11 August 2000 RETURN to BANGKOK
By the morning the train had moved from the variegated wood land of the south to rice paddies full people at work in the light green fields, some with hand guided cultivators. In contrast to the use of umbrellas as sun shades here they were used for their traditional purpose to keep off rain, there was no more bizarre sight than one handed cyclists using their other to hold aloft the rain shield. Many birds were visible including Egrets and Herons as well as smaller birds of differing hues.
Judy's kids made good friends with the Thai family opposite, their son was currently living in Manchester with the aim of learning English. The girls were playing used different well folded paper of differing shapes with numbers to choose and a slogan to find. I never improved on selecting 'cool dude'. Breakfast was 90B plate, hotel price, but the cooking was OK. We were an hour late reaching Bangkok but went immediately to the Asia Hotel.
Jim and Anne-Marie went off shopping and were pleased with their purchases in a new shopping centre and a Jim Thompson outlet. By the time they had had a swim and reached a restaurant they had thought attractive 'Once Upon a Time' it was nearly closing time at 9:15 pm. A nice atmosphere and well prepared food with the staff in uniform of Thai trousers. All four kids fell asleep before we had even ordered.
Even that last swim was a milestone Hazel's first width, she has a unique way of breathing holding her breath between gulps. Joe too is now swimming a few yards, though he gets frustrated by lack of forward progress the result mainly of treading water. Back at the hotel after dinner Joe, wearing his spotted dog - Dalmation suit, was crawling around the 14th floor where we had rooms.
12 August PRANEE, VENUS, TANIYA and SAKAWAT
I was awoken by an unexpected call from Taniya she must have learned of our presence in the Asia Hotel from Pranee and was interested in making contact.
Pranee phoned later to ask us to come to the house of her sister and next door neighbour Venus, a change in plans because I had intended to treat all our Thai friends to lunch at the Raan Axhaan Thai.
We took a meter taxi over to the point in Thonburi within walking distance of the house and set off to the place where Venus garaged her car, bought some bottled drinks and asked the shop keeper to phone Pranee, there was no reply so she offered to lead us through the polder field maize. We met Pranee on her way to pick us up.
What a contrast to our first visit to Pranee's house was complete. The area are large part of which had been owned by her mother who lived nearby in a beautiful large wooden traditional family. The area had been recently reclaimed from the swamps drained by a rectangular pattern of canals and adjacent paths. We had been unable to catch their bus back from Phru Kradung because it was full for the holiday traffic, but returned a day later with nothing but a hand drawn map giving details of how to find the house on the new estate. Across a river by flimsy humped foot bridge of bamboo canes, then a zig zag series of canal crossings by felled tree trunk bridges, but incredibly we made it without even getting soaked!
The house was full of a greeting party, Venus, whose absent husband was the police chief in the mainland city Surat Thani, the ferry point for Ko Samui; their mother who we had met on our first visit to Pranee's house several years earlier; their sister who ran a restaurant in Ko Samui plus her daughter and granddaughter. Non family but friends included, young teen-aged Tem, who aims to become a doctor had the best English in their group, and his mother.
We were joined later by Taniya her husband Sakurwat and child Manaaw (5) who were in the party including Pranee and her now estranged husband Thwatchai that we had met years earlier whilst camping on a mountain plateau Phru Kradung in north Thailand. I was especially pleased to see them as I feared we had had to chose between seeing them and seeing Pranee.
As usual
we were really well fed. I made a note of sticky rice rolled into balls
which went with pork and light tasty pork crackling and spicy paste, but
the biggest success was the fruit, pomeloes, Lam Yai, unripe guava with
a mixture of sugar, salt and chilli.
The kids were soon at home, in this novel location garden of coconut, banana, papaya, lotus flowers, magnolia trees, and water mimosa which had been collected for cooking. Grandmother produced a large box full of Lego and the kids were soon building models together. Complex cameras were the order of the day, we made a lively colourful group.
Sakawat took the children , one at a time, for a ride on his back, he must have been tired as the requests kept flooding in. Rachel caught a Ghekho and when discovering that Tem was afraid of them chased him round the garden with it in hand.
Jim and family had to fly home to Paris at midnight so after a further meal with a variety of foods from different regions of Thailand we bid our farewells. When Venus presented a going away present my heart sank realising I had nothing to offer in return, but relieved to find it was an A4 photo frame with three shots they had taken earlier in on our November 2015 visit mounted on hand made paper.
That was an encouraging present since I had felt it was getting out of hand as one of our key problems was the high priority we backpackers gave to travelling light. Even more restricted now we use wheely bags instead for they have to be carried by hand up and down stairs, eg in changing platforms at a railway station.
