: : B E E : : One LIFE in Bangkok : :

Whitening crap

2007-08-07T23:18:00.000+07:00

This is my private collection of whitening products advertisement in Thailand. Damn, I’m so proud of my country. Who cares about the GDP, Coup d’état, or how bad we need better education for our youngsters in Thailand? NO! what you need is WHITENING CREAM! yes!

LUX - Princesses escaped from their palace to join "Whitening Party"

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Watch video here

NO. 4 : CUTE PRESS - A guy who falls in love with a waitress because she's so white.

Songkran in Nakorn Phanom

2007-05-02T02:09:00.000+07:00

I didn't plan to cross to Laos but finally did.
We got our bus tickets leaving Bangkok on April 13th the busiest time to travel of the year. Everybody is going home. All the TV channels report from every bus terminals, all train stations, in all the major cities showing pictures of thousands of people leaving Bangkok for their hometowns. We booked tickets of 12th and traveled on 13th (seats on 12th were fully booked as expected)Songkran at Thanon Khao Pun!
Tukta Karaoke. Where we had one beer and left. It was so sleazy but good fun!This guy was so wasted. We saw him on the way to lunch and he was still there when we came back

These guys (Dave and Joey) kept asking where they could find the place that they can try to eat dogs, yeah dogs. Some parts in Isaan they eat dogs, it's true. But I'm talking about only "some" villages. It's not like the whole region. And I feel weird if I had to ask people "Excuse me? where can I find some dogs? I mean.. to eat"

We stayed at "GRAND HOTEL" great location in Nakorn Phanom city. (380 Baht / night with super clean bathroom, air condition) Not too far from Indochine market which is 2 storeys building with first floor packed with shops selling electronic goods, clothes, knick knacks stuff.Our "GRAND" hotel. Very good room and very clean. Super friendly staff. Loved it
View of Tha Kaek, Laos. Looking from Thailand side.
The Naga.

Around the corner of Indochine Market. There's a little coffee shop with only one auntie doing everything from serving food, cooking food and brewing tea and coffee. She didn't seem to care if he have been waiting for ages for our coffee. But it's great view of Maekong River though. On the other side you can see beautiful mountains in Laos.
Hot coffee and Pa-tong-go. Coffee that Dave said it's horrible. It was fine to me

Songkran has started, Everybody turned hooligans for 3 days and then back to normal. Nakorn Phanom is such a nice town. I really liked it.

One night Joey and I walked along the river searching for something to eat. (Dave was at the hotel, enjoying his minor diarrhea) We saw BILLIONS of mayflies on the street coming out to the light. They just fly around. They live only one day and die out. Never have chance even to eat! What a life..
Joey with billions of mayflies.

Maekong river is soooo nice, so peaceful. Lot of yummy fish dishes served in restaurants there. Other food that is so good here is Vietnamese food. It used to be some Vietnamese people lived here while back before they moved back to Vietnam around 1960s.
Jackfruits, free from the restaurant we had lunch

We had great great Namnuang at the small house shop near our hotel. The shop has big sign "Namnuang" and has only a few tables.But customers keep coming. And by 2 Oclock in the afternoon. It's sold out already. Damn, talking about this, I'm drooling!
Nam Nuang! damn I would die for this
Spot the tourists, Joey was getting drunk.. LOL
"Jaew Hon" Isaan Hotpot at 49 Baht/person. All you can eat.
Phra That @ Nakorn Phanom
Rent a tube 20 Baht. Then float yourself to
Dave and Joey in mud fighting

Nakorn Phanom has beach too! Between Thailand and Laos. Where the river is very shallow. People go down there set up stalls for beers, snacks, beach umbrellas, chairs, tubes! It's VERY Thai. Dave and Joey throwing mud at each other and went to swim in the river. kept me wait on the shore. How sweet :-P

We stayed a few days in Nakorn Phanom and moved to Mukdahan (2 hours away) before crossing to Laos.

Ayutthaya ... ah-hah!!

2007-05-02T01:56:00.000+07:00

I wanted to go to Ayutthaya for couple of days for a short break and to write a book (It's been too long!). Dave came along as he had no other plans planned anyway. Joey too (why not?) And Moritz. We took a mini van near Southern Bus Terminal (60 Baht) it takes an hour to get to Ayutthaya. Yay! this is Ayutthaya!
Our room (200 Baht each, it's a dorm room. But fits 4 people, perfect for 4 of us)
Joey is so excited for green (raw) mango with spicy dipping sauce :-)
Thong Yod, Thong Yip, Typical Thai sweets. All the auspicious ceremonies in Thailand must have some of these as symbols of wealth and prosperity (Thong in Thai means "gold") This sweet is originally from Portugal though. It's nothing but egg+water+sugar.
Dave finally getting his hair cut. Business look :-P
Our favorite fruit shake stall. Opposite train station.
Dinner first night at our guest house. This "Hor Mok Salmon" is just sooooo yummy!
Crossing the river using ferry. We rent our bicycles from the shop near train station for 30 baht/dayOn the way back from our cycling tour. Kids swimming in the canal (not drowning) :-P
On the way to night market for our dinner. This kid is a little son of the driver lady. He didn't look like he wanted to be photographed though. And Dave looks like a pervert .. LOL
Joey with frog dish :-) Fried with pepper and garlic
What a scam. In "Ngan Wat" (Temple Fair) usually there's a few places like this where you can win some prizes. This place has big sign written "20 Baht" (very BIG text) if you can shoot the packet on the tin can without hitting the can at all then you win a bottle of whisky. One tray contains 5 shots. We finished one tray (missed all of course) I paid 20 Baht. But you know what, it's 20 Baht per SHOT not per one tray! rahhhh!!! and she said "well, it's written on the sign board" . Yeah right.. 20 baht as long as elephant and "per shot" is as small as ant's poo. Damn you..Got info from Nut that best place to go for night out is "AY" I asked a TukTuk and he said it must be near "The Grand" ok, wherever it is. Take us there! That night there was an infamous porn star name Nong Natt appeared there too just for 10 minutes. Just to do some sexy dance (no taking clothes off, sorry boys!) Not sure how much she got paid.. but it's fairly easy job I must say.Dave's command. Sunderlands on huge screen in the club.
Way back to Bangkok. It was 17 Baht or something. By Train.. All the way to Bangkok!! 17 Baht!
Waiting for the rain to stop.Dave is trying to beat the kid in chess. The Kid wins :-P
We just loveeee Mookata. This is Dave with choices of dipping sauces :-)Plus some "funny" show on the stage :-P It wasn't THAT funny I swear.

More photos here

Dave, Joey, Moritz in Bangkok

2007-05-02T00:24:00.000+07:00

Dave trying to stick the candle on the holder. Took him 2 days :-P

Joey is taking photo in Wat Pho. After this we went for half an hour massage.. ahhhh that was
Inside Wat Pho. At the time they were preparing the place for Songkran festival (Thai New Year) The colorful umbrellas were placed there along with Buddhas for 7 days (with different gestures) Dave asked why 7 days but there's 8 umbrellas. I told him that Wednesday.. in old way, we count as Wednesday NIGHTTIME and Wednesday DAYTIME. (Not sure about "real" reason. But it's a belief that people who were born on Wednesday night have kind of special senses) Dave didn't believe me. He thought I was making it up :-D We took the boat again :-) My favorite way to travel in Bangkok. This is Wat Arun
Rosary Church

Joey had to go to meet another friend. And Moritz didn't feel like watching movie (he said he can watch movie anywhere else) Well, fair enough. So I went to TCDC with Dave. Booked ourselves a mini theatre in there and watched Sophie Scholl movie (hmm maybe it's a good thing that Moritz didn't come. It would be so odd to watch German film in Thailand. Especially when he's German)
French Embassy in Bangkok , beautiful location on the river side!
Our dinner. At foodcourt in Emporium. That was.. 45 Baht I think
Ice cream, I couldn't resist...
We were walking back from Emporium to bus stop. Dave wanted to see Soi Cowboy. Whatever, to me I can walk there. Just don't wanna walk with any guys .. lol And it's just right next to my university. This is insane. So we walked. Just he could see it. I walked 2 km. ahead :-P Oh, we stopped for ladyboy show on Sukhumvit too (behind Irish pub) but it was way too expensive (something like.. 500 Baht) Forget it !

Anyway, after making a few stops along night market on Sukhumvit road (Tourist stuff, I don't know who buys those products? like sleazy shirts and such)

We were walking to bus stop then Dave spotted a board written "Live Cricket Australia VS. England tonight!" yeah, you guess.. yeah.. We watched til game finished. It was good fun though. I always wanted to know what's the rules and how to watch it. Some English man walked to Dave and said "We're doing pretty good huh?" Dave is so badddd.. he replied "Good?!? NO! we suck!" haha

Couchsurfing madness :-)

2007-05-01T21:26:00.000+07:00

And everybody is leaving! boo hoooo~!
It's been so long since I updated my blog. Simple reason. I've been lazy (Ask Bert, he knows best)

So many things had happened, I've met so many great people, had great house parties with people around the globe, traveled (briefly) with happily crazy guys Dave and Joey from Leeds and Melbourne.

Koh Samed.
It's been 3 years in Thailand and James has never been to Koh Samed!! So we went there. Right after Karaoke night on Phetkasem road (had guest Willem from Singapore, who's later became my host) joined us for Karaoke too. Nobody got any sleep. We went straight to Koh Samed next morning at 7 AM! Got stoned following night. So wasted next day. You should see James trying to buy weed. He was so useless! LOL kiddding, James, kidding..you're da best!

Samed Photo Album here

Dave & Patric
Dave arrived on April 1st. He called me when I was still in bed so I was kinda mumbling with him on the phone. Just realized later that I had talked to someone this morning but wasn't sure if it was a dream or not.
Boat ride. Khon Thai 20 baht, Farang 40 Baht (for no reasons)
Wat in Bang Kruey area. Really beautiful! It's so hidden.
Free performance in Suan Saranrom (public park)

So I called back to mobile phone number he used. It was his host's number. Thanks Buddha that Dave called back. He managed to come to meet at Grand Palace. I was with Patric (from Paris) so I took both of them for super "Rua Hang yao" Long Tail Boat adventure along the Bangkok-noi canal! Chilling out in the park (they had free cultural shows too)

Dave & Anil, Loic's Birthday
At night after crazy boat ride. I texted Anil to see if he was up for some drinks as it was his first time Bangkok and I thought it would be nice for him to meet up with some people here. It's much better than getting stuck in a hotel room especially when his father decided to join him! ha ha :-) So he came. We went out for live bands at Brick Bar. Was great music!
Dave & Anil @ Brick Bar
The band
First time eating bugs :-) Khaosan Road

The International Home Cooking Night
It was crazy! we had done this before with small group. Starting with James' Filipino food, Then JB's French food, My Thai food and in the end we had pretty big gathering (didn't expect to have so many people joining. It was a bit chaotic but it turned out great!)
Rasmus brought bottle of booze from

Look who were there... Me, of course, P' Nammon and Chompu..the locals :-) James (Philippines) Regular at CS Bangkok :-) , JB, Loic (France) Who just went home couple of days ago, Chyka, Juana (Singapore) My lovely host and her friend, Pontus (Swedish)Who's living in Singapore, David (UK) Hilarious ironic bloke, Rasmus (Denmark) who was supposed to be my host :-)

Rocky and his sister Ruby (Pennsylvania, US) how nice they are! we were on TukTuk together on the way to shop for food, Manu (Italy) our lovely geek who loves puffing :-) ,Christian (Portugal) I was trying to ask him about "Foy Thong" that we Thais know for so long that it's originally from Portugal. Didn't get exact answer what it is but it's interesting though :-).. hmm who else.. Bram (Belgium) Chompu's guest at that time and he's a window cleaner. Unique profession!, and Thilo (Germany) A guy with dreads :-) Through Chompu, I didn't have chance to talk to him much though.

Photos from 2 nights of cooking! for more photos. You can view them here Album 7 and Album 8

David, Ruby and Rocky on TukTuk. On the way to supermarket
James, Pontus, JB, David, Manu . After dinnerLoic "freedom" night coz no gf around! hahap' Nammon with ThiloManu trying to communicate with my dogThere's only one brand in Singapore!?.. LOL Bram and Christian
Rasmus with sunburn ! haha
Dave and Rasmus @ Patpong night market (Ofcourse we didn't go just for the market) :-P

The Ancient City (Muang Boran)
Us CS fellows are crazy enough to go to Ancient City next day. Everybody didn't get enough sleep. JB was completely knocked out.

Dave didn't join coz he was expected to go to Phetchaboon with one of Bangkok CS members. (turned out that she didn't go. So Dave spent whole day in his guest house by himself. Nice!) So it was James, Me, Chompu, Bram, Juana, Chyka, Pontus and Manu went to Muang Boran. Took us 2 hours!

We rented bicycles for 50 baht . Foreigners get free bicycles since they already paid 300 Baht entry fee. While it was 100 Baht for Thais.. (yeah.. again) Juana, Chyka, James got in at Thai price (as long as they don't talk when we're buying tickets) We bought lunch for farang friends though ;-) to be fair.. hehe

Juana had accident a day before. She went on cycling tour with some dutch company in Bangkok. The Thai guide I met when I dropped them at China Town is so friendly. She's from Chiang Rai ! I asked her if she feels that Bangkok is too much for her (Chiang Rai is so quiet place in the mountains!) She said she got used to it already. Anyway! Juana fell off the pedestrian path! I was totally shocked when I got SMS from Chyka. But relieved when she told me that she was OK. Just needed to wash the dirt off. Awww...

All photos from Muang Boran here

At night we did Khaosan road tour again. It's a must try for them to eat some insects :-)Manu's Mr. Bob chilling out on juice glass @ Lumpini Night Bazaar :-)
Chyka is liking insects I can tell :-D hee hee~!"Come on Pontus, insects are good for your health, man"
Sooooo drunk @ Gulliver's more photos hereDave, Loic, Juana smoking Sheesha @ GazeboDave's food tripping (And I'm crazy enough to join him) at 3 AM! Dimsum at Chokdee Dimsum, next to MBK
Yummy~!

Exhausting Shopping @ Jatujak
Last day in Bangkok. You can guest what Singaporeans would love to do. Oh yes, SHOPPING! :-) ha ha ~! Dave came to my place first and then we had to meet up with them (Juana, Chyka, Pontus, James) at Jatujak. Followed with Moritz (From Saarbrücken, Germany) It was quite frustrating because Moritz is still using Indian number so he was roaming. I couldn't call him and he couldn't call me. SMS works though. We finally found him at coffee shop.
*phew*.....

Shopping was totally exhausting. After Jatujak I took them to Siam, MBK walk walk walk walk and walk.
Juana was trying to get green bo
Back from shopping everybody needed shower so badly. The Singaporeans went back to their room to freshen up before meeting them again for "Moo Kata" (BBQ) at riverside one.

And Dave, What is he doing? You bet.. checking football results at my place while waiting.Pontus met Joey (from Melbourne) on the bus from airport to downtown. So he called him if he wanted to join. Joey came with his big smile which he never stop using it :-) This is Joey sitting next to JuanaAnd where is Dave? again, he's checking football highlights on TV at the restaurant! I found him when I was going to toilet. What an addict :-)Walking from restaurant to Khaosan road.farewell party at Gazebo.Next morning Juana, Chyka and Pontus flew back to Singapore. Joey was still with us :-)
James can dance :-PGazebo, club side

More photos of Jatujak shopping, BBQ here

People! if you were in Bangkok at that time. Please know that you're so lucky! we're not arrange this kind of mad party all the time :-) Besides, the "same faces" of Bangkok are leaving. (Some have left already) As you might know. CS members in Bangkok are not very active.

Oh Well, such a great memory .. :-)

New Hang Out Place

2007-03-25T18:36:00.000+07:00

Not so far, just on the front yard of my house :-P

Nothing to do with him. But he likes to know EVERYTHING

Moto Taxi days

2007-02-22T01:49:00.000+07:00

Uh~ French food ^_^
Last night we had French food! wooo~!! Thanks to JB for awesome dinner :-) Yum Yum~ Anyway, as usual, nobody could pronounce the name of what he ate.. ha ha.. it's as long as a line of traffic in Siam Square at 6 PM :-P JB also pampered us with big bowl of apple dessert. Sophisticated dinner :-D

Sergej arrived in Bangkok yesterday too, Didn't see him for months. I just knew that he hosted people in Koh Chang as well (wow, no excuse not to go to surf his couch!!)

Thai Cheesy movies
Drank some beers, talk talk talk. Tried to convince James to play that CD with a title "Hot Babes" (Filipinas!) But he didn't let me!! LOL what's wrong with this guy. Anyway, I don't think it can't be cheesier than B (or even "C") graded Thai films that we call it "Nang Paen" which means the CD movies.. coz they never made it to cinemas.. too cheesy and too risky to deal with the "KOR-BOR-WOR" (some authority who bans everything against "morality" like.. putting up the mosaic on images of whiskey bottles, guns, cigarettes, etc.. on TV!!! while in the real world. You walk outside 10 minutes to Pak Soi. You might see everything that ban on TV for real.. Amazing Thailand)

Anyway, it was such a big talk of the town last week. About this girl who wore this killing little black dress to some Thai Films Award night. People were wondering who she is, what her name is. Nobody knows. Just saw that she came almost naked. (Guys, I know u wanna see that, Photo on the left.. LOL) Well, anyway, cut the story short ... she's now banned from the big boss (Producer).. warned by her university.

This girl was in one of low-graded Thai VCD movies. Story is about a girl who's like.. living in the forest (like in the Jungle Book. You know) AND he doesn't like to wear clothes. One day, a Bangkok dude found her and brought her to the city.. blah blah.. crap like that, u see what I mean .. LOL (And you might have guessed. It's a market for that anyway..)

Motobike rides at 1 AM
We finished dinner, beers, Zac left for the airport going back to Beijing. His backpack is full of books!
I shared a taxi with Sergej as he's staying on Khaosan anyway. When I arrived home I just realized that I forgot my mobile phone at James' flat!!! gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh~~!!!

Actually I could have gone back by taxi too. But I don't know why I took a moto taxi. Going there and coming back was 150 Baht (which is still OK.. pretty much same for taxi) But it's more fun :-P Arrived home VERY late ..still. Went to bed VERY late too and as expected.. next morning .. I turned my mobile phone off when it was alarming! raahhh~!! so typical.

Moto again at 10:30 AM
I was late for a meeting already. But I did sent SMS to Dan that I just didn't get up.. (well, at least I was honest) LOL... Traffic was HORRIBLE I'm supposed to get used to it already but still.. I just can't. So many cars on the roads. Every intersection is blocked with cars..cars...cars.......cars!! If I took a taxi it would take it at least 1 Hour for sure. But with a moto.. I made it to Sukhumvit in 25 minutes. My hair looked just great. Looked just like I just jumped in food mixer.

