Genitals Covered in Ants!

I just found this photo on my laptop. Basically some animal got killed and its man-parts were hunt up on the fence to dry in the sun or something. The red ants got wind of this and completely covered it. I thought they were going to build a nest!

Naturally, I molested them, and found that when I pointed me finger at them, they'd all face it, and as I moved it, their heads and gnashing jaws followed simultaneously. Creepy.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

That's That.

I'm back in the UK.

Of course it is sad to leave Thailand, but there's nothing stopping me from going back, it's just a case of waiting.

I've been eating some of the things I missed while away, including steak and pizza, but I haven't been out much because I immediately got sick coming back. Once I'm better I'm looking forward to seeing friends thought. I'm sure I'll get sick of it soon, but the weather is pretty interesting. Rain doesn't depress me and mist is pretty cool.

I guess the question is, what becomes of this blog now? I suppose I could use it to write musings about Thailand, or as a diary of my voyage through the year-long course to become a barrister. I'll have to see how I feel.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

15 of my favourite memories

In just 3 days I will be back in the UK and naturally I have mixed feelings about that. It's been a fantastic 13 months during which I've learned and laughed and loved, improved my Thai and (I think) avoided intestinal parasites. Here are some of my top memories. I'm sure they have more meaning to me than to anyone who reads this (who does read this anyway?) but here we go:

1) On my first day in Bangkok, being shown to a room on the roof of the guest house I was supposed to rescue. A room which lacked ceiling height walls, had a corrugated iron roof and was filled with miscellaneous junk. This was to be my control room. How I was expected to use the toilet or wash I'll never know.

2) Going to the Royal Park for the Queen's birthday and being surprised by the devotion of the people camped out in the field, only to find out they were actually all homeless.

3) Being abused by a deranged girl on a bus downtown, only for her to turn up on Khao San Road months later, pregnant, and in dire need of the toothpaste and pizza that only I could provide.

4) Causing a woman to break down in tears and threaten to resign by creating a room booking chart (that in fairness was actually logical and easy to use, unlike the one she used) and showing it to her, suggesting the hotel use it.

5) Seeing the King, Queen and extended Royal Family in the flesh on the King's birthday, something most Thai people haven't done.

6) When an elephant pulled my head into her mouth and licked my nose. Bear in mind an elephant's tongue is enormous.

7) Discovering that a 4 month old elephant does have teeth and does bite. Having my fingernail surgically removed as a result.

8) Talking to a prostitute for two hours until she got bored and angry with me and told me to get lost.

9) Eating dog meat over 100 times, and often seeing the dog beforehand. Once I attempted to batter and deep fry the meat. I didn't try a second time.

10) Spending Christmas in a hill tribe village, and being invited to write about it in a guide book which might be published!

11) Spending two hours trying to get home during The Troubles. Soldiers everywhere. Shooting causing roads to be shut off. Sneaking around police roadblocks and driving down empty streets on the back of a motorbike taxi.

12) Buying a dog by the kilogram and then keeping 14kg of dog as a (great) pet.

13) A Belgian holocaust-denying guest whose rationale involved photo-duplication and the fact that some modern Jews speak German. I only made two non-Thai (or Burmese) friends in the 13 months I was here and I think most of that was because of the Belgian.

14) Every policeman in Thailand telling me England lost 4-1 in the World Cup, whilst squeezing my arms.

15) Racing through winding, deserted mountain roads on a motorbike at 5am in Pai/ปาย (which is not pronounced "Pie") to see the "sea of clouds" over the mountains. Doing so whilst singing Colours of the Wind from Pochahontas  and using leaves as insulation from incredible cold. On the way home in the evening, a 1.5 ltr bottle of petrol in the front basket exploded and went all over me.

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Cash Cow

Last night I was told to immediately finish my fried eggs and dried fish dinner because there was some excitement happening and it was imperative to go and see it.

Basically, there's this 14 or 15 year old girl who decided to test just how effective wishful thinking was in preventing pregnancy when engaging in unprotected sex with multiple (at least 4) cheeky chaps in the local area. The results are in and they're not surprising, and the issue is just what to do about a pregnant 15 year old.

The army came to act as dispute-resolvers and naturally the meeting between the girl, her mother and the fathers of the various boys (who were absent and probably out trying it on with other 15 year old girls) was conducted in full public view with a crowd of onlookers. The with-child teenager was dolled up in her Sunday best but didn't contribute to the negotiations, which boiled down in the end to cold, succulent cash.

The gist of the meeting was that all of the fathers agreed to pay the girl's mother some money to apologise for the under-age sex and avoid police prosecution and that when the paternity test confirmed the unlucky father, his family would have to pay even more money. No suggestion of marriage, apparently.

Niiiiice.

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...our business model is the trapezoid!

Thailand is a country full of poor people who lack quality education. Those who went to school are the product of a top-down system that in general discourages the question “why?” and prefers that people accept what they are told. In the general public there is limited exposure to or interest in the wider world. The country features high levels of corruption, particularly in police and regulatory agencies. This is therefore the perfect recipe for... pyramid schemes!

Amway, Nutrilife, Zulian and now some other company whose name I forget are all working hard in Thailand and thousands of people are huge amounts of money... or so they'd have you believe.

As I write this, a woman, Pyramid Lady, is sitting down with a small crowd of interested listeners, telling them how for just a small initial investment, they'll be able to earn really rather fantastic amounts of money each month – some 20-40k baht at a minimum (someone working full time in 7/11 will earn around 7,500).

I have the general disadvantage here that I'm just a foreigner so despite my (perceived) enormous bank account, I don't really know anything. Luckily, a lady from the village who has moved away and opened various businesses in Thailand and has been invited to work in a 5-star hotel in Korea has come to visit for the new year, and she shares my scepticism so can back me up. Her disadvantage is that she's just a woman.

It's a little bit insidious for these companies to target the poor and uneducated so I'll do my best to convince the victims not to part with their money once Pyramid Lady has left. The problem is that the very things that make them good targets for these schemes make it difficult to explain the truth to them. None of them have asked “If one can earn 40k+ baht every month doing nothing then a) why is Pyramid Lady spending 2 hours in a village up a mountain trying to get people to join and b) if she's on an amazing enough salary to justify doing a), why has she turned up in a cheap old pick-up truck?”

“There are some things like toothpaste and soap that people need to use every day”

Correct, and surprisingly, people have realised this already and created companies and products like Colgate, Darley, Lux and and Sunsilk, then spent millions on building up that brand. The listeners don't seem to be asking themselves “why would many people help make me rich by buying some unknown brand of expensive toothpaste when Darley costs 10 baht in every shop in the country?” I've heard her saying several times “If you don't like selling things, you don't have to!”

They're also being wowed with maths featuring big numbers and no one seems fussed about the the fact that 50,000 x 100% = 5,000

Sadly, the few who have ended up squandering what little money they have despite my attempts to persuade them otherwise didn't ask “How is is possible that I could earn more than people who've been to university and got a job with a big company, without doing any real work?”

Don't think this is an indictment of the people of Thailand. There are plenty of people in the UK and other first-world countries, coming out of first-world education systems and falling for exactly the same too-good-to-be-true-but-go-for-it-anyway schemes. They don't have any excuse. If you've ever helped or seriously considered helping out a Nigerian millionaire and have yet to reproduce, think carefully about the over-population of the world and what your contribution to the gene pool would be.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Visitors from another world!

On the 23rd of July my mum and sister braved what turned out to be the thoroughly uncomfortable experience of Air India to come visit me in Bangkok*

I had to go back into full-fledged tourist mode for this, and I came to find that we tourists do a whole lot of walking! Our whistle-stop tour of Thailand included:

Checking out the arson-victim Central World Pratunam shopping mall, where the best cineplex I've ever been to was destroyed. The loss of SF cinema was the only injury I suffered during the red shirt crisis. We also looked at MBK and Paragon, and rode canal boats (much cheaper and faster than taxis and should be crammed with dread-locked backpackers at those prices, who could compete with the certainly-not-crystal-clear-azure canal water for the “Most Offensive Odour” award)

A day out at the Ancient City in Samut Prakan, a park shaped like Thailand with replicas of various attractive architectural feats from around the country. You ride around on bikes (or golf buggies if you are wealthy or lazy). If you go on a busy day, however, be prepared to have your bike repeatedly stolen and replaced with some horrible little grey contraption by a moron. A moron who, despite the truly enormous selection of new and well-maintained bikes available at the entrance (including tandems, which are less likely to be stolen), elected to ride something you'd expect to see abandoned in a ditch - in a slum in Mogadishu. When my tandem was finally stolen, the brake line on the replacement snapped almost immediately.

