Ootoya: oishi des ne?

Posted on 29 April 2008 by christao408

I love Thai food and one of the great things about living in Thailand is – no surprise here – there is no shortage of great, inexpensive Thai food.

If Khrungthep is the Mt. Olympus of Thailand then Thai food is our ambrosia and, ignoring the obvious question of who the gods and goddesses are, blended fresh watermelon juice must be our nectar.

Even with that plethora of good Thai food, from time to time I still want to eat something else. Just as when I lived in San Francisco I didn’t eat American food all the time so, too, here in Thailand I like to travel around visiting the different huts in the global culinary village.

One of my favorite huts to stop by is the one run by Ootoya, a Japanese chain that specializes in teishoku, or set meals, comprised of a protein, bowl of rice, miso soup, and a plate of pickles. Ootoya doesn’t do sushi and is largely about grilled items. The food is fresh, portions generous but not overwhelming, and the ingredients healthy. Below: Examples of Ootoya’s teishoku, grilled hamburger with onion sauce on the left and grilled saba (mackerel) on the right.

There are plenty of locations throughout the city, especially in the mid-Sukhumvit area where there are a lot of Japanese expats.

One other nice thing is that Ootoya updates its menu regularly. There are a lot of “spring specials” on the menu, even though the seasons here don’t quite correspond with the seasons in Japan. It is just nice that we get to see a wide variety of dishes. One of their winter specials was baked then grilled slices of daikon radish served with a fermented red bean sauce. So tasty! Very simple combination but tremendously satisfying.

For spring we have fresh steamed vegetables, served in a steaming basket and sterno stove at your table. Unfortunately, it takes practically the whole meal for the veggies to get tender! Short video segment below.

In other news, we had a brief visit from our friend Tomas recently, right. Tomas and his partner Jose moved a few years ago from Houston to London and after a short return to the United States are back in London.

Tomas was here at a conference and fortunately could make the time to meet for dinner at Curries and More followed by some drinks at the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel.

Don’t think that Tawn and I aren’t interesting in accepting their invitation to stay with them on our next visit to London. Prices being what they are in the British Isles and the dollar’s value being what it is, we’ll certainly take the offer of lodging especially when it comes with a generous serving of Tomas and Jose’s warm hospitality!

Crossing the border in Pong Nam Ron

Posted on 27 April 2008 by christao408

Every ninety days I have to leave Thailand. Not because I get my fill of the traffic or som tam, but because the conditions of my year-long visa (and most other non-immigrant visas, for that matter) require it. I can fly somewhere on holiday or even just step across the border and then re-enter: it doesn’t matter so long as I leave Thailand.

Over the past two and a half years most of my border runs have been combined into already-planned travel: Tawn and I take a weekend in Hong Kong, go for a visit back to the United States, etc. So far, there have been only two times when I’ve had to make a border run specifically because I needed to leave the country: the first was a day-long trip to Penang, Malaysia on August 31, 2006 and the second was about three weeks ago.

Above: Me at the border with Cambodia in the background.

There are a dozen companies that help expats and tourists conduct border runs to Laos or Cambodia and border runs are one of those topics that have a place in the mythology and folklore of expats in Thailand.

Down on Khao San Road the backpackers share tips and insights on how to stay here as long as they can, how to work the system, and how to avoid overstaying their visas. For those just sliding by on tourist visas, even with the recent “crackdowns” restricting those who receive visas on arrival to only ninety total days within a six-month period, there is something called the “three thirties, a sixty and a seven” that can net you just over five consecutive months of stay with minimal effort.

Even for those of us who are here legitimately and hold nonimmigrant visas, the topics of what visa type, where did you get it, and how are you handling border runs is still a common topic of conversation.

The Cambodian day trip is one of the most common border runs. For about 2,000 baht (about US$65 but rising fast) you can hop into a van or a bus with several dozen expats and make a nine-hour roundtrip to the border. I’ve been hesitant to make this trip because I’ve heard that the experience is a nightmare. Not only the hours and hours cramped in a vehicle but then at the border you are attacked by beggars, limbless war victims and children, who swarm to the foreigners like so many mosquitos.

It is easy to understand why, in a country that is still so impoverished, people would take this route to earn a living, but it is horrifying to know that giving some spare change isn’t doing anything to alleviate their suffering. Perhaps this is a copout and I’m just a westerner who doesn’t want to come face-to-face with the legacy of genocide, but this does not make for a pleasant day-trip.

