Some of you have asked if the cyclone hit here at all. The remnants of it touched northern Thailand, but in Bangkok it's been nothing but hot and sunny. Burma has been devastated, as you know, with very great loss of life. The junta is cruel and stupid, but not so cruel and stupid that it has refused entry to international relief groups. Alhough, the country was such a wreck to begin with that the helpers surely will have a hard time knowing where to begin.
Joe is especially concerned about a Chin village where he spent a night on his last trek. A steep hillside had been cleared for planting. Joe asked his guide if landslides might result during the monsoons. The guide said yes, but the villagers---who lived at the bottom of the hill---didn't understand that.
The regime still plans on holding its sham constitutional referendum on Saturday. It is madness.
Today is our last full day in Thailand. We spent the first part of it slogging around Bangkok in the heat scouting locations for scenes in the tenth Strachey book. I'm on chapter 11, out of about 25. It might be titled "Not How Anybody Wants to Die." Is that lurid enough? (Consumer note: "Death Vows", the ninth Strachey book, about a gay marriage gone wrong, will be out in September.)
Our plan for The Last Supper tonight is tom kah gai, fried morning glory vines in spicy sauce, and duck red curry. Does this represent a failure of imagination?
This is the end of this blog but not the end of Dick and Joe's Endless Cycle of Travel Death and Travel Rebirth. There will be no Travel Nirvana for the likes of us, ho ho.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Pattaya
It's a Cancun-like Gulf of Thailand seaside-resort city that got going in the Vietnam era---a U.S. base was not far from here---and took off in the age of Southeast Asian industrial tourism that followed. Pattaya has a reputation. Some Thais in Bangkok were surprised, even disgusted, that we were planning to visit here. This reputation has been earned. Some years ago a foreign writer injured high-level Thai sensibilities by describing the country as "as a brothel with temples." In Pattaya, they forgot the temples.
While much of Pattaya is indeed squalid, some of it is bright, clean and more or less wholesome. The distinctions between unwholesome and more or less wholesome Pattaya are sometimes clear and sometimes blurred. They are clearest in Somtien Beach, south of the city, where Fritz, Leonard and Num live. They are the reason we came here.
Fritz Blank is Barbara Wheaton's old foodie buddy from Philadelphia. For a couple of decades, he ran Deux Chiminees, considered by many the city's finest restaurant. (Fritz also has degrees in dairy science and microbiology.) Barbara and Fritz see each other most years at the Oxford Food Symposium and otherwise exchange erudite and marvelously witty e-mails, some of which Joe and I have had a peek at.
Last year, Fritz moved to Thailand full time to be with his boyfriend since the early '70s, who had settled here several years earlier. Leonard Bucki is a former Philadelphia trial lawyer who Fritz says "never lost a case" and retired happily at age 51. Now they live in Somtien Beach, Fritz in a flower-draped hillside townhouse of his own, Len in a gorgeous modern beach house with his Thai boyfriend Num. Fritz also has a Thai friend with whom he seems to be---in the parlance of the '50s---going steady.
Fritz and Len are two warm, bright and delightful men, and we are grateful that we have been able to have breakfast with them every day and dinner on a couple of nights. We also spent a day at the gay beach with Fritz, who is a well-liked fixture there.
It was at this beach where Len met Num seven years ago when he was 23. Num is a lovely man, and Fritz told a lovely story about him. The three men travel together and once spent Christmas in Philadelphia. Num was reluctant to accompany Fritz to an open rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth. Len---who has educated this former farm-boy-then-beach-boy-masseur---talked Num into tagging along, and said he could always leave during a break in the rehearsals. At the break, Fritz asked Num if he preferred to duck out. Said Num: "Oh no! I stay. It make me feel all funny inside." I've never heard it summed up better.
Joe and I are staying in town at a place called the Hotel Ambiance, and it's got plenty of that.
