Dad had heard from a guy he works with about this Buddha that�s supposed to work, essentially if you make a prayer and give an offering to him/it, you'll get a blessing. It's got four faces and at each one you give an offering at each one and do a little head bow-prayer thing. I decided that it was only proper that I wish for a pretty Asian girlfriend, and one for Joe Lane too, if he wants one.
We decided to take the SkyTrain (elevated light rail) back towards the hotel. We got off by the river and on a lark decided to go for another boat ride. For a mere 15 bhat we were on board a commuter boat headed up the Chao Phraya. Little did we know that we wouldn't be able to take the same boat back, we ended getting off 45 minutes later and catching a cab back to the hotel.
We were up and out of the hotel by 5:30 on our way to the train station. On the way the cab driver tried to convince us to have him drive us to Ayutthaya, "only 1500 baht", the express train cost 160 for both of us.
The train goes through some decidedly third world countryside. Seeing the way they lived caused me quite a bit of reflection, hopefully it will be reflected back on my actions.
Getting of the train a guy approached us asking if we needed a tuk tuk, we sort of waved him off as has become the habit with anyone offering something. He asked where we were from and after we told him he fumbled around in his fanny pack and pulled out a small spiral bound notebook. Flipping around for a few seconds he showed us several notes people had left about him for other tourists. At this point I was sold as I wrote in his book that afternoon, you can't go wrong with anyone who'll show you a book full of positive comments from past customers. My dad was sold when he showed him the Thai Tourism Authority's Sign with set rates, 200 baht per hour for tours (~$5.00).
The first temple we went to was very nice, the morning coolness helps make any place enjoyable though. [more to come here]
Among the stops at temples my Dad ended up riding an elephant, while I was waiting for him (after taking the half roll of film of my dad he wanted) I started reading there save the elephant stuff. They're having a hard time figuring out what to do with the domesticated elephants. They used to use them for logging but that was made illegal in Thailand ten or twenty years ago. After problems in Bangkok it became illegal to have them in the city, so now there's a lot of elephants who can't be put back in the wild and their owners have the tough task of finding a way to make money to feed them.
Most pictures that I've taken in the past are zoomed out, as if trying to get the whole picture. If they were cropped down it wouldn't be so bad but in any case the real detail is lost. On this trip I've resolved to try to limit the scope of the pictures, find one interesting aspect and focus on it.
I'll probably end up putting some of those zoomed out pictures in but they'll be more to illustrate a point. If I can I'll try to make the same point with a picture that's actually nice to look at.
The nice thing about using a digital camera is the iterative nature of it. Every night I can see what worked and didn't in the pictures I took that day, hopefully I won't keep making the same mistakes with lighting, focus and composure.
What I'm looking forward to doing is putting together a system that allows you to rate my snapshots, one vote per picture.
I think it was Mark Twain who said that Bangkok is the Venice of the East. Well I'd say that Bangkok is the New Orleans of the East, and Patpong is the Bourbon St.
The main difference, less T-shirt stores and the entire street is covered with booths selling bootleg CDs, bootleg clothing, Leatherman knock-offs, Zippo knock-offs, and the standard line of chop-sticks and Buddha figures. Oh yeah, on the side walk every 3m there are two or three people trying to show you the small laminated card they're holding that looks like a menu. On closer inspection it turns out to be list of all the acts (with simple illustrations) you can see inside the club behind them, notably the ping-pong show, the banana show, and most intriguing the balloon show.
Everything here seems to run on the basis of whoever brings in the tourist a cut, be it restaurant, shop, tour, or is this case strip club. Later I was struck by the fact that they're using the same business plan as many websites but these gentlemen (and the occasional lady) are making money with it. I suppose credit should be given to their aggressive sales techniques, banner ads just don't have the same effect.
In the interest of being an objective tourist we decided to visit one of these clubs. I'll only say this, the beer and cover cost 600 baht (~$15) and we stayed there less than 30 minutes. I've heard you can get a massage and sex for $30.
I should have known that IBM wouldn't let me down, their power supply works just fine with 220 volts.
That crappy camera on the other hand needs the power converted. I'm definitely going to be looking for a new camera when I get back, the Toshiba eats up batteries like it didn't take 6 hours to charge them. The next camera I get needs to run on some standard rechargable battery, and last longer than the 60 pictures on a charge this one gets.
First thing we did was go by the train station and check on taking a trip tomorrow.
We went back to the Grand Palace. My dad waited outside and wrote some postcards and I went in and took some of the pictures that I'd wanted to take the day before. I also stopped in at the Wat Phra Kaeo which houses the Emerald Buddha, it was kind of impressive in that it's whole lot of emerald but it the building it was in was sort of gaudy.
After leaving the Grand Palace we went to Wat Po and saw the reclining Buddha. I was impressed, the image is huge, possibly 30m long. I got a couple of pictures but they don't do it justice at all.
What's striking to me is how small the tourist circuit is. I keep seeing people over and over again.
