TIT – This is Thailand

If you've read my blog for a while, you have never heard me mention an establishment by name before. Well, I'm about to break that rule, just because the experience was so bad.

There's a place I used to get my hair cut at. The name is Vana Spa and Salon. It's on Sukhumvit Road near the Phrom Phong BTS.

I never really liked the attitude of the manager, who turned out to be the owner, I started out getting my hair cut there, but the young kid did a decent enough job, so I kept going there for many months. I also started getting some waxing done there as well as massages.

But I started to be bothered by the kid's attitude as well after a while. One day I went in there and he was working on someone else. Instead of giving me any kind of greeting, he made a rude gesture toward a chair. I guess that meant to sit down and wait. And it wasn't a language barrier either, he spoke very good English.

So I sat down. Then I asked how long it would be. He said about 30 minutes. I said ok and waited. So he finished with the lady he was working on and I got up and expected to get my hair cut. But he said, "I have to do the boy". I said "how long will that take" and he said "30 minutes". I had enough at that point and walked out. It was driving rain at that point, but I didn't care. I was pissed. I didn't like his attitude or the manager's attitude and I was ready to go to a new place. They didn't care how much of my time that they wasted and they weren't getting my money anymore.

But I decided to come back, only because I liked the job the girl did on the waxing and massage. I figured that she shouldn't have to pay for the other's lameness. So I went back a few times, but the manager was more rude then ever. The girl that did my massages let me know that the kid who cut my hair was the owners' son. Made a lot of sense now.

I went in one day last week and I told the manager I wanted a massage. She was a total bitch to me so I asked her "what's your problem lady?". She got all up in arms and started yelling at me. Then her dinky little husband came out and started yelling at me. I told him I didn't like her attitude and that I was a good customer and the asshole told me not to come back.

By the way, when you're getting a haircut or a massage their dogs are making lots of noise and the husband smokes in the back, making the whole place stink.

While I won't endorse any places as a rule, I will tell people which ones to stay away from. This is one of them!  Don't go to Vana Spa and Salon. With all of the beautiful people in this town there is no need to give money to assholes.

Posted on January 27th, 2012 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Companies | No Comments »

As you no doubt have heard (unless you've been under a rock for the last few months), Thailand has been inundated by severe flooding.  Here in Bangkok things have gone from bad to worse.

A few weeks ago my wife was already freaking out about things and I have to admit my attitude was one of almost disinterest.  I mean, the areas that were flooded at the time were so far away from where we live in the center of Bangkok, that I thought she was going overboard.  As it turns out she was right.  I guess this is another example of why us guys get married.  

She started filling everything that would hold water with water.  She bought drinking water urns, dry foods, gas stoves, boots and other essentials in case we are at some point without food and water.  At the time I paid for them to largely humor her.  We got sandbags, even ahead of the landlord bringing them in.  She moved a bunch of her stuff upstairs.  I refused, saying I'll move my stuff, such as the stereo equipment, wine cabinet and tv when I can see water in the street.  As of yet I haven't had to move anything.

So we've been ready for a while for an emergency that still hasn't arrived.

And as time has gone on, the situation in the capitol has gotten worse and worse.  Central Bangkok still may not be flooded at all, but I have to admit that we live in fear that we will be.

You watch the tv and you see all of the neighborhoods that are deep in water.  You see heartbreaking scenes of the suffering that many Thais are experiencing.  You go to the store and you can't even buy bottled water, as well as many other essentials.  I receive text updates now of the news and information pours in hourly, much of it of a conflicting nature.

Many have left Bangkok, making it a much nicer place for a while.  Traffic is down, the sky trains aren't packed like they usually are and I read today that half the taxis have left.  It would be nice it the taxis and all those people wouldn't come back.  Of course that won't happen.

