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Go read Sarah’s first.

Bangkok is not like the rest of Thailand. It is very different. Very different forces have driven its population, politics and business.

I really like Thailand. I don’t like Bangkok. But our time in Bangkok was good. Thanks entirely to Pete, Leah, and Leah’s family.

They were fun and happy and let us travel around in their well chauffered cocoon. The cocoon was full of history, amazing architecture, and even a very few people. Who I liked.

The buddihst architecture was really great. It was intricate and filled with non-stop gold. I didn’t get any pictures that expressed the kind of non-stop oppulence involved. At one point Tee (our great travel guide) pointed to a stupa 100% covered in little gold tiles.

He said the plan was to get tiles from Italy but they were too expensive so they just did it in gold. Everything was pretty much either outlandish or gold. Actually most things where just both. So that was amazing to see.

The other thing I liked alot was the old capital of Ayuthaya. It had an old, vastish buddhist temple complex. Most of it was rubble but alot of the stupas were still standing. Back in the glory days everything was all goldy and impressive but now it’s just all raw bricks. I like old things that look old and the ruins definitely oblige.

One of the less picture worthy parts of the ruins was the old royal palace. Which simply no longer exists. Apparently the Thais are still pissed at the Burmese for that one.

The destruction wreacked on the old capital was visited all over the Siamese world. As our guide put it so memorably: “Everything to be burned. Everyone to be killed”. In fact the burmese swept aside three simese kingdoms who had been fighting for dominance since the Siam ascendency hundreds of years earlier. After the destruction of the old kingdoms however the beloved king Taksin raised an army and built the new kingdom of Siam over the ashes. The new captial was built in Bangkok (well close to bangkok) to take better advantage of booming international trade.

Seems like everywhere you go there is an ‘old capitol’ of Thailand. This is because now Thai people identify themselves with all the old ethnic Thai Kingdoms. So at a few points in history there were 3 or 4 ‘old capitals’ at once.

Mabey it’s because I’ve read some Thai history that I found the sights more interesting than Sarah.

Anyway all in all it really wasn’t _that_ bad.

offtopic ps: Is google down there too? It’s been down all day. Now gmail is down too. Isn’t this one of the signs of the appocalypse?

and is altavista a .com or .org? Am I even spelling it right?

Right to left: Pete… some people…
Sarah… David… some girl… top of
Rachael’s head… some other girl…
Leah (in pink).Last we left you we’d just come back from Samui sans laptop and camera accessories and the wind had finally picked up for kiteboarding, when we heard that Colin’s cousin Pete would be in the area, as it were, in just a few days. We wouldn’t have suggested Bangkok as the best place to spend four days in Thailand – from all accounts it was to be avoided – but it was already booked and besides, Bangkok might have such civilized things as stores that sell portable computers. Imagine that!

So Pete was travelling on business – sort of. He and his s.o Leah, her folks, her bro and his s.o were stopping by the Big Kok for a few days on their way to a wedding; clients or partners or such of the family business. Not just some old wedding though: a five day multimilliondollar Indian wedding , with thousands of guests, a host of events in two cities and tailored clothing. And probably choreographed dance routines they’ll have to learn.

La grande Coq (river view)So in preparation for the decadence to come, la famille was going to do Bangkok in style, too. They stayed at the beautiful Shangri-la hotel (we were down the street at the still fancy-lala but cheaper Bossotel – no ‘H’). They had guided tours and dinner reservations all lined up and were incredibly generous and kind to take us along on their adventures.

The adventures, in short:

Shangri-la: great breakfast buffet; ridiculous beer prices. Bossotel: nice bathrooms; bad free coffee. Golden Buddha: shiny. Reclining Buddha: nice feet. Emerald Buddha: not actually made of emerald. Grand Palace: glitzy. Ayuthaya Ruins: brick-ey.

They build ’em shiny in ThailandAs you can tell they weren’t really my cup of tea but Colin had a blast and a half and took a lot of pictures with his new camera lenses (yes he got them!). The guides were actually pretty cool and informative, and didn’t mind our sometimes uncomfortable questions regarding Thai politics. I almost choked when Colin asked our first guide, Tee, “Can you tell us how the last King of Thailand died?”.

But it wasn’t all fun-and-Buddhas; we got out to the busy Chatuchak market, shopped at a sweet huge tech mall (Panthip Plaza), and took a few walks on the street when we couldn’t stand the fresh air of the hotels and aircon malls anymore. I thought I had come down with a cold after the first day and kept blowing mysterious chunks of black gunk out of my nose, but it was just the air there. No kidding the tuk-tuk drivers wear face masks.

