Not Thailand

As soon as I left the airport I was hit by the contrast between Scotland and Thailand. They both end with "land" but that is the extent of their similarity. I like both countries, but they are so different.
I forgot my adapter plug, and my battery is low, so these posts will have to continue tomorrow-after I get an adapter.

Ready to Go, Again

I board the plane tomorrow, heading overseas again. This will be a short trip, about 9 days, and it should not pose too many challenges. The two-week "break" at home was much needed. Although I still worked from home, primarily editing my movie "Spirits Among Us," plus a few hours here and there supporting the work in Thailand, I got to have some much needed rest. I had not realized how drained I was. My energy level is up again, and it is nice.

I have no profound thoughts right now, I have nothing to whine about, I have no obversations about life, so this is a more boring and pointless post than usual. There is plenty going on in the two weeks I've been home:
-We are getting a new fence in the backyard
-My son has his confirmation tomorrow
-We just spent $1,500 in car repairs
-Our daughter got all "A's" on her report card
-We just bought a hamster
-I caught a kingsnake (with my Mom's help) but let him go yesterday because he just hid all day, too boring. Kingsnakes look much like coral snakes.
-We're are looking at boats, but not having much luck
-I'm now %80 complete with post-production on my movie
-We're making plans for a really cool family vacation in California
-We got our tax return
-My in-laws' dog was hit by a car today and died. We are very sad about that.
So, there is plenty happening, but I'm pretty much just going along through life, with minimal mental activity. It is unfamiliar, but kind of nice.

The photograph has no relevance at all. I took this shot while at the top of the Pattaya Park Tower.

Random Views

This post is little more than a bunch of photographs I took in Thailand. The world is big, and there is a lot of variety. Every place I visit I see new things, meet new people and learn new information. It reminds me to try not to keep my "world" so small when I am tackling the issues of the day. The man in the red shirt is one of the most interesting people I met, notice his hat. Enjoy the photos.

Sad, Glad

I leave Thailand tomorrow morning. I get to go home now. Normally I would be nothing but happy, but this time it is different. I can’t wait to see my wife and kids again, and visit with my mom and dad. I look forward to walking our dog, sleeping in our own bed, cooking on the grill, driving my own car, and all the other aspects of my regular life that I love. But this time, I have feelings similar to the ones I had before leaving home for this project. I am going to miss the new friends I have made here. I have met many good, warm-hearted people as I travel around the world working on various projects, but this time it is like I became part of another family.

I intruded on the lives of everyone at a small company here in Thailand. They didn’t treat me like an intruder, a client, customer or co-worker, they first treated me like a friend, then treated me like family.
The owner has a huge heart, he wants to help people have better lives, he even named the company “Lifestyle Development” for that reason. His wife has an equally huge heart, she puts a lot of effort into making sure everyone is comfortable. She even brought my favorite dog (I think they have 5) to the office to visit on my last day there.

Their kind hearted approach to life influences everyone in the company. I already told you about the man who rode elephants with me, he is kind hearted and uplifting beyond description.

The girls that work in the office are always smiling and happy, and made me feel welcomed. The one standing next to me in the photograph not only is pretty, sweet and a good worker. She can pry a bottle cap off a bottle with her teeth! I didn’t believe either, until I saw it with my own eyes.












The maid tirelessly attended to cleaning, sweeping, bringing me cold water, bringing hot coffee, and cleaning up the mess when I flailed my hand around and knocked a glass of water across our table full of documents. The workers put in incredible effort to communicate with me and finish the project to my satisfaction, and put up with my periodic impatience and blundering.

I won’t go into any more detail than that. I’m glad to go home but sad to leave. Enjoy the photographs of my family in Thailand.

Potty Humor

Okay, I have to get in at least one bathroom-related humorous post before I leave Thailand. I was having pretty good luck bathroomwise, unlike my initial experience in Batam. But, my luck did not hold out for the duration of the trip. I mentioned in an earlier post that I attended a funeral service. The attendees (hundreds) were seated in an outdoor area facing a small building. There was a covered porch at the front of this building where a person stood and spoke to the group using a microphone. Just behind him was an open doorway to a room with a photograph of the deceased, flowers, candles and incense. People would go into the room, shoes off, and kneel, pray, light a candle or incense and pay their respects. So now you know the setup.

