We Are Only Going To Make One Post Today,

as there are lots of pictures,

 a nice start to the day,

 another crop of home grown mushrooms,

 severed on toast, delicious! 

 as I was eating breakfast,

Mariana looked like she wanted hers!

 the good news is that she has not yet learned to catch the fish, yet,

 I received a call to say the kittens litter had arrived, and by sheer happenstance I arrived just as they were unloading their truck, so it was straight into ours,

 so as that was happening, 

 I wandered over to the stall to pay,

 and bought sufficient kitten food to last for a couple of weeks as we do not want to go out when everyone is throwing water as next week Songkran starts from the 11th to the 19th,

 it was then I realised I had dropped the ball when it came to ordering the kittens litter, the last time I ordered 20 bags at 10 kilos each as the store has to order them in, and giving a big order makes it worthwhile for the store, the order lasts more than a few months, well this time when I ordered I was asked 20? twice, the first 20 was for how many, the second 20 which I thought was a conformation of the number we wanted to order was actually 'do you want the 20 kilo bags?'

 so we now have 400 kilograms, yes that is 880 lbs of kitten litter! still the good news is that we were given a 12.5% discount, which was not bad, unlike my back, picking up 20 sacks at 20 kilos each from the back of the truck and putting them in the spare bedroom did my back no favours at all!

 then we were off, until the 10th there is a huge market in the grounds of the temple at the bottom of Pattaya Tai, we parked beside TukCom,

 and walked down, just as it started to rain,

 I took a few pictures of some of the stalls we passed,

 with lots of local produce on display,

 like these still unripe marian plums and bananas,

 I am not sure how this works, the gold shop has a window display, but on one side a vendor has set up shop,

 the same on the other side, leaving just a narrow passage way for customers to the gold shop and no chance for passers by to see the gold shops window display,

 but there it is, we will be seeing lots of these Songkran shirts over the next few weeks if we go out,

 and here is the temple complex,

 we were early at about 4.00 in the afternoon,

 there were a number of stalls open,

 but quiet a few with rain blinds still down,

 we made our way along the aisles,

 now this I did not expect to see,

 a stall selling aquarium fish,

this was what we expected to see, food,

 in this case crabs,

 or drinks, 

 and fresh fruit,

 we made our way to the man temple entrance,

 where monks were using loudspeakers,

 and there was a display,

 of Buddha images,

 it is times like this,

 that you need a Thai speaker to help as an outsider what is being said,

 we continued past,

 some more temples,

 and into another aisle,

 selling brightly coloured clothes for the upcoming festival,

 then a pet stall,

 selling rabbits,

 in dresses,

 next another food section,

 the cooked foods just starting to appear,

 the prepackage foods already to go,

 hot chestnuts seem to be popular out here,

 we left the food aisle,

 to go to a 20 baht stall,

 there were a couple of things that Diana wanted for the kitchen,

 and if you can not find whatever it is on one of these stalls you do not want it,

 I was amazed at the number of items on this stall,

 looking away from Pattaya Tai, not many customers,

 turning 180° a few more people are arriving,

 Oh! the agony of choice,

 great for kids, a toy stall,

 we made our way further into the compound,

 passed this place which looks rather like fun, you hire your own mat, cooker and table than settle down to cook your own feast,

 I then made my way into one of the temples,

 passing this young lad that had just floated a lighted candle in this pool,

 looking back to the aisle I had just left, 

 on both sides of the staircase there was an ornamental pool, 

 looking inside,

 monks were seated,

 with descriptions of who they were in front of them,

 at the far end of the hall,

 a reclining Buddha, 

 and behind him, 

 a sitting Buddha,

 I made my way back to the entrance,

 and past a shrine by a huge old tree,

 further along the aisle a pet petting station,

 also selling rabbits,

 lots of rabbits,

 all the fun of the fair!

 the children's play ground, with trains,

 roller coasters,

 and bumper cars,

 this ride a never ending figure of 8,

 and this a part of the roller coaster track,

the last time we were at the fair it was on Third Road where we visited the Wall of Death, and scary it was too, 

 looking back to the rides,

 we next found this stall,

 selling plaster of Paris figures,

 which I guess you could paint here once purchased, 

the entrance to another one of the temples in the grounds,

 these looked nice,

  mangoes carved to make the look like a flower and easy to eat,

 now for some fun, if you have a mind for it, books that are pre-cut,

 so that when you take out the pieces you can build your own Eiffel Tower,

 fleet of ships,

 Tower Bridge,

 or the Empire State building,

 I was told I was not in any of the pictures, so time to pose, 

 and look at some more of the stalls here,

 it does not look so big,

 from the street,

 but the complex is huge,

 and as can be seen,

 there are so many stalls to tempt you into buying some thing,

 we had been here for about one and a half hours bimberling around, if you are thinking of visiting the market I would suggest a good time to start would be around 6.00 in the evening as when we were there many of the stalls still had not opened,

 and made our way back to where we had entered,

 opposite the entrance to the Wat Chai market, 

 that leads to the main market complex,

we started our walk back to the motorcycle,

 and then saw these, 

 the first lychees we had seen for a long time,

 what a treat for tonight, 

 past more food stalls,

 and the shirt stall,

 by now we were getting hungry, 

 and the sight of all of this food,

 and the aroma of these spices was not helping,

 we soon arrived at our motorcycle, 

and on the way home stopped off here,

 for some sen lec gai, chicken soup with thin noodles, 

we watched one from The Chase a few from Judge Judy and rounded to evening off with The Remains of the Day, a thoroughly watchable and enjoyable film, and we were not the only ones to think so, the film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Music Score, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, but the movie failed to win an Oscar in any of them, such a shame, and with that we were off to bed.