Bangkok

Up The Chao Phraya River

Posted on by Laughingnomad

In my last post I mentioned Nick’s crazy flight from LA to Bangkok for a one day visit.  Well, today he tells me about the return:

 my flights back looked so good . . .  on paper.  from bkk – nrt (tokyo) i got a coach seat.  not too bad.  when i got to nrt, the nrt – d.c. flight cancelled and caused a serious domino effect.  everybody on that flight scattered to get on any other flight stateside.  i couldn’t get on my nrt – lax flight, not even a jumpseat.  i scrambled and got on an nrt – sea [Seattle] flight.  took the last coach seat. in sea, i couldn’t get on a sea – lax flight, so i went sea – sfo.  at sfo, [San Francisco] i couldn’t get on an sfo – lax flight.   so i went sfo – fresno – lax.  just got home.  what a ride.  CAN’T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN!  HA! 

Glad I’m not the only nut out there, Nick! :))

Yesterday I was invited by a couchsurfing friend, who has lived in Bangkok for several years, to visit her neighborhood . It required taking the skytrain to the river…then a ferry up the river 30 stops…taking about an hour.  While on the ferry I visited with an Egyptian woman next to me who is married to a German who had a terrible accident falling off a waterfall in Chiang Mai. After two months in a hospital he was finally airlifted back to Germany with extensive after affects of his brain injury.

After this conversation I felt weird enjoying lunch of green curry and stir-fry vegetables and a visit to a lovely park next to a Wat.  But then my friend showed me her ankle that has been swollen double for a year after getting hit by debris in the tsunami.  She has been to 7 hospitals in Bangkok and no one can tell her what the problem is. I feel so grateful that my son Doug and his Thai wife, Luk, escaped injury the morning they woke to discover their bungalow under water!

The only other sight in my friend’s very Thai neighborhood was a prison which of course we didn’t visit.  Then after 30 stops back and skytrain to my neighborhood, I stopped by the Parrot Cafe  sidewalk table area on my Sukhumvit 22 neighborhood for spaghetti bolanaise and an hour’s late evening conversation with an Aussie businessman at the next table who divides his time between Thailand, Mozambique and Europe as a contract manager for a large Australian corporation. .  I visit with him often here at the cafe…mostly for morning coffee and our daily entertainment…the Bangkok Post.

Today I am contemplating an invitation from the 30- something Thai businesswoman who has invited me, it turns out, to go to Khao San Rd. (backpacker street) with them on Christmas Eve.  Does she realize I am 65, I wonder?

A Village of Two Houses

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I got “home” late last night from a day trip to a “village” just off highway 304 in Chachoengsao Province about two hours east of Bangkok.  This visit had several advantages.

I got to see my friends Dave and Syy again and meet Syy’s mother, brother and two year old niece who slept the peaceful afternoon away in a cloth swing while we visited in an outdoor covered area attached to Syy’s mother’s house.

I got to see my Vietnamese friend Nick again.  Nick is a flight attendant for United Airlines. I last saw him a couple years ago when he visited me, Doug and Luk on Koh Samui on a quick side-trip on his way to visit family in Viet Nam.  He gave me a freshly minted copy of his memoirs on that visitthat included the story of his escape with his family from Saigon in 1975 when he was 7 years old and subsequently resettled in the middle of Kansas!

Dave, Syy and I were imagining Nick lounging in first class on his flight from LA to Bangkok this time too.  But alas we gave him our appropriate condolences when he revealed that the flight was full, he got the flight attendant jump seat all the way from LA to Tokyo and a middle seat in coach seat from there to Bangkok!  We truly hope that he got a better seat on his return flight this morning….having spent only one night in Bangkok!

And I got to find out how to catch a van to outlying areas.  Skytrain to the Victory Monument. From the skytrain platform, look for one of the figures on top of the monument of a sailor holding a torpedo.  Walk in the direction that the torpedo is pointing.  Take an exit off the platform to the right…to a small street named Ratchatewi 11 that runs parallel to the raised BTS walkway above.  About half way down that street look for a restaurant called Pong Lee.  Next to the restaurant is a sidewalk desk to buy a ticket for the desired van.  Show them a piece of paper that says in Thai (presumably you have found someone to do this for you) Pratchinburi/Klong Rang/Tawa Ravadee Hotel so they can direct you to the right van in a very long line of white vans lined up on the street.  The fee for us was 130 baht one-way…or $4.00.  (But Dave said it should have been 120 baht so we don’t know whether to blame Nick or me!)

