likely to say, "Is there any reason why I should have read it?" In some cases, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime for example, the answer is a most definite YES!

This is why a lot of people who travel for a living are not worth bothering with: they are insular, self centred and ill mannered people.

How about this: you have just done a week's work and as a result of client evaluations, you learn that 40% of them rated you as so bad that they will report you to head office for your dreadful attitude/performance. After someone was tipped off that this had just happened to him, his response was

a) to say he didn't give a f**k what they think; then
b) rabbit on about Kuala Lumpur, Paris, London, Dubai and the other fascinating cities that his poxy clients are taking him to.

It gets to you sometimes!!

DW

4 x 4 x Wimps!

I have hired a Toyota Vios for the week: reasonably sized car but nothing special. Just an average four door saloon.

On the road into Sang Kha from where i am staying there are potholes: small, medium and large potholes.

If you come up on a 4 x 4 on that road from behind don't be surprised to find that you can overtake it easily. These big car drivers seem unaware that they are called off road vehicles for a reason.

Out on the open road you will see these big cars flying past, however!

DW

All the Fun of the Fair

Every year, 13, 14 and 15 December there is a fun fair in Sang Kha. Last night, 14th December, we went there. If you like throwing darts at balloons to win teddy bears then there are lots of stalls for you.

Alternatively, you can shoot your way to a prize: much smaller prizes. We won three small bottles of juice between us. We utterly failed at the darts!

Otherwise there was a trampoline with no health and safety overkill! There was a big bouncy castle. Finally there were food stalls.

Simple pleasure that helped us to git rid of a few Baht.

On the way back i was stopped by the police in a routine breathalyser campaign. The policeman was friendly and spoke some English so that was handy!

DW

Tiger Balm Come on Down!

Coming to the tropics is fine but with skin like mine be ready for an insectival!! A festival for the local insects as they ravage your skin in search of food ... your blood.

I AM the wearer of such skin!

Tiger Balm applied so let's see how we get on now. I can feel the soothing effects of the balm!

UPDATE: Tiger Balm keeps the flies away, they don't like it up 'em!

DW



Pomegranates are Supposed to be RED!

Back to the market. I saw pomegranates today: it's obvious what they were even though they were wrapped in red cellophane paper.

I got a surprise when I opened the fruit ... not one red pip in sight ... take a look for yourself!

DW



Egg's is Going Cheep Today!

Shopping!!!

The market!!

Eggs!

The price of eggs here is two pence per egg: a tray of 30 eggs for 60 pence. I need to check this but I think that whilst I can get 30 eggs for 60 pence here, at home I can get TWO eggs for that price.

UPDATE: 21st December ... I checked and a while ago i paid £1.81 for six organic eggs in ASDA, Halifax ... that's almost exactly 30 pence PER EGG. 30 of ASDA's eggs would cost me £9.00 give or take. £9.00 v £0.60 ... who is ripping off whom?

By the way, some other eggs here are cheaper than the ones we bought.

Not only eggs but fruit and vegetables. Mushrooms ... just bought some trumpet mushrooms for 20 pence that would almost certainly cost £1.50 or even more at home. A bunch of grapes for 20 pence too that I know would cost me £1.00 ON SPECIAL OFFER.

I know my personal food inflation in the UK is about 15 - 20% per year but the prices I am seeing here are way out of line with what I see in our supermarkets.

DW






Starry, Starry Night

Just spent an hour in the garden lying on my back!!! Good telescope needed. So many stars clearly visible and there are shooting stars galore: never seen so many.

There's a starry night setting on my little camera and got some snaps with that! Great. My big camera has a Manual Bulb setting but i could not get it to open at all for the stars :(

UPDATE ... There's a programme on the TV as i type showing enthusiasts in the North of Thailand lying in a garden watching these shooting stars ... a meteor

Just goes to show how random some things are! I very rarely star gaze in the way i did last night so to choose the night with a meteor shower passing through was too much!

By the way, i think the "shooting star" that went along the horizon and did not fizzle out was probably the Space Station or some other satellite. That was moving VERY FAST!

DW

The Politics of the Hen House

There are chickens running around the house i am staying at: from the magnificent Tambala to the scruffy little black and white chick.

The boys rule the roost! Every now and again Tambala, or one of the other boys, gives one of his wives a severe pecking and a squawking to. Mrs Tambala runs away and then goes about the rest of her business.

There is a dappled hen with chicks and woe betide the hen or chick who gets too close: lots of noises and very rapid retreating!!

Then there's the brooding hen: in a basket hanging from a wall, about a metre off the floor. This hen's got a variable comfort zone of about two feet: stay outside that zone and all is well; stray into that zone and she gives off the equivalent of a growl. It would be unfair and cruel to test that any further as she might get so agitated that she scrambles one or more of her chicks. She leaves the nest every now and again so i was able to count eight eggs waiting to be hatched.

DW

Livestock

Have seen quite a bit of livestock today.

Two attractive birds ... snapped
A fawn coloured frog ... snapped
A snake, crossing the road in front of the car
A male and a female water buffalo ... I got a LOT CLOSER to them than i felt comfortable with but survived
Dogs ... snapped
A cat
Chickens galore
A brooding hen ... snapped

DW

A Paucity of Pictures!

I am almost entirely offline for the two weeks i will be in Thailand ... living in a rural part of the country. All of my entries here for this period are coming without photos.

Fear not, photos ARE being taken and i will upload a selection here as soon as i can.

DW