Dave in Bangkok, Thailand

The Hermit

2008-12-22T10:21:00.002+07:00

This is kinda interesting, and it pretty much got me right I think:

Which Tarot Card Are You?

I am the Hermit.

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Macbook, Sandy and more

2008-12-09T16:27:00.001+07:00

So, another long time since I've updated. I eventually did get the Ipod Touch, and it's probably one of the coolest devices I've ever owned. I do wish however I had EDGE access on the Touch, but I guess then that would pretty much be an Iphone. (My humble request for EDGE access is simply because we don't have 3G yet here in Thailand.) They do have 3G trials going on up in Chaing Mai, and at the Central World Mall (AIS), but otherwise it'll probably be a while until we really get a good 3G rollout here in Bangkok.

My best friend, since I was 5 years old, came over for a visit a couple weeks ago. He and his wife stopped in BKK for a few days on the way to Phuket and then to Nepal to see a friend of his wife's. They were supposed to come back to BKK for a day, but that nonsense at the airport put the 'ole kibosh on that. I was able to show him around a little bit, take him to a couple nice places to eat and introduce him to a few of my friends. The really nice thing about Sandy coming though, was that he bought my new Macbook that I ordered from the Apple Online Store in the States. My main computer will still be my iMac so I didn't go with the cheapest new one for mobile, the 2Ghz Macbook.

I do love the ability to sync all my stuff so easily via Mobile Me. I probably will fork over the $100 and stay with it once my 60 day trial ends. I just love the syncing and I've just recently started using the idrive. Haven't even started messing around with the gallery or the web hosting yet.

Apple just recently opened their Thai localized online store, http://store.apple.com/th so my next purchase will probably be the in ear headset and possibly a time machine. I'll have to get a UPS and a all in one printer pretty soon too.

Otherwise life is pretty normal here. Temp has cooled down and I love being able to open my windows and enjoy the breeze. Even if it gets so dusty in here because of he bad Bangkok air. Haven't been going out much recently, just the occasional restaurant (and nothing new, just good old regulars) and occasional shopping.

Coming back in some form

2008-09-13T13:16:00.003+07:00

Ok, I've been pretty lazy blogging again, but I'm getting re-motivated recently. Trying to decide if I just go ahead and keep blogging here on Blogger, or if I should mess around with setting up my own hosted Wordpress blog.

Lots has changed in the past few months. Firstly, I've converted to being a mac-guy. I bought a 24" 3Ghz iMac, and just love it. My next Apple purchase will definitely be an iPod Touch, and I'm looking forward to the Macbook updates rumored for October. If they beef up the Air a bit, and lower the price, that will definitely be a tempting acquisition. I tell ya, one really simple thing about the Mac that I just absolutely love....program installations and de-installations. Windows requires running some executable, and all sorts of files being installed everywhere with "registry" updates. Mac, it's so simple...drag the program to Applications, and that's it. To uninstall, just drag it to the trash.....LOVE IT! I hate the idea of all those stupid Windows files being left all over the place.

Anyway, Mac Rules, and with VM Fusion or Parallels or Boot Camp, one can have Windows too if they really need it. So...what's not to love?

Bangkok life. There's been so much poltical turmoil here in the city lately, but it's pretty much left me unaffected. Actually, lately I've been leading somewhat of a hermitic life, going out rarely and just content to chill out. I did go on a mini-vaction to Cha'am beach, near Hua Hin for a few days and really enjoyed it. Love breathing in the fresh sea-air and lounging on the beach.

May Day Thailand 2008

2008-05-01T11:00:00.001+07:00

May day here, and a lot of people have off. I'm working though. Actually quite busy since it's the first of the month and I have to put together a bunch of end of month reports for April.

Want to give a mention that Matt over at Thailand's Lost Boy has put together a list of the Top 100 Bloggers in Thailand. As I write this, I'm at number 56, which is better than I would expect seeing as how I don't really update regularly. Really, this blog was just meant to be a way to update family and friends back home about my life here in Thailand. Amazing to think that other people find what I write worth reading. Especially seeing how that most of the people (friends) that I actually INTENDED to write for don't bother much coming here :)

It's been damn hot this month during the day, but every early evening we've been getting wicked thunderstorms. Check out a couple of these pictures that were taken on the 23rd.

The wind from this storm was so strong, my sliding glass windows were vibrating. And the lightning was literally constantly flashing through the sky without stop. Really quite a show.

*UPDATE* Well, the photographer of the pictures wrote to me and complained about my linking and displaying the storm pics here on my little blog and asked me to take them down. Thus, if you want to see the pics here are the links:

http://tinyurl.com/6hy53g

http://tinyurl.com/59qz2k

http://tinyurl.com/5ja7y6

Songkran 2008 Reflections

2008-04-14T11:03:00.001+07:00

Well, we're in the midst of the Songkran Water Festival here in Thailand. I've not really participated much this year, preferring to hide out in my condo and avoid getting soaked.

I have so much to write about, but just haven't gotten myself motivated to write yet. This past weekend, went for a weekend trip to Mae Sot, on the Myanmar border. It was fun driving through the mountains, and I hit a farmers market on top of one of the mountains. Wow, things were really cheap. 2 bags of plus (about 30 plums) or so, 30 baht; 2 kilos of tomatoes, 20 baht. I'll probably write a dedicated post about the Mae Sot trip.

Songkran is a funny holiday for me. It's very festive here in Thailand, and everyone has off....but of course it's not a holiday in the US and UK, so work continues. It's a peculiar mood; a strange half-work/half-holiday feeling.

I've been using twitter a lot recently, so feel free to follow-me. I have a 50/50 mix of Thai followers and work/marketing followers.

http://www.twitter.com/daveoli

Truevisions and Satellite TV

2008-02-08T09:33:00.001+07:00

So here in Bangkok, I subscribe to the largest satellite/cable TV provider, TrueVisions (formerly UBC until bought by True). I have the gold package that give me about 60 or so channels, maybe 15 of which I watch on a regular basis. I pay about $60 U.S. (2500 baht) a month or so.

Starting a few days ago, the picture and sound stopped for a few minutes, or blacked out before resuming. This became more and more frequent but it was cloudy so I figured it was just the clouds interfering or sun spot activity. Next day, same thing, except it was sunny and clear out. Hmmm....so I called up a couple friends to ask if they were having any problems with their TV...(sun spots? network problem?) Nope, everything OK...so a quick call to TrueVisions scheduled a tech to come out the following day, afternoon appointment.

The day of the appointment, I turned on my TV, and same exact problem, quite frequently. Any show was pretty much unwatchable. The tech called me up around 11:30 am to confirm the appointment, and dutifully arrived around 12:30 (afternoon as promised).

I kid you not, as soon as the tech walked in the door, the problem completely vanished. Before it was literally happening every couple minutes, so we sat there and watched TV for about 20 minutes, and it was perfect.

So...ok, problem resolved. The tech walks out the door, and bam, within a few minutes, problem is back! Are you kidding me??? Luckily, I have the tech's phone number, so I call him back. 10 minutes later, knock on the door, and as he is knocking, the problem is there. In between the time I walk to the door and open it, and we walk back to the TV, problem gone. Everything perfect again.

Am I in some movie? No...because it wouldn't be believable in the movie.

Anyway, thankfully the tech just takes my word and changes the converter box. Since the box was changed, have had no problems. So...I'm pretty sure I wasn't crazy......

Wishlist for 2008

2008-01-03T11:55:00.001+07:00

Things I really would like to buy in the next month or so if I had oodles of cash:

Asus EEE PC - 12,500 baht

Really a sweet little portable machine that is so light. Pretty much everything I do is now online, so I want to be able to cart this little bad boy to the beach, to the coffee shop, to Singapore, or wherever and maintain total efficiency.

Nokia N95 - 26,000 baht

It has everything, connectivity, music, GPS, games and a sweet camera. Especially since I recently lost my beloved Canon.

MacMini - 24,000 baht

I want to hook this up to my LCD and turn it into a media center. Play music, view pictures, watch downloaded videos/movies, watch DVDs and also turn it into a DVR. Also just want to surf the web on my big LCD.

A New PC - 50,000 baht

No link here, since I'm not really sure what I want. I do want a fairly high end machine with a nice graphics card and sound card, a nice sound system to play music, and most importantly 3 LCD screens. I want a command center! I'll use my little Asus EEE as my mobile unit, my MacMini as entertainment/media and the big desktop command center to rule them all.

Mellow New Years - Bangkok 2008

2008-01-01T11:25:00.001+07:00

Wow, woke up this morning and it was down-right COLD! I think the temp was somewhere in the 60's (Fahrenheit). I opened up my windows and had to put on sweat pants. Haven't had to do that in quite a long time.

This morning, for my first meal of the new year, I treated myself to a McDonalds breakfast. About 4 months ago or so, they started doing breakfast at *some* of the McDonald's around Bangkok. However, recently I heard rumors that it was being discontinued. Well, I called 1711 (number for McD's delivery, they delivers here in BKK for about .60), and low and behold they offered breakfast for delivery. Ordered myself up a Big Breakfast, Sausage McMuffin and hashbrowns and an OJ. Well, the big breakfast was a bit wanting...the the mcmuffin was darn good and the hashbrowns were great. The orange juice turned out to be orange drink...bleh.

Last night was pretty mellow. Just stayed in, had a bottle of Champagne and peanuts, and watched the festivities on TV. Crashed about 1:30. Jeang had one glass of champagne and ended up worshipping at the porcelain altar last night. I'm guessing that will be her first and last glass of champagne ever :) Well, hope everyone has a great 2008!

Choose Your Own Adventure Finally Comes to the Web 2.0 World

2007-12-29T12:03:00.001+07:00

If you're around my age, then surely you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books. I loved these books, had the 'ole parents buy bunches of them and consumed them ravenously. Well, the CYOA style has finally come to the Web via a Web2.0 style interface, check it out:

protagonize: community-driven interactive fiction

Merry Christmas in Bangkok 2007

2007-12-25T09:59:00.001+07:00

Hoping everyone is having a happy and peaceful Christmas. Of course Thailand is like 90%+ Buddhist, and Christmas isn't a recognized official holiday, thus it's a working day.

International internet access seems to be running very fast this morning, so I'm wondering if all the expats taking off for Christmas have relieved all the load of the international links. Anyway, it's GREAT!

Bangkok Temperature December 2007 - HOT

2007-12-18T17:58:00.001+07:00

December is supposed to be one of the coolest months in Thailand. November was awesome, I only turned my air conditioning on a couple times the whole month, my electric bill was less than 800 baht. Usually I average around 1500 baht, and during April / May 2500 baht and up. There were nice breezes during the day, I was able to keep my windows open to enjoy the fresh clean, er..smog. However the temp was really quite comfortable.

However, this December has been darn hot. The past couple days especially, and I think the next couple are supposed to be even warmer. What's going on? My air con is getting turned on more and more....oh well, so much for those super low electric bills.

Thanksgiving in Bangkok

2007-11-22T21:00:00.001+07:00

There's not a lot of evidence of Thanksgiving in Bangkok. Christmas, yes...all the malls and shops are putting up Christmas trees and decorations. There's a 4 storey Christmas Tree in the middle of Central World mall. It's HUGE! But Thanksgiving, being uniquely American, not much visible evidence. However, many of the American owned restaurants do a great job of putting on some big Thanksgiving feasts. And like the 4th of July, the American expats are out in force today.

It's not really a holiday for me here of course, but I take it pretty easy regardless. Stay home, reply to some email, do a couple things, and pretty much chill. Watched a movie on HBO, and read. I'm reading "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson, and as I started reading it, I realized I had read it before....but didn't really ever remember reading. Surprising, because it is quite good. Anyway, I now realize I only probably got into about 100 pages or so, because it all seems like new territory at the point I'm at. I digress.

In the evening, went for the usual ritual (past 3 years) of Thanksgiving Dinner at Bourbon Street Restaurant on Soi 22. They are a little expensive, but they do a nice job with buffet having turkey, ham, stuffing, veggies, potatoes, yams, cranberries and pumpkin pie. It really gets packed in the evening and reservations are a must. I am utterly and completely stuffed. Even though it's not supposed to be permitted, I was kinda sweet with some of the waitresses and they allowed me to stash some in a takeaway box for Friday leftovers :)

The Prelude to Loy Krathong Festival is LOUD

2007-11-09T21:51:00.001+07:00

Last year around this time, I was living out in the suburbs, and it was nice and quiet. This year, I'm right in the middle of the city, and I'm living right next to a canal, so I get to experience loud firecrackers/fireworks every night (often times being shot off right next to my building and exploding right about at my condo level).

