Another link to a creepy Thailand story of a man who was using a baby corpse as a protective talisman. This is apparently known in Thailand as a kuman thong, or "golden child." His downfall: he went to the carpenter to get a case for it made! This happened recently and very close to Lampang where David, Stacey and I traveled this last vacation.
I knew there was something creepy about that place . . .
Monday, July 20, 2009
Wiener DUI?
CBS Channel 4 in Denver reports that the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile crashed into a Wisconsin home on Sunday.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Interlude: Thailand Rant
OK, I don't usually rant about Thailand because I realize that things are DIFFERENT here, but just can't resist sharing about my trip to the bike store.
My Trek Fuel blew a seal on it's Manitou Black fork a few months ago, and I wanted to get it serviced. I tried a couple of local stores, but none of them dealt with Manitou. A few people from the bike hash recommended a Trek dealer, inconveniently located on a congested neighborhood downtown. So I rode the bike over to check it out.
No one in the service department spoke much English. When I told them that the shock was broken, they leaned on the handle bars and bounced on it, then looked at me like I was nuts. "Yes, but it doesn't trigger when the wheel hits something . . ." They didn't understand, so I was reduced to miming. I tried to get the guy to take it outside and have a ride, but no luck. He said, "I call distributor" and told me to pick it up tomorrow.
The next day I walked 40 minutes to the store to retrieve the bike. My radar went up when I got the bill: 100 Baht (about 3 dollars). In the US, it usually costs several hundred dollars to get the shock serviced. Suspicious, I hopped on the bike and rode it off the nearest curb. Sure enough, the shock was still as stiff as a tree trunk and the impact was painful enough to put my elbows where my shoulders used to be. And to add insult to injury, the damn seal came flying off the shock and nailed me hard in the inner thigh. Oil sloshed over my foot.
I took the bike back to the store, where I had one of the week's more infuriating exchanges with the maintenance supervisor:
ME: (Smiling, as one must do in Thailand) I told you to service this damn thing! Were you just going to give it back, take my money and hope I didn't notice?
HIM: (bouncing on handle bars) See? Works good!
ME: It's not working when I hit something. I told you yesterday.
HIM: Ah. That because it need new this. (Holds up a shock seal)
ME: (blood pressure rising) Well then why the hell didn't you put a 'that' in?
HIM: Have to call the distributor.
ME: (barely holding it together) You said you were gonna call him yesterday!
HIM: Distributor not open on Saturday.
ME: So why did you friggin SAY you'd call him? I'm very disappointed, very disappointed. I live very far away! (clumsy attempts at Thai passive-aggressive Jedi mind-tricks).
HIM: I call today.
ME: But why didn't you call yesterday?
HIM: That was yesterday. Forget about yesterday.
ME: But if its closed Saturday, its not going to be open on Sunday!
HIM: (calls and lets the phone ring ten minutes) He not open. (points to bike). This fork old fork, bad fork! I sell you new fork. (goes and gets the cheapest RST fork off the wall and holds it out proudly). See? Only 1000 baht! Very good fork!
ME: Are you kidding? This is Manitou Black! (Top of the line fork)
HIM: But to order part from distributor cost 5000 Baht (about 180 USD)
ME: ARGH!!!!
I here commenced ripping out my hair, at which point the store manager, who spoke better English, came to my rescue. He explained that his bike store doesn't deal with Manitou at all because the only Manitou distributor in Thailand is a rival store across town. Aha! I gave him a very sad, whiny story about how I live very far from the store (15 min), and how I'd come all the way back for nothing, and his employees didn't listen to me or follow through on their promises, how they'd done a shoddy job and tried to pass it off as a real service and charge me for it, and how really I'd be much less upset if they'd just told me when I brought it in that they don't service that brand.
To his credit, he said he'd order the part through the competitor if it was available, and he even gave me a loaner fork to use while we waited on the order. This more than assuaged my urge to run home and post something nasty about him on Craig's list, and is why I am generously not mentioning the name of the store here.
Still, it's outings like this that make me happy to cancel all plans, lock the door on Bangkok, and pass a happy afternoon playing on the internet and watching bad movies on cable.
