Merry Christmas From Udon Thani

That big fat bugger turned up last night, you know him, the one with the PPP outfit and the white beard. Wonderful Wi is absolutely delighted about it. If you have ever wondered how many teeth are held within the average sized cranium, then with her ear to ear grin I can easily pop over and count them. Last night Wi asked me if she could open her presents just after midnight and I had to tell her no, you can open them when you wake up in the morning. Head down but still smiling, feet clad in donkey novelty slippers she headed off to bed.

She woke a good 90 minutes earlier than usual and by 8 a.m was proudly wearing her new jacket and the battery was charging on her favorite present, a nice shiny pink camera as she swanned around the house in her latest footwear, monkey novelty slippers. Her beaming smile then disappeared into the garden to water flowers, plants, trees and anything else that was green and didn’t move. A quick snatched pizza breakfast and we were in the car and on the move to Ban Dung, a small town about half of an hour away, with Mama noisily jabbering away in the back and me trying to make sense of the camera manual, with the sun’s rays bouncing off Wi’s smily teeth.

Ban Dung for a town of its meagre size is home to quite a few ex pats who many so I’m told have set up in the farming business. There is a fairly sized decent clothes market here with a few of the stores clothing, bordering on up to date fashion. A quick look around and then it’s off to the food market. Our last stop is at a camera store to buy a memory card stick for Wi’s new camera. After only an hour stop in Ban Dung we headed homeward as Wi was keen to get back into her monkey slippers and start preparing for tonight’s Christmas party, and I needed to be dropped off in the local town to access the internet.

A quick beer and then my first disappointment of the holiday, a bad internet connection has not made it possible to upload my photos for this post. Mai phen rai krap, or should that be crap, I will now have to resort to my photo library.

I still have my Christmas dinner to look forward to, steak and chips, can’t wait. Not a traditional Xmas dinner but as we have not got a cooker, or just for you Liverpudlians, a kooka, a grilled steak and some fried chips will more than do. Our Christmas party tonight is for the family and a few of the neighbours and their kids. Judging by previous years the amount of neighbours kids should swell in size once more as “foster” children appear out of the woodwork. Looking forward to the party.

Tomorrow we are off to the Thai/Laos border to visit the city of Nongkhai, hopefully I’ll have more luck with the internet there. Have a great Christmas day and I hope the big fat bugger dropped on you everything you wanted.

Credits

Photographs   Cracker/Teddy    Free Digital Photos