My last post from Thailand, for now...

Well it's 12.22 am local time, which means today is officially my last day. I have got a couple more photos to post but they're on Stan's phone and he's crashed out. I'll ask him to email them to me and post them when I get back. I spent the afternoon with my friend Aey (we had lunch then went across the river and spent the afternoon talking and drinking by the river,) and the evening with Stan, Pook and William. We went to Pan Pan, an Italian restaurant I've visited before and might have mentioned, I can't remember. Had a very nice meal. Then we went to the Luan Sum Night Bazaar and had a beer (Erdinger, mmm). As we left, despite thinking to myself moments previously to not forget my bag I managed to do precisely that and leave it on a chair. Fortunately I remembered within a few minutes and the staff had put it to one side. Since I had my passport in it to cash a traveller's cheque it could have been disastrous.

As much as I'm looking forward to seeing you all I'm sad to leave. I've had an amazing time, met some lovely people and done some brilliant things so I'm hoping to return soon. Stan, William, Pook and Dick have been amazing. As have various other people, friends I've made and random people I've met. Especially when trying to get to places on public transport. Trains, planes and auto mobiles are OK but buses are difficult. Few of them have their destination or route transliterated so you have to go by number unless you can read Thai script. The only problem is the same number bus doesn't always go to the same place. There are no timetables and no reliable websites with route information. There are a few buses which seem to follow the same route (number 29 from Hualumpong up past Patumthanee being a prime example.) But generally, the best I can describe them as is "erratic." Fortunately people are generally very keen to help. Often the conductors can't speak English but passengers will try and help. On several occasions I've had between 1 and 6 people trying to help me, including walking me from the bus stop to the bus stop for my connecting bus and to relevant taxi ranks etc. Not everyone is so helpful - yesterday I got mildly harassed by a weird, smelly gay bloke who kept touching my leg pretending to steady himself when the bus went over bumps. Since there were no other seats and he couldn't speak English much I just gave him evils until he got the picture. Even then he followed me after I got off the bus. If he wasn't a bit "spechial" I'd have hit him, but I think he licks windows so I refrained.

On the subject of spechial, Kriang helped me find this site again. Kriang first showed it to me years ago when we were at uni and I thought it was amazing then. But I couldn't find it for years. Finally I can peruse and laugh at my leisure. A sample for your delectation:

Brilliant.

Anyway, I digress. Thailand general verdict: I can't wait to come back and I've not even left yet. It must be good.

Right, that's it. I'll probably write a few bits and pieces once I'm back, add anything I remember and those photos I mentioned but I'm signing off from Thailand. La gon krap.

Lizards in the park, chedis on the roundabout.

After Stan kindly copied the photos from his phone I found that there are more than I thought. Most are from last weekend when Stan, Pook and I went to Ayutthaya for the day. Ayutthaya is the former capital city of Siam and has many ruins. There're also a selection of random pictures taken in and around Bangkok.

Just been up the road to the local Café and had the usual selection of roasted (think BBQ but with a small dish of chilli sauce) chicken, minced pork (think with garlic, chillies, spring onions etc) and papaya salad, which for some reason they took the liberty of making mild today. I would've preferred it to be hot like normal. I don't know why they did it today because I've eaten there a few times and had take away a few more and they've never reduced it's kick before. Maybe it was because I asked for them to not put nuts in it and they associate a dislike of nuts with a dislike of chillies when dealing with farang?

Anyhoo, because it was all tasty I stuffed myself and now I feel sleepy... Think I'll go and read and sunbathe on the balcony for a bit. To the distaste of many Thais. I've noticed a number of whitening skincare products so I had my suspicions but after talking with William (who joined me for lunch today) my suspicions have been confirmed: over here people consider being tanned to be "lo-so" (low society.) Presumably because historically poor people would have worked outside, farming etc, and couldn't afford to stay in the shade.

Right, enough talk, time to post some photos. Firstly, here are some random ones from in and around Bangkok taken over the last couple of weeks. The picture of Aunty Anne's pretzel place is dedicated to my aunty Ann, in case you were wondering. I've not suddenly become a fan of fast food.

A few other notes: the band pictures were taken in a bar called Saxophone, which is very near Victory Monument in Bangkok. They were really good. You can't see them but there was a keyboard player playing a Hammond style keyboard and another guitarist. It was kind of bluesy stuff mostly, very entertaining. The next two were taken in Swensen's (an ice cream shop in case you couldn't deduce that from the photos) at a shopping centre (MBK if I recall) in Bangkok. The fruit list picture was taken because it has Oreo biscuits on it. The Aunty Anne's pretzel shop was next door. There's a selection of pictures in the park next - the monitor lizards just roam free and there are terrapins in the water again too. Then there is the Giant Octobus. A spelling mistake or a hideous mutant public transport/cephalopod hybrid? You decide. Speaking of hideous mutants the double banana was nurtured by Kriang's gardener's own fair hand (note the singular) on a tree in Kriang's yard. Definitely not speaking of hideous mutants we come to the last picture: of Kriang and me taken in a nice little place just round the corner from where Pook works in Bangkok. We went there just before going swimming, which was ace. We swimming in the dark in a big outdoor pool which was virtually empty. Plus for baht 100 you get as long as you want in the pool, a loan towel and free shampoo and shower gel. Bargain.

Next up are the photos from Ayutthaya where we went on Sunday.

I won't go through them all because there're too many but note the different style tuk-tuks in Ayutthaya, the town called Techno which we passed through on the way (Bangin!) and the other road sign for Wang Noi. It's a bit abstract this last one but if I explain that noi means "little" in Thai, it might help. If it doesn't help, don't worry you're not missing out on much.

Whilst we were in Ayutthaya we went to Wat Yai Chai Mongkol which is where these last few were taken.

Ones to note in this last set are the bats on the wooden roof of the chedi and the picture which proves I'm less that two feet tall. Indeed. The pictures of swords in cases are for Ricko.

I'm going to curtail my blogging activities and sally forth yonder to the balcony. Toodle pip.