The road to Chanthaburi is paved with ill intentions. In fact, much of it is not paved at all, and all of it appears to frequented by idiots. And then there are the traffic lights. Oh my lord, Jim, you should see the traffic lights. I lost count at 732. In summary, a trip to Chanthaburi is not a lot of fun.

But we went anyway; because our house was finally free of visitors and we decided that we were due a break, just the two of us, plus all the idiots on the road, and the traffic lights.

The good news is that Chanthaburi is only 140 kilometres from Pattaya. The bad news is that, for reasons already mentioned (oh, and the rain), it takes almost two and a half hours; even employing driving techniques that elicited sharp intakes of breath and squeaking noises from the passenger seat.

She who must be obeyed had selected our hotel, the Kasemsarn; which is situated right next to the old part of town that runs next to the river, and is in walking distance of the massive market area. Given that the old town and the market are the only possible reasons you might want to visit Chanthaburi city, it was a good choice.

We checked in and headed straight out for a walk through the old town…

An outing this afternoon with my guru, reader Ray, who has recently moved to the area from the wastelands of Hua Hin and is looking for photo opportunities. With the mass migration back to Bangkok in full swing, it’s down the back roads to my favourite shooting area; with a visit to Viharn Sien followed by a quick trip around the Thai temple complex. Ray had his Leica M240, I had my Leica 0 film camera; and I also brought along my six year old GF1 just for fun. Set it to shoot “Dynamic Black & White” and just snapped away in between “magnificently considered and bound to be masterpieces” produced with the film camera.

As the Viharn Sien visitors faded away, we behaved with no respect to capture a couple of shots of the Leica’s.

My lack of posts over the past week or so can be attributed to lethargy, visitors, heat and the price of fish; but the main culprit has consumed forty three hours of my life so far and is likely to consume several more before I am done. During those forty three hours I have:

Driven more than 1,000 kilometres. Played golf and tennis. Raced jet skis, cars and bikes. Flown helicopter and fixed wing aircraft. Purchased a range of business establishments. Accumulated a personal fortune in excess of 250 million dollars.

A perfect storm of public holidays means that those who have to work for a living have had a five day break. Good for them, but why the fuck did the majority decide to come to Pattaya?

This question applies not only to all residents of Bangkok; but also to she who must be obeyed’s extended family who have descended in large numbers for reasons unclear. Fortunately, there are too many of them to stay with us; so for the last two days my wife has left home early in the morning to spend the days amongst the hordes on local beaches. She has long since given up on asking whether I would like to come too; which means I have had a couple of peaceful days at home with the pussy.

Unfortunately, such has been the volume of traffic (the worst I have known in the ten+ years of living here), I have not been able to venture out for a decent photo trip; although I did pop out down my secret back-road route yesterday to put a film through my recently refurbished Yashica.

It has taken a few days to restore the infrastructure that was destroyed by the storm a week ago.

First for attention was the security system, and the installing contractor arrived the following morning to inspect the damage. The extremely robust UPS had been reduced to rubble. as had one security camera. Not a problem apparently, and both are off for repair under warranty. Apparently acts of god are not a reason to invalidate a warranty in Thailand, thank god. So surveillance, with one blind spot, was up and running again; which pleased she who must be obeyed because she likes to review the security footage to track the stray cats that roam the garden during the night. Money well spent….