When Roka told me about a border run she had taken with a company called Sawasdee Transport and her story painted a very different picture, one that sounded much more promising.

So I emailed the owner, a German named Claudio and he confirmed that there would be room on Friday’s trip. Please meet the van at the Tesco-Lotus at On Nut BTS station at 7:30 am, he said.

Arriving about 7:15 at the large parking lot, I was at a loss as to which van I was looking for. White and silver Toyota passenger vans are even more common here than street-side food vendors and since On Nut is the terminal station for the Sukhumvit line, dozens of vans transport workers from the parking lot to destinations all around the eastern side of the city.

Spotting another farang I approached her and asked if she was waiting for Claudio, too. She was and in just a few minutes Claudio came pulling up in his car and pulled into a space next to three other vans. A large group was going today, so there would be a total of these three vans plus Claudio ended up having to drive his car to the border, too.

Of the three dozen or so passengers, almost all were Filipino laborers. I have one Filipino friend here in Khrungthep and didn’t realize just how many people the island nation exports to Thailand. Our van had a British national, the Canadian-Belgian dual citizen I had met a few minutes before, and seven Filipinos, one of which had a lovely voice and quietly sang a capella nearly the whole trip.

I liked the transparency and honesty with which Claudio did business. The expat community is rife with tales of unscrupulous border run operators who will get you to the border only to discover that your visa or paperwork is not in order and you cannot cross the border that day. Often that is a waste of money and it is always a waste of time. Claudio, on the other hand, thoroughly reviewed everyone’s documents in advance of the trip and double-checked before leaving that everyone had everything they needed.

We headed up to the border, stopping once en route for a toilet break. The ride was comfortable enough and I read a bit and visited with my seat mates. The Canadian-Belgian woman had the most interesting story: she had come to visit her parents about two years ago as her father had set up a company in Thailand six years prior to that. She so enjoyed it that she has spent the better part of those last two years here living with them. Since the limit on tourist visas using the “three thirties and sixty and a seven” is about six months, she just switches passports every six months and then travels for a few weeks in between to get all the way to the six months.

Our destination was the Ban Laem crossing in Pong Nam Ron, Chanthaburi Province. This is a smaller crossing and less popular with the larger border run operators than another crossing nearer to Khrungthep. As such, there is much less traffic and, because of the way the border and the casino are laid out, you don’t have any contact with the Cambodian locals. In fact, it is arguable whether or not you ever really arrive in Cambodia.

As gambling is “illegal” in Thailand, the Thais go to casinos set up right across the border in Laos and Cambodia. At Ban Laem the casino is actually placed before the true entry point into Cambodia. The physical order of the border is: Thai border control office, Thai border guard, bridge over the muddy creek that is the actual border (above), casino compound, then Cambodian border guard. The Cambodian border control office is actually on the casino grounds so clearly the business is there to cater to foreigners doing border runs.

When I say “casino”, by the way, don’t think Macau or Las Vegas. Think of the local chapter of your Rotary Club with one of their linoleum floored halls filled with folding chairs and faded card tables. Needless to say, no cocktail waitresses serving free drinks. No pictures allowed, unfortunately, so let your imaginations run with that image.

Above: Looking from Thailand into Cambodia, the entry to the casino is just behind the white, circular sign. There is a red-roofed shack behind that where the Cambodian border guard is located.

Below: Standing just outside the Cambodian border guard shack looking into Cambodia. Interestingly, the disparity between income on the two sides of the border is amazing. While both are rural and poor, the Thai side has nicely paved roads and some development. The Cambodian side is much worse off. That might be attributable to the fact that the people coming over from the Thai side never go any further than the casino.

We were on the Cambodian side of the border for about an hour. The Canadian-Belgian woman and I tried our chance at the fried rice and then did some duty free shopping. The best news of all was that Cambodia has no duties on imported wine and, as I learned from the British man on the way back, there really are no practical restrictions placed on the quantity of items you bring back into Thailand, even though the legal restriction is 1 liter of alcohol. I bought two bottles of a nice Australian wine for 350 baht (about US$11) each and discovered that at the store here in Khrungthep they were being sold for 1789 baht each thanks to Thailand’s 400% duty on luxury goods.

This alone is enough to encourage me to make more border runs to Cambodia. Maybe I can even bring the car and buy a few cases!

We crossed the bridge back towards Thailand, a blue and white sign in Khmer script saying (I assume) something like “farewell and come again”, right. Who knows, though? It could have been propaganda denouncing the decadent westerners who don’t do much to actually help the lives of everyday Cambodians.

