Bangkok 2013
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Bangkok: Monument along the bicycle path that runs through Queen's Park.


Bangkok: Interesting sculpture seen in an obscure planter on the way to Queen's Park. There were others in a mostly broken set with the same theme.


Bangkok: Sculptur along the bicycle path that runs through Queen's Park.


Bangkok: This sign sits near the entrance to a small hotel on one of the side streets off the main boulevard near the Nana BTS Sky Train station, an area notorious for elderly Western men accompanied by gorgeous young Thai girls walking the streets. 900 THB is about $29 and 400 THB about $13.


Bangkok: Example of the gorgeous floral arrangements on display at the Amari Boulevard Hotel buffet tables. I stayed here most of the month of November 2013 while the effective rates remained below $80 per night... using the three night Hot Deal package repeatedly.


Bangkok: This representation of a horse made with branches and bark stands across the lobby from a Christmas tree at the Central World Shopping Center


Bangkok: While parents shop these teens are preoccupied by their smart phones: playing games and texting to one another instead of turning to their friend for a verbal exchange


Bangkok: Sign explaining the origin of this monastery complex.


Bangkok: Looking into the Thawon Watthu Building  through the massive entrance doors.


Bangkok: During my month long stay in the Amari Boulevard Hotel I enjoyed VIP treatment from all the staff encountered. One deserves special commendation, however. This is 37 year old Porntip. Her glowing smile and special attentions around the dining room added delightfully to my enjoyment. PS: Notice my now loose fitting pants; I've lost an inch or two as my new diet and exercise goals begin to make a difference.


Bangkok: One of the several stupas on the grounds of the Thawon Watthu Building.


Bangkok: The Terminal 21 Shopping Center has transformed itself for Christmas. Each floor is designed to represent a different world city. Here on the Tokyo floor a pair of Sumo wrestlers hold up the ceiling.


Bangkok: Garuda or kinnara is commonly seen in various forms around Bangkok. This magnificent representation sits in the lobby of a small hotel near the Ambassador Hotel near the Nana BTS station where I spent three nights.


Bangkok: Thirty to forty Buddha statues line each of the four walls surrounding the complex interior. Each has been erected to commemorate one of the monks who attained Buddha hood during his lifetime.


Bangkok: These plaques memorialize deceased persons associated with the Buddha entombed here.
 

End.

SmallBook26 November 2013

 

Greetings from Bangkok,

Typhoon Haiyan charged it's way westward towards the Philippines during the 26 hours it took me to reach Bangkok. Two days after I arrived in the city on Friday it struck the islands with a ferocity unmatched in recorded history.

My plane arrived early afternoon at a decent 14:00 and I quickly reached the center of the city using the fast city express train out of the airport. Then, boarding a BTS Sky Train, I arrived a few minutes later at the Nana station which is a mere block from the Amari Boulevard Hotel where I had pre-booked my first three nights in the city, taking advantage of the special rates offered by the Hot Deal package. Scruffy from my long 26 hours of sleepless travel with multiple plane changes, I must have looked a mess.

Imagine my surprise when the receptionist instructed me to wait a moment while she called the manager who wanted to greet me personally on my return visit to his hotel! Last year at the end of my stay I wrote a glowing review of the fabulous buffet breakfast and Mr. Frenkel, the General Manager remembered. During our brief chat in the lobby I reminded Alexandre how impressed I had been with the breakfast and that it alone prompted me to stretch my hotel budget in order to enjoy his hotel once again for at least a few days. From that moment on until my final departure, every member of the staff with whom I had contact treated me like a VIP... so, I stayed most of the month with Alexandre providing a special package when the variable posted rates climbed into the stratosphere. 

Eventually the hotel became fully booked and I needed to find alternative accommodations for a few days. Fortunately, I remembered the Ambassador Hotel discovered during a previous visit to the city and they also had a special three day promotion packages with manageable $85 rates. To my surprise, their rates jumped out of sight for the fourth night and prompted some emergency hotel shopping as the Amari affordable promotion would not be available again until the following night. Luckily, a mere hundred meters down the same narrow street/alley I found the quite nice and affordable $68 Grand President Hotel. One night there and the Amari rates again dropped back into my comfort zone. Almost everything at the Amari is perfect... save the reliability of the WiFi Internet access. That remained problematical during my entire month long stay. Alexandre acknowledged the problem and noted he intended to give it some budgetary attention, sadly not before my current departure.

Once settled and recovered from the travel stress I dashed over to the Bumrungrad Hospital to set up an appointment for my irregular "annual" comprehensive executive physical examination and later the same day over to the office of Dental Design where I have my dental work done. The comprehensive physical checkup for ancient men like me now costs a whopping $550! The stress test proved to be easy and revealed no problems with the ticker. Blood work results suggested my new intensified exercise plus mostly vegetarian diet has not yet provided the miracle results intended, but there have been modest improvements even with only the few weeks I've been paying really careful attention. The PSA results provided cause for concern and will require retesting after a course of antibiotics to rule out false positive results due to an upper respiratory infection... plus "watchful waiting."

