has anyone bought a garden statue in Thailand? I was on the road today outside Ayutthaya and I spotted a concrete, hand painted tiger at one of the garden centers near there...I said 'gotta have'...

I attempted to negotiate from inside of the tutsimobile so they couldn't see that the purchaser was a falang but to no avail...they got my number and first insisted that I buy a pair...I said no dice then we agreed on one tiger and they wanted 1800 baht...I said 1000 and they said no dice then I noticed that I had an extra 500 in my pocket and we agreed ('gotta have')...

the mother must weigh 100+ kilos and they loaded it inside the van...we got it home and I placed it outside of the shophouse like the chinese do with the lions (a garden statue when you ain't got no garden?). Now the kids figure that it is like a horsey and pretend to ride it...

no matter, the family is now convinced that I am mad and I have endeared meself to the kids forever...

what about your 'garden troll' story in Thailand?

tutsi do u have a thing with felines??

dunno...maybe, they also had concrete giraffes at the garden center but I opted for the tiger...

I agree with the Tiger purchase. Giraffe? whats with the giraffe?

I have bought little stone frogs and made them into little spouting fountains but never could persuade mr sbk to fork out the money for anything larger. Sounds great to me, tutsi

Something like this?

Something like this?

Even I want to have a ride on that.

You mean you dont have a Papeekanet/Ganesh statue on a solid one metre concrete plinth?

I keep telling her to stop buying this stuff -

Changed the spirit house 3 times now, because the local witch doctor's cant agree on the correct placement.

Used to have two very large MMF looking warriors guarding the front door, but they brought us bad luck (apparently!)

Not forgetting the big man himself. Oh yes, 'Bud' had to be really huge - otherwise somebody might carry him off.

I keep telling her, a Japanese garden is fine, but not Disney World.

Back to your tigers, perhaps they are supposed to be bought in pairs?

"what about your 'garden troll' story in Thailand?"

i have a dozen or more in my garden and my house is stuffed with sculptures. perhaps i'm a troll?

yeah, the lady wanted me to buy a pair but I ain't got the room on the forecourt of the shophouse so said gimme just one or no sale...

an, yeah...looks just like the tiger in the photo but less than a meter high...

the wife don't like it, sez that it scares the grandson...I thought that he'd like it an' wanna climb around on it...mebbe when he gets older, but I don't want him to get older...the teenaged nieces just shake their heads (or, the teenaged thai equivalent) at their uncle's 'lunacy'; they would've been delighted if they were younger...

can't help fer losin' wid dese kids

How abut buying one of these and put in front of the tiger.

^nah...it would crowd up the forecourt too much an' folks gotta have a place to park their motorbikes...