Andy in Thailand

andyinthailand.blogspot.com

2007-04-09T13:32:00.000+07:00

I am unable to upload pictures at the moment for unknown reasons. So I have set up a second blog at andyinthailand.blogspot.com

Baby Pics

2007-02-21T19:22:00.000+07:00

Christening

2007-02-21T19:10:00.000+07:00

Marriage

2007-02-12T16:34:00.000+07:00

Prior to the birth of the baby, we went off to Bangkok and got married. There is a first time for everything. We got married on the 22nd December, which is Paa's birthday. There was no ceremony, we collected a paper from the British Embassy to say that I was free to get married, we had one for Paa from the local office where we live. We went in signed a book and that was pretty much it. There was no place at the registry office to take a photo.

Security Guard

2007-02-12T16:27:00.000+07:00

While in Bangkok we went to find Num, Paa's brother. This involved a journey on the skytrain followed by a taxi, which was £5 for 30km. He was working in Bangkok, but we found out that it was a long way out of the city. He was working as a security guard for a housing estate. We stayed on the gate for a few hours with him, eating and chatting. He earned £2.50 a day and had to buy his own uniform, the job only lasted a few months.

Shop

2007-02-12T15:41:00.000+07:00

While in Bangkok we visited the shop where Paa used to work. It is a similar store to Assessorise in Meadowhall. It is in a large shopping centre complex like Meadowhall but floors cracked and paint coming off the walls.

Big Shell or Ammonite

2007-02-11T16:52:00.000+07:00

Keeow our next door neighbour came to tell us about about a big shell that had been dug up in a village locally. Paa then related stories about shells that had been dug up that people could stand in and suggested that they were live the ammonite that I wear around my neck. I was intrigued because the area is volcanic so no fossils to be found .... unless the info I had from the Geological Society equivalent in Thailand was wrong. Lets go and see I said immediately, I think that they were all hoping I would say that so that the petrol was free :-)

So off we went to see the mysterious shell, about 10km we eventually found the house. The shell was about 6 inches long, it was a seashell and it wasnt in a good condition, and probably that when it was buried.

What was of interest were the things that had been found buried alongside it. Many stones, often rounded, half a dozen pieces of black obsidion which is formed by volcanic heat and two things that can only be descibed as nearly flat pestle and mortars. The shell can be just seen in the pic and the older looking of the pestle and mortars. So maybe it was old or ancient Khymer artifacts that had been buried somehow. My guess would be 100 or more years old but could from a lot earlier. My plan will be to look at local museums and try to guess the date.

Charlotte Alison Lee

2007-01-30T16:19:00.000+07:00

We went and registered the birth of Charlotte today. A form from the hospital, off to the local Ampur (council ) office. She is named Alison after my mother, who died nearly two years ago. She is starting to open her eyes a bit, sounds make her jump which is a good sign. Hopefully soon she will have a proper tummy button, I think i caught the scrivelled cord when I was changing her nappy and made her squeal which was awful. A couple of times she appeared to smile at me but I think she was just testing out her face muscles. She sleeps nearly all the daytime and tends to wake up more regularly during the night. She doesnt cry very much at the moment which is great.

Paa is well, sleeping at the moment which is something she hasnt been able to do much recently.

There are various things that the local women say one cant eat after a birth here, like bananas, water melons, chicken and beef. Paa also says she has to drink warm water, the first cup I half filled from the kettle and topped it up with cold water from the dispenser on the fridge door to cool it down. I got told off because she isnt allowed cold water, I should have put room temperature water in :-)

She has arrived

2007-01-26T12:10:00.000+07:00

The baby is a 5.5lb girl :-)
She arrived a month earlier than the doctor said (Feb 26) she arrived today (Jan 26th). At 1am Paa noticed some 'water', we went to check with a nearby small clinic in Huai Rat which is on the way to Buriram. Paa was not having contractions just back ache. When we arrived, half an hour or so later, they said she was 8cm dilated and that it would be risky going to the hospital in Buriaram, they couldnt spare a nurse to go with us except in an emergency.
I was not allowed in (thankfully :-) ).
At around 3am there was a lot of commotion around the door to the room, i signalled baby to a nurse and she nodded. However they wanted to put the baby in an incubator for 3 hours to be on the safe side as she was early.
She is now out of the incubator, Paa has a 'private room' (see the picture) and her and the baby are doing very well.

She has light skin, a spotty nose, bug eyes and a pointy head, but she is very beautiful. The baby that is .... Paa is just the latter.

Monk

2007-01-06T18:45:00.000+07:00

One of the lads in the village called Port became a monk. He is not married yet, so it is thought that by doing this for a week or a month, he will bring good luck to his parents. Port had great hair like Jim Morrison of the Doors, until he shaved his head.

All the villagers helped with the party. Cooking, killing the pigs and all the other jobs. My job was drinking which I actually did too well.

Good luck for the village - Patanar (sp)

2007-01-06T18:33:00.000+07:00

Many villagers involved themselves in cleaning the village. This happens once a year and is called Pat-a-nar. This involved cutting back trees, cutting grass and clearing rubbish in communal areas. In the afternoon there was a blessing for the village and in the evening there was a party.

Finishing the garden

2007-01-06T18:26:00.000+07:00

We had 15 truckloads of rice field soil dumped in the garden and pushed around by tractor. Hopefully the orange tree seedlings that I have grown will get big enough to plant in a few months. We might not get good oranges but they supposably smell good. The other news from the garden is that the potatoes are sprouting, everyone said that potatoes had no chance, well I dont know whats happening under the soil but above is looking good. Bananas coming on, water melons self seeded, guavas good and a few self seeded tomatoes have been good.

