Christmas in Nong Khai: Part One: Robin redbreast shows an elephant his magic trick

December 24, 2014

Christmas Eve in Thailand and I was finally reunited with Robin. It had been a long couple of days in the guesthouse by myself after 'A' returned to work. On the 22nd of December nothing happened, and on the 23rd of December nothing happened. But on the 24th of December something did happen, and that something was called Robin. He arrived shortly after midday and, after telling me how very tricky the bridge had been, he was welcomed into the guesthouse by myself, the woman who might be A's sister and an older woman who might have been the mother of some, or perhaps all, of us. The younger of them soon noticed the paddle that Robin had evidently kept as a souvenir of his river adventures and that he was now attempting to use as a makeshift bike stand. "Oh!" the woman exclaimed, impressed, "this is a very nice oar. It is nice wood. It is an antique. It could be worth a lot of money!" Robin smiled at her politely, and continued to try and balance his heavy bike on it.

For the rest of the day myself and Robin walked around Nong Khai in the sunshine and had exciting conversations like this one:

Me: "We have to turn right at the Wat."

Robin: "The what?"

Me: "Yes, the Wat."

Robin: "The what?!"

Me: "The Wat!"

Robin: "What do you mean we turn right at the what?"

Me: "What do you think I mean? We turn right at the Wat."

Robin: "What? What is a Wat?"

Me: "What? You don't know what a Wat is?"

Robin: "No, what is a Wat?"

Me: "A Wat is a Buddhist temple."

Robin: "Really?"

And this is Robin. You can see the confusion

Once we both knew where we were going we explored the big market in the town, and we were both suitably impressed by the pricing structure to invest in new brightly coloured garments. As it was Christmas Eve, the night when Germans traditionally exchange gifts, I bought a very cheap red top and gave it to Robin. Now he was Robin red breast, and it started to really feel like Christmas. We thought we better go out and have a proper Christmas dinner too, but first we sat on the promenade and watched the sunset. On our way there we saw an elephant, which I think made both of our Christmas's. The elephant was just walking down the promenade. We guessed it was lost.

"Hey Robin, don't look now but there is an elephant behind you"

Although in this picture it looks like the elephant was destroying everything...

... it was actually very polite - here it is carefully walking around people posing for a photo so as not to get in shot

This is what happens when you ask Robin to act natural for a photo

Even more bizarre was what happened after we'd watched the sunset. As we sat there in the afterglow of the day the elephant returned, with two men walking ahead of it. They were selling some little bags of food for people to buy and feed to the elephant and, sensing we were new in town, they headed straight for us. Of course neither of us had any great desire to feed an elephant but Robin was evidently bored of me now and thought he'd befriend these young elephant-keepers by showing them one or two of his legendary card tricks. Robin really could do some good tricks, and the two guys watched, if not exactly mesmorised, at least with a hint of interest as the seven of diamonds disappeared. Then as all of this was happening, with me doing my best to photograph the scene for posterity, the man holding the elephant caught up to us and came over, and suddenly there was an elephant right there and Robin was actually now showing a card trick to the elephant. As I continued to snap photos and as if all of this couldn't get any weirder, suddenly several young monks appeared from behind and entered into the fray. The whole world had gone completely mad.

Just as the seven of diamonds vanished, an elephant appeared - Robin's best trick yet!

The only thing that could make this any weirder would be if Robin was actually showing the card trick to the elephant

This was already a Christmas to remember, and it was only just getting started - we still had Christmas Day ahead of us, and we had big plans for Christmas Day! But Germans celebrate on Christmas Eve, and so we went out for our first Christmas dinner that very evening. Both agreeing that we fancied some western food we ended up at the slightly more expensive end of the promenade and selected a restaurant based primarily on the fact that there was a pool table. We both ordered the traditional Christmas dinner of french fries and milkshakes, and then we began our game.

We weren't long into it when a very drunk American entered and took a seat with his Thai wife and child. We knew he was American because of his accent as he shouted out to us in a rather slurred voice that he would "play zher winner." Neither of us very much wanted to have to play with him, but that didn't matter too much, seeing as we'd been so afraid of having to pay per game that we'd invented a new sort of pool that had three extra cue balls on the table. It was a sort of mix of snooker and pool, and we had to pot one of the cue balls before potting one of the regular balls, thus making the game last considerably longer. The drunk screwed up his eyes looking at the table. "I dunno wha' zhese guyz are playin'! Are zhere four white balls on zhere?!" he stammered. "No" we said.

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