Well I see it’s been 2+ years since I posted anything on this blog.  I’m still living in Bangkok and still loving it.  Loving it so much, apparently, that I haven’t made time to keep up with the blog.  I attribute it to two things:

1. I’ve been busy working
2. Time really flies by here.

People say it’s because of the lack of significantly distinct seasons, that time sort of runs together and you don’t realize how fast time is zooming by. It must be something like that, because it’s mind-boggling to me to think I’ve been living here for almost 5 years now!  It seems like only a short time ago I packed up in Seattle and started my adventure here.

Despite the time warp, I have managed to continue to explore, see some new and interesting places, and have amazing experiences here.  I’m re-committing myself to catch up and share those on the blog in the coming days/weeks.  In no particular order, here are a few topics I plan to cover:

• Another visit to Koh Kood island
• Koh Yao Noi island
• Koh Yao Yai island
• Koh Lanta island
• Ayutthaya (not an island!)
• India trip and Taj Mahal
• Running in the Bangkok Marathon (10K…not the full marathon)
• Death of the King of Thailand and the mourning of the nation
• Re-visiting some touristy Bangkok places like Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Bang Krachao

I’ll hopefully get at least the first 1 or 2 posts done this week so stay tuned…  🙂

Sorry I haven’t written… I’ve been busy as you can see!

In the 1990s, Thailand and other parts of Asia were in a boom period, where lots of investment and development was flowing into the countries. In Bangkok, the skyline was quickly growing higher and spreading out further as hundreds of new developments were being built. Then in 1997, the Asian Financial Crisis hit, and in a very short period of time, everything ground to a halt.

When I first started coming to Thailand in 2000, the Bangkok skyline was eerily dotted with partially-finished buildings all over the city. Tower cranes stood empty at the tops of buildings, with rebar sticking out of the concrete where you could see exactly where the pouring of new concrete stopped. Hundreds of buildings around the city were frozen in time in an unfinished state.

As the years went on and the economy recovered in the early 2000’s, investments and funding returned and most of the projects resumed work. The buildings that had been halted part way through construction were completed and the Bangkok skyline became that of fresh new skyscrapers, condos, hotels, and office buildings. That building boom continues today, as all around the city an unimaginable amount of new buildings – primarily condos and hotels – are pushing higher in the sky, and old rows of traditional Thai shophouses are being torn down to make way for new developments.

There are, however, some buildings that were halted during the late-1990’s that have never restarted construction. One such building that has always fascinated me is called the Sathorn Unique Building. It was intended to be a 50-story condo building with 600 high-end units, with stunning views of the Chao Phraya River and the rest of the city, topped with a gold dome at the very top of the building. When construction stopped in 1997, the overall building structure was complete and work had started on the lower floors with fitting out the condos with wood floors, plumbing, bathrooms, and painting the exterior of the building. In the 18 years since construction stopped, nothing has happened since, and the building has remained a very prominent standout in certain parts of the Bangkok skyline.

The Sathorn Unique building, aka the “Bangkok Ghost Tower”

The Sathorn Unique building is also called the “Bangkok Ghost Tower”. The Thai people tend to be fairly superstitious, and believe in various kinds of ghosts. The reasons I’ve hear that they believe it has ghosts is because it was built on a graveyard, and it casts a shadow on a Bhuddist temple very near the building. In December of 2014, a Swedish man hanged himself in the building, which has added more recent conjecture of the building being haunted.

About a year ago I read a story about some people who had sneaked into the building and climbed up to the roof. Since then I’d read or heard about a few other people that had gone there and said you could potentially pay a little money to a security guard at the site who would then “look the other way” to let you get through the fence into the building. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since hearing it was possible to get in there.

In April, a friend sent a message saying he was getting a group of people together to climb the building, so I jumped at the chance. We met near the building and walked over to the fence surrounding the site, and the fence/gate was already wide open. We walked up a small wooden set of stairs to get to the ground floor of the building, and inside were several people with their cars parked there, and men taking money from other people who wanted to climb the building. It turns out, at least the day we were there, it had become much more of an attraction than I had expected. We paid our money (200THB, about US$6.50) and made our way to the far end of the floor where the stairwell was.

The concrete stairs were narrow, with no hand railings and a lot of dirt and loose rocks on them, but otherwise easy to climb. Surprisingly, someone had run an electrical cord the entire length of the stairs, with small fluorescent lights on about every third floor so you had a bit of light to see better.

About every 10 floors, we would go out of the stairs on onto the floor, wandering through the condo units. It was one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever done. On the lowest floors, the units were fairly far along in construction. There are no windows or doors in any of the units, though, so nearly 2 decades of rain blowing in, dust, sun and heat had definitely done its fair share of damage to the materials.

On various floors we found stockpiles of construction materials. On one floor, there were several stacks of fiberglass bathtubs – at least 50 of them – still in their plastic shrinkwrap. On another floor, there were boxes and boxes full of 6-inch square ceramic floor tiles. Another floor had dozens of toilets waiting to be installed.

A little graffiti, a balcony filled with a rainwater pond, and beautiful view to the west.

The higher we got in the building, the less finished the units were. On the upper floors, the units were mostly just the concrete walls and floors, with no fixtures installed. And on the higher floors, particularly on the west-facing units, the balconies became larger with stunning views of the river below. Throughout various floors, people over the years had created some amazing graffiti murals on the walls.

Me on one of the balconies on the 37th floor

On the 37th floor, what would have been a stunning, large balcony looking over the Chao Phraya River.

One of many murals/graffiti in the building

We finally made it to the roof, where there were already about 20 or 30 other people that had made the climb. If there would have been a prize for being the most sweaty, I think I would have easily won that. Climbing 50 stories is definitely a good cardio workout!

