Trip Reports - PTY 2003: Bikes, Rice and Squiggles

7/15/02 Monday

Up at 0500 today. Only slept for 3 hours. Gary arrived right on time! He even phoned early just to make sure that I was up. Had great coffee, good shower, shave. Forget to eat rest of PP’s fruit salad.

Got to CHO at 0620. Turns out Dulles fogged in. United have me switch to USAir for 1st segment- now CHO to Pittsburgh. Guess it’s a new girl- takes her forever, with many pieces of paper on which she writes, “void”, then tears them up and discards them. They also now have me on USAir from Pittsburgh to San Francisco. I’m told I can keep my window seat. While this is going on, they keep getting calls on their walkie-talkies that they need the last luggage to be loaded NOW! I get shuffled off to the USAir woman. She finally finishes, but, oops, no more window seat, only aisle. Damn! Also. Frequent flyer miles will now go to USAir, where I don’t need any more. All the while, the flight crew is still calling for my bag. She says, “Thank you, Mr. Peabody, your luggage is checked through to Tokyo.” I ask if maybe it can’t accompany me all the way to Bangkok. She tells me that I’m only traveling as far as Tokyo. More calls for my bag! Back we go to the United drawing board. Eventually, the USAir employee plus 4 United employees get it all figured out. Again, much writing of the word “void”, tearing of tickets, several “oops”, and, at the last minute, I get to the gate. By the way, somehow, my miles are back to United

Well, what to my wondering eyes do appear, but Steve the Baggage Handler and his security gear, who chirpily informs me that I get to be the next search victim. Good thing I didn’t have a weapon- while mixing the items in my carefully packed bag, Mr. Nosy just kept asking me personal questions, without actually looking at anything. He’s so “in one’s space”. Actually follows me through the door and down the stairs, with questions.

Anyway, I escape and board. The plane departs about 6.5 seconds later. Only about ¾ full. Cville looks beautiful this morning, wisps of clouds collected by the hills and compressed into soft banks of fog. Everything is so green and lush from the air. Uneventful flight to Pitts-burgh. Wait- what am I talking about??!! About ½ hour into the flight, we suddenly DROPPED out of the sky, did a violent left roll, and then right, then left again. There were actually several seconds of full-out gut-level screaming by a number of passengers. My heart races again just to think back on it. Still not as scary as Steve the Baggage Handler, though.

1-hour layover, then board a 757 to San Francisco, seat XX. I’m on the aisle in a row of 3 (remember, I lost my window seat), BUT… wonder of wonders, THERE’S NO MIDDLE PAS-SENGER!! Luxurious flight all the way to SF, where we actually land ½ hour early. Only gripe (ya know I gotta have one): no pillows or blankets, but, just to make me feel better, the attendant tells me that I’m #4 on the pillow/blanket waiting list, should they find any. Find any?! Where the hell would the hidden pillow/blanket stash be on an airplane? Also, seems my vegetarian meal didn’t follow me from United to USAir, so I’m stuck with a West-ern omelet (hate peppers in eggs) nestled up to a dog-prick looking sausage that’s oozing its deadly juices onto the eggs. Potatoes were good (hear that, Gary?). Got a 2-hour nap.

3-hour layover in SF. Overcast and foggy at 10:00 local time. 60 degrees, light breeze. Big airport, not so clearly marked where the next gate is. Good long walk to the international arrivals building. Get a roast turkey and Swiss on a roll, bottle of Orangina: $9.98. Hang around, make some calls, and board the next plane.

Now on a United 747. Never been in one before. Odd to walk in and see the staircase that goes upstairs for the luxe passengers. Window seat this time, 52A, far enough back of the wing that I can see during takeoff. Once again, great luck. THERE’S NO MIDDLE PASSEN-GER!! Good thing- this segment of the flight is 9+ hours.

Bag-o-nuts an hour later, then dinner served about 1900 Cville time. Nice menu of smoked salmon with cellophane noodles, sliced cucumber salad, rice, chicken, roasted vegggies, a good roll and some mango cheesecake for dessert. Collect 2 bottles of Merlot for future use. Ya just never know.

Have finished the novel “Waiting”, by Ha Jin, by 7:30 PM. Some laughs, a tear at the end. A love story set in China, spanning about 30 years, from 1960 to 1990. Nice, the way Jin throws in the political climate in China during Mao’s time, with references to the rapidly changing leadership and ideologies. The story strikes a chord in me, as it is a composite of all of the relationships with which I’m familiar, both those that are my own and those that belong my friends.

1045 PM Cville time- I don’t have a clue what time it is on the plane! Saw a bit of “I Am Sam”, the Sean Penn movie about a retarded man who wants to raise his own daughter. Good movie- gave me another 90 minutes of sleep. About 5 more hours on this leg of the journey. I’ll arrive at Narita Airport in Tokyo, where I’ll have another layover, this time, 2 hours. I think that I’ll go out of the airport, just a few steps, to breathe the Japanese air.

5:45 Am Cville- 5:45 PM in Tokyo: Well, couldn’t get out of the airport. Can’t figure out why it hasn’t been dark anytime in the last 24 hours. Managed to get another 2 hours sleep- I’ll add it all up later). I think that I’ve been able to get a total of about 8 hours since 3:00 AM Sunday night. Wait at the gate for plane

Added later: flight to BKK uneventful. Lay awake from boarding to landing. Exit, very distinctive aroma in the air. Taxi to Asia Airport Hotel. Close, convenient, a bit ragged about the edges, $30 USD.

July 17 13:00: About to leave Bangkok for Chiang Mai . Boy, do I get all the luck. Somehow, my reservations were cancelled and I couldn’t get the flight that I needed. And… I have a car waiting to pick me up in Chiang Mai and no way to contact them. What to do? Signed up for standby- #34 on waiting list. Somehow, not only do I get called, but I’ve now been bumped up to FIRST CLASS! Wow what luxury. So far, I’ve had nobody sitting next to me in economy and now I’m king (oops, can’t say that too loud here). News briefs: crocodiles, bombs, Muslims..

Anyway, virtually no sleep last night. I’ve had about 10 hours total since going to bed in Cville last Sunday. My body has no concept of what time it is- even having breakfast doesn’t help- since when is chicken boiled rice and spring rolls considered breakfast!!?? 98 degrees out.

Dinner at riverside restaurant arranged by travel agent. Eat with a group of people: 2 Thai, 2 Singaporean. I arrived late, food was already ordered. Small dishes came about every 15-20 minutes for the next three hours: tilapia fish, grilled with vegetables, spring rolls, some mushroom dishes, fish cakes, tom kai gai soup and on and on. Very relaxing, jets of water spraying into the river, nice lights. Ate outside- the restaurant has a multilevel series of teak decks: the temperature was about 82 degrees (still pretty humid. Thai band playing covers of old American R&R. Stuffed, barely room for the final fruit course, which had some bizarre looking things that I’ve never seen before, some very sweet fruit. Anyway, 1 of the Singaporean guys offered to pickup the tab. So: 5 people stuffed, with drinks, nice, nice restaurant, total bill: 650 BHT = less than $14!!! I paid my $3 share. Got a lift back to the hotel. Dead tired passed out at 11:30.

Thai Trip #4: April 5 – April 14, 2003

Saturday, April 5: Well, this time, got 2 hours sleep before departing. Last minute laundry, last minute packing. I think I brought way too much stuff- 30” suitcase is packed and HEAVY! Bringing bottle of tequila, bottle of Baileys, 2 containers coffee, Bokum type coffee maker, x pairs underwear, x pairs socks, x casual shirts, x button shirts, x pairs of pants, big bag of toys, sandals and dress shoes, mini tripod, computer, digital video camera, digital still camera Woke up to Gary calling at 4:30, to tell me that he would soon be here. Gack! Not even awake yet. Rush shower, rush coffee, and try to check web-board 1 last time. Linda had called early, but slept through her call. Ended up hitting snooze 4-5 times. Next time, REMEMBER TO TRY TO SLEEP REGULAR SLEEP. OR MORE! No time to call BGs in TL

Lug suitcases out, Gary here at 05:05, get Linda, and get to airport at 05:40. Huge line for bomb scanner. See Demi and Lander family. Board plane, seat 5A (as usual).

Male flight attendant is a scream: “those traveling with children or anyone acting as a child…, …in the miraculous event of a water landing…, see Linda for more)”. Made a great start. About 50 degrees on leaving. Arrive IAD, had just had light rain, cool.

Bumped to first class!! Seat 3D. Linda 1 row behind, 6B, bulkhead seats. Airbus 320. Depart IAD a bit late. Malfunctioning sensor in right engine, indicating low air pressure, cannot start engine. ...! “We’ll be going in a moment, folks. We’re just doing the paperwork to make the FAA happy.” Finally get engine started.

18:00 EST: Have been on this plane 777 for several hours now. Watched “Tuck Everlasting”. Sucked! Good meal. Linda liked the movie, but not the meal. Will take Valium and sleep. Seats 17 H and J- bulkhead. Ah- 16:15- lights out.

Sunday, April 6:

Have crossed the International Date Line, so it is 03:30 EST (Sunday): Tokyo Narita Air-port. Local time is 14:30.

Had a good 6+ hours sleep. Ah, the miracles of Domicum. Woke up, ate a 3rd meal since leav-ing. It is 15:00 on Sunday here in Tokyo. Since VA is now on DST, BKK is only 11 hours ahead. Will leave here at 16:30 local time. Supposed to arrive at BKK at 22:50 Sunday night.

Will take taxi to Ambassador hotel, where we will stay for 3 days. Linda in regular room in main wing, me in Tower wing w/king bed (THB 3860 for 3 days. Linda is THB 3060).

Good news: Baht is 43.1/1 USD! Best exchange since last summer.

Monday, June 2, 2003:

Remember shower at NRT- GREAT! Arrive 11:00 PM at Don Muang. Damn phone not working- change to send number next morning, now OK (B325 left on card). Taxi to Ambassador: B135! No reservation at hotel! ...?? OK I say, will pay for tonight. We try to call agent for info, but there is no answer at after-hours number at Asian Trails. Was B1200, now B1700. I say it should be for 2 people, they say now B1900. I just pay. Not worth pressing the point- will go nowhere anyway.

Tuesday, June 3: Make new reservation with Planet-Holiday.com for 2 more nights at the Ambassador for B1200/night.

Wednesday, June 4: Meet up with Luckyfarang (Harold). I walk to the Soi 11/Suk inter-section, wait for him and he picks me up in a taxi and we go to see his GF. I feel like a male hooker while I’m hanging on the corner- too many guys give me the eye: HELP! Fon calls, I take quick walk back to hotel to meet her. She looks great, of course. We have a great night’s sleep, which was then followed by breakfast buffet.

Thursday, June 5: Travel to Pattaya (PTY) with Fon. We take a taxi to Ekaamai, B63. Air-con bus tickets B90 each. Baht bus from station in PTY to Soi 13: Total price is B290. We go to Sandy Spring Hotel, get room #507 again. Nice room. Well drilling across the street at new condo. Looks like it will be a nice place when finished. I’ll have to check it out again.

Friday, June 6: Busy day. Fon and I both check our emails. She has not been able to read anything from me since Pen left. We head off to Pen’s apartment. Typical 1 room with hong naam, 3 girls. She has a great TV, stereo and refrigerator that her boyfriend has given to her, but she has no money. Borrows another B50 from Fon (Pen now owes B650). We talk to Pen about possible apartments, but no solid leads. This will become a theme for the day.

We then go to Fon’s old apartment, where she gets to pay ½ month’s rent (B1000) to re-trieve her things (note: I find out the next day that she left B1000 security, so she actually paid full month’s rent). We pack her bags and leave some things (clothes, table, 2 drying racks) with “lady who make shirt”, Bee. Fon buys some kind of diet supplement.

Saturday, June 7: Wake up about 7. Today is Fon's birthday- unfortunately, I have no gift for her. Maybe I will have a copy of her favorite ring made in gold (poy mee si-naam). Today we will see if the townhouse is still available and, if so, move in. Supposed to be B15,000. Still must go to BKK to get left luggage at Ambassador.

Go see Golden Crab, a small apartment complex right across from Sandy Spring Hotel, about ½ block from the beach. They will not budge on B20K for upstairs 2 bedroom. We then go out to see the townhouse where Fon used to live. We talk to Nii, the owner. The townhouse is available for B13,000.

Moved into townhouse! We go to Fon’s old apartment and get her clothes and furniture. We took a baht bus, private hire for B100 and moved the table, etc. from Bee’s. Fon finds much dog hair left on bed in master bedroom. The AC in the living room is a bit loud, but OK. The bed is just firm enough, big, but squeaks like crazy. We decide to exchange it with the bed from the other bedroom. Then the disaster: the water smells like absolute ****, like sewage! Stinks so bad that it makes one gag. We don’t even want to take showers because we’re afraid that we’ll smell worse afterwards! Oh well, take showers anyway.

Fon does all of our laundry, by hand.

We go out and have dinner at Paradise Restaurant on 2nd Rd. Afterwards, we walk for a bit, then go to Topps and buy some food and drink for the house. Go home, sleep like babies.

Sunday, June 8: Get up at 8:00. Take baht bus to 2nd Rd., talk to guy that Fon knows who rents motorbikes. The cost is B3K/month, no insurance, B19000 if bike is stolen. Check out some other rentals on Beach Rd, 1st deal was the best. Check email, try to buy internet package for Loxinfo, CS or something, but cannot. Take Baht 7K from ATM, walk to bike rental and take for 1 month. Suzuki Smash, 110 cc. Baht 1K security. Take it away! Scary. Scrape mirrors with a car right off. Driving on left in crazy traffic. Need to get some experience.

Drive to Foodland on Central Rd. Fon sees internet shop, stop and buy 30 hours for B350. Go to Foodland, buy a ****load of stuff. Uh oh, afraid that I will not have enough money- but it only comes to ha rawy hok sip ha baht (B565)! Go home, put food away. Can smell that out water was treated with chlorine. Run water in kitchen sink- better, but still not 100%. Ac-ceptable though.

3 hours later: water back to **** again. Decide to go to BKK on Monday.

