Lumpini encounter

What a beautiful day. I think I'll find a sunny spot in this tree to sunbake.



Oh no. A pesky photographer has spotted me. Go away, pleeeease.



He won't go away. I'm outa here.



Bye bye. Don't try to follow me.



photos taken Lumpini Park, Bangkok

Trikes

In Australia mostly little kids ride tricycles. Here in Thailand and other Asian countries it is very common to see adults riding tricycles. Some have motors and some have pedals. Here are two motorcycle tricycles that I saw in my street the other day.




love from Grandpa

Basket vendor

A vendor is someone who sells something. In most Asian countries you can see many vendors in the streets. Some set up stalls and sell to people who pass, just like a little shop on the side of the road. Some vendors walk carrying whatever it is they are selling.

This vendor has a motorbike with a sidecar. He has all different kinds of baskets that he sells to people. The baskets are used for many different purposes.

In this picture you can hardly see the vendor. The men wearing orange vests are motorcycle-taxi drivers. If you take a bus home it stops along the main road. Perhaps you live a long way from the main road and it is too far to walk. You can take a motorcycle taxi. They will drive you to your home.

I don't know what kind of baskets the motorcycle-taxi drivers bought but they look very interested in these baskets.

PS. At the moment I live just around the corner from this spot.

love from Grandpa

Spiky and smelly

Have you ever seen this fruit? It's called durian. It's also called the king of fruits and it's very popular in Thailand and other Asian countries. If you want to eat it, first you have to peel it. Those spikes are sharp. You need gloves and a sharp knife to cut it open. Usually I let the vendor who sells it to me peel it for me. When it is cut open it has a very strong smell. Some people don't like the smell. Me? I like it. Some people don't like the taste either. Me? I like the taste too. There is a lot of durian around in Thailand now. Come to visit me and you can taste it for yourself.

love from Grandpa John

What's for dinner?

Do you like eating meat? What is your favourite? How would you like to try this kind? These are frogs in a market in Bangkok. Thai people like to eat them. I tried it once. I didn't like it much. I won't bother next time.

Enjoy your dinner.

love from your Granddad

Strange pet

Hello

I had a visitor last week. Do you know who it was? It was Izmaillah and Isaac's Dad. He came to visit me in Bangkok. I took him around to visit some of my favourite places in Bangkok. Wish you could have all been here too.

We went to a market where they sell pets. There were lots of fish shops—that's pet fish. One shop had lots of rays like this one. I think it wanted me to take it home. I wonder how you take care of a ray. Do you think you could cuddle it? Even if you couldn't it would be a really cool pet, hey?

Soon I will be leaving Bangkok and going to another country. Do you know which one? I've never been to this one before. If you come back and read my blog again later you will find out.

love from your Grandpa

Bangkok street vendors

Hello

Just want to show you what some of the streets in Bangkok look like because they are quite different from streets in Australia.

On this street there is not much room to walk along the footpath because there are people who take up most of the footpath to sell things. You can see in this picture that people walk down the road instead of on the footpath. Do you think it is dangerous? But sometimes when you are walking on the footpath someone will ride a motorbike along it. You have to be very careful all the time.

These people are vendors. They sell things. The first one sells nice smelling flowers that are strung together. People buy them to give as an offering to a Buddha image. The next one is a girl selling hand towels. They are very cheap. I bought a couple. There are more vendors on the footpath on the other side of the road. You can find all sorts of things for sale on the streets of Bangkok.

Talk to you later.

Love from Grandpa.

Dragons in Bangkok

Hey, just thought I'd let you know there are still dragons in Bangkok. Sometimes I don't even notice because I'm so used to seeing dragons these days. Recently I went for a walk in Chinatown and this one was right in the middle of the footpath. It didn't mind me taking a photo. In fact, I think it is posing quite proudly. What do you think?

love from Granddad

Another strange creature

One day in Bangkok your Grandpa saw this creature and it looked very lonely so Grandpa gave it a kiss. It looks really happy now.

Can you tell which one is Grandpa and which one is the creature?

love from Grandpa John

Fun with snakes

When we went to the zoo restaurant we didn't only see the lorises. We also got to meet some snakes. Do you like snakes? Some snakes are dangerous so you shouldn't pick up snakes unless you know what they are and have an adult with you. At the zoo they had some cobras. They are very dangerous. We didn't feel like dying so we left them alone. But this one was quite friendly and doesn't bite people. It is called a corn snake. Grandpa got to play with this snake for quite a while. Do you remember the python that kissed me? This one kissed me on the nose with its tongue.



love from Grandpa John

Grandpa's new friends

Hello

The other night I went to a restaurant in Bangkok that has a zoo. I made some new friends.

This beautiful little animal I have in my hands is called a slow loris. It is a primate. That means it is a little bit like us and a little bit like a monkey. Usually they live in the jungle. They sleep in the daytime and at night they move slowly around the trees. When they see an insect they move quickly and grab the insect because they like to eat insects. They also like to eat fruit.

