Living In Thailand Blog
Monday 15th July 2013
To maintain my own interest in travel, I try to find places in Thailand where few tourists go. With 20 million tourists arriving in Thailand every year this isn't always easy, but most tourists tend to go to the same old tired, boring places and there are still many places in Thailand where you can get away from mass tourism ... for a while at least.
The landscape changes very quickly in Thailand and what are quiet little fishing villages one day can become tacky, over-commercialised tourist resorts within the space of a few short years.
I headed into deepest, darkest Phattalung province on Saturday to see a couple of attractions that aren't all that well known outside of the local area.
Phattalung is one of my favourite escapes from Hat Yai. It's only a 90 minute drive away, but it's an entirely different world. The limestone karsts that are well known in Krabi and Phang Nga provinces start to appear in Phattalung and it is a very scenic province with lots of nature.
There are a lot of wild birds and I have visited the Thale Noi wetlands reserve many times. I think that I would get bored living in Phattalung permanently, but I really enjoy having somewhere like this nearby where it is easy to make day trips.
My destination on Saturday was a district called Khaochaison. When I first went to Phattalung in 2004 I saw a sign on the main road for Khaochaison Hot Springs. It sounded interesting and worth a visit.
Subsequently, I saw that same sign many more times but never got around to going. As we were driving back from Khanom recently there was a big sign for a floating market at Khaochaison. That gave me two reasons to visit and so I decided to stop procrastinating and just go.
My wife wasn't interested in going, which suited me perfectly. When I'm in an exploring frame of mind I like to be alone. Other people just stop me from doing what I want to do and become a hindrance.
I wasn't sure how to get there. All I knew was that I would come to the sign I had seen many times before and that would be my cue to turn off the main road. I wasn't overly concerned because I read enough Thai to be able to read signs and I speak enough Thai to be able to ask people for directions.
It was actually quite easy. I drove into the main town of Khaichaison, stopped, and asked some locals. They told me I had driven past the turning by about 100 yards. It was a small mistake and easy to rectify.
The 'khao' in Khaochaison means hill or mountain. The town gets its name from a huge rock formation that juts out of the ground. I'm not a geologist so can't give you a better description, but it is quite impressive.
The 'floating' market there is tiny and nothing actually floats. The vendors sell food from little tents adjacent to a man-made lake that was added quite recently. Google Maps shows no water, which is how I know that the water is a recent addition.
It didn't matter. The area is very pretty and the rock formation provides a stunning backdrop. It is such a pretty place that I was kicking myself for not having gone sooner.
It didn't take long to see the 'floating' market, so I went over to the hot springs. The distance is only about half a kilometre.
Water emerges from a natural hot spring at about 60 Celsius. They have built a pool there in which to bathe and cool water is added to make the water a comfortable temperature.
There are small, fully furnished bungalows where you can stay the night for Bt500. They are fitted out like small hotel rooms with bedding, towels, A/C, and a TV. But there is one big advantage over a hotel room.
The bathrooms contain large bath tubs and water from the hot spring has been plumbed in directly. You can enjoy bathing in natural hot mineral water straight from the spring in the comfort of your own bathroom.
Compared to what you might pay for a hotel at a European hot springs resort, Bt500 is quite a bargain. There is a colony of long-tailed macaques that hang out around this area as well and they are always fun to watch.
My time spent there was very enjoyable. I have no interest in going to the well known tourist resorts in Thailand where there are thousands of tourists and lots of bad Thais, but I still enjoy finding places like this in Thailand.
Use of the public hot pool was free at the hot springs and there was no dual pricing. This was another factor that made the trip very enjoyable.
I was the only farang there and I got the impression that the locals are not used to seeing foreigners. I was stared at continuously, lots of kids wanted to speak to me, and the guy on the PA system entertaining the crowds gave me a special mention. He didn't even use the word 'farang', but instead used the polite 'chao dtaang chaat'. This was something else that pleased me.
As I was wandering around the market area, a woman approached me speaking bad English. She told me that we were going to eat together and that she was going to take care of me. Oh, really? This was something that I didn't need or want at all.
My Thai was a lot better than her English so we continued speaking in Thai. I was able to question her and found out what it was all about.
She was the second-in-command at the local municipality. She had been sitting with her boss, the local mayor, when they had seen me. This market is quite new and they obviously want to try to get more people to go. When non-locals turn up they get quite excited and her boss had told her to take care of me and give me the special treatment.
I knew that if I had let this happen, I would never have got away and I really, really didn't need anyone to take care of me. I made my excuses and went my own way.
It was, nonetheless, a kind gesture and may have been appreciated by foreigners who don't speak Thai and aren't familiar with Thailand. It just so happens that I didn't need her help or any special treatment.
Saturday 13th July 2013
For the most part, travelling these days has completely lost its magic.
The first time I left the shores of Britain was in 1972. My uncle had emigrated to Canada three years earlier and my parents decided to pay a visit. His journey to Canada was actually by boat. Hardly anyone I knew went abroad in those days and it was the most magical experience.
The masses didn't travel by plane, as they do now, and the flight itself was very special. Not only do I not enjoy flying these days, I actually find the experience quite painful. In the early 70's the UK was a very different country to the one it is these days and North America was like a wonderland, especially for young kids.
It's difficult to imagine now, but at that time the only place you could buy a burger in the UK was in a Wimpy Bar. McDonalds was unknown, as was every other US chain restaurant that operates globally now. Canada, of course, had all these things and much more.
Even my first trip to Thailand in 1987 was very special. I think there were around three million tourists per year back then, but I suspect that the majority were from Malaysia and other Asian countries. There were very few farangs and Bangkok was just on one level - street level, without any trains or expressways above ground.
I had to use a specialist travel agent who dealt with 'frontier' destinations because none of the high street travel agents could arrange trips to Thailand. Samui Island was so deserted that I got bored and Pattaya was actually quite pleasant. Things change very quickly.
Those days are well behind us now and there will never be a return to that kind of travel experience. Everywhere looks the same now with McDonalds and tourists everywhere. I actually feel sorry for my daughter's generation, who will never get a chance to see the world as I did.
That first trip to Canada sparked a sense of wanderlust in me that never left. I was always looking at travel books and dreaming of faraway, exotic destinations. In addition, you could sometimes escape via travel shows on TV watching, of course, in black-and-white.
It was therefore very saddening to hear of the death of Alan Whicker, whose characteristic voice, style and mannerisms always brought these far-flung, mysterious places to life.