I have to say that the Thai authorities have handled this like they handle everything, badly.  One agency doesn't know what the other one is doing and is often blaming the other one for something.  At least 3 times a week our wonderful lady PM Yingluck goes on TV and cries.  Well that will get something accomplished now won't it?  I think it's ironic that Thailand is having it's worst crisis in a long time at the same time that the new inexperienced government is just taking charge.  And man have they shown their inexperience.  Of course the rival party has jumped on their every mistake.  Ahhh, Thai politics at it's finest!

Supposedly the worst will happen in the next 7 days.  Of course they've said things like that before.  A week and a half ago on Saturday night we were supposed to all get flooded when the tides were at their highest.  Of course that never materialized.

If I was a betting man (and I am) I would bet that the inner city won't feel the effects of this crisis.  I'm hopefully of this as well of course.  But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

So for now we wait and wait and wait.  And hope for the best.

Posted on November 7th, 2011 by webmaster
Filed under: Bangkok Cabbies, Thai Politics | No Comments »

I’ll start out by saying that I’m not a morning person AT ALL!  I normally work until about 1 or 2 in the morning and by the time I get to bed it’s often after 2, so I’m not usually up until mid morning.

A couple of days ago my wife informed me that there would be a ceremony at our condo today at 7 am.  9 Buddhist monks would be coming here to bless our building for the new year.  My response was “that’s nice honey, what does this have to do with me?”.  Well, she wanted me to attend.  After some discussion I gave in and told her I’d go with her.  She broke me down when she said “all of the families will be there, the husbands, the kids, I don’t want to go by myself, it won’t look good.”  So I said, “ok and for how long?”.  She told me it would be about 15 minutes and then I could go back to bed.  Didn’t seem too bad.

OK, so after buying some juice, fruit and cookies at the store yesterday we were ready for the blessed event and this morning at 6:52 am my alarm clock (my wife) informed me that I needed to get up.  So I threw on some slacks and a nice shirt and came downstairs with her to bring the monks the offering.  When we got downstairs we were told that the monks were running late, “traffic”.  Imagine that, traffic in the morning in Bangkok!  You’d think even monks would know about that.

So we stood there with the rest of the people and waited and waited and waited.  Oh and by the way.  These “families” consisted of about 20 other women, 2 Thai guys and one other western guy who looked about 99 and a half and was probably glad to be still breathing.  There were just a few kids.  All the better, less irritating at 7 in the morning that way.

7:15 came and no monkmobile.  7:30, no sign of them.  Soon after that I informed my wife that my drop dead time was 7:45.  No monks, no me.  Well much to my chagrin they showed up at 7:44:30.  Man and I was almost out of there!

The 9 monks got out of the monkmobile and went down the line with their bowls, accepting the goodie bags from each “family”.  Then the security guards from the building proceeded to put the goodie bags into each monk’s own personal Hefty trash bag.  Then the head monk went down the line, splashed each of us with holy water and they were gone.   Back in the monkmobile and down the road to the next event I guess.  The whole thing took about 10 minutes, if that.  And for me it was back to bed.

By the way, we’re living here full time now and I do plan to start posting much more often.

Until next time, enjoy your day!

Posted on January 21st, 2011 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Culture | No Comments »

Hey everybody!  It’s certainly been awhile.  The reasons are many.  One, I was in the U.S. for 8 months.  When I’m not in Thailand, it’s hard to find things to write about.  I used to write often about the politics, but all of that has kind of gotten “same, same”, as they like to say here.  I’ve been back over 2 months now and to be honest with you, I haven’t felt very motivated to write.  I guess a lot of the things I used to consider crazy are now quite commonplace.  Maybe it has something to do with being married as well.  I don’t know.  Anyway, I’m back, at least for now.

The reason I picked now to write is that I had to share an experience that has to do with the condo building that I live in here in Bangkok.

