CLICK ON ANY OF THESE IMAGES FOR A FREE STREAMING SUBSCRIPTION OF HYLAND, a digital lifestyle magazine featuring residential decoration, design, architecture, art, travel, fashion, cuisine, good works and reflections.
Issue link: http://digital.hylandmagazine.com/i/117839
I saw a pit viper slither down the wall of the Gossip Corner and disappear into the house. I called Praesert and asked to fetch the gardener and have him kill the snake. The answer was ���No, Madame, if we kill the snake, your baby will die���. Hmmm. I had learned to make a snake catcher from a broom handle soon after I arrived in Bangkok. Could I do it now? Where was that snake anyway? Instead, I grabbed my daughter from her nap and bolted out the front door and locked us into one of our cars. We read and played while I plotted our next steps. Ultimately, my husband, the gardener, the driver, the cook, the housekeeper and Praesert located and killed the snake, cutting the body into seven pieces and burying each one under a particular tree. I never figured out why one part went under a papaya tree and another would go under a banana tree. So our lives were unfolding. We felt we belonged in Bangkok and looked forward to each new experience. Every time I visited a temple or wat or ruin, I found myself thinking about how long it had been there. It was so very different from visiting Monticello and thinking about Thomas Jefferson and his bellows! The Thai materials were so simple and enduring, the designs, so appealing: red tiled roofs with fanciful cornices, serene buddhas, fierce kings and warriors. I loved taking visitors to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand that had been destroyed in wars with Burma, but was a pasture of elegant ruins, and sharing my wonder and appreciation. HYLAND