Finally, take lots of film. Two rolls of 36 will produce some great shots. Even the pros take at least this in one sitting. And don’t take the same shot 72 times! Get your model to move a little and change poses. Happy glamour shooting!

Antenatal care is a very specialised branch of medicine and I do recommend that you should check in with your obstetricians for advice. You may not be a rat - but you don’t want to be a guinea pig either!

Down in Jomtien, on the short run up to the Dongtal Police Station and on the opposite side from the Jomtien Plaza there is a small Austrian style restaurant called the Old Vienna. Hidden away in the soi behind the Seashell fish and chippery and the Country Road bar, you have to know it is there as it cannot be spotted from the main road - yet many people have found this place and most give it rave reviews. In fact, the Dining Out Team were told about it by the ex GM of the Amari Orchid Resort, Pierre-Andre Pelletier. Now when a hotelier says it’s good, it generally is!

The restaurant is a converted double shop-house, with an enclosed “garden setting” at the front, featuring those concrete “redwood” tables and split log chairs. Inside there is the more standard seating, but the outside section is most popular.

The menu is quite large and begins with Fruhstuck (AKA “Breakfast” to us) with a large at 90 baht or the small for 50. From there it is into the snacks, generally of Austrian sausage variety (“do your Wurst, Hans”) or salads. These range between 80 and 130 baht. Several soups are on offer (60-80 baht) including chicken and goulash.

The mains, and there are a couple of pages of them, run between 100 baht for the Austrian dumplings and 260 baht at the top end for pepper steak. In this grouping are the schnitzels at 160 - 170 baht. There is also a standard Thai menu (again a couple of pages) in the 70 - 100 baht range.

Most beers and soft drinks are available and even white wine and soda, called Wein G’spritzer.

Madame was unavailable on the night I went for dinner, so there was only one order and that was for Weinerschnitzel with which I requested fried potatoes. While waiting, a frosty glass and bottle of Singha Gold arrived, along with a wicker container with condiments, including a tube of Estragon Austrian mustard (do try it).

I did not have to wait long before a large plate was brought to the table, with the largest schnitzel I have ever seen, accompanied by a vegetable salad with mayonnaise. Pierre-Andre was right - the schnitzels are huge.

Mine was perfectly cooked, and the potatoes with just a little bit of bacon and onion were definitely more-ish. But it was so large I could not eat it all, and dining alone there was no-one else to assist! Really one of the nicest, and definitely the largest Weinerschnitzel in town - and it only cost 160 baht!

While slowly digesting, I was entertained by the three piece combo playing 60’s and 70’s music in the Country Road Bar, and finished my beer as they struck up the Shadows immortal “The Stars fell on Stockton” - but the stars really fell on Old Vienna. It was a sensational meal and most inexpensive. One schnitzel would feed two people.

If you are looking for value as well as good food, this restaurant has it all. We had actually eaten there previously last year and it was good to see that their standards had not slipped and yet the prices remained low. Go there with a “man sized” hunger!

Incidentally, the washrooms were tiled and clean with individual towels - a nice touch in such an unpretentious restaurant. Recommended.

There is a revered female Deity in Asian tradition who is comparable to the Madonna or Mother Mary of Christianity. She is Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Infinite Mercy and Compassion.

Some few farangs may have noticed her images on the periphery although She is a thoroughly familiar being for most Asian peoples. She is often depicted white clothed and standing or sitting on a lotus, holding a vase or pouring out its compassionate waters onto the world.

This robed and veiled goddess often shows a similarity to Madonna statues, even sometimes holding a rosary or an infant. This is signifying her compassion and role as a child giver.

Kwan Yin is also often shown in a willow grove or with a willow branch. The willow is an ancient shamanistic tool of China allowing the priestess to contact the spirit world and is also the ancient Chinese symbol of femininity.

Kwan Yin is considered a bodhisattva, one who sprang from one of the Buddha’s tears, and is a being who has achieved enlightenment yet chooses to return to this world to help others towards salvation.

