Dear All

GENERAL

Where to begin? It’s only been a few weeks since our last email update but it seems like months (and years since we left the UK).

There was an earthquake last night somewhere in the North East of Burma which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale (as big as that Mexican ‘quake which killed so many thousands). Even though the ‘quake was felt in Bangkok it drew little attention in the international news, although quakes like this are unheard of in this part of the world. The epicentre was in the back of beyond and no one was injured – makes you think though!

The rain is chucking it down outside, punctuated by terrific claps of thunder which make the windows rattle in their frames and of course bright flashes of blue lighting. When the rain stops (as it does now and then) the air seems to have the consistency of whipped cream and everything, from the walls of the house to the plants in the garden, seems to be sweating. Say what you like about global warming you just don’t get whether like this in the UK!

This is the wet season of course, where everything green thrives in the heat and humidity. But even in the wet season it seems that most of the time it is dry. When I say dry I mean ‘not raining’. You may get the impression from this that we are living in some steamy jungle but the weather has actually been great – far from the incessant monsoon rains we expected - and we have been totally unaffected by the two super typhoons which did so much damage in other parts of Asia.

ORCHIDS, MONTY THE 5 FOOT MONITOR AND HOOTY THE DOVE

The garden is full of orchids now. We must have about 20 different species (or is it sub-species?) - anyway 20 orchids varying in size colour and shape. Everything grows at an incredible rate. The gardeners came last Sunday (about 10 of them) and cropped the grass and hacked away the hedges with such enthusiasm that they were bound to die but today the grass is as green as it ever was (apart from some nasty brown patches under the trees) and the hedges are full and thick and even flowering again. The climbing plants are also back and seem to have been wrapped around the fence posts, telephone cables and banana plants by some practical joker overnight. You get the impression, even in a Bangkok suburb, that the jungle is just biding its time, waiting for an opportunity to come back and reclaim the city.

The canal next to our house was once used as a highway to and from floating markets and into Bangkok. But as Bangkok grew and more roads were build and the canals covered over, our canal has been left to the frogs and monitor lizards. There’s one monitor in particular who we’ve christened “Monty”. He’s about 5 feet long and visits the garden now and then looking for scraps of fish we leave out for him (as well as the odd kitten who wanders by)

Richard has been feeding a wild turtle dove, which he named “Hooty”, every day in the garden. Hooty appears to have a lot of friends, as there are now five turtle doves as well as two painted doves and various pigeons which descend on our garden every day and coo pitifully on the fence until Richard goes to feed them.

THE ZOO AND THE KING OF SIAM

It was funny to see monitors on display at the Zoo (and one casually walking around the grounds) the other day after you have your very own monitor in the garden.

Incidentally when we came out of the zoo the road had been closed off and nobody was being allowed out. We were a bit confused until we saw a police motorcade speeding down the clear road. In the centre was a gold Rolls Royce limonene with a small figure dressed in white sitting bolt upright on the back seat; it turned out this was the King.

KHAO YAI NATIONAL PARK

Unlike the Indonesians and the Chinese (there: that’s a sweeping statement which takes care of about a third of the world’s population), the Thais seem to really love animals. They also appreciate nature for what it is rather than something which is at best useful and at worst inconvenient.

We were up at Khao Yai National park (which is about a 3 hour drive from our place) the other weekend and it was full of Thais braving the leeches - and not just wealthy middle class Thais (although they made up the majority). It sounds patronising, but it was a real pleasure to see a truck load of local workers driving around reading the information notices about the park and the animals. We’ve never seen anything like it in Africa or other parts of Asia.

There are supposed to be just 7 tigers left in Khao Yai. Needless to say we didn’t see hind nor hair of them. We did see loads of hornbills and also herds of deer on a night drive (no not the deer!) (mostly Sambar Deer as well as Muntjak or Barking Deer).