About the time we returned in November, we started noticing a strong smell of cigarette smoke in our bedroom at night.  Now being a militant non smoker and also being allergic to the stuff, I was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it.  So I went down to the building office and was told through my interpreter (my wife) that smoking in the rooms wasn’t allowed and that the guy in the next room would be told to stop or be fined.

The next night the smell was back.  We called the evening manager and he told us that smoking is allowed in the rooms and that there was nothing he could do.

So the next day we went back to the office.  We were told they were mistaken and that the problem would be fixed.  So “engineering” came up to our room.  The reason I use the quotation marks is that these guys must be the lamest group of “engineers” on god’s earth.  Anyway they looked at my air conditioning duct, said something to my wife and were gone.  They told my wife that they would take care of it.

That night the issue remained.  We went back to the office the next day.  They told me they had to fix something in the neighbor’s room and that it would be fixed in 5 days.  5 days later the issue remained.  So we were back in the office.  So they sent engineering back up.  One of the guys got on a ladder and looked into our ceiling.  He asked me to climb up and take a look.  I did and sure enough there was a crack in the wall and I could see into the neighbor’s unit.  So the guy put some temporary insulation like stuff into the hole and once again I was told the problem would be fixed permanently in the neighbor’s unit.  In fact the office even confirmed to us that it had been fixed.

This exercise repeated itself many times more in the next couple weeks.

Some more time went on and I didn’t smell anything, so I just assumed that the problem was solved.  Occasionally I told my wife I thought I smelled it, but she said it was my imagination.  Keep in mind that every time we did smell it before we had to air out the room by opening the sliding doors and turning on the fan.  Not the way you want to go to sleep at night with the sounds of Bangkok keeping you awake.

Well last night the smell was back and it was stronger then ever.  We went to the office and they sent the head “engineer” up.  He looked back in the air duct as did I.  Because it was late afternoon I could see sunlight coming through that insulation.  Sure enough they had never even fixed it!  And to make matters worse, when we went back down to the office they told me it was the owner of the next unit’s responsibility to fix it.

I spoke with the unit’s owner tonight and we are trying to get it done ourselves.

Just another example of the incompetence of Thai “professionals” and of their ability to change the story to suit themselves.  2 months have been wasted.  If I knew from day one that it was up to me and the owner of the unit next door to fix it, the problem would have been fixed in a couple of days.  Instead 2 months had to go by and I have had to spend countless hours dealing with it, lost a lot of sleep and had to deal with a lot of frustration.  Just today we dealt with it for over an hour.  And trust me, the conversations that my wife had in Thai with the building staff, engineers, etc. that took over an hour would have taken a matter of minutes if they were being conducted by two English speaking people.  I guess I need to learn the language to understand what takes so damn long for Thais to communicate.  It’s just amazing.

Well, until next time, enjoy your day!

Posted on January 13th, 2010 by webmaster
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Just when things had settled down in Bangkok it appears that Thaksin Shinawatra is once again attempting to tear Thailand apart.  I just saw this item on the Bangkok Post’s website:

Sondhi Limthongkul, the Manager media mogul and founder of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, survived an assassination attempt Friday that police said left him and two others wounded.

The gunmen fired about 100 rounds from assault rifles through the windows of Mr Sondhi’s car as he was on the way to record a programme for his ASTV station before dawn on Friday.

He suffered head injuries, the most serious of which occurred when a piece of metal, apparently from the car, penetrated the right side of his skull, causing bleeding in his brain, according to director of Vajira Hospital Dr Wanchai Charoenchokethawee.

“Doctors are performing an operation, which is expected to be completed around noon,” Dr Wanchai said, adding that there are no injuries to his body.

“At least two attackers followed Mr Sondhi’s car, overtook it and sprayed it with about 100 rounds of gunfire from AK-47 and M-16s,” said the commander, Colonel King Kwaengwisatchaicharn.

“The motive for the attack is still under investigation,” he said.

The car was attacked at a petrol station near the central bank at around 5am, according to PAD spokesman Panthep Puapongpan.

