embsmall

embsmall
Originally uploaded by nyoman23

I go to the beach here in Jomtien about every day to play the guitar in the morning. Good place to watch life in all it's forms pass by.

Introduction to Jomtien et al

I hope to get this thing going. I live in Thailand, in the beach resort of Jomtien, near Pattaya

It is the craziest place on earth, as far as I know.... This blog may help avoid some of the pitfalls to the newbie to Thai life. Not all of them.

I am returning to Thailand very soon, but wantedto set this up here. I send out weekly emails, andthought I would include a sample below:

It took 13 hours to get back to Jomtien from Nong Khai, the border town near Vientienne. The bus I started with seemed to stop at every burg big enough to have a station. I decided to switch buses at Korat, since I found out they had buses with Pattaya as the destination, saving a run into Bangkok and back out again. I thought it would save some time, but I think it worked out to 6 of 1, 1/2 doz of the other. But the route was more on secondary roads and more "scenic". Bus stopped somewhere in central Pattaya and hired a motorcycle taxi to take me home, which made me a tad anxious due to having back pack on and feeling a sudden movement could give me a back flip. Got home at 8 and ordered pizza. Billy was cranking up AC DC and pulled down his gate when I rolled up (?). I kicked the gate just to let him know I was back. He and Pom took off for Buri Ram (her village) the next morning, so it is relatively peaceful, except of course for the usual noise from across the parking lot of laughter and invitations from the bar girls to whomever gets in range. Sumalee still in Surin, talked with her on the phone. Seems the guys supposedly fixing the water problem are not too "geng" (clever). There is a trench running from back to front of the building, work has stopped, ain't it wonderful. She told me not to talk to the women at Eve Massage because the boss is angry with me and my reasoning about just when the trench could be dug (you may recall I didn't think we would have them stop everytime a customer showed up at eve). Whatever. Saw Alex walking by when I came back. He said "Welcome back to hell". Made me laugh. It's not hell, but it ain't heaven either. Pattaya is at least not too boring. Unlike any other neighborhood I've lived in. The junk I picked up lasted the trip. In Laos I bought some dvds and cds. Chinese pressings, good quality. $2 for either. Got Pulp Fiction, Cold Mountain, Fahrenheit 9/11, and the classic superb black comedy Little Murders. The cds were double ones. Got Claptons 461 Ocean Boulevarde, Let It Be Naked (Beatles with Phil Spector overdone production removed) and the Chinese 12 Girl Band, which is pretty popular over here in Asia. Play all trad insturments with a sort of updated beat. Oh yeah, and in Bangkok I got "The Untouchables: Arsenals unbeaten championship season" vcd. Which is nice, since didn't have cable last year so missed alot of games. And this years red jersey, which is quite attractive and has Thierry Henrys name and number on it. Good quality. Henry is top scorer in the league again this year, has 20 goals so far. Last night in an FA cup match, he did the little trick I remember from a few years ago. Intercepted the ball from the goalkeeper when he let go of it for a kick. Ran around him and knocked it in. Disallowed, but just the skill level to pull that off is amazing. The Fred Astaire of football. I was thinking of the different purposes that people work at, such as myself compared with bar girls. I am "set" money wise if I don't get too stupid, and the thing that eats at me is that perhaps I am too comfortable, in a routine, missing out on the sharper edges of life. yeah, so put your hand in a meat grinder, fool! Now the bar girls, consider their life. They are really tossed about by the winds of chance. No health plan/job protection for them. They are always "on": if they don't score, they don't eat. 95% don't make all that much, what with having to support mom and pop and maybe some kids, whom they rarely get to see (no paid vacations). I could do an inventory of Dang's room on one sheet of paper. A cheap wardrobe, a bed, a fan, a $50 boom box, a plastic chair, a wire shelf, her clothes, and that's it. At least they don't have some pimp beating them up and taking their money. They are independent contractors of a sort. Although if someone wishes to "buy their contract" it can cost $250 or so to get them "released" from their job. I think this is outrageous. The bars don't really pay them anything (maybe $50 a month), and the bar gets most of the "bar fine" (which they get even if the woman contracts out for a few weeks or a month), so it is not like this is a charity operation or anything, so why do they get to sell these women? They get it because they can. There are pay toilets in Thailand, and the usual price is 3 baht, about $.08. I wonder about the level of job satisfaction that can be had in being the person collecting that money. What sort of job enrichment program could be implemented for that? So maybe the job of bar girl is at least more interesting, diverse (and we all love to "celebrate diversity" don't we?), and creative than collecting that 3 baht a shot job. There is a large vinyl poster hanging on a wall on the main road into the market area of central Pattaya. It's main message is "do the crime here, serve time in your home country". This is in regards to sexual predators of the young. It is put out by US customs. Now I am no defender of that sort of short eyes pervos, but my mind ruminated on this whilst walking by the latest slut fashion stores. To wit: seems to me that unless there is some international court that the US has signed onto (highly doubtful), how can you be charged for a crime that didn't occur within the jurisdiction of the court? Isn't that like busting someone in New York for smoking ganja in Mexico? Are they tried here or in the home country? And if were a pervo like that, I think I would much rather serve time in a US jail than some Thai shithole prison. Oh, one of the Thai slangs for prison is "monkey house", the English words, not translated. BBC had an interesting forum on last night from the economic conference in Davos. Speakers included Mc Cain and Bidden, PM Majors from Australia, Pres of Latvia (forget her name), Iranians, China, Indonesians, Arab league dude, academics, etc. General consensus was that America needs to work on it's "soft power", that we are losing in the battle for hearts and minds. I doubt if any of this was broadcast or even mentioned in the US. They also have a fairly interesting weekly show called "Dateline London" with a group of jounalists of varying nationalities discussing the world news. One made the observation (regarding current political climate in UK and US) that "Those in power are weak and fearful, and the way they maintain their power is by keeping the people more weak and fearful." Spot on, ay what? I am almost ready to spring for a computer. Any advice re AMD vs Intel? I think I will spring for a better sound card, so I can make my uber productions of noise. EnufEM