Motorcycles

Sukhumvit Soi 22 Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

You hardly find a mention of Soi 22, where I usually stay in Bangkok, in the travel guides. Interesting. Not anything here for sightseers really. But good if you live here long term.

The well-dressed tourists in the high end hotels and serviced apartments here must just head off in a taxi because you don’t often see them on the street. The men in the high end hotels are mainly businessmen…many of them Korean or Japanese. Most of the farang (westerners) that live around here and are married to Thais or farangs. Some of them have lived and worked here for 30 years and just retire here. Hardly ever see female farang tourists by themselves, although on this trip I did meet a young Frenchwoman who missed her flight on a layover and was stranded. So here I am with the “boys” and the Thais.

I’m staying in a lovely refurbished room above the Bourbon St. Bar and Restaurant, a family restaurant owned by an American…in Washington Square…behind the Mambo Cabaret.
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The guesthouse is small and they keep good track of me. If you stay a month they give you 25% off the room rate so I am paying 1000 baht (about $31) a night with free breakfast. Most of the people frequenting the restaurant are the male guests upstairs who are here on business (I’m the only woman) or farangs and Thais who live around here. The restaurant serves great Thai and western food including a whole menu of Canjun, Creole and BBQ dishes. Last night I splurged on one-half kilo of the biggest crawfish I’ve ever seen.
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Motorcycle Serenade

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Last night I hopped a motorcycle taxi at the corner. “Where you from?” the cute young driver asked. “America,” I said. “America Pie” he sang to me all the way to my dentist appointment. “I used to work at cocktail bar,” he laughed, “and I learn all the words to American Pie!” I enjoyed the song but really hoped I wasn’t going to lose my knees as he dodged in and out the cars and other cyclists at terrifying speed.

Motorcycles

Waiting For Riders

Stories Of The Bangkok Street

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Ten baht (25 cents) for a motorcycle taxi gets me to the American educated dentist down the soi and around the corner in little more than a minute…scared to death that the trucks, cars, motorcycles, light poles, garbage bins and food stands we swerve past will take off my long western legs. Have been in and out of Bangkok several months and have seen just about every specialist (all women) in the dental office…implants, crowns, surgery, cleaning….the cost about 1/20 of the cost at home. Have only have one root canal to go before flying home on July 27th.

A walk up the street past the food stalls, fruit markets, massage shops and Indian tailors…into the big expensive air conditioned Park Queen Hotel, through it’s busloads of Japanese tourists and out the back door into the hot air again takes me through a lovely park on my way to the Sky Train. If I pass through about 6:00 in the evening I stop and watch relaxing rows of Thais and farangs (foreigners) alike practicing Tai Chi to slow meditative flute music. People with their children lie on the grass asleep…catching a cool breeze wafting off the pond. Sometimes a small group of little ones can be seen sitting on the grass with their parents listening to a story teller.

Have walked up the steps to the BTS sky train above busy Suhkumvit Rd so many times I don’t even get out of breath anymore. I can either catch the clean comfortable air conditioned train in the direction of Mo Chit at the end of the line or the other way to On Nut or I can walk across and down some steps to the other side of the street where I can buy some unsweetened yogurt, swiss meusli and eggs in the Villa Market. I can take my used books to the Elite Book Shop next to the market and exchange them for others and then stop in the Starbucks on the way back to read the English language newspapers…Bangkok Post or The Nation with almost daily coverage of corruption in Prime Minister Thaksin’s government and criticism of the way the PM is handling the violence in the south. Government authorities finally admit in today’s paper that they have found Bird Flu in 25 provinces. I am glad we are leaving soon.

With no patience for waiting around, Bob has been roaming around the mountains in northern Thailand and Viet Nam. I am in a new serviced apartment down a little soi off Suhkumvit 22. I have a king sized bed, kitchen, satellite TV (that gets knocked out when it rains) and a broadband internet connection in my suite. My Mac laptop is hooked up to some miniature speakers and my iTunes provides plenty of music. The smiling workers at the front desk keep good track of me.

A short walk away and I have my choice of a dozen massage shops…an hour long foot massage which includes legs, arms head and neck costs about $5 while a two hour full-body Thai massage sets me back a whole $7.00. I will miss these when I go home.

On Friday nights I can take a motorcycle taxi through the sois (side streets) to listen to a great blues band at Tokyo Joe’s. And the food is great. The lead singer and guitar player seems American but he says he is Danish! I can get a great beef stew in this bar. The rest of the week features progressive jazz bands…which Thais generally find very uncomfortable to listen to…so it seems odd to see Thai band members wailing away on sax’s and guitars. Most of the patrons are farangs and last Friday I had a great conversation with a young French English-speaking couple who have been in the city almost a year putting together a visitor’s magazine. I envy their courage to strike out on a publishing adventure like this.

