Travels in Thailand

Despite my wife’s fears my trip to Cambodia was a lot of fun. I took the trip with two British Guys – Tim from England and Andy from Scotland plus Jon from Omaha. We left Bangkok in a rented van around 1:00 PM Saturday and arrived at the border crossing around 5:00 PM.

We had no major problems getting into Cambodia mainly because we were willing to pay the price that the border guards preferred. Officially, the cost of the visa to enter Cambodia is about $25.00, but in order to actually get into the country I ended up paying about $50.00. The thing that stood out was that each border guard we ran into also wanted a “fee” for his service.

We did have one hitch though. Poipet is really just a gambling town but the casinos are located inside the border zone. We crossed through the zone and into Poipet itself and had a beer. When we went back to the Casinos we were stopped by Cambodian border guards who took our passports. They said that we had to leave the passports with them and they would give us photocopies in order to check into the hotel in the casino/border zone.

Tim and Andy are used to dealing with the border guards and refused to give up their passports. However, the guards were insistent. After a while Tim asked how much money it would take to fix the problem. Suprisingly, the guards said no money that this was a new rule.

At this point I was beginning to imagine being stuck in Cambodia without my passport. But, Tim stuck it out and came up with a compromise. We would keep our passports, but come back in the morning so they could process our passports once again. The guards relented and we headed for the hotel.

We weren’t quite out of the woods though. When we got to hotel we found out it was fully booked. So we went to another hotel and found it was booked as well. A trip to a third hotel was not successful either. Tim became a little suspicious and decided to lead us back to the first hotel. He asked if a more “expensive” room was available and sure enough it was. Tim, Andy, and I decided to split the cost of the room and that was that. The hotel room itself was quite nice clean, spacious, and modern.

After dinner we started our night of gambling. We spent most of time at the baccarat tables. I actually had a lot of fun and while I did lose a little money it was only about $30.00. We continued playing till around 3:00 AM before heading back for the room.

As far Poipet itself I will let the pictures so the talking. But I will say it was not as bad as I had read.

 Click on a picture to open the slideshow and see the captions.

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry some of the ex-pats and Thai staff decided to escape Bangkok for the weekend and went to the beach at Hua Hin. Some went down on Friday and others, including me, went on Saturday. The group was split between two resorts, both of which were very nice.

Our hotel had a lot of German and other European guests. I know this is a little cheeky coming from an American, but many of the Europeans were quite large and they all seemed to be wearing speedos. In a way you have to admire them. It takes courage to say “I don’t care how fat I am - I’m going to wear a thong”.

I spent some time with Lisa, Vera, and Sonia at the swim up bar drinking delicious margaritas. Afterwards everyone piled into taxis and headed for a seafood restaurant (This was when we saw the “motor cycle gang”). As usual, the food was delicious.

We met up with some friends of Sonia (who is a friend of Lisa’s) and after dinner headed for the night market, It was hot and crowded. But, we found an interesting street side bar. It looked like someone bought a used stand, went to the liquor store, and then set up shop on the streets Hua Hin. Nonetheless, they made an excellent Mai Tai.

Our next stop was a bar near the Hilton and we got there by motorcycle Taxis and by Tuk Tuk. I decided to switch to drinking water, but two of Sonia’s friends were pilots and pilots love Jaegermeister, which they made everyone drink. Next came barefoot dancing, pilot stories, and more Jaegermeister.

Finally, we called it quits and took the last Tuk Tuk for the hotel. All in all it was a lot of fun.    

 

To escape the curfew in Bangkok some of the ex-pats decided to take a trip to the beach at Hua Hin. After dinner we were in a taxi headed for the night market in the city. We were waiting for a traffic light when we were suddenly surrounded by about ten motorcycles.

OK, this next part is the gospel truth – the oldest driver was about 12 years old. A lot of the passengers were even younger. I was kind of shocked and asked the other ex-pats what they thought. They pretty much agreed with my assessment. The light turned green and off they went. I will say they looked like they knew how to ride. Oh well!

 

 

I took a motorcycle taxi to make the 5:00 PM ex-pat beer call at Coyotes. The taxi ride was both extremely convenient and exhilarating at the same time. Traffic jams are not  normally a hindrance to a Thai motorcycle driver. If the traffic is at a standstill the driver has lots of options - you can go between lanes, weave around cars and buses, or simply use the sidewalk. We were rarely more than 1 foot from a car or bus or pedestrian, and sometimes my knees actually brushed a vehicle.

