Gary in Thailand (and elsewhere)
Friday, October 31, 2003
The Blog ate my homework!
It had to happen. I had labored over a big post, staying up late, when Blogger suddenly dumped it. Gave me one of those stupid messages that offers to save your work but doesn't. Too tired to reconstruct it now, and I have to get ready to play a gig. Yes, GaryInThailand Live! Don't worry, you'll hear all about it.
Meanwhile, here's a link to a page about Phutta Monthon, an incredible park on the outskirts of Bangkok that doesn't seem to appear in the guide books. It's as big as Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and easily as beautiful. Lonely Planet apparently doesn't think it's worth mentioning.
Click here to see Phutta Monthon
And here's a link to the pictures of today's intended posting. Hopefully, I'll be able to come back and add the story, or an abbreviated version of it. Short form of it is that the fish was really great, and we enjoyed it while floating on the river. Life doesn't get much better than that!
Click here for the pictures.
ciao, babes
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Finally, Bangkok
Wisut and I arrived in Bangkok in the late afternoon, pulling into a charming leafy middle-class neighborhood at the western edge of the city, a part of town I had never been in. There I met Wisut's wife, Yai.
His other wife.
Well, actually, one of his other wives.
I knew that Wisut had been married three times, but I sort of assumed that one relationship was finished before he married again. That turns out not to be the case. Apparently, polygamy (not sure about polyandry) is traditional and accepted in Thailand, and Wisut had his ladies are cheerful and willing participants.
Officially, Wisut is divorced from his first and second wives. Legally, bigamy and polygamy are as illegal here as in US, and solid citizens such as Wisut follow the letter of the law. However, although Wisut now lives with Attaya in Hua Hin, he has a house each for his first and second wives in western Bangkok, and visits them regularly.
Everyone involved seems to be happy enough with the arrangement and I understand that the wives are all friends. According to Wisut, setups like his are quite acceptable but not that common, owing both to the costs of maintaining multiple households, and the difficulties of keeping so many women happy. I sensed a distinct, and I would say justified, pride as he told me this.
Yai is a charming lady with graying hair and warm smile, and I was immediately made welcome. After pleasantries and a snack, I was invited to rest in my room, and promptly fell asleep. When I work up, it was night time and I felt a little restless and wanted to go for a walk. Wisut and Yai found this slightly alarming, and seemed to be afraid I might be eaten by dogs. I finally convinced them that I was competent to take a stroll in a quiet neighborhood, and headed out.
I found that Yai's quiet (and really lovely) neighborhood is just two blocks from the main road West out of Bangkok, with about 10 lanes of traffic and lots of huge trucks. I found a little open-air restaurant , got a beer, and finally managed to order something by pointing at what the other fellow was eating. Everyone seemed to fear that I would find it too spicy, but when it finally arrived it wasn't spicy at all. Certainly nothing like some of the food Wisut and Attaya have fed me.
Thus fortified, I made my way back home and had a good night's rest.
Click here to see the pictures.
Tomorrow: Man's quest for sustain and why guide book's suck (Missed a day on that. Sorry)
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
On the Road Again
One of the joys of bopping around with Wisut and Attaya is not knowing just what we're doing at any given time. That was the case on Friday morning, when I piled into Wisut's crew-cab pickup for a daytrip to Bangkok, and ended up confronting jiveass Swedes instead. But it's good to be flexible. I'm slowly learning to ask "What are doing now, Wisut?" I don't think he means to keep me in the dark, but just forgets that I can't pick it up from the drift of conversation.
After the Affair of the Bedclothes, Wisut and Attaya took me for lunch. Then we headed back to the house and reqrouped. I was about to get back in the car when Wisut asked me if I had forgotten anything, such as my toothbrush. That was my first clue that I was going for more than the day. Good thing he brought it up.