Tomorrow we return to Bangkok, where Joe will receive a final onceover by his surgeon and physical therapist. The shoulder is doing well, although Joe's metal-slinging activities will be restricted for a couple of months, an inconvenience.
Wednesday we fly to Delhi, then on Thursday toward Newark and on to Boston, landing at Logan Friday morning. We will be happy to be back with our family and friends and our good lives in the Berkshires. And within days, our Great Shlep of 2008 will likely feel as if it never actually happened. But luckily, it did.
While much of Pattaya is indeed squalid, some of it is bright, clean and more or less wholesome. The distinctions between unwholesome and more or less wholesome Pattaya are sometimes clear and sometimes blurred. They are clearest in Somtien Beach, south of the city, where Fritz, Leonard and Num live. They are the reason we came here.
Fritz Blank is Barbara Wheaton's old foodie buddy from Philadelphia. For a couple of decades, he ran Deux Chiminees, considered by many the city's finest restaurant. (Fritz also has degrees in dairy science and microbiology.) Barbara and Fritz see each other most years at the Oxford Food Symposium and otherwise exchange erudite and marvelously witty e-mails, some of which Joe and I have had a peek at.
Last year, Fritz moved to Thailand full time to be with his boyfriend since the early '70s, who had settled here several years earlier. Leonard Bucki is a former Philadelphia trial lawyer who Fritz says "never lost a case" and retired happily at age 51. Now they live in Somtien Beach, Fritz in a flower-draped hillside townhouse of his own, Len in a gorgeous modern beach house with his Thai boyfriend Num. Fritz also has a Thai friend with whom he seems to be---in the parlance of the '50s---going steady.
Fritz and Len are two warm, bright and delightful men, and we are grateful that we have been able to have breakfast with them every day and dinner on a couple of nights. We also spent a day at the gay beach with Fritz, who is a well-liked fixture there.
It was at this beach where Len met Num seven years ago when he was 23. Num is a lovely man, and Fritz told a lovely story about him. The three men travel together and once spent Christmas in Philadelphia. Num was reluctant to accompany Fritz to an open rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth. Len---who has educated this former farm-boy-then-beach-boy-masseur---talked Num into tagging along, and said he could always leave during a break in the rehearsals. At the break, Fritz asked Num if he preferred to duck out. Said Num: "Oh no! I stay. It make me feel all funny inside." I've never heard it summed up better.
Joe and I are staying in town at a place called the Hotel Ambiance, and it's got plenty of that.
Tomorrow we return to Bangkok, where Joe will receive a final onceover by his surgeon and physical therapist. The shoulder is doing well, although Joe's metal-slinging activities will be restricted for a couple of months, an inconvenience.
Wednesday we fly to Delhi, then on Thursday toward Newark and on to Boston, landing at Logan Friday morning. We will be happy to be back with our family and friends and our good lives in the Berkshires. And within days, our Great Shlep of 2008 will likely feel as if it never actually happened. But luckily, it did.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Wet again
The monsoon rains don't arrive until the end of May, but we've had wild, drenching rainstorms for at least part of each of the last four days. Fierce winds have toppled trees in Lumpinee Park, where only a few days earlier Joe had sat on a bench in the sun and watched a three-foot monitor lizard devour a three-foot fish it had dragged out of a canal. Joe said the lizard ate the fish's enormous head in one gulp.
The wind blew over a number of billboards around Bangkok. One man was killed by flying debris, and another billboard crashed down on a Cal-Tex station in our neighborhood. (Photos of some of this should soon appear on the blog.) The city government says there are two-hundred-and-some illegal oversized billboards that it considers hazardous. Has it ordered them to be dismantled? No, the city has advised residents to steer clear of these billboards on stormy days.
We had wondered about drainage in the streets. Now we see that, basically, there isn't much. Many intersections and driveway entrances fill up with water. Some people slip off their shoes or flip-flops and carry them across flooded roads and byways. I saw a Thai man in a business suit, his trouser legs hiked up daintily, completing a footwear portage across a lake that had just formed in front of the Dusit Thani, a five-star hotel.