It was amazing to walk around and have a 360-degree view of the Bangkok skyline, the river below, and watching the beginning of the sunset. It was also interesting to look across and see the State Tower/Lebua Hotel building a few blocks away. The interesting point of that is that building is considered the “sister” building to the Sathorn Unique, in that they are very similar architectures, with the Lebua building being larger and taller (64 stories). The Lebua building also sat empty and partially finished until the early 2000’s, when construction resumed and they turned it into a mix of condos and hotel. On the roof of that building is an outdoor restaurant and bar, which several years ago became famous for scenes being filmed there for the “Hangover 2” movie. The times that I’ve been to the rooftop bar there, I’ve always looked across at the Sathorn Unique building and wondered why it hadn’t been finished like the Lebua building, as it seems like there is so much potential for a beautiful building there.

Me and friends that climbed to the roof. The building behind us with the gold dome is the sister building, the State Tower/Lebua Hotel.

From the top of the building, looking down Sathorn Road

Me at the top and edge of the building, very sweaty after climbing 50 floors

The pillars and entrance to the stairwell leading back down. The columns are held together and in place by a lot of rickety metal braces…

At the top of the building, looking up at what would have eventually been the dome of the building

Looking at the Chao Phraya River, Shangri-La Hotel, and the State Tower/Lebua Hotel building with the gold dome.

Selfie of me with the Chao Phraya River in the background

Someone climbing to the very, very top of the building, on what would have been the dome on the top

Selfie at the top of the building, with the sunset reflecting on the river below

After taking our pictures and taking in all the sights from the roof, we made the long winding descent back down 50 floors to the ground. Not surprisingly, the journey down was much easier than going up! Overall, it was a fun day, and the “Bangkok Ghost Tower” was definitely one of the most fun and interesting adventures I’ve had in Bangkok!

Starting back in about December, I began hearing or reading about people doing bicycle tours around Bangkok. About every few weeks, the topic seemed to come up again in random conversations I would have with people. Everything I heard was very positive, so I started looking into it. In talking with another friend, he had also been hearing about them and was interested in checking it out. So we decided in February to give it a try.

There are several companies that do the bicycle tours, and I’ve heard good things about all of them. The one we went on was the original bike tour company, called Co Van Kessel. It was started over 30 years ago by a Dutch guy. Surprising I hadn’t heard about it before, but glad that I finally got to try it.

They have several different tours of varying lengths and sights. The one we chose was a 5-hour tour starting bright and early at 7am, and was a combination bicycle tour and longtail boat ride through the klongs (canals) of Bangkok.

We started out by riding through the Chinatown area of Bangkok. We rode through narrow walkways between rows of shophouses, with people who live there sitting out in front of their shops in their robes and pajamas having morning coffee and breakfast. We stopped at a Chinese temple for a bit to see it, take some pictures and light some incense. It was very peaceful to watch the people pray and give offerings at the temple, as the sun was just starting to rise.

A Chinese temple in Chinatown

Gate to the Chinese temple, with the sunrise behind it

Wat Traimit (Temple of the Golden Buddha) at sunrise, with a tuk tuk cruising by

We then rode into the heart of Chinatown and into one of the large market areas. We parked our bikes and the guide took us around the market and along the sidewalk vendors to point out various kinds of Thai fruits and foods. For 7:30 in the morning, it was surprisingly busy and crowded. Given that it was only a few days before the start of the Chinese New Year, the entire area was decked out with huge red and yellow banners across the roads, lanterns, and all kinds of dragons and other decorations for the new year celebration.

Heading in to one of the main Chinatown market areas

Riding through the Chinatown market

Streets in the market are busy at 7:30am on a Sunday morning

Vendor selling her fish, squid and other fresh food

Fresh fruit and vegetables at the market

We then rode to a dock along the river and loaded the bikes on a small passenger ferry which took us to the other side of the river. From there, we rode along a narrow bike trail right along the edge of the Chao Phraya River. It was great to be that close to the river, watching all of the boats and barges going up and down the river as the sun was coming up.

After riding along the river for a while, we loaded the bikes into the back of a longtail boat and went for about a 90-minute ride through the klongs in the Nonthaburi area of Bangkok. I’ve been on many longtail rides through those klongs, but had never been back as far as we went.

Sunrise as we cross the Chao Phraya River

Riding on the bike path along the river

Loading the bikes onto the longtail boat for a cruise through the klongs

We then unloaded the bikes and began riding through some small village areas, winding our way in between homes and through narrow walkways. The walkway then turned into a raised concrete path through huge farming fields. There were tons of banana plants and all kinds of vegetables in huge fields as far as you could see. The concrete path wound through them and we spent about a half hour riding through those areas.

Heading along a path into the farming areas

Path along a large banana plantation

Riding through coconut trees and banana plants

Selfie along the path

Eventually we came back into a village area and rode to a temple along one of the klongs. There was a small market set up there with stalls of people selling all kinds of different fruits, vegetables, rice, and just about every kind of Thai food being cooked to order. There was also a small floating market, where women where in their boats and selling vegetables, fruits and cooking food for you. It was fun to go to the different stalls and sample some of the different food, most of which had likely just come fresh from the fields that morning.

Women on boats cooking food

From there, we rode through some more village and neighborhood areas, stopped for lunch at a small restaurant along one of the klongs, and then loaded the bikes back into a longtail boat for a nice ride up the river and back to the starting point.

Overall, it was a great experience and a fun way to see some new areas of Bangkok that I’d never seen before. If you ever are in Bangkok, I’d highly recommend doing one of the bicycle tours for half a day. With Bangkok being completely flat, there are no hills to navigate and it’s a very easy ride with tons of things to see and do along the way.

On one of my first trips to Thailand back in 2000 or so, I took a Thai cooking class one day. It was a great experience, and I’ve always thought about taking another class or two. The opportunity came up in January when a friend wanted to take a class and asked if I wanted to do it, so I jumped at the chance.

