Jon is in Wonderland

I haven't even left Suratthani for the last few weeks now. One day, at the weekend I just cycled on my magic yellow bike and went in a direction I'd never been before and found all sorts of crazy markets and things. I was looking round one market which had all sorts of fascinating plants and carvings and whatnot.

And one stall had all these small cages with funny little rabbits in. Except they weren't rabbits, they were too small and their ears were too short. Perhaps some kind of guinea pig? Except they didn't look anything like guinea pigs, really. Whilst stood there watching them and contemplating what sort of animal they might be, I realised that they were moving in a really awkward way; kind of mechanical and clunky. Robot-bunny-pigs?

But some of them were sat by the edge of the cage sniffing furiously, some were lying down and looked kind of dead but were breathing slightly and some of them were eating corn on the cob - as far as I could tell, actually eating it. They all seemed to know their bearings and never bumped into the edge of the cage and their movements, whilst kind of mechanised were random enough to make it look passable as real life.

So I looked closely at their fur and it looked real enough; white and fluffy and not too perfectly symmetrical. Then suddenly what really caught my eye was something I'd perhaps subconsciously tried not to notice, that they were each wearing little colourful jackets with a sort of traditional Asian patterned style.

If I could speak enough Thai I would have been able to ask the seller what the hell these things actually were, but instead I frowned and shook my head and stumbled away feeling a bit sick.

Later that evening I made the mistake of telling some of my friends and colleagues about the weird creatures, hoping they might be able to shed some light.

"Jon, are you ok? Did you go a bit funny in the heat?"
"Seriously, I promise you, they were there and they were eating corn on the cob and moving like this..." (demonstrates) "...and they were each wearing these little colourful jackets..."
"And did one of them invite you for a tea party?"

As luck would have it I was saved when we went for food later and a Canadian girl called Avalon turned up and after exchanging pleasantries told everyone "Hey, I saw the weirdest thing at a market earlier, there were all these little rabbit things in cages, except they weren't rabbits, they were more like..." etc etc.

Phew.