So I went inside, threw some things in my overnight bag, and headed back to the car. Then Attaya got in. OK, I hadn't realized Attaya was going, too, but fine. And off we went. After driving a little over an hour, Wisut turned off the highway at town of Ratchaburi. We pulled into the lot of a nice little hospital, and Attaya got out. Turned out she was going to visit her son's family. So it was back to being Wisut and me. Just the boys on a lark.
After we had pulled away and gotten to the other side of Ratchaburi, Wisut asked me is I wanted to eat some duck. With his pronunciation, I wasn't sure if he said 'duck' or 'dog', and had to ask. We had a good laugh about that, and some pretty good duck at a roadside place he knows. Too bad, actually. I like dog (one time, in Shanghai, but that's another story).
A little further down the road, we were approaching the town of Nakhon Pathom, when Wisut asked me if I'd like to see a large Buddha statue. I said sure. Being in Thailand, you do get a little jaded about fabulous temples, but Wisut and Attaya hadn't taken me to many. Usually, they dro\ive right past. Part of the background, most of the time.
So I figured it might be a pretty good one. But I was still thinking of the standard sort of Thai temple layout, when we turned a corner onto the main drag of central Nakhon Pathom. At the end of this very broad (probably 8 lanes) downtown avenue, was a FREAKING BIG STUPA that filled the whole field of view. we are talking about very large and *really* massive. Also gorgeously symmetrical and quite, quite beautiful to behold.
It turns out that Phra Pathom (Pa Pa-Tom, the h's and r's are nearly silent) is the largest Buddhist monument in Thailand, and one of the very largest in the world. Picture the US Capitol dome in Washington. It's bigger than that. Half again as high and way more massive (it's a solid bell-shape with a tower on top). Not as tall as the Washington Monument (380 vs. 500 feet), but it must be at least 20 times the volume. And solid.
Did I mention that it's solid?
In any case, it is quite something to see, and I totally recommend that you put it on your list if you are coming to Thailand. You won't regret catching this one.
I didn't have any 'film' in my digital camera, so I couldn't take any pictures of my own, but here's a link to a site that some nice shots and more info. Link to Phra Pathom web page. Check it out.
At Phra Pathom, we went to see Phra Ruang ('Phra' means 'holy', I understand, and can be applied to stupas, statues, people, etc.). This is the large Buddha statue that Wisut had mentioned. It's a really beautiful golden standing Buddha, and supposedly one of the most revered and ancient Buddha images in the country. It stands in an alcove at the base of Phra Phathom Chedi (Chedi is Thai for Stupa). one of four such alcoves, each at one of the cardinal points.
Majro Buddha images in Thailand each have their own history, usually of being captured and carted off to the capitol of the most recent conquering army. I'm not sure why it is that certain images are consided particularly powerful and holy. I suspect it harkens back to some pre-Buddhist animist traditions. There are certain ultra-holy temples in SE Asia that are supposed to date to the time of the Buddha. But everyone knows that Buddhism didn't get here until hundreds of years later. Some of the stories are hard to make sense of, being way out of sequence.
At a shop adjoining the Phra Ruan, Wisut helped me to buy a locket containing a small clay tear-drop shaped clay tablet with a gold-leafed image of the Phra Ruang on one side and an image of the chedi dome on the other. It came with a clip to hold it in a shirt pocket or elsewhere. Wisut explained that it was good to keep it with me for protection, in the manner of a St. Christopher's medal. I was really glad to have it. Wisut drives like a lunatic.
Later, Wisut explained that by Thai lights, I hadn't actually purchased this amulet. I had adoped it, or 'rented' it. Apparently, these things are regarded as sentient beings that cannot be owned. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to give it bits of food, or what. But I'm still carrying it around. It's very pretty and, hey, it can't hurt.
Tomorrow: Why guide books suck.
Monday, October 27, 2003
Troubleshooter
Wisut wanted to go to Bangkok on Friday, saying we would leave at 9 am. But before we ever left, I earned my stripes as a functioning member of my adopted household, by helping to resolve a sticky issue with a former tenant.
