With the US Thanksgiving holiday just a few days away, it seems fully appropriate that I was able to recently celebrate my first harvest from my balcony garden. It was a limited harvest – one beet, one radish, and two cherry tomatoes – but at least it is a start, right? For those of you who have missed my videos, I filmed and edited a new one to mark this momentous occasion.
The harvest was a small one, but I was excited with it nonetheless. On the left is a golden beet, on the right is a type of heirloom radish called a watermelon radish. It is supposed to have a light green skin with a pink interior. The skin was kind of a pinkish white instead. Behind the two roots are my carrots which are slowly growing.
Raindrops on the leaves of my third tomato plant. Once we hit the start of October – the end of rainy season – the weather rapidly changed. We’ve had significant rainfall only two or three times since then and my south-facing balcony has been bathed in direct sunlight for about 7 hours a day. The plants have definitely enjoyed the sun, although I’ve had to be diligent about watering.
One curious thing is that my tomato plants – both cherry and beefsteak – have had a problem with pollination. So far only two fruits have grown. I’ve not seen any bees around my plants but according to my online research, tomato plants are self-pollinating. One technique recommended in some videos is to give the plants a good shake to encourage the pollinating. So far that hasn’t seemed to help. Plenty of blossoms come and go, but few ever become fruit.
And there they are, my two cherry tomatoes. Organic, homegrown, and mighty tasty. Now if I could just get a few more of them off my plant, which is nearly three meters tall!
Inside of the watermelon radish. It had a nice flavor, less sharp than the conventional red radishes you see at the market.
Golden beet. I have only seen red beets sold in Thailand so was very excited to have golden beets. What I’ve decided, though, is that root vegetables are a poor use of limited container space. I need to focus on vertical plants – tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc. – where I can get more yield per square meter of soil. Of course, I guess the tomato plants haven’t really panned out yet, have they?
Here’s the video of the autumn 2011 harvest.
The healthy salad I made from mostly store-bought vegetables and my few container garden vegetables. The shredded golden beet is on top, some sauteed beet greens, and the radish. Success! Stay tuned for more gardening developments.
Quick (and hopefully final) update to the flooding situation here in Bangkok:
While the waters have started to slowly recede, many areas on the northern, western, and eastern edges of the city continue to be under a meter or more of water. This water has been there for, in some cases, nearly a month and has stagnated. Needless to say, residents of these areas are furious and have taken to tearing openings in some of the sandbag barriers to enable some of the water to more rapidly drain away.
In the past few weeks, what had just been piles of sandbags in the Sukhumvit area (where I live) has turned into more extreme defenses against the likelihood of flooding, a vote of no-confidence in a government that has continued to be incapable of communicating useful information in a timely manner. Thankfully, by this point it seems unlikely that we will see any water but nobody is removing the defenses yet.
Outside an office building in the Ploenchit area, two rows of sandbags with a wall of boards sealed at its base with silicone or tar to hold back water. Of course, vehicles are unable to enter or exit this building so, like many buildings around the city, business is being impacted.
Along the road leading up to the international airport, mega-sandbags were laid out and pumps installed in case the road itself needed to be turned into a canal to channel the water out of the city. The airport’s retaining wall was increased to 2.5 meters (almost 9 feet) and, despite having been built in the midst of a natural flood plain, the airport has thus far remained dry.
Photo courtesy Bangkok Post
Not so the old airport, Don Meuang, which before the flood was being used as an air force base and for limited domestic service. It is still closed with more than a meter of water covering the entire airfield. It will cost millions of dollars and take at least two months to bring this airport back into service.
As of last week, walls and other barriers were still being constructed. Here, a view from the inside of the Villa Supermarket near Sukhumvit Soi 33, looking outside to the street. A wall of concrete blocks and sandbags was built, necessitating a climb over the wall with your groceries.
The subway stations, exits at a few of which were closed because of the flooding, had flood barriers installed. These were new additions but were added very quickly that I imagine they must have been prepared in advance and stored for such an event. I’m unclear why there’s a gap at the corner but I guess they would close it with sandbags?