Below: Looking back into Thailand, the new immigration offices on the right hand side. The British man was telling me that just a few years ago, the offices were literally a shack, just like on the Cambodian side. The rickety wooden pedestrian bridge is a remnant of times past.

We were back at the Tesco-Lotus by 5:00, having hit some heavy thunderstorms on the way back. According to the British guy, he has never done this trip when there weren’t afternoon thunderstorms as the area is in the mountains. Talking with him, he has an interesting story. Married to a Thai woman for more than eight years, he hasn’t applied for permanent residency but instead has a working visa sponsored by their company, which makes and exports wedding dresses to the UK and other parts of Europe. They have recently started to do made-to-order dresses online, so if you are interested in having a wedding dress (or, I suppose, any other type of dress) made to order and then shipped to you, I’m sure you could find some good deals on their website. Not an endorsement, by the way, just something I picked up on the trip.

All in all, the trip was fairly painless and a convenient way to do a border run without having to plan and pay for a trip somewhere outside Thailand. As much as I love flying, I can’t fly outside Thailand for much less than 6,000 baht given the price of fuel these days. For that, I can do a Cambodian border run and buy a dozen bottles of wine.

Wet Critical Mass

Posted on 25 April 2008 by christao408

Friday night was the third Critical Mass ride here in the City of Angels. After two days of stormy weather, the rain had cleared mid-afternoon, the streets had dried, the weather was still a little cool and breezy and it was looking like the stage was set for a pleasant ride.

By the time I reached the TOT (Telephone of Thailand) building on Phloenchit Road, the clouds were forming in the early evening sky and it smelled of rain. About thirty riders gathered, all Thais except for one other farang, down significantly from the two hundred-plus riders at the first Critical Mass ride in February. Barely a mass, much less critical, in my opinion.

We set off just after seven o’clock and within five minutes were riding on wet pavement. Chasing the storm, we rode onto increasingly wet pavement until catching up to the raindrops. From mist to droplets to a full downpour, the group continued to ride, LED head and tail lights reflecting in the puddles.

There was a certain romance to it. It was warm and tropical and everyone was entirely soaked through and we kept riding, weaving through the stuck traffic, ringing our bells and bringing some visibility to the rights of cyclists.

After about forty minutes we arrived at the Taksin Bridge pier, where tourists catch the river taxis. There, under the concrete canopy of the bridge, the group stopped for a break. I visited with fellow riders, several of whom are instructors at one of the arts colleges. It was nice to be able to communicate well enough to carry on conversations and to make, and understand, jokes. Thank goodness for people who are willing to speak clearly, speak slowly, and rephrase their words when I don’t understand. And who avoid idioms.

Sights on the Road

Posted on 23 April 2008 by christao408

Running errands recently, there were many interesting things to see:

The pedestrian bridge connecting the Asoke BTS Skytrain station with the far side of the Sukhumvit/Asoke intersection is nearing completion, a six-month project that will increase pedestrian safety hugely.

Above: The bridge will connect to the Exchange Tower on the southeast corner of the intersection. I think it will also have an outlet in front of the new Interchange 21 Tower in the northeast corner. Below: Looking east from the Asoke BTS Skytrain station along Sukhumvit towards the Asoke intersection.

Driving back from Fortune Town (visiting my lawyers regarding my work permit), traffic was heavy on Asoke between Rama IX and Petchaburi. Partly attributable to this fender bender, below. Thai motor vehicle code states that vehicles must remain in place until the police or the insurance agents have arrived and documented the scene. Considering the number of small fender benders that occur, this delay in clearing the road causes unnecessary traffic congestion.

Look how close the cars are packed below.

Funny sticker on the back of a pickup truck, below.

Construction on the Airport Express train line is making progress, supposedly going to be completed by the end of this year. (Fat chance!) Here, they are building the segment outside the terminal station which will become a bridge across Asoke Road. More pictures when they begin building that bridge.

When under construction, buildings are often wrapped in plastic fabric to keep the dust down. With the strong winds this week, the structure looked like a shrouded corpse. Ghostly!

After so much errand-running, it was homemade vegetarian calzone for dinner with a healthy whole wheat crust.

Yummy!

Of Ants and Gnats and Men

Posted on 22 April 2008 by christao408

The joys of being a homeowner raised their ugly head again a few weeks ago.

First, the toilet was loose and rocked back and forth. While that can be quite soothing during those middle-of-the-night trips to the outhouse, you should bear in mind that we just completed a full remodel at the end of November (“completed” is kind of a relative term) and this included replacing the toilet. No reason for it to be unstable already.