I spent an hour in the ground-floor shopping and restaurant arcade of an office tower I had ducked into while I waited for one downpour to subside. The marble floor inside a side entrance was an inch lower than the marble terrace outside. So every time the two security guards holding the double doors shut against the wind and rain opened them to let somebody in, a sheet of water cascaded through the opening. Cleaners in blue uniforms soon arrived with galoshes on their feet and broad-brimmed straw hats on their heads. Three of the cleaners wore stacks of three hats each. Wielding brooms, mops and broad window-washing squeegees, the cleaners tried to shove the water back out the doors---though this of course required opening the doors, so it didn't work. Also, every time a door was so much as cracked, the straw hats blew off, and the guards and cleaners collapsed with laughter.
When the rain let up, I plopped a newspaper over my head and hiked with wet feet the two blocks down to the BTS Sala Deng Skytrain station, and rode over to the Siam Paragon Mall and Cinema. I met Joe just in time for the 7:15 showing of "The Hidden Kingdom," a surprisingly enjoyable new Chinese-American kung-fu flick. You know you're not in Cannes anymore when the most interesting actor on the screen is Jackie Chan.
We also sat through 35 minutes of ads and explosion-packed trailers---New Yorkers would have been throwing objects at the screen---and then stood with the rest of the audience for the royal anthem. Sepia-toned snapshots of King Bhumibole floated across the screen, none of them unflattering. At the conclusion of the bombastic ditty, the legend "We love our king" appeared on the screen in Thai and English. Recently, a Thai youth refused to stand for the anthem and will soon stand trial for lese majesty.
It was still raining after the movie and the taxi queue in front of the mall was impossibly long. We walked up the street and found a tuk-tuk, whose young driver agreed to a reasonable fare. He produced a towel to wipe the rainwater off the double seat in the back, and we had a warm, pleasing, semi-soggy ride for the mile or so back to the hotel.
The other time we got wet recently was at a restaurant we like called Northeast. We think the name means the food is mostly Issan, which can be plenty spicy. The waiter asked if we wanted our mixed seafood salad and vegetable stir-fry "Thai-spicy" or "farang-spicy," referring to the number and types of chilis to be included. Sometimes farang-spicy can be too bland, so we said Thai-spicy. As we ate, steam shot out the tops of our heads and we could have used towels to sop it up as hot water streamed down our necks.
Keeping dry in Bangkok can be a chore, but we don't mind. Tomorrow we take the bus to Pattaya for six days. Will we get wet at the seashore? We think so, one way or another.
The wind blew over a number of billboards around Bangkok. One man was killed by flying debris, and another billboard crashed down on a Cal-Tex station in our neighborhood. (Photos of some of this should soon appear on the blog.) The city government says there are two-hundred-and-some illegal oversized billboards that it considers hazardous. Has it ordered them to be dismantled? No, the city has advised residents to steer clear of these billboards on stormy days.
We had wondered about drainage in the streets. Now we see that, basically, there isn't much. Many intersections and driveway entrances fill up with water. Some people slip off their shoes or flip-flops and carry them across flooded roads and byways. I saw a Thai man in a business suit, his trouser legs hiked up daintily, completing a footwear portage across a lake that had just formed in front of the Dusit Thani, a five-star hotel.
I spent an hour in the ground-floor shopping and restaurant arcade of an office tower I had ducked into while I waited for one downpour to subside. The marble floor inside a side entrance was an inch lower than the marble terrace outside. So every time the two security guards holding the double doors shut against the wind and rain opened them to let somebody in, a sheet of water cascaded through the opening. Cleaners in blue uniforms soon arrived with galoshes on their feet and broad-brimmed straw hats on their heads. Three of the cleaners wore stacks of three hats each. Wielding brooms, mops and broad window-washing squeegees, the cleaners tried to shove the water back out the doors---though this of course required opening the doors, so it didn't work. Also, every time a door was so much as cracked, the straw hats blew off, and the guards and cleaners collapsed with laughter.
