*Be sure to look through all my pictures on my facebook.
and click on the red words to see corresponding pics.
*side note - Buddhasakarat, Buddhist Era or BE, from 11 March 545 BC, believed to be the date of the death of the Buddha. (BE–AD of 544 used to be common, but BE–AD is now 543 in Thailand. Therefore if you want to find the year that we westerners cal A.D. you need to minus 543 years from every year date in Thailand. ie the Thai date of 06-13-2553 minus the date of death of Buddha BE-AD 543 is 06-13-2010
Oh to add to my tales of woe. What tales of woe? Bangkok, I LOVE THEE, let me count the ways. What an enchanting mistress she is, this Bangkok, Kreung Thep (City of Angles)... this my own pearl of the orient. What a great city with so much to do. Every night I walk your streets and my brain is wrinkled that much more. My eyes opened wide to the amount of people power making this engine churn. You make me feel so old due to overexertion because of not wanting to miss anything yet you make me feel so young and alive just seeing those city lights and knowing there is a promise for adventure out there. This is all good well until the wee hours of the morning. Sleep comes fast as I am dead tired by the time I reach my humble room, flip on the aircon, play some music on my laptop, take of my sweat permeated clothes and recline in the manufactured cold breeze of, at that moment my saving grace... AIRCON! (old window air conditioning unit) Set promptly to 25C.
(INSERT LOUD ANNOYING SONG HERE FROM A JAPANESE MADE, CHEAP MOBILE PHONE SOUNDING THAT IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP) NNooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOO!!! Why me lord, lord of lords, LARD! Why is everything fried? get my lard ass out of bed! One hour to get ready and skip down the street hating all that is humidity, broken sidewalks, the smells of cooking frying fish-balls and rancid sausage links while being harassed to take rides from tuk-tuk drivers who overcharge foreigners and those annoying people selling the Thai lotto....and.. and of course... this dreadful 20 minute walk to the BTS skytrain in my business attire.
My love for you only returns upon getting lunch (author takes sip of warm ginger tea) and deciding how I will be damning myself tonight.
There is a plethora of just about everything you want to do featuring most of the seven deadly sins or maybe capitol vices, lust and gluttony being the shining stars around here...... (explanations will be given.. pictures will be disseminated)
wrath - Not much wrath going on here. Violent crime isn't really part of society here, well besides the unusual case of a drunk farang getting into it with other drunk farangs. There are small amounts of incidences of Thai on farang violence but not many. The biggest episode of violent activity here is the recent red shirt protests 1 2 3. From what I have heard most of the protesters were bussed in from rural areas and paid $10 a day to stand around and make noise. A crowd of women and children is what some people have said. Others (Thai people) are just completely saddened at what happened saying that it is not the Thai way. I hear rumors that there will be more protests within the month but after what happened the first time I don't think it will be the same.
Ohhhh! It makes me so angry that it is soooo humid here!!!
greed - greed may only be existant in Thailand, and I say this only in hearing rumors, by government officials and the very wealthy to acquire more wealth... What else is new right? What really is greed? Is making yourself being greedy? Shoot, if all I wanted was one cheeseburger to be happy and I bought two for myself am I being greedy.. or just straight gluttonous? What if I sell those two cheese burgers to some lost and hungry Americans for double the price? A. Greed, B. capitalism, c. smart businessman or D. All of the above? Maybe greed comes in the form of poor people dressing up like monks to get free money and food (which the government here is cracking down on). Lines are blurred, perceptions are lost amongst the many lines of subjective and objective thought.
Money money!!! My american dollars give me soo much money here! hHAH H AHAH A HA hAH ahhahaha!
*side note - I have witnessed a good many young monks, very young, that have cell phones. I was a little confused by this so I asked a friend here about it. She said it is a controversial thing amongst the monks. Many of the young monks are from very poor families and become monks for a steady source of food, shelter and education. Cell phones are relatively cheap here. I got mine for about $30 US and all cell phones are prepaid in minutes that you purchase at 7-11's which are located about every 40 meters here.
sloth - If the gods, any of them, didn't want us to be inactive and fat, why did he/she/it/them allow for Norman Borlaug and biotechnology to bring about the green revolution and in Thailand allow human capital to be sooo cheap? Here in Thailand, the food is cheap and plentiful just like the maids. It seems that even the beggars can afford to eat. Not many here are overweight though. I dont think it is in the amount that is eaten but in the nutritional value of food items. Food here is for the mos part good for you, low sugar content, high in herbs and spices and of course, with the weather being hot and humid and the majority of people having to walk everywhere this makes for a thin nation. I often get asked by my co-workers if we americans eat hamburgers every night and they laugh as they say.. "Do you supersize it?" hardy har har is say! As my Grandpa Kenney would say... "Yeah, those Asians.. They laugh too your face and and laugh when they raise the price and laugh when they stab you in the back!"
Please... Im too hot and tired to get up. Will you get me a sandwich, oh I mean tom yum soup and a tall Singha? Korb Khun Khrab!
pride - Oh if it wasn't for Lucifer and his need to compete with god! "hubris", considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins would not be so serious. I think the only case of real pride that I have witnessed was the boisterous English people and their pride in thinking that they have the best Futbol (soccer) team alive and then ending up even with the US at the end of the match. Oh those british scum, always being disgusting and unshowered and disparaging Americans and their ways for no reason besides left over WW2 sentiments passed down through the generations. All I can say is ha ha you limey bastards!!!! God save the queen, Americans will take the tie. United states 1, England 1.