The concept and appeal of Kwan Yin spans many Asian religions, Buddhist, Taoist, Shintoist, Cao-Daoist. Called Kuan-Yin in Vietnam, Kannon in Japan, Chenrezi in Tibet and Kwan-On in Korea, she is regarded as a protector of women.

She gives blessings of children, health and long life, grants wishes and rescues people from poverty, distress and bewilderment. Women, and men also, throughout Asia invoke her mercy and compassion. For the millions of followers she offers the feminine qualities of compassion, calm, peace and serenity.

Commencing her incarnation as a male Avolakitesvara, a Sanskrit name for “Lord who hears the cries of the world,” in China, Kwan Yin (Avalokitesvara) later came to be most frequently worshipped in female form as the Goddess of Mercy. This transformation from an originally male deity into a female one seems to have occurred sometime during the Northern Sung Dynasty (960-1126 CE) and is reflected in Kuan Yin’s miraculous appearance in human form in the legend of Miao Shan.

In this legend, a princess shunned by her father for refusing to marry, Miao Shan finally sacrificed her eyes and arms to heal her father. Her eyes became diamonds and her arms golden and she ascended to heaven to become immortal. Her father was inspired to repent his ways and return to rule in a benevolent manner.

The oracle of Kwan Yin, called Chien Tung in Chinese, is a temple divination practice. To use it first you enter a temple dedicated to this Goddess, such as the Chinese temple on Pratumnak Hill on the way leading up to the Big Buddha. Then you light incense sticks and make a prayer for her intercession then pick up a hollow wooden cylinder of bamboo slats. Much like consulting the I Ching oracle you shake the cylinder with your right hand until one slat jumps out. The sticks are painted red and gold, the traditional Chinese colours of luck and riches, and are marked on the other with a number and character. This you then look up in Kwan Yin’s temple text.

This is a popular practice of great solace to many Asian people, most of them women. However, for farangs to really benefit, a translator is recommended.

The embodiment of the divine feminine is sought in Her warm wisdom, beauty, grace, receptive listening, gentleness and mercy. Many feel that just to look at and reflect on Kwan Yin is to be suffused with great calm and peace with insights into personal strengths and limitations.

But is She just for the Asian peoples? No, now there is hope for us Westerners who want to consult the Kwan Yin oracle for advice, but cannot read Chinese or Thai script. Diane Stein has developed a long awaited version of the classic Chinese I Ching oracle called “A Woman’s I Ching” and it is dedicated to the Goddess Kwan Yin and gives a needed re-balancing of male and female, yin and yang. It is written from a woman’s perspective but it is neither militant feminist or patriarchal. It is a wonderful resource for getting in touch for the need to treat ourselves with mercy and love. If you feel you need to dig a little deeper, you could try the following web site, www.crossingpress.com and the reference number for the book “A Woman’s I Ching” is ISBN 0-89594-857-5.

The previously independent German States were united under a single government in 1870, at the end of the Franco-Prussian War; each of the main states operated its own rail system, and these were destined to remain under the local administration for another 50 years, being unified by stages into the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920. There were also a large number of lines of local or ‘District’ importance (‘Landeseisenbahnen’), and these remained independent, as most of those that remain still are.

In the 1914-1918 war, government control had to be imposed on the State lines, but no ‘locomotive policy’ was imposed, other than the building of the Prussian ‘G.12’ class, with small modifications, for some lines other than Prussian. No serious shortage of locomotives seems to have arisen overall, the Prussian system alone having enough locomotives and rolling stock to move the German Army and all its equipment to any part of the country within 24 hours.

Between the wars it might have seemed that Germany was building more locomotives than it really needed; standard types introduced from 1925 were in some cases being built by the thousand rather than the hundred. Following the Dunkirk evacuation of Allied forces, the Germans may have thought that the war was over, for train services returned to peacetime standards and express locomotives were again being built. The entry of the U.S.A. into the war following the Pearl Harbour debacle may have brought them to their senses again!

Former DR Class 52 locomotive No. 52 7073, stands outside the loco depot building at Vienna East, Austrian Federal Railways. 7th September 1958.