After beer call I decided to go get a massage - the decision is easier after four beers. The massage was a therapeutic one and was of the full pressure, deep tissue variety. I won't say I was in pain for sixty minutes - maybe only 40 minutes. However, I do feel more relaxed.

Video from Discover Thailand - http://www.thai-discovery.com/

Last night was the first night of the government imposed curfew - 8:00 PM till 6:00 AM. Tonight they have eased it a bit and it will be 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM.  It’s strange to think I could be arrested simply for stepping outside for a walk, but that is my reality at the moment. I believe the last night of the curfew will be this Saturday - I hope.

It seems there was much less violence in the city today and I could not see any fires. But, I don’t think we are out of the woods yet. I was actually able to walk around a bit today, it was quiet but about half of the shops were closed.My life feels like it is on hold and my world is about five blocks big in any direction. Not having a functioning public transportation system means walking everywhere. I could use a taxi but you can’t predict if they will be willing to take you where you want to go or if you can find a return fare.

Fortunately, everything I need is within my little world. We keep waiting for the political situation to resolve itself but it just drags on.My spirits are good and I can’t really complain.  I am actually in a good situation and my fellow ex-pats are very friendly and supportive. I will be glad to get back to work, hopefully very soon.  Despite the problems I am happy to be here and grateful for this fascinating experience.

I am not really sure how to begin to describe today. But here goes- I got to work around 7:30 AM and almost immediately found out the office was being closed due to the military crackdown on the red shirts. So, I headed back for my apartment and saw a huge plume of black smoke coming from the Rama IV road area about one and a half kilometers to the south of my hotel (pictures in previous post).

The Thai military had made a big push earlier in the morning to get the protesters out of parts of central Bangkok, but the redshirts began setting fire to the tire barricades they built. You can see pictures of the fire in this blog. Apparently, the fighting was pretty heavy at Lumpini Park and we don’t really have a good idea yet of the number of casualties.

Ms. V again graciously invited the ex-pats to her home and as I arrived we noticed numerous large fires burning around the city. Soon we found out that the Sheraton Hotel near Asok BTS station was on fire. That got my attention because that hotel is two blocks or so from my apartment. I decided to head back and get my passport and a change of clothes in case my apartment building became an arsonist’s target.

As I left the hotel to go back to the ex-pat gathering I saw Micah and he pointed to the Asok intersection where we saw a tire barricade that had been set on fire – it was probably 150 yards away. Micah said some redshirts drove a pickup truck full of tires dumped them on the intersection and then set them on fire. We decided to return to Ms. V’s immediately. She lives on the same street as the current Prime Minister and there were a large number of riot police putting on their armor and weapons as we approached her house. We quickly hurried past them.

The rest of the afternoon I spent holed up with the ex-pats, eating barbecue and playing poker.  Ms V. beat us handily but I did manage to come in at second place. We had to leave early because the Thai government has issued a curfew and we had to be inside by 8:00 PM. Fortunately, my hotel was still standing and I made it safely back.

It is stunning to see the Bangkok streets empty. Most all shops are closed and even the lights at Soi Cowboy are turned off. I am afraid that the situation is far from over and we will not be at work tomorrow. Let’s hope for less turbulent times very soon.

See a map of the fires (and me).

The head of our office in Bangkok (we shall call her Ms. V) very graciously invited the ex-pats to her home on Monday. I think she was concerned about keeping us from doing anything stupid and going to see the barricades.  Ms. V offered us a delicious southwestern style buffet and I did pig out a bit. We had a pleasant time but we did get a glimpse of the smoke from the tire fires to the west.

It seems that Monday was a bit of a stalemate between the redshirts and government forces.  It is often difficult to get accurate information and there are lots of rumors flying around. The best I can tell is that there is a lull in the fighting, unfortunately, I simply do not know if it is getting better or worse.

The good news :
No fighting in my area - it has been quiet today. 
The bad news :
We will probably have our first curfew tonight - the Thai government announced it today, the only problem is they did not mention the time we need to be back in our snuggy beds - sigh. I am going out to eat with Micah tonight - I hope the army let's us finish our supper !

It's pretty difficult to get around the city - our only real source of transportation now are taxi's but the drivers have gotten pretty skittish. Micah and I took a taxi to Carrefour's today with no problem - because it is in the direction opposite from the hot zone, but when we tried to get back three taxi drivers refused to drive us back. We told them we wanted to go to Sukhumvit Soi 18 which is where Micah lives. Micah and I talked about it and decided to try and convince one to take us to Soi 23 where I live. This time we got lucky and got home.
Until things quiet down I will have to think twice about going anywhere not in walking distance.