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!

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.

Warm day

I took my outdoor walk today without pain in the left hip, good. I could even buy fresh milk for the coffee!

Once in a while I sit outdoors where I can listen to all people - and it scares me. I do not have my nose in the air but - do they have no interests at all except what's been on TV? They seemed to have the coming TV program memorized and the daily routine according to that. For the rest, some know about sports sigh..... Probably healthy to participate, but to look at sweaty guys with empty eyes???

I remember when I was in a cheap ($5/night) hotel in Phnom Penh, the only good thing with it was the good pirate decoder to the TV (but the cabling was scary....) - they seemed to have the cable TV broadcasts from most Asian countries around, plus the main Western ones. Sometimes I even looked at sports - like a Japanese channel that regularly sent progs from female mud wrestling, kinda cute.

A friend of mine goes down to Pattaya in mid-November, a month before me, so he will check for suitable apartments. He just called another Swedish guy there, who talked about furnished apartments 5500-15000 Baht/month. I am comparing with those 8000B I paid on Koh Samui, the general prices are lower in Pattaya. I do not need any luxury, no TV, stereo, swimming pool.... I just need accessibility for me, not lots of stairs and high jumps to make, one of the problems with my last place on Samui. I would appreciate a WiFi in the room of course, to get cheaper internet.I asked my friend, so he will investigate. Otherwise I use the mobile phone - Yui did like that in her home village, rather cheap and reasonably fast, 0.5 Mbits/sec or so.

I definitely enjoy the thought of being able to sit and read/write on the laptop with a view out over the Chinese Sea!

Heard again from my friend - he meant that according to his experience lots of places where he has stayed has WiFi.

Sneaking around, I came in on some Swedish tourist sites about Pattaya, talking so much about everything you can do, that you can do as well at home, about all the Western restaurants???? Heck, I try to avoid them! I remember last time in Pattaya I walked around a number of blocks searching for a genuine cheapie Thai restaurant before I found one!

OK, at those places the food and a big Chang is the same price, but so what.

I also came in on some sites about retiring in Pattaya - telling the obvious things like you had to look at a dozen places or two before deciding where to stay, but especially the fact that it is so horribly boring to be a pensioner with nothing to do and nothing to think about until you die....... I am happy I will never have THAT problem, until the first stroke. Always interesting stuff to read and write and contemplate.

Dreaming on

Days go and I sit in my pig sty. I had lots of pain in my left hip joint for a few days so I could not go out, tomorrow I really should as it feels almost ok.

If you look at where I have written about my last four winters in Thailand - well, I also wrote about Sweden as an interlude between my Thailand trips, virtually nothing happened here. It was like a yearly 9-month wait for some action! Thailand might possibly be somewhat passivating mentally - thou it is better since I started to bring a laptop along - while here I am more mentally active but physically - NOT. I know I have to move much more, but - forcing myself to go out only to move around a bit, is plain boring.

Birds still singing outside

The balcony door is wide open, half sun outdoors, I should really take a walk.

Yui came home after her month at home. After 2½ years in Sweden, she saw how poor her village is, she wanted to put more money on some improvements than only a new fridge - the first for her mother - but as long as we live on my disability pension (diabetes)....... She will start with Informatics at the uni in a month, The coming 3 years will be full for her, then hopefully she is a top student, her Swedish has matured and the economy has improved and she will get horribly rich.

As far as I have heard it is not too hard to be a top student on that course..... It is "systems sciences" and not computer science. She is pretty good with many aspects of computer handling, so she will have that for free, many are beginners. I was teaching programming there last century and well......

A good point is that she will miss me less when I go for 3 months to Thailand - which I need very much if I do not want to browse around on internet for a second-hand wheel chair very soon. Besides she plans to get a kitten, so then she will probably not miss her Pig at all.¨

Summer in Sweden!

So - sent my wife off home today. No, already yesterday, today is the longest day of the year, from now on it will become darker and darker and darker.

Obviously only temporary - she has not been home with her family for 2½ years, we have no money to go more than once each this year, I need to go in winter because of my rotten body, see last post, and then she got no time. Yui has not got "accepted" yet to the university course, too early, but she has many more points for it than needed, and all the necessary prerequisites so no risk she will not get it. And then she will be busy from September 1st and the coming 3 years, will hardly see when I pop off in the most rotten weather, probably around mid-December, for 3 months.

Yui took Austrian, so I got a quick call from Vienna, before she jumped on the big plane, taking her to Bangkok in 10 hours, so she is on the plane now. Once in BKK she will take taxi to some node point at the outskirts of BKK, where her brother will drive from the home village and pick her up with his pickup truck. He is not experienced in driving in BKK or to the airport, so that is easier. Taxis are still cheap in most places of Thailand (except out of my jungle island, Samui.....) so in BKK one can go for an hour for 100B or so. From the new airport, ah well, 3-400 Baht if one forces the guy to switch on the taxi meter, a must.

She has speculated forth and back, she wants to spend half the month in her home village with family, and half in BKK with friends and with shopping. but as we all know, things change from day to day, probably also it will end with a full minibus of villagers going to the airport with her in the end with her (i.e. me) paying a few thousand bath for the trip, as it is a sensation for all of them to see this new big place. It IS a big jump from village to Suvarnabhumi airport!

