Damn those demons!
Apparently the shop owners at Bangkok's fancy airport have fallen on bad times. They've blamed their recent misfortune on the 12-meter tall statues of Thai mythological demons which stand near their stores. So in order to improve their luck, they've called on the head of the airport to move them to better locations, near the check-in counters. More astute observers have blamed the shopowners' bad luck on a recent scandal where unsuspecting travellers were being arrested at duty free shops, and extorted by local policemen to avoid shoplifting charges, even without any clear evidence. Oh no, it's all Feng Shui. Well if that's the truth, we'll see what kind of luck these demons bring to the travellers checking in.

Photo above from the Bangkok Post at: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/27129/demons-to-be-relocated-at-airport

Photo below is a shot I took at the Grand Palace:

Lantern Festival

Every year in Chiang Mai around this time - the end of the rainy season - they have a very popular and colorful festival called Yi Peng. It's traditional in Northern Thai culture to light these paper lanterns and set them adrift to symbolize letting go of your troubles. When thousands of people do it at once, it's an unbelievable sight.


Inevitably some of the paper lanterns catch on fire and crash to the ground, landing in trees or on top of the heads of spectators, but that's just part of the festival's excitement.

It's rainy season....

This week my school was closed for 7 days due to about 16 students contracting H1N1. At my old school, they're closed today due to the worst flooding in two decades. Here's a slideshow from a local newspaper showing what it was like yesterday afternoon:

Fun Fair Food

There's nothing like attending a local festival to check out what everyone's eating. First there were the brightly-colored sticks of weiners and fish balls...


Apparently some in the shape of a panda with pink ears...

Freshly-squeezed sugar cane juice...

Dried squid...
Pan-fried quail eggs...
topped with ketchup and XO (salty) sauce...

and of course, candy floss.
No hot dogs, hamburgers or popcorn.

Water Buffalo Racing
Every year at the end of Buddhist lent, there's a festival in Chonburi (an hour southeast of Bangkok) where farmers come to gather in front of city hall to race their water buffaloes. It's a long tradition, dating back 138 years, and you definitely feel as if you're in more traditional Thailand - lots of umbrellas (since the sun was so hot), lots of fun fair food, lots of people running out of the way of the buffaloes, who don't really pay attention to their jockeys, and just sprint towards the crowd standing at the finish line.


Some pictures courtesy of friend Michel Behrens, who's far taller than me and could see over the crowd much more easily.

Highly inappropriate T-shirts

Yesterday at the gym I noticed an older guy wearing a shirt that read "I may be fat, but I've got a huge cock" and it made me think of various other rude T-shirts that I've seen other Thai people wear, either unwittingly or with a very bad sense of humour. Once I saw a senior citizen on the skytrain: "What's for lunch?" above a picture of a sausage on a place with a fork and knife, then below: "My cock."

If you browse any of Thailand's street markets you'll see loads of these inappropriate T-shirt, and last year when I had my grade 7 students in Chiang Mai, it was hard to pull the boys away from these displays. For those of you who lived here before, do you remember any?

Street Tailors

One of the best things about Bangkok is the almost excessive number of tailors where you can get hand-made suits, shirts and pants for quite a reasonable price. An even better thing is that you don't even have to worry if your maid can't fix your clothes if they get torn or ripped; just take it to the guy sitting with his sewing machine on the sidewalk just down the street. Only one dollar, and it's fixed within five minutes!

9 - 9 - 9

9 is a very auspicious number in Buddhist culture, and especially across Thailand. People will often get married at 9:29 in the morning, or like yesterday, on the 9th day of the month. The current king, Rama IX, is the most beloved King in Thai history. Yesterday, thousands of people gathered in the public park to sing the Royal Anthem in honor of the King, at exactly 9:09 am. Also, a good friend of mine, who was scheduled to have her C-section on September 8th, moved it one day forward to secure an auspicious beginning to her son's life.

Some beautiful pictures of girls holding traditional Thai umbrellas. Taken in the north of Thailand by my friend Scott Stier. Notice the elongated golden fingernails which are used to accentuate their fluid hand movements in traditional Thai dance.

Street Elephants in Bangkok, a recurring issue. Another excellent article at:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/showcase-41/?hp