Denniblog

But if this weather continues, we may yet be stranded here 🙁

In the meantime, this is an excellent resource if you have questions about Thailand. I’ve remembered correctly: Thai sockets will take both US and standard European (mainland) plugs. Yeah!

I’m looking forward to this trip because I missed Thailand the first time around.

Not ‘missed’ as in passing it by on a tour of SE Asia, but missed as in driving straight through it, with an unscheduled monsoon chasing me from one place to the next until I arrived in Malaysia (and the sun came out).

Now the skies look clear. And for the past week or so, John has immersed himself in preparations for diving instead of his work. He can hardly wait either 😉

Traveller cheques carry favourable rates, but they are usually subject to duty and commission as well as lengthy verification. They are being replaced by ATM cards in the wallets of most travellers because ATM cards are (almost) as good as cash, aren’t they?

Well, no.

Following on from yesterday’s post about caveats associated with taking plastic—and also from my on-going frustrations when dealing with card purchases or withdrawals both online and abroad—I’ve taken some time to consider taking cold, hard cash instead.

Taking currency along carries the most risk, but it may be well worth it from an economic point of view. Exchange rates are often better in the country of travel.

The exchange rates for the Thai Baht on 16/12/2009 were 53.452 to GBP, 32.893 to USD and 48.023 to EUR (you may have to scroll for the date). The weighted average interbank exchange rate was 33.134 Baht to the US Dollar, and online converters gave 54.38 Baht to the Pound and 48.360 to the Euro. For both the USD and EUR, the Bank of Thailand rate was about 0.7% below the interbank rate, but for Pound Sterling it was 1.7%. The Pound appears more variable than either Euro or Dollars. So, I figured that it pays to shop around.

Here are some numbers (for 16/12/2009):

The Bank of Ayudhya offered 53.110 Baht for GBP, 32.74 (exchanges of 50-100) for USD, and 47.660 for EUR,
The Siam Commercial Bank offered 52.998 GBP, 32.79 (50-100) USD, and 47.600 EUR.
Kasikorn offered 52.787 GBP, 32.79 (50-100) USD, and 47.611 EUR
There isn’t much between them: 0.6% in case of Sterling. Maybe worth it for large transactions.

(Of course, now that I’ve chased the numbers, I found the comparison table 😉 There doesn’t seem to be any more variability between the Sterling rates than between USD/EUR. It depends on the bank.)

My card provider states that they have a fixed exchange rate at 2.5% below the interbank rate, but I’ll have to take this with a pinch of salt because it isn’t at all clear what they mean by ‘interbank rate’, which may apply only to USD and EUR. And here is how much worse the figures are for the UK (where my card provider is based):

On 16/12/09, the UK exchange rates for the Thai Baht were 50.931 (ICE), 50.746 (Fair FX), and 50.608 (Post Office)—the difference was only about 0.6%, despite the considerable variation between these providers when it comes to Euros and Dollars. Fair FX is rated as the best travel card provider in terms of exchange rates, and its rate differs from the conversion rate (which I take is be based on the interbank rate) by a whopping 5.8% and from the official Bank of Thailand rate by 5%.

Five per cent! That doesn’t just pay for dinner, that pays for a couple of dives!

So, if the ATM offers me an exchange rate in the region of 52 Baht to the Pound, I should go with it, and not the rate offered by my provider. Many sites and forums advise not to buy Baht outside Thailand, and if I accept my provider’s rates, I effectively buy Baht outside Thailand.

Of course, when it comes to timing, changing money is always a bit of a gamble. I’ve watched the fluctuations of Euros, Dollars and Sterling for the past year, and I’d be hard pressed to pick a good time when to buy or sell. Overall, I do not expect sudden fluctuations in these major currencies, but it is possible that either of them may slump or that the Baht will be radically devalued (there are rumours). Here, cash has another advantage where no commission is payable: change little and often. This philosophy may be reflected in the different exchange rates offered by Thai banks for smaller amounts of US Dollars (1, 5-20, and 50-100), which can differ by around 2.5% between highest and lowest.

[EDIT: The (Caxton) cash card may just be king after all, if I have not misunderstood the statement. By my calculations, they offered an exchange rate of 54.292 on 04/01/2010, against the Siam City Bank’s 52.61. Just bear in mind the 150 baht ATM tax. There are no other fees payable.]

After jumping through many hoops (because we’re not on the polling database yet—I had no idea that registration is linked to credit rating, but it is now), we’re finally about to receive our travel currency cards. Caxton FX have a reasonable, commission-free service (although the exchange rates may not be the most favourable) and do not charge ATM fees when used abroad.

