Wun sam

OK, day three. Getting settled in now although still not quite adjusted to local time. Kriang's at work and Will's gone to study for exams so I've got the place to myself. Well me and Bush, Kriang's dog.


Looks lovely eh? But apparently he's a bit of a killer. I've been here two days and still haven't actually stroked him because Kriang and Will both insist he's liable to bite if I do. Since Kriang had to go to the doctors every week for over a month for shots (despite Bush being vaccinated) I figured I'd take their advice and just ignore him for now. Personally I think he likes me but if he bites the hand that feeds him I'm not going to take my chances just yet. He's pictured sat on Kriang's living room floor. This living room.


Also seen here.


It's actually quite large and there's more than the pictures show but you get the gist. It's a nice place, with a big balcony on the first floor.

The view on the left is taken from my room. The one below from the street, which is called Moo 10. I don't know where Moo 1-9 are. Although it's somewhat inconvenient staying so far (probably about

10km, maybe a little more) from the centre of Krung Thep, as the Thais call Bangkok, it is nice to be in an area with no tourists. It gets a bit annoying walking around Khao San and similar areas hearing little but foreign accents, at least if you're as intolerant as me. And in my defense both Kriangsak and Will drive so neither of them has caught the train into Bangkok from here. I'm going to sooner or later, but first I need to extract information from Kriang in order to establish where the station is.

I've only spoken to two locals here so far, Kriang and Will notwithstanding, and even then I only said "sawatdee khrab", which is the polite way to say hello. Interestingly one of those two people is Kriangsak's one-armed gardener who is a very cheery fellow. Nobody seems to know how he lost his right arm but it's not done anything to dint his cheery demeanour. I'll try and get a picture of him if I see him again. The other person was just the girl in the local shop where I bought this drink.

Japanese iced green tea with lemon and honey. Mmmm. Perhaps not the most interesting picture you ever saw but probably the nicest iced tea I've tried so far (in any country I've been to, not just here) so if you see it, try it. That and a packet of chewing gum cost me about 35p. Back to the local area which is called Lad Krabang and has the largest industrial estate in Bangkok. Howzat for local trivia? (When I stopped at the information desk at the airport to find a payphone and borrow a pen I got talking to the people behind the counter, and oddly enough neither of them had heard of Lad Krabang. They were questioning if I had written the address down properly, despite it's largest-industrial-estate status.) Anyhoo this is the view down Kriangsak's street, Moo 10.


Because it's so cheap to eat out here nearly everybody does nearly all the time. Failing that you'll often see someone walking home with a takeaway. You can buy a very tasty meal for two people for about two quid in an air conditioned, very well served cafe. (Incidentally, wearing my big-head hat for a mo, I was very pleased to discover upon trying it here that my homemade Thai green curry tastes perfectly authentic when I manage to get hold of galangal. Go me.) They're very hot on service here too. Go anywhere to eat or drink in Bangkok and they'll usually dash over to the door to open it for you. Being a tad old fashioned I'm not entirely at ease when a petite, 5ft nothing Thai girl has to use both hands and all her weight to push open a well sprung door for me but they see you coming and they're too quick so I settle for a smile and a "kharb khun khrab" or "thank you" as it is, somewhat more succinctly, in English. Because of the propensity to eat out cooking facilities at home are often somewhat limited. Here's Kriangsak's stove, gas powered and very well ventilated, being outiside.


Another common way to get food is from a variety of mobile stalls and vans. The vans come round the block talking over a loud speaker like a cross between an American election campaigner and an ice cream van. I've not tried the food from one of these yet but I definitely will at some point. I just about managed to get a picture of one as it passed. Definitely getting better at whipping the camera out at short notice but I still need to work on my aim.


On the corner of Kriangsak's street is this little banana plantation, with a close up of the baby bananas on the right.


I also ate even smaller baby bananas on my first night here. They were almost embryonic, about 3mm wide and 30 long. Tasted a little like bean sprouts, they certainly weren't sweet at that size.

And now a quick note on the local fauna. One of the nicest things has been to hear some kind of monkey or gibbon calling as I walk around Lad Krabang. I've not seen one yet to be able to identify it but it's a nice, constant reminder of how exotic this place is.

Lastly, for now, I've also managed to catch up with one of those geckos I mentioned yesterday and I was quicker than this one. It's actually stuck to a wall, not just on the floor as it looks in the photo.


Right, that's it for now. I'm off to the shop to get more iced tea then it's time for another shower. Then I'm going to chill on the balcony for a bit in the shade. Ah, it's a hard life.