Several days at the beach at Hua Hin. Phuket (Foo-ket, according to almost anyone white I've ever heard say it in Thailand) this and full moon that, but Hua Hin is close to Bangkok (2-3 hours), has a very nice, clean beach and isn't completely rammed with young Lonely Planet-totting hedonists raving about buckets of rum and how “This is Buck from America, we met him in Bangkok last month, then again Siam Reap at the guest house, then again in Luang Prabang at the guest house, then again in Hoi An at the guest house and also in Ho Chi Mihn city at the guest house, then this afternoon again on the Ko Sarn [sic] road.” More families and older couples at Hua Hin.

The only downside to this trip was that a broken tile in the swimming pool (the sea was too salty for my tastes so most of the swimming was in the hotel pool) sliced my right big toe open, which bled both copiously and enduringly.

Having insidiously wormed my way into the hearts and minds of the people at Taweechai Elephant Camp (in Kanchanaburi) we went to stay there for a few days to enjoy the elephants. Staying in a house belonging to the son of the camp's owner, we spent our time riding, bathing and feeding the elephants, as well as playing with the camp's baby elephant. Unfortunately, as he is approaching his first birthday, he is now far too big for me to wrestle with, but he remembers our daily battles and yearns to show off his new techniques (He has mastered his accuracy problems in slapping you with his trunk, which he proudly demonstrated on my face while I was looking away).

Iranian readers will be interested to know that the forthcoming cinema epic, “The Maritime Silk Road” features one of the elephants from the camp. Many Thai shows also use the camp because of it's proximity to Bangkok, and while we were at the camp the elephant my sister had bathed that afternoon (also the father of my friend the 300kg baby) was on such as show, which was mind-blowing.

Finally, we went up north to the village I live in. This was the most worrying part of the trip because it's not an “indoor-plumbing” village and the toilet is basic. I love it. My mum and sister seemed to manage fine with it in the end, though probably didn't enjoy it.

Think about it like this: You were walking along and tripped over like the clumsy bean you are, and managed to put one of your hands, or even just a finger, in a pile of excrement of the animal of your choice! Damn. If the Microsoft Paper-clip popped up and said “I see you're covered in faeces. Would you like some tissue or a bucket of water?” Which one do you think would be cleaner? So what makes the bum any different?



*Something I find quite odd is that it is only foreigners who refer to the capital of Thailand as Bangkok. All 60 million + Thais call it (roughly) Grung-Thép. Yet Thailand happily translates กรุงเทพ (Grung-Thép) into Bangkok, which as we say it should look more like บังคก. Whilst many country names are not the same in the native language and in other languages (Japan/Nippon, Thailand/ Pratét Thai to name just two English examples) cities are generally given their native names, albeit with slightly different pronunciation. Bangkok/Grung-Thép an aberration!

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Burn the witch!

Ever the intrepid adventure, when it was suggested that I try some Akha healing techniques to try and help speed up my shoulder getting better, I jumped at the chance, even though since that "tribe" programme whenever I think of traditional medicine the words "penis inversion" always spring to mind. I didn't ask for a detailed explanation of what would happen, but I was told that it would hurt.

It turned out my shoulder would essentially be repeatedly stabbed with a red hot metal spike, before a black paste derived from the bone of a mountain goat would be applied to the branded shoulder, which would then be slapped with a small bamboo paddle.

The actual stabbing was admittedly 3 bouts of around 20 pricks each, which was relatively unpleasant, as I felt and heard my skin melt and fizzle. That said, it didn't hurt much.

I don't know what the black paste derived from a bone does, but my guess is that the branding stimulates blood flow to the area, which speeds up the healing process. I'm told that if it's not better tomorrow I will have 5 rounds of pricking, then the next day 7, then 9.

Definitely an interesting method of healing and we'll see if it helps before I have to undergo 20 rounds and get slapped with a larger paddle.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

The most exciting day!

My last post featured soldiers arresting drug dealers AND a poisonous snake, but today had much more up it's sleeve!

The dog truck, a pickup with a rusty cage in the back filled with dogs, arrived in the village, and because both of our dogs here died recently I thought a new one was in order, so I bought a dog! The price was 35 baht per kilo (since these dogs were meant for killing) so I now have 14kg of dog!

I knew I had to be careful with buying a dog like this because who knows how it has previously lived. I saw how mine was pretty calm in the cramped cage and decided it had a good attitude. It (She) still got very angry at the rough handling the villagers provided in transporting her to the garden. Never one to be afraid of an animal bite I set about befriending her. I left some water and nibbles, let her smell my hand and left her for an hour while I had dinner. After, I went and gave her some fish, which she took from my hand without snatching. A fine temperment indeed. She eventually snuggled up to me. I'm sure in a few days she can come off the leash.

13 might be unlucky for some but it was an excellent day for me.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Guns!

This post is about drug dealers and guns. You can skip down to the actual facts which I've marked with some stars ********, if you don't want to read the background. You should read it though.

The North of Thailand is part of what is called the "Golden Triangle". One reason for the second half of that name is that the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma intersect in a triangular shape. The reason for the first is that until recent decades, the region produced enormous amounts of opium. Afghanistan is the #1 producer these days, but the Golden Triangle (more on the Burmese and Laotian sides) still churns out plenty of product and I do believe it's still number 2. As a result, the army has a great presence up here, as opposed to in Bangkok, where the army is rarely-, wait, that's a bad example. As opposed to the south, where the army doesnt-, scratch that one too. My point is that because of the proximity to the borders and the drugs, the police don't work in the village, the army are the law enforcers.

Regardless of what millionaire generals and politicians in Bangkok are up to, I have to say that I really like the soldiers. They can often be seen passing through the village, managing to somehow run uphill in baking heat, or more sensibly on motorbikes or trucks. I've spoken to them several times when groups of them have stopped here and they've been very nice. People in Thailand generally view the police quite negatively because of the endemic corruption in the organisation. The fact that in many cases the pe.rson with the most money has the police on their side is a big hurdle for the state to overcome. But the villagers all seem to like the soldiers, so perhaps the whole bribery and extortion thing doesn't happen as much with them.

*********

This morning I was happily reading away on my laptop since I no longer have to take care of the baby chicken (more on that to come) when I found out that there were three drug users in the village. They came last night and someone went into one man's house. When he found out they had massive amounts of drugs, he told them to leave and they wouldn't. They spent the whole night smoking opium, apparently, and simply would not leave. The audacity. So this morning the man requested the help of the head of the village. He called the army, and not even 10 minutes later a humvee and 11 soldiers armed with M16s and handguns arrived in the village. Serious business, this drug enforcement game.

About 20 minutes after going to apprehend the three men, the soldiers came back and everyone came to look and laugh at them. Two were handcuffed together, but the amusing thing was that the third had been fitted with a comedy baby/dog hardness in case he tried to run away. The soldiers said no photos, so here is my artist's impression:

It doesn't really convey how pathetic it looked, but never mind. The soldiers loaded the men and their goods (including a sizeable amount of cash) and a motorbike into another truck and headed off to Mae Sai to incarcerate them.

A very exciting morning, no doubt!

And it didn't even stop there! While I was writing this, a poisonous SNAKE was discovered cavorting evilly in a tree. A tree right where the children play. Think of the children! It was summarily shot. I can't even begin to imagine what will happen tonight, though I wonder if it can top last night's mosquito fumigation.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Haircuts! Chickens! Tickets! Oh my.

