2011.06.11
It is tough life, to travel, and one is always happy, at my age, when it is over and one can sit down and relax for a while. I could not imagine taking 1-2 week holidays and run around like a rat all the time. Also the time from 1999 onwards when I spent just about all holidays on a long winter holiday in Thailand, so I could stay for a while - over a certain age, was it 45? - I had 7 weeks of holidays a year.
Last story ended at a table in the big eating place of Istanbul Airport, the usual, chairs and tables in the middle and then small restaurants along the walls where you pick up your food.
We had 6-7 hours of waiting, so first there for a while, where I wrote the last entry, then we walked a bit - they had something called Free Public Internet but it did not work so I only wrote that offline, still no gate number coming up so we walked back as Yui was hungry again - after all she is a Thai girl. They eat five times a day and very rarely get fat. I had already walked more than any day for years, once the gate number was shown we started to walk in that directory, but after a while I had cold sweat all over and Yui said I looked pretty gray, so sat down and she used her best Turkish to run around looking for a guy with a wheel chair. And then good service - which I even got in Pakistan once, as soon as I came to the waiting room tvo guys with one wheel chair came running seeing me walking with my crutch, and then they were around for hours until time for my plane to go, and then me and chair was driven down to the gate, was met by the food elevator delivering food to the planes, and they put me on that one, and delivered me to the food door of the plane..... Perfect service!
Here in Istanbul it was something similar, they transported me with the "ambulance" where they drove on the wheel chair, also kind of an experience to Yui, hope she got some nice photos....... And then that machine drove to the plane and also lifted me up to the door of the plane. Elegant.
We travelled Turkish all the way and it is OK. Food ok, only problem that the beer was warm, but I had experienced that on the trip from CPH to IST so to BKK I was satisfied with Turkish muslim red wine. Was OK. Food OK, thou if I survive this trip, next time I should try Qatar. Turkish is of course better classed than dirty old SAS but Qatar is pretty close to top mark where they compare air companies while SAS and Turkish are somewhere in the middle. I would not try the bottom ones like Sudan Airways - also called "in shallah airways", "god willing airways"!.Or Bangladesh Biman. You can do it and then blog about it.
We came to civilised hot Bangkok, a wheel chair was already waiting, and then I sat in that from the plane to the luggage line to the toilet to the exchange office to the taxi line outside. Convenient, try it one day!
Somehow I do feel quite at home in BKK, even thou my body is dying around me. It is not ME, after all. It is a convenient enclosure of ME.
So taxi for half an hour in a half circle around BKK, mostly via paid toll roads circulating town, to a supermarket complex in the northern end, where Yui's brother waited with his pickup truck and his son and their mother. Hugs and then to a supermarket near Saraburi, where we stopped for - eating of course. We are in Thailand after all, thou this was a Chinese restaurant where you prepare your own food you are set around a table with a boiling pot with soup, and in it you put lots of things yourself, vegetables, finely sliced meat, tofu, whatever, and ice tea to drink. No beer before 17:00. So 900B all in all for 5 people.
Then bought Aircard, for internet, looked like an over-sized USB memory stick, works allright, 7Mbits or so. So I use that now here in the village, some 150 kms north of Bangkok. We also bought SIM cards for our Thai mobile phones, and some phones - I had two along, one for the Swedish and one for the Thai SIM card, but Yui needed a second one, and she also bought one for her brother who had a VERY old one.
Then we stopped at a small place along the highway selling furniture and Yui bought a sturdy working table for this room, 1200B.
Now 3 gals, all Thai, are in this little room, and the son of Yui's brother. Aircon only here which lowered the temperature from 33° to 29°. I do not want it colder. I am impolite enough to type, not listen to inkomprehensible Thai and smile like a buddha. But at my age..... The other gals, friends of Yui, were young and pretty when I was here 5 years, still pretty and with one kid each - same system as in Sweden 100 years ago when the gals enjoyed both making and having kids, and both mothers and kids look very happy here in the jungle, like old Sweden I guess. One wonders what will be in 100 years when the average age in Europe is 60, and the kids have got tired of using all the money feeding the oldies, so they have moved to more civilized places. No such problems here! Here they still enjoy it, after all the girls are prettier.
Yui's mother, in a way she looks more fresh than 5 years ago. Then she walked with a stick now not, she has had a hip operation in a cheap hospital in Bangkok and now she is without stick and for sure walks better than I do - she is a year or so younger than me.
I am fed all the time, good food but too much! They know I love Chang beer so when I arrived here I got one, and a big plate of Yui's mother's pig feet soup, delicious, but after all I had just eaten at that Chinese restaurant and was already quite filled up. They had probably intended to eat more later, but I was tired enough to land on my air-conditioned bed and stay until morning. Except up peeing a few times - in Sweden I might go up once or twice a night when I have a mug or two of my homemade red wine before, but here no wine and only one beer so had to run, and find the slippery way out to the toilet behind the kitchen, Yui's mother is doing what she can to make us stay more than a week, and has filled the fridge with Chang :) It means Elephant, so Thai Elephant beer - you can buy it in Systemet in Sweden but not at all the same taste, slightly weaker and no heavy metals.
I stopped being polite at 50, had not earned any points on it before.
So we are gonna be here for a week, then either to BKK for a week or straight to Cha-Am, they better decide soon so I can book hotel in Cha-Am. I am here as at home, eat slowly with food beside the computer, only that the plates pile up - Yui's mother is a very good cook but I can not eat faster for that, then it gets stuck half way. I always had that problem, but it is healthy to eat slowly yah.
Visar inlägg med etikett thailand. Visa alla inlägg
Visar inlägg med etikett thailand. Visa alla inlägg
2011-06-11
2011-06-08
Packing?
Or whatever, I mostly sit at the computer. I have packed the backpack, for medicines and laptop, not even looked in the big black one, Yui has handled that. I only have to remember to take the insulin from the fridge tomorrow morning - have to get up at 4:30, go down to the bus outside here around 7AM, train here in Lund at 08:30 to be in the airport at 09:02, they say 3 hours before departure at 12:10.
Then we have to wait for 6-7 hours in Istanbul, better too long than too short with my limited walking abilities. Leaving somewhat before midnight, and then 9½ hours to Bangkok.
Then we land in Bangkok or Krung Thep as all Thais say. Those who want to be really brilliant say Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit of course.
Last time in BKK airport they immediately came with a wheel chair and nowadays I accept that gratefully, Suvarnabhumi is pretty big. I can manage in Copenhagen but if they come with one...., I think they did the last time in CPH, an electrical vagon to pick up us old and tired.
Ariving in Krung Thep you walk a bit to the passport check, then down to pick up the luggage, nowadays with my lack of balance I have always had to ask someone to take it from the delivery band, have not been out flying with Yui since we met for more than 5 years ago, so of course it is easier.
With or without wheel chair we go out in the hall, and fix Thai SIM cards for our phones, Yui got one when she was there 2 years ago, also usable for Internet via mobile, so I used the same when I was there alone half a year later. But by now I am pretty sure it has expired, ah well, we ask and then Yui buys one for us each, we have one laptop each and need internet.
[Klick the map.] Then walking out to the taxis avoiding all guys who want to offer us "professional drivers" for twice the price, there is an official line with registered drivers - where you can be cheated too, but be very quick to ask "taxi meter?!?" - probably noone tries tricks when I come with a Thai girl.
Then that guy takes us to the bus station in the northof BKK , where Yui's brother will wait to take us to the village Ban Mo. Marked in red at the map.
A week there, we will see how troublesome it will be for me, but I have not been there for 5 years, since I met Yui, and they want to see me again, for some reason. Yui has some pics from her trip 2009 at link.
Yui says her mother has planned this and that to look around the village with us, I have been as lazy as always with my book First Course in Thai, and I know it is very bad, but the book starts to look pretty worn by now. I still bring it along on every trip.... The people in the village barely know English, some kids in the internet age hangs on Facebook by now, but mostly in Thai. I get an occasional "Hello Santa"......
Village adventure over we will come back to Krung Thep one way or another, can take the bus too. And Yui wants to be there for a week of shopping and meeting friends, think she also talked about getting new glasses. So I suppose we go to my usual hotel. "5 day promotion" I see. If I am smart we could also look for a better one, it is on a byway to Khao San Road, not so noisy, with many guesthouses and small restaurants but of course we should look around somewhat to see if there is others we could enjoy for another time. But it is fun to hear people say "long time no see" from here and there along the little walking street. Away from the elegant quarters, backpackers and seasoned travellers are often there so I have met many enough interesting people.
Actually I prefer to go directly to Cha-Am and stay there, then Yui can take the bus those 2 hours up to BKK for her stuff, and probably stay over night with some friend. Let's see. One advantage with that is that Yui's parents had loved to come along over a night, they never had holidays really. But then I had to pay..... I do not know, have to talk about it. After all we travel on a budget. Most of the travel money went to the air tickets, then we have to live on my usual pension. Yui has saved a bit for things she plans to buy to her parents.
