PATravel: This is Thailand!

Sitting watching Pete sweat a small ocean while playing badminton and listening to the pigeons coo and fly across the courts. Oblivious to an impending bomb drop from above, the players continue their game. Only semi aware of the 2 year old running across the courts with a sosatie stick in his mouth. Have just eaten a dinner of freshly fried wantons and an unidentifiable squidgy spinach thing followed by spicy papaya salad that has set my mouth ablaze. So much for the "nit noi ped, ka" (little spicy, please) request to the Som Tham (Papaya Salad) lady at the night bazaar! Oh well, nothing that a strawberry and pineapple smoothy filled with sugar water can't cure. Feel a bit bad about the number of bees we saw floating in the sugar water, but just hoping I don't crunch down on one before this drink saves my mouth! Saw a pug this afternoon riding on the back of a scooter as its owner weaved between the traffic. Four little puggy legs clinging to the leather seat and a very dismal expression on an already pretty dismal face. Ai, Thailand!

Fruit Lady in Chaiyaphum Market

Been a good week filled with exciting sensory experiences (as always). The markets continue to captivate. From the pigs' heads on display to ladies clubbing live catfish to death and popping heads off baby frogs like bubble wrap. Not to mention the fresh honey on offer outside the mechanics store or the kaleidoscope of colours sprawled across the veggie ladies' stall. Two weekends ago, in Khon Kaen, we had our first opportunity to see flash fried insects of every shape and colour for sale. Cicadas, crickets, silk worms and grasshoppers...like a pick and mix candy store, we could fill a bag to snack on for the trip home. Hmmm....no thanks. Might give that one a skip!

Pigs' heads...enough said

Poor live (soon-to-be-dead) fish

At school today, a half blind lady came into the teachers office with two reed baskets, one filled with green sticks and another a white bag. Thinking she was selling food, I asked to see inside. Low and behold, out she pulls an array of LIVE TURTLES!!! Big ones, small ones, water and land ones - you name it, she had it. "To gin?" (eat) I say in broken Thai. "Mai mai" comes the reply. Apparently, you can buy these poor reptiles and set them free. A quick and easy way to earn brownie points if you're buddhist. Good for your karma. Not so good for the turtles. Apparently, where the turtles are set free is also where they are captured. The great circle of life? Hmm, nope. Just Thailand.

Back at the apartments and Mum calls us over to point out tiny little specks of light flittering over the dark marshy ground next door. FirefRies!! (Nope. Fireflies, but try get a Thai person to say that sound combination!) Hundreds of the little guys sparking around just long enough to think we can catch them. Chasing fireflies at the end of the day. What a day. Now THAT'S Thailand!!

Some more photos. Some to make you smile. Others to make you cringe!