I haven't made a post for ages because I haven't had the internet, but I've been in Thailand for 350 days today, with only 4 days in Singapore and a 15 minute sojourn in Burma. I don't regret spending 99.9% of my time in one country. It's just 54 days until I fly back to the UK to begin the Bar Professional Training Course, but though I'll be very sad to leave Thailand, in many ways I'm looking forward to going home. I'm flying with Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur. My flight has no entertainment, no meals included, rubbish baggage allowance and none of the other lovely things you get on one of the Arab carriers. The plus is that this one way ticket cost just 8,000 THB, or £140. I have to get to Malaysia first but it's still a great price.

I got a hair cut the other day and the barber insisted I choose my style from the display on the wall. I turned to face the photographic selection of late-1980s hair styles so faded the human eye would be unable to see them correctly if they hadn't been so awful.

I eventually saw a more recent photo of a man on a magazine sticking out of a draw, and asked for that. Naturally the result was nothing like the photo. For £0.80 I'll live.

A baby chicken "imprinted" onto me the other day (it was a late hatchling) and so I'm trying to keep it alive. The main problem with chicks is that if they get cold, they die. During the day that's not a problem and I basically chuck him into the vegetable garden I made, sprinkle a load of food and then occasionally play with him, but at night it gets cold. I'm having to approach mother chickens tucking in for the night, distract them with one hand and stuff the little black baby under her with the other. Both foster mother and child are too stupid to work out my trick, at least so far. I'm about 80% sure this chick will die at some point so I'm not giving it a name.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Useless Police

At some point back I wrote a post complaining about how I watched an astoundingly useless attempt by police not wearing body armour to arrest an amphetamine criminal in a car at traffic lights. Having approached with no weapon drawn, while halfway into the car the officer attempting the arrest was shot and later died, and the criminal fled.

My suggestion was that when police are trying to arrest someone selling a drug which some 2,000-3,000 people were extra-judicially executed for involvement with 5 years back and which at the best of times carries heavy jail time, and that drug is one which reportedly makes people go nuts and one can assume the criminal is using his merchandise, and one is in a country where firearms are widely available... they should TAKE CAUTION.

The nice explanation given on the news after this incident where army officers wearing body armour approached a vehicle with weapons drawn obviously hasn't filtered down. Today on the 19:40 news the  police had found a shop that was apparently being used for amphetamine distribution with a hostile criminal inside (though I didn't catch all of the info on that). With the crowd standing a safe 2 metres back, an armed policeman not wearing body armour approached the metal elevator-style grill of the shop and started trying to kick it open (Thai people are usually stronger than metal so I don't know why it didn't work in this case, which may just be an exceptional mishap). Doing this exposed himself the criminal who promptly shot him.

People like to have a good moan about how corrupt and useless the Thai police are, but look at the system they work in. Low wages, poor equipment budgets, (lethally) poor training, silly hats, and most importantly a deeply entrenched culture of financial corruption and lack of accountability and transparency that goes to the very top. This environment is undoubtedly going to attract people who are not aiming to be bastions of justice, and it's going to let them get away with it. This is at the expense of the average person and society and the nation as a whole.

I've always generally been a pro-police person (being anti-police in the UK seems an untenable position to me) but apart from discovering that large amounts of some sort of garlic mixed with chicken makes me vomit and that I actually like being sober, living in Thailand has made me appreciate the British police much more. They're not perfect and there is massive room for improvement, but they're a damn sight better than what you get elsewhere!

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Reader Competition!

If you can guess what sport I was watching on ESPN when I heard the commentator say ""wow, the judges are gonna stoke him out with that one" I'll award you with a full interview on any subject of your choice and publish it here.

Remember, my blog receives over 500,000 hits per month, this is a great chance for you to get yourself out there!

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Stupid Khao San Road

It rained tonight, which naturally caused Khao San Road and many other places to flood, because of inadequate drainage systems / drainage systems clogged up by the plastic waste that results from the lack of proper public trash cans. I've always cursed forgetting my camera when the road floods, but I happened to get my life in order tonight.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

My, what big...

Mega Gecko. The wood it it half resting on is 5 inches wide, so it's close to 30cm long. This thing never sleeps. It makes a lot of noise. First it produces a croaking sound (twice), then 5-7 "IIIH-OHH" noises. This caused me a lot of bother when I first moved into the house because I would constantly dream someone was talking to me, only to wake up and find it was the damn Mega Gecko. This thing can follow you anywhere. I once stuck a stick in Mega Gecko's face and instead of fleeing, he bit it.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Your the Best English Teacher Every!

Just seen an example of some really high-quality english teaching. Without any assessment of the student's ability to speak english, he hands out workbooks on suffixes, writes some instructions (in English, and to be honest I couldn't read or understand them) and sends the kids off.

I know this is blue-sky thinking, but it would be nice if they could teach the children to speak english and pronounce "th" before explaining what the "en" in "whiten" means.

Sigh.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Dream This!

Everybody dreams. It's a demonstrable fact. Yet, everyone knows someone who claims that they do not dream. You might even be the person who tells people you never dream.

The reason people think they don't dream is that their dream recall is far worse than average and they just don't remember what they dreamt about.

I've been keeping a dream journal, which is just a pad and pen by my bed, and when I wake up during the night and in the morning I make a big effort to remember and write down what I dreamt about. This helps improve recollection of dreams, which is useful if you want to try and have lucid dreams.

Anyway, I do wake up to some fairly amusing scrawlings of the message I took from the dream or a snippet of content on the paper. Some of my favourites include:

"Pig sleep better with a dry mouth"

"Bevel your house.
Bevel your house.
Bevel your house."

"Eminem newspaper misquote leads to dry accusations"

"Loads of dwarfs dancing outside parliament. The public must also dance foolishly to prevent them asking awkward questions of politicians."

If you can't remember your dreams and would like to get in on the action, all you need is a pen and paper and some willpower.

By the way, I once met a girl who openly called me a liar when I said I had a friend called Dave who could lick his own elbow. She said it was impossible and I was lying in front of the group. She was so confident that I was wrong that to rub it in, in front of everyone she tried to lick her own elbow. And she succeeded.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Reflex Mega Matrix Ultra Anabolic Catabolic Hyperbolic Diastolic Protein Powder

Protein powder is very expensive in Thailand and it's also unnecessary given that you can eat meat and eggs for very little cash. Nonethless, I like eating powder products, and a little while ago I came across this powdered milk stuff for children over 3 years old. It's advertised all the time on TV so for £6 for 1.1kg I thought I might as well. It's actually pretty nice, has lots of vitamins, various omega fatty acids and is 20% protein, so not bad. I get funny looks when I eat it though. It would taste good mixed with real whey.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Stop Cheating on Me...

Most people returning from a 3 week trip to Thailand will be wearing half-inch thick cataract-style rose-tinted glasses, and most will tell you about how honest the Thai people are. This post isn't about the way Thai people openly point out aspects of your physique to you (What? I have a big nose? Are you SURE?! In 22 years I've NEVER touched my face or seen a reflective surface. But - oh my god! - there it is!) or the seemingly instinctive urge to overcharge foreigners many Thai people have. Instead, it points out that: People who think Thailand is the land of honesty have never encountered... Schoolchildren.

In Thailand, appearances are very important. Style over substance isn't a bad thing. Better to turn up to work and do nothing at all than not show up. Better to dress nicely and perform poorly than not shaving and do well - Just look at what websites for prospective english teachers is Thailand outline as tips to get a job
1) Speak english
2) Wear a shirt and tie and shave in the photo you supply in your application
3) Be white.

Anyway, the style over substance notion applies in schools - it's preferable for students to complete homework and get a top score than for them to understand it. This basically means answer copying from the few actual good students is incredibly rife. I see it myself. Even in higher education, the extent of plagiarism riles western teachers.* It's just acceptable.

Today, I was asked to help with some English homework. By "help" I mean "complete." The student whose book was presented to me was not in sight and I asked what the point in me doing this was - how was anyone going to learn anything - and refused to do it. This got a bad reception and I was the bad guy!