The party in question was a 60ish Swede (Hua Hin is particularly popular with Scandinavians), with a bald head and a huge blond handelbar mustache, who goes by the name of "Moo" (go figure). I had met this person in passing before and he struck me as dissolute and of no particular account.
Wisut had mentioned Moo a couple of times since, and also thought of him as a dubious character. Attaya, on the other hand, would scowl and all but spit when his name came up. It was clear she didn't like him at all, though I didn't know the ins and outs. Or why this person was even worth talking about.
Thursday evening, after dinner, Wisut told me that there was a problem with Moo, and asked me for my advice. Moo had been a tenant (actually subtenant, having been invited to stay by the actual renter while they were back in Europe). Moo had moved out recently, but had taken the bedclothes with him (Rentals in Thailand are usually fully furnished, complete with pillows and sheets for the bed).
Attaya was quite upset about the matter, and was ready to go to the police. In the manner of Thai households, Attaya holds the purse strings and does most of the actual business dealings. However, she speaks to English and relies on Wisut to communicate wit the farang tenants. In this case, Wisut was having a hard time recovering the sheets. Had it been up to him, the matter probably would have been dropped (we're talking about $40 worth stuff, tops), but Attaya really did not cotton to being taken advantage of in this way.
Wisut asked me what he should do. I asked him if he had spoken to Moo about this, and he said he had not. I said that before anything, he had to ask Moo directly to return the sheets. If he refused, denied having them, or claimed they were his, other steps might be taken. Wisut understood what I was saying and thanked me for the advice.
The next day as we left the house on the way to Bangkok (I thought), Wisut asked me to help him in talking to Moo. Wisut's English is good for a Thai, but far from the fluency of a native speaker or a multi-linqual European, and he wanted me to help make things clear on both sides.
Naturally I did not want to get myself in the middle of a dispute, but Wisut has been overwhelimingly kind to me and I couldn't refuse to help. So off we went to Moo's house. We found him in front when we got there. I explained that I really had to idea of the history of things, and it was not my business, but Wisut had asked me to help and that I understood Moo had something of theirs.
Moo immediately acknowledged that he did have the bedclothes and said he was quite ready to return them. Then he started going off on a tangent about what he called (with hand gestures) "the whole cake" of what I took to be some other issues from his side. Last thing I wanted to get embroiled in this, so I interrupted him and suggested I was sure that Wisut and Attaya would be quite willing to resolve any outstanding issues but that it was going to be necessary to resolve the matter of the bedclothes first.
Again Moo confirmed that the clothes were not his and would be returned, then tried to spin off again on this whole shaggy-dog story. So I had to politely interrupt again and state that, be that as it may, it seemed to me that in this case the bed clothes must be returned before other matters could be taken up. I was careful, of course, to keep myself at a distance.
Finally, Moo gave it up, and took us upstairs to get the items in question. We found, though, that Wisut wasn't sure exactly which items belonged to them, so he had to phone his wife to come over and claim the property. She arrived right away, and identified the items. It ended up as the four of us in Moo's bedroom, smiling amiably. Attaya was clearly happy, Wisut was relieved, and Moo had apparently decided to be a good loser. For my part, I was just glad that it hadn't proceeded to anything more contentious.
In the end, Moo's "whole cake" of issues boiled down to a single potted plant and an electric fan that were locked in the old place, a few doors down. So we headed down there. The plant was actually a small tree in a ceramic tub, weighing 100 pounds or more. Moo wanted us all to carry it back to his place. Wisut wasn't going for this and it ended up with Moo flagging down a couple of guys who were unloading bottled water nearby and offerering them 10 baht (25 cents) apiece. They were kind of insulted, but finally dragged to the plant in question out onto the street. And that's where we left things, with Moo and his plant standing on the road.
