This is Songkran??

And true enough, over Songkran the accidents and the sirens. About 400 people died in just 4 days. My employees crashed another company car. Sigh.




As usual, the traffic went haywire when the small streets were filled with people. As you can see from the picture, the wetness is not of the rain, but of all the splashy fun. This is a festival where all roads turn into walking streets. Cars have to be caution not to run over their feet. Rules are meant to be broken and so are bodies. Near to 4000 injuries reported. Death comes in comical situation. Gig’s colleague cracked his head and hospital was full. Went to two hospitals that turned him away because of many more broken heads being attended to. He bled to death in the third hospital and added to the nation’s statistics.

And who was the winner of the festival splashing the most amount of water on the most number of people. Oh Buddha floating on your skateboard clouds the winner you are. On the fourth day, a day after Songkran, you made the heavy rains fell. And on the fifth day you broke the rule and throw ice cubes at all of us for a minute in the afternoon. Hail in Bangkok the world is crazy. Global warming oh yeah Buddha.

The Indian and the Snake

Now, most of us Singaporean will know the joke about – The Indian and the Snake, which you will shoot first if you have a gun? Here comes the German version, original from German's mouth unaltered, and not hearing the Singapore version before.…..

You have a gun and only 2 bullets left. You see an Indian and a Snake. What will you do? First, shoot the Indian. Then, shoot Indian again, make sure Indian is dead. The snake you can ignore.

(The German company was conned by an irresponsible cunning Malaysian Indian company, their project was abandoned unfinished by the latter after 90% payment and the German company was left to die.)

Oh Strange Vietnam

Now.. not only do they have an amazing way of brewing the coffee with the above apparatus, what is weird is that these shops are set up along the streets, facing the road. People just sit there and watch the traffic goes by, for hours. And for your info, Vietnam coffee is power, very very extremely power.

Some of these that I have been to play very loud electronic dance floor music. Some are as posh or even more then Starbucks and opens late into the night. Instead of alcohol consumption and dancing to the heavy bass, they all just sit down and drink coffee, again for hours. I don’t get it.



The one beside my hotel has 25 scantly covered young girls serving coffee. They come to sit next to you, but I speak no Vietnam. All they could do was smile, all I could do was stare at their budging breast and droll in silence. I confirm now, that if you think Thailand has the most beautiful girls, you are wrong. 75% of Vietnam women are fair, pretty and voluptuous. No wonder I hear so many Singaporean man love Vietnam. In this coffee shop I read a book, my mind wonders why the rest stares at nothing facing the road, their mind and eyes wonders why I am reading a book.

Voluptuous waitress in mostly male restaurants is also parts of their strategy to attract customers. I been to one and I got full on eye candy, not food. Imagine the restaurants’ plan is to make your cock stand when eating lunch. The Vietnamese man loves it and these restaurants have very good business.


Crossing the roads in Ho Chi Min requires balls of steel. And if you dropped them when doing so, you can never have a chance to retrieve your balls.



There are no MacDonald’s in Ho Chi Min. There is only Lotteria, which at first I thought was a 4D lottery shop or something. Coke with Shrimp or Chicken Balls.. very strange drink. But I believe the balls should be served separately, not in the Coke or it did be really weird.


Best of all, they have a smoking room in there.



Now everything in Vietnam is very small. Small tables, small men, small restaurants, small office, small house. Only the breasts are big. Everything else is small. See how the giagantor ang moh had to sit for coffee. See how we all sit. Not easy when you are fat and could well roll over the stubby chairs, kuay teow on your face.

Songkran has Changed

So what happens on Songkran? The picture above shows what’s gonna happen. Expect scores of drunk drivers, scores of accidents. Any festival in Thailand in this era is represented by the sounds of recurring sirens, injuries and untimely deaths.

It is going to be the Thai New Year just the week after. Denizens of the Kingdom making plans for their annual home visit. Hordes of cars will be leaving Bangkok, family reunion long awaited ensues. It is much like Chinese New Year and scores of business will be off an entire week. And so, we all expect the postcard exhibited spirit of happiness, all the smiling Thai faces drenched of course, all the extra friendliness, all the colors and water splashes. But is this really the case?

I spoke to an old lady, a generation into the future from me. I asked the aunty what she is going to do on the joyful day, expecting an answer that she will walk the neighborhood and celebrate with the long time residence of her surrounding.