The one I am holding is a girl. She moves very gently and holds onto my hands so softly and she stares at me with those big beautiful eyes. Oh, I think I fell in love with her. I wanted to take her home. But she has to stay at the zoo. Maybe I can go back and visit her another day.

This is a picture of my friend Ti-tee. The young woman is Ti-tee the other one in the picture is another slow loris. He is the father of the little girl in the first picture. I had a bowl of fruit. I took the pieces out one at a time. He would take them out of my hands and put them in his mouth. He would eat them slowly and then look to me to give him another piece. When it was all gone he looked at me again as if to say 'Do you have any more?' I held the empty bowl up to show him that there was no more. He took the bowl in his two hands and put his head in it and licked all the juice out.

Oh, they are so cute. I hope one day you come to Bangkok and I can take you to meet them.

love from your Grandpa

Another Australian in Bangkok

Do you know what this is? It is a bearded dragon, an Australian lizard. Maybe you don't see so many where you live but if you lived in Brisbane you would see a lot. I saw this one in a market in Bangkok. How did it get there?

The man in the market said it came from America. Perhaps this one did but the lizards have been taken from Australia and bred in America. It is against the law to take Australian lizards out of Australia. Do you know why? If people take too many away from Australia one day there might be none left in Australia. And we would have more of the insects that this lizard eats. Keeping the lizards in Australia helps to keep the balance of nature so we don't get too many insects.

Some people don't care about this. They know that people in America will pay them a lot of money to get one of these lizards as a pet. They catch wild lizards and they give them a drug to put them to sleep. They pack them in a suitcase and send them to America. Sometimes many lizards die on the way but the people who do this don't care because they can still make a lot of money from selling the ones that live.

Occasionally some of these people are caught trying to smuggle lizards out of Australia. They have to pay a lot of money as a fine. Perhaps they might even go to jail.

Happy New Year

Hello

Sa wat dee bee mai. That means Happy New Year in Thai. That's because people in Thailand use Buddhist years and this is their new year, called Songkran. There is a holiday and many people leave Bangkok and go home to wherever their family lives. The people who are still in Bangkok go a little bit crazy.

It's very hot here right now. Most days the temperature reaches almost 40 degrees. So people don't mind getting wet. In the first picture you can see there is a stall alongside the road selling water pistols. A girl has bought a water pistol with a backpack to hold the water and she is spraying her friend on the motorbike.
People also drive around in little trucks with barrels of water in them. With plastic bowls they throw water on each other and on other people. In the second picture there are two trucks together having a friendly water fight.



And not only that but people mix powder with water and they put it on other people's faces. You can see the white on the faces of the people in the third picture. I met them in a restaurant where I was having lunch.

Maybe one day you'd like to come to Thailand in April and have fun at Songkran.

love from your Granddad

Wat Arun

In Bangkok there is a very old Buddhist temple named Wat Arun. There is a tower there called a stupa or chedi. It is quite high. The decorations on it are made from pieces of crockery. You can climb about half-way up the stupa but it is very steep. If you look in the second picture you will see that people hold onto the stair rails with two hands because they are afraid of falling.

Maybe you could come and visit me in Bangkok. Do you think you would like to climb the stupa?

love from Grandad in Thailand

Rope dragon

In Bangkok I met a man who makes dragons out of rope. This is one of his dragons. Do you think it looks fierce?

love from your Grandpa John

Ferry kids

One day I took a ferry across the Chao Phraya River. I like boats so it's really nice for me to go across the river on a ferry. I met these two kids. The ferry captain must be their father or perhaps their uncle so they get to spend the whole day on the ferry. Fun hey?

love from your Grandpa John

Creatures of Wat Pho

Wat Pho is a temple in Bangkok. I visited it one day with some friends. In the grounds there were many of these strange creatures. Lucky they don't bite.

love from your Granddad

Dogs of Bangkok

Bangkok does not only have many dragons, it also has many dogs. Everywhere you go there are stray dogs. Many people are kind and feed the dogs. The dogs like to sleep most of the time.

love from Granddad

River taxi

The river in Bangkok is called the Chao Phraya. If you are in Bangkok and want to go somewhere near the river there is a really cool way to get around. This is a river taxi. It is very fast, it can hold your whole family and grandpa too and it can take you anywhere you want to go that is near the river.

There are also many canals that run from the river. Many people have a house next to a canal. They can take a river taxi to get home.

love from your Granddad

Dragons of Bangkok

Hello, guess what?

I'm not in China anymore. Now I am in Thailand. Can you find Thailand in the atlas? If you can find Xiamen in China and Bangkok in Thailand you can see where I flew. I took a plane that flew from Xiamen to Bangkok.

Bangkok is the capital of Thailand and as you can see there are lots of dragons here too. Here are pictures of some that I met. If you click the pictures you can see them bigger. Do you like me to do them like this, or like a comic?

love from Grandad