Upon his return, the plumber announced that his original installation had been good but that some other worker must have either bumped the toilet, put something on it, or stepped on it while the adhesive and caulk were setting. He removed the toilet – ceremoniously placed outside in the hallway, right – cleaned up the marble underneath, and then remounted the toilet. Then gave us strict instructions to not even so much as walk in the same room as the toilet, lest the wobble return.

With that commandment, we called a travel agent and found a good deal on a mid-range hotel in the Nana district, the convenient, touristy and seedy section of Sukhumvit Road that too many people end up staying at because it is touted in the tourist guide books as being “convenient” and “close to everything”.

Sigh… the US dollar doesn’t buy what it used to in Khrungthep! The Manhattan Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 11 is a nice work of faded glory. It was clean, the people were friendly, and the interior was a bit faded and worn. Still, it was only 1500 baht ($50) at the last minute and that included free parking and a pretty decent buffet breakfast. That’s the price to pay for a stable toilet, I guess.

Actually, Tawn remembers the Manhattan Hotel from his childhood, when he would accompany his father to the barbershop there. Popular with members of Khun Sudha’s (Tawn’s father) generation, the barber was an Elvis Presley fan who kept his white hair in a pompadour in homage to the other King. The barber didn’t like to cut children’s hair and Tawn, just a little squirt, had to sit on a washing board laid across the armrests in order to raise him up, as the barber’s hands trembled with nervousness.

The barber was also popular with Japanese expats living nearby. In the corner of the waiting area was a stack of magazines for customers to read and Tawn remembers finding some manga, Japanese comic books. Waiting for his father to finish, he was flipping through the comic books, bored, until he reached the more… ahem… adult depictions in the story. (For those who don’t know, there is a popular subculture of Japanese comics that contain a startling amount of pornography. Interesting Wikipedia article here.)

The joys of home ownership continued with the invasion of ants and gnats. The ants have been a recurring problem since construction. They seem to come from the wall or floor behind the clothes washer. Boy, are they clever. Each time they find their way to the kitchen, I crawl along the floor following them back to their nest (or, at least, wherever they enter the wall) before I do any spraying. One can just imagine the conversation:

Ant #1: “Hey, do you notice anything strange?”
Ant #2: “No, why?”
Ant #1: “That giant. I think he’s following us.”
Ant #2: “Nah, that’s just your imagination. You’re working too hard. Why don’t you take a vacation?”

After locating their path, I would spray the path and the area around their portal through the wall with Raid and then they would disappear for a week or so. They would find another path soon thereafter: exit through a gap in the shower tile grout; a corner of the door frame; from somewhere behind the washer; through the edge of the electrical outlet in the bedroom. Clever ants, I must give them credit for their tenacity.

You have to appreciate the distances we’re talking about here: at first they were traveling three meters or so through the foyer, past the refrigerator, and up the counters. The shortest route is always the most direct one, right?

As I closed off various routes, they became more creative, exiting the bathroom through the bedroom, then out into the living room, past the fireplace, then cut across the floor and run along the edge of the rug, then into the kitchen from the side near the patio door. That’s the same tour I give guests when they first visit the condo!

The ants seemed pretty manageable by myself. As much as I don’t like to use chemical sprays, the non-chemical options didn’t seem effective. But we decided it was time to call in the heavy artillery when a swarm of teeny-tiny gnats started swarming around the bathroom sconces. Where the heck did they come from?

We finally determined they were reproducing in a dead space under the sink countertop, escaping through the narrow gap at the top of the under-mounted sink. Some spraying would leave dozens of casualties but reinforcements would appear the very next day.

On the recommendation of a homeowner friend, we called a local pest control service. A trio of men arrived, one clearly the boss, a second one sort of a mid-level manager, and then finally the poor sap who had to do the work, pictured left. (Have I mentioned before about the hierarchical nature of Thai society?)

To say that there are no health and safety protections for workers handling toxic or otherwise unhealthful substances would be patently untrue: This young man was wearing a pair of coveralls.

Sure, he had no mask as he filled the spray tanks with water, releasing fumes that nearly knocked me out while taking the picture. No gloves, either.

The boss assured us that there were no harmful effects and that after leaving the house closed up for an hour or so, we could return home, air it out, and then continue living our pest-free lives with no worries.