There are many places in Bangkok that offer Thai cooking classes for locals and tourists. But the one we went to is called “Cooking with Poo”. No, I’m not kidding, that’s really the name of it. “Poo”, as it turns out, is the name of the woman that runs the cooking school. She’s actually fairly well known, and has been featured on quite a few European and American TV cooking shows.

Before doing the cooking class, they took us to the Klong Toey wet market. I’ve known about this market and driven by it many times over the years, but have never been in it. For those that don’t know, a “wet market” is typically an outdoor market with fresh fruits and vegetables straight from the farmers, as well as live (and prepared) poultry, fish, seafood, reptiles, etc. If you’re at all squeamish about where your food comes from, this is probably not the place for you. 🙂 The Klong Toey market isn’t really a tourist destination; it very much is a working market for the local people. Many large and small restaurants and street food vendors come to this market every day to get their food to prepare and sell.

There were two areas that stood out for me in the market. In one area was a bunch of chickens and ducks in wicker cages. Nearby, some women were butchering, boiling, and de-feathering them right there. The other area that caught my attention was several stalls selling frogs. They typically had fishnet bags full of live frogs, then another metal tray with lines of dead, skinned frogs; and above that a line of frogs that each still had the skin on but had a small incision in its chest and the heart pulled out laying on its chest, still beating; and then another line of more butchered and/or ground up frog meat. That was one area in particular where, although it was fascinating to see, I was happy that I am a vegetarian!

After an amazing tour of the market, we made our way to the cooking school, which is in one of the slum areas of Bangkok. That alone was fascinating just walking through the rows of shanty homes to get to the little shophouse where the cooking school is. It’s thousands of tiny homes stacked on top of each other, with very narrow walkways between them. Although the people here obviously have very little money, the neighborhood is clean, people are smiling and friendly, and I felt very safe and welcomed there.

In the cooking class, Poo talked about each of the dishes that we were preparing, giving us a lot of information about where it originated, different ways of preparing it, why certain ingredients are used, etc. Then we took turns cooking our dishes. We made 3 dishes each: Lemongrass salad, Phad Thai, and Masaman Curry. All of them were incredibly delicious. Then we finished it with a variety of Thai fruits and dishes of mango and sticky rice (a favorite Thai dessert). We left the school feeling very, very full!

Sweet ladies, chopping chickens.

Eels on the right, frogs on the left.

Live frogs on the right, less live on the left. The middle row of frogs are alive, but have their hearts pulled out of their chests.

Frogs… freshly prepared.

Me with all that fishy goodness…

Cockroaches, crickets, meal worms and some other kind of water bug. On ice, to keep them fresh. Yes, they really do eat them.

Two-for-one pigs heads!

Finally an area of the market that caters to us vegetarians!

Piles of VERY spicy Thai chilis

Me cooking up a tasty Massaman curry.

Me with teacher Poo on the left and her assistants on the right.

During the cool season months of November through February, many farms in Thailand grow sunflowers for their seeds and oil. In November, I went on a day tour of the sunflower fields in Lopburi province. Lopburi is about a 2.5 hour drive northwest of Bangkok, with lots of farms growing many different crops in addition to sunflowers. But the sunflower fields are the main attraction.

We drove through miles of farms where there were sunflowers as far as you could see in every direction. The amount of yellow was amazing.

After the sunflower fields, we went to a couple of temples in the town of Lopburi. The temples themselves weren’t that great, but what they’re more famous for is the monkeys that live at the temples. There were hundreds and hundreds of monkeys climbing all over the temples, on the grounds around the temples, and just about everywhere in between.

And they’re not shy monkeys. They will grab at anything loose or dangling on you – sunglasses, backpack, water bottles, etc. Or they will just jump up on your back or shoulders while you’re standing there. And as soon as one jumps on you, usually at least 2 or 3 of his friends will then also jump on you.

That might sound fun, until you realize that monkeys are not the cleanest animals. And with the hundreds of them at the temple, they’re constantly walking around in their own waste…and then climbing on you!

We were there the last weekend of November, which just happened to be the annual monkey festival week. During that week, the people in the town put out a huge buffet of food for the monkeys, with the belief that feeding the monkeys will bring them good luck during the year. The amount of food was unbelievable – crates full of all different kinds of fruits and vegetables. And for the hour or so that we were there, there was an almost constant procession of cars and trucks stopping and dumping off more food. I don’t know what it’s like during the rest of the year, but at least during the monkey festival week, those monkeys are very, very well fed!

The vast sunflower fields

See if you can find me in the sunflowers

Being cool in the sunflower fields

Me and my monkey buddies

A face only a mother could love

Monkeys running around the grounds *everywhere*

The buffet of food dropped off by people for the monkeys

Thailand has a lot of public holidays during the months of April and May. So those tend to be the months when most people take long holidays (“vacations” for my American friends). I had planned to take a week off work in April to go somewhere new. But typical of me, I got busy at work and kind of waited until the last minute before deciding where to go. Literally 2 weeks before my holiday was to start, I still had nothing booked and didn’t even know where I was going to go. So one night I realized I couldn’t put it off any longer and just booked a flight to Sri Lanka!

Why Sri Lanka? Honestly I have no idea. I had a couple friends that I recall had gone there over the past year and I’d seen a few of their pics posted on Facebook and it looked nice. So I figured what the hell, might as well give it a try. And it’s only a 3.5 hour flight from Bangkok so I figured it can’t be too bad. J

It turned out to be an absolutely fantastic holiday – stunningly beautiful country, very diverse landscapes, new and interesting culture, very nice people, great food, and great beaches. Pretty much “ticked all my boxes” for what I enjoy.

