PeterUK

I'm looking for photos of old Siam (1870 onward). Does anyone have any for sale or can anyone direct me to somewhere which might have some for sale?

Thanks for the advice. The requirements listed by puck2 correspond with what I have found out after some research.

I am in the process of arranging for my UK pension to be paid directly into my Thai bank which is TMB. The Pension Service in the UK have told me that Thai banks, while having no IBAN numbers, do have a bank code (3 digits) and branch codes (4 digits). This is puzzling me because when I went into my TMB branch the female assistant told me that there are only branch codes and she gave me a 3 digit number for my branch (her manner didn't inspire much confidence in me, however). Anyone know who is correct about this?

I've seen all sorts of translations for the verb 'to look forward to' in dictionaries. Can anyone suggest the best one to use in a sentence like "I am looking forward to my holiday'.

There is an Indian shop right next to the Sikh temple in South Pattaya mentioned above. I couldn't find Bombay Mix but they do something very similar called Tok Jhal Misti. It's imported from Calcutta and the listed ingredients are gram pulses, peanut, flaked rice, edible oil, sugar, iodised salt, chilli, cashew, raisin, spices and curry leaves. It comes in a big bag claiming 20 servings of 25g. At 110B it works out much cheaper than most snack foods you can buy in Thai shops - and it's very tasty.

I've tried Saras a few times now and after quite liking it at first (decent samosa and masala dosa) I have lost interest after a miserable north Indian thali there the other day. One dish was plain disgusting, goodness knows what it was. Their paneer cheese is virtually tasteless. They put an ingredient in their curries which I don't like at all; they're too sweet and just don't taste right. The yoghurt with the thalis is way too sweet also for a main course. I left half of my meal. The veggie thalis at Indian by Nature and Maharani at the Royal Cliff are far superior IMO and worth paying the extra for. The only reason I might go back to Saras is to buy a selection of Indian sweets to take away; it's the only place in Pattaya that sells them as far as I know.

Well done, Jingthing, you have me bang to rights. Guilty as charged. The book is still very much available in branches of Asia Books, Bookazine, B2S, Kinokuniya and others. My thanks for your kind comments and those of everyone else who responded. Always gratifying to know that one's efforts are appreciated.

(I'm not sure what value is attached to personal reminiscences on this forum, but the following has been sitting on a shelf in my apartment gathering dust these past several months and I thought it looked so woebegone that it deserved an outing. If you don't like it or consider it inappropriate just holler and I promise not to do it again! A few details changed to protect the identity of the other party, otherwise a true story).

‘Hey, Peter!’

I recognized the voice at once – that oppressive nasal drone – and a little of the spring went out of my step. It was mid-evening and I was walking past the baht bus stand in south Pattaya. I peered into the almost-empty, next-to-go baht bus and, sure enough, there was the ruddy, obscurely smiling face of Alan directed my way. I managed to muster a look of pleasant surprise and then joined him on board. I was going to Jomtien anyway and it was only polite to have a brief chat with someone I hadn’t seen for a couple of years.

‘Long time no see,’ I gushed, and we began the outwardly cheerful, chaotic business of bringing each other up to date with news. As expected, I soon found myself doing a lot less talking than listening. Alan’s round, blotchy face, high on self-importance, low on humour, was an appropriate visual accompaniment to the monotonous Canadian accent, which defied intervention even as it sapped the will to live. When he pointedly mentioned his age – sixty-eight – and then paused, actually inviting a response, I duly congratulated him on how he looked much younger. Unable to conceal his pleasure at the remark, he dipped his head modestly. When he looked up again, his pale blue, blond-lashed eyes widened suddenly in anger.

‘You’re not meant to be smoking in here, you know,’ he said to someone who had just sat down on the seat opposite. The hapless newcomer, thirtyish, east European in appearance, gave Alan a bewildered look. I wondered at first if he’d even understood, but then he muttered something in broken English about there being no ‘No Smoking’ sign. Very true, there wasn’t. Alan’s words were news to me too. An embarrassing few minutes ensued, during which Alan insisted he was right, repeatedly, even calling on the uninterested driver (a sharp rap on his window) for confirmation. The smoker, for his part, didn’t say much, just looked mightily pissed off and increasingly sulky as the cigarette sank lower and lower in his limp hand. Alan glared at it, lips aquiver, until it had died a natural death. I couldn’t wait for the baht bus to get moving. It had filled with mainly Thai passengers, who were just doing that typically Thai thing of staring impassively ahead as if nothing untoward were happening.

Once we had rattled into motion, Alan, with the look of grim satisfaction of one who has performed an unpleasant but necessary civic duty, resumed telling me about his extensive travels since our last meeting. Nothing remotely interesting, mind, just a list of places and dates, the significance of which was deemed to be self-evident. I may have gone a bit blank-faced during all this, but it hardly mattered since Alan was paying scant attention to my reactions.

As we neared my condo building in Jomtien, I started to fret a little. In view of the fact that it was still quite early and Alan had told me that he was only in town for one more day, there was a certain amount of conventional pressure on me to invite him in for a drink. But I simply couldn’t bear the thought of a couple more hours in his company, just the two of us locked away together in hollow, one-sided conversation. So I’m afraid I lied to him. I said that, much as I would like to show him my newly-purchased condo, I had a prior engagement with a young man, nudge, nudge, know what I mean? Another time, eh? Alan’s face softened and he accepted my excuse gracefully, perhaps used to such rebuffs or just secretly relieved to be rid of me as well. We parted with a few last pleasantries.

