Punter's Discourse: Tim Sharky talks about his experiences with hookers in Bangkok in a totally politically incorrect manner. You have been warned :-)
I am seriously considering living in Thavorn's village for a few months when my current condo lease runs out in April. My lifestyle in Bangkok costs me about 60,000 baht a month. That would include about 30,000 baht for my condo, 10,000 baht for food, and 20,000 baht for entertainment.
Moving to the village would free up 50,000 to spend on something like a new motorcycle. I have been an avid motorcyclist since I was 16 and bought my first, a 650cc Triumph Bonneville in the summer of 66. I followed up in subsequent years with a Norton 750cc, a Norton 850cc, a Honda 650cc, and a Yamaha 1000cc crotch rocket. I would not purchase a nice motorcycle in Bangkok because of theft and traffic congestion. However, in the village I would be able to start to explore the many different regions of Bangkok. Food for thought ... Walter Mitty may be back.
SO many choices but the taxes on Motorcycles in Thailand is quite high except for certain bikes manufactured in Thailand. I could be tempted by a Triumph street fighter 675cc or a Kawasaki Versys 650cc.
Both would be good choices. Triumph for sentimental reasons and hooligan fun and the Kawasaki, a more logical choice for touring around the countryside in search of bars that I would miss living in the village :-) Both bikes cost about 450,000 Baht, or 10 months in the village.
Jaidan asleep in the village at 10 am. Handsome boy! Notice he is sweating (hair).
It is Thursday night and I am all alone. I suggested to Thavorn that she and Jaidan go visit her Mom, Tai, and Dun because it is Dun's birthday on November 1. Thais are not big on birthday celebrations but I am slowly convincing Thavorn they are important.
I am going to use the days from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm to develop some web apps I am interested in. I have updating various apps and I find that very boring so I need something intellectually stimulating.
The first web app I am creating is a vThankYou web site that anyone can use to post a thankyou or Kudo to someone else. This comes about because of my experience as a parent, teacher, and student.
Teacher's get tired of receiving yet another 'teacher' coffee mug at the end of the year and/or Christmas. They end up being stored away with the other 10 of the same ilk. Would it not be better to be able to thank a teacher, coach or mentor online and email or SMS the person the url which will stand and accumulate with others for posterity on the net. The person would be able to respond back.
A group, such as a bball team could also submit a thank-you. The site will support a YouTube video or a photo as well as comments from each individual in the group. The site will be searchable so eventually anyone would be able to search on a name and find all the thank you's received by a certain person.
It will also enable you to thank someone when you finally realize what they meant to your personal development but were oblivious to at the time (think teenager).
Saturday night is Halloween so I will probably head out for some fun.
Today's song is: Is a pop anthology mashup from 2012 .. very typical of the music played at Hillary 2 and Climax Disco by the 4 resident bands.
Jaidan will be 15 months old at the end of the month so I figured it was time we found a care-giver (I don't think baby-sitter is PC) so that Thavorn and I can get out once a week. One of her friends from her high school and village who recently moved to Bangkok for work came to visit us 2 days ago. Jaidan seemed to take to her. I asked Thavorn to approach her with the idea of looking after Jaidan for us on Saturday nights from 7 pm to the wee hours of the morning. I told Thavorn I was willing to pay up to a 1,000 Baht as that is what it would cost me for 1 12 year old back home in Canada and that would be only until midnight.
Thavorn gave her a call and she talked it over with her boyfriend and she said she would do it for 700 Baht as she would have to take a taxi each way. Now 700 baht is about $25 CDN so We booked her and her boyfriend (They are both about 30ish and are lots of fun) for next Saturday night.
I plan on a movie and then off to Hillary 2 for a night of music, dancing and maybe a bit of pool. The next few months should be lots of fun now that Saturday night is happening again.
