Open Writing

Golf Anyone?

Hello.

Saturday was our 25th wedding anniversary! And what a place to spend it in. Eva gave us a lovely card and an elephant. Well, that is to say, she's sponsored an elephant at a sanctuary for us as a present, which is an excellent idea.

We went off in a taxi, then the skytrain, to Chatuchak Market, which is so enormous,and sells everything. After three hours we had only explored a tenth of it.

Exhausted, we got the metro to Lumphini Park, a huge park full of people jogging (!) and generally exercising. We took a pedalo across the lake. Peace and quiet, aaaahhh. Then, after a rest, we went back to eat at another place in Banglampoo, and went over some of the weird stuff that we had seen.

Some of it related to the laid back way they have of doing things: like any vehicle that can squeeze through any tiny road does so and the fact no one seems bothered if cars don't put their lights on at night. It's no use telling the police about it; we saw two policemen on a motorbike at night, and yes, no lights...

Though one that slightly stunned us was when we landed back in Bangkok on Thursday. The plane had just landed on the runway and we were waiting to get out, when we noticed a little crowd just by the runway side. On closer inspection, we could see them holding golf brollies, and lots of golf clubs. It turned out that there is a golf course going across the runway, so they wait patiently for planes to land/take off, then off they go, putt-putting away.

We also like the language here. Unfortunately, it brings out the worst in those of us who were brought up with the Frankie Howerd school of humour. 'Thank you' is said as 'krap kum kah' by a lady, and 'krap kum krap' by a man. 'Please' by a man is 'krap', by a lady it's 'kah'. If you don't want a spicy meal, you say 'my pet, my prick' - this means 'not hot, not chilli'.

Yes well. Another trip to Swensons, and off to bed on our last night here!