Santa's lovely Thai lady helpers at the Kiwi Bar in Bang Chang.25 December - Christmas Day
In is the last remaining minutes of Christmas Day and as I start to write my thoughts from the past 2 days, fireworks are exploding outside my balcony over the beaches of Pattaya, Thailand. Knowing Pattaya as I do, including each New Year's extravagance, this is only a mild warm-up for things to come.
Today however was spent mostly on the road, starting the early morning after breakfast heading south along the coast eventually making my way to the the small village of 'Bang Chang' (Elephant Village), somewhat renowned by expats here for its rather decent selection of golf courses and seafood restaurants along the coast.
Although Bang Chang isn't exactly on the coast, it is positioned on the main highway heading south where roads bisect it to the beaches only minutes away. It is also an industrial town of sorts as it is the nearest village with shopping and the all important row of restaurants and drinking holes for which in is also equally famous as its golf courses.
I most frequently make the 40 minute or so trip south from Pattaya by motorbike taking a shortcut that winds me through amazingly beautiful back roads that include such famous places as 'Buddha Mountain' and 'Silver Lake'. For me the ride is less stressful than the ride down Sukhumvit to the huge airbase/airport of Au Tapao (one spelling) and the Thai Navy headquarters and commercial port of Sattahip.
After many years of living around the Chesapeake Bay of the United States and knowing the laws about only catching male crabs so there would always be a supply, I knew that the Thai's were slowing eliminating one very precious resource from their waters. Other than not eating any however, what was I to do as a guest in their country? They were however delicious and sweet and as the photo above shows, a nice change from the Christmas dinner of rat that I had in Chai Nat only a few years ago or the peanut butter and pancakes in Cambodia even before that. Who knows what next year will bring?
One of the reasons for these daily excursions by motorbike around this part of Thailand was to test my new Nikon camera that I had just bought 2 days before. To put it quite frankly, I was disgusted with my new Fuji camera that I had bought several months earlier in Germany and decided while headed here that these times and photos were just too important so I went back to what I consider to be one of the best cameras made, Nikon.
Having started with digital cameras at the very beginning with a Kodak that cost me over a $1,000USD for less than one mega pixel, I have been through various brands now including Olympus, Sony, Nikon and Fuji. Consistently I have found the Nikons to be far superior to the other brands and as I use to take over 6,000 photos a month when I was in Cambodia and in Thailand over the years, I think I have a pretty good idea about what the output quality of the cameras should be.
I was a fan of the Olympus brand for quite awhile, upgrading the models as they came out but just didn't like and could never get use to the sliding door concept. In Germany some years ago before another trip to the far east, I opted for a decently priced Sony and tried it for awhile. No match for the Olympus models as well. In Cambodia I dipped my toe into the water with my first Nikon which at that time was a 2 mega pixel model. I beat the hell out of it under the roughest conditions imaginable and it has survived to this day and other than having to use tape to keep the battery door shut, it never skipped a beat.
While in Germany however I was convinced by some of my colleagues after their extensive reviews and analysis that the new Fujis were the way to go. Although Germany doesn't have the bright light of Asia, I consistently was plagued with photos that were under or over exposed and far too many blurred photos no matter who or what or where I was shooting.
...more to come...
The day after Christmas turned out to be a Sunday as well as a full moon. Full moons usually make me a little crazy anyway, with Sundays sometimes becoming a bit depressing, so to shake off some of the Sunday/Christmas holiday blues, my best friend Captain Y surprised me with a road trip by handing me the keys to his Audi and telling me to get in the car and drive!
Parking the car in front of a massive statue of a crocodile, we headed towards the floating docks making a quick stop to buy a six pack of Singha Beer. Still not quite sure what was going on but knowing it was serious and long enough to warrant 6 Singhas, I just went with the flow so to speak and followed Y down the docks towards several long-tail powered pontoon boats. It became apparent that we were heading out onto the lake and after negotiating a rate of 400 baht an hour for the boat and driver, we boarded our fine vessel and headed north along the shore.