Dave wrote a little description of the “village” for his email list that I think I will lift for this post because his description is much better than mine would be. He says:

<em>the village is composed of two adjoining houses, Na Tit’s abode and Syy’s mom’s old house. Syy’s moms house is now an empty shell housing a few relics of the past including a clock stuck at 5:30 and memory filled photos on the wall reminding one of an earlier time. The house has been gutted of all inner conveniences and last night I was forced to sleep on the hard wood floor, waking up with an ache in the back or maybe an ache in the heart for the old home.

The days are warm and mild, the chickens wake us up every morning at 5. Now we have to make the long walk through the overgrown remnants of what used to be a garden but is now planted with thorny eggplants to Somsak’s home for our tri daily meals. Since we were here last, Somsak has built 2 small adjoining rooms on the estate, one for mother and one for Far. Somsak and Duen’s small room was slammed with lightening not long ago which tore out their AC unit.

Ants and papayas seem to be the big cash crops this year. The backyard is filled with recently planted papaya’s already loaded with young green fruit. The homes that were removed this year from the village have been completely replaced by the tropical vegetation and now you can never tell they were ever there. As a result, there is a new natural feel to the village, having lost its human component, and has been replaced by a veritable green paradise.

We started our meal last night with a bang, eating big green and white ants with enormous abdomens that literally pop in your mouth, making a sound akin to popcorn bursting into action for the first time on the bottom of a hot grease filled frying pan.</em>

As I sit here writing this, I hear fireworks. It seems very familiar.  Then I realize I am in Thailand not Oaxaca Mexico!  I step out onto my small 8th floor veranda and see the sky between the buildings alive with light and sound. I feel right at home because I have no idea what the occasion is…just like most of the times there are fireworks displays in Oaxaca! 🙂  This is the 3rd fireworks in a month here.  Last couple fireworks I figured was in honor of the King’s birthday.

This time…Christmas?!!

Familiar Bangkok-2009

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I like being in this familiar city again. And this is the winter…the best time of the year to be here…75 and 80 degrees during the day and even down to 60 degrees at night.  But it’s nearly the end of December now and the temperature is slowly creeping up.  But not enough to keep the locals out of their jackets and neck wraps!  But it’s winter they say!

For the last 5 weeks I have spent a couple days a week in a dental chair in Bangkok…at the Bangkok International Dental Clinic. All very competent English speaking dentists working part-time…waiting for you to walk in. A multi-story new spiffy-clean facility with in-house labs.  One tooth extraction, one root canal, four crowns and two implants and prep on a third.  My young implant dentist completed 4 years of dental school in N. Carolina and spent another 3 years as implant instructor…and now back in Thailand with his family. $1200 each implant here…and $4000 and up in the States, he says.  A no-brainer…and a holiday to boot.

I’ve enjoyed an International Street Fair in Lumpini Park with a Thai friend…seeing Chinese Opera Face-changing for the first time.  Amazing!  A thanksgiving dinner with my husband who came up from Pattaya where he lives…festing on a huge hotel restaurant buffet with a friend of his who is here having physical therapy on his shoulder. A trip to Khao San Road, a colorful backpacker walking street where you can get your hair dreadlocked, with my son Doug just before his temporary return trip to Oregon.

I really enjoyed seeing the comedy…Julia And Julia…and recommend this movie (screenplay by Nora Ephron)…especially to anyone who cut their teeth on Julia Child’s French Cook book and/or watched her TV cooking show.  Meryl Streep did a great job…you almost forgot that it wasn’t Julia up there on the screen.  And I love those lay-back lounger chairs in the new theaters here.  Wasn’t so impressed with the new Scrooge in 3-D.

I like my familiar neighborhood on Sukhumvit 22.  I like to sit in front of the Parrot Cafe and have my morning coffee…checking for email with free wifi on my iPhone.  I like the meaty German breakfast at the Bei Otto German restaurant with wonderful home-made German rolls.  All the foods that Oaxaca Mexico doesn’t have.  I like having side-walk noodle soup while sitting on one of two small plastic stools…for 30 baht…less than a dollar.  I like the Thai massage I can have as often as I want because they only cost 250 baht ($7.50) for an hour.