While pausing to enjoy a Coke Zero in the Hospital Mac Donald's restaurant I noticed a commotion around an adjacent table: people seemed to be following something moving around on the floor. As I searched for their object of attention, I saw a small brown rat emerge from the pant leg of a woman at the table. Moving so fast I momentarily lost track of the little rodent, I soon felt something "brush" past my own pant leg. Looking down to see what it might be, I caught sight of that same brown furry creature dashing out of my pant cuff and scampering away. As the well groomed creature disappeared behind a planter, I assumed it must be some kid's escaped pet rat... though no one seemed to be trying to recapture it.

Staying on the really healthful diet has been easier than I expected. Of course, the fabulous buffets here at the Amari Hotel with all its fish and gourmet vegetarian dishes makes it easy and delicious! I'm actually starting to like properly seasoned vegetables! True, I miss ice-cream, pizza, milk shakes and French cooking, but considering the alternative, I'll adjust. As usual, the increased exercise has been easy while traveling. The challenge will be to develop new habits when I return home to the lure of my comfortable easy chair!

I arrived in the city just as huge throngs of dissatisfied Thai citizens poured into the streets to voice their disapproval of the government's decision to grant blanket amnesty to everyone who participated in the violent uprising in 2006... including the the controversial premier, widely thought by critics to be corrupt and eventually tried and convicted on corruption charges. Protestors unleashed wave after wave of "whistle blowers." Hoards of people crowded around protest leaders amplified by powerful loud speakers shouting rude complaints against the current government... in Thai, of course. Each time the speaker would finish a new exhortation, a creepy chirping prolonged whistle sound emerged from the crowds blowing on their police whistles. The whistle symbol is no accident as the protest leaders consider themselves "whistle blowers," focusing attention on rampant corruption believed to permeate the entire legislature: they want to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu Thai Party: "They are all crooks!" Corruption is an insidious crime, often occurring "under the radar." Sometimes it is notorious: here I think of Italy's Sylvio Berlusconi. In other cases it is embedded in the social fabric itself, a virtual climate of corruption which I saw while touring Africa in 2001 and again in South America during 2005.

During the last week in November the current head of state Yingluck Shinawatra, a younger sister of the previous premier, Thaksin Shinawatra convicted of corruption and now living in exile, confidently called for a vote of confidence for her administration from a legislature dominated by her own party and easily survived the vote... adding credibility to the accusations the entire legislature is still under the control of corrupt political bosses managed by the former premier.

I have been walking the city as is my usual habit, so I've stumbled on quite a few protest gatherings; they are all over town... shifting everyday to keep the authorities off guard. The premier has made avoiding violence a priority and until the last day of November all was calm, if boisterously noisy. Then, pro and anti-government mobs clashed and four people died in the ensuing melee with police attempting to quell the attacking crowds with sewer delivered teargas and irritant spiked water cannons. Down here in the south of the city around the Nana BTS station life for tourists goes on oblivious to the political clashes closer to the center of the city around government buildings.

To my surprise, legions of others have been at work to make the accumulated knowledge of humanity accessible to anyone who wants it... and for free... assuming they have the necessary motivation and access to the Internet. A recent TED talk entitled, "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity" prompted me to take a serious look at what distance learning courses have become available since I last visited the subject several decades ago. What I found astounded me. There are now dozens of educational consortia participating in the delivery of FREE academic level courses over the Internet! Choose from any of 700 offerings from one group... or even 10,000 courses from another! I initially got excited when I found COURSERA and then VIRTUALPROFESSORS, but the Internet is flooded with MOOC's (Massive Open Online Courses) as the movement has come to be known... most FREE!

My most recent course has been The Origins of Life, selected after watching a marvelous animated film of an exploration of a distant planet where life abounds: Alien Planet. The entertaining hour and a half documentary does a credible job of building a believable story describing the possibilities of varied life forms based on what we know of life on Earth. The cornucopia of knowledge now easily available over the Internet is amazing, making me regret I'll never live long enough to learn more than a tiny sliver of all that might be known by an omniscient being. I'm eighty years old... sort of. My Japanese wife always counted her age as what it would be at her next birthday, confusing me for a long time. Early in my undergraduate scientific training I learned one specific way to round up or down fractional numbers. Using that training, I became eighty years old on November 10th. By Western conventions I won't reach that milestone for another six months.

Until the adventure continues in Colombo, Sri Lanka

 

Peace,

Fred L Bellomy

 


Bangkok: Colorfully decorated boats run up and down the Chao Phraya River along the western boundaries of the city.
 