Just feels like working fulltime
I spent WHOLE DAY at my client's office. Changing the layouts of flyers. Took longer than I thought. I stayed until 5 PM!! ouch! When I got out of the building. There was a lot of "office" people waiting for the buses already. I'm sure the BTS is packed now. So I took the bus instead. 8 Baht, savy! It's like a flash back to when I was working full time again. Shitty life. Start working at 9. (had to be on the bus already at 7-8), stuck 1 hour on the road. End of the day.. everybody is almost killing each other for a room on the crowded bus. Yikes!!!~~

Lido saved my life
After that I really needed some entertainment NOW!. Went straight to Lido to see "Dreamgirls". I liked it. But a couple next to me laughed quite many times when the characters sang expressing their feelings That woman was giggling like crazy, talking to her bf that "Why are they singing!?" (well, it's a Musical! That's what they do.. they SING) I don't know what's wrong with her. Some people just aren't supposed to go to watch movies in cinemas.

Sergej called earlier asking about movie. First he asked for Thai one. Then Chinese. And then asked what's the difference.. (hm.. one is Thai.. one is Chinese.. quite different..to me?) :-P Ended up he went to see Japanese film!

I went to Kinokuniya. Fetched 3 more books. (One is Mon - Thai dictionary.. last one in the shop.. quite rare, I've never seen it before) I think I'm buy too many books already.. should stop it. But it's too addictive.

Had quick dinner (Expensive food court at Siam Paragon. I checked one of them.. it's like some "frozen" seafood with rice.. everything above 100 Baht.. that's nuts)

Sergej sent SMS again. Asking if it was bus no. 7 or 17 to go back to Khaosan road. I sent SMS back that it's No. 79 actually.. But when I looked up (at the bus stop) saw blonde guy with familiar backpack. That was him!! so we took the bus back together with his gf too (she just arrived today)

Finally home, dead tired. Tomorrow.. No work!!

China Town

2007-02-19T16:03:00.000+07:00

China Town area

The Gate

Happy Year of Piggy! 新年快乐!

2007-02-19T02:08:00.000+07:00

yeah yeah, Year of Pig. Again. Haven't blogged for a few days.

Clamshell Mac+talkative taxi+Jay from VT
Finally met Jay (from California) and his lovely gf at Sheraton hotel. Actually it would be much easier to get there by boat from where I live. But I just realized that I had to bring a laptop to the store at Pantip to get it fixed. And traffic that time is killing. Plus I had to wait quite long at the store. I could see that guy's face filled with amazement
"Wow, clamshell mac, is it still working?"
"Yeah I think so!"
"woww..w..w.." I guess last time he saw OS9 must be like.. years ago
"Can you do anything with it? Actually it's not broken. I was just wondering if you could upgrade the OS a bit"

He called another staff to take a look at pretty blue clamshell
"Is it still working?" hm.. yes, I know
"Normally, when some people brought this to us. We couldn't even boot it anymore. Totally dead. But this still looks pretty good!"

He finally agreed to upgrade it to greater OS and get its "health" checked for 1,500 Baht. He said he would call if he couldn't get it done.

Pantip is such a difficult place to get a cab. Police sucks, bad location, too many people want taxi. But I got one right in front of Indonesian Embassy. His passengers just got off.

"Sheraton?"
"Yes"
"Where is it??"
"Er, you don't know Sheraton?"
"I know it's in VERY deep Soi!"
"ehmmm.. is it?"
"I think so!"

I called hotel for direction. Actually it's not that "deep" soi as I said. I usually walk from the pier (right next to Sheraton) to main road (Chareonkrung) all the time. And he talked all the way from Pantip to Sheraton. Mainly about why taxis don't really wanna drive to airport even they'll earn at least 300 Baht (metered) to go there.
"But on the way back.. if you got no passenger back with you, you have to run empty cab! Fuel price is killing! can't do that"

Then he told me all the tips and techniques how to avoid traffic police, how to drop off passengers, how and where to get passengers, etc. Hm!! I'm expert now!

I met Jay and his gf at the lobby. Having some drinks in the lounge there before Teonk came to join 15 minutes later. Teonk was still very pissed with his debit card that he couldn't get money from ATM because the card is broken.
"I have money but I can't get it out of my own account!! can you imagine!" This explains why Teonk spent whole day in his house.

After drinks we went to Supatra River House. I've been there only once because it's usually booked. Quite hard to get seats if u don't book ahead. But Teonk called and make a reservation already. We arrived just half an hour before the kitchen closed. Awesome food. Really good taste. I really feel sorry for some backpackers that they live on their "Padthai" on Khaosan road without testing any "real" Thai food like that. In my opinion. (Good) Food is one of most important things to Thais. Can't help it. We just love to eat!

Great food, great conversations, nice atmosphere, plus a little bit more of night sight seeing. Niceeee! (Say it Borat's style!) :-D

jay, if you guys come back again. Let me know. It was great meeting you two!

Chinese New Year @ Paragon
First I thought I wouldn't go out. But ..yeah.. well, As Teonk said. We should do something to 'cheer up' ourselves on New Year right. (wait a minute.... But I'm not Chinese)

Siam Paragon (The Pride Of Bangkok.. Oh yes.. whatever they claim they are) had "Cherd Sing To" (Lions show) and Dragon show and it was on the news days before that the dragon head is made of this expensive jewelry, eyes are rubies, etc etc .. damn, so money-minded :-P

Teonk came by BTS instead of driving as usual. This guy is crazy. I think he was born on the mountain of gold :-P BTS is so convenient! So quick and easy and it's aircon.. unlike the buses.
"Look at me!" he pointed to his forehead.
"Wha..?"
"I'm sweating!"
"So..?" ( Should I pretend that I'm shocked or what - like - Oh my God, that's unbelievable. Teonk!! You are sweating!!! - )
"Because I took BTS"
"That's normal, This is hot country"
"hot !! too hot!!"

He kept mumbling about how crowded the place is. When the smoke (fire crackers) from the dragon show outside coming inside where we were standing. Teonk just ran, sealed his nose with his red shirt.

"Oh my gosh!! smokkkkeee!!!!" (I told you, this guy is not normal)

We had dinner at UCC in Siam Center. Food was alright. But I don't know why I never really liked this Café. Maybe because their waitresses are not very keen to smile that much. But this place got best location in Siam Center. It's just right in the middle of the mall. Quite .. hard to avoid :-P

Patpong? But why..?
James and folks (Frank from Berlin, Fabian from Vienna, Raffy from Italy) were there too but I couldn't find them among the crowds. But Thank Buddha they found UCC (finally!) Teonk's friend (Mimi) joined us too just for a short while before they left somewhere else. (I could see James drooling spying on Mimi's ass.. ha ha ha~) >:-P

Teonk wasn't in the mood for party that much I guess. He just didn't feel like staying home. Before he came he just ranted at his bank. (on the phone) that he should get his new debit card for FREE because it's not his fault that the card just stopped working (ATM machines couldn't read magnet tab on his card anymore)

Siam center was closing already so we had to move.

Got some beers from 7-eleven (First time I bought beer in Siam area! crazy..) :-) Hailed the cab to French guys place. (JB and Loïc! See! I got your name right! Loïc!!) They got pretty spacious apartment in such a prime area. It's quite a good deal for a rent actually. Great view from the roof top too. Should arrange a stoning party up there sometimes :-D

I can't believe that we actually went to "walk through" Patpong. Since some of us wanted to see it. Sure, why not. I'm not totally against it because I took some (close) friends to Patpong sometimes if they curious to "see".. I mean.. hey, it's not really hidden scene or anything. If they wanna see, No prob! Just..hmm yeah. Can't say that I'm so proud of Patpong either. Anyway, it's more bearable compared to Pattaya which is totally fucked up place.

Route 66, I'm getting too old for this!
Anyway, done, with Patpong. Moved on to RCA. Met Tina and her host(s) again. Seem to be good people :-)

The live band at Route 66 they're pretty good. Boozes are too expensive though (But compared to Bombay is dirt cheap in Bangkok.. Bombay would be 300 Baht for one bottle of beer in such a fancy club!) Oops, forgot to tell Raffy to visit Women rest room. It's 100 times fancier than my bedroom. With guys playing guitars in there!! I'm not kidding.

Got tired of RCA scene a bit. Way too crowded and they played way too commercial hip-hop tracks. And it's quite such a "low" feeling to see those good looking girls got drunk so badly and taken out by 2 guys. God knows what happens next. Staff in there they love to trample on your feet too especially when you wear "open" shoes.

I'll stick with my lo-so local "themed" karaoke next time, get a "Manchester United" room!! :-D haha

Bert planted his first "Prik" today :-) I wonder if it will grow.. he he.. Let's hope!

The "flute" concert +Crab noodle

2007-02-14T10:59:00.000+07:00

I went to Daniel's office to work on brochures. Took longer than I thought but it's much easier to work with your client that way, sometimes. Coz they can tell you just there.. what they want and how they want it. Around 3:30 PM Daniel gotta go for work so I left for TCDC and had my first 'real' food of the day. Didn't eat anything since morning.

I had Stir fried white snapper with black pepper.. in clay pot. That's 60 Baht. Not bad for such a sophisticated-looking dish :-) he he he he . . .

Snapper fried with black pepper + rice (60 B.)

School kids shopping for Valentine's day gifts in The Emporium (prices = not cheap)

Who invented this crappy idea. I really wanna know..
It's a survey that most of teenagers in Thailand lost their virginities on Valentine's day. Great, parents must be so proud.

Flute concert (?)
While I was enjoying my food. Toenk called..
"Where are you!"
"er.. Emporium"
"You come to concert with me tonight"
"What concert?"
"Kinda.. er.. something about flute. I don't know yet. Still gotta go get free tickets.. hehe"
"Flute? what the.. where?"
"Chula"
"In the university?"
"yeah"
"How come you got tickets?"
"Will tell you later. Anyway, I'll go to get my thumb drive I left at my friend's place ... 2years ago"
"2 years ago!! and you just getting it back now?"
"yeah, well she just found it!"
"right right..see you around 6:30 then"

Then I continued with my food. Ended up I didn't even really use any books in TCDC. Just went in there. Checking a few interior design magazines and Toenk called again..
"Sis, I'm at Siam already"
"Already??"
"Yeah I didn't go to get thumb drive. Will go later. Traffic is terrible"

Starsucks Coffee
So I met Toenk at Siam Square. He already had 4 plates of rice + duck at famous low key - restaurant next to The Bonanza mall. (Still don't know why it's so famous. In my opinion.. food there is not that great)

We thought about getting some coffee at Starbucks (which I'm not so keen.. anymore) It's too crowded these days and it's full of snobbish kids in school uniform hanging out in there with their homeworks and laptops. I wonder what the hell their parents do? Do they ever know how their kids spend money? Coffee at Starbucks costs at least 100 Baht / cup.

It just.. doesn't look like a place for school kids to hang out. And coffee there is not that great anyway. I found many other smaller cafe that make better coffee at much cheaper than less bitchy cashiers.

Cashiers at Starbucks they're really good at looking down on people who seem not to know what they wanna order. As if they wanna say "Hello? Do you know what "Guatemala Casi Cielo" is???? google it before you come to our store! you lo-so" This is reason why I stopped drinking coffee at Starbucks. They should change their staff attitude, seriously.

Well, anyway, we didn't even get a chance to reach the counter. It was way too crowded. So we just sat in there. Browsed India photos on laptop and left.

Oh, not that "flute"!
Concert was held at Chulalongkorn University's convention hall. Feeling fresh with aircon inside. But lot of mosquitoes (they don't bite though. Just seemed to be happy to fly around over people's heads)

First they (some professors) talked to the Japanese conductor about his background and why opera
"Opera?" now I got it. It's not flute concert as Toenk was murmuring about :-P It's "THE MAGIC FLUTE" opera by Mozart! (Ohhhhhhh...h..h.h.h...)

But damn.. can you keep it short? I wanna see the performance already.. Not some professors talking talking talking.. I saw some people already fell asleep.

Music was great. Opera singers they're all AMAZING! I wonder how they discovered that they can sing opera? It's really crazy voices. No offense .. but the professor who played a story teller. She's most boring part of the entire show. With her haircut like a boy in such a medieval dress (But why? I thought it's supposed to be in Egypt) it's just wrong.. oh well

100 Baht Crab noodles
We stopped by at "Sawang" noodles shop near Hua Lam Pong station. It's famous "Bamee Gam-pu" (Crab claw noodles) It's probably most expensive Bamee in Thailand. Normally bamee is 20-30 Baht / bowl but at Sawang. Their Bamee comes with crab claw and prices varied. Depends on how big the claw is.

Sometimes it goes up to 150-200 Baht / bowl. Prices listed on the board made of a part of paper box and just find some colored paper to put in the front to make it look A BIT better... (very Chinese.. no matter how expensive their food is. They don't really care so much to make their resto look too fancy.. "OK, well noodle here should be...200 Baht.. Go get some torn paper box to write down the price! quick!")

But if you don't want crab claw. You can order "normal" Bamee with only crab meat + pork too. That's 50 Baht... I don't think they ever closed their shop. But they do during Chinese new year.

Ouuww.. Opera + road side Bamee.. good combination

Music in the park

2007-02-12T20:07:00.000+07:00

I think it's already 14th "Music in the park" at Suan Lumpini. It's been a tradition here which I really enjoy. Back 10 years ago parks in Bangkok were quite scary when it gets dark. Lot of crimes, homeless people sleeping in there, prostitutes waiting for customers, etc

But it has changed now. Thank to Bangkok Metropolitan for improving the parks and arranging more activities for families, friends, older, younger.. everyone actually.. to come to use the park. It shows that not everybody in this city only likes to go to shopping malls! These days they have free exercise classes, Muay thai classes,etc. But what I like most is this Music in the park.

Last year was Jazz and this year is Symphony. It's contemporary Symphony which I think it's good because everyone can enjoy. Even they are not really into classical.

Having activities like this is great! I got to meet with online friends every now and then. As we have more stuff that we can do altogether not just going for dinner and movie. It's good for a change :-)

Next week will be last concert of this season. Will have fireworks too! wow, gotta go to check it out :-)

Frogs, French and Filipino :-)

2007-02-11T12:48:00.000+07:00

Lot of beers

I was working at TCDC on Friday and I got SMS from James (CS member. The Filipino guy who's living here) that he was going to have dinner with his guest from Germany and 2 more CS members from France. JB and his friend who I have no clue how to spell his name, we can't even pronounce it properly :-D ha ha.. Well, Anyway! James got a solution "From now you, you're Nick! Your French name is too complicated, man" That's what he said :-)

So, we went to Suanlum Night Bazaar. Huge beer garden. Lot of choices of food and drinks. Place where once you sit down. It will be at least 5 girls from different brands of beers come to convince you to buy their brands (we call them "Dek cheer beer") But once we decided to go for "Chang" beer. We looked around. None of them selling Chang! hehehe.. that's sad. So we went to the counter and got a "tower" of Chang ourselves.. yeahhhh..German girl and I shared a bowl of Tom Yum Koong (awesome) + fried rice with shrimps + pork with black pepper in oyster sauce. Soooo good.

We were trying to pronounce "De Rue De Paris" (Name of the ferris wheel in night bazaar) in real french accent. But it just didn't work ! LOL

Buckets+Kazebo
We ended up sharing "buckets" of rum+vodka on the road side near Khaosan road. (280-300 Baht per one bucket) The bill came and I saw they wrote on the bill (in Thai) as "Bark-kerd" (บักเกิด) That's so cute :-D Total was 1000 Baht..
So for 5 people it's 200 each. Not bad.

There's new club opened near UTC. Named Kazebo. Only night club that opens until 4 AM! I don't know how they do it. But I guess they're paying a lot :-P We wend there around midnight or something. And around 2 am they light was on! police men came (in uniform) But nothing happened.

They finally turned the light off again. People were cheering. And the police sitting there having their free drinks :-P Nick kept disappearing. When we saw him again he was talking to some girl. When he went off to search for a lighter. Instead of lit his cigarette and come back. He just linger around and finally dragged a chair and sat with strangers he just met :-) That's the friendly guy of the day….Welcome to Thailand!!

Kazebo was getting crowded after 1 AM coz it's time that nightclubs around there are closing. And finally too crowded. We finished Sheesha (that's 350 Baht) and we left around 3 AM.

Dinner, Filipino Style
Yesterday again. James called said that he was cooking Filipino meals at home maybe I wanted to come to join. Actually James' place is not far from where I live. But I've been to that area probably once or twice. I took a "mini songthaew" or we call it "Rod Kapor" Kind of between TukTuk and minivan. But it's open. No Aircon. They're allowed to run only in Bangkok suburbs. Usually short routes. Fare is 5 Baht flat

Anyway, I finally got lost! (got off at wrong stop) LOL.. damnnnn.. So I took a motorbike taxi (30 Baht) to Thonburi Cafe where is in front of James' apartment. Ladyar Soi 6! Now I know :-)Food was awesome. Lots of shrimps ! Wow James can cook! His mom will be so proud ! hehehe..

James' guest from Australia she got a tube of Vegemite with her (well, She's Australian.. yeah.. ha ha) :-) Kinda new to the rest of us :-D JB goes first by trying Vegemite with rice! He seems to like it :-D James tried the same thing but he chocked! ha ha ha ha~~! damn, too bad we didn't record that as a clip! (Got one with JB coming out from toilet with Vegemite pasted on toilet paper and licked it off!That was hilarious!) LOL

I found out that James and Australian girl know Chompu. Whom I still haven't met! So we called her up and arranged our meeting at Khaosan (she was already there)

Fireworks! not sure why..

Fried frogs+insects
Before we go to KSR James managed to find some fried insects on the road side. (well, you know.. bugs, fried worms and stuff.. I know it sounds horrible but.. when they're fried. You just don't taste anything but seasoning that it's mixed in there. And they're all crunchy) Oh but this is first time I saw they had "frogs" too. Baby frogs. Very small.. like.. smaller than your thumb) DEEP FRIED :-D Aussie girl asked me how it tastes like. I told her that I think she should ask the French :-)

Thanks to JayB for photos! LOL!

We all packed in one TukTuk (5 of us, which is quite normal to Thais) heading to Khaosan road. On the way we met another group in a TukTuk aswell. But 8 of them!! Ha ha J Damn, kick-ass

Gulliver’s
Yeah yeah Gulliver’s again. It’s kinda OK place if you ignore all those “meat”. JB went to toilet and came back with horrified face said that some dude touched his ass ! ha ha :-D

Since we had bottle of wine, 4 bottles of beers at James’ place before we came. By the time at we arrived Gulliver’s we were quite drunk already. 1 AM it’s closed. We headed back to James’ apartment had another one bottle of wine (woo~ French wine) and finished it quickly. Aussie girl got another bottle in her backpack. I wonder what backpackers carry these days! Looks like they carry lot of booze even more than clothes or first aid kit J Hehehe.. (well, I did that too actually. 2 bottles of Saeng Som to India.. yeah)

So we got another bottle opened. Nick said “Well, even it’s not gonna be as good as French wine.. but.. alright … ha ha” LOL French attitude!

