Bangkok

King’s Birthday

Posted on by Laughingnomad

All has been quiet today in honor of the King’s birthday. American born, he is 86 today. And dearly loved by Thai people. But he is very ill and people are worried what will happen to Thailand when he passes.

The last two weeks Bangkok has been beset with protesters again…a conglomeration of Yellow Shirts, the business elite and others who want to oust PM Yingluck from office. PM Yingluck is sister to former PM Thaksin who has been charged and convicted of corruption but is now exiled in Dubai. Of course Yingluck is charged by her critics as being a figure head of Thaksin’s.

But after some violence, with 4 people dead, the protest took a bizarre turn a couple days ago when the occupied municipal police commander laid down their riot gear in the street. Crowds of protesters were allowed to enter both compounds unopposed after police were ordered to stand down in a bid to prevent further violence. The protesters were given access to Government House and the municipal police station.

Only in Thailand.

Police Fear Violence

Posted on by Laughingnomad

it has been raining and humid outside so am watching the Blue Sky Channel showing 4 different groups of protesters in Bangkok today. Comments on the ThaiVisa blog are interesting as usual. Of course I don’t have a clue what any the speakers are saying, singing, yelling and chanting.

A so-called million man march is being planned for tomorrow. This has a long complicated history but the bottom line is that exiled PM Thaksin has manipulated several groups to support his return to Thailand and others are dead set against not only his return, but his proxy government led by his sister that is currently in power.

At the Democracy Monument protest site, are a group of anti-Thaksin academics, representatives of labour unions from state enterprises, members of the Silom business community, political activists among others talking in front of thousands of cheering protesters with whistles and red, white and blue headbands.

The group on stage also includes leaders of the “People’s Army to Overthrow the Thaksin Regime” and the “Network of People and Students for Thailand’s Reform,” who have been holding separate rallies in Bangkok to voice their opposition to the government-backed controversial amnesty bill and the so-called Thaksin regime. The Student group is the most radical of course.

Meanwhile, pro-government red-shirt leaders have called on supporters to gather at Rajamangala Stadium today to discuss how to deal with what is expected to be a massive gathering of anti-government protesters tomorrow. The protesters are expected to split into 12 groups around Bangkok. The Chiang Mai 51 group has readied 150 buses to bring red-shirt protesters to Bangkok. So you can imagine what the traffic situation is going to be.

The police are worried that the red-shirt supporters will conflict with the anti-government anti-Thaksin supporters. 40 teams of rapid-response police officers have been set up to deal with the situation.

Toward the end of the day a grey-haired stately woman took the stage and voiced a plea to Thaksin to LEAVE US ALONE! LEAVE US ALONE! Then she said she was advised not to use rude language. So she swished her flag in the air with a “… OFF!”

I’m just going to sit in my guesthouse room with the TV and my computer for the day.

Oregon Thailand Hong Kong 2013-14

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Need new crowns on implants I got last spring while in Bangkok. Need to see my son Josh and his lovely Significant Other, Polly, in Hong Kong. And spend some time down south in Krabi Thailand with my son Doug and his little fishing boat.

On my yearly trip to Asia, I flew from Oaxaca to Oregon for a week where I picked up 6 months of mail and paid property taxes and ran a myriad of errands. Then Nov 9 spent 8 hours on a cramped Delta flight to Tokyo and another 5 hours to Bangkok. Every trip seems to get more and more uncomfortable. Hard seats make my butt bones hurt even with a pillow. Jet lag and culture shock makes me feel like my body and soul is rubber…stretching out over continents. Getting too old for this shit. But what better to do with myself than visit adult children scattered all over the world. 😉

In the metro on my way to the dentist I see this lovely ad.

Details here are not especially for my readers (if there are any) but a kind of diary to remind myself where I go when and what I do. Memory going fast! But while I am on it, dental work at the Bangkok International Dental Center is excellent and VERY affordable. Dr. Preeda completed dental school at the Univ of N. Carolina and spent a year teaching implant technology there. And for health care you can’t do better than Bumrungrad Hospital. Want a face lift? Ask for Dr. Poomee who spent 30 years practicing in Atlanta Georgia before retiring with a part time practice in Thailand. I asked for a partial but he wouldn’t do it for me. Said I wasn’t ready! Not ready? If I’m not ready at 69 when will I be? He said if you are not ready then results would be disappointing. Oh well. I don’t care anymore anyway. My life is in my face anyway. However I did get upper eyelids done to keep them from falling into my eyes a few years ago.