The only problem with that hotel in BKK is that the entry is slightly tricky for me, nothing to hold in so I always have to find a chair inside to hold in to get up.
Further plans. Ah well, nothing elaborate, only when Yui has shopped enough and got a new Thai passport we have to find transport to Cha-Am, can probably ask the girl in the travel agency in the hotel, hope it is the usual one as she is always very friendly and helpful, known her a number of years. Cost a little bit more than taking taxi to the right bus station but ah well, we will ask.
My usual kind of travelling is not as smooth as a standard charter trip from door to door but ah well - this time I am a bit more handicapped because of my diabetes ulcers in both feet - thou one is minimal by now. Because of those I have hardly been out walking for a year, and my condition is absolutely lousy but I see no way to get inspiration to go out here in Sweden and look at the same rental houses here around that I have been looking at since I moved into this apartment in 1982. So - I have to take a chance that I will manage. I felt similar when I went in 1999 after not being in Asia for 12 years - my body had deteriorated, I knew it but I went to Indionesia anyway. And had fun,.
So simply Google for pictures of Cha-Am and agree it looks pleasant and restful. No wild night life, no shopping paradise, I can sit with the laptop where I feel comfortable and get inspiration from the view. On the balcony with a view over the sea, or go to some small restaurant or whatever.
I guess I will survive.
Then we have to wait for 6-7 hours in Istanbul, better too long than too short with my limited walking abilities. Leaving somewhat before midnight, and then 9½ hours to Bangkok.
Then we land in Bangkok or Krung Thep as all Thais say. Those who want to be really brilliant say Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit of course.
Last time in BKK airport they immediately came with a wheel chair and nowadays I accept that gratefully, Suvarnabhumi is pretty big. I can manage in Copenhagen but if they come with one...., I think they did the last time in CPH, an electrical vagon to pick up us old and tired.
Ariving in Krung Thep you walk a bit to the passport check, then down to pick up the luggage, nowadays with my lack of balance I have always had to ask someone to take it from the delivery band, have not been out flying with Yui since we met for more than 5 years ago, so of course it is easier.
With or without wheel chair we go out in the hall, and fix Thai SIM cards for our phones, Yui got one when she was there 2 years ago, also usable for Internet via mobile, so I used the same when I was there alone half a year later. But by now I am pretty sure it has expired, ah well, we ask and then Yui buys one for us each, we have one laptop each and need internet.
[Klick the map.] Then walking out to the taxis avoiding all guys who want to offer us "professional drivers" for twice the price, there is an official line with registered drivers - where you can be cheated too, but be very quick to ask "taxi meter?!?" - probably noone tries tricks when I come with a Thai girl.
Then that guy takes us to the bus station in the northof BKK , where Yui's brother will wait to take us to the village Ban Mo. Marked in red at the map.
A week there, we will see how troublesome it will be for me, but I have not been there for 5 years, since I met Yui, and they want to see me again, for some reason. Yui has some pics from her trip 2009 at link.
Yui says her mother has planned this and that to look around the village with us, I have been as lazy as always with my book First Course in Thai, and I know it is very bad, but the book starts to look pretty worn by now. I still bring it along on every trip.... The people in the village barely know English, some kids in the internet age hangs on Facebook by now, but mostly in Thai. I get an occasional "Hello Santa"......
Village adventure over we will come back to Krung Thep one way or another, can take the bus too. And Yui wants to be there for a week of shopping and meeting friends, think she also talked about getting new glasses. So I suppose we go to my usual hotel. "5 day promotion" I see. If I am smart we could also look for a better one, it is on a byway to Khao San Road, not so noisy, with many guesthouses and small restaurants but of course we should look around somewhat to see if there is others we could enjoy for another time. But it is fun to hear people say "long time no see" from here and there along the little walking street. Away from the elegant quarters, backpackers and seasoned travellers are often there so I have met many enough interesting people.
Actually I prefer to go directly to Cha-Am and stay there, then Yui can take the bus those 2 hours up to BKK for her stuff, and probably stay over night with some friend. Let's see. One advantage with that is that Yui's parents had loved to come along over a night, they never had holidays really. But then I had to pay..... I do not know, have to talk about it. After all we travel on a budget. Most of the travel money went to the air tickets, then we have to live on my usual pension. Yui has saved a bit for things she plans to buy to her parents.
The only problem with that hotel in BKK is that the entry is slightly tricky for me, nothing to hold in so I always have to find a chair inside to hold in to get up.
Further plans. Ah well, nothing elaborate, only when Yui has shopped enough and got a new Thai passport we have to find transport to Cha-Am, can probably ask the girl in the travel agency in the hotel, hope it is the usual one as she is always very friendly and helpful, known her a number of years. Cost a little bit more than taking taxi to the right bus station but ah well, we will ask.
My usual kind of travelling is not as smooth as a standard charter trip from door to door but ah well - this time I am a bit more handicapped because of my diabetes ulcers in both feet - thou one is minimal by now. Because of those I have hardly been out walking for a year, and my condition is absolutely lousy but I see no way to get inspiration to go out here in Sweden and look at the same rental houses here around that I have been looking at since I moved into this apartment in 1982. So - I have to take a chance that I will manage. I felt similar when I went in 1999 after not being in Asia for 12 years - my body had deteriorated, I knew it but I went to Indionesia anyway. And had fun,.
So simply Google for pictures of Cha-Am and agree it looks pleasant and restful. No wild night life, no shopping paradise, I can sit with the laptop where I feel comfortable and get inspiration from the view. On the balcony with a view over the sea, or go to some small restaurant or whatever.
I guess I will survive.
2009-11-18
Wandering on with my stick
Like most people I get older.
Am I "old" ? Who decides? Me or others?
I am recently retired after 50 years of diabetes, but do not feel senile just yet - only somewhat slower. Brains still running and I am not supposed to be worse than normal in the cognitive, thinking, brain.
Should not complain - one of my standing "wise words" is that "hey you - who do you want to exchange your life with?" And honestly, that turns me cool. I want to be just myself!
I am basically a scientist, not a politician. I mainly blog about politics, Middle East Politics. Why? Because too many lies, especially in the Swedish media, irritate my scientific mind.
Some of my colleagues are now pretty rich and retired - with real good pensions because they had not taken any time for experiencing reality.Now they seem to be too old to dare to travel the more adventurous way that I have done for a couple of decades.
Last winter I sat thru the horror of Swedish winter weather, my body hates it. I love to walk out when it is nice and warm and something to experience - which the last decade has mainly meant Thailand, as far as I could in the winters, took out just about every holiday day then.
Actually I was in a lousy state when I, back in 1999, after not having been in SEAsia for 12 years, told myself: "either I go now or I do not go" - after having had a depression for 3 years including some medicine for that. So I went. Remember - at the time I had most of my penfriends in Indonesia for some reason, so I went there for a month in summer. Result, see the link. In short: I managed, well enough and besides, during autumn I was teaching a course that gave some extra money, enabling me to be back in Thailand already that winter. Link. Got the first serious - and not too good - experience of Thai girls...... And learned from my mistakes.
And then it continued. Go to the web site, http://ralphtheogre.dyndns.info/ and up in the menu you can find more pics from my winters in Thailand, without too much of an intellectual strain.
I got my Pig Pest vaccination two weeks ago, I got my hernia operation a week ago, on Monday I will go check ordinary vaccinations, should have at least hepatitis I think. Then on the 4th of Dec. Yui will help me down with the travel bag the three floors, to the bus, to the railway station, to the train, and then I am on my own. Unless she wants to accompany me to the airport - one hour on the train, let's see. Depends on her.
I have booked my usual hotel in Bangkok, for 5 nights. Feel safe - not so mobile nowadays to run around to places. I actually mailed two guesthouses in the area, one did not answer, the other answered something like "just a moment, we will answer"......
Depends how I feel, I have too often had a heavy cold at just that moment, like 2 years ago, when I even had to go to the hospital in BKK for two nights with a bronchitis, and sort of felt tired for a long time - in some way I feel a little bit stronger now - but when I feel for it, after those 5 nights, I book a minibus from the hotel to Pattaya and then it depends on Michael, hopefully he has found me a nice cheap room or apartment for 2½ months there, with Wi-Fi, and nice view over the South Chinese Sea and nice micro-environment, supermarkets, nice cheap Thai restaurants with good view, to sit and gaze and eat slowly in the warm night with a cold beer! A pleasure.
Coming to visit me?
2009-09-25
Going on dreaming
It has been windy for a week, so not out since I was downtown with the passport to send to the Thai embassy to get a tourist visa.
Got mail from my doc yesterday, lab values as usual, so it is just to go. Of course it is a certain resistance to all the travel troubles I know I will get, but so far I manage, lately I do look rotten enough so I usually get help without asking, in airports etc, so I do not really worry.
I wrote a "book" http://ralphtheogre.dyndns.info/Bok/ about 4 years of my life, intended to edit it enough to send to some book companies to see, but I have never got ready for that. Still, interesting to read there - during 9-10 months in Sweden hardly anything interesting happens, all of it has been during the winters in Thailand! Meeting interesting people, experiencing many things.