If the emphasis is simply on completing homework by any means, actual education goes out the window, endorsing dishonesty and laziness at the same time.

10 years in that sort of educational environment MUST carry over into adulthood. Wouldn't you agree?

To any argument that says this is just a cultural difference and no better or worse than western education, I say this: In Thailand, you need a university degree to work in a 7/11. That's the quality of education that results from this pedagogical environment.

*The above is less applicable to the top 3 in Bangkok and possibly the university in Chiang Mai.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Ebook Readers (for Law Students especially)

This isn't a review of an Ebook or eBook or whatever device because I haven't bought one, yet.

I was quite sceptical about the idea of a little gadget that wanted to replace paper books but having looked into it a bit, they do actually seem like a good idea. The biggest thing to point out is that ebook readers don't use a screen like a laptop, pc or iPod. They use electronic paper technology called E-Ink, which involves capsules containing black or white pigment being excited by electrical current. The result closely mimics real paper, so it can be read in full sunlight, just like a real book. Though many ebook readers boast other features like being able to download books off the web, play audiobooks or have newspapers, journals or blogs delivered straight to them, for me the main reason to buy one is because of the paper-like display.

I am, or was, a law student (I will be again in September) and a big part of that is reading cases, which in this modern age are all accessed online. The problem I had was that reading a very long judgement on a laptop screen was quite uncomfortable. My eyes got tired and though I wouldn't necessarily get a headache, it was general tiring and unenjoyable to be hunched over at my desk, squinting at text on an LCD screen for extended periods of time. When faced with reading several judgements, articles etc... I admit that I would end up skimming. The fact was that you didn't really need to read the whole of every case. For the most part you could just learn "Principle X is supported by Case Y" and maybe throw in a quote from a judge, which was easily gleaned from textbook or internet case summaries. This is quite sad in a way because by reading every case I think I would have had a better understanding of the law in general, would have read many more journal articles and would likely be a bit smarter than I am now.

You might say that I could have just printed the cases off. The problem is that if the average judgement is 20-40 pages long and every day you are shown 5-10 new cases, if you were going to print them all off you'd end up with 20,000+ A4 sheets in a single year. First you have to pay for them, second you have to find somewhere to keep them.

Because I'm starting the Bar Vocational Course or whatever they've decided to rename it in September, there'll be a lot more case reading to do and I'm confident that if I can download a load of judgements, articles and statutes to an electronic piece of paper as thick as a pencil, it will almost be like the old days where law students read cases in books, except I'll be able to do it anywhere, especially as the battery life of the readers is 1-2 weeks.

The cost of decent ebook readers is coming down to around £150 and whilst that seemed like quite a lot to me, I think it's actually worthwhile, if you're going to be doing a lot of reading. I haven't even mentioned reading real books.

Here's an example of what this E-ink looks like. Pretty much just like paper, right? If anyone has an ebook reader, please let me know what you think of it.

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You only have 1 hour to live...

You wake up in a dirty, windowless bathroom, chained to a rusting metal pipe on the wall. This is like Saw. In the centre of the room is a computer with a message on the screen:

You have been poisoned. Unless you take the antidote within 1 hour you will die. I will dispense the antidote if you use the computer to create a remix of a song that would enjoy great success in Thailand.

The evil genius didn't count on you reading this though. To create a successful Thai remix, select a song. Then use "the beat." There is only one beat used for a thai remix. I kid you not, the same beat is used for every single remix. It features a "1-2" beat and an occasional drum flurry. Speed up the original song and finally lay a man saying "huhhuhhuhhuh" over the top of most of the song.

You've just completed a thai remix as good as any you will hear on a commercial radio station and it only took you 6 minutes. Enjoy your antidote and future success as a Thai DJ.

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Crossing the border to smuggle pepsi and shampoo into Burma

As every dirty immigrant who goes to live in Thailand for an extended period of time, the government doesn't welcome you with open arms. 30 day visas are given on arrival from airports, but only 15 days from land crossings. This means you get some people who have to leave the country every two weeks!

I am only required to leave every 90 days and the Mae Sai border is only about an hour away. Still, ever the tight-fisted git who'd rather not pay $10 for a 2 second stay in Burma, I tried to beat the system. Having left Thailand, instead of going over the bridge to Burmese immigration, I just walked over to the incoming immigration office and tried to get back in.

I was 99% clear until the immigration officer opened by passport and searched hopelessly for my stamp from Burma. He sternly told me to go to Burma first. When I told the guys at the other end I wasn't shopping in Burma, they seemed a little sad.

So whilst there's no requirement to actually enter Burma, you do still need a stamp from their immigration.

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Islamic Fundamentalists Call for Death Penalty, Misunderstand what the UN is.

In many Thai villages, there is a megaphone on top of a big pole. This appears to be a source of much anger for many expats who get married and move into villages. The reason is that the megaphone is used to blast out very distorted and loud messages that the village has no choice but to hear, usually at 6am and often several times a day.

I can understand why this would be annoying and I was worried about this when I moved to the village. Luckily the speaker is only used once, at 6am here, opening with a song, and since I go to bed at 9.30 it's no problem and it's nice to wake up to a tune. The point of this rambling flow of words is that this morning, for some reason, they decided to use a song by Akon. So I woke up wanting to make up right now, na na and wishing we'd never broke up right now na na.

While buying pig food to keep the pig I massage alive, a taxi man called me over to translate for two whiteys who were having problems. They wanted to go about 36km up the mountain but didn't want to pay 400 baht. Given that there's no guarantee of a return fare and he's driving a pickup that probably does 12 miles per gallon, that's actually a fair price. Anyway, for some reason, when the two people asked me questions about myself, I told lies. I said that I was a doctor and that I was on holiday for 3 months. I don't know why. Do you?

Finally, the second tallest person in the village (after me) was collecting honey and got stung in the face by bees. His face got all swoled up and when I saw him I laughed so hard. It reminded me of when this slightly uppity lady who drove dangerously opened a bottle of pepsi and it fizzed. Instead of closing it, she fully opened the bottle and it went all up in her face and all over the meal.

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Wet T-shirt Contest Gets Out of Control

I haven't written anything in ages, so I'm sorry for the lack of inspirational and awesome content. I dropped my phone one too many times and it no longer connects to the computer to let me use the internet. Hence I have to type it up on my phone. Since I'm using a Nokia 6630 (which has the 3rd most ridiculous keypad of any nokia) it feels a bit trying to use a 2 litre plastic bottle as a key for a moped. I've seen a very drunk but very determined person do that.

Anyway, what have I been up to? I went on a short trip to Bangkok during the Troubles and it was interesting to spectate a little. I tried to raise a tame baby chicken but a rat killed it. I've had to move rooms for the second time (no explanation given) but a) I'm now in the biggest room in the house and b) I only had to move the tv, so I'm letting it slide.

I got my hands on several tv series while in Bangkok and I also bought 9 books, including The Dark Tower II and IV by stephen king. Obviously I'm missing number III. I don't know how many people in Thailand or how many rich people in the wider world read this, but if anyone has a copy of the third book and would like to post it to me, please get in touch!

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New Design

I've changed my blog to this new autumn layout because I'm now coming into my last 4 months in Thailand, so things are coming to an end, but I'm mostly just playing with the new layout feature and it will change again soon.

I made a nice little trip to the elephant camp this week and Mali and I became even better friends. We were standing around chatting when she forced me to stand under her neck. She then rested her head on my back. Maybe she thinks I'm a baby and was giving me some shade? It's hard to figure out an elephant's motives.

It's a common trick to have an elephant "kiss" a guest on the cheek with it's trunk, but they do have to be told. When I went to say goodbye to Mali on my last day at the camp, she voluntarily gave me a little peck on the arm, which was sweet.

This is Mali and a larger female elephant. The two of them behave quite oddly when they're together. They're passive-aggressive, very slowly shoving each other and "stealthily" stealing the others' food. It's weird to watch.