THE TURTLE RESCUE MISSION

Even in Bangkok you find a deep ‘respect’ (for want of a better word) for animals. At the flower market there’s a section near the food stalls and restaurants full of live finches, catfish, eels, terrapins and giant fresh water turtles; all on sale. When I saw this, my western sensibilities were offended I came back home muttering about barbaric treatment, cruelty, unnecessary suffering etc. etc. We therefore decided to rescue the biggest turtle from the pot and set off that evening only to find the stalls were all shut down. But with righteous indignation we returned the following day on our turtle rescue mission, and were horrified to discover scores more stalls full of livestock.

We looked for our turtle and agreed on a price. We asked what it ate and if it would be OK to keep it in our garden – “Oh No! - you can’t do that”, came the reply, “this is for the Buddha!”. It turned out that you buy an eel, terrapin, finch or whatever and release it; and this act of mercy gets you Brownie Points in this life which you cash in next time around (the common name for the turtle in question being the “yellow headed temple turtle” gave us a somewhat belated clue).

The Thai’s love of/respect for/feelings towards animals has its drawbacks; everyone seems to have at least one dog out here and they all seem to wake up at the same time each day (about 5.30) to bark and howl in the new day.

BUDDHISM IN A NUTSHELL

It seems the Thai Buddhists believe that every living thing has a soul and all souls are interconnected. If you do good things to a fellow soul you gain merits (good karma) which go towards your next incarnation and a step up the ladder toward enlightenment.

The more you suffer in this life the more good karma you gain and the better the next life will be (brilliant way off keeping the peasants down).

They take this concept of karma very seriously indeed. By way of example there was an elephant which was hit by a large container lorry on the major highway in the North of the Country the other day. The elephant didn't die but collapsed in the road where it remained for several days (in pain and blocking the traffic). No one would move it, treat it or shoot it to put it out of it pain.

From the report in the Bangkok Post about the incident it seems that the belief was that the elephant's soul would gain good karma from the pain to go towards its next life; to deny the elephant's soul this opportunity by shooting it would be sinful.

MORE ELEPHANTS

Talking of elephants, we were travelling back from Khao Yai National park along the main road (which is a 4 lane highway - chocked with traffic as usual) and about 200 meters from our Moo Ban we saw an elephant coming the wrong way down the road into oncoming traffic with a red flashing bicycle lamp attached to its tail.

MORE DOMESTIC STUFF

We’ve now got a maid (Sunan) who loves ironing and cooking. She comes in 3 times a week and cleans from top to bottom, does the shopping, washing, ironing and cooking – its fantastic! Robin loves the fact that there is fresh tropical fruit salad in the fridge every morning for breakfast. Richard made a “mango picker” from bamboo (like a claw on a long pole) and Sunan sliced up the fruit from our mango trees with relish! Green (unripe) mango is also delicious – bittersweet and tasting somewhat like a Granny Smith apple with the texture of powdery carrot. The fruit from our coconut palm and banana trees is not yet ready, so that is something to look forward to.

We thought we could manage without a car but this is looking more unlikely as time goes by, and we will probably have to bite the bullet and buy one (It is a 10 minute walk out of our Moo Ban to the main road from where you can hail a taxi and in the Bangkok heat or rain, you are seldom at your best when you arrive!).

A “Moo Ban” (Thai for “Village”) by the way is a sort of housing complex. Ours is surrounded by high walls and fences and you have to pass through a security check point coming in and out. It quite funny really as the guards click their heals, salute, and shout KRAP! at you every time you pass them (which is very polite apparently).

Our Moo Ban has a club house which is a bit rundown and is always empty but it has a swimming pool, a full size snooker table, a gym (of sorts), tennis courts and a restaurant.

HALF TERM TRIP

Robin is working hard at school, but half term is coming up and then Xmas so our thoughts are turning to our next expedition. Maybe Cardamom in Cambodia (http://www.cardamom.org/) to look for the rare Siamese crocodile.

But before we do, we plan a few more weekends away to Khao Yai or to Pattaya beach.

Well that’s about it for the moment!

Loads more to say but that will have to wait until our next instalment.

Rich & Robin.