I started updating this journal. Finally got a structure that I like, need to fix the input forms up next. They're pretty basic but functional. I'll probably try to get the web portion up so that I can upload it and the database when I find a net connection.
Freaking camera ran out of batteries by 13:00, ended up missing a couple of cool pictures. Part of the problem was that I was shooting indescriminately, tomorrow I'll be a lot more carefull what I spend battery on.
We went on a boat tour in the morning. I think it was a nice way to see the city, it's hot and humid in Bangkok (even in January) but there was a nice breeze in the canals and on the river so it was very plesant. The boat operator was kind enough (which most people are when you're paying them) to drop us off at a pier near the Grand Palace.
The Grand Palace takes up the space of several blocks so we spent several minutes wandering around trying to find the entrance. Inside were some beautiful temples and I got a few good pictures.
I should have known that IBM wouldn't let me down, their power supply works just fine with 220 volts.
That crappy camera on the other hand needs the power converted. I'm definitely going to be looking for a new camera when I get back, the Toshiba eats up batteries like it didn't take 6 hours to charge them. The next camera I get needs to run on some standard rechargable battery, and last longer than the 60 pictures on a charge this one gets.
I think it was Mark Twain who said that Bangkok is the Venice of the East. Well I'd say that Bangkok is the New Orleans of the East, and Patpong is the Bourbon St.
The main difference, less T-shirt stores and the entire street is covered with booths selling bootleg CDs, bootleg clothing, Leatherman knock-offs, Zippo knock-offs, and the standard line of chop-sticks and Buddha figures. Oh yeah, on the side walk every 3m there are two or three people trying to show you the small laminated card they're holding that looks like a menu. On closer inspection it turns out to be list of all the acts (with simple illustrations) you can see inside the club behind them, notably the ping-pong show, the banana show, and most intriguing the balloon show.
Everything here seems to run on the basis of whoever brings in the tourist a cut, be it restaurant, shop, tour, or is this case strip club. Later I was struck by the fact that they're using the same business plan as many websites but these gentlemen (and the occasional lady) are making money with it. I suppose credit should be given to their aggressive sales techniques, banner ads just don't have the same effect.
In the interest of being an objective tourist we decided to visit one of these clubs. I'll only say this, the beer and cover cost 600 baht (~$15) and we stayed there less than 30 minutes. I've heard you can get a massage and sex for $30.
Freaking camera ran out of batteries by 13:00, ended up missing a couple of cool pictures. Part of the problem was that I was shooting indescriminately, tomorrow I'll be a lot more carefull what I spend battery on.
We went on a boat tour in the morning. I think it was a nice way to see the city, it's hot and humid in Bangkok (even in January) but there was a nice breeze in the canals and on the river so it was very plesant. The boat operator was kind enough (which most people are when you're paying them) to drop us off at a pier near the Grand Palace.
The Grand Palace takes up the space of several blocks so we spent several minutes wandering around trying to find the entrance. Inside were some beautiful temples and I got a few good pictures.
We left Reno on 1/27/2001 at the unreasonable hour of 6am. My dad hears "6am at the airport" and it translates to 5am. I'd have no problem with it if it didn't mean that I had to get up with him at 4am.
After about 5 hours on the plane I broke down and got out the laptop. If I can't charge the battery I'll be screwed but I'd I think that's a small chance and I'd really like to get the database squared away.
The flight from SFO to SEO (I believe that's the airport code for Seoul) is 5500 miles and 12 hours. The only book I brought is Donald Knuth's Art of Programming vol 1, it was a deliberate choice, on past trips I've taken a book that was too entertaining I'll be too into it to pay attention to the trip. It's a good book though I'm getting a lot out of it.
On a 12 hour flight they play all kinds of crap on the TVs, I made the mistake of sitting through the movie Beautiful because it had Minnie Driver and that chick who played Finger Cuffs in Chasing Amy, I should know better by now. I did get to see a bunch of Korean pop music videos. I was enjoying them, just your standard poppy-eurodanceish-songs. Then they started singing in English, there's no such thing as good lyrics in a pop song I don't care what language it's in.
We land in Korea in about two hours then we get on a plane to Bangkok, as of yet it hasn't hit me that I'm going to Asia.
I'm sitting in the airport in Seoul watching a games show that some how involves telling which of two items is real and which is fake. What's cool is that the people are completely dressed up, men in tuxes and women in fancy dresses. The first round they were trying to spot fake ginseng, then it seems like they went into a kitchen and made something with it? I'm still not sure.
There was a second movie on the plane, it was a Korean film called Just Do It. I was very impressed, a nice dark comedy about insurance fraud leading to killing relatives, good indie feel to it.
Just updated the clock on my computer so the time stamps should now be on local time.
Because I've got one point of failure I'm a little worried. If the power converted I bought doesn't work doing this "digital journal" is going to be rough, I'll have to save the battery for downloading pictures from my camera.
I guess technically it's day three now but since we merged day one and two traveling, I'm going to make it clear that since it's after midnight it's day 3.