21 Thaikarl don't step in the fire ants, it pisses them off

friends

parked the bike tonight to got get some dinner.  my left foot started flaming.  i did the wildman flip-flop dance, but because it was dark i couldn't see what what happening... it just stung! many times!  checked the spot with my LED light after dinner - sho nuf, little tiny ant hole right where the kickstand was.  no wonder the little buggers were annoyed.

at the street places to eat, they have tissue on the tables to use to wipe your fingers and mouth with.  you throw the used paper on the ground underneath the tables, along with bones and scraps.  Tok pointed out, that you can tell the best/cheapest places to eat by how much tissue is on the ground under the tables and chairs.  seems to work.  Tok notices little things like this.  She's a good traveller.

we took the motobike out of town to the waterfalls today.  it's the dry season, so there wasn't much water, but it was pleasant none the less.  there was a footbridge across the river, which we went over. seemed like the logical think to do.  but a young fellow at the other end wanted 300 Riel's.  but couldn't tell us why.  so we went back and climbed down the rocks.  there was a pretty nice fall about 30 feet high, and you could go back around the falls behind the water.  we took a lot of video.

right at the end of the dirt road, when we got onto the pavement the bike started acting funny, whumpa whumpa from the front end.  flat tire.  great.  pushed the thing about a kilometer up the road to a factory village by the road.  found the bike fixer.  he had the front tube out in minutes, found the blowout and indicated we needed a new tube.  okay.  whipped off the front wheel, put in a new tube and we were ready to go in 10 minutes.  $5.00.   we walked around the place a little bit, got some noodles at a stand.  only 1500 Riels - where they are charging 2000 - 4000 in town.  (4000 Riels is $1.00)  behind the shops were rows of dormitory like rooms.  apparently housing for the shoe factory across the road.  i need to buy a laxative, so we went to the "pharmacy". little shops with all sorts of pills.  you just tell them what you want, and they sell it to you.  except not a word of english beyond "Hello" and "Bye-Bye" was working in this place.  so you can imagine the pantomime i had to do to try to explain what i wanted.  went thru this 3 times, at three places before we figured out they were tellin us we had to look in town.  funny ha ha...  Tok bought 3 apples before we headed on down the road.

we took the turn-off that went to a temple we could see from town.  i parked the bike near the entrance.  notice there were monkeys coming down from the trees.  cute little things.  one of them heads over to the bike, Tok says "My apples!"  the little monkey climbed right up the front wheel, and snatched the bag of apples out of the basket and high-tailed it up a tree!  we just stood there rather helpless looking at this money up there eating out apple.  he just ripped open the plastic bag and started eating.  one of the little monkeys made a grab, and when the bigger one went to swat him away, one of the apples fell to the ground and i barely beat an old female to it.  mr. Big up there happily comped up the first apple, and took off with the second.  occasionally he would nonchalantly toss away a piece that the other guys on the ground would snatch up.  musta been good apples!  my parting comment to the little beasts?  "How do ya like them apples!" (of course)

and the temple was very beautiful besides.


it's dark now.  think it's time to motor down to the room, park the bike and walk the 50 meters to the beach and have a fruit shake.  Care to join us?

Onward!
Nu

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i am in thailand at the moment. to be added or deleted from my travelogue, send request to this address. view previous posts at:  http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/