T.I.T

So… here’s just a couple of examples as to how frustrating or amusing (depending on how long after the event you think about it) living in Thailand can be.
A while ago a few of us got together for a curry on a Sunday night. We were supposed to be going out but decided to order in from the Indian place just down the road. Now this being Thailand we already know that it’s pretty pointless to do a large order over the phone as it’s likely that under 50% of it will arrive correctly, so it seemed the sensible thing to walk round, place the order then walk back and collect and the order. Quite a pain for take out, but from experience it is the quickest way to do it in the long run.
When we got the food home, after reading through the receipt carefully at the restaurant, we realized that 3 dishes were missing. After a further 3 person, 10 minute conversation on the phone they sent the food around. We then had to explain to a very confused delivery guy that we had already paid for the dishes. He went away without any money scratching his head and then came back ten minutes later, still scratching his head with 150 baht change (about £2). We were not quite sure what that was for but took pity on the guy and gave it him as a tip, which confused him even further.

The next incident occurred a couple of weeks ago when Nick and I invested in a Cross Trainer (Elliptical Machine). We were both needed to get in shape fast before our trip to Canada. We went to the local store and ordered one to be delivered the next day at 16.00. The next day we get a call from the store saying that the machine couldn’t be delivered that day as the truck was broken. Again from experience we had expected something like this. We were advised that it would be delivered on time the following day. Around lunchtime the next day we got another call saying it couldn’t be delivered that day. When quizzed as to why they eventually admitted that they didn’t have the model we ordered but it would be with us the next day. Now I still have Western expectations of customer service, so I kicked up a bit of a fuss over the fact that apparently they had the model the day before but the truck was broken, and now the truck was fixed but they didn’t have the model. At this point they offered to deliver a better model for the same price at 16.00 that day. Obviously they didn’t like being asked difficult questions.

By 18.30 that evening when we were supposed to be out, it still hadn’t been delivered. When I called to check what was happening they said it would be arriving around 21.30. When I asked why the guy said he’d check and call back. He called back to say it was ok, it would be delivered at 2.00. When I asked if this was 2.00 in the middle of the night, he said yes. While he was saying this the cross trainer arrived. Obviously a missing link in the communication somewhere, very very typical for here.

Unfortunately this long story doesn’t end here. When the men put the machine together they found that a small unimportant piece of plastic was missing. They advised they would come back the next day with the part. The next day the came back with not just the piece of plastic, but an entire new cross trainer that they had to put together.

Stuff like this happens daily. If you go by the logic that you have grown up with then it can drive you insane. I often lose it and have to keep reminding myself of that famous saying, T.I.T, This is Thailand, get used to it. If there is a difficult or illogical way of doing something then you can guarantee that this is how it will be done.

EIP Variety Show

One of the major events on the BCC schol calendar is the English Immersion Program Variety Show. This is supposed to be a chance for all the students to show of their English, acting, and musical talents.

I remember last time I was working here, that the Variety Show ended up taking precedent over everything else. Learning and teaching becomes overlooked in favour of putting on a good show. 4 years ago I did a greatly simplified version of The Jungle Book, and it turned out to be a time consuming nightmare of reheasals with sixty 7 year olds, prop making and trying to work out how to create costumes for 12 elephants, 8 monkeys, a bear, a tiger and worst of all a snake (a rather embarrassing outfit that somewhat resembling a giant green stripy condom with a hole for the face).

This year I figured it would be easier to steer clear of the animals and go with a people based story. Here lies the problem of the slim picking of stories for a cast of only boys that have not been done in the previous few years. After a bit of mind changing we decided to go with Pinocchio. Now I've never been much of a fan of this particular classic but we figured it to be an easy option what with all the characters being male (I conveniently overlooked the technical nightmare of an expanding nose, dancing puppets on strings and a segment of the story taking place in a whales stomach).

