Old Sukhothai – Ancient Capitals and a Kid Called Chocolate

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Cool tree at the Old Sukhothai ruins.

Cool tree at the Old Sukhothai ruins.

This mornings breakfast report – yummy green curry that wasn’t quite as deadly as the last one, rice porridge, lil’ baby sausages, and somehow those fried pastry things with condensed milk on managed to get onto our plates again as well. Perusing the newspaper, the headlines read; ‘Muslims flee Western Myanmar  – 25 killed, 40 injured’, ‘Police exam declared invalid after cheating’ and ‘Flood sends villages fleeing – Sukhothai hit as Yom River gives way’ – precisely the place we were heading to. Righto, possibly a canoe will be required. We hadn’t heard of any transportation cancellations or anything, so off we set. Continue reading →

Curry for Breakfast and Frogs on Sticks

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Rambutan fruit

Rambutan fruit

So, today started with rice porridge, green curry, baby sausages and fried dough with condensed milk. And lots of coffee – which we discovered yesterday is not in the actual coffee pot but in a large urn to the side, which in all fairness does have a sign with ‘Coffee’ stuck to it. After gargling a large mouthful of tea yesterday – which normally I would not drink if you held a rifle to my back – I was very careful to get it right this morning. We also discovered yesterday that a harmless looking breakfast curry may indeed not actually be so. But the fruits that look like eggs sitting in a red spiky-looking case taste very like mild-tasting grapes. All is not as it seems here… Continue reading →

2012 – Another crack at Thailand and Serendipity at its Finest.

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Well, I’m off to Thailand again on Sunday, with a woman I hardly know, to places I don’t know, to get up to who knows what. Should be interesting. Continue reading →

Ode to Whitebait

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Look at me, my little treat
Yes you, whom I’m about to eat
You should have swum the other way
You would have lived another day.

Excuse me Mr Morepork

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Oh morepork, though you summon me
From sentry post in yonder tree
I wonder what your thoughts would be
If I did eat your family

And there, the lamp post shines so bright
And tempts your dinner to its light
So turn your wee head so I might
Steal all your eggs into the night.

Regards,
The Tuatara

* Mundane explanation bit: A morepork, otherwise known as a Ruru in the Maori language, is a wee nocturnal owl who sounds like he’s saying ‘Morepork! Morepork!’ when he calls. The tuatara, meaning ‘peaks on the back’ in Maori, is a lizard endemic to New Zealand, from a very old species dating back to the dinosaurs. It’s often referred to as a ‘living dinosaur’. I have no idea whether a tuatara would eat a morepork’s eggs, given the chance. I was just being silly.

A Morepork. Photo courtesy of 'in paradise', Flikr.

A Morepork. Photo courtesy of ‘in paradise’, Flikr.

2009 Thailand #2: Train to Chiang Mai and the Scary Bed Lady

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The scene of the almost-crime. The swerving hotel driveway upon which our rickshaw driver tried to tip us.

The scene of the almost-crime. The swerving hotel driveway upon which our rickshaw driver tried to tip us.

We’re now in Chiang Mai, having landed this morning after a 14 hour train ride. Just to revisit yesterday’s email, the guy in the speeding bullet tuk tuk was very unhappy with us because I had bartered his price down so much, then he found out that we were staying at an expensive hotel. That’s why he drove like a madman – a) to try and scare us (and possibly fling us out) and b) to get rid of us as fast as possible. His fast driving combined with his illegal driving manoeuvres (how in the heck do you spell that word?) had traffic police blowing their whistles at him like crazy, but he just ignored them and carried on.That combined with the railway line scenario (complete with traffic piling up behind us, beeping their horns like mad ‘cos they were now stuck on the tracks, the train barping it’s horn and the barrier bells nutting off,) made us feel like we’d just been thrown into the middle of a Jackie Chan movie. We’re still wondering if the police caught our speeding tuk tuk man on the way back and gave him a ticket. Continue reading →

2009 Thailand #1: So Far, So Crazy

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Good ol' Kao San Road culture.

