Penfold's South East Asian Odyssey

Yuletide greetings from the Land of Smiles. I hope you are all enjoying the festive period, unless you've been stuck at Heathrow airport waiting to go on your holidays!!! My thoughts are with you.......as I sit on my patio in 35 degree heat with an ice cold beer in my hand!!! Despite the sweltering conditions and distinct lack of snow......we are doing our best to enjoy a tradtional English christmas. Our Christmas tree is bulging with presents and I have just cooked a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Not wanting to sound modest but my roast potatoes were an absolute triumph!!! Thai visitors to our house have been looking at me like I'm an escaped mental patient, as I walk around singing carols and wishing everyone a happy christmas!!!! Anyway I have to finish this post now as I have yet to finish imbibing, but I look forward to keeping you up to date with all the developments in Thailand during 2011 and I wish you health, wealth and happiness for the coming year!!!!

A few weeks ago I spent a long weekend on the island of Penang and my first impressions of Malaysia were rather mixed and I returned to Thailand feeling a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience. However, with my latest visa coming to an end and wanting to see if I had misjudged Malaysia, I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to visit Kuala Lumpur or "KL", as it's affectionately known by the locals. My return flight, that was booked online with Air Asia, cost 5200 baht (approximately £110). But, that price did not include any checked-in baggage!!!! Air Asia get a lot of negative press for their poor customer service, but I've never had any serious problems flying with them. The only complaint I had on this occassion was a rather snotty air stewardess on the return flight, who insisted on putting my bag in the overhead compartment, as she deemed it "a safety risk to other passengers". I advised her that the only safety risk to passengers comes from Jiha

I am currently as pleased a punch because we have just bought a shiny new pick up truck!!!! The decision to purchase the new truck was made for us, by our wonderful brother-in-law, who very kindly wrote-off our old pick up truck, by falling asleep at the wheel and driving into a ditch at 80 miles per hour!!! Suffice to say, the stupid p****k has been permanently deleted from our Christmas card list!!! It's a 3 litre Isuzu D-Max Hi-Lander with all the bells and whistles......and yes the entertainment system does play dvd's. Just what you need to distract the driver and cause a multi car pile-up!!!! I'm sure all the eco warriors out there will be apoplectic, as it's a rather thirsty beast and has the fuel economy of the QE2.

Looking at pictures of our garden in the glorious afternoon sunshine, you wouldn't have thought that taking a stroll would have potentially life threatening consequences!!!! But, that is exactly what happened today!!!! When checking through the sugar cane, what did I encounter? Only a Malyan pit viper, which a cursory check on google will tell you, is highly venomous, aggressive and easily provoked!!! Not to mention that it's responsible for hundreds of hospital admissions every year in Thailand and if you get bitten, you will die without treatment!!! However, I can tell you that encountering this little fella was marginally less frightening than bumping into my sister-in-law in the dark!!! Here some links to more information about the Malayan pit viper and examples of what can happen if you get bitten!!! http://www.siam-info.de/english/snakes_crotalidae.html http://www.factzoo.com/reptiles/snakes/snake-venom-bite-first-aid.html http://www.thailandsnakes.com/tag/venomous-sna