Getting ready for the plays seem to take over the majority of Semester 2, and when we came back from Christmas we began with our auditions and practices. This is always a little time consuming as every parent wants their precious little Faberge Egg to be a star but you have to give out the roles according to ability and character. Of course the annoying little 'know-it-all' who keeps running off and never does what he's told was forever destined to get the part of Pinocchio. It's quite hard finding roles for 60 boys just to keep the parents happy, especially when some of the boys are more likely to be able to stand on thier head than say the simple 3 word sentence you've given them.

We practiced nearly everyday for a month, and as a result I now have one or two more grey hairs and highly strengthened vocal cords from all the screaming. We only just managed to get everybody to remember their cues and lines in the final rehearsal, but on the day they couldn't have done it better. I have keep reminding myself that these are 6 and 7 year old boys who are performing in a languague completely unlike thier own in front of around 600 people. To be able to pull off an 8 scene 20 minute show is pretty amazing.

I didn't get to take many pictures, the ones I have were taken back stage while we were waiting to start.

Similan Islands

If you've been reading this blog and keeping up to date with what we're up to then you know one of the best things about teaching is the holidays. While they may not be quite as long as those had by teachers back home (what with half term, Whit and all that) we are in a very good place to be able to take advantage of even the short breaks.

This Christmas we actually had a decent length holiday. Even though we work for a 'Christian" school, Christmas isn't really a big deal and they will often make you come into work for boxing day and other days between Christmas and New Year. This year because of the good timing of the elections we actually had ten uninterrupted days to play with so we decided to take the time to do a liveaboard round the Similan Islands.

Since before I first came to Thailand I had been wanting to visit what is definitely Thailand's best dive zone, not only for the diving but for the spectacular hilly green islands and very unique aquamarine waters that surround them. These islands look like someone has played a game of giant marbles and have huge smooth and rounded boulders cascading into the sea. I had actually managed to get out there 4 years ago with Nicole, but we never had chance to experience the beauty of it as it rained for the 5 days we were on the boat.

This time we were forecast good weather thanks to the wind. Now as most people now already, I'm not the best person to be around on a boat, and truthfully proclaim to getting 'seasick in a hammock' and needing one foot on firm ground when on anything that's moving. Wind is about the last thing I need when doing a long crossing. Needless to say, the journey out to the islands was somewhat messy, and seemed to go on forever. I think I went to sleep at around 1.30 in the morning after trying to sit upright and keep line with the horizon for 5 hours. I spent the night on the deck and was woken at 5.45am by a painfully jolly and awake lady testing out her night-vision mode on her camera and taking photos of me. I was far from eager for my first days diving.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the diving, which was at times fantastic and at times terrible as is always the case, Nick's blog has more detail if you're interested http://www.nickjhealey.blogspot.com/. But briefly, as I mentioned before, the Similan Islands have some of the best diving in Thailand and unfortunately are going down the same path that parts of Belize and Egypt have. There is a huge number of dive shops that send out both liveaboards and day trips and you often find yourself surrounded by boats on the surface. Underwater in places, the term 'flies on something brown and stinky' comes to mind. Richelieu Rock has to be one of the most incredible places I've ever been, but unfortunately, similar to the experience I have whenever I visit Ras Mohammad in Egypt, the diving is being completely ruined by the dive shops. You have divers picking things up and putting it in their pocket to take home, other divers bouncing up and down on coral while posing for photos. The site is so busy and the guides so familiar with it that they just swim from place to place where they know the cool stuff will be. This leads to queues of divers waiting to see the seahorse or the Harlequin shrimps. I gave up on this after politely waiting my turn to take a picture and the being rudely pushed out of the way by some queue jumper. The guides can be lazy and don't need to look for anything, they just wait to see a pile up of people and they know they've found the right spot. We found this game quite entertaining after a while and would cluster round something and show it great interest before swimming off and leaving the waiting queue of people wondering why we got so excited over a star fish. Some guides and instructors were obviously very good, but with the risk of sounding like a 'dive snob', there really needs to be some kind of vetting that goes on before the guides take their divers there. With the prerequisite simply being the basic ability to dive. A dive site like this should not be treated as a classroom.