What I didn't know at that point was that my whole performance in this matter had impressed Wisut and Attaya tremendously. They thanked me repeatedly, and for the rest of that day Wisut kept coming back to the way I had headed off Moo and his "whole cake", relating the story to everyone we met. He really thought it was great, and over lunch I taught Wisut the American slang "jiveass" to describe a person like Moo.
All in all, it seems to have been a big success for me, and I'm very happy to have been of assistance to my kind landlords. And with that, we finally headed off to Bankok
Tomorrow: Into the Heart (well, the outskirts really) of Babylon
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Back Again
I missed a couple of days as I had a somewhat unexpected trip to Bangkok with Wisut. It was interesting and fun, and gave me material for a few days postings. That's Thailand. Live a day, write about it for a week.
But first, the News...
The news is water. Quite a bit of it. Hua Hin and other areas of Pruchuap Kirikhan province have been under as much as 50 cm (that's 20 inches) of water. In the towns, the middle of the street is the low spot and that's where the water goes. Makes for some nice boating
I came back to Hua Hin by bus last night, not knowing what was happening here. At Phetchburi, two towns north of Hua Hin, the bus turned off the main highway and headed out towards the beach. Not really being able to ask, I sort of thought that was just the route they took. But then the roads got smaller, and there was a lot of slow traffic, and I suspected something was up. Finally, we came back to the highway at Cha-Am, the town next to HH, which is where the beach road ends.
In downtown Cha-Am, the main road was flooded to the tops of the curbs. Being high-clearance, my bus wasn't directly affected, but it was darn interesting. I saw a bicyclist plowing through, with water above the axles. It's a good thing I didn't take the train, another option for transit between Bangkok and Hua Hin. The trains are not getting through.
Flooding in Thailand generally is not so dire as in North America. A certain amount is expected, and housing and infrastructure are designed to accomodate it. The traditional Thai house is on stilts. Modern houses have tile-floored 'living' areas on the ground floor (usually raised a bit over ground level) with wood-floored bedrooms upstairs. Electrical outlets here are generally about 4 feet above the floor. So if a flood rises high enough to come in the house, people just move upstairs and shoo the frogs out when the water goes back down.
The water here is warm, too, so it's not uncomfortable to wade in it. Not necessarily clean in the strict sense, but probably dilute enough not to be a threat. No one in their right minds, Thai or farang, drinks water from the taps here anyway.
The flooding this time is a bit worse than usual, though (global warming? could be.), and it's disrupting tourism. The flooded areas themselves are not the biggest destinations, but they're on the routes to major resorts (Phuket, Koh Samui) further South, and transportation has been interrupted. Lots of cancellations. The bar girls and business owners are bumming.
For myself, it's not too bad. I get around by bicycle and don't really mind damp cuffs. It's sort of fun to plow through a shallow lake on my bike, and I get to do it a lot. Another storm system is on the way, though. My bedroom is 2nd floor, but...
Tomorrow: Gary the Diplomat. Stay tuned to GaryInThailand
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Film at 11
Blogspot still isn't letting me upgrade my account to post photos, but I've put some of the pictures up at Ofoto.com. You can use the link, or go to http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=spy3t2r.8sow5ian&x=0&y=8mz88r to view them. It's free.
Click here for Gary In Thailand photos
If anyone is interested in ordering prints of any of these, let me know (garyshall@aol.com). I have higher-resolution versions than those on display here.
Royal Ceremonies and Farang Jokes
When I came out my front door this morning, I found my landlady dressed in a dashing khaki uniform, complete with ribbons and ornamented hat. Apparently the civil service she works in (the Department of Non-Formal Education) is something like our National Health Service, with uniforms that people wear on special occasions (unless you're Dr. Koop).
It turned out that today is the anniversay of the death of King Chulalankorn, also known as Rama V, or just "The Beloved King'. The day is comemerated by ceremonies around the country, and the one that Ataya was on her way to was just down the street. So Wisut and I headed over to watch the proceedings.