Being retired, feeling the wet nose of death on my neck, obviously creates all kinds of feelings. I got my particular brand of religion - you know, these etheral thoughts in all human beings including those who consider it a weakness to hope there is something stronger and smarter than themselves. I often wonder if I have created something good with my life - I can only hope so. I think I am considered a positive person, with my kind of sharp logic. I have not been able to do my biological duty of creating 2.1 babies, so I have to do things some other way. There are a million religious and philosophical sayings and I hope that some suit me. Did I spread some wisdom? Did I acquire enough to spread? I am not to say.

I grew up in the Pentecostal Church, with its advantages and limitations, I went to Israel the first time in 1971 and started to acquire another kind of understandings among intelligent and beautiful people there. I learned a lot during more than a dozen trips there, up to 5 months each, in the seventies-eighties, just a few occasional visits after that.

My first trip to Southeast Asia back in 1975, as a young student - sigh..... A real pity I did not start writing a proper diary then! I wrote tons of post cards to friends and family with the smallest possible handwriting, not preserved. In spite of having diabetes since 9, my mother, the typical hen mother, was never worried about my travels, more like she expected it. OK, I was well grounded , my father loved italy and loved to drive there with the family during the summer holidays. 1955, 1958, 1962, 1965, 1966-68 with an old caravan. if I remember right. We lived in Osby during those years when I grew up. I just now have such a clear memory when we tanked the car, with the caravan behind, at one of the petrol stations there, before driving south, before everyone had been south on the charter trips. Before Spies filled old propeller planes with people down to Mallorca end of the sixties....... Remember in 1970 or so, as a new university student I popped off with one of those planes to Mallorca, 4 hours sounding like an old bus, think it was 1972, after a successful exam.

A lot in a human life after all! In some aspects people have compared me with my grandpa on my mother's side - he loved books even thou he had no formal education. Farmer, son of farmers, up in central Sweden in the forest. He had never travelled, once or twice he came down to us in southern Sweden, what I remember from that is that he loved eating pig feet! I have acquired that taste, scaring off the crowd here :) If I remember right one had to put the feet first in very salty water for 3 days, then boil.

I actually have a plate here beside me......

Bedtime.

One year later . . .

Everything pains in my body. 

I have spent all winter in Sweden! Certainly, southern Sweden, but bad enough - I have extremely bad balance so I cannot go out when there is risk for slippery roads or it is windy - and anyway southern Sweden looks horribly boring in that weather. We do not even have much snow like up north, sort of more beautiful. If you look from the indoors out.

Back pains, legs pain, we just came home from a walk in the sun, the first one this year when I only needed a jeans jacket over the sweater and t-shirt 

Me and my Thai wife are happy enough here, but we live on my pension, and even if it is somewhat better now (as it is because of bad health, not age) than it will be when I turn 65, so we can afford food and rent, there are no money to go out to eat or fancy stuff like that - if we do so, we have to save for a month!

The expensive but necessary thing is to go to Thailand.

It is too expensive "just to go". I have a lousy economy but no time constraints, Yui has no money and time constraints.  She has not met her family for 2½ years, home in the village, see pictures on her website, she has studied Swedish since she came to Sweden and also boosted up her English to the level people learn here in high school. Around September she will start computer studies here at the university - very hard to get a qualified computer job in Sweden without - and then hopefully the trend and economy will be ideal for her. And for me......

Obviously our dream is to have a small house in Thailand somewhere. Her dream and the dream of her family is to have a small house in her village, my dream is - not. I know my limitations. I still have my driving licence, I COULD drive - but have not done it for ten years. My health is - well, the lab told the doc that it was slightly better a month ago than last summer, still - I get tired very fast, my eyes are - still ok, but also getting tired fast. 

I dream of life in Thailand really! Have a small bungalow or similar - a fridge and aircon and hot water, well...... is that too much? I had it for 8000 Bath last time I wrote here, and they have problems getting tourists now, for political reasons (that you do not feel anything of except in some parts of Bangkok) so mostly it is the same price or lower - I hope at least to be able to go to the same place next winter for a while. find a better room - better in the sense of more accessible for me. The room I have had for 3 winters there - the room itself is ok, but there is a high stone edge in front, that is a big risk with my bad balance, every time, nothing to hold in when getting up and down. Ah well, should not be hard to find another room or bungalow.

A colleague is in Thailand now, have not heard from him for a month or so but he might still be alive. I asked him last time for the e-mail address of a mutual friend in that village on Samui, Lamai, let's see if I get it. That guy has had a small restaurant there for 5 years called Soppköket, and should know most things.

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.

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.....

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....

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.

The experiment - well - succeeded

My trip this winter was in a way to compensate for a year of completely insane and meaningless harassment from the Swedish governmental sick insurance office, last winter they stopped me from going on my usual winter leave in spite of piles of sick leaves and health declarations from my doctors that it was necessary for me to spend the worst part of the winter in a warm country. They just laughed.