Other than this slight stress the trip was great, we got an all to brief glimpse of a manta, and we even had roast turkey dinner on board on Christmas day. Also, there is nothing like spending a year in the Caribbean to make you appreciate large schools of fish. It seemed like every dive site we went to was a haven for fish. Another highlight of my trip was bumping into a certain videographer friend underwater, who I've not seen in over 4 years.

The pics are my first attempt with my new camera (cheers for the Christmas pressie mum!)

A rather late house warming party

Leading up to Christmas we figured it would be a good time to finally get everybody round for a pre Christmas and somewhat late house warming party.

We decked the place out with cushions, lights, alcohol and more glasses than Sundowners had. We had a constant supply of quesadillas and I had loads of fun playing bar tender and making cocktails. Seemed to work as I had one of my rare nights where I wasn't the one to get too drunk and throw up. Using that as a measure of success though, 5 people were sick (or admitted it st least). Not so many of the pictures came out so here are a few of the best from other people. The first pic was taken at 4pm before we'd even had a drink yet...some of us looked worse for wear already, and those who were on the balconies somehow managed to escape embarrassing pics all evening.

The 2007 Bangkok Marathon

I decided a while back that I needed some kind of incentive to get me fit. Working the hours that we do and spending most of the day standing up and running around after a bunch of hyperactive 7 year olds doesn’t do much for your motivation, so I decided to try and get ready for one of Bangkok's biggest sporting events. Every year around 50,000 people take part in either the full length marathon or the slightly more sensible quarter marathon. As this year is commemorating the King’s 80th birthday, it promised to be a big one.

I started running 3-4 times a week in July but my training ground to a halt about 6 weeks before the marathon as I tore a ligament in my knee. Somehow stupidly, I managed to do this by turning and walking into a chair that I had left in the middle of the classroom. So much for me shouting at my kids all the time to keep their chairs under there desks, practice what you preach and all that.
Anyway, after a very frustrating month of limping and failed attempts to get going, I finally managed to start running again about 2 weeks before the marathon.

The marathon started in front of the Grand Palace at 6.45 on a Sunday morning. I suppose this was to try and let the pollution settle and in the hope of it being a little cooler. Me and a couple of friends started together but had soon lost each other amongst the crowds. People had said to me beforehand that running the marathon would be easier than running on my own, that the adrenalin from running with so many other people would keep me going. This was definitely true at the start where it was quite incredible to see a mass of yellow bouncing up and down in front of you as far as the eye could see. By the end however, after running on raised highways with the sun on us, the novelty had worn off. If it hadn’t been for the little Thai guy who ran next to me most of the way and gave me loads of encouragement then I would’ve gone a lot slower.

We were all pretty much wrecks at the end of the run, where we were met by those who had stayed in bed before getting a taxi to the finish line to get some pics (not mentioning any names...). The annoying thing was, that the person who looked freshest was the one who had just run 26 miles (42 kilometres) in a rather brisk 3.45 hours.

Although it was exhausting I was really pleased to have been able to run and am now looking for more mini marathons to do here. Not sure how beneficial it is to run in all this pollution though, seem to have a permanent cough.

Touristy Bangkok

Well, it's only taken over 4 years of living in this country, but I finally had to succumb and do the rather embarrassing thing and become a Bangkok tourist. There are so many things to do and see in this city yet I have done so few of them. I suppose it's always the case that when you live somewhere you'd rather not spend your free time traipsing around in the heat, with crowds of often irritating and ignorant tourists who just add to the Thai understanding of foreigner equals stupid person who's easy to rip off. Also it's very easy to put these visits off when you are tired and you know there's always going to be another occasion to go.

Saying all this however, when Nick's mum Val came to stay we felt that it was the perfect opportunity to see some of Bangkok's best sites. We were on holiday at the time so figured we'd have more patience for the whole malarkey, not having had to shout at kids all week.