Finally, while at Bangkok Hospital this past week, off Phetchaburi Road, I noticed the wide range of flood protection they had put into place, including concrete walls around the base of escalators so water wouldn’t damage the machinery. Kind of awkward to climb the wobbly wooden steps to get over the wall. Perhaps it is part of their plan to treat more slip-and-fall patients!
Here is a short video showing some of the other flood preparations at Bangkok Hospital.
As mentioned above, I’m hoping this is the last entry I write on this subject. The amount of damage and suffering in Thailand has been immense – 594 deaths as of this morning – and yet I’m not sure that there’s anything more I can add to the subject after this point. I’ll return to other subjects from this point onwards including an update on my attempts at container gardening.
Today I turn 41 years old. This seems to be a popular time for birthdays. Two friends here in Thailand share my birthday, two other friends have birthdays the day before, and a dozen other friends have birthdays within plus or minus a week. Perhaps St. Valentine’s Day provides a good explanation for this mini-bubble of mid-November Scorpios. That’s speculation, though, and beside the point.
I’ve heard of “peak oil”… does “peak hair” also exist?
To give you a brief update, life is going quite well. Yesterday, as part of a habit I would like to create, I visited the doctor for an annual physical. By chance, I was seen by Dr. Nina, an Indian-born doctor whom I had seen a few years ago for a suspected case of Dengue Fever (which, thankfully, it was not). I’m glad I reconnected with her as she has a wonderful manner and I will make it a point to have her as my regular physician.
In any case, the general conclusion is that I am fine, health-wise. My cholesterol, which had dropped from about 260 three years ago to only 165 a year ago, has since climbed back to about 250. We’ll have to monitor this and see if some diet and exercise changes can bring it back under control. Other than that, a clean bill of health. If I can lose a few kilograms over the next year, we’ll all be happier at next year’s check-up, too!
Celebration-wise, I don’t think Tawn and I will do that much to celebrate. We had a large sausage making, cooking and eating dinner this past weekend with some friends (see “lose a few kilograms,” above), so that was probably enough hoopla to celebrate. Instead, a quiet evening at home with Tawn should be celebration enough.
From a general happiness standpoint, I realize that despite the few gripes and frustrations that arise in life, I have very little about which to be unhappy and a very large amount to be thankful for. Yesterday, in what I interpret to be a nice bit of serendipity, a university friend of mine posted a quote from poet Gunilla Norris that I think should be my birthday prayer:
“Guard me against the arrogance of privilege, against the indulgence of feeling that I don’t have enough, and the poverty of spirit that refuses to acknowledge what is daily given to me.”
Beautiful and timely, isn’t it? When I think of all the wonderful people, experiences, and opportunities I have had thus far in my life, I can’t help but be grateful to everyone and everything that has played a role.
After our lunch of southern style dishes, Tawn and I did some shopping at Bangkok’s famous Chatuchak Weekend Market. With thousands of stalls and vendors, you can find most anything for sale and the people-watching is entertaining, too. Along the way, I stumbled across some disturbing signs: swastikas.
First off, some of the interesting sights. We encountered this cute Jack Russell terrier who was dressed in full kit including shoes. He was nearly as stylish as his owner!
We also encountered a fortune teller (in the bandana) who was giving a reading to the young man in the (potentially offensive – sorry) black shirt. Based on the shirt’s message, I can only imagine what questions he is trying to have answered about his future.
Actually, as an aside, his shirt is an example of something I see often here in Thailand: Thais wearing shirts with English language messages that would broadly be seen as offensive or not particularly appropriate for wearing in public in an English-speaking country. I always wonder to what extent the wearers understand the message and its meaning. Would they wear the equivalent message if it was in Thai?
Which brings me to the swastikas.
In a number of shops, I encountered buttons, t-shirts, and other items that featured swastikas. Now, the swastika has a history that extends back a few thousand years before the Nazis came along and appropriated it. Even in contemporary Buddhism, you see the swastika as a sacred symbol. I feel comfortable, though, concluding that the use of the swastikas in this commercial context was not religious, but was meant to evoke the perceived “revolutionary” feel of the Nazis. Witness the Mao Zhe Dong buttons as a similar “statement”.