For a brief geography lesson if you’re not aware, Sri Lanka is a large island country off the southeast coast of India, in the Indian Ocean. It traditionally hasn’t been a popular tourist destination due to a long-running civil war within the country. That war ended within the last 4 or 5 years, and it’s only been since then that tourism has started to surge.

I flew into the capital, Colombo and spent a night there. I didn’t get out to see much of Colombo other than a very long drive in a taxi thru the city to get to my hotel along the beach. There is nothing really distinct or interesting about Colombo, in my opinion (and the guide books seem to agree with me). But it is a good “beginner’s guide” to India, albeit a bit more clean and not as chaotic as India is from what I’ve heard.

A common way of traveling thru Sri Lanka is to just hire a driver for the duration of your trip. You pay a flat (negotiated) rate, and he will drive you each day in a car to your destinations, stopping along the way at interesting spots or wherever you want, pointing out landmarks and sights, and talking as much or as little as you want. At night, the driver stays in dorm rooms with other drivers either at your hotel or at other designated dorms for drivers. I hired a driver for my first 3 days, and he was a great guy to travel with.

Our first day, we drove from Colombo to the southern-center part of the country, at the top of a mountain peak about 8,000 feet above sea level. Our first stop along the way was at an elephant orphanage. They say it’s a place where they rescue and rehabilitate elephants, and there is probably some of that that happens there, but to be honest it really is more of a tourist attraction. But it is a large place with 80+ elephants, mostly free to walk about in large open areas. And I was even able to walk in amongst them and pet them. I’ve seen a lot of elephants in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia, but the Sri Lankan ones were different and interesting in their own ways.

Me in the herd of elephants at the elephant sanctuary.

Later in the morning, the staff walk the elephants down to the river for some play time and cooling off. It was fun to stand near the bank of the river and watch all the elephants hanging out in the water, spraying water with their trunks, and then scooping and throwing dirt on their backs (I think to prevent bugs from bothering them).

Elephants from the elephant sanctuary cooling off and playing in the river

From there, we drove to Kandy. Kandy is a town that once was the capital of Sri Lanka. The main thing to see in Kandy is the “Temple of the Tooth”. This is a Buddhist temple which houses one of the teeth of Buddha. There are only a couple of physical relics of Buddha in the world, and this is one of them, so it is a popular and very revered place for Buddhists to visit. I didn’t actually get to see the tooth (they only show it I think at certain times of day), but it was still a beautiful temple and interesting to see a few differences between the Thai and Sri Lankan Buddhist temple architecture, decorations, and offerings.

The Temple of the Tooth in Kandy.

After lunch in Kandy, we spent the afternoon driving up, up, up winding roads climbing higher into the mountains. It was interesting to watch the landscape change from lush tropical palm and other trees to a more temperate climate with large terraced fields of vegetables and other crops. As we got closer to the top, we began entering the massive areas of tea plantations. As far as you can see along the mountain road are bright green tea plants, looking like a perfect carpet following the curves and contours of the mountains. Absolutely stunning views!

Women in the mountains picking tea from the huge tea plantations

One small fraction of the tea plantations

Me near the top of the mountain, over 8,000 feet above sea level

Near the top of the mountain, we went to one of the tea plantations to take a tour of the tea factory. It was an interesting tour. There’s frankly not a lot of steps in the tea-making process, but it was still fun to see the process and all the machines (many of them very old) used to dry and grind the tea leaves, separate the leaves from the stems and other debris, and then package and bag the tea. The most interesting thing I learned was that black and green tea are from the same tea plant – the difference is in the process (oxidation) used which determines whether it’s black or green type tea. Now you know.

Inside the tea factory, old machines sorting, grinding and separating the tea leaves

Me at the tea factory with the finished product

We ended the day at a small town called Nuwara Eliya at the very top of the mountain. It was a small town, with a very English look and vibe to it. I was pretty exhausted from the day so I didn’t get out that night to see the town but would have liked to have walked around a bit and seen more of it.

The next day we drove down the back side of the mountain. Like the previous day, it was a long, winding road down the mountain with stunning views of the mountain, rivers, waterfalls, fields of crops terraced into the hillsides, and small villages along the road. The further down the mountain we got, it returned to a more tropical landscape. We stopped at a few places along the drive: a huge and beautiful tree and plant garden, several waterfalls, a small town for lunch and a few other sights.

Beautiful mountain lake near the town of Nuwara Eliya. The scenery reminded me of my home in Montana.

A bluff overlooking the valley coming down the mountain. Difficult to see in the pic, but kids were out there playing cricket.

Selfie of me at Rawana Ella waterfall

Small roadside stands selling corn, with a little fire and a kettle to boil the corn for you.

We ended the day at the southeast coast of Sri Lanka, in a town called Tissamaharama (aka “Tissa”).  Tissa is just outside the Yala National Park. We had arrived in town in late afternoon, so we got on a safari jeep to go on a “safari” through the Yala National Park for the rest of the day. It was an interesting ride. The landscape quickly changed to a much more dry/arid feel, with few palm/tropical trees and more scrub brush and trees you’d typically think of in the African plains. We were in an open jeep going thru very bumpy dirt roads, and along with the landscape it definitely felt like we were somewhere in Kenya. Unfortunately, I can’t say that the wildlife was all that impressive. There were some wild elephants, but having been walking around right next to them the previous day, seeing them from a jeep in the distance wasn’t quite as exciting. There were a few crocodiles around a lake, and lots of water buffalo and wild boars. So those were kind of interesting, albeit not exactly exotic game animals. The primary attraction of the park is a spotted leopard, but we unfortunately never saw it. After about 4 hours of the safari, and the sun going down, we returned to town for the night.

Some wild boars during the safari in Yala National Park.