When the rain let up, I plopped a newspaper over my head and hiked with wet feet the two blocks down to the BTS Sala Deng Skytrain station, and rode over to the Siam Paragon Mall and Cinema. I met Joe just in time for the 7:15 showing of "The Hidden Kingdom," a surprisingly enjoyable new Chinese-American kung-fu flick. You know you're not in Cannes anymore when the most interesting actor on the screen is Jackie Chan.
We also sat through 35 minutes of ads and explosion-packed trailers---New Yorkers would have been throwing objects at the screen---and then stood with the rest of the audience for the royal anthem. Sepia-toned snapshots of King Bhumibole floated across the screen, none of them unflattering. At the conclusion of the bombastic ditty, the legend "We love our king" appeared on the screen in Thai and English. Recently, a Thai youth refused to stand for the anthem and will soon stand trial for lese majesty.
It was still raining after the movie and the taxi queue in front of the mall was impossibly long. We walked up the street and found a tuk-tuk, whose young driver agreed to a reasonable fare. He produced a towel to wipe the rainwater off the double seat in the back, and we had a warm, pleasing, semi-soggy ride for the mile or so back to the hotel.
The other time we got wet recently was at a restaurant we like called Northeast. We think the name means the food is mostly Issan, which can be plenty spicy. The waiter asked if we wanted our mixed seafood salad and vegetable stir-fry "Thai-spicy" or "farang-spicy," referring to the number and types of chilis to be included. Sometimes farang-spicy can be too bland, so we said Thai-spicy. As we ate, steam shot out the tops of our heads and we could have used towels to sop it up as hot water streamed down our necks.
Keeping dry in Bangkok can be a chore, but we don't mind. Tomorrow we take the bus to Pattaya for six days. Will we get wet at the seashore? We think so, one way or another.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Visa slog
Not much fun, but the job got done. We're legal. We never made it to a casino. It was four hours from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet on the Cambodian border and four hours back. The three and a half hours in between consisted of sitting in tourist-trap rest stops ("purgatories," Joe called them) and standing in immigration queues in the pounding heat. Lunch was a bag of rancid peanuts at a 7-Eleven.
Among the other travelers in the 12-passenger Toyota van we rode on ($30 RT) were:
---young Swedish and German backpackers with that overland-from-Cologne-to-Saigon determined look
---a thirtyish American named Chuck who used to scout movie locations in California and now runs two internet cafes in Bangkok. Asked about the U.S. presidential election, Chuck wasn't sure who was running. Joe told him. Iraq? "I can't express an opinion on that, because I don't have all the facts."
---a fifty-three-ish German jewelery dealer living part-time in Bangkok who has a wife in Wurzburg and two Thai girlfriends, "one 23 and one older." He "saved the life" of the older one by buying her a house. The man's wife has taken a younger boyfriend, and he's not happy about that. His name---we saw his business card and could barely contain ourselves---was Herr Schmuck.
Among the several unanticipated costs of this unavoidable excursion were an extra $12 each for expedited "VIP" handling of our documents at the Cambodian checkpost---i.e., backhanders to the Cambodian officials, with a cut for the Thais arranging them. We never got more than a few feet inside Cambodia.
Then, back in Bangkok at 6:30, the driver of the van that had picked us up at our hotel in the morning dumped us and six or seven others along an expressway and cheerfully told us to hail a cab. He had put together a private deal to drive four Koreans to their distant hotel and we were in the way. We'll complain to the travel agent who sold us our tickets. Mai pen rai? Yes and no.
