Back in Singapore

My Thailand trip is done – I flew back to Singapore yesterday. It’s weird, but this place does feel kind of like home, minus all the friends & family. Maybe I was just anxious to stop living out of a suitcase. The first thing that I did when I got home last night (around 11pm) was to open my suitcase & backpack and dump everything on the floor. Then I went to bed. I had got up very early yesterday to go out & see the sights of the Coup around Bangkok.

Yesterday morning I went to the Parliament building in Bangkok. Along the way, I passed several intersections with soldiers standing at them, and a few with Humvees & tanks. When I got to Parliament, there were about 8 tanks there, and a couple dozen soldiers. There were hundreds of Thai citizens out thanking the soldiers & taking pictures.

A middle-aged man & his father stopped me to ask what I thought of all this. I told him that all of my friends in Thailand seemed very happy that the Prime Minister had been ousted, so I was happy for them. (In fact, I haven’t seen anyone that seems unhappy by this whole thing.) And, I was happy that the whole thing happened without any violence.

After several hours of walking around, I headed back to the hotel to pack up & have some lunch. Then, it was off to the airport. Once again, the cab driver tried to rip me off. As he pulled up to the hotel, I told the porter to ask him to use the meter. No, he’ll give me a ride to the airport (with all the tollways paid for), for the bargain price of 350 baht. I said no, I want the meter.

Well, I arrived at the airport & paid the driver the fare – 235 baht. After I had my bags out of the car & had paid him, I looked at him and said “350 baht?” and shook my head & slammed the door. It’s not the worst I’ve been ripped off – I once paid 600 baht for the same trip (what are ya’ gonna do at 4:00am on the freeway – ask to get out?)

I’m always on guard when I take a taxi to the airport. This is the 4^th time in a row that the driver’s tried to scam me. It also seems to happen when you’re leaving the Night Bazaar.

I was out at the Night Bazaar with my friend DP, shopping & having dinner. When it was time to head out, she said she’d let me talk to the driver – she wanted to see how I’d do. So, we got into the cab & the conversation started:

CB: “Marriot hotel”

Driver: “Marriot?”

CB: “Yeah, Sukhumvit Soi 2”

Driver: “Ok – 100 baht”

CB: “No, use the meter”

Driver: “Oh, we don’t use the meter….”

CB: “Meter”

Driver: “But…”

CB: “Khun kit wat phom ngo, laew?” (“You think I’m stupid?” in Thai)

… the meter immediately was turned on.

Rung – Thanks for teaching me how to say that!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bad in Bangkok. I still have lots of fun here. I’ve got plenty of friends to hang out with, they put me up in a really nice hotel, there’s lots of cool things to see & do,and the food is fantastic!

My favorite restaurant is Suda. It’s a little hole-in-the wall down on Sukhumvit Soi 14. The food is quite good, the prices are really cheap, and I have lots of fond memories from there. It’s the first restaurant I went to in Thailand, and I’ve dined there with friends from both the US & Thailand on many occasions. Plus, you never know when an elephant is going to show up (it’s happened several times). A baby elephant (about 5 feet tall) showed up this time with its handler. One of the local stray dogs got curious. I figure an encounter like this can best be described in haiku…

Baby Elephant

Stray dog looks up at the beast

Tail between its legs

Some other misc Thailand pics

Thailand Coup

First of all, I'm safe. :-) I'm up in Korat (aka Nakhon Ratchasima), which is about 2 1/2 hours outside of Bangkok. I was just about to go to bed last night, and figured I'd turn on the TV after my conference calls. Saw the news about tanks in Bangkok, and that the Prime Minister has declared a state of emergency.

As of this morning, CNN & BBC were off the air in my hotel (and I think in the rest of the country). The Thai military is controlling all the media in the country (except this blog!). I did see one news broadcast at lunch today, so maybe things are getting back to normal.
Good thing for the internet. It's the only way that me (or anyone else around here) is able to know what's going on.

Right now, I'm scheduled to go back to Bangkok on Friday & then fly to Singapore on Saturday evening. Right now, I don't see any reason to change those plans. But, I'll keep an eye on the news over the next few days, and I'll stay put if it looks like there's any danger.

Pictures from the Coup
I hope to get out & take some pictures of my own when I'm in Bangkok this weekend.

CB in .th

First of all, Happy Labor Day to all of my American friends. I hope you had a nice 3-day weekend. I didn’t even realize that it was this weekend until Monday. I thought I would get bummed out when I missed out on a US holiday, but I guess not.

