Thailand is like the world's leading exporter of rice, and from the air you can see that it's all rice fields. We landed in the new airport, Suvarnabhumi (pronounced Suwannapoom). It is quite the cold affair, with lots of exposed, unfinished concrete. My bag came out early, but was stripped of the World Perks gold tag that may have gotten it out early. Even the name tag was unbuckled and hanging open, but thankfully the tag had stayed on the belt. My friend, Gordon, was in the lobby when I walked out and saw me right away.

There are plenty of level escalators at the airport, but they need stand left, walk right signs. Everyone stands flat footed on them and people together block them so if you want to play through you have to say excuse me. They say that on Tokyo escalators people walk left and stand right, while in Osaka they walk left and stand right. Gordon informed me that in Bangkok people stand left and stand right, so I guess the horizontal escalators are and extension of that.

We took a taxi into town, as there are no trains or busses running to the new airport. For political reasons that I won't go into here, this is because the opening date for the airport was pushed up to a time before the such public transportation could be readied. In the taxi, Gordon told me that he had apartment troubles and for that night it was better that I stay in a hotel. After checking in at the Plaza, we went to the Shangri La and booked a tour to Ayuthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand. Although I had been there with my wife before we had kids, I thought it would be great to re-experience it. After booking the tour, we then went to an Indian restaurant in front of the Shangri La for lunch.

After lunch, Gordon had business to attend to, and I went to my favorite electronics area of Bangkok, Pantip Plaza. I was wanting to browse the used computer parts, thinking that they might be cheaper in the third world than in Tokyo, but I found that the prices at Pantip were not that interesting. They are higher than in Tokyo for the most part. Although I expected they might be gone, there are still a lot of stands selling pirate software. If you are a middle-aged guy like me, expect lots of hawkers to come up to you and say "Sexy movie?"

September 30, 2006

I got up at 6:00 AM, showered, and went down to the buffet breakfast at the Plaza. I had instructions how to get from the Plaza to the Shangri La and I was to meet Gordon there for the tour. When I came out of the breakfast buffet, Gordon was in the lobby, reading the paper. He said the Indian food had upset him and he didn't think that he could do a full day tour. He gave me my choices, and I opted to take the tour without him. I know that the number of times I stop to take pictures can be annoying, so I thought it might be better to go alone anyway.

The Shangri La put us in a huge tour bus, very comfortable, and we had a very informative guide who spoke terrific English. It was essentially the same tour that GH and I had taken in 1989, but I had forgotten so much it was quite new to me. For example, I had forgotten that there was a smaller, Cambodian "ear of corn" pagoda temple across the street from the main complex. (Cambodian temples, such as Angkor Wat look like ears of corn, Thai temples look like bells, and Burmese temples look like high, pointy pyramids.) The temple complex is right on the Chao Praya River, and I enjoyed the view. Back on the bus and heading to the main area of Ayuthaya, the guide told us that the palace grounds were entirely destroyed by the Burmese, burned to the ground in a fire that lasted two weeks, around 1670. You can see the foundation stones only. Ayuthaya, the archeological zone, was smaller than I remembered. Most of the Buddha statues had lost their heads and we were warned not to take pictures standing behind them with our heads in place. This gave a nice idea for a commemorative photograph, and I remembered that I had done so in secret in 1989. The pagodas are red brick and plaster outside, most of it missing. I thought the solid parts were original and the red bricks were only placeholders for the original, lost material, but no, the bricks are original. The central pagodas were obviously restored recently, as they had plaster all over the outside and looked new, but I didn't ask when the restoration had been done. Next door, outside of the area you need to buy a ticket for, is Viharn Phra Mongkolbophit with a huge (16 meter?) gold Buddha statue in it. I had a picture of the temple in my photo album at home, but I had forgotten about the Buddha inside. Part of the ceiling of the temple had collapsed at one point, I believe in the 1930's, damaging the right arm and part of the head. There were pictures of it when the building was in ruins. Supposedly, the king of Burma (!) had visited and donated money for its refurbishing which was done in the 1950's.