Aunty: I am going to stay at home and not go out at all.
Me: What? Why…? Songkran, Thai people love Songkran and it is time for celebration, reunion, splash water with stranger right?
Aunty: No way, stay at home safer. Long time ago, Songkran was pure, we were all happy and throw water at each other. Nowadays, people put salt in the water and that makes our body really itchy after we get splashed.
(Paused…..)
Aunty: When I took bus last year during Songkran, people throw ice blocks at the bus because we had our windows down. They shattered the window. Songkran nowadays is a crazy period, so dangerous. I am going to stay home.
Me: errr… wow.. that’s bad… why throw ice? I thought it is just powder mix with water at a max to prank on strangers?
Aunty: Thai people are crazy nowadays, it is no longer like during decades ago where Songkran was celebrated purely, with pure water to cleanse on to wash away the bad things. Now, you won’t know what get splashed on you.

Songkran has lost her meaning in this modern society. It is now a period to be celebrated with caution against recklessness, you have to be on guard all the time. Songkran is no longer the period where one could be walking the streets getting to be splashed gleefully. The meaning of the festival is to wash away the bad things, but now…. bad things come to you in surprising splashes or projectiles. The whole country will be drenched in a messy dirty concoction instead of being washed by the pure splashes. What have the people been watching on television to cause such a cruel twist in a pure tradition?

So sad.

And what do I do on this festival? I have been scheduled to work in the bloody power plant. Rich people don’t work on holidays. Poor people do.

Whats good in Chok Chai Farm tours?

Bulging inviting butts.




Anyway, Chok Chai steakhouse is 200km away north after Saraburi. Other then spending most of your eyeball time on the guide’s lower distraction, you get to see how milk is made.




They also have a petting zoo there… pet the animals… not the butt.

Gecko Gecko

Yet another amazing creature that shot out behind of the curtain when we were at work. Now I learned their nest is normally somewhere nearby and that its an egg stuck on the wall somehow.

Hash Brown of Thailand

Home delivered from MacDonald’s hash brown with a shred of glass. Complained to MacDonald’s, one more hash brown delivered free without glass. Just how lightly they take things around here in Thailand.

So how, get caught Drunk Driving in Bangkok?

What do Thai people do the first thing they get salary at the end of month? Drink dance drunk. It doesn’t matter if this bash will cost them a quarter of their salary, they just want to live life to their fullest, worry later. Typical of the average employee, three of them decided its time for a drink and took the company car out for a Friday night bash. Maybe they will get lucky and have a wild bang-bang session with some sweet teenage girls, which I guarantee is always on their mind.

Intoxicated at 2am, they returned. From the third left lane of an eight lane road, they made an illegal u-turn cutting across the fourth lane onto the opposite in the quiet no traffic night. Then the sound of shattering glass, the loud metallic crush of metal followed by the silhouette of a rider fist bumping onto the roof of the car and flipping onwards onto the tarmac followed. Yahoo.

Here is what then transcript according to the employee…..

Police to Employee: You drunk?
Employee: Yes.
Police to Rider: Did you drink?
Rider: Yes, just a few glasses.
Police to Rider: Why are you on the right most lane of this road? Motorcycles are supposed to be on the slow left lane, not the right most!!
Rider: It is difficult for me to know which lane I am at. I don’t know where is the left lane and can’t make it out.

I guess, as long as there is nobody killed, no one seriously injured, no reporters, cases like these are treated locally and no one gets arrested for drunk driving. What then followed I will not document, but all I can say is that, there were no fines issued and they got their driving license back on the spot. I love Thailand.

Thai Cashew Nut

I came from the city, Singapore. Nature means waking up in the morning looking out the window to see the occasional malnutrition brown squirrel making its way across the overhead cables, tripping and falling and being run over by the double deck SBS bus on her fist morning run. But wait…. there are overhead cables in Singapore no more, they have all gone underground and so have the squirrels.


I woke to the calling of only birds and the light sea breeze caressing. The air fresh with a slight tingle of the sea. I saw two large furry squirrels among the tress where they are suppose to be, in nature. Many orange jumbu like fruits scattered underneath, I took a closer look. This is where cashew nuts come from, in the hard covered brown husk of that growth top of the fruit. I see, I see now. Cashew nuts are not grown in Tong Gardens, they grow on trees.