My Trek Fuel blew a seal on it's Manitou Black fork a few months ago, and I wanted to get it serviced. I tried a couple of local stores, but none of them dealt with Manitou. A few people from the bike hash recommended a Trek dealer, inconveniently located on a congested neighborhood downtown. So I rode the bike over to check it out.
No one in the service department spoke much English. When I told them that the shock was broken, they leaned on the handle bars and bounced on it, then looked at me like I was nuts. "Yes, but it doesn't trigger when the wheel hits something . . ." They didn't understand, so I was reduced to miming. I tried to get the guy to take it outside and have a ride, but no luck. He said, "I call distributor" and told me to pick it up tomorrow.
The next day I walked 40 minutes to the store to retrieve the bike. My radar went up when I got the bill: 100 Baht (about 3 dollars). In the US, it usually costs several hundred dollars to get the shock serviced. Suspicious, I hopped on the bike and rode it off the nearest curb. Sure enough, the shock was still as stiff as a tree trunk and the impact was painful enough to put my elbows where my shoulders used to be. And to add insult to injury, the damn seal came flying off the shock and nailed me hard in the inner thigh. Oil sloshed over my foot.
I took the bike back to the store, where I had one of the week's more infuriating exchanges with the maintenance supervisor:
ME: (Smiling, as one must do in Thailand) I told you to service this damn thing! Were you just going to give it back, take my money and hope I didn't notice?
HIM: (bouncing on handle bars) See? Works good!
ME: It's not working when I hit something. I told you yesterday.
HIM: Ah. That because it need new this. (Holds up a shock seal)
ME: (blood pressure rising) Well then why the hell didn't you put a 'that' in?
HIM: Have to call the distributor.
ME: (barely holding it together) You said you were gonna call him yesterday!
HIM: Distributor not open on Saturday.
ME: So why did you friggin SAY you'd call him? I'm very disappointed, very disappointed. I live very far away! (clumsy attempts at Thai passive-aggressive Jedi mind-tricks).
HIM: I call today.
ME: But why didn't you call yesterday?
HIM: That was yesterday. Forget about yesterday.
ME: But if its closed Saturday, its not going to be open on Sunday!
HIM: (calls and lets the phone ring ten minutes) He not open. (points to bike). This fork old fork, bad fork! I sell you new fork. (goes and gets the cheapest RST fork off the wall and holds it out proudly). See? Only 1000 baht! Very good fork!
ME: Are you kidding? This is Manitou Black! (Top of the line fork)
HIM: But to order part from distributor cost 5000 Baht (about 180 USD)
ME: ARGH!!!!
I here commenced ripping out my hair, at which point the store manager, who spoke better English, came to my rescue. He explained that his bike store doesn't deal with Manitou at all because the only Manitou distributor in Thailand is a rival store across town. Aha! I gave him a very sad, whiny story about how I live very far from the store (15 min), and how I'd come all the way back for nothing, and his employees didn't listen to me or follow through on their promises, how they'd done a shoddy job and tried to pass it off as a real service and charge me for it, and how really I'd be much less upset if they'd just told me when I brought it in that they don't service that brand.
To his credit, he said he'd order the part through the competitor if it was available, and he even gave me a loaner fork to use while we waited on the order. This more than assuaged my urge to run home and post something nasty about him on Craig's list, and is why I am generously not mentioning the name of the store here.
Still, it's outings like this that make me happy to cancel all plans, lock the door on Bangkok, and pass a happy afternoon playing on the internet and watching bad movies on cable.
Friday, July 17, 2009
DAY TWO: AYUTHAYA
Pics from Ayuthaya, Thailand's second capital that was sacked and burned by the Burmese in 1787. It has some fantastic ruins and many of the old temples and Buddhas are still important pilgrimage sites today.
The head of Buddha, stuck in a banyan tree at the ruins of Wat Mahatat, is considered highly auspicious and was visited by the crown princess of Thailand the day before we arrived.
One of Ayuthaya's working temples
This Buddha reclined while Ayuthaya burned . . .
Watchtower from the former summer palace at Bang-Pa In, used by Ramas 4,5 and 6. In their day, they could spot elephants from this tower.