James passed out! I knew that he wouldn’t be able to go to church next morning. And it’s true. He didn’t go .. LOL Got hangover.

This evening there’s free concert in the park. I’m trying to get some of them joining. It’s good to do something like that apart from just cruising around shopping malls those mushroomed in Siam Square.

ฺ10 Baht Buddha Amulets

2007-02-07T12:50:00.000+07:00

It's a topic on Pantip.com that one of game show hosts named Witawat said on his show that "... 10 Baht Buddha amulet.. which has no power of protection nor even holy.." This became a talk on topic that.. I don't know why he said so. It's quite un-buddhist. (at least to me)

But i guess he just wanted to point out that "THIS 10 Baht Buddha WHICH has no magical power.." and some people are making out of it. Buy it cheap, sell it at high price.. and lie to people that it's "original"

Well, thing is. Some fake monks were trying to make money from people by buying cheap Buddha Amulets from amulets market (probably 5-10 Baht each) and later, try to sell it at very expensive price telling them that this amulet is very powerful and sacred from this famous temple, from that famous master.. It's a scam.(and illegal of course, they went to jail)

I think still.. too many people here mistaken Buddha amulet as "an object that protects a person from trouble, accident, evil" which I don't see anything wrong with if it makes them feel better. But point is some people think that believing in power of Buddha amulets is Buddhism. I can say it here and it's not Buddhism at all.

Even on the topic. Some people replied to the thread that.. "... he's right, only 10 Baht Buddha amulet. Never been "Pluk-Sek" (blessed, make sacred or potent by some magic or incantations) how can it be holy!"

To me. Buddha amulet is just Buddha amulet. 10 Baht or 200,000 Baht Buddha.. makes no difference to me. Only one thing I get from hanging Buddha amulet around my neck, is to remind me about Buddha's teaching and the core of Buddhism. The way of living.

Besides, Buddha never taught us to believe in supernatural power. I think it's such a blind that some people are really arguing over this "10 Baht Buddha amulet has no power" stuff. It's totally opposite of what Buddha left his teaching for us.

Anyway, I believe .. that the TV show host didn't mean to say that cheap Buddha amulets are not as powerful as expensive original ones. He just meant to point out that this is a scam. I'm just quite surprised about replies from some people on the forum. Which it doesn't look like they know the difference between Buddhism and occultism at all. While it said on their Thai ID cards that they're Buddhists.

Oh well..

What is in Siam Paragon?

2007-01-30T15:34:00.000+07:00

Got FWD mail from friend last week. It's a scoop from women magazine doing some experimental by sending one girl, who's no name model to shop in Siam Paragon. First day she goes in very casual look. Well, let say, very "cheap" look. Wearing flip-flops, baggy shirt, blue jeans, hair tied up with cheap rubber band. Her mission is to walk in brand named stores to try on some shoes, make up, expensive handbags and finally she should try to apply for a credit card.

She went to random shops in Siam Paragon. All most all of sale persons in those shops looked at her as if she's an alien. Didn't really want to show her any products in their stores. Manager asked a staff to take a "close look" on her as if they afraid that she would steal something.

She saw a pair of shoes she'd like to try on. And the price was 15,000 Baht!! she wanted to try on but sale person didn't even ask her what size she is.

At beauty counter. She was browsing some make up product. And asked the girl at the counter what it is. That girl told her with her back turning to her "By the way, that costs 790 Baht!" and turned back to what she was doing. She decided to buy that make up with her credit card. A cashier checked her credit card again and again to make sure it's hers. Not stolen one.

She went to the bank to ask for information about credit cards. The guy smiled and told her "Oh, you MUST have income at least 15,000 Baht. Then you can apply for one" So she asked what about Platinum card? He almost laughed and said "Oh, that.. You MUST earn at least 250,000.- Baht per MONTH"

Surprisingly. A guy at BMW showroom treated her nicely. He saw her was looking at the car. He came to ask her is she wanted to try to sit inside. This is only one showroom in that day that treated her well.

3 Days later. She went back to all those shops again. With new look, expensive brand name dress, nice make up. They couldn't recognize her at all. A sale person at shoes store brought a pair of shoes that cost 50,000 Baht to her so she could try on! She even helped her trying them. When she said she didn't really like the style. She asked "Do you want me to keep them for you, miss?"

Same counter she bought a make up product. This time she treated her completely different. She even asked "Did you do your own make up?", "Well,No, a stylist did that for me", "I thought so!"

And credit card man told her "Oh, you'd like to apply for a credit card? Let me show you Platinum card. "only" you have 250,000 Baht a month. You can easily get one"

Mwwwha ha ha ha :-D

Oh well, let's move on to a supermarket

Imported grapes at 326 Baht!!!

crocodile buns (29 Baht) Too cute to eat

Dragon Fruits.

Mango Chutney (imported)

Strange color jack fruits

Fruit Fruit Fruit!

Beautiful Mango. Only with extra sticker said "Gourmet Market" by Siam Paragon. They can sell it more expensive :-)

And Chili sauce that I was not allowed to take pictures. Crazy :-P

Brand New "I love Siam" condo.

Traffic jam as usual

And Thaksin said. Like it or not. We have to go on with Capitalism. Yeah right..

Boys, Bei Otto and buying coffins

2007-01-28T01:23:00.000+07:00

I went to meet Toenk and Nut last night without planning. First I thought I would go out to meet up with Poe (Girl from CS. Who's going to stay with my friend in Kolkata for couple of days) But.. well.. you might have guessed. I'm tooooooo lazy to go out.

Plus it was Friday night 6:30 PM. Worst time to be on the road in Bangkok. Instead of catching a taxi straight to Sukhumvit. I got off at Rajthevi station and took BTS to Asoke. The restaurant is in Sukhumvit 20 just right opposite Windsor Hotel.

Again, it's Bei Otto. A German restaurant Toenk took me and Bert for dinner there last time. No offense to Germans.. But I hate food there. Only Beer is worth ordering. Food is too expensive ( 3 people, bill came 2,200 Baht) It's not THAT expensive but compared to the food that I don't even like.. It's not very tempting.

Since it was Nut's Birthday (25th) he turned 28! woo~hoouuw~! We just used it as excuse to meet up and have some beers.

Teonk called another guy named "Ohm" to join. I learned from Toenk that he's a lawyer. Pi Ohm arrived 15 minutes later in blue shirt. Looked like he came straight from office but I'm sure he had been drinking before he came :-)

We shared a Bavarian platter. (Don't ask me what I think about food) Boys had beers. One glass each (Toenk took two! and he's going to drive!) They started to talk about the girls. Past, Present and Future. Tips, Techniques, whatever you can think about. I felt like I was a bit out of place.

They started to laugh louder. Next table ( 2 farangs, grumpy looking) glanced at our table. Gave us a look which obviously said "When are you going to shut the f**k up?" Toenk doesn't like it. So he said "What the f**k r u looking at!?" to them in Thai. (Toenk's English is excellent. But I'm glad he didn't use it then) :-P

Looks like it's time to leave! (-_-") Ohm was trying to get the boys to SLIM at RCA
"Are you boys up for hunting? or just observing tonight?" (No, He wasn't just joking) So I told them that I would go home and get some work done.
"Looks like a Boys night" I told them and looking for a cab. But Toenk didn't feel like going for "hunting" tonight. So, he came with me.. followed with Nut.

Had a cup of coffee at Windsor lobby. Crap.. 100 Baht And what's with that singer next to that grand piano? Not sure if she was Katoey.

Toenk drove super fast through Sukhumvit. Passing WAT HUA LAMPONG where you can donate money to buy coffins for the bodies those they can't find any relatives. Simply write donation form, put some money (any amount), people at the temple write your name on the receipt, you bring that donation form (with your name on it), use the glue to glue it on the coffins. Done.

Toenk wanted to see how it looks like inside. So we opened it just to peek. Hmm.. well.. Doesn't look very comfortable.. no :-P

Dropped Nut at his house in China Town. Toenk stopped by at Saint Gabriels College (his old school) as it's School day. Some Alumnus came in posh expensive cars (not surprising for Saint Gabriels students) and their tradition is to drive around "the block" in front of their school as "Salute!"

Thank Buddha I arrived home safely :-) He wasn't took drunk..

No random "School Pens" for "Developing countries" please!!

2007-01-16T22:07:00.000+07:00

I thought it was only me and another handful of people I know who think giving school pens for "gifts" or "candy" randomly to kids anywhere you travel is such a BAD and STUPID idea.

Do you have any ideas how many times I was asked for "School pen" while I was traveling in India?? Not because they really need the school pen.. Not because they can't afford it or anything. But some silly tourists keep giving them pens and candies, assuming that they're helping the "developing" countries AKA : Third World countries. WRONG. giving things randomly to the kids on the street is encouraging them to beg!!

Why you shouldn't buy food to feed elephants on the streets?

Same problem with elephants in Bangkok. They're wandering around Bangkok, the place they're not supposed to be. Why?

"Ohhh look at that poor elephant, They must be hungry and tired"

Imagine a bunch of tourists sitting at Starbucks Siam Sqaure or wherever as posh.
"Let's buy them some bananas, how much is it? 20 Baht?" And after feeding poor elephant. They managed to take a few pictures with digital camera.

And another 20 Baht goes to the elephant mafia. Some of them might think how cruel we are. Thai people don't help elephants at all they don't even glance that the poor beast. You know why? Because we know that the money keeps them coming back. It's ILLEGAL to bring elephants in the city. But with money they can bribe whoever in charge. Because they still make profits!

If you really wanna help. There're many organizations you may like to donate some money to help for REAL.

Treasure Our Elephants-
Foundation for the Conservation of Northern Elephants
www.treasurethaielephants.org
Elephant Help Project
http://www.elephanthelp.org/
http://www.welcome-to.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/elep-nationalday.htm
National Elephant Institute
(Thai Elephant Conservation Center)
www.thailandelephant.org
Asian Elephant Foundation of Thailand
www.aeft.org
Friends of the Asian Elephant
www.elephant.tnet.co.th
Elephant Help Project
www.elephanthelp.org

I want to help poor Asian children out of perverty, What's wrong with it!?

I've come acrossed many people from "developed" countries backpacking around South East Asia. Those they think they're "helping" by giving pen, pencils, chocolates to children along the way they're traveling. This is abusing in my opinion. They're children, not beggars. They didn't even know they could get these things from tourists before they started to offer to them.. for no reasons, Just try to be nice. But too bad it's a wrong way. I'll come back to post about "What's the developing, third world countries" later when I have time. this is one of topics that got me quite upset everytime I hear.

I just stumbled upon a European girl. Who planned to do "backpacking" around Asia to help children. OK, sounds good. To keep long story short. She couldn't find any organizations whatsoever. So she ended up giving "School pens" and notebooks to some school in Vietnam randomly. That school was so surprised.

It looks like a good thing to give things to poorer people. But I still believe that there're many ways to help.

You give a fish to them now they can eat it only for one day. But if you teach them how to fish. Then they will be able to live on their own. That's a real "HELPING" to me.

A few weeks later. The same girl. She went shopping at most expensive mall in Bangkok. Bought simple small purse for a few thousands Baht. (only) And once she complained that a taxi from Khaosan to Siam Center is too costly (70 Baht!! that's less than 2 euro!)

Can you tell me what's wrong with this people?

Doesn't matter how lovely they look!
I found a good article on Couchsurfing.
"Giving pens and sweets to children encourages them to beg. Doesn't matter how lovely they look, if you don't know a child well, avoid giving them anything material. But you might think of giving them drawings of yours and sending them pictures you took of them. Ask for their address. This is not only true for children, if you take somebody's portrait try to send it to them. It is about respect.

It is often better not to give money on the brisk of a moment, but think of it and do some research when you are back home. Find a charity you trust in the country you are thinking of and help them. If you have some medicines you want to give away, give them to a local doctor (they are always welcome), not to families. They might be used the wrong way and beside they could go against local practices and knowledge. Similarly, you might want to give pens and notebooks directly to local schools.."

Ouch, and I'm back to Thailand.. ha ha!

2007-01-13T22:38:00.000+07:00

I will post travel blog somewhere else, will upload that later. Now I'm back to (almost) normal life in beloved BKK!

First thing which is obvious. Traffic is still jam as usual but nobody is honking. And all the cars are in their own lanes. Oh wow! Horn OK Please!
Very Bangkok. Don't know if they're trying to be funny. The sign says "Please don't throw away any garbage here" (yeah right) This one is taken near the Prasumen Fort
And I'm back to "Pad Ka Praw"(minced pork or chicken fried with sweet basil leaves+chilli) AKA : no-brain-needed menu. Because it's most common menu when you go to "Ahan tam sang" (Whatever you order, if we have it, we cook it) resto in Thailand. Awwww.. smell of home
Mini balcony over the "klong" (canal) Good that the Klong these days is not that stinky as before. Phew~!
Adorable Muslim kids taking a ferry after school. One of the left just dropped her ice-cream.. he he and one in red fancy pants never stops talking. You can see his mate is not very interested in whatever he's talking about :-D

Relaxing afternoon at the park near my house. Some people come for picnic. Some come for exercise. Foreigners come for napping. If they're crazy enough they'll come for Sun Bathing. ( FYI : Not that everyone here is crazy about 'whitening' products. But we, Thais, think that sun bathing is crazy no matter where you do it. It's easiest and quickest way to get a skin cancer. Afternoon sun light is way TOO STRONG for skins, really. So, be careful)
You know what I mean?
Stray dogs, good old mates in Bangkok. Can't live without them. (as long as they don't pee on my paintings)
School kid waiting for her parents to come to pick her up. Near the school.

Wedding photo shooting! "Baby, what do you think about picture of us with the ugly bridge?"

2 weeks left

2006-11-03T01:24:00.000+07:00

Got ticket for India, Still.. need a visa. Still no fucking time to go and get it. Probably this Monday (at least I got photos!)

Last week was quite shitty. Some people can be damn demanding and they have no damn clue that they are. Ended up tiring you shit. I just can't stand ungrateful type of people. Or else, it's just me being bitchy.

Have 2 weeks left to finish all the stuff. Time to remind my clients that "Hey! I'm off to India and will be back in January!" I'm sure it's gonna shock some of them (even though most of them are quite used to it already)

Sai called, said that embassy in Scotland didn't give her visa for India today. Because "You don't hold British passport, need some more time to check. But she called twice before she went there. And they said it's OK. Just come and get it. I'm not surprised how pissed she is.

Sergej called from Singapore. Seems to be some problem with visa stuff. I just don't understand why when honest people wanna do it honest way. It's always hard. And why those crooks in Thailand they don't do any fucking job but they can stay for whole damn year. This is really unfair. I hope it's gonna be OK for him!

Met up with Leo (Brazil) and Teonk tonight for dinner. Pretty good Thai food but a bit too expensive. Anyways, once in a while is alright. Had a drink in Khaosan and quickly left the place. Way too many cheap girls there. Just got sick of it. So, Leo with stay with Teonk tomorrow, That's cool. Since Teonk is going to Korat anyway. So Leo and jump off half way and continue to Khaoyai. Camping time!

Deepak is leaving on 6th, Better meet him before that! Or else I will never know how to find his place in Jabalpur!

Also have to meet Kong tomorrow. Talking about new book he wants to do. Still dunno what's it about yet. My book should be out next week. (finally! damn!)

damn hair dresser

2006-10-27T02:31:00.000+07:00

I went to meet friend one evening and I arrived a bit too early so I thought..hm, going to get some hair washed could kill some time. Turned out to be worst hair dresser I've ever experienced in years.
And this one is very close to Khaosan. Nothing fancy in this shop. Quite sleazy I must say but it was not far from the meeting point and I thought just to wash my hair it couldn't be bad.

I entered a salon and found a hair dresser was lying down on her sofa watching soap drama on TV. She seems to be surprised to have a customer (hell, no!)

She started with..
"You hair is quite oily. Did u use any hair cream?"
"no, it's like that"

*wash wash wash*

"Do you have hair fall problem?"
"no, why?"
"oh seems here.." (she pointed here and there on my head) "on the back looks fine but there's less hair in the front"

"er... so?"
"Oh, nothing nothing"

*wash wash wash wash*
"Did you just dyed your hair?"
"yes"
"Here seems to be much lighter than here"
"It meant to be like that"
"Are you sure?" I thought.. ofcourse I'm fucking sure, it's my head! now shut up!

I looked at my watch
"Are you in hurry?"
"Not so bad, but make it quick don't waste time too much on massaging my head, it's OK I don't need that"
"ok ok"

Finally she finished with her 180 times of shampooing me. I moved to a chair
"Can u get me some magazine pls?"
"Oh.. magazine?"
"YES! anything that I can read..?" she looked around and came back with a magazine named "Cheewit Rak" (Love Life)

What the fuck is this magazine? does it still exist? I thought it was dead since I was 7 years old! I can't believe that anyone is still actually reading it these days!

I browsed through that "magazine" half of it is crappy ad. about cream for bigger boobs, download themes for mobile phones.. and another half is full of stories of shitty messed up love lives. I just DON'T understand why some people wanna read this stuff? maybe it makes them feel that "ohh.. compared to this people, My life is not so bad!"

And about every 2-3 pages.There're free artworks drawn with bright blue pen by her kid all over pages. . They're Godzilla, Doraemon, and other undescribable creatures that only hair dresser's son could explain.

I dropped that magazine. Now there're 2 of them trying to dry my hair. It took FOREVER.
"Did you just dyed your hair?" the new one started same question
"No, I was born with half red hair in the front and brown hair in the back"
"oh!"
"Any other questions?"
"hehehehe"
"......."
".................."
"Are you going to party on Khaosan road?"
"NO, I'm meeting my friend"
"Oh ok ok" then she left. One of them still kept trying to dry my hair.

FInally she finished messing my head. What a relief.
"How much" she poked her head outside the shop to ask the other one and turned to me
"100 Baht"
"What..?? just washing and drying?? 100 Baht!?"
"hehehe"
"What the.. u know in front of my house they charge only 50 Baht!!"
"er.. well..er..."
"here ! 100 Baht. Keep it coz you'll never see me again!"

Beware, this shop is just right next to lottery office behind Khaosan.
What an evil.

Ticket..paid! BKK-Kolkta-Mumbai-BKK!

2006-10-18T13:48:00.000+07:00

Went to BIG+BIH fair yesterday to see p'Sakchai as he told me it was free seminar about exporting biz stuff. But it turned out that they charge 400 Baht/person to get in there. So, instead of spending 400 Baht on seminar that he might not understand what they talk about. We went to fancy sophisticated 499 Baht buffet at The Bistro where the foreigners on bussiness trips don't drink "water" but "Perrier" (what is the fucking difference?)

At least they have freshly cooked pasta. Good food (not better than Thai food though! :-P ) and nice dark chocolate cake.