As for how the exterminators’ work has worked: In the two and a half weeks since their visit, the ants have not returned. The gnats, just like when I sprayed, died in large numbers but were replaced the next day. I’ve had to follow up with additional under-counter spraying to get their population under control. But considering that the exterminators’ 12-month contract is quite inexpensive, about $12 a month, I figure I can do some of the heavy lifting, too.

Up next, I tell you about the bathroom drain that has no U-trap and how we’re tackling that. All that and more on the next episode of “This Old Thai Condo”.

KFC Park of Happiness

Posted on 22 April 2008 by christao408

There are strange things to be seen in this world, not the least of which was a recent event held at Siam Paragon shopping mall. Yes, it is (I kid you not) the KFC Park of Happiness.

Lest you take the relative scarcity of people as a sign of Thai consumers’ anti-Western habits, rest assured that this photo was taken early in the day before the Park of Happiness was officially open. It was plenty busy later on.

The End of Songkhran 2008

Posted on 19 April 2008 by christao408

Thank you for your patience in waiting for this final post about Songkhran 2008. While I didn’t resolve my video issue, I went back and started the project from scratch and was able to complete it before receiving any video card errors. As such, it is much less complex and much less polished than my original project, but it still conveys the different ways I saw Songkhran celebrated this year.

Songkhran is celebrated in many different ways, from the traditional to the contemporary, from the docile to the daring, and it all forms an interesting view into different aspects of Thai culture.

Songkhran is the Thai New Year, celebrated at the end of the rice harvest season and as we head into the hottest time of the year. It is a time to pay respect to your elders and to wash away the grudges and transgressions of the year past and move into the next year with a cleansed heart.

What started out as gently dabbing scented water on the hands and faces of your elders and washing Buddha statues evolved into something more. Songkhran came to more closely resemble another Thai word, songkhram, or “all out war”.

In some sections of Khrungthep, especially Khao San and Silom Roads, hundreds of thousands of people converge for the mother of all water fights. Armed with “super soaker” pump action water guns and barrels of water with large blocks of ice in them, the alcohol-fueled revelry is ninety parts fun, nine parts mischief and one part malice.

These water sports do have their gentler side. While we were in Phrachuap Khiri Khan province we drove around the country roads to see how things were playing out. Small groups were celebrating alongside the roads, music playing, armed with water. Other groups rode in the back of pickup trucks, usually with 50-gallon drums of ice cold water. As the groups passed each other there was splashing of water and usually some smearing of a talcum powder-like paste on each-others’ faces.

Below: An crowded stretch of street on the outskirts of Khrungthep gave revelers a space to slowly drive around the block and splash each other with the water. This mostly appeared to be all in good fun although plenty of participants were sitting about, looking dazed and confused and a little weary of it all.

Most of what we observed was pretty playful and lighthearted. The water was splashed with bowls, buckets and hoses, but the talcum powder was just lightly dabbed. All in all, not an unpleasant way to spend a warm afternoon.

But we also saw the darker side of the celebrations. At one narrow section in the road just after a curve, there was a large gathering of young people (some thirty people, mostly men) dancing to the music and clearly very, very drunk. Several were staggering about. The group would stop traffic in both directions and have their water fights but took it to an extreme. Some young women in a passing motorbike received a little more than just a dabbing of powder in what looked more like a group grope.

Cars were not only splashed but were smeared with the talcum powder as traffic was blocked for several minutes at a time.

The police barely escaped from the mess as a patrol truck came by and the young men blocked it, wai‘ing to the officer and asking for permission to “decorate” the truck. He kept waving “no” and inching forward, eventually passing by, left.

We were caught up in the mess as heading back to the resort, the good natured fun started to sour a bit when the young men pounded on the car as we kept inching forward. We didn’t want to stop and let them decorate our car and they didn’t like our being poor sports. The doors were locked so we were probably safe, but it occurred to me that this wasn’t Songkhran as the tourism authority intended it!

We returned to the resort safely – I should point out that there’s no reason to think we were actually in any danger – but that experience had taken some of the fun out of the afternoon. There is a point where too much alcohol can deflate the fun in almost any event.

Right: The car after being smeared by talcum powder. The other side had received powder that was blood red. Thankfully, we got by without too much powder.

During our drive home on Monday, we passed a lot of other Songkhran partiers. The police were enforcing a ban on the splashing of water along highways and major arterial streets, so travel back to the city was safe. Once we entered the larger metropolitan area we encountered traffic wherever groups of revelers were gathered, as pictured above.

Again, most of it was fun and safe, although we kept seeing sights that looked really dangerous.