I loved watching his shows as a kid and even now those old shows are enjoyable to watch because they bring back memories of what it used to be like to travel in an era when very few people travelled.
Broadcaster Alan Whicker dies at 87
I can still hear the Monty Python Whicker Island sketch in my head.
Friday 12th July 2013
Attempting to understand cultural behaviour is one of my main interests in Thailand. All foreigners in Thailand see the differences in cultural behaviour, but I like to try to understand the reasons behind the behaviour.
The reasons are many and varied - belief systems, value systems, education, social hierarchy, deference, client/patron relationships, appearance over substance, losing face, greng jai, buun kuun, etc etc.
In a fast changing society where technology and other aspects of the Western world now exist everywhere in Asia, cultural behaviour doesn't always change as quickly. In fact, most Asians firmly resist any changes to their own cultural beliefs and cling on to their old ways.
Some interesting articles have started appearing on-line following the Asiana plane crash in San Francisco. I received a long e-mail this morning, the contents of which was supposedly written by a pilot instructor who worked in South Korea trying to improve standards there. He outlines several reasons why the crash may have occurred, including some cultural ones.
"The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess.
First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just can't change 3000 years of culture."
Those foreigners working in Thailand trying to teach English will relate to some of this.
As I mentioned previously, no one is equal in Thailand and there is always a strict social hierarchy to be observed. It is the same in Korea and many other Asian countries and I came across the following article.
"Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical.
You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.
But Boeing and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S., where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power distance, it's very difficult."
The investigation is ongoing and will take a while to conclude. The cause may have been something else completely different, or it may just be the general reliance that we all have on technology these days. When the technology isn't there, people don't have the same manual skills and mental dexterity that they used to have.
To be fair, it has to be said that overall Asiana has an excellent record with only two previous fatal crashes since the airline started in 1988, and one of those was due to mechanical problems. The author of the above statement goes on to say:
"But then a small miracle happened. Korean Air turned itself around. Today, the airline is a member in good standing of the prestigious SkyTeam alliance. Its safety record since 1999 is spotless. In 2006, Korean Air was given the Phoenix Award by Air Transport World in recognition of its transformation. Aviation experts will tell you that Korean Air is now as safe as any airline in the world."
Personally, I have no concerns flying on planes piloted by Thai pilots and I would have no concerns using a Korean airline. Nonetheless, looking at cultural differences is always something that I find interesting.
I started my IBM career many years ago as a field service engineer maintaining office equipment in the City of London. This was around the time that the IBM Displaywriter - a primitive word processor with a daisywheel printer - was released. This machine was quite revolutionary back then.
There were very few computers around at the time and very little useful software. Some typewriters had a tiny amount of internal storage (16k, or so) so that secretaries could save a little time, and some machines could record data on external magnetic cards or ancient floppy disks.
There was still a lot of punched card equipment around at that time as well. Many mainframe computers at that time loaded their initial Job Control Language (JCL) via a card reader and a stack of punched cards.
If the JCL needed to be changed and there was a problem with the IBM 029 or 129 it was a big problem. I had the responsibility, along with a couple of other guys, of looking after all the punched card equipment in the City and south of the river. Some of the punches and verifiers were ancient even in those days.
Looking back they were good days, but tough also. Everything was very electromechanical, I had a lot of demanding customers, fixes weren't always easy, and for some machines there was very little support.
I'd been through a mechanical engineering technician apprenticeship and basically enjoyed this kind of work. I then moved on to large mainframe systems, but it was still very mechanical working on large printers and huge cheque sorting machines in London's massive cheque clearing centres.
The camaraderie was excellent and I had an enormous amount of fun, as well as getting paid very generously. I spent months on courses staying at top hotels in the West End of London on a generous expense account. These were the pre-Gerstner days when IBM was still the most profitable company and the best company to work for in the world
Then the world changed. People stopped using cheques and industries that once employed thousands of people became extinct. Computers took over and the advances in technology waved goodbye to all the old electromechanical devices.
I was forced to change the type of work I did and ended up doing something that I wasn't particularly good at and didn't enjoy doing. Globalisation and outsourcing from India and other places added pressure to the working environment within IT and it got to a stage where I was so desperately unhappy that I had to get out.
And then I ended up in Thailand. It's strange the way that life can twist and turn. But why am I writing about this now?
After reading many stories about the demise of the typewriter and how it is only a museum exhibit these days, I just saw a story about the Kremlin ordering lots of typewriters.
Apparently, this has something to do with the Edward Snowden affair. No data is retained on an old typewriter once the piece of paper has been handed over and therefore there will be no security leaks.
Kremlin security agency to buy typewriters 'to avoid leaks'
Everything in life always seems to turn full circle. I wonder who is going to service them?
Thursday 11th July 2013
My wife saw a TV news report saying that Thailand's rich monk owned a big, fancy house in California. If money was no object, somewhere in California such as the Ojai Valley would be where I would choose to live. However, I will never be wealthy enough unless I ordain.
The Nation also reports that he was partial to the odd fancy car or 22.
Jet-setting monk found to have bought 22 luxury cars
Over the years I've seen lots of money presented to temples in the form of money trees in order for Thais to make merit. This, apparently, is where a lot of the money was going.
This isn't at all good for his Karma. At this rate there's a good chance that after his next rebirth he will return as the lowest form of life imaginable in Thailand - a minivan driver.
Wednesday 10th July 2013
Depending how you look at it, Thai TV news can be either disturbing or amusing. For those taken in by the 'Land of Smiles' myth, it gives a good picture of what life is really like in Thailand. Even if you can't understand what is being said, you can see what is going on. Once you know what life is really like in Thailand the stories can sometimes be quite funny.
The news also underlines how things never change in Thailand. Every year at Songkran time you hear about hundreds of road fatalities and every rainy season you hear about floods in the same places. Next year it will be the same, and the year after that it will be the same, and the year after that ...
Stories of monks behaving badly are also a staple of Thai news and occur quite regularly. Not all those who ordain as monks do so because they seek enlightenment and a greater awareness of Buddhism.
I've seen stories of murderers in Thailand who offer to become monks temporarily in an attempt to escape prison sentences. They say that the merit they accrue will be given to the victim's family and expect the family to be satisfied with their offer.
There are lots of good Thai monks, but not all monks are as pious and honest as you may think. Their lives are not full of austerity, abstention and a desire to acquire Buddhist knowledge.
