Loi Krathong

As the full moon of the twelfth lunar month (usually in mid-November) lights up the night sky, throughout the Thai kingdom, hundreds of thousands of ornately-decorated krathong or traditional banana leaf floats are set adrift in rivers and waterways in a spell-binding ritual called Loi Krathong - the 'festival of lights". This is one of the Kingdom's oldest and best-preserved traditions.

here is how loi krathong is celebrated... our house is about 50 meters from this river - chao phraya, but the photos were taken a few kilometers downstream.

Pattaya Dive Festival

I've heard about food festival where people eat a lot or film festival where people watch movies a lot or prayer festival where people pray a lot... but dive festival? never heard of this in my entire life until 2 months ago when someone posted it in my facebook. hmmm... I was wondering maybe people dive here a lot too. I had to get to the bottom of this intrigue and so I paid up the registration fee of 2,400 baht and November 13 came and I was on the bus to Pattaya.

I never learn my lesson about Bangkok traffic on Friday nights so it didnt matter to me if I left right after work at 5 pm. you could imagine the trip from Charan to Ekamai bus station and the continuing trip to the sin city. the photos will tell you more... 

Missing these ladies...

Warning! The photos contained in this album may not appeal to your senses. Please proceed at your own risk.

All my life I have been surrounded by gorgeous women. These include my grandmothers, my mother and aunts, my only begotten sister and the multitude of girl friends that came into my life at one time or another. So why am I missing some ladies now?

It has been two weeks since the three most loved ladies of my life left me alone in my flat in Bangkok city and I am sorely missing them. They posted these photos in the internet and as of this moment the ladies are still in Davao enjoying their vacation oblivious of my plight.

Please don't worry about me. I'm still sane and coping well. But yes... I really miss them!

The Babysitter

 It’s been 2 weeks now since my charge left me for a three-week vacation to the land of her birth. I’ll admit being most hard-hit by her leaving coupled by the fact that the other two most-loved ladies of my life also left with her.

What could a babysitter do if the baby’s gone? Well the first thing that had some bit of urgency was to clean up the house, which usually is cluttered with her toys. There were also a lot of soiled clothes upstairs which needed the services of the washing machine, and these I dumped in for the cleaning spin.

When the time came to bring in the laundry, folding them became a bit complicated. Complicated in the sense that I’m not used to folding tiny clothes, and also because I started to miss her the more with only her clothes to touch and… smell. I managed to salvage a lot of emotion through the process by reminding myself that only babies cry and that I’m a full over grown macho man now.

Bedtime has been the hardest of times these days… I mean nights. My usual bedtime activity is letting this baby transform me into a horsey while she rides on my back and we gallop on the bed until I’m exhausted. After that she has her final bottle of milk while one leg is propped up on my neck. With her “patchy” – stuffed toy puppy, covering her eyes she would slide into a deep sleep while I contemplate on my luck to see her off to dreamland every night.

What does a babysitter do without the baby? Yeah right! Make a blog entry describing the loneliness while punctuating it with photos of the two of them from albums of the past and start the countdown to her arrival. 

10 . . .  9 . . .