Yay, plane loads of drunken Yobbos/Rednecks/Chavs landing in Pattaya to throw dirty, bacterial laden ice water on any and every passerby for well over a week of stupid drunken slobiness.
Yes you can tell I love the drunken farangs making our collective name worse year by year with their completely uncouth and uncultured (Thai or Western) behaviour.
What a contrast to the genuine Thai way where you hold out your hand and a little water is poured over it.
We've corrupted a pleasant custom of celebration once again and turned it into a mockery of the real festival of Songkran. - Mangosauce.com (adult language)
If you need to get anything done, shopping, gym, etc get out and about before midday, it often takes the drunks this long to recover from yesterdays hangover enough to get out and start annoying locals again. I guess I really should move to a more salubrious area.
For my Thai friends - have a happy and SAFE New Years celebration - be careful on those motorbikes.
Meanwhile the Thai Police are having a War On Crime, mainly targeting drugs usage across Thailand, aiming for a 20% decrease in crime in the next 3 months.
Besides all that things are running pretty much standard here in Thailand. Honestly living here makes you feel alive, nothing like any of this ever happens back 'home'. But you know what? The way the Thai people deal with all this is amazing, the media are calm, things will be fine.
OK, looks like emergency top level negotiations have secured a cease fire at about 7.30pm, so that was approximately 4.5 hrs of fighting, rockets, artillery barrages and mortar fire between the two armies. Pretty intense for the local residents I guess, well considering their school was blown up, huts set on fire and at least on confirmed artillery death "well inside" the Thai border.
DUCKS GUTS: An Australian expression - if you think something is awesome, brilliant etc. then it is said to be the duck's guts. - source The Urban Dictionary
So when you hear an Australian saying "This is the ducks guts" then they are generally referring to something as being first class, or the best in its class.
Or they might just be an Australian living in Asia and actually be referring to something totally different....
Well it has rolled around again - all christians go out now and in a shopping frenzy reminiscent of berserker Vikings discovering unprotected church gold on the shores of England, celebrate by going out to the Xmas sales with mobs of other mind controlled shopping zombies and putting yourself in credit card debt to 'prove' you love your family.... because that is what the TV tells you to do.
Here is a different take on Christmas from Rob Sheridan:
Awesome. Enjoy your friends and the things that are important to your life. Stampedes and fist fights over "sale" items is a F%^&*ing ridiculous way to celebrate friends and family.
I have been accused of being cynical - here is last Christmas , and the one before . Not really much to get excited about is it when you look at the reality.
Right now Thailand is about 12 hours away from open civil war. This is not some retoric, there are armed troops fighting armed troops in hte streets of Bangkok right now and for the last 4 days.... again.
The official Army has assassinated one of the 'Red Shirt' political leaders who was shot but snipers and hit by 2 bullets in the head in the middle of a crowd while conducting an interview with foreign mdeia correspondents. The idea is to 'cut the head off the snake', but I am concerned that they just made a martyr.
Official figures for the dead are now at 35, I think the real figures are about 10 times that figure, the media is under tight control with Twitter, Facebook and Youtube giving a lot of 'on the ground' uncontrolled coverage.
Government troops have set up a "Live Fire Zone" where they are firing real bullets at anyone they deem necessary to take out..... or anyone unlucky enough to put his head out a window, or even stand near a window...
A 'peoples revolution' has started in Thailand, 21 confirmed dead yesterday (which means more that are probably unreported) and several
hundred injuries (over 800) including bombs, grenades, bullets and sharpened bamboo stakes.
The latest news photos show snipers in place in tall buildings firing into the fray.
Class warfare that has been
simmering for several years (centuries actually), mostly since the most recent military coup has
erupted....
I bet that got the attention of my gay readers. One of the benefits of living in Asia is that your normal mundane trip to the supermarket can suddenly become interesting.
With English being the 3rd or 4th language for many in Thailand it is no wonder things like this pop up...
One of the benefits of being in Asia is that I am close to a lot of technology that lands here before it gets to the West, sometimes these products are not even available in the West due to 'intellectual property disputes' shall we say.