On the news yesterday was footage of police raiding a temple in Ranong. The monks were sitting around a table littered with beer bottles. One monk was pissed out of his head and giving the police a hard time. It was very Monty Python-esque.
At other times monks are caught using and/or selling drugs, and entertaining prostitutes.
A huge part of the Thai belief system is making merit, but it is done using a very mechanical process. Personally, I believe that there are an infinite number of ways to perform good deeds, and that no way is necessarily better than another.
On the BBC website this morning I read about a young Tanzanian girl who walks 7km to school each day through dangerous terrain so that she can get an education. She then walks 7km home.
Tanzanian girl's long walk to education
Making life easier for people like this would be a perfect way to make merit, but that's not how Thais think. In Thailand, merit making is done very conspicuously and it is always done through monks in order to achieve maximum merit.
Some temples and monks become very rich this way and with all that money lying around the temptation is sometimes too much for unscrupulous monks.
There was a big story recently about a monk wearing mirror shades and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag while flying around the country in a private plane. Apparently, he has millions of Baht in bank accounts and several properties.
Thais hand over money very easily if the donation is for a religious cause. Many times, while having a meal at a restaurant, someone has approached me asking for money for tum buun (merit making). I am always suspicious, but my Thai companions normally hand over money straight away.
If I sense that the person is honest I may also hand over money. If not, I don't. As with every other problem in Thailand, the perpetrators only represent a small minority, but it only takes a few people in society to spoil matters for the vast majority.
There are some Thais who will stop at absolutely nothing to acquire money, even if it means violating one of the most sacred institutions in Thailand.
There seems to be a lot more crime and deception in the world these days. It could be my imagination and a sense of false nostalgia, but I don't think so.
With globalisation and the loss of so many jobs, life can be tough these days. A widening wealth gap everywhere and fewer opportunities for honest work have led some people into less than honest ways to make money.
Most significantly of all, the Internet has given dishonest people huge opportunities to try to deceive honest people. We've all received scam letters from Nigeria at one time or another, but what happens when the bad people hack into our e-mail accounts?
They sometimes use our contact lists to promote spammy websites. If I receive an e-mail from a friend that only contains a link to a Viagra page, I know what has happened. Sometimes, however, the intent is a lot more malicious.
A couple of years ago I received an e-mail from a Thai girl I know. I helped her with her Master's degree thesis, which was in English, and now she is a university lecturer.
At the time I hadn't seen her for a while and didn't know what she was up to. The e-mail said that she was in Africa after doing some kind of voluntary work and that she had run into a problem. She had left her bag containing all her money, documents and cards in a taxi.
The e-mail went on to say that she was desperate and needed help. She couldn't ask her parents and needed her friends to send money.
This was the first scam e-mail of this genre that I had received and initially it fooled me. However, she only lives a few miles away and I still had her phone number so I called her.
She was in Thailand and had never been to Africa. Her e-mail account had indeed been hacked and she knew about the e-mail because some other friends had received the same e-mail and told her.
I just received the following e-mail from a friend in the UK who I haven't heard from in over ten years. I was really surprised to see an e-mail from him in my in-box, but when I read it I knew exactly what had happened. Had I not been almost fooled a couple of years ago, this one might have fooled me, but I have become wiser. He used to work for Goldman Sachs in London and had he written the e-mail himself I'm sure his punctuation would have been better.
Subject: Bad Moment
Hello,
I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,My family and I came down here in Manila,Philippines on a short holiday unfortunately we got mugged at the hotel park where we stayed,all cash,wallet,credit card and phones were taken away,but luckily for us we still have our passport back in our hotel room...We've been to the consulate here and the Police but they're not helping issues at all...Our flight is leaving in a couple hours time from now but we're having problems settling our hotel bills.
We're very sorry if we are inconveniencing you, but we have only few people to run to now. We will be indeed very grateful if we can get a quick loan of ( 2,450 GBP) from you. this will enable us sort our bills and get our sorry self back home. We will appreciate whatever you can afford in assisting us with via western union. We promise to refund it in full as soon as we return. let us know if you can be of any assistance. Please, let us know soonest. Thanks so much.
Thanks
Richard.
This e-mail came from the actual person's account. Can you see how some people might easily be fooled into sending money to help a friend?
If you reply saying that you can help, no doubt the next e-mail will say that a local person is helping and will then ask you to send money to a Western Union account in that person's name.
Once the money has been sent, there is probably little that can be done because it was your decision to send money.
I receive lots of phishing e-mails and various other e-mails trying to trick me one way of another. Did you realise that simply by visiting a bad website, viruses can be downloaded on to your machine without you doing anything at all?
It's unfortunate that a lot of older people get fooled by these scams. The technology is difficult for them and they aren't savvy or cynical enough to know when people are trying to deceive them.
When you acquire a Thai wife or girlfriend they normally also come with a small 125cc motorbike. Honda Waves, and similar machines from other manufacturers, are the only vehicles that many Thais can afford and these small motorbikes have mobilised the masses in the developing world.
My wife's bike doesn't get used much these days, but it is still handy occasionally. It gets through traffic easily and is easy to park. Filling the tank costs just over Bt100 and the bike gets so little use that a tank lasts a month or more. Even when using the bike a lot, a tank of petrol will last several days.
I had to renew the insurance and road tax yesterday. All vehicles in Thailand must have third party insurance, which is known as Por Ror Bor. Fully comprehensive insurance is optional, but even if you have more comprehensive insurance you must still have Por Ror Bor.
One year's Por Ror Bor for my wife's little bike was Bt337 and the road tax was just Bt101. With so many poor people in the country, you can understand why there are so many motorbikes. Cars are a lot safer and more comfortable, but running a car in Thailand can be quite expensive.
What is corruption? The following poll is based on bribery where people have to pay money to a public body in order to get something done.
Corruption getting worse, says poll
From the poll results, this kind of corruption seems very common in Africa. I used to work for an oil services company and they had employees working in Nigeria. The employees were given an allowance purely for paying bribes because it was impossible to do anything in the country without paying bribes.
The problem with this poll is that there are many other forms of corruption.
When the UK sell an inappropriate and expensive air-defence system to a poor African country at the insistence of the then Prime Minister, is that corruption?
When a UK defence contractor wins contracts in the Middle East by paying out huge amounts in bribes, is that corruption?
