Vegetables & Monkey Love in the Land of Smiles

Monkey Love

I have been noticeably absent from the blog as of late, nothing wrong, I haven’t been in jail or selling my body for baht coins on beach road…just a brief hiatus to enjoy myself and life for a while without the constraints of constantly writing or researching things to write. It may not seem like it but it takes a great deal of time putting together articles for TLoS and a break was definitely needed to recharge the ol batteries as it were.

Even though I have been on a small break I have still managed to gather a backlog of posts to write and all that stuff will be pouring out on the Land of Smiles very shortly.

The big thing for me was to just relax for a bit and not think about blogging at all, maybe get a fresh perspective.

In the last month I’ve spent a lot more time with a certain Thai woman I’ve been seeing for the past 2 months, her name is Mo and she is quite the sweetheart with a very serious streak of smartass in her. Just recently she gifted me with the Monkey’s pictured above. I’m not exactly sure but I believe that is her way of telling me the relationship has moved to the next level. She seems to get me and she never fails to put a smile on my face, so, I am cautiously optimistic about this one…besides, just look at that monkey, if that doesn’t scream love I don’t know what does, I’m the monkey on the left in case you were wondering.

Wat Sawangboriboon

Mo goes to the temple on a regular basis so I have been as well for the past month or so and for those of you that don’t already know the Vegetable Festivals are in full swing throughout Thailand now. The local Wat started the celebrations off on the 25th and they will end in the first week of October. This festival has a very long history and it’s meant as a time of cleansing ones spirit and mind by not eating meat. I’ve actually been meat free since the 25th and haven’t missed it one bit.

There have been so many new vegetable dishes I have tried that I never knew existed as well as old standbys like Gaeng Kiow Wan ( green Curry ) but made with vegetables ( pak ). The vegetable festival will hit it’s stride this weekend with parades and the ultra religious piercing all manner of body parts with all manner of objects…you should come out, fun for the whole family :P

I have a post coming up this weekend on the Vegetable Festival…I’ve taken lots of pics I just need the parade pics this weekend to finish it all up.

I’ll finish the post off today with some colorful pictures from my local Wat, Sawangboriboon, which is in full on vegetable Festival  mode.

Pattaya Vegetable Festival

Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival

Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival

Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival

Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival Pattaya Vegetable Festival

Pattaya Vegetable Festival

talensig

17 Responses to Vegetables & Monkey Love in the Land of Smiles
  1. tom
    September 30, 2011 | 3:51 pm

    nice to hear from you
    i guess nothing vegetarian is happening in khon kaen till 27 october

  2. Joe
    October 1, 2011 | 6:26 am

    Cheers Talen. Glad to see you are OK and going strong with life.

  3. Rambone
    October 1, 2011 | 11:49 am

    I had a suspicion this was the reason… it was only a matter of time… I have my tickets punched for November, if I end up in Pattaya (I’ve warned my wife against it) maybe I can give you a call and we can double date… if my wife is with me I’ll need something to take my mind off of all those beautiful young ladies running about!

    • Talen
      October 3, 2011 | 1:37 am

      Rambone, let me know if you make it to my neck of the woods and we can get together…there are no more beautiful young ladies in Pattaya though…they all left for Bangkok…yeah, Bangkok :P
      Talen recently posted..Vegetables & Monkey Love in the Land of SmilesMy Profile

  4. Catherine
    October 2, 2011 | 6:53 am

    Hi Talen, great to finally get a post from you. Your reasons for the absence are totally understandable though. Blogging week in week out for years takes a lot of work. To keep up the pace without burning out totally, a break is needed. And having a new sweetie, well, that goes without saying (and congrats! :-)
    Catherine recently posted..UPDATED: Top 100 Thai Vocabulary ListMy Profile

    • Talen
      October 3, 2011 | 1:39 am

      Cat, it really does take a lot to sustain a blog, especially one you love…as you well know it can take hours to get a post put together.

      The new sweetie is working out well…hopefully I won’t screw it up :P
      Talen recently posted..Pattaya Chonburi Cultural Festival Part 2My Profile

  5. Martyn
    October 3, 2011 | 7:34 am

    Talen your posts have been missed but we all need a Kit Kat sometime or other.

    Your sweetheart (monkey on the right) appears to have a big liking for betel.
    Martyn recently posted..Thailand Football – Udon Thani v Sakon NakhonMy Profile

  6. Joe
    October 4, 2011 | 4:32 pm

    Aside remark: FireFox and Chrome report your website as an attack site. Were you aware of this Talen ?

  7. Talen
    October 4, 2011 | 4:57 pm

    Joe, over the weekend Google sent me an email telling me my site was infecting people and they slapped the big red malware warning on it…after 12 hours scowering the site for malicious code neither myself or Hostgator could find anything although another site I have was infected and cleaned.

    I wrote Google for re-inclusion and after they re-checked the site and took off all the warnings….I haven’t seen any warnings since in any browser or search index…

    can you tell me when you saw the warning and where as this should not be happening.
    Talen recently posted..Five of the best golf courses in ThailandMy Profile

  8. Joe
    October 5, 2011 | 6:37 am

    Talen, still seeing it even after your most recent comment.

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1181009/bb111.jpg

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1181009/bb112.jpg

    Hope you will be able to resolve this.

    • Talen
      October 6, 2011 | 1:33 pm

      Joe, after several days of no sleep and rebuilding part of the back end I think the problem is behind me…fingers crossed.

      Thanks for the heads up…After thew first go round I though it was all fixed as it wasn’t showing in the search indexes that TLoS was an attack site and when I visited the page with several browsers I wasn’t getting the malware page.
      Talen recently posted..Kings Cup Polo 2011My Profile

      • Joe
        October 6, 2011 | 5:17 pm

        Great job Talen. Problem is fixed, and it seems to load faster too ! Back to TLos bliss ! : )

  9. Lani
    October 6, 2011 | 2:10 pm

    Just as long as you are keeping busy ;) And yeah, we knew which monkey you were :P
    Lani recently posted..a chiang mai morningMy Profile

  10. SiamRick
    October 6, 2011 | 8:46 pm

    I got the same Attack Site warning, too but I don’t kow which day. Think it was in last couple of days. Obviously, it’s all right now.

    Good to take a break, eh? I am on an extended break from my blog, going 2 months now. Long story short, I am deliberating on both life and location options, as you know.

    Hope to catch up with you in Pattaya again in next week or two, external pressures aside. Don’t worry, nothing too noteworthy, just looking for a change.

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