The main portion of the service was over, so the crowd was down to about a hundred or so, but the man was still speaking and people were still going into the prayer room. We were getting ready to leave for a 45 minute ride to the hotel, and I needed to go to the bathroom. There was no way I would make it 45 minutes.

I asked where the restroom was, and was directed to walk past (in front of) the man speaking, go through the prayer room, and then to another room, where the restroom was. My good friend was kind enough to walk with me so I would not be too uncomforable, but I still felt a bit innappropriate. Here I am, this big (compared to Thai people) bumbly American, standing next the speaker as he addressed the
audience, fumbling to take off my big steel toe work boots (about 3 times bigger than any Thai shoes) , and walking past the people kneeling, praying and so forth, trying not to appear disrespectful. I got to the restroom and as I stepped in and flipped on the light I felt a drop of water soaking through my sock on my left foot. I hate walking through the kitchen or bathroom and stepping on a small puddle of water and feeling it soak into my sock, it just grosses me out. I looked down and realized that most of the floor had about 1/4 inch of water standing on it.

This restroom had the classic Asian style toilet, which is a hole in the floor with a raised area where you place your feet, squat and...well, you know. Flushing is
accomplished by pouring water into the hole using a ladle that floats (if you are lucky) in a bucket of water next to the "toilet." Anyway, someone had slung water all over the place. The area next to the door was relatively dry, but the rest of the floor had standing water. As I stood there considering my options, small drops of water started soaking into the sock on my right foot as well. I decided to just grit my teeth, slosh over to the "toilet" and get this over with. As I stood there, taking care of business, both socks absorbed most of the water standing around the toilet. My socks were soaked to the point that even the tops were getting wet. As I sloshed and slopped my way to the flushing bucket, then to the sink to wash my hands, I felt like I was mopping the floor with my socks. Totally, completely, gross.

I left the bathroom with both socks so wet that they flopped and slopped and squeezed water onto the floor with each step. I squished by the people who were kneeling and praying, realizing that the next person to come in and kneel will get their feet and knees wet because I just walked through soaking everything in my path. I walked over to my big shoes, which were next to the man who was still addressing the audience over the microphone. As I stuffed my soaking wet sock-covered feet into each shoe I wondered if the Thai-speaking man was telling the crowd that the goofball standing next to him just got through mopping the bathroom floor with his socks and then smeared potty-water across the floor of the prayer
room. Good grief!

Attitude Adjustment

Well, since my last post where I whined about things that irritate me, chaotic traffic being a primary one, I got my attitude adjusted. I had a unique experience, I got to attend one day of a traditional seven day Thai funeral service. The man whom I rode elephants with, and have driven to and from work with every day got a phone call a couple days ago. His father-in-law had just been killed in a motorcycle and bus collision. He was riding the motorcycle.


I won't go into all the details of the service and how it differs (very much so) from American-style ones. I will just say that I got reminded once again to get my focus off of life's irritations and keep them on the people involved in my life. The irritations will always be here, my friends, co-workers and loved ones will not.

No Whine Before Its Time

There used to be a television commercial for a brand of wine, the slogan for it was "we will sell no wine before it's time." Well, I have my own version of the slogan that relates to me: "Its time for me to whine."

The photo is of a mom and her daughter driving their "restaurant on wheels" to their Sunday place of business. They have a much worse career than I. But their facial expressions match about how I feel right now.

I've been here over three weeks, and language, culture differences, project problems and work pressures are taking their toll. I was going to title this post "space,lanes and sucking teeth" but I realized my list of whiney complaints covered more ground that just those topics.

There are several things that take me from a relaxed, peaceful state to a not-so-relaxed, somewhat annoyed state. First, drifting across the lanes of the road. I have noticed that the driving habits here are not aimed at remaining centered in your lane, but seem to be aimed at remaining centered in the paved section of road. That changes when encountering a corner, where the rule seems to position your vehicle anywhere between physical barriers (trees, telephone poles, street vendors), preferrably in the lane of oncoming traffic. I'm not exaggerating to make a point. It seems that most drivers really don't want to move too far from the center of the road, so when the oncoming vehicle is within, say two car lengths away, they reluctantly move as little as necessary back into their own lanes. I have not seen side view mirrors snap off yet, but they get very close.

