Random Aprilness

Week #1

April Fools Day. Midday. It is too hot to be outside. Having picked up my cleaned laundry, I abandon plans and return to the hotel stopping only to pickup fluids at the Family Mart across the street. But in the lobby I'm already sweating hard and if I slug my way through the convection oven of the fifth floor I'll be soaked through and through before I can get in the room and divest myself of clothing.

So in an attempt to cool down my core temperature I sit in the lobby with one of the floor fans pointed straight at me. I have no reading material, and while there are newspapers, magazines and books to be found in the lobby it is too difficult to read and I'm not in a mood for a struggle. Therefore I sit crosswise across the comfy plush chair, head in the fan, and stare into the mildly active alley way.

An older man, who would later identify himself as Robert Forrester . This was my spelling, he never spelled it. The name sounded familiar - which is probably why I remembered it - and later a search on the internet would turn up Robert Forster, an actor I am aware of.

This person had been in various positions of government for most of life, and had story telling abilities to rival Lloyd (and those that know, know that is not a statement to be used casually.) We ended up talking for hours. I had that old feeling I had once before where someone's views and experience just seemed to parallel mine in too points. The previous case was back in Hyannis in the mid 80s. I had become certain that that person was lying, taking my lead, but when pressed on details his story had checked - even knowing the name of the Dean of in the little school of Nasson.

Forrester went to college in Boston (BC), was an economics major (back when it was more of a science than even when I went to school), got into computers back when you had to assemble them yourself and program with toggle switches or a soldering iron (sound familiar.) Didn't play well with others, so went into private consulting.

From there we diverge completely, he getting involved with the government and traveling all over the world.

He has stints and a machine regulating his heart, massive burns on his leg and other signs of war.

But what got me most, was we quickly got to discussing the economy as both our interests are there, and it has been a very economically scary week. He clearly had more detailed and probably some inside information than I did. He beat me to the punch of blaming this all on being set in motion by Johnson and Nixon.

I asked if he thought there was any way that hyperinflation could be avoided or was it unavoidable to happen by 2012? He said he'd be surprised if it could be held off beyond 2009. He also brought up the added pressure of starvation caused by bio-fuel. This was a subject I wanted to type about previously but it looks like it is becoming mainstream news before I could fully research it - Fox News anyway.

We talked about lots of other things and I really wish my short term memory worked better because very little of it stuck, but I remember being captivated.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Robert is dying as well. While he was in Thailand on business it was also part of his slowing down and enjoying life. He had lots of thoughts on being open to whatever the universe has left to offer. And when he got on the subject, tangentially, of charity it struck a chord in me as I have been feeling purposeless; like I am doing little besides taking up time and resources. This idea would be given traction in just a couple of days.

One thing that also stood out in my mind was his take on Thai haggling. To me haggling, which has once something I enjoyed, was just a pain in the ass here. As Jim had said to me - no matter how hard he haggled he always felt like he got ripped off. To me the prices of most items are so incredibly cheap compared to home that haggling just feels both cheap and exploitive. To Robert, the Thais love haggling, they love getting to know people and haggling is about getting in the head of the negotiator. From that point on I have haggled - still not very well - with a smile on my face and no thoughts of wasted time.

I bumped into Robert again the next day, at which time we made plans for having breakfast the following day but apparently just missed each other in the lobby.

I gave him my email address upon his request when we met up for the final time as I was returning with Ooy and he was waiting for a taxi to the airport. He said he would email when he touched down, but it did not happen. I don't whether he lost the card, or couldn't make out my ampersand which I never was very good at is now unreadable. Or maybe he, like me, is largely out of sight out of mind.

I don't have much connection with Holidays. Every once in a while I would get invested in a Christmas - maybe one in three - and I would have gotten into Thanksgiving if I wasn't always on the road that day of the year. But I can't remember having a relationship with anyone that cared about Valentine's Day - I guess I attract or require that type of person. Other people's birthdays are more important to me than my own, and those require effort to keep in mind - even when the mind kept things easier.

I have no religious holidays to celebrate. I try to remember Mother's Day because - well you damned well better remember Mother's Day.

I am often surprised to find out it is a holiday and then have to find out which holiday.

But April Fools Day has always held a special place in my heart. It is a very Discordian holiday, if such a thing existed. I use to plan elaborate pranks, but rarely had the drive or attention to act on them. Still the planning and in my college days the enactment was always a special favorite activity to me.

The last several years April Fools Days has slipped by unnoticed. This year was sadly no different as my last one slipped passed me and I wasn't aware of it until it was mentioned on the news. And thanks to the International Dateline that was the next day.

There is something depressing about spending April Fools Day with no one to even think about playing a good practical joke on. I was spared this bothering me, by not knowing what day it was. But the next day I did not want to sleep alone.

Now, should I go back to Pucket with whom I did not really feel that all comfortable or brave the unknown chaos of a new bar?

For those that know me now, that isn't really a question. I even subconsciously followed the same ritual. I walked toward the bar, didn't see Pucket and passed on without breaking stride to Khrams, where I chatted with Eed and drank an Iced Coffee.

Afterward, mentally prepared and pretty much dry I went back to the bar. Not wanting a repeat of the head pounding annoyance of shifting stools, I chose a stool on the far side this time; nothing behind me but wall.

The women that hadn't left me and Pucket alone last time, took position in front of me behind the bar. I ordered a Heineken and looked around for Pucket. Not seeing her I resorting to asking about her. Out with another gentlemen.

I nursed my beer and worked at keeping a smile on my face despite the pounding music. She asked if I liked any of the other girls? The two I had wanted the other night were still here. I pointed to one. She attempted to get her attention, but this girl was clearly not interested and studiously didn't hear us.

What the hell, I try for the other one. She comes right over. It's the eyes that have me hooked. Like Jeab, she looks like is really in there. She seems to be genuinely enjoying herself. Turns out that she has only been working in Pattaya for three weeks. (At first I assumed this to be a story, but it seems to hold up to scrutiny.)

Of course this meant she spoke almost no English. But then I speak almost no Thai.

My goal is a beer bar is to get out as fast as humanly possible. This is bad form, both from a polite and financial point of view. They want you spend as much money as they can get you to spend, and the girl is deciding whether she wishes to go with you as much as you are decided about her. In my mind I can make that decision tomorrow, I just want to get away from the music, noise and flashing lights.

I do my best to take my time. I ask her her name - my ears can not figure it out. I buy her a drink and she comes around to my side of the bar and becomes part of my side. Bubbly, giggling and affectionate she bounces to the mostly eighties music (I remember 'Eye of the Tiger') while looking at me with the best simulation of wide-eyed attraction I have ever experienced.

Despite my talk with Robert, I can't haggle in a beer bar, I can barely think in that cacophony. And 250 baht for a bar fine seems in line with the low end of what the internet has instructed me to expect anyway. I pay: 405 baht with drinks (her and mine) and she goes behind the bar gets her stuff, goes through the bar girl version of high fiving with her compatriots and off we go out of the noise of the bar and into the din of the street.

She instantly grabs my hand. I haven't been big in the handholding; suddenly I'm fine with it.

Back at the hotel there are a couple of striking differences with (my vast <g>) past experiences. One she is hot when we enter the room. Other than in direct sunlight I have not heard one Thai complain about the heat.

When the room eventually reaches 26 Celsius she does not complain and seems comfortable. She does avoid the fan, but even I find direct air flow from the fan uncomfortable when the air conditioner gets up to speed. This makes me think she comes recently from Northern Thailand.

Previously there had been very little nudity - very shy in terms of body image I had come to expect. I had managed to get Jeab in the shower with me the first day, but she had practically worn the towel into the shower and clearly was not comfortable (at the time I thought it was temperature issue.)

This was not the case here. Hopped in the shower as soon as I got the concept across. And, later after drying, strode around the room naked, proud as a peacock.

Getting the concept of why I wasn't having sex with her proved pretty much impossible, and it appeared that her feelings were hurt. She though I wanted her to leave. I countered that. After that the cuddling was great. Other than Tracy, I can't remember someone I was just so comfortable just being with. It should probably bother me that that is with someone I can barely communication with - but I'm trying to limit that sort of self-enfacement this late in the game.

Eventually my shoulder forced me to turn over and rather than pull in close back to back she took it as a sign to shift away. I had trouble falling asleep after that.

I don't clearly recall the events of the following day, but somewhere in there we went to Royal Garden and I bought an English-to-Thai/Thai-to-English dictionary. I had previously bought a English-to-Thai dictionary for 55 baht at the same store, but it's tiny print was what had sparked the search for the magnifier glass. The fuller version was 425 baht and slightly too large to be carried comfortable on my person. But it was readable and useful.

We sat on the beach and slowly constructed sentences. Had I discovered the phonetics section that I would find a few days later this would have been much easier but still slow. I got across the idea of my dying and why it wasn't an insult to resist her advances.

One of the things I learned was that she was going to visit one of her children on the 7th outside of Bangkok. I offered to keep her until then. The thousand kilowatt beaming face got even brighter. I melted a little.

Also at some point I had her enter her phone number in my cell phone and spell out her name. She typed in Ooy. If pressed I would have said something along the idea of 'Re-ice,' not even close. Later Robert would ask her her name and got it right off. So it is a combination of my hearing, brain damage and phonemes I guess.

But I've learned to count to seven with only a slight pause to get my words organized. And except when I reverse the last two syllables I get 'Saa Wat Dee' correct half the time.

Remember the market across from R-Con? I have brought a few tangible items there (like an alarm clock for my last Visa run) but between the humidity generated by the mass of humanity and the almost complete lack of fellow farang I hadn't been able to make myself order any food there.

As unenticing as the cart of bugs out front is, there was some tasty looking treats within but having no way of knowing what I was ordering I looked but did not order.

Now, armed with Ooy I gave her 300 baht and tried to get across the idea of 'get dinner for us, I have no idea what'.  And gestured that I would be over in the dishes and silverware section. BTW: I have not seen paper plates for sale or in use anywhere.

While I bought a couple platters, a couple bowls and two sets of tablespoons and forks (this is the traditional eating utensils: folks and tablespoon. I had a hell of a time finding a knife back in my cheese phase.): 65 baht haggled down from 80.

I didn't see Ooy when I was done so I went through the various vendor rows looking for her. When I emerged I saw her where I said I was going to be. She giggled at me.

Her bag did not look very big and we had some confusion over whether it was just for her or for both of us (her answering yes for both scenarios.) Eventually I looked through the bag which essentially contained a salt crusted fish and some sauces. Back into the vendors we went. Using a designation system of Spicy, Spicy spicy, Mai Spicy and No I picked out two additional bags of food.

Oh, and she gave me the change! She really is new at this. I am use to any money coming into view vanishing in a noticeable 'poof' of displaced air.

On the short walk back to the hotel we stopped to buy bags of pineapple, watermelon and cantaloupe from a roaming cart. Another cart, two containers of fresh squeezed orange juice. Lastly we stopped at Family Mart for water. Still about 60 baht left from my 300 including dishware!

Back in the room, the computer was still on the bed where I had had the mistaken idea that it might be easer to type there. This made is very easy to move the few remaining pieces from the desk and turn the whole thing sideways - this made easy by the fact that it is made out of something like paper or balsa wood and has very little weight to it.

Ooy cleaned the dishes and then laid everything out in a logical fashion as you see to the left. That's the picked clean skeleton of a fish dead center of the table. Only the tail and head (and not all of that) remain. Next to it is the bag of lettuce, bean sprouts and lime that come with almost everything. There was the ubiquitous (wow, spelled right on the first try) rice, something that looks like croutons but tastes halfway between pork and pork rinds. And lord knows what my main dish was, but it sure was tasty.

And that 20 baht (60 cents) buys around 16oz of truly fresh squeezed orange juice, still blows my mind.

Afterward Ooy tidied and cleaned up everything. The appeal of the 'rented wife' begins to more thoroughly dawn on me. Part of my mind begins to work on whether I can afford to keep her for my remaining time here.

But how safe is this part of the world ? Well the sad fact of life is that nowhere in the world can be guaranteed to be safe from the effects of nature or humans. And that probably includes where YOU are living right now.

But it seems that ordinary people have decided that if they are going to be blown up, blown over, flooded, or die of bird 'flu then it can happen at home as well as abroad and they might as well have a bit of fun first.

