Happy birthday Ben

Strange creature

What do you think is happening here? I took this photo of a wood carving on a temple door in Mahasarakham. The creature on the left looks a little like a giant bird and a little like a dragon but it has tusks and a trunk like an elephant. I wonder what it is going to do with the elephant. Do you think it is going to eat it? The elephant doesn't seem to be trying to fight it. Maybe it is rescuing the elephant. From what? I don't know. What do you think?

love from Granddad

Strange creatures in Thailand

Last weekend I went to visit Maha Chedi Chai Mongkhon which is a very special temple not far from where I live in Thailand. And there I met these strange creatures. Fortunately they were all friendly.

First was this dragon. You can see it is waving its paw.










Next was this dragon fish that was jumping out of the water because it was so glad to see me.





There was also a dragon-tortoise and you can see from it's smile that it is happy to see me too.


love from your 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 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.

Silk-spinning dragon

In north-east Thailand I visited a village where they make silk. The silk comes from worms called silk worms. When I was a kid we used to keep silk worms. We had to collect leaves from mulberry trees for them to eat. Do you know anyone who keeps silk worms now?

After the silk worm becomes a moth it leaves the silk behind in a cocoon. It has to be taken carefully from the cocoon and that is this dragon's job. It has to spin around and the silk is collected on the spindles that are behind its head.

The dragon must like its job because it looks very happy.

love from your Grandpa

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

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

Dragons of Xiamen

Click on the comic to make it bigger.

The dragon mother

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, in China there lived a girl named Wen Shi. Her family lived near the Xi River in Guangxi Province. She had two sisters. Wen Shi often went to the river to catch fish and wash clothes for her family.

One day on the river bank Wen Shi found a large smooth white stone. The stone was very beautiful so she took it home and kept it. Every day she polished the stone until one day it cracked. Out of the stone came five baby snakes. Wen Shi was not frightened. She found some food and gave it to the snakes.

Wen Shi's family was very poor. They had hardly enough food for themselves but Wen Shi saved the best food and fed it from her hand to the five baby snakes. When the snakes grew Wen Shi took them to the river. They were naturally good swimmers and they helped Wen Shi to catch fish.

After many years the snakes began to change their form and Wen Shi realized that they were not snakes after all but dragons. To Chinese people, dragons are spirits of the water. They have the power to control the weather.





One year there was a terrible drought. Without rain the people could not grow rice and many would starve. Wen Shi asked her dragon children to make it rain. The dragons used their power and the rain started to fall on the farms of the villagers. The people were so grateful. They gave Wen Shi the name 'Mother of the dragons.'

At this time, Qin Shihuang was the emperor. He heard the story of Wen Shi's dragons breaking the drought. He sent gifts of gold and jade to Wen Shi and asked her to bring her dragons to Xianyang which was the capital of China at that time.

Xianyang was a long way from Wen Shi's village and by now she was an old woman. She was not well enough to make such a long journey. Her dragons realized this and did not want her to make the trip. But Wen Shi knew she could not refuse the emperor. She boarded a boat to start the journey.

The boat started off towards the capital but instead of going forwards it began to go backwards. The dragons had hidden under the boat and were pulling it backwards.

When the emperor heard what had happened he relented and allowed Wen Shi to stay in her village.

Wen Shi never left her village again until she died. When she did the dragons were filled with sadness. The took human form and were known as the five scholars. They buried Wen Shi on the northern side of Zhu Mountain.

The End

When I was walking around Wuzhou in Guangxi Province, at the top of a hill I saw a huge statue. I walked to the top of the hill. It was quite a climb for an old grandfather. At the top was a statue of Wen Shi, the Dragon Mother. It is 30 metres tall. There were also many dragons. I took these photos at the top of the hill.

love from your Grandpa

Goodbye Vietnam

Soon I will be leaving Vietnam and going to another country. Do you know where I'm going? It's a country I've never been to before. If you look in your atlas, the country is next to Vietnam. You can find out if you come back and read this blog next week.


Here's a little dragon that was on someone's roof in Hanoi. Goodbye dragon.

I think there will be many dragons in the next country I visit.

love from your Grandpa

Sign of the dragon

Here's a dragon that stays outside a shop in Hanoi to be a sign for the shop. Do you think it might be a pet of the shop owner?

love from your Grandpa John

More dragons

Inside the Ngoc Son Temple I found some more dragons. They were different from any I'd seen anywhere else. They are not very big but I think they still look fierce. What do you think?

