An afternoon at the races

Bangkok races - Number one wins the seventh race, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

I know one is supposed to go to a Thai boxing bout when in Bangkok, but I decided to spend my afternoon at the races. It was pretty poor fare but an interesting experience nevertheless. Concrete stands and fenced off paddocks and little opportunity to get near the horses. On the other hand, it was cheap and the food was excellent - notably the fried tofu with chili and lemongrass. And to the accompaniment of Dusty Springfield and Leo Sayer as well.Here is a photo of a horse winning a race. He was second favourite at 3-1 and had a very nice name like Monkoren so something, but I didn't have any sort of bet.

Earlier in the day we had taken it easily before Richard went out to get his computer fixed and he now has an 80 GB external hard drive which works and expanded DRAM menaing his computer works much faster, so he is busy sorting out about 1,000 photos of ours to have printed tomorrow!

I wandered the streets, trying to reacquaint myself with a place I had been to just six weeks ago, but it really seemed a lot more than that. Didn't take any photos. It was a very nice sunny day and not at all too hot.... a true cool season day in Bangkok.

We have been very very lucky with the weather on this holiday, having missed the various typhoons which came over from the Philippines to hit central Vietnam and we heard subsequently that the two days after we left the mountains of northern Vietnam visibility was down to almost zero for two days. Not coming abck with any sort of sunburn though.

This evening we might take a tuk-tuk into town for some nightlife, it still being a weekend.It must be said that in tehg six weeks we have been away the number of tourists has increased dramatically, especially around here. Incredible. Richard also says that he has seen thinsg which we had seen for sale in Vietnam for very cheap prices for sale here at much higher prices!