P' Mong transfered money to the agency for tickets to India. Spent another 6,000 Baht on brand new backpack (so light for 50 L.!) I think she won't buy new backpack for next 10 years ..lol

Supposed to go to the embassy today but forgot to go to get visa photo taken. So we'll go tomorrow. Now p'Mong can have her excuse to go to buy wallpaper at HomePro :-D

Met Katy couple of days ago. I thought she would need her shoes she forgot at my place so I went to see her at Hua Lam Pong station to give her shoes back and just for a bit of chit chat. But when she was ready to go and about to pack the shoes in her backpack. Turned out that the shoes I brought were not hers! lol silly me. I didn't check inside the bag before I took them. So stupid. But at least it's better that she didn't find out when she arrives Chiang Mai and found stranger's shoes in her bag :-)

Books fair is coming this week. Time to burn the hole on my wallet! argh!!

Got fwd. mail with pictures of this dog.

A man who took the photos was wandering around the campus. He saw a dog with "badge" he thought "Oh, how nice. This campus have "Stray dogs control system" by tagging them" But he looked closer..

That dog even got its picture taken (I bet it's one of security guards of students there..) Badge read

"Allowed-to-howl-in-the-campus-card"
Name : Boonlong (Long means straying)
Surname : Loves aircon room
Position : Unsecurity Gaurd #297, (very) special agent.

Crazy Thais :-)

I think it's very common here in every faculty and campus has "Campus dogs" nobody actually owns them but they all got their names and being fed by the students and campus officers. Pretty smart if they decide to "stray" in collee or university because they will never go starving.

One of "our" dogs in univesity was bright brown one. We called him Ai Som (orange dude.. his hair is almost orange color) this dog always running after cute chicks(boys call this dog ma-nah-moh = literally "Pot face dog" meaning "lusty bastard" ) in the campus he knows how to beg for food! Last time I saw him he got soooo fat... :-D

Monday! no sh*t!

2006-10-09T12:21:00.000+07:00

It's Monday again and it's already 9th of October!! Less than a month I'll off to India. Gosh. This is so stressful.

Meeting on Saturday night was great.Very impressive hitchhiking stories from Ludovic

Went to have more drinks at Old Leng then few more beers at Astra. Jaid turned out to be the queen of the dance floor. Dead fun! :-D

Off to meet Ron at Emporium soon. Still don't know what's the plan today. Mahogany might surf my couch. She's taking online exam this evening. We'll see.

How to eat out with Thai friends - Idoit proof survival guide

2006-10-04T12:37:00.000+07:00

OK I don't know if anyone would find it useful or not. But, doesn't matter. Feel like sharing it.

First of all. This is not 100% Thai standard. Most are based on my experiences and some complaints and bitchy opinions from other Thai friends.

Ever wonder what to do when go out eating with your Thai friends? Since we have non-Thai friends come to visit sometimes. Apart from taking them to party their ass off in RCA. Things we have to do is.. going to eat!

This is Idoit proof survival guide. How to eat out with your Thai friends.

STREET FOOD
Since everything cost 20 - 35 Baht on the street (except in China town.. some simple dish can be expensive even on the street) If you're visitor. We normally pay for you anyway. Considering you're "guest" and this is a hospitality for us to do so. Anyway, ALWAYS try to offer to share the bill. Even 90% of chance that we'll refuse it.

For example if the bill comes out 120 baht. Your friend(s) will pay all that. Or share between them without letting you pay any single Baht.

You'll NEVER see me and my friend count how much MY dish costs, how much YOUR dish costs.. we always go 50-50 with the bill or a little more or less. It depends. Not a big deal.

Don't ever offer to pay ONLY what you ate. It's considered rude. If you wanna pay. Offer to share the bill even it would turn out less that what you ate. It's still better than wanting to pay only what you ate.

Sounds weird but it's true.

And if you insist to pay for everyone. And if they let you do. That's OK too. But it won't happen to "well-mannered" Thais that often. Unless you're really really close friends.

NICE RESTAURANT
Food in "nice" restos cost around 70-150 Baht/dish. With 2-3 people bill would come around something like 400-500 Baht approximately. (including drinks) This case, ALWAYS offer to share the bill. We always do. Even I eat only 100 baht food plus another 20 Baht for a soft drink. Or 120 Baht PLUS a little bit more. Same rule : Don't ever offer to pay ONLY what you ate. But if you drink beers, always pay for your beers.

65% of chance that your Thai friends will let you share the bill. (depends how expensive it is..haha) and depends at what time of the month too. Especially for people they work in the office. First week of every month is a "generous" week coz it's a pay day in the end of every month. When it comes to 3rd week or last week of month. Always keep in mind that your friends might be broke :-)

For example bill comes out 1200 Baht for 4 people. That's 300 Baht each. We'll always put 300 baht on a table. And generally if we see that someone ate not that much we always return something like 100 baht back to him without having to calculate it. Just giving back some money is already OK. None of Thais think it's a big deal to share exactly same amount of money for food.

Can pay more or pay less for what you ate. We don't really care much about it.

What we do here, we put the money on the table so one of us will collect all the money and pay to a waiter. If they really don't want you to pay. They will just push it back to you. If you really insist (please do! lol) they might take it. But if you insist to pay more than 2-3 times and they still say No, Mai pen rai. It means that they really don't want you to pay.

Strange way to show your manner. But it will work well. You'll see

Restaurant we went last night!

POSH INSANELY EXPENSIVE PLACES
This case you can pay only what you ate. Can pay a bit more or a bit less between your friends. Even paying exactly only what you ate is OK. Plus a few tips for waiter. if the bill is over 1000 Baht. Minimum tip is about 50 Baht. If we're really satisfiled with services (food came quick and hot, waiter is serving good and polite AND fast!) usually we tip 100 B.

CLUBBING
Since you're not gonna eat there. Only issue is BEER! (or whatever drink it's gonna be) Cocktails cost around 100-120 Baht in normal (not too posh) clubs. Same for beers. if you're 4-5 people together it will go by "round" Someone goes buying 5 bottles for 5 people first round. Then second round will be second person. Like that.

If you'll go for a bottle of Black Label or something (usually costs 900-1100 Baht. Depends on promotions.. Red Label is cheaper) in this case, go with the same rule for "POSH INSANELY EXPENSIVE PLACES" Except for "mixers" that will be randomly paid with everyone later.

What NOT TO DO
- Calculate EXACTLY what you ate and only pay for that. It's considered quite rude here actually. As it makes you look like a stingy person.

- Sitting there still, Without offering to split the bill or pay some of it. Even you know that your friends will treat you but always offer. If they don't want it. They will insist you NOT to.

Otherway round, If you find your Thai friends just sit there still waiting for you to pay.(unless you've told them in advance that it would be your treat) You should consider making new friends already.

- Insist to pay half of little money at EXACT amount. Like.. "OK that's 85 Baht right? So I owe you 42 Baht and 50 Satang!" Who don't give a damn about 2 baht 50 Satang, really. Don't do that. It's ridiculous.

What TO DO
- Offer to treat your friends next time would be appreciated.
- Treat them with something else. Like movies later on, or few beers next time is OK too.
- Saying Thank you after every meal. Even it's just street food. That's all we wanna hear.

Not much, isn't it.

Pizza+Death Note+Go Kart+China Town

2006-10-01T01:43:00.000+07:00

Went to have FAAABULOUS Thai food with Fabian last night. Was great as usual. I was in need of "real food" after 3 days of Somtam and instant noodle.

Fabian with Thai fooooood

Just came back from stuffing ourselves with fried noodles in China town. It was totally no plan. Teonk just felt like meeting up so he came here just for a chat. Then we went to have wicked pizza "Lanta" (lot of cheese) around Rambutri area. Good stuff! (in October, you'll get free Pepsi even) before we went to House RCA for a movie. Called Natt and he said he was falling asleep. I told him to move his ass to RCA.

Thought Fabian was still in bed but when I called he was already in RCA~! (that was quick!) :-)

Had quick coffee at Starbucks. 1 euro/piece toffee wafer (so sweet, too expensive) Natt arrived just in time.

Starbucks RCA

Teonk and Fabian sipping coffee

Order order!

Do you want expensive, more expensive or most expensive one,sir?

what'd u say?

Movie was good, I liked it. Very "Manga" but ..damn.. Continued.. Part 2 ?? when will that be!? Really good for Manga market. Now people have go seek Death Note Manga series instead, out of curiousity. Oh we also got a "film" from a movie as a souvenir :-)

Got Tickets ?

"House"

People checking "coming up" films.

After the movie nobody felt like Go-Kart that much. So we didn't go for it. Ended up having noodle in China Town (was good!) Two guys back to my place, checking e-mail, had beers.

Time to go home :-)

Indoor Go-Kart in RCA

Friend Noodle with chicken street stall, China town

Ooooo! Crêpe!

2006-09-25T23:08:00.000+07:00

Saw James online this afternoon. I thought I knew he was crazy but didn't know that he could be THIS crazy. Jame is actually "surfing Hong Kong airport" with $2 left in his wallet. I thought he was leaving today or something that's why he stayed at the airport last night. Didn't know that because he was running out of cash! This is way too funny. I hope his tomorrow flight delays! lol

Aarti called from the airport so we couldn't meet up before they left. What a shame. But I'll see them again anyway in Bombay, hopefully. Deepak didn't feel well today so we posponed meeting until tomorrow.

Went to Crêpes & Co again today with P'Mong. Damn, that was yummy. (Ofcourse, spent 1300 Baht on dinner.. with 70 Baht Greek coffee that I couldn't find any difference from Ka-fae-Lao. But Crêpes were gooooood)

Chicken? wasn't mine :-P

The "SUKHUMVIT" mineeeeee

Dessert

Crappy quality photo taken with mobile phone..duh

Still lot of rain here. Some soldiers still standby around Pinklao bridge as usual. I saw a news that some crazy radio sent "Coyote" girl dancers to "dance" around King Rama V monument where lot of soldiers are for some kind of entertainment. This is just way too far out. Really low class. What the fuck were they thinking?

Flowers for soldiers

2006-09-21T16:15:00.000+07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/page/bangkok_coup

Thailand's Muslim coup leader could soothe Islamic unrest
YALA, Thailand (AFP) - Thailand's southern Muslims, who widely despised ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, say they hope the Muslim general who overthrew him will follow through on his offer to hold peace talks with Islamic separatists.

"I hope that (General Sonthi Boonyaratglin) will be able to solve the problem in the south as he himself is Muslim and can reach out to villagers," said Kordiya Mapae, 45, a Muslim worker in Yala province.

The three Muslim-majority provinces bordering Malaysia have been plagued by separatist violence and other unrest since January 2004, and Thaksin's decision to impose emergency rule there in 2005 was widely criticized.

Ousted Thai PM: 'I am a jobless man'
BANGKOK, Thailand - Ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra lay low in London as the junta that overthrew him purged his followers Thursday and took steps to possibly go after the vast assets of the tycoon turned politician.

Thailand's capital back to work
The people of Thailand have returned to work less than 36 hours after a military coup ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Tanks and tourism
UK holidaymakers heading to Thailand despite the coup. As tanks continue to fill the streets of Bangkok, UK tourists appear to be going about their holidays relatively unaffected. Tour operators say they have no plans to cancel flights to Thailand, and UK holiday companies insist that "it's very much business as usual".

We're not as stupid as he thinks we are | ROBIN GRIFFITHS, MISSIONARY, ONGSIT, KANCHANABURI PROVINCE | Robin Griffiths

We have lived through about ten different coups since we moved to Thailand in 1973.We are about 160 miles (260km) north-west of Bangkok in Kanchanaburi province.Mr Thaksin had a lot of support around here, basically because of the handouts he gave the village people. They were giving out rice and free mobile phones to schoolchildren.

This was before the April elections, although it's been going on since then too.

But people were beginning to see through it.
One of our neighbours said recently: "We're not as stupid as he thinks we are. He's not going to bribe me with his giveaways". But two years ago, this man was a big Thaksin supporter.

Coup, Yes we like it (so far)

2006-09-20T20:29:00.000+07:00

19th September while I was watching a comedy show.. that program was suddenly stopped and replaced by a blue screen with some text..

I didn't have a clue that what was coming. Heard a rumour but I didn't think it would be real. But yes, it was.

It's the coup.

I logged on to MSN and talked to friends. Everyone stayed up that night as if they knew. Nobody seemed to be really shocked about it though. I mean.. we were surprised. But more like.. "Oh.. they just did it? oh oh.. OK!"

First announcement came. Just after Thaksin's "half" announcement that he ordered a commander to be transfered to some other position.. that was really TOO LATE

And it stayed blue like that forever. We had to follow news from radio kept waiting for more announcements. As soon as 2nd announcement aired. I heard some people outside blowing horns..riding around on their motorbikes and shout "Yessss!!!! Thaksin GET OUTTTTTTT!!"

Reactions
From those in Bangkok
First on MSN everyone was checking news with one another. Rumours spread everywhere. Some real some crappy (As crazy as .. Thaksin would come back with his own private army, something like that) But finally it was confirmed that it was the coup.

Most of people I know they're relieved. Finally it's the end of all this craziness. 18 months we've been waiting for!!

Next day I went out to see the mood around the city. I shit you not. People looked so happy, everybody got smiles on their faces. Families took children out to take photos with army and tanks! (yeah, for real) They're bringing flowers to give to soldiers too.

This never happened in Thailand. Everytime it's a coup. Ofcourse people stay home and hold a grudge for a military. But this coup is different. Turned out that 83% of us are supporting this decision.

Reactions
From friends abroad, and foreign friends traveling in Thailand at the moment.

First I got text messages on my mobile phone.. messages on MSN.. email.. from everywhere I have friends there.. europe, china, india, US even Serbia. Asking if I was still OK. Then I realized that it must be looking really bad on the news in their countries. Since I live here, things look totally calm even closer to a celebration time. Having tanks running around doesn't mean we're having kind of civil war.

Why he hate Thaksin
Things like this, you never walked in our shoes, you never know.

It's a long story to tell you why we hate this man guts. He seemed to be pretty good in the beginning. But he turned out to be most corrupted man in history. Everyone sees what's going on in the south around islamic provinces, There's bombs, people got killed every single day, our Royal family showing their concern by visiting victims there.

Thaksin NEVER. All he f**king cares is visiting his comfy home town Chiangmai where lot of people still support him and even hanging signs everywhere in Chiang Mai that if his opponents come they will have to taste their "feet" and "fist"

Things got worst when one day at Siam Paragon when Thaksin was there and some people shouting at him "Tyrant! get out!" that's it. He got his people beating those folks up! Those are including 60 year-old man, a woman, and young studen in uniform. This drives people so mad. So he said that everything should be played by rules. But what is this? He got civilians beaten up because they're speaking out their minds? They have their rights to do it you know that. Do anything but violence!!

I can't call him anything else but mafia.

A week later he came up with new stuff. Someone caught a guy with his car full of bombs. Around 2km. away from Thaksin's house. And try to make us believe that this man meant to kill PM. We were... YEAAAAH RIGHT.. 2km away from his house? And a guy he caught is apparently Thai Rak Thai Lover? (his family was in shock that he got caught in charge of carbomb. They insist that THIS GUY LOVES Thai Rak Thai and hate the mops those want Thaksin to step down)

It was completely a set up. I'm not buying it.

5 years in power. He fucked things up. Countless. The worst thing is his style split Thais in two. His lovers, and his haters. And don't you let these 2 sides discuss in public. It will end up with blood, really. Nobody talked that they like Thaksin or they hate Thaksin in public coz you might get hurt from thinking out loud.

I've got so many questions from friends (non-Thais) and I found it totally difficult to explain to them why this is a right decision of the army to take control. I've talked to my Thai friends and they all said the same that.. Probably you will have to be born as Thais to understand why.

Many countries comdemn this coup. But I wonder, what do they fucking know about situation here? Thaksin was elected but it doesn't mean he can abuse his power like that. I'm telling you here.

We're supporting this coup.
Anyway, now it's a rumour that one of those leaders in The Democratic Reform Council is one of Thaksin's fellows. THAT would be big issue if it's true.

I'm so sick and tired of this political games..damnit.

moment of truth

2006-09-12T01:21:00.000+07:00

This is real challenging.. The moment of truth.
Do SOMETHING or just keep looking at it for hours.
Empty Photoshop screen.. damn.. as blank as my head right now

Suan Rod Fai

2006-09-11T10:21:00.000+07:00

Yesterday we (I and Fabian) went to Jatujak to do some shopping. Good that he bought some stuff for his friends already so he doesn't have to worry much about the "shopping list" from friends. JJ was soooooo hot as usual and lot of people. I wonder if anybody ever got killed from heat and not getting enough oxygen in there?

But after JJ we went to Suan Rod Fai just to chill out a bit since it's not far from Jatujak. It's really nice park! we rent a bike from "uncle" shop for 20 Baht (you can use it whole day) riding around the park which is pretty cool. They also have kayaks for rent too (about 20-40 Baht) And inside the park there's Butterfly Garden (well, not many of them in there but still some nice impressive ones)

Trying to get photo of giant butterly on that kid's hand

This is how you row!(my foot on the left..hehe.. was lying on the lawn)

Kayaks in the park

Met Teonk for dinner at "The Terrace" in Central Ladprao. We almost swap everything in our dishes (I don't eat that fat in my porkchop, Teonk loves it) Ended up I ate his chicken, he ate my porkchop! (Apple sauce was good though)

Took a taxi back, Fabian was half dead from shopping and walking around all day! lol Well, Bangkok just sucks out everyone's energy, doesn't it.

Chicken! yummmm

Shit, I've done only one layout for clients. There're 3 more!arghhh!!

Penne Gang Kiew Wan...damn again..

2006-09-08T17:09:00.000+07:00

Been lazy for cooking.. But today there was NOTHING left that I can eat. And I'm way too lazy to go out and buy boring Pad Kapraw anyway... Searched the fridge.. Found canned tuna, some chilli paste left. And penne that my sister bought 3 packs of them from International food festival (whatever it is)

Here we go, Green curry+penne+Tuna fried with black pepper

First, prepare your Penne

I use TVP too (Textured Vegetable Protein) Tthere's huge pack I bought from supermarket. Very handy when you have nothing left in the fridge. Soak them, and leave them there..for now

Fry your tuna with garlic.

Add some vegetable you like! (I only had onion left) Add some salt+sugar+ and most important.. Black pepper
Here it is! tuna with black pepper (damn, easy chib hai)

One pack of chilli paste (Green) Some people use only half a pack. But.. hell no! I need WHOLE pack!

Fry it with a little bit of cooking oil

Kati ! (coconut milk) now comes in a box.

Add it in your chilli paste

Then TVP

Bai Makrud (Kaffir lime leaves) I stole from neighbour's fence (as usual)

Slice 'em up!

Ad them in your curry.

Coconut Sugar, add it to curry too. Or just sugar is ok

Now Penne

Tadaaaaa~~!!(Don't forget your tuna!)

Factories | Fabian | Karoke | Park

2006-09-04T01:43:00.000+07:00

Factories
Went to take photos for my client on past Friday. I thought I had reached Burma border. Damn it was SO FAR. And I didn't know that there was such a big market for "bicycles" in Thailand? Their factories produce colors (pigments..more like..for industrial), Plastic parts (most for bicycles), and yes, they make bicycles.. as a main business for now. (I didn't see anything else but bicycles there) Even the "manager" who had to meet us to sign some paper. He came to office (from factory) by electric bicycle. So funny to see some guy in suit riding such a sweet-color bicycle just to get around the factory.