Among the other travelers in the 12-passenger Toyota van we rode on ($30 RT) were:
---young Swedish and German backpackers with that overland-from-Cologne-to-Saigon determined look
---a thirtyish American named Chuck who used to scout movie locations in California and now runs two internet cafes in Bangkok. Asked about the U.S. presidential election, Chuck wasn't sure who was running. Joe told him. Iraq? "I can't express an opinion on that, because I don't have all the facts."
---a fifty-three-ish German jewelery dealer living part-time in Bangkok who has a wife in Wurzburg and two Thai girlfriends, "one 23 and one older." He "saved the life" of the older one by buying her a house. The man's wife has taken a younger boyfriend, and he's not happy about that. His name---we saw his business card and could barely contain ourselves---was Herr Schmuck.
Among the several unanticipated costs of this unavoidable excursion were an extra $12 each for expedited "VIP" handling of our documents at the Cambodian checkpost---i.e., backhanders to the Cambodian officials, with a cut for the Thais arranging them. We never got more than a few feet inside Cambodia.
Then, back in Bangkok at 6:30, the driver of the van that had picked us up at our hotel in the morning dumped us and six or seven others along an expressway and cheerfully told us to hail a cab. He had put together a private deal to drive four Koreans to their distant hotel and we were in the way. We'll complain to the travel agent who sold us our tickets. Mai pen rai? Yes and no.
Blog comments
Thanks to Dennis Drabelle, who wrote that Joe "has invented a new travel genre. Surgical tourism."
Thanks to Barbara Wheaton, whose opinion seemed mixed on Songkran's "folkloric manifestations."
Thanks to blog chief copy editor Bill Ullman, who expounded at persuasive length on the folly of going into surgery minus a wrist-ID---and without a companion to keep an eye on the proceedings. Joe concurs, although at BNH he had made such a big deal of the missing ID band that it became an OR joke, and nobody was about to forget that he was "Mr. Joseph." Joe says he has read that many nurses, when they are hospital patients, bring along a nurse "buddy" to watch out for errors. They know.
An anonymous blog reader asked if we had witnessed the "Olympic torch hubbub" in Bangkok.
We did not. The Thai government warned that it would expel any foreigner protesting unlawfully, so we played it safe and didn't go at all. It came off peacefully. Dully even. A handful of pro-Tibet sign wavers booed the torch brigade, and every Chinese student within a fifty mile radius was rounded up to wave the flag of the Peoples Republic and boo lustily back.
Thanks to Barbara Wheaton, whose opinion seemed mixed on Songkran's "folkloric manifestations."
Thanks to blog chief copy editor Bill Ullman, who expounded at persuasive length on the folly of going into surgery minus a wrist-ID---and without a companion to keep an eye on the proceedings. Joe concurs, although at BNH he had made such a big deal of the missing ID band that it became an OR joke, and nobody was about to forget that he was "Mr. Joseph." Joe says he has read that many nurses, when they are hospital patients, bring along a nurse "buddy" to watch out for errors. They know.
An anonymous blog reader asked if we had witnessed the "Olympic torch hubbub" in Bangkok.
We did not. The Thai government warned that it would expel any foreigner protesting unlawfully, so we played it safe and didn't go at all. It came off peacefully. Dully even. A handful of pro-Tibet sign wavers booed the torch brigade, and every Chinese student within a fifty mile radius was rounded up to wave the flag of the Peoples Republic and boo lustily back.
The news
I promise you and myself not to fill up the blog with The Mysterious East news stories. But this one, from the April 18 Daily Express, a local tabloid, is too good not to reproduce in its entirety. The writing is suspiciously farang-like, but I'll bet the story is true.
"'WIFE SLITHERS OUT OF HOME
"The python-wife of an Udon Thani man has left him. She crawled away sometime this week.
"The 35-year-old Ban Don Yanang villager Satien Kankudlung tearfully says python Sitthida, whom he wed recently, fled the marital home.
"The snake is believed to be his soul mate of more than 600 years. He found her in a local swamp and married her after she would not leave.
"Visitors flocking to witness the bizarre union and hopefully get lucky lottery numbers are being left disappointed.