The kids voted it their best the holiday - Rachel most emphatically. She has already written to Nok, though sadly that was not to continue. For my part I was sure the children all enjoyed a totally new experience. Their parting trick was sliding down Venus's banister to ground level.
We were accompanied by Pranee back to the main road in order to get a taxi, but who should be waiting there but Thwatchai, who had already recognised Joan, came rushing over to give me a great bear hug. I introduced him to the whole of our party and he asked me to write to him at the bank where he still worked. We were delighted to see him and his huge sense of fun, but couldn't but note he was again smelling of whisky, though looking in much better shape than in November, when his eyes had looked jaundiced. There is little doubt he was a hopeless alcoholic, we had stayed several nights with him and Pranee and witnessed how he got desperately drunk each night after coming home OK from work.
Twatchai had once been a keen very fit soccer player, loved singing and had been the most outgoing of the party we met at Phru Kradung - in fact without him we would probably not have been here. The other was Samluk the other particularly outgoing girl in the party at Phru Kradung who so encouraged contact with us and was the best English speaker in the party.
We always wonder if Twatchai's troubles relate to the time he was walking with Pranee when hit on the head by a coconut falling from a tall tree and fell unconscious into the canal adjoining the path and was rescued from drowning by Pranee. Such coconut episodes are often cartoon jokes here, but after they regularly crashed frighteningly like a bomb onto our cabin's metal roof, on a previous visit to Phi Phi, the seriousness was clear to us.
He knew it was Pranee who had kept us apart this trip but we understood her position too, his excessive drinking had forced her and her and son Kim to move out of her own house and live next door with her sister Venus. Pranee moved to the Falls Church, Vermont, USA and regrettably we lost contact, though not before she emailed us a picture of her there, but there was never a response from the USA to my reply.
After a shower Jim and family left by taxi for the airport, he refused to use the meter but they settled for 350B. They had a three hour delay at the plane whilst the hold was unloaded because someone who had checked in had not boarded. As a result they missed their train connection Paris-Chemille and were over six hours later than expected in reaching home.
13 August 2000 LAST DAY in BANGKOK
Just ourselves and Judy's family. The Asia hotel agreed to us keeping possession of one room for our luggage and with use of the pool and room shower until 6 pm. Finally going down for one of their huge buffet meals at 390B a head and leaving for the airport.
Took the Sky Train to Mo Chit and the big weekend market at Chatuchak, so huge and varied that a single cannot do justice. The 'car park' being full of motorbikes.
For the kids the main attraction was the section selling small animals, sqirrels etc, after that to see the cockerels and cock fighting which was fun until it was really a fight to the death with the crowd mainly concerned with betting.
We made some excellent purchases of teak bowls which we are still using in 2015, a carved wooden elephant and a frog which when stroked with a stick made frog like sounds.
By chance we had the very same taxi as Jim to take us to the airport also for 350B, he told us Jim had tipped 400B hoping we would do the same, to no effect. The journey thanks to the new expressway to the airport took only 20 minutes a good return for going, plus the certainty of a return hire as well. Later Jim confirmed he hadn't given 400B. Our plane left on time and got to Amsterdam ten minutes early but had a 2.5 hour wait for the plane to Cardiff. The Airport taxi we had booked was waiting so we got home promptly.
14 August 2000 HOME AGAIN
On the home phone were messages from Rubina in India and her brother Monti who now lived in Canada and was a journalist with the major Toronto newspaper (Toronto Star?).
I am guessing but I suspect the messages were prompted by the emigration of their mother who had welcomed us with her nephew Rajan into her home in Amritsar in 1996 for a whole week including celebration of Joan's 60th birthday. Her small factory business as designer and maker of dresses decorated by painting patterns from wooden blocks had folded so she tried living in Canada with her son Monti. She missed her friends and was very lonely there and before returning to India. Another family with whom we have kept inexcusably less contact than their kindness deserved.
Postnote 22 January 2016
We seemed to have lost touch. We had an email and a photograph from Pranee after her emigration to Falls the the USA but no reply to our email. Venus has moved to an even grander house in Phasi Charoen, Bangkok and so far have no reply over several years to our New Year cards. Until today 22 Jan 2016 when we learnt she was again living in Bangkok close to her sister and we now have email contact as well.
We have also sadly lost contact with Taniya, although given tears ago an email address to contact her daughter Manaaw, presumably to help her English we have never received a reply.
I still have had email contact with Nok which I intend to continue, earlier she had asked me to join her on social media as well, which I personally have always refused. Perhaps I should get her in contact with our four now adult, university educated grandchildren via social media. She has just responded by email and is now working at Songkla University on teacher education, together with pictures of the children in an orphanage which she has been helping for a decade.