One of them is sort of "Graphic" department. It means 3 designers sitting behind their Macs (but they wear uniforms just like other workers) in very small office room. And they DON'T talk. I wonder if it's like that everyday or it's just when I was there so they wanted to look serious enough to be photographed? Thousands of workers work at that place.

Colors catalog

Warehouse. Perfect workplace for glue sniffing addicts

Serious machines

Can't imagine how boring to work there.

If all the "graphic design" department looked like this. I'd prefer to work in a rice field.

Fabian
Alright! so, another guest :-) Seems to be German week or something? :-P Nah, eventhough it was quite and exhausting week because of some crazy people who came Krungthep and MY profile. But at least Fabian is cool. (Thank Buddha)

Paradox : actually that time on those screen they were showing game show that help people getting out of their "debt" So ironic. Coz that mall is for so-called Hi-So people.

Fabian studying Thai :-D

Ya know!?

Karaoke
We went to Karaoke last night (me, p' Mong and Fabian). After a dinner at MK. That was not planned though. I thought it would be another 'cool' way for non-Thais to learn Thai too (especially that he can read Thai already, just needs to practice) It was great! (yeah! Karaoke is da best!) And he'll start taking a class with p' Mong tomorrow~! Hope it will work out :-D But I'm sure it will. He's fast learner.

Park
Went to the park today, viewed some photos that he just got them printed here. Pretty cool pictures taken in Denmark :-) Ate Khao Mok Gai at Roti Mabata resto, yeah ..again. Can't help it.. I like it THAT much.

When Fabian was rolling his tobacco. A waiter at Roti place nodded to his friend like "look look.. this farang is ROLLING" I had to tell him that "It's not a joint!" before he would think too far.

Well, quite a chill-out day actually. Done some email design for Adam (turned to be that it's not actually what he wants, good to know. It's good for learning new things. It's completely different from designing whole websites), Went to the park, sat down on green grass looking at people practicing Capoeira with Thai traditional music as background (LIVE!) such a weird combination. But it's pretty cool mixed :-)

Aerobic Dancing!
I wonder how long it takes those people to memorize all the moves for that aerobic dance? they look like the dance army! Some people wore "California Wow!" Tshirt. I don't wonder why she stopped going to California and came here instead. That place is just soooo commercialized, way too much. Too greedy. Exercising in the park is FREE! and you meet nicer people. Only sucky thing is.. it depends on weather. Rain = No exercise.

Prathetthai ruam luad nua chat cheua Thaiiii..
It's always hilarious to see some foreigners went totally freaked out when seeing everyone stands up in the park at 6 PM sharp for a national antheme. It's VERY THAI thing which I think it's very cool. Even I'm sure that some people don't actually LOVE nation that much. But it's kinda automatic when you hear the theme, you gotta stand up and stop doing anything else..hehe

Amazing Thailand. Antheme twice a day, don't we just love our country?

Tomorrow "To do list"
- Go to the bank, waste another 300 Baht to get new ATM!
- Pay credit card bill
- Pay phone bill!
- Pay internet bill! (shit.. so many bills)
- Go to post office
- Go to bookstore
- See Movie at Lido! gotta see it! gotta seeeeeee~~!
- Tracking Jib for website back-end
- Start working on actual layouts for PMG website.

shit.. I wish I had 50 hours/day

It's important to save the frog.

2006-09-01T01:15:00.000+07:00

I went to see movies today. First one is Thai film "Seasons Change" by GTH which it was pretty OK. At least soundtracks are really beautiful.

Second one is "An inconvenient truth" which is really moving and I think it's most horrifying film ever be seen. And everyone should watch it! Even movie is full of facts and data but every second it makes you feel like "What the fuck are we doing to our planet??" it's just so .. I dunno.. it's really sad that most of people don't even think it has anything to do with them. Even worse about the fact that Bush was the one who was elected. Not Gore.

And all those facts and data shown in movies. They're all really terrifying. After you see them and you still feel like "Oh ..so what?" you must be reall really ignorant and selfish.

Resource : http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/

The Antarctic Peninsula 1986-2002, (c) University
of Innsbruck. Source:European Space Agency

Triftgletscher in the Berner Oberland of Switzerland until recently filled the entire basin seen here in the foreground. Thinning of the tongue during the 1990s accelerated and as of 2001 a lake started to form in front of it. The ice became buoyant and rapid break-up of the snout is now underway. JA Photos : Michael Hambrey (MH), Jürg Alean (JA) | Resource

"Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced." : Al Gore

what a week..

2006-08-29T12:16:00.000+07:00

For past 3 days I didn't sleep much. Plus those meetings I attended. I don't think I'll be able to host anyone until October! It was quite tiring for past month. And I got sick from having not enough rest too. Very nice..

Some people need to be prepared before they left home for travel. I admit that sometimes when I travel I have such a "I-wanna-go-home-I-hate-this-place" moment too. But never that bad. I usually get over it in couple of hours. Besides, I agree with James that we shouldn't leave the place while we still hate it. Give it a chance. Try to relate to stuff around you a little bit. I'm sure everyone can manage.

It's like you go around Burma and wonder why people speak Burmese here? why don't they speak English to me? what a sucky place! nah... you gotta be really ignorant to believe that you can go explore the world by yourself and expect people to understand everything you say. That's just way too naïve.

I really do feel sorry for people that they can't find the way to enjoy their trip after all. But nobody can help but themselves. Or final solution is.. going back home. I really can't understand people who force themselves to finish the trips even they hate it. Why bother? just quit it

fish can think

2006-08-27T17:55:00.000+07:00

Food for thought: fish can think

Sydney (dpa) - People who claim that goldfish can't remember things that happened more than three seconds ago are talking nonsense, an Australian biologist said Sunday.

Fish that Sydney academic Culum Brown has experimented with could find their way out of a trap he set them - and remember how they did it for at least a year afterwards.

Macquarie University's Brown told the Sun Herald that his fish could negotiate an underwater maze by spotting the difference between signs with green triangles and those with red squares.

The smartest in the school read the signs and reached the stash of fish food quickly but even the slowest got the hang of it eventually and found their way to the feeding station.

Even out of the laboratory, fish display intelligence. Brown found that, to get away from what they thought was a predator, fish in rocky pools at the seaside would jump from one pool to another; they couldn't do that unless they had a mental map of where the different pools were.

That fish aren't completely stupid has implications for how we interact with them, Brown said.

If fish can learn to read signs, they can learn to steer clear of fishing boats and fishing nets. And perhaps figures for fish stocks ought to be adjusted to take into account the capacity of fish to keep away from those doing the counting.

Brown reckons that people who keep tropical fish as pets ought to take cognizance of his research and start setting brain-teasers to keep their fishy friends alert and happy.

"I move the tank around every so often and introduce new rocks and plants and logs," he said. "If you look at the amount of activity they engage in afterwards, they are far more active. The change can be a bit stressful for them, but afterwards they love it."

Lazy

2006-08-27T05:33:00.000+07:00

Well, lot of stuff has been happening here but I'm too lazy to blog it. Some I already forgot. So.. hm well.. see some photos? nah.. maybe later

Horror of a fan

2006-08-21T23:40:00.000+07:00

My guest almost got killed this afternoon. Well, by a fan! ok ok maybe i'm being too exaggerated but it was quite a horror. When I was working on my computer, Lore was getting ready to go on a sight seeing. Since there's not much space in my room and she didn't expect that fan was turning towards her. She bumped a fan a and before I realized. Broken parts of that fan was flying in every direction! lol damnnnnn..I'm so glad she didn't hurt herself! Or I would have been the first host who got a guest killed! *yikes*

Having breakfast at Wild Orchid behind. Phra Athit.

Got a call from James (one from Philippines, not from from NY or Barcelona!) on Saturday that it would be a meeting at Suanlum (Lumpini) night bazaar. Actually it was 'medium size' meeting which is good. Not too many people we all had chance to talk around a little bit. So it was 8 of us. I and my guest (Lore from Belgium), James and his guest (Anne from Germany), Nammon and his guests (Maya and her brother), one filipina, another girl from Germany(?) and followed with Teonk.

After one 'tower' of beer we went to Khaosan road and everybody agreed to go to Brick Bar but Anne is still only 19 (and 11 months!) so she wasn't allowed to get it. We moved to Gulliver's instead because they don't check foreigners' passports. Place was OK but as you know that place is such a meat market. But as long as you don't pay attention. Whatever.. I just wanted my beer!

Want some more tower?

Ended up that night everyone moved to my house just sit here and drank Belgian beers Lore brought with her (nice girl! hehe) and some drank Thai wine I bought from OTOP expo. We browsed some people profiles on HC and CS some profile I know on HC got a bit of shocking comments (very negative) from some guests which is not very usual. That's amaaaazing. I wonder what he has done to them to make them that pissed?

All of us at the meat market on Khaosan road "Gulliver's"

Weird, I have 5 couch surfers in my room.

Next day we slept in until 1 PM! and then went to have one hour facial massage. Anne came to join us too because James had to stay in and work on his papers which he was supposed to get them done since last Friday! After that we went to OTOP expo but too bad we didn't have much time there as we arrived 1 hour before closing time.

Lore walked around food center and she came back with very local food "SOMTAM"! So funny that a guy at the shop she bought somtam was a ladyboy..she just kept talking and talking to Lore..hehe

Lore and Anne having lunch..er..or dinner..?

Deep fried ice-cream! :-D

Teonk came to meet us there at Muang Thong Thani since it's not so far from where he lives. I thought it would be plenty of food to buy there and we would eat altogether at Teonk's place. But that time they were closing their booths and not much of "ready to eat" food left there. It's ended up Teonk had to stop by at "Gai pa Toi" ("Aunt Toi's chicken".. which he claims that it tastes 1000 times better than KFC..and it's true) bought 100 baht of fried chicken and a few packs of sticky rice. We couldn't even finish all of that chicken.

Chilling out Teonk's place. (Second picture he looks a bit pimp..lol)

And yes, he can play piano!

We hanged around at Teonk's place until midnight or something. Time to leave. He dropped us around Rangsit University to take a cap back home. Since it was really late already. I thought it would be better for Anne to stay at my place instead of going back to James's (besides, she didn't wanna wake him up. James had to get up very early to go to work too) So both of Lore and Anne crashed here.

Since we slept in too long this morning. We were still quite awake by the time that we arrived my place. So we just sat there and talked and planning "Things to see" for both of them, until almost 4 AM and then it was really time for us to go to bed.

Monday traffic is killing. We all know it. But since I left full time job (one that I had to be at the office by 8:30 AM) years ago I COMPLETELY forgot how bad traffic was going to be. Ended up we stuck in traffic for soooooo long and ofcourse nothing was moving. I think Lore felt like pulling her hair off :-) hehehe

Lore's friend would be at police station on the corner of Khaosan road by 8 AM and that time we were still only half way to temple we were going to visit and it was 7:30 already. So she decided to walk back to Khaosan road with Anne (which it was pretty right decision) I carried on to the temple by myself. Spent almost and hour on meditation, took some photos and went to bookstore to fetch new issue of National Geographic.

Wat Benjamabopit in the morning.

Met Lore again on Khaosan with her friend who came with a bf. Lore was right. This girl is always well-dressed! (How many times that you will see farangs on Khaosan road wear high heels?)

I had to work a bit today so I dropped Lore at the pier to meet up with Anne. Was thinking that we might meet up later or dinner or something. But I got SMS from Ivica that we was flying back home. So I decided to go to meet him at the airport instead. Teonk came along too since airport is really close to his house. He also bought stuff I forgot at his place last night with him too.

Ivica was flying to Zurich with Swiss Air. He said that whenever we gonna visit Serbia just let him know he would come to meet us anywhere in Serbia doesn't have to only Belgrade. But the city he lives it's only 20 Km from Romania and Bulgaria. Sounds really cool! Hope i'll have chance to visit him there some day.

Even he spent only 17 days in Thailand but looks like Ivica will be back in Thailand pretty soon (all the time he was holding that girl's hand. One that he met in Samui) We didn't wanna sit there between them so after dinner we just said goodbye and left them alone.

Got a call from James about Anne wouldn't be able to go to RCA because she's not yet 20. I completely forgot about that! I got home around 11 PM and got SMS from Lore that they were with James playing pool :-D Her friend and a bf went to RCA by themselves.

James was online today (one from New York..u know.. James with a tiny backpack and homeless-look plastic bag) LOL ~ Kidding, James! (but u know I meant it, don't you?) looks like he's partying hard as usual and he just said "I just like to dance" oh yeah right :-P He'll be in China soon (finally!)

That bitch called again about the web project. I'm so sick of this. But at least ai Not was fixing it for me. I just hate the way that when she wants it she kept calling and calling. But when I want feedback from her she just fucking disappeared. Very typical. I'm not gonna call her back again for tonight. Enough!

Oh, Talked to Soren couple of days ago. This guy is craaazy. He just came online and told me that he woke up on the street this morning (in Tokyo!) with a Japanese guy using a "broom" to wake him up (imagine when you use a stick to rake something that you don't wanna touch! lol) Hilarious!

But yeah I agreed with him if he posted this on his blog his mom would get a heart attack for sure. That's fucking serious. Passing out on the road where you have NO IDEA where it was. And woke up with some guy raking him with a broom! lol

OTOP

2006-08-16T09:33:00.000+07:00

Yesterday I went to help P' Sakchai at The Best of OTOP exhibition. From 11 AM til 9 PM. It was quite OK but it would be better if he didn't have to share booth with other exhibitor. Overall, it was pretty quiet and he got such a bad location for displaying. But still got some prospects exchanged business cards for trading (which is good) Most of them are involved in Beauty care and Spa business. One of them is doctor and he looks 18!

Weirdest one was a man in his 50s, chinese look. He came by when P' Sakchai was away and I was there alone. He started throw me millions of questions. I just answered whatever I could. While he was browsing photos of products he saw a loaf of soap lying around and he asked if he could try to slice it. I told him..yeah but if you do, you have to buy. Otherwise the owner will blame me for this. He was like "ahh come onnnnnn! he won't!! well! OK! I'll do it myself!"

That's it he just went straight to the soap and sliced it up "Oh wow! this is pretty cool!" That was almost a 100 Baht that he just sliced and almost 600 Baht for that loaf. That's it and he left. Anyway,I managed to got his business card and email address and stuff.

What a fucker.

Exhibition was held at Challenger Hall which is newest hall of MuangThong Thani. Inside is very neat and spacy. And it was SO COLD. Everyone walked in there dressed like they're trekking in the north pole. Don't know why it had to be THAT cold.

Scarf in Bangkok? Oh Yes

"The Challenger Hall"

Display of "winter flowers" from Narathiwat! (Malay border province)

And Thai massage service (200 B./session)

I went to pick up some important documents for next exhibition for p' Sakchai. And there served free coffee and snacks. (sweet!) cake was way too sweet but coffee that was all I needed!

Meeting for BIG+BIH exhibitions (Will be held in December)

Got a postcard from police man! said "I found your wallet! Contact me this number to get it back" turned out he's a police man who's stationed at RCA everynight. I was really surprised. Tonight I'll have to go there and pick up my wallet. And ofcourse.. bring him some 'gift' (actually it's not needed. I don't need to bribe police to get my wallet back, do I?) but anyway, I just want to say Thank you to him. So I'm bringing a bottle of red wine (cheap! but tasty!) for him tonight.

Meeting up with Rich, Maya and bro. and Nutty+ Not tonight. Toenk is joining too (for 'bottle of Red Label's sake!) lol We'll see. It would be nice to have dinner together.

Dance girls + Chinese dumpling

2006-08-10T00:52:00.000+07:00

Last night we all went to "Mai Aek" where there're dancing girls on the table. (I don't fancy that, but since the rest of us are boys! so I was minority) :-P But good enough we had one bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label left there (Thanks to Toenk's advice!) so we could just go there and chill out, drinking whole bottle. Many places, boys have to pay entry fee but here it's other way round. GIRLS have to pay entry fee 300 Baht (and get 1 drink)

It's kinda 'ok' to watch dancing girls but I don't think I can just sit there and watch them for hours though. But watching some old dudes (and bald) dancing with much younger girls can be entertianing though. At least it makes you feel like "Damn I'm so respectable compared to that people" And this place if guys wanna have those girls to come to 'talk' with them at the table. If "PR" (means, girls are working there but don't dance) they charge 450 Baht/hour just to 'talk' to you and for 'dancers' you have to pay 700 Baht/hour. What a stupid thing (to me at least) paying someone just to sit and talk to you so you are allowed to touch them a little bit. It's just... nah.....Thank Buddha, no one in our group actually did it. Eventhough James and Ivica were so tempted to get some girls to come to 'talk' to them.

Taken with mobile phone, so quality is quite bad..hmm

Once we finished a bottle we were ready to move to RCA. But Ivica wanted to stay there! lol damnit! I had to convince him that come onnnn let's go to RCA there're girls there too and they're not "working" (well, even some are) by then Ivica was seriously thinking about coming to work from Bangkok a few months a year! :-D Well, why not? he can work from anywhere!

We went to Slim (fuck, not again) but they wouldn't let Rich in because he wore sandles. So we moved to good old Route 66 eventhough it's Tuesday but the place was packed as usual (but not as bad as Fridays and Saturdays) After a few beers we were all a bit tipsy (don't forget we just had whole bottle of Red Label) I was a bit tired. So was Rich. So we ended up having lot of popcorns outside the club. Talking about how popcorn pops. Amazingly that popcorn topic could lead to other topics like politics and humanity stuff..lol

James and Ivica wanted to stay a bit longer (I'm pretty sure that Ivica will start looking for an apartment to rent and move his butt to work from Bangkok instead of Belgrade! lol) but I and Rich we were half dead. After one cup of hot coffee we catched a taxi back.

This morning Toenk called. I don't even remember what he was talking on the phone as I was half asleep. But I had to get up anyway to get ready for meeting at 12 Oclock. We all agreed to go for lunch before James will fly off to KL and Hong Kong and Ivica and Rich are taking a train to the south to go to Koh Tao. So we arranged to meet at 1:30 PM around Siam. Traffic today was killing me. It was soooooo sick. Could barely move. I hate Bangkok traffic!! it's damn right decision to quit fulltime job! who wanna stuck in Bangkok traffic twice a day??!

Well, I arrived Ploenjit Center half an hour late.

After meeting we all went to "Giew Jeen" (chinese dumpling) restaurant on Sathorn road. It's small place but food is amazingly good. (Thanks to Toenk again. This guy knows where to eat!) they even have "Egg plant french fries" which looks like french fries but made of egg plants. Very weird but it was very yummy.

At Chinese Dumplings place. Doesn't look like a restaurant from outside.

