Thai military coup a non event

If the Thais are world experts in one thing it has to be military coups. The latest, which occurred last night (here, in Thai time) ran so smoothly no one would have known about it except for the traditional halting of regular TV programmes and replacement with pictures of the king with martial music in the background. The army leaders know this is the only way they would get everyone’s attention. Everyone except me of course who doesn’t watch television. I certainly wouldn’t have known about it had a friend not called me to tell me he was watching live on TV as tanks were trundling around the streets and that we didn’t have to go to work the following day. The tanks of course were there to inform people actually on the street who would have been the only ones (except me) not watching TV.

I must say this way of getting rid of Taksin has to be better than all the democratic street protests, which only succeeded in clogging up Bangkok streets even more than usual and casued everyone to get hot under the collar. This way everything was sorted out without a whimper. Bit boring really and is it really going to make any difference? One set of corrupt cronies will get replaced by another. Same old same old. Anyway, I’m off to the beach..see ya.

Urban Super Frogs

Bangkok is synonymous with urban living – we’ve got the heat, smog, traffic and not many wide open park areas to talk about. From a personal perspective, we are right in the centre of it – about 15mins by Skytrain from Siam Square. Hardly even suburban.

The advantage of the Skytrain is that it travels above street level and so you get a pretty good view over the city. However, even from this elevated aspect there are no green areas as far as the eye can see. Pretty depressing stuff. It’s not all bad though as our home is set in a mini oasis.

There’s a small garden out front and the moderately-sized swimming pool is surrounded by tropical plants mainly palms. I’m also sure David Attenborough would find plenty to keep him happy with here as far as the animal kingdom is concerned as well. The insects are naturally quite prolific and a bit scary and we often see squirrels running fearlessly along the electricity wires between the palms. In addition by night we see plenty of bats flitting by – both the large fruit bats and the smaller insectivorous – they often hang around under the overhang of our balcony. There is also often the soulful croaking of frogs – especially if we’ve just had a good downpour. I really wonder where they go in the dry season though – the ground is baked hard and there is not even a scent of water vapour in the air – but then if there is a shower, the call goes out and the toads all give throat in praise of the rain. You never see them in the pool though.

And that is actually the point of this particular blog – last night we were sitting on our balcony, on the second floor (3rd if you are American) eating dinner. Although it is the semi rainy season, it hadn’t rained in days and the grass outside our place was a uniform dusty brown. All we could hear was the distant hum of the evening traffic. It was dark, but I saw something move by my foot – It could have been a cockroach (although thankfully, in our apartment these are very rare) or a gecko, which are fairly abundant – but it was a frog – about 4cms long. How did he get up here? Certainly not hopped. There is only one way. He must have crawled up the sheer face of the wall. These frogs are nothing if not extremely hardy (and stupid, as there are no ponds up here). Of course by morning he was gone

Ko Samui

Another holiday and more pages to catch up on – same old story. This time we’ve just got back from a trip to Ko Samui. First time I’ve been there actually. It has often been billed in the past as a paradise island and famed like many of Thailand’s beauty spots as having beaches of the purest white sands and skirted by gently waving palm trees. Well the beaches are still as beautiful, but I’m afraid many of the trees have been uprooted and the ones that remain stand between hotels and condos. Off the beaches are main drags packed with MacDonalds and Starbucks. Any piece of land that hasn’t been developed has a ‘For Sale’ sign on it or a large banner offering apartments for sale and guaranteed returns on their investments. The whole island has been blighted by rampant development and shows no sign of stopping.

Having said all that if you are in your hotel and just look forward to the sea and try not to look at all your concrete neighbours, you may still enjoy the view. We also managed to find a fairly quiet beach and get in some quality relaxing time. Ko Samui is definitely off our schedule for return visits though.

At least the break also allowed me to find time to complete the Kanchanaburi page of the website. I know we went there in March, but I’ve been busy. In addition to the Globalwanderings site, me and Jackie have been working on our new venture podcastsinenglish.com this will be a site for students to download podcasts of our interviews with all sorts of people and news stories to help with their English. Worksheets are also available to members who pay $30 a year. Anyway check out the site and see what you think.

new pages to the Thailand site

Another holiday and now more pages to catch up on. We've just got back from a few days in Kanchanaburi - of bridge over the river Kwai fame, taken some more photos and therefore more material for another page on globalwanderings.

At least I'm slowly catching up - I've just completed Ayuthaya, Sukhotai and some photos and film of our apartment on the Thailand pages, so check them out by clicking the link to globalwanderings on the right.

Back at work for a couple of weeks and then it's a dive holiday in the Similans for a week and then the UK from 18 April - 3 May.

I've also included a RSS feed on the site so you should be automatically updated when new pages are posted.

all th ebest

R

gw update

Been busy behind the scenes. I have now put up my page on Malaysia/Penang and also Ko Samet on the Thailand section - this one a first as I've uploaded two videos in Flash format - check them out and see what you think. Flushed with the succes of these vids I am now keen to put up pages of further explorations in Thailand - notably the new year's trip up to the Karen villages near Burma and a more down to earth video of our flat!

Dogs in shirts

Most people in Thailand live in a soi or lane. Most dogs in Thailand live down a soi also and are not surprisingly called soi dogs. Although I have heard stories to the contrary I find most of these dogs very passive and polite. They get on with their lives - just hangin' out mainly, and you get on with yours. Most are in fairly good shape and usually quite intelligent. Our soi happens to be next to a very busy highway. I suspect one of our soi dogs has a girlfriend across this highway. Naturally he uses the footbridge to cross the road. I also used to think these dogs were strays as they tend to just wander around the area. However a recent holiday up north convinced me otherwise.

Thailand is a tropical country. However we still have three seasons - hot, wet and cold. At the moment it is the cold season - OK 'cool' season and in Bangkok it can get down to the low twenties (centigrade that is). Further north it can get into the teens - really cold to Thais - especially Thai dogs. On this holiday (to the ancient capital Sukhotai and then on to Chiang Mai) I noticed the usual soi dogs - but well over half of them were wearing T-shirts!! And I must say a lot of them looked rather sheepish about it even though they still went about their usual business. Talking of which with so many dogs roaming the streets - how come I never see any "dogs' business" on the street. But I guess that's the subject of another blog.

globalwanderings update

We are now back from our little sortie up north. Had a great two weeks exploring the ruins of Sukhotai and then hiring bikes and wandering up the Burmese border, staying in a Karen hilltribe village in the middle of nowhere for New Year's Eve.

I have pretty much finished updating the globalwanderings site now (let me know what you think and about any broken links etc) so I should have some time to start the Thailand page with photos and travelogues of this trip and other recent ones (eg Ko Samet)and also add a bit of info about Bangkok.