When I arrived, I found a couple hundred people in uniforms of different colors standing before a statue of the Beloved King (that's how Wisut and Ataya always refer to him) and a display of decorated photos and signs that (I guess) relate to the King. Some of the uniforms were military, but the great majority were civil services. A lot of white uniforms. I guess Thais like to be able to dress up like this from time to time. They seemed dignified but quite nice.
There was a fellow giving a speech, which mercifully turned out to be very short, and the local high school band played the national anthem (composed by the current king, who is reputed to be no slouch on the saxophone).
Once the ceremony completed, people formed up for group photos, usually around one or another of the Beloved Kings pictures. It seemed more social event that Solemn Occasion at this point. The whole thing was done in 30 minutes and everybody went home to change clothes.
Over lunch, Wisut told me a couple of jokes about farang, the generic terms for foreigners in Thailand. Apparently these can get a pretty good laugh among Thais.
In the first one, this farang is in a small town and goes to get lunch at a local restaurant. No menu, nobody speaking English. He tries to order, but ends up with something really unappetizing on this plate, and he's discouraged. At this point, a Thai fellow comes in and sits at the next table. He seems to be a regular, and the only thing he says to the waitress is "Mandam" (mahn-dahm). She nods quickly, scurries away, and returns straight-away with something that looks and smells delicious.
"Ah" the farang things, "I order the Mandam". So he calls the waitress over, says "Mandam!" loud and clear. She acknowledges the order, and heads off. But then she comes back with another plate of exactly the same disgusting glop he had gotten in the first place.
You see "Mandam" means "the same" in Thai, as in "I'll have the same thing I ordered last time."
You probably have to be Thai to fully appreciate that one.
In the second joke, a Japanese businessman comes to Thailand to kick off a joint project with a Thai partner, and is paired with a Japanese-speaking manager to act as his guide and host. A group dinner is arranged at a nice restaurant so all the other managers can get to know the new partner. The Japanese businessman wants to be polite, so he asks his host to teach him something he can say in Thai to the other employees. The host says "No problem. After the dinner is finished, just stand up and say 'Chao Moo!' vigourously and with a raised fist. It's an old tradition."
The Japanese businessman does as suggested. When everyone is finished eating he stands, raises a fist in the air and says "Chao Moo!" loudly. Everyone breaks into big smiles and gives him a hearty round of applause. The businessman is pleased and proud.
After sitting down, he turns to his host and says "Well, that seems to have been very succesful. What exactly does 'Chao Moo!' mean, anyway?"
His host tells him "It means 'I'll pay!"
Even I think that's kind of funny.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
The APEC Summit
Thailand is not the smallest country in the world (pop. 54 million by last count), nor the poorest by a shot. But it is definitely not among the "big powers", and the Thais are very aware of that fact. Their strategy in the world has been to be friends with as many of the big players a possible.
This approach has served them well historically. Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia that was never colonized by a European power. Their kings managed this feat by playing one party off the other. The other countries in the region hooked up with one or another of the European powers (French, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish). In most cases, these started out as "protective" relations ("Those English/French/Dutch are pigs. Better let us protect you against them>"), but then the protector would take over. There were variations, but this is more or less the pattern that cost the Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Malays, Laos, and Filipinos their independence. Which they had to win back very painfully at a later time.
Thailand never fell into this trap, positioning themselves as a buffer between the French in Indochina and the British in Burma and Malaysia. It was a really skillful game, and I think one reason the Thai monarchy remains popular is that the Thais credit their kings with keeping them free.
The latest manifestation of the strategy is the APEC Summit, which finished yesterday. This is a huge affair, with over 9,000 participants, including the heads of state of the US, China, and Russia, in addition to those of every country in the region. This year was the first time the summit was hosted in Bangkok, and the Thais pulled out all the stops.
For one thing, Bangkok was battened down tighter than a drum head.
For the duration of the summit, the city's notorious traffic, nightlife, and software piracy almost didn't exist. 80% of the city's taxis were sent home, and most businesses closed. The government was going to close the banks, but then somebody pointed out that the delegates to the summit might need financial services.