But no sooner did I rejoice than I found out that the Thai government is imposing a whooping 150 Baht (3 quid) fee on all foreign card ATM withdrawals.

From what I’m reading right now, the Government Savings Bank may impose a lower fee, but there are many hidden costs in addition to that. So when it comes to travel money, it pays to pay attention. Here’s a list of what to look out for when shopping for a travel card:

Is there an application/card fee? A lot of operators charge, usually in the region of 10 quid. Look out for free promotions.

Is there a fee for topping up? Incredible though it sounds, there often is. The Post Office deserves special mention for charging commission on loading the card with sterling because it’s managed by the Bank of Ireland, which uses Euros.

Is there a monthly fee? This quickly went out of fashion when comparison sites became prominent, but some operators still charge for cards that haven’t been used in a while.

Is there an ATM withdrawal fee? There usually is. Here’s where Caxton FX wins out over Fair FX, and their exchange rate is still better than that of many banks.

Is there a commission? This can be as high as 2.75%!

What is the exchange rate? See above. The Post Office is pretty dismal. As if this isn’t bad enough, there is a new ruse called Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC), in which you will be offered to pay in sterling rather than the local currency. The exchange rate will then be ramped up by the local bank/retailer. If you want to take advantage of the favourable exchange rate provided by your card operator, always pay in the local currency. [EDIT: these days customers are often asked whether they want to accept a given exchange rate instead. Always decline!]
[EDIT: revise this and reserve judgement: exchange rates for Thai Baht quoted in the UK are typically 5% lower than those quoted in Thailand! See next post]

A good overview can be found here.

In summary: in addition to card application/management fees, a 100-quid-equivalent ATM withdrawal can cost you:

• A couple of quid on a bad exchange rate*,
• £2.75 commission
• £1.50 bank ATM charge
• £ 3.00 (ca.) government charge
  *(There is some confusion here. Caxton says their rates are fixed at 2.5% Interbank rate, but there is a listed foreign exchange fee of 2.5% on some sites. Does this apply to the exchange rate @ 2.5% below Interbank or is this an additional fee?)

—In short, enough to pay for a room, perhaps with dinner thrown in.

The 150 baht would still buy dinner for two, though >:(

Since the cat has gone, there is an absence in the house. Neither of us wanted to stay, so we threw some stuff together and went to visit my sister in Wales.

John has been felled by the flu, so the bikes had to stay in the garage. For the past two evenings we’ve been sitting by the fire, watching motorcycle DVDs while the wind howled outside and the rain lashed against the windows. I think my sis and her husband are gearing up for the big one. I mean, that Scotland trip in the summer, an up-coming trip to Spain and two successive evenings of watching DVDs about planning a bike trip around the world?

The time for it has never been better. Bikers are now where backpackers were twenty years ago, yet they have all the resources at hand and there is plenty of precedent. But go now. Don’t delay until the movement gets so big that hordes of bikers swarm down every dirt road, shattering the peace. Even the challenging routes are getting old. Imagine having to queue to get through the Darièn Gap. I’ve seen it happen with diving.

That’s not the worst. Whereas insurers have relaxed about diving and gap year travel, they are likely to harden their stance when it comes to biking. Nobody in their right mind would offer standard cover for this kind of travel once it becomes common, given the high percentage of riders who need repatriation after having accidents (and taking it for granted!). It’s already hard for somebody of my age to find insurance. If I want a reputable company to cover me for longer than 90 days, I have to shop around carefully (there are plenty of companies who are happy to take my money but leave me high and dry when it matters!). Add biking to the equation and within a few years from now—if not sooner—you can forget it, even if you’re prepared to pay ten times the premium.

So go now. Don’t delay.

One of my basic regrets is not keeping a journal during our trip to Taiwan at the turn of the millennium. It was my lost journey, ‘riding the dragon’s tail’ as a young soldier put it when we shared a smoke at the back of a train.

I was culture-shocked and goggle-eyed throughout as I soaked in hot springs at the bottom of a marble gorge, had tea with Buddhist nuns who submerged themselves fully clothed (even their feet were wrapped), danced underneath a pagoda with a boy who’d given me a ride but wouldn’t let go until we had done that, hitched lifts on the backs of over-balanced scooters without meaning to and then hung on for dear life as we narrowly evaded jagging rocks in roughly-hewn tunnels, chewed betelnut only to find that the Oolong tea I sampled in Alishan got me higher, looked up 60m tall trees before lunching on lotus root soup in a plum grove, felt the Earth move eight storeys up and again on the way to the night market in Tainan, closed my eyes as six lanes of scooters faced me cycling down a major road when the traffic lights turn green to signal the start of the Kaohsiung rush-hour Grand Prix…

…and sampled the food. Oh yes, the food.