Mr Sondhi’s driver was in a serious condition, while an aide suffered minor injuries.

So now Thaksin’s latest plan appears to be to bring the PAD back on the streets and incite a full on civil war with his UDD.  The two sides clashed during the PAD’s protests late last year.  Many were injured and some died.  This time if the PAD comes back it will be a bloodbath.  As for the motive for the attack being under investigation, it should be apparent to all concerned who ordered this hit.  It’s fortunate that Sondhi wasn’t killed, but the end result may very well be what Thaksin wanted.  Hopefully the PAD won’t play into his hand.  The people of the PAD are very dedicated and love their leader.  They feel that they accomplished a lot by their protests.  The huge change in the government that was needed finally happened.  Now Thaksin is not only trying to undo it, he is trying to cause all out anarchy in the country he supposedly loves.

What’s amazing that Thaksin’s followers, the ones who aren’t being paid to protest, don’t get it.  They still can’t see what he is trying to do.  He only wants to get his 2.3 billion dollars back, not to mention the power of running Thailand.  But he doesn’t just want to be Prime Minister.  He wants to be the supreme ruler of Thailand.  Where that leaves the monarchy is anyone’s guess.  While he says he loves Thailand and the monarchy, his actions say otherwise.  Apparently he only loves himself.  And a bit too much in my humble opinion.

What’s also surprising is that Thaksin would order a hit on a political opponent when if there is one person who is the most likely to get assassinated at this point it’s Thaksin himself.  And now he doesn’t have a valid passport so he shouldn’t be able to travel.  If I were him I’d tread a little more lightly.  But that isn’t the man’s style.  Hopefully it will be his undoing.

Until next time, enjoy your day!

Posted on April 17th, 2009 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Politics | 2 Comments »

I was pleased to see this piece in today’s Bangkok Post:

Thaksin’s passport revoked, retains citizenship

The passport of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been revoked for his role in inciting the protests that caused the cancellation of the weekend Asia summit in Pattaya and subsequent rioting, the chief government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Thaksin still retains his Thai citizenship.

”The foreign ministry has cancelled his passport,” spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said.

”The incident on the 11th [of April] is the reason.

”The decision to cancel his passport was based on passport issuing regulations, which state that the ministry can cancel or recall a passport if it can prove that a person has caused damage to the country,” he said.

“The cancellation will hinder Thaksin’s foreign travel as a Thai, although his Thai citizenship remains intact,” the spokesman said.
So the Thai government and Prime Minister Abhisit has further tightened the noose around Thaksin’s neck.  Without a passport he should be unable to travel, despite now having his own plane.  I wonder what took them so long with Thaksin not only wanted for many crimes, but for his causing so much political unrest in Thailand.

The next step should be either to go get him, wherever he is and that shouldn’t be too hard to find out.  The Thai government should arrest him and bring him back to justice.  If the “red shirts” see their man in shackles, maybe they will finally realize what he really is, a common criminal.  He has stolen from the Thai people, killed numerous Thai citizens in his so called “war on drugs” and caused Thais to fight with Thais over his causes.  He has also caused irrevocable damage to the Thai economy.  Over 200,000 are expected to lose their jobs in the tourism industry in addition to the many who are out of work already.  This is because of the political unrest caused by Thaksin and the world economic downturn.  The bottom line is that he wants his 76 billion baht back and would like to rule Thailand.  In jail that will never happen.  In fact a friend made a great suggestion to me.  Thailand should confiscate the 76 million baht and use it to fuel Thailand’s economic recovery.  After all, Thaksin stole most of his money from the Thai people during his rule.    Thailand should benefit from the money instead of letting it sit there.