Have spent 3 days in a dental chair with 3 more to go this week. But the weather is wonderful. Dr. Preeda said winter got here 2 days before I arrived. It is 30F 27C!

I asked him if he had been out in the street protesting and blowing his whistle. He said no but that his 2 year old has been blowing his whistle constantly for days! My yellow-shirt friend will take me to the protest sites. With ear plugs. Hope it’s better than the hand-clappers in 2009-10! But I’d rather be here or in Oaxaca than the U.S. any day where the political drama makes me sick.

Read this morning that the Street Art is getting painted over in Oaxaca. Probably the most egregiously political stuff. Apparently Oaxaca will host the World Congress of World Heritage Cities, a major event bringing together mayors from five continents to discuss the problems of their cities and promoting comprehensive strategies, in order to protect the heritage and promote human development … So they paint over the Street Art??? Arghhhhh! Ruined my morning.

New Zealand Next?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Met a really nice bright young Swiss guy in the breakfast room while at the Sarisanee who has been living in New Zealand. He talked up NZ and of course now I want to go there! He, a self-described punker when younger (you would never know it by looking at him) is living in Karamea on the West Coast of the South Island where apparently there is an enclave of “hippies.” Wikipedia says that in 2006 the population was 423! Wiki also says the Karamea township offers local services including a general store, supermarket, petrol pumps, information centre, cafe, hotel, camping ground, motels, backpackers and art and craft shop. Ha! Must have been written by one of those hippies!

The town sits on the estuary of the Karamea river, 100km north of Westport. A two-hour trip down the river from the gorge is a pleasant way to spend part of the day. Horticulture and dairy farming are important industries to the town.

Wonder how long they are going to keep this place a secret. Hmmmmm.

Bangkok And Thonburi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After traveling through central Thailand with Supaporn, I returned to Bangkok to get started on my dental plan at the Bangkok International Dental Clinic. My mainstay, the Queen Lotus Guesthouse just off Sukhumvit 20 welcomed me anew. I left my large bag there and took a bus to Pattaya to spend Christmas week with Bob…attending midnight mass with he and a friend of his who played Santa for all the little Thai kids.

Back in Bangkok again, I moved across the Chao Praya River to Thonburi about 10 minutes from the end of the BTS line. I think it may be the next cool area of Bangkok but at the moment it has little infrustructure for tourists. If I wanted a Thai neighborhood I sure got it! Even the taxi, coming from Sukhumvit, had a little trouble finding the Sarisanee Hotel. But at about $25 a night I got two big rooms with kitchenette and sitting area…about half of what I would pay on the Bangkok side of the river. I had the added advantage of not only being 10 minutes away from the skytrain but about the same distance to the river boats. A 90 minute trip upriver to Nonthaburi on the Bangkok side…past everything from the Oriental Hotel to old houses on stilts was lovely.

Family Reunion on Koh Samui

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Big Deals...Josh, Greg, Doug

Me And Greg

It had been Christmas 15 years ago, Josh remembered, when the whole family…Bob, Greg, Josh, Doug and I…had been all together at one place at the same time.

Bob Charmed The Help

Luk, Doug's Thai Wife

Polly, Josh's SO

So Bob, retired from his pediatric practice in Salem, Oregon and realizing we weren’t getting any younger, rented a resort villa on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand where Doug lives part of the year in a rented bungalow with his Thai wife Luk. We chose Thailand because Doug was already there and it was easier than trying to get Luk a tourist visa to any other country.

Josh brought his Cantonese significant other, Polly, from Hong Kong where he lives and works as the Executive Chef at the American Club. (Not that it has anything to do with America!) Greg had taken off a couple weeks of his anesthesiology practice in Las Vegas to meet Josh in Hong Kong and then spend a few days in Hanoi together before flying down to Samui. Bob flew in from Pattaya where golf is his life. In November 2012 I had flown in from Oaxaca Mexico where I live so it was no problem to fly down from Bangkok where I had been sitting in a dental chair for days.

Four whole days together was wonderful but it was just about the right amount of time for resort living. We all had our own villas right on the ocean. Several Thai girls and a cook were at our beck and call. They spread out an elegant breakfast of our choice each morning by the pool. A massage table by the pool was ready for us. Doug and I had rented a pick-up and Josh and Greg rented motorbikes to run around the island. The only decisions we had to make were what to eat the rest of the day.