But I could really do without all those incessant insufferable Christmas carols in all the malls.  Paragon Mall and other nearby malls are covered with outside megalights and the area just off the skytrain is expected to draw thousands at an extravagant New Years Celebration.  It’s a Buddhist country…but anything for a party! Everyone lines up in front of Christmas displays to have their pictures taken by friends or anyone nearby who is willing to serve as picture-taker…many of them Japanese tourists.

An American friend and his Thai wife flew into Bangkok yesterday from the States.  I called Dave to give directions to my serviced apartment.  After a long explanation he said, you know, we must be very close to you.  These are two well-traveled people (him and me) who have found their way in countries all over the world!  So he sort of followed my directions…walking a very long way up Sukhumvit 20 to Sukhumvit St…down Sukhumvit St…over to Suk 22 and down to the corner of my little street where I was waiting for them in front of a cafe.  After a little catch-up visit we rose to walk on to my hotel.  This is where you are staying, Dave and Syy exclaimed!  Yes, right there on the left, I said.  We are staying there too!!! We just shook our heads…bewildered…and laughing at how we could have misunderstood each other so badly.

But tomorrow I’ll have a chance to get out of the city into the country-side to visit Syy’s family in a tiny village.  A Vietnamese friend who works as a flight attendant for United Air is flying all the way from California to Bangkok so that we can join Dave and Syy in the village for lunch…then Nick will fly back to LA the next day!  Well, I guess if you get a free flight in first class you don’t mind the trip so much on your day off!  So to get ready I have been reading the directions to my new Sony video camcorder.:((

State of Emergency in Thailand

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Update April 14, 2009
Shopping malls are open and the train station has resumed service. Protestors have been bused home.  Arrest warrants have been issued for Thaksin and 13 other pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) leaders for violating the state of emergency, which forbids gatherings of more than five people for political reasons.  It is worthy to note that that many of the “yellow shirts” that shut down 3 airports a few weeks ago have yet to be charged.  Unequal treatment under the law may be what is dividing the country to the extent that it has. Read More

Nobody In Charge in Thailand

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Protesters have taken over the International airport and a smaller domestic airport in Bangkok and are demanding the Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, resign, which he has refused to do even after months of demonstrations and violence in Bangkok. Protesters are refusing to negotiate with the government and have promised to stay until the “final battle.”

“A state of emergency has been declared at both Suvarnabhumi and the smaller, domestic Don Mueang airport, which the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have taken over.”

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7756050.stm

The previous corrupt Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 and replaced with a “proxy” government. Thaksin has been indicted for massive corruption and last I heard he was in exile in China because the UK wouldn’t accept him.

What the BBC doesn’t say is that the new PM, Somchai, is Thaksin’s brother-in-law. He is holed up in Chiang Mai which is the Thaksin family home town and where he has a base of support because Thaksin doled out a few baht when he was PM to small farmers who now think he is wonderful.

However, the “elite” in Bangkok, who know what is going on, doesn’t think he is wonderful. The BBC says: “The PAD is a loose grouping of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class opposed to Mr Thaksin.” Well, this is not a very good description. It also includes respected statesmen, university professors and students. And if the truth were known…probably the revered King who everyone thinks “whispered” his support of the 2006 coup.

“The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Bangkok says that Mr Somchai has already lost the confidence of his army chief, Gen Anupong Paochinda, and rumours of (another) coup are circling in the capital.” The head of Thailand’s powerful army has called for a dissolution of Parliament and new elections.

What the BBC doesn’t say is that the army is refusing to move against the protesters.

The chief of police has been demoted, the BBC says, “to what officials said was an “inactive post” in the prime minister’s office. No official reason was given for Gen Patcharawat Wongsuwanbut’s demotion, but government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar suggested to Thai TV that it was in connection with the protest crisis.”

Come on, I don’t think it would have been difficult to fact check why the police chief was demoted. Everyone knows anyway. So much for the BBC.

My husband, who lives in Thailand says: “Politically hot in Thailand. Nobody in charge. The PM (Thaksin ‘s brother-in-law) attempting to mobilize police and army to open the airport but they refuse to intervene. Can you imagine a head-of-state directing his armies to action and they refuse???? Big comment on the base of power.”

