I Have, In 26 Years Of Visiting Thailand, Never Had This Happen Before,

I walked into the post office at Jomtien, and I was the only customer there, the only people inside were the 3 members of staff sitting behind the counter, with nothing to do, from the time we parked till the time we left and after taking a couple of pictures, not a single stamp was sold or postcard sent,

the street outside was quite, but normally at this time of year there are always 20 or more tourists sending postcards home to family or friends when ever I go to post something, I have never seen an empty post office in Pattaya before,

on the way to Friendship we stopped off at the elephant park, but forgot the bananas!

the car park at Friendship, a few more bikes than yesterday, we bought some fruit to take over with us to Jay and Precil's later in the afternoon.

If, Like Me You Have Ever Thought Of Going On A Cruise,

thank your lucky stars you were not on this one! the Balmoral suffered a force nine gale as it hit rough seas and 60mph winds in the Bay of Biscay, for only £795 you could go on a seven-day cruise to the Canary Islands,

during the storm 2 people had broken bones and were air lifted to a hospital in north west Spain, glad I did not book that cruise!

The Year Of The Ox Is Here!

so it was off to Friendship car park for the Chinese New Year celebrations, the troop getting ready, they had just finished at Care For a little bit earlier,

waiting for the show to begin,

there are 2 dragons, this one for the bigger shows,

and this one for the smaller ones, the crowd waiting in anticipation, also the band at the front,

Diana trying not to get sun burnt,

the show begins with 2 much smaller dragons balancing on tables, it appears that a golden ball is used to entice the dragons to follow it, I am not sure about dragon folk law but in all of the shows that golden ball was used as "bait "

then I guess the equivalent of local Chinese hill tribe people did a couple of songs,

the giant dragon makes it's entrance,

Diana with dragon in the background,

on the far side of the car park a guy climbs up to untie these two poles,

by now a lot guys have climbed up one of the poles, in Diana's words, "very scary"

and then even more scary, this young lad is launched into the air on this bamboo pole,

in his hand you can see the golden ball that he is going to entice the dragon with, it is a long way down!

the dragon makes it's way up the other pole, meanwhile the drums and cymbals have moved up a beat,

at last the dragon has reached the top, the boy on the bamboo moves forwards and backwards towards the dragon, teasing him with the golden ball,

then the dragon breaths smoke and spits fire, well fireworks really!

and then the show was over, the dragon made it's way back to ground level danced around then left the car park, a great show that went on for just over an hour, and very generous of Friendship to give up it's car park and virtually cease trading for all of this time as well as paying for the show and providing free ice cream for the kids (Diana missed that bit!) a great way to start the year of the Ox.

A Good Start To The Day!

if your idea of a good start is paying bills! yes it was off to pay our BUPA and house insurance at Jack's insurance brokerage,

then over to Jeff's to water the plants, for a change there was very little haze this morning,

even at maximum zoom, 6X, it was not to bad,

I am starting to get the impression that there are not so many tourists here as last year, the jetty looked really quite, also for the past few weeks we have driven past Bali Hai peir, where the speed boats are parked every 2 days on the way to watering Jeff's plants, there are so many boats on land, so few in the water.

I Know I Always Bang On About Health And Safety Rules In The UK,

but there is another side to the coin,

where health and safety rules are not considered to be de rigure,

just a few pictures of how to get the job done with the minimum of fuss,

and equipment! for more see here.

Last Night It Was Down To Bali Hai Pier,

I felt a bit better on Saturday afternoon, but as the evening wore on my headache, sore throat and coughing got even worse, by the time that I woke from a fitful sleep on Sunday morning I felt worse than before, but in the evening I decided to take Diana to Bali Hai pier, for a look around as she had not been there on Chinese New Year before,

there were lots of stalls selling beer and plenty of tables to sit at,

and of course loads of food stalls,

crabs, shrimps and squid, all ready for cooking,

plus lots of shellfish, vegetables and all!

and even more fresh fish,

I have seen this type of drink so many times but have never felt the need to buy one - when the beer tent is so near!

Diana decided on some sticky black rice,

this is a novel touch, I have never seen this before, each tray has a selection of seafood, well that is fair enough, but it is kept on a huge steamer to keep it all hot,

and the same for these cockles,

we then went to see and hear the band, I am not to sure what they were playing, I wish I knew, that way I would not go to a shop and buy it by mistake! I know it is just me getting old!

then a walk to the sea, unlike many of these shows this one had loads of seats, or a serious lack of tourists,

Dolphin Seafood restaurant, we went there for Tom's birthday party, if you want a review of the food and show there just click on restaurants on the labels option,

then at the near end to Walking Street there are the stalls selling clothes, gifts etc,

and Bali Hai Plaza itself, well we had a nice walk around and got home about 9.30, had a cup of tea and watched a HD DVD of The Chronicles of Riddick, a good action movie if you like Vin Diesel, (born Mark Sinclair Vincent; July 18, 1967), with great special effects another cup of tea and off to bed for another sleepless night!

One Stop Shop Staff Go Totaly Mad!

when 2 pensioners having a combined age of nearly 140, are asked to provide I.D. to prove they were over 18 before they could buy a bottle of wine, other shoppers in the queue were all smirking and laughing, after then being told that even Jennifer Rogers's, 68, driving licence was not proof enough, she still had to produce her bus pass, how humiliated grandmother-of-two must of felt, a shop spokeswoman, said that this initiative will be applied in different stores across the country, as I have said many times before and particularly in this case, madness total and utter One Stop madness, the good news is that Jennifer, from Harlow, vowed never to return to the store.