Xmas

2007-01-06T17:35:00.000+07:00

We spent christmas afternoon at the Farang Connection in Surin, which is about 40km from us. A great meal and good company. Mac & Bee and Ron & Cha from the next village and Ray & Sanan from the south of Buriram county.

Village life

2007-01-06T17:01:00.000+07:00

It has been quite quiet in the past few weeks, even though a lot of people came back to the village for new year. The returnees were mainly men but also a few women who work on building sites around Thailand. The ones closest to me work at Bangkok and Phuket at present. They generally work for very little money, starting salary is about 170 bht a day (£2.40), more experienced workers can get a lot more though and some get good bonuses. However compared to wages in the UK they get very little, though they have advantages that we do not have, such as they can live off the land to a greater extent than we could ever. They appear to be going back after a week in the village.
Jobs recently around the village .... a month ago, everyone was collecting rice straw for the buffalo and cows during rice growing season when they can not be let out into the fields.
After that everyone went mad on draining the pools in the rice fields and finding fish and snails, a lot of the fish have been saved by making a smelly rotten fish sauce type thing, i suppose like salting, smoking, pickling and currying, it saves the fish from really rotting.
Digging for land crabs is taking place, mainly by older women it appears to me. Many people are tending little allotment gardens, like myself, because it is the cold season.

Here are two pics, one of Joe with two frogs for eating, and a woman looking for snails as the pond is drained.

The patter of tiny hooves

2007-01-06T16:43:00.000+07:00

I am pleased to announce that the smaller of our two female buffalo has had a baby girl, the larger one (and the one that I thought was pregnant) (which all the thai men give me thumbs up signal when talking about) her has yet to give birth.

She has now given birth to a baby boy buffalo, the second pic.

BABY

2006-12-09T19:41:00.000+07:00

I just realised (because of the comments) that I havent posted about the birth of the baby. Thats probably because I write to the pics and none of the baby yet. Though I will probably be the proud father in a few months and there will be too many pics of baby then. The baby is going to be a girl and is due on feb 26th (according to the doc). I can't wait to see her :-)

Prasat Khao Phra Wihan

2006-12-03T14:33:00.000+07:00

Two friends, Mike and Terry came over to Thailand for a holiday and visited me while they were here. We went, with Mac and his wife Bee, to a Khymer temple on the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Its actually in Cambodia but one can go over just to look and no passport is needed. The price for westerners is 10 times the price for Thai people. The usual pricing for not Thai people is twice or so. This was extreme.
The temple has suffered a bit from the various border problems over the last 10 centuries, and the minefields that were there until very recently according to the signs. Three countries can be seen on the walk up. Laos is visible in the distance. The views over the Cambodian forest are great. The actual buildings, the three Temple complexes on the way to the fourth complex at the summit, are fantastic. These pictures dont do the temples justice really, but give you a clue to their magnificence.

The Village Well

2006-12-03T14:29:00.000+07:00

Most people get their drinking water from the village well. It became infected with "black from a pond" I was told. So after a couple of weeks with no water, they got round to pumping it out. It is OK now.

Rice Harvest

2006-12-03T14:19:00.000+07:00

The rice harvest has all but finished here, just the brown rice to go I think. A couple of pictures. One of the truck taking rice to the store. The other putting rice in sacks after drying it on the road. The roads are some of the only flat surfaces where rice can be dried. There is no stealing around here, so the rice is safe. Generally half the road is used to dry rice, occasional passing points are left so that one doesnt have to drive over the rice. It is then put in special bucket, 4 buckets per bag. Paa's mum is at present, cutting rice in the fields by hand for money 160 bht per day (70 bht to the £1). Back breaking work, like picking potatoes when I was young.

Eating

2006-12-03T14:06:00.000+07:00

I usually dont eat village type food. I did when I first arrived but I only eat it once a week(ish) now. Anyway here is a picture of me eating rice and fish, on our drive. They wanted to eat on the drive for some reason, I know it's cooler outside but the drive!

The garden

2006-12-03T13:47:00.000+07:00

The garden is starting to look great. The first banana tree to fruit is doing a fantastic job. One mango tree is flowering and one Guava tree is fruiting. Everything is starting to sprout leaves. We have a couple of self seeded tomatoes and papaya. Nong (dad) is digging the garden to make an allotment style garden, I'm looking like I am helping, but its hot. In a year it will look fantastic. Paa has a Dengthai (sp) similar to a watermelon but less watery yellow fruit inside.

My new friends

2006-12-03T12:27:00.000+07:00

As you will have seen before, there are scorpions and snakes, here are just a few of my new friends. I have started colleting dead insects and am pinning them to a deep picture frame thing. Looks good to me anyway. Outside I have a snake that was run over by many cars and a buffalo skull.

Our local Wat (temple)

2006-11-24T15:28:00.000+07:00

Pictures of Nong (dad) and Doot (uncle) at the Wat and a wall painting that Paa and I sponsored, though strangely only Paa gets a mention on wall ....

Email address

2006-11-24T15:25:00.000+07:00

If you read this blog and I havent got your email address.... please send it to me ..... andylee1964@hotmail.com

Fishing near the House

2006-11-24T13:09:00.000+07:00

Here are a few shots of Rooum and Nong (Paa's dad) fishing in Rooum's pond near my house. The children are collecting 'salad' to eat with the evening meal.