For the Melbies, just had to share this one: looked across at the computer terminal next to me and there's a really beautiful ad for a Beverly Fundraiser at Ace Morning. huge waves of homesickness rushing past. Nah, not really but its really nice to get a flash fromhome like that. I was reading a freebie BK tourist publication yesterday and there was a big article on Melbourne in it, raving about its most livible city status and I wonder why on earth am I in Bangkok?
Today I saw my first dead dog floating down the Klong (canal). I knew they were to be found to to see one is something else! It was all puffy and bloated and floating as if it was standing up a foot below the water line, its head half submerged as was its body. The romanticism of riding the canal has long since passed. Now I see it for the open sewer it really is, flinch at being touched by the water and try to hold my nose against the stench!
However, on a beautiful note, I just got back from a visa run and four days in Laos. Wow! There's a place I could live very happily. A rainbow of green and tranquility. but very much "progressing"! They have real roads and real buses now which detracts from its charm but is probably a lot nicer for the Lao who wish to move around. This also means a lot more tourists
and related development and the untouched river I floated down two years ago now has
many bungalows crawling up the banks of the river from town and an obnoxious collection of riverside bars insisting on blaring out of date dance music across the valley. Why I ask you? Bloody farang and their influence! But at least they stay in one spot!
Unlike me, after a myriad of minor crises and a not so minor housing crisis I'm now living on the other side of town really close to work. Yeah for not having to leave the house at 6:30 to get in for 8. I'm staying with Nordin a really sound german guy who's been living here for a while trying to scratch out a living, which isn't easy when you're not Thai or a native english speaker. We're in the middle of a maze of Soi (small alleyways) about twenty minutes walk
from Emporium, the most lavish shopping centre I've ever seen. Prada, Gucci, DKNY, Channel, all rubbing shoulders. The cars on the street around are at least 50% BMWs Mercs Audis Hondas etc. So yeah, I'm right of the edge of the rich bit of town but living in a cute villa complex. There is a row of flats on either side of the courtyard where the boys play this game thats like volley ball but with feet and heads only. I've forgotten what its called. At the end is a garage with a room on top 6x4 glass tinted sliding doors with two concrete walls. This is where I sleep and play; overlooking banana trees and beautiful Thai wooden architecture with so much sky in my face when I wake up. You have to come through the flat and down some
stairs to get to it so I'm safe and isolated but in the middle of everything! I bought a mozzie net last night and slept with all the doors open and the breeze coming through. Its like sleeping outside and very beautiful. Have lucked out again.