Panthip Plaza: five
floors of sweet sweet techBangkok has a for-serious transportation problem. Between four and seven every evening traffic stops dead in most of the city. Taxis flat-out refuse to take you where you want to go, or will charge five times the usual fare. The city is crisscrossed with raised toll expressways; designed with three lanes and a narrow shoulder but used as four lanes (seven, if you count motorbikes who drive between lanes). There is a skytrain system half the size (in terms of both coverage and actual size) of Vancouver’s that begs to be expanded. And so many SUVs – crazy Bankokians!

So, not a Sarah-friendly city to say the least. I had to look up “carless cities” as soon as we got home to regain a little hope for the future.

I haven’t gotten to the worst part yet – and no it wasn’t the girly bars, we avoided those with good taste. It was the goddamn taxis. Every single time we got into a taxi or a tuk-tuk, we were taken for a ride. Err, in the way that also means “fucked up the arse”. They had us in every possible way:


Taxi: bane of our existance

1. “Metered” taxis who refused to go by the meter (not surprising, but they’re supposedly only licenced to go by the meter in BK)
2. Being driven into an alley away from the main streets then told the fare just doubled because the driver wasn’t clear about where we were going (twice)
3. Being taken to “a friend’s shop” for “just five minutes, then I take you to train station” (they tried this almost every time; we gave in once out of curiosity/exhaustion)
4. Being “accidentally” taken to the completely wrong restaurant five km in the wrong direction during rush hour (a common occurance; the driver would have gotten a commission there and actually had the nerve to offer to drive us back for the same rate; we were an hour and a half late meeting Leah’s parents when we finally arrived in a different cab)
5. Driver who covered his taxi licence with a picture of the king so we couldn’t report him (the Shangri-la gave out receipts with the taxi driver’s licence number when you got in, but we didn’t get one this time and guess what? we got fucked again)
6. Friendly dude who “worked at the embassy” and “knew just where we should go, we like seafood right?” and got us a convieninetly low tuk-tuk fare, then directed us to the most godawful expensive restaurant in the entire city
7. Taxis who refused to take us from our hotel to the train station because it was after 2pm on a Saturday

Colin giddy over the
new wide-angle lensIn the end, we gave up and started paying double to avoid the hassle. We’d say – Train station, 100 baht. They’d say – Yes, 100 baht, get in. We’d say – 100 baht, train station, no stops. They’d say – Okay, 200 baht.

We did get there eventually, and after an enlightening bus ride to Surat Thani (we do NOT recommend the overnight bus – sleeper trains are worth the extra ten bucks) we made our way back to our happy quiet little island.

But this time we accomplished all of our missions: we had a great time with Pete and the gang (all wonderful folks); we saw some really old buildings and really enormous buddhas; we aquired both a laptop and a crapload of camera accessories; we visited the exeedingly huge weekend market where you can reportedly buy anything (we bought t-shirts); and we experienced enough of the “there’s a farang – get his money!” culture to be able to say what everyone has been telling us about Bangkok:

Visit once to say you’ve been there, then get the hell out and don’t look back.

We are finally home again.

There is a ton to write about. I don’t have the energy to do it now. I can’t believe it’s christmas eve right now. It doesn’t feel like christmas at all and thus we have no gesture of good-will prepared. We’ll have to come up with something. At least we’re a day ahead.

Bangkok: I swing back and forth but I’m pretty sure I hate Bangkok. Never-the-less hanging out with Leah and Pete and Leah’s family made it very fun.

It is really good to be home on the island where people are friendly, you can see the ocean, and you can breath the air.

More to come. Mit Pictures.

Haha! I got a kite up! -does a little dance-

Finally the wind is up! It was up two days ago and I called Pascal (my kiteboarding contact) and he was on the mainland buying kites! Wha! Such unluck!

So yesterday I’m up at dawn like usual and the wind is up again. But this time I finally get the call I’ve been waiting almost 2 months for. It is on!

Pascal called me at 9:30 but we weren’t going to meet until 1:30 so I got to bounce around the house for a while waiting for the time to come. Couldn’t wait the full time as it turns out and I headed out 1/2 hour early.

The ride was really fun. Nature put on a good show yesterday. Dark clouds dominated the sky and the wind was whipping at the jungle. The island was in a rainless storm. It was very cool. The colours were great. (note I have no pictures of the entire day because I was affraid to leave the camera unatended on the beach). It became pretty obvious on the way out to Mae Haad (the place with the island connected only by a stretch of sand) that it was REALLY windy.