Today's song is: 8 Miles High ... Byrds original clip
Way back in time when my 2 oldest children Jaime and Jordan were young (7 and 4 years old) I used to wake up early Saturday morning and strap them into their seat belts in the van and head off downtown Ottawa (30 min drive) for a toasted bagel with cheese, coffee for me and OJ for the kids. This was a routine for us and we used to take a window seat and watch Ottawa walk by. We used to rate the pretty girls on a scale of 1 to 10 (much to my wife's chagrin).
I Bangkok, I also like to take Jaidan out early for a walk (10 mins) to rumours bar where I order a vodka and OJ and and Jaidan gets his OJ in a shot glass which is just the right size for him. I never order a drink for Jaidan, the staff just always provides it (with a smile). Jaidan is a little young to rate the ladies verbally but he definitely prefers the pretty ladies, judged by his willingness to be picked up by them.
Thavorn gets a little break at this time and usually joins us 90 mins later (3 vodkas and OJ's), (yes, I know that is bad, but life is not a dress rehearsal, you only go around once, Buddhists excepted) and then we either head out for some fun or head home for Jaidan to sleep. This time it was back home for Jaidan's nap.
Steve, an expat form the states was at Rumours and said hello. Steve got hit with some kind of eye degeneration and lost 80% of his vision, but that does not deter him form making his bar rounds and attending to the bar girls. They are very good to Steve, ordering his food, drinks, and taxi to journey to his next bar. Not a bad way to handle the loss of his vision. Steve makes his living day trading in the markets and makes use of one big magnifying glass. Looks a bit like Sherlock Holmes when he uses it.
Thavorn and I have talked and we have agreed to hire a baby sitter one night a week so we can get out more. Of course there is some disagreement on who to hire and how much to pay. I told Thavorn that it would be usually at least $30 for a night out in Canada and that would be about 1,000 baht but she wants to go cheaper and of course offer it to a friend from her village while I would offer it to one of 3 people who work at Rumours who Jaidan really likes and they have shown how much they like Jaidan by playing with him at every opportunity. Thai not go moon :-(
Thavorn is thawing out some chicken legs via the microwave (which she referred to as the fridge) while I work on my blog. She makes excellent fried wings and legs. Not sure why they are called wings when half of them are legs (in Thailand, the wings go missing). Go figure.
Today is Saturday but it looks like it may be a quiet evening for us ... but then ... the wanderlust (or just plain lust) may set in.
Canadians wanted a change after 10 years of Harper and a Conservative government. In comes Justin Trudeau and the liberals and time will tell if a change was worthwhile. What I care most about is the Canadian dollar in relation to the Thai baht so I hope this change brings in a new level of prosperity for Canada.
What I would really like to see is Canada stop selling property and land to foreigners, driving up real estate prices so that Canadians can not afford them. These foreigners often accumulate their wealth without the restrictions that Canadians have to work with. They often run sweat shops and pay daily rates of less than $10 a day. They are the modern day Robber Barons.
I also don't understand why, although having the the 4th largest oil reserves in the world, we pay such high prices for gas at the pumps. I don't think the average Canadian in Canada benefits from these reserves, unlike the average Camel Jockey or even Malaysian. Go figure.
Not much happening these days on the entertainment front as I am being frugal while saving up to pay my Canadian tax bill from 2014. Someone has to support your Canadian lifestyle :-). As they say in Bangkok .. no money, no honey!
Today's song is: Danny Boy by Celtic Woman ... thought about John Shannon for some reason today
Thursday turned into an eventful day as Thavorn and I went for a walk to get some glue and duct tape to fix our Ikea chair. The Ikea chairs are usually bullet proof but we often had Tahavorn, Jaidan and myself in the chair and that turned out to be too much. Nothing that some glue and duct tape could not fix however.
On the way home with the glue and duct tape, Thavorn noticed that her belly button jewelry had fallen off. My initial thought was the jewelry was not tightened fully and the locking part had come undone. I decided our best course of action was to jump in a taxi and head back to the studio which had done the piercing and the install.
