Day Seven: 20 February

This morning we headed by taxi to Wat Prayoon, on the Thonburi side of the Memorial Bridge, worth visiting because it has a strange cemetery rock garden in the form of an island with a moat filled with turtles. If you need to accrue merit for your next life you can buy food to feed the turtles on the ends of sticks. I don't know what this fellow has done, but it is all okay now that he has fed those turtles.

We walked around looking at the attractive shrines that have been built, inlaid with photographs of the relevant dead person. Laurie thought it was kind of creepy, but I thought it was fine.

Actually, since mom and dad can’t agree on which part of Mt Olivet Cemetery in Nashville to be buried in, I could always offer the turtle island at Wat Prayoon as an alternative. I think that with a little imagination, this could be a big success, and the great grandchildren would love the whole turtle thing. Alternatively, we could start an Episcopalian turtle cemetary island back in Tennessee.

Curiously, it appears to be theologically possible to put cats in the cemetery at Wat Prayoon. I think that is a great idea because a lot of people, myself included, would prefer to spend eternity next to their pets. But I am unsure whether even Anglican theology can stretch that far, so we might need to have a separate cat shrine back in Nashville. Of course, in that case, you could have mice instead of turtles, and skip the water which cats don't like (especially my cats, who are forever having mishaps and falling into the Thames and having to go to the vet). I am sure that cats would greatly prefer this arrangement because they don't care about us anyway.

We travelled by tuk tuk across the bridge and went back to the flower and vegetable market, because it is just such a great place and impossible to get tired of. This is the way God meant for us all to shop for food and I am going to start boycotting supermarkets.

From the market we walked along Th. Mahathat and stopped at River Books, which is a Bangkok Press that publishes a great list of titles on Southeast Asia, and then at Chakrobongsa Villas so that I could have a look and meet the manager, Atom, who got us another tuk tuk to the Nittaya Curry Shop, which is considered to have Thailand’s best curry paste that you can buy in sealed plastic pots. It is located on Th. Chakkaphong, near Khao San Road, which is where Leonardo Di Caprio hangs out when he is in Bangkok. If you can’t find it ask directions because all Thais seem to know where it is. There is a lot besides curry paste there – sweets, teas, crisps made from pumpkin or durian, nuts, sweets – all of very high quality and inexpensive. While we were there two women came in to shop who we think were from the royal household, in mourning for the sister of the King. I bought a lot of curry paste for myself and friends, but most of all for Bobby, who is really into cooking curry at the moment. We headed back towards Chinatown in a taxi, but were so weighed down that although we stopped briefly at Wat Ratchaburana, we decided to get back to the flat, dropping by the flower market again to pick up some more orchids on the way. You can't have too many orchids, although Laurie is really putting that well known proverb to the test!

For dinner, we went to Ruen Malika, a Thai restaurant in a rambling old teak house with a pretty garden, located at 189 Sukhumvi (02-663-3211/2): from Sukhumvit Rd go about a kilometre down Soi 22 and turn right just before the second 7-11 Store. It is a couple of hundred metres on the right. Worth knowing how to get there because it is such a good place. We had steamed spare ribs, soft shelled crabs and a crabmeat omelette, all of which was delicious. But Nicholas is going to reprimand me because he says that you should always get the flower tempura when you come here, which is the signature dish.