Bangkok doesn't really have that many street beggars as compared to, say, San Francisco, but these were also suppressed for the duration. In a controversial move, street folk from other countries (mainly Cambodia) were rounded up and forcibly flown home.
I passed through BKK on my way to Hua Hin a couple of weeks ago, before the full force of the shutdown was in place, but I could see some effects. For one thing, for the first time ever there were no pirate CDs, audio or software, on offer. Folks I've talked to who were there more recently said it was downright eerie, with very little traffic and most businesses closed. Ordinarily, Bangkok is anything but quiet, so I can bet it felt pretty odd.
The conference itself got round-the-clock coverage on TV here, and by all accounts was a major success. Bush came, and promised Thailand some great trade considerations. This may have been a quid pro quo for sending a handful of non-combatant troops to Iraq. This is good example of how Thailand plays the game. I've yet to meet a Thai who thinks the war was a good idea, but they do not want to be in opposition to the mighty US. They also don't want to offend Russia and (especially) China. So they kept their heads down, and provided a very, very nominal humanitarian support. Btw, according to accounts in the local ppapers, the Thai troops are a hit with the Iraqis, because they go door to door offering help. This comes off as a tremendous novelty, and the Iraqis think it's wonderful.
The conference was also the scene of star-studded parties, and on Monday night the Thai government staged an astonishing light-and-sound spectacle on the Chao Phraya river, which is pretty much the heart of Bangkok and the country. I watched it on TV, and it was quite something. I'm going to try to get some video of it (when the pirates come back on line, perhaps) and bring it back to show folks at home.
As important as the good vibes with Bush, the Thai king and prime minister had very good meetings with Putin of Russia and Hu Jin Tao of China. The summit was a huge, huge project for the Thai government, but the consensus is that it was worth the effort. As of today, though, everyone's gone home.
So maybe they can reopen the bars. I doubt it will take long. For my part, I'm very glad to have been in Hua Hin.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
The Floating Market
I had planned to post pictures today, but the micro-drive card for my digital camera is having fits and my host, Blogspot, is "administrating" itself and won't let me upgrade my account. So you'll have to make do with prose. But prose is spoken by all the best people...
Many thanks to everyone who sent me messages from my email blast. It's a great way to catch up, in some cases with people I haven't talked to in years. Made me feel good.
Today, Wisut, Attaya, and I got up to go visit the "Floating Market" at a place called Damnoen Saduak. It's in an area about 40 mi. SW of Bangkok that is still essentially rural. The area is very watery and consists of a network canals, or "khlongs" that drain and separate drier (but still boggy) land where the Thais grow sugar palms, bananas, and other cash crops. The traditional residences are built on the banks of the canals, with porchs that serve as boat docks. The result is whole communities that are effectively linked by the khlongs.
Transportation is (or was) primarily by small open boats, and you can still cruise around through the neighborhoods, turning down various "streets' and seeing entire communities in action. All of lower-central Thailand, including Bangkok, was constructed this way up to pretty recent times. In most areas only a trace of the old mode remains, but in Damnoen Saduak and the surrounding area, you can still see the old lifestyle.
All Thai communities have marketplaces, and the khlong towns are no different. The floating market is a place where people bring their foodstuffs and manufactured items, to buy and sell. Standing on shore, or riding in your own boat (easily hired), you can buy fresh fruits, prepared foods, and souvenir items from various folk in their own open boats, manned by a single person and paddled slowly with a single oar. Other merchants operated from the shores, so one can buy and sell in the same mode.
Among the more interesting things to see is the folks who cook delicious foods for you right there on their little boats. This is a variation on the ubiquitous "mobile restaurants' about which I'll have a lot more to say in another posting. Thais have this amazing ability to create a full food service anywhere, and some of the best eating is from carts and other moveable venues.
