Yesterday I finally got around to editing together some of the random audio snippets I have had on my computer since I left Thailand. This sound compilation contains radio clips, sounds recorded in our street, animal noises, music recorded at our local temple and lots more.

The final song, although not Thai, was ubiquitous in Thailand for the first two years I lived there. It will also conjure up a few memories for a some special friends. You know who you are .

Listen to the extraordinary sounds of our Thai cat Pudsey going into labour.

It is coming to the end of the dry season, and Chiang Mai has just been subjected to several weeks of intense heat, hardly relieved at all this year by Songkran (the water festival). It has been so hot that I have started to find it quite difficult living here. A good night’s sleep has become a thing of the past, and you find yourself sweating around the clock – you wake up damp, and go to bed damp. Not very pleasant at all!

Last night the weather finally broke, and the sounds you hear in this audio file are the sounds of the first storm following this build up. I’m happy to say it’s now gray with temperatures probably back around 30 degrees again! Bring on the rains!

This was recorded in our street in Chiang Mai, Thailand at about 6pm on a weekday night – in early April. Every night the cicadas start screeching at about the same time, and in the background (if you listen carefully) you can hear the sounds of the local community ‘announcer’ chatting away through the loud-speakers strategically positioned on lamp posts at the end of our road.

I finished my month long CELTA course last weekend and decided to go and lie by the Lotus hotel pool at Kad Suan Kaew shopping center in Chiang Mai. I had intended to sleep and wind down after a hugely stressful month.

Mr & Mrs Karaoke had other plans…

This was recorded at around 7.30pm on a weekday night at our local vegetarian restaurant on Suthep Road in Chiang Mai. I popped to the restaurant and had a Khao Soi – one of the traditional northern Thai ‘curry’ dishes. Dinner cost 25THB (about $0.60) and was incredibly tasty. As I ate I was treated to some wonderfully cheesy background music, as you will hear in the recording.

Ob Khan national park is one of our favourite local getaways. It’s about 30km South of Chiang Mai, and takes between 45 minutes and an hour to reach by motorbike. It’s a great spot for a picnic, or simply to cool off on a hot and humid Chiang Mai day. You can in fact also camp there very cheaply – they will even rent you camping gas cookers to cook with.

Getting there: Just head out of Chiang Mai South down Canal Road towards the Samoeng junction, and carry on. After a few more kilometers (at the time of writing down alternating sealed and unsealed dusty roads) you reach a turn off on the right with a fairly hard-to-see sign to ‘Ob Khan National Park’. Take this turn off, and make your way along a winding road through villages and country side for about another 10 kms. The last few kilometers wind their way through some beautiful National Park hills and valleys alongside the river Khan.

Resources: Thai National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department
Chaing Mai, Chiang Mai, or Chang Mai – how to spell it!

This was recorded from outside our house in Chiang Mai. We fall asleep with these sounds every night – from the Cicadas and barking dogs on a dry night, to thousands of mating frogs after the rains, it is never quiet outside! Is it any wonder we both sleep with earplugs?! The mating frogs come after the barking dogs.