This is all part of the lead-up to the Loy Krathong Festival in Thailand. I really enjoy the actual Loy Krathong day, it's a very visual and neat holiday, people lighting lanterns and floating them out on lakes, ponds and canals everywhere. The whole firecracker thing happening every night for hours, I am definitely looking forward to that part ending.

Awesome November Weather in Bangkok

2007-11-06T10:26:00.001+07:00

This is the time of year when I just love living here in Thailand. The weather is getting cooler, the sun is out, nice breezes are blowing, and I can walk down the street without the need to take a shower at the end of the walk. I put my laundry out to dry on an eastern facing balcony, and when I open the balcony sliding door, and open the windows on the north facing side, I get a really nice wind flowing through. The added bonus; since the laundry is out there, the breeze carries in the smell of fresh laundry all throughout the condo.

Trying so hard to diet, but it's difficult. I just love food so much. Trying to stick to salad in the morning, and soup for lunch.

This is Kao Moo something or other, I forget the name. A little bit spicy, but pretty good. Of course, you'll see that I'm drinking milk tea with the soup, which probably isn't all that good for the diet, but it's delicious! Here's another noodle soup I have (don't remember the name at all):

Probably doesn't look to appetizing to western eyes, but it's pretty good stuff. The cost for these soups: about .60 - $1.

Halloween in Bangkok 2007

2007-10-31T19:52:00.001+07:00

Well it's Halloween in Bangkok, and I was caught woefully unprepared. First I didn't even realize it was actually Halloween until about mid-day. Traffic was ridiculous coming home from Thong Lor, I asked about 6 taxis if they'd bring be home, all refused. Finally got a taxi to take me to the BTS (skytrain), rode that to the station close to my condo, and then caught a taxi the rest of the way home. Traffic was crazy even on my soi, and what should have taken about 3 minutes ended up taking 20 minutes to get home from the BTS.

Now, as I'm pulling up I see a bunch of kids dressed up as witches and such exiting my building. Uh oh, I had no candy. Quick dash up to my floor reveals more kids waiting at my door. Argh, feel terrible as I literally have nothing to give. So, after a quick change into some shorts and a t-shirt I dash back out to 7-11 to pick up some candy. Back home and then I'm the one making the rounds to my neighbors with kids doors dishing out some home delivered treats. Ahh, my conscience relieved.

Bangkok, never one to let pass a reason to party gets pretty wild on Halloween. Parties everywhere and people dressing up. The biggest celebration is on Khao San Road, the famous backpacker area (although now it's more of a trendy area).

I'm sure there will be lots or pics up in the coming days, so check out Flickr for Bangkok Halloween pics.

Addicted to the Internet

2007-10-27T08:51:00.001+07:00

Dilbert just seems to say it all.

Dinner and Karaoke in Udomsuk - Bangkok

2007-10-25T13:46:00.001+07:00

Last night, after our usual Wednesday company meeting, it was decided to go out for a pre-holiday season treat, hit a nice dinner place and then go looking for some trouble to get into. Our company founder took us all the way out near where he lives, Udomsuk (which is like Sukhumvit 103 or nearabouts). Actually, it really isn't that far, not even really considered the suburbs, but for someone who lives right in the middle of the city, it's a hike!

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take any pictures, but we had a huge seafood feast at a Thai style outdoor restaurant. Crabs, shrimp, mussels, grilled fresh fish, plus a liter of beer and a bottle of whiskey. Total price came to around 3500 baht for 6 people.

Well after the beer and whiskey was imbibed in copious amounts, we discussed the next agenda point for the nights activities. There we basically two options within walking distance of the restaurant; a karaoke place and a pub. We checked out the pub but it was pretty dead (Wednesday night), so settled on the Karaoke place.

Now, to explain this certain style of Thai karaoke establishment. If you spend some time in Thailand, and wander a bit off the beaten track, you'll surely come across these karaoke style establishments. Usually they are on the side of the street, have some lights to draw attention, and a bevy of pretty girls sitting out in front.

This picture isn't so great, but it's the only one I could find. Note, this is not a picture of the place I'm writing about here. The draw is to go in, select a girl and then have a bit of fun drinking, eating, and "flirting". There are all different types of Thai karaoke businesses, from high end to very small dingy hole in the walls, to fronts for prostitution. Understand also there are similar types of establishments for females, with all male staff. I had a friend who lived right across the street from a female oriented karaoke place. There would be groups or really hot young girls hitting that place for a night of fun, so understand this style of entertainment is widely accepted and appeals to everyone. Now as the alcohol starts to flow, inevitably the guy acquires some roaming hands and attempts to get away with as much as the girl will allow. The karaoke girl, as a tradeoff, tries to get that guy to buy her as many drinks as possible, of which she will receive a cut. Keep it all in perspective and it can be fun, especially when with a group of people looking to cut loose a bit and enjoy the experience. I know Americans usually cringe at the thought of karaoke, and I certainly was a "cringer" before coming here to Thailand, but after experiencing it for myself and really having fun, I'm a convert.

I digress, anyway the place we visited would probably be considered mid-range. I didn't make any attempt at finding out if any "extra" services were offered, and I doubt it for this place unless a private arrangement with a girl was agreed upon. Anyway, I believe we ended up being at this place for about 3 hours. Keeping in mind the huge dinner we had with whiskey and beer, the cost for the karaoke adventure for the 6 guys came out to be about 20,000 baht. Wow, definitely have to pay attention and keep track of those drinks ordered next time. Nonetheless, it was a good time, and good opportunity to unwind.

Dinner in Singapore

2007-10-22T07:49:00.001+07:00

DSC00293
Originally uploaded by davoli_bkk

It was a nice little getaway, but I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I would have liked in Singapore. The first thing I noticed after arriving at the airport were the abundance of machine gun toting security. Not quite sure what that is all about, but I suppose Singapore really wants to show how serious they are about order and security.

Adri and Z met me at the airport and we immediately headed for some food. The pic is what we had for dinner :) Really good stuff, crabs in a delicious butter sauce, crabs in a noodle soup that was quite superb, chicken, bbq chicken wings, and this other seafood cube thing (you see it on the orange plate) that was also quite delicious.

Singapore is very nice. Lots of high-rise apartment/condos (the outside of the buildings all look quite similar, at least in the suburbs). People actually use their turn signals (as opposed to BKK). The air was clean. I'll definitely be back.

Weekender to Singapore

2007-10-19T09:28:00.000+07:00

This weekend I'm off to Singapore for a quick jaunt. Flying on Air Asia which I've flown on several times with no major complaints. However, they do have this policy with pricing. I receive their deals and promotions via email, and the prices are always pretty awesome. Fly to Singapore, or Macau for $10 or something like this. And once you log into the website, the prices presented are very low. The problem happens after selecting the flights and proceeding to credit card details. Suddenly prices double or triple due to taxes, airport fees and all this other nonsense. I really wish that Air Asia would present these charges upfront, so that it wasn't such a shock when getting the final price on the final page of checkout. I would have to imagine this does more damage to people dropping out and looking for other deals than if they just were upfront with the costs.

Apart from the cost of the flight, I'm sure my credit card is going to have a bit more damage after possibly picking myself up a few other electronic goodies. Hmmm, is it time to get that Macbook?? The new Leopard OS is being released just 1 week too late for me. Hmm, but maybe an Apple TV? Or SonyPSP? Or Xbox360? Nokia N810? HTC Shift? Oh my poor poor bank account.

One more thing I would like to share, not Thailand related, is this spectacular video of some Chinese dancers performing the Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva dance. Really cool stuff:

Rainy Season on Thailand Extended

2007-10-15T23:10:00.000+07:00

Historically, September is supposed to be the wettest month in Thailand, and the rainy season is supposed to tail off from there and move right into the cool season in mid-November. However, this year, it seemed that September was not so rainy. That's all being made up for this October. Everyday we've had some really wicked downpours, horizontal wind-blow rain, huge booming thunderclaps and ferocious lightning. The storms have put on quite a show. Luckly, I've not been caught out yet, and have managed to travel in between cloud openings.

Also this month, the annual Thai/Chinese Vegetarian Festival. I believe it's supposed to end around the 19th. It's pretty strict, more like vegan since during the festival one cannot eat eggs or drink milk. I'm not participating, but do go along and eat veggie food when out with friends who are participating.

I've been slacking a bit in the blogging department, have 2 Bangkok restaurant reveiw write-ups to do, plus lots more stuff to discuss. I will try and catch up a bit this week. I'll have to, because this coming weekend I'm planning a quick jaunt to Singapore, so will have plenty more to write about then too.

Bangkok is not green, but has a lot of trees.

2007-10-09T15:32:00.000+07:00

In a study published in Reader's Digest, Bangkok was rated the 5th worst city in the world in terms of being green and livable. Now, sure there's a lot of traffic, it's dirty, and the air quality really isn't that good. Plus, last year a friend of mine got hit with a bucket of Klong water during Songkran, and it wiped him out with some nasty bug for about a week. However, on the good side, have you (if you live/visited here) ever noticed how many trees there are, on all the roads, everywhere?

Recording Industry Dying as we know it

2007-10-09T15:13:00.000+07:00

I'm a web nerd, so I first saw the story that Nine Inch Nails is cutting loose from any recording company on Techcrunch. This of course comes on the heels of Radiohead bypassing their recording company contract and releasing their newest work In Rainbows direct to consumers for a price chosen by the consumer. With digital music distribution spreading like wildfire, record companies simply add no value whatsoever. Artists can cut deals with AmazonUnboxed or Itunes or any number of services that I'm sure will be popping up to distribute their music. This doesn't even even consider direct distribution through an artist's own website, or Myspace. Now, if only Amazon Unboxed was offered to those outside the US (good thing I have a US credit card and some good web proxies!).

So RIAA go ahead fritter away cash by ridiculous lawsuits. In a few years (hopefully) you won't exist anymore.

Kinokunya Books in Siam Paragon

2007-10-06T15:25:00.001+07:00

DSC00275
Originally uploaded by davoli_bkk

So during the week, I took a trip to Kinokuniya Books at Siam Paragon Mall to restock. I've finished all the books I current have so a new batch was needed. This is my favorite book store, as you can see it's pretty large with a very good selection of English language books. Also, they have a pretty cool site where you can search for book in inventory.

My plan was to get 3 books, a classic, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and two of the latest by Wiliam Gibson. I went to the Kinokuniya website to make sure they were in stock and reserve them. They were, no problems, so headed over to the book store to pick them up. Well, as I arrived I was told they just ran out of stock of one of the Gibson books and never had the other. So, I just wandered around a bit and picked up a couple other books (WEB Griffin). By the way, if you're on Facebook and read books, sign up for the Iread application and we can compare books, reviews, etc.

Came back home, called up another Kinokuniya branch, at the Emporium, and was told that they had one of the Gibson books I wanted and Paragon had the other. Grrrr....so I just asked Emporium branch to get the one from Paragon sent over, and I'll go pick up both at the Emporium later in the week. Not a big deal, as I have 3 books now to read and the Gibson books are in the queue. Kinokuniya at Paragon is still my favorite though, because it still has a very nice selection.

Free Burma!

2007-10-04T16:57:00.000+07:00

I am a bit jaded about online causes, but this one is worth it.

Bloggers uniting to make a most and raise awareness about this movement. Click on the banner above to find out more and support he movement.

Eating out or eating at home

2007-10-03T20:31:00.000+07:00

Apart from the numerous excellent and affordable restaurants all over Bangkok, it's really nice living with a pretty good cook as well.

The dish on the left is Geang Fak Tong Gai and the dish on the right Pad Krapow Gai (this one was just a tad bit spicy for me though). Btw, Gai is chicken in Thai, so both dishes had chicken. Another great advantage to living in Bangkok:

Fresh squeezed orange juice available every morning via street vendors (usually within a couple hundred meters of my condo) for less than $1.