I have of course decided to take long walks outdoors all this summer but - never found any reason, to go out to see the same boring houses every day. Maybe I have gone out a little twice a week, which of course is not enough to keep muscles in order but - time is full in front of the computer, reading and writing, until I am tired and then I sleep! 2-3 hours in afternoon, then the rest during night, however long it is. Rather much pain in the legs, so I have no idea how long my effective sleep is. OK, now I regularly take 2 Paracetamol before going to bed which helps a bit.
Hm, 4AM, bedtime and too much homemade white wine!
2009-09-11
Less than 3 months left yippeeeee!
I hope.
Yesterday I was to the hospital for the usual diabetes lab tests, sent to my doc, so I oughta wait for them but....... I often feel like shit before going thou it has usually been because of autumn cold, flu, sinusitis whatever. Now as retired since 2-3 years I do not meet many pipul so i do not get infected, only old.
I saw a cheap ticket so I bought it quick-like, 6500 Sw. Crs, so I go on Dec 4 for 90 days.
If the lab tests say my kidneys are gone, ah well - but they have been fairly stable the last decade, and the rest too. What I need now is 3 months of hot air, good food, hopefully my friend Micke will find me a suitable little room/apartment in Pattaya for most of the time. He was up here today for a chat, he goes down on Nov. 15 so 3 weeks before me - I stay in my usual quarters in BKK for a week, then a minibus down to Pattaya.
Yesterday I walked home from the hospital, a distance for me, not walked that far for some months, so still some little ache in the legs - which probably is healthy. If I feel for it, I go out tomorrow to mail the passport to the consulate, after fixing two ugly photos, so that thing is done. Then the question is about vaccinations...... I haven't checked the yellow booklet, last time I did not need a refill, now? And pig flu?
I spent today reading around the Thailand forums, to see what the guys do down there - it's the usual, but some are rather good writers and sort of fun to read :)
Anyway, a trip will be really useful for me, I feel - already from my walk from the hospital, I do WANT to go out there all the time, and I also need to if I want food. Hee - what's the point, you is doing the food shopping........
Sort of bedtime.
2008-03-19
Going home
March 19, Lund
2 days ago I landed in Copenhagen in a SNOW STORM!!!! The thing I had gone to Thailand to avoid. And there has been hardly any snow all winter. Now it came.
The trip home was tiresome but uneventful. I hate to be in a hurry when I travel, going to the airport hours before I have to and so on. So - I took minibus from my BKK hotel at 6PM already, although the plane did not leave until after midnight. But I was also lazy - said yes every time I was offered wheel chair transport in the airports, so most of the time I sat idle instead of slowly walking long corridors. I was at the BKK airport Suvarnabhumi before 7, at the checkup counter when it opened at 9 something, handed in the luggage, and - was offered a wheel chair, so why not.
Once in a wheel chair the rest of the crowd think I am worse off than I am, a little bit more lenient at the security checks and so on - I was driven to the shortest queue all the time, when leaving Thailand it was via the diplomat passport check....., then the guy pushing the wheel chair knew every emergency bypass there was, unfortunately it also meant that he took me immediately as far away as I could get, and no time to have a last beer or coffee.....
On to the plane, and then waiting there for more than an hour until it finally lifted off, he waited for some air transport I think, and then entered the queue - 20 planes or so, always such a queue for departure, the pilot told to explain the delay.
Boring flight - I sat at the front, and was too sleepy to find out how to get up the small tv monitor, so at least I could see where we were. And then the tail bone started to hurt........ as it does when I sit too long in most chairs. I had to twist and twiggle for hours, and never slept really well. And it is a long flight - forgot how long but - left 01:30 BKK time and arrived in London around 6 London time.
In London I was of course met by a wheel chair....., 3 wheel chairs met us oldies, I think; when I came in the other direction I walked for kilometers in those corridors and did not want that at all again, as I was rather tired. And sure, that lady knew every single emergency passage, so soon I sat in a VIP lounge with other half-dead people, waiting for the last short transport, and I guaranteed that I actually could walk down the stairs at the end, and down a slope out to the waiting bus - that had civilized height over the ground, not half a meter like the airport buses in Asia, so I always needed extra special transport there. Do they expect half a meter of rain or what? I would not expect a plane to take off then.
Out to the final little plane, and 1.5 hours to Copenhagen - when I heard the pilot saying there was snow storm I started to miss Thailand.......
Things worked to the end, handicap car a bit on Kastrup, but the difficult part - to get the big luggage off the belt, for that the guy did not come along, anyway asked another guy there, so no problem, same on and off the train to Lund. And a mix of snowstorm and rain in Lund, I had sent SMS to Yui from Kastrup when the train left, so she found me in the station. Wet and tired, still I got a lot of kisses that I returned, then she dragged the big bag to the bus outside and up the stairs and home!!!!!
March 14, Bangkok, evening.
I know I know, you have desperately waited for more info of my adventures. But...., getting old and tired I have concentrated on surviving until coming home.
I came to BKK as planned, evening March 11, and everything worked according to plans, Thai style. There are ALWAYS trouble lurking around the corner so only knowing that, it is fine. And there are often good surprises too.
Looking old and decrepit helps a lot in the Orient - both in Samui airport and BKK airport, both newly built and renovated, so nobody finds their way, young guys quickly picked me up and put me in a wheel chair, and -ah well, sometimes I protest but had decided not to do it now, as it is working fine....... They find the way, they pass all checks with minimum trouble, they pick up the luggage for me, put it in the right place, and - in the end, drove me in that wheel chair passing a long long queue to the taxi stand...., just stopping in the front... Neat!
And the friendly taxi guy here in BKK even asked if he should switch on the taxameter huh! Normally they get irritated when I demand it :) After all that is the idea of the official taxi queue, to follow the rules. Remember when I came to BKK a few months back, a bunch of idiots stood outside offering "official taxi trips" costing 2-3 times the normal......
The last days on Samui were as they had been. I said byebye to my eating places - I have sort of alternated between the restaurant - a real one costing tourist prices so I could not afford to go there more than every 2-3 evening, for the rest I usually went to the grill lady at the corner, picking up 3-4 sticks of grilled meat, chicken asses, chicken wings, pork, fish balls..... I took some bad photos in the restaurant and hoped to return in a year with my wife.
2 days ago I landed in Copenhagen in a SNOW STORM!!!! The thing I had gone to Thailand to avoid. And there has been hardly any snow all winter. Now it came.
The trip home was tiresome but uneventful. I hate to be in a hurry when I travel, going to the airport hours before I have to and so on. So - I took minibus from my BKK hotel at 6PM already, although the plane did not leave until after midnight. But I was also lazy - said yes every time I was offered wheel chair transport in the airports, so most of the time I sat idle instead of slowly walking long corridors. I was at the BKK airport Suvarnabhumi before 7, at the checkup counter when it opened at 9 something, handed in the luggage, and - was offered a wheel chair, so why not.
Once in a wheel chair the rest of the crowd think I am worse off than I am, a little bit more lenient at the security checks and so on - I was driven to the shortest queue all the time, when leaving Thailand it was via the diplomat passport check....., then the guy pushing the wheel chair knew every emergency bypass there was, unfortunately it also meant that he took me immediately as far away as I could get, and no time to have a last beer or coffee.....
On to the plane, and then waiting there for more than an hour until it finally lifted off, he waited for some air transport I think, and then entered the queue - 20 planes or so, always such a queue for departure, the pilot told to explain the delay.
Boring flight - I sat at the front, and was too sleepy to find out how to get up the small tv monitor, so at least I could see where we were. And then the tail bone started to hurt........ as it does when I sit too long in most chairs. I had to twist and twiggle for hours, and never slept really well. And it is a long flight - forgot how long but - left 01:30 BKK time and arrived in London around 6 London time.
In London I was of course met by a wheel chair....., 3 wheel chairs met us oldies, I think; when I came in the other direction I walked for kilometers in those corridors and did not want that at all again, as I was rather tired. And sure, that lady knew every single emergency passage, so soon I sat in a VIP lounge with other half-dead people, waiting for the last short transport, and I guaranteed that I actually could walk down the stairs at the end, and down a slope out to the waiting bus - that had civilized height over the ground, not half a meter like the airport buses in Asia, so I always needed extra special transport there. Do they expect half a meter of rain or what? I would not expect a plane to take off then.
Out to the final little plane, and 1.5 hours to Copenhagen - when I heard the pilot saying there was snow storm I started to miss Thailand.......
Things worked to the end, handicap car a bit on Kastrup, but the difficult part - to get the big luggage off the belt, for that the guy did not come along, anyway asked another guy there, so no problem, same on and off the train to Lund. And a mix of snowstorm and rain in Lund, I had sent SMS to Yui from Kastrup when the train left, so she found me in the station. Wet and tired, still I got a lot of kisses that I returned, then she dragged the big bag to the bus outside and up the stairs and home!!!!!