From the morning Val arrived we had a jam packed itinerary planned. Not sure how it happened, but it seemed to revolve more around eating than anything else. Eating with the odd temple and a fair amount of shopping thrown in. Val landed at about 7.30 and after getting a taxi back to the apartment and barely having chance to get her bearings we were out and on our way to a huge plant market that specializes in orchids. Now I've never been much of a flower person, but the colour and shapes of the masses of orchids that are hung in shops at head height are an incredible site. It's also pretty cool to wander through the jungle of plant shops there. After lunch out we headed home to rest up before going out again for dinner.

The next day was the one I had been dreading most. We were going up to the grand palace and this meant lots of tourists, touts and the annoying fact that we had to wear closed shoes, long sleeved tops and cover our knees, all in midday sun. The day didn't really start that well with us being misdirected a number of times by 'helpful' locals telling us that the palace was in fact closed today and was only open to Thais, or that the palace was open but not for the next hour as it was lunchtime. Although I've learnt to not listen to strange people who pull you over in the street and tell you things like this, it did get quite annoying listening to all the excuses as to why we couldn't go in and peoples 'helpful' and 'innocent' range of suggestions as to where we should go instead. Eventually though we found the main entrance, clearly distinguished by the heard of 'farangs' or 'white people' going in. Beside the entrance there was a huge information sign, at the bottom of which it stated in bold writing 'beware of wily strangers'. Getting into the grounds of the palace was just the start. Once there we found that while girls could in fact show so much leg they couldn't really call what they are wearing 'a skirt', guys had to wear long trousers. Nick's 3/4 length trousers didn't make the grade so we had to wait while he went in and borrowed trousers. Now most people don't know this but in Thailand they have something we call 300 % employment, meaning they have 3 people to do one person's job. Nick had to go in, get a slip of paper off one person, pay money to another person, collect trousers from another person and then hand in the slip elsewhere, or something to that effect. Obviously when you add in the number of people queueing to get clothes, it only takes one confused person to send the whole thing into chaos. As you can imagine by the time we finally got into the palace we were more than a little harassed and Nick was most definitely not in the touristy mood.



I am pleased to say though, the Grand Palace was well worth all the hassle of getting there. It is like walking inside a life size jewelry box. There is more bling than you can imagine. What was most surprising, is that after getting around the first corner, you can find whole areas without a single person to walk across your pics which is usually the norm in places like this. As you can see by the photos, it really is quite amazing.


The next thing we had planned was slightly less touristy. We had arranged to do a bike tour of a part of Bangkok that is actually on an island surrounded by the Chao Praya River. This island has been made into a kind of nature reserve, with few roads and many raised narrow walkways. To get to the island we had to first ride along and across 4-6 lanes of traffic, getting up close and personal with Bangkok's unpredictable truck and taxi drivers. We then put our bikes in a long tail boat and went across the river to Bang Kra Jao. We then followed our guide along quiet leafy lanes and then rather precariously along paths about 3 feet wide and up to 7 feet off the ground. Now biking has never been one of my stronger skills and when you combine this with the fact that I have appalling balance when standing on two feet let alone on a bike with a 7 foot drop on either side, I spent the whole time praying that I'd not end up in the canal or swamp below. Thankfully though, I was spared this embarrassment, and it was the rather arrogant stockbroker from Sydney who came off his bike instead. And he was riding along a flat bit of road. (And yes, I know I look stupid with a cycling helmet, but I have learnt the hard way about not wearing protective headgear for sports I'm not that good at.)










Some of the other things we did included eating and shopping at the night market, eating and shopping at the weekend market, visiting Khao San on a difficult 'bag with bells' shopping quest, visiting the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Po, going on a much more enjoyable dinner cruise along the river, eating at the famous Blue Elephant restaurant and a rather eventful trip to the Sky Bar where my first aid skills were called into action when the Thai girl next to me hit the deck and blacked out for a couple of minutes. Still not sure if it was the height, the alcohol or just a way of escaping her date, but it was a rather surreal experience anyway.