Very Soon the building of new locomotives was restricted to three types only: the heavy and light 2-10-0s of Classes 44 and 50, and the 2-8-2 tank type of Class 86. In the first two Classes some simplification of detail was started quite soon. In late 1941 it was decided that the Class 50 should form the basis of a real war locomotive, but as it was still being built in quantity the modifications were included in stages and almost no two locomotives were alike. They bore the suffix ‘UK’ behind the number; this standing for a very long German word meaning ‘Going over to War Locomotive’.

The Class number for the final product was ‘52’m and the first of these was out-shopped from the Borsig works in Berlin in September 1942. Gone were all the ‘luxuries’ fitted as standard in peace time z- the feed water heater, the top feed for water on the boiler top, the pressure equalising piston valves, and there was much fabrication of parts where castings had been used before and the axle boxes incorporated moulded plastic details. The German habit of experimenting came to the fore even at such a time, and there were many detail variations as well as major ones, such as condensing the exhaust steam. Not all were successful!

Luxemburg Railways locomotive No. 5505, formerly DR Class 42, stands at Petange locomotive depot on 12th September 1959.

Virtually the whole of the German locomotive industry was involved in building the Class 52s, including factories in the occupied countries such as France, Belgium, Poland and Austria. Incomplete records deny us a precise total of locomotives built as Class 52, but it is know to be in excess of 6,400. Only in Russia is there likely to have been a more numerous class. They were quickly withdrawn from service in Western Germany, but lasted well in the then Eastern zone. They lasted well in Austria and Turkey and in Norway.

As early as 1940 the possible need for a locomotive with an axle load of about 18 tons became evident, as many lines could take that weight, but not the 20 tonnes of the Class 44. The Class 52, like the 50, had only about 15 tonnes on any one axle. So the design had been studied from very early in the war. After much study by a consortium of engineers from the main locomotive builders it was agreed that the Polish Class Ty37 should form the basis, and as usual, the builders were invited to submit designs. It took about six months to work through all the variants, and when eventually the detail of the lighter Class 52 became known it was agreed to adopt the same principles for the Class 42. This is not to mean that the 42 was a ‘big 52’ as there were many differences! Some locomotives were to be fitted with Brotan water-tube fireboxes, a Hungarian invention much used in that country, but a late discovery of a shortage of steel tubes stopped all that! But a few were so fitted, and the first, actually the very first Class 42, was completed in mid-1943, and the first with a normal firebox at the beginning of 1944.

Very early in the life of the Class 42, factions within the DR were suggesting that it was a disappointment, in that the increase in performance was trifling in relation to the cost, compared with the Class 52. The weight of 18 tonnes which was aimed at had not been provided, the weight being just over 17 tonnes. Consideration was given to the provision of a bigger boiler, or augmenting the adhesion weight by ballast below the boiler. In the event, nothing was done, and the planned class of 3450 locomotives was far from achieved, as only 865 were ever built.

This type, too, seems to have disappeared from the Western German system quite quickly; I cannot speak for the Eastern Zone; however, some were to be seen in Austria and Luxemburg in the ’50s, and some also went to Bulgaria. One in the Western Zone was fitted experimentally with the Franco-Crosti boiler, a form of pre-heater for the boiler water, invented by the Italians and much admired by them, but by no one else!

There remains one more item in the ‘Engines of War’ articles; this enters that ever-fascinating realm of ‘Locomotives that never were’. As a curtain raiser, it concerns the locomotives designed and intended by the Germans to work the ever-lengthening supply lines to their troops on the Russian front. Many of the designs were of great interest and novelty, and one has actually been marketed as an HO gauge model!

One American had been collecting Thai Coins from the early 1950s. In 1988 he decided to sell his collection because Thai coins had more than doubled in value the last 2-3 years.

He contacted a dealer who gave him an offer for the collection. The collector was happy with the offer, but wanted a second opinion from another dealer. He then made contact with Spink Taisei Coin Auction, which at that time had conducted three auction sales in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Gold Bond or 1,000 baht of 1951. The 1000 baht weighed 173.879 grams and were of 995/1000 gold purity. Sold in 1988 for baht 51,000, in 2000 for baht 600,000.