Rachel has spent two years as a science teacher in Tenbury, Hereford. She has returned to Swansea and she is currently applying for part-time teaching posts at Ystradgynlais and her old school Olfa in Swansea. Alice is working in Angers with a pharmaceutical company in France. Her sister Hazel has just transferred to Chicoutimi in Canada for her last year of a degree in Business Studies. Joe is in the first year as a Civil Engineer at Cardiff University.
To cap it all in July 2015 Rachel gave birth to Owen Taylor making us Great Grandparents for the first time. She is getting married to Jon Taylor this spring and Alice and Hazel will be attending. Next extended family trip 2020!! when he will be a year older than Joe was on this trip in 2000.
By the morning the train had moved from the variegated wood land of the south to rice paddies full people at work in the light green fields, some with hand guided cultivators. In contrast to the use of umbrellas as sun shades here they were used for their traditional purpose to keep off rain, there was no more bizarre sight than one handed cyclists using their other to hold aloft the rain shield. Many birds were visible including Egrets and Herons as well as smaller birds of differing hues.
Judy's kids made good friends with the Thai family opposite, their son was currently living in Manchester with the aim of learning English. The girls were playing used different well folded paper of differing shapes with numbers to choose and a slogan to find. I never improved on selecting 'cool dude'. Breakfast was 90B plate, hotel price, but the cooking was OK. We were an hour late reaching Bangkok but went immediately to the Asia Hotel.
Jim and Anne-Marie went off shopping and were pleased with their purchases in a new shopping centre and a Jim Thompson outlet. By the time they had had a swim and reached a restaurant they had thought attractive 'Once Upon a Time' it was nearly closing time at 9:15 pm. A nice atmosphere and well prepared food with the staff in uniform of Thai trousers. All four kids fell asleep before we had even ordered.
Even that last swim was a milestone Hazel's first width, she has a unique way of breathing holding her breath between gulps. Joe too is now swimming a few yards, though he gets frustrated by lack of forward progress the result mainly of treading water. Back at the hotel after dinner Joe, wearing his spotted dog - Dalmation suit, was crawling around the 14th floor where we had rooms.
12 August PRANEE, VENUS, TANIYA and SAKAWAT
I was awoken by an unexpected call from Taniya she must have learned of our presence in the Asia Hotel from Pranee and was interested in making contact.
Pranee phoned later to ask us to come to the house of her sister and next door neighbour Venus, a change in plans because I had intended to treat all our Thai friends to lunch at the Raan Axhaan Thai.
 |
| PATHWAY to HOUSE in THONBURY |
 |
| ALICE and RACHEL DISCOVER JACK FRUIT |
 |
| THE RIVER at the BOTTOM of their GARDEN |
 |
| PRANEE and VENUS at HOME |
What a contrast to our first visit to Pranee's house was complete. The area are large part of which had been owned by her mother who lived nearby in a beautiful large wooden traditional family. The area had been recently reclaimed from the swamps drained by a rectangular pattern of canals and adjacent paths. We had been unable to catch their bus back from Phru Kradung because it was full for the holiday traffic, but returned a day later with nothing but a hand drawn map giving details of how to find the house on the new estate. Across a river by flimsy humped foot bridge of bamboo canes, then a zig zag series of canal crossings by felled tree trunk bridges, but incredibly we made it without even getting soaked!
The house was full of a greeting party, Venus, whose absent husband was the police chief in the mainland city Surat Thani, the ferry point for Ko Samui; their mother who we had met on our first visit to Pranee's house several years earlier; their sister who ran a restaurant in Ko Samui plus her daughter and granddaughter. Non family but friends included, young teen-aged Tem, who aims to become a doctor had the best English in their group, and his mother.
 |
| Note MANAAW sitting beside her mother TANIYA |
 |
| SAKAWAT, JIM, TANIYA and JUDY |
 |
| Note TEM at head of table with JUDY |
Sakawat took the children , one at a time, for a ride on his back, he must have been tired as the requests kept flooding in. Rachel caught a Ghekho and when discovering that Tem was afraid of them chased him round the garden with it in hand.
 |
| TEM playing in water plant pool with our children and Manaaw |
 |
| MOTHER with eye shade, PRANEE, and SISTERS |
 |
| Hazel, Rachel and Alice |
 |
| VENUS plays with JOE whilst Alice and Rachel clap |
 |
| VENUS and PRANEE |
That was an encouraging present since I had felt it was getting out of hand as one of our key problems was the high priority we backpackers gave to travelling light. Even more restricted now we use wheely bags instead for they have to be carried by hand up and down stairs, eg in changing platforms at a railway station.
The kids voted it their best the holiday - Rachel most emphatically. She has already written to Nok, though sadly that was not to continue. For my part I was sure the children all enjoyed a totally new experience. Their parting trick was sliding down Venus's banister to ground level.