Monday, June 9: Leave for BKK bai haa chao sii sip naathit. Arrive about 2 ¾ hours later. Take BTS from Ekaamai to Phrom Phong and take taxi to Mark’s apartment. Nice place, homey, looks like he’s lived there for a while, settled in. Chat for maybe 90 minutes. He and Fon speak well together. He has already offered room, but Fon more comfortable with ho-tel. Make reservations on-line with chat at Planet-Holiday.com. B1200/night. Same price as when first arrived.

Check into Ambassador. Room 1693- smoking room, but otherwise OK. Bathroom door doesn’t close properly. Talk o Harold. He's staying at President Solitaire. Nice room, a bit pricey for BKK/Lower Suk and a little back from the beaten path. Harold and I try to hook up a couple of times.

Anyway, Fon and I eat at Suk 7 food court. Full meal and drinks = 60 baht.


Tuesday, June 10: Rent taxi for day and to take us to Pattaya later. Go to buy nice clothes for Fon. She has seen a beautiful shirt for B1600, I give her B3000 to go shopping, but Fon buys shirt on street for only B150. Go to immigration (Thai) to make passport for Fon (B230 for taxi). Takes about 1 hour at office, they will mail within 3 days to Bee in Pattaya. From there, go to Asavanant Dental Clinic, a great place on the corner of Soi Thong Lor/Sukhumvit. I have fillings (2 ) done, Fon has x-rays and cleaning. They see 3 cavities and wisdom tooth that should be removed. She is reluctant to have the fillings done, but I talk her into it. Total for 2 exams, 2 cleanings, x-ray and 5 fillings: $110 USD! Afterwards, we are both mumbling fools. Of course, Harold wants to meet for eating again, at Dusit Thani, kinda upscale, but we cannot even drink water without drooling! Decline, take taxi to Ambassador (over 1 hour in HEAVY traffic), and get luggage and head to Pattaya.


Wednesday, June 11: Bad water remains. Do some basic shopping for food and also go to Big C and buy an iron (<B300). Fon irons all clothes. Pen came over today. She and Fon went out on the motorbike to do some shopping for food. When they came back, they cooked up a storm, both Thai and Lao/Isaan. Some SPICY stuff- the bags of ground chili (prik) and ground fish with chili, assorted weed type vegetables, 1 or 2 whole fish (bplaa) and some shrimp (goong). Today I bought an alphabet poster and an ABC book for Fon. She asked about getting an alphabet practice book. This is a good sign!

Friday, June 20, 2003:

I’ve been driving the motorbike quite a bit lately, a small, new Suzuki Smash, maybe 110 cc. Driving in Thailand is like being in a living videogame. I feel like I’ve won a round each time I make it to a destination in one piece. Obstacles come from everywhere and there doesn’t really appear to be strict rules, like, sure, there are one-way streets, but as long as you only go one way, it doesn’t matter which direction you go. People, dogs, chickens, goats, potholes, construction trenches, collapsed sewer pits, cars, trucks and motorbikes can appear from anywhere- and often do! Driving on the left side of the road doesn’t help, especially at in-tersections and, oh my God, at traffic circles. There are three main north-south roads in Pattaya, Beach Rd, 2nd Rd. and 3rd Rd., and two main east-west roads, Pattayatai and Central Rd. The north-south routes are mostly, technically, one-way streets, but, it seems that, if you only want to go a little bit, like a block or so, in the wrong direction, it’s OK, as long as you stay to the left and yield to almost everything. Central Road is 2-way, but they are re-paving one side, so the concrete is torn up and only one side is open. But, does that stop anybody? Nah- motorbikes drive on the torn up section and they drive the wrong way on the good side. I’ve got to put the video camera on the front of the bike and record a drive. Ba-sically, traffic goes round and round in a couple of large, intersecting circles. You can tell when you’ve been sitting in a Pattaya beer bar too long when you see the same baht bus go by 2-3 times!

Food is another crazy journey. We shop at either Foodland, a “big” modern supermarket or get things at one of the literally thousands of small markets and shops that line every street, alley and empty lot. I try to avoid farang food- pheng maak (expensive too much). I bought 7 oz of coffee today and it cost $9.25 USD, more than $20/pound. Cheese, cookies, peanut butter, bread, butter, western style meats are all way out of line. However, chicken cutlet can be had for about 75 cents/pound and a whole sa-pha-rot (pineapple) is only 50 cents- not per pound, but for the whole thing! Fon is an excellent cook. We eat fish and ei-ther chicken or shrimp at every meal (including breakfast). I actually own an electric rice cooker now- just throw in rice and water, flip the switch and it does everything automati-cally. We eat rice constantly. Basically, every meal is a plate of rice and several plates/bowls of something else. You just spoon a little bit at a time over your rice and eat it, using a fork to push the food onto your spoon. Most of the vegetables and fruits are unrecognizable, even the ones you know. Oranges are small green things that look like large limes, except they are incredibly expensive. Eggplants are small things, about the size of ping-pong balls. We seem to eat a lot of morning glories. Much of the food is literally inedible, like large chunks of bamboo, lemongrass stalks, ginger and other tough plant parts that end up in eve-rything. You know you’ve settled into Thai food when your poop looks like the same sticks and twigs that you had for dinner the night before. On the streets, food is available 24 hours/day, with an incredible variety at low prices. We’ll often have a complete, multi-course aa-haan yen (dinner, literally “food night”, versus aa-haan chao, “food morning”), including shrimp and chicken, for under $3 for two!

I know 36 of the 44 Thai consonants now and about 10 of the 20 or so Thai vowels. Some of what follows may be incorrect, but it is my best take on the Thai language so far. Weird lan-guage: some letters actually change the way they look, depending on where they occur in the word- in the middle or at the end. For instance, the vowel for the sound “oh” (sara o), when in the middle of a word, is COMPLETELY DROPPED!!! You just “know” it’s supposed to be there! To complicate matters, there are no breaks between the words in a Thai sentence. A word can only end with one of 8 specific consonants, but these same consonants can also ap-pear at the beginning or in the middle of a word, so that is not really helpful. Also, vowels may be written before, after, ABOVE or BELOW a consonant or in any combination of these! However, as I go through the ABC’s with Fon, I realize how dastardly our English alphabet is. Now, you might think that Thai is difficult, given that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 letters, compared to only 26 in English. BUT… there are both upper and lower case letters in English, which appear different to foreigners, and then there are block letters and script! Total of 104 characters. Plus… I use a sheet of English ABC to help Fon (I’ve got the same thing for Thai). Each letter has a word and picture with it. So, I try to tell Fon that she can say words phonetically, that the sound of the letter is the sound in the word. OK: “A” is “ant”, but then “B” is “bird”. The “i” doesn’t work. OK, we’ll move on C-A-T, cat. Should be K-A-T. ...! The tonal aspects of Thai are difficult. There is nothing similar in the English language that I can think of, where in Thai a word takes on a new meaning if you say it with a mid, high or low tone, or with a rising or falling tone. Same exact pronuncia-tion of the sounds, but 5 different tones. And don’t even get me started on the different fonts used everywhere. It’s hard enough to learn the little squiggles, without having to guess what the stylized fonts are. Think of the fonts used in advertising in English and you will know what I mean. As I learn more characters, I have begun to be able to read signs in Thai on stores that are written in Thai transliterated from English. I feel like I have a brain injury though, as I sound out loud: em-ee-ni-ma-ro-te, mee-ni-ma-rote, meenee-ma-rote, meeneemarote- oh, I get it: minimart!

Best hotel lie that turned into “farang must be confuse”: Ambassador Hotel, Soi 13 (?), Bangkok: After seeing my room, I return to reception. “Please change my room. The maid cleaning station next to my room makes my room very small.” “OK, sir, we give you new room” Having been fooled before, I think to ask, “King bed in new room?” “No, sir, only have king bed in room next to maid station. You want?” Me: “Last week, I stayed in room with king bed, room number 2096” Them: “OK sir, we change room to king bed” Me, thinking, but not saying, “But didn’t you just tell me …”. TIT. BTW, this is after arriving at midnight, after a 28 hour series of flights from America, and showing the clerk my PRINTED CONFIRMA-TION OF A PRE-PAID RESERVATION and being told “Reservation cancel”. By whom, I ask. “Lady”. “What lady?”. “Not know”. Me: “OK, no problem, look at the copy of my confirma-tion”. “Sorry sir, reservation cancel.” ..., I think, looking at the row of keys behind the desk and realizing that they have, at best, 20% occupancy that night. Anyway, as I stand there with my luggage containing everything I need for 3 months, I say, “Give me a room”. “OK sir, B1700” “But I have a confirmed, PRE-PAID reservation for B1200. I’ll pay you now and straighten this out later, but I only want o pay B1200”. He shows me the rack rate card, as if this adds any legitimacy to his extortion and, eyeing my luggage and my haggard face, tells me, “Up to you, sir. You want room or no?”. “OK,OK”. After paying, I see that the receipt is for 1 person and my confirmed, pre-paid reservation is for 2, for my Thai wife and I. I tell him, “I need a room for 2 people please”. “OK, sir. B200 more” so I end up paying B1900 for a room which, did I mention yet, I have a CONFIRMED, PRE-PAID RESERVATION FOR 2 FOR B1200!!!

****Caveat emptor: Latin for “Welcome to Thailand”.****

Another great Thai business decision by a farang who has been here too long: I went to The Golden Crab Apartments in Pattaya, Soi 13 (?), directly across from the Sandy Spring Hotel (“Hotel Sandy”, to the girls) to rent a place for the next three months. Nice apartments, all amenities, good pool, ½ block from the beach.. In April, I was quoted B12K/month for an up-per floor, 2 BR apartment by the Thai wife of the farang owner. Now the sot of an owner sits there and tells me B20K/month. I mention the 12K. Only for a 1-year contract, he tells me and won’t budge a satang on the price. Went back yesterday to look: only 2 of about 15 units are rented. Smart move, Chucko, during this low season, SARS-decimated tourist time. Let’s do the math, class: Which is greater- B12K/month times 3 months or B20K/month times ZERO???

Sunday, July 13, 2003

: Go to Big Buddha for Asalabucha Day (sp?), the first day of Buddhist Lent. We make an offering basket and are blessed by a monk, who ties saffron/pink string around our wrists and throws blessed water on us. Afterwards, we go home and shower, then we ride the bike back to Cosy Beach Resort, between Pattaya and Jomtien, up and down a steep, incredibly curvy road.

Fon, Peter, Not and I plan to eat at a small, family run seafood restaurant at the very far end of Jomtien Beach Road. However, as we start to go, the traffic is incredibly bad- seems everyone from Bangkok has come to Pattaya for the weekend. Rather than fight the traffic, Peter pulls into a small alley on the right hand side, just after the “Welcome to Jomtien” arch, where we park in a small, muddy lot. He explains that the family that owns the other restaurant also owns this one, so it’s probably as good. It is packed with Thai families. There is a long wait, maybe 60-90 minutes, before we get any food. It seems that they were unprepared for and overwhelmed by the crowds this weekend. We see foods that we ordered going to tables that were seated long after us. We eventually get some of the food we ordered and pay up (B460). It is now pouring rain. We get back to the Cosy Beach Hotel, where we left the motorbike and we ride back home in the rain, arriving soaked and laughing.

Monday, July 14: Today’s plan (Plan #1): Today, we will go to Bangkok to apply for a visa for Fon to visit the US. We figure a 2 hour ride to BKK, meet Mark and stay at his place on Soi 26/Soi Aree, have a short night out, go to the Embassy on Tuesday morning and know about the visa by Tuesday afternoon. I should have known that things would soon head south, be-cause now we have a plan and things NEVER work as planned in Thailand!

After a lazy start to the day, we head to the bus station to catch a bus to Ekaamai at 1:45, to arrive in BKK about 4:00, before the traffic gets really bad. I know, at this point, you can almost hear the demonic voice from the sky going, “Plan? What plan? Bwa-ha-ha-ha.” Unfor-tunately, ½ the population of Thailand is returning to BKK after the Buddhist holiday. The bus station is mobbed and the 1st available bus is 3:10. After sitting for about 40 minutes (it’s now 2:45), Fon tells me that the girl next to her is waiting for the 2:00 bus. I say, “You must mean the 3:00 bus”. “No, 2:00 bus.” Traffic is so heavy that busses cannot even get to Pattaya on time. Bad sign, because the really heavy traffic should be going towards BKK. Our bus eventually arrives IN PATTAYA at 4:00. We end up in the middle seats in the row of 5 in the back of the bus, but we steal the two seats on the right hand side and actually end up with 2 empty seats next to us (for about 20 minutes). The traffic back to BKK is indeed heavy and we arrive at Ekaamai in BKK at about 7:00! We take the skytrain from Ekaamai to Phrom Phong station and walk to Mark’s, where we settle in and shower. Mark suggests we eat out together. Dinner is at a small Italian restaurant called Fabio’s, about a 10-minute walk from Mark’s. Fon would have preferred to eat at the Isaan restaurant next door, Hua Lamphuang, but Mark had eaten there the night before. Mark goes out, we go to bed at 10:00 PM.

Tuesday, July 15: Today’s plan (Plan #2): Go early to the American Embassy on Wireless Road (Withayu), make the visa application, take a water taxi to Wat Pho for a massage and return in the afternoon to get the visa or the denial.

We get to the Embassy about 10:30 and find out that the visa applications can only be made between 7 and 9 AM. In addition, the Nazi at the reception desk tells us that the line is over 100 people long everyday and they cut it off around 9, so tough luck if you’re at the end of the line. I ask for both a tourist and a K-1 (fiancée) visa application. She gives me the tourist visa application and tells me that they can only give out the fiancée visa application between 1 and 3:00 PM (bwa-ha-ha-ha)! In addition, there is a $100 fee for the tourist visa, which can only be paid at a post office in provincial Bangkok! Ok, I figure we’ll get the photos, pay the fee, come back for the fiancée application at 1:00, go to Wat Pho today and return at 6:30 AM tomorrow to make the application. We get the photos done: white back-ground, full face for tourist and ¾ right side for K-1 (B250 each set). We eat noodle soup and then we go to Soi 4 (Nana) for the post office. I get a bad feeling when I see that the metal gate over the door is halfway down. As it turns out, this branch is closed (Bwa-ha-ha-ha). OK, we’ll find another post office, I’m sure. Turns out, they’re ALL CLOSED (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha)! An extension of the two-day Buddhist holiday, I’m guessing because the first day was on a Sunday. Damn! Since the post office doesn’t open until 8:30 Wednesday morning, that means we cannot pay in the morning and get to the Embassy on time. That means it will be Thursday at the earliest before we can even get an application in (Demon: ROTFLHMFAO).