Spink-Taisei offered to put the collection into their next sale, which would take place in Singapore on the 11th of February 1988. The auctioneer also promised to make a separate catalogue for the sale, and they even promised the collector more for the collection than the first dealer offered.

The auction was a great success; the coins fetched what were at that time record prices.

But compared to what similar coins were sold for in the last Singapore auction, the collector might have been better off keeping his coins.

Two baht silver coin from the reign of King Mongkut, struck in 1864. Sold in 1988 for baht 11,000; price in 2000 more than baht 50,000.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the last Singapore Coin Auction, which took place on 23rd March 2000. At this sale a dealer from Bangkok paid US$15,525 (bout 575,000 baht) for an Essai or Pattern one baht RS 127 (1908) struck during the reign of King Chulalongkorn. This was considered a bargain, and shortly after the dealer sold the coin for baht 850,000.

In 1988 a similar coin in the same condition was sold at the sale in Singapore. The price at that time was about baht 160,000 or US$7,150 (at 1988’s conversion rate).

Another coin, a 1000 baht from 1951, or Gold Bond, as it is referred to in the catalogue, was sold this year in the Singapore sale for US$16,100 or about baht 600,000. In 1988 another specimen were sold for US$2,310 or about baht 51,000.

Very nice silver 2 baht coins, or 1/2 tamlungs, struck in 1864 during the reign of King Mongkut (Rama IV) that were in the sale in 1988 sold for baht 5,000 to baht 11,000 in un-circulated condition. Today one would be lucky to find an un-circulated specimen for less than 50,000 baht.

This shows that collecting Thai coins during the last 12 years, and even before this, has been a good investment. Coin collecting is also an interesting hobby with many other aspects, like history, culture and geography to mention a few.

Most collectors are happy for what they did buy and sorry for what they could not afford to buy or even sold.

Perhaps this is good advice, but if he smiles back then it is a crocodile and not an alligator. The smile (or lack of it) is one of the few differing characteristics between crocs and ‘gators, because you can always see some of the crocodile’s teeth even when its mouth is closed.

However, to keep these teeth pearly white, the crocodiles employ the services of spur winged plovers that pick the pieces of meet left between the crocodile’s teeth after a large meal. So what do you give your pet croc that has everything? His own spur winged plover toothpick!

Asia is home to many crocodiles, with the other places being Australia, Africa and the Americas. They are known as “cold blooded” reptiles, so pick warm climates to maintain their 30-32 degree body heat.

Crocs range in size between 1.5 and 9 metres and the Estuarine crocodiles are the biggest and are the largest of all living reptiles. They are no lightweights either and can weigh up to 1000 kg.

One possible reason why the crocodilian family has lasted so long is because they have a community attitude and work together in both catching food and in helping to rear their young. Several crocodiles will also hunt in packs, sometimes moving inland in search of prey. In fact, Nile crocodiles are known to form “dams” using their bodies, while another member of the group catches the fish trapped by his crocodile mates. The crocodile mothers also use the collective concept where one mother will look after several hatchlings whilst their mothers are out catching food.

Crocodiles usually catch their food by “ambush attack” in the water or at the water’s edge. They like crabs, turtles, fish, flying fox, feral pigs, birds and dogs. Young crocodiles eat crustaceans, insects and small fish. However, crocs do not eat as much as you would imagine for their size, and being reptiles can often go two weeks between feeding.

The death rate for the young crocodiles is very high, with only 1 in 10 hatchlings making it through to adulthood. Young crocodile is obviously considered a delicacy by many predators. For those who do survive, the only predator they have to really look out for is human beings as we are the greatest threat to these survivors from the dinosaur times. So it is really no small wonder that occasionally the crocs get their own back and eat one of us as a protest! The chances of your becoming crocodile dinner are actually very slight. For example, in the 1980s only eight people were eaten in Australia. During the same period, 19 people died from lightning strike and 21 people died from bee stings. However, it is wise to be prudent!