So - what is new?... Penang

It is January 23 and I have been working, no time for adventures. And possibly I have passed the time I do every winter lately - from when it is great fun here and to when it is hibernation and a wait for weather in Sweden to become bearable. Got unusually many medical problems too - should have stayed at home, but then I had been in a grumpy mood......

That means the irritation of primitive life grows, from bad chair to - ah well, an absence of interesting people to talk to here in Lamai. Only an occassional visitor like this one:

Or this one just crawling out of the hole:

And it is RUNNING, not jumping....

It IS more common by far to meet more interesting people in Bangkok and sit and talk in the evening! If I had not already paid the return ticket to BKK for March 11, I might have returned a month earlier. To blow that would cost 4000B, hmmm... On the other hand the rooms I know about there are rather much worse than this one to sit and work in, so I guess I will sit it out here as planned.


Penang Jan. 26, 3PM

Moved my ass for 5 days. I had to get out yesterday, the first half of my double tourist visa expired that day, and instead of doing as many in that situation - they leave at 6AM squeezed into a minibus, the driver drives like a maniac, the ferry at 7, then on to the Malaysian border, which is quite a distance, the people walk over the border and get stamped out, then go back in again and get stamped in, then full speed back home, ending up there late in the evening, sigh. Dangerous? Of course. I decided to do it the safest way when I heard that there was a new "cheap" plane between Samui and Penang certain days - so I paid 8500 Baht for that and came here yesterday evening. The small propeller plane, a Fokker 50, sounded like an old bus, especially at start - can not have been more than 20 passengers or so. These visa runs are incredibly stupid - there are immigration offices here and there, also one on Samui, and it should be enough to go there! They had also got rid of some dangerous traffic on the roads.

When I got a car to take me to the airport on Samui, the guy said hi! - it was the same one who had taken me and Yui to the airport 2 years ago..... I guess I am easy to recognize with my crutch. I had got the tickets in the same little travel agensy in Lamai and asked for a car to the airport so maybe they do not have so great variety, and the ordinary yellow taxis there seem to be mafioso all of them - refusing to put on taximeter. I talked to the guy about it - he said that occasionally people come from the mainland but everyone knows, and THEN they switch on the meter..... His wife and kid was also along, they would drive to Bangkok for a week of holidays.

At the airport, they were photographing a supermodel - far too tall and slim so I told a guy there that she looks like a ladyboy, katoey.... They have a special small car for us handicapped, to take us from the gate to the plane (instead of making the other open buses lower so anybody can enter instead of jumpint up), the model was sitting pretending to drive one of them, we took another - and when passing I ended up on the same film, so now I am famous in Thailand..... Sure I waved to the camera as all celebrities do!

I got up the steps to the airplane, I had seen how small it is when it landed earlier on the airstrip just outside the windows of the gate. MUCH smaller than Air Force One that Bush uses!

To the airport in Penang, the flight took 80 minutes, and that airport was bigger than I thought. I wonder how many people really live on Pulau Pinang, on the island. The building - lots to walk so a fun, rather fat Muslim gal of 23 with headcover, very talkative, enjoyed driving me around in a wheel chair - faster than having me walk - so we got into the Muslim country of Malaysia, then she continued to drive me, full speed, to a money changer where I changed Baht to 500 Ringgit, 10 Baht on a Ringgit so easy to count. Then to the taxi stand, they have fixed prices to a couple of different zones so one pays it there, I paid 36 Ringgit I think.

The taxi guy was friendly and drove me around - did not find any hotel on Love Lane with free rooms but then we ended up at Cathay Hotel,

must be more than a century old, from the old British times and they keep the style in many ways. The bathtub and thermos look 75 years old... Unfortunately only aircon rooms on the ground floor, so I have to pay double what I had expected, 69 Ringgit per night, but ok, for five nights, 4 to go.....

Yesterday, the Friday evening I came, I took a careful walk outside, hungry and tired, did not find anything that looked interesting - it is not a tourist area after all, walked back towards the hotel. The hotel guy had said one could eat opposite the hotel, thou it looked more like an entertainment place, full live Chinese music - but I looked and even if there was a small stage, there were a lot of small restaurants so I sat there for an hour or two with 4 chicken wings and a few beer. First I sat at a table near the grilledchickenwinggirl, a waitor came up and asked what to drink. We talked some later, he came here a year ago from Bangladesh to make big money and found it ok. I tried to chat with an old Chinese hag at the next desk, she asked a few things and then turned her back. Chinese seem to come in big groups or families most often, but she apparently only liked her own company.

And then I started to get wet. And then I started looking at the metal roof - tropical rain on such one is VERY noisy. Where I sat one piece was missing, and also at another place when I looked, and my umbrella that normally is in my red cloth bag I had put in the hotel room.... Ah well, only one thing to do, drink beer until it stopped. Carlsberg Special Brew, like Danish Elephant Beer. One could not guess it is a Muslim country. I had had beer in Egypt and Iran, but definitiely not of Carlsberg quality. I think Carlsberg was involved with Chang beer too, my favourite, but then some business problems.