Of course, now Fon is hungry, cranky and has sores on her feet from walking. We cancel plans for Wat Pho because of her feet and return to Mark’s, where we shower, change clothes and cool off. We head out early evening, after bandaging Fon’s sore foot, and walk around the lower Suk area for a while. Eventually, we eat dinner at Soi 7 food court. We walk home, watch TV for a while and go to sleep early.

Wednesday, July 16: Today’s plan (Plan #3): Wake up early, pay for the American visa at the post office, take a water taxi to Wat Pho and get a massage.

We wake up late and head over to Soi Nana to the post office. Again, confusion- there are long lines at every window and no signs on the windows seem appropriate for what we want. We walk around a corner and there are more windows. Walking down a bit further, I see a small sign that says “US Visa 4300 Baht”. .......os! It is supposed to be $100 USD or the Thai equivalent. At this week’s exchange rate, that should be about B4150. OK, it’s only a difference of about $3.75, but it’s the principle of the thing. We pay, get our receipt and go. Total time: about 90 minutes. It’s now around 2:30- too late for Wat Pho.

Fon tells me that she is out of clean clothes. We shop for new shoes for her (B500) at Rob-inson’s. She also tells me that she only brought 2 shirts, pants and underwear, so we also shop for these. She gets a shirt B150, bikini B50 and jeans B500. We return to Mark’s, shower, change and Fon does laundry in Mark’s machine.

Around 7:00, we go out to Mark’s pool tourney at the Moon Shine Bar, at the Washington Square Beer Bar complex off Soi 22. I make a good connection for V there and talk to one of Mark’s team-mates, Paul, who suggests two things for the American visa application: one, to get a French visa, to show intention to travel with Fon and two, to take a short run to Malaysia or Singapore, to show that she can leave the country and return. Sounds good.

We eventually wander over to Thip Top restaurant on Suk between sois 22 and 24 and have a great meal, then head home for another early bed night.

Thursday, July 17: Today’s plan (Plan #4): Get an early start, go to the French Embassy and get a French Visa, then take a water taxi to Wat Pho for a massage.

We get up early, get a good map and lookup the location of the French embassy. A stroke of good luck- it is located right near the Oriental Hotel, on the Chao Phrya River, so, after the embassy, we can jump right back on the water taxi and be at Wat Pho in about 15 minutes. Really looking forward to the massage. We take the skytrain to Saphan Tahksin, then grab a water taxi (B6) to the Oriental Pier. After wandering semi-lost for a bit, we find the em-bassy. Lucky us- there is nobody else there making a visa application today!. So far, so good! After clearing security, we approach the woman at the desk and ask for the visa application. She laughs (bwa-ha-ha-ha) and tells us that everybody comes to the French Embassy to ap-ply for a visa for France, but one actually needs to go to the French Consulate on Sathorn Road (but of course!), about a B300 ride in today’s traffic (bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha).

So… we take the water taxi back to Saphan Tahksin, then take the skytrain to Chong Nonsi station and from there, walk the three looong blocks to the French consulate. After clear-ing security, we go inside, where there are about 50 people waiting to be served. We imme-diately take a number from the number machine. Number 5050. ****- they are serving num-ber 5020 now. There are no signs or anything to indicate the procedure. There are 6 win-dows, windows #2-4 are marked “depot”, window #5 is marked “…de acueil”, window #6 has no sign and window #1 has a sign in Thai. After waiting about 10 minutes, Fon speaks to a Thai person, who tells her to go to window #1 for paperwork.

She returns from window #1 with a single form, in English, marked “Shengen Visa Form”. I find out later that “Schengen” is a coalition of 15 European countries. A visa for any one of them gets you into the others- you make the original visa application in the country where you will be spending the most time. The countries include France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, all of the Netherlands and others. Fon says that the form has to be filled out in English. I spot some other people filling out the form. They all have a direction sheet, which Fon didn’t get. She goes back on line #1. She comes back with the directions, which are written in Thai and French. I wait in line 1 and ask for directions in English- “Sorry, only French and Thai” (bwa-ha-ha-ha). I get the form filled out, using my 6 years of high school French and 2 years of college French. Everything is OK, except where Fon has to sign her name in English. She doesn’t write English very well, just learning, so I write her name for her and she copies it onto the appropriate line.

We figure out that we now can wait on line for any window #2-4. We wait for about 15 min-utes, cleverly avoiding the line that has a Thai guy holding a handful of about 10 Thai visas and forms. We get to the window and the woman tells us that we are missing the paperwork that tells where we will be staying. I explain that I haven’t made reservations anywhere be-cause we don’t yet have a visa. She explains that you need a letter from someone in France or a written confirmation from a hotel (bwa-ha-ha-ha).

Ok, we leave, get two motorbike taxis, which roar down the wrong side of a small soi (Soi Suan Phlu, the same soi where immigration is located) with us to an Internet café. I log on, go to hotelcity.com and make a reservation for two for 4 days in Paris at the end of August. I also print a copy of my bank statement, just in case it’s needed (turns out to be a smart move). We also make copies of Fon’s land and house titles, her ID card and her bankbook.

It is now 11:30 and we know that the consulate closes at noon. Back on the motorbike taxis, roar back to the consulate- now 11:40. The guard will not let us in- “pit duay nii” (closed now). BWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA. I remember the number that I took from the machine when we first arrived. I show it to the guard and tell him that they told us to come back. He checks the date on the ticket and lets us in! We wait for about 10 minutes at window 2 and the woman takes our paperwork, clips it together, takes my money and then gives us a slip of paper showing that we paid the 25 Euros (B1190, about $26 USD) and a phone number and tells us to call the next day. Finished!

We decide to go out tonight with Peter and Not to a Thai brew house, named something like Tawang Daeng (?). No admission fee. I have no idea where it’s located. The brew house is great- a variety of music, some good stage shows, good food, good drink, packed with Thais. Peter has reserved a table, up front and in the center, but we arrive a bit late (~7:45), so we’ve lost the prime seats. After an evening of fun, we take a taxi home about midnight.

Friday, July 18: Today’s plan (Plan #5): Get up early, get the visa at the French consulate, take a water taxi to Wat Pho and close the week with that massage that I’ve been craving.

We get up late and go to the French consulate at about 10:30. We take a number and sit and wait for about 20 minutes before Fon takes my suggestion and asks at window #1 about whether she was approved or not. She comes back and tells me that we have to return Mon-day. Why? “Not have paper, come back Monday”. This can’t be happening! I find out that she needs another copy of her bankbook. I take her bankbook and walk into the consulate com-pound, go to the media center and make a copy and return. She takes the copy to window #2. Here, I have to write a statement outlining our relationship, where we plan to go, why and what is my proof of money. I point out the statement I’ve printed from Bank of America from the ‘net. The woman wants to see my bankbook; I explain that we don’t use bankbooks, so she settles for a copy of my credit card. She is nice enough to make the copies herself. After this, we sit and wait again. We get called to window #6 for a brief interview by a fe-male consulate officer. What is our relationship, how long have we known each other (I say 6 months), what do I do for work? Do I have a letter from my employer? <Darn> No. She re-plies that she wants to be fair and that even the French have to show a letter from their employer to bring a guest over for a few days. I point out the recent $10,000 deposit from my employer. I also point out the numerous trips that I’ve taken to England, France, Spain and Morocco over the last 5 years and the 5 trips that I’ve taken to Thailand in the last year, in an attempt to convince her that I’m not a welfare case. Fon gets asked what she does for work and how long we’ve known each other. She blows both questions: “have shop”, which I interpret, and “before 3 months”. I point out the title deeds for Fon’s house and property. The officer says something like, “Papier du domecile?” Somehow, she missed that one, too! After all is said and done, the officer tells us to call back next week. I explain that we’ve been trying to do this for 5 days and would like to return to our home in Loie. She says OK, call back at 4:00. We go back to Mark’s, wait and call at 4:00. The consulate is closed, says the answering machine. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA…

Mark and I make tentative plans to go to Cambodia in about 2 weeks. Fon and I take a taxi to Ekaamai (B58) at 4:30 and catch the 5:00 to Pattaya, which gets us in at about 7:30. Re-turned home by moto taxi (B60).

Note: Visa was granted on the following Monday!

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

: Get up around 9 today. Head to hardware store and buy for Fon: vinyl, wood grain, louvered , pre-hung door for hong naam (B2800); precut wood for last window for her house (B800). We follow the truck to a bus, load everything on the bus and then to the Land Records Office.

Fon has some document that lists her parents, daughter and granddaughter and the piece of property on which their house sits. The parent’s bigger property (100 rai?) is located down the road a little bit. There, they grow rice and have a small rubber tree plantation. The document is a very official looking, multi-page, bound like a passport. Fon drops the book and her ID at some window. After a period of time, we are asked to go upstairs to speak with some official. When we get upstairs, there are 2 rooms, packed with land officials, all wearing military type uniforms, listening to some speaker. They have the same blank, bored looks on their faces that conferees everywhere have. We are then escorted back down to our seats, without actually talking to anybody.

Fon wanders off somewhere. This whole thing is a typical Thai experience for me. I have no idea what’s happening and I sit and smile at all of the people who are smiling and staring at the farang. Earlier, I asked Fon some questions about this title transfer of property from her parent’s name to hers. Are there not lawyers, papers to sign, research to be done, some kind of bill of sale, a note from her parents, anything? Simple answer from her: No. Thinking that my question is not clear, I try again: could anybody just come in with this book and transfer the title, then? Simple answer again: No. Why not? “Thai not do.” After many other questions along the same lines, the best answer that I get seems to be: the title for the land cannot be sold. A portion can only be transferred to a family member and that person is usually the eldest daughter. Some guy approaches me from the side and catches me by surprise. He asks, “Where are you from? Is that your wife? Where do you stay now?”. I tell him America, yes and Bangkok, not really wanting to give much information to a total stranger. Fon returns, says hi to the guy and then she tells me to come and sit with them- apparently, he is one of the big cheeses at the Land Office!

We sit at his desk and have a very pleasant conversation. His English is OK (not as good as Fon’s). A secretary brings us glasses of ice water. We end up sitting for a total of about 35 minutes. Most of the time, we are just chatting. Every so often, either a piece of paper arrives, which he signs, or he put some papers on the front of his desk, which are then whisked away by some secretary. I notice that one secretary is eating, another is playing a Thai baby version of Tetris and one secretary is reading a book. By the time we are done, he has tried on my ring, told me he would like English lessons, given me his card and his home phone number, taken my name, phone number, email and home address and told me that now I have a friend in Loie, anytime I need one. After he did the palm reading thing, holding my hand and gently tracing my lifeline or some such, I ask him if he is married and if he has any children (i.e., are you gay? Remember, this is my GIRLFRIEND here sitting next to me!). Everybody laughs, kind of an odd moment. Fon gets up and goes to another window to pay some fee (B30). While she is gone, an attractive secretary in a form-fitting, blue female business suit drops more papers on his desk. He gives a leering grin to me and nods towards her, “Suay maak mai?” (very pretty, yes?) I say all Thai women are pretty (Tuk pu-ying kon Thai suay maak). Fon returns and everything is complete. Fon now owns a piece of land and the house that she is building on it. Chorchai points out that her house is number 160. Her parent’s house, right next-door, is number 4. I ask Fon what the number of the house is on the other side of her house (“Don’t know”). Remember, in Thailand, houses are numbered by the order of registry at the land office, which pretty much makes it IMPOSSIBLE to find anyplace!

We then head for Fon’s house on the motorbike. We buy some food along the way. By the time we get there, the hardware has arrived.

Work is progressing well on the house.


Thursday, July 3: We stay another day in Loie so that we can check on work on the house and take some final photos for the visa application. Today turns out to be the first day in Loie with no rain. We decide to ride the motorbike to Chiang Khan, a small village about 20 miles north of Loie. Chiang Khan is right on the Mekong River, which separates Thailand from Laos to the north. We eat at a small overlook on the Mekong River, about 3 miles east of Chiang Khan.

We then head back to Fon’s village. BTW, the name of the village is Ban Huay Wai. By the time we arrive, the workmen have finished the front (and final) wall of the house.

Friday, July 4: We leave Loie at 8 AM and arrive at Mor Chit in Bangkok at 4:45 PM. It was a nice ride on a good bus- front seats, so we had a great view of everything. We went through the Phu Kradung National park. It is about 4000 feet high and full of deciduous woods, like oak and maple! This is pretty unusual for Thailand. It does get close to freezing here some nights in the wintertime, according to Fon. Hard to believe, though- the heat everyday is just an incredible, hanging heat. (NOTE: I got to experience the cold the following December, when we returned to the mountains of Northern Thailand. IT WAS COOOOLD!)

Monday, June 30: Send email to Asavanant for appointment Thursday. Might as well bite the bullet now for a crown, while I still have insurance.

Today we go To Loie. We leave Pattaya at 3:00 PM by motorcycle taxi, and then take a bus to Mor Chit in Bangkok (B90). We arrive at Mor Chit at 6:30 PM and book a 7:00 bus. I ask Fon if there is a better bus and she says “no”. However, while I’m waiting for her to return with the tickets (B320 each), I notice a signboard that indicates that, not only are there about 20 busses going to Loie (not 2 like Fon said), one of them is a VIP bus, which is an ex-press! Now, it might not be so bad taking a local, which stops at every dinky little village along the way (about 380 miles) if it is daytime and you want to do some sightseeing, but not at night when you want to sleep! Fon points out that the VIP bus leaves at 10PM- I point out that it leaves at 9 PM and probably gets in earlier than the local. Ok Ok. Fon assures me that the accommodations on the VIP bus are the same as the bus we are taking, the only difference being the number of stops. She also points out that the VIP bus costs an addi-tional B175 (about $4.50 USD). I’ll tell you now, by the end of the trip, I would have gladly paid much more for a better ride.