And there's no place better to go than Pattaya if you seek fun.

www.divingthailand.com

Okay, I admit that to the left is a lousy picture even by my standards. I took four shots at it, but there is no position in the room to get the full view.

In the room the short corridor (behind Ooy in the feast picture above) dumps out in the bedroom proper. Circling that is a square ring, one end of which you see in this picture. I assume with far certainty that this is the air conditioning duct. Why it goes in a circle with only one vent? I do not know.

How do I know it is all vent? That I can answer.

For the last few days we have been entertained by the sound of some animal running around in circles, running into the sides, electrical cords, what sounds like a metal coat hanger and whatever else might be up there. Occasionally it would shift to the corridor and at times find a slightly lower sounding position near the door. I assume it could get elsewhere as it would vanish for long periods of time. If fact it was very good about going away when we were ready for sleep.

The first night I was picturing a large rat. The second night it seemed like there was more activity and it sounded bigger. While I have seen lots of dogs here I have no seen a single cat (Siamese Cat not withstanding) but I have seen ferrets. So I pictured a ferret was now chasing the rats. Round and round, with the occasional very loud thump as the something went head long full speed into the end of a vent.

The next morning I have Ooy mention it to the maid. I got the impression the maid agreed there would be no charge for this entertainment. It is a logical but still weird feeling that I can use Ooy for communication and yet not be able to extract any useful information of what just transpired.

That afternoon, while we are hiding from the midday sun,  all hell breaks loose up there. I can only picture that they have used a coyote to catch the ferret. It feels at turns highly comical, sad because while whatever it is seems very energetic in reality the thing must be slowly starving (unless it really is living on rats (I have not seen a rat in Pattaya) or has a way in and out) and annoying.

The door bell rings, I am expecting it to be the restocking of the mini-bar, but it is maintenance, installing a missing nozzle clamp on a hose I never use in the bathroom. One guy to do the work and the lady I think of as second in charge to watch him. There is of course no noise from the 'coyote/ferret off' now when I need it, but I start making gestures and Ooy leaps in and fleshing out the details in Thai.

I try to help when I feel the conversation is going off track. In truth my big concern is neither for the noise or the animal, but for the possibility of the smell of humid roasting ferret in the ventilation system of my room.

After they left I tried to find out what was said. Ooy used the dictionary to show me 'capture' and 'tonight.'

I've heard a couple of noises since, but they could have been anything, so i think they were true to their words.

Ever since R-Con I have been holding on to a flier for one of their projects. Vela Casa, which is out on Naklua Road and an unbelievable 4900 baht per month for what looks like everything you could want in a hotel.

Pete had mentioned that it was very possible but that it was probably more out of the way than the map made it seem and that would account for the price.

So we take a baht bus down Second Road past Central Pattaya Road and into new territory heading to South Pattaya Road.

Beach and Second Road come together here at a small rotary in the middle of which is a statue of two intertwined dolphins. On the other side of the rotary are two more roads, one of which is Nuklua Road.

After a brief pop into a convenience store, both for iced coffee and to make positive I had identified which of the two was Nuklua correctly, we headed into the adventure of crossing the rotary. The trick appears to be to have the Buddhist belief that if you die - hey you learned something from the experience. It also helps to have a guide pulling you this way and that.

Thankfully the baht busses run on Nuklua. I wasn't sure and that would have ended our trip right short.

At this point the map I have gets vague. Our last landmark is Soi 14 (and it is not easy to see a road sign from the traveling baht bus) and it is eventually after that. There is Soi 10. Now Soi 12. Okay Soi 14 is that light. Now if we see Prosit Road on the other side we have gone too far.

A huge billboard appears: future site of Vela Casa. We get out and walk down the alley in the direction of the arrow. There is the sound of construction but no sign that this thing is more than barely started. Hopefully that is a second or third building. Ooy talks to a construction worker and pulls me confidently further up Nuklua.

I'd have never found this without her, I remember thinking.

We find another billboard at the start of a gated community with no one watching the open gate. we walk down that road which quickly splits into several with no indicator of where to go. Ooy talks for a long time with another person on the street and we grab another baht bus to another intersection, and walk a long way down that main road. I am now fully sure we are no where near where we want to be. Finally I get the idea to have Ooy use my cell phone to call the number on the brochure.

Now, I am still not sure what was said, but I'm pretty sure that that first site was the correct place and that the project ('finished Feb 2008, show rooms available now' as the billboard back at R-Con proclaimed) was that slab of concrete we first encountered.

Either way we walked back to Nuklua and took a baht bus back to familiar terrain.

At the circle we stayed on the bus and as I hoped it continued on to Beach road. We road down to Royal Plaza. I took Ooy to the third floor food court. As expected she stuck to the Thai section for food selection. I think she would have been happier at the market, but it is really hard to tell. 

A shave is simple pleasure of life I had forgotten. Shaves became either illegal or prohibitively expensive by way of insurance in Massachusetts during the great AIDS overreaction of the late eighties. Prior to that I had enjoyed getting a shave at the barber shop. Here I get one every three or four days.

Whether it is a full haircut, trim and shave or just a shave, 3 minutes or an hour, it is 80 baht. The guy does npt say much but seems to understand exactly what you are saying. Or at least I always get what I ask for.

Ooy goes back to wherever she lives every few days for new clothes. I tried to get her to bring her bathing suit and it took two trips for me to comprehend that she doesn't own one. So when we were downtown, having just picked up the Thai-to-English-English-to-Thai dictionary that would make our time together much more interesting, we stopped at the market for a bathing suit. She picked a surprisingly demure slack and white striped one piece. Very reasonably priced.

It is written that Thailand has three seasons:

• Hot

• Hot and Humid

• Hot and Wet

We are currently between the second and the third.

As much as the recent economic meltdown was narrowly averted by the intervention of J. P. Morgan (that's the second time they have saved our collective bacon) and the Fed, I am seeing more and more signs. Partly this is because such things aren't as filtered out here overseas (possibly ever amplified) and I think because it is becoming too obvious that hyperinflation (or at least a drastic correction is coming.

Still it chilled me to actually see this in print:

"Meanwhile, some middle east countries are saying aloud for the first time that they may price oil in currencies other than the US dollar, which could give momentum to a further sell off.

As it is my contention that oil (and to a much lesser degree cocaine) being priced in dollars is the only thing left holding up the value of the dollar at all (since it is backed in nothing but the US intention to pay and our collective public and private debts are now greater than the annual gross domestic product) I have thought of this as the final capper to hyperinflation. The thought that it could happen as the instigator would move up the deadline for hyperinflation considerably. Then again the long term date was 2012 which is only four years away anyway, so I guess it shouldn't scare me as much as it does.

I think I've been hoping I'm wrong, but more and more, especially with the added view of being outside the US, I have come to know I'm right.

Armed with cap and sunglasses and much later in the day, I return to the blinding swimming pool, Ooy in tow.

There is a family of two farang males, one Thai woman and six children. There is a lot of screaming but in a low enough pitch not to bother me.

A storm is coming and that makes it overcast and quite enjoyable. I swim with the sunglasses on.

Ooy takes with the woman, I talk with one of the men. It is very relaxing and one of those moods of peace descends on me. I didn't think I could have one of those with kids around.

Lightning strikes several miles away, and we keep some of our attention on that. Not sure of the physics of a hotel top pool in a lightning storm, but it probably isn't good.

At one point I mime for Ooy to move our belongings under the gazebo as it feels like it could pour at any time. She takes this as a gesture for us to leave, and I find it smarter and easier to follow this idea than try to correct it.

Ooy and I went to dinner at Tops - which is technically a grocery store, but also has two food courts in it. I had tried to go to the bigger more separated one on my own one time, but found it too confusing and left. This time I had planned on going to the one that is plopped in the middle of the fruit and bread section, but it looked like that area had just closed when we arrived.

So we went to the other end.  We split in different directions to order. This time she got food for both of us, and I got food for me (generalizing from the few Thai women (3?) I have eaten with, they don't experiment much - so I wouldn't try to order for her.) leading to too much food. Luckily I only got two slices of pizza, and the portions of her picks were small - so we didn't waste much.

This food court has some strange coupon system of payment. I still made no sense of it, but I've learned you can ignore trying and eventually someone will tell you want and how to pay. In this case, that person was Ooy who seemed to be familiar with the whole thing.

On the walk to Tops (far corner of 2nd and Central) we passed front after front of fruit stores. There were the usual fruits: pineapples, watermelon, papaya, apples, oranges - but also tons of fruits I have not seen or tried. So on the way back I was in an experimenting mood and with Ooy's help was able to get one of the market clerks to give us a bag of single fruits.

The one on the top right turns out to be a mango, they just have a slightly different color here, and oh so ripe and juicy.

Okay - lower left, the little one. It has a casing like an egg shell only the slightest bit more fibrous. It peels just like a hard boiled egg. Inside is a translucent low sugar grape like fruit. It is not at all bitter and with a texture very hard to describe. At the center is a hard purple seed about the size of a large raisin.

The big red leafy thing is peeled to reveal the white with black specks about on consistency of an almost ripe pear: juicy but firm. At first bite I did not like this (Ooy had given it an enthusiastic 'aloy' (pronounced like ahoy but with an 'l', meaning 'I like'. The word is only used for food.)) but it quickly grew on me.

Slightly bitter, sort of pear meets grapefruit with a hint of salt.

The Hasbro ball looking thing (middle) splits easily to reveal what seems to be like and very well may turn out to actually be, a lychee nut. At it's center is an almond looking pit. I tastes pretty much like what I imagine lychee tastes like if it wasn't sitting in heavy syrup which is the only way I have ever had it. Very good.

Center right is a what looks like a plum with a hard casing and think bushy leaves on top. Inside it is segmented. It is semi-sweet. Beyond that I am at a loss to describe it's texture or taste.

Lastly is the fruit that looks like an apricot. You eat it skin and all, but it is in my mind a very close thing - any thicker and you'd be peeling the husk. It is almost exactly apricot meets mango, right down to the giant pit in the center. Very juicy. Very good.

Not a loser in the bunch. Best to worst I'd rank them: Mango,  Apricot like,  Lychee, Big Red, Plum looking, Egg Shell Grape.

It is interesting to me that, as far as I can tell, there are no negative words in Thai. There is the word 'mai' which means 'not' that seems to be used universally to create negative words. Even their word for 'no' is 'mai chai' which is literally 'not yes.'

While it could be it could be said that in English most negative words are created by adding 'un', 'in' or 'dis' but the language still has plenty of mean spirited words that stand alone.

I think this structure says a lot about the mind of the Thai people.

On the subject of language, Thai words have no strict spelling in English as their are more than twice as many letters in Thai than English. I do find it odd that 'r' is almost universally used for the 'l' sound. I can understand them not having an 'r' phoneme in their heads (given their extra letters there must be scores that I am not hearing - although you must bear in mind our language has more phonemes than letters. All our vowels for instance do double (long, short), and occasionally triple, duty. Plus there is 'th', 'sh', 'ch' and a few others that aren't products of the alphabet. 'C' has two sounds, but one is the same as 'K', etc. In the end our language has 44 phonemes.  I have been unable to find out how many Thai has, but with over 60 characters in the alphabet alone - there is a lot I am not hearing.

There is another option for buying prepared food even cheaper than the markets, and that is the carts. Carts come in two basic formats: motorized and not.

While I have seen them, I have had no interaction with the motorized carts.

The other is much like the bastardized child of a corner shop and a wheelbarrow.

I had already had experience with these in the form of the ones that sell fruit. These are great 10 baht buys you a fully peeled, deseeded and a sliced pineapple, cantaloupe, apple, watermelon, papaya or several things I do not know about. 5 bahts more nets you the more work intensive fruits like the mango.

Others specialize in sausage, jerky, dried squid and the indescribables.

Yet, others have meals, rice and noodles. One could look for hours and have no idea what you were looking at. Ooy however had no trouble ordering things, each scooped into plastic bags and sealed with rubber bands.

Back at the room, we arranged everything in the dishes we had. The table pretty much fully claimed by the computer we ate on the floor (me with a pillow under my ass.)

It doesn't show in the picture above but on the edge of my rice, is a giant deep fried grasshopper. One of the plastic bags to the left is full of fried bugs. There were surprisingly tasty but with so much food to choose from I didn't think enough of them to eat many.

While still good, I wasn't sure what I eating.