We (John was visiting the university while I did all that) took part in not one, but two banquets. The elaborate menus promised a series of delights in twelve dishes or more (some of those dishes were sets), all in Chinese. The choicest seafood, the richest stews. Items that I’m sure our friends had mis-translated (beef tendon?). And yes, I admit it, sharkfin soup and birdsnest soup for Christmas. The latter is nothing to write home about, but the former… Not worth the overfishing of sharks to be sure. Or sea cucumbers for that matter.

But Chinese, all in Chinese. I cannot recall, cannot translate, and stupid me took no notes. The flavours and textures seemed forever lost; occasionally reflected in Mandarin and Cantonese menus, the ones that are never translated into English. Strictly under-the-counter eating, and never quite the same.

Until I walked past a place on Lisle Street that calls itself Keelung (Seafood Market) Taiwanese Restaurant and images of night markets and temple yard eateries came to mind. Sizzling oyster omelets. Scorching stinky tofu, cooked Szechuan style with the heat mercifully blasting away the smell (John liked it). Goosenecks on sticks. Cheap but tasty bowls of rice and mince. A woman wrapped up in a warm coat serving us shaved ice which we’d mistaken for something warm (relying on pure pattern recognition here). Maxi-sized steamers stacked up in leaning towers. Trays of glistening seafood arranged in grids, some of it still alive. More seafood swimming, crawling or gliding in rows upon rows of orange plastic crates, and which I never got to sample as it’s famously pricy.

All that here for the picking?

Well, not quite. Which is just as well.

I thought the portions would be small. Just a mouthful. This is London, and the place even calls itself a tapas restaurant on its website (though not on its business card). Surely I could go with two starters (dumplings for sharing), a fish dish and steamed vegetables flavoured with a bit of ‘grounded pork’, like I remember from Taiwan where most vegetable dishes are mixed with bits of meat. I’d still have plenty of room to sample what the others order.

“No rice?” The waitress asked. “you should order some rice.”

They wouldn’t serve us a big bowl of plain rice for sharing, so I added pork belly steamed rice to the list.

The others were more restrained, except perhaps for John who went for a ground(ed) pork rice bowl he had so enjoyed around that backstreet temple in Kaoshiung when the food stalls opened in the evening, Szechuan-style gray clams since we wanted to sample a bit of seafood and pig kidney in sesame oil and rice wine. The others had only two dishes each.

So how come the table was so packed that the food had to be served in stages?

Here’s what we ate:

There’s not much Dim sum in my life, so I couldn’t resist the Keelung Siu Loung Bao special, wheat-wrapped dumplings that burst in the mouth with meaty goodness, complemented by A’s order of delicate rice-pastry with chicken and mixed vegetables with crunchy peanut. They arrived with a soy and rice vinegar dip flavoured with ginger matchsticks that took me right back.

(My way has always been to dip the things in the sauce and cram them into my mouth, but later reading revealed that the stock-filled xiao long bao are best not tackled that way. Lift them onto the soup spoon and devour them piecemeal, catching the liquid on the spoon.)

I had high hopes for the ground(ed) pork which I remember with a touch of chili oil smokiness and earthy spices, mixed sparingly in with the rice. Here it was more of a brown-grey sludge, flecked with gristle and too much liver. If the liver had been more restrained, it might still have passed.

A nice note for the steamed choi-sum was the banana leaf lining the basket, which made a subtle, but noticeable, difference.

The choi-sum (also featured as ‘Chinese broccoli’) was delicious and more successful when served in its own right: stir-fried with plenty of garlic. A thick, green, juicy vegetable—if a bit fibrous—and a necessary counterpart to all the rich food.

My own ‘rice’ was not—as I expected—steamed rice with a bit of pork belly stirred through, but rather a meal in its own right with a mound of rice and pork belly by the side. This would have made me a happy lunchtime diner. The pork belly was the absolute winner; it dissolved on the tongue. I never had better, although it needed some chilli oil.

Another surprise were the Szechuan style grey clams garnished with handfuls of dried chillies, Straits-style. Delicious but so searing hot that I could only try a single one. From what my hardened mates said about the spices, these were spot-on.