I slept badly as the aircon was fixed and put on far too cold - in the morning I asked them to shut it off. One hour later I started to be sweaty of course but time to go out for brunch - two corners away, a typically cheap open restaurant, Halal, so Muslim food but all kinds of people eating there, the table in front of me full of old noisy Indians, some Chinese - I ordered a coffee and bowl of noodle soup. The coffee the usual one one gets here, a big mug of quite black coffee of lower than Nescafe-quality, probably boilt but it is ok. The noodle soup was quite tasty, NOT like instant noodles..... Paid 4 Ringgit for it all. Wonder if I will stay within budget - that is, the cash I got in the airport. I remember room prices of 35 Ringgit, now I pay 69, taxi back to the airport on Tuesday - suppose it will be the same. I got 550 Ringgit or so, room + taxis 6 times 70, hmmm. If I do not waste any other money but I better get some more, hate to have empty pockets.

My old friend here, Poh Joo, that I met here in 1975 after starting to write in 1970, will come tomorrow and pick me up for lunch. Forgot when we met last, a couple of years ago, I remember that on one of my latest visits here we did not, otherwise we use to. Getting old both - you could try to find us on my old travel pictures from 1975, just to search and look for Penang.... What was she then? Now she has passed 50, time definitely goes...... So tomorrow morning I should try to use the ancient shower, only cold water, hmmmm. 12:30, meaning 11:30, my watch and computer still on Thai time.

Jan 27, 14:15

Home from the luxury lunch, Poh Joo had her brother along, was nice and quick..., also passed a bank so I picked up 300 Ringgit more, now I feel safe enough. Got some fish, stingray she said? Complicated to eat without instruction..... but tasty. Now naptime!

21:35

I was out at the Chinese eating hall opposite for 2 hours, had a chicken meal with bean sprout salad, soup, 2 beer. As 2 evenings ago suddenly the rain started to pour down, also some thunderstorm, but I have learned now where not to sit. Walked around but saw no pig feet as I remember I could get in Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur in a similar eating hall. Several stands with Thai food but I jumped over them thou they looked tasty.....

One old Chinese waitor served me the beer, he had sort of wise eyes. He saw the Buddhist sign I have around my neck, looked very carefully and said it was a very good one, it almost radiated.... I told him I had got it in Thailand 5 years ago from a friend. Then I told him I married a very special Thai girl recently, now in Sweden studying and then he said I got her because I had had that sign around my neck for 5 years! Hm, who can say no......


Jan 28, 18 BKK time,

Up from my nap. I had a long walk today, after the Muslim noodle soup I walked towards my old hangout at Love Lane, saw several hostels of that price class I remember, half my present price, but of course always difficult to know which one would be the most accessible for me and my bad balance. I also passed a farmacy and got some sterile compresses for my bad little toe and some antibiotics salve, should be enough until I am back on Samui in 2 days, where I have to go to a nurse/doctor for a checkup and a good dosis of antibiotics - when I had it a few years ago in Sweden, I got heracillin for several weeks. Then I do not think there was some external hole - now I suddenly saw a drop of blood on the stone floor in my room a few weeks ago but have no small mirror with me - should invest in one - that I used to have along, to see such damages. a week ago I saw some blood but sill not a red toe, started to use the sandal also in the room. ah well, did not look infected, but now just when I should fly here to Malaysia I saw it was a bit red, and there also came some blood. Which means the salve should do some good too - on the box of the tube they showed horrible foot sores and they said it is the salve many diabetics used.

I pay day by day in the hotel - today the bill was higher but I paid less than normal so I did not complain... I got a damaged 5-Ringgit bill, so they did not take it in the Muslim eatery, but they did in the farmacy, ha. Down at the end of Love Lane I sat to have a coffee in a dirty Chinese eating hole, where I have been several times, so I will go there for noodle soup tomorrow. Not much further off than the other place walking the back street that I found.
.
But first out to eat now soon, opposite the street again. NOT under a hole - last night there it came thunderstorm with the pouring rain too.

I just washed up a t-shirt and underwear - not that I have any detergent with me, but just a precaution so they do not run away - so they can hang and dry for a day before I put them in a plastic bag before going back "home", a t-shirt is WET after a walk. But NOW out to eat!

11PM, back. Had fried oyster omelet, never tried before but quite tasty so I will try it tomorrow again, now I ordered the medium size for 10 Ringgit, but tomorrow I think I take the biggest - now I had to take some side dishes of fish crackers and a few chicken wings afterwards to feel filled-up.

It is a very simple eating place, not at all for tourists so price is accordingly. Live music, tonight also some dancing. Chinese music on all the time, rather loud. The old waitor waited for me all the time after discovering me while a young pretty Chinese gal also poured up beer as soon as my glass started to be drained. Neat......

Coming home to the hotel one of the old Chinese guys gave me a hand to get in up the three rather steep steps, so I am well taken care of. Tomorrow too then off I fly. Have got some new experiences. That day the plane goes around 4PM I think, but I take an early taxi from the hotel, checkout at 12.

Jan 29, 13:20

Just home from noodle soup and coffee in a nearby Chinese place I simply had not seen before though I had passed several times - some old motor bikes almost blocked the entrance so I had thought it was a motor workshop or something......