The highlight of the trip was taking the boat through an area densely populated with floating water lilies and plants. As we made our way slowly through the area along a path previously cut by other boats at earlier times, birds were swooping around us, seeming to taunt us to catch them. In reality they were diving at the numerous insects being forced to go airborne as our vessel approached. It was almost a bit surreal to slowly pass through this water forest, surrounded by hundreds of swooping and diving birds and then to suddenly come upon large moving objects straight in front of us.
Even after the discovery we had come upon a large herd of water buffalos many hundreds of meters from the closest shore, we discovered yet another smaller herd a bit farther away. As we were a long way from the shore line, it was extremely interesting to watch these creatures move their huge bulk gracefully through the lake’s waters as they fed themselves on a beautiful and crisp (...for Thailand) December day.
After about an hour on the lake we moved past an island with a large tower and a building that was constructed rather uniquely with slanting roofs. Once again as we passed the structure and its dock, we went alongside the island and viewed hundreds of water fowl of various sizes, shapes and colors resting in the large trees overhanging the lake’s waters.
My usual teaching duties were surprisingly and pleasantly interrupted on a rather chilly and overcast Friday in January for what I had been told would be a "short trip". As is typical in Thailand, what you think you understand and what is thought to be communicated, are usually radically different concepts. This time was no different and the 'short trip' turned into an over 3 hour bus ride south from Sapphaya to the outskirts of Bangkok and a Disneyland style amusement park known as 'Dream World'.
Joe, Took and Jan having lunch at Dream World in Bangkok. 
I had met 'Joe' when I first moved to Sapphaya from Cambodia in late 2004 and he was always extremely helpful and giving. It seemed wherever I went around Sapphaya he somehow showed up and was offering a drink or food, always along with an ever present boyish grin that you just know made him a trouble maker for his teachers and parents when he was younger and in school. 
As we entered the complex I observed everything was deserted where the rides were located and I couldn't see any people. Still wondering if this was our final destination, we did pull into the large parking lot at the back of the park and lined our buses next to each other along a very tall line of pine trees sheltering the lot from the large and very green rice fields next to it.
As I was watching all the events around, especially the adults, it seemed that there was some 'negotiating' going on with the man from the park. My observations turned out to be correct as shortly after this, money started to materialize out of envelopes from both the principal and the head English teacher. As I watched them count out the 1,000 baht notes, 20,000 baht exchanged hands and shortly thereafter at 09:45AM, approximately 300 students, teachers and parents were being handed tickets for the park.
What was interesting to me however was the mad dash to a 'ride' at the opposite end of the entrance to the park. Not nothing where everyone was almost running to, I was intrigued to find it was something called 'Snow Mountain', which as it turned out was a building housing a Thai stylized replica of a 'winter wonderland' including a small hill where you could go to the top and ride a small, rubber type raft down.
After exiting Snow Town I quickly discovered my camera lens and display were all clouded up and it was nearly 30 minutes before I was able to clearly take pictures again. As I was a bit hungry, I made my way back to the KFC for some chicken and discovered a half dozen students already there. I joined them and even after finishing my meal, the young men were offering me parts of their meals. I trait of Thai society I have always found so endearing.
We than had to rush over to another ride know as the 'Vikings' which is nothing more than a huge half moon suspended from a very long pendulum. The ride builds in its swinging motion as it increases in speed. It was here that faces started to turn green and I have to admit, after a couple of minutes of this, I was ready to get off. Three of the boys with me who had just eaten at KFC were quick to exit the ride and proceeded to quickly loose some of the early lunch that they had just consumed.
Onward and upward we charged, heading next to the something called the 'Raptor' where I once again watched the assembled group start to turn green as we spun our way around and around and around....
After taking some photos of the buses as they were lined up under the trees I couldn't help with be impressed with the phenomenal art work that had been accomplished using the metal of the back and sides of the buses as their canvas. As I have observed from the beginning of many years in Thailand, it needs to be pretty whatever it is, from the cars of the skytrain in Bangkok to the sides of buses carrying 50 students to an amusement park. I was thinking to myself as I was taking the photos that collecting bus art from around Thailand would make an interesting 'coffee table' book to publish some day in my 'spare time' ...