Chinese Pizza (Sorry we had finished the rest of it..only one piece left)

Me, Teonk, Rich, James, Ivica

James wasn't even sure what time his flight was (very James) but it was something like 5 PM as he could remember.(amazing..) Toenk was going home anyway so he dropped James at the airport on his way back home. Rich, Ivica and I took a cap back to Khaosan road. I was thinking about taking my car and drop them at train station but car wasn't there. (damn) so we parted at Khaosan road. They're coming back anyway. For James I won't see him until October or something.

But we'll see :-) This is such a small world.

HC+CS meeting at Crêpes & Co

2006-08-07T03:53:00.000+07:00

It was a bit crowded meeting since we didn't expect to have that many participants but it turned out there were 13 of us. From CouchSurfing. Me, Rich, Mark, Callum, Peak, James, James and James (actually "Jaume") and others from HC I don't have list here but Ivica (from HC) brought big bottle of booze straight from Serbia! sweet! and we finished that bottle real quick :-) hehe

Then it was some of us went to RCA (Toenk's idea .. he has a whisky left there) so.. the 3 of James,me, Toenk, Rich, Ivica and James' chick. We finished another big bottle of Black Lable. Good fun!! (and so drunk too) except that I forgot my wallet in a locker there and ofcourse it's gone. Ah well, shit happens.

This morning I'm pretty sure we were all dead. But in the evening Toenk managed to take us around for resto hobbing. One of places was Mai Aek which is packed with girl dancers and this place has no other beers but San Miguel! So we ended up buying 2 bottles of Red Lable instead.

I really need a massage!

"The triple James" (James NY, James Philippines and James Barcelona) too many James that night :-) Interesting that last 2 James(es) have many similar words in Tagalog and Spanish

James, Toenk, Rich and Ivica

This chinese dude sat next to us. Since it was not enough stools so it's easier to merge 2 groups together. (We were way to drunk to know who is who anyway)

Hey hey she's taken!

Bunch of drunk people

I know Ivica would never wanna go back to Belgrade..haha

Big bottle of Black Label, finished

Look at James' face. How happy he is with my ciggie.

Dee is back! (and leaving)

2006-07-30T00:16:00.000+07:00

I met Dee again today. Actually it was supposed to be Couch Surfers meeting but Peak thought I was out of town so she didn't tell anyone. So it's gonna be next week.

James is still in Vientiane (duh~!). Too bad he couldn't make it today. It would be cool if he was with us.

Maya came to pick up her towels..hehe.. They were on the way to Jatujak Market. And she has to do visa run soon (reminds me of James!) she's not sure where to go. Cambodia or Laos. But I think Laos will be easier since she's going up north anyway. She gave me a gift. When I unpacked it it was ashtray "I will quit tomorrow" inside :-D oh well! I just realized I never had any ashtray indeed.

Dee came back from India and got a bit sick from food there (nothing new) He met another girl in Samui and when I asked what about a girl in Chiang Mai? "Finished!" lol

We went to Tawaraya. A japanese resto in Sukhumvit Soi 26. Took some time to find it. Even when I called it was someone answered in Japanese! Anyway, nice place. Fun to eat there. (they cook in front of you) and we tried to make Takoyaki which turned out to be burnt..hehe but still good. Drank Asahi beer. The owner of resto is very polite and doesn't speak any English or Thai. Only Thai staff speak a little bit of Japanese. He talked to Dee for a while, ended up Dee got one free drink from him (strong stuff, made from sweet potato)

We talked a lot about people we met when we travel. Even about Buddhism. He said when he was in Japan he didn't care so much about it but after he traveled around here he became interested more and more in Buddhism since it's very peaceful and reasonable.

Burning Takoyaki ! lol

He asked about how Thai people think about Japanese. I don't know what to say! like what? crazy? amazingly polite? maybe too polite? But I think he meant that girl in Samui. (They met because of Poo-pad-phong-ga-ree / Crab meat fried with yellow curry powder. He asked in Thai and that girl was impressed. Wow, romantic ^^" ) If that case I really don't know. I don't know that girl. How can I tell? well, it's gonna hard though since that girl doesn't speak much English.

Came back to Khaosan road for few more beers. Nearly midnight I didn't wanna stay longer in Gulliver's. Too many "products" in there. Unpleasant atmosphere.

Dee is leaving for Taiwan tomorrow afternoon and will stay only a few days before going home. He'll start looking for contract work again in Japan. He said ..it might be Toyota. (Good to be Japanese!) and he's gonna come back some day :-)

I have to work seriously tomorrow. Got some stuff done today but not enough. Need some pushing!

Surfing week and crazy guest house staff

2006-07-23T10:48:00.000+07:00

Maya has been surfing with me for a few days now. So far so good! We also met other Couchsurfers 2 days ago. One is Australian girl,Sam and another one is James from Barcelona. Both of them live in Thailand. Sam is going to marry her Thai bf in January! That's sweet :-) James is very funny
guy. We had our lunch at..some mall.. I don't even remember the name.One of those fancy malls that we'll never buy anything there, BUT they have good food court on the top floor.

Yesterday we went to Sitdhi guest house helping Ami (the owner) copy guest info from check-in books to excel file. I was so amazed how rude this staff are! It was something about money and they misunderstood him. One of them (behind counter) thought he accused her that she stole money (fucking 200 Baht..fuck that) but in fact, he didn't say anything like that at all (I was there, I heard everything) he just asked if he already returned 200 baht to her (she's cashier) because he couldn't remember. That's all. As simple as that. But she turned to be soooo angry and started to insult him in rudest Thai words (pussy face, mother fucker, asshole..and many more)

Finally one of staff had to talk to him about what exactly he meant. Then she translated to that crazy woman behind counter. She didn't say sorry to him or anything. Just kept complaining complaining.I wonder if they do this everyday. In my whole life I've never seen the owner of the guest house (and his cafe) is billed for the coffee from HIS OWN cafe before. But yesterday he got bills for 2 cups of coffee (our coffee) even he said that he invited us here and why the hell does he have to pay for HIS coffee that HE bought it for HIS cafe?

That 2 cups of coffee story never ended..I'm sure they went on complaining about it when we left that place. I wanna know where he found these women. They're the lowest of low. They're SO rude. Even cheap prostitutes talk nicer. And they just talked in front of us as if we weren't there. And I'm sure they know that I'm Thai so I understand everything they said (even their boss doesn't)

Damn, some people were just born to suck oxygen from this earth and totally waste every single breath they take to live on their fucking lives and do no good to the others. These women are one of them.

Got email from Peak. She's back from Iceland. She stayed with Couchsurfers for whole trip. Including Luzian (Swiss guy) we met in a meeting last time in Bangkok. That's really cool. Can you imagine how much it might have cost if there was no Couchsurfing project?

Monday night, James is back, hippie de bar

2006-07-18T22:42:00.000+07:00

James showed up couple of days ago when he came back from Koh Chang. He looked terrible! (from bad stomach) and he came with one of most disgusting stories I've ever heard. Now I'm really convinced that farangs don't know how to flush toilet! I mean.. manually :-P

When I was in varanasi. Guest house where I stayed we had shared toilets. And every fucking time I went there. It's always someone had used it and never flushed. That's fucking disgusting.

James and BOTH of his passportS

But James's story is different. Seems like a lot of people used toilet on the bus and couldn't flush it. And finally water just turned brown and stinky. (yuck!) At least at the guest house you have a choice to walk away from stinky toilet but on the bus where the toilet is just right next to someone's seat. Oh my buddha.. can you imagine that..? couldn't flush, couldn't open windows either..And couldn't go anywhere but stuck on the bus. it's just gross! but it's hilarious just to hear a story (I'm so glad I wasn't there)

So James had real bad stomach. Spent 1500 B./night on resort in Koh Chang. Good way to spend money. At least I'm sure he used toilet a lot in the guess room :-P

James crashed here for a nigth and left next day to ..wait a minute.. where again?

He didn't even know until 4 AM on the same day he had to do visa run! very well planned! So it ended up he flew with Nok Air to Udonthani to catch the bus to NongKhai where the border is. I got a phone called from him around 2:30 PM that he just reached the border and finally crossed to Vientiane. Damn, James! i'm so proud of you! :-P

And finally arranged meeting with all 4 of us. It's been so lonnnnnnnnggggggggggggg.. ai Not is going to be married soon (well, legally) Natt is still in heart-broken period. Poon.. no action whatsoever..

All of us

That Hippie de Bar is really cool place, good food but waiters suck. They're always standing idle and talking to each other. We had to shout so loud! just to order a glass of drink! and he brought wrong food twice, and wrong cocktail once.

So instead of leaving nothing. We left 5 baht tip. They deserve it. (I wish I had 2 baht coin~!)

Turned off mobile phone today, so sick of some pushy clients.

Let's dive!

2006-07-15T20:53:00.000+07:00

See the fish?
So we went diving today. I took DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) finally. That was 2500 B. for 2 dives. It was kinda fun! except that my ears couldn't be equalized so well (damn sinus) It was such as nasty pain!

One of diver masters told me this is one of best spots to dive and it's considered most beautiful coral reefs in the area. But I guess he meant in winter time! water wasn't so clear that day. But sure lot of fish.
"If you come again in October. You will see a lot of "pla-teen" fish" ("teen" in Thai means "foot") so Pla-Teen is the Mudskipper.
"You serious?"
"Yeah! LOT! lot of TEEN!"
"how come?"
"Teen of those divers! fins! You can hardly swim around that time. Too crowded! 5555"

My dive master feeding fishy

Ready?

Dive spot. Enjoy!

Is he crazy?

2006-07-12T01:18:00.000+07:00

Last night we all got home so drunk. (as expected) I didn't even use mosq. net ..too drunk to hang it. Checked mobile phone.. SMS from James.. Couldn't remember the message though..just noticed "Oh! James!" Anders asked so what did he say? I just..completely forgot. (yeah..THAT drunk)

Next day I heard Anders was calling from outside. I was already awake though. And had been to toilet over 5 times just for that morning. Trying to puke but nothing really came out. I felt like my head was as big as giant water melon. Everytime I went back to bed I felt sick again. So what I had to do is sit down somewhere.

I got my painting set. Needed to eat something too. Even though I was pretty sure I would throw up everything later on. But I had to eat. So we ended up sitting in a cafe of our bungalows. I got hot coffee,watermelon shake.. some food..followed with pain killer pills from Anders. That really helped.

No idea what time it was. But sure it was afternoon..

Guess what, he's sewing flags again!
Anders spent his afternoon sewing flags on. I was surprised that he hadn't sewed all of them yet! (if u only see how he loves sewing them) So today he got another 2 of them on his backpack. He was about to sew France on
"Wait a minute.. is it like this?" (blue-white-red) and then he turned it upside down "or.. like this?" I went silent for a few seconds and all I could say was.. "I freaking don't remember!" (Apparently it's not very good idea to ask ppl when they got serious hangover)

I felt much better after those pain killers. But not enough energy to do anything else though. It was so hot and humid. So we spent whole afternoon in the cafe. I painted one coconut tree (woo!) and Anders was so relaxed on his sewing activity. He deserves going to Sewing Olympic.

Masterpiece
Since I'm not really into sewing. Anders tried my hobby instead. What about..starting from something simple like coconut tree?

Damn I'm good
And this is Anders' coconut tree.. and mine.. hehehe well, actually I like his better! :-D (Anyway, I gave my painting to Anders. Hope he won't use it to wipe his ass) :-) lol

me like it
Ambiance around White Sand beach.

Go Go Go!
Anders went running as usual. I had nothing else to do anyway and felt like being on the scooter to do some small sightseeing of the island too. So why not rent a scooter to wander around and let's hassle Anders while he's running a bit. Sounds like fun! I got a scooter from the same shop where we rented 2 scooters yesterday so she didn't even ask me to fill any more forms. Anders started to run from white sand beach..up to the north a bit and back.. then ran down south as far as Kai Bae beach. (That's quite far!) I'm really impressed!

I stopped my scooter once in a while to see how he's doing. Sometimes I went forward and stopped just to buy some water (thought that it would take him a while to get there anyway) but before I realized...this guy had run past where I was! damn!
"What are you doing?" That was a lady from noodle shop where I was standing and trying to snap Anders photos
"Ah..take...photos"
"What photos?" She looked on the road ..only a few scooters there and..coconut trees
"Photos of..err..er.. the road!"
"Hm" then Anders arrived.. took water from me and gone. Just like that crazy boy in The Incredibles.
"Now.. What was that??" same woman asked me again
"That was my friend"
"And why is he running?"
"Training..exercise..er..yeah something like that"
"But why?"
"Coz he likes it"
"Is he crazy?"
"hehe..maybe!"
"It's too hot for running! don't you think!?"
"yeah, that's why I'm here on scooter!hehe"
I left her noodle shop and saw her still watching Anders as if she had never seen anything like that before in her life. That was another weird evening for her I guess.

Not everyday that people on Koh Chang
see crazy farang running around the island
When we came back to white sand beach it was already dark. I really needed a good massage. So after shower we went to the place where they offered 50% discount for all courses (it was low season) But it was nearly 9 PM and they were fully booked. So we went to White Sand Massage instead and it turned out really really good. Anders got feet+legs massage and seemed to be very effective. I had 1 hour Thai massage it was sooooo good. I'm afraid that I'm already an addict!
We bumped into Maj and Mads at pizza place. They woke up around 2 PM today! So they missed their breakfast. Anyway, life is not fair. We all drank so much but it seemed to be only me who had major hangover that day!

Birthday Boy

2006-07-10T21:30:00.000+07:00

We rent 2 scooters today. First i thought I would rent another one for myself. But Anders didn't mind if we shared. So I agreed. I don't mind either. Riding it or just sitting behind being lazy :-P. Scooter costs 130 B/ 24 Hours. Fuel 30 Baht/ Litre. Good fun. I wish I could ride it in Bangkok. But I still wanna live my life!

Scooter gang.

Lovely place!
Since today is Anders' birthday. So he's the boss! He took us to this really nice place on lonely beach. I really liked it there. Very chill and they serve good food. Apparently Anders loves Padthai there. So I ordered one too :-) it was really good. If I ever come back to Koh Chang again soon I think I'd love to stay here. Very very cool place. And staff are very friendly. We ended up at that place twice that day. Coz on the way back, tyre went flat again. Needed to replace it. So we left the scooter at "vegetable shop" (weird place to get scooter fixed) and left for snack. Went back to pick scooter an hour later.

Yum~

View point.
There's a family just sitting there on their pick-up. I thought they came for picnic but they were selling grilled squids. (They didn't really look like they were selling though. Coz they were also eating their own products..hehe)

Pretty cool helmet, isn't it :-D

Fixing tyre at Bang Bao village.
This guy owns very neat "MIQ" scooter. Very shiny. Brand new. I was so jealous! Got tyre fixed for 50 Baht. Anyway the second time it went flat again. Now it had to be replaced and that costed another 100. Hm, so after all it was more expensive than renting another scooter. (crazy)

On the way to find the place to replace tyre. Since it's quite a long way so I catched one of those SongThaews back to BangBao but it turned out that Anders went to different place. Thank Buddha. Anders brought my mobile phone so I could call and ask where he was. While I was waiting for Mads to pick me up. There was a Thai guy with long hair stopped by
"Haven't we met this morning?" Now I remember. He was a guy I asked for direction this morning when our tyre went flat first time.
"Yeah, I got lost!"
"Oh, where are you going?"
"Dunno..I'm waiting for my friend to come to pick me up"
"ahhhhh~! OKKK.. come! have a seat at my bar while you're waiting. It's just right over there!" he pointed to a small shelter, rasta-style hut about 100 m. away from where we were.
"OK" I hopped on his scooter and he invited me to sit down on the balcony..part of his mini bar. There were another 4 guys there. They looked like the whole reggae band.

Colorful :-) I like it.
"Come on, you can sit inside if you want. Sitting like that..looks like "Kreng Jai" way sit"
"I never KRENG JAI, don't worry..hehe"
"gooood good. Here! have some 40 Degree?" he handed me 40 degree Thai wine. Almost half a glass.
"Just a sip, No problem!"
I took the glass from him and drank the whole glass. He stood there blinking in silence for a few seconds. "oh..ho..ho..er.. well..looks like we need more Lao-Khao here"
Then he kept bringing food and local wine to me. Thank God. Mads arrived. Otherwise I would end up getting drunk with all these rastafarians.

I jumped on scooter, Thank them and said goodbye. I heard that guy screamed "Shit! I forgot my daughter at school!" (LOL!!) Then followed with his friend in Bob Marley Tshirt said "I dunno what's wrong with guys around here. You know what. They all have kids but no wives. They freaking ran away! haha! by the way have a safe trip!"

Waterfall near that crazy resort.
We went to this place a bit south of the island as heard that they have a resort built on the boats. But when we arrived it was a sign says something like"Exclusive resort. Only for resort guests" otherwise we must pay 150 Baht just to "see" their resort. Fuck that. And we were told that if we wanted to see the waterfall just next to resort. That will be 50 Baht each. I wonder.. since when that resort own the natural waterfall in the forest too? so we went in anyway without paying anything. Why should we anyway? bah!

After the waterfall we stopped by at Bang Bao village to see if there's any fishing activities go on around there. But not much.. though it was pretty relaxing place. Looks like good place to go to have some serious seafood :-) There's a dive shop just right next to 7-eleven. So all of them booked fun dives there. A lady who works there. She told me she's getting a bit bored of Koh Chang as she was born there and been living there until today. She's got a belgian boyfriend who came to visit couple of months ago, asked her if she wanted to go to Koh Tao.
"I'm from Koh and he's still asking me if I wanna go to Koh! can you believe that?" hehehe

When we walked back again passing dive shop. She was washing the little dog there. That dog was just standing still. Not sure if he enjoyed shower though. He's so small, has long hair.. and his name is RAMBO.

Guest Houses at Bang Bao Fishing Village
Tree House
We went back to to white sand beach to shower and take a nap. It was quite a long day. Anders had a plan to take all of us to "Tree House" which looks like sort of hippie place :-) but it's really lovely and food come so quickly! finally we had all the food in our table and couldn't finish all of them. It was hot and humid night. No wind AT ALL. We all had to lie down sweating. Trying not to move too much to save energy..hehe.. Anyway, that was really nice place to celebrate his birthday! :-) Really had a good time.

Lemon Bar ..and a guy with 17 years of hooking tourists
After Tree House. We hopped to "Lemon Bar" not so far from Tree House actually. The bar was full of Katoeys! Most just work there actually. Anders met old friend, one of Katoeys that he spent half an hour chatting with him..er...her last time he was there in Koh Chang. There's another one was dancing like crazy on the dance floor. I found out later that that one named "Queen"

We traded all those coupons for free drinks which we got them from that Magacian dude who's 41 year-old, but 18 year-old at heart, (that's what he claims) it's been 17 years of hooking with tourists for him.
"So many times I fall in love. Doesn't matter how big my love is! it always ends at the airport!" Then he kept whining about his international loves. Why he left Bangkok 17 years ago, And why he had to go to see doctor every year (according to..he's not sure how many tourists he's been with!)