Sitting there watching the boys in the water I shivered remembering Christmas of 2004 when Doug and Luk almost lost their lives in their bungalow 14 feet from the water when the tsunami hit the Krabi coast. About 8 in the morning Doug heard what he thought was a bomb. Lukily they had the doors and windows closed. When he pulled back the curtains to the sliding doors, the water was engulfing the entire bungalow. When the first wave went out they grabbed their phones and ran up the hill behind the house.

But then Luk wouldn’t live on the Krabi beach anymore. She said there were many ghosts and she wouldn’t eat the fish because she said the fish had eaten the people. So Doug had rented a pickup to move them to Koh Samui on the other side of the Thai peninsula in the Gulf of Thailand. I was in Bangkok at the time and seeing the news on TV I was frantic. But after 30 minutes of trying to get through to them on the phone I heard those sweet sweet voices. A movie about the tsunami is in the theaters now called “Impossible.” I can’t bear to see it.

Anyway, this was the first time any of us had experienced a self-contained resort like this. But as we were all very familiar with Thailand and Thai life, we weren’t sacrificing anything by isolating ourselves. We did remark how sad it is that many people only experience a country in this way though. Our time together ended with “When are we going to do this again?” All of us looking at Bob who footed the bill! LOL

Solo In Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

From rice fields to the Royal Bangkok Sport Club! Took a short cut yesterday, saved money on a taxi, and hiked a trail across the golf course of the club. On through a construction area where a guy let me through a door in an iron wall and then out onto the sidewalk and the Rachadamri skytrain (BTS) station. My friend, Wera, who I had been having a 3-hour lunch with at the club, calls it “the electric train.” 🙂

Wera spent 4 years in the late 50’s and early 60’s getting an engineering degree in Michigan and returned to work on various dam projects in Thailand from north to south and has been a member of this club for 40 years.

But Wera also has traveled all over the states…often studying in Buddhist temples, and is just as familiar with U.S. politics and policy as he is of Thailand’s… which is hilariously complicated if it wasn’t so sad. Ex-PM Abhisit has just been charged with murder for ordering the Army (because he had no control over the police who were sympathetic to the demonstrators) to disperse the Red Shirt demonstrations in 2010 when over 90 people were killed. The politicos in Mexico should be watching this.

Anyway, I peruse the Bangkok Post every morning at breakfast downstairs in my guesthouse. The paper is usually quite entertaining…with bits of perversity as well as the latest news. The letters to the editor are best….

Time out. I am sitting in the Exchange Tower right now, looking out through a third-story plate glass window with a view of Sukhumvit Road. An especially dark-skinned fellow is walking on artificial limbs among the lanes of traffic asking for money. I suspect a land mine casualty in Burma or Cambodia. All of a sudden my expensive coffee in my upscale cafe has become bitter….

…………………………..

Back to the Bangkok Post. One of the letters to the editor in the BP was about Thai food being loaded with MSG. Whether this is true or not I have no idea, but the writer notes that visiting dignitaries are not given food with MSG. Now I’m thinking it may not just be the walking and heat that makes me tired by the afternoon in Thailand. Hmmmm. Think I might try finding some restaurants that don’t use MSG in lieu of street food and see if it makes a difference in my energy level.

Each day I pick one “big thing” to do after breakfast. It usually involves riding the sky train or the subway. It might be a dentist appointment. This week I will have lunch with my friend Jiraporn who spent 10 years at Oregon State University getting her doctorate in fisheries and who is a professor at Kasetsart University. She is giving back 5 years to the University for financing her doctorate. She will tell me about how the students aren’t interested in studying…they just want the status of having the degree. And all the “Old Head” professors there drive her nuts. I think 10 years in the states has made her a little too independent for Thailand! ha!

Or spend a couple hours in front of the Landmark Hotel people watching and checking email and FB on my iPhone along with all the other Thais. Then stroll over to the middle eastern or Indian streets for lunch and more people-watching…all Indians and people from the ME.

This year I hope to meet up with Dave Thompson, married to Syy, who I traveled with a bit 2 years ago when we went to visit Syy’s two-house village!. By coincidence they are in Thailand again the same time I am this year. Check out Dave’s Travel Corner…his travel web site. Dave has given me the name of a Couchsurfer in Oman I am hoping to contact before I get there in February.

Or I might get another two-hour massage. Or have coffee with a retired couple from Oregon who live here now. Or look up a “friend” I met on FB who lives in BKK. She’s youngish so I’m hoping she will humor me with a night out together. Jazz or Dubstep would be just fine with me.