This adorable baby squirrel is the new pet of one of the ladies at the camp. I don't know if it's one of these endangered species you're always warned about not purchasing while in Asia though. It was very tame and a Russian tour guide marveled at how much it seemed to enjoy crawling over me:

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Stuff White People Like

I've found this funny and interesting website which explains that white people like gap years. I'm on a gap year so I thought I'd share it. Look at the rest of the site, it's good.

"When someone goes through a stressful experience they usually require some time off to clear their head, regain focus, and recover from the pain and suffering.   Of course, in white culture these experiences are most often defined as finishing high school, making it through three years of college, or working for eleven months straight with only two weeks vacation and every statutory holiday (“they don’t count because I had to spend them with family.”)


Though you might consider finishing school or having a good job to be “accomplishments” many white people view them as burdens.  As such, they can only handle them for so long before they start talking about their need to “take a year off” to travel, volunteer, or work abroad.

It is most common for the person taking the year off to use this time to travel (see Post #19 for reasons why).   Generally, they will start off with a set amount of money that will use to travel for as long as possible.  This explains why a white person with an $800 backpack will haggle with a poverty-stricken  street vendor about a $2 dollar plate of food.

If you work with this person, be sure to give them a FAKE email address on their last day on the job or you will be inundated with emails about spiritual enlightenment and how great the food is compared to similar restaurants back home.  Also, within the first five days following departure, this person will come up with the idea to write a book about their travel experience.  Sadly, more books about mid-twenties white people traveling have been written than have been read.

Some of the more enterprising white people will extend their time off by working abroad as a bartender, ski lift operator, or english teacher.  Their stories, emails, and publishing plans will be identical to the previous white person but will include additional stories about working and complaints about “tourists.”

Finally, there is the white person who takes a year off to volunteer at home or abroad.  Though they are equally likely to write long emails about their experience, these people are often using the experience as an excellent resume pad for their application to law school.  This way they are able to put off real life without the crippling derailment of a career or education.

Regardless of how a white person chooses to spend their year off, they all share the same goal of becoming more interesting to other people.  Sadly, the people who find these stories interesting are other white people who are politely listening until they can tell their own, more interesting story about taking a year off.
Thankfully,  there is an enormous opportunity for personal gain.  You see, whenever a white person takes a year off  it opens up a valuable apartment, job opportunity or admissions slot. Consider it to be the most pretentious form of affirmative action.
photo by Alex Steffler"

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Don't put your finger between an elephant's teeth.

Back in February, I was playing with the baby elephant at the elephant camp. Elephants like sweet and salty things (unsurprising when you eat 100kg of bland leaves every day) and the baby was licking my sweaty palms. I wondered if a 4 month old who wouldn't eat banana skins had teeth and inched my right hand a little bit more into his mouth and felt that he did indeed have teeth. At which point he immediately bit my finger. Elephants have powerful jaws and it hurt, a lot. I don't think he really wanted to hurt me because I didn't hit him very hard with my free hand and he let go. I think it was more curiosity.

My right ring finger immediately went numb but didn't look bad. Elephants have very wide and flat teeth so it was more numbness from pressure than a wound - the nail didn't crack, there was no blood etc. After 12 hours the feeling came back to my finger.

After a day or two I saw that a small amount of the nail at the front had lifted off the nail bed but I didn't pay much attention to it. It didn't hurt at all. Sadly during the next two months the nail continued to lift up and eventually I showed it to a doctor, who said I should have it removed. This bothered me because I knew it would involve painful injections, probably a painful procedure and then a painful recovery. Nonetheless I went to the hospital paid £8 for my surgery. The procedure went well and the anesthetic actually worked, so it didn't hurt. I was prescribed ibuprofen (you can't buy it over the counter here!) and sent home. The nurse did a good job and the pain was very minimal - by the second day I wasn't even taking the pills. The finger was bandaged up nicely and only hurt when I knocked it, which I did two times despite the immense pain of the first bash.

What annoyed me was that I was told I needed to have the wound cleaned and the dressing changed every day for ten days.There's a subsidised mini-clinic near the village so I zipped over to it the next day. The "Doctor" cut the dressing off with a pair of kitchen scissors (ow) before ripping it off, which hurt because the wound had healed into the gauze and dried (ow) before aggressively cleaning the wound with saline (ow). She told me they didn't have the sticky bandage to go around the dressing so I should make do with a flimsy bit of gauze. Then she had the audacity to charge me 50 baht! Well, Bill Gates didn't get rich by writing a lot of cheques and I wasn't going to endure this procedure nine more times and and pay 500 baht for the privelege. I chartered a ride to the nearest pharmacy and the nice lady sold me the tools I would need to do the cleaning and dressing myself for 28 baht.

My ingenius inclusion of a reversed plaster in the healing aparatus stopped the wound healing into the dressing and allowed some air in, which cut the healing time down massively. The nail is now growing back but it looks a bit leperous.

I hope my lesson teaches you something about putting your fingers where they don't belong.

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The Short Tale of Tiny Tim

Everyone is born with a certain amount of luck. Tiny Tim's share erred on the small side. Born with six siblings, competition for his mother's milk and attention was fierce and Tim lacked the physical strength to beat off his brothers and sisters. They grew quickly and become ever stronger, while Tim became weak and emaciated.

After nearly a month on the harsh, dusty streets, Tiny Tim was looking death in the eyes. Unable to enough food, he often didn't even have the energy to hold his head up and could barely walk. Then one day, hunger overwhelming his fear of the white man, Tim approached, craned his crooked neck and looked up with his good eye. To his great surprise, Tim received a lychee. From that point on Tiny Tim followed the man all around town and was fed every day. The man even frightened away Tim's greedy brothers when they tried to steal this new food.

Each time he ate from the nice man's hand, Tiny Tim got a little bit stronger, a little less tiny. He gave off a whole to aura of energy and promise. His ribs began to disappear, he developed a smelly belly and could even run a little. Tiny Tim started to dare to hope, and the man also began to smile at the thought of their future together.

Until one afternoon, Tiny Tim used his new found energy to leave the garden and was killed by a dog.

RIP Tiny Tim.

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I miss...

Steak
Cheese
Pizza
Bread
Cured meats
Tuna
Peanut butter
Olives
Milk
Salad dressing
Potatoes
Chocolate
Salt & vinegar and Prawn cocktail crisps

and of course, I miss you!

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Tips for Living in the Mountains

I just got menaced by a snake. It reared up and menaced me and not knowing if its bright colours meant “I'm poisonous” or “I grant wishes”, I ran like a girl from its slithering advance. I bet it wanted to avenge the snake I ate last week.

Although unfriendly animals are occasionally encountered here in the mountainous countryside, the main threat comes from boredom. If one intends to up sticks and move into this sort of environment, I think preparation for this is helpful.

I used to exercise once a day, but I've now increased that to twice a day because there's so much time available. I've always been a big reader but was back home I was mostly distracted by computers with their websites and video games and didn't read much during university. Now I spend a considerable amount of time reading and it's great. Living in the village is a great chance to actually do some educational reading too, or “book learning” as the Thais say. This always makes me think of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel from The Simpsons. I always have to stock up on literature when I go to Bangkok and I never get enough.

There are frequent distractions in the village (carrying a termites nest home to feed chickens, holding a muscular dog's mouth shut for a rabies vaccination, harvesting various things and erecting stuff) but they don't last very long and it's important to be able to occupy oneself. I'm beginning to wish I was a proper builder or engineer because practical skills would be useful. It's all very well knowing about law and economics but there's no practical use for it here. I want to build stuff like some sort of crank and pulley ventilation system to generate a cooling breeze without using electricity, but I don't know where to start with that and even if I work it out, I probably couldn't build it.

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Go Back to Burma

A consistently interesting Thai blog with a sort of social-media/technology slant I read did a post about a Guardian article where the writer slated Thailand in favour of Burma, citing rudeness on public transport as a reason for boycotting Siam. I'd never personally experienced this, until now...