You're racist!??
After all those free drinks, a few buckets of vodka, redbull, SaengSom..We went to another bar where that magician dude owns the place. Not so many people there. Actually it was even closed. But he opened up again when we arrived.

We had more beers there. Then there's a big English girl came to join. (but I guess she's staying at the bungalow nearby) She turned out to be a bit weird person. Started with conversations with Anders that she didn't get any jokes at all (or didn't try to..) for example..
"What's your name?" Anders gave some football players names (*yawn* you know it) and then she said something like that's weird name..or something like that. Anders said that player is actually a black guy.Then she said "You're racist!?" "What?? who's racist??" "You! You're racist!" er..well. OK. whatever.. looks like someone has no sense on humor here.

Those are biggest tits I've ever seen!
I didn't really listen to her since she accused that Anders was racist. I turned to talk to Maj instead. While Maj left for selecting some music CD. Anders turned to me and whispered (pretty loud) "This english girl..you see! those are biggest tits I've ever seen! sometimes I wonder how they even grow that big??" I hope she didn't hear that..lol

Are you drinking my beer?
That english girl Sarah. She asked if she could have one of my ciggies. Sure, No problem. Ler's share the cancer.
"Hey, are you.. drinking my beer?" Anders pointed at the bottle in Sarah's hand. I think I saw her face turned red then she said it quickly "Oh come on, I'll buy you beers too!"

It's true. Later she came back with 2 bottles of Singha.

Anders passed out. Falling a sleep and actually snoring. Sarah was amazed that he could just fall asleep like that. But nobody else seems to be surprised anymore. When Anders is drunk, he falls asleep. Yep.

Before we came to party we arranged with SongThaew guy to come to pick us up around 2 AM to take us back to bungalows as it was pretty clear that there wouldn't be any transports to come back to White Sand beach that late night. At that time it was nearly 4 AM. My mobile phone has no signal (Thanks! DTAC!) so I asked bar owner if I could borrow his. "No battery!!" shit.. ok I borrowed only sim card then. His got full signal.
"What's that phone? Samsung" That was Sarah. Here we go again.
"Yeah, but it's old!" bar owner said
"THIS IS SHIT!" I thought.. this bitch is crazy, beyond help
"I can buy this in England for like.. 1 pound!" she she kept going on like that for..I dunno for what reason. I just didn't wanna listen to her anymore. Considered noise pollution to me.

Songthaew driver picked up the phone, whining a bit that we called him 2 hours too late. But he agreed to come anyway if we pay 200 more. Deal, that was nice of him to stay up waiting for us anyway.

Just before we left the bar. I was stopped by bar owner
"Er.. you haven't paid for these Singha beers"
"No, we did. We paid for all the beers we got from your fridge"
"Yeah..only Chang though.. Not Singha" Who ordered Singha anyway..? then I knew it.. SARAH.. the moment that she came back with beers she promised to buy because she was caught drinking our beers. True..She came back with beers indeed. She just hadn't paid for them.

Very nice..girl! very nice!

Koh Chang Get Away

2006-07-10T20:25:00.000+07:00

I know it's supposed to be "When i'm not traveling" But let's take this as another vacation :-P

It was Anders' birthday (July 7th) and I thought it would be great to get away to the beach for a few days. So..yeah.. Anders got tickets booked at United Travelers Connection around the corner of Khaosan road for 150 Baht (so cheap!) and organized everything, what time to meet, where, etc. You can count on this guy. As he said, his middle name is ORGANIZE. No doubt about it :-)

Quite a long ride. We arrived Koh Chang in the evening. We got a bungalow named "Apple"(damn cute name) for 200 Baht/night (got it down from 350 B.) which it was pretty OK. Fairly clean. And just right next to Koh Chang Kacha where Mads & Maj stayed.

Apple Bungalow 200 B/night. Mine is on the left (it's prettier than Anders' on the right, coz I got beautiful flower hanging in front of my balcony. He didn't) lol

Me bed! Only first night that I actually used mosq. net. Second night it happened to be shit load of party (all those buckets and biggest Pinacolada glass I've ever seen in my life) Since that night. I never used mosq. net again. Hello Malaria~ (kidding!)

White Sand Beach. Not so white at that time I must say. But beach massage is super!

Some guy is trying to catch something with his net. Just on the shore.

Anders is making a magic trick. Squeezing water out of his shirt. That could have flooded the island :-P Well, just another day after his long running. And I was smoking watching this scene again. Damn I miss Rob! lol

We went to small place just right opposite Baan Pu Resort for dinner. It was pretty cheap and so many choices. But most impressive dish must be Maj's sweet and sour fish. Look at its size! :-D

We will rent scooters tomorrow!

No more craziness!

2006-06-29T01:16:00.000+07:00

Right. Tomorrow morning my parents will wonder why there's a japanese guy sleeping in middle of our living room. First I and James were talking about going for a dinner at Bed Supperclub. But I spent whole afternoon at boring meeting and I missed my lunch. Finally got back to Khaosan area around 5 PM, starving. So I and James ordered LOT of food at Roti Mataba place. After that we couldn't even think of getting any more food. That was quite enough for breakfast+lunch+dinner altogether.

James wanted to help me set up new ADSL modem for new ISP. So we thought that we would go to meet Dee later. Anyway, we went for some coffee and cake and we agreed that what we've been doing for whole week should be stopped now. No more crazy RCA party. No more alcohol for me this month! Besides, since I spent hours watching those scenes in SLIM. It didn't look too good. To be honest. Once in a while is OK. But almost everything it's just so low-class. That chick he met last night even sent him message said "Hey how are you doing? sorry I wasted your time last night" LOL man.. what's that supposed to mean?

So we ended up watching Last life in the universe at my place. Smoked some free stuff that Dee got from a Spanish guy from his guest house. Some beers. (not for me) Second movie, and we all fell alseep!

After a movie, few bottle of beers and a lot of joints :-D
Since Dee will have to catch a train to the border tomorrow so I thought he has to back to pack his stuff and sleep, get up early. But he's way too stoned. So that's it. He's sleeping happily in my living room now. James went back to the guest house with his books,said he'll try to take some course tonight using his laptop. But u know what, I bet he'll fall asleep as soon as his head touches pillow :-P

Kristian called this afternoon. He was at Bangkok airport! ready to fly to Chiang Mai though. Will be back in BKK on Saturday. Would be nice to see him ! It seems to be "Dental" trip again. But sounds like he's been around here for a bit. (Bali, Koh Tao,.. etc) and now Chiang Mai. We'll see how it goes this weekend.

I'm so glad we're being 'good people' tonight :-P
Damn RCA. I'm so over it.

RCA era

2006-06-28T04:43:00.000+07:00

Alright, it's been fucking weird week.
First of all, I've been drinking too much, second I'm not sure if it was good idea introducing these guys to "RCA"

Last night must be the first night that James didn't go out party as usual. He just came here for lunch (cooked here) and surfing internet (he brought his laptop). And went out for damn spicy isaan food+some beers (again!) around 10 PM or something, back here, James went back to his laptop surfing and chatting again. He wanted to use my ADSL cable so I had to pull it off from my PC and tried to plug it to his laptop but then he found out that he brought a cable (thanks a lot James!) And guess what, when I plugged cable back to my PC it didn't work!

So! I couldn't surf. That's it.. that's why I ended up playing that Heroes game for hours and hours. When I turned to James again, this is what I saw

LOL .. well anyway, when I looked at the clock it was like.. 3:30AM. Ok fine. So I let him crash there on the floor. When he woke up next morning first thing he had to do was fixing the connection. Took like an hour! Luckily he got everything fixed!

Went out to have Viet food at Siam, paid bills, got loads of coffee. Another weird activity came up. We went to Lumpini MuayThai stadium. This stadium is soooo old. Compared to Rajadamnern. Rajadamnern is a bit more modernized. And there's aircon. But Lumpini. No aircon, wooden benches, man..

All the gamblers on 3rd class seats. Classy.

Beaaaaautiful
first couple of fights were a bit boring though. Until the main one. Dunno why we just mentioned "Dee" and James just said "Call him!" and after a little bit of beer I was fucking crazy enough to call Dee at his guest house. And Dee was crazy enough to follow us to the stadium! LOL

Colorful people. We looked just like damn traffic light.

"The man" this guy was running around taking bets from all the dudes in stadium. James's favorite..lol
Dee just arrived in time. Main fight was sooooo good. Those boxers are impressive! another 4 glasses of beer..So we left stadium around 10 PM. Went to buy some shirt at Suanlum Night Bazaar which is right next to the stadium (I almost got a taxi to get us there, how stupid I am) James got most beautiful shirt from there "USA" football ..hm yeah or should I say soccer? team shirt. Price was quoted at 450 B. Went down to 250 B finally. Oh yes, US and A!

"SLIM" You know it!
Then we took off to good old RCA. James was drunk already since the stadium (8 glasses of beers!) and kept talking nonsense :-P and his cell phone became part of his body. Nothing will stop this man from sending SMS. He keeps sending text msg ALL the time! So we arrived Slim half drunk. Not even 10 minutes yet James disappeared in the crowd again! and poor Dee.. when we were admiring that bosanova drummer's beats. Someone came to "heyyy" and dancing with him. Shit~ is he rubbing Dee??? lol oh yes he is! Dee was totally freaked out this time. I found out later that it was also same guy who was trying to dance with him last time we went there too! hehe wow good job Dee!

"Who's this guy next to me? I have NO IDEA!"
James was gone cruising around in the club and came back and said "I was looking for you guys!" (duh!) Finally got smoochy with one of the girls but turned out that chick had to take her sister back home. So she couldn't go anywhere but back to her place (waha!~) and Dee, damnit. I even pushed him to this chick and everything looked pretty smooth actually. But that girl came to ask me twice
"Is your friend ok?"
"What? What ok?"
"Japanese guy, he's your friend, no?"
"yeah yeah"
"Is he alright?"
"er, yeah!"
Then she went back dancing with Dee again. I went to toilet. When I came back Dee was dancing with some dudes! ah come onnnnnnnn! and that girl came to me again.
"Are you sure he's doing OK??"
"yeah! anyway I think I'm gonna leave soon. So please! look after him!"
"hmmm wellll" (she turned to Dee and saw him dancing around like crazy by himself)
"hehe, I'm gonna go home"
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

oh dee, you fuuuuucked up.

"Wait a minute..where am I again?"

Lovely, just totally drunk

So, we ended up sitting there talking stupid stuff at the cafe. I asked Dee why didn't he go out with that girl. He said he didn't even remember which one! (er, you guys were hugging for like ..half and hour in the club) After some coffee James brought up that weird Malaysian girl stuff again. So lame, James, if you're reading this. Don't forget what I said to you! You know it!

Well, so we just took a taxi back to Khaosan. Dropped James and Dee off. But turned out that Dee couldn't remember the way to get back to the guest house!! (garrrhhh!) so I walked him back to his guest house, make sure he got there. Took taxi back home.

James is talking about going back to SLIM again tomorrow night. Man, I'll have to pass it. Quite enough for me already! 5:47 AM. Damn.. i'm off to bed. Meeting with client at noon. After all those beers and smoking.I'm gonna look so fucking great today..

Prince fever

2006-06-17T21:18:00.000+07:00

It's a surprise that A LOT of chicks here (including ladyboys!) have been talking about Crown Prince Dasho Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck of Bhutan! hehe. First impression is he came in The national dress of Bhutan (Gho) I must admit that it looks very very nice and very outstanding (much more interesting than boring suit) But I didn't expect that he would became so popular among girls here :-D

Yesterday I had a meeting with one of clients who has a share in ver posh hotel in Phuket. She told me that The Prince of Bhutan stayed at her hotel and that made all the female (AND ladyboy) staff went crazy! haha~ said "He's soooooo lovely" Also today I found a friend of mine is even using picture of Prince on his..er..her MSN :-D

Well :-) just..interesting. Happy for Bhutan!

Celebration and World Cup

2006-06-13T11:15:00.000+07:00

Bangkok and Thailand has been painted with yellow for a few days already. It's still unbelievable to me seeing this. I mean,how can (nearly) everyone wear yellow? But if you see the photos you'll see what I mean. Especially yesterday. I saw lot of foreigners wearing yellow as well (some with "Long live The King" written on it) But if they were going to cheer for Australia that night. It's kinda smart. 2 in 1. Celebrate for The King and supporting Australia :-) hehe

Street resto near the pier

Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!

Rob and Simon among the yellows :-D
Since traffic was soooo bad that night. Rob couldn't make it to Khaosan road where he was supposed to meet me. I waited for almost an hour and decided to go to internet cafe just to drop a message to him. I met Rob day after and turned out that he arrived Khaosan road almost 8:30 PM and ended up watching football at some cafe just around the corner of that internet cafe I went to! Damn!

"Het grote Oranje"fans :-)
Anyway next day we managed to go to Gulliver's to watch Holland-Montenegro (1-0) Gulliver's was packed of bunch of Dutch people. (overload of orange!) it was good fun actually. Some dutch chicks even came in football player's outfit (with socks and everything, brought their own football even)

Second floor was invaded by Japanese :-)

Yesterday we tried to go to spot the Royal Barge on the river. But it wasn't possible. Everywhere was full of people. So we ended up watching it on TV in The Hippie Bar on Khaosan road. (Actually it's much better. Coz if you don't get really really good location to see it. It's not worth standing there. It's better and clearer on TV anyway). Lot of cocktails and beers today. I was surprised I could still walk after all the booze.

And last night Japan-Australia. Ground floor was occupied by Aussies and second floor was full of Japanese! hehehe~

After the match. Japanese people went down to party with Aussies :-D
A japanese guy named Tukku told us that they had been telling all the japanese around that area to come to this place to watch the match. Finally there were around 40-50 japanese ppl there shouting the name of players and "Nippon! Nippon!" (they also brought horn and drum! lol) We were supporting Japanese that night. Too bad Australia beated them in the second half 3-1 (you could hear "yeahhhhhhhh~!!!!!" from ground floor and "......" from the second floor)

And it seems to be a few English guys come to watch football there everynight. Doesn't matter which team. But they are cheering and cursing as if they were their national team :-) kinda funny.

Smallest bar I've ever seen. We were (sort of) watching USA Vs. Czech.
but I left 20 minutes later. Too drunk! Rob was flying to Malaysia next morning and he planned not to sleep or he will miss the flight (have to be at the airport around 5:30 AM) I guess he's in Penang by now.

"We're tough, We're in leather jackets, We're the gang!.. And we like to play with hair!"

Another meeting

2006-06-10T12:20:00.000+07:00

That was on May 19th before I left for Laos. Bunch of people from Couchsurfing, Hospitalityclub, Lonely Planet (Thorntree) and Virtualtourist.com. I looked like shit that day. Went straight from gym to the meeting. Wearing stupid Tshirt and no make-up with oily face! sweet! lol

Pix : Mena (UK), Luke (Australia), Me and May. And everyone in second photo. Which I can't remember them all!

Sea of yellow!

2006-06-09T12:53:00.000+07:00

MORE THAN A MONARCH "The Pillar of Stability. The Father of a Nation. The Guiding Light. His Majesty the King is all of this to the Thai people. And much more..." Big day today! Celebration of our King's 60 years on the throne. Everyone is wearing yellow today. (I was told..) But this morning I went out to buy some food from 7-eleven and I wasn't wearing yellow tshirt (no, not yet I thought I would do this evening when I go out to take some photos) But Oh my Buddha! everyone out there was wearing yellow! I felt like and idiot~! haha! Oh well, great day today :-) so happy to see lot of people coming to celebrate this anniversary.

There's a topic "What's the future for Asian monarchies?"on BBC news website and obviously some non-Thais think the way that we love our King is exaggerated. Waste of time trying to make them understand why. Maybe you have to be born Thai to understand the feeling of "..more than love and beyond respect"

Someone from Nepal has his say that "Becoming a KING' is an inborn quality! Is not fair. Every capable person should get chance to compete…" if he compares Thailand to Nepal. yes, it's sad thing that happened in Nepal about their monarchy. But the whole point here is not that Thai people love The King because he was born "royal" but we love him for what he has been doing for his country, his people...us. Even his name means "Power Of The Land" and it's so true.

But this lady "ApresMidi" on Pantip forum is saying best...

"To be a King may be an inherited attribute, however to be the king of one's heart is a different story. It does take years and years of great vision, positive intention, hard work and devotion to be such king of one's heart.

With 60 years of hard work in reign, and more than 3,000 royal substantive projects that greatly benefit his people of all levels, our Nai-Luang King Bhumibol has not only proved that he is the greatest king, but also the greatest king of 60 millions' hearts.

I unconditionally love and honor my king. Not because of anything else, but because I has learned tremendously from him, from his work, and from his way of life ..

to give more than get,
to live a sufficient life,
to think of public benefit more than my own,
to work hard in fulfilling both my personal and social responsibility,
and to always be a better person than yesterday

This is rather soapy for those who might not have critical experience in this country but I am sure that to many Thais I am speaking their hearts. And, I am not saying I can do all above, but at least in my life, I see that one Great Spirit has done such and I shall follow."

"If the people doesn't left me. How could I left you."
Said, the king. August 19, 1946
LONG LIVE THE KING

My diary from 1992

2006-05-19T18:40:00.000+07:00

I was searching for something in the drawer today. Then I found a small notebook lying in there. It was my diary from 1992-1995! Lot of silly things in there. When I wrote them I'm sure I wasn't amused. Many stories about teachers that I hated. Puppy love, school life, even complaining about the price of music cassette! hahahaha~!

Some bring back memories too :-) my bf that time (when I was 16!) who was in technical school. I almost forgot how we met. But then I read in diary and found I wrote down that we met in theme park! lol!! damn! so cute isn't it!?! haha~! And I gave him a musical birthday card (Don't remember that AT ALL!) he called and said "hey! thanks for this! I've never got any birthday card from anyone, I listened to the music from your card soooo many times!" awwwww.. cute teenage boy..LOL~ he was 18 I think :-)

I have no idea where he is now. Last time I heard from him was 5-6 years ago when he called just for a chat, telling that he's studying engineering.

A lot more hilarious stories from the diary. Most are about how much I hated some classes in school, what teachers said to me to make I hated them soooo much, How bad my exam result was, how much I wanted a guitar (but dad wouldn't buy it for me! duh!), even favorite cheesy pop songs those I lovvvved them that time..haha man!! this is embarrassing! It's amazing how you think when you're 16 year-old.. and that time you felt that you're soooo mature, you're not just some kid, don't fuck with me, rap is so cool, skipping school to party with friends at friend's place when his parents were away was just wonderful! etc

I really had a good laugh today from ready my own thoughts back 14 years ago! :-D

Laooooo..I love you

2006-05-19T00:08:00.000+07:00

Oh well, not sure if it's good time for me to go to Laos! Since it was a big issue about that movie (Mak Tae : The Lucky Loser) which is a comedy about the Thai and Laotian football teams. Since it's a comedy. There's a lot of 'funny' scenes in this film which Laos didn't find it funny at all.