We were accompanied by Pranee back to the main road in order to get a taxi, but who should be waiting there but Thwatchai, who had already recognised Joan, came rushing over to give me a great bear hug. I introduced him to the whole of our party and he asked me to write to him at the bank where he still worked. We were delighted to see him and his huge sense of fun, but couldn't but note he was again smelling of whisky, though looking in much better shape than in November, when his eyes had looked jaundiced. There is little doubt he was a hopeless alcoholic, we had stayed several nights with him and Pranee and witnessed how he got desperately drunk each night after coming home OK from work.
Twatchai had once been a keen very fit soccer player, loved singing and had been the most outgoing of the party we met at Phru Kradung - in fact without him we would probably not have been here. The other was Samluk the other particularly outgoing girl in the party at Phru Kradung who so encouraged contact with us and was the best English speaker in the party.
We always wonder if Twatchai's troubles relate to the time he was walking with Pranee when hit on the head by a coconut falling from a tall tree and fell unconscious into the canal adjoining the path and was rescued from drowning by Pranee. Such coconut episodes are often cartoon jokes here, but after they regularly crashed frighteningly like a bomb onto our cabin's metal roof, on a previous visit to Phi Phi, the seriousness was clear to us.
He knew it was Pranee who had kept us apart this trip but we understood her position too, his excessive drinking had forced her and her and son Kim to move out of her own house and live next door with her sister Venus. Pranee moved to the Falls Church, Vermont, USA and regrettably we lost contact, though not before she emailed us a picture of her there, but there was never a response from the USA to my reply.
After a shower Jim and family left by taxi for the airport, he refused to use the meter but they settled for 350B. They had a three hour delay at the plane whilst the hold was unloaded because someone who had checked in had not boarded. As a result they missed their train connection Paris-Chemille and were over six hours later than expected in reaching home.
13 August 2000 LAST DAY in BANGKOK
Just ourselves and Judy's family. The Asia hotel agreed to us keeping possession of one room for our luggage and with use of the pool and room shower until 6 pm. Finally going down for one of their huge buffet meals at 390B a head and leaving for the airport.
 |
| Modern BANGKOK |
 |
| Bangkok's Transport |
 |
| JOE'S FAREWELL to MO CHIT MARKET BANGKOK |
By chance we had the very same taxi as Jim to take us to the airport also for 350B, he told us Jim had tipped 400B hoping we would do the same, to no effect. The journey thanks to the new expressway to the airport took only 20 minutes a good return for going, plus the certainty of a return hire as well. Later Jim confirmed he hadn't given 400B. Our plane left on time and got to Amsterdam ten minutes early but had a 2.5 hour wait for the plane to Cardiff. The Airport taxi we had booked was waiting so we got home promptly.
14 August 2000 HOME AGAIN
On the home phone were messages from Rubina in India and her brother Monti who now lived in Canada and was a journalist with the major Toronto newspaper (Toronto Star?).
I am guessing but I suspect the messages were prompted by the emigration of their mother who had welcomed us with her nephew Rajan into her home in Amritsar in 1996 for a whole week including celebration of Joan's 60th birthday. Her small factory business as designer and maker of dresses decorated by painting patterns from wooden blocks had folded so she tried living in Canada with her son Monti. She missed her friends and was very lonely there and before returning to India. Another family with whom we have kept inexcusably less contact than their kindness deserved.
Postnote 22 January 2016
We seemed to have lost touch. We had an email and a photograph from Pranee after her emigration to Falls the the USA but no reply to our email. Venus has moved to an even grander house in Phasi Charoen, Bangkok and so far have no reply over several years to our New Year cards. Until today 22 Jan 2016 when we learnt she was again living in Bangkok close to her sister and we now have email contact as well.
We have also sadly lost contact with Taniya, although given tears ago an email address to contact her daughter Manaaw, presumably to help her English we have never received a reply.
I still have had email contact with Nok which I intend to continue, earlier she had asked me to join her on social media as well, which I personally have always refused. Perhaps I should get her in contact with our four now adult, university educated grandchildren via social media. She has just responded by email and is now working at Songkla University on teacher education, together with pictures of the children in an orphanage which she has been helping for a decade.
Rachel has spent two years as a science teacher in Tenbury, Hereford. She has returned to Swansea and she is currently applying for part-time teaching posts at Ystradgynlais and her old school Olfa in Swansea. Alice is working in Angers with a pharmaceutical company in France. Her sister Hazel has just transferred to Chicoutimi in Canada for her last year of a degree in Business Studies. Joe is in the first year as a Civil Engineer at Cardiff University.
To cap it all in July 2015 Rachel gave birth to Owen Taylor making us Great Grandparents for the first time. She is getting married to Jon Taylor this spring and Alice and Hazel will be attending. Next extended family trip 2020!! when he will be a year older than Joe was on this trip in 2000.
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