Travails of Acquiring High Speed Internet in Bangkok

2007-10-01T08:39:00.000+07:00

When I first moved into my current condo, about 8 months ago, there was already a phone line installed. The line was working, and we had a phone number. One of my first tasks was to call and get high-speed internet set-up. In Bangkok, there are basically two companies that provide wired telephone lines, TOT and True. My line was a TOT line, so there are a variety of ISPs that offer ADSL that can service my line. Usually, if you have a True line you generally get True ADSL service. I've always had True in every other place I've lived in Bangkok.

Well, I called several ISPs (CSLoxinfo, Samart, etc.) and was told that they couldn't set up ADSL on my line as it was "full." What the heck? Full? No joy there, so I tried to call True to get a True line installed and True ADSL service. No luck there either, all the True CSU (access points) in my building were used up by other people, and I'd have to wait for someone to shut down their service to get a True line. Uh oh! Fear and panic starts to set in as I'm starting to see that I might not be able to get high-speed internet (a NECESSITY!) for quite some time.

So ok, back to TOT. After a multitude of phone calls back to TOT, we finally discover that the customer who had the phone line before (the current line activated in my condo), had left without paying the bill sometime ago. Well, this is why there was a block on the line and no ADSL company would service it. It would have been a lot easier if they were able to tell me that rather than the building was full and no more ADSL can be supplied. Another odd thing, why was the line still active for several years after the previous customer had left without paying the bill?

Anyway, got a new TOT line and setup TOT ADSL service (which is spotty at best). I really should have probably gotten another ADSL company, such as CS Loxinfo, but I was so happy that I could just get service, I signed up for TOT immediately.

Well this brings me back to the point of writing this entry, TOT service was cut pretty much all day on Sunday. It's funny how something that didn't exist in my life a little over 10 years ago has become such a neccessity. I have internet access set-up on my phone, I have a wifi account for Starbucks and True, and have my home ADSL account. If I ever go traveling anywhere, one of the first things to make sure, does the hotel have high-speed. I am a certifiable net addict!

Eating at Yayoi Central World

2007-09-27T19:14:00.001+07:00

DSC00258
Originally uploaded by davoli_bkk

So here's the spread we had at Yayoi in Central World. This is just prior to seeing a movie on Monday, I had this faux kinda japanese styled cheesburger thing, which was actually quite good. Yayoi's tag line is hot, quick Japanese food, and that's pretty much exactly what it is. Inexpensive chain, operated by same company that does MK Restaurants, it's pretty decent for something quick and easy. I think my meal came to like 120 baht or so (about $4).

After lunch, hit the movie to see "Shoot 'Em Up". S'ok movie, kinda ridiculous but lots of action. I love going to Central World now for the movie/meal combo, over Siam Paragon, as there seem to be less people, and there's a whole lot of choices of restaurants. The movie was in one of the big theatres, (#15) and I think there were like 3 other people there (of course it WAS Monday afternoon). I have pictures of the inside of the theatre and the lobby on Flickr.

After the movie, did a bit of food shopping in the gourmet supermarket they have, conveniently located right next to the theatre. Mmmm, I love the cheese and dessert sections, although my waistline certainly doesn't.

Somboon Seafood

2007-09-24T13:52:00.001+07:00

DSC00254
Originally uploaded by davoli_bkk

My blog seems to be turning into a food/restaurant review blog. Ahh well, I suppose it is one of my favorite things to do. My friend Sa (that's her on right side of the picture), is visiting and staying with me for a few days. Thus, I've been going out to eat a lot lately. Always on my list to for dining with out of town friends is Somboon Seafood on Ratchada in Huay Kwang district. Really awesome food, energetic atmosphere (lots of people, a little noisy), and pretty good price as well. Frommers gives Somboon a thumbs up as well. Three people had a feast for about 1200 baht ($40 in the terrible exchange rate we currently have).

One of my absolute favorite things to get here (along with the shrimp balls, oysters, mussels w/egg, fresh fish), is Curry Crab. Mmmm mmm good stuff, I'm getting hungry now just thinking about it again.

Lunch at Food Loft

2007-09-22T08:48:00.001+07:00

DSC00252
Originally uploaded by davoli_bkk

One of my favorite spots to eat, but haven't been in quite some time until yesterday, the Food Loft at Central Chidlom. Awesome food, decent price and great atmosphere. Great place if you're ever having trouble deciding what to eat, as there many choices. I usually do a caesar salad / macaroni combo, but yesterday I had some Nasi Lemak (Malaysian). Oh yeah, and the desserts are incredible, but I was a good boy yesterday and refrained.

Dinner at Yuu

2007-09-18T20:42:00.000+07:00

Had a huge dinner a Yuu tonight. Really like it here, but always eat so much.

The food style is Japanese BBQ, basically you order a bunch of beef, chicken, shrimp and cook in on a big pot of coals in the middle of your table. The portions are just right, and it's great getting a bunch of different cuts/styles of meat. Of course there are other Japanese foods available to supplement, miso soup, sushi/sashimi, etc.

Mmm, good stuff. For 4 people, our total bill was about 1800 baht....and we ate a lot. Check it out on Sukhumvit Soi 31. Just head down the Soi from Sukhumvit, until you come to a 4 way intersection, take a left. Just as the road bends back to the right, Yuu will be on the right hand side. There's also another one in J-Avenue on Thonglor.

Weekend was a wash

2007-09-17T09:23:00.000+07:00

Got some kind of stomach virus Friday night that pretty much wiped me out for the entire weekend. Nose was ok, no coughing, but running a bit of a fever off and on all weekend and had a bit of a stomach issue. Just starting to get over it today (Monday). Last night got the news of a plane crash in Phuket. One2Go airlines, trying to land in a storm, might have been hit with some wind sheer and pretty much broke apart when hitting the ground.

My parents are planning on coming to Thailand in January, and I was just telling them how easy it is to fly around with all the low cost airlines in the area. Dad asked me, "how safe are they?" My response, "yeah no problems, I never hear of a crash."

Started talking to a friend who lives out in the country about sourcing some products for sale on Ebay or wholesale. She can get some pretty good deals, has contacts in Vietnam and Cambodia. Definitely would like to see this develop. Incredible the money some of the expats are making out here just sourcing stuff on Ebay.

Bangkok Blog coming Back

2007-09-10T23:41:00.000+07:00

So I'm working on bringing back this blog back again. I'll start regular postings about life in Bangkok, e-commerce and american football. Yeah, quite an eclectic mix, but these are my interests at the moment. Really though, the main focus will be living in Bangkok Thailand from an ex-pat point of view.

Harry Potter & Order of the Phoenix in 3-D(sort of)

2007-08-06T19:51:00.000+07:00

Finally saw Harry Potter today at the IMAX in 3-D, and have to say I was a bit disappointed. The movie was ok, kinda of what I expected especially since this book I've liked the least so far. The most disappointing part was the whole "3-D experience." Only a small portion of the movie was in 3-D: that last finale battle! The rest of the movie was just regular plain 'ole 2-D.

Right at the part when they get on the brooms to fly to the Ministry of Magic for the big battle, that's when we were advised to put on the glasses. Also, right when the battle finishes up...we're advised to take off our glasses.

Hmm...bait and switch....Harry Potter in 3-D **for 10 minutes

Back - Slim-Bo / Slim

2007-07-28T11:51:00.000+07:00

So, it's been quite a while since I've blogged, but I'm getting the urge back again. Now, the decision is to keep plugging away at this blogger blog, or should I take the big plunge and go for a hosted wordpress blog?

Anyway, so what's going on..??

Last night headed over and met up with Jack and some friends to eat at Slim-Bo. Slim-Bo is a pretty awesome vegetarian restaurant with a of imitation beef/pork/chicken dishes. It really tastes quite good, and one doesn't miss real meat at all when dining there. After stuffing ourselves silly, we took the walk across the road and headed into Slim.

We were there pretty early (by clubbing standards in Bangkok, about 10pm, and it was already pretty packed. Well...later on, packed definitely became an understatement. Since this weekend is a holiday weekend, and it's the end of the month, most people got paid today. Combined with the holiday, people wanted to go out and were ready to party....and A LOT of people headed to RCA (nightlife area where Slim is located.) I guess I'm getting to be an old man now, cause I got tired out and bailed before close. Too bad too..because toward the end of the night, that's when things usually start to get interesting. You know, when all those really gorgeous girls get a lot more friendlier after having a few whiskeys ;)

Videos

2006-05-21T10:38:00.000+07:00

Well, I guess it's an understatement to say that I haven't posted in quite a long time. I'm kinda getting interested again to resume blogging. In the meantime, I've posted up some videos taken in Thailand over on youtube.com. Here's the link: Dave's Profile on YouTube

Aranyaprathet - Poipet

2005-08-13T08:55:00.000+07:00

Since there was a 3 day weekend this weekend (Queen’s Birthday: health, long life and happiness to Queen Sirikit!), and my buddy had to make a border run to “refresh” his visa, I made a trip to the closest border to Bangkok today. The closest border, is a Cambodian border, Aranyaprathet on the Thai side, and Poipet on the Cambodian side. This border town is often called the wild wild west…or rather the wild wild east in this case.

We woke up in the super early morning, to take a bus at 3:30am to avoid all the riff-raff. There are casinos at the border, located in this somewhat unregulated zone between the Cambodian and Thai borders (but really on the Cambodian side it seems. Well there are casino buses that leave from Bangkok at around 6 and 7 am, and the bus ride takes about 3 ½ hours. Taking the casino bus costs about $2.50, taking the regular bus (which we took) costs about $4.50, and then there are other buses geared toward foreigners that cost about $25. Getting to the border anywhere after 9:30 am, means long waits in queues trying to process through immigration. This is due to all the Thai/Korean/Japanese gamblers, western backpackers, and western visa runners arriving pretty much all around that time. Our waking up so early and arriving at the border as it opened paid off; we breezed through immigration and had the morning to experience the casinos without too many crowds.

As we arrived at the border, we experienced going against the flow of an ocean of humanity. In the morning, thousands of Cambodians stream into the Thai side of the border, since end-products are sold cheaper on the Thai side than they are on the Cambodian side. (I am guessing this is due to ease of logistics and market opportunity in Thailand). There are ALL manner of people pulling and pushing carts, driving trucks, carrying stuff back and forth across the border. What an outstanding example of cross-border trade and commerce Poipet is. Check out some of the pictures here.

Border residents are able to sail easily through immigration, as they have the opportunity to buy border day passes, and just simply flash their passes at the border guards. After we processed out of Thailand, into Cambodia (to get back into Thailand, one must process through Cambodia) and out of Cambodia again, we explored some of the big casinos set up in the zone between the two borders. I do want to take the opportunity to brag just a little bit here though. After we paid the $20 visa fee for Cambodia, that is all we’re supposed to pay to process through Cambodia. However at Poipet immigration, corruption is pretty rampant, and westerners get hustled for additional moneys by the various immigration officials. Reasons range from “visa stamping fee” to “not having bird flu inoculation fee”. It’s not too much money, generally it just tags on another $8 or so. Anyway, my buddy processed in first and immediately got hit up for the “visa stamping fees.” He paid immediately, so when I stepped up I got hit up as well. Well, I started smiling and laughing with the immigration officials saying, “C’mon man, I know how this works….c’mon, you’re going to have hundreds of tourists coming here right behind me, you’ll make all kinda money…let me through…I’m only half the size of a regular person so give me a discount.” This got them laughing quite a bit, and they let me go through without having to pay the “extra” fees. It is SOOO important never to get angry, or lose one’s cool in these situations, or to act arrogant. Smile, make jokes, be persistent but pleasant, and who knows, ya might just get lucky and get through without a hassle.

After immigration, we wandered into the casinos. We got a buffet breakfast for about $4, and then explored the game floor. Blackjack is not very popular at all in these casinos, so I was kinda disappointed. There are tons of Baccarat tables, Diamond War, Pai Gow, and a bunch of other games I had no idea what they were. My buddy sat down at a baccarat table and proceeded to play. I wandered around and finally found some video 8/9 blackjack table. There was one guy playing at the table, who was quite friendly and invited me to sit down and teach me how to play. As it turns out, this guy works in one of the other casinos, so he knew how to take advantage of some tendencies in the video 8-9 machine to perhaps improve ones odds. Well, he explained this to me, and I ended up winning back the entire cost of my trip (bus/visa/food), so that was quite fun. As I sat there, because I’m a dwarf, and also a westerner I get a lot of interest and attention into what I’m doing, so lots of people would come by and watch me play or talk to me, or whatever. Man, talk about a lot of pressure when you’re sitting there at the table alone (the guy who taught me had to leave after a bit), and having a small crowd of people sitting behind ya watching you play and groaning or cheering at every win or loss. None the less, I had a good time, and met a lot of very friendly people. Well, my buddy got cleaned out at Baccarat, and I had had my fill of gambling, so after a few hours, we figured we’d get outta here and head back to Bangkok.