Bangkok: Breakfast at the $68 Grand President Hotel where I stayed one night when the rates at both the Amari and Ambassador hotels shot up above $100 per night. The rooms are great, but the buffet breakfast is just adequate.
 


Bangkok: Example of the daily $22 healthy luncheon seafood buffet offered  at the Amari Boulevard Hotel buffet tables. I stayed here most of the month of November 2013 while the effective rates remained below $80 per night... using the three night Hot Deal package repeatedly. The deal included about $32 credit for these expensive, but extravagant meals... so I indulged!
 


Bangkok: Huge supplies of water, snacks, and cooked meals kept the anti-government protestors energized for their marching through the city while blowing their whistles and rattling their "clappers." Chemical toilets and trash handling facilities are located strategically around the rally venues. Someone spent a lot of money organizing and preparing these protests.



Bangkok: Another shot of anti-government protestors marching through the city on 27 November 2013 from one rally point to another... blowing their whistles and rattling their "clappers." The mood of the throngs appeared festive as far as I could tell. Street vendors continued to work like any other day and families sat on ground covers having picnics in the midst of protest leaders shouting over loud public address systems.

 


Bangkok: Sign at the entrance to Queen's Park explaining the background of the development.

  

End

 

 

 

 

 

 


Bangkok: Graffiti seen on a wall near one of the anti-government protest rallies in downtown Bangkok late November 2013.


Bangkok: One of the citywide bicycle rental stations.


Bangkok: There always seems to be a religious celebration underway at this shrine located on the corner of a major intersection by the BTS.


Bangkok: Representations of a bodhisattva like this one may be see throughout the city. I enjoyed the colorful decorations used by the artist.


Bangkok: Interesting root system spreads out over the surface of the ground for some unusual trees found in Queen's Park.


Bangkok: Example of the gorgeous floral arrangements on display throughout the Amari Boulevard Hotel where I stayed most of the month of November 2013 while the effective rates remained below $80 per night... using the three night Hot Deal package repeatedly.


Bangkok: Whimsical sculpture erected in front of a Holiday Inn and Domino Pizza.


Bangkok: This elaborately decorated representation of the Hindu deity, Ganesha stands near the bodhisattva nearby.


Bangkok: Elaborate Christmas decorations grace every shopping center in the city at this time of year: here in the Central World Shopping Center.


Bangkok: Block long canopies like those at the far end of this street kept the anti-government protestors protected from the sun as they sat on tarps or marched from one rally point to another while blowing their whistles and rattling their "clappers." The army of citizen "whistle blowers" is meant to draw attention to corruption within the present government dominated by supporters of a former elected leader and his family: his younger sister is the current elected head of state! ... and just last week survived a vote of confidence test which critics cite as evidence the entire body of elected representatives is also corrupt.


Bangkok: Block long queues of anti-government protestors wait to get free cooked meals. Someone spent a lot of money organizing and preparing these protests.


Bangkok: Not far from the Amari Boulevard Hotel I found the Terminal 21 Shopping Center, seen here from the upper level of the Asok BTS station terminal. Air conditioned with miles of shopping isles, it proved a great place to add thousands of steps to my daily goal of 10,000 steps... and to take a lunch or two. The Blue-Spice healthy restaurant has a great $14 luncheon seafood buffet.


Bangkok: The Terminal 21 Shopping Center has transformed itself for Christmas. Each floor is designed to represent a different world city. Here on the Tokyo floor even Samurai Santa shows up in the Japanese way.


Bangkok: Graffiti seen on a wall near one of the anti-government protest rallies in downtown Bangkok late November 2013.


Bangkok: Looking down at the Dental Design offices where I got all my dental work done from the 5th floor Blue-Spice buffet dining-room in the Terminal 21 shopping complex.


Bangkok: It is the first of December and all of Bangkok is decorated for the Christian Christmas, despite the fact this is a predominantly Buddhist country! Here in the Terminal 21 shopping complex this blue decoration caught my eye.


Bangkok: Looking down on the Dental Design office where I had all of my dental work done, as seen from the fifth floor of the Terminal 21 Blue Spice restaurant where I enjoyed some great seafood buffets.


Bangkok: During one of my explorations of the Terminal 21 Shopping Center I stumbled on this unique display of "Pictable" items at the Artingart shop: tables which convert to art when not in use! What a clever idea.

 


Bangkok: One group of anti-government protestors marching through the city from one rally point to another... blowing their whistles and rattling their "clappers." Loud speakers both on the trucks and at various rally points kept up a continuous chant exhorting protestors to voice their displeasure with the current government.
 


Bangkok: Block long canopies like these kept the anti-government protestors protected from the sun as they sat on tarps or marched from one rally point to another while blowing their whistles and rattling their "clappers." Chemical toilets and trash handling facilities are located strategically around the rally venues. This was a very well organized anti-government event... and costly!

 

End.

 

 

Reference photo: author
 August 2002
 

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