Can the acceptance of gifts and donations in the United States lobbying system be defined as corruption?
If schools offer a place to a student on the understanding that the student's parents make a 'donation' to the school, is that corruption? Is vote-buying corruption?
If someone in charge of a large project pockets 20% of the available funds, and completes the project with the remaining 80% of the money by cutting corners and using inferior building materials, is that corruption?
When you have to pay a bribe in order to get something done it is obvious that corruption is taking place. However, many other forms of corruption are not quite so obvious or visible.
Indonesia doesn't do particularly well in this survey. When I became disillusioned with Thailand some years ago I was looking at other countries to live in. I had been to Bali for a short vacation and really liked it there.
I started reading up about Bali and quickly changed my mind. Websites such as Nasty Bali, Fugly Bali, and travel forums where there are lots of reports about police corruption gave me a very different picture of the island.
Thailand gets me down at times, but the truth is that nowhere is perfect and Thailand is probably no worse than other countries. In fact, it is probably better than many. There are bad people everywhere. The secret is to try to isolate yourself as much as possible from the bad things and evil people in society.
Tuesday 9th July 2013
It's three months since I had my final root canal treatment and I have just been back to the dentist so that she can seal the tooth up permanently. She wanted to wait three months to ensure that I had no further problems. I haven't had any further problems and there has been no pain at all.
She has been excellent. Her work has been top class, I've been able to make appointments at my own convenience, and she has always offered me options so that I can manage the cost.
The first option was whether I wanted to keep the tooth or not. Extraction would have been a quick and easy fix, but I already have one missing tooth at the back and didn't want any more.
After the root canal treatment she said she could put in a permanent filling, but that it might crack if I bit on something hard. The other option was a crown and that is what I have decided to go for.
So far I have been for six sessions at a total cost of Bt5,650. Fitting the crown will take a further two sessions and will cost an additional Bt7,000. Bt12,650 is about £270 at current exchange rates.
I'm not sure how much this would cost in the UK. Information on-line says that the NHS charge for root canal treatment is £49 and treatment including a crown is £214. That's if you can find an NHS dentist who accepts new patients, and there may be a very long waiting list for NHS dental work.
Having the work done privately in the UK would be considerably more expensive and sometimes people are forced to pay privately.
Dentists forcing 500,000 NHS patients to pay privately: report
In the United States dental treatment will probably be considerably more expensive that it is in the UK.
I've been able to get the work done privately in Thailand for about the same price as National Health Treatment in the UK. The work has been carried out to a very high standard and I haven't had to wait for any appointments.
I have always been very impressed with dentists in Thailand. If you need to have some dental work done and live in a country where dentistry is expensive, the savings you could make by having the work done in Thailand would pay for a free, or at least subsidised, vacation.
Dentists in Thailand first of all go through a rigorous selection process to be accepted as dental students. They do a six year degree and then many work abroad for experience and/or further qualifications.
Thailand is like two different countries in one. When you deal with professional, educated people there are no problems at all and being in Thailand is a real pleasure. Unfortunately, when you have finished dealing with professional, educated people you then have to go back outside and start dealing with the lunatic drivers, street vendors, chaos and general lawlessness again. It's a land of many contradictions.
Monday 8th July 2013
A German man was beaten into a coma a couple of years ago for having the audacity to question a tuk-tuk fare in Phuket. He wanted to know if it was Bt100 or Bt200. An 800 metre tuk-tuk fare in Thailand should actually be Bt20 or Bt30.
Phuket is well known for its tuk-tuk mafia. For an accurate picture of the real situation in Phuket, read the following article:
Phuket Taxi and Tuk Tuk Mafia Threaten Violence if Public Buses are Put in Service
It doesn't quite fit in with the tourist authority's 'Land of Smiles' and 'Pearl of the Andaman' image, does it?
A Bangkok taxi driver has just been charged for allegedly killing an American man with a Samurai sword over a very small taxi fare.
Samurai Sword Killing: Thai Taxi Driver Charged
Life is cheap in Thailand and when the red mist comes down, as it does often and easily with a certain sector of Thai men, they go crazy.
I have written often about how badly, aggressively and selfishly some Thai men drive. If you dare to say anything, they lose control. I have been involved in a couple of road rage incidents over the years, the last one being quite recently. One guy turned his hand into the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot me. If he'd had a gun he would have shot me. The look in the eyes of the other guy told me he was ready to kill.
I have had more problems in Thailand with Thai men who drive vehicles for a living than anyone else. Aggression and a propensity towards violence seem to be prerequisites for minivan and taxi drivers.
Not all, of course. I've also met some very honest, decent, kind drivers over the years. However, while driving I am extremely wary of taxis, tuk-tuks, sawng-thaews, minivans, pickup trucks and boy racers. That doesn't leave much, does it?
After I got married and bought a car my wife used to get really upset when I got angry with Thai drivers. You never know who has a gun, she told me, and she was genuinely afraid for my life.
It annoys me intensely that they get away with what they do and that I just have to let them go. It annoys me that the police do nothing. But in Thailand, there is nothing you can do if you value your own life.
Similarly, if you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation over money, realise that some Thais will kill people for a few hundred Baht. The Samurai sword incident was apparently over Bt100 or a similar figure.
An Australian woman was killed in Phuket last year trying to resist a mugging and the muggers only wanted Bt300 to pay a bar bill. Life is cheap.
Aussie tourist murder: two arrested in Phuket
If you are foolish enough to enter an upstairs establishment in Bangkok's Patpong sex district you will receive a very large bill when you are ready to leave, even though you were promised that entrance is free and drinks are cheap. To encourage you to pay, some nuk-leng (thugs) will suddenly appear and if you don't pay you will get beaten up.
I've heard reports of foreigners returning with tourist police after getting ripped off this way and getting their money back, but I would guess they are in a minority.
Bad Thais (and there are lots of them) are attracted to locations in Thailand where there are lots of 'wealthy' foreigners because foreigners are easy pickings. I have heard Phuket referred to as 'Amphoe Farang' by Thais because of the large number of foreigners there. There is probably less risk away from the tourist areas, but nowhere in Thailand is completely safe.
Fears over safety of tourists in Phuket
The 'Land of Smiles' sobriquet was one of the greatest pieces of marketing ever and now around 20 million tourists visit the country every year. If you are one of them, just realise that there are some very real dangers in the country and be very careful.