So when the local IT centre had a sale on the other week I popped in and checked out the phone for us$63, looking at the box there were a lot of functions (TV, Radio, MP3, Dual SIM card) AND they were giving a 2Gb memory upgrade to go with it.
Eating dog has been a part of many cultures for hundreds, even thousands of years. If you were starving, not 'starving' in the Western sense of the word (hungry), but starving in the real sense of the word (as in you are going to die) and Fido was sitting in the corner chewing a bone he'd buried last year. Wouldn't you be looking at Fido and seeing a big lump of delicious, life saving, dog meat? Dog meat, sorry Fido, would be straight in the pot.
And so there I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Northern China, filming in the Hindi movie Chandni Chowk To China and I was handed the menu - Dog Meat - right there on the menu. The Chinese lady says to me "Do you eat dog?" with a sly smile knowing Westerners don't eat dog.
Here I took a photo of the menu with dog meat, I didn't take a photo of the dog meat, but I did take a pic of the menu...
A couple of months ago we had an armed robber hold the girl in the apartment next to mine at gun point and try to rob her. She screamed, which awoke me and alerted some other residents.
As soon as I heard the scream I jumped up out of bed, ran to the door and heard Ski, the apartment owner call "Stop him." I knew something was up.
Dressed only in red boardshorts I raced dopwnstairs to find a Thai guy struggling with one Thai resident and Ski, the American owner helping. I pushed them both out of the way and...
No, just my ordinary everyday life. On top of catching the armed burglar at our apartment the other week, this week I foiled though did not apprehend, a rapist....
First the ASEAN summit disrupted in Pattaya, with the Japanese, Chinese, SIngapore and New Zealand heads of state barricaded in their luxury hotels. The Australian Prime Minister turned his flight around mid way and went home. Abhisit, the current Thai Prime Minister had his car assaulted and the rear window smashed.
Now Army Tanks and fully armed soldiers are in the streets of Bangkok trying to quell the civil unrest. About 100,000 protestors have blocked traffic for days and the Bangkok Municipal Council has cancelled Thai New Year festivities that were due to start today...
Today walking up my street I found an old lady selling Betel Nut (well technically it is Areca Nut wrapped in Betel Leaf), a natural stimulant found Asia.
I recognised the Betel Nut for what it was from my trip to Myanmar about 2 years ago where every 10 meters on every street in the main city area of Yangon is someone sitting at a small booth selling Betel Nut in a variety of mixes for different flavour.
Previously I tried Betel Nut there in Myanmar but got no high out of it so today I jumped at the chance to try it again. So in Thai I asked the old lady "How much", her reply "10 baht" about 30 cents so out came the spare change and I walked off the happy new owner of...
Do It Yourself Betel Nut Kit
Why? Well Betel Nut is a stimulant, said to be as strong as coffee but also addictive, to me that sounds not quite right.... reading up on the customs and talking to people with 1st hand experience with Betel Nut chewers it sounds like it must be a lot stronger than coffee...
In fact it sounds an awefully lot like after chewing for prolonged periods you get a Betel Nut high...
I just realised that I have not done a blog on most bloggers favourite subject - "my blog: my life is so boring I am going to blog on what I ate today"
Yes I am being rude, but really as a blogger who cares what you had for breakfast.... what? OK then, your mum cares but we don't....
...so I am going to blog (very little) about what I ate, do a mini review of the excellent and long standing German restaurant Bei Otto (Bangkok Branch) and then do my typical rant that some find interesting/entertaining/annoying...
Political and civil unrest have been prevalent throughout Bangkok now for over a week with parliment house blockaded and the Government meeting in a different location.
A State Of Emergency has been called several days ago and the military put on standby.
Will this turn into another coup like the 2006 coup ...
Alright Saturday night - night when people with real jobs go out and get drunk!
What is Conan doing? What is there to do in Bangkok on a Saturday night - actually that has to be one of the dumbest questions of all time - you can do ANYTHING....