I later got a couple pictures of the bug cart which surprised me by not being a ball of glare:

I could not bring myself to try the cockroaches. Something in my midbrain completely recoils at the idea.

 The market remains my favorite. We would later eat in the restaurant in the LK block and I would discover the Ooy prefers the markets as well.

Back in the States I use to joke that Asian women did not have ages. Or at least I thought I was joking. Now I flatly state that they have four stages:

• Child

• Young

• Elder

• Ancient

From twenty to fifty there is no way to tell where in that spectrum they lay. It is truly amazing. When I met Jeab I thought she was about 22 - she has a daughter over eighteen.

Likewise Ooy. Ooy looks, seems and acts like she is in her early twenties. She is thirty three. She has two young girls. Like Jeab's two children they live separated both from their mother and each other in different cities. Jeab was in constant phone contact with one or both of them. Ooy's phone has not rung yet.

We return to the pool. Another extended family of almost the same proportions only this time the kids are up another octave.

Unwilling to be cashed away from my potential peace no matter how obvious it is I'm not going to get it (I do not change gears easily) I spend a lot of time underwater or on my back with my ears underwater. This acts a lot like the headset, I'm aware of the noise but it lowered to a pitch that does not bother me.

I don't get my peace but I do have fun and some racing with Ooy turns into fairly good exercise which my arms were literally sorely in need of.

The house building project has been delayed. This is common in Thailand - most likely not enough tea money applied to the situation to push the permits through - if such things are even needed in the villages. Regardless Ooy is going to Bangkok to see one of her children anyway. As her bus leaves early this  morning so she has slept at her place last night.

Now is my chance to scratch any American itches. And sad as that seems that foremostly means Subway.

I take the baht bus up Central Pattaya Road to Carrefour. At the base of the steps I try to take a picture, at left is the best of seven tries. The camera takes a few seconds for the flash to kick in, and every time just as the flash goes off a car would drive down (three times the wrong way) the little drive between the stairs and the building.

So you will just have to picture the front doors which are pretty much standard issue Wal-Martesque doors.

Inside I am glad I had the camera, as I could finally get a picture of the rising slidewalk.

However while I am trying to frame the shot the clerk in the framed picture shop behind me is screaming "no picture." I have no idea why they wouldn't want pictures taken, when there are security cameras everywhere, but who am I to argue. Especially when I can pretend not to understand and get three off before three security guards show up. By then the camera is already back in my pants pocket and I've looped back around toward Subway.

One deliciously American Steak and Cheese sub later I take the slidewalk up to the grocery store.

In the sushi section is a chunk of sushi grade tuna almost exactly the size and shape of a brick. It calls to me, assuring me that it's taste is worth the price tag (1800 baht). It yells as I try to pass it by and look at the other assortment of sushi options. My eyes keep wandering back to it. Logically I know that I will eat it in one sitting and that that much protein at once will hurt me. Stills it pleads with me, forcing me to flee the aisle with no sushi at all.

I can't remember failing at so many pictures on a single outing. This picture to the left was meant to show the insanity of the traffic. But just as cars would leap in front of the camera when I didn't want them, here gaps appeared just as the flash finally activated.

Still that's the view from the base of Carrefour facing the street.

 
Random Aprilness

Week #2

Those that know me, know I love to poke fun at those that mindlessly follow whatever the environmental mess du jour is.

My favorite story is when a group of environmental wack-jobs went to the ice flows and sprayed hundreds of baby seals orange. The theory here was that with their fur dyed they would be useless to the seal hunters and thus they would not kill them. The reality was that their white coat is their protection from detection by polar bears who were happy to eat every last one of them.

Less funny but more representative of this type of thought is the electric car. Now the electric car, took a single step process: burning fuel to turn a piston crank, into a two step process: burning fuel to turn a piston crank to charge a battery to turn a driveshaft. The best of these required 19% more fuel to run than the average car, not even taking into account that batteries lose some charge even when they aren't being used.

But the important point is that the car itself used no fuel, so the environmentalist felt good. And only the power plant had emissions not the car, so the driver could proudly claim his car had no emissions (as he would overlook the need to chuck the battery every two to five years for a new one.)

All over this country we have systems for separating our recyclables. Most are recombined at the landfill.

Now, I'm not down on all environmental technology, a bit of it is quite good. The hybrid car for instance, makes use of some of the wasted energy from the combustion engine and funnels back through a battery into power for the car. It also uses the battery to assist in situations where the fuel engine is most wasteful. This makes a very efficient car with little downside.

Many ideas are practical in tiny doses but used in useful quantities would be a disaster. I wonder about wind farms. No study to back me up here, but with enough wind farms pulling energy out of the air, what kind of climate control would that bring about? It is not unlike the changes to the country damming rivers caused.

Anyway, that brings us to bio-fuel. In our country the most common variety is ethanol. Now, Thailand has been running on 100% bio-fuel for its cars and trucks for years now. For it it makes sense. It has a small sized population for it's size. It has lots of farm land and lots of cheap labor to till that land by hand or animal. It can grow all the corn and soybean it wants and still have plenty of land and manpower to grow the crops it needs to live on.

Now, look at the US. Still the single biggest user of fuel, despite the huge population difference of, say, China.

The United States has barely stuck it's toe in the bio-fuel market. A hodgepodge of laws puts the required average near 5% of ethanol being in a gallon of gasoline at the pump. That average is legislated to rise as years progress.

Now 5% of our gasoline usage is a huge amount, and that requires a lot of corn. Supply and demand kicks in and the price goes up. The price of other growing produce does up as the land it would normally be in is used for corn for ethanol. This also raises the price of oil as the price of the corn has risen.

Also figure in that we don't till our land by hand or animal, we use fuel using tractors and combines.

So what is the upshot of this. Well I won't talk in projections like I usually do. I'll talk in what happened this year. We shipped much less grain to Russia than we faithfully do. No statistics yet on how many starved from that. But from African Relief we hear that 8.4 million people will starve this year due to the rise in food prices.

It is funny when the ideas are just stupid, it seems criminal when this many people die.

Of course it is also easy to poke fun rather than coming up with solutions for which I have none. But still focusing on the correct problem would certainly be a good place to start. The whole solar system is heating up, not just the Earth so I really doubt our emissions have much to do with global warming. I suspect like the global cooling fears of three decades ago we will learn in short time that this was just another fear tool to sell news and energy products. Of course, if it is just the solar system heating up (which peaked in 2005 btw) that would be a useful political tool nor could be used to sell as many products. And ideas that aren't politically or financially expedient are usually the last looked at especially even if they are the truth. 

Songkran is described in the Wikipedia partially this way:

"The most obvious celebration of Songkran is the throwing of water. People roam the streets with containers of water or water guns, or post themselves at the side of roads with a garden hose and drench each other and passersby. This, however, was not always the main activity of this festival. Songkran was traditionally a time to visit and pay respects to elders, including family members, friends and neighbors.

The throwing of water originated as a way to pay respect to people, by gently pouring a small amount of lustral water on other people’s hands or over a shoulder as a sign of respect. Among young people the holiday evolved to include dousing strangers with water to relieve the heat, since April is the hottest month in Thailand (temperatures can rise to over 100°F or 40°C on some days). This has further evolved into water fights and splashing water over people riding in vehicles.

The use of chalk (ดินสอพอง) is also very common having originated in the chalk used by monks to mark blessings.

Nowadays, the emphasis is on fun and water-throwing rather than on the festival's spiritual and religious aspects, which sometimes prompts complaints from traditionalists. In recent years there have been calls to moderate the festival to lessen the many alcohol-related road accidents as well as injuries attributed to extreme behavior such as water being thrown in the faces of traveling motorcyclists."

In Pattaya this simple festival has been corrupted by the over exuberance of us foreigners. Each year the bar was raised, first with super-soakers, then with PVC pipe and piston. Later with PVC pipe and pressure crank. Even later to using a mixture of water and ice, for a literally lethal edge. All the while the length of festival keeps lengthening so that it is now from April 13th to somewhere between the 19th and the 21st depending on whose talking.

Pressurized PVC pipe has been outlawed this year, but many (most?) laws are not seemingly enforced here. Although as of the 16th I have no yet seen or felt an ice cube, and while I have seen many plunger PVC pipes, no pressurized ones. And while I may jinks myself by saying so, I have not been chalked yet either, an event I truly wish to avoid. The soaking is annoying enough, although once you are soaked to the bone, you might as well just try to enjoy it.

The papers proudly promoted that last year Pattaya Songkran fatalities had been significantly reduced to a mere 743 people. Mostly these are motorcyclists unable to adjust to taking a rocket propelled ice cube to the head in time to avoid running into something or someone. As always, caution is the watchword.

I should have seen this coming: stealing the nomination.

Tearing party apart.

Two very simple tasks have made me disproportionately happy.

One was that I did not buy a new belt. I do have days when I have trouble keeping my pants up. Not everyday, but some. And I did consider using my knife to create my own hole. But I have done this is the past with disappointing visual results. Today it occurred to me that one of the little repair carts would probably have the right tool and I was pretty sure I could mimic adding holes.

Right in the alley off the hotel, three little rolling carts, permanently stationed. One gestures me to the unmanned one and somehow summons an old man with a crutch whose cart is must be. After settling into position, he takes the belt, reaches into a round bucket of tools that appear to have no order other than random strewning and without seeming to glance at it pulls out the correct tool.

A few pounds of tool to anvil with belt betwixt and my belt has a new hole. He gestures if I want another. What the hell I'm feeling optimistic. Total cost: 5 baht. Total time: 10 minutes from elevator to elevator. And no waste.

The second was that the remote for the iPod Speakers was becoming unreliable. However the case is sealed with subatomic screws and I have no clue what type of battery it takes. In my memory I remember thinking that where Soi Bokchao meets Central Pattaya was all watch repair shops. That's essentially as far as the belt repair cart just the other side of the square.

My memory turns out to be wrong - surprise surprise - but there is one shop with sign saying 'Watch Repair' in great big letters. Behind the counter is a young man working on repairing a watch. I show him the very tiny remote (same length as my thumb and half again as wide.)

He puts the watch carefully aside and pulls out a sub-atomic screwdriver and removes the three screws carefully putting each in their own little section of the surface. With yet another tool he carefully splits the device in half and puts the parts that fall out aside. Plucking the battery out, he pulls out a box of many small compartments (which reminds me now of Emil's garage office) and quickly finds the correct watch battery.

Deftly replacing all the small parts, he put the halves back together and tightened the tiny screws. Good as new. Cost: 80 baht (and I bet 70 to 75 was for the battery.) Time: 15 minutes.

It wasn't that getting a battery replaced is a big deal. It was just that where to do it and the actual doing of it came so easily and correctly.

Now on the flip side, it took me almost a month to find a magnifying glass. I have yet to run into what we would call a hardware store. The parts in a hardware store are broken up into other stores. So I tried all the other places one would look for a magnifying glass: drugstores, stationary shops, book stores, grocery stores. Even after finding the word 'magnifying glass' in the English to Thai dictionary, I was still striking out. Nobody looked like they had ever heard of such a thing before.

Well last night, after asking for help at Tops finding something (can't even imagine what at the moment) on a whim I asked about a magnifying glass. The clerk radioed for a clerk who dealt with farangs. She didn't know the word and I didn't have the dictionary with me, but I aped the idea of typing to read something and moving my hand back and forth between my eye and the object.

Clearly she had an idea she didn't think was right, but took my down the very aisle I was in straight to the a choice of three magnifying glasses (each labeled 'magnifier' if you should ever end up in such a situation.)

On the baht bus to Carrefour (it is farther to breakfast - I think - which is always walk unless I have the laptop with me than to Carrefour which I always take the baht bus to. Took me until today to realize that is because of the direction of the road there is no shade on the way to Carrefour.

Anyway on the bus is plastered ads for something called 'The Residence.' Cheap and luxurious it assures me and spells out enough of the details to make me think that is possible. The catch is it is in Jomtien, but appears to be on the main route which would make it that I could still get around on baht buses.

No website, but a phone number. Of course my pen - which specializes in only being on me the 98% of the time I don't need it - is back at the hotel. So intent am I on trying to burn this number into my mind that I miss the stop and have to walk back a block.

However: 086-666-7238. Sometimes the sieve can still hold some water.

I've been thinking of changing my triumvirate of books. I have to admit that Atlas Shrugged is a bit dated. Corporations and the people that lead them are not now what they were in the pioneering days. I've been thinking of replacing it with 'Fight Club.'