The computer suddenly stopped working in the morning, just died! I tried to restart a number of times but nothing helped, so I spent 15 minutes realizing that now I had to go straight back to Bangkok to repair it. Then I looked up, remember I only have one plug here and the phone was charging...... So I switched and the computer started to run again......

When I went out to find brunch two Chinese guys sat outside talking, one very friendly the other severely handicapped with two crutches. So the healthy guy said hello and started to talk, told me to sit down, he spoke good English, a retired teacher of English, told he liked to help tourists and had many Swedish friends - at least he mentioned one. He could fix everything...., Thai visas as some need, whatever - so I told I returned the following day, and he would fix a guy to take me to the airport. So we walked to the coffee shop that he showed , we exchanged cards and he said I could just call next time I came to Penang, and there he also met the guy who would drive me tomorrow, and he also seemed reliable enough, promising to come and pick me up at 12, for 30 Ringgit which was slightly cheaper than when I came. Coffee and shrimp noodles were fine. So then I walked around this block - rather big. And it is a hot day! I walked and just waited for the last corner to turn left, when I suddenly saw my hotel. I still do not know what happened to that corner! Must have been a very big bend there or something mysterious.

But now time to put up my swollen foot and rest for a while - thou I have the feeling the foot is less swollen and the toe less red today than yesterday. I walk more here than lately on Samui, guess I should walk more there.


Jan30, 09:51AM,

That is almost 11 Malaysian time and one more hour then I am leaving. Hope the guy comes.... Ah well - otherwise I just ask the hotel to call for a taxi to the airport. I have gathered the stuff, so just to put down the whole in the backpack and go.

Still plenty of time, the plane goes at 4, so I will sit for 3 hours or so in the airport but it is ok, hate to rush. Foot and toe looks fairly ok. I took a quick-shower, had planned to take a real one but when putting one foot in the ancient bathtub it slipped, so I said "nah, too risky today"..... Just poured some scoops of water over me. I have never found out if the shower is hot or cold - well, just when putting it on it is VERY hot, then it becomes cold, or almost so.... Now in the scoop I mixed from the hot and cold tap so it was about right.

Jan. 11, 16:30

Went out in the heat, remembered I had put a cap in the big bag so I put it on. Down to take out another 20000 Baht as I have paid the room another month, 8000B, and then I went to buy a return ticket to Penang, where I have to go as my visa expires on Jan 25, the easiest is to go there for a few days, and I am in no hurry, cost somewhat over 8000B - prices on a low-cost air company so the price changes from hour to hour....... The are other more fancy visa tours to the border, both Malaysia and Burma, for people in a hurry and often minibuses driving like maniacs so they start in the morning and back late in the evening, but why stress when I can combine it with seeing a bit of other things. Hopefully things have not changed there so there is still a line of cheap hotels in center of town - old Chinese guest houses that look like they have not changed the last 50 years. Prices are pretty much the same as in Thailand, 30-40 Ringgit a night, 1 Ringgit is more or less 10 Baht.

The last banana from the fridge - half the size of the more civilized ones in Sweden and a little bit more fibers in them, but at - did not pay much more than one Bath for it so......


Next day

Sunshine, wanna know something more?.....

No news is good news, as they say. The days go, sometimes 32° and nice warm sun, some days rain, some nights pouring rain that pushes the temperature down to 27-28° forcing me to put the blanket over me.

Yesterday I bought a return ticket to Penang, as my visa expires on Jan. 25, so I will fly there for 5 days - those planes go once a day some days. Coming back I will start on the second half of my tourist visa, another 60 days, and when those days are over I have already been back in Sweden for a week. Time really goes very fast!

I cut off most of my hairy top, so now it is not Santa but Daddy everywhere.....

Most things are good here. As always, the bad ones are what sits on my mind. My right foot is somewhat swollen in morning, rather much more in the evening. I have somewhat increased the medicin, Impugan, that drives liquid out of my body, so have to run to the toilet more often, risking the life every time I jump up and down to the toilet - slipped once..... Still a tiny bit of ear problems from the flu.

Michael has found some guesthouse he thinks would be better for me, and also cheaper, 5 instead of 8000 Baht/month, and less noisy. A bit further off from the beach, thou I am not going there often - but he meant that he thought it was not out of reach of my walking. He would move in there on Monday I think, tell what he thinks and then I should walk there and have a look. It might be one I have heard about years ago. There are shops etc. so I have no reason to walk down towards this area for that.

Happy New Wet 2008!

The rain water is 28°, I know. I just went out to buy a sixpack water, it looked sort of gray skies. Then I walked home with my load in the small backpack a few miutes later. Good - two showers in one morning, and also the t-shirt can stand another day of non-washing.

The Finnish neighbour said hello again - told that in Finland he administered a student computer network.


The second, evening

Jag var nere på restaurangen i kväll igen, kyligt, vilket betyder 27 lite blåsigt, så jag fick ta på tjockaste t-shirten och handlade en stor skål med stark tom-yamsoppa med bläckfisk. Det var rätt fullt på restaurangen, en tysk dam i min ålder fick sätta sej vid mitt bord så vi utbytte en del artigheter. Upptäckte sen att jag hade glömt att ta pengar, nåt man knappast ska lämna på rummet ens av misstag, så även om de känner mej alltför väl på restaurangen och sa att jag kunde betala i morgon sa jag att jag kommer tillbaka från rummet om 3 minuter, vilket jag gjorde. Ungefär. Passade på att också köpa en klase bananer - en full plastpåse för 20 Baht.