A Harley in Viet Nam

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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June 10, 2004
While I was in Bangkok Bob flew to Vietnam. He wrote to say he had difficulties accessing the web today and spent most of the day traveling.

His emails:
Now in Da lat in the mountains about 300-400 km north of Saigon. It is at a 5000 foot elevation so cool–in fact feels cold. Probably about 55 degrees right now–everybody in a jacket. Feels like central Oregon and after the heat/humidity combo in Hanoi it is quite refreshing. I am at an internet cafe surrounded by adolescents screaming at success/failure with video games. Tiz too much–later.
B

June 11
good morning:
have been roaming around Dalat—much embroidery art done here–quite nice but also can have a hefty price–saw several landscapes that I liked–might pick up a small piece–just to have a representative sample. Bought several pieces in Hanoi–I really like their style of art.

Approached by a fellow this morning–call themselves “Easy Riders”–have big bikes and arrange trips off the beaten track–tempted to have him take me to Saigon via the Cambodian border and the Ho Chi Minh trail–he can also extend things to the delta (and probably to So. America for that matter)–he is 45-50 in age and has been doing this awhile. Am tempted as it would take me to areas I would not otherwise see and I am tired of the usual tourist routes. It would mean 300-400 km on the road and the limiting factor would be the ability of my butt to withstand several days in the saddle..

June 12
Another nice day in Dalat. It is a major tourist destination for Vietnamese—with it being a weekend the place is packed—had to inquire at three hotels before finding a vacancy…in evenings they close off the downtown streets to vehicles and streets/plazas are packed with people just walking and people watching. Not much to buy re handicrafts etc. but wonderful produce — however do not see it offered in restaurants. Am tired of Vietnamese cuisine and am overdosed on French bread.

NOTE: Next few days Bob spent in bed with some kind of virus….Bob worried about influenza-like syndrome and me thinking it was probably Dengue Fever as this is the season for it.

Sat June 18
hello–
Was going to leave Dalat today by bus for Saigon. This a.m. had second thoughts and decided would be much more fun and interesting and educational to do the bike thing. Tried to find my rider (named Budda–because his stomach and somatotype is identical to the icon) but could not arouse him by phone–he probably ditched me for other customers so went down to the local easy rider hangout cafe and there were at least a half dozen of the “boys” there. They start out by being very cool but then the pitch begins . I had experienced it twice before so he (Thui) was surprised when I cut to the chase, “How much for 3 days?”. So to see whether I would be able to tolerate we agreed on a sampler package of a day trip around Dalat. It worked out well–he is safe… informed, understandable (re accent), non-invasive and 48 yr/o–but looks 55 to 60.

Weather turned inclimant and last hour on the bike was wet. Purchased a plastic pancho but was totally saturated at the end of the trip. Was informed that my previous illness was do to too sudden climate changes, that there was no possibility that it could be bird flu because that entity does not exist in Vietnam! I was instructed that on return to hotel that I must wash my hair to get all the rainwater out so that I do not come down with any other ailment(s).

Tomorrow leave for 3 day trip to the coast just East of Saigon–he does not want to get closer because of increasing traffic and I appreciate his concerns. I will travel remainder of distance to Saigon by bus. So depart 8 a.m. tomorrow–I look like a Harley biker going down the freeway. Not sure how we’re going to get all my luggage on the bike but he says, “no problem’. Will not see internet again until Saigon.

NOTE: my daughter-in-law, Luk, a Thai, has also warned me to wash my hair after a rain. She said when it first rains there are bad chemicals in the rain that can hurt you. She could be referring to Acid Rain?
Eunice

Inconsistent Thai Values

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After nearly a dozen visits and about six months time in the city, over the last several years, we have gotten to know Bangkok a little. In this city with a population of over 9 million people we can get anywhere we want to go…as long as our destination is near the Skytrain, subway line and boat ramps or as long as we can communicate with the taxi driver. Haven’t braved the buses yet but we do take the motorcycle taxis back and forth down Sukhumvit 22 to our dentist at the end of the street…surely risking our lives in the process!

It’s interesting to watch the people embarking public transportation in Bangkok. They stand politely aside as they wait for debarking travelers to get off before they step into the trains. (In China it’s an all out battle of people coming off against the people trying to get on!) Once on, people are usually very respectful…if they are Thai…careful not to bump each other.