However it occurs to me that I have not read Fight Club; I have only seen the movie.

I do not have a top ten list of movies - while a list of the ten most horrible movies is fairly easy to compile, a list of brilliant works is very hard. There are too many genres and they can't be compared. I am however fairly certain that Fight Club would be on any such list.

And as it watches like a novel, it feels to me that I have read the book. It is possible however that as is usually the case, the movie is just a small subset of the ideas of the book, or less likely but still possible the movie takes a completely different turn from the book.

Either way, I should read it before declaring it part of my existentialism. I checked it out on Amazon today (thankfully it has the same title as the film - I wasn't 100% sure there was a book) and will be ordering it later this week when I know my new address.

Hopefully my interest in it will get me through the difficulty I am having with reading.

This segue ways  (that can't be correct but I don't have access to the internet to check) neatly into the subject of my birthday. Usually I subtly encourage people to ignore my birthday. This year, I am not to proud to beg, and all I want is simply: cash.

This brings up how to get money to me. PayPal is the only way to do this. Now most of you won't have, or know what PayPal is. This can be gotten around with the help of Mary K. I don't want to post her email address on this page (so she doesn't get tons more spam) but you can get it from me or mom. Sending money to her will get it to me. If you have or wish to setup PayPal (https://www.PayPal.com) my PayPal account is thai.bigelow@gmail.com.

No Ooy, and the urge for American food sated, I brave the market on my own. Well not the 'big' chaotic one near R-Con but the smaller one halfway between that one and the hotel. I point at a couple of items and 'yes' I would like rice and whatever that bag of liquid is. 60 baht, which I deftly haggle down to - 60 baht but she throws in a lime. Note to mom who is playing with Thai recipes: ALL Thai recipes are better with lime.

I've already forgotten what one dish was but the other was Chicken Livers with ginger, garlic and a host of vegetables you'd never think of including with Chicken Livers. Simply heavenly. I sat on my bedroom floor - pillow 'twixt me and floor - and savored the lot.

As they most often don't have the same dishes day to say, I'm hoping I can find and recognize this one again.

Ooy's delay in returning (shades of Jeab all over again) has left me putting off looking at the four places I have narrowed down to for staying for the last month.

So instead I thought I'd check out the Visa place that had an ad about being able to stay passed 90 days. I couldn't find the ad, but I remembered it saying the place was located on top of Tops which is just down the street.

I'm getting very good at crossing the busier streets. Figuring out when gaps are going to appear is no easy feat when your depth perception is for shit, and your time perception can't be trusted either. So it is with relative pride that I find myself easily able to step into a seeming endless flow of traffic and emerge unscathed on the side.

I only barely ever noticed the escalator at Tops for the second floor. The second floor is either new or is going through an awful lot of shop turnover. It look like half the area was being remodeled.  I found a travel/visa place that said all the right things on the door but wasn't the one I was thinking of.

I wandered around and found a used book store. Looked for 'Fight Club' found 'Skinny Dip' which was the Hiaasen book I couldn't find the morning I left the States. As my current book was not holding my interest at all, I got it.

I went to the third floor but it was only a bowling alley.

Back to the visa shop. I was hoping for someone that really spoke English and while she was much better than the last place I was at, the first two answers to my questions: one I knew to be wrong, the other to be dangerous. I decided to go with the simple 30 Visa run and I did let them handle that which they seemed much more professional than the last place. I had been going to spring for the extra 500 baht to get the more comfortable ride, but that I was leaving on the first day of Songkran threw a kink in that plan and I ended up with the same 9 person van as before.

At first the relation of a Visa run on Songkran was disturbing, then I realized I was successfully escaping a good part of one of the days of the festival. So Sunday I am good to go. Different company, exact same process: 9 passengers crammed into a minivan and driven to the Cambodian border, cross over and back and then driven back to the hotel.

I got to thinking about how there is no tenses in the Thai language - tense is determined from context - and I replayed our conversation on meeting up back at the hotel through my mind. This was made easier than usual as we had gone over it about twenty times until I felt sure we both understood what was being said and would be remembered.

I came to see it possible in light of take of tense that she might think I was bringing her to the hotel - which would be the normal way of doing things but I had been attempting to avoid the chaos of the beer bar. So, my phone call having been a total waste of time (tip to those who would miss this fact: cell phones are completely useless if both parties don't speak the same language) I cleaned up and walked the half mile or so to the bar.

Considering it was 4pm there were a surprising amount of girls there as well as two other customers. Blissfully their music was not yet playing, nor could I hear any from the nine other bars in the complex. And then Ooy came rushing out from stage left to again become part of my side. As I had begun to suspect, she had been here last night wondering where I was, while I was waiting at the hotel wondering where she was.

As the atmosphere was not bring me pain I thought I would take this opportunity to earn a few brownie points with the bar, and bought a beer for myself and drinks for Ooy and a couple of the girls. I then did my best to chit chat with them.

I was right at the corner of the bar with Ooy to my right. Next to me around the corner was an older Aussie man, an accountant looking type. He kept trying to be chatty but between is accent and his tendency to whisper it was a losing endeavor.

Ooy indicated that she was both tired (having endured bus schedules upsetting her normal ten to twelve hour sleeping schedule (one could be tempted to knock the amount of time that the Thai sleep, but on the other hand they seem to pretty much work the other twelve hours, seven days a week - which the occasional temple break which doesn't sound like a fun vacation to me.)) and so we made a graceful exit.

I continue to be amazed at how cheaply one can eat here well. Less than six bucks buys four to five healthy (health is a relative term, I would be surprised if I didn't have several families of new parasites taking up residence in my host. And if not, it isn't from lack of trying.) entries, six chilled, peeled and sliced fruits (peeled and sliced as you watch), lettuce, mint, rice, sauces and two liters of water.

Ooy got her favorite: salt crusted whole fish with red pepper of death sauce. I have no idea what I got. One was what I had thought was beef, but turned out to be fish. I ate around the fish enjoying the vegetables. The other had shrimp and squid and god knows what else and was very pricy but excellent.

Ooy kept making up packets made of lettuce leaf, noodle and salt crusted fish and would hand me one every once and a while. She didn't put any red bean of death sauce on the ones for me, which made it very good for helping to put out the fire from own meal.

Each of us had thought that the other was getting the rice, but personally I didn't miss it at all. I was stuffed. Perhaps a little too full, sitting on top of the beer as it was.

We were in bed by 8pm and I had a strange amount of trouble falling asleep until some time later when I realized I hadn't had either my Xanax or my evening shot. After that it still took a long time to fall asleep. I awoke several times during the night. I had an odd dream of discussing death at length with Tracy's sister (who I have never met nor seen a picture of) in one of Tracy's apartments.

By five I was pretty much awake but tossed and turned until six before getting up and working on this. Rather peckish, I have been enjoying the delightfully strong blue cheese I purchased at Carrefour the other day.

Went out today to look at the places to stay I had read about. It turned out to be one of the hottest (although thankfully relatively unhumid) days so far. We were toasted before we finished looking at the first place which I did not like the smell of.

Panalee was nearby so we went there to ask the monthly price. 30,000 baht which is more than 30 times the daily rate so I assume some confusion there. But way out of my budget range anyway. Overheated and a bit dejected that neither of my two top picks had working out, I didn't know if I had the energy to try the places further out. The one past the highway looked very promising except IT WAS PAST THE HIGHWAY.

So we dropped back to Pitini's for breakfast and air-conditioning. I also hoped the owner, Bruce, would be there and I could ask if he had any ideas.

Bruce wasn't there but Rick, the baker for all your best UK breads around town, was. He setup a meet with a couple of options, but after a bit more talk he suggested Diana-Oasis - which sits inside the Diana Millennium complex. I had never enquired about it as it just looked too expensive.

Rick took us there and negotiated the price down to 18,500 baht for the month! I think I'm paying 15,000 at LK, but this has two pools, a real restaurant, Internet IN THE ROOM, a KITCHEN with microwave and is gorgeous beyond that.

I signed a lease on the spot.

So I have lodging through May 15th which marks when I have to be out of Thailand.

I have it on good authority now, that I could use my existing plane ticket to Kuala Lumpur, and stay there for a couple days while applying for a 60 day tourist Visa even thought I will have used the 90 days of instant Visas up. I can't hurt to try. There is no place cheaper to live than here, and everyone says this is about as hot as it gets (it just gets wetter from here)

If that plan works out - I will cut the Philippines out of my traveling plans.

And the important piece of the news above is that as of Sunday I will have Internet in my room again!
Hopefully it will be good enough to use Skype on.

I woke up, bolt upright, in the middle of the thinking I had a great word game word: karma. I wondered how we could have missed it over the years. Then, I realized it had two 'a's in it, and went to back to sleep.

Shave - Massage - Hair Color

Watching Ooy haggle. Thing of joy.

Deal back home falls apart

I woke up when the alarm went off at 4:30. Having showered and packed the night before I wondered why I had set the alarm so early. A touch of my dad in me. Taking my time I freshened up as slowly as possible but was still in the lobby a full half hour earlier than I needed to be. I am almost always early. It is in my genes.

But part of the earliness was so that I could go over to the Family Mart and get some drinks and snacks for the trip. I had packed much lighter than previously, taking only the nest egg and a backup of the website, as well as book and a magazine. Stuffed in the original black laptop carry bag, that I have been using as a laundry pouch, that left plenty of room for anything I wanted to add. In this case smoked almonds, water and fiber drink.

Six o'clock came and went. I remembered a guy last trip commenting how they were right on time but previously they had been over an hour late. So I was not worried. I sat in comfy pillow chairs of the lobby with a fan blowing gently on me and read my magazine: The Economist - which I had paid a pretty penny for. I tried to remember if the mag always had this many international articles or whether I had just breezed by them in the past. Perhaps I had an international version. I've seen that here for lots of papers and magazines.

Part of me was aware that this was the first day of Songkran and was keeping an eye out for marauding pickup trucks full of water squirting revelers although I was pretty sure it would be several hours before the first of them rose for the day. I also kept an eye out for the van.

It arrived just before seven.

I was one of the last to be picked up and there were three empty spots left each in the center of each row. I chose the middle. Unlike the last time, every one was quiet. I made a few attempts at starting conversations but appeared that the people to either side of me did not speak English.

As we headed out onto the highway, it seemed like there would only be seven of us. But several miles out we picked up a last passenger I have come to think of as young Lloyd.

We talked a bit at the first rest stop. he was French with a heavy French accent. He looked just like Lloyd did in his twenties, or at least that is what my memory is telling me. He was traveling all over Asia with just his backpack on his back.

He asked about places to stay in Pattaya and seemed mortified when I said places could be gotten for 5000/month. Turns out he was paying 450/month - of course that is a basic room, none of the creature comforts I have come to rely on. Lloyd would have loved it. I'm glad I didn't mention the 18000/month this place is costing.

In silence and with no movie on the DVD player the second leg of the trip seemed to take forever. Once there it was pretty much the same as before, except no stop for lunch at the casino. They just dragged us through the duty free (children hawking Viagra is a creepy event to witness) and then back across the bridge.

They shorted me another day on reentry. It seems we figure number of days differently. So I theoretically have to leave the country on May 12th - three days before my plane ticket (which frankly I had only recently planned on using anyway.)

Young Lloyd was pointing back at the bumpy dirt road back on the Cambodian side. 'See what I mean about the roads?' he asked. I didn't remember any such conversation but that wasn't surprising. 'That's the beauty of Thailand. An almost 1st world country at third world prices.' The phrase would stick in my head.

I took several pictures of the rickety wooden bridge. For some reason none of them came out. In fact, they weren't even in the camera. This picture above of the border itself shows the concrete bridge for cars - I never saw a car go over it and the road on the Cambodia side looked like it would destroy all but slow pedal vehicles and stunt cars. To the left of it is the wooden pedestrian bridge. Extreme left and mostly out of frame is the immigration building. Both sides are possessed in this building on the Thailand side.

No movies with this travel company, more silence on the way home. And instead of nice freezing convenience store on the way bag we stopped at a restaurant. Open air and not a fan in sight it was as stuffy as the bus. I ordered fried rice with shrimp and an iced coffee.

I then went in search of the rest room. Toilet seats on a plank on the floor of a small shack. Water hose for cleaning yourself instead of toilet paper. I think I could have handled the outhouse concept or a regular toilet but somehow toilet seat on the floor was just a bit too strange and I really didn't want to get on the floor. 