Oops, writing jn Swedish, if somebody has a complaint, complain.

Now 11PM, should work another hour or so, right. I am here to work, not do other things.


Jan 4, early, bedtime

The days go without any revolutions, has been rather rainy - I just took a quick walk today to get some more money from the nearest ATM, not used any unreasonable amount I had 20000B in the pocket when coming from Sweden, took out 20000B in Bangkok and now 20000B again, it has gone to living, one return ticket BKK-Samui-BKK, room here for one month. Some raindrops when I was out, but not too bad. I was to a travel agency to ask for a flight to Penang from Koh Samui, around 7500B return, should be ok, it is a similar distance as to Bangkok but the other direction. I think it is on Jan 25 I have to go, the last day of the visa, so then there for 3 nighs or so, and back to use the second 60 days of my tourist visa. But it will be somewhat less - going on March 17 it means 3 + 28 + 17 is less than 50 days.


Jan 4, 19:45

Warmer today, 29 or so, good. When the cleaning gals came in the middle of the day, it was colder, just 28, they kicked me out as usual to sit at the stone table there, when I came back in the fan was ON!!! It is such a typical Thai habit - even if it is no reason, the fan is just supposed to be on!!! And it was not on the lowest and they were not working themselves sweaty.

Today I have been in Ystad with Linné, putting clickable links on the picture of where he travelled. I have done maybe half now, from where he started at home up in Uppsala, down to Skåne passing the place in Småland of his birth, then down towards Kristianstad. Today he passed Rydsgård, where the man lived that has made all the handwritten notes of the book of Linné, that I have made available online. I do hope they will continue with that kind of work offer to me - after all I do it well huh.... Of course I wished I could get some sort of feedback from users. The impression the display on internet is rather dependent on things like - it demands a rather big screen on the computer, but it is as the boss wanted so. Just they have that, it is fine, and it goes in that direction. On the laptop I work with now when I travel, it is a bit too small to enjoy - you cannot get up the whole page without scrolling a bit.

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!

28 December, 13:45

I sit here, read, write, think. A rather sensible combination. 33°C, so I put on the fan, but moved it so it does not blow too strongly on me - from under the fan a 3 cm black baby lizard decided to relocate to some other more favoured position.

I am somewhat worried that my feet are a bit swollen - it can have several reasons. They are always somewhat swollen because of my bad kidneys only running at half speed, so I take medicine for that together with all blood pressure pills - the problem is of course why it has been swelling up more the last few days. But as long as there is no pain and double-sided, it is not a recurrency of the Charcot foot that troubled me 3-4 years ago and made me first walk with the foot in a cast for 3 months or so, like it was broken, to stabilize the situation. After that I walked for - was it one or two years - with a "simulated cast", a hard booth (leather orthosis) that worked like the plaster thing but was removable at night. And then when in Thailand I started to use my special sandals more and more - also the sandals made by orthopedist from an imprint of my feet so they should support the foot properly. Now I only use those sandals. If one foot starts to pain me, THEN it might have come back, and it might be either foot. Remember that when I had walked with the sandal until summer, then that foot started to swell a bit - still no pain - and I put on that orthosis for a while until that was down - the doc said it had been the right thing to do. Last winter when I packed the big travel bag, before the insane Insurance Office stopped me from going on my health trip, I had packed that orthosis in the bag, but not this winter.

Hm, just looked into my camera, horrible..... Wonder why the other Swedish guys have started to call me "the professor" ???


I simultaneously make another trip - putting clickable links on the Skåne map going with my work to put Linné's "Travel in Skåne [southern Sweden]" in 1749, this special copy where a guy in Skåne has made a lot of marginal notes a few years after the first version of that book was published - it is still reprinted. A reasonably unique project. It can continue to be developed, as there is more material, letters etc. written about that trip that was never included in the book. Hopefully the web design company of my wife Yui, http://mmwebdesign.no-ip.info, will get that job from the Archive too.

I was surprised when going out yesterday evening [this is the first thing I see when I come out from my room: down right is then the main village road, over that and via a small road towards the sea.] - no special day yet the restaurant was suddenly all full! I go there every 2-3 evenings as it is the best here around, my second favorite from 2 winters back is not there anymore. Anyway, jumped over yesterday and only picked up some grilled stuff from the lady a few corners away, and had in the room.

The sea looks as usual, only even harder for me to come real close, damn.

The other direction towards the mountainous middle of the island looks sort of different.

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.

Christmas approaching

Another nice coconut-day, afternoon. I was in MiniMarkt to do my water shopping, passed the hotel girl that is always nice to exchange some words with. The hotel bit is new since last time, but she said it was almost full and will for sure be for the holidays. The guesthouse bit where I am, 2 empty rooms of - maybe 18 or so.