This sighting of swastikas brought to mind an incident from September, when a private Roman Catholic school in Chiang Mai (in northern Thailand), had a sports day in which a group of students dressed in a Nazi theme and marched carrying swastika banners and wearing swastika arm bands.
There was widespread outrage and several foreign consulates as well as the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles denounced the event, citing it as insensitive and inappropriate. The school authorities, no surprise, claimed they had not been aware of the students’ plans, even though their protestations seemed a bit thin.
What followed (before the floods) was a lot of discourse about how poor the Thai education system is and how the teachers and administrators had failed to educate their students. There were others who pointed out that students in western countries are often just as unaware of similarly significant events in Asia’s history and are sometimes even equally unaware of the details of the Holocaust.
I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon and denounce the students or the teachers. There has been enough said to that effect already. Suffice it to say that I was disturbed that in a short period of time, I saw several signs that the history of the Nazis and the Holocaust is not very well appreciated by some people in Thailand and the symbols of that history are seen as benign fashion statements.
There are probably countless examples in other countries where locals appropriate words and symbols from other languages, cultures, and countries, without fully understanding what the meanings are, sometimes causing offense. I guess that more than anything, this is a reminder that we need to be aware when we adopt things, whether they are words or symbols, that are not originally our own. Meanings are not universal and it is easy to be insensitive to others’ feelings.
The first IKEA store in Thailand, and the largest in Asia, opened this past week in Bang Na – the eastern suburbs of the city. I went with some friends to check it out. Here’s the video:
Bangkok’s Chatuchak Weekend Market is popular among locals and visitors alike for its almost endless maze of vendors selling everything from fashion to frogs, souvenir trinkets to silverware for your dinner table. Shopping isn’t the only reason to visit the market, though. Hidden amongst all these vendors are several restaurants that are worth a trip, even if you have no plans to shop. A few weekends ago, we ate at Prik Yuak, a popular place whose good food and convenient location makes it worth a visit.
Prik Yuak is a Southern Thai style khao gaeng place. Khao gaeng refers to the prepared curries (and other dishes) that are served with rice. I shared a bit about this type of food in the third volume of my “Great Eats in Bangkok” series.
Ordering at Prik Yuak is both easy and hard: easy because all you need to do is point and they will plate the dishes up for you. Hard because you have to figure out what each thing is. My advice: so long as you have no allergies, religious dietary restrictions, or adverse reactions to chilies, go ahead and point away!
Portions are small – think “Thai tapas” – and this allows you to try many different tasty dishes even if you come to the restaurant by yourself or just one other person.
The restaurant itself is modest, located next to the edge of the market, immediately adjacent to exit 3 of the Kamphaeng Phet MRT station. In fact, make a u-turn to the right as you exit from the station and then continue back as far as you can go (40 meters or so) and you’ll have reached the restaurant. Grab a table after ordering and they will bring the food to you.
Plaa kem tod – The name of the dish refers to the salty fried fish that is the main flavoring ingredient. In this case, it is being served along with broccoli, although it is also served with other greens. Salted fish is a popular ingredient in Thai food, especially in the south, where it is an easy method of preservation for a region that is close to the sea. For foreigners, the taste can take some getting used to because it is very salty. The saltiness is balanced by the clean, unseasoned flavors of the vegetables, though.
Kai palow – This dish of stewed eggs and pork belly is often prepared with a Chinese five spice sauce. In this case, Prik Yuak uses a palm sugar caramel and soy sauce. This dish is ordered to accompany spicier dishes, as the sweet richness of the dish helps to counter the spice.
Kuag gling moo – Shredded pork fried with spices, most notably turmeric, with a garnish of thinly sliced kaffir lime leaf. This dish, which is spicy hot, has very assertive flavoring, making your taste buds come alive. The texture is also very fun to eat, small shreds of slightly crispy fried pork and fried shallots.
Gaeng tae po – This vegetable dish features something known locally as “morning glory” – not related to the flowers – a tubular green that grows near the water. It is served in a curry and is quite spicy but in a way that is very pleasant.