Take the group traveling in the truck on the left. They were going along the road at about 80 kph (50 mph) and the guy at the back is splashing himself with water from the barrel, not hanging on to anything and not being held onto by anyone.

All it would take is a bump in the road, a swerve or sudden acceleration and he could be thrown from the back of the truck.

Farang are known for thinking too much but it seems that a little more safety would be a good thing, especially considering that the fatality rate during Songkhran is double the average. We concluded the 2008 festivities with 368 deaths and 4,803 reported injuries on the road. The estimate is that road deaths in Thailand cost the equivalent of something like 2.5% of GDP. What a waste!

Anyhow, we returned home safely and had a good time on the trip. I keep thinking, one of these years I’ll go down and party on Khao San road for Songkhran. But I realize that the fun wouldn’t last very long and I’m not the type to fuel my fun with excessive amount of alcohol. Maybe I’m just an old fogey now!

In either case, looking ahead to Songkhran 2009 I think a nice two-week vacation outside the Kingdom would be fun.

At Sailom Resort

Posted on 17 April 2008 by christao408

We arrived safely in Bang Saphan mid-afternoon on Saturday, tired from the drive but glad it didn’t take longer. We found the resort easily enough; Bang Saphan is really not much more than a fishing village so it didn’t take much searching to find it!

Sailom Resort appears to be maybe a year old. The facilities are in very good condition but the trees and bushes haven’t really filled in. In a few years, it will be much nicer and the landscaping will be more lush and there will be a little more shade. Right now, the direct sun is very… direct.

There are very beautiful flowers throughout the grounds, though, such as the one pictured to the right. It is hard to believe that this is real, the colors are so vivid!

The resort is composed of individual cottages, actually very reasonably sized so that a couple has plenty of room inside the cottage as well as a nice porch out front. Half the cottages face the pool and the others are around the corner with a view of the Gulf of Thailand.

Below: Looking across the pool towards the Gulf.

A road separates the resort from the beach, and that stretch of beach is not really public. There is a fence although there are so many gaps you could easily access it. Also, like many of the beaches on this side of the Gulf, it is not really pretty. Plus, unlike Hua Hin or Cha-Am, there are no services provided: no umbrellas, no vendors, etc.

The upside is that you can really enjoy you beach undisturbed. There was another stretch nearby that we drove to, probably about 4 km long with white sand, scattered driftwood, and not a single person anywhere. Except for Tawn, of course!

Tawn spent much of the two days sleeping and I spent much of it reading. There is only so much sleeping I can do. We also did a lot of eating.

Tawn’s friend Tui recommended a restaurant on the beach. “It doesn’t look like much,” he said, “but the food is quite good.”

He wasn’t kidding. The shack really looked pretty run-down (above) and the the girls working were listless. But we enjoyed some lovely crab friend rice and gang som plaa, fried fish with greens in a tamarind paste broth, below.

We did some exploring and encountered the local Songkhran celebrations. I shot a good amount of video footage and have been editing it together to share with you, but am receiving video card errors when using Adobe Premiere Elements. If anyone knows anything about video cards on laptops and what I can do about these errors, please send me a message!

I’ll wait another day or so to share the pictures and (hopefully) video footage.

Along the way we passed a lot of beaches where the fishing fleets drop off their catches. There are rows and rows of tarpaulin across the street on which thousands of sardines are dried in the sun. We stopped so I could take a picture. I asked the workers, in Thai, if I could take a picture and they just stared at me like I had landed from the moon. Either they weren’t Thai or a farang asking to take a picture of their work is just the strangest thing they have ever encountered.

We had dinner at a second restaurant nearby the first. This one looked a little nicer, prices were a bit higher, and so were our expectations. Sadly, they were not met. The grilled prawns arrived looking a little small but tasting fresh… until we got past the few on the top of the plate only to discover that the ones at the bottom had been frozen previously. Tawn complained to the waitress and she claimed no knowledge of that. “Oh, they were delivered from our vendor this morning.” she said. Yeah, straight from his deep freezer.

Just from the color in the picture below you can tell they aren’t the same!

The grilled squid, which the waitress especially recommended, was not very fresh, either. When squid is really fresh, it is quite tender and is really a pleasure to eat. After chewing one piece for a minute without it getting any closer to being ready to swallow, I gave up.

After two nights at the resort, we packed our bags and got an early start back to Khrungthep. There really wasn’t much else to do in Bang Saphan and as Songkhran isn’t a recognized holiday for my US employer, I had to get back to work. Thankfully, since there were still two days left in the holiday, traffic was really light on the road. We made it back to Khrungthep in very reasonable time.

