As I mentioned in my previous post, I was going out to the village to attend a celebration that is specific to the region of Thailand in which I live. The entire village spent all day cooking food, to be left for the ghosts of dead family members to eat, complete with beer, whiskey and bottles of coke. Of course, as expected the ghosts didn’t actually eat much of it, so around midnight we had the chance to eat all the left overs!

This is the spread that Nuth’s family prepared in their house (every house in the village did the same), when you consider that this represents the kind of food they can seldom afford to cook for themselves, then it becomes apparent just how seriously they take their dead relatives. My particular favourite was the bowl of tiny fried fish, very tasty!

The last seven days have been the most boring seven days of my life, I am talking mind numbing boring, trapped in a place that is not my home, unable to go outside and unable to leave. Let me explain.

My girlfriend and Son spend the week staying with her father in a small village about 15 minutes away from the apartment in town that I rent, we have found this the best way all round, it means I have peace to work in the week, she gets to take care of her father and stay with her family, and we have a good time at the weekends when she comes to stay with me. During the week I drive out to the village two or three times to have lunch and play with the baby for a while so she gets a break.

So last Friday morning I jumped on my motorcycle and rode out to the village, it started to rain on the way, very heavy rain, as it had done for several days previously. I stayed for a few hours then decided to head home, I drove out of the village, pulled out on to the main road and drove a couple of kilometres before finding the road was flooded, I continued on very slowly, driving through water several centimetres deep, until I came to the road bridge over the river, one major problem here, the bridge wasn’t there anymore, just a gap in the road and a raging torrent streaming through it. I had no choice but to turn around and head back to the village, I figured I would stay the night and things would dry up in the morning and I would find another way to cross the river. How wrong I was, the rain continued non-stop until the next morning, the TV was telling us that the entire province was flooded and the rain was not going to stop for several days.

Each day the water rose higher, eventually completely flooding almost all of the farm land around the village, check out this picture above, this used to be rice fields just outside the village, now completely ruined by the floods. So there I was, trapped in my girlfriend’s village, unable to leave the house let alone get back to my apartment. The rain stopped 3 days ago, it has only been today that I was able to navigate the still flooded roads and drive home.

The real problems will start next year though, an entire region with its yearly rice crop ruined, many of the farmers grow the rice to feed their families, not to sell, I really do not know what these people will do next year, rice is the backbone of their staple diet, without it they will have very little to eat and no money to buy rice.

People’s Alliance for Democracy protestors blockading airports at Krabi, Phuket and Hat Yai, closing roads, stopping trains, fresh produce become scarce in Bangkok, and hour after hour of Thai news discussing nothing else on TV.

Shocking pictures of stockpiles of Kraton (not sure how you spell it, basically a plant that gives a high similar to amphetamines), guns and ammo confiscated by the police, and the army sitting cooling their heals.

It’s only a matter of time before the government decides it is going to have to lose face over this, and order in the troops. Last time the army hit the streets in the name of politics they pulled off a bloodless coup, I can’t see them resolving this current mess without pulling the trigger.

We were planning a three week vacation, we have cancelled these plans now, we don’t want to risk getting caught up in anything on our travels.

It’s Nuth’s birthday in a few days, so last week I asked her what she wanted as a birthday present. She said she didn’t know and would think about it. I thought she would come back to me and say a bracelet or something; she had also been making exciting noises about these little electric scooter things they are selling in the local supermarket, so I figured jewellery or one of these.

Eventually she calls me up and says hey I know what I want for my birthday, so I ask her what, and she says… two cows…

I really was not expecting this answer! So, anyway today we went and bought the two cows and they are now happily in her father’s old cow shed. I think this is possibly the strangest birthday present I have ever given somebody.