After my nap I passed again - I had found the web site of the Malaysian air company that has flights between Koh Samui and Penang, that surprisingly is not so well known. http://www.fireflyz.com.my - and gave it to her (hm, I DID ask for her name in my best Thai, but what was it, Pook?... something like that) so - they look for agents and she can always get some extra commission on being the intermediate on that. My 60-day visa expires on Jan 25 so still lots of time. Going there for 3 nights would be fine, then back here.

I have written some thoughtful mails to discussion groups I am in, that really are not about coconuts, but sometimes also specialized groups need something totally different to think of - and I got some positive responses. They know my obscure brain windings, so I am sure that a portion of them simply automatically jump over what I write, and it is fine. I only appeal to those with an ability still to think along new paths.

Have you ever read the book Lortsverige, Dirt Sweden? I did not know about it until maybe a year ago, when I found it online on Projekt Runeberg, http://runeberg.org/lortsvrg/forord.html - similar to the very well known USA Project Gutenberg - that for decades have collected non-copyrighted literature, scanned, usually done OCR to make it into text, edited it, and put online. Runeberg was a famous Swedish writer 150 years ago or so, so they have for - more than a decade I think, in a similar way put non-copyrighted Scandinavian literature online, sometimes also literature with sort of copyright still there, the author has not been dead for 70 years quite yet, but possibly they check up so there are no plans to reprint it before that crucial date.

Nah, it is evening, still I can make an hour of historical documentation...., did not take time for it today. I am editing material in a historical magazine from my town,that started to be published 140 years ago, just now I edit an article about the age 200 years earlier, when southern Sweden tried to become Swedish and not Danish after the big war, much about making the Danish Church Swedish. It is a slow job as OCR on the rough paper and old print creates many more errors than OCR of a modern printed text, which usually works without any fault.


Dec. 22, 11:11, the day is supposed to be slightly longer from today, but I have not seen any, the sun still goes up at 06:00 and down at 18:00 ??? One of my nicknames is Santa but I have decided to take holidays this year ha! Look in the major newspapers of the world!

Jumping Pigggg

Soon after meeting me, my wife started to call me Pig, Moo in Thai, for no particular reason at all. Maybe it sounds cute?... I know also pretty girls here can have it as nickname. Anyway, my room here has a peculiarity: the toilet is 2 dms higher than the room! I have not jumped that high for decades! Ah well - here sooner or later I actually found serious reasons to do it.... So I take it as sort of an exercise, I hear it in the knee every time I do it, but has not hurt so far. To jump down - I have started to overcome the fear of falling now, in the middle of the free fall.

My other regular nickname here in Thailand is of course Santa - even in the middle of the street people say "hello Santa - got a gift for me?" when my beardy head passes.....

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!

Dec.9

05:30AM on the ninth of December

Bedtime, just went up a little as it was too stuffy in here, put on the aircon that makes it too cold. Just now 24.5º, maybe I keep it on and put on the jeans shirt to sleep in.

A rather normal day, downloaded 150-200 mails of all kinds, then food at Popiang. Today 5 giant shrimps, drank lemon juice, rather good with my sore throat.

Sitting hanging there one can see rather strange figures. Tonight an old guy, less skin than many good old skeletons, contemplating ordering food. He ordered ONE shrimp, but then just walked away. Apparently the thought overwhelmed him. I saw him a bit later returning with a small bag from 7/11. Maybe he hd been off buying one tooth pick.

So - 2 days, then I am on Samui, nice.... I surely hope I will get a nice room there, and then stay for 3 months to relax and work. I have 10 CD:s of old documents, that I have made an OCR run on, so I have them in the computer as text, not as pictures, but it is from 100 years old paper, and rather rough, so lots of editing is needed. I did this Linné project the last few months, but now I will go back to that kind of projects - saving the history for the future is not too bad! Those pages on bad paper, are falling apart, so either they are saved soon or they are lost for good. Doing things like that, something that hopefully will last for a long time, feels more satisfying than just getting money for it.


Dec. 9, breakfast

Damn! This morning I woke up with pain in my side! Is there no end of my trouble? I am just letting the breakfast sink in, then I have to decide if I should find my way to a hospital. So damn tired of the whole shit! Wonder how much trouble it is to get fastest ticket home. That is what I want just now. Too many decisions: I should have done this and tnat: I should never have gone with heavy flu, I had insurance so I could have canceled the ticket. I should not have bought ticket to Samui 2 days ago..... and waited here for a few more days to see. Ah well, if the pain does not abate, I have to go to hospital today for a checkup, guess any taxi driver can take me to a hospital. I do not know my anatomy, maybe the pain is reaction on my medicines, whatever. Do I not have a kidney r appendix there somewhere?

Dec 10, same meal

Ah well - the cute doc did not find anything significantly wrong with me yesterday, above general senility and crappiness, thou I had 38.5º of fever, nothing that a few well placed Paracetamol cannot fix. She could not identify any deadly internal damages that should make pain, and gave some anti-inflammatory concoction, some general do-all.