The pig kidney looked at first sight like intestines, which I will have to order next time as there wasn’t any room left. Scored strips of kidney in a delicious broth which, alas, didn’t taste either of sesame oil or rice wine. But then the wine used in Taiwanese cooking is more delicate. I kept sipping the stock as we worked our way through dish after dish. It acted like a digestive: chicken soup for the belly.

The deep-fried pork chops took me straight back to the campus of Sun Yat-Sen University. This was in definite need of chilli oil.

With that (and the pork belly), we entered banquetting territory. I first had beef tendon in one of Kaohsiung’s foremost hotels. And it is good, if it is soft. Not all these pieces were. The sauce was so sweet that the dish was almost candied.

There are tastes which you can recognise, if not describe. Mixed in with the Duck with Chinese Angelica and Herbal Rice Noodle Soup were things that looked like chopped prunes and tasted as if they had been fermented and then smoked for a long time over pinewood. Great stuff.

No birthday is complete without a good-luck-dish and during banquets, the fish head is pointed at the honoured guest. Since I was the only one to have fish, I figured that I might as well make it a head of salmon.

Not for the faint-hearted, this dish needs greater skill than mine to tackle with chopsticks. I remember once taking home a fish head for dissection, but it fell apart before I could get a clear idea where everything fitted. Be assured that there are a lot of bones.

Salmon is a fatty fish, but usually the fat is marbled through the flesh, giving it a silky texture. As with meat, it holds a lot of flavour. Just how much I found out when I prised the flakes of translucent fat from underneath the thick skin on the top of the salmon’s skull. This is one of the unique morsels which sets the head apart from the rest of the fish. It was melt-in-the-mouth delicate, but overwhelmingly fishy.

I fared better with the eye, which was like a burst of fine bullion, although I could have done without the rubber lens and crunchy keratin lining. Like most first-timers (I suspect), I bit on the eye and then swallowed it whole.

“You should have chewed,” John said.

At last I found a little gelatinous mass that might have been the brain. It was good; less in-your-face than the fat.

The fish head will stay off the menu next time, but we’ll be back to sample more than the fraction of the dishes on offer, including some deserts. One thing is for sure: this kind of food is unique and different from standard Chinese cooking, even from the Mandarin and Cantonese under-the-counter menus (although each proper restaurant has its specials and its strengths).

Why is this so?

When the then government fled to Taiwan, they took the imperial treasures with them. Stashed deep underneath a mountain, a selection is displayed at the Imperial Palace Museum in an exhibition which rotates every three months. It takes twelve years to get through them all.

They also took the best chefs, preserving and refining traditions which have been lost on the mainland.

The Thailand trip never came together. It was one of those things that gets talked about but never realised, like people talking about writing a novel ‘one day’.

Normally, I’d be booking my flights around now and to hell with everyone else. I would probably fly to Bangkok, because it’s the gateway to SE Asia, and travel around Vietnam and Cambodia and along the well-trodden path to Laos for a while before finding a nice island somewhere. I don’t have the stomach for India or Bangladesh right now.

But the job hunt is still going on. We may be re-joining the human race, fingers crossed, and our strange exile in this corner of chavdom may be coming to an end.

And then there is the stomach issue. If John comes along, this will be a different trip. How different depends on the duration. The less time we have, the more we’ll spend proportinally. A two-week-holiday will have a budget of at least five times that of the same time spend on the road, discounting flights.

A quick trip, , no matter where to, is all about quality. It starts with a decent airline (Thai or Cathay Pacific or anything else with at least a four-star rating, and no more Virgin if I can help it). A taxi from the airport to a pre-booked 4-star hotel. The hotel will be cool and discreet and screened from anything that really goes on behind the walls. Perhaps there will be a guided sightseeing tour. Food in quiet restaurants that may or may not bear any resemblance to what people actually eat in that country.

Then we’ll be whisked off to the resort in an air-conditioned coach, plane or train carriage entirely devoid of locals, except for the people who do the ticket collection/driving/trolley service. The resort itself will be behind walls, or involve a trip on a dive boat, like a self-contained island (I won’t be diving, so we’ll see about that. If I still were, and if we were still adventurous and young, Kalimantan would be the place we’d go to in Asia. If you fancy the Red Sea, try Dahab. Seriously!).

If we’re not out doing a tour, we’ll be lazing on a private beach or by the pool. Strictly no touts. It will get boring by the third day. There may be a little local colour in the food and entertainment, but apart from this it won’t matter whether we’re in the Caribbean or somewhere in Africa or Asia.