Little Gems Beyond Pattaya

The nearest beach party found on the mainland of this kingdom is about 150km away, south west and is well known. Agogo nudes performing strange tricks, famous Walking Street, nice expensive resorts, party till dawn, drink till drop – Pattaya, the commercial seaside town where thousands of tourist flock to per month.

I hate Pattaya waters however and am more of a guy in search of the crystalline. Just about 30km further south, you will be greeted by the town of Sattahip. The entire area is military run, so expect to see scores of barracks, military structures and entrances with always the sentries on guard. It’s a pity not to know Thai and not realizing that these encampments are actually opened to the public. And in there, you will find scattered patches of paradise.





Though the beachscape is not a pristine white, the inviting clarity of the water is enough to blow you away. It is surprising that the water could be so different just next door to Pattaya, which is murky. There is an island opposite where you can reach by a boat ride. They have bottom glass boats there to view the corals. The sand there is powder and white.





Don’t expect to find those luxurious expensive and exotic treatments of Pompeii here, but enjoy only the slightly overpriced simple food (for a Thai), the hut without air conditioning and of course the basic foot massage on the rental beach chairs. You can enjoy sail boating, canoeing, the banana boat and I saw parasailing.

Drive there with a Thai friend and he will be able to bring you to most of these nice short shorelines after speaking to the locals and finding out where best to go. Most of these gems are hidden and located deep within the military compound. It’s worth it and it’s not too far from Pattaya if you are already there.

I was there for work, but every morning I woke early to have breakfast on a different beach.

Breakdown on Motorway

What does a foreigner do in Thailand if his car explodes in the middle of motor way?

2 options.

1. Call all the Thai friends you have in your mobile. Eventually one will help.
2. Wait for the occasional yellow tow trucks that belong to the Motorway department. It was 2 hours before I saw one. They will stop by, asked a couple of questions then perform on the spot repairs if necessary. If your car needs to be towed, it cost THB$3,500.

I took the first option and friend arranged everything, from tow truck to destination workshop. And remember to pray that it does not rain. Attack anyone you see resembling a medicine woman attempting to rain dance in the immediate vicinity.

What to have when you own an old car in Thailand?

Always have a fire extinguisher on board. Thai mechanics are very crappy with their workmanship, especially electrical. My air-conditioner piping leaked and the system lost all its gas. Gas leakage is indicated by your entire car engulf in noxious white fumes. The compressor should have cut-off as it is a standard safety feature to not overheat the compressor when no gas is circulating. However, since Thai mechanics lacks the basic discipline and know how, they had previously hardwired many of my air-conditioning components. The compressor did not cut-off and overheated as a result, and BURNS! This is indicated by strange burning metal smell and when you slow the car, you see smoke coming out under the car. Open your hood and you could see small flickers of flames in or around the compressor. Put out fire immediately with extinguisher.

What happens after you tow the car to the Thai workshop?

Any job that requires major removal and re-fitting of engine or console will result in your car being wired up in the most imaginable wrong way ever. Car will spew black smoke with no power and engine constantly dying. Brakes normally does not work in such cases so drive dead slow. Since Thai mechanics sucks and lacks discipline, they will deny they had done anything wrong and had not messed with the electrics, since it is only the compressor that they had changed. Expect the workshop to refer you to another, and another and even offer to drive your car to the next shop they know. Drive car back to original shop and prepare your own tools. Check all wiring on the ECU. You will see that they have wired it up wrongly. Correct wiring by yourself and have the mechanics staring at you in awe after your turn on the ignition and the engine runs smooth without a glitch.

Thailand, land of smiles, but could unfortunately also be land lack of basic knowledge for most.

How fresh is Thai Milk?

Have a cow next to where you sell milk. This was taken at one of the shops in Farm Chokchai selling milk. They have a live cow producing the milk.

Just how friendly is Thai for Disabled?

Picture above answers your question.

My one better then Yours

Chatukam craze. It as popular as hell last year with many people queuing up at temples forever just to get one. Now it seems Chatukam has gone commercial. Why are people so crazy about it? Thais say wearing one will have you blessed with invisible God armor. No accidents will kill you, no knife can hurt you and no bullets can hit you.