Panang moo – Panang style pork curry, which is milder than many other Thai curries. It has a heavy dose of coconut milk which provides some richness on the tongue, countering other spicier dishes. What makes Prik Yuak’s version of this dish unique is that they braise the pork first before cooking it in the curry. The result is a bowl full of very tender pork.
Pad prik king gai – Shredded fried chicken, cooked southern style with a dry curry (i.e. no coconut milk). At first glance, this appears similar to the kuag gling dish, above. But the flavor profile is very different. Instead of having turmeric and lots of spices, this curry is made mostly of chilies, ginger, galangal root, coriander root, and lemongrass. It is much more herbal and has a kick to it.
Kai tom yang matoom – A common condiment for the khao gaeng shops is boiled egg. Here we have boiled duck eggs done to a soft, creamy yolk. Again, the richness of the egg helps counteract the spiciness of several of the dishes. It is also an easy source of protein.
To provide some more veggies, a little crunch, and some cooling relief to your mouth, a platter of crudité is served. From left: kamin khao (white turmeric), long beans, and cucumbers.
And to drink? How about a coconut bowl of the favorite local cola: Pepsi. While I normally don’t drink sodas, it is a very refreshing accompaniment to a meal like this.
Conclusion: The food at Prik Yuak is first rate in terms of quality, price, and flavor. Best of all, the small servings allow you to try so many different things. I hope that as you read the descriptions, you noticed how varied the dishes are and how they complement each other. Something spicy, something sweet, something salty, something rich, something astringent – this is the quality of a balanced Thai meal, a feature that is lacking in a lot of western cooking, particularly in fast food America. When I go for too long without Thai food, I find that my palate is bored from the lack of different flavors in a single meal!
With all the grief and anxiety surrounding our watery circumstances in Bangkok, I feel the need for a laugh and a smile. Perhaps you do, too. For our collective good mental health, let me share with you a picture of my friends Chris and Antony’s son, Archer.
Sunday morning, the city quiet as many residents have fled the flooding, I rode my bicycle for a first-hand look at the situation in the old city and along the river. What I found was not as bad as flooding further north, but it left me with the realization that our relative dryness is a tentative state, one that could easily change.
My ride took me west into the old city, around the Grand Palace, and then north along Sam Sen Road to the Rama VII Bridge. Most of the way, I was on the road closest to the river, giving me a chance to evaluate the neighborhoods. Like a checkerboard, some neighborhoods had water while adjacent neighborhoods were still dry. The dry neighborhoods were taking no chances, though, with walls of sandbags or brick and cement erected in front of shops, buildings, and homes.
Location 1: The Emporium
These photos were actually taken Friday night, when Tawn and I drove to the Emporium shopping center at Sukhumvit Soi 24 to watch a film. Both parking structures were packed, not with shoppers’ cars but with cars that had been parked there for safekeeping. Cars were double parked, left in neutral gear so they could be pushed out of the way. To park in the only available space, we had to push six other cars out of the way. I can tell you from this experience that classic Mercedes are very heavy and do not roll easily.
We noticed that someone had parked a pale yellow Rolls Royce Phantom with an auspicious license plate with the numbers 9999 on it. (The current king is Rama IX, so nine is considered a lucky number.) Inquiring with the guard, I understand that the car’s owner is someone very high up in one of the government’s ministries. The guard also shared that this person has parked 26 cars in the lot. Perhaps the government’s scheme to encourage car ownership is working too well?
All of these cars had a notice placed on them (after they were not moved at the end of the night) asking the owners to contact the management office before leaving the car park. Presumably, there will be some sort of a fine for unauthorized long-term parking. I would guess some people probably won’t have to pay that fine.
Location 2: Phra Nakhon District
The ride to Phra Nakon, the oldest district of Bangkok, was smooth as so few cars were on the road. Along the way, streets were dry and canals were at close to their normal level. When I came up to Khlong (canal) Khu Meuang Derm near the back side of the Ministry of Defence, I encountered the first flooding. While not deep – about 10 cm (4 inches), it covered most of the blocks adjacent to the canal.
