Dog eat Dogekko eat gekko

Dog eat Dogekko eat gekko

It's a dog eat dog world and my fellow blogger posted this interesting blog about a Gekko or Jing-jok eating a baby Jing-jok. Something I did hear about but never saw, until I saw it captured in pictures on fellow blogger Malcolm's blog just a few days ago!

So how can I describe my utter surprise when yesterday my son all of a sudden starts to frantically and excitedly shout and point at the ceiling of our living room where a dog eat dog situation was developing in a gekko eat gekko or jing-jok kin jing-jok real life situation.

The series of pictures I made are done with some serious zoom, all the way to max, so the pictures may be a bit grainy but well worth the effort of catching this event on a memory disk.

How much I dislike these small creatures because of their droppings everywhere (haven't heard anybody yet not complaining about their droppings!) they are useful and keep all kinds of small critters out, like flies, mosquito's, spiders etc since they eat them all!

Little by little the smaller gekko was being eaten by the grown up gekko and some fascinating pictures emerged.

Ever seen a six footed gekko?

Strangely enough my son thinks it real funny, even looking at the pictures he laughs about it!

Anyway, once more proven that only the strong survive with thanks to Malcolm!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 13th October, 2010

Today's weather;

Upon waking up there was some feeble sunshine over Samui, which was a nice surprise considering how the last couple of days have been. Current temp at 7am is around 27C

Yesterday saw a cloudy but dry day. Max temp reached 28.7 Celsius

Camille

Food on Wheels; Kao Lam

Food on Wheels; Kao Lam

As part of my ongoing Food on Wheels series, here's a new jewel; Kao Lam or sticky rice in Bamboo.

The Kao Lam vendors are relatively difficult to spot since they only have a very limited amount of Kao Lam with them and they usually carry it on the back of their bikes, in a small basket or the like. Really easy to overlook.

The bamboo sticks are hollowed out and filled with sticky rice either white or black rice and sometimes black beans are added, than a sweet coconut sauce is added and the top is closed off with a seal made out of coconut hair from the coconut shell mixed together with banana leaves.

The vendors are driving all over Samui and it's to stop them. The price depends on the bamboo size but is typically around 40,-THB for a big one or 50,-THB for 3 small ones.

This is how they look like once you peel the bamboo off, this being a black rice variation Kao Lam. If you like sweet, they're really nice, although I prefer the white rice ones. If you see them around, try to stop a vendor and buy some, they're well worth trying out.

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 12th October, 2010

Today's weather;

Right now Samui has a dry spell but it's very heavily clouded. Current temp at 7am is 23.9C

Last night there was a thunderous and loud storm at some stage that woke me up.

Yesterday saw very strong wind and lots of rain in the morning and around 10am it was dry to more or less remain dry for the rest of the day, except for some drizzle. Cloud cover was all day long thick and heavy although the sun did try to break through once! Max temp reached 27.6C

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 11th October, 2010

Today's weather;

Samui woke up with rain this morning under a very grey sky. Current temp at 7am is 26.5C and it's raining right now.

The forecast turned slightly to the better, for the coming week there's still plenty of rain predicted but the strong wind has been blown off which is good for the diving!

Yesterday saw a nice day, bits and pieces if sunshine and it was dry all day long. Max temp reached 28.4C, it seems it's about time to say goodbye to the 30+C days for the time being.

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 10th October, 2010

Today's weather;

Samui has some serious overcast to show for and it's been a very wet night. Current temp at 7am is 25C

Yesterday saw a lovely and sunny day with blue skies up till around 6pm when the wind started and grey clouds moved in and soon afterwards the rain started which seemed not to stop at all. On and off there has been rain during the night. Max temp reached 32.6C

The PADI IE was completed successfully under a nice sun!

Camille

Upgrade of Ko Samui municipal status officially announced

Upgrade of Ko Samui municipal status officially announced

Andy's excellent blog about everything about the administrative subdivisions of Thailand - history, current news, facts hardly found in English, reviews of corresponding books, the Wikipedia coverage of these entities..., well, this Andy, posted about this event.

On Monday 4th October, the upgrade of Ko Samui from subdistrict municipality to a town municipality was published in the Royal Gazette. What makes this announcement a bit strange is the fact that the upgrade already happened in 2008, and thus it is published more than 2 years later. In fact, the announcement was signed by then Deptuy Minister of Interior Suphon Fongngam (สุพล ฟองงาม) on June 9 2008. This is also the date which I found in the annual list by the Department of Local Administration as the date on which the upgrade became effective.

The interesting question is why this announcement was kept in the pipeline for this long time, the median value for all the announcements I have already gathered in my XML is that the publication happens at 51 days after the signature - and now this announcement easily captured the maximum position with 847 days. The additional documents added in the announcement - the description of the boundary as well as the map - don't show any indication that were not yet present at time of the signature, the only date shown on both is the June 9 2008. Besides, preparing a map and the boundary description for a municipality which covers the complete island is nothing which should take that long.

Lots of thanks to Andy, check out his blog!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 9th October, 2010

Today's weather;

Samui has some overcast but the sun is trying hard to break through. Current temp at 7am is 26.7C

Today the PADI IE will be completed. keep your eyes out to my dive blog for an update!

Yesterday saw a nice and mainly sunny day for a change again, although the forecast for next week isn't looking that great, with lots of strong wind and a bit of rain again.

Max temp reached 32.5C

Camille

Samui style car parking!

Samui style car parking!

Driving around the island this week, I noticed some strange parking style habits amongst my fellow islanders.

The first one that got my attention was this car whose driver managed to wrap his car around an electricity pole 10 meters after a sharp, 90 degree angled curve in Plai Laem, not too far away from where I live. Now in itself that is not so hard to do, but to manage this within 10 meters of said curve is a rather astonishing feat.

This picture shows the angle of the wrap around.

This picture gives you an idea about the power that the pole had to deal with.

An overall idea how the car is positioned. It's pretty interesting to try to figure out how this happened. If this is your car, don't be shy, you can post anonymous and let us know how you managed to accomplish this!

A couple of days later, to be more accurately, today, I'm driving around Samui and I see this car parked in-between the Maenam post office wall and an electricity pole. What is it with electricity pole's this week?

As you can see in the picture, he missed a big, red letter post box and a telephone booth and he skidded across the road to park his car against traffic direction. Pretty astonishing!

It was a bit of a tight fir as this picture shows. Amazing talent out here on the road, but don't have yourself fooled, safety is not always an issue here!

The first car pictured here was moved away after a couple of days, this second car was moved later in the day, when I passed by again, I just know that the car wasn't there yesterday!

Safe travels.

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 8th October, 2010

Today's weather;

A grey sky looms over Samui this morning with a current temp at 7am of 25.7C

Yesterday saw a dry day but there was overcast pretty much all day long. Max temp reached 29.3C

Camille