I decided I could hold it, but wished I hadn't ordered the food.

My iced coffee got lost somewhere along the way but also didn't show up on my bill (50 baht).

Back in the bus I finish the Economist and start working on the USA Today International (there is an oxymoron in their somewhere) that I purchased in the shop at the border. In the economy section there is broker promoting that this time to get back into the Hedge funds, and maneuvers for how to get around the new laws set up to protect you from just such a damn fool maneuver. I don't know if this guy is just mis-educated (there are enough of them certainly in economics) or as likely attempting to create a brief spike so he can get out of his own investment at less of a loss. In thinking about having to outmaneuver the law to get into a bad investment the phrase "Screwing the Band to get on the Titanic" lept into my head and now sits on the mental shelf next to "Dry Humping the Cash Cow" as self created phrases I take pleasure in.

I was dropped on the corner of Central and Soi Bokchao instead of being brought to the hotel - the other Visa run company had gone to great lengths to get some patrons to some hard to reach spots. On the other hand this whole trip had taken about 2 hours less time.

I say no water fights on the block walk to my hotel. I began to wonder if the whole thing wasn't greatly exaggerated. Silly me.

Ooy was supposed to return at 5, and called a little before that to ask for the room number (I think) and arrived about a half hour later.

 
Random Aprilness

Week #3

Seeing as breakfast (Caffe Pitini's) is most of the way to the new hotel, I decide to take the fan - which is a bit unwieldy to carry, with us. After breakfast, Ooy, the fan and I check in. The manager makes mention that I need not have brought my own, they have plenty of extras. When I leave, most likely they will have yet another one.

Back at the LK, I try to restrain Ooy from helping while I pack. This is a nearly impossible task, I hardly ever get to do anything myself without her assistance. It is simply part of the culture, and while I often feel the disapproving shadow of my mother over me as I sit back while Ooy cleans up after a meal, or wipes more forehead, and any of the thousands of tiny tasks that seem to confuse and confound her if I try to stop her, I have given over to it - admittedly happily so.

But here it is a hindrance because I have an unexplainable method of packing and deviating from it risks things not getting packed. I develop a system of basically having her put anything she picks up on the bed. I pack everything in the order I was going to anyway, just sometimes it is found on the bed. This system seems to work.

I'm hot from a lot of moving around and questioning why I moved the one item that could have helped cool me down. Bad planning.

I seem to have added a fair bit of stuff since my last move a month ago, but I'm hard pressed to figure out what. I came here with two bags, admittedly jammed full. Now I have these same two bags, a backpack, the computer bag now contains laundry and assorted smaller plastic bags. In all six containers.

Check out was a slight pain only in that they would not get us a cab. All the other hotels had happily arranged transport, but these two (who have not struck me as the friendliest Thai - something Robert Forrester commented as well earlier in the week) are saying Ooy can go it.

Ooy agrees, but that hardly seems the point. Anyway, I sit in the lobby protecting the stuff while Ooy goes out to the main street and somehow snags an empty baht bus lickety-split.

After the bus is loaded, there is some confusion as I want to ride in the bed with Ooy and the stuff and the driver wants me up front. Up front I go. This is nice in that I don't have to worry about random water fights and I am in deliciously frigid cold air-conditioning.

If it wasn't Songkran, and we had slightly less stuff, we could have walked. Although it is twice the distance as from R-Con and I did have less stuff then and I still took a baht bus (In my defense I was only one person string that day, Jeab having vanished.)

Our room is on the second floor and there is (I think) no elevator. I am happy about this as it is a simple way to get more exercise. I am shocked though at how much it takes out of me in the two trips of carrying belongings up the stairs.

Hoping to avoid a soaking we take the baht bus down Soi Bokchao, getting only a few glancing shots from super-soakers unable to focus on a single target as we whisked by. At Central Pattaya traffic was terrible and we had to wait quite awhile for a baht bus we could see for some time. I was sure this was going to present too much of a target as we crept along, street light by street slight.

A pickup truck armed in the back with eight kids, an adult, a barrel of water and several pipe thrusters pulled along side us and I was sure we were going to enter Carrefour soaked to the bone, however it got involved in a battle with another armed vehicle on the other side and luckily got a good bit ahead of us so we didn't even get hit in the crossfire.

At the next light the couple seated next to us got nailed massively magically without us even getting splattered. Finally arriving at Carrefour there was no one camped out, so we just strolled in.

One of the best things about Carrefour is that they are one of the few places here that take American Express, so I always feel a little freer with money here. We went shopping on the second floor super market - having shelves, a full size fridge and a microwave pretty much obligated us to shop.

I discovered Ooy likes Sushi. This will probably turn out to be a wonderful but expensive thing to learn. But sushi is cheap here, and we buy that primarily as the night's meal. I notice the tuna block is no longer available today.

Every time I come in the type of bleu cheese has changed and today is no different. The cheeses are by far the most expensive thing I buy and I buy two, blue and mozzarella. In the end the total is around 1700 baht. As Dan would say 'a million here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money' which seemed like an awful lot until I realized just how much food we got for less than sixty dollars. And charged to Amex at that.

Taking the cart down the escalator I noticed that it just locked into place. It seemed to have something to do with the structure of the wheels (three rings) but it was a design of beautiful simplicity and the cart wasn't going anywhere until it was dislodged, again without any seeming transition, at the bottom. It is a silly thing to be impressed by, but I was.

Double baht bussing back, our hands loaded with grocery bags, we encountered no water gangs.

No two baht busses is exactly the same. There are two basic designs - old and new - and they are very close in look. But little changes mostly of the wear and tear variety but also things like placement, style or existence of the 'stop here' buttons. Apparently the cabin lights are also different on at least on bus, and I smacked my head into it very hard getting on that first one. I would forget this the next day for a bit, and wonder if my head was sunburned. It remains sore now several days later.

One of things Ooy got at Carrefour was labeled as Durian Monthong (this would be a great name for a rock band.) It looked like a large uncooked dough wrapped sub-shaped blob. Once the shrink-wrap was removed it turned out to me the living example of malodorous. What a stink.

Still unsure whether it was sandwich, meat, fruit, confection, seafood or what. Ooy picked it up, undeterred by the smell from bringing it closer to her nose, and took a big bite. She offered a bite to me. My mother instilled, always at least try a bite, training kicked in and I tried to taste it.

As it would bring it toward my mouth the smell would increase and I put it down. I repeating this cycle four times, before I finally steeled myself and jammed a bit in my mouth. I can say, I am pretty certain without equivocation (and despite, I think saying this about something else recently) that I have never tasted anything so vile. I did not gracefully spit it out, rather it leapt forcefully on its own from me.

Oddly, it did not have a bad after taste. Stranger still I was not any more able to classify what category of food it was. As Ooy ate more it turned out to have a clay textured pit that looked like a nose and colored such that at first I thought it was a small hotdog.

Curiosity overcame me and I looked it up on the net. It turns up to be the insides of a morning star like fruit I have seen all over town.

I found this understated nugget in a description on SU: "Some Westerners have described the experience of eating the durian as "like eating custard in a public lavatory"

Most common sense fire safety sign I have ever seen anywhere:

'In case of fire. Call the fire department immediately.' and then the number.

Much better than 'Don't use the elevator.' Something about it just tickled me, and reminded me, to my joy, that I am in a country with very few lawyers. Watch your step and use common sense.

The mattress is much too firm. It is a good thick mattress - they do not use box springs anywhere I have been - just very firm.

Yesterday I could not figure out how the hot water in the shower worked. No matter what I did with the control which had more directional options than most controls the temperature remained the same. Today I discovered that the center position of side to side (as opposed to up and down which controls pressure, and around which controls pulsation, and in and out which seems to serve no noticeable purpose) is hot, both edges are cool.

And the hot gets very hot, and the pressure can be set nicely strong, pulsation goes from no pulse to mild pulse and is a useless feature - damn nice shower.

Last night we slept facing out into the room to get more airflow. Tonight I am not ambitious enough to redo the sheet work needed for that. I am asleep almost before my head hits the pillow. Bizarrely fast. I don't even remember starting to try to sleep. I awoke at an unknown time in the middle of the night more or less fully rested. And judging by pillow positions I did not move. This of course mention only one shoulder had taken the weight of body all that time and it was pissed.

I refused to get up as it was still totally dark out. I flipped over and listened to Blondie playing on the iPod and Ooy's gentle snoring. Somewhere along the way I fell back to sleep again.

When I awoke again, I was having a really weird dream about killing people with a cast iron frying pan.

Having internet access I thought I would write more, but so far I have not been of the combination of correct frame of mind and ability to type very much. I try not to get too far behind because already some notes mean nothing to me.

Day at the beach. Walk both ways.

Massage.

Ooy having fun time digging clams. Reminds me of mom of my youth.

Forgetting things I want to say.

Totally soaked on the way back home.

Seeing as I am already soaked and it is overcast why not use the hotel pool? Today is the day, I have to take Ooy back to the bar and set up for another week. I could pay for the whole month and be done with it but going week by week just makes me feel more in control of the situation. Had I stopped to think last week that this week would be Songkran I would have popped for two weeks.

Ooy talks on her cell phone by the pool while I swim. The water is quite warm. Oddly I like water that is mildly cool and water that is Jacuzzi (muscle meltingly) hot, but find temperatures in between to be uncomfortable. I don't swim for very long.

I shower and Ooy goes home to get clean clothes. She will meet me at the bar at 5pm.

There is a rack on the balcony for drying things in the sun and I put out everything I was wearing today except my wallet and passport (which I balance on the inside window sill) on it as best I can. There isn't much sun today, but they should dry during the night.

It is only 4 o'clock, so I work on taking the latest pictures off the camera and bringing them into the website. I discovery that only two pictures from the last Visa run came out.

After sitting in front of the computer with the fan blowing on me I am finally blessedly dry. The bar isn't far from here and the only water hazard will be in front of the bar itself. I dress in my least favorite clothes, wrap my wallet and passport in a plastic bag - which I had thought to do earlier - and head out, slightly late.

The water fight in front of the bar has gained a few members, with patrons having joined in. Hoping they haven't spotted me, I try to come in from the back. Ooy spots me, but so does the girl that soaked me the other day and she runs over and pours a bucket of water on my head. I'm soaked again. I try to keep in mind that this is supposedly a fun thing, even though this particular girl seems malicious to me.

Because the front of the bar is big water fight, I sit near where I came in which unfortunately is near the speakers. The tune is a Thai or Indian festivity theme thing that is on the edge of painful but not fully into that spectrum. Ooy is bopping around and picks up the metal tambourine instrument near me, which almost makes me pass out. She catches on and puts it down. The malicious girl picks it up and starts playing with it but a little further away. It hurts like hell.

The matron tells her to stop playing with it. Now, I could have and should have just paid and run, but I have been trying to be friendlier with Ooy's bosses and co-workers.

I'm now over the edge when I can recover my mental footing until I can get somewhere less chaotic. I'm trying to gather my marbles enough to leave when malicious girl sneaks up behind me and pours more water down my back and says something like "you should go to hospital tomorrow."

Now, normally that wouldn't even register, but I'm completely off balance, my head is throbbing and I'm so tired of being wet. And I start thinking that I look sick. Onc of the few things I am grateful for about this decease is that I do not look sick. Or, put another way, that I can pass for whole if I want to. And I start thinking about how many things I can not do - like a simple stop at a bar. And suddenly the tears are flowing. And being off balance I can not stop them or recover. And even calm Ooy, I would not be able to explain what is wrong. I know because I slowly and painfully tried later with little success other than to assure her it was nothing she did.

Ooy notices and of course is worried. She gets me out of there and back to the hotel room, stopping only to buy a fish for dinner. Away from chaos I slowly stop crying and get control of my emotions, losing it again only when I try to explain to Ooy what happened.

With the help of Thailand's version of the sleeping pill I go to sleep easily. I awake in the middle of the night having had a dream that I am trying to get to my sister's house and she doesn't live there any more. And the new owner is a total dick and is squirting me with a garden hose as I try to explain.

Sort of sums up the whole previous day, don't it?

I roll over and hugs Ooy tightly who squirms in tightly in her sleep and the lonely feeling goes away. I fall back to sleep.