There was a story of two Thais challenging each other on whose Chatukam was better. First guy said to the other, you shoot me with your gun first then I shoot you. First guy never lived to return fire. News showed case the gullibility of some people in Thailand

Hamster Balls

Stumbled on this in front of Central World.

Wonder what it would be like to be in one and to release a slow hot silent fart, then light up a cigarette in there and explode. Hamster balls for humans. What would they think of next?

How to Kill Yourself Buying Groceries in Thailand

One of the hazards about living in Thailand is that, everything is in Thai. So turning off the wrong road flying off the cliff because the “danger - you are going to fly off the cliff” sign is written in Thai is just one of the many situations we foreigners may encounter.


I deliberately placed a bottle of salt among the multipurpose cleaners. As the picture above shows, if it was the other way round that I did put the multipurpose cleaner among the bottles of salt, some poor old farang with bad eyesight could have been sprinkling the corrosive agent into his baking pizza at home and wondering why his pizza sizzles like never before. I had once used the floor cleaner to wash my dishes because both detergent and floor cleaner looks so darn similar, with the almost identical red packaging and all the Thai words sprawled over. The detergent liquid was red, the floor cleaner liquid was red and both smelled of strawberry. English is not necessary and even if it is, the words are placed discreetly in small fonts. These are pure examples of the Hokkien saying “have mustache, blindly recognize as father”.

When at Tops, I see expired farang products everyday. Instant mashed potatoes, not every Thai will consume. Apple chips and such, all left to rot on the shelves and no staff bother to check on them since they are all English. I pointed out that a package had expired… EXP: FEB 14 2008. The staff told me.. E-X-P printed on the package was the packaging date, F-E-B is January in Thai….. WTF!!! I had to correct her and she then removed all the goods from the shelf, probably recycling them into the yellow pails we buy as offerings to the monks since Thai monks are unlikely to read English.


Non Stop Banana? Till this day I am wondering what genetic mutation causes a banana to be un-stoppable.


Worker Ants…. Wow.. didn’t know ants has an effect on air quality in Bangkok.


In a world where translations are never done correctly and where the talking bird speaks Thai, you really need to learn to read, really need to learn to write. Speaking their gentle language is just the first of obstacles.

Green Soup E-San, DON’T

I was in Sattahip for the most of last month. We had meals by the road side, breakfast by the sea, lunch in deep parts of the naval base with scenic views, coffee by the beach and drinks everywhere else. There, the scary food stories began.

First…. I took a piece of that fragrant fried fish that we waited for half an hour. Gobbled it down and what remained on my plate was a leg. My mouth paused. My brain paused.


I looked to my Thai friend and asked…. WTF is this, eyes wide open. He said, its delicious, dot worry, its just parts of fried cricket leftover in the wok frying our fish. True enough, my other colleague found one lone cricket hidden among the fried garlic garnish, whisked that into his mouth and chomped it down deliciously. Ok… so that was not so weird.

Next, that green soup of E-San. Don’t drink it. In fact, don’t drink anything that you know are pieces of cow floating in what looks deliciously like the green mutton soup of the Singapore Malay stalls.

When the dish came to me in the Som-Tam stall (North-East Papaya Salad Food), I was overwhelmed with delight to think that there was finally a mutton soup equivalent in Thailand. I was happy. The meat was ok, real steak, gingerly. One spoonful of the soup was next, firely gingerly taste that eventually left a huge cloud of bitterness in the mouth. I thought it was herbal, like certain Chinese delicacies. So, it was not Malay Mutton Soup.

In my best Thai I asked, in my best deciphering I understood:
“So what’s this?”
“Its soup of the final intestines of a cow.”
“Final? Near the backside?”
“Yes, it is special E-San dish.”
“Final? Where the shit is?”
“Yes, but may not be shit yet, final part of intestine, where food 90% turns shit, but have no chance to turn into 100% real shit because cow got slaughtered.”

Holy cow…. I ate cow shit!!!!!!!

Finding the Elusive Singapore Food

I have no idea where this is. All I know is that it is in Nonthaburi near to my other office. The Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee… awesome. The Laksa… served in the clay pot, awesome. The Satay… fooking expensive, can try for once, then feel your pocket burn, then can skip for rest of life. I found you, oh Singapore food in Thailand.