Next we were taken to an entertainment area where elephants did circus tricks and gave rides. There was an old Thai house on stilts there, but I'm not sure why. Our guide told us that although African elephants had bigger bodies and bigger ears, Asian elephants had bigger heads and were smarter, so most trained circus elephants were Asian elephants. She also mentioned that the elephants actually lived 10 kilometers away and had to be trucked in every day, and that elephants had huge appetites and were therefore expensive to keep. Back on the bus, our next stop was Bang Pa-In Palace. Legend has it that the illegitimate son of a king later rose to power and built the palace for his mother. Although the site dates back to 1630, most of the buildings present today were built around the turn-of-the-century. I climbed the observatory this time instead of just taking a picture of it as before. The chapel-looking thing in the water, the most obvious thing to take a picture of, had scaffolding on top of it. With the artificial lake, the bushes pruned in the shape of animals, the turn-of-the-century architecture, and the piped in music loudspeakered all over the grounds, it had an atmosphere very similar to that of Disneyland.

Bang Pa-In is so big that they rent golf carts if you wish. After we had hiked around the grounds, the bus took us down to the river to meet the boat, owned, not rented, by the Shangri La. The river was so swollen from the rainy season that it was lapping over the gang ramp. They had laid down some boards in the water, so we had to tightrope across them first to get to the ramp up to the ship. On board, the accommodations were super with linen tablecloths and silver utensils. Our seats had name cards, so I walked looking for mine and I made it almost to the front of the boat when I found "Gordon" on the table. I believe I was at the end of the table because I was the only single. Next to me was a retired couple I had noticed on the bus ride. She was British, he was Dutch, and they were living in Holland. She was sitting next to me and was quite chatty. I heard about their son in Australia who they had just visited and her father had just passed away at 96 during the trip and how her image of Hong Kong as crowded and nasty but Bangkok a spacious and templed had been totally the reverse of the reality. She was disappointed with Bangkok. Well, there aren't too many who rave about Bangkok itself.

The food was great, as you may expect. There were two serving lines, one was a lot of fish, seafood, salad, and the other was pork, chicken, curries, etc. I went into the line on the side that was seated on and got the seafood. I didn't realize my error in until I had a plateful of food, but I managed to get more food on it. After the meal came the deserts. I tried little bit of everything at first and then went back for more of my favorite, which, according to my neighbor, was English "trifle." We were already nearing Bangkok when we went upstairs in the open air. The river, as I said, was wide and there were a lot of branches and leaves floating on it. It reminded me of the boat trip from Siam Reap to Phnom Penh. Before long, I caught a glimpse of the tower, the tallest building in Bangkok, which at this time was covered with a huge advertisement for Johnnie Walker. Some of the tall buildings along the river had domes on the top. We went past the National Palace and Wat Arun. I didn't realize we were so close to the Shangri La when we docked. It was quite a comfortable and informative trip. It was all day, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, in the price was 1800 baht. Without Gordon, I probably wouldn't have spent that amount. However, as a splurge, it was great.

Actually, we got in at 4:30 instead of 5:00, so I had some time before Gordon came to meet me. I sat in the lobby and wrote this diary. I was surrounded by some Japanese who looked at their "Chikyuu no Arukikata" guide books and deciding what to do. For dinner, Gordon suggested going out for a pomelo salad. The place we went to wouldn't let me in because I was wearing shorts. We went instead to another hotel, maybe the Sheraton, and had their pomelo salad. The pomelo salad, as the name suggests, is grapefruit, but it's got shrimp in it and we ate it over brown rice. It was quite filling. Just behind me was a lady seated on the floor playing a Thai dulcimer. She was pounding on wires with little mallets. Interesting thing about Thai music is that it sounds like a random series of sounds with no obvious organization. I wondered if we said "Play it again" if it would be the same the second time. I couldn't see how such streams of notes could be memorized without sheet music.

Back in Gordon's apartment. I had had a little trouble understanding his living arrangement before I went there. He'd always said that he lived on the other side of the Chao Praya. What it means is that the Sky Train and subway, which run through the city center, dead end at the river. However, there are condos built on the other side and between bridges. The bridges are packed with cars during rush hours, so it would be hell trying to get to the public transportation and people without cars would not want to live there. As a result, the building supports a boat that stops in front every 30 minutes and takes you to this the Sky Train station, with an option to get off at River City shopping mall for free. I once got to the dock five minutes after the boat had left, so I had a 25-minute wait. At the top of the gang plank at his apartment building there were sandbags as a precaution against high water. One week later, Gordon e-mailed me to tell me that the water had gone high enough that he had to take off his shoes to get into his building.