Sunday 7th July 2013
I eat very little Thai food these days. For many years after I arrived in Thailand I ate lots of Thai food and even felt guilty about eating Western food, especially Western fast food.
Thai restaurants in Thailand aren't like Thai restaurants abroad. There is a very limited menu on offer and every place has the same limited choices. You end up eating the same things so often that you get bored with the food after living in the country for several years.
It's not just me. My wife is the same. We regularly go through the same routine where I ask her what she is going to eat. She thinks for a while about the options that are available locally, and then says that she doesn't know. She is also bored with what is available.
As you would expect, there are more Western food options in Bangkok and other areas of Thailand where there are large farang populations. This is a major advantage of living in these places.
Outside of these areas it is difficult getting good Western food. There are several Thai-style steak houses, but the food isn't the same as in the West. If good Western food is available it is usually quite expensive, and lots of things simply aren't available.
I had a proper Western style kitchen installed in this house complete with an oven. Ovens are very rare in Thailand and roasting is something that Thais just don't do. If you rent a house in Thailand it is very unlikely to have an oven, unless you rent a very expensive villa in Phuket.
When my parents were over, my mother taught my wife how to do some basic roasting and as a result I will be eating roast chicken and roast potatoes this evening.
In most cases, the only way that I can eat Western food is to try to source the ingredients and make it myself, or try to persuade my wife to make it. She has Western food cook books written in Thai and she enjoys cooking and baking.
The next problem, then, is getting the ingredients. A German guy here runs a very good German restaurant and he was telling me earlier this year how difficult it is becoming to get the ingredients he needs locally. He is having to source food from Krabi, Phuket and Bangkok.
Big C Extra (formerly Carrefour) used to have a small section of imported food, but it disappeared some time ago. The selection of imported food at Tesco Lotus also seems to have got smaller. We have three branches of TOPS supermarket and the one at Robinson is the best. However, it is a matter of luck as to what is available.
My use of the term 'Western food' is slightly misleading. What I actually meant was 'non-Thai food'. Like many of my fellow countrymen, I enjoy Indian food. We have one Indian restaurant in town where the menu is very limited and the food isn't great.
I was delighted some time ago to find that TOPS had started stocking a lot of Patak's Indian curry sauces and other ingredients. For a long time I have been making batches of Madras curry, etc, and freezing it. At TOPS yesterday I went to get another jar of mango chutney, only to find that all the Indian food had gone. I was devastated.
For some reason unknown to me, Thais dislike Indian food. I have asked why and the stock Thai response is that it smells. Considering some of the foul smelling food that Thais eat, I find this answer ridiculous. Nonetheless, Thais don't eat it. My guess is that TOPS have stopped stocking Patak's curries because it wasn't selling very well.
The other problem with imported food is that it is expensive. TOPS import food from Waitrose in the UK. Waitrose is considered to be an upmarket food retailer in the UK and when you add in the cost of shipping and luxury taxes, Waitrose food is quite expensive to buy in Thailand. It is the same with all imported food.
As I entered TOPS supermarket yesterday (before the disappointment of finding no Indian food), I was almost ecstatic to see fresh bagels on the bread counter. The last time I saw fresh bagels was when we were in our old house, which was over eight months ago.
I quickly grabbed all I could. Bagels, of course, are useless on their own so I moved on quickly to the cold shelves to buy cream cheese and smoked salmon. The cream cheese was almost Bt150 and the salmon was Bt249 for a tiny slither.
As a special treat this morning my wife and I enjoyed toasted cream cheese and salmon bagels, but in Thailand this isn't a cheap breakfast. One of my favourite places in the world for bagels is Toronto, Canada. There are bagel places everywhere selling fantastic tasting bagels for a fraction of the price I paid for mine.
In Thailand you have a simple choice. You can pay the money and enjoy the food that you crave, or you can eat boiled rice. Thais themselves have completely different eating habits and the food I enjoy is so expensive because there is no demand.
I wasn't impressed with the hotel in Khanom last week, but the breakfast there was excellent. To find somewhere offering Eggs Benedict in Thailand is like finding some soap in a Thai public toilet. It happens very rarely. The other breakfast options at the hotel were equally tasty.
With all this wonderful breakfast fare on offer, what did my wife choose? She chose boiled rice. On some menus in Thailand I have seen boiled rice (kaaw dtom) translated as 'rice gruel'. My Domnern Sathienpong Thai-English dictionary also offers 'rice gruel' as one definition.
This definition is very accurate and it really does look like something from a Victorian workhouse kitchen. Even when I used to eat a lot of Thai food in Thailand, I could never bring myself to eat Thai-style breakfasts. I have always needed to eat a Western style breakfast, or, as an acceptable alternative, Chinese style Dim-Sum.
Something else that I always find with tourists is how they say they love Thai food so much. I used to be exactly the same, but after living in the country for 10 years every aspect of the country starts to look very different.
Saturday 6th July 2013
The hotel booking company that I used recently kept prompting me to write a review of the hotel, which I did. The hotel had its good points, but it was vastly overrated and overpriced. With hindsight, I would have been a lot better off staying elsewhere and just having breakfast at the hotel where we stayed for Bt300. The breakfast was excellent and the highlight of our stay there.
The hotel was owned by foreigners and had clearly been designed to appeal to foreign tourists who know little or nothing about Thailand. It seems that all foreign tourists want is a 'tropical bathroom' with a rainshower and a few pebbles in the shower enclosure, and they are happy to pay very high rates.
I don't care for superficial decoration, but just want good value. Neither do I care if the staff can't speak English. The things I consider important are different to most tourists.
Anyway, I submitted what I thought was an honest, but fair, review. When it eventually appeared, I read through and it was gibberish. It would appear that the booking company has policies banning the mention of other hotels and prices in their hotel reviews.
This information had simply been deleted - probably by a Thai - and what was left didn't make any sense at all. My review now reads like a Thai Master's degree thesis before it has been proof-edited by a native speaker. There are lots of English words that have been joined together apparently by the proverbial monkey with a typewriter.
I guess that a lot of people rely on other people's reviews when searching for hotels, but how useful are they? I detest smoking and I hate hotel rooms that stink of stale smoke. I've read reviews by smokers who rate a hotel very highly because smoking is allowed in the rooms.
Everyone writing reviews has their own agenda, and the sites publishing reviews also have their own agendas. Reviews can be useful, but they can also be utterly meaningless or completely misleading.