I was waiting at the bus stop for the bus to my elephant camp. When it arrived and I waved it down, the driver stopped 10 metres away from me. Sighing, I picked up my bags and trudged over to the bus (in the baking heat). As I walked, the bus driver impatiently started honking at me. Obviously I was in the wrong there. (Incidentally, the driver honked the horn over 100 times during the 25km journey, usually for no reason whatsoever).

Once on the bus, things were looking cramped. It appeared that the driver had decided to bring his family to work today. His wife was acting as ticket conductor, and his two children were each occupying a double seat. As I motioned for them to move up, they openly defied me. Mum, watching this, naturally did nothing and before I could stab one of them and toss his writhing, dying body into the aisle, the driver immediately planted his lead right foot on the floor. I quickly flopped into the only free seat before the G-forces splattered me against the rear of the bus, next to a little bird woman. As the Gs dropped, the conductor wanted to walk past me. I'm not a massive person but I'm bigger than most Thai people and this bus was not built with anyone over 5'5 in mind. Given then I was also holding a big bag, I had to stand up and lean over the bird lady. Again, obviously I was in the wrong as the conductor loudly announced “Stupid (white) foreigner.” Right, because you are allowing your bratty children to snooze on double seats, I'm the bad one here. I'm the worm, you're the king. I did want to retaliate and call her a cretinous, mannerless cow, but since here husband was driving the bus it probably wouldn't have been smart. Besides, humiliating someone clearly as rude and ignorant as this woman isn't going to do anything beyond make her more bitter towards the next foreigner who comes along. I contented myself by being excessively loud and overly detailed in my Thai explanation of where I was going, so everyone knew I'd heard and understood what she said.

The thing is, there are rude people, people with absolutely no class, and xenophobes in every country. This woman was probably not even been a real conductor. I'm certainly not going to pack up and go to Burma as a result.

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No need for a speedo

Some believe believe Thais drive to haphazardly (see the woman weaving through traffic on a motorbike wearing an unfastened helmet, driving with one hand while talking on the phone and determinedly not looking in her mirrors, which at any rate are titled up so she can check her make-up on the go and thus are useless) because they believe Buddha will protect them from harm. Often Thai people wear Buddha amulets for protection. The rear seats in Bangkok taxis do not have seatbelts. I saw a great example of this belief in godly protection today when I got a taxi. The driver had adorned the dashboard with amulets, as many do, but this fellow had covered up the speed / rev / fuel display with amulets, to the extent that you could only see the speedometer between 90 and 120 km/h.

This was clearly the driver's comfort zone, because armed with our collection of amulets we blasted through Bangkok onto the expressway, making sure never to dip below 30km/h above the speed limit. Despite the driver's protective amulets, you know what? The bastard was wearing his seatbelt!

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The punishment fits in the crime!

These are the two key things that happened:

A Russian woman was rude to me
I deleted every photo on her camera

This may sound bad, but what actually happened was that on my brief return to the elephant camp I was helping to sell bananas for the baby elephant to eat. A Russian lady approached and bought a basket of bananas. Demonstrating the Russian Rudeness that I saw on a daily basis while working at the camp, she took them without a smile or a word. Then, still silent, she thrust her camera in my face and I was compelled to leave the shade and photograph her. After just three photos her memory card was full (with over 1000 photos) so I thought I'd just delete the last one I took. I should have just given it back to her and gone back to my hut instead of trying to be helpful, because with her Kodak camera, it is very much possible to format the memory card with just three button presses... oops. Now she started speaking to me!

Obviously being slightly impolite to someone doesn't warrant the deletion of all your holiday memories, but I reckon this was just symptomatic, a manifestation of her chronic rudeness while in Thailand, and karma had decided to act through me to punish her. Well, probably.

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Kick Ass!

Since I'm being given free food, accommodation and a modest harem in the hill tribe village, I thought it would be nice to take Pensi and her sister to Taweechai Elephant Camp in Kanchanaburi. The villagers didn't understand of course, insisting I just go to an elephant camp in Chiang Rai. I just smiled and asked them if they would pay the 6,000 baht (£120, $180). I wanted to see my friends (human and elephant) again. Thus the three of us headed off to Bangkok, but the little sister (15), whose real name, adorably, is “Nice Day” didn't do well with the bus and didn't want to make the 2 hour journey onwards to the elephant camp, so she went to see her big sister (24) in Bangkok.

After the elephant camp, Pensi and I also went to visit big sis, who was working until 10pm.We seemed to be in a hard-working area- there were loads of printing shops nearby, emitting rather nice paper smells. The man downstairs also seemed to spend about 16 hours a day making a ring. The room was very hot though and there wasn't much to do. Although my pile of “Jew Gold” is certainly diminishing, since I don't spend money on alcohol and hookers I'm not on the dole yet and I thought the three of us should go to the cinema.

We went to a big mall for rich folks and there were lots of foreigners there so I blended in well. I had assumed that the two girls would have been to the cinema before, but it turned out they hadn't, which was why they were excited and also didn't know the “procedure” for the cinema – in fact, I had to tell THEM to stand up to honour the king. Usually it's the wrinkly foreigner who needs to be told to stand up!

I had originally wanted to see Clash of the Titans but since the non-3D showing (the 3D in this is apparently terrible) was quite late we went for Kick Ass instead and it was a great choice. I thought it was a fantastic film and I'd highly recommend anyone living on Moseley Road, indeed, on any road, to go and watch it.

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My 7 year-old Lover

When I went back to the elephant camp I was hoping to be able to fight the baby some more, but he's put on about 30kg+ and is a little too strong for me. We still had a nice time when I met him in the jungle in the evening, and he didn't even attack me.

The real treat was when I was reunited with mali. She was delighted to see me, raised her trunk over my head, then grabbed me and pulled me in for a kiss. How sweet! Elephants never forget. On the next trip I'll have to bring a load of fruit for her.

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My Name is John Doe

People in Thailand seem to struggle to say “Nick.” They consistently pronounce it “Neck.” This is so consistent that in moments of paranoia I wonder if I'm pronouncing it like that. They're nearly as hopeless with my surname. Even if I spell it out for them in Thai, many still seem to think I'm saying Neck. The final was the fact that Nick is apparently a girl's name in Thailand. Thus, during Songkran, where I'd otherwise have to listen to Neck all day, I pioneered John Doe. It turns out everyone can pronounce this and since none of them understand its morbid associations, I get to snicker quietly when they say it.

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And try not to die...

After several days of intense water fighting the actual Songkran date rolled around it was announced that we would go to Pattaya. Not the one where the average age of a male foreign visitor is 98 and money can buy you love, but Pattaya, Chiang Rai, so only an hour away from me.

As usual with car journeys I took up a commanding position in the back of the pick-up, except this time I had a 200L barrel of water, a load of buckets and lots of girls with me. During Songkran the roads become a hazardous obstacle course and groups of people line the roadside throwing water and cars. This meant I got some great hits on them as blazed past at a thousand miles an hour, but I was also blasted in the face several tims when I wasn't paying attention and didn't duck.

As we neared Chiang Rai city the concentration of Songkrans increased and they started using ice to chill their water to almost 0 degrees Kelvin, which was horrible. I didn't have my camera but it was quite a sight to behold, the streets all soaking wet and thronging with people.

Arriving at Pattaya I saw it was a shallow river with a sandy bank, full of swimmers. It was odd to see everyone swimming fully-clothed, with only a few foreigners around. Swimming fully clothed is dangerous because your clothes become very heavy and weigh you down in the water. Oddly, I kept being told to be careful and that someone had died yesterday. After some investigation of the water, it was clear that the deepest part was 60cm deep and though the current was appreciable, children could quite easily walk against it. I know you only need 5cm of water to drown, but come on. I disregarded the warnings and splashed around until some idiots in longboats, those ones with a big exposed propeller on a long stick, were allowed to drive up and park in the middle of the swimmers. Sometimes my mind boggles at the idiocy I see here.

