The Thai Pirate - Thai Blog and Travel Stories

Bangkok Skylines

A busy month this month, not much blog time, hoping to get back into some sort of normal routine when the dust settles... haha.

Here are some different shots of Bangkok I've taken on my travels.

Shot from high up in a building in central Bangkok. A nice mix of posh ground residentials, flash high rise condos, and cityscape.

Sun set in Bangkok, picture taken from building on the Chao Praya; vast temple grounds with city in background.

Got this one from Pan Pacific Hotel in Chula, a competitive four-a-side footie match on top of a Bangkok building.... Class.

New Baby

Pic above: Aiden with Nanna. We have a new little companion to join us in our adventures. Aiden was born on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 2009 (the remembrance day story made quite an impression with all the Thai's in the family, as you might expect.... And with us also).

Pic above: Aiden with Thai family, his great grandmother tieing a string around his wrist - inviting good luck, and passing on protection to him from the eldest member of the family to the youngest...

A quick, private (but noisy) Loy Krathong

That time of year again, Loy Krathong. With Sutiya in the last stages of pregnancy we are not as mobile as last year,  so we literally just nipped over the road to the temple opposite the house.

The temple grounds were very pretty, with bright multi-coloured lights hanging amongst all the trees. Although it was only early in the evening, there were still quite a few people present in the grounds and on the pierside. There was also a very distinct and relaxed anticipation in the air. 

Our pretty little krathong cost a whopping 40 baht, or 70p. A few people were sat along the river, casting off their krathongs. We lit the candles on ours, said a few little wishes, and cast her off down river.

The one 'downside' about living near the temple is the full on rave that takes place into the early hours. It gets seriously loud, stupidly loud, right up to 3-4am. But it's no problem, just another side to Thai life that we are used to.

What DO Thai's have for breakfast?

Some regular Thai bloggers and readers will recognize this popular title. What do Thai's eat for breakfast?

In my experience, whatever's going.

Everything from corn flakes to chicken fried rice to tom yam gai. I've eaten them all as the rooster crows. Odd at first, but, easy to adapt to, especially if you're fat falang.

In fact, Thailand has probably destroyed any habits of food etiquette I may have held before my time here. I'm quite happy to eat mine (and missus) dessert before main course, join others in gobbing food out onto the plate when its a bone or is generally indigestable, plus all that reaching across tables means I'm used to spraying rice everywhere.

One of my favourite breakfast dishes is the 'kow moo deng' that I adore (pork with egg and rice and sweet sauce). The other day, on the way to Bangkok I had a pork curry, with fried egg. It has become my staple 'going to Bangkok' breakfast (above).

With all the things I've heard over the years, I've started to worry that my daily average intake of three fried eggs a day might be leading me up the yellow bricked arterial road, so I thought I'd best check to see if my concerns were warranted. 

According to a great little site called www.myfitnesspal.com, a normal, Thai sized pork curry roughly works out at:

- 5 grams carbs
- 16 grams protein
- 44 grams fat
- 480 calories

Wheras, a man size bowl of crunchie nut cornflakes, with semi skimmed comes in at:

- 31 grams carbs
- 6 grams protein
- 4 grams fat
- 178 calories

So basically, the curry has loads more calories, loads more fat, but far less carbs, and far more protein. So, on the surface, the corn flakes look to be the healthier start to the day, in terms of calorie content, and grams of fat...

But hold on.... what about when that bowl of cereal doesn't fill you up? and you opted for a cheeky cadburys fruit & nut chocolate bar from the office vending machine, to supplement your oh-so-healthy Western brekkie... what would be the calorie scores then?

Fruit & Nut Milk chocolate bar (42grams)

- 25 grams carbs (56g total combined with corn flakes)
- 6 grams protein (12g total)
- 4 grams fat (8g total)
- 220 calories (398 total)

So really, a pork curry is not that far different from a bowl of corn flakes and a choc bar is it?....

What about a Bacon McMuffin for breakfast?

- 29 grams carbs
- 16 grams protein
- 14 grams fat
- 310 calories 

OK, enough of diggin myself into a hole here, curry looks to be a pretty unhealthy choice for breakfast... But getting up to the dreaded tesco's to get hold of a packet of frosties every damn week is a royal pain, so, curry is what the fat falang eats for brekkie.

... and for those of you still reading who are looking for some kind of thoughtful conclusion to this post, I took a cross-sectional survey of local Thai folk in SB, and I asked them what they had for breakfast...

The answer everytime?

Rice.

Useless.

A British Baby in Thailand

I have a nipper on the way.

Being British myself, that automatically means kiddie will be British. As long as one of the two parents is British, the nationality transfers (and as long as you register the birth with the British embassy).

It actually looks like the process is more straightforward than I supposed.

Basically, when kiddie decides to make an appearence, he/she automatically get assigned a Thai birth certificate from your local Thai district office.

Once you have your hands on one of those, all you need to do is get x 2 passport photos of kiddie (one counter signed), plus the following originals (plus 1 photocopy)

- Both parents birth certificates
- Marriage certificate (if you have one)
- Parents passports
- Birth registration form
- C2 passport application form

Plus 10,000 Baht fee, you're all done.

The fee works out that for approx 5,000 Baht he gets registered as a British citizen in Thailand and UK, and so he'll get assigned a British birth certificate, plus, the other 5,000 Baht goes towards him getting his first British passport, valid for 5 years.

On paper, this all sounds a bit too straightforward... haha.

All the info is on the UK in Thailand site here.