Beautiful Chinese palace at the summer palace grounds, where I plan to live someday when I win the lottery =)
Thai pavillion at the palace with a statue of Rama V (King Chulalongkorn)
The head of Buddha, stuck in a banyan tree at the ruins of Wat Mahatat, is considered highly auspicious and was visited by the crown princess of Thailand the day before we arrived.One of Ayuthaya's working templesThis Buddha reclined while Ayuthaya burned . . .
Watchtower from the former summer palace at Bang-Pa In, used by Ramas 4,5 and 6. In their day, they could spot elephants from this tower.
Beautiful Chinese palace at the summer palace grounds, where I plan to live someday when I win the lottery =)
Thai pavillion at the palace with a statue of Rama V (King Chulalongkorn)
DAY TWO: CALYPSO CABERET
The Patravadi Theater was booked up on this night, so for a little something different we saw the Kathoey Caberet at the Asia Hotel. Kathoey is Thai for male-to-female transsexual and is sometimes called "Thailand's third gender." The procedures for making the transition are relatively cheap here (about 10.000 USD) and the society is tolerant of gender nonconformity.
Calypso puts on a great show, with lots of feathers, Chinese opera, dancing ostriches and (for one brief instant) total nudity onstage!
Calypso puts on a great show, with lots of feathers, Chinese opera, dancing ostriches and (for one brief instant) total nudity onstage!
They can make boobs like that in Thailand? Hmm. Maybe I need to look into this . . .
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Stacey and David in Bangkok
So my dear friends Stacey and David just visited -- they were here June 26 to July 3. I've just returned from an extended vacation and am going through the pics . . . I'll put them up bit by bit!DAY ONE: OLD BANGKOK (KO RATANAKOSIN)
Bangkok has been the capital since 1782, the beginning of the Chakri Dynasty (the "Rama" Kings). The name of the city in Thai is "Grung Thep" which means "City of Angels." The full name of the city is actually 103 words long and is immortalized in a pop song that is oft sung in bars -- sometimes you get a free drink if you can sing the whole thing! (I can't).
GRAND PALACE AND TEMPLE OF THE EMERALD BUDDHA (WAT PHRA KEAW)
The word for Wat Phra Keaw is definitely "bling." Yes, that's real gold! They replace the gold tiles and the gold laced paint every couple of years. This Wat was consecrated in 1782 by Rama I as the personal temple of the royal family.
A yaksha guards the door and scares away the evil spirits.
Monks and hill tribe women in traditional dress pay their respects. Nationalists and devout Buddhists make a pilgrimage to this wat from everywhere in Thailand.
An angel in the City of Angels . . .
Detail from the temple walls:
We were meant to live like this!
The Grand Palace of the Chakri Dynasty, was inhabited by every King except the current one (Rama IX). On the first day of his reign 60 years ago, he opened the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keaw to the people and took up residence in the "suburbs" north of Bangkok.
WAT ARUN - THE TEMPLE OF DAWNAfter the sacking of Ayuthaya (Thailand's second capital) by the Burmese, the King moved the capital to Thonburi (directly across the river from from the Grand Palace) for a few years. His palace and the home of the Emerald Buddha were here in Wat Arun. Nice, eh?
WAT PHOThe stupas here commemorate the first three Chakri Kings (Rama III has two). This Wat, next to the Grand Palace, was the country's first center for public education and has Thailand's largest collection of Buddha images. It also has a massage school, where we got a fabulous massage. Ah!
Wat Pho is home of Thailand's largest reclining Buddha. He is 46m long and 15m high! Reclining Buddhas depict Buddha's death and final passage into Nirvana.
SANAM LUANG: THE ROYAL FIELDWe were walking innocently over to see if anything was happening . . . and ran into a Red Shirt protest! Needless to say, we hopped in a cab and got the heck out of there.
Even the dogs are wearing Red Shirts . . .
THE PINK PANTHER GOGO BARWe almost didn't get out of the house that night, due to a heavy rain that flooded out most of Soi 4. Fortunately, a taxi appeared to take us to the BTS! We headed down to Pat Pong to check out The Pink Panther, which looks like a normal gogo bar until 11 PM . . .
At which time they pull out all the dancing tables and poles and set up a Muay Thai Boxing ring!
Me, the winner, and the loser. I think the one on the right is the winner.
Well that's quite enough for one day! Signing off for now.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
