Friday Photo

There are just no words to describe this picture.

I took it on the way to Sam Roi Yot. Thailand is in the top four producers of pineapple and leads the way in exporting the canned fruit. It's a huge part of the diet here and is found, peeled and cut, on every street corner.

You can see the 'pineapple penny' dropping for me here when I discovered pineapples grew on shrubs on the ground and not on trees; and you see them growing in situ, in a beautiful pineapple grove, here.

The way that Thais cut and peel the pineapple is a work of art. There's a video of a Vietnamese man doing it in the same style, here.

The best medicine

It's impossible to stay sad in Bangkok.

I had a couple of errands to do yesterday. The first job took me to the heart of Ratchaprasong, Bangkok's shopping district. This area was where the Red Shirts made their camp. The 'Together We Can' campaign, instigated by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration attempted to liven up central Bangkok have been promoting all kinds of projects over recent weeks. A couple of weekends ago, Silom became a walking street full of market vendors; Ratchaprasong saw volunteers planting up some of the areas that had been damaged during the unrest.

Yesterday, outside Amarin mall, were was another shopping promotion going on: big signs boasted 70 - 80 % off and there were some night market stalls along the pavement. I was on the walkway when I spotted this video opportunity.

Something went wrong in the uploading to YouTube process so I've lost the sound but you'll still see why I couldn't help but feel happy. (Any shaking of the camera will be due to my laughter.)

I love this place.

Look who's in my neighbourhood:

Trains, Trains and Boats

I had such a brilliant day last Thursday. C and A organised a day out to Mae Klong market. You might have seen it already on YouTube but if not you can watch my video below (edited to not show the mind numbingly stupid thing I did with my camera whilst filming.)

I met my friend at 7am at Asoke BTS station. We made our way over the Chao Phraya River to Wongwian Yai station where we met up with a group of twenty or so women. We all live in Thailand so squat loos are often the norm (but it doesn’t mean we have to like them) at the station most of us braved both the loos and the local coffee (sweet but drinkable which is way more than I can say for the men’s loos*.) If you factor in the swaying of a train, squats are even harder to manage. * Edited to note that I used the men's loos as directed by the loo attendent!

Our first train, bound for Mahachai, an old fishing port, was ‘local class’ which meant hard bench seats and no air con but the windows were open and ceiling fans whirred; it was hot but not intolerable. The journey was fine. Then we caught a ferry across the Chin River bound for Bahn Laem Railway Station. After a short wait, and some drinks in a plastic bag and a straw, we caught our second train, also local class, bound for Mae Klong. The scenery was fantastic; lots of it was salt marsh and you could see the fields of salt production from the train.

The end of this train trip was the point of our journey. The last couple of hundred yards of the tracks is through the town’s market. Every time a train comes through – several times a day – the market traders move their wares off the track, and pull up the awnings so that the train can come through. Then once it’s sitting in the station, they unpack their wares again. It’s quite one thing to be on the train for this, but to see it from the market was one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever seen.

Now, let's hope my first YouTube video works!