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Writing the proposal for My Thai and looking back over the years, I've been reminiscing about my magical childhood in Bangkok and beyond
... perching on my window sill, illicitly watching my parents twisting with their friends on the polished terracotta tiles of the patio
... cinema trips brought no buttery popcorn, but instead chewy, dried squid snacks...
... Thursday afternoons meant fried banana teas 'round the pool with Mum and Shirley, and Oh! what fritters they were! Hot, sweet banana, crispier than crisp batter, with a sprinkle of sugar and a squeeze of tart lime...
...buffalo grazing in the garden next door...
... trips to our bungalow in Pattaya for the weekend, my head resting on my mothers tummy, feeling her breath, counting buffalo like others count telephone poles
... going over the singing bridge - yes- I DID believe it sang...
Saturdays: warm, coconutty kanom krok for breakfast and cold curry sandwiches in fat, sweet almost sticky slices of white bread...
... blue crab claws still warm from the pot and, with luck, a beautiful bass caught off the rocks for dinner...
..watching the storms roll in over the Gulf of Siam, thunder roaring, rain moving faster than me as I ran for cover...
My first elephant ride in Chiang Mai with Dad, aged 7, sitting between the tusks, lifted on a trunk, laughing 'til I thought I would explode...
... packing my little red vanity case with a hairbrush and a pair of pants, and running away, only to ever make it to Laan Lek, the little cafe half way down the street, where I was lured in by battered peanut biscuits the size of tricyle tyres.
Pasha the gibbon, Pokey the sloth, and Rotter and Otto the otters, a virtual menagerie - flying squirrels, mini owls, civet cats
... the inside kitchen for farang food, outside for Thai...
... washing my hair in the monsoon rain...
... floating up the street in a boat in the floods...
Oh happy days!
K xx
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