All in all, it was a very hectic 10 days. Thanks to Val we had the motivation to go and do both the usual and unusual sights in Bangkok, and I would be happy to do it all again. We did however decide that it would be quite some time before we ate out again, and maybe we'd done enough shopping to last us a while.

As far from relaxing as a trip can be...

After a most enjoyable diving trip to Lembeh we decided that it would be a waste to go all the way to Sulawesi and not see some of the sites above water.

We arranged to go up into the highlands to stay in the 'picturesque' town of Tomohon. Advertised as a peaceful retreat in a quaint town famed for its flowers and greenery, on the saddle of three volcanoes, a short 70 kilometre drive from the Airport.

That short 70 kilometre drive must have been as the crow flies, and seeing as 70 percent of our journey was up and along some of the windiest roads I've ever been on the 'short' journey took us a queasy 2 and a half hours. Also, when we arrived to Tomohon, we found that the 'quaint flowery town' was a sprawling and rather unattractive concrete mess.

We found all the afore mentioned flowers and greenery at the home stay we had booked in at. Set in a lush and pretty garden, it is a small home stay with only 4 'deluxe' (basic) bungalows. We even had a pond with fountain outside our room. Once upon a time our bungalow would have had volcano views, they just happened to be obscured by trees now. It seemed pretty laid back when we arrived, but after the long drive there we were happy just to kick back, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet.

I'm not sure if, in all my years of low budget traveling, bad locations and noisy generators, I have ever experienced a peaceful place that was so incredibly noisy. As soon as the sun went down the cicadas started going. They were soon to be completely drowned out by the frogs, who seemed to be in residence in our pond. Not content with all the noise, the neighbourhood dogs would also take their turn and begin howling at regular intervals. At some point they must have all quieted down enough for us to get some sleep as we were woken up at 4am by rather aggressive lecturing in Indonesian over a loud speaker. This went on, along with bouts of singing, at full blast until about 6 am. We then drifted back to sleep to be promptly woken again by oxen clattering along with rickety carts up and down the bumpy lane directly behind our bungalow.

Feeling far from fresh we weren't inspired to do much on the first day and only drummed up the enthusiasm to go for a wander late afternoon in search of some local delights for a late lunch. Within about 10 minutes we were caught in a torrential downpour and had to shelter in a plant shop on the side of the road for about 15 minutes. The rain let up enough to get a taxi van and we made it too a local supermarket (also noisy with music on so loud the staff couldn't hear you) to pick up some supplies. The rain started again so we admitted defeat and went next door to KFC for lunch. So much for sampling the local delights.

Thankfully the next night was slightly quieter, with the church preaching only going on till about 10pm and not starting again until about 7am. The next day we had arranged to hire a motorbike from the home stay and so we could do a bit of exploring. When the bike arrived we ended up with 3 different people telling us how to use the bike and deal with it's completely backward way of functioning. Of course when people are watching it always makes things harder and it took is a very frustrating 20 minutes of being told different things in different languages before we eventually got going. Due to the fact that the bike was finally started and seemed to stall when going below 20 kilometres an hour we we didn't dare stop for over an hour, by which point we'd realized the map we had been given was very inaccurate, we had forgotten to bring a camera and our bums were completely numb. Getting a bit lost was probably the best thing we could have done. We eventually found one of the big lakes we were looking for, but took a very winding route around it. We went past endless quaint, peaceful and flowery villages where it seemed that every man, woman, child and dog were in their Sunday best and either in church, on their way to church, or finished in church and on their way to the communal lunch gathering. I don't think I've ever been to a more religious place, even the smallest villages have a minimum of three churches. People seem to be praying morning, noon and night quite literally, not to mention in full voice at 4am.

Apart from the noise and the incredibly temperamental bike, the trip did end up being quite relaxing. There was a lot of time for reading, sudoku, and losing at backgammon. We never did manage to get the camera out, so the pics are from the home stay website.

