...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!

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

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!