We Thailand watchers (my son and his Thai wife live on Koh Samui in the south) are fervently hoping this doesn’t end in bloodshed like the October 14, 1973 Uprising and the October 6, 1976 Massacre.

Joshua Visits His Mother

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Well, enough of politics and the weariness of world crises.

When I couldn’t get a visa for a three day trip to Burma (should have used a travel agent instead of going to the embassy myself) and to keep from losing the money for the flight, my Thai friend and I changed the destination to Hanoi. The whole junket was ill-conceived so I shall not talk about it. Glad to be back in BKK.

On the bright side, my son Josh has accepted a position as Chef de Cuisine at the American Club in Hong Kong.  The American Club has nothing to do with America, Josh says, so will have to find out why it is named this. His wife Amy will be teaching history at an international school there. So while waiting for the movers to pack up his things in Beijing, he is flying to Bangkok on the 9th to see his mother and have some dental work done. Or rather he will have some dental work done and see his mother! On the 11th we will taxi it down to Hua Hin for a couple days so Josh can get a little beach time.

Am also waiting to welcome old friends from Josh’s dad’s medical school days who are flying in today.

I fly out to PDX on the 15th. Will be nice to be out of the heat after four months in Asia.

Morning Chuckles

Posted on by Laughingnomad

This morning, while reading the Bangkok Post outside a certain BonCafe near my guesthouse in Bangkok, I had to LOL.  Writing about the movie “Iron Man” the Thai reviewer/humorist says “Iron Man saves a bunch of Afghan families…highlights Hollywood’s obsession with heroes, a yearning for the cure and maybe a strange antidote for guilt, and thus Iron Man is both noble and naive, like a democrat. 

In a review of Street Kings he starts out “Unlike Bangkok, where all policemen are pure and uncorrupted, LA, in this James Ellroy story…” and ends with “If it had been a Thai film, the police would have wanted to censor it.  But here enjoy.”

Then turning to my email I find that somehow I have gotten onto the RNC mail list requesting donations. A letter from John McCain states that by the end of his first term he will have solved all of America’s problems and the Iraq War will have been won.

Riiiight! Politicians think we are stupid…and maybe we are.

Ao Nang Beach Krabi Thailand

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Flew back from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Krabi yesterday. We are staying in the J Hotel…same one we stayed in last time here…on the top floor with a view of the ocean and karsts for 450 baht…about $14.

The karsts are as beautiful as ever but the left-overs of the Burma cyclone are causing rain, wind and the roughest ocean Doug has ever seen here. No long-tail boats to be seen anywhere.

Amazed at the development since the tsunami! Seems like double the number of businesses and they have become upscale. Even though it’s low season the streets are full of European tourists.

Will fly out to Bangkok tomorrow noon. Short stay. And Doug and Luk will drive on down to Trang to spend some time with Luk’s mother and pick up Ting Tong before driving back to Samui. After being with them for over a month I will miss them.

Dinner From The Street

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Tonight I went out to the street and bought my dinner which I brought back to my room to eat. First, a Papaya Salad with only one little red chili and it’s still hot! 80 cents. The two sticks with small pieces of what we would call pork bacon cooked over coals. 30 cents. Then on to another cart with steamed hot corn which she cut off the ears for me and bagged. 30 cents. Then around the corner to a soup cart where he bagged up delicious hot broth in one bag, my choice of noodles with bits of chicken and leafy green vegetables in another bag, a little bag of chili vinegar and another little bag of chili. 25 cents. For dessert a huge mango for 40 cents. These are Bangkok prices however food prices are going up all over now. On Koh Samui where my son Doug lives, this food would would have been less…except for the soup.  In the countryside even less.

This is enough food for two people. The soup filled up my bowl twice. I will save my papaya salad and mango for breakfast.

Another cost: 11 plastic bags not counting the two little ones with spices.

A Coincidence

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Last night I opted for a foot massage at a place where the strong Isan masseuses from NE Thailand are trained at Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). Dating from the 16th century, this monastery in Bangkok began as an open university and is still the national headquarters for the teaching and preservation of traditional Thai medicine including Thai massage.

While zoning out in my reclining lounger, an older American couple walked in. Happens that although they are living in Singapore…he still working for Caterpiller Tractors…they are waiting to retire near Klamath Falls Oregon…the city of my birth and where I went to high school!