One jaw-dropping gesture, for an American, is that anytime a small child embarks a crowded Skytrain or subway car with packed adults standing cheek to jowel, the nearest adult of any age will quickly jump up and invite the child to take his/her seat…leaving the beaming child to look up at it’s parent as if to say, I am really special today aren’t I?

We have never experienced a culture that has such implicit respect for their little ones. You never see adults scowling at children or admonishing them…in public at least. Children always get an admiring glance and an enthusiastic accommodation from adults around them. The interesting result is that you never see an unruly child. This is very humbling to observe. At home we often see parents humilating their children in public by yelling, shaking and even slapping or spanking them.

On the other hand, it is common for young women in small villages to leave their children in the care of others while they exchange sexual favors in Bangkok. A pretty young woman who was perming my hair, works in an upscale hotel beauty salon during the day and as a bar girl at night…her parents left to care for her two children in her northern Isaan village. It has been said that as many as one out of thirty very poor young women, who do not consider themselves prostitutes, will trade sex for money, dinner and shopping from the nearest Western or Japanese or Korean “ATM man.”

This activity often has more than the usual side effects however. Sadly, Thai women are often overcome with depression. It has been said that once Thai women consort sexually with a Westerner, the local Thai men will not have anything to do with them and they often remain single and without any way of supporting themselves. The Bangkok Post this week reported on a 23 year old young woman who had jumped from the Skytrain to her death on the pavement below because, her friend reported, her Western “boyfriend” had just broken up with her. From the point of view of the Western male, the gratitude and soft sensuous, accommodation of the Thai woman is a welcome relief.

I asked my friend, Jiraporn, a university professor here, who lived ten years in the States, what she thinks about this. “They are young and don’t know what they are doing. “Village families are poor and need the money the girls send home so everyone just turns their heads, she whispered kindly.

Siem Reap

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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My original plan was to take a boat up the Mekong River in Cambodia to the Lao border and then on up through Laos but I kept hearing reports about the opening and closing of the border and you have to pay off the guards to let you through and someone reported they had to pay $200 and if they don’t let you through for some reason that day and then you are faced with coming all the way down the Mekong back to Phnom Penh and starting over in another direction so I said the heck with it and decided to do the “tourist route” to Siem Reap instead.

Siem Reap
While Bob took a bus to the Thai border and then on to Bangkok, I took a fast boat down the Tonle Sap (Great Lake) to Siem Reap, a sleepy village famous for it’s many wats (temples and monasteries) especially the biggest-Angkor Wat-but fast becoming a major tourist destination. Most of the people sat on the roof of the boat for the four hour trip through marshes and past entire villages on stilts.

I spent an entire day on a motorcycle taxi going from one temple to another that was built between the 9th and 14th centures in the middle of the jungle when the Khmer civilisation was at the height of its creativity.

Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 sq. km, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. These include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations. UNESCO has set up a wide-ranging programme to safeguard this symbolic site and its surroundings.

You could easily spend a week or more here seeing all the monuments. Most temples are actually little more than ruins…blocks of carved volcanic and sandstone rock lying in piles at the foot of the remaining structures. Much of Angkor’s finest statuary is stored inside conservation warehouses because of the danger of theft. In some monuments such as Ta Prohm, where a French movie company was filming the few days I was there, the jungle has stealthily waged an all-out invasion with bare tree roots spilling out and over the walls.

I had a Cambodian roast chicken and vermicelli salad late lunch at Les Artisans D’Angkor, a small artisan shop and cafe amazingly situated directly opposite Angkor. I thought of my friend Jana who visited here in the 60’s and wondered how the town had changed since then. My day ended taking pictures of the sun setting pink on the face of the dark stone of Angkor Wat.

I had had my fill of war museums in Vietnam and Phnom Penh so I avoided the War Museum in Siem Reap with an exhibition of Soviet and Chinese Mi-8 helicoptors, Mig 19 destroyers, T 54 Tanks and US 105mm artillery. You could also see an artificial minefield here, the brochure says. My motorcyle driver did pull onto the grounds of a Buddhist temple on the way back from Angkor that displayed a glassed-in pagoda filled with bones and skulls that could be viewed from all four sides.

Back in my hotel I spent some time organizing photos on my computer…we have some really wonderful ones of people…especially women and children. I gave a two hour English lesson to one of the Khmer girls that worked in the kitchen of the guesthouse where I was staying.

