Thailand expat life in pictures

I went yesterday evening for a dinner cruise aboard an old rice barge that was restored for this kind of dining cruise.

It starts from the Manhora Cruise’s Pier at the Bangkok Marriott Resort and goes up the river while you eat.

The barge can accommodate about 40 guests only and the food is quite good but I find the price a bit steep (Baht 2000/adult).  I personally prefer to rent a boat, my main objective being taking photos, not really eating but it is probably a nicer experience if you do it with your family or wife/girlfriend.

I anyway took a few pictures, not really as nice as I would like them to be since I was stuck on my seat. The photos were taken with the Canon 7D and the Canon lens 50mm f1.4 at f1.6 or 1.8, ISO800, 1/80 or 1/100s.

There are many temples along the river, here are two of them

And the Temple of Dawn

Everybody read about the people stranded everywhere in the world because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the closure of the European airspace.

I had unfortunately the “privilege” of witnessing the chaos and misery it brought to stranded travellers, in Bangkok. And the challenge it brought to airlines companies that were obviously not prepared for it. Especially Thai Airways that my daughter was supposed to take on 16th of April to Paris.

The volcano erupted, nothing we could do, flights were canceled, we just had to wait in Bangkok.

My daughter was staying with me, I guess one of the lucky ones, if not, please choose one of the hotels you can go to, for a price.

No problem up to that time, nothing anybody could do, but well, on 20/04, the European airspace reopened and the chaos started in Bangkok airport and I guess in most airports in the world. Airspace is reopened, I was in the first flight that was canceled so I should go first. My boarding pass please. Well, sorry, it does not really work that way, your flight was canceled because of a volcanic eruption, not because of us (airlines), so you have to wait, flights are fully booked, you know. You mean I need to book a flight when seats are available? You indeed have to do that.  And when is it? We have seats on the 6th of May, confirmed. Can I go earlier? Sure, try standing by for every flight.

Fine, next day we are on the waiting list, queue for 2 hours, register at 10 a.m., waiting list canceled at 1 p.m., have to do it again, got it at 3 p.m. do not worry, you need to come at 9 p.m., counters K15 to K21,  sure win.

We go there at 6 p.m. with 2000 fellow stranded passengers and we wait patiently. At 9 p.m. the TG staff comes, stick some printed pages on top the counters, with the destination name, K18 Oslo, K19 Frankfurt,  K20 London, K21 Paris… (I do not remember the order but you get the picture). And you’re supposed to wait in front of the counter that has your destination stuck on.

We’ll start with Frankfurt, here is the winner (announced at the Paris counter…)

Sorry if you’re 100 m from the counter, or even 10m and can’t read, buy some  binoculars for tomorrow because you do not know it yet, but most of you will be back tomorrow…

And so it goes for a few people, very few. It is 11 p.m. and I’m starting to be a bit pessimistic. Paris turn, excitement builds up, my daughter goes to Paris, as do about 300 French people next to us, but for whatever reason, my daughter thinks she will get it. I’m not sure. The Thai staff comes and? Sorry, no seat available today, the flight is fully booked.

Well, mayhem followed,  security had to be called

Embassies were called, embassadors were woken up, some British stranded passengers started kind of a riot…

Anyway, the next few days, Thai Airways put more flights to Europe and the situation was slowly solved.

It was sure an experience in inefficiency, but not everything is lost, it allowed me to take more pictures of the airport and of the people going there.

The airport at night

And a bit of Bangkok airport fashion

There is a nice German microbrewery on Rama 3 that was opened 10 years ago. I think I was one of the first one to go there since it is located next to the place I was living at that time.

And it was love at first sight. For the beer, for the shows, for the ambiance and for the prices.

I still love the place and go there from time to time, but these days more for the beer , the shows and the ambiance than the prices, although they still remain pretty reasonable by western standards.

This is a huge place, I think more than 1000 seats, but usually fully booked most of the time, so you need to book in advance, especially if you want to get a seat next to the stage, where you can hope to take a few nice photos, what I did last Friday.

There is a band playing on stage up to 9 a.m when the show starts. All kinds of shows, Thai and western.

And the songs are in English and Thai, but more Thai than English usually

And here are some of the singers

The fun part is, after 10 p.m. people start dancing in between the tables, most of them anyway and the atmosphere gets a bit hotter, as can be seen on the next two photos.

Did you see the male singer on stage on the last photo?

He kind of like the dancing in between the tables also.

Getting some other girls jealous…

So in conclusion, a nice place to go to, I recommend. Here is their website.

http://www.tawandang.co.th/homet.html

As we said in our last post Koh Samet – The beach , we recently went to one of our favourite beach on Samet island, the Wong (or Vong) Duean beach.

I’m more into photography than into getting a suntan but a beach is really the perfect place for both activities. So here are photos of female tourists getting a suntan and doing quite a bit of photography also.

Let’s start with the most beautiful girl who was on that beach at the same time as me. Well, she actually was with me, she is my daughter.

She desperately wants to get a suntan but unfortunately, or fortunately says my wife, it is either white or red, no brown for her.

Same for this French girl, also having difficulty getting a suntan.

Or these ones

But for this one, who was spending countless hours sunbathing, it did not really seem to be a problem to get a nice suntan

And quite a few girls were also taking photos on the beach. These two girls took hundreds of photos. Of each other.  But they did not really get much suntan either.

A bit of macro photography, plenty of small crabs on the beach

And when come the evening, and the sun is on its way out, the Asian girls come out, for them one motto only, no suntan, please.

I recently went to one of my favourite beach in Thailand, Wong Duean beach located at the middle of the East coast of Samet island.