But eveything changes, and Thailand is a country undergoing rapid development. The floating market at Damnoen Saduak is already more for tourists than for local commerce, with souvenir vendors outnumbering the produce sellers by a margin. Although the khlongs are the original routes of commerce and settlement, 2-lane roads have been in place for a while, and the khlong towns, while still living, are becoming marginalized. The houses along the canals are picturesque, but ramshackle and clearly populated by the poor. The nicer homes in the area are along the roads.
At this point, a major road- and bridge-building project is underway, with a 4-lane highway thru the area due to be completed in 2005. At that point, the old khlong communites will almost certainly recede further, as they have around Bangkok. The process reminds me of what occurred in the Post-War American South where I grew up. Roadbuiling and development brought prosperity, but changed the personality of communites forever. The Thais deserve the good things in life, but I can't help feeling that there's a loss when places like the floating market become tourist traps.
Tomorrow I plan to talk about APEC. If you read the news in US, you probably are vaguely aware that Bush went to some meeting in Bangkok. Here, the APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit is the biggest thing to happen in years, and the Thais are glued to the tube over it. Come back and check it out.
Monday, October 20, 2003
The Crib
My living situation here is slightly unusual. The typical residence for a foreigner on a budget is a furnished 2-br house near the center of town. There are quite a few of these available, with rents from 6000 to 9000 baht/month. The baht is around 40 to the dollar, so this translates to $150 to $225. Awesomely low by California standards, and darn good for anywhere in the States I think.
I, on the other hand, am living in a 3-story townhome with 5 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. It's located a few miles north of town, quite near the beach. My rent is $200/mo. I have a huge amount of space, but furniture for only one bedroom. So I'm basically living in the one room, with my keyboard, internet, and TV, and on the associated sunporch. It's on the 2nd story, with an exterior staircase, so it's fairly natural to use it this way. I'll eventually fill out the other rooms, but that'll take a while.
The place is in a block of 8 such homes (two groups of four back-to-back). This dual block stands by itself, and looks kind of funny to our view. There are other homes nearby, but nothing directly adjoining. (I'll have pictures soon, I promise). The location is nice, very quiet. At night I hear mostly frogs and crickets. The main road is maybe 200 yards away. Audible but not bothersome. There's a lovely little park by the beach (100 yards the other direction) that was built up this year. On Friday nights, there's a band and families come out with their dogs and kids to picnic. It's a gift from the Queen to the neighborhood. Hua Hin is famous in Thailand as the site of the King and Queen's beachside palaces (they each have one, it seems). These are quite close to my house, so my neighbors are royalty.
Being so far from town has its plusses and minuses. Most farang (foreigners) here live in town asthere are a lot of restaurants with European food, bars, and other conveniences and amusements. Being out here, I can't drop in on these as casually as I would otherwise. This may be a good thing. I've noticed that a lot of folks who come here fall into bad habits, like drinking night and day. Being out in the boonies is giving me a chance to organize my life without so much distraction.
But the real feature of my place is my landlords, Wisut and Attaya (we-SUT, at-ta-YA), a lovely upper-middle class couple who have welcomed me into their family in a way that would be almost impossible to imagine in the US. They're civil servants in educational administration. He's retired, but she is still running several programs of the King's (He does lots of stuff to help the people, and is very very popular). She manages a staff of 8-10, wears a power suit, and has a very nice office in town.
By night she cooks fantastic meals for her husband and I, and darns my socks. Really. I can't believe it. She just comes in, straightens the room, picks up whatever needs to be picked up, washes it, mends it, etc., just like like my mom used to do. If it was US, I'd be a little worried about her stability, and maybe disturbed by the intrusion. Here, it just seems to mean that she like me, and I take it in the best way I can. (Her husband speak English well, but Attaya speaks almost none. Fair enough, as I speak almost no Thai.)