Heading back onto the Thai side of the border, we had missed one feature of the border by arriving so early: child beggars. Lots and lots of them, and they are quite nice and quite pleasant…offering to hold umbrella for you to shade from the sun, carry bags (if you have any bags), offer assistance on where to go, etc. But, they are all asking for a few baht. This isn’t so bad, but if you do happen to give out a few baht, well it’s all over…the word is out and the person who gave out some money proceeds to get swarmed. Now unfortunately, because I am different, I experienced this swarming without having to give anything out. I think all the western tourists were quite grateful I was at the border that day, ‘cause I literally had a mob scene of kids surrounding me and walking with me along the border. What can you do? If I give a few baht out, does the money really go to the kids, or to some begging border syndicate business? Plus, my gosh there were just so many kids, and I just didn’t have that much change on me. My solution, but a ton of fruit and drinks and hand it out to the kids. Seemed to work quite well, and now for sure I won’t be forgotten at this border if I ever come back again. I wish I had taken a picture of the scene of all these kids mobbing around me, but one has to be quite careful of pickpockets and stow away wallets, cameras, and this sort of stuff securely in front pockets or backpack held IN FRONT of the body. I was finally able to get a reprieve from the kids (again I want to stress, they were all quite nice and pleasant, just kinda difficult to manage so many and all asking for baht.), when some Thai army guards chased them away from me. Very soon after, we jumped on a tuk-tuk to head back to the bus station, and caught the next bus back to Bangkok.

The Hmong

2005-07-31T09:59:00.000+07:00

There is a terrible situation developing in the NE of Thailand involving Hmong refugees from Laos. Read a BBC account here. The Hmong are an ethnic indiginous tribe living in SE Asia (Laos, Vietnam, etc.) During the Vietnam war, many of the Hmong sided with the U.S. and helped downed US pilots and disrupted communist supply lines during the conflict. Of course, at the end of the war when the U.S. pulled out, the Hmong found themselves on the wrong side. During this time, many accused the U.S. government of turning there back on the Hmong.

Currently, many Hmong, facing persecution at the hands of the communist government in Laos are involved in an insurgency against that government. As a result, refugees have streamed out of Laos and into Thailand seeking refuge. Last year, around this time, the U.S. did agree to resettle 14,000 Hmong refugees (as we SHOULD have), however now there are more arrivals into Laos. Here are some photos also from the BBC. The Thais don't want to deal with this problem, as it is lending to a straining of relations with the Laotian government. My personal opinion is that it should again fall to the U.S. to fulfill our obligations to the Hmong for standing with us against the communists in S.E. Asia.

Right now, as I write this, Hmong refugees are being evicted out of camps in Thailand, and are facing deportation back to a hostile country to face persecution. America needs to step up and offer support and asylum to these 6000 refugees who qualify (not involved in drug trade or major criminal offences), and if more come after this group, we should continue offering our support, as the Hmong supported America when we asked for it. I support U.S. Rep. Ron Kind in his efforts.

The Things One Hears

2005-07-26T19:24:00.000+07:00

In many of the malls around Bangkok, in the main portion of the mall, one can often find a huge video screen mounted on the upper floors playing music videos, commericals, or other types of promotional material. Of course along with the video, audio is being blasted out over the mall matching the video.

During lunch today, I was in one of the malls that has such a screen (Central Ladprao). Playing on the screen was a portion of the movie Team America: World Police. I couldn't help but chuckle a bit, not due to the movie, but to the fact that the movie was being played all over the mall uncensored (in english), with all of many and quite crude explatives (example: We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an a$$hole. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get f*cked by dicks. But dicks also f*ck a$$holes: a$$holes that just want to sh|t on everything.).

Roiet_journey

2005-07-22T13:16:00.000+07:00

Roiet_journey, originally uploaded by davoli_bkk.

Last weekend, I took a trip with a friend of mine and his girlfriend to her hometown of Roiet. Roiet is deep in the Northeast of Thailand (E-Sarn or Issan). Not a whole lot to do in the town of Roiet, one medium sized mall, one movie theatre that only showed movies dubbed in Thai. We did stay at a great hotel though that had a really nice swimming pool :) Also Roiet lays claim as the home to the tallest freestanding Buddha in Thailand (maybe in SE Asia?). The pictures can be found on my Flickr page here.

We took this journey via a VIP bus leaving Bangkok around 9:30pm at night, and arriving in Roiet around 5:30 am or so. The VIP bus was sold to me over a plane by my friends girlfriend with claims of a massaging chair. The massaging chair turned out to be a chair with lumbar support in the form of a balloon inflating and deflating near the lower back. The people in Roiet were very very nice and overall it was a nice little getaway from Bangkok for the weekend. I'm going to try and start taking these little weekend journeys more often, I'm missing a lot by staying mostly in the city of BKK.

New Discoveries

2005-06-29T17:40:00.000+07:00

Well, it's been forever again since I've updated, and I'm sure the few readers I was actually attracted have all but given up on me. Oh well...nothing too exciting has happened in the past month, my life has really fallen into a normal sort of routine. So normal and boring in fact, that I really don't know what to write about anymore. I can write about the stuff going on here in Thailand, but most of my friends who are reading this now are actually my friends over here....so it really doesn't do much good to write about stuff they are already very well aware of. In fact, I am actually HESITANT to write about Thai stuff, with the idea that if I get anything wrong or screw it up, I'm due for incessant teasing from my crew here. I think my friends in the USA have all but given up on me....out of site, out of mind so to say.

Anyway, everyday I do manage to discover new things in living here. Today, I discovered that my hot water is heated electrically, and that there is absolutely no "queue" of heated water that is kept, and that the water is heated on a per apartment level. I discovered this when the power went out on my floor while I was taking a shower. It wasn't too much of a problem, because there was plenty of light for me to see by. The problem came within about 30 seconds of the power going out, ice cold freeze water came blasting out of the shower. Needless to say, I had no problem waking up that morning.

I've uploaded some new pictures to the Flickr page. Just some street shots around Bangkok. Check them out here if you would like. I've written captions for all of the pics, but you have to click on each pic to see the caption. Enjoy!

Visakha Bucha Day

2005-05-24T19:45:00.000+07:00

Yesterday was a Visakha Bucha Day in Thailand. The day noted as the day the honorable Buddha attained enlightenment. A fairly important relgious holiday here, with many of the bars and nightspots closed and not serving alcohol (although many hotels and restaurants still seemed to be serving. Although, this didn't affect me much since i was wiped out yesterday and today with a fever and general sick feeling. Stupid virus, pain in the butt.

The Miss Universe pagaent is in full swing here in Thailand. Every day in the thai papers there are stories, pictures and stuff about all kind of scandals and controversy regarding the contestants. Pretty exciting stuff!! Today one of the thai papers had all kinda pictures of the contestants on the beaches in their bikinis. Sorry guys, can't find the weblink for that one :) :)

I've added a couple new random pictures to my Flickr page, so check it out if you'd like. What have I been up to the past month or so? Hmmm, not really too much exciting. A little traveling, working, living, hosting (I take credit for pointing her to 3 out of 5 of her favorite spots) ((very very proud of this)) :D

I'm still alive

2005-05-09T13:51:00.000+07:00

Haven't blogged in forever, but I'm still alive. Just been so busy with the expat life lately. Being on ones own in a sense in another country certainly has it's ups and downs. I'm already a pretty up and down person, and this environment just seems to add to that roller coaster. I regret nothing though...I wouldn't trade any of the experiences I've had so far, be them good or bad for anything.

I'll write a bit more in detail within the next few days. Have faith, don't give up on this blog just yet :)

Post-Songkran and Big-C

2005-04-21T16:25:00.000+07:00

I've not been able to get to the blog due to ISP problems for the past couple days, so haven't updated.

Songkran is over, and this week everyone pretty much returned to the city from their holidays, so traffic is back to grid-lock status. The weather seems to just get hotter, and life has returned back to normal.

Here are some more pictures of the Songkran fun last week.

On Sunday I finally got out to do a major shopping trip at Big-C. A couple of comments about food shopping in Thailand. Selection, selection, selection. There are whole aisles full with choices for instant noodles. I usually just stand there in the aisles, staring stupidly, trying to figure out which flavor/brand/style to get. Although, I don't feel so bad, because once I do make my selection, and try to leave the aisle with my cart, it proves to be quite difficult, as everytone else seems to be just standing in the middle of the aisle and staring blankly at all the choices.

Tuna fish. Wow, lots of choices that I've never seen before in Tuna. Tuna sandwich style, tuna steak, tuna in veggie oil, tuna in olive oil, tuna in fish oil, tuna in satay sauce, tuna with ginger, tuna with onions, tuna in brine, lite tuna, heavy tuna, dark tuna, tuna premium.

Needless to say, I'm doing a lot of experimentation with food purchases here.

Water War!

2005-04-14T11:13:00.000+07:00

IMG_0335, originally uploaded by davoli_bkk.

The water battles continue this Songkran. I managed to avoid complete drenching yesterday, and have purchased a water gun to defend myself. I've uploaded a couple images to look at, but have to be careful when bringing the camera out, since a good soaking is always a risk.

Songkran has started!

2005-04-12T19:17:00.000+07:00

Songkran. It’s supposed to start tomorrow. The Thai New Year celebration....the Thai Water Throwing Festival. I thought I was safe today.....I was wrong.

I was walking down my Soi (street) today, returning home from getting a bite to eat from lunch. Zip, splish, squirt. I get drilled by a couple merrymakers armed with squirt guns. Uh oh! It has begun. I begin to carefully, but quickly, make my way back home to safety. Ears alerts, eyes scanning for any potential trouble. Then, I hear it...a shriek, followed by a yell, “Ohhhhhhh!!!! Farang narak diiiiiiii!!!!! narak diiiiii!!!! (translation: foreigner - very cute). On instinct alone, flight or fight kicks in, and I bolt! (Bolt being a relative term, since I really don’t bolt anywhere anymore).

It’s too late though, I’ve been identified, targeted and locked onto. My worst fears are confirmed with a glance back as I see a PACK of college age girls (and a couple guys) armed NOT with waterguns, NOT with cups, NOT even with bags of water....but armed with FULL overflowing BUCKETS of water achieving a very high-speed intercept course with my person.

I don’t make it. I get NAILED. Now, drenched, sopping, and splishing as I walk, it’s a moot point to hurry anymore.

Songkran has begun.

I understand now that since 1.) I’m a foreigner, and 2.) I’m very short (thus “cute”), I might as well be a big flashing bullseye walking down the street. I suppose I’ll be wearing my swim trunks outside for the next couple days.

Check out Richard's Tips on dealing with Songkran.

COOL!

2005-04-11T20:28:00.000+07:00

I just found the coolest site, and just had to put it up here. As some of you know, Google has been integrating satellite pictures with their new mapping service. You can put in an address, and get the map of the location, then with a click, you can see a satellite photo OF that location.

Well THIS SITE shows some locations and the satellite photos of some pretty cools spots! (ex: Grand Canyon, Area 51, Cheyenne Mountain, Niagra Falls, etc.). The only drawback being that they only map the USA and Canada right now.

Enjoy!

Hitch

2005-04-11T11:02:00.000+07:00

I went to the Emporium last night, saw the movie Hitch and grabbed some dinner with A. Hitch was ok....a bit formulaic, a Hollywood ending, and a bit contrived but it was ok. A premise of the movie, “any man can sweep any woman off her feet at any time.” Hmmmmmm.....perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but I think that it’s much easier to make this sort of statement with Will Smith’s bank account rather than some other poor schlub’s. :) It was nice to get out though....I didn’t do much else this weekend, too damn hot. One of these days, I do have to get down to the park and check out this kite fighting thing.