Good ol’ Kao San Road culture.

After a very long flight, several wines (maybe one too many, but I only did that to help me sleep – honest!), and approximately four hours after we lost all feeling in our backsides, we got to Bangkok. Cripes that’s a big airport! We really wanted to pinch one of the golf-carts the staff drive around in there, but being deported immediately would not have fitted in with our plans, so we walked and used the Jetsons-style moving footpaths instead. Continue reading →

2009 Thailand # 11: Prey Versus Prey and Loyor Enpar

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Beautiful Chiang Mai - Outside the wall.

Beautiful Chiang Mai – Outside the wall.

Once again, enjoying lolling around on our verandah, we were discussing snakes and lizards as per usual. Chow told me a story about his cat at his home in the country, who was stalking and catching a bird. Meanwhile, a large snake that he had – a python, I believe – was creeping up behind the cat. The cat caught the bird, the snake caught the cat, the cat turned around to see what on earth was going on and let the bird go, while the snake was having a few problems trying to get this wriggly, furry bit of prey to fit down its throat. So while the snake and cat were tussling, three people were on the other end of the snake trying to pull it off the cat. They finally succeeded and the snake and cat both left looking completely puzzled at their foiled hunting attempts. I’d love to have been there to get a photo of that. Snake, cat and bird, all in a row. Continue reading →

2009 Thailand # 10: Tribal Rolls Royces and Flintstone Lizard Earrings

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King cobra. According to the Thai people, touch one of these and have good luck for life. Personally, I think it's better luck not to go near one at all...

King cobra. According to the Thai people, touch one of these and have good luck for life. Personally, I think it’s better luck not to go near one at all…

Saturday – It got up to 39 degrees yet again, so we had brunch at the usual cafe then slept through most of the day or lay around under wet sarongs right in front of the fan, wishing it was a ceiling fan. We don’t know how to stop it turning so we get cool for a few seconds then have to wait for it to come round again – by which time we’re sweltering already. At the cafe an old lady came along selling little jellyish cake things that looked like fish roe to me. Gill was brave enough to try one and it turned out that they were a kind of chicken jelly with satay inside. They were tasty enough but the texture was pretty weird so we turned down offers of more from the cafe owners, bless them. Continue reading →

2009 Thailand # 9: An Old Lady on a Harley Davidson and Inspector Clouseau Shopping Expedition

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A very experienced umbrella maker, Chiang Mai.

A very experienced umbrella maker, Chiang Mai.

The evening after our zoo day, we had a wee party on our verandah. I had decided that a bottle of gin was in order, so I went and bought one at the 7/11 (otherwise known as a Dairy in NZ) for 260 baht (or about $12.60 NZ). Chow, Gill myself and a Phillipine girl called Lyn swanned about with a guitar, some gin and whiskey and several buckets of ice. Very civilized. Chow and Lyn put a sand lizard on the ground by my foot, thinking to scare me, which didn’t work at all, to their great disappointment. Gill suggested quietly to me that I should go and get my scorpion and do the same back, which worked a treat. When Lyn spotted it, we both jumped back and climbed on our chairs in horror (this was at night time, so the light was working in our favour) and she was totally taken in, poor thing. I think she had murderous intentions towards us for a little while after that. Chow then passed me a fancy whiskey bottle that had a cobra inside it with a large scorpion in its mouth. He was lucky I didn’t drop it! He then told us that the cobra would have been put in the bottle when small, then the scorpion dropped in once the snake was bigger, then both of them drowned in whiskey. We couldn’t believe the cruelty of it! And in a Buddhist country? But for some people, dollars speak a darn sight louder than morals. I also really hate seeing the insects set in resin or in frames at the markets. They’re pretty impressively sized bugs, but I refuse to support such a practice. Every time I see this I shake my head at the person selling them. I have to say I’ve seen a lot less of this than I saw in Bangkok in 2005. Maybe more tourists are refusing to buy them. I hope so. Continue reading →