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Aegle marmelos
This is a bael or bael fruit AKA Bengal quince, wood apple, stone apple or seer phael (head-fruit). In Thai it’s known as matum. In Thailand, bael is usually found in the form of dried slices, which are reconstituted in water to make juice. Our housekeeper brought over a few from her tree and I was surprised at how hard and heavy they were. We did as she said and boiled them, but then accidentally left them out on a hot night and the next day, they had fermented in the shell and burst, oozing a heavy syrup onto our counters. I threw them into the pond out front as…
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A Tribute to Buildings 1&2, Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University
They are knocking down our “Little House on the Prairie” schoolhouses and will soon replace them with new facilities. They were probably the oldest buildings on campus with solid wood construction, and were a lot cooler than the concrete buildings that have come to represent typical SE Asian construction… In recent years, some of the rooms had been upgraded with whiteboards and sound systems, but there was nothing like going into class every morning and asking students to clean the blackboard erasers. They would knock the erasers on the outside wall below the window sills, which is how students coming in late could hear that class was starting. These classrooms…
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Last Dinner in Bangkok
This meal was so good, it cannot be described properly with words… Suffice to say, it knocked us all out with a quantity/quality double combo. @ one of the numerous Korean BBQ joints near Sukhumvit Soi 12
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BooksThailand.com
A few weeks ago, my bathroom reading materials had dwindled down to the point of having to reread some old favorites. Then, while browsing a Thai-related forum, I spotted a banner for booksthailand.com. They are apparently a used bookstore on Koh Chang that have started selling online. Long story short, they are my new go-to place for books here in Thailand. They accept PayPal or bank transfers and the prices are very reasonable considering the price of new English language books here. They are currently running a “buy 3 get 1 free” promotion that I used for my first order. I paid via PayPal and quickly got an email from…
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Wat Ban Donnad
A couple months ago, when it was still “cold,” we visited a temple that we’d been hearing of for a while, Wat Ban Donnad (Wat Ban Don Nad?). At the end of a long, broken dirt road that runs through several villages, we ended up here: You can see our destination out on the island: We honked our horn, and a young monk on a small outboard came putt-putting out. Max saw the boat and it was on. Max was wearing his inflatable life jacket all day in anticipation of riding on a boat. The monk was shy, so I spared him the embarrassment of a face shot. There’s no…