My feelings about the Internet, just like Thailand, are ambivalent. The Internet has done more for the human race than any other invention and it is now something that we couldn't possibly live without. It is so useful that I would be totally lost without it.
At the same time, it is totally unregulated and owners of large sites have their own agendas and political biases. My review was edited to the point where it is now useless. News sites have their own political agendas. The BBC has a left-wing agenda, and you only have to watch Fox News for two minutes to see what their agenda is.
I've been having lots of fun with a little camera I bought just before my trip. It's small, but the image quality is better than my big, bulky DSLR. It has its own lenses, which are small and high quality, but it can also use all of my big lenses. I've had a real blast using it.
However, the forum muppets on photography websites who don't own the camera and spend all their time on forums comparing technical specifications have decided, for various reasons, that the camera is useless. It's unbelievable.
My old Ford has been great since I got it, but I have read about its 'poor engine' and other weaknesses when I've searched on-line. I've also read that the excellent Michelin HP Latitude Tour tyres I bought are dangerous and wear out after 20,000 miles. What can you believe on the Internet?
The Internet is the biggest invention in history as far as transforming the way we think and communicate. An incredible amount of human knowledge has been put on-line in the last few years. However, there are still lots of problems.
Foreigners often have the impression that Thailand is a poor country. I almost had an argument with a couple of French tourists in Phetburi a few years ago about this subject.
I was at a tourist attraction and once again came across the typical situation where there is sign in English with the foreigner price written in normal numbers and underneath is the Thai price written in Thai using Thai numerals. The foreigner price is sometimes ten times more than the Thai price.
Not only do I find the practice of dual pricing repugnant, but even more repugnant is how Thais try to conceal it from foreigners by using their own written language and numbering system.
I refused to pay the foreigner price and didn't go in. The tourists paid and the French woman started going on about how this was OK because all Thais are poor. This is an extremely naive view and it annoys me. I remonstrated with her for a few minutes, but it is pointless trying to explain to people who simply don't understand.
Thailand is a very wealthy country with a lot of poor people; it isn't a poor country. There are some immensely rich people. As The Nation points out, the richest 50 people in Thailand have a combined wealth equivalent to 25% of the country's GDP.
Dhanin tops Thailand's richest list
There is also a growing middle class and they do OK as well. A lot of Thais living around my area aren't going to feature on any 'rich lists' but they have plenty of money. There are a lot of fancy houses being built and sold, and plenty of expensive luxury cars on Thailand's roads.
The problem is that as the country becomes wealthier the money just goes to those who already have money. More tourists coming to the country benefit hotel and business owners, not the low-paid staff working in those establishments. More industry makes factory owners wealthier, but not workers.
The wealth gap continues to widen all the time and I can sense changes in Thailand. The cost of living has gone up a lot in the last few years and poor Thais are finding life more of a struggle. No matter how much the economy grows, they have no opportunities to make more money.
When you consider that one of the current government's election pledges was to raise the minimum daily earnings of manual workers to Bt300 (9.62 USD) and the minimum monthly salary of graduates to Bt15,000 (481 USD), that gives you an idea of the earning power of normal Thais.
I never used to sense resentment among the poorer members of Thai society. I always found this slightly strange, but attributed it to Buddhism and karma. I believed that people weren't dissatisfied with their lives because whatever life they had was a result of actions in previous lives. It was their own doing and so there was no point being resentful against other people.
Now, however, I do sense resentment - and jealousy - among poor Thais. They were told a few years ago by a politician who wanted their votes that they deserved a lot better. They still don't have any more, but their expectation (and satisfaction) levels have now changed.
The country is changing and there are feelings of resentment, jealousy and nastiness that didn't use to be so widespread.
I wrote previously about how staff at the university where I used to work lived on campus in an environment that was safe, civilised, polite and considerate and had no desire to go outside where life was anything but safe, civilised, polite and considerate.
I have started to feel this way myself. The housing development we live on is like an oasis of peace and calm in a desert of anarchy. I try to leave home as seldom as possible, and I really try to drive as little as possible these days. I hate driving in Thailand, the sixth most dangerous country for road accidents in the world and home to some of the most aggressive drivers on Earth.
Anarchy is no exaggeration. The roads are like a race track and the only objective of a lot of drivers is to get ahead of as many other people on the road as possible. There is no consideration for other people, no regard for safety, no regard for traffic laws, and no enforcement of traffic laws. I've had enough.
Thais don't openly criticise anything about their own country. They don't want to be seen as unpatriotic, and this is one of the reasons why it takes foreigners such a long time to get a true picture of Thailand.
However, in private conversations Thais will sometimes open up and they hate what goes on as much as I do. They are resigned to the fact that nothing can be done. Laws aren't upheld and ordinary Thais are afraid to intervene when other Thais act anti-socially and/or dangerously because they are (justifiably) afraid of repercussions. With no deterrents, the bad people are allowed to continue in the same way.
For those Thais who can afford it, a lot are moving to secure, gated communities like the one I live in. The middle classes are getting wealthier and there are lots of new gated communities being built. When you can't do anything to change the anarchy that goes on outside, and when society at large is uninterested in changing anything, all you can do is try to isolate yourself from the madness.
It's not an ideal situation, but in Thailand your options are limited if you want to live a safe, peaceful life away from the general madness that ensues.
I think that things will only get worse in the future. As more private developments are built, and as the people living outside get relatively poorer, the country will be further divided into two halves.
The most violent places on earth are always those places where the rich and poor live very closely together, such as South Africa and Rio de Janeiro, etc. The growing wealth gap doesn't bode well for Thailand.
Wednesday 3rd July 2013
The haze from Indonesia that has caused huge problems in Singapore and some parts of Malaysia recently has also been affecting southern Thailand.
Narathiwat haze level now 'adverse to health'
I haven't noticed any big problems with the air quality in Songkhla province so far, but that could change.
I've always had an underlying asthma problem, but for most of my life it only surfaced when I had a cold. When I didn't have a cold I was fine. A couple of years ago I suffered from two bad bouts of bronchitis and since then my asthma problem has worsened. I notice it now even when I don't have a cold.
If the haze arrives I think I'm going to find it very uncomfortable. The elderly, children, and those with heart disease and asthma are most vulnerable. I fit into at least one of those categories, and maybe two.