So how does some average dude attract the woman of his dreams in REAL life? Who knows...I think it’s all luck and random circumstance. Taken-in-Hand has some ideas at least as to why woman seem to go for A-Holes rather than the “nice guys.” It’s a long article, but basically the premise is that emotions follow actions. Once a woman engages in a sexual relationship with a guy, she has more to risk in the relationship (pregnancy, social, etc.) Therefore, since she has more to risk, there’s more at stake, and her actions focus more on maintaining the relationship. The more she DOES to maintain the relationship, the more she FEELS she has to. Therefore, the more the jerky guy becomes more distance and jerky, the harder she tries, and thus the more she feels....

Me personally, I just think people are weird and wacky.

One thing that is definitely improving here in Bangkok, that I have sorely missed from the USA....there are more tex-mex restaurants popping up.

And one more link to close this entry out, in case anyone is here in Bangkok or thinking of coming soon, here’s a neat little list of some of the larger night markets in and around Bangkok. Night markets are a nice way to do some shopping and beat the heat!

The Red Cross Fair and the “Culture for Life.”

2005-04-08T13:45:00.000+07:00

A couple days ago, “A” took me to the Red Cross Fair. Basically it’s a big “country type” fair set up by the Red Cross Society of Thailand to raise money. It’s basically in the middle of downtown Bangkok, within a few blocks of closed off streets. 20 baht admission fee (about 50 US cents). A lot of people....a WHOLE lot of people. There were temporary “stores” set up selling all kinds of things, from clothes, to small appliances, to dvds to all groceries. Lots and lots of food available. I really didn’t get to see all that much of the fair actually, cause I just seemed to be caught in the current of streams of people walking around. I thought I’d be smart, and check out the layout of the place before buying anything. But by the time I checked the whole fair out, I was just to tired to go back through and battle the hordes, so I bailed. Thought about coming back the next day, but the next day was the last day for the fair, so there would be even MORE people. Hmmm...I’ll wait till next year :) I was able to take some pictures of the fair though.

**Some political ramblings to follow**

In the USA over the past month, there has been such a media hullabaloo about the Terry Schiavo affair, with the social-conservatives fighting so hard to keep that woman on her life supporting systems. This was a very tough issue to come to grips with, and frankly I waivered back and forth...however, what was most unappealing to me, what that so many of these social-conservative patrons, who proclaim this “culture of life”, who fought so hard for Schiavo’s “life”, and who fight so hard against abortion, ALSO SUPPORT the implementation of the death penalty. The “culture of life” that supports the application of death.

There are some crimes, that are so horrible, so disgusting and despicable, it’s hard to not believe that the perpetrator should not be wiped from the face of this Earth. Murder, rape and extreme violence deserve that to be returned onto the perpetrator tenfold. However....however, the system is just too flawed. With all the appeals that the system provides (and rightly so), with all the time it takes, with all the money, effort and time involved to actually put a person to death......we still get it wrong too much.

As much as some people deserve it, as much as some very evil people should be eradicated from the human race, the death penalty is wrong. It needs to be abolished....everywhere....

This is taken from Amnesty International.

During 2004 six names were added to the list of US prisoners sentenced to death and later released on grounds of innocence, bringing to 118 the number of such cases since 1973.

• Alan Gell was sentenced to death in North Carolina in 1998 and spent four years on death row before a judge ordered a new trial on the grounds that prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence. At his retrial in February 2004 he was acquitted on all counts.

• Gordon Steidl was sentenced to death in Illinois in 1987. His death sentence was overturned in 1999 on grounds of inadequate legal representation at trial and he was resentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In 2003 a federal judge overturned the conviction, stating that if all the evidence had been presented at the original trial there was a reasonable probability that he would have been acquitted. Having reinvestigated the case, the authorities decided not to retry it, and Gordon Steidl was released in May 2004.

• Laurence Adams was sentenced to death in Massachusetts in 1974. His death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment by the state supreme court after it found that the state’s capital statute was unconstitutional. In May 2004 his conviction was overturned by a federal judge on the grounds that police had withheld evidence. Charges against Laurence Adams were dropped the following month and he was released.

• Dan Bright was sentenced to death in Louisiana in 1996. In 2000, the state Supreme Court found that the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction of first-degree murder and reduced the conviction to one of second-degree murder and the sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In May 2004 the Court overturned Dan Bright’s conviction on the grounds that the state had withheld information that called into question the credibility of its key witness. Charges were subsequently dismissed and Dan Bright was released.

• Ryan Matthews was sentenced to death in Lousiana in 1999 for a crime committed when he was 17 years old. The evidence against him was dubious and his legal representation poor. In April 2004 a judge ordered a new trial after DNA evidence excluded Matthews. In August 2004 prosecutors dropped all charges against him.

• Ernest Ray Willis was convicted of two arson deaths and sentenced to death in Texas in 1987. In 2004 a federal judge overturned the conviction on the grounds that the state had suppressed evidence favourable to Willis and that his legal representation had been inadequate. The county prosecutor hired an arson specialist to review the original evidence, and the expert concluded that there was no evidence of arson. All charges against Ernest Willis were subsequently dropped and he was released in October.

Rants against all forms of big media establishment

2005-04-05T15:05:00.000+07:00

It rained like heck yesterday morning, and I got stuck in this for a few hours.

I loaded up my flickr account with so many pics from the BKK International Car Show last week, other stuff has dropped off from view. Hmm...thinking about upgrading to a pro account. I guess I’ve contributed to Thailand laying claim to being one of the leading countries for sales of digital cameras.

I've added a couple links to my cool blogs section on the left, including a link to my father's photo site and my own Flickr stream.

Technorati is a site/service that keeps track of everything going on in the “blogosphere”. If one looks at their top 100 list that tracks sites by the number of other sites that link back to the tracked site, out of the top 25 blogs on that list, almost half have a political focus. What does this say? Optimistically, one could say that people are very interested in what’s going on in the world around them. But of course, avid blog readers are still a small minority of the population online. If one looks at the most searched keywords on google or yahoo, one still finds that celebrities, porn, and gambling rule the day. Still, there is hope.

Along these same lines, the Carnegie Foundation has put out a report entitled, “Abandoning the News” that states:

“There's a dramatic revolution taking place in the news business today and it isn't about TV anchor changes, scandals at storied newspapers or embedded reporters. The future course of the news, including the basic assumptions about how we consume news and information and make decisions in a democratic society are being altered by technology-savvy young people no longer wedded to traditional news outlets or even accessing news in traditional ways. In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news.”

Check out the full report.

Mark Cuban has thrown some support behind Grokster and the EFF against the MPAA. He’s written a couple interesting articles that take the RIAA contentions that file sharing technologies are directly killing their business. This is GREAT. MGM, perhaps unintentionally, left open their corporate FTP servers with all their corporate PowerPoint slides and DVD cover art. If you look at some of the corporate reports, you can find slides that show NET margins on DVD sales upwards of 50%. Check out this BoingBoing post.

Of course I believe artists and content makers should be fairly compensated for their work. There are ways to make this happen, as has been proven time and time again along with technological innovations.

Fuck the RIAA and fuck the MPAA. They were wrong about cassette tapes, they were wrong about the phonograph, they were wrong about VHS tapes, they were wrong about DAT tapes, they’ve always been wrong, they are greedy, innovation squashing, monopolistic, price gouging cartels.

One of THOSE nights....

2005-04-03T16:02:00.000+07:00

Sometimes, a day, or night becomes so bad, you just can help but sit back and laugh about it. Last night I paid dues for having a pretty good life in here so far.

My phone was pickpocketed, along with some cash. That wouldn't be so crushing, as the fact that my phone had ALL my phone numbers (professional and private)....and I don't have a backup anywhere. Stupid, stupid, always put your hands on your wallet and phone when moving through a very crowded, bodies mashed together area.

I got so many mosquito bites that it looks like I now have the chicken pox.

And thirdly, I lost all respect for a friend, who I'd recently started to have a great deal of respect for.

Now I remember why I hate Khao San Road, and never ever go down there. Many lessons learned (and relearned) the hard way last night.

Bah!

Social Butterfly

2005-03-31T22:54:00.000+07:00

Well, everyday I've been planning to come home and write blog entries, but every single night since last Friday night, I've had something to do, or somewhere to go. I'm not used to this! Usually, I'm a homebody during the week. Anyway, I've been uploading pics like crazy. On Friday AND Saturday night, went to the Suan Lum Night Market. Last Sunday night, I went to dinner at Cafe Le Siam a French / Thai restaurant and ate out in the garden. Here are a couple pictures. Also, during the week, I went to the Bangkok International Motor Show. I took A LOT of pictures there.

A couple of other comments, a few days ago there was another earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. The next day, the papers reported that many people in the upper floors of buildings here in Bangkok felt it and went running down to the street. I felt nothing at all.

Another interesting post from 2Bangkok. Thailand doesn't really mess around with smoking labels on cigarette packs like they do back in the States. The labels take up half the pack, and there is no innuendo or confusion about what is being said.

Slacking - March 18th weekend Part 1

2005-03-27T12:05:00.000+07:00

I’ve really been slacking with updating the blog lately, and I have a lot to catch up on. I’m going to start off with last weekend.

But first, just want to provide this link of a pretty cool photo set provided by 2bangkok.com of the old cold war era Russian Embassy in Bangkok. The site for the old embassy mansion is being developed into the “Canals of Sathorn”, a shopping and entertainment plaza that seems to be modeled almost exactly like the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas. Anyway, here are the photos inside the old embassy building. They show, metal and padded rooms, hidden staircases, rooms with no apparent entrance. To think what went on in this embassy during the height of the cold war, with such a tug of war occurring between the US and the USSR in SE Asia.

The adventure began on Friday, I was talking to my friend B (going to start just using first initials to refer to people) and suggesting that we should perhaps get a coffee, see a movie, or grab lunch/dinner sometime this weekend. B is one of the people who I really bug to read this blog, and showing off that she might have read an entry (even though she says she won’t read is cause I write too much), she suggested that we go to JJ market. Yeah, ok cool I reply..so that is the plan. So I figure I’ll just relax Friday night, as I know it’s going to be a tiring day walking around JJ that next Saturday. We plan to hit the market around 10:00am before it gets too hot. Ok...the plan is set.

Friday night, I’m going ahead with my plan, by picking up something to eat on the way home, and relaxing on my sofa with a movie. Phone rings, a familiar male voice at the other end, “What are you doing?”
I reply, “nothing, watching TV, chilling out.”
P comes back, “It’s Saturday night, why watching tv? Have you eaten yet?”
Me, “Yeah, I just had some rice and chicken.”
P, “OK, 1 hour...meet at the Living Room” (Phone shuffling noises)
Voice on phone now changes to a familiar female voice, “Sawaddee Ka Khun Dave, How are you?”
Me, “Oh, Hi Judy!” (Beaming a smile now). “I guess uh, we’re coming over there...in about an hour!”
Judy, “Ka Khun Dave, Ok will have table for you”
Click - hang up phone.

Soooo, off to the Living room again, meet up with P and W (another guy friend), have some of the delicious curly fries that they do there, with a couple cocktails.
W, “What is your plan for the evening?”
Me, “Uhh...nothing....just....no plan”
W, “OK, I was thinking of going to Tango....P doesn’t want to go, trying to convince him.”

So the hard sell job begins trying to convince P to go with us to Tango.......no avail, P bails on us, and W and I head off to Tango to hook up with a couple of W’s friends. Now a quick word about Tango. Tango is what’s called an executive members club. Live music, good food, drinking, pretty girls, etc. Anyway, it ended up being quite a late night. I got home, tried to get to sleep, but only a few hours before I was suppose to wake up and head to JJ.

I wouldn’t have woken up if it wasn’t for a phone call from M, who had recently returned from Australia, and who I hadn’t seen in a while. M told me she was back in BKK, and was headed on over to my apt. This prompted a not-so-quick dash to the shower to welcome Mo into my not so clean/organized abode. At this point, it’s 10:00am, pretty much the time I was supposed to round up B and head to JJ. Mo agreed to go to Central Lad Prao shopping mall for a bite to eat, I called B and convinced her to come over and join us, and we hooked up and enjoyed a Vietnamese meal at CLP. Mo left us to go home after lunch, and B and I headed over to JJ. The time, 12:30 pm, getting into the hottest part of the day.....

I’ll write about pt.2, the grueling trek through JJ tomorrow.

Busy weekend, more later

2005-03-21T00:24:00.000+07:00

I finally got to JJ market this weekend. Wow....haven't walked that much in a long long time. Had a pretty active weekend overall, will post more about it later. I did upload some pics from the market though to my Flickr photo stream. Check 'em out.