Along the way we made a number of interesting stops. There was one point where all alongside the highway there were fruit vendors, kind of a nonstop line several hundred meters long. Everyone was selling watermelon. We bought two, one red and one yellow. Can you imagine the carnage if a vehicle lost control and smashed into the stands?

One of the prides of Thailand are the clean, modern petrol stations. We pulled into one that looked quite new, had several restaurants, a nice coffee shop that could give Starbucks a run for its money, vendors, a children’s play area, etc.

They also had an antique pump on display, everything written in Thai except for the manufacturer’s name: Avery Hardoll. If you need a vintage petrol pump, there is a company in the UK that will sell you one, completely restored. Just what you need for your birthday, right?

As we approached Samut Songkhram, site of the big construction on the roadway, we heeded the advice of a sign and opted for a detour that took us on a wide circle to the west of Khrungthep and then in on surface streets. It added about 50 km to the route, but we were able to explore some unfamiliar territory and traffic was light so it was okay.

Along the way, we discovered a new location for the Cabbages and Condoms resort/restaurant chain. Operated by the non-profit Population and Community Development Association (PDA), these restaurants and resorts not only provide employment to local communities, they serve as the source of much of the funding for the PDA’s programs in population control, HIV/AIDS education, poverty reduction, microcredit, etc. Tawn’s father is one of the executives of the organization, so we like to support them.

The restaurant in Ratchaburi province has been open only four months and when we arrived we were the only guests there. Of course, we did stop quite early for lunch.

The food was really tasty: asparagus stir-fried with shrimp, Northeaster style larb salad made with tofu instead of pork, and a fish curry that has thin strips of fragrant kaffir lime leaves sprinkled on top. Aroy maak!

Afterwards, we performed the traditional Songkhran ritual of bathing the Buddha images (conveniently placed outside the front door) with lustral water and a fragrant powder.

The most amazing thing about the entire trip is that Tawn didn’t use hair products the whole time! And he still looked so handsome!

We were back home by mid-afternoon, leaving us plenty of time to rest and then try and watch a movie. Sadly, the showtimes on the internet were incorrect so all we were able to do was visit the cinema lobby and talk with a friendly cashier. Not quite as much fun as watching a movie, really.

The Drive to Bang Saphan

Posted on 16 April 2008 by christao408

We started our drive to Bang Saphan on Saturday morning at 7:00. The start of a 5-day weekend, we knew that there would be plenty of company on the roads and had steeled our nerves, laying in a basket of snacks and packing the iPod charger.

Located 385 kilometers south of Khrungthep, Bang Saphan is at the southern end of Prachuap Khiri Khan province, the same one in which Hua Hin is located. Another further south and we’d officially leave Central Thailand and be in the South.

The road was two lanes in each direction, and generally in good condition. Except for a little spot of construction. Well, two little spots of construction, each about 10 km long and one of which involved one whole side of the road being shut down and all the traffic had to share the other side.

As you can imagine, traffic was a teensy bit heavy.

What would normally be about a four-and-a-half hour trip stretched to about seven, plus an hour for lunch and breaks.

Still, it could have been worse. Tawn was expecting ten hours.

Along the way we saw all sorts of crazy things on the road:

Above: Not sure if this is a pickup truck or a spare axle being carried along… Below: Most everyone drove a pickup truck and in addition to the five or six or seven people squeezed into the cab, it was common to see two or three or seven sitting in the bed of the truck. In the hot sun for hours and hours.

Above: During Songkhran people like to splash your car (and you) with water and a talcum-like power. This clever driver preemptively covered his entire car with a pair of big eyes on the front and wear windscreens providing (some) visibility. Below: As we got further from the city, we started seeing signs of country life such as a truck of cattle and a huge stack of hay. No, the hay was not directly in front of the cattle, although that would have been funny.

Below: At one long traffic jam, we noticed this building alongside the road that appears to have been taken over by ivy.

Finally, a reminder that Songkhran is the most dangerous period on Thai roads. In the five days from Friday to Tuesday, there were 3,537 road accidents, 3,992 injuries, and 276 deaths. While there has been a big increase in enforcement efforts in the past few years, this number has remained very high and, sadly, so many of the deaths are alcohol-related. More about that in my next post.

Day before Songkhran

Posted on 15 April 2008 by christao408

Back from our Songkhran getaway, I’ll give you the first of two entries, this one dating from last Friday.