Oh, can’t forget my Yellow Shirt activist friend who adopts homeless cats. He, who was at the airport and one of the Yellow Shirt guards who was arrested when the Yellow Shirts took over the airport in 2009, will give me the straight-on anti-Taksin story…with all the expletives included.

Usually when in Bangkok I catch a talk or a press conference about some current issue at the Thailand Foreign Correspondents’ Club in the penthouse of the Maneeya building at the Mo Chit BTS exit. They have a bar and restaurant and it’s fun to chat with the foreign correspondents there. One year I was privileged to hear Sharon Ebadi speak. She won the Peace Prize as an attorney defending the some 200 imprisoned journalists (at the time) in Iran. This year I saw a documentary and panel discussion about the repatriation of Burmese refugees along the Thai border.

Watching the people on the BTS is especially fun and during business rush hours it can be an interesting experience to be standing jammed up against each other. Oh well, you get touching where you can get it I guess! ha! I watch to see whether the young ones get up to give their seats to an older person. Amazingly many do, which would never happen in the U.S., but others, mostly naughty young guys with spiky hair just streak to the nearest empty seat. tsk tsk. I’ve even had a young girl giving me her seat. Most public areas in BKK has free wifi so virtually all the young ones are glued to their iPhones and iPads on the ride.

The iPad story is interesting too. When I had dinner in BKK with my husband there were several other Thais present…one with his 6 year old son. The government is trying to upgrade the education of youth and are trying to get parents involved in this effort. So iPads from China are being distributed free to each child. The school has it’s own Facebook page and each child has his/her own FB page. Instructions for homework are given to both child and the parents. Homework is even corrected on the child’s FB page. An incredibe innovative idea. So that’s why they all have iPads.

Tourist attractions have lost their appeal. I love searching out nicks and crannies where I’ve never been before. It is like treasure hunting. And it is endless. And so much fun for me after spending a year and a half at a time in my little town of Oaxaca. Back in my aircon guest room I take a shower and flop on the bed. Maybe fall asleep exhausted.

I don’t go out tromping around every day though…gotta take a down day every 2-3 days and just hang out in my room…in the aircon…with the wifi and my computer…sorting and posting photos. Then go across the alleyway from the guesthouse to a shop-house for a bowl of noodle soup for dinner and then around the corner to soi 20 for one of those little sugared banana crepes (roti’s)…usually made by Muslims for some reason.

Since I’ve been coming to Bankok for the last ten years, Sukhumvit sois 20 and 22 has become my little neighborhood and vendors, shop-house cooks and hotel workers remember me each year. Wera says that’s how they charm me! ha! Today I ate a bowl of Khao Soi at my favorite little eating spot. “Where friend?” the owner asks…referring to my husband who eats here whenever he comes to BKK.

And today I had a rousing irreverent conversation with the British owner of “Som’s Guesthouse” both of us venting about the noise, garbage and traffic and what seems to us like perverse cultural habits in our chosen expat countries. But in the end we agreed that we choose the freedom of living in anarchic chaotic countries rather than the anal tight-ass countries of our birth. And then we laugh…understanding each other perfectly. But it’s time to move on from the Sukhumvit area full of tourists…although they are fun to watch too. When I get back from Christmas in Pattaya I’ll stay in a cheap hotel in Thonburi and explore Thai neighborhoods on the other side of the river.

So for those of you who ask what I do every day by myself in Bangkok…there you have it…sort of…

Doug Brings Electricity To Samui

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Doug, my son, flew into Bangkok yesterday from Oregon to fly out again two days later to spend his annual several months with his wife, Luk, on the island of Koh Samui. We had a bit of a scare just before he arrived because a scheduled utility maintenance on undersea trunk wires went bad and Koh Samui and Koh Phagnan were both out of electricity for several days. It went back on in the morning just before he flew in to Koh Samui so Luk, my daughter-in-law, was ecstatic…saying that Doug bring the electricity with him! 😉

Tourists were leaving the islands left and right and Thailand has reportedly lost 1.2 billion baht in income. Poor Thailand. I was in Thailand for the 2004 tsunami where Doug and Luk nearly lost their lives in their bungalow on the Krabi beach, 2006 for the last coup, 2009-10 for the Red Shirt Rally and in 2012 for the Yellow Shirt Rally. If it isn’t one thing it’s another.