God dammit I'm American and no one treats us Americans like this!!! We'll put a boot up your ass for the red, white blue!
envy - envy and Buddhism just does not coexist well. Once young Buddha was asked to explain why among human beings some were short-lived while others were long-lived, some were sickly while others were healthy, some were ugly while others were beautiful some had little power, others were influential, some were poor while others were rich, and some had little wisdom while some possessed insight. His reply was, "The killing of living beings leads to a short life, the non-killing of living beings leads to a long life; the persecution of living beings leads to a sickly life, the non-persecution of living beings leads to healthy life; elasticity, anger and hatred lead to an ugly figure and bad complexion, the opposite ones lead to a beautiful figure, attractiveness and loveliness respectively; envy leads to powerlessness, non-envy leads to powerfulness; selfishness leads to poverty, alms giving and generosity lead to wealth" From what I have seen, the majority of Thai people are very kind, helpful, believe in the goodness of humanity and don't envy others situations. They are a community of acceptance and dealing with the uncontrollable.
I wanna be a millionaire so freakin bad....Buy all of the things I never had... I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine... Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen
lust & gluttony - These two go hand in hand here in Thailand.. well in Bangkok.. ok, all of Thailand. Gluttony, derived from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow, means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or intoxicants to the point of waste. Lust, or a desire for the flesh of another, is a craving for sexual intimacy, sometimes to the point of assuming a self-indulgent character. Need I say more? In a city where prostitution is illegal but not enforced, rather monitored for the welfare and safety of the prostitute and "John" alike to have a mutually beneficial time... and in a city where street vendors sell food almost 24hours a day in front of 3 levels of mom and pop restaurants serving just about anything you want "in a Thai way" well... How are you not supposed to be lustful and gluttonous??? A city where almost anything can be bought and the people are unassuming and unjudging and for the most part urging you to "Try" "Try" "Maybe you will like it" the lines of good and bad are merely a matter of personal preference.
No comment on this one.
Last Friday. After attending a conference of a US speaker about the history of affordable housing, detailing the successes and failures of 6 countries at the Thai Housing Authority. Zach and I were let go early. We didn't know what to do with ourselves now that we have been what the Japanese call "Salarymen", without the salary of course, for a few weeks now and not been out before 6pm. It was 2pm and we opted to take the BTS skytrain to Silom Station. The area between the roads of Silom and Sathorn is the closest Bangkok gets to Wall Street, with glistening skyscrapers all boasting the names of financial institutions. After nightfall the character of the place changes considerably though: the small sois (roads or streets) between Silom and Surawong come alive with people out for a good time, including the infamous short little alley of Patpong.
We walked for awhile and under the 2pm sun we were getting roasted. After actually stopping and thinking about where we were heading we realized we were in a Japanese area. We head into one of the many Japanese restaurants. "Asahi or Singha" I asked Zach. "hmmmmmm.. HungNam U TiNI" he replied. (Where is the bathroom) I laughed and the girl at the door pointed upstairs.. Great another un-air-conditioned hallway and bathroom. I decided on two pints of Asahi being that we WERE in a Japanese bar. These went down smooth and uneventfully while we sat under a fan and cooled our faces. "Ok, lets go somewhere else."
Round the corner and down. We found a jolly little Irish pub and decided to check er out. They had Boddington in stock so I decided to introduce Zack to the heavenly full bodied flavor of Boddington beer. He didn't seem to like it very much but I savored every delicious drop of the cold, golden, frothy, creamy nectar of the gods. we spent the next several hours there talking about the world cup, deciding what to do that night, discussing past experiences and travels and doin the ol guys night out thing... again. Ha! At around 9pm an attractive Thai girl that actually had boobs bigger then an A cup came in wearing a tight green Heineken dress and lookin great.. needless to say we switched to Heineken. Hey? We were in an Irish bar... Irish people like green... The Kenneys are Irish... Green, Irish, Heineken, Kenney, that dress... 2 Heinekens please! This continued for about an hour until we decided to walk around and look at the night market that had popped up while we were inside.
We walked out, took a right down a little know street called Patpong. We were here it seemed a little earlier and all was quiet onthe eastern front. Now it was a bustling commotion. People offering sunglasses, shirts, trinkets, massages, young girls for boom boom, beers, tuk-tuk rides, cigarettes.. Zach eyed some business socks that were very cheap and bought them. When we looked up we realized we were in front of a place called "Pussy Collection" I tried to get a shot of the sign but some of the girls in the door way got quite angry.. so I waited.. and got it anyway. They saw us and demanded that we come in a buy a beer to compensate for taking the pictures.. What the hell. We did, when was the next time we could say we went to a place with such and outstanding name. We drank there for a long time.. chatting it up with hookers, the mamasans, ladyboys, the service staff and other visitors to the bar. It was quite a friendly and fun place. We decided to start flipping coins for beers with the bar tender... Thai people, well all asians for that matter... LOVE to gamble and unfortunately for them we won more then we lost. The night went long and we made it home in time to wake up saturday feeling like total hell........ next blog.. Ayutthaya, an ancient city that was destroyed by the Burmese army In 1767.....
As always... I'll be here.
The R.
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