Interlude II

Not much to write between the big adventures so the following thoughts are more for my personal log than storytelling purposes:

• Apartment swimming pools. This, basically, is where I’ve spent my time since we got back from Laos. Stupid not to, really: its basically your own personal swimming pool as no one else uses it until the weekends. Its also got a gym, but let’s not go there. Cue arthritic steam engine.
• Lumpini Park. Just been there this morning for a gentle stroll while Mrs C, Mrs L and one of the neighbours (or, the Coven, as I fondly regard them) went shopping (*shudder*). Took about 20 pictures of the local flora and fauna to make into a mini slide show later. A quiet oasis amongst the urban chaos.
• Elephants. Or, rather, the lack of them in Bangkok, and their yellow, cylindrical, fibrous, malodorous poo. I think someone in authority got fed up with their handlers in the end. Having seen how much they have to eat in the wild to reduce the tonnage of vegetable matter required to generate said cylinders, you could be forgiven for thinking that surviving on a handful of tourist-paid-for bananas per hour was a bit cruel. Still, they undoubtedly added a bit of the exotic to the Sukhumvit street scene.
• Motor bikes. Now, if only the powers that be could slap a similar injunction on the pavement-riding taxi bikes, the simple act of walking down the street could involve less survival concentration and more looking around.
• Pavement digging. Or it would if not for the Thai national pastime of laying down perfectly good tiled pavements and then digging them up again in a month’s time. I’ve lost track of how many stretches of Soi 39 have been jack hammered to impassable piles of rubble in the last 14 months. It makes the almost permanent coning of the Redbridge Flyover seem like an Act Of Reason.
• Paragon. (The Monster Mall at Siam not a model of excellence.) The one that is fully capable of hiding an entire IMAX cinema and the largest aquarium in south east Asia (according to Wiki). The one wth the big glass doors to the outside world guraded by guards in resplendent uniforms that wouldn't look out of place in a banana state military. "Check your AK-47 at the desk, sir" "Do you need a Spirit Guide?" These places remind me of that wonderful line from Hotel California - "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave". Well, I stupidly went back looking for a book shop and wasted two hours of my life trying to get the hell out. Huge vid-screens jabber at you from the walls and ceiling reminiscent of the opening scenes in Blade Runner. In the absence of other customers, the wide, shiny corridors connecting the massive indoor shopping warehouses and an infinity of criss-crossing escalators look like post-apocalyptic zombie zones. I had to run for the exit in the end before the urban mutants got me! Never found the book shop.

Enough for one post, methinks. Got a couple of exploratory-cum-drinky-adventure days coming up (maybe -- things are always subject to change on CavTours).