I rode around the north side of the Grand Palace where the street had moderate flooding (the far two lanes in this picture) in some areas. The entire road around Sanam Luang, the large field to the north of the Grand Palace, was flooded a bit more, with the entire road under about 15 cm (6 inches) of water.
The Grand Palace was open for business (tourists note: the Grand Palace is open every day, no matter what any scam artists may try to tell you) but there were few visitors. The entry gate, pictured here, was under about 30 cm (1 foot) of water, requiring visitors to balance on sand bags as they made their way inside.
Around the corner from the Grand Palace, closer to the river, is Maharat Road leading to Thammasat University. Flooding was more severe in this neighborhood and a barrier had been built in the street to contain the water. Vendors were still working on the sidewalks and residents (and monks from the adjacent Wat Mahathat) were coming and going as best they could. One vendor explained that the area had been flooded for the past four days. When asked whether the water was still rising or was falling, he replied that it depended on the tides.
One block away from the river, Na Phrathat Road runs along the west edge of Sanam Luang, passing the National Theatre and National Museum. It was closed to through traffic and has about 15 cm (6 inches) of standing water.
Location 3: Sam Sen Road, Dusit District
Heading north from Phra Nakhon, I rode along Sam Sen Road through the Dusit District. There, I found the same checkerboard pattern of flooding. Some stretches I rode through the water that reached the bottom of my pedals, about 15 cm (6 inches) high, although waves caused by passing vehicles left me with wet shoes. There were points where the roads were impassable, so I cut east one block, rode a few blocks north, and then returned to Sam Sen Road to find it dry again.
The dry areas looked like they might not be dry much longer. Here, I passed through an otherwise dry neighborhood and found water bubbling up through the manhole cover. Passing motorbike riders gazed warily at the water, which ran across the road and into the storm drains.
Location 4: Bang Sue District
Underneath two railway bridges just south of the Rama VII automobile bridge in the Bang Sue district, the river threatens to spill over its banks and an extra layer of sandbags marks a last line of defence. The bridge belongs to the State Railways of Thailand. Just to the right of the frame is a second bridge (to the right of the crane) for the under-construction pink rail transit line.
To the left of the previous picture (of the bridge), the road comes immediately adjacent to the brimming river, right at the entrance to Khlong (canal) Sung. The water gate for the canal is shut in order to protect the district from flooding. Soldiers from the army were on hand monitoring the situation and adding sandbags as necessary.
Just a short distance north, I rode across the Rama VIII Bridge and stopped to take pictures. There were several people fishing from the bridge, but I noticed this man who was fishing from the waterfront park underneath the bridge. Because of the flooding, it is hard to tell where the river ends and the park begins.
In the same waterfront park, a boy ran through the water as buses passed on a moderately flooded frontage road. After having pedaled about 30 km, I headed inland past the closed and sandbagged Chatuchak Weekend Market (which I’ve never seen closed on a weekend!), taking the Skytrain home from the Mo Chit station.
Conclusions:
While I didn’t travel further north into the more severely affected areas of the city, what I saw was enough to make me realize that even though we’ve passed this week without flooding in many of the central parts of the city, those areas that are still dry, remain so only because of luck and limited rainfall. Water is bubbling up through the drains and seeping through the sandbags and dikes; it seems inevitable that some of those defenses will fail before the excess water is moved safely to the Gulf of Thailand.
I suspect that the risk to the area I live in is relatively minimal, but I think we have another week or two before the city as a whole is out of the gravest danger.
Updated – Third video added. This is the last time I’ll time stamp this! Tawn shared this very cute and informative 4-minute video clip with me, which explains what is happening with the flooding and why the risk to Bangkok is severe. It is done with clever animation and is actually quite useful… which leads me to believe that the Thai government had absolutely nothing to do with it.
The best part is how they compare the flood waters with blue whales, which makes the whole thing much more comprehensible. There are English subtitles, so please enjoy.
A second video was released Thursday, which further explains the situation and gives suggestions about how to assess the actual risk your home is at for flooding.