I’ve written about the tsunami on this blog where Doug and Luk nearly lost their lives in their bungalow on a Krabi Beach on December 4, 2004. I was in Bangkok at the time and nearly had a heart attack when I came back to my hotel and switched on the TV to get the daily news. Half hour later I was able to get through to them, however. What sweet voices! Doug immediately hired a pickup to take them to the other side of the Thai peninsula to live. Luk said there were ghosts on Krabi and she wouldn’t eat the fish because they had eaten the people. So that is why they live on Samui instead of on Krabi…a place we all dearly loved.

On Dec 22nd I’ll take a bus to Pattaya about an hour west and spend Christmas week with my husband…or Oregon Bob…as his golf club buddies refer to him because there are 3 Bobs in the group. He wants to cook a turkey for me and his golfing friends. He says he needs someone to peel potatoes! hahahahaha!

On A Rice Farm Korat Thailand

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Following our trail from Bangkok to Tak in the west of north central Thailand to Sukhothai and then east to Lop Buri and further east to Saraburi, Supaporn and I ended up at her home about 50km outside of Korat City (Nakhon Ratchasima) even further east. She lives 300km northeast of Bangkok and 20 Minutes from Phimai to the north. After transferring to a bus headed to Phimai, we got off at the head of a dirt road leading to her small village of about 25 houses 3km from the highway. She lives on a rice farm in Ban Hoatumnop Village. Supaporn called to find two people with motorcycles to come pick us up. And so there I was…in the middle of rice paddies and Jasmine fields and blessed quiet for three days after being on the noisy road for nearly a week.

Supaporn lives next to her sister and her husband and niece who live in Thai-style houses. The nephew lives on the other side of the sister. The nephew grows the rice and the Jasmine which the niece uses to make flower garlands (maa-lie) that she sells to people in the cities who offer them at various shrines and temples. She works about 12 hours a day and gets 10 baht each or about 30 cents U.S. for each one.

Supaporn has lived an interesting life. We are the same age…68. She left home, like I did, at the age of 12 but instead of going to school, she went to Korat City to work in a laundry. The American war with Viet Nam was ratcheting up in the early 60’s and Supaporn then found work in the laundry on the American Air Base just outside Korat…one of the three bases near each other belonging to Thailand, the U.S. and France.

She said that when she laundered the clothing of a platoon of several flying servicemen she would often come to work and find the name of one of them crossed off her list. She said it was very sad because it was like losing a friend. She said she wasn’t really very aware of the war…or how bad it was…until years later.

Then she found better work serving food and finally worked in the bar in the Officer’s Club where she met her first American husband. After 6 months in Japan, where she married her husband, he retired from the military and she lived in California for more than 30 years. She said he was anxious to get her out of SE Asia because he was convinced the war could easily spread to Thailand…as indeed it did later in Lao and Cambodia.

Divorced from her 2nd husband, she moved to Thailand and built a house near her sister and nephew two years ago. She was hesitant to tell me more…saying her past was complicated and difficult to explain. But she has written the first chapter of a book about her life that I encouraged her to finish one day.

Culturally, Supaporn is still very Thai…which surprised me. But I guess I shouldn’t be. I’ve been in Mexico 6 years and I suppose after another 25 years I would still be very American. It’s also an interesting comment on Mexican immigrants to the U.S.

I am very grateful for having Supaporn’s help as we made our way from Tak to Korat and I especially appreciate being in her home with her for the time I was there. At 6 in the morning of my last day with her I rode behind her friend on his motorcycle the 3km out to the highway where I stood by the road and waited for a cranky old bus to stop and pick me up and take me to the bus station in Korat.

I would have stayed longer as she had wanted but the heat was getting to me. The 3 hour bus took me back to Bangkok and my air-con room in my guesthouse just off Sukhumvit 20 and where I am catching up with my blog, listening to music with my tiny wireless speakers and waiting for my next dental appointment. And I am grateful for Couchsurfing.org because that is where I met her…online.

BTW, I’ve decided 3 hours in a bus is my max time. Now if I could just get from the States to SE Asia in 3 hours that would be awesome!

Thanksgiving in Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Cincinnati Bob, Oregon Bob and me

The American owner of the Bourbon Street Bar and Grill, just off the Ekamai skytrain exit, really served up quite a TG buffet feast. Oregon Bob bussed it in from Pattaya, about an hour outside Bangkok, and Cinncinnati Bob, a good friend and golfing buddy of my husband’s, interrupted his trip in Viet Nam for his birthday and to join us for the Thanksgiving meal.