Keeping Body and Soul Together
In Bangkok we got a good deal for a month in a beautiful completely furnished apartment on a dead-end street in the upscale Saladaeng area…close to the Skytrain and the new subway that is running again after a recent accident.
Many delicious food vendors just outside the front door were well-placed for the two towers of business offices at the end of the street. After a week Bob took off for northern Thailand and I stayed in Bangkok…taxiing back and forth to my Tufts university-trained dentist who employs a group of specialists…all women…on Sukhumvit 24. With two new porcelain caps and a root planing, I will return in a month for prep work on two implants that will be completed in another 4 months…all for about a 7th of what it would cost with no dental insurance at home.
Doug and Luk took an overnight train from Krabi and stayed with me for a few days while a friend babysat their dog Ting-Tong at their house. They eat very small meals many times during the day…Thai food being what it is…so it seemed like we were eating constantly. One evening Doug took us up to the top of one of the tallest towers in Bangkok where we looked down from an outdoor bar/restaurant sitting on the very edge of the building…refreshing cool breezes blowing our hair…jaw-dropping night lights of the city down below. But mostly Doug and Luk just hung out in the air-con apartment with me…dreading the return to their “fan-cooled” (a uphemism if ever there was one) house in Krabi.
Bought a 20 hour wireless card I use with my Mac computer in any of the many Starbucks around town…handy for uploading blog notes and updating software…visiting with other computer users like the young guy from London who just moved here for a two-year tour with his company…paying as much for the freight on his furniture as it all cost in the first place. Our visit ended when a Thai-boy sat down at the Brit’s table…shooting me a look that could kill. Apparently I was interfering with their date.
Visited the six floors of Panthip Computer Shopping Mall several times where you can buy any high-tech item you could ever want. There are hundreds of stalls selling CD’s and DVD’s and at one I spoke to a rough-looking character standing next to me. “I come here often for R&R,” he says looking at the Thai girl standing next to him. (One in 30 Thai women have said to be working as prostitutes although they don’t call themselves that…they just want an ATM guy to exchange sex with.) “Most things are cheaper if you order over the net,” he says, apparently except for the handfulls of games and software he is buying for his employees in his computer center in Iraq.
Checked out the Foreign Correspondents Club, one of many around the world (I used the one in Phnom Penh Cambodia) that honor each other’s members. In the penthouse of a Bangkok tower you will find the club with a bar/restaurant that hosts speakers from around the world…recently the Dalai Lama spoke there…has a state of the art media center for journalists, jazz on Friday nights…and expats to speak English to! The night we were there ASEAN was hosting an open conference regarding Burma.
Tags: Bangkok, Conversations, Doug, Thailand, Trains, Transportation
Zoe
Hi There, I guess everyone gets around to being a blogger after all. Have been thinking of you lots and decided to check in on this quiet week-end night. Phil watching a movie and me quilting until I’m brain dead. Life’s been busy of late. Michelle bought a house in Portland a couple of weeks ago, Matthew and Charise have $$ down on a new place out north of us in Battle ground. Lots of company of late. Our friends Cam and Marilyn Hinman who have been sailing around the world for the past five years. Back from Australia for two months and now will return to cruise for another couple of years before returning home. All else well. We’re doing some US travelling this next two months, Phil still doing lots of jazz and me now returning to my health care roots as a Board of Director’s member for SW Washington Medical Center. Spring is coming. Trees in bloom and after a drought-like, but wonderfully sunny winter, the rains have come and it feels like spring. I’ll be logging on to see whats up with you, but it appears that the travel life remains good. Love to you both, Judi and Phil