Tour de Soi ... Our apartment building is situated at the end of a very long, very narrow road that is called a "soi." Friend, I invite you to accompany me on a wondrous photo tour of my soi ... it's a very special soi and I think you will agree with me once you see all the wondrous sites and meet all the special people and doggies who make it such a hoot to walk down every day. Except when I'm running late and can't be bothered to notice anything or I end up hopping onto a motorcycle taxi and speed past everything on my way to the Sky Train. But other than that, it's wondrous, truly.

Above you will notice the cutest. dogs. ever. They are a pair of soi dogs who like to hang out by the giant pile of gravel that big scary machines dredge up from the khlong (or canal) we live on. All day the big scary machines dredge and rumble and big scary trucks come speeding down the soi to pick the gravel up and cart it away to one of the 23 million construction sites popping up all over Bangkok (yeah I counted). Walking up my special soi requires lots of split second, hair raising decisions as one encounters these trucks, various out-of-control motorcycles and giant sedan cars that like to play chicken with each other. And the occasional police beating of Indian immigrants, but that's another story for another time, no?

My lovely soi. Everyone is in yellow, must be a Monday!

Garbage. Ain't it grand?

Little planter nymphs outside a shophouse. A shophouse, btw, is just that: a shop AND a house. All in one room.

There is a big Thai-Chinese community living in my neighborhood. Things especially get hopping during Chinese holidays ... above is the neighborhood shrine/temple I pass by every day. Notice the snack cart. You will see these everywhere in Thailand. Everywhere.

Oops, Nancy forgot to bring her laundry in!

The King's flag. He was born on a Monday, which is associated with the color yellow in Buddhist mythology. Every Monday for the past six months Thais don yellow t-shirts and polo shirts because they love their King super much!

The metal spikes are de rigeur security features around any piece of property that could potentially cause envy and evil yearnings. Often it's just broken glass cemented down along the top of the wall.

A glimpse of heaven. Scattered along my dusty, urban soi are a few vestiges of a once idyllic, suburban-type neighborhood, complete with lush green yards and cool vintage cars!

Helmets are overrated. But soi doggies aren't!

Red gate.

Green gate.

How odd, a construction site in Bangkok. And even odder, I think they're building luxury condos.

A rent-by-the-hour establishment, always a nice addition to any neighborhood. They even offer curtains to hide your car and license plate from the inquisitive soi masses. This is where my brother will be staying when he comes to visit over Christmas!

"Sapay" is Thai for Sprite. Or something like that. I've given up sugar. Behold, the community message board.

Durian, "that stinky Asian fruit." Will give you a heart attack and make you die if you eat too much of it, a little urban legend that is repeated ad nauseum in Thailand even as people continue to stuff their faces with it and live. Beyond the durian is the fruit lady's other pickins, which seriously suck come late afternoon, which is when I usually rouse myself from my cave and go out to meet the day! The late bird definitely gets the worm (badda bing!).

Beyond the fruit stand are the motorcycle taxis and their drivers who, for a mere 20 cents will take you up and down my soi in the blink of an eye, sans helmet of course. I usually avoid them except late at night when my soi tends to get a little "rapey."

Thai newspapers and magazines clipped to the fence of a giant, random estate that shares my soi. I note that sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not; sometimes there is a nice man nearby selling copies of these magazines and newspapers on display and sometimes, like today, there is no one. I must accept the fact that I will never understand why and whatfor, and I am okay with this. I am okay. I'm sure the real reason is really boring anyway.

Behind the green plastic facade. This is a construction site that I pass by every day, manned by migrant workers who are most likely from the North East, a particularly poor, drought-ridden part of Thailand. These northeasterners along with migrants from Burma go from construction site to construction site in Thailand (and there are plenty) with extended family in tow and set up makeshift homes, like the snazzy corrugated metal shack thing-y above. A couple of weeks ago I passed by in the evening and a pick up truck with about 15 very sleepy men, women and children crammed into the back was parked outside this site. Tied down onto the roof was an impossibly high pile of furniture, household items and televisions, a la Grapes of Wrath (well minus the TV). I guess they had done what they came to do and now there's a new group doing their thing. Are you getting the sense yet that I never have any idea what's going on in this country?

"When I For In Love" ... I think that says it all. Inside is a low-key factory (as in it's a bunch of people messing around with twisted piles of metal bits) that produces some of the ba-jillions of snack carts you see everywhere in Thailand ... including one I saw smack on top of a landfill I recently visited outside of Bangkok. It's there for the scavengers in case they get nippish. Which they do, constantly, like all Thai people.

The oncoming traffic I run through shrieking every day after emerging from my soi. There's four lanes of it on either side of the median. The crossing has no light but it does have a crosswalk painted onto the asphalt ... but that's more of a gentle suggestion. You're usually on your own in Bangkok if you don't own a car.