Early in the morning Ooy hands me the dictionary on the word 'sea'. Guess she really enjoyed the beach yesterday. After breakfast we head down. It is only 10am and the soaker patrols aren't up yet.

As they only change the towels twice a week in this monthly studio, having them play double duty as pool towels seemed inadvisable, so I had wanted to get some beach towels and was keeping an eye out for a towel cart as we walked. This guaranteed that they normally abundant carts were nowhere to be found. However, just before the beach one of the markets had a good selection. With my usual lousy haggling skills (you know it is bad when they accept your first offer) I got 500 baht for one, down to 800 for two. I'm sure I could have gotten 600 or there abouts jusging by the speed of her acceptance. 

At the beach I notice it is very crowded. The I see an empty spot of beach. Funny, never noticed a spot without umbrellas before. Slowly I become aware that the initial spot - 14 chairs wide I would later count - was the only spot umbrellas and chairs. The rest of the beach was untouched.

Ooy questioned a few people. The beach tenders had all gone to Bangkok for Sangkran (remember it is celebrated mostly one day everywhere else but Pattaya) except apparently for the one enterprising fellow in this one small strip of beach.

This guy has two chairs left but no idea where to put them. I show him where they could go and still be under the umbrellas and we are in business.

Ooy who skipped breakfast, now enjoys lunch. I who didn't, enjoy my book and some water. Later Ooy clams again for a half water bottle of micro-clams. The other batch is still back home on the coffee table.

Weird hallucination today: I keep hearing someone behind me lean over and whisper my name in my ear. This comes complete with the feeling of someone behind me and is clear as a bell.  There seems no pattern to the interval but it has happen several times today.

Got back at the room taking only a solid but not full on water hit. It is over cast and my feet are salty from the beach sand, so it seems a perfect time to hit the pool. This is my third time in, Ooy finally comes in. Then, the temperature being perfect I dry off while reading my book. I'm surprised to see I am over 150 pages into it. And I thought my reading days were pretty much over. The largish type helps - a lot.

Not wishing another soaking which will almost certainly occur at this hour no matter what route we take, I opt to eat at the hotel restaurant. With some difficulty and the help of the chefs great memory, I order the dish that Ooy had for breakfast the other day: a coconut milk and lime soup with shrimp and rice. It also had some mushrooms and huge chunks of garlic and some bamboo and just a few red peppers of death. It was great.

Tomorrow is "Hell Saturday" as the final weekend of Songkran has been dubbed in Pattaya. I have no plans to move outside the compound until Monday. Although it is tempting to try to find the new Sushi restaurant that got a glowing write-up in the newspaper.

It made mention of a conveyor belt system that sounded an awful lot like the train track system used in the Atlanta Sushi restaurant that will live forever fondly in my memory and the memory of some 30 odd (and do mean odd) fellow convention folk that we patronized each night over the long DragonCon weekend many years ago.

The hotel has three English speaking world news channels: BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera. There is also an Australian news channel but it is mostly dealing with Australian news and likewise the Pattaya City News which is covering local news.

It is very interesting getting news from three such very different biases. One that caught me funny was, that on the same day - the day the 2007 employment statistics came out - Al Jazeera reported that "more Americans were out of work than ever before." while Fox News reported that "more Americans employed than ever before" and the BBC said that 85,000 jobs had been lost last year, and while the employment rate wasn't as high as it had been in the mid 80s, it was higher than after the tech bubble burst.

The fascinating thing is, that after a little Internet research, all three statements turn out to be true :)

Confused? You shouldn't be. Statistics can be made to say anything. News organizations rarely indulge in outright lies - although they are getting much more lax about checking their sources when the story fits their own biases (but thankfully are getting called to task on that with greater frequency too.) - but the truth is usually obfuscated with easy to overlook modifiers, disparate categories, or mismatched comparisons.

In the example above both Fox News and Al Jazeera used the exact same tactic: using population instead of percentage of population. There are more people than ever before. As neither story talks about the employment rate but instead the number of people, both are correct. The BBC story presents the facts in conjunction with history and thus presents the employment report much closer to "reality". Your reality might vary with your bias.

Story idea: a person suffers a personal tragedy unrelated to but occurring on 9/11/01. The story follows his journey into despair as he is unable to get closure on the ordeal as the outside world and his own personal inner sense can not help but compare the magnitude of the greater American tragedy to the smaller personal event that nonetheless sidetracked his life.

I am starting to think that Eris is trying to reach out to me and make herself more strongly felt in my waning months.

Yesterday on the way the beach, it was laser beam sun time; viciously hot. And so we stopped to get Ooy a baseball cap in one of the outdoor markets along the way.

Normally it wouldn't have even caught my eye, but because of the US dollar sign, I noticed the tag on one of the caps "Pink Slippers - $29.99". The tag had nothing to do with the cap other than being affixed with the universal plastic I-beam.

All Hail Eris.

As hard as I have tried to stay away from it (not very; I'm fascinated by Clintonian machinations) I really want to see to the November presidential elections play out. I'm not sure whether it is feasible either by health or finances, but that is the new goal. And as they say*, having a goal is half the battle.

In this week's news: A reporter on BBC was giving a good case for the idea that Bill Clinton was purposefully sabotaging his wife's campaign. Had this come from Fox News I would have parsed it as just more jocundity from Republicans happy to see the other side however briefly getting lanced by the very mechanism that usually boosts their every move. But coming from the BBC, I gave closer listen. Good solid points were made.

Now have been under the impression never to underestimate Sen. Clinton, and thus I have been watching this momentary party self-destruction (those of you that get your news from network news might not know what I am talking about as it is possible that the bulk of the infighting is being filtered out.) assuming that she is playing the media and has another New Hampshire type come from behind underdog play up her sleeve. But if the Clintons are at odds at this, consciously or no, well that changes a lot of calculations.

And I've said it before and I'll repeat it again more straight forwardly now that it is a more real possibility. If, to heal the party, Obama takes Hillary on as VP, which I suspect would lock that party into a win, expect an assassination, with the appropriate racist fall guy of course, in the first two years of his presidency. I'm deadly serious on this one.

I don't feel like a "Walking Wallet" with Ooy. It is nice that she is so new to the job. There is very little of the 'Buy me, buy me, buy me' I have read about and experienced mildly.

This is of course the perfect way to play me. By not wanting much from me, it leaves me free to want to make her happy with little knickknacks and what not.

Hmmm.

I can't remember if I mentioned it before but a few weeks back I got a couple of emails from Carol Huff. Carol is one of the those people that inspire me to heights of comicdom. She is a near perfect audience and when around her I just get funnier. Lance use to have this same effect on me.

Over the years we loose each other and manage to reconnect from time to time. But I'd lost touch several years back and like so many people the dropping of my main email domain (tophersoft.com) had severed any chance of finding me.

Well one of the nice things about this website is that if an old friend gets around to Googling themselves, the odds are my site will be in the results as my ramblings have touched up on just about everyone I have ever met.

Note: If you've met me and you aren't in the web site, now I feel bad. But, the chance is good you will make it under the wire, as if things go according to plan, I will have little to do in the late summer but sit in front of this machine and reminisce. Assuming I have any memories left by that time, it is then that the Anecdotes section will really expand, and this section will dry up. I have a list I add to as things occur to me.

While the comedy effect isn't as strong via email as it is over the phone or especially in person, communicating with her still brings back many merry moments of mirth.

She wrote back today with the full assemblage of over analyzation and near subatomic specification I have often teased her for and found so endearing and rememberable.

Whenever, I get three or four levels deep into a digression - you know, all the time - I often pause momentarily to think of Carol.

Lots of pleasant memories.

I find it funny how much of each other's food we do not like. She does not like anything bland near as I can tell, which made me aware of how bland the bulk of our food relatively is. She has no interest in bread products. Ooy loves Sushi though (with lots of Wasabi of course) and Jeab wouldn't touch it. I find some of the things she eats, like the dried fish strips, dried seaweed sheets, and jellyfish flavored potato chips, repulsive. Those are all available in the 7-11 here by the way.

You really have to look carefully at the labels of things like potato chips as the flavors are more than likely going to be something you've never considered combining let alone flavoring a chip with.

I bought what I thought was corn chip (looked halfway between a Buggle and Chex mix) but in fact turned out to be, I think, Jalapeno and Banana. And actually not quite as gross as it sounds like it should be although I would not knowing buy it again.

A couple of weeks ago, but so long ago that she has received it yet, I sent my mother a packet. The bulk of it was local newspapers. It cost a whopping 1800 baht to mail. Today I discover that the Pattaya Today is available online. The paper only comes out every other week but if you want a better grasp of Pattaya than you are getting from me the above is a link to make mark of.

My mind is sharp today, and I have learned yesterday that by closing my right eye I can read better than I did most days before it went bad on me - although I do get a headache after a while of this.

So today I am reading papers, searching the Internet, updating this blog, catching up on the more involved email, etc.

Other than breakfast downstairs - I swear they are making the coffee stronger each morning. Today might as well have been cappuccino. - I have not left the room. Ooy, took off around noon to replace some perfume that had run out. Said she would be back around five with food.

When I came up for air around three, hunger drove me out of the room. It is a perfect, not hot, rather dry, day. It is a same that we are far enough into Songkran that I dare not venture out into it.

Since we will be eating in a few hours I do not want a meal downstairs, but just outside the gates is a 7-11. Litle danger of getting soaked in that short distance. Certainly not iced. I think about going the two blocks the Family Mart instead - there I can get the Wasabi Peas that I dearly love - but a look at the completely soaked streets (it hasn't rained since early this morning) sends me scampering into the 7-11 instead.

Having written about it earlier in the day but unable to remember examples, I take a close look at the potato chips which range from the almost normal, pepper steak, to the down right scary, hot oily squid with tamarind.

I settle on Pepsi Max, a can of peanuts and some dried mango slices. I waver over the Pepsi as I think that cutting back to just the one coffee in the morning is the reason I am sleeping better (duh) but I am getting tired of water.

After paying, I pivot to the exit and the automatic doors open - straight into the oncoming rush of a wave of water from a passing pickup truck. I, and I'm guessing a quarter of the store, are soaked to the bone. Just like that - I only stepped inches outside the compound. Ah, and chilled water at that. On a warmer day, that might have been refreshing, now I am for the first time quite awhile actually chilled.

Glad I bought those extra towels :)

I type this as I dry. Now back to a reasonable temperature, I depart you to eat and watch TV for a bit.

I find myself thinking, usually as I hand some small bit of something I'm eating to Ooy (who is much more adventuresome than either Jeab or Pucket who refused to try anything non-Thai,) what it must taste like to her. I'm getting better at predicting what she will and won't like. Bitter, without sweet, like black coffee, almonds, etc, is a certain and dramatic no. Bland will get a 'no aloy' (don't like) but only after curious and thorough chewing - searching for the flavor perhaps. I still find it surprising she likes sushi. I would think that bland to her taste buds, even with Wasabi. She does not like the Wasabi peas that have become my favorite snack food.

I have found I am an less likely to give a fair try to anything that smells rotten - in the true sense of the word, I consider a contagion (like cockroaches and uncooked bacon), and I am far less adventurous with seafood than you would expect from someone that grew up on an island.

I realized last night that this was most likely Ooy's first Songkran in Pattaya. And as you know it is celebrated here quite differently than in the rest of Thailand. Today, the 19th, is the height of the festivities (Hell Saturday), so I have decided to suck it up, securely wrap my wallet and passport, put on previously worn clothes and go out there and get soaked and whatever else she wants to do.

Yesterday was gift I was not expecting. My mind was almost its old self (still minus the empathy) and I was able to read just fine (albeit with one eye closed.) I wasn't expecting to get another day like that, as they seemed to wane away after the protocol ended. I couldn't have asked for a nicer present.

My mind was faster than my fingers as is the usual for those conditions so I don't know how much translated to the page, but I read and wrote a lot yesterday. And thoroughly enjoyed being able to do so.

Ooy, pointed out 'ice' and 'danger' in the transliteration dictionary. Way to psych up the troops.

I brought nothing but passport and wallet, both protected in the same Ziploc bag - I can't them here for anything this was the one that had been protecting my needles in transit - and the room keys.

I wore shorts and shirt that had been previously soaked yesterday and instead of shoes I wore the flip-flops, reasonably sure I could walk far enough to get better sandals before suffering too much foot damage.

We were soaked seconds outside the gate. It was nice to get it out of the way early.