In the Navy

In my last gloomy blog, I wished the scenery where I work was that of coconut trees and the sea. Well, whatever that is up there floating entities (God, Buddha, Allah, Chinese flying fairies, blue elephant like God etc) has their own wicked ways of twisting and making things come true in partial portions. I landed a project in the Navy.


If you say Navy, like how we say it (nae–v), Thais have no idea WTF you are talking about. They pronounce it na-v. Sattahip is a weird place. The whole district of about 300 square KM is military controlled. Almost every shop be it restaurants or karaoke is run by a military personnel. I go to the sea every morning to have my breakfast and let my eyes feast on the mountains and the sea. I could see the bottom of the sea and the fishes two meters deep. I consider these clear waters.

During my many nights with the bunch of admirals, commanders and captains, we talked many. Submarines, Singapore have, so Thailand must have. Asked if they fear some Singapore submarine is now lurking just off the sea planning a hostile takeover of all karaoke business, they said what they do not know, they do not fear. So, Singapore subs can linger all they want around the sea and land themselves whenever, to enjoy THB$700 per shot Pattaya girls. Fact: During joint naval exercises with Singapore, Pattaya is a must stop, with the Thai officers leading the group of Singapore island color wolves deprived. THB$700 prices… pop till they drop.

THB$700!! I don’t believe. So in the middle of the night, they bought us through a discreet alley that lead to the sea. This is no Pattaya but in Sattahip and the prices only go lower. And oh yeah, true enough discreetly over the sea, end of the discreet alley, we found a discreet fish tank business. The discreet price for foreigners like me is THB$1,000 but hey, for the locals its THB$500. Still not believing my ears, I sent my solider (technician) into war, sponsored. Yipee-yay-yea. Its true but the discreet session was only a discreet 30 minutes. To top the discreet charts, was that he had to take a cable car from the chicken coop to the rooms. The short ride over the sea cost another THB$20 return. Incredible…. Amazing Discreet Thailand.

Funeral Thai Style

Thai Funeral

So.. we disturb our neighbors right out of their sleep in the middle of midnight from the loud chanting in the deck of HDBs in Singapore and our deceased’s spirit takes the elevator up the block to pay us a visit in our dreams. Here in Thailand where Temples are as abundant as Seven Eleven, is where Thais hold their funeral ceremonies. We burn paper money, we burn the paper house, the paper Mercedes, paper credit cards and even paper women for our departed. The ashes not only reach the afterlife but most residents in our estate will receive them as well in their bedrooms, saving it probably for their own afterlives in Basement-18 (Chinese Hell). Here… no burning. Just simple chanting from 7.30pm to 8.00pm. However, some Chinese families will practice like we do in Singapore, contributing happily to global warming.

We do the watch for several days, staying awake all night chatting, playing cards, eating and drinking. Here, they leave the dead alone after dark and return tomorrow to the temple after 4.00pm in preparation for the evening prayer. Why no night watch I asked. They don’t want to see no ghost they answered. Only rarely, do Thais practice the night watch.

To rent the temple hall for the dead cost THB $2000 per day. And the most interesting part is that they keep the body in a metal refrigerator with a viewing glass. Thais believe the recently parted is not self aware that they are dead until the 3rd day. And that’s the day when most paranormal activities occur within the families when the departed returns for hair raising visit. They don’t take elevator, they float right into your rooms via your front door from the main street.

His mother, talked sadly about the events yesterday. How strange of him to be eating whatever he could during breakfast, as if knowing it was his last meal. How strange of him to be visiting grandma extra frequently during the final week, as if he knew he could no longer do so anymore. How strange the wave that came for the three children, rising like a grabbling hand to pull him, the last to leave the water. The rescuers thought it odd that he came back on the shore perpendicular to the sea, arms stretched out straight in line with the whole body. How odd he was not on the shore one moment but appeared suddenly as the next wave receded as if some mysterious force had invisibly pulled him up. How extraordinary that drowning victims normally takes a few hours to days to be discovered but not him. As the chanting ended and the friends and relatives left, his aunt raised the family dog right up to his portrait. They spoke, they stroked his face on the picture glass, the dog stared maybe to know there will be no more leaping around his legs as he walks in the door. I started my engine, the last car leaves. The temple empties, little boy, rest in peace.