The next morning, we caught a taxi to Khao San Road for some shopping, but first went passed through Chinatown with its obligatory pagoda-roofed telephone booths. I discovered that Gordon suffers the heat pretty badly and wanted to duck in the Starbucks right away, which is located a beautiful old house. They've get some cute new T-shirt designs, most of them dirty. Some highlights were "same same," "Just do me," Something somewhere has gone terribly wrong," Good bush, bad Bush, etc.

After KSR, we went back to the river, or the Taksin BTS station. There we negotiated 900 baht for two for a 90-minute longtail boat tour of the canals or "klong." Gordon tells me that not many boats go south of Taksin; all go north. Here I might mention that Bangkok is only 10 kilometers from the Gulf of Thailand and the Chao Praya and is a tidal river, so the direction can reverse and the water can be salty. The tour guide told us that Bangkok has a reservoir for water, but it's 30 kilometers upstream. We went south past some ocean-going vessels, some in dry dock, and finally turned into a canal.

Actually, we pulled into a lock and slid in between two other longtails. The river was high, but they didn't let it spill into the canals. I'm not sure why not, because I didn't see anything at the water's edge inside. Everything looked like it was comfortably above the water level. There was a stop for the Snake Farm, but we weren't a very interested in seeing snakes. There was also a slowdown for a lady who looked like she was from the floating markets wanting to sell as beer, water, etc. When we didn't want any, she suggested we buy one for the boatman. I didn't really want my boatman to be drinking beer. I wondered if the 90-minute tour we'd bought included a stay at the snake farm and the waits at the locks. It did, and even with those waits we got back in one hour and 20 minutes. If I were you, I was give the klong tours booked from Taksin Station a miss. Also, most of what you see on the canal tour is squalor. All in all, I think I would have preferred to take a water taxi up the river and back, saving a lot of money. The seats in the longtail are not very comfortable, the front of the boat slaps and you get spray on your glasses, and the engines of the longtail are very noisy. Next time I'm given the canal tour a miss.

Gordon came home while we were talking. After my shower, we went out to eat at the Café de Laos. This is a 100-year-old house-cum-restaurant. The menu was large and hard to navigate. Thank God they had pictures of almost all dishes. Lots of cars outside but few people inside dining - only one other table. We asked for the table by the window, but they told us it was reserved. Still, no one ate at it the whole time we were there.

I found in Thailand and they don't hand you the menus and walk away in general. They hover. Since it took us a long time to decide, it got uncomfortable. Half to get rid of the waiter, we both ordered whiskeys. We were given a free appetizer of rice crackers and some gray brown sauce to spoon over them. There were some purple balls lined up with tiny green chili peppers sticking up between them. The balls were kind of sweet but fishy and the peppers were hot. I passed on seconds. We also got a complimentary plate of 2 canapés. Cone shaped with a ring of hot pepper holding it together and hard to tell what was inside. We had prawns and a chicken dish with cashews, onions, peppers, etc. that was served over brown rice. We had also ordered the whole chicken, but we had finished the other dishes and were waiting by the time it arrived. Except for the drumsticks, it was what I call "band saw chicken" once again. I hate when they just cut up a chicken indiscriminately across the bones. I guess the flavor was in the coating, but I peeled off the skin and dipped it in the Thai chili sauce, so it was just chicken to me. No "oshibori" (Japanese wet towels) at the tables in Thailand. Had to find a restroom to wash my hands before the chicken since it was finger food. They basically make sure it's finger food, too, as they don't give you any knives. What I had noticed that the Kan Toke dinner was not an isolated situation but rather a national trait. At least they had had knives on the boat tour! I might have to carry my own knives if I moved to Thailand. Gordon says you use the spoon to cut meat. Outside, we noticed an old, one-story building with high rise buildings on either side actually touching it. It looked ridiculous. There was also a tall building 10 feet from our 100-year-old house restaurant. Bizarre. "No zoning at all," says Gordon.