March 14, Bangkok, evening.
I know I know, you have desperately waited for more info of my adventures. But...., getting old and tired I have concentrated on surviving until coming home.
I came to BKK as planned, evening March 11, and everything worked according to plans, Thai style. There are ALWAYS trouble lurking around the corner so only knowing that, it is fine. And there are often good surprises too.
Looking old and decrepit helps a lot in the Orient - both in Samui airport and BKK airport, both newly built and renovated, so nobody finds their way, young guys quickly picked me up and put me in a wheel chair, and -ah well, sometimes I protest but had decided not to do it now, as it is working fine....... They find the way, they pass all checks with minimum trouble, they pick up the luggage for me, put it in the right place, and - in the end, drove me in that wheel chair passing a long long queue to the taxi stand...., just stopping in the front... Neat!
And the friendly taxi guy here in BKK even asked if he should switch on the taxameter huh! Normally they get irritated when I demand it :) After all that is the idea of the official taxi queue, to follow the rules. Remember when I came to BKK a few months back, a bunch of idiots stood outside offering "official taxi trips" costing 2-3 times the normal......
The last days on Samui were as they had been. I said byebye to my eating places - I have sort of alternated between the restaurant - a real one costing tourist prices so I could not afford to go there more than every 2-3 evening, for the rest I usually went to the grill lady at the corner, picking up 3-4 sticks of grilled meat, chicken asses, chicken wings, pork, fish balls..... I took some bad photos in the restaurant and hoped to return in a year with my wife.
2008-02-19
Starting to pack
... in 3 weeks.... No, packing will not take many minutes, but I land in Copenhagen in 26 days so I fly to BKK in 3 weeks. Being handicapped means it is always a trouble to move, but once I do it, it is never that bad, especially in this part of the world, as I always get pretty good help from people.
Now I think more and more of what I miss here that I have at home. My wife of course......, and also many small details. Like a good work chair, have not eaten pig feet since Sweden!!!!! Broadband and not this slow jungle telegraph, where I have to pay every minute. Not a lot but...... 15 Baht an hour, but when surfing to find info about something, and every page can take minutes to get up, well.....
Now I think more and more of what I miss here that I have at home. My wife of course......, and also many small details. Like a good work chair, have not eaten pig feet since Sweden!!!!! Broadband and not this slow jungle telegraph, where I have to pay every minute. Not a lot but...... 15 Baht an hour, but when surfing to find info about something, and every page can take minutes to get up, well.....
And once home I will start to miss things here....., lots of people who have seen me around for 3 months, say hello and smile when I slowly pass by! Like my favourite restaurant, mainly for seafood, but of course they had everything else. The seafood was on display outside, 
but - ah well - some people have got "habits"..... Once a Swedish family from Blekinge settled at the next table, he VERY fat, she VERY fat, the son of maybe 5 VERY fat, the youngest daughter - ah well, not yet....
but - ah well - some people have got "habits"..... Once a Swedish family from Blekinge settled at the next table, he VERY fat, she VERY fat, the son of maybe 5 VERY fat, the youngest daughter - ah well, not yet....
All ordered CHICKEN, in this seafood restaurant, except the young boy, who ate some fat sausage. All had fat pommes frites to that.......
The restaurant kitchen all open along one wall. 
I am happy as long as I am happy both coming and going, but I am pretty sure this is my last jungle adventure alone.
2007-12-30
Dec. 30
I had a bad night. I went to bed a bit after sound-shutup-time, 2AM, took an extra pill for pushing the excess liquid from feet to that other thing ya know, which might have helped somewhat to make me run up to pee a number of times. Once I even shit...., thou normal consistency - food is pretty clean here and I have not had diarrhoeae since coming a month ago.
Then the bad hand started to pain. It did lots during summer before those three fingers became more or less numb choked by the Carpal Tunnel, at the wrist where they pass through a too small hole when those nerves swell up a little. The wrist will be cut up once I am back in Sweden, which they oughta have done before leaving - but Swedish hospital care might be mostly free but then it takes so much longer time to get access, sigh.....
Some leg pain is almost routine. I guess I am getting old.
I washed the noodle bowl and fork and threw them on the bed before jumping down from the toilet. Sat on the bed to put on my tight stockings to limit the swelling of the feet - and you can guess exactly what I sat on.........
So now up for coffee and noodles, Michael put in the head, then I got a call on my new Thai phone.....
From a friend, a funny girl I met a few times 3 winters ago. Always on the move, restless, she has a sister in Italy, and spent half a year there but did not enjoy it - and apparently no romance popping up, thou she does feel lonely and in need of somebody sensible. You might see her on my travel pictures from that winter if you know where to find them..... She is not really looking for a Farang, because she thinks they look down at Thai girl, but well...., she has not found any Thai guy she ever has mentioned either. Asia is crowded with nice girls who have not found a partner - especially among those who have had a closer view of the West, and seen the general philosophy here. That Western guys have the general idea of taking care of their girls while the Thai girls have the general idea of taking care of their guys. With all the variations obviously.
It can only expand the gene pool for the general benefit of humanity huh.
Now the young Thai girls have to learn that a majority of Farang guys only want to play until 40 while the girls look for something serious. While waiting for the Falang guys to grow up and mature, the gals should learn better English. Expressing feelings inter-culturally is a linguistically demanding feat!
I had a bad night. I went to bed a bit after sound-shutup-time, 2AM, took an extra pill for pushing the excess liquid from feet to that other thing ya know, which might have helped somewhat to make me run up to pee a number of times. Once I even shit...., thou normal consistency - food is pretty clean here and I have not had diarrhoeae since coming a month ago.
Then the bad hand started to pain. It did lots during summer before those three fingers became more or less numb choked by the Carpal Tunnel, at the wrist where they pass through a too small hole when those nerves swell up a little. The wrist will be cut up once I am back in Sweden, which they oughta have done before leaving - but Swedish hospital care might be mostly free but then it takes so much longer time to get access, sigh.....
Some leg pain is almost routine. I guess I am getting old.
I washed the noodle bowl and fork and threw them on the bed before jumping down from the toilet. Sat on the bed to put on my tight stockings to limit the swelling of the feet - and you can guess exactly what I sat on.........
So now up for coffee and noodles, Michael put in the head, then I got a call on my new Thai phone.....
From a friend, a funny girl I met a few times 3 winters ago. Always on the move, restless, she has a sister in Italy, and spent half a year there but did not enjoy it - and apparently no romance popping up, thou she does feel lonely and in need of somebody sensible. You might see her on my travel pictures from that winter if you know where to find them..... She is not really looking for a Farang, because she thinks they look down at Thai girl, but well...., she has not found any Thai guy she ever has mentioned either. Asia is crowded with nice girls who have not found a partner - especially among those who have had a closer view of the West, and seen the general philosophy here. That Western guys have the general idea of taking care of their girls while the Thai girls have the general idea of taking care of their guys. With all the variations obviously.
It can only expand the gene pool for the general benefit of humanity huh.
Now the young Thai girls have to learn that a majority of Farang guys only want to play until 40 while the girls look for something serious. While waiting for the Falang guys to grow up and mature, the gals should learn better English. Expressing feelings inter-culturally is a linguistically demanding feat!
2007-12-26
Dec 23
I had a strange dream. After coming back to Sweden I will have a minor hand operation but in the dream it was a very large operation and I had been flying with a big group of people to do it, and there was also a professor who said he knew exactly where it was. Ha, we walked and walked, he knew the university but not its hospital in that faraway country, I got lost there, and ...... woke up in mess and confusion! Had to jump up to pee.
I wonder what people DO here? The obvious thing is to enjoy sun and bath - for people who can enjoy that. I like to be close to the sea for some reason, it also often means more interesting people to look at, but I am no swimmer, and my suntan I get by walking around.
Other people only SIT. Maybe with a whisky or beer bottle close at hand. Sometimes, occasionally, it can be fun to have a beer and gossip with a stranger, even if it usually is not that long-lasting. In those cases I normally only have a small beer bottle/can - for buying a big one I need book or laptop nearby. It is obviously much nicer anyway to SIT here, than to sit on a park bench with snow falling on the shoulders.
But the environment is fine for working! Disadvantage is the chair, clearly, but the environment is nice, food nice, weather nice, sitting with the door out open, with or without fan depending on temperature and mood. I will easily sit my time out here, another 2½ months, and get some stuff done. And then hope Sweden has started thinking of spring.
Hm I saw in the mirror a pretty girl looking in.....
Night session, almost 5AM,
I have it often back in Sweden, a long evening nap and then up at the computer for a number of hours. Here, I can actually hear a cock or two starting, have not heard them before, and it is down at 24°, brrrrr. Had to put on a t-shirt. Reading, writing. I answered a mail from my old Thai girlfriend 5-6 years ago. She has a tendency always ending up in trouble, trusting people too much. After our "affair", whatever, we remained good friends, then she rather soon married a Chinese guy from China, quickly made a baby, then he dumped her in China...... So I and a Dutch mailfriend of hers had to help her out and back to Thailand. The last 3 years she has been a few times in Holland, never said she loved that guy who is even older and fatter than me!!! - thou apparently he loved her, the jealous way. Now he is demanding a lot of money back from her - apparently he has made her sign a loan paper, apparently money that she then loaned to that same Chinese former husband - but without signed papers - and you can guess the result. Now she has to sell her house in Bangkok, give the idiot in Holland half the money, and herself move back to her home village, to start some little business with her brother there........ I hope she has at least learned not to trust foreign men.