Love from your Grandpa John

Dragon horse

There was another dragon at the temple on the lake. But this one's not just a dragon. It's a horse too. I've never heard of a dragon horse before but here is one just to prove it. If you were here, maybe it could take you for a ride across the lake.

love from your Grandpa John

Dragon in Hanoi

There are dragons here in Hanoi too. This one is guarding a temple built on an island in the middle of a lake. It looks like it has a straw and is drinking the water from the lake. And the fish are trying to not get drunk with the water.

I'll keep looking. I'm sure there are many more dragons here. Wish you were here to help me find them.

love from your Grandpa

From the dragon's mouth

Once upon a time when your Grandpa John was in KL (Do you remember what KL stands for?) his friend took him to a special shop on the corner of Petaling Street where they sold Chinese herbal teas.

'Would you like some tea, John?' Grandpa's friend asked.

'Where does it come from?'

Grandpa's friend pointed to the big brass urns on the counter.



Grandpa looked closely. On the other side of each urn was a tap and do you know what the tap was made from? Yes, a dragon's head.



Your Grandad did not think the dragon looked very happy. He said 'No thank you, I won't have any tea.'

'Then would you like some herbal jelly? It's very good for you.'

'Where does it come from? Does it come from the dragon?'

'No. It's already made up in this bowl.'

'OK. I'll try it.'

'How do you like it, John'



'Mmmm, it's different. But it's OK.'

The next day, your Grandad was walking with another friend and they passed the shop again.

'Do you see those jellies, John? They're made with tortoise shell'

'Oh no!' said Grandpa. 'Now you tell me.'

The end

The dragon and the princess

Once upon a time there was a brave but not so handsome knight known as Grandpa John. One day when Grandpa was walking past a back lane in Melaka he heard a creature calling for help. Grandpa rushed down the lane without worrying about his own safety. There he saw a poor little dragon being attacked by a beautiful princess.

'Help! Help!' cried the dragon.

'Leave that dragon alone!' said Grandpa John.

'Make me,' said the beautiful princess.

'What's that up there?' said Grandpa John, pointing to a nearby roof.

'Where?' said the princess as she looked up.

'You may be beautiful but you're stupid,' thought Grandpa John as he swooped in and kissed her on the cheek.

'Oh yuck!' screamed the princess as she dropped the dragon and ran off down the laneway.

'Thank you! Thank you!' said the dragon. 'You've saved my life. What can I do for you?'

'Oh shucks,' said Grandpa John. 'It was nothing. Besides I even liked kissing her.'

'I'll always be grateful to you and because I'm a magic dragon, I'll grant you three wishes.'

'Three wishes! Well, in that case, I'll have a smaller nose, a bigger chin and supersonic hearing.'

No sooner did Grandpa say these words then the dragon zapped him with his magic fiery breath. 'And,' said the dragon. 'I'll give you a bonus. I'll make you handsome as well.'

Here's a picture of the way your Grandpa looks now.

Do you think the magic worked?

The End

Prince Benny

Ben
Originally uploaded by smelanie.

Once upon a time there was an extremely handsome prince named David who fell in love with an extremely beautiful princess named Alison. They loved each other extremely. So they made an extremely handsome, lovable and wonderful baby who they named Prince Benny.

Now Benny had a special power. He had the power to tame extremely fierce and dangerous, fire-breathing dragons with an extremely powerful ingredient – love. Before Prince Benny, all the knights thought the only way to defeat dragons was by killing them but Benny showed that love is more powerful than the sword. And now, thanks to Prince Benny, dragons and humans are able to live together in peace. Unfortunatly humans can't always live in peace with other humans but that's another story.

So, if you have a dragon in your life that is giving you trouble just ask Prince Benny for an extremely lovely hug and you'll have all the love you need to tame the dragon. If you're a girl, that's cool, because Prince Benny especially likes hugging girls – extremely so.

Today is a special day because today Prince Benny celebrates his 9th birthday. All the dragons in the world have asked me to send Benny extremely hot greetings ('cause they breathed on them) for Ben to have an extremely happy and dragonlightful birthday. May you get many hugs today Ben, especially from girls.

The End

PS The extremely handsome Grandpa John sends his love and a hug too.
PPS Grandpa John can now travel safely among the dragons of Malaysia thanks to Benny's special power.
PPPS If any girls try to hug you Ben, just imagine it's a dragon and you'll be cool.

Dragons in Bangkok

I am in Bangkok, in Thailand, and there are dragons here too. I went to visit the Royal temple and I photographed this one. There were other dragons too. Wish you could be here and I would show them to you.

love from your Grandad in Bangkok, Thailand