Yes it's that time of year - Thai New Year - and what a good / bad time it is depending upon your mood.
This year it has been officially sanction as a 3 day holiday by the Government, great if you are a Thai or into reliving that lost childhood bad news if you have a business to run and want to get down to work.
You see all of Thailand (except Pattaya that is a special circumstance) goes into a 3 day water fight frenzy...
Flicking though TV stations while waiting bored in a hotel room I recently saw an episode of the Biggest Loser - it's the TV show where 'teams' of obese people compete against other teams to lose the most fat each week. I good loss in a week is about 6lbs, which is 3kg.
Well in the last 6 days I lost 13kg which is 28.6lbs!!!
Want to know the 'magic' supplement that caused this massive weight loss?
Got a stomach bug in Cambodia, been vomiting with bad diahoreea for days, the vomiting has now stopped but I feel light headed, somewhat dizzy and my guts hurt - not to mention I am off to the toilet every 1/2 hour at best.
Following on the success of Air Asia's cheap 99 Baht ($3) Airfare deals - I am flying to Phnom Penh tomorrow for 4 days.
I plan oh heading down to the coastal town of Sihanoukville and seeing the place before all the International resorts and hotel chains build there (many have already bought land).
Also I will be meeting with representatives of Film Cambodia to check out hte current capabilities of the incountry crews and equipment availability and to form friendships for future working relationships.
Plus I will be taking time to examine the city in more detail as an ex-pat, accomodation, gym, supermarkets, food availability, etc.
And I will be catching up with a few friends I have made over my last few visits.
Happy New Year, I don't know why the Thais use the English word happy but that is generally what we foreigners hear.
Either that or the string of 500 exploding firecrackers let off in the car park of our apartment complex at 7am followed by yokels laughing and children screaming....
At 5am tomorrow morning I get up to go to Yangon in Myanmar (used to be called Rangoon, Burma) for a 3 day 'holiday' trip to visit a very good friend and to partake in the Australia Day celebrations held by the Australian Embassy to which I have scored an invite.
Seeing how there is very limited mobile phone coverage, patchy internet coverage and NO ATM machines in Myanmar I probably won't be posting any articles while I am away, but I am back on Sunday so I'll have a travel video shortly thereafter and a travel article with many photos.
Last week I was on my way to TOT, the major telephone company in Thailand to drop off some papers to get ADSL connected at my apartment, I called a friend who lives next door to the TOT office and asked if she would like to go to lunch. Turns out she was at the bank paying her mortgage, just up the road from my place, so I asked the taxi driver to stop and wait for a minute as she crossed the road.
Next thing I know Bangkok Police are hassling us for "prostitution" and trying to take an "on the spot fine"...
With English as a 3rd or 4th language to many Thai people it is not surprising when you get some rather interesting spellings. Even road signs and street names are spelt differently in Anglicized letters by the government officials.
So on the menu at a restaurant the other day in Pattaya I was hardly surprised to see the following offered on the menu...
Yesterday I returned from my holiday to Phnom Penh.
Holiday in Cambodia? Didn't I just go on a holiday to Koh Samui and Koh Pang Nan?
Well one of the 'benefits' of living in Thailand is that you often have to travel out of Thailand everytime you need to change your visa, work permit? Yep, leave the country. You're married to a Thai? Yep, leave the country every 3 months. You want to extend your holiday? Yep, leave the country.... you get the idea.
So looking for a benefit in every occurance in life I turn my Visa Run into a holiday, this time in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia almost 1 year from my last trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Last week I headed down to Koh Samui to catch up with an old friend (well young friend I have known for a while) and then we headed over to Koh Pang Nan for a few days chilling out on the beach.
Koh Pang Nan was very similar to last time I visited 3 years ago, a quiet island geared to backpackers more so than holiday makers.
Thai Porn, it is everywhere in Thailand. In the streets you can see Thai porn, in schools you can see Thai porn, even in government you can see Thai porn.
Yet pornography is illegal in Thailand. What is going on?