Christmas Eve,
the important Christmas Day in Sweden - sunset now, and I better go to the restaurant in time, maybe many people this day?
It was rather normal one wonders where all the tourists are, there is space for many more. I had a fat slice of Tuna at the restaurant - no similaity to the Tuna one gets in Sweden, tasted more soft and fat.
The first time or two here in Lamai, it was more crowded and definitely no empty bars for sale, as now, but still there is building going on everywhere. Unfortunately - it is rather horrible how they have built up down at the beach, so one can hardly see the sea when walking the beach lane. I have remained in the center, I hear there are lots of newly built small houses further away that one can have for 10-12000 Baht/month, less if one rents one permanently. Then someone talked about down to 5000 B/month. The thought is nice - if one has the time and money to come several times a year.
It is Dec. 26 and I woke up by the constant sound of pouring rain, pushing down the temperature to 28, now at 11 it is rather sunny again. I have checked mail, read a while in a Fantasy book in the laptop, now time to work a bit on the old Skåne map I have in the computer, putting labels on places Linné visited during his trip there, some 250 years ago. The map is rather high-quality, scanned in high resolution, and compressed with DjVu, as the other 500 scanned pages, and one can put clickable labels there - so keeping the mousepointer over a label tells when he was there, and clicking will send you to that page in his book about the trip.
I had a strange dream. After coming back to Sweden I will have a minor hand operation but in the dream it was a very large operation and I had been flying with a big group of people to do it, and there was also a professor who said he knew exactly where it was. Ha, we walked and walked, he knew the university but not its hospital in that faraway country, I got lost there, and ...... woke up in mess and confusion! Had to jump up to pee.
I wonder what people DO here? The obvious thing is to enjoy sun and bath - for people who can enjoy that. I like to be close to the sea for some reason, it also often means more interesting people to look at, but I am no swimmer, and my suntan I get by walking around.
Other people only SIT. Maybe with a whisky or beer bottle close at hand. Sometimes, occasionally, it can be fun to have a beer and gossip with a stranger, even if it usually is not that long-lasting. In those cases I normally only have a small beer bottle/can - for buying a big one I need book or laptop nearby. It is obviously much nicer anyway to SIT here, than to sit on a park bench with snow falling on the shoulders.
But the environment is fine for working! Disadvantage is the chair, clearly, but the environment is nice, food nice, weather nice, sitting with the door out open, with or without fan depending on temperature and mood. I will easily sit my time out here, another 2½ months, and get some stuff done. And then hope Sweden has started thinking of spring.
Hm I saw in the mirror a pretty girl looking in.....
Night session, almost 5AM,
I have it often back in Sweden, a long evening nap and then up at the computer for a number of hours. Here, I can actually hear a cock or two starting, have not heard them before, and it is down at 24°, brrrrr. Had to put on a t-shirt. Reading, writing. I answered a mail from my old Thai girlfriend 5-6 years ago. She has a tendency always ending up in trouble, trusting people too much. After our "affair", whatever, we remained good friends, then she rather soon married a Chinese guy from China, quickly made a baby, then he dumped her in China...... So I and a Dutch mailfriend of hers had to help her out and back to Thailand. The last 3 years she has been a few times in Holland, never said she loved that guy who is even older and fatter than me!!! - thou apparently he loved her, the jealous way. Now he is demanding a lot of money back from her - apparently he has made her sign a loan paper, apparently money that she then loaned to that same Chinese former husband - but without signed papers - and you can guess the result. Now she has to sell her house in Bangkok, give the idiot in Holland half the money, and herself move back to her home village, to start some little business with her brother there........ I hope she has at least learned not to trust foreign men.
Christmas Eve,
the important Christmas Day in Sweden - sunset now, and I better go to the restaurant in time, maybe many people this day?
It was rather normal one wonders where all the tourists are, there is space for many more. I had a fat slice of Tuna at the restaurant - no similaity to the Tuna one gets in Sweden, tasted more soft and fat.
The first time or two here in Lamai, it was more crowded and definitely no empty bars for sale, as now, but still there is building going on everywhere. Unfortunately - it is rather horrible how they have built up down at the beach, so one can hardly see the sea when walking the beach lane. I have remained in the center, I hear there are lots of newly built small houses further away that one can have for 10-12000 Baht/month, less if one rents one permanently. Then someone talked about down to 5000 B/month. The thought is nice - if one has the time and money to come several times a year.
It is Dec. 26 and I woke up by the constant sound of pouring rain, pushing down the temperature to 28, now at 11 it is rather sunny again. I have checked mail, read a while in a Fantasy book in the laptop, now time to work a bit on the old Skåne map I have in the computer, putting labels on places Linné visited during his trip there, some 250 years ago. The map is rather high-quality, scanned in high resolution, and compressed with DjVu, as the other 500 scanned pages, and one can put clickable labels there - so keeping the mousepointer over a label tells when he was there, and clicking will send you to that page in his book about the trip.
2007-12-20
Finally Internet to my room!
Monday, 08:30AM
Noodles with soap taste?????? Either that or I had not properly cleaned the plastic bowl, but I threw it, cleaned properly and now I have another pack. But that one with dark red cover, better avoid. The yellow ones are ok. Tasty but not too spicy - wonder what is written on them? It HAD been practical to learn to read Thai......
[Pic from a block away from my hotel in Bangkok - but easier to put here...]
Things are sort of stabilizing. Up rather early - 6 today, I had the fan on at its weakest over night, but do not really like the wind. So up, closed fan, opened door to get the fresh morning air and some bird song. I tried to sneak again in on the 10-minute net, got some mails down but could not send. The hotel girl I have talked to, will check about getting internet to the room and maybe come and tell me in the afternoon what will be. I got mail from them with what I expected - that they have bridges/amplifiers for 3500B they can put up to get better signal, and then pay per hour.
There is a Swedish restaurant the other side of this block I am told, Soppköket "The Soup Kitchen", where they also have free wireless internet, but I feel no desire at all for Swedish food so..... Maybe it is stupid not to check, maybe there I could get some variety of my usual morning of coffee and a pack of instant noodles - like some real noodle soup......
[From the famous Popiang, my usual hangout in Bangkok.]
Health? Slowly improving I guess, still some lid over the ears, but maybe a tiny bit better in one of them?
My routine - well, had a beach walk yesterday at 5PM, better than in the morning when it is totally empty, but still too early to pick up some spits of food along the pavement in some food stall, so today I will take my walk a bit later. Should go to internet - Soppköket??? For a coffee or something at lunchtime??? Michael, the Swedish guy, said it is open from early morning until 6PM.
Michael passed and ah well - sat talking in Soppköket for a few hours to a bunch of Swedish guys. Was ok enough for a change..... ฺ3 young guys passing quickly by, the owner, a Swedish guy who has lived here for 5 years, former high school teacher, got trouble with a new boss and moved here. A number of retired people, some because of age [too much], some because of health [too little], also one guy around 50, who worked here in the housing business, housing for Swedes who want to buy a bungalow or small house here. He is making something like 30000 kronor a month on that - told about his boss here, who - ah well - just had written 400.000 kronor of "expenses" on the company, so they were now keeping a close watch on him, on the other hand he was the one with all the contacts with the right persons that is absolutely necessary here in the Wild East.......
Back to the room, nap, out for a walk then dinner of prawn and mushroom salad - imm laew - full now! Hm, bar life outside, but I do not really register it.Still not lots of tourists, wonder how many there will be for Christmas.
I also passed the hotel, talked to the girl, she had called about internet for me, they should call back but still had not. Let's see tomorrow. That gal is nice, good English, the same age as my wife, got an English bf. I wonder what is wrong with the Thai guys - all Thai girls one meets, almost, prefers Western guys???
Rather tired but that is reasonable - at least I am at the best place to recover.
Dec 19, 10:30
Breakfast executed, coffee and noodles, surprise, surprise. Soon I will go out in the sun, down to 7/11 for a change, I remember they have a bit of different things compared to the MiniMart here.
Feel reasonable today, slept fairly well, back in Sweden I almost never sleep the night through but first a nap of 2-3 hours, then up doing things for a few hours. Here it has been very mixed, better with a siesta when it is hottest.
I paid for 60 hours of internet but still no amplifyer - maybe I will get it today, someone wanted to sell his for 500B, new, otherwise it costs 3500B.