Finally, after five days, it came time to leave Siem Reap so I regretfully said goodbye to Arnfinn and his Khmer staff and left the simple and elegant Earthwalker Guesthouse that was built and managed by a young Norwegian cooperative and made my way down a dirt road out to the highway with my pack on my back to flag down a motorcycle taxi for the 10 minute ride to the airport. The young guys working in the airport laughed at my hair when I walked in. “Motorcycle Hair” I said laughing! The $100 Lao Aviation flight that took me to Vientiane Laos had no safety card, no airline magazine, no safety demonstration by the hostess and no floatation device under the seat…and I doubt if there were oxygen masks…but we did get a sad little hamburger patty and bun with a packet of catsup.

Hanoi City Tour

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Wasn’t excited by the city bus tours so spent an entire day riding behind a motorcycle taxi guy to visit the One Pillar Pagoda, Temple of Literature and the Martyrs Monument erected to those who died fighting for Viet Nam’s independence. The Ho Chi Minh Museum, and History Museum was full of propaganda but contained interesting artefacts from Vietnam’s hundreds of years of feudal and modern wars against the Chinese, the Khmers, the French and finally the Americans. Could have spent a half a day in the excellent new Museum of Ethnology.

Visited the Fine Arts Museum and loved the compelling feudal statuary with robes flowing…the folds of the bottom hems rhythmically rising into the air. A statue commemorating the victory over the French at Diem Bien Phu in 1954 is not unlike our statue in Washington DC of the men pushing the flag aloft during World War II except that this memorial was of three people including a woman and a child. There were pictures of demonstrations of Buddhist monks who demonstrated against the South Vietnamese Thieu administration…and pictures of the conflagration of the two monks who set themselves afire in the middle of a Saigon street in front of a pagoda…

The Women’s Museum was arresting..and illuminating. Inside the front door you are met by a 15 foot high Vietnamese mother in overlit blinding gold leaf. It is designed to depict the mother of past, present and future…very feminine and elegant…representing the combination of traditional and modern beauty…strong…her right hand wide open and palm down signifying all that is difficult in her life and a child on her shoulder representing the responsibility and happiness of the mother toward the family and her people…the child with arms raised in the air representing the future generation and a prosperous future. A huge piece of glass stood behind the statue…etched with mountains showing the strength of the father and a stream of water flowing down from the mountains showing the source of the mother’s strength…have to admit I had to swallow a catch in my throat…

After this wonderful introduction to the museum, however, you then walk upstairs to the first floor where you see grizzly pictures of women’s contributions to the war effort against the Americans where they fought equally in all capacities alongside the men…heart rending pictures… one of a nurse who saved a child’s life by nursing it when it’s mother was killed by a US bomb. (I thought to myself, yes, this is what the Communist Party want us American tourists to see.)

Another picture was of an agonized mother hugging her son who had spent 10 years in the South Vietnamese Con Dao Prison. She had just heard he was sentenced to death by the enemy in 1975 after the fall of Saigon because of his rebel activities. There were pictures of Vietnamese film star Tra Giang and “Hanoi Jane” Fonda taken together during the American actress’ visit in 1972…pictures of women lying torqued on the floor with this caption: “The barbarous tortures women had to suffer when imprisoned by US aggressors and their lackeys.”

Another picture showed a militia woman escorting William Robinson, an American Prisoner of War and another of a female artillery unit firing on American warships in 1968-9. More pictures of female guerrilla groups…their faces hard. I felt sick to my stomach as I stumbled out of the building and entered the street full of light and the living Most people in Viet Nam were born after the war…not giving the past a thought as they were now concentrating on making the market economy work in their country. Somehow I am not surprised that the people here seem “harder” than the people in Thailand.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum was the most facinating…post modern design where you start in the “Past” and walk clockwise through the “Future” to view displays with a message…peace, happiness, freedom…the 1958 Ford Edsel bursting through the wall apparently symbolising the US commercial and military failure knocks your socks off. I skipped viewing Uncle Ho’s shriveled body at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum next door.

That evening I treated myself at a lovely outdoor garden restaurant where my waiter (who was a university student by day) described the effects of an American bomb that fell on a Hanoi city street… and where the memory of the people killed are still celebrated each September. “I am afraid of war,” he said, but what put the goose bumps on me was his curled lip. Then, I thought he was going to cry as he said “why can’t they sit down and discuss?” But then, apparently feeling bold by my eagerness to hear what he had to say, he said “Mr. Bush lies…Hussein is a good man”…at which point I lost my composure. Don’t know which made me sicker…his statement or the white haired man in his 80’s fondling the legs of the 15 year old Vietnamese hooker sitting at his table. I asked the waiter how he knew this. “But I read in the paper…” I even don’t believe everything I read in the paper here or at home…I replied in muted desperation. Bush may be lying but Hussein certainly isn’t a good man either.