Water buffalo on the safari

The hotel I stayed at near the national park still used skeleton keys for the door locks.

The next day we made a long drive along the southeastern and southern coast to the town of Mirissa. It was a stunningly beautiful drive, most of the way the road hugging the coastline with beautiful beaches. The biggest surprise to me was that the beaches went for miles, with no buildings, hotels, etc. built up on them – just clean, empty beaches with a few fishermen occasionally. I had planned to stay in Mirissa the next 3 days and nights, so I bid my driver farewell and transitioned to the “beach” part of my holiday.

I stayed in Mirissa at a small 6-room hotel run by an Aussie (originally Sri Lankan) guy and his Swedish wife. His wife was away so I didn’t get to meet her, but there were 3 other guys working there as staff, and it was probably one of the best places I’ve ever stayed. It was right on the beach, nice rooms with amazing views, and the guys were fantastic to talk to and incredibly helpful.

The beach just outside my hotel room. I walked for over 2km and never saw another person other than a few fishermen.

Rows of fish on bamboo mats drying on the beach. It looks cool, but the smell is a bit overpowering…

Fishermen bringing their boat in. They recruited me to help them push the boat way up on the dry sand… not an easy task!

Beautiful Mirissa beach, where two ends of the beach meet

Great little food shacks along the beach

Me on the balcony of my room at the beach… feeling relaxed

Breakfast… with the beach just a few steps away. Every day should start this way!

I went on a whale-watching trip early the next morning. In all the years I lived in Seattle, I never went on a whale-watching trip (fairly common activity in Seattle). It turns out I’m clearly not a whale-watching kind of guy. It was fun to be on a boat in the beautiful ocean, but staring at the water waiting for a tiny bit of a whale’s back to come out of the water and blow some mist is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Nevertheless, I’m glad I did it once.

Fishermen heading out early in the morning, as I was heading out to go whale watching

The following day I hired a tuk-tuk to take me to the main city in the south called Galle. Along the way, we stopped at a cool turtle farm, as well as a few small towns and an area where the “stick fishermen” are. The stick fishermen perch themselves on these high bamboo sticks in the water and fish below them. It’s an interesting way to fish for sure. Although to be honest, I think the days of actually fishing are long gone. I’m pretty sure these guys were just sitting there waiting for tourists to take pictures of them, and then asking for money. I didn’t see any fish being caught, or even any fish in the water.

The “stick fishermen” near the town of Galle

In Galle, there is an old Dutch fort at the very southernmost tip of Sri Lanka. It’s an amazing fort, with a large town inside and incredible views out to sea from 3 sides. I spent a couple hours just walking around, exploring and checking out the shops in the town. Overall it was a fun day trip.

The Dutch fort in the town of Galle

The clock tower at the fort

Kids jumping off a rock into the crystal clear water just outside the Dutch fort

One of the millions of colorful roadside fruit stands

The following day I hired a driver to drive me back to Colombo. It was a long drive, in an old van, but the driver was super fun to talk to. He was so full of energy, loved talking about his family, what it was like growing up in Sri Lanka, and some of his funny stories of driving other tourists around. I asked if he was there when the tsunami hit in 2004. He told me the story of that day from his perspective and it was one of the most gut-wrenching stories I’ve ever heard. He had gone to the beach to buy some fish for the day, and was walking along the road near the beach when the first wave hit. He got washed up in the water until he managed to grab on to a palm tree and hold on thru the current and debris of the rushing water. After the first wave subsided, he climbed further up in the tree and held on thru the second wave. He told me about the screams he heard of people, the bodies of people washing by him, the friends that he lost that day, and the incredible devastation afterwards. I’ve heard some personal stories of the tsunami from Thai people I know that experienced it in Phuket, Koh Lanta and Phi Phi islands, and the stories are all similar and heartbreaking.

I spent my last night back in Colombo on the beach before returning to Bangkok the next day. Overall, Sri Lanka was a fascinating place to visit and I absolutely want to go back again and see more of the country. If you’re looking for a holiday that’s something different from Southeast Asia, I’d highly recommend Sri Lanka!

There was a Catholic church next to the hotel on the beach I stayed at my last night in Colombo. They were doing the stations of the cross, with concrete crosses in the sand. If my church was on the beach like this, I probably would have been more happy to go when I was a kid!

As part of my very first trip to Thailand in 2000, I went on a side trip for a few days to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Siem Reap is the nearest town to the temples of the Angkor Wat complex, an amazing spread of massive stone temples built by Khmer kings between 800AD and 1300AD.  I remember that trip vividly, as it was my first introduction to Southeast Asia and it was like nothing I had ever seen or experienced before.

Ever since then, I’ve wanted to go back to Cambodia to experience the temples again.  This year I finally went over a long weekend between Christmas and New Years.  In hindsight it probably wasn’t the best planning on my part, as that is the peak tourist season there.  But while there were throngs of tourists to contend with, it really didn’t spoil the amazement and wonder of the temples.

This posting I’m going to mostly just have the pictures, rather than a lot of long commentary from me.  Suffice it to say, though, I had a fantastic time seeing the temples and the Siem Reap area again.  The town has exploded from tourism over the past 14 years since I was first there.  But it’s still something that I highly recommend seeing.  If you’re ever in Southeast Asia, it’s well worth a few days in Siem Reap to experience the temples of Angkor Wat.

Stone carvings on bridge leading to the Angkor complex of temples.

Stone entrance arch/gate to Angkor complex of temples.

Entering Bayon temple at Angkor Thom.

One of millions of carvings in the stone at Bayon Temple

Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom

Me at Bayon Temple

Stone walkway entrance to Baphuon Temple at Angkor Thom

Baphuon Temple at Angkor Thom

Monks in saffron robes at Baphuon Temple

Looking down from the top of Baphuon temple

Wall of stone carvings. Every image unique and different, but done with amazing precision.

