An Illegal Card Game & an Alien

Tonight was the second time that we played cards with Baang at our favorite restaurant. He loves the game even though the kids showed no mercy tonight and Ella won four or five hands in a row. We stopped at a conveniance store before going and got some pop and a couple handfuls of three-pack Oreos for the game. It wasn't much of a gesture, considering that our friends are always giving us fruit and other treats when we come by, but we wanted to contribute something.

During one of our games, Baang made a strange comment about playing cards. After I questioned him further he admitted that playing cards were illegal in Thailand. What?? He assured us that these cards were fine, but his reasons - it was a kids' game and from out of country - seemed vague to me. When we got back to our house I checked some forums on the Internet which agreed that while gambling was illegal here, games that don't involve gambling are permitted. That sounded reasonable and calmed my fears a little. And we saw a lot of blatent gambling at the muay thai match in Chiang Mai that no one seemed to care about.

But... I also came across a piece of legislation from 1943 called the Playing Cards Act which prohibits any form of playing card from being imported into the Kingdom. I imagine under that legislation we could possibly be fined, or deported, or even charged. I'm sure probably overreacting, but I don't want to take the slightest chance of doing something wrong. Plus, how embarrasing would it be if our family ended up being numbered among those foreigners who come here to get involved in illicit activities?!

As we were walking along a dark pathway from our house, Mason spotted a glowing green orb on the ground. It was a little smaller than a pea and I was excited that the kids were seeing their first firefly, something that we missed seeing in Chiang Mai, where our chances were probably best. I crouched down and was about to prod it with my finger but luckily asked Mason to first light it up with a flashlight he was carrying. When the light came on I saw that the bioluminescence wasn't coming from a firefly, but from a large segmented, armored... uh... thing.

It was approximately 8cm long and had two of the glowing orbs, one on either side of its tail. It still gives me the willies to think about touching it accidentally and I wonder if it would have bitten me. I guess it depends on whether it uses the light as a lure for hunting, or for identifying itself to other members of its species (assuming it's not the only one of its kind on this planet). When I tried to turn it over with a stick, it curled up into an armoured ball, like an armadillo. Seeing things like this makes me glad I was a scout in Canada where we have very little to worry about while sleeping outside on the ground. Incidentally, young scouts here are called "Tiger Cubs" instead of our "Wolf Cubs".

Setting the camera on the ground and using a timer to avoid blurring from hand shake, I was able to capture this low shutter speed image that accurately shows how this creature looked with the lights off. As Ella would say, "pleasant dreams".

- C