Thais, frightening

I think Thais like frightening people. We saw this in many ways today. First, when we woke up, the headline of the newspaper was about an enormous sinkhole appearing in a road in Bangkok, capable of swallowing cars whole.

Second, when I got to the office (after a taxi driver drove me in a very mellow, yet utterly terrifying manner) everyone delighted in telling me that I should have left for the airport half an hour ago, because of the terrible traffic and the four hour lines to get through passport control.

Third, the hotel spent ten minutes looking for our luggage, or (probably) nine minutes looking like they were looking for our luggage, then one minute to trundle it over.

Fourth - ah, lucky fourth - was our taxi driver to the airport. He almost ran over a motorcycle as we pulled out from the hotel, and the drive to the airport, although uneventful, always seemed to be creeping towards disaster.

Perhaps it was the Porsche Cayennes going past at double our speed. Perhaps it was the way our driver would overtake slower vehicles: passing half in their lane and half in ours. Perhaps it was the way there's no lane discipline in Thailand, or its enforced by make of car - sometimes a Mercedes will hurtle past on your left, sometimes a Corolla on your right.

Or perhaps, perhaps we were terrified because at the second toll booth, a man passed our driver a four page advertisement for a DIY store, and he proceeded to drive while flicking through the leaflet. (I think it was for a DIY store - there seemed to be pictures of powerdrills, but I was petrified, pushing myself tight against my seat and unable to verify whether it was a Home Depot or a Carrefour promotion.)

I'm not saying our taxi driver took us all the way to the airport while reading about cut-price reverse hammeraction drills. After a while he got bored and put the leaflet on the passenger seat, but we didn't feel any safer, because we'd just gone past a man in a Toyota, reading what looked like the same flyer.

Is home improvement so exciting to Thais that they spend every possible moment reading about it? Or was there a memo that went round last week, telling everyone what a hilarious wheeze it would be to convince the dumb farangs that all Thais read while they drive?

We got to the airport without dying, and found that the four-hour queue for immigration didn't exist. There was a security lady at the metal detectors who spent her time dancing and waggling her metal detector, and then suddenly lapsing into fire-breathing dragon mode if anyone had so much as a 1-baht coin left in their pockets, and there was also a seven year old kid sat behind the desk by the customs point, but these were both clearly just attempts to test our gullibility, so we carried on to the dubious paradise of the airport food court.

Til next time, Bangkok. Maybe you'll think of other ways to frighten us by then.

Confusion, Thai style

Today we saw the man who lied to us yesterday about the tourist boat, yelling at a tourist in a wheelchair. Then we went to Wat Pho, the temple of the reclining Buddha, had an argument with a taxi driver who didn't want to use the meter in his car, took a different taxi to the train station, got laughed at by a security guard, had a Swedish massage in a spa off Sukhumvit Road, an Italian meal in a Thai cafe, and then went back to our hotel.

A Bangkok Chronicle

Today I got up early, had a call with the office and then went for a run, which meant by 10 am I was no good to anyone, which meant my wife was a little disappointed that her weekend in Bangkok was going to be spent in our hotel room, listening to me snore and fart.

The Hangover (3)

We've flown to Bangkok and we're staying in a hotel whose proudest boast is that The Hangover 2 was set there. I've lots of misgivings about this. (And not just that The Hangover 2 is a terrible title - why didn't they have The Hangover: Electric Boogaloo, or Another Hangover, or Still Hungover, or were they saving those for the eventual sequels (Hungover and Furious 4, perhaps?)

(Un)Original Sin

This evening we went back to Original Sin, for a friend's birthday. The last time I went to this restaurant, I got so blotto that I couldn't remember a single thing from the menu. I had only feelings of vague misgivings about the meze (unfounded) and the cheesecake (quite correct, unfortunately - it advertised itself as being chocolatey and was just a bit insipid).

Don't buy a Blackberry

I've had a Blackberry for the last four years, and I suppose I've been quite loyal. Before I had one, I was intensely sceptical. Partly because as a good European chauvinist, I knew no North American company could make phones as good as Nokia or Ericsson. And partly because the idea of a device that enabled you to be emailed wherever you were struck me as a horrible chain to be dragging around with you.

Then I got a Blackberry, and discovered that it also allowed you to delete emails while you were sat on the toilet, which was a boon to efficiency, as I could get to work with an inbox clear of ephemera. And most of the emails were full of shi- oh, better not say it.

Sweaty in Singapore

This morning I woke up before 6, and because I couldn't get back to sleep and couldn't think of anything better to do, I went out for a run. I've run every day that I've been in Singapore except for last Saturday, when I was hungover, and the routes are beginning to merge together.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7

One thing you can say for the Koreans, they certainly know how to give things names, as I remarked the other night to my wife as we sat watching our Samsung LA37B53 television. Admittedly, iPad is quite a ridiculous and charmless name too, but I keep thinking I must be missing some Korean allusion with the word 'tab'. This is either a synonym for 'cigarette' if you're from the Grim North of England, or a small bit of cardboard sticking out the side of a box. Hardly redolent of a brave new world of technology.

Swimming lesson

Today I made the surprising discovery that I can swim.