Quality foreigners

2005-03-18T07:45:00.000+07:00

The Thaksin government has made it known now that they only want “quality foreigners” to stay in the Kingdom. Hmm, what is a quality foreigner you might ask? S. Tsow attempts to answer that.

I uploaded some new pictures to my flickr stream from a dinner I had out with friends a couple nights ago. After eating at Basil’s, we moved up to my new favorite spot The Living Room and then later down to Rivas for a bit of dancing.

Just when I was starting to get a little bit of momentum on my diet, Bangkok goes about having a big food festival!

For a bit off-topic, Michael Totten does a bit of impromptu research into the differences between how the pro-syrian and the pro-democracy/freedom protesters in Lebanon are being portrayed. Check it out. As Michael writes, who would you want to hang out with?

And for my friends and family who WILL be coming to visit soon, here are the monthly temp and precipitation averages for Bangkok throughout the year.

Oh yeah, and in honor of having a bit of a night out a few nights ago, and of the food festival happening this weekend, check out this Absolute ad paying homage to Bangkok:

source: Absolute Ads

At the Emporium

2005-03-16T15:36:00.000+07:00

IMG_0083, originally uploaded by davoli_bkk.

I was at the Emporium Mall, and they were having some sort of Swatch promotion with booths, music, giveaways and these weird creature character things walking around. I guess they were for the kids, however if I was a kid and saw one of these things coming toward me, I'd have nightmares for days!

Destroy World Day & JJ Market reprieve

2005-03-13T18:06:00.000+07:00

According to some Hindu and Thai Buddhist astrological predictions, March 12/13 is supposed to be a day of extreme bad luck with potentially “Earth Ending” cataclysms. Some of the Thai newspapers here are calling it “Destroy the World” day, and it’s prompting many superstitious people to flock to the temples to make offerings and pray. Yesterday, my world almost ended while walking home outside my apartment as I became roadkill for some HUGELY overweight drunken German who tripped on a curb and found it convenient to land on me of all people. Damn beer swilling, bratwurst eating, polka dancing Hun!

Thus far today, I’ve only noticed it’s been damn hot. We got up to 100 F today in Bangkok. Wheewww. I was planning on making a trip down to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, but quickly gave up on that idea after venturing briefly outside today around noon. Chatuchak has claim to being one of the largest weekend markets in the entire world. There are estimates to anywhere between 9,000 to 15,000 stalls, with as many as 200,000 to 300,000 visitors during the weekend. It’s a total maze inside the twisting alleyways of the market. The sheer enormity of market, combined with the narrow twisting alleys and the volumes and throngs of people can truly frustrate the most patient of tourists. It’s not uncommon to see red faced tourist couples having meltdowns and exploding at each other over the silliest of things.

Prices can be bargained down pretty cheap for anything in the market but much of the stuff tends to be somewhat “junky.” Unless one knows what they are doing, what they are looking for, and where they are....the whole market tends to be a big tourist trap. It surprises me to see that this market is touted so highly on the tourist websites and books...because it is definitely NOT an easy place to get around, understand, and really shop.....but there can be some interesting finds within.

The market is somewhat divided up into sections, but again...even with knowing about the sections, maneuvering about the market can be quite a challenge to the JJ market novice. (Chatuchak market is also spelled Jatujak phonetically and is sometimes referred to with the abbreviation JJ market). Literally anything and everything can be found here, from antiques (fake and maybe some real), to books, to plants, to live animals, to CDs and DVDs, to vacuum cleaners. *Anything*. Oh yes, and lest I forget....all manner of food and drink :)

Here’s a map...sort of: JJ Market Map

If you are an observant/student in the variety of humanity, and you don’t mind being mashed up against a lot of sweaty bodies, and you have a zest for bargaining, JJ market can be fun, in a limited dose.

Anyway, it was far far to hot for me to make my pilgrimage there today. Perhaps next weekend, and I’ll be able to supply my own pictures. However, for now you can take a look at these:

JJ Market Pictures

Off topic site additions

2005-03-07T18:15:00.000+07:00

This weekend has been gorgeous. The temp has been very cool, and there’s been a consistent breeze blowing making it even cooler. I’ve had my windows opened all weekend, and haven’t used the A/C once. I do know though that this is only a brief “lull before the heat storm.”

I’ve made a couple small cosmetic changes to the format of this blog. I’m experimenting a little bit as I learn more about HTML. On the left hand side, you’ll find a new section with some links to cool blogs that I check out from time to time. Also, toward the bottom of the left hand side content, there’s a section with buttons linking to some cool things I use and recommend. The Firefox browser, more secure and standards compliant than the IE browser. Skype, is a pretty good quality (and free) VoIP program allowing voice conversation between computers. Additionally, Skype allows very inexpensive calls from a PC to a phone (very important for communicating back to the US or elsewhere from Thailand). Blogger...where this blog is hosted. And finally, Ipodder and podcast alley.

What is Podcasting? The future. I was very late with jumping on the bandwagon and seeing the popularity of blogging. I’m also a little bit late with “discovering” podcasting....but not TOO late yet. Basically, what it entails is people making homemade broadcasts, or voice “radio” type shows and recoding them on MP3s. They make these available to the public via the internet, and people are able to download them straight to their iPods or other MP3 playing device. Also, these shows can be quickly recorded to CD and listened to in the car or anywhere else. Podcast alley is a great site for finding good podcasts. Ipodder is a program that allows one to automatically scan and download new shows that one is interested in. One of the most popular shows out there is produced by Adam Curry (ex-mtv VJ and professional broadcaster). A lot of shows out there are kinda cheesy and amateurish, but there are some pretty good ones produced by some very talented people as well. As it becomes more popular, production values will go up, more talented people will get involved...and most importantly....these shows are NOT regulated....so there can be some cutting edge stuff out there.

Why do I think this is the future? I foresee wireless internet technology being extended (either by WiMax or 3G mobile) to expand bandwidth further and further. The internet will be available anywhere in high bandwidth via wireless connectivity. Once this happens, people are going to be able to listen to “podcasts” anywhere.....and radio begins to lose relevance. People will have unlimited choices as to what they can listen too. I can be in Bangkok and listen to shows from New York....or visa versa, be in New York and listen to shows from Bangkok.

Perhaps it’s just me....but this concept is pretty cool.

Oh yeah, and here’s another cool little link I’ve stumbled across. The Hillman Top 100 Wonders of the World. I thought I was pretty well traveled, and have seen a lot of stuff...but I was humbled when looking through this list I realized how much I haven’t seen yet.

100 Wonders of the World

Hot, hotter, hottest

2005-03-04T00:35:00.000+07:00

It seems to be getting hotter and hotter lately. However, when I complain, I'm just laughed at, and told....just wait, wait until April/May. Ugh....it's been consistently 96F (I still have not converted to the metric system yet) every day, however we are supposed to get a slight reprieve this weekend. Hmmm, 96....still feels a lot hotter in the sun. More shirt changing...more laundry....

I saw the movie "Constantine." Haven't been to the cinema in a while, but Constantine was well worth it. Definitely a cool action angels/demons movie. Very much along the lines of a suped up "The Prophecy" which I enjoyed very much.

I keep bringing my camera out everywhere I go to take pictures, but just haven't been inspired to take any of my own lately. Although....here are some good Bangkok pics from another site I stumbled across:

Metro Bangkok Pics

Laundry, lucky colors, and pictures

2005-02-27T23:02:00.000+07:00

Because Thailand is so hot (and getting hotter now that we are starting to approach the summer months), I sweat a lot. Because I sweat a lot, I end up going through at least 2, and often times 3 shirts/outfits in a day. And because of this, it definitely seems that I am perpetually doing laundry. In the future, when I look back on my time spent in Thailand, I hope my memories are not dominated by all the time I seem to spend in the laundry room!

Each day of the week is assigned a color in Thailand. This becomes especially important when determining one’s lucky color, as it should correspond to the day of one’s birth and the color assigned to that day. Check out this story for more details:

Days and Colors

That website also has a lot of cool blogs about Thailand and Thai culture. Richard is a great blogger.

Here is a little photo collage someone did around the financial district in downtown Bangkok. The financial district is about 2 “skytrain” stops from where I live, or basically about 5 minutes drive in light (which it’s almost never light) traffic. Here’s the link for the pictures:

Financial District Pictures

Not much to write about lately, has just been plain ‘ole boring week and weekend.

Happy Macha Buhcha Day!

2005-02-23T20:37:00.000+07:00

Today is a fairly important Buddhist holiday in Thailand. Makha Bhucha is celebrated at the first full moon of the third lunar month. This holiday commemorates the day that Buddha recited the “Ovadha Patimokkha” (tbe Fundamental Teaching) to his disciples. It’s a holy day, and many devout Buddhists visit temple today to “make merit.”

Last night I returned from Penang, Malaysia. Some have accused me of always falling in love with the last place I visit. I didn’t fall in love with Penang. It was nice, I have no complaints about it, I wouldn’t mind going again...but there was nothing overly special about it. Penang is pretty much the seat of Chinese culture in Malaysia. The island is comprised of 50% Chinese, 35% Malay, and about 15% Indian.

One thing about Penang though....I thought it was hot in Bangkok...wow, being a bit further south in Malaysia....it was REALLY hot. Thank goodness Penang is an island and there was a sea breeze blowing most of the time. I’ve been out in Bangkok quite a bit, and have had no sunburn issues...I was out for a couple hours in Malaysia, and have a slight burn to show for it now.

Here are some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davolibkk/sets/133007/

One thing that was kind of nice, is that no one really paid much attention to me. The Malay people I met/saw in the street often made a point of saying “Hello” and coming up to shake my hand, but the Chinese and Indian people didn’t give me a second glance. I guess because the population is SO diverse, difference really doesn’t make much of an impact in Penang. I’ve encountered some westerners that complain about Malaysia and comment that people are rather cold or even hostile toward them...I encountered NO such treatment whatsoever. I felt very comfortable, everyone was very friendly, and I would not hesitate to go back.

Penang has some very nice residential areas with beautiful single family homes, tree shaded roads, kids playing in the street. There’s an “old town” with old colonial style architecture, shops and row style homes, and there’s a very modern business section with skyscrapers, corporate office parks, and a huge mega-mall. I’ve tried to reflect all aspects in my pictures.

I met a new friend while in Penang. He’s a fellow American that I ran into a couple times around town, found out he was staying in my hotel, and was even on my flight back to Bangkok on Tuesday evening. He’s a Sicilian New Yorker, who lived in Vegas for a while, came to Thailand a few years ago, fell in love got married and moved here. He now owns his own movie production company. He’s a cool guy and an interesting character....I’m sure there will be more about him later on....

Several entries ago, I promised to write about Saigon. I never did that...and haven’t forgotten. I’ll get to that sooner or later.

6 straight 0s

2005-02-19T23:27:00.000+07:00

Went bowling Saturday night. Bowling is quite the popular and trendy thing in Thailand. It’s not at all like back in the States. If one has ever been to “Strike” in Bethesda, Md., that is pretty much how the normal bowling alley is set up here. It’s quite cool, black lights and lasers, funky colored and swirled balls, rock and pop music playing loud, good food and lots of alcohol. The whole bowling alley decor is quite “modern” and space station like...if that makes any sense. By far, it’s mostly younger people playing. I wanted to take pictures, but alas no photography was allowed. Next time, I’ll just sneak some pics. Getting the shoes was REALLY cool. You put your foot on this pad like thing, get your measurement, press a button and a machine automatically spits out the proper fitting shoe. Quite cool....

Next to our lane were a bunch of young female college students playing. Now, apparently whenever I got up to bowl, they would stop their game and all watch me. I was completely oblivious to this until one of my friends clued me in. So, next time I stepped up to the line, I was completely keyed into everyone watching me....and of course, with them all watching, that really put the pressure on and I got more nervous. And of course...I tossed the ball right into the gutter...again, and again, and again......that was pretty much it for my score for the rest of the evening.

So much for being able to handle the pressure of the PBA tour......I can definitely rule out that career choice for the future.

One note about drinking beer in Thailand. Thai people love to put ice in their beer. I learned recently that THIS is the reason Thai brand beer has stronger alcohol content than most other beers. The stronger alcohol is present since the beer is usually diluted with a bunch of ice when consumed. It must drive the English crazy when they first visit Thailand since the English are loath to the idea of putting ice in ANY drink.