I give Fon B100 and tell her to get some junk food for the trip. I already have 3 large bot-tle of water and three cans of Lipton Iced Tea. She returns with 3 sliced farang fruit, doused with ground chili and salt. Not my old idea of junk food, but it probably qualifies in a Thai kind of way. We also have a large container of garlic-fried chicken fillets that Fon made the night before. The garlic will prove to be a valuable and powerful weapon, for rea-sons that will become clear later. The bus arrives. It is, of course, NOT the same as a VIP bus, one of which happens to be sitting right next to us, as if to rub salt in my wounds. Our bus is smaller and dumpier looking. Prediction 1: the VCR/TV programming will suck. Predic-tion 2: the toilet will prove to be inferior. Prediction 3: Any guesses on my music prediction (Hint: the bus is going to northeastern Thailand.)??

We board the bus and settle in. In the seat in front of me is one of the largest Thai men I have ever seen. He sits down and his seat immediately reclines, so far that his head is al-most in my lap and he is actually underneath MY lights and air vents! I am not sure if he in-tentionally reclined the seat or if the seat simply collapsed under his weight when he sat down, because the seat NEVER WENT BACK UP during the 9 hours that followed, even when he was sitting upright. Plus, his seat squeaked, creaked, groaned and otherwise complained under his bulk, making the most horribly annoying sound for the remainder of the journey. That sound in my ears was like a tiny pebble in your shoe. At first, you don’t even notice it, but, given enough time, you want to CUT YOUR DAMN FOOT OFF!

So far, we haven’t left the bus terminal, I’ve not even made it to my predictions and already the ride sucks. It doesn’t get any better.

Right after we leave, the video starts. It is a badly edited tape of a Thai concert, a singer named Mai Thai, who Fon tells me is very popular. It is, of course, all Isaan music. The music is only about 25% of the show, however. The rest is a running comedy act, featuring a bi-zarre cast, including some squeaky voiced Thai (sound like a bad version of early Jerry Lewis), some fat ladyboy pretender, an overdressed, over-make-up’ed, overweight woman with way too much hair, a short guy with a shaved head and an assortment of other charac-ters. I could understand one word out of every 500 or so, but, mai bpen rai, I have a multi-lingual Thai girlfriend who can translate for me. WRONG! She and the rest of the bus are so busy laughing that I can’t get her to speak. How funny was it? This funny: I eventually offer her some of the farang fruit/chili/salt mix. She declines, saying, “Not want spicy to come out nose”. I survived, helped by liberal doses of the aforementioned garlic-fried chicken.

After about 90 minutes, both the video and the chicken were gone, just in time to pull into a food market for a free meal- it comes with the ticket. “Why you not tell me?”, I ask. Shrugs. Of course, I have no appetite now. We disembark and get 2 plates of food- Fon is ravenous. If I could remember where this food stall was located, I would advise you to eat there before flying again. The food will make all airline fare taste like gourmet offering. Fortunately, I was full.

Everybody boards the bus again and off we go. Time to use the mobile toilet. Predictions 1 and 3 were accurate, what do you think about prediction #2? Nope. Wrong. The toilet was worse than that. The light was broken, the door wouldn’t stay closed, which had made eve-rybody’s aim remarkably inaccurate, leading to the worst stench you can imagine. My aim was no better.

Well, at least I can sleep- a 9-hour ride, middle of the night, already a long day. Wrong again. Remember, this is a local bus. We stop everywhere and each time, the lights and some DAMN ISSAN MUSIC come on full blast! This, combined with the squeaking from the seat in front of me, makes me crazy. Then, suddenly, with no control on my part, the aforemen-tioned powerful and valuable weapon is unleashed on the sleeping bus, spreading as an invisi-ble, yet deadly, odiferous cloud of intestinally modified garlic gas.

Tuesday, July 1: Arrived at Loie this AM at 04:00 (dtii siip). We take a tuk-tuk to the ho-tel (B60) and check-in to a small room, the Phu Lauang Hotel (B560/night). We then go to the market, which is booming. There, we see many of Fon’s friends, all checking out her fa-rang “husband”. We buy a bunch of food and put it in the back of the pickup of the “lady who sell food”, who lives 2 houses away from Fon in the village. We go back to the hotel and sleep until about 9:30. Showers, shave, no breakfast. We walk through Loie proper, where we see one of Fon’s friends at a drink shop and then head to a shop where I rent a Suzuki Smash (110 cc.) for B150/day for 2 days. We then drive the hour or so to Fon’s house, hit-ting some drenching rain along the way.

Fon’s house: many ladies come over and make Krathong kind of thing. I give Fon B8000 to buy cement (50 bags @ B100/each) and block (600 @ B3/each). I take many photos of her house. It’s not bad, really- 3 walls and roof finished, framing done for nice front door, hong noon blocked out. We get her stepbrother to drive us in his big truck to the cement com-pany; we go to food market and buy a lot of food, like 6 fish, 3 chickens (head, feet and all). I get the idea that there will be some kind huge celebration with the farang as focus. Fon mentions buying some whiskey- I ask how many people (she doesn’t know) and I tell her that I don’t want to buy whiskey. I figure I’ll go 1 liter for every 10 hardcore drinkers. That works out to about 4 drinks each. Should be plenty, in my book. As it is, I’ve already donated ½ liter of Cuervo Gold.

Turns out ladies are making “pakwan”, which Fon says is always made for weddings!! Ack!!

I meet Fon’s: father, mother, daughter (Angerie), grandson (Fame), stepbrother, and 2 of 3 brothers, aunt, and cousin.

OK- looks like this is going to be one of those village parties that I read about. There are about 40 people at the house. Suddenly, Fon tells me to sit by the pakwan. I come over, a string is wrapped around an old guy with a special scarf, then over my hands, then Fon’s hands, then her father’s and mother’s hands. Fon folds her hands like she’s praying and tells me to do the same. The old guy starts a chanting prayer for about 20 minutes. After that, he opens a hard-boiled egg and Fon and I eat the egg with bits of khaow nieow (sticky rice). We are then splashed with khaow lao (rice liquor, basically moonshine made from rice). Af-ter splashing is with the ‘shine for about 5 minutes, we are offered the glass to drink. I wet my lips, but don’t drink any, much to the amusement of the crowd. Apparently, Fon has to down anything that I don’t drink. She downs the glass, again, much to the crowd’s amuse-ment.

After this, the crowd gathers around us. We are each given a metallic pillow, blue for me and silver for Fon. Each person in the crowd takes turns tying a piece of string around Fon’s wrist and another piece around mine. Most people rub it gently on our wrists, then give the knot a little rub when finished. One woman actually slips some money in my pocket. We obvi-ously end up with quite a pile of string on each wrist. People seem to have genuine and deep concern, care and well wishes, with wonderful smiles.

After the string thing, food is put out. Mostly the women are clustered in the living room and the men are on the front porch and the kitchen. Everybody sits on the floor. I think there is only 1 chair in Fon’s parents’ whole house. Here is a pile of food. The women tend to drink orange soda and Coke, while the men drink Mekong whiskey (actually a type of rum, but really rotgut- only B75/liter- that’s only $1.85 for a large bottle of booze! Nobody gets smashed and I continue to decline all offers of whiskey (mai gin lao, mai chorp = I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t like it). People continue to come and go for several hours, all doing the string thing.

I take many digital photos and display them on the family’s TV set, to howls of laughter from the women. I wish I had had the presence of mind to get my video camera running at the start of the ceremony. I think this will be a once-in-a-lifetime event for me. Fon tells me that only Pen, her girlfriend from this village, has had the same ceremony.

We head home about 10 PM. It has been raining off and on, but we seem to be having an off spell. We get home safely and decide to sleep early.

Tuesday, July 22: Woke up early today, about 7:00. I do Internet for about 2 hours be-fore Fon gets up. We have very little food at home, so Fon goes to the small shop down the soi and gets many vegetables and some squid. She makes the best squid fried rice that I’ve ever had!

We laze about for a bit. I ask Fon to check on AC. She goes and asks- they still have not called. Dipsheets- why do all requests have to be made multiple times before anybody takes action? Of course, Fon again doesn’t ask when she will call! It’s just not the Thai way to try to pin anybody down on definitive answers. We find the spring for the kickstand and I hang it on the bike. Fon does the laundry, comes in and naps on the couch.

Since the AC is still not working in the living room, I decide to nap in the bedroom. I wake up about 30 minutes later and my stomach feels like ****. I use the toilet and have diarrhea. I feel warm, so I take my temperature: 100.1 degrees I return to the bedroom and then go right back to the toilet, where I now have diarrhea and vomiting. I grow very weak and my whole body aches. Temp now 101.6 degrees. Damn. Feels like last year’s onset of Dengue fe-ver! This continues for about two hours. Fon gives me some pills, but I have no idea what they are. She then goes to the little shop (the source of the octopus) and buys some anti-diarrheals. During this time, of course, 4 guys arrive to work on the downstairs AC, but they have to shut off power. Now, I am alternating between freezing and boiling, vomiting and diarrhea, with workmen traipsing about and my money, cameras and computer left out, with me too weak too really move. The AC guys finish and leave.

I really feel bad now and Fon asks if I want to go to the hospital. I decline for about one hour, then I take my temperature again: 102.2 degrees. I tell her OK, let’s go. She walks the 10 minutes to Central Road, where she gets a taxi (baht bus) to come to the house. She asks if I want to go to Pattaya Memorial Hospital or Luangbhon Memorial Hospital. I tell her to take me to the better one. I make it out to the bus and we get to the hospital about 5 min-utes later (B100, the thieves!), where I am taken to the emergency room. I am checked in (passport) and asked to fill in some paperwork. They take my temp: now only 37.5 degrees, pulse and blood pressure (150/90, usually about 120/90). A doctor interviews me, checks my liver, tells me that it’s probably just gastro-enteritis and asks if I want to stay or go home. I tell him that I’ll go home. He says it might last 2-3 days. I get wheeled out, where I pay, and then pickup 4 prescriptions in their pharmacy.

Fon gets another baht bus and we go home (B80). Total cost: B919, only about $22.00 USD. The doctor’s fee was B500, the nursing/midwifery fee was B20 and the prescriptions (10 tabs each Plasil, 10mg and hyoscine-N-butylbromide, 10mg; 20 tabs Paracetamol, 500mg; 12 tabs Cipro, 250mg, 6 tabs orange electrolyte replacement), were only B212! The hospital reminded me in many ways very much of a US hospital- ABOUT 40 YEARS AGO! There was a strong bleach/disinfectant smell in the ER. The most retro thing was the nurses- all in white nurse’s uniforms, complete with little white nurse’s caps. All in all, well worth the price of admission.

At home, Fon puts me to bed and gives me some medications. I nap again for about an hour, wake up and feel fine. Bizarre. Just 3 hours ago, I could hardly move. We go downstairs and I try to use the ‘net. Damn. Our phone service has been shutoff!. We’ll pay the bill tomor-row. Fon makes some soup for me, after which I sleep for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, July 23: I wake up at 8:00 and feel great. I continue to take medicine. Fon gets up about 10:00. There is some on and off rain, very light and infrequent. We go out to the phone company and pay our bill. The basic monthly charge is B107, and we pay an addi-tional B366 for the individual calls. In addition, they make us pay for August, B107. They also tell us that service will be reconnected around 4:00. We then go to Soi Brai-sa-nee to ask about job papers- they tell Fon that they cannot do it. We then go to Foodland, where we spend B866 for groceries. At home, we have some chicken-rice soup. I examine the phone bill. It turns out that the landlady gave us the May bill to pay, also. Flicker- we didn’t even move in until June! Fon, incensed, immediately leaves to find out why. She returns and tells me: the maid for Nii will give the bill back to Nii, explains that Nii works too much and forgets. Apparently, Nii also forgot that we had already paid the cable bill and tried to ex-tract an additional B350 from us. BTW, she still owes me B10 for the water bill!

I read in the BKK Post that Typhoon Koni is sweeping across Vietnam, Lao, Kampuchea and Northern Thailand and that it will probably cause all of Thailand to have rain for the next 3-4 days.

Monday, November 24, 2003: Trying out the new computer for the 1st time. New Toshiba Sat-ellite, 2.3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 K RAM, 60 GB hard drive, 802.11g WiFi, DVD reader, CDR-RW reader/burner. Only $1149 USD.

Once again, did not get any sleep the night before the trip. Lesson learned, finally, I hope: DON’T PUT OFF UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE! Gary called about 9:50 PM and said he was getting late from seeing his parents in Nebraska. He asked me to leave my car at the short-term lot. He’s now driven me and picked me up 10 times. Many thanks to him! I did miss our morning pep talk, though.

Got to the airport at 5:45 from. Check-in- one bag was 4 pounds overweight. They made me move some books to my other bag. Brought an extra bag in the car, just in case - UA allows 3 bags for Premier Executives.

Seat 4A out of Cville. Napped on the plane, woke up in DC. About 30 minutes to board the next flight. I had already been given an upgrade 2 days before take-off. I have the 777B- seat 1D! Fell asleep before taking-off from DC- woke up in Seattle! Wow! I missed breakfast, but bad a great lunch. Taken 2 Valium- 1 from Foodland, the other from a little pharmacy- At the corner of Suk soi 13. Good stuff!

I had a 1.5 hour layover at Seattle. I went to the Red Carpet Club for “Elite” flyers. Very comfy. I always go there, but have never written about it before. Good food, free bever-ages (but not alcohol). I got seat 30A on the 777B, a wonderful exit row. I think it’s one of the best seats on the plane- not E+, but plenty of legroom. Plus, the seat next to me was empty. FA’s were great- chatty, pretty, and helpful. As of this writing, I’ve snagged 3 bottles each of Bailey’s and Black Label. With a little luck, I’ll get another 4 before NRT, then another 6-10 on the way to BKK. Good small gifts for LOS.