In practice, the holidays we take are usually a mix of the two. I often hanker after the former: absolutely no hassles! But at the same time I’m left feeling like an animal in a cage. John feels exactly the same, but he’ll admit it only grudgingly.

The bus drove past endless beachside developments for what seemed like an hour before we finally got to town.

“There are no door trees here,” John said sadly.

Indeed not. Just a few sad potted saplings and row upon row of concrete.

Either way, there is a price to be paid. Compromise is a lesson I learned from an old traveller on my very first trip. Spend the odd night in comfort. Rest before it all gets too much. Some nights are four-star, some nights are spend under a starry desert sky with meteors streaking across the band of the Milky Way while you shiver quietly in your sleeping bag as temperatures drop below zero.

Travelling—and getting it right—is an art I’m still trying to master.

It’s like this: as soon as you decide to take people along on a trip, everybody’s plans have to mesh and a ton of excuses crops up. Trip planning (for those who believe in such things and don’t just hop on a plane) is work. You must really want to go to make it happen, and if you feel at all insecure, it probably won’t.

That’s why we didn’t go biking in Scotland (my fault: it would have cost as much as flying to Thailand unless we’d elected to camp in the rain every day. Of course the weather turned out to be glorious), why we’re still not going to Thailand (here it’s because of job applications and other uncertainties that need to be sorted) and, probably, why I’ve never heard a peep from the OUEC (I had some hope for the Facebook Group but Facebook groups are disappointingly lame).

Face it, to get a bunch of undergraduates to do anything is like herding cats, and trying to do it at a distance is probably impossible. It’s a miracle that any expeditions ever take off, and those tend to be run by clubs, are long-standing projects or consist of a group of mates with a very clear idea what they want to do.

Here’s how it was for us. The 1989 Venezuela River Dolphin Expedition wasn’t my idea. In fact, me and a mate in Germany wanted to check out transect surveys of cetaceans in the Strait of Gibraltar and—if memory serves—I travelled to London to visit an open day about expedition planning at the Royal Geographical Society. There I met a fellow who wanted to canoe down the Casiquiare Canal from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro and was looking for a scientific objective. I just happened to know that the lower tributaries of the Orinoco are prime dolphin country and I’d always wanted to go back to study river dolphins (albeit in India) and hey presto: the expedition was born.

At one point we numbered sixteen members, perhaps more. But most of the student members dropped out after just a few meetings (and a fair number when the medical side of things came up…). Even our organiser ran into difficulties, although he came out with us. But it took a looong time to set things in motion and in the end we had to radically change our plans. Changing plans comes with the territory and it’s always good to have an easy-as-pie idiot-proof fallback option, such as a place with guaranteed sightings.

Long story short: we ended up with just two members, and the expedition was our honeymoon. And it resulted in me having an Erdős number 😉

So no, as far as manatees and diving in Thailand are concerned, I’m not holding my breath. But I’m not yet quite ready to set off on my own either. The weather hasn’t been bad, winter is reluctant in coming, the Xmas-madness hasn’t yet started and, sooner or later, we’ll have to move house. Plus I’m doing OK with the edit of my second novel, so perhaps I should pursue that in earnest now.

I would blog from the Square Festival in Borth, but it will take several hours to upload my photos and, well, I’d rather go to the Festival.

Xandros Linux on the EeePC sucks hard 🙁

My recent surprise contact from somebody who knows of our 1985 exploits involving Ganges dolphins (Platanista gangetica) has resulted in me searching for more info on same (the area we visited is now a dolphin sanctuary), and some of my other haunts as well.

And behold, there is a blog dedicated to the dolphins of Sarawak. Apparently, Irawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) are still relatively common in the area, although by-catches and pollution pose problems. There was a fledgling dolphin watch enterprise in operation while I was there (I never noticed it) and—even better—a local kajak enthusiast who might even have set me up for a field survey! If only I had known *sigh*. But there is now a research initiative and a conservation movement in place and proper guidelines will hopefully ensure responsible dolphin watching which will bring income to local operators.

Read through Pesut’s blog and—if you can—book a trip with FH-2-GO, the kayak operator. I’ll envy you!

[EDIT: with regard to my previous post, this is what I consider fair and responsible eco-tourism. I doubt that any of the local operators would ask for “thousands of pounds”. I also have a feeling that a discount is on the cards if you want to go out every day for a week in order to make notes ;)]