One more point I’d like to make.  Although Prime Minister Abhisit has made some mistakes along the way in handling this fiasco, he has remained a strong leader that Thailand and the monarchy can count on to do what’s in the best interests of Thailand.  Revoking Thaksin’s passport is the latest positive move he’s made.  He’s shown that he will do anything to bring Thailand back to what it was before the trouble started.  He has the good qualities that Thaksin had and he seems to be an honest man.  Hopefully in the end Thailand will be a better country for surviving all of this strife.

Until next time, enjoy your day!

Posted on April 15th, 2009 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Politics | No Comments »

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for awhile.  We’ve gotten settled back into our lives in the states for the spring and summer.  But I’ve been reading about the daily political news coming out of Thailand and I’ve stayed silent.  I can’t be silent any more.  Thaksin Shinawatra is ruining Thailand.

Now Thaksin and his goons have given Thailand a huge black eye by ruining the Asean Summit. UDD protesters have caused the summit to be canceled and the leaders of the summit countries have gotten out of Pattaya with their lives.  How do you think Thailand looks to the world now?

After Thaksin was thrown out in the 2006 coup he got corrupt candidate after candidate put into every significant political office in the land.  He did this by buying votes.  One by one these corrupt political parties and candidates have been thrown out of office.  Now the Democrats have put themselves into power.  Are they the choice of the people?  No.  Unfortunately the majority of Thai people are too ignorant to realize what Thaksin is doing and how they are being manipulated.  They are also too ignorant to realize what is best for them and their country.  But the current PM Abhisit is doing a good job and is a strong leader.  He seems to want what’s best for Thailand and despite the actions of Thaksin and his goons, he forges on.

But because of Thaksin’s actions, Thailand is stuck in a political stalemate.  This man is too egotistical and stubborn to let things alone, even as he runs from country to country to escape extradition for the crimes he has committed.  In the meantime, the country he claims to love is being ruined and he’s the one that’s doing it.  Tourism is about to become non existent.  Think about it, if you didn’t already know Thailand and it’s people very well, would you take a trip over there.  I try to explain to people that politics don’t affect tourists.  But they can’t be convinced.  Thailand already has plenty of negative connotations to the person that doesn’t know it.  This situation just makes it much worse.

The time has come to do something about Thaksin.  He either needs to be brought to justice or taken out.  Either way Thailand could move forward and start patching up all the wounds that have been created.  If this doesn’t happen things won’t get better.  At lease until Thaksin gives up or dies.  The economy which is already hurting will get worse and Thai people, many of which support Thaksin, will continue to suffer.

Until next time, enjoy your day.

Posted on April 11th, 2009 by webmaster
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

One thing that has bothered me since spending any amount of time here in Thailand is the quality or I should say lack of quality of Thai men.

Now there are exceptions to every rule and I know of some.  I have a very dear friend who is a wonderful man, a great husband and an all around great guy.  I’ve also met many fine Thai men.  But unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the rule.  More the exception.

Let me give you some examples from my own new family.  My wife has 3 sisters.  The unmarried one dumped her idiot American boyfriend (thank god).  This was one of those young guys who thought he knew everything and really knew nothing, you know the type.  Now the 2 married ones are great examples of what I’m talking about.  My wife’s younger sister was married to a guy and everything seemed to be going fine.  They had a fine boy and a girl on the way.  Then he left and didn’t come back!

My wife’s older sister is the best example of all.  She had a husband and 3 beautiful girls, including an infant.  And her SOB husband also left and hasn’t been heard of since.  Not too long ago she started a relationship with a new man.  This guy was supposedly a monk who was leaving the monkhood to be with her.  Then after he supposedly left, he told her that he was really a cop that was doing an undercover investigation of monks using drugs and gambling (that stuff does happen here).  She came to find out that neither was true.

The guy moved into her house (without an invitation) and has been living off her for months.  She is a nurse who works long hours to barely support her daughters.  In the meantime this guy has done lovely things like steal money out of her purse, take the rice that my wife and her parents brought from their province and give it to his family (yes he took the food out of the kids mouths).  Plus he has taken the money for the electricity bill, not paid the bill and now the electric is in danger of being cut off.  He even stole the money for the kids school bus ride!  The man is absolute scum of the worst kind.