Across the street we went from soaked to drenched. I was prepared, Ooy seemed happy, I was enjoying myself. We had no purpose other than to look about and get wetter. In my mind I was thinking sandals and maybe a cheap chess set (the bar girls are really good at games ranging from pool to the ubiquitous Connect Four. Ooy mentioned a preference for  Dominoes and when I pointed out Chess in the dictionary, she said she knew it. If that turns out to be correct, that would be nice.

By habit we headed toward the beach. An open market had sandals and I bought a comfortable set for 350 baht. I didn't realize it for a couple hours but we were lucky the market was open, most of the shops were closed for the holiday although many vendors were setting up on the road sides.

It was 10am as we hit Beach Road and they were just blocking it off from traffic for the festivities.

No umbrellas and chairs of course, so the beach was out, but I hadn't really come down here for that.

Water poured on us constantly, either a small stream from a pistol, a strong stream from a PVC based launcher or a drenching from a pail or bucket. The temperature of teh water constantly changed, sometimes hot, sometimes cool, sometimes freezing. I did my best to smile and bow, and as often happens when you make a smile, it becomes real. I also got powdered several times and it wasn't as bad as it had thought it would be. I'd barely be aware of it on me, if I hadn't known of the application. Still, I would wash it off each time at the next available water barrel - which were everywhere so people could refill their various weapons.

We sat for a bit at the park bench and watched the police walk down beach Road confiscating the recently outlawed PVC pipe water weapons. I assume them to Bangkok police as the Pattaya police are notorious for not involving themselves in fineless enforcement. We watched Thai avoid confiscation by such clever maneuvers as switching them to the far side or not waving them around as much.

We walked down to Walking Street - I noted that Mike's Shopping Mall was closed by Royal Garden was open. What I hadn't counted on was the noise. Large speaker systems were everywhere blaring all kinds of music ranging from almost pleasant to outright painful. And then there were the police whistles. I assume I blanked out a bunch because Ooy seemed overly concerned about me and insisting on taking me home. I, of course, was insisting on proving I could be a normal guy. In the end, about an hour and half and 90 some odd gallons of water into our journey, we were back at the motel.

Ooy, via dictionary, explained that she wanted to help out at the bar. Whether it was that or she wanted to she more the festival than she could with me, either way was fine by me.

I try reading out by the pool, but even under the umbrella it is too sticky hot.

Cheese Burger and fries for lunch. I like the cook here for her talents. I adore the waitress, 'Ya', who looks exactly like an Asian version of Kristin Kreuk.

After lunch I retreat to the room, battle a tiny spider (phobia still making my heart beat ridiculously.), give up on reading the book and watch a movie on TV which is obviously playing from VCD and keeps freezing up.

Ooy returns almost to the minute on time.

Chess set trip

Checkers against a real opponent

Up at 6am for Ooy to get ready for bus to Bangkok

Day on my own: Shave, Feet, Massage (rain - hot)

Order pork chops get fish - happy

Book

 
Random Aprilness

Week #4

Having your name whispered in your ear is near impossible to ignore. Even with this event being repeated ten to twenty times a day, I still react to it. I assumed it would go away after I slept that first day. A week or so later, that quiet genderless voice is still pestering me. I guess any lingering healing effects of the protocol drug are now gone from my system. I hope, like the eye, I get use to and and learn to live with this problem too. It seems like such a tiny thing, but it is really irritating.

Like an itch you can't scratch.

It occurred to me later in the day, during a massage - my mind often wanders away during massages, that if I'm not healing or adapting any more than does that mean that the next aphasia episode will be permanent? Each hallucination, audio, visual or olfactory, will pill up on me? And then I think - will the next pain spasm day last forever?

Some said "Fear is good, it means you have something left to lose."

The thought of unrelenting pain scares the piss out of me. It also motivates me to stop trying to fully plan my final days and start just living them. There are a few things left I want to do. Think I'll start with those elephants.

'Bee'

Tracy

Phew. I had a vague memory of thinking of a great hiding place for the photocopies of my credit cards, ID papers, passport and banking info (the perfect identity theft kit if it was ever stolen) then I had wanted to take them as part of my 'things not to be without' pack on the Visa run - and couldn't remember where that great hiding place was.

Then I changed living places, and still they did not turn up. I hoped that either the place was truly forever hidden or that somehow, even though I had gone through everything, they had moved with me.

I looked through all three cases and there many pockets and compartments, some of them very easy to overlook with no luck. Occasionally I had a flash of insight as to where to look and would find some other hidden goody. It is a good size packet of pages, it just couldn't hide anywhere.

Today, while picking up and dropping off laundry, it came to me. I had bought a packet of manila holders with which to mail newspapers to my mom. They were still in the original plastic covering seeing as I had only used one.

Even knowing they were in there it still took me some time to find them. A very good hiding place indeed.

So, despite my proclivity for losing things, I think the only important thing I have lost to date is my vaccination papers.

I had what I thought was a mosquito bite on my thigh which was odd because they generally can't get away from me fast enough. Today it popped while I was scratching at it and was definitely a pimple. Equally strange as I haven't had a pimple in ages and here I have three of them on my leg. Then I thought of the foot massages, which always have oil and extend up in to the thighs. All makes sense now.

I just found my USB Thumbdrive in one of the mini-pockets of the shorts I am wearing today. I put it in there for the Visa run which means it has been washed twice. It still works; gotta love solid state technology.

Over the last week I have tried to refill my Glyburide - the last important medicine to begin to run out.  The others I kept at least a one month supply of the real thing in case I have border issues somewhere down the road, but I figured no one was ever going to care about this one and it had sort of slipped under the radar. Most likely because my whole supply had fit in one bottle while the others were in multiples and so was more obvious when they were running out.

Went to the pharmacy. It wasn't in the big book of medicines in Thailand. Back to the Internet that night. Glyburide is a generic name for Micronase. Back the pharmacy the next day. No, Micronase is not in the big book either. Back to the Internet, I'm not turning up an information on Micronase generics. Try as I might I can't think of the right search terms. There just doesn't seem to be any other generic brands.

Then yesterday it comes to me. At one point I was between doctors and run out of the Glyburide. That is how I had discovered how fast my blood sugar rises without it. I had ordered some over the net from Costa Rica, but want had arrived was not Glyburide - it had however done the trick.

What was the name? I tried to picture the foil packets. Of course my memory wasn't going to help. I thought I might still have some left in the drawer under the microwave back home and could email Dan for the name if I did. I was forming the intent to send such an email when it came to me - sort of: Daolin I thought.

I typed Daolin into Google, and it gave me lots of hits on an Institute. To narrow it down I typed 'Daolin +Glyburide'. No hits. I removed the '+'. Do you mean 'Daonil?' it asked me. Indeed I did.

Back at the Pharmacy, 120 5mgs tablets, exactly 300 baht. Less than the $16 it would have cost me at Wal-Mart or Target. Good for another month.

I finished my book - Skinny Dip. That is record time for me these days - I'm pretty sure I bought less than a month ago. I was very hard to put down. Very funny. I love Carl Hiaasen - the man has an incredible ability to turn a phrase in unexpected and delightful directions. I remember my brother saying the same thing at Thanksgiving.

I was determined to get tickets to see either the Elephants or the Dolphins today, but it began to pour, followed by more humidity than seemed possible and I lost the drive. Later in the day I had to go through the ritual of going to the bar and renewing Ooys charter for the week. This time I came armed with the headset and so didn't need them.

Somewhere in the two or so hours she had away from me, Ooy found time and money to get her first (pretty sure) tattoo - two dolphins diving out of the water with a rainbow on her left shoulder blade. Tattoos are relatively expensive here - or at least they were for Jim. I'm sure a native Thai can get a much better deal.

Afterward we took a baht bus to Samurai Sushi. I had rung the stop bell certain that we had passed it and the bus pulled over right in front of it. The outside was totally unlandscaped, like it was railroad model building just put down for work on later. As it was not long after the grand-opening I suppose this was not surprising.

There were ten staff in sight and no customers. This was a little before 6pm (six other diners would show up while we were there) and I noticed over a hundred plates of sushi on the two conveyor belts. I hope they get a lot of business later in the evening.

Ooy was not very hungry. She must have managed a big lunch before, during or after the tattooing. I had a Sashimi box set that left me too full to try any but one sushi plate from the conveyor. All was extremely good. As an added bonus they accept American Express, which is so rare here as to be like found money. I'll be back at least one more time.

Afterward, we agreed to "walk walk" a little - my idea which she enthusiastically agreed to. We were quite a ways into the walk before I realized that we had had to real choice, as 2nd road runs the wrong way and I had no idea how to go up to Soi Bouw Kow from here. But after a bit we came to the Hard Rock Cafe and I knew that across from that was the little Soi that went to the All Seasons Hotel and from there Laundry Row over to Central Pattaya. Then it was practically straight across the street and through the square alley before LK Mansion and over to Soi Boukow. I suggested getting a baht bus but she still wanted to walk.

Even though in sandals, which earlier were chaffing, I felt fine walking. We stopped and bought a better towel and a couple more sweat rags from a towel cart near the market and then some fruit for the fridge from another cart. And then we were home - proving that Samurai Sushi is in walking distance.

As you can tell I haven't been in a real writing mood. Comes down to four factors:

1. A good book that was soaking up a lot of my blogging time

2. I only have 3 weeks left in Thailand.

3. More computer and thinking time is being used trying to figure out my next move.

4. I haven't been in a writing mood.

Hopefully at some point while I still remember I will go back and fill in the skeletal parts of the bits above, but no promises.

Looks like I dropped off the map for about five days. Here is what happened.

Ooy and I went to Tops because I wanted another shot at finding Fight Club in the used book store there now that I had the author's name correctly memorized - Palahniuk. Actually I only have 'Pala' memorized but I figured that would do the trick.

I didn't find Fight Club, but I found 'Survivor', the book he wrote next in 2000.

This is exactly the wrong book for me to find. It feeds into every contempt I have about modern society, the bulk of which are embodied in myself, so there is some self loathing alive and well there as well.

"Vonnegut for the Millennium Generation" it says about Chuck Palahniuk in an ad for other books in the final pages of the book. That sticks, because I had the exact verbatim thought while reading the book.

And read the book I do. Like a mouth sore your tongue can't stop poking at, I absorb the pages. In a style that fits the story but not I have not seen done before the page numbers count down so that page 1 is the last page. Naturally the chapter numbers count down as well. This just urges me on. Only 136 pages to go, and so on.

I plan things to be in position to read more. We go to the Elephant show, two and a half hours on a bus - forty odd pages down. That sort of thing.

Even when I can't focus my mind, I read, I read the same paragraph over and over.

And it is funny and horrible, delightful and depressing. It is exactly the book a person at the crossroads of his life should not be reading. And I pick and pick and pick at the scab.

And I watch no TV, I barely touch the computer.

This morning I finish the book, and it has ads for three other books and Fight Club.

I want to read them all.

Years ago I saw an elephant and that time has grown mythic in my mind. So it has been on my mind to see an elephant while in Thailand. But seeing an elephant is a largely outdoor event and the sun here is overpowering so the plan was to know the how, when and where and if it looked especially overcast one morning we'd go for it.

Thus it was perfectly sunny in the morning everyday after Sangkran ended, until the day the sky was perfectly overcast. That day we had gotten up too late so we had had to skip breakfast and hurry to buy the tickets and catch the nine person bus - exactly the same model and color as the vans used for the Visa run. Could be the same vehicle for all I know.

There are eight of us in the nine seats - I don't know how they do that. Ooy is in the seat next to me. I pull out my book, she curdles up against me and goes to sleep. About three hours pass unnoticed, except for a bathroom break about halfway.

The flaw in the overcast plan, I have figured, is that the weather does not stay the same very long in Thailand. It is very much like Florida (except less predictable) that way. I figure it is going to be hot, and silly me I've forgotten my sunscreen. Well they should have some for sale.

Only it isn't sunny. It is pouring - buckets. And they are selling these little umbrellas.

I check my pockets. I am delighted to find my passport is still in the Ziploc bag I put it in for Hell Saturday of Sangkran. I take 2000 baht and my Chase MasterCard out of my wallet and add my wallet to the Ziploc. The bus driver is giving us put string pouches for anything we don't want to take in the rain. He will be protecting them in the van. Reluctantly my camera and both our cell phones go in the pouch. So much for pictures for the website. My book goes in as well. The pouch goes on my seat.

