Moving Swiftly On

So many things things happen so fast around here on all fronts (both at home and work) its hard to keep up so a lot of stuff gets missed. However I will try to cover the last few days….

We didn’t stay long in Bangkok as by 2pm we are on the road to Surin looking for Ken Bigleys home. As it was known back in London as ‘the great mango hunt’ as he was supposed to have a mango farm. No flights were available so we drove for 6 hours eastwards towards the cambodian border though wonderful lush countryside. Towards the red dot.

Arriving at night we checked into the hotel, had some dinner and then quickly went off to see if we could find some farangs (foreigners /big noses), farang bars were we could find out where Ken lived. The great mango hunt because we didn’t know Sombat’s (ken’s wifes) maiden name - so we were looking for a white guy who lived somewhere in the province. The only farang bar was closed - 11pm so we didn’t get much help… tomorrow the search would be on.

Based on the sketchy information we had we headed nothwards towards the area we had been told he lived stopping off asking people here and there and doing a little filming. Lunch soon arrived so we stopped at at roadside cafe for some soup noodles. The team being Yan Long and Kum Kon (right) the driver.

Not getting very far, having asked the restaurant owner we headed off in search of a new farang who new him. In all of this the Thais are very helpful in looking for a needle in a haystack but in reality they don’t know and should say so. Another wild goose chase but as we are talking to the American we had found we get a call - another local journalist who was also looking found his home but south of the city. Making our excuses we head back to Surin to pick him up an on to the village.

Driving swiftly we found his home in a beautiful rural village where the kids played football in the strees whilst the cattle were driven home … a nice play to retire to. All the villagers were very concerned for Kens plight and told of what a nice kind and normal person he was who helped everyone out.

Job done having we headed back to the hotel to edit and feed back to London - putting up with equipment problems - meaning we lost the headlines on the 5 O’clock news but got everything done for the 6 including a live from the hotel swimming pool. Now 1.00am Thai time - time for dinner at a beer garden next to the hotel carpark where we were the last customers.