Fell asleep again shortly after leaving SEA. This was maybe because I took another Foodland Valium. I did read an article in the Washington Post today that seemed to say that the best way to avoid jet lag is through medication. Melatonin was mentioned, but it said that it wasn’t nearly as effective as sleeping pills.

It is now 11PM Cville time. Local time is who knows. Only 3 hours 20 minutes to Tokyo. Just crossed the international date line about 30 minutes ago so it’s now officially Tuesday. I’ve been airborne for 15 hours, awake for maybe 2-3. One thing that I never get over is IT’S STILL BROAD DAYLIGHT OUTSIDE, BECAUSE WE MOVE IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS THE SUN. Speed is 501 MPH, 64 MPH headwind, -53o F outside.

I missed all the movies and some meals. That’s OK- saw “Nemo” 2 weeks ago, along with all of the other offerings- the only change the movies once/month.


Tuesday, November 25: We are running a little behind schedule because of the headwinds. I hope to get to NRT in time for one of those great showers! I’ll put a recharge on the To-shiba, too. After NRT, it’s only 6 hours to BKK and it’s nice to arrive there fresh and full of energy, even if it is 11:30 PM. It usually takes about 1.5 hours to clear immigration, customs, retrieve luggage and get a taxi to downtown. I will be staying at the Nanatai Mansion for 5 nights. 1000 B/night, then moving over to the Ambassador, Suk soi 11, on Nov 30. Fon will check-in Nov 30 and I will arrive by taxi late that night, “fresh from the airport”.


Wednesday, November 26: Get up late morning today. Head out for a massage and a day on the town

Thursday, November 27 Thanksgiving Day: Well, a bunch of us expats are going to go to the new Subway at Nana for turkey sandwiches today. Now, in the States, I would consider Thanksgiving dinner at Subway as one’s final meal before committing suicide, but, here, somehow it feels OK. Miss the “family” (H******lls), my adoptive family for some 30 years. Nancy always does a wonderful job.

July 3, 2004


The Subject Heading may be familiar to some. For the rest of you, it's what the tinkly little voice says when you enter or exit the London Tube.

Got a ride on the new subway in Bangkok tonight- they actually say, "Mind the Gap" when the train pulls in!

Long day: arrived at Hua Lamphong Station at 3:40 for the festivities. Bought two small Thai flags on sticks, with words to the effect of "Long Live the King". GF said she couldn't translate it directly, but that it meant, "...something special very very much" for her King.

Everybody watched the minor dignitaries who pulled up with their police escorts- and the taxis and tuk-tuks that pulled up with their surprised customers, who would get out and see the 10,000 eyes watching them. Highlight of the wait- the grotty looking OLD fa-rang guy who got out of a taxi with his very obvious, granddaughter aged "catch-of-the-day" - and stood for a few confused, wavering, bleary-eyed seconds staring at the crowd, which was staring back at them, in silence. Had to be the absolutely worst walk of shame!

After sitting in a rapidly growing throng for about 1.5 hours, the police started barking orders and moving people around. Actually, there was one guy who was the "Screamer", just sounding like he'd totally lost it- running back and forth, making people move ½ centimeter because they were beyond some imaginary line he'd drawn in the road.

Lots of pomp running about. Plenty of bright white uniforms, lotsa stars and bars, gold braid, red carpet by the yard, a welcoming band, a cadre of those Royal Guards with the Gurka style hats that you see at the Grand Palace, hoi polloi police, military brass and a group of big guys with bell-shaped blue hats with gold braid running vertically on them.

Thaksin (the not-beloved PM of Thailand- we usually spell his name Toxin) and his wife arrived with a huge entourage around them. Oh well, everything can't be fun and games, can it?

Steady stream of police cars with lights, big, nice police bikes, flashing lights and assorted level dignitaries disembarking. Then the streets got quiet for about 1/2 an hour, signaling that HM the King was arriving soon.

Orders were given to the crowd- no standing, no photos. The cops standing in front of us were actually pretty funny, saying things like, "If this old lady can sit, so can every-body", "Don't complain you can't see- I always work HM the King and I never see him- I have to watch you people" and a little bit of good natured picking on the farang, me.

Then HM the King arrived. Must say, I was quite impressed. A pair of vintage yellow Rolls Royces pull up about 30 yards from me. Guys with these huge umbrellas surround the cars and out step, in a simple but glorious way, HM the King, HRH the Queen and their eld-est daughter, HRH the Princess. They stood outside on the red carpet for a minute, being greeted by the dignitaries.

Quite a serene, dignified, and striking presence HM has. Easy to see part of the reason for the most deserved respect that the Thai people have for him. People did not speak, "the King is here”, - they spoke, "MY King is here." The Royal Family then went inside the station and the Rolls Royces pulled up about 8 feet away from me. I did get some movies and stills on the sly, as did many of the Thai people around me.

So, it's now about 6:00. The subway is supposed to open at 7:00, so we wander over and edge up to the gate at Hua Lamphong Station, the southern terminus of the new, 20 Km line. After about 25 minutes, the police chased everybody back from the gates at the en-trance, with a bogus Thai-bull**** reason: too many people standing here. Big hole under-neath ground, maybe cave-in if too many people stand here. Yeah, right. If the system is that ****e, they should just keep the damn gates closed forever.

We pretended to be reading the subway map and ignored the police, as did many others, and we ended up being about 7 people back from the front of the entrance line. By 7:40, people are getting a bit antsy. An old woman in front of me pukes and collapses, which opened up an empty circle with a 3-foot radius right next to me. She was taken inside and tended to, along with her rather frail and elderly husband. People were actually still ex-tremely orderly. Some nuns pushed through the crowd and made their way to the front.

Then the word came down and they said they would start to let people in. BIG mis-take- the crowd rushed the gates, sweeping along me and everything else in their path. The gatekeepers locked arms in a comically futile attempt to restrain the crowd. People yelling, rushing at the Maginot line, ducking under their arms, making end runs, yelling, screaming, rushing the escalator.

At the bottom, three token sellers were open- a little stand setup independently and two of the 6(?) token windows. Good planning, dudes- didn't you kind of suspect that tens of thousands of people might show up to both see HM the King AND to ride the new subway?

After buying the tokens- 10 baht (25 cents) to ride the full 20 Kms, with the pro-ceeds from now through August 12 (Queen's b-day?) going to the Royal Family for distribu-tion to worthy causes, we proceeded to the remarkably orderly lines.

GREAT system- the stations are set off from the tracks by glass walls, so the en-tire station is cool! The trains pull in, the doors in the walls open, the train doors open, we get "Mind the Gap”, and we enter the trains peaceably.

The cars are very similar to the BTS, except that there is only one row of ceiling handholds and NOTHING to hold overhead around the doors, making for some bobbing and weaving passengers... Biggest complaint- as far as I can tell, there are no signs at the sta-tions that tell you the name of the station.

Anyway, that's that. Ended up disembarking at Asoke/Suk, just up from Soi Cowboy. Walked to Nana and took the BTS back to my home at Anusawori chai.


Some photos (well, maybe about 1000) posted at http://community.webshots.com/user/peab0dy

April 20, 2004

Okay now- it’s been 13 days since I arrived in Thailand on this, my eighth trip. I stayed at Nanatai Mansion for the first 6 days, and then Fon arrived. We lived at Mark’s condo on Suk Soi 26 for another 3 days, all the while house hunting. It al-ways seemed as though the best places were snatched away, for some reason. I think I know why, but I’ll get to that later.

We eventually ended up at Rompo Mansion, off Rama IV Rd, about a fifteen minute walk from Sacred Heart Convent School, where I’m employed (more on that later, too). We have a 50 square meter sit-and-sleep(bed –sit, to the Brits), with a small “L” off the entrance, in which we’ve setup a kitchen, of sorts. 12,800 THB/month, it comes with UBC cable, water at 16 THB/unit and electric at 4.5 THB/unit (KwH). Minor thieves, they are: electricity is billed by the Thai Generating Authority at only 1.8 THB/unit, so the cost of electricity is 2.5 times what the utility company actually charges. Refrigerator is extra, 600 THB/month and 600THB security. Se-curity deposit is 2 months rent, so move-in fees were 39,600 THB- just under USD $1000.

Mansion it ain’t, although it is decent. We are in room 630, a corner room, facing in the direction of the Chao Phrya River, Bangkok’s main waterway. Security is good, and downstairs there is a mini-mart, a Japanese restaurant, a good fitness center, a nice pool and a beauty salon/barber/who knows what else. Excellent security and taxis outside the gates every morning. We are ½ block away from Tesco-Lotus, a large, British Wal-Mart type place, and about one block from Carre-Four, the French equivalent of Tesco-Lotus.

We are also just a ten minute walk from the Khlong Toei market. Khlong is the Thai word for canal. At one time, Bangkok was occasionally called “the Venice of the East”. Not so, anymore, unfortunately. Most of the khlongs have been filled in and developed upon. Those that aren’t tend to reek of sewage and filth.

The market has all of the right components: huge variety, cheap prices, open seem-ingly all the time. The only real problem with this area is the high crime rate, one of the highest in Bangkok. It is, however, mostly Thai on Thai and centered in the more back areas of Khlong Toei. This is the district being targeted by the Prime Minister, Thaksin (Toxin) Shinawatra for his 2nd phase anti-drug campaign. Hard to understand, because the 1st campaign, last summer, for three months, in which 2000-3000 alleged dealers were executed outside of arrests and courtroom pro-ceedings, was declared victorious in December, along with the proclamation that Thailand was free of drugs. How did they return so quickly, I wonder? Also, Toxin has pledged that this new campaign will be tougher than the last.

Tougher than death??

April 21, 2004

I am working at Sacred Heart Convent School, an all girls Christian school with >4000 students. I teach for three hours/day, 5 days/week. Small classes, about 15-17 students maximum, Prathom 1-3 (ages 6-9).

I am in the regular classrooms, no lab, no equipment, but good air-con. One plus is that I have a Thai assistant teacher in every class. This is good, because I have some kids who apparently DON’T SPEAK ANY ENGLISH YET!!! And, while they are remarkably good at writing English, FOR THEIR AGES, this still means that they are virtually illiterate.

I feel that I’ve been somewhat duped. I was originally told that I would be working with Prathom 4-6 (ages 9-12) and as Mathayom class (middle school, in the States). In addition, there’s been some murmuring about my teaching an English class too.

Fortunately, yesterday, I saw an ad on Ajarn.com for a position at a good school with an excellent reputation. I fired off my CV right away and got an email back within 6 hours, asking me to come for an interview on Thursday, April 22. The per-son at the school wrote, “Please have your original documents and have a lesson plan ready for a fifty minute presentation.”

The lesson is no problem. Unfortunately, Sacred Heart Convent is holding both my passport and my sole original copy of my diploma, both of which they need in order to secure a work permit. I ask for and get my passport, but they tell me the di-ploma is already at the Ministry of Education, where I won’t be able to get it back until my license is issued. Something fishy about that- why would they send my di-ploma and not my passport? And, I need a work permit before I can have my teacher’s license; I have copies of my diploma and figure that the copies, letters of recommendation and reprints of some of my published research should establish me as a bona fide scientist/teacher.

I tell my boss that I have to do some banking matters tomorrow and that was the reason I needed both my passport and a day off from work three days after start-ing!

Head home, tell Fon all of the details. Her <non>supportive remark? “Why you al-ways want to change everything?” I guess, from a Thai perspective, where I am al-ready making five times what a Thai teacher would be making, the idea of changing jobs after two weeks, even for 25-30% more in money and benefits, is unthinkable. Many Thais seem to lock on to their job on a permanent basis. I’m thinking, “Isn’t ‘impermanence’ one of the basic tenets of Buddhism?” Anyway, I explain about the benefits of the increased compensation. I think she doesn’t believe that I can make so much money for so few hours.

Thai education system: an oxymoron

April 22, 2004

Right now, I am sitting in a lobby at YYY College, a private school with >5000 male students, ages 4-18. I have been in an interview process since 8:30 AM this morn-ing. I have already interviewed and given my sample presentation (the topic is “probability”- gets ‘em every time!).

The chief inquisitor, Ajarn Wilaiwan, a female, is quite an imposing figure- she leaves no doubt that she is in charge of the English Immersion Program. She’s a bit prickly. Example: I mentioned that I grew up in New York, but moved to Virginia 18 years ago. She said, “Good. I don’t like New Yorker’s. They are rude. The last sci-ence teacher was from New York. He was rude.” See Stephen quickly disavowing any liking for New York. The EIP is a subset of the overall school, with about 300 students total in ten grades. It is located a 2 minute walk from the Sarasuk BTS station, which, together – oops, gotta run….

Just got called into the school head’s office- eight Thai faces staring me down. How long have you been in Thailand, what are your plans, what is your teaching background (??? Did you actually read my CV?), and a few more questions. Then, big smiles all around: “We welcome you here and would like you to be the head of the science department”. DAMN!!! (Note: as it turns out, the position as “head” won’t be official until probation ends, 4 months from now. In the meantime, I will have all of the responsibilities- ordering lab supplies, coordinating the science curricula, communicating requests from the school head to the other science teachers, etc., and none of the benefits- such as decrease in workload and increase in salary)

Now back to Ajarn Wilaiwan’s office to hammer out the details, salary, holidays, etc. Today is April 22, 2004. I will start work at YYY College on May 4, students begin May 11. I have 6 more days to complete at Sacred Heart Convent. It is actu-ally already hard to leave there. Even though my kids are barely munchkins, ages 5-8, they are totally adorable. 90% girls, by day two they were shyly touching me and by day three they would surround me like a swarm of benevolent gnats. Thinking about the school brings the image of 3-4 of the students clearly to my mind’s eye. Really melts my heart- but, it seems that Thai woman of all ages have that ability. It is almost enough to keep me there, but prudence (selfishness?) prevails, to wit:

YYY College is offering: over 70 paid holidays per year, Sacred Heart Convent only 30. Sacred Heart Convent offers 43.5K THB, YYY College offers 51K. Bonus: 30K at year end at Sacred Heart Convent; at YYY College, 25K at Christmas, 25K at years end and a round trip ticket to the States! Plus M4 at YYY College, with a real laboratory- meaning kids 14-15 years old vs. 5-8 year olds at Sacred Heart Con-vent. Oh yeah- a teacher quit at the last minute at Sacred Heart Convent, so they told me they want me to teach one English language class. Puke.

