Life and business in Thailand.

A diary.

A friend is keeping my emails because he reckons they will make a good book, comedy film or farce like play given the things that happen are so funny. Very funny for those reading them but not always funny for me enduring the chaos and confusion that is par for the course here. My Thai is very limited and although my girlfriend’s English is improving we have many confused dialogues especially if she tries too hard. She talks very fast in Thai and just as fast in English. So fast sometimeshersentencesareastringofwordsalljoinedtogetherwithnostoppingor punctuation. The Thai language has no punctuation but simply a space between sentences in which all the words in are joined together. It is based on Sanskrit and is an incredibly complicated tonal language with for instance 44 vowels. More on that in another entry. We often think we understand each other then find out at some point, usually a crucial one, like going off in 2 different directions that we do not.

The most recent misunderstanding and consequent chaos was when we went to a friend’s wedding reception at the Oriental hotel. I thought my girlfriend Kwan knew where it was and she thought I did. We knew roughly where it was but took a wrong turn on one of Bangkok’s amazing maze of elevated expressways and found ourselves well and truly stuck in Friday rush hour traffic. These expressways mean you can get in or out of the city very quickly assuming you take the right one. It would not be fun living next to one with the noise and pollution. They are expensive by local standards. The most useful and some of the shortest are 40 baht, about 60 UK pence, enough to buy a meal that would fill you up. Like most cities traffic is bad on a Friday and more so when it is raining. Bangkok traffic is bad any and every day. In hindsight, a wonderful thing, we would have been better off driving and parking at the nearest BTS sky train station and then taking the train and a taxi from a stop near the hotel.

After an already tortuous, longer than necessary and slow drive we spent more than an hour on Silom road in the centre of Bangkok and one of the older and smaller roads. This area is the oldest part of Bangkok near the river with roads designed for ox and cart. It was crazy busy with people jay walking, motor bikes going up the street the wrong way, cars pushing their way out office blocks, vendors straddled across the curb selling tasty smelling snacks, guys driving their motor cycle complete with a vending stall at a snails pace with no concern for cars, bikes or whoever or whatever. They know your car is far more valuable than their set up. The tasty smelling food was very tempting because we were hungry and it would have been easy to buy some while we waited for the traffic to move a few meters every 5 minutes but we resisted knowing that the food at the Oriental would be very good if not excellent and believing we would be there very soon. If only.

It started raining just before we got to the bottom end of Silom. We might as well been near the beginning it took so long to go another kilometer. At one set of traffic lights we waited for a green light for 3 minutes or more. Fairly normal here. A green light at last but some cars had got half across the intersection before we could move and blocked our progress, so another 3 minutes. While waiting we could see the name in neon lights high up on the building but when we got on to one way system with lots of tiny sois (roads) leading off it we could not see any signs for the hotel. The Oriental is one of the top hotels in the world and obviously discreet.

The rain started to bucket down and overhead thunder and lighting added to the scene. It was like being in an old black and white movie.  We crawled along looking for a sign. No, did not and could not see one. Street lighting not exactly floodlights. At the end of the main street we went around the block, slow progress due to the one way system and long waits at the oh so many traffic lights. Next time round we saw a big sign for the Sheraton hotel and so pulled into the soi and asked a doorman. He told us the Oriental was on soi 32. Round the block again and down 32 but it was a dead end and so small it is was a job to turn around. Should have known! Thai people do not know where anything is. They come second to Singapore people who will tell you anything and anywhere. I once asked a security guy in Singapore where an ATM was and he tells me it was on 5th floor of the office block we were outside. I ask if he is sure and he is adamant. Oh no it wasn’t!

By now we were well over an hour late. Kwan was saying things like ‘If we do not find it soon we will go home’.  I phoned my friend but his phone was on voice mail, not surprising given that it was his wedding reception. This circle around we went up a one way street the wrong way to save time. It was not busy now, most of the rush hour traffic long gone and everyone seems to drive where and how they want. We were extra late because Kwan, as only women can, had chopped and changed her outfit several times.  And the detail, everything had to match so this then meant changing her clutch bag from a black stingray mini wallet purse to a polished blue stingray clutch. Have to say it looked great with her blue dress and she looked stunning. 

I do not drive here because it is too different from what I am used and too difficult for me to adjust. As a passenger a 30 minute journey exhausts me I am so stressed. The traffic and driving is so erratic, people speed up and slow down for no apparent reason, motor bikes are any and everywhere, some seemingly suicidal, they drive so close, what we call tailgating in the west, overtake fast on the inside even and everyone weaves in and out of lanes. Such polite people but behind the wheel they seem to lose it and or have such a strong sense of what happens happens and therefore no fear. Most horn blasting is a gentle sign they are going to overtake.

One memorable taxi journey from Hua Hin to BKK took 4 and a half hours instead of 2. It was the King’s birthday and it seemed the whole world was going to Bangkok. My brother and I would have travelled on a different day if we had known. No problem at first then it was very, very slow going from the outskirts and still a long, long way from the centre, BKK is such a sprawling city.  At the crest of a hill you could see the tail lights bumper to bumper stretching into the distance for miles and miles and we were not even over the bridge where 6 lanes merge into 2. Despite the unbelievable crush very few people blasted their horns. At one stage the taxi went up on to some road under construction. Like I say memorable.

The Automobile Association of England has advice for driving in foreign countries. Very simple for Thailand: ‘Do not! Learn what your wing mirrors are and use them. If you are in an accident it will be your fault. Oh yes it is. Really’. Taxi drivers seem to delight in picking up falang as they call us. Usually a good fare and often to the airport.  Unfortunately they assume you are late and will drive absurdly fast and overtake with inches to spare. One ride to the airport was so fast I was terrified, the driver would not slow down or stop overtaking despite my pleas in my obviously not good enough Thai.

Back to the story.

There was a small sign for something at the entrance to soi 40, we ventured down it and stopped to ask some people at a food stall. Kwan was driving and the people were on the passenger side so I asked. Waste of breath, I asked for the Oriental but the Thais pronounce it Ori en ta. The people looked at me as if I were an alien; Kwan asked and what do you know it was about 50 meters up the road obscured by a building.

We were the last ones to arrive but in true Thai style it worked well, in fact could not have been better. The group of guests before us was just finishing having photos taken, we slipped into place and had pictures taken with the bride and groom and family and then we all went into the ballroom for the speeches and cake cutting official reception.

My friend Nicholas is French and married a Thai woman, Huie, he met on a Master’s degree course in the USA. He has a silver business making and selling fine filigree silver with inset precious stones. His products are all 925 silver and very beautiful unlike our silver here at Eternal Crest eBay store. Ours are solid silver and hallmarked 925 but they are not as fine or elegant. Our silver items are unusual and aimed at a different market, what we have called Urban street wear. Huie has a cosmetics business making and selling creams and shampoo etc based on Thai herbs and ancient remedies. Her products are excellent and up market like Nicholas’s silver. A great team. Kwan and I are a great team too. She deals with suppliers for crocodile, snake and stingray bags, wallets and belts who are mostly Chinese Thai and with the Silver dealers who can speak about as much English as I can Thai i.e. very little.

More later.