14:00
I walked my round, found nowhere to sit and rest - the restaurant at the sea has invented high steps impossible for me to use. Back to 7/11, Yui called meanwhile. Early in Lund, but she felt lonely. Also got a can of Heineken so rested on the bench outside the shop with that, looking at pretty girls. I wonder - the authorities here must get a LOT of tourist money, not that one sees what they are used for. Put up a school for all the girls here with maximum 6 years of schooling, so they must go there 2 hours a day........
In front of me some small round bars, at the pavement a small temple to pray at, The biggest and highest of the bars - hm - in the top sits a normal Christian cross! Makes the tourists feel at home I guess.
During my beach walk a kid smiled up at me, and his mama said "hi Santa, got a gift for me?" I suppose my hairy face has a neutral position looking friendly.
Yui called shortly while I took my walk, hm, worried at 5AM? Yes, had been much better if she had been along. Working on our laptops. Having a bungalow - they are not expensive, one can have a decent one permanently for 5000B/month, the only trouble being that I cannot go there without motorbike. I wonder what it would cost to rent one of those jeeps? Probably more than the 4000B for a motorbike for a month.
I do not have to remind that there are 5B for a Swedish Krona, huh.
Hm, one of the pretty cleaning gals waved and smiled, but no comment about Santa..... I had some plans to go for shopping before my nap, then somebody opened the tap. Some calm, but then when I was almost on its way it poured down again, noisily, now it is sunshine.
Dec. 20, 10:45
Finally! Half an hour go two friendly guys came banging on my door, and now it seems the Internet is up at full speed! 1500B for the bridge, I had to configure and guess a bit, but now it seems fine! No, it did not work out of the box as suggested but - well - with intuition based on 25 years of computer experiences, no deal. Now I just have to learn to disconnect, as I pay for every minute..... Sending this, then disconnect!
Noodles with soap taste?????? Either that or I had not properly cleaned the plastic bowl, but I threw it, cleaned properly and now I have another pack. But that one with dark red cover, better avoid. The yellow ones are ok. Tasty but not too spicy - wonder what is written on them? It HAD been practical to learn to read Thai......
[Pic from a block away from my hotel in Bangkok - but easier to put here...]
Things are sort of stabilizing. Up rather early - 6 today, I had the fan on at its weakest over night, but do not really like the wind. So up, closed fan, opened door to get the fresh morning air and some bird song. I tried to sneak again in on the 10-minute net, got some mails down but could not send. The hotel girl I have talked to, will check about getting internet to the room and maybe come and tell me in the afternoon what will be. I got mail from them with what I expected - that they have bridges/amplifiers for 3500B they can put up to get better signal, and then pay per hour.
There is a Swedish restaurant the other side of this block I am told, Soppköket "The Soup Kitchen", where they also have free wireless internet, but I feel no desire at all for Swedish food so..... Maybe it is stupid not to check, maybe there I could get some variety of my usual morning of coffee and a pack of instant noodles - like some real noodle soup......
[From the famous Popiang, my usual hangout in Bangkok.]Health? Slowly improving I guess, still some lid over the ears, but maybe a tiny bit better in one of them?
My routine - well, had a beach walk yesterday at 5PM, better than in the morning when it is totally empty, but still too early to pick up some spits of food along the pavement in some food stall, so today I will take my walk a bit later. Should go to internet - Soppköket??? For a coffee or something at lunchtime??? Michael, the Swedish guy, said it is open from early morning until 6PM.
Michael passed and ah well - sat talking in Soppköket for a few hours to a bunch of Swedish guys. Was ok enough for a change..... ฺ3 young guys passing quickly by, the owner, a Swedish guy who has lived here for 5 years, former high school teacher, got trouble with a new boss and moved here. A number of retired people, some because of age [too much], some because of health [too little], also one guy around 50, who worked here in the housing business, housing for Swedes who want to buy a bungalow or small house here. He is making something like 30000 kronor a month on that - told about his boss here, who - ah well - just had written 400.000 kronor of "expenses" on the company, so they were now keeping a close watch on him, on the other hand he was the one with all the contacts with the right persons that is absolutely necessary here in the Wild East.......
Back to the room, nap, out for a walk then dinner of prawn and mushroom salad - imm laew - full now! Hm, bar life outside, but I do not really register it.Still not lots of tourists, wonder how many there will be for Christmas.
I also passed the hotel, talked to the girl, she had called about internet for me, they should call back but still had not. Let's see tomorrow. That gal is nice, good English, the same age as my wife, got an English bf. I wonder what is wrong with the Thai guys - all Thai girls one meets, almost, prefers Western guys???
Rather tired but that is reasonable - at least I am at the best place to recover.
Dec 19, 10:30
Breakfast executed, coffee and noodles, surprise, surprise. Soon I will go out in the sun, down to 7/11 for a change, I remember they have a bit of different things compared to the MiniMart here.
Feel reasonable today, slept fairly well, back in Sweden I almost never sleep the night through but first a nap of 2-3 hours, then up doing things for a few hours. Here it has been very mixed, better with a siesta when it is hottest.
I paid for 60 hours of internet but still no amplifyer - maybe I will get it today, someone wanted to sell his for 500B, new, otherwise it costs 3500B.
14:00
I walked my round, found nowhere to sit and rest - the restaurant at the sea has invented high steps impossible for me to use. Back to 7/11, Yui called meanwhile. Early in Lund, but she felt lonely. Also got a can of Heineken so rested on the bench outside the shop with that, looking at pretty girls. I wonder - the authorities here must get a LOT of tourist money, not that one sees what they are used for. Put up a school for all the girls here with maximum 6 years of schooling, so they must go there 2 hours a day........
In front of me some small round bars, at the pavement a small temple to pray at, The biggest and highest of the bars - hm - in the top sits a normal Christian cross! Makes the tourists feel at home I guess.
During my beach walk a kid smiled up at me, and his mama said "hi Santa, got a gift for me?" I suppose my hairy face has a neutral position looking friendly.
Yui called shortly while I took my walk, hm, worried at 5AM? Yes, had been much better if she had been along. Working on our laptops. Having a bungalow - they are not expensive, one can have a decent one permanently for 5000B/month, the only trouble being that I cannot go there without motorbike. I wonder what it would cost to rent one of those jeeps? Probably more than the 4000B for a motorbike for a month.
I do not have to remind that there are 5B for a Swedish Krona, huh.
Hm, one of the pretty cleaning gals waved and smiled, but no comment about Santa..... I had some plans to go for shopping before my nap, then somebody opened the tap. Some calm, but then when I was almost on its way it poured down again, noisily, now it is sunshine.
Dec. 20, 10:45
Finally! Half an hour go two friendly guys came banging on my door, and now it seems the Internet is up at full speed! 1500B for the bridge, I had to configure and guess a bit, but now it seems fine! No, it did not work out of the box as suggested but - well - with intuition based on 25 years of computer experiences, no deal. Now I just have to learn to disconnect, as I pay for every minute..... Sending this, then disconnect!
2007-12-08
Next . . .
Bad Bad
I just came back from 2 days in the hospital - the flu just made me more and more tired, so Yui sent a friend to pick me up and take me there. And yes, acute bronchitis. So intravenous antibiotics etc., and now I definitely feel better - but still getting rather serious cough attacks. I got antibiotics pills for a week, and also some for the cough.
As soon as I started to eat fairly normally I felt the crisis was over - even though I do not eat big amounts, but that is also partially because I am used to sit at home at the computer with the food - a definite reason why I have to change keyboards rather often. That is ok but not good for the laptop.
No fun - not cheap at 18000 Baht, but an experience! Next experience will be to get most of the money back on the travel insurance in Sweden - my experiences are not too excellent. My Thai wife got a chock over the price level, but then she is used to the cheap hospitals here for average countryside people, which ARE rather crowded. She once had an appendicitis that had to be cut out and well - not too esthetic but she cannot be perfect everywhere.
I just looked over the specified bill, and am thinking of the costs that one never sees in Sweden, for hospital care. I mean - this is the real cost, not one with subventions on top of subventions to the bitter end! Wonder how much I will be refunded from the travel insurance and the stingy company - until a few years ago I paid extra for the time beyond those usual 45 days included in the home insurance, and one winter it was almost as much as the air ticket! Then I heard about an Australian internet insurance company for reasonably-prized travel insurances - think it is appr. 100 euros for 2 months, so I have had that ever since.
The King's birthday today, which tells you if the traffic jam got more or less intense..... still it worked, the hospital had ordered the taxi, so I did not have to fight with one, and he found a reasonably sneaky way on smaller streets, that were not packed.
I should feel tomorrow if it is time to go - I do feel better, definitively, and I have booked a room on Koh Samui from the 11th, so I guess that tomorrow it is time to book a flight there - I do not get better here, the air there is definitely better for my lungs than the city air of Bangkok, and then I can start to find time to work on my laptop. This is supposed to be a work winter, not a holiday - holiday from - what? Being a sick pensioner?...... As long as my brains work, then I have to accept that the body gets tired easier. Ge ting a sick pension ought to be when your body is worse off than the average 65 years old, no?