And speaking of scum, let’s talk about the Thai Police.  I’ve come to the conclusion that if it doesn’t involve a bribe, the Thai Police aren’t interested in getting involved.  Even though this man had a gun in the house, the police wouldn’t come out to take him out.  My wife’s sister has tried to get rid of this scumbag many times and he picks locks, climbs through windows and comes back every time.

Now we are bringing out the heavy artillery.  My friend Mr. Bill has a friend in the Thai Police department who has very good friends among the higher up’s in the Royal Thai Police department.  So hopefully something will get done when we go out there tomorrow.  Now I’m not a violent person, but I have a tremendous disdain for any guy who abuses women and children and this guy is a very bad abuser in many ways.  He has dominated this woman’s life to the point that she can’t think and act for herself.  I understand that this idiot resisted when he was stopped for not wearing a helmet on his motorcycle (that he by the way got this woman to sign for).  I hope to god that he resists tomorrow when the police try to remove him from the house and he gets the living shit beat out of him.  A bullet in the head wouldn’t be bad either.

Until tomorrow, enjoy your day!

Posted on March 2nd, 2009 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Culture | 1 Comment »

I had a real interesting day yesterday.  But I knew ahead of time that it would be.  I had scheduled appointments with 4 attorneys to discuss some contracts I need drawn up for a real estate deal I’m working on.

The first appointment was going well enough.  The other party in the deal and myself were meeting with the attorney’s assistant (something between a paralegal and an attorney here) and we were getting the information that we needed.  All of a sudden the attorney walked in.  He was making some good points, when out of the blue he asked me if I was interested in buying a vacation house in Ko Chang or Pattaya.  He said “it will just take 2 minutes”.  I said sure, I’ll take a look and the guy came in with a full blown presentation on 2 real estate communities, chock full of floorplans, pictures and prices.

Needless to say, we decided not to deal with that attorney.

The guy we met with next was an older gentleman who had obviously been practicing law for quite a long time.  In fact his office looked like he had never thrown anything away.  It was a dump.  We didn’t use him either.

Stop number three was to meet a young attorney at a Starbucks.  The reason he met with us there is that he will be soon opening his own firm.  Fair enough.  But he really didn’t have much to say and didn’t give us much information on what we wanted to find out about.  Another one eliminated.

Stop four was a little more productive.  We met with one lawyer who was pleasant enough and seemed knowledgeable.  Then he brought his partner in who talked a mile a minute, in English.  But these guys had some creative ways to deal with our situation and we will probably use them, even though they were the most expensive.  Funny enough their proposal quickly dropped from 73,000 to 37,000 baht when we complained about the price.  Hey, times are certainly tough everywhere.

Then we got the proposals today.  One firms proposal (the first one) had no numbers on it and the last firm’s proposal had the number added up wrong (on their side of course).  Then when I called them on it I got it back, wrong again.  I hope their legal work is more accurate then their math.

The other thing that was interesting was that no one firm completely agreed with the interpretation of the law with any other one.  That’s a little scary.  However I did confirm some things today with the firms other then the last one and things started to line up in one area anyway.

Needless to say, I’m finding that the law profession is much like every other one in Thailand, slightly less then professional by western standards.  Oh well, TIT!

Until tomorrow, enjoy your day!

Posted on February 11th, 2009 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Companies | No Comments »

It’s been a very sad week for myself and my wife and her family.  On Wednesday night we found out that her cousin, only 49 years old, had passed away in my wife’s home province in the North East.  Friday morning we flew to Ubon Ratchathani for the funeral.  Her cousin had been sick for quite some time from cancer and finally succumbed to the disease.

