easter

having lived amongst the heathens for so long now, easter has kinda lost its meaning - i.e. a 4 day long-weekend!

but this year, i heard that it was easter, and so got all into the swing of the season by baking hot cross buns...

i am getting really, really domestic...

they were good, too...



you'll notice there are of course mangos ripening in the background...

my friend the mango

little mango guy...

been studying about mangos recently...

there are about a dozen different types of mangos available on the street in thailand... my favourite, the "water tree" mango (sweet with a touch of sourness), the ridiculously sour "rhino mango", the tasty "glass mango", the floury-apple tasting "green saweree mango" (no idea what this translates as), and the big juicy "sky noise" mango (apparently so named because the skin of the mango has a tendency to split when there are loud thunderstorms!)...what's really wierd though, is that the thais tend to eat them while they are still green, and they put loads of chilli and salt on them!



in honour of my favourite thai fruity friend, the mango, "mr mango" will now make an appearance dancing at the top of your browser until someone gets p*ssed off at him and asks me to take him away...


get down and boogie, mr mango. you are king of all fruit!

turtle party

dontcha just love turtles?

saw these guys when we were having a picnic in the local park...

the local

...when i'm alone in the evenings, i usually go to the same place to have dinner.

it's just around the corner - maybe a 5 minute walk if i walk slowly. i go there because it is a typical thai restaurant. no air conditioning. no windows, even. well, they have one window, but i don't know why, it's just one pane of glass seemingly randomly inserted in the middle of the big empty space that divides street and shop...

most places around here are not typical thai restaurants. most are closed in, air conditioned. classy - we live where the foreigners live, so there is a lot of class for thailand around here.

but when i'm alone, i don't want class. i want somewhere thai. if i wanted really thai, i could sit on a plastic stool on the side of the road and eat - but with the fumes from the traffic in bangkok, that's not nice - i don't know how the thais do it. so i go to my local - have no idea what the name is - order a plate of thai curry and a pepsi (it comes in the old-style glass bottles). sit and read a book, eat, and watch the world go by.

when the bill comes, it is less than $1.

ah, thailand.

dinner was the only time i left the house today, so my total expense account for this day in bangkok was about 90 cents...

hey big spender!

happy to be back in the heat after my winter sojourn (spelling?), but even less motivated than usual this week...

not a lot of snow in thailand

...but there was a lot in sapporo, japan.


a typical suburban street in sapporo

filthy porn

...has been removed.

sorry for any offence, but the shady swamp accepts no liability whatsoever for any shock or discomfort caused by viewing picture of my ass.

not been up to much lately - back in the swamp means back in the international man of leisure life - i.e. doing nothing.

brought back civilisation III from korea, played that for a couple of days. slept a bit today.

just the usual.