OK, back now: ...which, together with the new underground slated to open in July, means I can live virtually anywhere I’d want to in Bangkok and have maybe a ½ hour commute to work, at most.

YYY College has been here for over 150 years. They have a beautiful campus and a sterling reputation. My thought is that I can do one or two years here and then snag a plum position at one of the international schools here in Bangkok, where I could pull down over USD $3000 per month!

So, I said I could live virtually anywhere. That “virtually” does NOT include Rompo Mansion. While convenient to Sacred Heart, it is nowhere near the sky train or un-derground. Fortunately, I am on a month to month lease and have plenty of time to look for new housing. Perhaps this change of work venues was the reason the other apartments all fell by the wayside- they each came with a one year commitment. It would have sucked to be in a completely different part of town, when I don’t have to be.

Hard to believe: I’ve been here not quite 15 days so far, am now on my second Thai job (and about the 9th offer- I’ve only had one interview where I wasn’t offered an immediate position and even that one said they would have a position open in June). This doesn’t necessarily speak to my abilities, only to the dis- or inabilities of so many here. I am very happy to get this spot.

Okay, still waiting for the grand inquisitor to arrive. She was supposed to meet me at 12:30 and it is now 1:30. TIT (This Is Thailand). I must get textbooks, sign a contract, get photos (18 passport photos!!??), 2 health certificates, etc.

RE the health certificates. I actually have these already. 50 THB each. I went to a small clinic. The doctor looked at me, took my blood pressure (140/90, don’t know why? Usually like 120/90). Then he declared me free from drug abuse, alcoholism, tuberculosis, leprosy and elephantiasis, all reasons to be denied a visa, work permit or teacher’s license in Thailand. Amazing what those Thai blood pressure cuffs can diagnose! I have always been suspect of Thai health certificates- this just con-firms my suspicions. Reminds me of when my friend, slightly overweight, went to get a health certificate on Koh Phi Phi, so he could dive SCUBA. He took one look at the ladyboy doctor and decided that he didn’t want to dive all that much anymore. Perhaps fear of a mandatory rectal exam?

GI finally arrives at 3 friggin' 15!!! Tells me nothing to talk about, come back Tuesday for paperwork. TIT.

I live for options.

April 26, 2004 (Monday)

OK, slight glitch in the work plans. I am at work at Sacred Heart Convent for about an hour, when I get a call from YYY College.

Seems that my non-immigrant, multiple-entry B visa ($125 in Washington D.C.) has a bit of Thai scribble that says I will be working for Sacred Heart. That’s OK- I believe I just have to resign there and have new offer from YYY College to keep the visa valid. But- YYY College now says that Sacred Heart is a “sister” school and it wouldn’t be right to steal me away. Wouldn’t you know it, I run into the one per-son in Thailand who actually has scruples!

Pratheep, the oh-so-slow-and-careful personnel director, tells me that one of two things can happen: either Sacred Heart voluntarily releases me from my contract or I do a visa run to Malaysia or somewhere. ...!? I am in the probationary period at Sacred Heart Convent and am allowed to just give notice and quit. I tell Pratheep to let me talk to Sacred Heart Convent and that I will have them give him a call tomorrow, after I tell Shawn, my boss at Sacred Heart Convent, that I’m leaving. Don’t anticipate any problems (note: that alone should be a huge warning sign in Thailand).

Shawn is not at school today, so I can’t talk to him.


April 23, 2004 Friday

This morning, I called Pratheep as soon as I had time in the morning. He says there’s a big problem. Apparently, he has ALREADY called my boss at Sacred Heart Convent, before I had a chance to talk to him, and told him that I wanted to leave.

Bad enough, but… Shawn actually told him that he would NOT let me out of my con-tract. Pratheep said that, therefore, they would not be able to hire me. What a bunch of crap. I’m allowed to quit anytime I want.

I get to school and Shawn is away again. Cannot get a hold of him, but I ask the next boss down, a nice guy, to clear this up. He asks me the details- and then asks me if YYY College has any more openings! Yes, he says, he’ll straighten everything out.

I limp worriedly through the day and the weekend.


April 28, 2004 Wednesday

As of this morning, five days later, I’ve still not heard back from YYY College. Great- I’ve given notice at one job and not gotten a contract at the other. That means that my visa expires on Saturday and I’ve then got seven days to leave the country and to get a new visa. The fact that I paid $125 USD for a visa that I could have had for FREE, if I’d known this was going to happen (30 day tourist en-try stamp, not actually a visa), just adds to my minor frustration.

Call Pratheep. He says everything is OK, just come in Monday. Monday!? School starts on Monday. Sure would be nice to have some simple things, like textbooks, a contract and knowledge of what my actual classes will be, before starting. But, OK, I’ll just trust that this is the Thai way and that everything will work out fine.


April 29-May 3, 2004

Finish the year at Sacred Heart Convent. Kids don’t know I’m leaving, so no sad scenes. Staff has wished me a fond farewell, after such a short time. Several have inquired about positions at YYY College. They return my original diploma and pay me in cash for the twelve days that I’ve worked (actually, nine class days). They de-duct 1000 baht ($25 USD) for the day I took off and 2000 baht for mailing my contract to the States. $50 to mail as letter? Oh well, it could be MUCH worse! A milestone of sorts, too- receiving my first Thai income. Probably illegal, since I never got a work permit or a teacher’s license.

I said a couple of weeks ago that the cosmic reasons for not getting my “most de-sired” apartments would be revealed eventually. As usual, everything works out for the best. Rompo Mansion is on a month-month basis. If I’d gotten any of the other apartments, I’d be locked into a six to twelve month lease. Rompo is close to Sa-cred Heart Convent, but it is up to 45 minutes and 100 baht from YYY College. I’ll now have as chance to look for other digs before my lease expires on May 15. In the meantime, I start tomorrow at the new school. Quite excited. Very decent money, hours, holidays, etc. Very professional (appearing) school.

May 4, 2004

First day at my second job. Students will not start until May 11. Big meeting with all of the teachers, some 250 of us! After that, Chinese food is served (atrocious), the teachers play games, like musical chairs to Thai go-go music (really!), prizes are awarded and the appropriate big-wigs are fawned over. There is a performance by a troupe of Thai dancers, highlighting the cultures of many of the nationalities that teach at YYY College. The theme for the American segment: the most stereo-typed cowboys and Indians that you can imagine.

We are then told where our offices are. There are 10 farang (white folk), nine guys and one woman and one Thai woman, the so-called instructional coordinator, as-signed to our office. I meander up to the office- a mistake (the meandering).

Those teachers in the know have already gotten to the office and grabbed the best desks and locations. I get there fifth and select the next best desk, which is filled with crap. I ask the returning teachers if it belongs to anybody- “Nope”. So, I unload all of the junk into one of the falling apart desks and move to a choice spot, right under the flow of the air-con.

A few computers arrive and they are setup right by my desk, along with the printer. Convenient- I can tie my laptop into the system and can avoid using the slow office computers (Win XP, 128 Mb RAM). There is also a large metal closet behind my desk but- oops- the English teachers have already stripped the shelves out and put them in their small book closet. Oh well, they do need the space more than I do.

I leave and return about an hour later. The crap desk that I put everything on has been moved to my location, with a note saying, “Sorry. My desk”. Turns out, I un-wittingly stole the desk of the Thai instructional coordinator, a woman who appar-ently is also good friends with my boss. I make sure that I give her the appropriate apologies and courtesies when I see her again.

Off to get my books. “Oh, we have them on order” (BTW: books don’t arrive until June 14). Office supplies: fill out requisition, give to boss, have it translated into Thai, submit to supplies office and wait for them to bring materials. Paper clips: “buy them yourself”. Pens: “Why do you need more than two pens?” Stapler: “your office already has one” (it’s tiny, holds about 25 staples and there are 11 god-damned people in our office). So, we’ve got students paying 250,000-300,000 baht tuition/year and we have to fight to get 2 baht office supplies? ...!? Not an aus-picious start.

Class lists: you’ll get them next week. Labs: we don’t have keys. I just take every-thing in stride. No sense to get upset or make a fuss- that can only serve to frus-trate you and make you look bad to the Thais.

I requisition the carpenters to repair my desk. A guy comes and actually cuts small strips of wood to secure the drawers and feet of the desk He glues and screws them into place.

The desk collapses the following day! :)

May 16, 2004

Today we moved to ZZZ Apartments at Victory Monument. 22K baht/month, brand new furnishings, kitchen, AC units, etc. Very plush, even if a bit expensive. Only a 300 step walk from the BTS, so getting to work will be a breeze. I’ll start buying the 30 day, 30 trip BTS pass for 540 baht, cutting the daily round trip cost to 36 baht.

Before checking out of Rompo, we went to ZZZ Apts and paid the security, etc. Never a good idea to leave one place until the next is solid- might find yourself and your possessions roaming the streets of Bangkok. Had a bit of a go-round on the telephone deposit. I had given a down payment about 2 weeks ago and got a receipt showing the balance due upon moving in. No telephone deposit required, according to the receipt, just the itemized bill, including the final amount due, to move in.

The girl doing the check-in calls her boss to confirm everything and boss tells her to collect a 5000 baht security deposit for the telephone. I point out that, accord-ing to the contract and receipt, I don’t owe a telephone deposit. They insist and tell me that the contract was wrong. I tell them I, too, thought it was wrong- that the rent should only be 18K/month, not 22K. I said change that and I’ll pay the telephone deposit. They still insist on 5K and tell me not to worry, it will come back when I move. I say fine, give me back the down payment and I’ll go somewhere else. Now the person on the other end of the line tells me that she will have to lay out the money herself. I tell her not to worry, it will come back when I move.

They then tell me that if I will pay a 2000 baht fee, I can have the phone line in my own name and pay only 150 baht/month and 5 baht per call. I point out that I AL-READY HAVE that deal, without paying the 2K. When they see that I’m still not budging, they give me yet another offer: if my calls exceed 3K baht the first month, then I pay 5K security. I say OK, knowing that my calls will never exceed 1000K/month.

OK now, deal is done, key in hand. A guy appears out of nowhere offering to help us move, with his pickup truck. Now, when I arrived, I had three large suitcases (with a year’s worth of clothes, computer, camera, electronics, gifts, etc. My first move was a one taxi move. Now I am thinking either a hatchback taxi or maybe two taxis. This guy has a small pickup and offers to drive across town and back, load and unload our stuff, and to cover the gas, for only 400 baht!

I think it’s a great deal: hell, the taxi ride back to Rompo alone will be at least 100 baht. So off we go to get our stuff. We get to Rompo and Fon and the truck owner load up while I do checkout.

Checkout went very well at Rompo. We got back the full deposit, no questions asked. I was very anal about documenting every defect that I could find when we moved in. They have a sheet that they use listing everything in the place and its condition and I wrote down all of the chipped tiles, broken molding, water stains, repaired shower curtain rod, etc.

In one month, we used only 1,600 baht of electricity, 150 baht or so water and 150 baht for the phone. I would definitely recommend this place to a beginner in BKK. 40 baht taxi to Phrom Pong BTS at Emporium on Sukhumvit, Tesco and Carrefour a five minute walk away.

After checkout, I go outside and look at the pickup- it is packed to the brim. Great job of getting everything in and securing it well and in not crushing anything. We take off towards Victory Monument.

While we are stuck in traffic on Asoke, we spot the black clouds moving in. I sug-gest to the driver that we pull over and try to cover the electronics, bedclothes and clothing. We do so and he whips out a huge tarp and bungee cord and gets eve-rything covered, about ten seconds before the skies open up. Not a drop lands on our stuff! 

We get to Victory Monument and unload with the help of the truck driver and sev-eral helpful/nosy residents. Give the guy his 400 baht, plus tip him another 100, to be split between the other “helpers”. Excellent job he did- $12.50 USD was well worth it!

Sometimes, everything works!

July 5, 2004

Teaching is going well. My school is the oldest non-government school in Thailand, YYY College, founded in 1852 by the Church of Christ missionaries. >5000 students, all boys. Weird mix of traditional Buddhism, casual Christians and a few right-wing Christians (all of them are white guys, go figure. Not really a problem because everybody ignores their soapbox ****e.) We seem to get holidays con-stantly. School started May 4, with a week off next week, because of the Interna-tional AIDS Conference XV, a month in October, a week at Christmas, 17 Bud-dhist/Royal holidays, classes end March 5 or so, so most of March and all of April off. They supply a RT ticket to the States and back each year. Right now, I'm “head” of the science department, in a place where they don't know what a lab is! We joke that we are the 2nd richest school, but every lab that we science teach-ers perform has to use straws, toothpicks and clay! Oh yeah- by law/rule/convention (not sure which), EVERY child must pass. This is interpreted as "retest” until a passing grade (only 50%!) is achieved. Hard to really be concerned in that kind of a system. Grades are meaningless. Another oh yeah- an "A" is given if the student scores anywhere above a 79! That means that a mediocre, high “C”/low “B” student is given the same grade as an outstanding, overachieving genius. This sure makes it hard to motivate students- they know that working twice as hard might result in the same grade that they already have.

July 10, 2004

I have the next nine days off- a last minute bonus from the school, sort of. The government ordered schools in Bangkok to close from June 11-16, because the In-ternational AIDS Conference XV will be in town. Seems the schools push traffic to the limit and they want to ensure a good face for the 20,000 or so delegates at-tending the convention. What else is new!? YYY College was originally going to give the holiday to only the students, but relented at the last minute.

Tonight, we will take the 10:00 PM VIP bus to Loei from Mo Chit. It is about a 7.5 hour ride, but the VIP bus is quite luxurious. Non-stop, BIG seats with built-in back, shoulder and head vibrating massagers, a meal and a snack enroute, Thai video (oh well, can’t be all good) and full recline, good for sleep. Will laze around the house today, cleaning and packing, take the BTS to Mo Chit BTS station at about 7:30, then take a taxi to Mo Chit bus station and get tickets. Hope we can get tickets for the VIP- somebody said that many Thais are returning up-country this weekend to register in their villages for the upcoming elections.