Thai society is very materialistic, but many Thais can't afford to buy the things they lust after. They therefore buy lots of things with finance. This is very lucrative (and easy) business for finance companies and there are lots of them in Thailand. My local branch of Aeon is very large and very plush and always has lots of customers.
Businesses expect customers to buy products using finance and they probably make more money from the interest on the finance than the profit on the goods they sell. I've been into motorbike dealerships where there are no cash prices displayed. All that is shown is how much it would take to be able to ride a new motorbike out of the showroom and this figure is kept deliberately low to encourage people to buy.
I paid cash for my house, but after signing the initial contract my wife started receiving lots of phone calls from banks offering mortgages. The interest on a 30 year loan worked out at about Bt2 million. Everyone wants to loan you money in Thailand.
Selling goods for cash isn't good business because the company miss out on all that lovely finance interest. I once read something on-line about a farang in Thailand who wished to buy a new car, but the sale was refused because he didn't want or need any finance.
I have often wondered what the figure is for household debt in Thailand. The Nation said yesterday that it is Bt8.8 trillion. You have to be careful about the number of zeroes with these big numbers, but with a current population of 69.52 million, I make that around Bt126,582 of household debt for every man, woman and child in the country.
Considering that a lot of children won't have any debt, and that many Thais earn less than Bt10,000 a month, the people who do have debt would appear to have quite a lot relatively speaking. The article in The Nation lists other reasons, apart from household debt, why Thailand's economy might he heading towards some problems, and the government is still continuing with its loss-making rice pledging scheme.
Rice scheme demonstrates populism's dark side
The economy in Burma will take off soon and I've read positive reports about Vietnam and even Laos and Cambodia in the past. All the positive economic talk on Channel News Asia recently has been about the Philippines and Indonesia.
Will the millions of tourists who continue to flock to Thailand's beaches and islands every year ward off another big crash, or will Thailand's luck start to run out soon?
And also from The Nation - "Somehow it was like the world was moving forward, but time in Thailand just stood still." That's exactly how it seems. Nothing ever changes. The same problems dog the country year after year and what were problems ten years ago will be problems ten years in the future.
Tuesday 2nd July 2013
This sign is advertising a town house to let. There are three bedrooms and four bathrooms. It is located in Soi 8 in a road that is commonly transliterated as Rajyindee, although I don't have a clue where the 'j' comes from in this transliteration. There is a contact phone number, which I have deleted. This is how people find houses to rent in Thailand.
A reader wrote to tell me that his parents were moving to Thailand and asked whether it was necessary for them to learn how to read Thai.
It is absolutely not necessary.
Tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of foreigners living in Thailand can't read Thai. Millions of tourists visit the country every year and I would guess that very few can read Thai. Being able to read won't necessarily ensure that you have a better time in Thailand. However, it is very useful.
If I wanted to find some rental accommodation in the UK I would go to some local estate agents and ask to see their current lists of available property. Looking at classified ads in newspapers and the Internet would be another option. But that's not how it works in Thailand.
When Thais have a room or house to let they make posters and stick them to walls and lampposts around town. If you are looking for somewhere to stay and can't read Thai, you will probably walk past lots of ads without even knowing it.
I've even seen farangs asking other farangs if they are aware of any rental property on Internet forums. It is very unlikely that you will find anywhere this way.
Apart from rental properties, all kinds of services are advertised in a similar way. You see signs stuck all over the place for house repairs, house improvements, termite problems, etc.
The sign in this photo shows various adverts offering services for house painting, toilet flushing problems, buying household items, and vehicle hire (4, 6 and 10 wheeled vehicles) if you are moving house.
If you were illiterate in your own country you could survive, but you would encounter some very difficult situations. I would imagine there would also be times when you felt quite ashamed of not being able to read.
The difference in Thailand is that even foreigners who have been living in the country for 20 years or more and can't read feel no sense of shame. They can survive quite easily, but their survival would be easier being able to read a little.
Just recently our two year-old has started to speak a little in single words or two word expressions, but she isn't speaking in sentences yet. Her nursery teachers and mother are teaching her Thai consonants and I have been surprised at how many she can remember - gor gai, kor kai, kor kuat, etc etc.
Sometimes she will come to me for some help and I can help her, even though I know that my tones are most likely wrong.
There will come in a time in the next few years when her Thai language ability will far exceed mine. I accept that. The way that young children's brains acquire language skills is very different to how adults acquire language skills and small children have a big advantage learning languages over adults.
On the other hand, I would feel quite foolish now if I couldn't help a two year old with the names of Thai consonants. Why is it that two year old Thai children who can't yet speak can at least identify Thai consonants whereas many farangs who have lived in Thailand for 20 years can't?
If you believe it is too difficult to learn, the fact that two year olds can learn should make you change your mind. I am by no means a natural language learner, but I was determined to get to grips with reading some basic Thai because I regarded it as an important skill when living in Thailand.
The subject of law, or to be more precise, lawlessness, in Thailand is one that comes up often among farangs living in the country. The German-Canadian I met recently was horrified with Thai driving and asked, "How can they have laws but not follow them?"
In 2006 ex-Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice, Tom Bingham, gave the Sir David Williams Lecture at the University of Cambridge. His subject: 'The Rule of Law.'
He felt that this term was overused and that many people didn't actually know what it meant. His lecture was later turned into a best-selling book of the same title.
He makes lot of points and uses some definitions from A.V. Dicey, who used to be a Professor of English Law at Oxford.
The whole concept of rule of law relies on everyone being equal under the law.
"We mean in the second place, when we speak of "the rule of law" as a characteristic of our country, not only with us no man is above the law, but (which is a different thing) that here, every man, whatever be his rank or condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals."
Thus no one is above the law, and all are subject to the same law administered in the same courts.
"Be you never so high, the Law is above you." So, if you maltreat a penguin in the London Zoo, you do not escape prosecution because you are the Archbishop of Canterbury; if you sell honours for a cash reward, it does not help that you are Prime Minister. But the second point is important too. There is no special law or court which deals with archbishops and prime ministers; the same law, administered in the same courts, applies to them as to everyone else.
The book focuses on English law, but English law was used as the basis to implement laws in many other Western countries.
The general theme is that everyone is equal under the law, and the United States' Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal.
That might be the case where you come from, and it may sound like a perfectly fair and just concept, but foreigners in Thailand shouldn't assume that anything in Thailand is the same as their own country, even if superficially things look similar.