"Our team is less developed than the Thai team, but it is not fun to see it made into a joke in a Thai film," Says one official.

I was thinking since I saw trailer in the cinema here already that "Yeah well, it might be a funny film..but wouldn't they mind?" You know, they got Lao flag on the shirt and everything. Some scenes that we might find they're funny but Lao people they don't think so. Even the director said he didn't mean to insult anyone but.. well, it's too sensitive issue, must admit it. Eventhough I'm quite disappointed because usually GTH only makes quality Thai films.

Apart from that. I don't really like the way of many Thai people think. The way they think that Lao is our 'little sister' (Baan pii muang nong..crap like that) it's just nonsense. Have we ever asked them if they want to be anyone's sister? come on..!

Now what countries around here that we havn't had issues with them? a month ago Cambodia wasn't too happy with a film "Ghost Game" coz it's resembling the infamous Khmer Rouge Toul Sleng torture centre. What's next? I wonder if Burma is going to protest against the cute 3D animation "KanKluey" as well? because it's about Siam-Burmese wars? oh no!! spare the cute little elephant!

I'm leaving for Laos soon. Taking train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai this Sunday night. I met Rob (Couchsurfing member) today. Told him that I'm going to laos and if he wanted to join. It took him so long (about 5 seconds) to think about it and he said "Yeah!" So we'll meet Anders in Chiang Mai (hmm maybe Chiang Rai..we'll see) then meet up with Soren in Luang Phabang. Would be nice to see him again! I'm sure he got loads of stories to share ;-)

It's gonna be coooooooooool~~!

You work from home!?

2006-05-12T12:21:00.000+07:00

Rainy season has come! it's been raining a lot here. Hope it won't flood. Never heard thunder like this for so long! Weather sucks..!

Few days ago. A guy from TRUE internet came to check my cable. I was told that my telephone cable outside the house is bad and I need to replace it. Then he came to check routher in my room and found it was OK.
----------------------------------------------------
"Don't you go to work today?" He asked me later
"I work from home"
"You work from home!?"
"er..yeah why?"
"I've heard many times! about people those they work from home. But I never thought that I would actually see one of them!" Now he really looked excited. Wow, a human who works from home! really exists!

"What do you do? Are you selling Amway?"
"Amway? hell no"
"So what do you do?"
"Actually I make porn websites"
"............" (he went silent for few seconds) "Really?"
"Noooo...o.o. I was kidding"
"he..he..Did you go to college?"
"yeah I did"
"I did not" he replied while checking my modem speed
"Why not?"

"I had to work since I graduated from technical school, I've been working since then. It's been 5 years now. Compare my salary to my friends who went to college. My salary is higher now. So I don't know why I should bother going back to college"

"hmm..yeah sure, but if you have time I think you should try to attend some evening programs. Isn't hard to get promoted if you don't have a degree?"

"yeah, if you wanna be promoted as manager or something..I need a degree"
"see?"

"I'll think about it!" he smiled "By the way! you look like my friend!"
"oh really? is she cute? haha"

"yeah yeah she is, i was shocked when I saw you coz you look soooo much like her. I thought..shit! don't tell me that i'm going to fix my friend's telephone line today!"
"Why? you owe her money?" :-P
"nahhh.."

I tried to tell him that he can sit on the computer chair. But he said "I like sitting on the floor"
----------------------------------------------------
"Your computer looks weird!" he was standing in front of my PC starring at monitor
"How weird?"
"I dunno! what browser is this?"
"It's Firefox"
"oh..never seen it before"
"You can use IE if you want just click there"
"ohh ok ok" and then he kept telling me his stories..where he lives..how's work and so on. Kinda entertaining actually :-) now I know his name is Singhanarth (nothing to do with beer though)

Anyway, when he left. My internet connection..still sucks! I was told to wait for a while they're working on new High-speed Internet via Satellite project.

"OK, how long am I supposed to wait for this?"
"hm I dunno, it's still in the lab"
"OK, thanks a lot, boy"
He left me his contact number, told me to call him anytime if I need my telephone line fixed.
"Can you get me a Satellite internet?" I can't help teasing him
"I wish I was God"

yeah, me too :-)

Bangkok Taxi

2006-05-08T01:03:00.000+07:00

We took a taxi from ChaengWattana back to my place. P'Ped spotted little box next to driver and wondered what it was. The driver told us that now all the taxis (from his company..at least) have this. Then followed with lot of weird and hilarious stories.
"What's weirdest assign have u got?"
"Some passenger requested for pink taxi only"
"Really?"
"yeah! or some requested for any colors but blue/red"

"oh.. Any other crazy passengers?"
"hm.. once there were 2 kids, probably highschool. They asked me to check-in hotel for them using my ID card! I did it for them anyway..but maybe that was bad decision!"

"And how do you find the place where you have to pick up passenger?"
"They have to describe the location and the place.. sometimes it comes like this..my house is in Soi12..this road.. and there're 2 cats in the house" I wonder if he would check any house in that Soi to find which house got 2 cats..?

"What if there're more than one taxi in the area but only one passenger?"
"You push (the button on that GPS box) first you got first!"
"Oh, ok ...cool.. fair enough..hehe"

Lunch at Daidomon, so damn full. It's a buffet. If you order it but don't finish it. You have to pay 12% extra. Now i'm really sick of "Yaki" stuff

Karaoke "Like a virgin" but music video is full of people in their late 50s. I just don't get it. And it made things even more confusing than before..by placing Thai text under English.

Only two things are infinite..

2006-05-08T00:40:00.000+07:00

"..the universe and human stupidity.."
it's so damn true... couldn't agree more. Got very bad phone call from Delhi. I really feel sorry for his person. She must be really lonely and needs a lot of attention.

Friend's Wedding

2006-05-07T20:32:00.000+07:00

From left. P' Ped, Tob, Aom (the bride), Kong (groom) and I.

And yeah, it's another wedding. I wouldn't have gone if he wasn't my editor. Because even we went to the same university but he's one year younger so we didn't study in same class anyway. They looked happy (as they should!)

I like the way that they don't really give a damn about "Presentation" (you know.. that presents how they met, their love story, bla bla..boring stuff..i dunno who started it) Even he himself is a graphic designer & photographer he could do real fancy one if he wanted to. But it was just short and simple one. Good!

All the fancy food for guests
"Half of guests, I don't know them" the groom told me when they started buffet.

Soi and Golf. She studied fashion design so now he's fashion designer i'm not surprised. But Golf he studied Graphic Design..but now he's designing clothes too. "I design ANYTHING!" yeah he's freelancing.

One of his friends "Pipat"(in gray suit) turned to be a famous actor after graduated. An hour later we went for a smoke outside the lobby . Bunch of kids (around 10-12 year-old girls) came to "look" at him, then giggled and ran away.. then came back again. One of them yelled "Are you that actor!? My friend wanna marry you!" then all ran away, with one of them went blushed..ha ha :-D

The whole gang. I couldn't even recognize some of them (got longer hair) Some changed to completely different work field (One in black suit and tie) now working in Marketing Department for Singha beer company. (what to do with designing??) One of very right (wearing glasses) now is a rapper..lol. I remember I went to KFC once when I was ordering coke. I saw the TV there with him rapping some crappy stuff. Anyway I think he has quit rapping. Now just taking care of lyrics and production.

Most wicked one goes one "Man" (in pink shirt) "Man" has spent 4 months in Cambodia..by doing NOTHING. Just smoking weed and swimming, hanging out on the beach. He said he's gonna move to Pattaya as his friend owns Art Gallery there. And it's only thing that he'll be happy to do now.. "Painting" (When he was in University he said to professor that "You can't teach me, you aren't good enough" hehe

Somebody dropped something at the parking lot...lol

Phone calls from India

2006-05-06T12:57:00.000+07:00

Yesterday i've got 2 missed call showing +91 which means someone in India called me. I thought it was Rakesh so I called back. Hmm ..so it wasn't him. Anyway! it's great to hear from him again. Even it's far away but I can feel Varanasi from Bangkok. All those noise and loud horns coming through telephone line! ha..ha.. :-D He went to Lucknow to get his new passport and it might take him 3 months! to get it. Crazy
"This is India" that's what he (always) said :-)

Rakesh asked if I have Dipu's email. Looks like Dipu went away to Manali. (Bastard, And *I* have never been there!) :-( Anyway, Dipu has gone and now Rakesh can't contact him. So email is the last choice. (I got email from Dipu though. So it means he checks his email)

Rakesh complain about the heat in Varanasi, said it's 42 c today. "Too hot!!" I guess this is why Dipu went to Manali..hehe

Oh my gosh, you're so black!

2006-05-03T14:10:00.001+07:00

3x3x3..My age! Must be good number indeed. Because I checked newspaper today. One of those prizes is "27" Usually lottery day here is day 1st and 16th of every month. Only in May that they announce it on 2nd because 1st of May is holiday.

That's my age! from today's newspaper.

I met Poon yesterday (was supposed to meet ai Knot at well, but as usual. He was busy with one of his clients. Since he turned to be a freelance he never got time for friends!) She came to pick me up at swimming pool. I was waiting for her in front of 7-Eleven, I saw her car but she didn't look like she recognize me. Then she stopped the car.
"Hell, Pueng, what have you been doing??"
"Swimming ..why?"
"No! I mean.. you're so BLACK!!!" (she meant 'dark' though)
"No i'm not, You think so?"
"Yeah you fuckin are!!"
"OK, I am. It's nice though. I like it! mwahaha!"
"Shiiit...t.t..t.. I couldn't even recognize you! I slowed down the car coz I wasn't sure if it was you! what happened to your skin!?"
"It's Thai skin, man.. what do u expect"
"kooohhttt dam!" (so dark)
"yeah yeah I know, can we go now?"

Then she didn't stop giving her comments on my dark skin. (We don't say "Tan" here, You're never "Tan" in Thailand you're just "pretty" or you're just "Too dark"This conversation continued even we were at the restaurant already.

Simulating Thai Whitening Cream Commercial. lol

"Didn't you use sun-block?"
"I did, but it doesn't prevent your skin of being 'dark' it just prevents your skin from UV and you won't be burned"
I told Poon that this is completely brain-wash commercials. Then I couldn't stop complaining about those whitening products on TV here. They really botther me these days. A lot more than before.

Since when that we have a lot of this crap on TV? I don't remember. But it got worse and worse since I was in highschool. Every girl wanted to be as white as Geisha. (that already put make-up on) Then followed with beautiful tan-skin girls on TV making fun of themselves that "I'm so black, I know" or those country songs with lyrics you'd never imagined to hear.. something like "I didn't mean to have dark skin, but I can't help it. My parents are dark!"

I'm not joking. This is fucking Thailand!

Oh well, enough for complaining. Life goes on..ha ha!

And guys, Thank you for all of your birthday wishes. Thanks Poon for remembering my birthday every year and the gift, Sai, Thanks Bert for always being there and mini Turkish Carpet :-) , Stephane , VT members, Thai HC members for Chabu Chabu (they didn't let me pay), Nong Jib The best Flash guy for lovely SMS..

Thanks mom & dad.. sweet (sometimes annoying) sister for joining tiny swimming pool at Sport Club..lol. Thanks all the friends in India especially Rakesh for being my friend and you're so nice to me, always! no, I didn't drink any alcohol on my birthday :-) No Banglassi here, Too bad

And Thank you, Soren for hilarious email about your trip in Cambodia. You made my day! hehehehe

Last day of being 26

2006-05-01T19:30:00.000+07:00

Ahhh.. no more 26 years old. Shit, I'm turning 27.
Getting old? No way!
Old age is always 10 years older than I am.. mmmwahaha~!

Went to swim today. Too many kids.

Help!!~!

Tomorrow I gotta get up early to offer food to monks. These days people don't even cook anymore. They just go to street stalls and buy the arranged 'set' (rice+some food+juice..etc) for monks. I heard that sometimes the monks themselves even come back to return those sets to sellers so they can sell them again maybe 2-3 times more to other customers. It's kind of business deal! hell, I'm not gonna do that.

Another thing that bothers me quite a lot. That people always prepare food "they" like. Believing that they will get this food in their next life.
"Don't forget to put some bottle of water too, so you won't go thirsty!" Amazing Buddhism...
I don't know where they got this idea from. Very creative way of thinking.

Gotta cook tomorrow. Wanted to buy some spring onions at Tesco. They don't have it. Can you believe this? Crazy!

I'm wondering about that little cat at Wat Po. The vet told me to bring her back to check if she got any better. But you know, she's not my cat. And the massage lady at Wat Po was convincing me to bring her back home already. I might have done that if I didn't have dogs! damn, poor kitty

No wonder I'm unhappy - My twin forgot my birthday. -- Jerry Dennis
(LOL!)

And Bert found an egg on his roof.. ROFL.. what the...

HC (2nd) meeting

2006-04-30T11:51:00.000+07:00

I went to HC (hospitalityclub.org) meeting last night at Japanese Chabu Chabu restThis is my second HC meeting. It was great to meet them again. Lot of hilarious stories. Teonk just came back from Japan. He even convinced HC members in Japan to arrange 'local ' meeting which is very cool! (doesn't happen often among Japanese..haha)

Bee, Teonk and Cherry

A bit shaky photo, taken by lovely waitress.. hehe.
From left, Bee, Teonk, Cherry, Pan, Peak, Nuch and Tum

Chabu Chabu. Wicked peanut sauce!

It's great to meet other local HC too. Because some of people from HC these days could be very strange. This way we could help one another screening visitors. Besides, Chabu Chabu was yummy!

Pan, Peak. Pan has spent a year in Italy as AFS student (After she told us this, everyone moaned "arghhhhhhh!! damn you!" haha.. jealous jealous)
.

Peak, Nuch, Tum. Peak wants to go to East-Timor! Nuch just came back Nepal . Tum was going on another party that night! hehe

Great meeting guys. See you again soon ;-)

HC (1st) meeting

2006-04-30T11:31:00.000+07:00

OK, These are pictures from HC first meeting (for me). Some Thai members they already know each other from last meetings or from college.

Pictures taken : Saturday 4th March 2006

Everyone!

Peak, Amilie

Toenk : looks like he was preaching something..lol

That was a lot of food. From left, Malou, Bee, Alex, Nuch, Amelie and Peak. Alex is working at our new airport as Aviation consultant. Wicked.

Malou, Bee, Alex. I wouldn't have guessed that Malou is from Philippines. Her accent is completely American. She's been living in Bangkok for ages! could be Thai now ;-)

Luzian at ShiSha bar. Nice!

copy-paste

2006-04-28T21:58:00.000+07:00

Murphy's law..
When I'm ready to work. Trying to sort things out. Arranged all the projects those need to be done by order. Now my computer is infected by nasty virus.Very creative way to annoy computer user.

I can't copy-paste.

Whatever I copied.. when I pasted it appeared to be "Hello!" very nice.

I was always wondering how it would be like if it was no copy-paste function. Now I know how it's like. I have 2 big projects to do. And about another 4 smaller ones. And ..woohooo!... can't copy-paste. Damn.. life sucks

ha ha ha! ex-bf!

2006-04-28T13:58:00.000+07:00

I was quite surprised to see "invitation" to share photo on some website from this guy. (Aaron if you're reading this, yeah i mean YOU..oh wait a minute.. probably your sweet girlfriend.) I never seen anyone this childish. Just couple of months ago his girlfriend logged in his MSN pretended to be him and sent messages to me. I think she wanted to check if I was still in touch with her boyfriend, that's all. Acting like a 13 year-old girl. Pathetic.

I didn't know until..
"Have you called me lately?" he (no.. SHE) asked
"No, why should I call you?"
"I dunno.. miss me?"
"ha ha now THAT is funny"
"what?"
"Nothing"
"So you never called me?"
"No"
"OK, me neither..lol"
"ha-ha" (that was an irony one, I didn't find it was funny whatsoever)
"My cell phone sucks..lol"

NOW I got it. When I was still with him. He couldn't even buy himself a cheap mobile phone coz spending so fucking lot on beers everyday why you should bother buying yourself a mobile phone? So I gave him NOKIA one that I didn't use anymore. When we broke up I never asked it back or anything.

Now his girlfriend thinks it is such a brilliant idea to log in his account and harassing her boyfriend's ex. I can't think of any other word but 'childish' and 'pathetic'

When I came back from india. I'm still getting this shit. "Let's share photos" that was a subject on invitation email. Ofcourse Aaron would never do such a thing. When I viewed his album. There're a few photos of him and his girlfriend. Awwwww.. am I supposed to be jealous? or feel sorry for myself?

I don't know why I would want this guy anyway. That time I was with him I was so fucking blind. Anyway I wished that we could keep friendship because it would be a shame to hate each other just because you're not together anymore. But now I know I can't. Some people are just too stupid. Not worth trying even for being friend.

Cheers to your smart girlfriend Aaron. She's fucking hallion. In bad way. Not good way. Damn! she's SO SMART. I'm glad you're together. Well-matched.

ahhhh~ everybody is leaving meeee..!

2006-04-27T20:27:00.000+07:00

Great dinner with Nick, Jiva and lovely French couple before I left for India

Oh yeah, now i'm back to the real world. World that I have to sit in front of computer all day all night. Jiva went back to England with bigggest backpack I've ever seen :-)) Too bad no photo of Jiva's bag here ..hehe

Raj called yesterday to say good bye too. He was going back to Varanasi. How sweet to hear that next time I go Varanasi. There's always place for me at his place and I'll go back as 'friend' not customer. That's really sweet of you Raj, Thanks a lot. I don't know what to say :-) And Diana is probably in Chiangmai now.

Soren left for Cambodia today. Ah! you see!? everyone is leaving me indeed!

And my lovely Thai friends are all busy with their works. Or just simply vanishing with no news.

Clients are waiting for projects to be done. Now i'm totally confused that what I've been paying my friend to do when I was in India? When I came back it seems that nothing has been done at all. Just like when I left but even more confusing because now I don't know where to start!

I gotta stop working for this client. He's too crazy. No one calls at my 'home' number just to nag for an artwork. Email is great technology why doesn't he learn to use it? Sorry now I'm getting bitchy..lol

One of friends is getting married but his bride is not really in love with him anymore (what the fuck?) It's so weird that I will have to go to the wedding that couple don't really feel like it is right idea to get married. But they just can't turn their backs and run away. Show must go on. Damn, this sucks.

I found out that my best friends in India are sort of fighting now for some silly reasons. I'm really tired of this. I wanna go to back to see all of my friends. Not one of my friend. *sigh*

Now there're...1.. 2....3 ..4 projects to be done ( 2 big ones) one of them I really wanna get rid off it. It's been pain in the ass for over a month and they've been complaining as if it's my fault.

For Marriott is pretty big project. And I can't fuck this up. Need to talk to a programmer quick! This Monday is deadline. Aww.. that sounds quite depressing.

A few more I still have to sort them out. Damnit.. what a headache.

Called Poon today if she got some time. I don't wanna be alone..man! she's just TOO BUSY ah ..crap.. when I need friends they're always busy busy busy.

Next week is my birthday. Guys, give me hugs. I'll need them :-)