Second, I've noticed that a lot of the older Japanese men suck their teeth. As they slowly walk along, hands folded behind their back, they suck their teeth. It makes this little noise similar to eating jello with your mouth open, and it bugs me. I stood about 6 inches away from a man in an elevator who sucked his teeth all the way down 12 floors. I don't know why, but that bugs me. I wanted to tell him to try another nervous habit, like twiddling his thumbs or messing with his hair, just something not so noisy.

Third, eastern people drift towards other people like magnets. Even when there is room, they tend to crowd together. They don't keep a space (30-36 inches) between themselves and others, they get within 3-6 inches. I was ladling soup from a large pot into my bowl at the buffet the other day. As I brought the ladle out of the pot toward my bowl, an older Chinese woman thrust her head between me and the pot. Just about two inches away from my face. She looked into the ladle, into the post, sucked her teeth twice and drifted off to another part of the buffet. I was glad she didn't take a sip from the ladle.

Okay, I've released a little pressure from my whine bottle. Thanks for your patience. Like I mentioned, I could have it much worse, I could be driving my restaurant to work each day.

Buddha Soda II

I saw this amazing work of art on the way to the work site here in Thailand. They inlaid gold along the face of this mountain to create this. I asked the driver if he could stop so I could photograph it.
As we drove away I asked him about it. He told me it was Buddha. "Huh?" I responded, "I thought Buddha was really fat, and a man." As you can see from the photograph, this Buddha is not only slim, but looks to be female, with one breast exposed. He explained that Buddha takes on many forms, can be many things to many people, something along those lines.
Next time I'm at a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. I'll suggest to the owner that they will likely increase their business volume if they replace the fat male Buddha outside their restaurant with the slim female version, with at least one breast exposed. And don't forget the soda.
-Postsript:It turns out that I got mixed up on the whole Buddha/gender thing. I confused the image of Buddha on this mountain side to the female-looking statues that are in many of the shrines. I still don't understand completely, it is a complex religion, at least to me it is.

Buddha Soda

I noticed these colorful little buildings that were placed on the corner or roof of many private and commercial buildings. I started paying closer attention to the contents. One time I spotted an open bottle of soda, and thought that maybe a passerby had just set it there thoughtlessly. Then I noticed that many had open bottles of soda, and small bowls of food.


It turns out that these are buildings put in place to give the god(s) that inhabit that area of property a nice place to live, otherwise when you purchase, develop, and move into a property you are basically crowding out the emanations of Buddha that live there. So people provide housing, food and drink to provide hospitality to the god(s) that occupy that area. This act of kindness ensures protection and prosperity of that property, things will go well for the people who live or work on that property. That is how my friend here explained it to me.

It turns out that soda is the most popular drink offered to the god(s). Interesting. That is really all I have to say about that.

'Scuse Me, While I Kiss the Ground

The title of this post is my own version of the line from the Jimi Hendrix song "'scuse me, while I kiss the sky." Which, by the way is often mis-stated (sung) as "'scuse me, while I kiss this guy."

Anyway, I found out recently that I prefer the ground rather than the sky. I had some time on Sunday to walk Pattaya beach and decided to ride the sky trolley up to the top of Pattaya Park Tower.

I figured out something just moments after the trolley started the ascent up the long cable leading to the top of the really tall tower-I am really afraid of heights!

I am not sure of the exact height of the tower, but by my estimation it is really, really, extremely tall. The photos you see give you some idea. Some people actually jump off suspended in a harness and go down the wire, or ride a small open cage and zoom down. I got weak-kneed just watching. I did not ride in the open cage you see here, I went in the totally enclosed cage-type trolley with a solid floor designed for old people, people with high-blood pressure, and scaredy-cats. In other words, people like me.

On the way down, as the trolley creaked and groaned its way down from the outer layer of the earth's atmosphere, all I could think of was "I want to stand on earth again, and when this thing touches down I'll be telling the trolley attendant "'scuse me, while I kiss the ground."