No sooner had we finished a mediocre and massively overpriced meal when I spotted a commotion on the other side of the river. It appeared an adult man had drowned. Although I was about 100m away and don't have hawk vision, I'm quite sure I didn't see anyone do CPR or give the kiss of life. It looked like the “doctors” just stood around to see if maybe the guy would wake up. Then someone lifted his legs up once and then he was declared dead. As a sheet was laid over the man, the people I was with “I told you so”'d me, but really, how a) drunk b) stupid or c) massively unlucky do you have to be to drown in such a mild environment. I'm personally inclined to lean towards a combo-platter of a) and b).

I've read that every year around 600 people die of Songkran during the “Seven Dangerous Days of Songkran,” mostly from accidents resulting from massive alcohol consumption and the number of motorbikes in the country. Exacerbated by the fact that unless it's the day of the week the police have chosen to enforce helmet use, people rarely wear them. If they do, they don't fasten them. Plus, the widespread drunkenness makes the average person's attempts to speak English even worse. While a typical evening “conversation” with a stranger might go something like “Hello, good morning! I love you!” on this day I was just getting gibberish. My favourite was the urgently bellowed “You! You! I kiss I!”

Still, it was nice to have a great big water-fight and good to see the usually fairly reserved Thai people let loose, screaming and shouting. Even better were the screams of anguish as we splashed groups of cocky roadside youths on the way home – after installing three large blocks of ice in our water barrel.

Interestingly, the Songkran new year festival is also celebrated as the Akha new year, which they celebrate by dying eggs different colours and giving them to each other. As a result I spent about a week eating 7 eggs a day!

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Beautiful Nose

I was out shopping recently and stumbled across an amazing product. Thai people are obsessed about having white skin which is why just about everything from moisturiser to antiperspirant to prune juice is sold under guise of a “skin whitening” product. They would also all like to have bigger noses, but you can't get one by putting bleach on your skin twice a day, so for those who can't afford surgery it's an unreachable dream. Luckily, China is on hand to sell false hopes to gullible fools:

That's right, for 78 Baht you can bestow clarity, beauty and happiness upon your little nose by putting a glorified peg on it! For the excited ladies who think this product to their anatomy will make their nose bigger and longer, however, men around the world can (dejectedly) assure you that such hopes are false and the Jiahe Nose Up will not add inches.

In case you're wondering where you might use the Jiahe Nose up, the rear of the product contains fairly poorly translated instructions:

Finally, where did I see (and buy) this nonsensical peg? Tesco of course! They really do have everything you need under one roof.

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Thai Censorship is a Disgrace

This post contains some pictures from Thai newspapers that some people might find unpleasant. It also describes the content of Thai television shows which are equally disturbing, so as a courtesy I'm putting this warning in for readers of a sensitive disposition. It's also a bit of a rant.

In my old blog I did write a small post about my opinion on censorship in Thailand, but I've been compelled to resurrect it in a new and longer form by a popular daytime TV show. As a bit of background, in Thailand daytime/evening programmes tend to last about 1 hour 30 minutes and can be on as many as 5 days a week for up to a month, like the much-loved Borp Apartment (a light-hearted evening programme about a bunch of idiots whose apartment building is being terrorised by two ghosts and who spend all their time coming up with schemes to outwit them, rather than moving away). Producers need to come up with a lot of content, therefore it's hardly surprising that most of it is repetitive. And terrible.

The show that has rattled my cages airs at around 1pm each day. I'm not going to name it in case I get into trouble, but I've nicknamed the programme “Stick-Hit-Rape” because this is what it's about. Characters fighting with sticks. characters hitting each other with their fists (as well as beating up women), and finally the rape and attempted rape of the women in the show. Every day.

I don't actively watch the programme, by the way, but it's being watched when I have lunch so I am forced to man-up and endure it. You'd think the routine violence against women would probably be the upper limit for mature content in a 13+ daytime programme, right? Wrong. I look on in amazement as I watch a terrified twenty-something in a bedroom, crying her eyes out, being told to undress herself by the criminal boss, who then climbs on top of her as the camera fades to black. I'm baffled how the censors allow this. It's not even an isolated event, a climactic and disturbing demonstration of the depth of the bad guy's callousness. It seems to be a routine part of most episodes at the exact time I watch them. For example, today we had an attempted rape by someone else, which included a 2-3 minute long physical struggle with the girl screaming and crying “I hate you, I hate you!” Don't forget that because this is at 1:30pm, on a Friday, during the Thai school holidays, I am sat watching this surrounded by young girls and boys.

Perhaps I'm unusually sensitive or my Western upbringing has given me a distorted view on the extent to which women being raped is a bad thing, but all I can say is “WTF is going on here?”

Thailand is a country that blocks adult-content websites because they are allegedly harmful to the morals and security of the country. Alcohol and cigarettes cannot be shown on TV because if children saw them they would become heavy drinkers who breathe smoke. This means that because the Korean Secret Agency programme is set in a bar about a third of the time, 50% of the screen has to be (clumsily) blurred. The three commercials that follow, strongly linking alcohol with friendship and fun (100 Pipers), with the ability to succeed against the odds (Jonny Walker) and with having exciting and fulfilling lives and success with women (Chang beer) are of course completely kosher. No to mention that once we return to the programme we might be treated to a rape or sexual coercion (though the Koreans don't seem to do this.)

It's not just the actual rape that I think is harmful to the impressionable psyche of the young viewers eating this wretched dross up every day, it's the way the aftermath is portrayed. In Stick-Hit-Rape, after a rape or attempted rape, the female characters seem to be as happy as Larry, continuing to live under the shadow of the rapist and in some cases continuing to interact with them. In an early-evening programme I watched, after one guy got drunk as a skunk and was helped back to his room by a lady, he aggressively told her they were going to spend the night together and then despite her crying and wailing protestations, he grabbed her and pushed her onto the bed (and fade to black – you know what that means). The next time I saw the programme, these two had decided to get married. I assume their proposal went along these lines:

“Kwan, sorry about, you know, getting drunk and forcing you to have sex with me. So, uh, will you marry me?”
“Jong, no worries, it's nothing, really. This is Thai TV – it's happened before. No-one ever asked to marry me though... I guess I won't do better than you, so yes I will marry you. I love you.”

What kind of message is this sending out to the male and female viewers? Watching television incredibly popular in Thailand and I think this widespread portrayal of sexual assault as fairly inconsequential, when you consider that children are seeing regularly it from a young age, could genuinely be influencing attitudes towards women and sex in the youth.

One of my few readers and regular commenter, “Moondoggy” replied to the previous post about censorship and said it seemed as though censorship in Thailand was controlled by a 12 year old boy with good intentions, so “Smoking and drinking = bad for you” and “Dead bodies in cars= cool!” I actually think he might be right and that censorship rules have genuinely been written by a 12 year old called Nit Wit. Nit won't have had sex-education yet and so doesn't know about rape, which explains why he allows it on TV. I was rather disturbed by the sight of seeing the silhouette of a man burn to death in the cab of a lorry on Thai TV, but I bet Nit Wit (probably high on a sugar) thought it was cool. Similarly, while I think that showing footage of a man attempting to jump off a roof to commit suicide but bouncing off a ledge and so not dying on the 19:45 news is highly unappealing, but Nit Wit presumably high-fives his friends and gives it the Okay.

Speaking of serious injuries, let's have a look at the newspaper reports of deaths. Remember that in Thailand you're not allowed to look at a photo of a naked lady or a film of someone drinking and smoking, because it's harmful the health and morals of the country. So, if we look at today's front page, I don't expect we would see anything unpleas-

My mistake. A dead woman in a car. Just imagine if that was your wife or daughter and you saw this. Still, although Nit Wit did quite like this photo, it wasn't gory enough for his tastes. Just a few days later though, his ship came in when this young man drove his motorbike into a truck:

Much better! A possibly missing leg and a dead teenager lying in a pool of his own blood. As long as there are no bottles of beer nearby, Nit deems this photo to be fine for children of any age to see.

The mildest death photo I found was of these two dead students, which I still thought was very grim. What I found very interesting was that when I asked anyone if they were bothered by the images, they said they weren't. Even the kids aren't bothered.

Is this what censorship in Thailand has sought to achieve? A nation of sober psychopaths completely desensitised to rape, violence and death. Nice.

