Thursday, November 27, 2008

A Boat Load of Fish and Nicky Boys Birthday







Grilled Rats anyone


Ciejay's family,Son-in -law's parents and aunt
The Ark aka The Aquarium The Gateway




This is one big boat



Nicky Boy or The Ultra Man





Our Thai family A,Nu,Nicky, Ciejay (toon) and Me



This is one long Dragon




Feeding Time



What a great job


Now thats a big fish
We took a trip to visit our Thai family and their relatives a couple weeks ago and to be with our Thai grandson to celebrate his 4th birthday. they live in Nakhon Sawan ,which is about a four hour drive from Sai Yok ,a place not on the list of places for tourist to visit,as it mainly a industrial town, and I was told that they grow a lot of rice also, and from what I could tell a bedroom community for folks from Bangkok. We had planned only a quick week-in trip and then back home , but we saw lots of stuff that we wanted to check out and places to explore. Also on my list of things was to eat at a couple famous restaurants there and to check out this great Thai band my son-in -law told me about ,they have this lady singer that is out of this world, I can't belive she's not cutting records , opps I mean making cd's. think I just dated myself . We booked a private room and had Nicky boys birthday there and did a lot of karoke singing and wine drinking, well thats what partys are for and did I say karoke singing, Thai folks favorite past time , but thats another post .
Nu told us they had just opened a new attraction in town and would we like to go , I thought, ok, a neat little scaled down Dream World, but no to my amazement as we came thru the gates of this park, perched on the banks of the river , was this huge boat, right in the middle of nowhere . I ask what it was because all the signs were in Thai, and they said "wait and see".To my surprise in side this huge ARK was the most beautiful aquarium I had ever seen. it had huge displays tanks along each side and all sorts of fresh and saltwater fish and right down the middle was a huge tunnel made of glass and on both sides of you and everywhere you looked there was fish. What a wonderful experience it was to walk with the fish, and they knew you were there and got up close and personal to interact thru the glass. I loved it . Ciejay did too.
So I thought what a good topic for a post, then ,I read on My Thai Friend's post that they have a great one in Prachuap down south, and then the TV had a special about the one in Chang-mai , that someone told me was the largest in the world, I want to see that one . It will have to go a long way to beat this one in Nakhon Sawan, if you ever get a chance it will be well worth you drive . I think everyone loves a good aquarium, at least I do.
By the way we ended up spending a week there just enjoying the sights and family .Hope you get a chance to see it for yourself. Malcolm
RATS
I almost forgot on our way out of town I saw this lady grilling something on the side of the road , I thought was chicken and I was a tad bit hungry so we stopped to see, thats when I saw all these traps and there was huge rats in them and a grill full on the bar b que grilling in their jucies and covered with this special sauce, and in a little box was a bunch of little babies she had rescued and was bottle feeding them. I thought to myself who would eat these things and before you could blink a eye a big black BMW stopped and a lady and man (Thai ) came up and bought them all. I could'nt belive it . I had Ciejay ask her if that was unusual and she said "no" as soon as she has them cooked they sell very fast , and it's off to the rice fields to catch more RATS.





























3 comments:

Hoo Don said...

Rats, can't say as I really fancy that one. Going into the rice fields to catch them...sounds like snake country to me, maybe cobra's. The giant boat housing an aquarium, like an aquatic Noah's Ark, yeah I like the sound of that. Udon Thani has got a restaurant on top of a make believe boat, I don't know it's Thai name but my girlfriend and myself quite simply call it the boathouse, sells cheap steak and a few Thai dishes and I like going there sometimes for a midday snack....
Your Queen of the Desert plant seems very difficult to track down, perhaps like it's bloom it only appears on the internet one night a year. My research tells me it is a member of the Cereus Cactus family and is possibly found in the Texas/Arizona/Mexico regions at heights of 3000 to 5000 feet above sea level ( don't quote me on those facts). An alternate plant that is outside of the family but blooms very rarely and only at night is the Epiphyllum Oxypetallum, perhaps you should check it out as it is apparently more widely available.

Mike Rose said...

I read about the rats a while back, apparently the rice field snakes are none too happy since the locals are culling their favourite dish!

Mind you I guess that means that snake is not on the local menu anymore?

Have a good day.

MJ Klein said...

btw Malcolm, that's not a dragon, it's a Naga and very important in Thai/Lao culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga