Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Good Things Come To Those Who Don’t Plan Shit

Greg and I had a mantra before we embarked on our trip to Thailand: “Make as few plans as we could get away with.” We didn’t want to be tied down to an agenda when reading about Thailand was only going to give us a small window into the best way to travel here. We’ve lucked out so far, but were becoming quite concerned this morning that our luck had run out.

Pretty much as soon as we got to southern Thailand, it became completely overcast and spouting spurts of HEAVY rainfall. We just got into Phuket and it was raining just as much as our mood was souring. We were spoiled earlier with the courtesy and cheap prices of northern Thailand. In the south, the sun and scenery brings too many tourists and too much money. And now we didn’t even have the sun.

So we scrambled to figure out how to salvage our remaining days. We couldn’t get out of Phuket, so we decided to attempt to follow a very loose rumor about a “mom and pop” bed and breakfast joint that I heard about for $8 a night. “Down a dirt road about 2 kilometers from the Marriott” is all I had to go on.

But the cabbie spoke as much English as we spoke Thai and explaining “bed and breakfast” wasn’t working. He dropped us off at what looked like a pre-1989 East Berlin re-creation from the outside. At that moment, what turned out to be the hotel manager walked by and noticed our predicament. He offered to help us and allowed us to stay at what turned out to be a very secluded 5-star hotel for a fraction of the price. We now have our own private pool at our room and several kilometers of our own beach (!).

We were thinking of heading back to Bangkok early, but now we might be a little more flexible with our non-existent agenda.

RESTRICTED

02.24.08 | Permalink | Comments (0)

RESTRICTED SEX

As Thiland’s “sex tourism” industry is fairly well known, it was surprising to find out that Thai culture is farily conservative in many regards. We’ve been denied entry to sections of town for wearing open-toed sandles and for females wearing shirts whose sleeves showed sexy bicep. But even with all that, they swing ALL over the place and seem quite accepting of it. Or at least seem pretty good at ignoring it.

RESTRICTED WIFI

We’re staying the same place as Mark Morgan in Chiang Mai, and the place is a little lo-fi; so I bought a second room across the street just for the wifi that reaches (don’t tell). For $6 a room, I can afford it.

UNRESTRICTED MOTORCYCLES

My $6/day scooter does 87mph! Too bad it’s capped at 50mph…

“How Many Years?!”

02.23.08 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Anytime Greg and I hit anything remotely resembling a tourist trap in Bangkok, we’re surely going to get asked by locals, “How many years?!” They then commence to point at our beards (occasionally even tug on them). Following this, we’re always propositioned to whatever service that they’re pimping. This happens with enough consistency that it’s clearly a script.

What I want to know is, who disseminates this script. Somebody once studied how spangers were able to consistently display the same sign (“Parents Killed By Ninjas. Need $$ for Kung-Fu Lessons.”) across the country by a matter of months. I wonder if the same logic applies in Thailand. Or if there is some sort of conference where they agree on the best street sale strategies.

There appears to be a parallel in Thailand to Americas obsession with being tan: I’ve seen tons of “whitening” products. All of the lotions in stores contain “whitening” and even most of the advertising here feature very pale Asians that clearly attempt do their best to emulate the West. But as currious as they are about Western culture and our beards (boy, do people like to stare at them), facial hair is apparently regarded in Thailand as unkept and frowned upon, unless it’s a single hair emminating from a mole (?!).

I think I’d rather have a beard.

We just got into Chiang Mai and checked in with the woman at the front desk. The first thing she said was “You should shave that off. You’d look very handsome without the beard.”

We Love Korean Air!!

02.20.08 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Greg and I just got into our layover in Seoul before hitting Bangkok. Best plane ride ever. They have Tetris built into the seats! Greg and I were able to play vs. each other for about 9 hours. Outlets in the seats, hot towels applied to the face, spacious seats. I applaud you, Korean Air. Congratulations on superior air travel service and being awarded the BrumBrum Sky Travel Level Of Excellence Certificate.

Flickr’d Up

02.11.08 | Permalink | Comments (0)

On and off for the last few years, I’ve taken my sweet time working on scanning/cleaning/color-correcting/tagging my old photos. They’re now up on my Flickr account. I’m now trying to geo-tag as many photos that I can remember where they happenend (It’s fun!). If you have photos that relate or might be of interest, PLEASE let me know. Here are some sets that might be of interest:

Favs: Good and memorable photos.