"Satien believes Sitthida left before spiritual figure Yuan Kongsuwan came to take her away after a deity told him his wife was wanted. A fortune teller told him earlier the reptile would flee after Songkran. Satien says he'll wait for his wife's return, forever."
"'WIFE SLITHERS OUT OF HOME
"The python-wife of an Udon Thani man has left him. She crawled away sometime this week.
"The 35-year-old Ban Don Yanang villager Satien Kankudlung tearfully says python Sitthida, whom he wed recently, fled the marital home.
"The snake is believed to be his soul mate of more than 600 years. He found her in a local swamp and married her after she would not leave.
"Visitors flocking to witness the bizarre union and hopefully get lucky lottery numbers are being left disappointed.
"Satien believes Sitthida left before spiritual figure Yuan Kongsuwan came to take her away after a deity told him his wife was wanted. A fortune teller told him earlier the reptile would flee after Songkran. Satien says he'll wait for his wife's return, forever."
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Good shoulder
Joe had his stitches out on Thursday and received an excellent report from the surgeon. The doctor did say further daily physical therapy would probably be helpful. So out of what might be an excess of caution, we're postponing our seashore visit and will stay in Bangkok for another week. Also, instead of going to the unspoiled far South, we'll take the bus to Pattaya for six days. This is the well, er, um, somewhat non-unspoiled resort town on the Gulf of Thailand that is sometimes known as Costa del Bangkok. We do not want to miss Pattaya, because Barbara Wheaton's renowned-Philadelphia-chef pal Fritz Blank lives there. We have wanted to meet Fritz for years. Then it's back to Bangkok for a final look-see by Dr. Somsat before heading home via New Delhi May 7, arriving in Becket May 9.
The entire shoulder episode has been gratifying. Joe had a long-standing nagging medical problem expertly taken care of. Bangkok Nursing Home Hospital was friendly and considerate. The only bad moment, he said, was on the day of the surgery. The OR staff decided to remove his wristband ID; it might get in the way of the surgeons, they said. He worried that he might be mixed up with another patient and have the wrong surgery performed. He joked that he particularly did not want sexual reassignment surgery, one of BNH's specialities. That, of course, would not have included shoulder surgery---unless somebody was after that Joan Crawford look.
Tomorrow we go by bus to Cambodia on a visa run. Some of the same Thais, no doubt, who came up with the 30-day-tourist-visa rule, have built casinos just inside Cambodia, where we will be deposited for four hours before returning to Bangkok. Also, the Cambodians charge $45 each for visas, even though we will be in the country for just a few hours. Quite a racket.
Yesterday and the day before, it rained in Bangkok. We had wondered what it was like here during the monsoon rains that start in late May. Now we know. It came down in buckets for about an hour, and it was glorious. It didn't cool it off, though. Whew.
The entire shoulder episode has been gratifying. Joe had a long-standing nagging medical problem expertly taken care of. Bangkok Nursing Home Hospital was friendly and considerate. The only bad moment, he said, was on the day of the surgery. The OR staff decided to remove his wristband ID; it might get in the way of the surgeons, they said. He worried that he might be mixed up with another patient and have the wrong surgery performed. He joked that he particularly did not want sexual reassignment surgery, one of BNH's specialities. That, of course, would not have included shoulder surgery---unless somebody was after that Joan Crawford look.
Tomorrow we go by bus to Cambodia on a visa run. Some of the same Thais, no doubt, who came up with the 30-day-tourist-visa rule, have built casinos just inside Cambodia, where we will be deposited for four hours before returning to Bangkok. Also, the Cambodians charge $45 each for visas, even though we will be in the country for just a few hours. Quite a racket.
Yesterday and the day before, it rained in Bangkok. We had wondered what it was like here during the monsoon rains that start in late May. Now we know. It came down in buckets for about an hour, and it was glorious. It didn't cool it off, though. Whew.
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