The government has announced that the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok will peak around 6 pm Saturday, so that is expected to be the point at which flooding, which has now spread into 5 districts in the city, will explan further.
The third video is out, this one listing the three steps you should take to prepare for the flood. It really is so simple, right?
For more than a week, residents of Bangkok have been bracing for the floodwaters, stacking sandbags and stocking supplies. With the exception of a few districts which have been hit, most of the city waits in a sort of suspended animation, frustrated by a lack of information and an abundance of government incompetence.
To be certain, Thailand’s worst flooding in fifty years has affected parts of the city, especially in the north and northeast near Rangsit, Don Meuang, Sai Mai, and Minburi districts. But the majority of the city is still dry. We are told every day that the next few days will be critical. Each day, the anxiety increases.
Throughout the city, flyovers and expressways became car parks as clever residents decided to park their cars on the only high ground they could find. The effect, predictably, was that traffic came to a standstill and the movement of emergency vehicles and supplies was hampered. In the picture above, two of the three lanes on the left are actually parked cars. Yes, I know it looks like a normal traffic jam but in this case the cars are empty. The government has been pleading with people not to park on the roads, but for some unknown reason has been slow to actually tow the cars.
Each morning I trade text messages with a friend who lives in the Sathorn district. “You have any water yet?” “No, not yet. You?” Our messages are a microcosm of the confusion that is frustrating residents across the city. While the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has done an admirable job and has communicated effectively with residents, the national government led by Yingluck Shinawatra, who wants to be in charge of the flood response, has been a disaster.
The FROC (Flood Relief Operations Command – they even chose an English name for it!) is accurately depicted in this cartoon. Different people are working at cross-pusposes and the announcements from different department and ministerial heads contradict and confuse. A Tweet that has spread like wildfire reads, “The intellectuals fill sandbags while the buffaloes make the plan.” As you might imagine, the government is seen as the buffaloes, and the comparison is very unfair to buffaloes.
Sunday afternoon I explored my neighborhood, to see how people are preparing. The number of sandbags have increased markedly since Friday. I would estimate that about 80% of shops and buildings have built some sort of barriers. Others (like the one with the blue doors) have not, but that may be because the doors are either watertight or the goods inside are raised off the floor.
Grocery and convenience stores are out of many supplies, including bottled water. The only bottled water on sale at the local market was Evian, as everything else was sold out.
I also noticed several buildings taking even more extreme measures, building temporary walls of brick and mortar. This picture is along Sukhumvit Road between Ekamai and Thong Lor, not an area that I thought was particularly prone to flooding. I like that they have added steps. Interestingly, they did not build steps on the other side. Presumably, once the threat of flooding subsides, they will remove the wall.
Sunday afternoon, I heard that the water gates for Saen Saeb canal, a major east-west artery that is near our condo, had been opened to help ease the flooding in the river and move the water towards the Gulf of Thailand. Curious, I rode to the canal, only to find the water at its usual level, or perhaps even a little lower than normal. Canal boat service, which a few days ago had been reported suspended because of high water levels, was running. Again, another example of lack of clear information. And this is happening in both English and Thai, mind you.
Back at our condo, a sandbag barrier has been in place for the past ten days. Our soi (alley) is prone to moderate flooding when there are heavy rains, so the chance of flooding seems higher just by virtue of that fact. Thankfully, we’ve had four consecutive days of dry weather, but the water elsewhere in Bangkok is presumably still a risk for us.
A view from the inside of the car park, showing how the street is about two feet (70 cm) higher than the car park floor. Actually, more accurately, the street is only about one foot higher. The driveway is built to provide a natural barrier, rising a foot from the street before descending two feet into the car park.
Inside the car park, the elevator and electrical room are barricaded with sandbags. The maintenance team built a brick wall about 40 cm high just inside the electrical room. I’ve observed that people keep adding to the defenses already in place, leading me to conclude that they know something I don’t. When I ask them, though, they explain that they don’t know if or when the water is coming, but assume that since there has been no good news (“Water recedes!”), this must be the calm before the storm.
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