The difference in level between people here is probably like in Sweden 75 years ago? Before social security came into the lives of people and they stopped relying on themselves only. Before rich were rich and poor were poor, with a business and a rich farmer class in between. Everyone survived, sort of. Did you read the Swedish book Lortsverige? I even think it was published in English, as "Dirt Sweden", not sure. A famous Swedish journalist travelled all over Sweden in 1938 to document the life of poor people, and the development that changed a lot in those days. He was also a radio journalist, I think the whole trip was also in parts, in radio. He had got a long list of official people who would show him how people lived, the development, how the real poor were helped. Among his sources, the best ones were the countryside doctors, the worst the priests..... Most of the priests knew very little about the very poor, with only a few exceptions.
Here in Thailand it is also easy to see that the class differences are large. One obvious thing is, that most people are a bit darker in the poorer north-eastern Isaan region, like in old Sweden - white skin was beautiful...... A normal Bangkok guy does not want to be seen with such a girl unless it is obvious she is from one of the rich well-educated families - and thus over-spoiled and looking even more down at brown poor people. Nowadays it causes some confusion because most Western guys, Falangs, think the Isaan girls are much prettier :) One can wonder what their potential Thai husbands think of the march of their girls to the West - already to Sweden something like 1000 Thai girls a year! But costs being what they are - a restaurant girl here who serves food 10-12 hours a day might get 5-7000 Baht/month plus tips - so I am usually generous with that, it is still small money for me. Nurses still often get less than 10000B, a top office girl - wonder if they can pass 30.000B (and then she still often spends 10 hours a day at the job - officiallly 8 but...}, so it is rather difficult for them to save up for a return ticket, that might cost 45000B or so.
The other way is also possible - many Falangs with Thai wives, often but not always rather much younger - retire early to Thailand and enjoy a life without cold and with friendly people everywhere! The latest I heard was that with a marriage visa, you had to show a monthly income together of above 40.000B, and many pensions are quite a bit above the sum. The retiree visa, that you can get if you are over 55 (or is it 50?) requires 60000B/month or deposit in a Thai bank of 400.000B (or was it 800.000? )
Time to finish noodles and coffee and go out in the sun!
The next problem: no pleasant rest in the hong naam ("water room") for a week! I got some herbal pills yesterday that would guarantee some activities in the morning but - nope, so down to the main farmacy at Khao San when I go out now soon. I start to be convinced that is some kind of "FörsäkringsKassan's Revenge" still going on from last year, when they harassed me no end. Having experienced the East German STASI in those days, their customs ladies on the trains with eyes with fire and beaming pure evil, most of the employers at FK give me the feeling that the same personalities could have taken any of these two jobs. I guess I mentioned that they stopped me from going here last winter as a pure harassment - I was on sick leave with many papers saying that I must go here in winter as I do not manage the Swedish winter anymore - but their imagination at finding reasons to stop me.... They also "tested" me several times, to see if I had "escaped" their claws and thus given them the pleasure of stopping my sick money and killing me while abroad.
Will get a ticket to Samui from the travel agency gal out here now when I go out. I think there is no basic problem left in me, except that I am very tired and need to recover in peace and sunshine. I think it is 3500B for that ticket, 700 kronor, and I could not get a bus trip of that distance, some 800 kms, for the same price in Sweden. In general prices in Sweden are ludicrous because of all tax on tax on tax. The new government has given very little of what had been hoped. A complete overhaul of the system by someone who has lived in this region for years, had helped. Here one CAN live very cheaply, and some have not had a chance to take one step up - on the other hand, they have the challenge knowing that it will really be a step up, and not eaten by taxes!
Many seem to accept it, see the water sellers along the street - probably more pleasant thou less money than the street sweeper. At the same time they do not spit on everyone richer - and especially not their beloved King who has governed them for 60 years by now. I remember vaguely once in the fifties, when our family was visited by American relatives. when everyone was oooh and aaah over their luxury, still very friendly, and trying to remember some of the old Swedish - few here spoke a useable English then. After all, German had been the second language until ten years earlier.
Exactly what the Thais think of us Farangs one can wonder - of course depending on their level of education. Many here only have their 6 years in elementary school - if that - (remember my mother had had 5 years of schooling, sometimes every second day) while most of the friends of my wife here, are advanced students, like the friend who took me to the hospital , working on her PhD in biochemistry. She and her friend took me to the hospital, while discussing cultivation of virus shells and DNA.... I am fascinated by intelligent girls - I mean, many girls are nice to talk to, many smart men can be so too - but to have both properties in one package, like my wife, is something :)
OK, it takes a bit more - my Thai gf 5-6 years ago, has both, we are still good friends (and will meet tomorrow) but - she had stopped her development, what broke our relation was rather much that she did not want to put an effort in improving her English to make a more sophisticated exchange of thoughts possible. Am I demanding huh? My wife had a better level of English to start with, and she is studying Swedish now, and soon improving her English too. It is sort of amusing - got a very intellectual friend in Sweden, and while he never found it very interesting to communicate with the first girl, he finds Yui much more interesting, took us all out for a ride in the Swedish summer nature rather often during Yui's first half year there, and he has never done that with ME so.......
I write this on the laptop in my room, never transferred it to the web yesterday, had enough trouble getting down the e-mail, but have to remember to start with that tonight.
Out in the sun!
I just came back from 2 days in the hospital - the flu just made me more and more tired, so Yui sent a friend to pick me up and take me there. And yes, acute bronchitis. So intravenous antibiotics etc., and now I definitely feel better - but still getting rather serious cough attacks. I got antibiotics pills for a week, and also some for the cough.
As soon as I started to eat fairly normally I felt the crisis was over - even though I do not eat big amounts, but that is also partially because I am used to sit at home at the computer with the food - a definite reason why I have to change keyboards rather often. That is ok but not good for the laptop.
No fun - not cheap at 18000 Baht, but an experience! Next experience will be to get most of the money back on the travel insurance in Sweden - my experiences are not too excellent. My Thai wife got a chock over the price level, but then she is used to the cheap hospitals here for average countryside people, which ARE rather crowded. She once had an appendicitis that had to be cut out and well - not too esthetic but she cannot be perfect everywhere.
I just looked over the specified bill, and am thinking of the costs that one never sees in Sweden, for hospital care. I mean - this is the real cost, not one with subventions on top of subventions to the bitter end! Wonder how much I will be refunded from the travel insurance and the stingy company - until a few years ago I paid extra for the time beyond those usual 45 days included in the home insurance, and one winter it was almost as much as the air ticket! Then I heard about an Australian internet insurance company for reasonably-prized travel insurances - think it is appr. 100 euros for 2 months, so I have had that ever since.
The King's birthday today, which tells you if the traffic jam got more or less intense..... still it worked, the hospital had ordered the taxi, so I did not have to fight with one, and he found a reasonably sneaky way on smaller streets, that were not packed.
Dec. 6
I should feel tomorrow if it is time to go - I do feel better, definitively, and I have booked a room on Koh Samui from the 11th, so I guess that tomorrow it is time to book a flight there - I do not get better here, the air there is definitely better for my lungs than the city air of Bangkok, and then I can start to find time to work on my laptop. This is supposed to be a work winter, not a holiday - holiday from - what? Being a sick pensioner?...... As long as my brains work, then I have to accept that the body gets tired easier. Ge ting a sick pension ought to be when your body is worse off than the average 65 years old, no?
The difference in level between people here is probably like in Sweden 75 years ago? Before social security came into the lives of people and they stopped relying on themselves only. Before rich were rich and poor were poor, with a business and a rich farmer class in between. Everyone survived, sort of. Did you read the Swedish book Lortsverige? I even think it was published in English, as "Dirt Sweden", not sure. A famous Swedish journalist travelled all over Sweden in 1938 to document the life of poor people, and the development that changed a lot in those days. He was also a radio journalist, I think the whole trip was also in parts, in radio. He had got a long list of official people who would show him how people lived, the development, how the real poor were helped. Among his sources, the best ones were the countryside doctors, the worst the priests..... Most of the priests knew very little about the very poor, with only a few exceptions.
Here in Thailand it is also easy to see that the class differences are large. One obvious thing is, that most people are a bit darker in the poorer north-eastern Isaan region, like in old Sweden - white skin was beautiful...... A normal Bangkok guy does not want to be seen with such a girl unless it is obvious she is from one of the rich well-educated families - and thus over-spoiled and looking even more down at brown poor people. Nowadays it causes some confusion because most Western guys, Falangs, think the Isaan girls are much prettier :) One can wonder what their potential Thai husbands think of the march of their girls to the West - already to Sweden something like 1000 Thai girls a year! But costs being what they are - a restaurant girl here who serves food 10-12 hours a day might get 5-7000 Baht/month plus tips - so I am usually generous with that, it is still small money for me. Nurses still often get less than 10000B, a top office girl - wonder if they can pass 30.000B (and then she still often spends 10 hours a day at the job - officiallly 8 but...}, so it is rather difficult for them to save up for a return ticket, that might cost 45000B or so.