Entrance to Ta Phrom temple

Ta Phrom temple with giant tree roots growing in and over the temple walls

Ta Phrom temple with more tree roots growing over and through the walls

Monks at Phnom Bakheng Temple… aka, the “sunset temple” where crowds of visitors climb a long pathway up a hill to the temple, then climb several sets of near-vertical stairs to get to the top of the temple to watch the amazing sunsets.

The stunning Angkor Wat temple at sunrise, reflected in a pond in front of the temple.

Me at Angkor Wat at sunrise, in front of the reflecting pond. Even though it was a little cloudy that morning, it was still worth getting up at 4:30am to be at this incredible place for sunrise.

The long, stone walkway leading up to Angkor Wat. Hard to describe the feeling you get as you walk towards that massive, imposing temple in front of you.

The huge moat that surrounds the Angkor Wat temple. The moat is 200 meters wide, and 5.5km total length around the complex.

Banteay Srey temple, about 40km away from the main Angkor complex. The stones here are more of a pink-colored sandstone, giving the temples a stunning color in the sun.

After a couple of days of trekking up, down and through the stone temples, I decided to take a day out on a small boat on Tonle Sap lake.  It is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia.  During the dry season, the lake drains into the Mekong River.  However, during the wet season, the Mekong backs up into the lake and raises the level by up to 9 meters.  Fisherman living on/in the lake have built homes on stilts so they’re above the water level during the rainy season.  During the dry season (when I went there) the homes are perched on their stills high above the water.

A fishing village on Tonle Sap lake where homes are built on stilts high above the lake.

More fishing village homes on Tonle Sap lake.

I’ve sadly been a bit out of touch with this blog for a while. Partly that’s because I haven’t been doing much travelling, and have been focused on work and have gotten into a bit of a routine in Bangkok. But after a 9-month hiatus, I think I am ready to tackle the blog again, and hopefully with a bit more regularity.

Seoul

At the end of October, I had to go to Seoul, South Korea for a few days to meet with customers for work. Although I didn’t have much time to get around and see much of Seoul, from what I did see I really liked it. If I had to sum it up, I’d say it’s a mix between Singapore and Bangkok. It has the lively shopping areas and street food like Bangkok, but with the structure, order, cleanliness and reservedness (is that a word?) of Singapore.

Near where I was staying is the Meyeong-dong area, which is a large shopping/tourist area with dozens of criss-crossing narrow walking streets and alleyways with shops on either side.  At night it’s full of locals and tourists walking, shopping, and eating at the tons of restaurants and street food carts along the roads.  While the area had a lot of large name-brand clothing stores like Guess, Louis Vuitton, Forever 21, Polo, etc., I have never seen so many make-up and skin care stores.  Literally every block had at least 5 to 10 make-up/skin care stores, and every one of them were busy!  Very strange….

In the shopping area of Meyeong-dong

Street food vendor in Meyeong-dong area

The North Korea Border

After the customer meetings, I decided to stay for the weekend and go on a day trip to the border with North Korea and the De-militarized Zone (DMZ). It was a big group tour where we were all loaded onto a couple of buses, which isn’t normally the way I like to tour things but that’s the only way you can go see the DMZ. It was about a 2-hour drive up to the border, and the guide on the bus spent that time educating us about a lot of things related to the Korean war, North Korea, and what we would be seeing that day. I’ve never really learned much about the Korean war, so it was all very interesting information for me.

Our first stop was at a military camp near the border in the Joint Security Area (JSA). The camp is run jointly by the US Army, the South Korean military, and the United Nations. From there, we got on UN buses with a US Army guide who took us a few miles further up to the border. We walked thru a large 3-story building that was eerily empty. It was built for the purpose of allowing families who had relatives in both the North and South Korea to meet in designated rooms there, under the joint supervision of both North and South Korea. However, it was only used once shortly after it was constructed, and after that the North has never allowed to leave the country for those kinds of visits (at least not at that building).

Beyond that building is a group of about 4 to 6 little wooden buildings painted bright blue (the United Nations color of blue, to be exact). They are just single-room buildings, and one of them was used to sign the ceasefire of the Korean war. We went inside it to see the inside and the table at which the negotiations and signatures happened. In the middle of the room, you can literally stand there with half your body in South Korea and half in North Korea (sort of…).

The UN buildings in the Joint Security Area

Inside the building in the JSA where the Korean War ceasefire was signed. He looks like a mannequin, but that’s an actual South Korean military guy next to me.

Beyond the blue buildings is the North Korea side, and a large imposing building. The curtains were closed on all of the windows of the building, but occasionally a North Korea military person would open one of the curtains and look down on us with binoculars. It was very creepy, to say the least, but fascinating at the same time. We were allowed to take pictures of the building and the North Korean military guys in and around it, but we were specifically instructed not to flip them off or do anything provocative as they like to take pictures of that kind of behavior and use it as propaganda against South Korea, the US and other western countries.

Looking across the JSA to the North Korea side.

We then went to another part of the JSA where there is the “bridge of no return”. This is a bridge across the river that demarcates the North/South border. At the end of the war, prisoners of war were brought to the bridge and given the choice of whether to stay in the country they were in, or cross the bridge to the other country. Once they crossed the bridge, there was no going back. Particularly thinking about North Koreans who were captured in the South, and still had family in the North, that had to have been a heart-wrenching decision to cross that bridge back to the North.

The “Bridge of No Return”

An area where they had monuments to all the countries that helped fight in the Korean War. This was part of the one for the US — very cool.