Lembeh Straits

Ok, so have been really lazy recently and not been able to keep up to date with everything that’s been happening.
After what felt like an absolute age, we finally made it to the end of Semester One (no mean feat as it’s the longer of the two with less holidays). It’s been a pretty uneventful year of teaching so far, apart from having to watch one inept member of staff repeatedly perform unprecedented acts of ignorance and stupidity. Not even going to go there as he’s been ranted about more than enough. Anyway, after sitting around twiddling our thumbs for a week after the kids were allowed to go on holiday, we were finally released.

(If you’re not a fish person read no further…..!!)

Nick and I had decided to treat ourselves to a slightly more expensive dive trip as we had less time than usual for our hols. In the diving world (especially out here) you hear about Lembeh Straits a lot; it’s supposed to be the place to be for ‘muck’ diving. Now the idea of swimming around in poor visibility picking through trash and looking for things that hide in dark places, has never quite taken my fancy before. After a year of intensive wall and coral diving with 20-30m vis in Roatan we were up for something a little bit different.

We stayed in a small resort on the island of Lembeh which is off the north-east side of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The area is incredibly volcanic, with one of the nearby volcanoes having only erupted 2 months ago. 90% of the diving is done over black volcanic sand. The visibility is poor, although we were quite lucky, getting 5-10m. The water at 27 degrees, felt arctic to me. I know that I am setting myself up to be totally ridiculed for that but hey, I get cold, and my wetsuit is ancient, squished to about 1.5 mil and patchy. The worst part of it was that the dives were long and as most people know cold water creates the need to pee, as I refuse to ‘go’ in my wetsuit, it got to be quite painful at times.

Surprisingly though, although the dives were long and most of the time we were just swimming over flat expanses of dirty black sand, interspersed evenly with coral and trash, it never really got boring. Every day we’d see something new in the book and ask our guide to find it. He’d then choose the best dive site for it and would search up and down until he found it. He’d often lose us as we’d have our head in the sand but would be able to find us again then lead us back to whatever it was we were looking for without the aid of any bottom markers or compass. It makes me realize that I’ve never really needed to learn proper navigational skills for anywhere else I’ve been, you take it for granted when you have reef to follow.

While we were there, we ticked off most of our wish list. We got to see most things twice and more nudibranchs than I could have hoped for. Some of the best bits were (in photo order); a small Wonderpus trying to eat a big Wonderpus (either that or something rude), Pygmy seahorses, Mandarin fish, Ornate Ghost Pipefish, giant frogfish, Hairy frogfish, 10-15 inch nudis, mantis shrimp, flamboyant cuttlefish and Paddle-flap Scorpionfish . The best way I can describe the diving here, is that it’s like going out into the woods and turning over stones to see all the creepy crawlies underneath. Quite a lot of the time I didn’t like the way the guides interacted with the fish; moving them to be seen and shaking out hessian sacking and brambles so stuff comes out. However, I kind of understand that this is the way that they do it out there, and that they are used to having to push things out in the open long enough for everybody to get their photos. Our guide was good though and soon realized that we didn’t approve.

The diving part of the holiday went well beyond expectations, the place we stayed was beautiful; the food great, the staff accommodating. We were really lucky to be given our own guide and put on the boat with less people and smaller groups each time. They took us wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted and would do a night dive for one person without complaint even when they had already done 3 dives that day.

I would love to take credit for all these pics, but sadly my housing has died. All these photos were taken by Nick, I've never mastered the patience required anyway!!

A different way to do dinner

One of the things that I looked forward to most about coming out to Thailand was the fact that I'd be able to afford to eat out more. Whether it's at cheapy street vendor places or by treating ourselves to a night out at one of the many slightly more expensive (but still ridiculously cheap) restaurants in our area, we have been eating at least once a week. We have been trying to do something I've never been able to do elsewhere, and that's work our way down the substantial list of local restaurants.

