Songkran killed my camera

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Songkran is the Thai New Year festival and what a quaint ceremony is portrayed. It is celebrated by gently sprinkling your partner on their shoulder with water. Well may be a few hundred years ago but today gangs of youths block the road and tip dustbins full of cold water over passers by. Unfortunately our camera was just not equipped to deal with this nor our wallet. We eventually found a street cafe where we were able to shelter and watch this ceremonial drenching. We stripped off and carefully laid out our clothes, camera and money neatly out in the sun to dry. The money made it but I'm afraid even with CPR the camera didn't!

This tale neatly leads us onto Singapore where we went camera shopping. Well according to the guidebook nine of the top ten things to do in Singapore were shopping, in a variety of malls. The tenth was a trip to Chinatown where, according to the guide, there was plenty of shopping to be done! Certainly with over 60 shopping malls in Singapore city we weren't short of choice. The place gets a bad press as being a little dull unless of course you like ********! It turned out to be a fantastic hybrid of well preserved colonial style buildings (so well preserved they looked like new) and stunning modern architecture. Our favourite was the new casino with what looks like a boat perched on top of three skyscrapers. The photo really does not do it justice. Singapore has a number of distinct areas like Clarke Quay, Little India and Chinatown. All of which are well preserved and very clean. It has a very orderly feel and not a bit like you would expect a SE Asian city to be. We decided to make a trip to Little India for a well deserved Thalli after a hard days shopping. After exitting the MRT station we were confronted with a scene from the real India. The streets were literally teaming with men; making walking a constant battle. What on earth were they all doing and where were their wives? Anyway a good Thalli was had and we left for the relative comfort of Bugis Street Chinese market where there was ample shopping to be done. Next day we picked up our Thai visas (our reason for visiting Singapore) and, as the rains had started, we decided the driest place was the shopping malls - oh great more shopping. It did seem particularly cruel as we had little money to spend and Singapore is not cheap. On our last day we decided to go to the Park with a jungle walk way with apparently no shopping (how Judith Chalmers allowed this one to slip into the top 100 I'll never know). Unfortunately our cast iron mattress in our sleazy hostel meant we didn't awake until mid day and lost the opportunity - oh well there's always shopping. Hope you like the photos.

So we came back to Thailand and strangely they let us back in. For a change of scenery we moved from Phuket City to Patong. To explain, Patong is a bit like Pattaya although a little more child friendly. Finally after walking down the same street every night we are no longer being grabbed by pretty women (oh the fools) asking us if we want a massaaargh. One young lady offered John one with a happy ending! We were very exited by the massage parlour which seemed to be offering a "Willy Massage" but apparently Willy doesn't work there anymore.

Learning Thai has become a painful process but so far "hab night day" we have learnt is "have a nice day" and "boss tickle" is "boss back later". Our genuine Thai is restricted to food and we can order fried rice with chicken, pork or squid with ease. If only we could get our tongues round something else as alternating these three things every day is becoming a bit monotonous. Anyway it's time to go as a dish of "moo cow" awaits (pork and rice in case you wondered).

We will back in UK very shortly as the pound has decided to take a massive nosedive (thanks for the election guys - that really helped). At least we can come back having won the cricket! Hope to catch up with as many of you as soon as possible.

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Photos

Flats
I wonder what numbers 1 to 73 look like?

FBI
Never made it in as the noise is deafening - must be getting old.

Comments

[Damian]

OMG! I never saw that boat hotel when I was there! How could I missed that!!!