Back in Northern Virginia, for the past several years, there has been a huge road construction project taking place termed “The Mixing Bowl”. Bangkok has it’s own huge “mixing bowl” road project underway involving a huge new ring road around the very high traffic industrial area. Huge bridges, flyways, ramps are all being constructed to support the new super highways. To give an idea of the scale of some of one of the huge bridges they are building, this picture was recently run in one of the newspapers locally. Keep in mind, that cruise ship is NOT a small ship.

(Photo: Jerry)

Tomorrow night (Sunday night) I'm off to Malaysia for a couple days, so don't look for any updates until about the 23rd or so.

I could have been a star!

2005-02-15T17:57:00.000+07:00

Haven’t posted in a couple days because I just haven’t had much to write about. This weekend was pretty boring, hung around home mostly nursing this ankle and doing a bit of swimming. Nothing exciting on Valentine’s Day either. However Valentine’s Day is definitely celebrated here in Thailand...especially among the younger folks.

I’m trying out a new service for photos, so take a look. Here are a couple shots of my street and of the apartment building where I live:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davolibkk/sets/121720/

Also, today I came home to find that they are now filming a movie / TV show in my building. It’s a pretty big deal, with some big stars cause there were a lot of fans hanging around. I’ll have to find out what the name of the movie actually is so I can check it out when it’s released. Unfortunately, the director didn’t see me, grab me, and stick me in his movie for instant stardom in Thailand :)

It’s kinda funny when they actually start shooting the scene...there is no big announcement, no “Quiet on the set!” no, “Lights! Camera! Action!”. Everyone is just kinda milling around, then the asst. director says basically, “go” and the stars just start acting the scene. The only way to really know anything was being filmed at all without paying attention is someone does yell “Cut!” at the end. They only used a couple cameras, and film the scene several times with the 2 cameras placed at different angles during different takes. There is a LOT of just sitting around in between takes and the crew works on various things. The doorman in my building is all excited now, cause they used him in a couple of the scenes :)

So, here are a couple pictures that I took....most of them are kinda blurry, and not that great. I was trying to take them quickly without being too distracting for the people.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davolibkk/sets/121723/

I do want to give a quick acknowledgment to my friend Jenny Kendall who linked my blog on her own blog. Jenny, your blog is pretty popular, cause I’ve sure gotten a lot of hits coming from your link :) Check her page out...one day I aspire to be like Jenny and be cool enough to have my own design and domain for my blog ;)

Jenny’s site: http://www.unmerited.com

Friday night at The Living Room

2005-02-12T01:44:00.000+07:00

What started out as a potentially pretty boring and slack Friday, actually became a pretty cool Friday. Once I got home in the evening, I was able to hit the pool for a quick swim...wooo hoo exercise. After the pool, was able to get a quick load of laundry done. Grabbed a bite to eat with a neighbor....some Indian food from a restaurant right across the street. Then, was about to settle for just chilling at home with a movie, when Pui called me back (I had called him early to see what was going on) and said he was going to be at “The Living Room” in about 10 minutes. So I threw on some jeans, ran a comb through the hair, and headed on over.

The Living Room is a pretty happening and famous Jazz Club in Bangkok. Some pretty big acts come to play there, and it rivals “The Bamboo Bar” and the Mandarin Oriental hotel. I spent New Years Eve at The Living Room, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite places to go in Bangkok. Pui gets on very well with the manager, Judy, and he gets a lot of enjoyment in trying very hard to hook me and Judy up. Much of this enjoyment comes at the expense of my embarrassment I think. Anyway, we had a pretty good time, I was able to play with my camera a bit, and afterward headed home to write this entry. So it’s about 2am now, and I’ll be hitting the sack.

But, before I go, have a look at some pictures:

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=rr3icwn.14dlg4nz&x=0&y=-q85lvj

Included in this set are the squatter village (with those damn roosters) I promised from last entry, a couple pictures of my good friend Pin, and some pictures from tonight taken at The Living Room with Pui and Judy.

Pushcartmania

2005-02-09T22:12:00.000+07:00

I have to decide now where I want to take this blog. Anyone have any ideas? The original idea was to just provide an outlet to tell my friends back in the states, and my family about what I’m up to in Bangkok. But now, I’m completely taken by this whole blogging concept. Last night, basically I spent the whole evening just surfing around and reading different people’s blogs. There are a lot of really good ones out there....tons of people blogging from Asia, Singapore and Thailand especially.

If you want to check out some really good ones, check out http://2005.bloggies.com Some of my favorite sites are the Tequila Mockingbird site under best U.S. sites and the XiaXue site under best Asian sites.

I’ve started giving this site out to some of my friends here in Thailand (as a result of my SLACKER U.S. friend NOT coming here to check it out :P) So now, I guess I’ll just use this site to talk about whatever.

This evening I went to Fortune City IT Mall (to buy a camera) and Tesco-Lotus (food and personal item shopping). Tesco-Lotus is pretty much the equivelent of a K-Mart of WalMart back in the States. Very big department store (clothes, toys, appliances, home items) that also doubles as a grocery store. Picked up some cleaning stuff, paper towels, soap, etc. Those kinds of mundane things, and did some food shopping. Sometimes life just isn’t much different no matter where one is located. A quick comment about shopping in Thailand, for those of you that are familiar with Magruder’s back in nortnern Virginia, many of the big stores here are just like Magruder’s The aisles are very narrow, and one must assume to take an offensive posture with a pushcart as the best form of defense. It’s every person/pushcart for themselves in those narrow aisles!

I am excited though about my camera purchase. After much research, I’ve gotten myself a Canon SD-300 ultra compact....so now expect more pictures of things to be posted up here. This camera is so small and slick, I can just about bring it anywhere with me. Tomorrow, I’ll take a picture of the little squatter village with the roosters I mentioned in the last entry.

Not much interesting to write about tonight. I’m very annoyed cause of this stupid ankle sprain situation....it seems to get better one day, then worse the next day. Regardless, it’s preventing me for the moment from going out and wandering around this city to find some trouble to get into. I’m bored....getting stir crazy sitting at home and watching Thai soap operas, Thai variety shows and HBO.

New Year - 2nd of 3

2005-02-08T14:52:00.000+07:00

So the elections are over, and the current Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and his Thai Rak Thai (translate: thais love thais) party won in a HUGE landslide. The papers are reporting that the election was really dirty, lots of vote buying, scamming, etc... but at least there is a very free press to report such things. Also, this is the first time a Thai PM has won a second term without some kind of nonsense bringing down the government. Despite the vote buying and rigging, I think it's a forward step for true democracy. With the press clammoring about the voter irregularities, that kind of thing will get worked out. While I think Thaksin overall is a decent leader, and he seems to be doing a lot of good for Thailand, there is now no effective opposition due to this HUGE landslide, so hopefully this absolute power won't corrupt absolutely.

So it's the eve of Chinese New Year. Basically there are 3 New Years that are celebrated in Thailand. The western one at the end of December, the Chinese one happening now, and the Thai New Year which is celebrated in April (Songkran). Firecrackers are going off everywhere, people are burning red paper in bins to bring good luck...it's all kind of exciting. This is the year of the rooster.

Now, speaking about roosters...I live in a pretty urban area. However, right next to my building, tucked into a cul-de-sac of sorts between 3 other very big buildings, there exists this little "squatter" village. A grassy/tree filled area with a bunch of tin roof shacks, and people living and raising chickens, goats, etc. Now I guess I've grown quite used to it now, but these roosters DO like to crow their lungs out at sunrise (and I think sometimes a bit before sunrise). One native Bangkokian friend who crashed at my place one night expressed their shock at being rudely awaken for the first time ever in Bangkok by rooster crowing :)

It's a really bright sunny day today, not a cloud in the sky. Even the smog doesn't seem so bad, I can see quite far off into the distance. Only bad part...it's 95 degrees with 60% humidity...so in the sun it feels like 111 :D Supposed to be like this all week. Hooooooo...it's gunna be a hot summer.

Elections, elections, elections

2005-02-06T14:08:00.000+07:00

I'm sitting in the lobby of my apartment building writing this. It's a pretty cool setup they have here, they have a free wireless network operating in the lobby. Lots of people come down with their laptops, hang out, surf and drink tea and coffee. The lobby is pretty large, glass elevators going up and down, a fountain, and multi-levels. Right in my building there's a coffee shop, a restaurant (really convenient for being lazy and just ordering up food to my room), a tailor shop, mini-mart, barber shop, nail and massage place and two travel agencies.

ALSO, most important, there's a guy who run's a little dvd rental place. He's retired and lives in the building (from the UK), and he opens up his shop only from about 4pm till 7pm or so....but he's got all the latest movies on DVD, and he's so casual about when they can be returned. He charges about a dollar to rent them for a few days. Pretty sweet set up I have here. During Chrismtas time, they had a big Xmas tree up and Xmas decorations all over the place with Xmas music playing. Now they have decorations set up for Chinese New Year.

Today is a total slack day, lots of stores and things are closed due to the elections taking place today. Same last night (Saturday night), everything pretty much closed early on account of the elections. I think this is to give people who are from the outside provinces that are working in Bangkok the chance to go home to vote.

I think I'm pretty well known in my building. I get into the elevator sometimes with people I don't recognize, and yet they immediately hit the button for my floor for me. I'll never be able to get away with anything here I guess.... :P

Tomorrow I look forward to watching the SuperBowl at 7am my time!!!

So it's about 2:15 pm now, I'll grab a bit to eat (maybe some noodles) outside, and then probably head to the pool :D All of you that are freezing in the cold right now, all I have to say is HA HA ;)

Brutal week & Nu and My Son

2005-02-05T13:42:00.000+07:00

Man, what a brutal week it's been. Somewhere along the way, I twisted and sprained my ankle, although for the life of me can't remember where and when I did it. Just was hurting like heck for the past couple days. Also, late thursday night, and all day Friday, for pretty much the first time while I've been in Asia, I came down with some really bad stomach problems. Must have been something I ate, cause Friday night I was feeling a lot better and today (Saturday) I'm fine. Anyway, because of these stomach issues I bagged the Bed Supper Club and instead had a different set of friends come over and watch a couple DVDs. Took (girl), Lek (girl) and Toy (guy) came over and kept me company during my misery. We watched Alien v. Predator and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I'm sure you can guess who chose the first movie, and who chose the second movie :P. Today will be a laundry and food shopping day. Tonight maybe going to a movie with my friend Pin. (Note: I'm dropping all these names because my parents just let me know about some tentative plans to come out and visit, and they will probably be meeting lots of my friends at some point). Many of my Thai friends are very eager and almost insisting to meet my parents when they come....hmmm, don't know to quite think of that as a good thing or a bad thing :D

Ok, now on to some another story from Vietnam and some more pictures...

So, after we had decided to stay in Hoi An for a while longer, we needed to find a new hotel. We had already checked out of our prior hotel. Moreover, it was just way too far away from where the “English kids” were living. As we were walking along, we came by a hotel where the young receptionist was eagerly “encouraging” us to take a look at their rooms. So, we checked it out, the rooms were decent, so we checked in. We were a bit hungry at that point, so the receptionist, Tham was her name, directed us to what she described as one of the best eateries and cafes in all of Hoi An (come to find out later, this place happened to be owned and operated by her mom and dad ;) ) Her description was not too far off the mark however and the food was quite good. The café kind of had a funny name, “The Red Light Café.” We got a chuckle out of that but the color red is apparently a very “good luck color” in Vietnamese culture, thus the name.

At the Red Light Café, Tham’s sister Nu pretty much worked the front, and mom and her other sister cooked the food. Nu and I clicked immediately. Perhaps because she is so small herself, and I’m short she just seemed to bond to me immediately. Well, over the next few days I had a blast shuttling between the “English kids” and the Red Light Café. Both of Nu’s parents (amazingly enough....because this just doesn’t seem to happen to me too much in regards to girl’s parents), liked me quite a bit. Everytime I came out, they’d sit with me, talk...I’d kill hours there just drinking Vietnamese tea, and talking about Hoi An, Vietnamese culture, America and the world. Her father used to be a singer and guitar player, her mother was a teacher. Once the tourist started coming to Hoi An, there were able to make a bit more money by opening up this café. And with Tham working at the hotel, and referring everyone to eat there, it was quite a nice system they had set up.

