Goodness me. I have over 1000 emails waiting for me to answer, but I start work today with the tour, so I think I’m going to just say.

Thankyou everyone. Your wonderful expressions  made my day. The phone was lighting up in my pocket and going ‘ding’ constantly. So I was reminded that just another lovely thought was being placed there for me to look at later.

The day began at 5.30 with chats with the Grandies and my gorgeous girls. With just one day till the group arrives, I had to fit a lot of organising in a short time.

I did a ‘tailor tour’ that means I checked the quality of the work of various tailors to have garments made. I haggle the price, check their work and leave them with a possible order until i make up my mind. I’m a clothes collector. I bought wonderful garments in Korea, fabulous pants from Uzbekistan,  and other places. Combined they give a ‘Pam’ effect and so I take those garments and have them copied to my own design. It makes them unique.

I’ve bargained for silk and cotton and now I can share the ideas with the group.

That done, the social etiquette complete the tailor dropped us at another clothing venue. A huge market just for clothes.  However only a few of the booths were open. We found out later its a morning holiday for a celebration for the King.

However, I had a little glitz in the clothing department yesterday. After washing out my Bra’s the night before, I went to find the clean ones and found that I had forgotten to pack them. Oh no, they were still soaking wet…

Well I couldn’t go topless, so I tried to dry them as much as I could with the hair dryer. No you don’t put them on your head and dry them, it doesn’t work. you hang them on the door handle and blast them.

So I had to wear them wet!  wettish!  Very interesting. I kept patting them at breakfast to see if they were drying and no, they weren’t.  So new bra searching was the intended ‘thing’ for yesterday.

OK, you throw all caution to the wind and go into the little booth and ask for ‘Farang’ size…. that means XL.  believe it or not I was able to buy some, now they are a little different shape, so I now have ‘faring, Thai, boobs’. The lady took our money, and held it in her hand and went along the line and tapped her stock in order because she was blessed by the first sale of the day and it was to a ‘farang’  Backing out of the store, with lots of bowing and wai’s I hope our money bought her luck. It sure got me out of a difficult place.

 Talk about fabric, this tree is in our hotel, it’s wrapped in the most gorgeous  colors.

Thai people mark these trees with spirits (Ton Mai) by wrapping colorful fabric stripes and leave offerings (drinks and flowers) in the roots in for the same reason as they do with Spirit Houses.

These images are taken at Jim Thompsons house in Bangkok. We had a short demonstration of how the silk is taken from the cocoon. I’ve seen Tahi women doing this in their small rural houses and its fascinating.

The other images are at one of the large shopping malls, I love the graphic details one sees in shop windows. The fabrics are so interesting and I really want some of these cushions.