We get to Mo Chit bus station at 8:30. The VIP bus is sold out, according to Fon. I notice that the window where we usually buy the tickets (not the one where she just asked) also has a VIP bus. Fon goes there and gets the tickets. 990 baht for two one-way tickets, seats 17 and 18.

These seats are directly over the rear wheel wells. The top of the wheel well in-trudes about 6 inches into the foot space, which means you cannot actually extend your legs all of the way when sitting upright, because the space under the seat in front of you is blocked. OK when reclined (almost 90 degree recline to the seats), but still, not the best seats in the house. Also, these seats are directly across from the air-con, so it’s pretty noisy, so noisy that we cannot hear the Thai pro-gram on the TV (therefore, the noisy AC may be a blessing in disguise . One can-not really see the TV well from these seats, either. The seat directly across the aisle from us, number 16, has a special problem- it is right behind the stairs coming up from the door and is VERY close to the small wall at the top of the stairs. Therefore, the legroom is severely restricted in this seat. If it’s the last seat on the bus, might as well take the non-VIP for only 320 baht. The rear-most seats have ultimate legroom, but I’m not sure if they have full recline.

The attendant- she looks like an old-fashioned airline FA, with her crisp blue uni-form and her jaunty little hat- passes out bottled water, cakes and sandwiches. It turns out that this bus doesn’t stop at the rest stop for a free meal, as does every other bus I’ve been on.

Fon takes a sleeping pill. I just let the seat recline, turn on the massagers that are built in and promptly fall asleep. Woke up once and fell right back to sleep. The next time I awoke, Fon was shaking me- we were already in Loei- about seven good hours of sleep!

Buy the best seats you can afford- it’s always worth it.

A very different but interesting trip report. Wouldn't mind hearing about the background, how you ended up in Thailand and such.

J.

A very different but interesting trip report. Wouldn't mind hearing about the background, how you ended up in Thailand and such.

J.

Thanks. What I've posted are basically just excerpts from my daily diary/log of my time here. I realize that it is more blog-like than the usual trip report- that is because it is a trip that has not yet ended.

It is very different from the other trip reports that I read on this board. We all include the minutiae that we feel is significant- I guess my significant minutiae is just different from other's. I think it's a credit to the FT community that I'm not flamed/bashed because of those differences.

Short version of how I arrived:

3 events coincided:

A great offer: I have a Thai friend, a female researcher at Chiang Mai University who was doing similar work that I was doing at University of Virginia. We had maintained contact for a long time and she was always telling me to visit Thailand, if I had time, and that she would be my guide.

A presentation of the Thai culture: A few years back, I was teaching at an elite school in central Virginia. The students had to do a project that presented a different culture. My kids did one on the food, music, religion, history, etc. of Thailand.

The opportunity: I had tickets to travel to Hawaii with my girlfriend. We broke up. I turned tickets for two to Hawaii into tickets for one to Thailand.

I've never looked back.

When I realized that I could do early (very early) retirement, live a very comfortable life in Thailand, diving and dining for pennies (2 of my favorite pastimes), on the income that renting my US properties would provide, my attitude towards life changed dramatically.

While I had a decent job in the States, it was fraught with the usual politics and bickering that occur wherever big egos congregate. My new attitude was to not compete anymore, but to simply acquiesce to other's whims.

About six months later, my boss pointed out to me that I didn't seem to "care" anymore. That was close to correct! The reality was that, while still performing the same quality of work, Ii could not/chose not to be provoked by the daily BS anymore- this was interpreted as "not caring".

And that is exactly what was wrong with that work environment!
:)

After numerous trips, helped by the fact that, with UAL's mileage programs, I got 5 trips for every 3 that I paid for (and one bonus trip, with a generous gift from FT'er XPacific), I relocated to BKK. I found a job as head of the science department at a Thai college.

That's pretty much where I am today.

I'm hoping that FT'ers will find these stories a little bit helpful and a little bit amusing.

Cheers

:cool: :cool: :cool:

July 11, 2004

Getting to the Village:

We emerged from the bus at 0530 hours. We called Goo, our motorbike connec-tion, with whom we had previously arranged to rent a bike. Rented from Goo several times in the past, nice guy, nice family and his sister is married to a farang in Rich-mond, VA.

Nobody was awake at the shop, so we decided to visit Fon’s brother and his wife at the local hospital. They had just had a baby girl at 6:00 the night before. We took a tuk-tuk to the hospital and wandered around until we found the maternity ward.

The maternity ward is fitting of the word “ward”. It was one big room, with about twenty beds. Each was occupied by a woman, sitting upright and cross-legged, holding her baby. In all but two cases, her husband was sitting on a small chair next to her, maybe wiping her brow, rubbing her back, fanning her or in some other way taking care of his wife. With all of the talk about what *******s the Thai husbands are, it was a pleasant surprise to see this gentle caring for the family.

The baby did not yet have a name- Fon said that Thai families will typically until the baby is born before naming the infant. Tiny baby- not even 5 pounds, but they all looked small. Fon’s male cousin arrived a short time later. We sat outside on the walkway and chatted. While doing this, we watched the Thai husbands rinsing tow-els and hanging them up to dry on small clothes racks. Seems you supply your own towels at the hospital. This prompted me to ask about the 30 baht health coverage, to which all Thais are entitled- but only in their home town. Seems that the hospi-tal stay was covered, but the physicians’ charges were not. Typical maternity fee:

After an hour or so, Goo called. We said goodbye and took a tuk-tuk to Goo’s shop. He and his wife were waiting for us, with a little Honda Wave, 125 cc warmed up and ready to go. We made small talk, paid them 300 baht for two day’s rental and headed off to Baan Huay Wai, Fon’s village, about 25 Kms west of Loei and up in the mountains. The village is 50 Kms south of the Mekong River and the Thai-Lao border. There is a border crossing at Nang Khai, about 80 Kms northeast of Loei

The air smelled wonderfully fresh, especially after breathing the smog of Bangkok for the last three months. The recently planted rice paddies were the brilliant spring green of new growth. Farmers were already up and about, tending the field and their buffalo. Itans, the ubiquitous upcountry Isaan version of a John Deere tractor, were prowling the streets and fields.

The Itans are a wonderful machine. About $750 USD, they can be equipped as plows, trailers, passenger vehicles, tow-trucks or just about anything else that needs wheels and a motor. They seem to chug along forever. Here’s a website for them: www.itans.com

Before we left Bangkok, Fon’s father had told us that it had not rained in over two weeks and that the farmers were getting nervous. Rice cultivation is water inten-sive and these people do not exactly have extensive irrigation systems. Being the bringers of good luck that we are, it seemed to start raining on our arrival and to never fully let up during our three day stay.

Lucky us.

July 11, 2004

The house:

We have been working on our house for about 1.5 years. It is a small house- 12 poles, or about 54 meters square (~500 square feet). I’ve got to redo my math- it feels much bigger than that. It is probably 95% finished. The roof is on, the floors are tiled with light blue tile, the water and electricity are in and functional, all of the doors and windows are complete, the TV and antenna are both installed, the front porch is finished, and both the inside and outside are fully painted a nice light blue color. The house is very modestly furnished. The ceiling still must be fin-ished- the only room with a ceiling is the bedroom.

It was great to arrive and see that the hot water heater had been installed since my last visit. We have the only Western style bathroom in town, complete with a flushing, sit down toilet. Now, that might not seem like such a big deal to those of you living in farangland, but here, the installation of the toilet was enough of a cause celebre that everyone in the village came over to sit on the toilet- not to use it, but just to sit on it!

If you’ve ever used a squat toilet, you can appreciate the luxury of a sit-down. Thais don’t use toilet paper generally. To clean you just dip and bowlful of water from the ever present can and kind of swish it around a bit. Then you flush by dumping bowls of water in the toilet. The next level up is a squat toilet, but with a sort of hand held bidet, with which you spray your butt clean. Then comes the sit-down with the butt sprayer. I initially thought that the sprayer was a kind of primitive deal, but, when you think about it, which is more civilized: a refreshing, hands-free cleansing or smearing your excrement off with a piece of paper?

As I said recently, it always pays to buy the best seats one can afford.

July 12, 2004

I’ve had much time to write for the last couple of days, because there is not a heck of a lot to do in Loei. The almost constant, light, yet annoying rain precludes a long distance journey on the motorbike. We do manage to get out, though.

Of course, everyone in the village comes to say hello to Fon and her white husband. Everybody wants to see photos of our place in the big city. Many have waited for Fon’s return, so that she can cut their hair. While Fon’s mother and father are both still alive, she is definitely the head matriarch of the family. She mediates the disputes, controls the finances and decides who can do what when. Thai women may be diminutive, but that should never be misconstrued as subservience- not if you know what’s good for you!

We don’t yet have a refrigerator in our house. Fon’s parents’ house is next door, so we use theirs during our short and infrequent visits. Well, this time, we saw that their freezer was in desperate need of defrosting. 8 hours later, after the ice was gone and the floor was mopped, we plugged it back in. NOTHING! I couldn’t get the damn thing to work again. Now there is no place to keep the babies’ milk, no way to make ice to take to the rice paddies in the mornings, no way to store meat, etc.

Off we go to the city to buy a refrigerator. After a short hunt, we settle on a mid-size Sanyo, which set us back 4,700 baht ($110 USD), with delivery. The Chinese owner of the shop wants us to pay first. We tell him that we do not do business that way- if he cannot trust his driver to collect the money and pay him, then I cannot trust the driver to safely deliver a working appliance. OK, he says, give me 2000 baht. I thank him, turn and walk away. He immediately calls to Fon. 2 minutes later, they have the directions to the house and promise delivery within 1 hour.

Our next stop is the Thai Department of Motor Vehicles. I want to get a license and I feel well-armed with a new, one year visa, my work permit and a copy of my US license. But, it’s not to be. First, the guy says that I can only get a license in Bangkok, because that’s where I work. Then he says that I need a paper from im-migration. That would require a 100 Km round trip, in the rain, and I cannot under-stand what paper he could possibly want, since I was at immigration one week ago and have all of the latest stamps. I offered to pay any “processing” fees neces-sary- but even that didn’t work (damn- the second honest Thai that I’ve met).

If I have to live in a corrupt country, why can’t I play, too?

July 13, 2004

Fitful night’s sleep- our bed is hard as a rock. Got up about 0700. More rain- funny, Fon’s father said that it hadn’t rained in about 2 weeks. We get packed and fart around until 0930. It is raining on and off. We take the motorbike over to Fon’s brother’s house and see the baby.


I get an opportunity to see a kind of strange Thai maternity event. Seems that af-ter women give birth, they sit for about 15 days on a straw platform and lean against a rack with their backs to a fire. There is a pot of water boiling and incense burning. Some special variety of leaves are laid out on the mat, on which they sit. The leaves are there because they might still have some bleeding from the child-birth- keeps the mat from becoming stained. Apparently, the idea is to sit there every day for the 15 days and let the lower back get very red. Promotes healing and feeling good, so they say.

While we are there, it starts pouring. I’m getting in a bit of a bad mood- I want to get on the road, but now, not only are we wasting time, but it looks like we’re going to get soaked riding back to the city (about a 35 minute ride). The rain stops after 10 minutes. We return to the house and pickup our bags. As usual, there are no goodbyes- everybody just kind of wanders off and we lock the house and leave.

We get to Goo’s, but he‘s not there, so we end up waiting a bit longer. Eventually, he and his wife return, Fon’s daughter shows up out of nowhere and we sit around for another ½-hour bull****ting. Finally we leave- good news, we did not have to pay another 150 baht for the bike, even though we are about four hours into the third day and we’ve only paid for two days.

We take a tuk-tuk to the bus station. Had to be the slowest tuk-tuk in Thailand. I swear I could have run just as fast. It sounded like the clutch gave out as we pulled into the bus station. We pay him 20 baht and go for tickets. Unfortunately, we’ve missed the 1030 bus by 45 minutes, so we have to wait an hour and fifteen minutes for the 1230 bus- and it's not a VIP. Note: the once/day VIP bus leaves around 0800.

I sit and watch a strange American television show dubbed into Thai. Fon goes to buy some yarn- it’s ½ price, compared to Bangkok. She returns with about ten min-utes to spare and we board the bus. Seats 15 and 16- not so good, it’s the sunny side, so it gets quite hot on the return to Bangkok. As usual, the bus leaves about fifteen minutes late. I’m a bit cranky- it looks like three days in Loei have cost me about 9000 baht. Yeah, I have a new refrigerator, but it’s not really something I needed right now. Moreover, Scott called and said he would not be going to Pat-taya, so that part of my holiday is probably gone now, too.

The bus trip is about ½ over now- we seem to stop about every three minutes for some reason (not really). Best part of the trip, so far: we’ve passed through the Phu Khradung National Park, located high in the mountains of Isaan. I believe that this is the only location in Thailand that has a deciduous hardwood forest. There are beautiful, rugged peaks, laced together by delicate mists.

Another scenic view is the large lake, located about 3-4 hours north of Bangkok, which the bus passes. I do not yet know the name of this lake. I’ll try to find out- I think it would be a nice place for a car trip. Any help on the name out there?

The rest of the trip is agonizingly slow. These local busses might be a good choice for those who want a quick view of some small Thai towns. Roll in, pickup/drop-off one person and roll out. We eventually stop at a rest stop, where we can use the vouchers that came with the tickets to get a plate of Thai food, some rice with curry, rice with pork, noodle soup, etc. There is a market where one can restock on drinks and snacks, if desired.

We eventually pull in to Mor Chit- 9.5 hours after leaving Loei! This is 2.5 hours more than the VIP bus. Again, for the difference in price ($4 USD) and the addi-tional comfort, the VIP bus is the only way to go.

Home always feels a bit better after a vacation.

July 13, 2004

Fitful night’s sleep- our bed is hard as a rock. Got up about 0700. More rain- funny, Fon’s father said that it hadn’t rained in about 2 weeks. We get packed and fart around until 0930. It is raining on and off. We take the motorbike over to Fon’s brother’s house and see the baby.