So we arrived in Ubon on Friday and made the drive to the family’s village and to my wife’s cousin’s home.  Her husband, a British guy was there along with the entire family and many friends.  Many had also made the trip from Bangkok.  Unlike us they had made the long 12 hour drive.  The husband was understandably upset, but relieved that the long ordeal was over for him and for his wife of 17 years.   The family and some friends were eating and drinking.  Many of the close relative went into the house for the start of the service with the monks.  Many of the rest almost seemed oblivious to what was going on inside.  I found that very strange.

Suddenly during the service I saw the husband of the late woman talking to my wife and to his wife’s sisters while the monks were chanting away.  I was just outside the front door, which was open.  Then he left the room and started talking to me and some other friends, visibly upset.  He told me that this was the 5th time the monks had come to the house since her death and that they had been given some 200,000 baht (over 5700 dollars U.S.) in funds by the 2 sisters that the family and friends had donated to the him to help pay for the funeral and to help him out.  He explained that the medical bills had cleaned them out financially and that he had nothing.  My wife tried to calm him down, which caused him to get upset at her, saying that these people “don’t get it”.  He told me these poor people always give money to the temple, even if they can’t afford to put food on the table.  My wife explained that Budhist people believed that anything they gave to the monks would come back to them many times over in the next life.

You know, it kind of reminds me of the TV evangelists and how they take money from poor people, promising salvation.  In fact, I told my wife this.  Organized religion has been known throughout the world to prey on the poor, who are the most vulnerable to this kind of idea and who can least afford to pay for it.

Anyway after the monk ceremony at the house the casket, inside of a huge ornamental box was placed in a pickup truck and the entire group of family and friends accompanied it to the temple, about a mile away.  Wearing a black shirt in the hot sun was quite uncomfortable as we walked the dirt roads to the temple.  Everyone held a rope that the monks also held in the pickup truck.

When we got to the temple we circled the crematory 3 times we went inside a room in the temple and kneeling on the floor in front of the monks we prayed.  We also each had to give the monks 100 baht in an envelope (at least we did).  Once again, more money to the monks, who put it in their pockets.  After this service we sat down outside as people from the village were called up to receive donations for local charities.  At least something wasn’t going to the monks!  The body was now up on the stage at the creamatory, which we faced.  We then all put sticks with paper attached on the stage, which were to be used as fuel for the creamation.  Finally after some more praying by the monks, the casket was lifted into the creamatory, the husband lit fireworks on a string that shot into the creamatory to light the fire, the fire was lit and the service soon ended.

We later went back to the house and eat and drank that evening.  The husband slept through much of this party and later woke up and greeted us.  I flew back to Bangkok the next morning while my wife stayed behind.

I found the experience interesting (my first Budhist funeral) and at the same time very sad.  I couldn’t help but feel that these very poor farmers were being taken advantage of by their faith.  It was very apparent to me.  Of course my wife doesn’t see it that way and I understand.  Nobody is better at brainwashing then organized religion.  I have to say that my faith, the Jewish faith does it less then most.  For that I’m very thankful.

Today my wife’s family got another shock.  Last night another cousin, a 38 year old guy, after a night of heavy drinking and gambling, colapsed on her parent’s kitchen floor.  She called me today to tell me that he is in the hospital, essentially brain dead!  Unfortunately, since the nearest hospital is almost an hour away from this village and there are no ambulances nearby, any chance for him to get oxygen, which could have saved his life and which probably would have were gone.  An amazing week of grief for this family.

This brings up another thought.  If you live in the village and a medical emergency happens you will probably die before getting help.  And if you live in Bangkok and the ambulance does get to you in time, you may also die on the way to the hospital, because of the horendous traffic!  Of course if the ambulance gets stuck in traffic, you may as well be in a remote village as you die waiting for help.  This is one of many dangers of living in this country.

Well, that’s about it for today.  More tomorrow.  Until tomorrow, enjoy your day!

Posted on February 8th, 2009 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Culture | No Comments »