Where's Reg

Lopburi... what a place. I have now been here for about two and a half weeks. I have had about one week of Thai lessons, and in that time, I have also been able to explore this place before I get too busy with learning Thai.


For those of you who don't know, Lopburi is a city 150 km northeast of Bangkok. This city has about 46,000 people living in it. At times, I have thought while moving through the mass crowds at the night markets, that this estimate is much greater than they say! This city has a bunch of canals that is great to bike along. I got a picture of this guy casting his line. It was only later that I noticed that his line was pointing up into the air. (You really have to look hard to see the line). I guess he was casting when I shot this.




Another thing that Lopburi is known for, is it's monkeys. In certain parts of this city, these monkeys are everywhere. You will see them hanging on the powerlines, jumping out of moving trucks, falling out of trees, etc. While they can look cute, watch out! They can be very aggressive too, and if you have something they want, you better start running! One day after I got my bike tires fixed at a shop in the old part of Lopburi, a monkey decided to jump onto my bike for a ride. After shaking the monkey off of my handle bars and then off my seat without getting attacked, I was thankful I could get away with all my belongings.
If your not into the monkey thing, there is also a bunch of ruins to explore. On my day off I went to check out some of these ruins. At the gate I saw the ticket booth that had written on a sign that it was 30 baht for none residence to enter the grounds. I used my little Thai that I knew, and was able to get in for only 10 baht!

This is Prang Sam Yot which is a Buddhist Shrine in the old part of Lopburi. This Shrine used to be a Hindu Shrine many years ago. The three towers stand for the Hindu trinity ( Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva).

From the above picture of my house, you can see that there is a lot of concrete and brick. I don't care for so much concrete and brick and so I added some plants. The day I moved in to my new home, I discovered that there was a plant nursery across the street. This nursery is owned by a mother and son. The Mother's name is Pii Pan (Pii, because she is older than me, probably around my Mom's age), and her son's name has slipped my mind because I have only met him once and only briefly.
The great thing about this nursery is that I can add some plants to this concrete jungle and at the same time work on my Thai. With my little amount of Thai, Pii Pan and I have been able to communicate! That is a huge blessing and a lot of fun too! Today I found out that they have Verbena here too (it's a plant with lots of flowers that we have back in Canada).




Since I moved into my house here in Lopburi, I have had a lot of different kinds of visitors. These vistors have been small and the kind you normally don't want in your house or on your plants (Cockroaches etc). Today I had one that I didn't really care for at all, even though this visitor was pretty neat, he or she, ate one of my plants and that got me a little upset I must say, but only for a while.





He or she ate my plant and because of that I got this great picture in return, fare trade.

Start Language school tomorrow, can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!