As Nick and I recently passed our 2 year milestone, we decided to do something a little bit different to celebrate. When I first came to Thailand many years ago, my dad took me on one of the old Thai rice barge dinner cruises. You get a set Thai food or Seafood dinner and it is served to you while you slowly chug up river past all the illuminated temples, hotels, and the Grand Palace.

Nick and I booked ourselves onto one of the small traditional converted teak rice barges called the 'Wan Fah' boat. We met the boat at about 18.45 (unfortunately just too late for sunset at this time of year), and were taken up river to see all the sites while food was served. Dinner was accompanied by a smiling Thai percussionist positioned at the front of the boat, who was subjected to paparazzi style photography when we had passed all the temples and stuff.

After dinner was finished and we were on our way back down river, a traditional Thai dance show was performed, where both male and female characters wear the most glittering and ornate costumes and masks. The show was great, the touristy part at the end where they try and get you to dance was not. I managed to avoid this, but was subjected to that cringing embarrassment of others making idiots of themselves.

The trip was lovely and is a must for those visiting Bangkok, if only to see the river lit up at night. At that time of day you can't see the brown milky colour of the water so it looks quite pretty. The only downside of the night was the fact that the dinner was so rushed. We were served our first dish before we'd even left the pier, and all the other dishes were served at speed. We were trying to eat at a relaxing pace and every time I put my spoon back in my bowl someone tried to whip my soup away. I ended up having to wave my spoon in the air every time anyone neared the table.

A little incentive....

I recently decided that it'd be a good idea to get fit. I was feeling rather sluggish and substantially overweight and was simply waiting for inspiration to get moving. I went out for dinner and a friend of a friend mentioned that they have started training for the Bangkok mini marathon in November. Where as most people murmured words like 'crazy', 'fool' and 'smog, heat, pollution' I thought it was quite a good idea.

I have undertaken to get properly fit on a few occasions in my life and each time it has resulted in a somewhat 'obsessive' approach to exercise. It seems that I can't motivate myself to do it unless I do it everyday. Then it seems that when I don't do it I don't feel right so I'm more able to keep going.

Over the last month I have been running on the treadmill a lot, doing yoga, interval training and other such energetic things. This all takes place in the small and meagerly furnished gym in our apartment. Here the treadmill is so old that you have to make sure you foot hits it with backward propulsion or it stops dead and you fall off. It took me about 3 sessions to master the technique. I had managed to get up to about 5 kilometres a session within 2 weeks. However I am very aware that running on a treadmill is nothing like proper outdoor running so I started to look for somewhere nearby to go running outside. I live about 3 kilometres from the biggest park in Bangkok that is a sea of exercise enthusiasts morning and night, but I don't fancy the ride there and back on the back of a motorbike through rush hour traffic, especially not the way back when I'm all sweaty, and I'm certainly not such an enthusiast to run 5-10k and then walk 3k home.

One of my colleagues mentioned that he goes running right behind my apartment. Much to my surprise, one of the most popular exercise spots in the area is the largest Chinese Cemetery in Bangkok. I went down there last week for the first time and found that not only does the cemetery have a marked running track, but it also has areas for basketball, Taikwando, badminton, Thai-chi, aerobics, learning the 'Cha-Cha' and a huge weight park all surrounded by the thousands of traditional grass covered, waist high mounds of the Chinese tombs. Not only are there hundreds of people who choose to go there to get fit, there are those who go there to join one of the many games of chequers, to relax, eat and watch TV, or just to sit on the grass and watch everybody else get fit. Yesterday I even saw runners taking a break to sing karaoke. It's hard to know who there's more of; those above ground or those below.

I never thought that what is technically a graveyard could be such a social place. Everybody is really friendly and seems to know everyone else. The number of people old and young who are there getting fit is a big encouragement, but there is no better incentive than the surroundings themselves to make you want to get fit. I am now up to running 8k!!

The pic above is not one of the cemetery I go to but I've not been brave enough to take me camera.