Bit of a pain in the ass, taxi, MRT, and walk, basically retracing our steps from Wednesday with Jaidan in my arms.
One thing you have to understand is Thailand is Thailand, and 'Thai not go moon' ... for a reason. Nothing is ever straight forward to the Thai mind.
When we arrived at the studio we were faced with a new Thai girl working today. I ask where is the girl from yesterday and was told she took a day holiday. Complication # 1! Thavorn explained that the piercing and install was done yesterday and that the jewelry fell out less than an hour ago. Without much thought, the girl said come back in a month and pay 1,300 Baht again and they would do it over again. Thavorn said okay (Thai seldom argue or push). When I asked her to translate, you can imagine this farang's reaction and Thavorn, by now, knew what to expect.
I asked Thavorn to tell the girl that solution was crazy and unacceptable and that the shop had messed up, by not tightening the stud, and they should do it again at no cost. I also asked why she could not simply insert a new piece of jewelry as there was no way the hole had healed over in less than an hour. The girl was adamant about coming back in a month for a do over. I told Thavorn to tell her that was not going to happen and to call her manager or boss or owner of the store, which she agreed to do.
I am not privy to the discussion that went on as I do not understand Thai but the end result was the girl went and got a new, nicer piece of jewelry and agreed to try to reinstall it. She disappeared into the piercing room with Thavorn and Thavorn emerged 2 minutes later with a new piece of jewelry shining away in the appropriate spot at no charge. Thavorn had a big smile and for once did not seem embarrassed to have a farang argue with a Thai over whatever. She is learning the farang sense of right and wrong and just not accepting the wrongness.
Friday was quiet, we went for a walk and that was about it. I continue to swim everyday and Thavorn is learning to jump rope as she can not do hoop until the piercing heals which they tell her is 6 months but in reality is about 3 weeks.
Today is Saturday and we went shopping at Emporium for food for Jaidan and some face and skin cream for Thavorn as she has run out of it. We were successful on both counts and plan to stay in and watch a movie and get up to date with my blog. I am also installing the Windows 10 update on my Windows 8.1 Lenova Table to see if it is worth upgrading. My 2 existing development laptops run Windows 7.0 and 8.1.
It's hump day (Wednesday) again and I had promised to take Thavorn to get her belly button pierced so into the shower at 11 am (after my 45 minute swim) for Jaidan and I, followed shortly by Thavorn and we headed off via taxi to the closest MRT station which is Sukhumvit and Asoke. Now, normally we would walk but I knew I would be holding Jaidan for a long time so we wimped out and took a taxi rather than walk the 4 kilometers to the station.
MRT is the underground subway and we used it to get to Silom road, home of Pat Pong (naughty area) and Silom Complex which has the belly button piercing placing clinic. I assume the belly button piercing location has something to do with pat Pong being close by. Many bar girls have their buttons pierced. The clinic's name is NooYoo and is a great concept. Would be a great franchise to bring to Canada.
http://www.nooyoo.com
Thavorn was a little apprehensive but the use a piercing gun which is much better than the needle I have seen used in some places. Jaidan and I were left to our own devices while the piercing was underway and we cruised the mall until his diaper needed changing (into the men's washroom I went, the diaper changing station was in the women's washroom, but we made do). Thavorn was done and she was pleased with the results so we headed off to the MRT for the return home. Once out of the Sukhumvit station we wimped out again and caught a taxi home.
It was a quiet afternoon because Jaidan decided he needed a 2 hour nap. Thavorn is cooking up a chicken cashew stir fry for supper. She is a really good cook and seems to enjoy it. In return, she never has to clean a dirty dish or pot.
I really have to find some sort of mp3 music player for Jaidan as he loves music and we don't feel comfortable with Jaidan using our expensive smart phones as a player. Something that pairs up with our blue tooth speakers would be ideal. Seems to be quite a few players available for under $35 or about 1,000 baht, but then again you can buy a Chinese phone with KitKat 4.4 for 1,000 baht as well, plus you get a camera.