Tunnels

Next we drove to another area where there was a tunnel discovered that the North Koreans had been digging under the DMZ after the war ended in an effort re-invade the South. There have been a total of 4 tunnels discovered since the 1970s. We went down into it, and it’s an amazing feat of engineering. I don’t remember all the stats on depth and length, but we walked down a 45-degree sloped decline for a good 20 minutes to get to the tunnel, so it’s very deep below ground. Then we walked thru the actual tunnel another 20 minutes or so until we got to a poured concrete barricade that the South had installed to seal the center section of the tunnel. When the tunnel was discovered, apparently the North Koreans painted parts of the inside rock walls black and rubbed coal along them, and tried to justify the tunnel by saying it was a coal mine.

Inside the tunnel under the DMZ. I’m 6’1″ tall, and the tunnel is only about 5′ 8″ tall, so I had to walk hunched over the whole time.

Interesting statue at the tunnel. It symbolized the desire (by the South) to have a united Korea.

Our next stop was on top of a hill with a set of binoculars where you could look out over a valley and pretty far into North Korea. Several things that were fascinating about this. First, you can very clearly see where the border is, as there is not a single tree or shrub on the North Korea side – they have clear-cut every ounce of wood for heating and cooking as far as you can see; the hills and mountains are absolutely barren, whereas the South Korea side is very lush and green with trees. At this site, you can also look directly at one of the “propaganda villages” on the North side. From a distance, it looks like a small city with office buildings, apartments, etc. In reality, it’s just built that way to make it look like the North is prosperous. The buildings are all concrete, with painted-on windows and doors, and there is just a skeleton crew of people that live there to keep it clean, turn lights on and off periodically so it looks like things are happening there, etc. It was very, very bizarre to look at.

Looking into North Korea. Where the trees stop is where the border is. White buildings in middle of pic is the “propaganda village”.

Northernmost Train Station (in South Korea)

Our last stop was at the northernmost train station in South Korea. It’s a beautiful new train station that doesn’t seem to get a lot of use. The South would love to be able to use it, as it’s an important connection for getting goods between them and mainland China. However, the North effectively stopped allowing trains from crossing there into North Korea back around 2007, so today that station is as far north as you can go on a train in South Korea. Our guide made a really interesting point: South Korea is geographically a peninsula, surrounded on 3 sides by ocean. But with the lack of any ability to move goods over land to the north, South Korea is effectively an island, with the air and sea being the only options for it to move goods and people to/from outside the country. Fascinating!

At the train station, waiting for the train to Pyeongyang

This post is another collection of a few short topics that have absolutely no relation to each other, except for the fact that I thought they were interesting and indicative of how different these things are to their counterparts in the US.  Cartoon mascots, political elections, and a trip to the hospital – this post covers all the interesting stuff!

Cartoon Mascots

I don’t think this is so much specific to Thailand as it is to Asia in general.  But there is a huge fascination with using odd cartoon caricatures as marketing mascots for various brands.  I’m used to seeing them used for kids’ things, and especially for food products targeted at kids.  But here, they are used for just about anything, regardless of what age group it’s targeted at. 

Beyond just using the cartoon mascots in print, online and TV advertising, they are also made into physical little stuffed “dolls” on keychains, anywhere from about 1 to 4 inches big.  People hang these from their cell phones, purses, backpacks, and briefcases.  It’s funny to see an 80-year-old woman on the train with her cell phone and a little stuffed tomato doll with funny eyes and mouth hanging from her phone, or a 40- or 50-something businessman in a suit, with a little stuffed teddy bear doll hanging from his briefcase handle.  I used to laugh every time I saw those kinds of things, but it’s so common that I’ve completely gotten used to it.

Here are a few pictures of some of my favorite mascots I’ve seen around the city.  If you have an observant eye, you might notice that even though they’re all for completely different things, the mascots are uncannily similar in many ways.

I think this is a mascot for a Chinese dumpling place. Cute little guy.

This is the mascot for my cell phone company, AIS. Love his little tuft of hair.

This was my *favorite* mascot. These banners were in the train stations for about 2 months and I LOVED seeing them everyday. It’s a little guy for milk, and he’s got a little kangaroo-like pouch where he keeps all his vitamins and minerals!

Bangkok Elections

Bangkok recently held elections for the Bangkok Governor position.  The Governor is essentially the same as what we in the US would consider a city mayor (albeit for a very, very large city).  Having said that, I will note that there are actually only two Governors in Thailand – one in Bangkok and one in Pattaya.  I don’t fully understand yet how the entire local governments work at the city level, so I’m not sure what all the other cities in the country do for local executive government. 

There are a few aspects to the election process that I thought were interesting.  First, the governor’s term was set to end on January 10, and the law requires that an election is held within 45 days of that.  However, the current governor resigned his position one day prior to that, on January 9.  The laws say that if the current governor resigns, then an election must be held within 60 days.  After resigning, he began his re-election campaign.  So by resigning, rather than waiting another day for his term to officially be over, he stretched the election “season” to be 15 additional days.  Interesting.  Either way, it’s a far, far shorter election season than in the US.

There were a total of I think 25 candidates in the running for the Governor position, although similar to the US, there are just 2 primary frontrunner parties so realistically it’s a race between 2 people.  Once all the candidates have registered, the election commission assigns each candidate a random number between 1 and the number of candidates (25).  I’m not entirely clear on the reason why, but I think it’s just to make it easier for the press to reference them, since most of the newspaper articles would say “…Mr. Sukhumband, the #16 candidate, held a rally today at a fish market…”. 

The candidates do the normal campaigning, holding rallies in the streets, in parks, at markets, or anywhere they can get a large crowd.  I don’t think they are allowed to run advertisements on TV or in the paper, but I could be wrong on that (I don’t watch much Thai TV, and I just read the English Bangkok paper online).  They do put up campaign signs along the streets, but rather than the small little signs that are used in the US, the signs they use here are all huge – about 6 to 7 feet tall and about 4 feet wide.  They have these giant larger-than-life pictures of the candidates, their randomly-assigned candidate number, and a bunch of stuff written in Thai that I couldn’t understand.  The giant signs are tied to just about every electrical pole, light pole, street sign pole, tree, or any other vertical thing large enough to support them along the roadways.  Below is a picture of two of the signs from the two main candidates on the street just outside my condo.