Koh Samet is about 200 km away from Bangkok, a two hours drive up to Ban Phe, South of Rayong, where boats will be waiting for you for the short trip to the island. You can leave you car in the many parking lots next to the Pier, for 4 days, I paid Baht 240.

There are 2 piers, Pier 1 where you can take boats going straight to the beach you want to go and Pier 2 where boats go to the main pier on Samet island. You have slow boats, Baht 50/person for the trip (45 minutes) and speedboats, about Baht 1250/person (20 minutes). You really have to like speedboats to pay 25 times more.

Here is the depature from Pier 2 in Ban Phe

And the boat will bring you to  Samet island Pier

But expect to get your feet wet if you go from Pier 1 straight to your hotel on the beach, no pier there. A small boat will take you from the bigger boat to the beach.

Your luggage will be brought to the beach on a small Thai tractor that is normally used by rice farmers use in Isaan

And they use a bigger one to carry supplies to the few hotels on the beach

We were staying in Samet Cabana hotel, in a small bungalow sitting right on the beach (Baht 2,800/night including breakfast).  It is on the left end side of Wong Duean beach where the beach end on some small rocks.

The seats of the Samet Cabana restaurant and the beach

And why do most people go to that beach?

To get a nice suntan

And also enjoy the crystal clear sea water

A few more postings and more photos taken on Wong Duean beach will come later.

Hua Hin is located 200 km south of Bangkok, a two to three hours drive by car, and has been one of the favourite beach destination for more than 70 years. In the 1920s, it was a small fishing village when it was discovered by King Rama IV and turned into a Royal Resort, ensuring its popularity among Thailand’s upper-class and nobility.

These days it is still a very nice place to go with nice beaches and plenty of hotels to choose from, my favourite being the Sofitel (actually one of my favourite in Thailand).

But besides the beaches, the sand and the sea, you also have in the evening a night market and a pretty active street life with quite a few bars and colourful people in the street, the subject of this posting.

I quite like walking in the streets in the evening or sitting outside a bar and taking pictures of the numerous street sellers and other interesting people.

This one was selling something he did not want me to take a photo of…

Selling roses to be offered to the ladies of the night and others.

Some of the street sellers come with their baby on their back

Some are pretty old

And not always selling anything, just there trying to get a bit of money by singing and begging in the streets, like this blind man with his helper.

And these young people are also not selling anything, I think,  but promoting ladyboys shows in Hua Hin

Isaan, the region located in the North East of Thailand, is one of the nicest place to visit and probably to live in, if only for the Isaan people. If you want to meet some of the nicest people on this earth, and I travel a lot, so I’m not guessing here, go to Isaan.

Most of them  live a very simple life that follows the seasons and the rice harvesting cycles.

And the way they harvest the rice did not change much in the last 50 years, even using the Thai buffalo from time to time

And the Isaan tractor

And along the Mekong, where the next photos were taken, in Mukdahan, you can also be a fisherman. Although I think, these days, it will help feeding your family nice fishes, but you’ll most probably won’t make a living out of it.

And wife and daughters are usually helping but selling vegetables, meat… on the markets or in the streets

The last one for this post was taken along the street going north of Mudahan, the Isaan women and their chidren selling mushrooms

Mukdahan is a small city in the North East of Thailand (Isaan), next to the Mekong river and Savannakhet in Laos, more details can be found here Mukdahan

Here is a bird view eye of it, taken from the hill overlooking the city, Phu Narom

This is where my wife is from and we have a house there. So we go as often as we can, if only for one reason, we just love the markets in Mukdahan. There is always a market for you to go to, whatever the time of the day.

The well-known Indochina Market Indochina market , along the Mekong river, open during the day and where you can find a bit of everything. But what is nice is actually the walk along the Mekong.

Open earlier is the wet market where you’ll find lot of vegetables and lot of food, some of it pretty strange.

And in the evening, the main street of Mukdahan is closed to traffic and you have the night market

Where you’ll find some clothes, CDs, shoes…

But the night market is mainly about food, plenty of food stalls selling nice and cheap food

I’m a farang, my wife is Thai and our son is both farang and Thai. He’s only four but depending on the situation or whom he talks to, he labels himself as farang or Thai. I guess you learn early the advantages of being from two pretty different cultures…

I posted and still post about his life in Thailand in this blog  Life of an Eurasian in Thailand

And here are a few pictures of them.

The oldest one, taken in a studio, for an advertisement in a magazine.

And more recent ones taken in Singapore last weekend

On a wave breaker

And in front of a nice tree

But do not expect Thai women to go on the beach in bikini, or well, in anything that will show too much skin. To you and the sun…

And well, time to get out of this post, we’ll be back soon

I lived in Singapore for 9 years and I just loved it. Sure you can criticize how “control freak” the government is but it works. And they still prosper although everything was  stacked against them when they separated from Malaysia.

No water, no resources, nothing. … Made Lee Kwan Yew cry at that time. But he made it, and I sure admire him and quite a few other Singaporeans for what they have done with a country that was supposed to have no future.

But well, not the purpose of this thread, went there last weekend and will post a few pictures here.

Well, first picture shows us trying to find the Merlion, in Fullerton Park, did I mention I left Singapore 14 years ago? So we got lost in the MRT…

And we actually had to take a taxi to reach the Merlion

After that we went to the beach, where they have, in some places, some artwork. But well, many ships also that make the artwork not as nice as it deserves to be. On my photo, that is…

And of course, we spent quite some time on Orchard Road, where our hotel was, and where the action is, shopping wise.

Here we are, trying to figure out how this compact camera works

And obviously, quite a few people feel alone on Orchard Road, especially this one, she seems to be so stressed that she did not even notice I was taking a picture of her.

And my guess is, she is Thai.