I woke up with my sick three fingers all numb, like useless sausages, so made 100 of the proscribed movements with the arm to try to increase the life in them. Been too lazy with that - now they are back to their normal semi-comatose existence, so at least I feel they are there when I say Good Morning to them. I got them remitted to the hand surgery one month before leaving but the atrocious state of health care in Sweden, you can guess that they only had time half a year later even if my fingers are strangled to death! Carpal Tunnel Syndrome they call it - the channel at the wrist is too small for its swollen nerves etc., and should be dug up.

Now, hm, a little of the noodle soup on the floor, better clean it up. Sat at the bed - hm, still some soup there, RED soup??? Who has red soup here around? ME! Crime suspected!!!

Hm, second smallest toe, not so important- I must have kicked into something as it is on the top side. But sort of strange. Meteorite???

With my unending line of near-disasters on this trip - watch out for the 3PM plane tomorrow Bangkok-Samui. If it has been digested by the sharks you know the reason. I must have been a real PIGGG in my last life huh?!?!

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.

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!

27 Nov. 2007, midnight

Practical that I put the laptop on Bangkok time weeks ago.... anyway, I arrived as scheduled from Copenhagen - London in the middle of the afternoon, no problems thru passport and customs but A LOT to walk in the new airport! Ah well, no hurry,

I had heard about the taxi mess outside, warnings about all the taxi louts trying to cheat up unwary and tired travellers, "only 1000 Baht, yes we are official"..... I found the taxi stand - the "official one" where people are obliged to put on the taxameter - thou I had to tell the guy three times "taxameter!" Then he obeyed and then we were friends and I showed him how to find the hotel. Nah, I do not know the Bangkok streets, but the quarters around Khao San.

Coming in here big smile from the travel agency gal, the usual one! Installed myself,

-- have to remind myself of some small things, like the Thai way of locking doors and their way here to put on light - a small box to put your keyholder in, so people do not waste and forget to switch off the power when going.

Yui back home has now got my cold, felt quite bad this morning in a SMS but would anyway take bus to school. Then I was ordered to find an internet cafe and connect the laptop when she came from school which should be - ah - 11 something. I tested but found no wireless internet here to sneak into.

This place only have old aircons still, always too cold, and no fan, talked to the gal outside, I paid my 3 nights here, but then I move to Welcome Sawasdee Inn, the same chain but cheaper, around the corner. They have changed the entry here so it is harder for me to use it - unless there is a chair in the vicinity for me to hold a little in, when stepping and out.

It is early morning now the second day here, did not sleep too well, still cold in the head and jet lag. Have a coffee and a packet of instant noodles - my new water heater works perfectly - then maybe try a nap. Last evening I took a walk down to my usual hangout, Popiang, think 7 people there looked very happy to see me again! The owner couple of course, thou they still know very little. Then some who works there since before, like - hm, Chiang or so, she looked very happy to see me, so we talk some. Wonder where a friend of ours, a crazy llttle gal, who called me Uncle, is gone - she had not seen her for a year or so. That gal, hm, I have her mail address, can always send away a mail. She is of the low-edcated kind, restaurang girl, but I had the feeling she was quite smart, good English - and could even write some, and use email! 3 years ago she seemed to want to improve herself, ran around with a thick textbook in English, she had just married an American the year before, planned to go there - but then he had disappeared, she thought she had joked a bit too hard on him, and well...... 2 years ago she did not seem so serious, mostly wanted to run around and have fun. Now, no idea.

I had a fat mackerel, fresh from the sea and not the freezer as in "civilized" countries, and 2 bottles of Chang - finally..... Then Ouan passed with a smile and talked a while - one of the Akka tribe girls, a bunch is always selling handicraft, her English improved but still no reading or writing. So the guy next table, some Latin-American but still not - he said he had recently travelled there so I guess not.... He wondered if I knew everyone :)

So home in decent time, talked some to the girl in the reception here, told I planned to move to the cheaper Sawasdee Hotel after 3 nights here, and she smiled and said she would help me book there. And tell I am a VIP...

Nov. 28, 17:10

It seemed my cold took a little pause when travelling, now I am coughing from the deep lungs, have slept most of the day, the best cure. Had a warm shower for me and my noodle bowl, I see it is 27 degrees in the room - cold! Almost freezing now when drying, then I have to go out and find an internet cafe to connect this machine for a while to up- and download mail. hm, where are the terminal glasses, these reading glasses are not so good for this distance, hm, make the characters a bit bigger so I see.

A bit of a backpain, making unfamiliar movements. But still I am happy I am here, and I have often had an autumn cold in the head, throat and lungs when travelling here, just in time to escape the real bad weather.

Dec. 1,

At an internet cafe again, I think the flu starts to disappear, thou I am still very tired and it takes energy to get out. I have been at home the last two evenings but now - 15:00, if I go home soon to rest a bit I might go out in the evening - I am sure they miss me at Popiang :)

One sees many strange people here, of all kinds, and all kinds of couples. Like I just saw two very ugly girls, with tatooes everywhere, apparently lovers. Behind me sat an old Aussie who apparently had lived a mile from nearest neighbor all his life, he tried to chat up an old lady the other end of the restaurant and everybody heard every single breath......

Nah, time to go for a rest. Then I might have power to go out to Popiang tonight.