Straight On To Today's Post,

as we are off early to go fishing,

 the sun was barely up,

 lampposts and cranes in silhouette against the sky,

 but we soon were in town,

 to pass the time,

 I took a few pictures of buildings as we past by,

 then to the Philippine Embassy, Diana needs to renew her passport,

 forms filled in and we were on our way back into the Bangkok traffic,

 we appeared to be making good time,

 we were going by a different route to meet the toll-way,

 and there we were,

 passing many familiar buildings,

 the camera has a program in it that allows you to take pictures through glass,

 which I thought was quite neat,

 and it also allows you to throw near objects like these leaves slightly out of focus, another kilometre or two and we will be there, but the driver got just a tad lost as we found our way on the road that takes us back to Pattaya! so we had to look for a turn off, 

 which was a long way back, having turned round we were no longer on the motorway, so on over the railway lines, we had never been this way before, after we had travelled several miles,

 we were back where we should have been, passing these strange new pieces of construction,

 on to the second turn off we should have taken,

 past some more construction,

 then here we are, the fourth floor of JJ Mart,

 looking over the market,

 we made our way to the ground floor in JJ,

 though the aisles,

 for Diana's favourite breakfast,

 a KFC,

 and what a smile!

 breakfast over we made our way to the pet and plant section,

 past lots of love birds and finches,

 and the market's shrine,

 under the main part there were shelves,

containing what appeared to be almost hundreds of figures,

we were not looking for fish today, but neither the less we had to stop off at All Fish,

 at the front of the store there are some planted aquariums,

 there are not many fish in these,

 as the waste from the fish makes unpleasant algae grow,

 unless you are prepared to keep a high level of maintenance,

 I was sorely tempted to buy a few fish, but resisted,

 next the dog section, some of the puppies here were huge,

 as was the selection,

 of toys they could play with,

 we rushed past the home section, although these lights caught my eye,

 finally arriving at the plant section,

 and made our way past the food stalls,

 and there were lots of them,

 it was almost a shame we had eaten,

 but there it is,

 and here they are, Diana spotted some huge lychee's, so a kilo or two for nibbles in the afternoons,

 we soon found our first cactus stall, but before buying any we thought we would have a look around first,

 the plant section is almost a triangle,

 with plants and flower decorations on the road way,

 like these artificial roses and in the centre of the triangle, home decorations,

 time for an ice tea for Diana,

 whilst I carried on taking pictures,

 'smile for the camera!',

 a nice collection of desert roses, (Adenium obesum),

 and air plants,

 I then spotted these in the distance,

orchids, beautiful,

 we continued our way along the roadway,

 taking pictures as we went,

 I am not sure what these are going to grow into, but they will be big!

 next, bargain of the day,

 these huge beautiful orchid plants at just 100 baht each, (at today's rate £1.02 or $2.96), well I thought they were a bargain,

a few garden ornaments,

a flock of flamingo's anyone?

more food stalls,

but we were not hungry, a ice coffee for myself, it was so hot,

on to the big plant section, or as they are known in the trade, trees,

'I want that one!' no really this one was being packed for transport and was waiting for the lorry to deliver it,

past another of the bamboo stalls,

these palms looked neat,

the stems where the leaves had been removed were coated in oil to give them a nice shiny look, then a few stalls further down I saw some,

 black bamboo, an acquired taste I guess but these,

  for myself and Steve in the UK are just so nice,

 koi carp and some, could they be, short legged giraffes?

anyway I just love the long eyelashes,

although just on display TLC was given to all, 

a few water-lilies, but this one was special,

the leaf was huge,

and as it uncurled it was set to grow vicious looking spines on the under side of each leaf, it was in fact the giant Amazon water lily, (Victoria amazonica), amazingly the leaves can grow to as much as 7 feet across, as it grows spines are grown to deter plant eating fish,

there were of course lots of other plants to chose from,

but if I had a pond and I was buying a water-lily, this would be the one for me, but wait a second, leaves 7 feet across? it will have to be a big pond!

we had a look at another cactus stall,

the cactus temping, but just a tad financially too much,

a stall selling tera-cotta pots and garden ornaments,

as Diana was looking at this stall, 

 I then spotted some more black bamboo, these were cut short but the stems much thicker than the previous ones we saw,

 we past another cactus stall,

 and one selling novelty bananas,

till we found a few more selling cactus,

and eventually found the stall we were looking for,

that were selling moon cactus, we chose the ones at 85 baht,

so we bought a few,

to go with some of the others we had bought earlier on a few months ago,

the shop also had a few mini gardens already made,

as well as a huge selection,

including these large barrel cactus, 

we made our way along the perimeter road,

there were just so many things to look at,

I then chance upon this orchid stall, unbelievable, the picture can not even go half way to doing these blooms justice, 

if I had a big enough garden I would be buying some of these bulbs,

and of course as we were nearly at the end of our trip around the perimeter buying cactus as we went, we found this one, moon cactus at 60 baht the same size as the ones we paid 85 baht for, D'oh!

we continued walking and saw some of these plants,

I do not know what they are called but the veins of colour in their flowers was so delicate,

a topiary stall was next,

and now is something I thought really neat especially for some where in climes where mushrooms grow for only a few days,

mushrooms, that look just like the real thing,

but they are not, you buy them by the pack,

what a great way to give your garden a non-seasonal look all the year round, whether baking under a hot summer sun or topped with winter frost or snow, what a great way to give your garden an enchanted look,

we had now finished our walk around and made our way back under the shade of the covered over area,

but there was still lots to chose from if you had any baht left in your pocket,

but we had not, so we went to where we normally have an ice coffee,

to watch a few waffles being prepared, an ice coffee each later and we were on our way home, the plant market is normally at Chatachuck on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the pet market every day but a few traders take Mondays off, and of course everything is there at the weekends, if you are going by public transport the easiest way is to take the sky train to Mo Chit and walk across the park, cross the road, turn left, walk about 100 meters turn right and it will be on your left,

arriving home I was off again, to order our evening Indian meal at Country Favourites,

it is on Soi Bonkai almost opposite Baan Laksee,

looking along the Soi,

you can see the Cozy Resort in the distance, 

then back home to unpack today's purchases,

I moved all of the plants I had grown as cuttings to one side,

today's purchases,

as I was looking I realised one of the cactus we already had has flowered,

small but perfectly formed,

these were the ones that Diana had bought, some were Orbea, as well as Huernia and a few others, on our last visit here these were available, but only as large plants and mega expensive, but now small plants were available for just 50 bath each or so, the thing with all of these is that in the 1,200 or so plants that make up the 'smelly cactus' if you want to call them that, species, there is a gambit of smells from sweet chocolate to a ripe dead raccoon, as I have read, so the question is, what does a ripe dead raccoon smell like? 

I also bought a few moon cactus, I am going to be busy next week planting them all,

almost too soon our evening meal arrived, a starter of poppadoms,

 with marsala, a mixture of cut onion, tomatoes, cucumber and herbs, tonight it was very spicy, yum-yum!

a mint dip,

 with sliced carrot and cucumber,

 to compliment that some chicken samosas,

 delicious!,

 then on to our main course,

chicken tikka masala, chicken dopiaza, chicken korma, chicken Manchurian, onion bhaji, aloo gobi and peas pilau rice, what a feast! we were so stuffed at the end of the meal, we listened to music until midnight when we then went inside to watch the latest episode of The Chase, this will be the only post today as it is a big one and we are off early tomorrow to go fishing, so with that we are off to bed.