Wow. After India, Thailand seems very modern and easy. There are no cows on the streets, or any of their droppings. There is no garbage anywhere. Most of the vehicles are modern cars and motorcycles with the odd Tuktuk (just like the autorickshaws of India) thrown in. They have a skytrain just like the one in Vancouver. You still have to bargain for stuff, but I am immune to that a bit after a month in India. I don't have time if they start at a really insultingly high price at first, but if they are reasonable, I will be too.
Heather is eating like a fiend. We are next door to a German restaurant and she has been having big feeds of ceasar salad and pork steak with french fries and gravy every night. The same restaurant serves an american breakfast (egg, toast, bacon, homefries, cornflakes, coffee and orange juice -- read tang). She has eaten the whole breakfast 3 mornings in a row and then had meat on a stick and fruit from the fruit vendors in between. When she was sick and didn't eat for 5 days in India she lost a lot of weight. The pair of pants that were snug are now almost falling off. I think her body has found something it will accept in spades. She is also VERY happy to see her grandmother. She has been in a really giddy mood for days. She says she loves Thailand but Alan suspects she actually loves Germany.
We have been doing a very easy pace for tourism. It is as hot as Hades here with the humidity. Mum is really feeling it, as we all are. Luckily we have her with us to set the pace. I am sure Alan would be happier marching a lot faster, but the kids and I are happy to stroll along and sit under any tree we pass.
Yesterday we took the skytrain to the river and bought a day pass. You go up river on a tour boat and they point out all of the sights, then you come back down and hop on and off as you wish. We stopped at the Royal Palace which is VERY impressive. Talk about fiddly bits. It is a quilters paradise with all kinds of repetitive patterns and floral motifs covering every inch of every building. You can really tell they don't have to worry about freezing. We just couldn't have anything like it outdoors in our climate.
Today we went to Wat Pho, with the temple of the reclining buddha. It is huge -- I think the guidebook said 45m long. It is one building of many in an enclave of 20 acres. There are also 1000 brass buddha statues, bigger than life size, saved from somewhere in Thailand by a previous monarch. These staues are nicely displayed in cases all around other temples within the complex.
Tomorrow we head for Chang Mai on a 14 hour bus ride. My vote of the overnight sleeper train was crushed.
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I suppose your problem about posting pictures has to do with the interface between the camera and whatever computer you're using? Because I expect you must know that there's a little "image" icon in the editing function of Blogger that allows you to just suck pictures off the computer and into cyberspace. So it must be the other. Of course it must.
So glad Heather is able to scarf down pork and fries, even in Asia. McDonald's has doubled its fourth-quarter earnings, you'll be pleased to hear, so McThali and McTikka must be moving well.
Interesting that Charles Massey was along for the ride. The wedding must have been just like something out of as Merchant-Ivory movie in that respect.
Traditionally the grooms arrive on horseback.
In case you're dying to know, Dreamgirls has swept the Oscar noms, except that it was shut out of the best-pic category.
When was Jacob bitten by monkeys?????????? My sister Alexandra was once attacked by a small spider monkey, but that was at the Woodland Park Zoo in good ol' Leeds & Grenville.
Post more soon! Love to all!
Oops Pressed the wrong Button. Ignore the last Post, here it is again.
I see you got the greatest culture shock out of the way first (India) Martina was also a little leary after our trip into Delhi, when we were told that our hotel was in the area of town ridden with plague.
So Thailand is "hot as Hades here with the humidity". Enjoy it while you can...
Winter has arrived here, finally!
we were awaiting with much anticipation) so we can go skating and toboggoning along with the usual stuff
- Tractor trailer filled with cases of bottled water flips on 401. Water Everywhere... Road Freezes in -14C weather. Melters have to be brought in so that traffic can start to move again.
- Cars in ditches because with such a mild fall, no one has remembered how to drive on snow...
Rideau Canal Update - "Ice tests conducted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 confirm that the ice thickness is now between 13 to 26 centimetres at various locations on the Rideau Canal Skateway."
-> Not open yet, they need another 5cm of Ice :)
Ottawa Temp -18°C & Clear
Hey I've tried jiggling the thingy to make HEAT in your car but to no avail. Why do you need the vice grips?
Cold tales from the Rich-sickle
The vice grips are to grasp the stub of the heat/fan control slider. You need to move the slider to the off position (far left), which takes a bit of wiggling and some force, then move it back to the right, but not all the way. As you move it to the right you will hear the fan go on but if you go past the second last position it will go off again. I find that applying a twisting force to the slider helps to allow it to move. Hope this helps.
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