I got to Mae Haad without letting the excitement make my driving too reckless and walk-jogged out to the head of the sandbar where the kiteboarders meet. There was Pascal, in a sweater. In the water was Frankie leaping huge distances into the air, landing perfectly and firing on.

Quick intro, sans pictures unfortunately. Pascal owns the kiteboarding shop/school on the island. He is shorter than I am, about the same build, but much more fit. That means he’s pretty small. Frankie is much taller than I am, of a bigger build, and also very fit. That means he’s fairly large. They are both really fun to be around. And since they are kiteboarders on Koh Phangan they are both french (if you’re a restraunteur you’r english and it your a diver you’re scandanavian).

I’ve gotten to hang out with them a bit before. I talk to Pascal on the phone and by email occasianally about the wind and I let him know when I’m not going to be in town. Frankie taught me and a couple of luckless americans the rigging about a week ago on a windless day. We also spent an afternoon drinking beer at Mae Haad waiting for wind that never came.

So I walk up to Pascal (they are clearly much more than 1/2 hour early) with what I’m sure is a huge grin. He tells me that there is too much wind today! Too much! And that he isn’t even going to get one of the new kites up today because of the wind. Grah! Frah! Anyway he says we can wait and see if the wind goes down a little. Time to hit the bar again.

The ride up was a good show. But Mae Haad was fantastic. I really should have brought the camera. The tide was over the sand-spit and big waves from both bays where breaking over it in opposite directions at the same time: smash! It looked great, I wondered if there was anyone stranded on Koh Ma. This was actually another reason we were waiting. They use the spit alot for teaching so we had to wait for the tide to come down and things to settle down a little.

Anyway Frankie got exhausted before long and pretty soon I was surrounded by 1/2 dozen happy french kiteboarders. It was fun. Most of the conversations where in french uneless I managed to start something with Pascal or Frankie. But nature was putting on a good show to fill in the gaps and it was fun trying to comprehend some of the conversation.

So anyway eventually the tide went down a little and the waves started breaking way back at the entrance to the bays, leaving the water relatively calm. I guess the wind went down a little but I didn’t notice it. At any rate. It was finally time to play.

I didn’t get a board yesterday. It was mostly learning to control the kite (which I have a head-start on) and getting used to the pull and some of the theory.

The highlight was body drags. We would walk out onto the spit, thigh deep in churning, mad water. Then walk out into the bay into waist, and then chest, and then Frankie dragging me – deep water. Then we give the kite some power and tack back and forth into the beach (well you can’t tack without a keel but you get the idea). This was much fun, although the treck out was arduous. Especially trying to keep up with the big Frencheman.

We did some take-offs and landings, I did one solo trip out to the spit and back and that was the day. It was so much fun and I am so eagre to be out there again.

The wind looks good again today and it will probably stay high for the next little while. Of course I have the cousin with the WORST TIMING EVER PETE! So Sarah and I are off to Bangkok today. Which should generate some fodder for the journal, alot of fodder for the flickr account, as well as a laptop and some new lenses.

Yes yesterday was a good day!

Wicked future-from-the-80s book artSo, they’re making a six hour miniseries of one of my favorite childhood books, The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. But they’re going to ruin it! The guy writing the screenplay also wrote Reindeer Games, The Brothers Grimm, and the US clones of The Ring and The Ring 2. Yuck. Yuck! The first two were terrible movies from directors with previously great track records, and the latter almost word-for-word translations.

Spielberg is producing; does that mean it’s going to have the entire budget poured into effects? One of the two leads will either be CGI or a guy in a big hairy suit. Or a muppet I guess, best-case. Stephen King will probably have his paws in it though, and we know what that means for screen adaptations of his books. True to the material with somewhat of a disregard for the art of filmmaking.

Awesome fanart by edved
on TheDarkTower.netHmm, I didn’t know they wrote a sequel to The Talisman. Somehow I just want everyone to leave the story alone so it can stay precious.. though I am kind of excited to find references to it in the Dark Tower series I’m finally reading the end of.

I’m on Wolves of the Calla now, and reading it on the DS because I couldn’t find a real copy (I have the next one ready in paperback). He wasn’t kidding about this being his masterpiece; it ties all these different books together with little references and characters. TheDarkTower.net has a thrillingly obsessive collection of these connections, complete with diagrams, and sweet fanart. The webmaster seems to share my apprehensions surrounding the Talisman miniseries – coming in 2008!

Yeah, I guess we’ll see…