Robroy

Looking for tropical fruit and forest tree seeds (or seedlings possibly).

I'm in Cambodia, so anywhere in Thailand would be fine.

(No guesses please.)

The remains of a tourist bus sat in the middle of Highway 5 just south of Pursat yesterday - it had collided head-on with a fully laden truck.

This was a double-decker tourist bus, & it was smashed in to the first row of seats. Rumours are from 10 to 20 dead. I can well believe this, tho there is no confirmation of anything yet.

All reports I've heard (taxi drivers in Battambang, Pursat locals) are that this was (once again) a Paramount-Angkor Express bus.

This is the third major bus crash I've seen on Highway 5 between Battambang & Phnom Penh in a year - tho I have seen none of them reported in the media. The previous one, a few months ago, was a Sorya bus which had had a similarly horrific head-on, & had burned out entirely.

This happened to me last week in a bank in the Bang Sue Tesco centre. (The bank with the purple insignias - I've forgotten their name.)

I'd just changed some USD into baht when a coin fell to the floor. So I put the baht down on a table inside the bank so I could check if I had a hole in my pocket.

After I'd put the baht back in my pocket a guy blocked my exit at the bank door & started talking loudly to me in Thai.

The security guard came over, & the guy then addressed all the tellers - pointing at me. They all looked shocked, so I assumed this wasn't good news.

The guard sat us both down in chairs. I asked one teller if she spoke English. She said yes - then fled, asking me to wait for her return.

I began eyeballing my accuser.

Nothing happened for 10 minutes. I got up & told the guard I had to leave. He told me I had to stay.

But then my accuser got up & told him something like, 'Let's forget it'. He then walked out, & I was allowed to go.

I think the guy was telling the bank staff that the money on the table was his, & that I'd pocketed it. But the long wait & me eyeballing him seem to have broken his nerve.

I'd guess that this chap tries this at many banks around BKK.

A Thai woman friend has serious face discoloration - strange brown patches, plus dozens of smaller spots - as a result of using Amway moisturiser. I just saw her again this week: she says the problem has been going for several months.

The problem was much worse a month or two ago, she said. But it looks bad enough now - it's changed her appearance radically.

She had medical attention, & the doc said just to wait - it might improve more with time.

Her pharmacist said that many Thai women had had similar problems with Amway stuff.

Anyone else had this problem?

I think Amway is mail-order stuff.

http://www.nytimes.c...ref=global-home

]Relief Is Slow to Reach Cambodia Flood Victims

BATTAMBANG, Cambodia — The high water is devastating even for a country inured to monsoon rains and waterlogged rice fields: wide swaths of Cambodia’s countryside have become giant lakes, with villagers and livestock marooned on scattered patches of dry land.



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