One day, mom let Nu blow off from work and we went on a little excursion to the My Son ruins. My Son has been designated as a UN World Heritage site and is located a bit over an hours drive from Hoi An.

My Son was an ancient capital and religious site for the Cham dynasty from the 4th to the 12th century. The ancient Champa Kingdom ran from Danang to Nha Trang in the south. It was heavily influenced by Indian culture and the Chams adopted Sanskrit as a sacred language as well as adopting Hinduism. Many of the temples were dedicated to Shiva who was regarded as protector of Champa's dynasties.

During the Vietnam - American war, the Viet Cong used My Son as a base of operations. Continual American bombing pretty much wiped the place out, however around 20 of the monuments escaped total devastation and have been largely reconstructed.

Well, here are the pictures from our trip to My Son:

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=rr3icwn.17dt8won&x=0&y=-raveet

So a day or so after this trip, my colleague William had had enough of Hoi An. He made arrangements to fly on to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). I had not had enough at that point, and decided to stay on for another day or so. Since we didn’t have mobile phones that worked in Vietnam, we set up meeting points and times each day in Saigon for us to hook up again. So off William went, and I stuck around in Hoi An. The next couple days continued status quo, breakfast at Red Light, morning English class, lunch with English kids, tea and Red Light, afternoon English class, dinner at Red Light, evening tea at Red Light, and then karaoke with English kids. A day or so later, it was time for me to go. I had a Sunday afternoon flight booked out of Saigon back home to Bangkok (to be at work that Monday), and it was Friday already. So I made my arrangements to fly out that Saturday afternoon. I would hook up with William that early Saturday evening, we’d have Saturday night in Saigon, and then back home to Bangkok on Sunday. Perfect.

Except, for some reason....I got this crazy idea.....

I cannot stress to you how small townish Hoi An really is. Nu had never been more than about 50 miles from Hoi An. She went to university in Da Nang, which is about a 40 minute drive from Hoi An, but that’s about as far as she’s been. Well, somehow, I got this idea to ask Nu to come with me to Saigon. I love playing the role of tour guide, and I wanted to play this role for Nu in the big city (yeah yeah, so I didn’t really know Saigon that well at all...but that’s beside the point...details details).....it was just the IDEA of showing things off that I love.

Anyway, I made the pitch to her, and of course she was hesitant. *Surprisingly* enough, her parents and her sister were VERY much for the idea. I think her sister Tham was more for it cause she was looking to angle a “well I’ll come with you approach” and she very much wanted to see Saigon. Now, again...I cannot stress the scenario here enough.....here is this small town, very very conservative Vietnamese family and here is this foreigner American (that they’d known for less than a week) asking to take their youngest daughter off to Saigon (which by no means is a ‘safe’ city...Saigon can be very dangerous, very wild). A BIG thing in central Viet culture is to KNOW a person’s family. And of course, Nu’s mom and dad..and NU in fact, didn’t know my mother and father....my family. None the less, I guess I made an impression, because they were able to get by this. Nu’s folks were positive about the trip.

Ok, so it was agreed....Nu with her sister Tham chaperoning ;) were coming with me to Saigon the next day. They got their tickets, we made the arrangements, and everything was set.

Now, back to the English kids for a moment. Another big thing for the Vietnamese is to see someone off at the airport. All of the English kids insisted on coming with me to see me off at the airport. I had to actually arrange for a van to take this troop (8 english kids, me, Tham, and Nu) all to the Da Nang airport from Hoi An.

So my troop made it to the airport, said bye to the kids....and off we went. This log entry is getting a bit long, so I’ll save Saigon for later.

However, just some quick impressions on the airport in Da Nang. There was absolutely no semblance of a line situation a the ticket counter. To get checked in, one just had to push their way to the front and slap down a ticket and ID in front of the ticket agent. Once inside the terminal, I watched some of the strangest scenes ever. All the people must very stressed out about flying, random people just seemed to start yelling and being pissed off at each other for no reason. It was really surreal. In the time waiting for the flight, I saw about 4 sets of strangers just start being angry and yelling at each other at different points.

The "English Kids"

2005-02-03T18:22:00.000+07:00

Blah, boring regular couple days lately in Bangkok. Innundated with election news again, just as I escaped it all in the States, here I am again in the midst of another election. Tomorrow night (Friday night), a couple friends of mine have some friends coming in from out of town, so we're all planning to go here:

http://www.bedsupperclub.com

It's a pretty unique and trendy place.....kinda fun....and pretty much within walking distance of my home. Now, onto another story and photo set from the trip to Vietnam....

So here's the story behind this set. I was only planning to stay for a couple days in Hoi An, however....plans were soon changed....

Anyway, the day that we planned to leave to travel down to the beach at Nha Trang, I was sitting at a cafe enjoying a smoothie just killing time before we were supposed to get on the bus. As I was sitting enjoying my smoothie two girls come up to me and one of them starts asking the standard questions everyone asks me (where am i from, how old am I, how long have I been in Vietnam, and where am I going next). Then, she started asking some very peculiar questions, like "how long does it take to fly from Washington DC to Vietnam." Well, as the "conversation" continues, she sorta explains that they are trying to learn English and are basically reading some scripted questions that they had come up with just to practice. Well I invited them to sit down to share a smoothie and "converse" while I had time. Later, my friend William joined....he was very amused to see that I had found 2 cute girls to sit with me in the 30 minutes he had left me alone :D

Well, eventually, they asked us if we'd like to see where they lived. Always up for an adventure, we agreed....keep in mind, in about 30 minutes we were supposed to get on a bus to head out of Hoi An. So after a VERY long walk to their home, we we came to their home and discovered 4 more girls and 2 guys. Come to find out, none of them were really from the area. They had all found each other via internet and friends and agreed to come to Hoi An to try and learn English. They picked Hoi An because is was small but had a lot of western tourists with whom they could try and talk to for practice. They were pretty much studying on their own with a teacher coming in a few hours a week to help them out (on his own time).

Wellllll....I was so charmed by this....William had wanted to stay on for a day or so in Hoi An anyway, so we made a snap decision to bag the bus....stay in Hoi An for a while....and I could teach some English. Well...I so enjoyed doing this, I stretched this out for several days. I had a lot of fun teaching, and they had a lot of fun with me as a teacher. Mai (one of the girls), told me that I'm the nicest man she'd ever met in her life. (grin). Pretty high praise from a conservative country Vietnamese woman. I really formed some very good friendships with all of them, at night we would go out to karaoke together.....we always had a blast.

It was quite funny.....the girls would always insist on walking arm in arm with me (one on each side). It became quite a scene and story in Hoi An, this little American man walking down the street arm in arm with 2 girls with a troop following behind. They would cook meals, serve me....crack open nuts and seeds for me....William didn't get this same treatment (much to his disappointment); however he did not put in nearly the time I did with them.

Anyway, now I spend about 1 hour every other night on instant messenger conversing, practicing, and teaching. I've made a promise to come back to Hoi An within 3 months....and I really look forward to doing this. I really enjoyed teaching quite a bit....I think though having such motivated and bright students certainly doesn't hurt this enjoyment factor.

Anyway, here are the photos of the english kids" as we called them:

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=rr3icwn.gkqs647&x=0&y=-qoun8d

Hacked!! and Hoi An

2005-02-02T10:46:00.000+07:00

First off, a bit of a rant. My main yahoo account (koda8) got hacked yesterday. It's pretty much my own fault, but very frustrating none the less. I received a geocities link from another friend who also got hacked. I went to the site, and it asked for my yahoo login id...well I didn't think anything unusual since geocities and yahoo are linked. Well....it was a phishing scam....I entered my id, and shortly thereafter, the hackers changed my password and info (so i cannot automatically reset my password), and started sending out the link to everyone on my email address. Argh, now I have to go through every website and service I've ever registered with and update to a new email address. Very very annoying. So....everyone, beware of this phishing scam......

Now...to the travelog.....

After Hanoi, I went to Singapore for work....but I was so enchanted with Vietnam, I returned for what was planned to be just the weekend. However, that was extended later on...

So I flew into Da Nang and took a quick trip up to Hue to see it, and then down to Hoi An where I settled for a few days. To get to Hue from Da Nang, one must pass through some really visually stunning landscape. Mountains, jungle and seaside, with waves crashing up against cliffs as one looks down hundreds of meters up on the road going over the mountain. I wish I thought to take some pictures....but was just to tired to remember at that point.

To Hoi An: Hoi An is a very small town in central Vietnam. The buildings in the old town are all protected (all modifications are strictly approved) to preserve the old french style architecture. Although a bit out of the way, and not easy to get to, Hoi An is becoming a hot spot for the more adventerous travelers. Lots and lots of backpackers wandering around the streets.....it's a very out of the way spot in Vietnam, however I saw more westerners there than anywhere else.

In addition to the backpackers, there is a small western ex-pat community living there. Mostly artists with a couple restauranteers. There are no McDonalds, Starbucks here.....only 2 ATM machines in town....to make a call outside of Vietnam, one must go to the Post Office.....but there are some very nice authentic Italian food, Indian food, French food restaraunts. The expats started arriving about 5-6 years ago.....and have formed a small artist community in Hoi An.

Along with the art galleries, Hoi An is most known for getting clothes and shoes made. Clothes can be tailor made and duplicated from fashion designs for a few american dollars....and it's usually done either that same evening, or the next day. I got a couple pairs of shoes made, and some shirts. The savings made from clothes are worth a trip alone, EVEN compared with the prices in Bangkok.

People again were very nice...very warm. I spent so much time there, everyone in town started to know my name.....I could have run for mayor I think :D Absolutely no night life though.....most people go to bed around 10:00pm, with a few karaoke places staying open until 11 or midnight. Otherwise, that's it.....but the people are so nice, and the town is so quaint...cannot help but love it.

I made a lot of good friends here in Hoi An, and I'll be back soon.

So here is the link to the pictures in and around Hoi An:

Hoi An Pictures

These are general pictures....my next posting will be about some of the new friends I met in Hoi with accompanying pictures.

Opening

2005-02-01T21:10:00.000+07:00

Back in Bangok a week now from my travels across Vietnam, etc. It was kind of a strange concept to be coming home to Bangkok, but that's really what it is. You know that feeling of coming home, the feeling of being back in your own element, back to what you're used to.....but then again back to the same 'ole same 'ole. Bangkok just ain't exciting and new anymore.

Today I went shopping with a couple friends in the evening at one of the bigger malls. I tell you, it isn't easy finding clothes for a man of my girth in this city. While selection is amazing, and there are 43280547208357 stores and 4803748375483 styles, BIG style is a bit lacking.

So now, some of the pictures from the trip. I've posted them on Ofoto and will be putting up the links here one at a time. My first destination was Hanoi. Hanoi was damn cold....much colder than I expected. I think I'm getting to used to the Bangkok heat, because although it was about 50 (maybe some days mid-40s) degrees in Hanoi....it's seemed a heck of a lot colder.

I liked Hanoi quite a bit...much different than Bangkok....it's a "small" city....feels smaller, not as many big buildings....most of the architecture is very old...french style. All of the people seemed very nice....I actually did quite a bit of walking around the old quarter and Hoan Kiem lake. Restaraunts and food are quite amazing in Hanoi....all kinds of different styles, and actually quite a few VERY stylish upscale places. It was fun walking down the street.....everyone would come out of their shops to check me out and quite a few would talk to me, ask me where I'm from....perhaps a bit hoaky and self-serving, but I felt myself an ambassador of little people from america......I tried extra hard to always be very polite, very friendly, and to leave a very good impression.

The fact that I was American seemed to generate very positive reactions from everyone I talked to. Even the older people....and I'm sure that Vietnamese-American war touched many many lives (and i'm sure almost in all cases not in a positive-way). However...some people after learning how old I was, asked how old my father was and if he was a soldier in the war. I wonder if anything would have changed if I said he were.....I don't know.

Anyway.....here is the link to the pictures in Hanoi:

Hanoi Pictures

Overall, I loved Hanoi....I'm definitely going back to explore more. If any job ever dropped in my lap that would have me live there for a time.....I'd take it. It was fun to meet some existing vietnamese friends there, and I've made a couple new friends. When anyone comes to visit me in Thailand, I will definitely offer the option of making a jaunt over to Hanoi and Vietnam as well.