Apr
29
Crocs and Sonkran
April 29, 2007 |
As you well now already, my brain is not connected quite right. I have always blamed it on the incident when I was about 3 years old, when I slipped on some wet grass and had the back of my skull whacked in. I still have the scar back there. Anyway, me and Nan where finding ourselves in the middle of the Sonkran madness. For us it started when we handed back the Chevrolet Pick Up in Jomtien, and had to take a Baht Bus to get back to the hotel on Soi Buakhao.
We had made a short stop there already getting our bags back into our room, so we knew what we were in for on the way back. So after handing over the keys to the pretty ladies in the rental office, I asked for some plastic bags for my camera, passport and our mobile phones, put everything down there, and stuffed it into my pockets.
Out on the road we hailed a Baht Bus, which was full of some very wet farang, and a couple of young ladies smeared from top to toe in white goo. And it did not take long for the first bucket of ice water to hit our backs as we sat there. During the 10 minute ride we where both completely soaked. So we simply put everything into the safe at the hotel, and made our way down to Soi 7 to partake in the madness…
After a couple of days of playing Sonkran as Nan called it, we were sort of tired of it all. So I suggested we go and see the Crocodiles at the Million Years stone park outside Pattaya. Nan was all for it too, she just needed something back in the room and we would be ready to go. I was left to arrange transportation with the receptionist.
Her big mistake was of course to leave me alone for more than five seconds, as she should now by know that I would do something crazy if left unsupervised. I was sitting by the window looking out into the street, when I spotted this poster on a motocy just across the street:
FOR RENT
Hmm, worth checking out I was thinking. So I got up from my chair, loafed across the street and had a look. Yup, fully automatic. No crazy gear shifts, I can drive this and not get killed I was thinking. And soon I was signing the 1 week rental contract, and got an extra helmet for Nan.
When she came down I was sitting on the bike grinning and feeling quite proud of myself. Nan was however not so amused.
“Teerak, what you do?”
“I hired a bike for us, make it easier to get around, good idea or not?”
She stood there trying to figure out what I had just said. Then she muttered something in Khmer, sighed, and then in her charming way explained the facts for me.
“Teerak, Pattaya have play sonkran until number 19. Today have number 16″
“Yes I know, whats the problem?”
“Mai bpen rai”
She then got on behind me, and after about 50 meters it finally dawned on me, as a smiling babe poured ice water down my neck, while her friends blocked the street. At the end of the Soi we where both soaked trough, covered in goo, and I could feel Nan shivering with cold behind me. But we soldiered on, and after numerous splashings and smearings we finally arrived at the park, and since Nan had never been there she soon warmed up again.
The park was nice enough. Beautiful actually. And we had it all to ourselves as nobody else was insane enough to go out there in the middle of Sonkran. So we looked at the crocodile show where some lunatic was sticking his head and limbs into the mouth of the crocs, then looked at the baby crocs, the larger crocs, fed the crocs, then fed the fish, fed ourselves, walked hand in hand and hid behind some stones for some snogging, before we looked at the birds, the horses, the bears and the tigers.
Then it was a wet ride back to the hotel for a warm shower. Nan had naturally made friends with all the staff at the hotel. And where even teaching the maid how to knit a scarf for her boyfriend who would come down from England in June. The maid was in our room changing the linen when we came trough the door. So the the two girls where chatting away about me of course. The few words I understood from that conversation was: Farang, ting tong, songkran, ba ba bo bo, and of course a lot of giggling, rolling of eyes and what seemed like mutual agreement, before the maid finished her thing and giggled her way out the door.
The picture on top shows a wet and goo covered Nan thinking about how to toss me across the fence after making her sit on the back of a motorbike driving trough Pattaya during Songkran.
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Comments
4 Comments so far
She’s not thinking about throwing you across to the crocs. She’s thinking about some Croc Satay, a very spicy Thai specialty. Everytime we go out to eat seafood, we eat fried alligator as the appetizer, very tasty. Ae is eating all of the time. I can not understand why she is 50 kg and I am 105 kg. Just does not make sense, nor is it fair with her elephant like portions and my fly like portions….
Maybe you could add a gallery page to your website. I really like the photos. Ae and I have been talking about starting our own website, maybe we can all link to Geoff and Amy’s forum.
Starting your own blog is easy enough. Mine is hosted by Wordpress, and is completely free. It has all the tools you need and the online editor is working quite well and is easy to learn.
It makes all the links to the posts you see on the right column automatically, and adding photos is a breeze.
So go for it Doug, you will have at least one reader
Has Nan taken you to the wax museum, yet? Not sure where it is, but not too far from the Crocodile Park.
Nope, and she did not have a clue where the crocodile park was either. So I was actually taking her there as I had seen it before.
But thanks for the tip.