Elections, Elections and more Elections

I see that there was a local election in the UK last week. I hope you all voted, you know your vote makes a difference. Not!

Recently in Thailand, there as been a snap General Election. Which was cool for the ruling party, as the opposition didn't agree with it, so decided not to take part. Last week there was a vote for 200 members of Congress. A really cushy job. SIx years sitting on Committee's, doing bugger all.

What struck me about this was the fact that no one knew what the candidates stood for. There wasn't a metre of pavement or roadside not plastered in campaign posters. All of them featuring very glum looking people with 100's of medals on their uniforms?????

I have since found out that, these people have no policies because they are supposed to be neutral. So if I had been able to vote. I would have voted for either No. 66, the year of my birth, or No. 14 because she looked pretty fit!

Like most things in Thailand there is a dark side to all this. No alcohol is served on election day.

P.S. Just as you thought it was safe to stop hourding beer, the first General Elaction as been nullified, so that will mean another day without beer in the near future....

Mangosauce

Without doubt, my favourite Thai based website is Mangosauce.com. It can be found strangely at http://www.mangosauce.com/ . I read the latest instalment today only to find that it as had to finish.

The reason is, David who runs the website relies in some part upon the revenue he gets from people clicking on the Google adsense banners, every time you click on or buy a product from the ads, David gets a small commission. However when you have 100,000 regular readers, this small commission can add up to something like a living.

Google pulled the plug because it claims that some of the material at Mangosauce is explicit, yes some is close to the bone, but it’s no worse than a recent teen girl mag telling its young readers how to satisfy the man in her life!!!!!

Please read the web site, if you agree with me and Google are not the Vice Squad or our moral conscience please email Google at;

press@google.com

Read David’s tale of Google bullying at;

Save Mangosauce

This website as had me in fits of laughter more than any other. It as to be saved. Pass this on to everyone you know.

Songkran Festival

Songkran is primarily a Festival of Water. It is held just prior to Aquarius being in the heavens. It is also the traditional Thai New Year. Sadly it more or less heralds the start of the rainy season, for the next six months the temperature will be nudging 40c everyday and you can guarantee rain, usually in the evening. The temperatures now are getting stupid!!!!

Nuch’s Songkran started at 5am! She got up very early and made a load of food for the Monks at the local Temple. Lam Lukka Temple is around 15km away, you can’t miss it, it’s the one with the huge Buddha at the front. The trip involves giving the food up to a communal point then praying and being blessed by the Monks. All quite uplifting and a feel good factor.

Songkran basically involves getting very wet; don’t be surprised as you go about your day that someone will just throw a bucket of water over you. If you don’t want to get wet, you should stay inside for the three days of festivities. Gangs in picks go around throwing pail’s full of water at passer bys, and on most corners there are Gangs that pelt you with water. Many Thai’s choose to go back to family over this weekend. It’s all very similar to Christmas in the west.

To get to Nuch’s parents you have a 200m walk down a 2m wide alley, there are houses on either side. Along this walkway there were three Songkran parties. I had to walk the walk four times. The first was ok! They weren’t sure if the Farang was up to a dousing. The second and third time I got a thorough soaking and on the last was the best of all. I had my laptop with me so not wanting a hefty bill left Nuch and I alone, just as we had past a young girl threw a whole bucket of water at us. I dodged behind Nuch and avoided any of the water! Nuch however got the full load, she was soaking!!!! I’m still laughing to myself.

Unfortunately there is a dark side to Songkran. People get absolutely shit faced! 11am in the morning and the Thai’s were on the whisky, all sounds good, but then they get on motorbikes, on the back of pick ups and even driving. It is carnage on the road. In my last blog, I said the government is trying to keep the death toll below a thousand; it will be more like 1500. Mostly through drink related deaths on the road. I saw several kids on mopeds, they were slaughtered on drink. God knows if they made it home.

Apart from this, Songkran is a really cool festival. Nuch’s Grandma as given us our own Buddha likeness for our new house, when we got home we put a garland of flowers around it and covered it in scented water. Life is good.

Bangkok Life march 06

March was a very busy month indeed! Moving into the house as taken up so much time, effort and money. I had forgotten what it was like. I started to do tile the kitchen. Nuch then decided to ask her Brother and Uncle to come and finish the job. I don’t think that I had done a perfect enough job for her. Bodge it and Scarper turned up and proceeded to make the biggest mess I have ever seen. Starting the tiling in the middle, no glue on the water pipes and why use filler when you have a spare tub of grout. In the end I ended up finishing the job, and have now got the job of taking out all of the grout that was slapped in and do it again.

As you can see from the pictures, health and safety is a not in the Thai dictionary. This suited me; I just had to be careful of the toes.

The view out of the window is now very different from Phil’s Condo, No high rise and very few people who can speak any English. My Thai is coming on leaps and bounds, maybe because I have to speak Thai or I don’t speak at all. Living out here may be quiet, but it is so cheap. Three pint bottles of my fave beer only £1.40 and the fried rice dish in the picture only 30p.

Phil and John came out again during march, I didn’t see as much of them as I would have liked, but living out of Bangkok now and also being skint limited the time I was able to spend with them. We had a good night in the Hard Rock Café, and a chicken kebab to end the night was just what the Doctor ordered.

At the end of March I went out with Kim, Jimmy and Nick. We went to the Dubliner, were they serve Bass Beer. It’s a bitter, but it doesn’t taste like Bass. Maybe the temperature means they can’t keep a live beer long enough before it goes off. After the Dubliner we went to Soi Cowboy. Soi Cowboy is one of the Girlie parts of town. We were treated to several bizarre shows; one involved a couple of women shooting darts from a pea shooter at balloons. I don’t want to go into were the pea shooter was mounted, but it wasn’t their mouths! How do they do that?

Fairly steady on the ebay front, saving up to get another car. You need a car out here, it’s not fair on Nuch having to go to work the way she does in her condition. You can now tell she is pregnant!!!!

If you have sent me an e-mail recently and I’ve not replied don’t worry. I’m not on the phone yet at the house and have to use a local Internet Café. Which is ok! However quite a few of my internet details are stored on my laptop and I’m unable to access them easily. Hopefully this will be resolved very shortly.

That’s it for March, even though were nearly halfway through April. April see’s the Songkran Festival. This means people walking up to you and throwing a load of water over you. Also a time when the kills by drunk driving goes through the roof. This year the government wants to keep it below a thousand deaths during the festival!!!!