Roka’s best friend Stacy arrived on Thursday from Portland, Oregon. About a month ago Roka asked if I’d take Stacy sightseeing, since Friday would be the one day when Roka was still working and would be unable to show Stacy around. I agreed and met up with Stacy at lunchtime.

Also, in a bit of serendipity, I met up with another friend who is visiting from Phoenix, back after an eighteen month absence. The three of us had lunch before Marc headed off to run errands and Stacy and I caught the canal taxi into the old city.

It was hot and sunny on Rattanakosin Island but with a stiff breeze. The air was unusually clear, not only for this normally smog-choked city but also when considering that a landfill fire had been burning for five days in an adjacent province southeast of the city.

To take advantage of the clear air, we headed to Wat Saket, also known as “Golden Mount”. This is the highest geographic point in the city, a man-made hill and the only hill in Khrungthep. The current chedi dates to the reign of King Rama V, who enshrined a Buddha relic belonging to the royal family there in 1877.

Right: View of Wat Saket from San Saeb canal.

In the temple grounds at the base of the hill there was a Songkhran festival underway, a display of traditional new year’s activities. Students from a nearby school were wearing traditional outfits, pouring jasmine-scented water over the hands of their elders, washing Buddha images, and playing jump rope and other games.

A reporter and cameraman from channel 7 news was on the scene, filming the water blessings. As I stepped behind the cameraman to try and get the same shot, the reporter said to him, in Thai, “Why don’t you move for that farang behind you.” To which I repled, “mai pben rai” – no worries!

As soon as she realized that I understood Thai, she decided that she would interview me. Camera rolling, Stacy and I participated in the water blessing ceremony, pouring water on the hands of the seated elders and wai‘ing them. Then the reporter asked me a series of questions about why I was interested in these traditional ceremonies and what I though about Thai culture. I stumbled my way through the short interview, amusing everyone as I went along. Tawn will be checking with his media clipping service to see if I made the evening news or not.

After making our media appearance, we climbed the double-helix staircases to take in the view. The breezes were very cooling at the top of the 100-meter tall hill. Standing in the shade, all of my sweat dried up. While not nearly as impressive as the view from the top of the Banyan Tree or Baiyoke 2, there was still a nice view of the old city. Below, my telephoto lens is maxed out to take this picture of the residence portion of the Grand Palace.

We enjoyed the view for a while, took some pictures, and watched as the temple assistants strung strings around the chedi so people could attach bills as part of a special collection for charity. Temple bells, prayers written on the copper clappers, chimed in the wind with a hundred different voices.

Staying in the shade as much as possible, we walked down Ratchadamnoen Avenue (the Champs Elysees of Khrungthep) past the Iron Pagoda, Democracy Monument, and October 1973 memorial, before catching a taxi to Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.

Since it was already late in the afternoon, the crowds of tourists had gone and monks and laypeople were busy setting up the temple grounds for the Songkhran festivities.

A pair of novices, aged about eighteen and ten, took a break from shoveling sand to shore up the poles holding the fluttering flags and were making sand sculptures.

“What are you making?” I asked. The older one traced a pair of eyes and patted a nose, answering, “The Lord Buddha”. The younger one smiled as he worked on his mis-shappen hill. “A chedi!” he responded, confident that his claim could not be disproven.

We continued on, visting the main statue hall where the 46-meter long Buddha in repose never fails to amaze, his serene expression inducing a similar response in most visitors.

Dwarfed at his side, an artisan made repairs, carefully adding leaves of gold. Working at no particular hurry, he added one small square after another to the Buddha’s right thigh.

Ignoring the touts and vendors outside the temple, we walked to the nearby pier and jumped aboard the next river taxi. Dozens of tourists, afraid of missing their stop, stayed crowded at the rear of the boat. We pushed forward towards the bow, where the crowds were thinner and the breeze more enjoyable.

We eventually made our way back to my condo for a quick chance to freshen up, and to give Stacy an opportunity to meet Tawn. Then we were on our way via motorcycle taxi to meet Roka, Ken, Markus and Vic at a nearby Thai restaurant. The motorcycle taxi was a bit of a cheap thrill for Stacy.

It made for a very pleasant end to the afternoon. Unfortunately, Tawn did not join because he had dinner with his school friends. After I finished dinner with my friends, I walked 100 meters down the street to the Chinese restaurant where Tawn was eating. Their food was just arriving so I stayed and visited, although did not eat. Pim had brought her daughter Tara with her, who was enjoying playing with her Uncle Tawn, below.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Tag Archives: Thailand