The other way is also possible - many Falangs with Thai wives, often but not always rather much younger - retire early to Thailand and enjoy a life without cold and with friendly people everywhere! The latest I heard was that with a marriage visa, you had to show a monthly income together of above 40.000B, and many pensions are quite a bit above the sum. The retiree visa, that you can get if you are over 55 (or is it 50?) requires 60000B/month or deposit in a Thai bank of 400.000B (or was it 800.000? )
Time to finish noodles and coffee and go out in the sun!
Dec. 7
Have the usual coffee and noodles in the morning. Yesterday routine starts to go back to normal, homemade coffee/noodles as breakfast then out for fruit sallad in the sun, then rest, then to Popiang. I could not eat more than half the mackerel but good so.The next problem: no pleasant rest in the hong naam ("water room") for a week! I got some herbal pills yesterday that would guarantee some activities in the morning but - nope, so down to the main farmacy at Khao San when I go out now soon. I start to be convinced that is some kind of "FörsäkringsKassan's Revenge" still going on from last year, when they harassed me no end. Having experienced the East German STASI in those days, their customs ladies on the trains with eyes with fire and beaming pure evil, most of the employers at FK give me the feeling that the same personalities could have taken any of these two jobs. I guess I mentioned that they stopped me from going here last winter as a pure harassment - I was on sick leave with many papers saying that I must go here in winter as I do not manage the Swedish winter anymore - but their imagination at finding reasons to stop me.... They also "tested" me several times, to see if I had "escaped" their claws and thus given them the pleasure of stopping my sick money and killing me while abroad.
Yahoo
If you use that, get an alternative immediately! Hotmail, Gmail, whatever, and tell all your friends! They seem to have lots of problems, lately. Most if not all mails I have sent to Yahoo addresses, have returned a "not processed, a temporary problem" - so if you are one of my friends and have expected mail, that is the reason! Do something quickly! Yahoo must lose millions on it, especially as it has last for weeks.Will get a ticket to Samui from the travel agency gal out here now when I go out. I think there is no basic problem left in me, except that I am very tired and need to recover in peace and sunshine. I think it is 3500B for that ticket, 700 kronor, and I could not get a bus trip of that distance, some 800 kms, for the same price in Sweden. In general prices in Sweden are ludicrous because of all tax on tax on tax. The new government has given very little of what had been hoped. A complete overhaul of the system by someone who has lived in this region for years, had helped. Here one CAN live very cheaply, and some have not had a chance to take one step up - on the other hand, they have the challenge knowing that it will really be a step up, and not eaten by taxes!
Many seem to accept it, see the water sellers along the street - probably more pleasant thou less money than the street sweeper. At the same time they do not spit on everyone richer - and especially not their beloved King who has governed them for 60 years by now. I remember vaguely once in the fifties, when our family was visited by American relatives. when everyone was oooh and aaah over their luxury, still very friendly, and trying to remember some of the old Swedish - few here spoke a useable English then. After all, German had been the second language until ten years earlier.
Exactly what the Thais think of us Farangs one can wonder - of course depending on their level of education. Many here only have their 6 years in elementary school - if that - (remember my mother had had 5 years of schooling, sometimes every second day) while most of the friends of my wife here, are advanced students, like the friend who took me to the hospital , working on her PhD in biochemistry. She and her friend took me to the hospital, while discussing cultivation of virus shells and DNA.... I am fascinated by intelligent girls - I mean, many girls are nice to talk to, many smart men can be so too - but to have both properties in one package, like my wife, is something :)
OK, it takes a bit more - my Thai gf 5-6 years ago, has both, we are still good friends (and will meet tomorrow) but - she had stopped her development, what broke our relation was rather much that she did not want to put an effort in improving her English to make a more sophisticated exchange of thoughts possible. Am I demanding huh? My wife had a better level of English to start with, and she is studying Swedish now, and soon improving her English too. It is sort of amusing - got a very intellectual friend in Sweden, and while he never found it very interesting to communicate with the first girl, he finds Yui much more interesting, took us all out for a ride in the Swedish summer nature rather often during Yui's first half year there, and he has never done that with ME so.......
I write this on the laptop in my room, never transferred it to the web yesterday, had enough trouble getting down the e-mail, but have to remember to start with that tonight.
Out in the sun!
2007-11-25
Caught a Cold, damn.....
I have hardly had a cold this year, have not met a lot of people after all, but NOW... I was out shopping Friday, after my evening nap I started to feel a sore throat! Now Sunday, tomorrow I go - good that Yui packed most of the stuff yesterday, so just making a check today so I have not taken anything I do not need - but the real necessary stuff like the medicines in the little backpack. That, the laptop and some junk food for the waiting in the airports.
I have some shrimp cakes for breakfast, not tried that before. She found a packet in the Asian food shop in Malmö, so I got it now with a sauce of fish sauce, chili and garlic, very tasty! The shrimps smaller than the usual one gets here in Sweden but not quite as small as the jumping shrimps one eats in Thailand, where you have to hunt them with the chopsticks.
Evening, the progress of this cold, ah well, woke up from my nap coughing, immediately Yui wanted help to translate a bit of Buddhism to English and Swedish and I got headache again. Well, she had made a translation to English, her English is ok but up to writing reliigious texts, while I tried to avoid making it sound too Christian. She sent one version to the monk residing in the temple here out in the countryside, and got some suggestions back - he knows English well enough and has been here - 2 years or so.
I have some shrimp cakes for breakfast, not tried that before. She found a packet in the Asian food shop in Malmö, so I got it now with a sauce of fish sauce, chili and garlic, very tasty! The shrimps smaller than the usual one gets here in Sweden but not quite as small as the jumping shrimps one eats in Thailand, where you have to hunt them with the chopsticks.
Evening, the progress of this cold, ah well, woke up from my nap coughing, immediately Yui wanted help to translate a bit of Buddhism to English and Swedish and I got headache again. Well, she had made a translation to English, her English is ok but up to writing reliigious texts, while I tried to avoid making it sound too Christian. She sent one version to the monk residing in the temple here out in the countryside, and got some suggestions back - he knows English well enough and has been here - 2 years or so.
2007-11-24
Going in two days
Saturday morning, we slept late. Then we took a few pictures - I was off shopping yesterday, earphone with mic to bring along, a half-liter water boiler for coffee and noodle water, and a small table tripod for the camera. Always thought I should get one, so we just tested it - works!
I am the one with the spots in the face... When I was to the skin doc, for a yearly checkup after the malign melanom I cut away 2-3 years ago, he checked all spots in the face, nothing threatening, but as I was anyway there, he used the freeze spray to kill them with frost - so once it has healed and fallen off I will look as well as new! Wished I could do the same with the stomach.
I am the one with the spots in the face... When I was to the skin doc, for a yearly checkup after the malign melanom I cut away 2-3 years ago, he checked all spots in the face, nothing threatening, but as I was anyway there, he used the freeze spray to kill them with frost - so once it has healed and fallen off I will look as well as new! Wished I could do the same with the stomach.
So - when we were at the archive Wednesday we were nicely celebrated, the web design company of the family Haglund... The Landsarkivarie talked about this new project - the boss of my old work place that takes care of all old documents from southern Sweden, has the duty to preserve them the next thousand years, and also make them accessible for people who want to study them. And to save on the wear and tear of the original documents - this way to do research and have all of the material online and not only registers of them, as is usual, was considered a bit of a first. Culture personalities, historical researchers, especially those doing research about Linné, and also the present-day representative of the family of the man who had written lots of corrections and additions to the Linné Travel in Southern Sweden, both the book and the notes 250 years old, was there. He had lent the book to the archive for scanning. The following day they wrote about the event in SDS, the biggest daily paper in southern Sweden. http://sydsvenskan.se/skane/article281512.ece
You can find it also in my server http://arqivariet.no-ip.info where lots of other historical documents reside.
The consequences are of course that we will hopefully get more similar jobs in the future - it is Yui's company and I am inofficial consultant, as I am retired because of my bad health. 50 years of diabetes and kidneys on the way to dialysis DOES make my body tired, but as long as the brain has not collapsed, I am allowed to use it, no?
Later in the day - we have packed and double-checked the medicine I have to bring along, More than half the little back-pack only for that - it starts to be worn so should buy a new one, a step bigger, in Bangkok. I am ot gonna put the medicines in the big travel bag - things there I CAN lose, but the other one I want to watch all the time.
You can find it also in my server http://arqivariet.no-ip.info where lots of other historical documents reside.
The consequences are of course that we will hopefully get more similar jobs in the future - it is Yui's company and I am inofficial consultant, as I am retired because of my bad health. 50 years of diabetes and kidneys on the way to dialysis DOES make my body tired, but as long as the brain has not collapsed, I am allowed to use it, no?
Later in the day - we have packed and double-checked the medicine I have to bring along, More than half the little back-pack only for that - it starts to be worn so should buy a new one, a step bigger, in Bangkok. I am ot gonna put the medicines in the big travel bag - things there I CAN lose, but the other one I want to watch all the time.
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