One thing that I have missed this year is the Great Minnesota Get-Together – the State Fair. I think I’ve gone every year since I was about 5, so it was a little sad to miss it this year. (And, I know that my friends Jed & Alison are missing it too, while living in Italy). But, fear not – I did have a hotdog on a stick this weekend. But, unlike in America, it didn’t come wrapped in Corn Dog batter (or if you want a vastly inferior product, Pronto Pup batter). No – my hot dog came wrapped in a waffle. An interesting taste – pretty good actually.

As mentioned in my last entry, I’ve ventured North to the Land of Smiles… Thailand. I spent a long weekend vacationing in the northern city of Chiang Mai, hanging out with my friends ReAnn, Jon, and Pooklook & Brian (along with the rest of their family).

This was my first time to Chiang Mai (Thailand’s 2^nd largest city, after Bangkok), and I’ll definitely be back. It’s a wonderful city. It’s up in the mountains of Northern Thailand, so it’s much cooler than Bangkok. This was by far the most pleasant weather I’ve experienced in Thailand. It had to be in the low 80s in the city, and when we got up into the mountains, probably in the mid 70s.

The weekend was packed full of activities, although we didn’t get to do what we had planned. We planned to go on a 2 day trek up to an area called Doi Inthanon. But, Chiang Mai has been getting tons of rain lately, and there has been lots of flooding. Plus, we were going to be heading deep into the jungle, and there were concerns about malaria with all the rain. So, we cancelled those plans & went on several day trips.

On Friday, we went up to an Elephant Reserve (passing washed out roads, and flooded streets along the way). When we arrived, there were some elephants putting on a show – one was painting (and doing a pretty good job… for an elephant). One was punting a soccer ball that it dropped from its trunk, one was twirling a hoola hoop from it’s trunk & playing a harmonica. They even had two people come out from the audience to get a Thai massage from the elephants – getting patted on the back with their trunk, and tapped with their foot. Pretty brave actually, trusting that the elephant wouldn’t put its weight on that foot.

The best part of the day was the ride that we took through the jungle on the backs of some elephants. I was on the back of a giant bull elephant. It was a little unnerving, since I was sitting really high up in a basket that was held on by a rope (which the handler had to re-tie during the ride), and we were walking on really muddy ground near some pretty steep slopes.

On Sunday, ReAnn, Jon, and I were on our own. Pooklook & her family all had plans, but she was nice enough to arrange a day full of activities. She hired a driver for us, and we drove up to Doi Suthep, a nearby mountain. He dropped us off (and waited for us) while we walked up several hundred steps to a really cool temple at the top. The temple has a really cool viewing area that overlooked the city. The mountain was shrouded in clouds, so you could only see the city when you walked to the ledge. If you took a few steps back, all you saw was clouds beyond the granite wall.

After Doi Suthep, we stopped for lunch, and then drove an hour or so to who knows where. We stopped on some roadside stand for our next adventure – bamboo rafting. They drove us a few miles up stream, and then we walked to the river where a bunch of bamboo rafts were waiting. Don’t get the wrong idea when I say ‘raft’. These were a bunch of bamboo stalks tied together to make a platform that’s about 50 feet long & 4 feet wide. I wound up on the back end, ‘helping’ steer the raft through the river with a bamboo pole. The guide did most of the work from up front, and was able navigate around rocks & branches while constantly pointing out that I was pushing on the wrong side of the raft. I only fell in once, which actually was really refreshing, since I was getting hot from all the pushing & trying to keep my balance.

By the way – flying AirAsia was really disappointing! They messed up my flights both going to & coming back from Chiang Mai. I was supposed to go up at 12:30pm on Thursday. Well, that flight got cancelled, and I got bumped to 8:40pm (fortunately I was able to change my flight from Singapore, so I wasn’t sitting at the airport for 10 hours). Then, the 8:40 flight got changed to 9:30. When I got to the airport, I found that the 9:40 flight was delayed to 10:25pm, and then to 10:45. We finally boarded & took off around 11:00pm. On the way back, our flight was cancelled, so I had to wait another 3 hours. Fortunately, I had ReAnn & Jon to hang out with on that leg.

Now the vacation is done, and it’s time to work. I flew back to Bangkok, and got picked up at the airport for the 2 ½ hour drive up to Korat. I’ll be working here for the next 2 or so weeks.