I get an opportunity to see a kind of strange Thai maternity event. Seems that af-ter women give birth, they sit for about 15 days on a straw platform and lean against a rack with their backs to a fire. There is a pot of water boiling and incense burning. Some special variety of leaves are laid out on the mat, on which they sit. The leaves are there because they might still have some bleeding from the child-birth- keeps the mat from becoming stained. Apparently, the idea is to sit there every day for the 15 days and let the lower back get very red. Promotes healing and feeling good, so they say.

While we are there, it starts pouring. I’m getting in a bit of a bad mood- I want to get on the road, but now, not only are we wasting time, but it looks like we’re going to get soaked riding back to the city (about a 35 minute ride). The rain stops after 10 minutes. We return to the house and pickup our bags. As usual, there are no goodbyes- everybody just kind of wanders off and we lock the house and leave.

We get to Goo’s, but he‘s not there, so we end up waiting a bit longer. Eventually, he and his wife return, Fon’s daughter shows up out of nowhere and we sit around for another ½-hour bull****ting. Finally we leave- good news, we did not have to pay another 150 baht for the bike, even though we are about four hours into the third day and we’ve only paid for two days.

We take a tuk-tuk to the bus station. Had to be the slowest tuk-tuk in Thailand. I swear I could have run just as fast. It sounded like the clutch gave out as we pulled into the bus station. We pay him 20 baht and go for tickets. Unfortunately, we’ve missed the 1030 bus by 45 minutes, so we have to wait an hour and fifteen minutes for the 1230 bus- and it's not a VIP. Note: the once/day VIP bus leaves around 0800.

I sit and watch a strange American television show dubbed into Thai. Fon goes to buy some yarn- it’s ½ price, compared to Bangkok. She returns with about ten min-utes to spare and we board the bus. Seats 15 and 16- not so good, it’s the sunny side, so it gets quite hot on the return to Bangkok. As usual, the bus leaves about fifteen minutes late. I’m a bit cranky- it looks like three days in Loei have cost me about 9000 baht. Yeah, I have a new refrigerator, but it’s not really something I needed right now. Moreover, Scott called and said he would not be going to Pat-taya, so that part of my holiday is probably gone now, too.

The bus trip is about ½ over now- we seem to stop about every three minutes for some reason (not really). Best part of the trip, so far: we’ve passed through the Phu Khradung National Park, located high in the mountains of Isaan. I believe that this is the only location in Thailand that has a deciduous hardwood forest. There are beautiful, rugged peaks, laced together by delicate mists.

Another scenic view is the large lake, located about 3-4 hours north of Bangkok, which the bus passes. I do not yet know the name of this lake. I’ll try to find out- I think it would be a nice place for a car trip. Any help on the name out there?

The rest of the trip is agonizingly slow. These local busses might be a good choice for those who want a quick view of some small Thai towns. Roll in, pickup/drop-off one person and roll out. We eventually stop at a rest stop, where we can use the vouchers that came with the tickets to get a plate of Thai food, some rice with curry, rice with pork, noodle soup, etc. There is a market where one can restock on drinks and snacks, if desired.

We eventually pull in to Mor Chit- 9.5 hours after leaving Loei! This is 2.5 hours more than the VIP bus. Again, for the difference in price ($4 USD) and the addi-tional comfort, the VIP bus is the only way to go.

Home always feels a bit better after a vacation.

July 14, 2004

Well, today is the day to get my license. Did a bit of research on the ‘net and I’m all prepared. I have my passport, my work permit, photos, US driver’s license, health certificate, rent receipts, bankbooks, ATM cards, cash, and the kitchen sink. All I need is a letter from the embassy attesting to the fact that I’m a resi-dent of Bangkok.

Since I am an American citizen, I know that I will receive quick, courteous service from the fine people who staff the local consulate and that I should be out in no time. I head off to the American consulate on Wireless Rd, taking the BTS to Ratchadamri. A ten minute walk down Wireless and I spy the soil of my beloved Amerika.

I walk into the outer security office and inquire politely about getting a paper to certify my residency. With a big smile and a slight titter almost bordering on gid-diness, the woman at the desk gleefully informs me that the American Services are closed today, as she jerks her thumb in the general direction of a wallful of signs posted behind her.

Since I can actually read English, I glance at the signs that she has indicated and see that none of them address today’s closing. I ask, “Why?” Again, she responds with that attitude that causes myself and countless others to have a particular de-gree of respect for these fine representatives of my government. Her answer: “Closed Saturday, Sunday and holidays.” Feeling confidant that today is not a Sat-urday or Sunday and knowing that the July 4 celebrations have just passed and that there are no more major holidays in July for either the Thais or Americans, I ask, “So why is the office closed today?” “Thai holiday” was her courteous and elo-quent answer. “Really? What holiday would that be? “AIDS conference.” she re-sponded. I could almost see the horns emerging from her skull and hear her de-monic laughter.

I am sure that the cosmos has sent me to Thailand to work on patience and anger management, because at that moment, I wanted to slap her silly.

July 15, 2004

Played badminton today with Fon, Scott, and his GF. Big building on Soi Yen Akhat, off Chong Nongsi- well, not directly off. I actually could not tell you how to get there. We took the BTS to Chong Nongsi Station, then a taxi to the badminton hall. Taxi was 45 baht.

Price: 100 baht/hour. Indoor, non-air-conditioned facility. Good lighting. Reserva-tions must be made a couple of days in advance. Plenty of liquids, snacks, and equip-ment are on sale.

Very difficult to get a taxi out of there. Soi Yen Akhat is a dead end street, I think, so there was NO through traffic. As we were leaving, about 1700, there were crowds of laborers returning from their jobs. I might not feel safe walking through this neighborhood after dark. Walked for about twelve minutes, finally flagged a taxi. Taxi to Chong Nongsi to BTS to home, jumped right into the swim-ming pool. 45 minute swim- most refreshing.

I guess I’m still a child at heart- wish more of life was fun and games.

July 16, 2004

Up at 0800. BEAUTIFUL day today- not a cloud in the sky! Turns out to be the first day in weeks without rain. At the time, little did I realize what type of omen this represented.

Feeling confidant today, I decided to try for a Thai driver’s license again. Here’s a list of what is needed:

1. Original Affidavit of residence executed at your Embassy or consulate. (under 1 month old). If doing two licenses e.g.. car/motorbike then you can use a copy for the 2nd license.

2. Non-immigrant visa.

3. Passport

4. Medical report from a doctor or hospital (original, not a copy). About 20-50 baht cost at most clinics.

5. Your country’s driver's license to verify what license you hold (if not you take a test written multi choice & road test. If no bike or car, you can rent). Watch the motorcycles as they have no brakes but the test is simple- slalom through five poles.

6. 2 photos size 1" X 1"

7. fee baht 105 baht. motorcycle 55 baht

Forewarned and forearmed, with the above necessities in hand, I headed to the American consulate on Wireless Rd.

Cleared security with no problems and headed to the ACS (American Citizen Ser-vices). Bear to the right after passing through security. No lines at all. Talked to a guy who more than made up for the unpleasant woman at the door two days ago. He was very nice, helpful, and informative. He answered all of my questions clearly and even sympathized with my minor rant about the costs of notary services- $30 USD (1200 THB) per SIGNATURE!!! I asked under what laws the consulate operated. As expected, US Federal Law. I want to check on what they say about how much nota-ries can charge. I believe that in Virginia, the maximum charge is $10 USD.

The consulate gives me a paper with a nice summary of what is required for both a Thai driver’s license and for an international license. The paper also lists the ad-dresses and phone numbers for four motor vehicle offices in Bangkok. We try to call the office on Sukhumvit Soi 62, but the number is constantly busy (phone off the hook, maybe???).

OK, the office closes at 1100, it is now 1105.

Now it is time to take all of the papers up to the Department of Land Transport. The only address that I recognize is the one on Suk Soi 62, but they are not an-swering the phone. I stop and ask a traffic cop where the nearest office is and he tells me to go tot the Mor Chit office. I walk back to the BTS and head up to Mor Chit. After getting off the Skytrain, I ask a security guard where to go and he heads me in the right direction.

To walk to the office will take about ten minutes. Leave the BTS station on the right hand set of stairs, relative to the direction the train was taking. Walk back to the large building with the red-orange, Thai-style roof. Enter through the front door , walk straight through and out the back door. Keep walking straight ahead. You will pass two large white buildings on your right, as you head straight back to-wards the parking garage that you will see.

When you reach the parking garage, make a right, and head towards the white building that will be ahead of you and slightly to your left. It will be the one that has a swarm of motorbikes and double-parked cars surrounding it. When you reach the building, make a left, walk down 50 meters, and enter through the main doors on your right. Walk past the bathrooms on your left and take the staircase on the left up to the second floor.

Walk into the interior room, where there will be an L-shaped desk right in front of you. This desk will be staffed by people who look grumpy. Be nice to them-it can pay off later (and, it’s a nice thing to do!). Really, just smiling and speaking nicely to someone who does the same boring job, year after year, can make a big difference in their day. If you can be waited on by Nim, the oldest lady (47 years old) behind the desk, you will be in excellent hands!

Whoever waits on you will fill out all of your paperwork and ensure that you have the proper documents. There is a photo counter (70 baht for 6 1x1 inch photos) and a copy counter, both located to your right. The folks at the L-shaped desk will be very patient as they send you to get the copies that you will invariably be lack-ing.

After your papers are filled out, you will be sent to window #6, for all foreigners, farang or otherwise. They will be closed if you arrive between 1200 and 1300. Of course, I got there at 1230, so I had a nice ½ hour wait. It’s OK- this will give you time to bond with the other poor souls, those kindred spirits who, like you, are about to be ground up and spit out by the deux ex machina known as …

***The Thailand Department of Land Transport***

Everybody sits and waits for the window to reopen. I apparently missed the start-ing gun, because, at 1255, there was suddenly a long line of people waiting at the window. I dutifully joined the line- there were actually only about 7 people in front of me, but it seemed like a lot, considering that there was only 1 other person wait-ing when I arrived at 1230.

I think Thailand as we know it would cease to exist if any of several common items suddenly ceased to exist. Three that come to my mind immediately: whistles for security guards (more on that later), plastics bags, which are mostly used to deco-rate the streets, sidewalks and countrysides, and rubber stamps, which seem to be used to establish the personal worth of a particular beaurocrat (I must be impor-tant- look at all of my stamps).

As I said, I’m the eighth person in line. All of us have had our papers filled out at the initial desk. How long can it take to process each person?

How much time have you got?

The line moves excruciatingly sloooowwwly. As each person moves to the yet-to-be-seen beaurocrat, all I can hear are dull murmurings, grunting, and an almost non-stop pock-pock-pock of papers being rubber-stamped.

There is also a fairly constant stream of people who, after much stamping, grunting and murmuring, leave the line hurriedly, their faces horribly contorted in the same manner one sees on the faces of those leaving a dentist’s office- a bad dentist.

Finally, my turn at the window. The woman has two sets of papers, one for each li-cense. She shuffles the papers, reorganizes and reorders everything, attaches pa-per clips and starts pock-pock-pocking away, with an assortment of rubber stamps that clearly indicate her position in the office food chain. I am sent away twice to get additional copies of this or that- one was when she made a small tear in the copy of my license, the other because the smallest corner of my passport had gone off the edge of the photocopy. It didn’t even have text, obviously, but it was still no good.

She asks me about the “M” endorsement on my license. I explain that it means that not only can I drive a car, but I can also drive a motorcycle.

The pock stops.

She shuffles off to a guy with even more stamps than she has, sitting by himself at a large desk in the rear of the office, wearing a crisp, blue shirt. Obviously, the man with all answers. She returns, smiling, pocking my papers, which she then re-turns to me. “Cannot drive car” Excuse me? “Kop rot mai dai” WHY??

Because my license has the “M” endorsement, they assume that it is my motorcycle license only and that it does not qualify me to drive a car. No amount of explanation will help. They tell me to go back to the consulate and get another notarized form stating that Virginia issues only one license, which covers anything you might drive.

Somewhat dejected, I shuffle off to the third floor for my eye exam. I glance at my reflection in the office glass. There, I see the same pained face adopted by the other guys who have left window #6.

Ah, the eye exam. It is a color blindness test. Now, every color blindness test that I have ever seen works like this: there is a round circle, inside of which are many colored dots. If you have normal vision, you see a particular number. If you are color blind, you see a different number. I wear contacts all of the time and I wear glasses for reading. It’s been many years since I’ve had an eye exam. I look at the color blindness chart.

I see no numbers at all!

The woman tells me to stand behind a line. Then, she simply picks up a pointer and starts pointing to different dots. I tell her the colors. I pass. I’m asked to sign pa-pers. I have to fumble for my glasses, so that I can read what she’s pointing to. Why doesn’t this set off any alarm bells at the eye exam department? Pock-pock-pock. Back downstairs, to wait again at window #6.

While waiting, Nim, from the first desk (remember her?) passes us and mentions that she’s on her way to the bathroom. A rather personal comment, but, when I first dealt with Nim, I chatted with her, using my very faltering Thai: how is your day, what’s your name, how long have you worked here, that’s a pretty ring, etc. On her way back from the bathroom, I ask her if there’s anything she can do about the denial of an automobile license. She takes me to the window and calls blue shirt over. After much explanation, the guy agrees to OK this license, too! I am told to get yet another copy of my license, on which I must make a sworn, written state-ment regarding my driving qualifications.

Pock-pock-pock. I’m done. Ten minutes later, I’m holding my two new licenses in my hands.

BTW, they do have cars and motorbikes (no brakes!), for rent, with which to take a road test. I could have chosen that option, if need be. I don’t know the cost. Also, when I got the final copy of my license, the Thai woman who made the copy recog-nized it, because her sister lives in Virginia. When I explained what happened, she said she knows that only one license is used. The photocopy girl has this informa-tion- I must be the first American ever to be processed at window #6.

In conclusion:

• Three trips on the BTS: 54 THB
• Thieving notary at the US Consulate: 1200 THB
• Two Thai Licenses, both motorbike and car: 160 THB
• The look on your face when they tell you to return to the consulate for another 1200 baht piece of meaningless paper: PRICELESS!