Two of the typical election campaign signs along the road.

The election was held on Sunday, March 3.  It’s interesting that they have election day on a Sunday when most people are not working.  I know there have been discussions for years of switching to that model in the US – it would be an interesting experiment there.  I think the polls open around 6 or 7am, and close at 3pm, so it’s a relatively short amount of time that people have to vote.  But, it shouldn’t be a problem for them because no one should be hungover from the previous Saturday night.  Why?  Because on an election weekend, all alcohol sales and consumption are illegal, starting at 3pm on Saturday and going until 6pm on Sunday.  Needless to say, Bangkok was probably as quiet as I’ve ever seen it on that Saturday night before the election – streets empty, bars closed, most sidewalk vendors gone.  Almost eerie, it was so quiet. 

Oh, yes, and I won’t keep you in suspense any longer… Candidate #16 (the incumbent) won the election.  Probably the most surprising part of the whole election process for me was that within two days after the election, every single one of the thousands of campaign signs were gone from the streets.  Very efficient post-election cleanup!

A Trip to the Hospital

I had a small cut on my finger, which healed but somehow became infected under the skin, and the infection spread very quickly until my finger had swollen up huge, red, and incredibly painful in just a few days.  It got to the point where it was clear it wasn’t going to heal on its own and I was going to need some professional help. 

In the US, I would have gone to my normal doctor’s office, or to a local clinic to have it taken care of.  They don’t really have those here.  Doctors generally all work at the hospitals, so if you need to see your doctor for anything, you go to the hospital.  Same with dentists, although there are some separate dental clinics here.

Since I haven’t been to a hospital here yet, I just picked the one that’s closest to me – Bumrungrad International Hospital is about a 10-minute taxi from where I live.  It’s a very well-known hospital, and I believe is the largest in the world in terms of the number of international patients they service (over half a million per year!).  Many of the international patients come here for “medical tourism”, where they have various procedures done  because they can be done at a fraction of the cost of most western countries, and the staff are highly skilled (over 200 doctors there were trained/practiced in the US, and most of the rest were trained/practiced in other western countries).  Many of the procedures are for medically-necessary things like heart bypass surgery, but they also do a brisk business in elective things like various kinds of plastic surgery. 

The hospital itself is amazing.  The entrance/lobby is a huge atrium that looks more like a 5-star hotel, with comfortable lounge chairs, lush plants, restaurants like McDonalds and Starbucks, and other small shops.  You’d never think you were in a hospital.  From there, the service and experience easily matches the quality of the aesthetics.  I had gotten there shortly after 7pm, and the outpatient part closed at 7.  So they said “No problem, just go to the emergency area”, which I did. 

I walked into the emergency area and was greeted by 3 staff, was given a 1-page form to fill out (literally nothing more than my personal and contact info like name, age, phone, etc., emergency contact, whether I was allergic to anything, and date/signature).  They then took my picture, had me sit on a couch, gave me a bottle of water, and about 2 minutes later brought over a laminated card with my name, picture and patient number on it and said it was my permanent Bumrungrad patient card – they instructed me to “just bring it with you anytime you come into the hospital and it will expedite the process.”  Keep in mind, this “process” had taken maybe 6 minutes at this point…

 So then they take my blood pressure and temperature (all normal – yay!), and bring me into an office with a surgeon.  When he first saw me, he said something like “wow, you’re a big guy”, and made a few jokes about my size, asking me where I work out, how I gained muscle, etc.  Flattering, yes, but not really what I was there for.  He looked at my finger, asked a few questions, and said it was abscessed and needed to be punctured to drain the fluid.  They then whisk me to the operating room, put me on a gurney, and within about 2 minutes I’m surrounded by 6 nurses and the surgeon.  He joked that since he thought I looked like Superman, and the Man of Steel wouldn’t need any painkillers, he didn’t think I needed any.  When my eyes about popped out of my head, he said, “Just kidding!”.  He preps my finger, gives an injection to numb my finger, and then does his procedure, with all 6 nurses continuing to stand around my bed, helping where they could. 

When he was done, he asked if I wanted to come back in each day to have them change the bandages and clean and disinfect the wound, or if I was ok doing it myself.  I was fine doing my own home doctoring, so he explained what I’d need to do at home to change the dressings every day, how to take several prescriptions for pain, swelling and antibiotics he was giving me, etc.  They then led me out to a nice couch in another waiting area, where I waited for about 5 minutes.  Then they called me up to the desk and handed me a shopping bag full of medical supplies (packages of gauze, tape, cotton balls, tweezers, saline solution, antibiotic cream, and various prescriptions).  I literally could have opened my own mini-pharmacy with that much stuff.  Every item had a label with my name on it, and very clear English directions on exactly how and when to use every item in that bag.  Then they gave me the bill.  I’ll refrain from publishing publicly the final bill, but rest assured it was a fraction of what it would have cost me in the US, especially if I’d gone to an emergency room.  I’ll put it this way: I had enough cash on me to pay for it… and I don’t carry a lot of cash on me.  🙂

From start to finish, I was in and out of the hospital in about 55 minutes, with a level of care that I was completely comfortable with, and a “customer service” experience that would practically put Nordstrom to shame (for non-US people reading this, Nordstrom’s is a department store known for their exceptional customer service).  While I hope I don’t have a need to go to the doctor/hospital very often, it’s reassuring to know that I can get as good or better level of care here compared to home, and maybe even a few laughs out of it!