Naturally the bulk of us, huddle in the indoor or at least covered attractions. Riding the elephants is cancelled. This works out well as Ooy is afraid of the bulky beasts, and with my sense of balance I had planned on skipping this anyway.

From under tarps we huddle at highest ground and watch elephants ride giant tricycles, and juggle balls and stuff that would be really cool, if Palahniuk hadn't invading my thought processes. But now all I can think is that these intelligent animals are going through the same routines day after day. And when they get a little off track there handlers (mahouts) jab them with what looks like a huge barbless fishhook on a long wooden handle.

And we are wet, but still huddling from the rain. And for the first time in Thailand, aside from the gnats, I am bothered by insects, as they are trying to avoid the rain as well. One by one, we swipe randomly at mosquitoes that easily avoid us.

Instead of my moment of peace I've been dreaming about, I'm getting a little taste of the outermost circle of Hell. The one for those that need to eased into pain, because they haven't had much experience with it. So just when they think "hey, maybe I can handle this" they are plunged into the next level. Eternity gets a little extra boost this way.

And the thunder comes. I don't even see the lightning. But no more elephants for today. No elephants during thunder; must have lost a tourist or two to spooked 30 ton paciderms that way previously. And no, we won't be seeing the rhinos either. Not during lightning. And no, no partial refund, this is Thailand, we don't do that - ever.

By now we are happy to be back on the bus. What was near optimal air-conditioning on the ride out is now the collective humidity and smell of eight soaked muddy human beings. I can't tell where the rainwater ends and the sweat begins.

I dive back for my book, but I can't focus my thoughts. I keep drifting back to how bored the elephants looked, and how little it took for the mahout to use his hook. I read the same three paragraphs over and over all the way home. Ooy sleeps.

A year or more ago, with a few months left on the extended warranty, my laptop started overheating and just dying mid keystroke. I took it BestBuy and they would spend 4 days shipping it out to have it fixed. Then I would take it home and it would work fine for a bit and then start overheating and dying again.

I got very good at predictably knowing what combination of programs would do it in.

I also learned I had to have three returned failures before they would give me a new computer.

I also learned, through the Internet, that this was a known problem and there was class action lawsuit going on against eMachines.

Armed with this information, BestBuy insisted on going through the motions. On the third return and repair, I couldn't get it to malfunction, they had somehow fixed it. I had been looking forward to a new machine. In time I forgot all about it.

This week my laptop overheated and died. eMachines is no longer in business, and my warranty is long since expired and/or lost.

It works fine as long as I keep the fan pointed at it, so I think I will look for one of those cooling plates.

This is also the land of repair (labor is cheaper than materials, so things are repaired rather than replaced. There are little shops everywhere for this. I should check that the internal cooling fan is still working, before I leave to less repair friendly climes.

Ooy points out a Thai word in the dictionary that translates to 'duty, honor' asks if it is okay for her to go until 5pm. It is around 1pm. It's fine by me, I'd like to get a massage anyway. I try to figure out what massage I can get while still being able to read.

As I get dressed (first activity from entering the room is to turn on the air conditioner and shed all sweat soaked clothes. So no matter what time of day, one has to get dressed to leave the room.) it begins to drizzle outside.

Book and rain don't go together, rain and walk could, but don't, go together. But I'm in forward motion. I don't want to be in the room and it is just drizzling. Soon it will be over.

I'll go swimming. Sun and rain don't go together either so it will be perfect. I'll swim until the sun comes out then I will sit under the big umbrella and dry off while reading.

I put my book, sandals, towel and eye glasses on a little stone square tablette under an umbrella. I maneuver one of the lounging chairs to be more protected and then I step into the pool. The top inch is cool and the rest heavenly warm.

I swim under water in great broad strokes listening for and to the crack crack crack of my shoulders. It takes longer than usual for the sound to go away.

On one of my dives I come up to find I am still underwater. Rather than the go away, the rain has become a full on downpour. I'm wet, can't get wetter. I never understood why more people didn't swim in the rain.

From so parts of the pool I can just see into the outside part of the meal alcove. Even without my glasses, by squinting I can make out 3 couples and a threesome. I can't make out if any are looking at me. Doesn't matter, the rain actually makes me feel better about swimming alone in the pool.

Boom! Thunder, again the lightning is out of sight. I start to leave the pool, then I think. I have no fear of death. The only fear I have is one of painful death or worse painful not death. A lightning strike is very unlikely, I have much better targets in the form of tall building on three of my four sides. And if I beat those arms it is a pretty good odds for a swift death.

I swim, happy as a kid in a candy store. I'm sure the diners think I'm nuts. I probably am anyway, so ha.

An email from Pete tells me he is coming back on the 8th. I'm leaving on the twelfth. Still it is a nice surprise, and makes it easier for me to return his cell phone.

Hello Garth,

When you stopped posting, I got out of the routine of checking in on your posts. There was much to catch up on when I did have a look a few days, ago!

While I am not sure I read it all with great attention to detail, I was taken, sometimes amused (though not always in agreement) with your political comments and observations. There had not been much of this since you arrived in Pattaya.

I also sensed a different sense of clarity and some vulnerability. Something I had not seen/read, previously, during your residence there.

If I understand correctly, you are there for three more weeks...and then?

Glad you are managing the eye/visual challenges....and I hope all else is going well.

Pamela

I have remarked occasionally that I tend to post when I am in the mood for posting. As such it tends to be when I am up beat. The reader is spared my more somber and morbid moments but also a fair bit of the truth of that side of me.

As in the past, aside from the occasional rant, most of my political/economical stuff has been in the mouseovers (run your mouse over the any one of the day separators in any previous month if you've missed this "feature'). But this subtle, Discordian, aimed to seem nonsensical but shift your world view ever so slightly.

But now here I find myself near the climax of economic apocalypse I've been predicting for 27 years while those around me thought me paranoid. But now it is the train running for the end of the tracks, and others can see the tracks run out so they are talking. Which means now people are suddenly asking me what to do to save their little corner of life. So I'm steeped in it from both sides. So it's on my mind, which means it is going to turn up in my pages, morbid or not.

Clarity and vulnerability in on and off abundance.

Hugs

Garth

PS: exactly two weeks of Thailand left today.

I keep looking at the fliers in the outing kiosks. Tigers, more Elephants, Botanical Garden, Dolphins, etc. Today, I see a flier for Ripley's Believe it or Not. What catches my eye is it says it is in Royal Garden Plaza. Even has a map. Yup, that's Royal Garden Plaza. Has a picture of Royal Garden Plaza with an airplane sticking out of it. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you could over look.

Yet that is the building straight across from the spot on the beach where Momon gives massages. A building I've been in twenty times at least. So how could I miss a huge plane sticking out of it?

I get more info on the Internet. It has 4 exhibits: Museum, 4D theater, Haunted House and Infinity Maze. Full tour package is 600 and some odd baht.

"You can spend the whole day at Ripleys" the brochure says. It opens at 10.

The first it is raining in the morning.

Day two, I wake up Ooy early and we eat breakfast downstairs at 9am. While I faction of a meal back in the US the breakfast options here are all too big. I am always full (eat less of it you say) after breakfast. I hover back and forth between the last real belt hole and the first added one.

At the last minute after breakfast I remember the headset. I go upstairs, put in fresh batteries and leave the book behind.

We walk to 2nd road, and down it against traffic, past Mikes Plaza, past McCafe and it's plaza and then it appears: Royal Garden Plaza. And sure enough, there is a huge plane sticking out of the third floor advertising Ripleys. Too be fair to me, I had never before entered from this side, only exited - and apparently never looked back.

We are five minutes or so too early. God forbid I should stand around empty minded for five minutes; we go into Au Bon Pain and I drink an Iced Coffee Black.

The pass is a wrist band. The band has a picture of each event on it. At each exhibit they check off that event. So you can only go on each "ride" once.

We start with the Infinity Maze. We are instructed to put white gloves on our hands and white cloth bags on our feet. Then through a door we go and into the maze. Some rooms or corridors have flashing lights, a few have strobes, half are pitch black. Most of the walls are mirrors. Some have strings or strands hanging from the ceiling.

It isn't too hard to figure out where to go. Grope and push, grope and push, repeat until something gives way. Then on to the next part of the puzzle. Ooy seems to enjoy it, I enjoy that.

Next we go to the Museum, as the other parts are more or less timed this only part that makes 'you could spend your whole day' even marginally true.

Parts of it are rather interesting though. About halfway through though, Ooy's bladder becomes a pressing issue and we rush the second half of this part. No re-entries.

The Haunted House is why I brought the headset. I don't do well with screams. Ooy likes but gets freaked out by horror movies, which seems to be a largish portion of what is on the movie channels. I figured this would make an impression.

We are led into a circular room by an axe wielding Thai in white death makeup. His act is quite good, he seems very menacing. An effect not at all dispelled by his whole speech being in Thai. I get the gist. The rest of our party consists of Ooy and three Japanese people. So presumably only Ooy knows what he said.

We are handed a short piece of rope to keep us together. I'm fourth, Ooy takes up the rear and my other free hand. We are plunged into total darkness. And abandoned.

I like it. You couldn't do this back home. Over lawyered. Even the supposedly dark areas have to have little lights in case someone trips or faints or what not. It totally destroys the effect. Here the effect is total.

Now, you have to picture it. Whatever instruction we have been given has fallen on uncomprehending ears. No one has a clue what to do. Personally I would treat it like the Infinity Maze - grope and push. But I'm not in front. The guy in front has no idea what to do. Thankfully I start feeling around and find a path to our right. Also luckily most Japanese speak English. Slowly we advance.

The headphones protect me from both the fake and the real screams. None of it scares me but I didn't expect it to. Ooy jumps a lot, I laugh a lot. I keep getting lost in where it could be better. If they made us where those gloves, they could pick a darkness spot and wipe the rope (the one we cling to for "safety") away from us, leaving us disoriented, connected only by sound. That might be scary.

Eventually this is over. They have pictures taken, I assume with nightlens, but it doesn't have the look of darkness glasses. I'm smiling in all of them. Everyone else is in black. I'm nearly twice as tall and easily twice as big as the next biggest in our group of five. And I'm in bright white, cap to shorts, everything but headset and sandals. I should have bought a picture.

Lastly is the 4D theater. One of those 3-D rides where the chair also moves around simulating motion and you sit through a rollercoaster and dirt bikes and gliders and you get the idea.

The headset is useful in keeping the 3-D glasses on over my glasses while being whipped around.

And there we were just before noon. Done for the day.

Exactly two weeks left to Thailand. Still no plan on what to do next. Worst comes to worse, I go to Penang and plan from there.

Ooy and I spend a little to a lot of time each night attempting to communicate one slow word at a time. Little effort is made, at least on my part, any more to remembering the individual words - just in getting the ideas across.

Tonight she tells me that her duty in Pattaya is up in June and she is going back to Isaan to farm rice. Remember she has only been in Pattaya for three weeks before me. She doesn't like it here. Too noisy. I like that I have had a small part in protecting her from corrupting influences of this city if only in using up five weeks of her obligation here.

Spacecraft analogy

Ooy will survive

another why I'm in Thailand

 
Random Aprilness

Week #5

Iron Man attempt #1

Shoe shopping

Lox

On the way to the theater at Royal Garden I was stopped by a man who acted much like a monk but was dressed just different enough to not be charged with impersonating a monk, a serious offense. Usually I avoid everyone that tries to get my unoffered attention. Somehow this man exuded enough charisma to slow my pace enough for him to start his act. He put a piece of paper in my hand and asked me to make a fist. He asked me to think of a number 1 to 5 (4), and a flower. The flower question caught me of guard and my mind drew a blank and finally gave up 'rose.' He played the usual grifter math tricks to manipulate my number into being his. I noted with a laugh that it took four manipulations, 1 being the only number he didn't try first. He had me open the paper. '5rose' it read.

The five is easy to explain, and I suppose Rose would be the most common answer for an American (he told me I was an American before we began - dialect linguistics) but if I hadn't been flustered by the question and having been maneuvered out of my direction of travel I would have answered with Tulip or Orchid. I wonder what he would have done then?

He told me I would have a long life, I laughed inwardly, but thought of the other monk. He then asked for money, and I gave him 20 baht for getting rose which will bother me for a little bit. He explained 'Thai money is small money' but I knew that already and was already back underway.

Iron Man

Massage