Thai society is based entirely on no one being created equal. There are some interesting facts in Neil A. Englehart's Culture and Power in Traditional Siamese Government and there is a huge amount of information on-line if you Google 'sakdina'.
The sakdina system was an attempt to give every Thai a ranking in the social hierarchy. Everyone was given a numerical ranking expressed in rai (which is also a measurement of land in Thailand) to represent their position in the social hierarchy.
Those with a ranking of 400 rai or less were classified as commoners and subject to various forms of taxation. Peasants were given 10-25 rai and beggars and slaves had a sakdina of five rai.
Having committed crimes, punishments were harsher for people with a lower sakdina ranking and evidence was considered more important coming from someone with a higher sakdina ranking.
A wife's sakdina depended on her husband's sakdina, and also whether she was the first, second, third, etc. wife. Polygamy was widely practised in Thailand up until fairly recently, and even now the concept of mia nois (minor wives) isn't unheard of with wealthy men.
Englehart's book mentions that titles were very important to Thais, as they still are today, and also manpower. Men with lots of people under their control were high in the social hierarchy.
It's an old system, but the way of thinking is still very relevant to modern day Thailand. Young children are still taught how to identify various clues that give an indication of someone's rank in the social hierarchy. They are taught to wai and defer to older and/or more important people and there is a lot of deference on display. Patron-client relationships are still very common in Thailand.
I remember going out to dinner with some university students and there were two students who hadn't met before. Instead of just getting on with a normal conversation, they first went through an elaborate questioning routine in order to establish who had to defer to who.
It was the strangest thing. They were both the same age and both studying Master's degrees. To me they were perfectly equal, but of course, Thais can never be equal. Go into any office in Thailand and on the wall will be a large organisation chart with photos in a very prominent position. These charts are very public displays of who outranks who in the organisation.
To suggest to a Thai that a high ranking soldier in his white uniform adorned with sashes and medals is no better than a rice farmer from Isaan would be considered absurd. To many people in the country, the adopted system of Western democracy where the high ranking soldier and the rice farmer each get one vote at election time is also absurd.
Law is a foreign concept to Thais and Thais who are high in the social ranking are above the law. Along with the fact that no two Thais are equal, you can start to see big differences with Western countries which believe that everyone is created equal under the law. There are also other implications.
I found an excellent, very concise article titled: THAILAND: Sakdina System and Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy. The author, Mark Tamthai, is a professor with the Centre for Philosophy and Public Policy of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. He describes the sakdina system as 'institutionalised inequality through law'.
The final paragraph, especially the second sentence, says it all.
"Understanding this system (sakdina) is relevant to the promotion of human rights in Thailand today because the promotion of human rights and democracy is about the idea that all members of society are equally deserving of respect and dignity, and that all members of society have equal ability in making political choices. To promote human rights and democracy in Thai society, then means to put in place a major social transformation - from 700 years of a view where different parts of society have their proper "places," almost everyone is both a patron to someone and at the same time having someone else as a patron, to a view where participation by all members of society - is seen as truly being of positive value."
This paragraph is worth reading several times. When you also understand how Thais stubbornly cling on to the Thai way of doing things and steadfastly refuse to change anything, it starts to give you a clearer picture of why Thailand is the way it is and why nothing ever changes.
Returning to the question posed by my German-Canadian friend, a greater understanding of how Thai society is structured and some of the historical context behind it might help him to find answers.
Traffic laws are slightly different, and more akin to the law of the jungle. Thai drivers hide anonymously behind dark tinted glass and there aren't opportunities for polite conversation in order to ascertain the social ranking of everyone on the road.
The guy in the big S Class Benz or other expensive imported luxury car is making a statement about his wealth and social standing. Lesser Thais would do well to get out of his way.
Apart from that, bigger vehicles and aggressive drivers always get right of way. They are allowed to push into queues and do anything else to get ahead of other drivers. No laws are enforced and as I found out yesterday, if you dare to say anything to an aggressive queue jumper you will only get threatened with physical violence. A Chinese guy I know living in Thailand had a gun pointed at him by a pickup truck driver and people do get shot in road rage incidents in Thailand. It's anarchic.
One of the things I often hear from farangs who have visited the country, but who know nothing about Thailand, is how 'nice' Thais are. Nice is a wishy-washy adjective that I try to discourage students from using, but more than that, it is totally inappropriate for Thailand.
I can fully understand why naive tourists think this way. Last week I ventured into tourist Thailand on my trip to Khanom. Most tourists are probably influenced most by the hotel staff at the hotel.
The staff at our hotel smiled continuously and were always attentive. If our glasses became empty, they refilled them. If our daughter played up, they entertained her so that we could eat in peace. They were indeed very 'nice'. Unfortunately, tourists never see the real Thailand and quite a few decide to live in the country permanently without knowing what the country is really like.
There are good aspects about living in Thailand, but when you start to understand how it really works, it can't be described as 'nice'. In fact, some aspects are actually deeply unpleasant.
Monday 1st July 2013
Written on the back of this silver pickup truck is, "rote kun nee see dairng," - 'this car is red'. I pulled up behind this one at traffic lights this morning.
You see a lot of cars in Thailand that are painted one colour, but they have some writing on the back that says the colour of the car is a colour that it obviously isn't. Thais never mention things like this, presumably because they think it is perfectly normal and not worth mentioning.
However, anything like this gets the better of my curiosity and after stopping behind so many cars at traffic lights reading the nonsense on the back I was interested to know why. My wife's explanation, if it is correct, lends more evidence to support the extremely superstitious, animist belief system that exists in Thailand.
If Thais believe they are having a run of bad luck, it obviously has nothing to do with anything that they are doing themselves. There has to be an external factor that is causing them to have bad luck and when this happens they will run off to a fortune teller or monk to see what needs to be done to stop the bad luck.
As I pointed out recently, they will sometimes be told that their name is wrong and they will change their name in order to change their luck. It makes a lot of sense.
Sometimes they will be told that they are experiencing bad luck because their vehicle is the wrong colour. Again, this makes a lot of sense. It may not be very practical to respray the car, or to sell it and buy another, or they may not have the funds to do either of these things.
The alternative is to write on the back of their black car, "This car is white." The malevolent spirits who have been picking on them and causing bad luck because they have a black car will then be fooled into thinking that the car is white and they will stop their mischief. It's simple when you know how.
It's strange how many people believe Thais to be Buddhist. When you start to dissect the belief system that exists in Thailand you find very little that comes from Buddhism.