Still, as a friend told me, “at least if you die in a sufficiently horrific motorbike accident you'll get your 15 minutes of fame on the front page of a national newspaper, so it's not all doom and gloom, Nick Towers!”

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Young Children for sale!

There are cute children in every village so I’m not labouring under the illusion that mine are the cutest in the world, but I thought I would share some of them. They’re not actually for sale, although Fitness First’s mum told me I could buy her for 5 Baht, which rather frightened the poor girl.

I call this little man Putter. He’s a big fan of the horn on motorbikes and he likes giving kisses. Everyone seems to like him and he never has a bad gurgle to say about anyone. In the photo he’s trying to do a “peace” sign, but clearly has a long way to go. I taught him how to do a thumbs-up on command, which he executes perfectly.

This is Bowl Cut. In Thailand most young girls wear their hair in this style, but Bowl Cut seems to have a special stylist who uses a ruler and only cuts horizontally, giving her a comedy helmet hairstyle that needs to be seen in the flesh to be properly appreciated. Bowl Cut and I are currently locked in a war of pulling faces at each other and I'm confident that with further support from the donating public I will emerge victorious.

When I forced every child in the village to do a certain number of pull-ups on the Jungle Gym, I was surprised to see the winner of the Under 10’s category was a girl, who I now call Fitness First. She has become a regular at the gym and continues to impress me with her work ethic and determination to pull herself up. I don't have a photo of her yet because she's quite shy so when I get one, I'll update this post.

Batman and Robin

This dynamic duo was an early favourite of mine and I thought they were a very cute couple. Unfortunately, Batman’s has started behaving aggressively. I suspect he’s getting this from his dad, who doesn’t seem like a particularly nice guy. I don’t really know how to react to his puny fists pummelling my legs and I don’t make a big deal out of it, but if he goes for a crotch-shot I pick him up by one leg and hold him upside down until he concedes defeat. The villagers seem to approve of this tactic.

Every child is special and all the children in the village have something interesting about them, but alas, only these four were available for the photo-shoot so only they are achieving internet fame. One nice thing is that I’ve been taking photos of little boys and girls and no one has given me devil looks or accused me of being a paedophile.

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On my GAP YAH

This is why I'm relieved to be away from the Khao San area and in a place where I'm the only white in the village.

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Wet T-shirts and Rats

I'm currently experiencing my first Thai water festival, Songkran, which starts on April 13th, apparently. Much like bonfire night in the UK (except in Thailand teenagers attack strangers with water instead of fireworks) the fun starts several days before the official date. Songkran is now a nationwide water fight that seems to last for about 7 days. Gangs of children line the roadsides splashing passing cars and motorbikes and everyone gets very wet.

What's nice to see is that, at least where I am, if you're walking or driving along, the gangs of people will ask if you want to be splashed, rather than just bunging a bucket of water in your face, which is how I hear things are in Bangkok. I made an interesting spur of the moment decision to walk 15km down the mountain to Mae Chan town this morning and while I was there I picked up a sort of rocket-water-gun thing for a bargain 25 baht. It's very difficult to fill up and fire which largely precludes the younger villagers using it, giving me a great tactical advantage. Contracting my man-beef with maximum force I cause the rocket to eject a very powerful jet of water which at close range will soak anyone. This was especially satisfying when I blasted the boy in the yellow t-shirt who kept waiting until everyone else's guns, especially mine, were empty and then appearing and shooting them, while staying dry himself. Coward!

It's been a fun several days, but let's face it, a water fight is a water fight and I would like to see the spectacle of the real Songkran when EVERYONE has a water fight.

Despite the fun of Songkran, a real blow to my enjoyment of life came today when I discovered that a rat had got at my protein powder. Clearly he didn't have ambitions of larger and more muscular buttocks, since he hadn't finished the bag and eaten 100 times his bodyweight in whey, but regardless, because I don't want Weilles Disease or Bad AIDS or Scurvy I now have to throw away about £15-worth of contaminated “legal non-anabolic non-steroids.” Since protein powder costs about a million per kilogramme in Thailand I won't be buying any more. Thanks, you little rat. I've decided to give the contaminated protein powder to the piglets to make them enormously muscular and hopefully able to attack and kill rats.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!

Are You Local?

I just realised that I haven’t really explained my situation very clearly, so I’m writing this to provide more detailed insight into what I’m actually doing with myself and with taxpayers money on this little jaunt to the far east.

This is the Yesoh family, the kind people who have decided to let me live with them. On the far right is Pensi, who I met on Khao San Road and who invited me to visit the village last Christmas, which set the ball in motion for my move up here. Where is here? The village is in the Chiang Rai province, right at the top of Thailand. It’s located up a mountain about 15km from Mae Chan, a little town about 50km from the city of Chiang Rai.

It’s a hill tribe village. For those of you who didn’t write your final year dissertation on whether or not international law can help ameliorate the human rights problems faced by the hill tribes in Thailand, there are about 9 hill tribes in Thailand. They are traditionally migratory people and existed throughout the northern region of Thailand, Laos, Burma and Vietnam, as well as Southern China. With modern borders they are restricted to one country and oft-resulting statelessness has caused great problems for these marginalised people. Each hill tribe has a distinct language and set of customs.

The photo above is my house. That’s a lie though because it's someone else's house. This is my house:

This is my bathroom:

The village I’m staying in is an Akha village, so although most people do speak Thai here, amongst themselves they speak Akha. This is an interesting language because traditionally it did not have a written form and everything was passed down through speech and song. The collision with Christian missionaries over the 20th century has led to them adopting a Roman alphabet, though when spoken it bears little resemblance to how an English-speaker would read the words. There are different variants of this written form, but in some of them, for some reason (I’m inclined to blame the idiot Christian Missionaries) the tones of the word and length of the vowel sound are indicated by additional letters tacked onto the end of the word, which makes it even more difficult to read than Romanised Thai. As an example, look at the word for face, written as “myahxf pyawv.” It’s pronounced “Mia Pyoh”, rather than a garbled mix of Xs and Vs.

What I think makes the Akha language sound very unique is the fact that all of the words end in an open vowel sound or sometimes an “mmm” sound. None of them end in T/K/D/G/S sounds. This basically makes all the words sound the same at first, which makes it quite difficult to learn.

There are very few very old men in the village, and quite a lot of old ladies. Even at 70 they’re still active and work collecting vegetables etc. As for the men, eventually a life of rampant alcohol consumption catches up with them and they seem to die at around 50 or 60 years old. Some of the old ladies (particularly the one in the photo above) quite like me, despite their puzzlement with my strange ways. There is one lady who for some reason always wears a Santa hat and she constantly tells me that my mother is crying because I’m away from home.

'

78 years old and still hard at work!

There are few economic opportunities within such a small village, but the Yesoh family has a little shop that seems to do quite well. The problem is that in the little village there are 3 other identical shops!. Ours was the first and naturally it’s the best, with an expansive shaded seating area that’s a communal centre for the village. I’m told the lady immediately next door then decided to open one, selling exactly the same things at the same price. Luckily our seating area and recently installed Jungle Gym ensure our commercial superiority. Plus we put extra salt on the French fries to make sure they come back to buy a Coke...

Adding the salt...

Anyone still reading is probably wondering what I do with myself here. The answer is basically that I spend 90% of the time drunk on rice whisky with the other men whilst coughing out bawdy 1970’s hospital innuendos at teenage girls and the other 10% of the time lying around waiting to get drunk. Just kidding. They wouldn’t understand the innuendos.

Seriously, after nearly a month her I can see how easy it would be to slip into doing nothing, so I’ve created a fairly good routine involving fitness, academic study, language practice, exploring and eating that keeps me occupied and productive, while still giving me the freedom to relax. It’s working very nicely.
I like the people in the village a lot. They're always very friendly and everyone will ask me about what crazy activity I'm doing at that moment in time. The only thing that frustrates me are the misconceptions about me, i.e. that I am a millionaire.

This fire is actually burning $100 bills that I don't need because I'm so rich.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!