I got up before 3:00 AM to go to the airport. At 3:00, the taxi was waiting down below. With very little traffic, it didn't take long at all to get to the airport. The driver asked me if I wanted to take the highway or not. It meant adding an extra 75 baht to the fare. I went for it, but since I arrived at the airport and good 2 1/2 hours before departure I don't know why. Just playing it safe. The new airport, Suvarnabhumi, is very sterile affair, as I said. I much preferred Don Muang Airport. I asked my check-in agent if she liked the new airport and she looked embarrassed and shook her head. Before I cashed out of baht, I looked for a cup of coffee. They now have tons of Starbucks "me too" shops asking $2.40 to $2.70 for a cup of coffee. I found a Burger King and got one for a lot less. I also got a cheeseburger, although it was 4:00 AM, which was a big mistake. It was a microwave job, the kind you can sometimes buy from vending machines and heat up. It was awful. Afterwards, I saw a money exchange place but didn't see anyone working behind the desk. There was a bag on the chair, though. I leaned over the counter and saw the workers fast asleep on the floor! I wanted to take a picture. I walked down the way and found another exchange stand with a worker who was awake. After yet another security check, I boarded the plane, an Airbus A330, and took seat 19B, where I am seated now. We have just landed at Narita and we're getting towed to the gate. It is 2:00 PM, so I may get home around 5:00 or 5:30. So, my Thai vacation is over and tomorrow I'm back to work. To think I almost didn't take this trip. Traveling was work. On this trip I confirmed that travel and adventure are what make life worth living, and I hope I never forget it. Where shall I go next?

Addendum - A few things I learned about Thailand while I was there

Pictures of the King are everywhere in Thailand. Perhaps only in North Korea could you find one man's picture in more locations. Since they just celebrated his 60th year as King in June, the guy is like 80 years old, but all the pictures are from a much earlier age. The sides the entire buildings high-rise are adorned with his picture. Pictures of the queen are also common. I understand that the colors are associated with days of the week in Thailand, and, if you were born on a certain day, that's your color. Well, the king and queen were born on blue and yellow days, so you see a lot of blue and yellow about. Being up in years, I understand the king has had a hip replacement and is not ambulatory. The heir apparent, however, is nowhere to be seen. He is not popular. When I asked why, I got two different answers. Rudee says he doesn't do much in the way of public works, unlike his father, and he's something of a playboy. Gordon says he's a stutterer and something of an embarrassment. The daughter, however, is popular and you see many pictures of her about. They seem to have a problem looming when the king and queen pass away.

Buddha also has a position for every day of the week. The basic positions for Buddha are standing, sitting, reclining, and walking, with sitting being the most common. There are variations after that, for example you see him with his left hand in his lap and his right hand with fingers pointing down, squashing evil. Thais are well aware of what day they were born on. Although I had often heard of the Hmong, or hill tribe people, I had never heard of the Mon. The Mon are predecessors of the Thais. They were displaced by the Thais and now face discrimination, a Thai equivalent of the Native Americans. Rudee is a Mon, although she told me that on her registration card she is officially listed as Thai. When I told her that I had been to the River Kwai, she told me that it was the area where she was born. Gordon told me that her father was the titular head of the tribe in that area. She told me that her family name was the same as the area where she was born. So I took that to mean she was from an important family. She speaks Mon at home. The Thai language is SVO in word order. Basically, subject pronouns are required. There are no plurals, no articles, no verb conjugations or inflections. Negation is preverbal. Adjectives are post-nominal. There are no verb tenses. Everything is done with adverbs. Therefore, you don't say "I walk" and "I am walking." You say "I walk" and "I right now walk," using a time adverb instead of a progressive tense. All the sounds pretty easy, except that Thai is a tonal language, having five tones. Thai also has men's language and ladies' language. I often heard Rudee say "Ka" when people were talking, the equivalent to Japanese "hai." However, she says only women would say this (I forget the corresponding utterance for men). Gordon further explained that Thais substitute "n" for "l" in final position because this is what you do in Thai. You might wonder how this correspondence could be made since Thai has their own alphabet. I don't know, but Gordon says is typical for Thais to say "footban" instead of "football." Where Japanese and Koreas will add epenthetic vowels to the ends of words in order to be able to pronounce final consonants, Thais do not. They just drop the final consonants. I guess the famous "sawadee krap" is actually "sawadee kra."

Family names in Thailand are in the order "given, family," not the other way around as in Chinese-influenced countries such as Korea and Japan. Whereas 25 percent of Koreans are named Kim and there must the hundreds of Junko Tanakas in Japan, Gordon says he's never seen Thai names repeat, either first or last names. It is therefore impossible to look at a name and know if it belongs to a male or a female.