Lord knows, I can use help as I get myself settled here, and it's wonderful to have a close friendship with people who are so well established (they own several properties besides this place, in Hua Hin and Bangkok). As a result of this relationship, I'm spending close to nothing on food, eating incredibly well, and nearly any need that comes up is taken care of.
They love taking me sightseeing, too. Tomorrow we're getting up early to visit the "floating markets" at Damnoen Saduak, and I'll post a report on that. Should be great
Sunday, October 19, 2003
The World from Hua Hin, Thailand
I'm starting up this web log for the benefit (or consternation) of my family and friends who want to keep up on my adventures. Anyone else is welcome too!
I'm a 52-year old American, currently in process of relocating myself to Thailand. It's my intention to live here 9-10 months out of the year, and spend the balance traveling in US and other parts. Phase 1 of the process is now complete. I've put my house in California up for rent and I'm ensconced in a comfortable apartment just outside Hua Hin, Thailand. There's more to be done, but things seem to be going well at this point. Very well, in fact.
The Background
So what led me here? It began when I turned 40, and did an evaluation of my financial future. I'm a lifelong bachelor, and at that time had been in the music and audio technology field for nearly 15 years. I'd been making reasonable money, but never accumulated much. Running a few spreadsheets demonstrated convincingly that I'd either live broke, and/or have to work until the day I croaked. Not acceptable.
I decided to focus the next 10 years on saving to achieve a basic financial independence by age 50.
Did it work? Sort of. I met the goals I had set, as far as the assets I accumulated. Certainly I missed some opportunities, but hey, don't we all. The problem was that the target kept moving. My goal was to make myself free to do what I wanted to do, not what somebody else thought I should do. But the more I accumulated, the more my cost of living went up. Watching this process, I concluded that to meet my basic wish for independence, I was going to have to relocate to somewhere where costs were more moderate that the San Francisco Bay Area. At the same time, I did not want to be stuck in some place I'd be bored.
My process got a kick shortly after my 50th birthday when I became job free, courtesy of the New Economy. I was left staring at an asset base that was significant but not sufficient, and not quite ready to move. In the existing job market, I could no longer make a living. No, it would be more accurate to say that I wasn't willing to do what would be needed to make a living. Why should I? I had no dependents other than an aging cat, and money in the bank.
Over the next 2 years, I did consulting, but only made enough to slow the rate at which I was drawing down my savings. During this time, I started seriously researching where to move to. My leading candidates were Mexico, Central America, and Thailand. In the end I chose Thailand because it meets my needs for economy, friendliness to foreign residents, and I think it's fun! I could have lived in Latin America, but I thought I'd be bored.
I made a couple of trips and homed in on Hua Hin as a near-perfect location. It's about 100 miles from the capital, Bangkok (which I decided was too crazy to live in), a beach resort town that has a big international (mostly European) community, and plenty of rental real estate. I also had a friend living here (more on that in another post).
The cat passed on in June, and I set about making my change. I had a little consulting work through the summer, so I set September as my target, and started clearing the decks. It's fascinating to dump a lifetime's accumulation. More about that another time, too.
I worked up a budget and got together with an investment counselor to make a plan. If I'm not badly off in my assumptions, I can get enough from my holdings to keep me going indefinitely. That's assuming there isn't some kind of economic melt-down of course.
Everything got done, and with a little delay, I got on the plane Oct. 2. So far, so good. Things here are really as cheap as I expected (I have a 5-bedroom townhome for $200 a month) and I seem to be making friends, both Thai and European. I've got my house near the beach set up with a piano, internet connection. it's quiet and peaceful where I am, but I can ride my bike into town anytime and party pretty much anyway I want (everything you may have heard about nightlife in Thailand is true!). The food is great, it's really pretty, and folks are very nice. And it's definitely colorful! At this point, it already feels like a 2nd home. Still a ways to go, but it seems to be working.
I'll be coming back to the States for the holiday season, traveling cross-country in my new RV (also a subject for future posts). Let's see where all this goes. Feels good to date.