On the walk along the tree-lined driveway to my condo, I recalled the circumstances in which we had first met about seven years earlier. It was on the gay beach at Jomtien. I was in the throes of one of my periodic emotional crises brought on by the dubious wisdom of falling for a barboy. I was ready to cry on any available shoulder and Alan had been willing to provide one, even though his fixed smile indicated discomfort at having to listen to such self-pitying outpourings. At some point he had interrupted me to mention that his own Thai boyfriend of long standing had recently been killed in a car crash; the young man had been trapped in the driver’s seat and had burnt to death without anyone being able to get to him. Alan told me this in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, staring out to sea as he did so, only his restless hands and sad eyes suggesting the emotional strain he was under.

Well, naturally, I felt immediately and overwhelmingly like an impostor. How could my commonplace woes begin to compare with this horror? I imagined the angry, encroaching flames, the singed flesh, the young man’s paralysing terror of the inevitable, that last agonised scream… Oh, dear God, how could anyone bear to think of the loss of a loved one in such circumstances without going insane with grief? I don’t recall now what words of condolence I used – all I know is that they could only have been inadequate. Alan allowed himself an occasional wry smile as I spoke, a private man not given to sharing his feelings and a bit confused by my attention. I felt a great affection for him in that moment; I envied him his quiet dignity.

Over the days that followed, we met several more times, sitting together in our deckchairs, the gently lapping sea before us. I spewed out my pain and Alan trod carefully round his. We each knew that we had the other’s sympathy. We became not close friends exactly, but certainly comfortable with one another, grateful. When my trip ended, we exchanged contact details, Alan’s address and phone number in Winnipeg, mine in London, though if I’m perfectly honest I was already hoping only to see him in Thailand.

In fact, he called me a few months later on a visit to London. We drove out to Stonehenge and then had a country-pub lunch. I admit I felt a bit like someone self-consciously doing a good deed. I was over my unhappy relationship by now and Alan didn’t mention his deceased boyfriend. Our period of mutual need had passed. The day had its longueurs for both of us. I got fairly frequent emails from him for a couple more years after that, but soon came to dread their arrival. Always lists of places visited or to be visited, dates meticulously provided, as if that was the summation of life, and people mentioned as if they were great friends of both of us when in fact their identities were a complete mystery to me. Never an amusing anecdote or witty turn of phrase to lighten the tedium. My responses grew shorter and less frequent. We bumped into each other at Jomtien beach after a long period without contact and had a rather strained chat during which I sensed silent accusation hanging in the air. That was the last time until now.

I had reached my condo. I poured myself a drink, sat down in an armchair and reflected on how it was suffering that had brought the two of us, unlikely bedfellows, together for a while. Some people are improved by suffering – it realigns them, puts them on the path to wisdom. Others, probably the great majority, are briefly humbled, made thoughtful and more caring for a while perhaps, but then revert to type and emerge from their personal crises a little more perplexed, a little more cynical, a little more worn out than before, that’s all. Life goes on and their bad moments teach them nothing. I supposed that Alan and I were in that category. The evening’s events suggested it.

Alan had handed me his card as we parted, just in case I should want to contact him again. I studied it now, sleek and richly embossed, an important, busy person’s card, but also, it seemed to me, further evidence of accusation. I felt a pang of guilt at my part in the failure of our relationship. I put the card on the coffee table, telling myself that I really would call Alan the following day and at least remind him of the kind and helpful role he had once fulfilled in my life and thank him for it. Then I sat back and turned on the TV.

The girl in question in response to this kept saying "just say it like d" which annoyed me because I was. It then occurred to me that it was my d's which were in fact a problem. When I pronounce the letter d with a British accent it evidently is closer to a t (in fact my tongue is in the same place for both). I then started saying ด with my tongue further back in my mouth, behind the ridge and I was cured. To a Thai speaker the letter d is of course ดี which sounds fine, it just happens to be different from how I say it.

I've had the same experience. Thais have told me that my 'd' pronunciation sounds like 'dt' to them. Aggravating. In my case no manoeuvring of the tongue seems to make any difference.

I appreciate that there is a difference between the sounds b/bp and d/dt, the latter in each case being more 'explosive', but my poor old ears don't pick it up when Thais speak. And I confess that when speaking myself I just pronounce bp as a b sound and dt as a d sound (which is how I hear them). In whole sentences I can get away with it, but if I say a single word with one of those sounds a Thai will sometimes not understand my meaning. Do others have the same difficulty? Or do you all pronounce (and hear) the sounds correctly? Any tips re getting it right?

Thanks for the replies. It looks like I've been getting myself into a twist over something pretty straightforward. Would it be correct to say that 'bpokkati' can serve as both adjective (usual) and adverb (usually)? If I want to say 'as usual' (eg 'I will see you tonight as usual'), I have been told that 'dtaam khuhy' or 'chen khuhy' is the way to express it. Agreed?

Can anyone explain the difference between 'tammadaa' and 'daam tammadaa' for me? My Thai teacher seems quite unable to do so. I always assumed that the difference was that the first meant 'usually' and the second 'as usual', but the examples that my teacher has come up with do not bear this out. From her examples I can detect no clear rules about usage at all.

I know two Thai words for the verb 'to try' - 'payayaam' and 'loong', but am not sure about usage. Can anyone provide sentences to illustrate any differences in meaning?

I have been learning Thai for about a year and three months (one-to-one with a Thai teacher, 5 hours a week plus homework) and have developed reasonable reading, writing and speaking skills, but I still feel very weak when it comes to understanding Thais when they speak at normal speed. I've been watching Thai TV a lot recently, but it's a frustrating experience. I understand odd words and phrases but never enough to grasp the overall meaning. Would more advanced Thai students consider my development normal for the amount of time I've been studying or should I be understanding spoken Thai better by now? Does comprehension always lag behind the other language skills?