August 2007 archive

From car to plane

Friday, 31 Aug 2007 | Journal

Every time I leave Delhi I have to make my way through the very old and painfully dying Delhi airport. It always surprises me how things work there and how many people must be working at this airport. I’m flying back to Bangkok (home, sweet home) as I write this, so for your but also my own entertainment, here is a rundown of the interactions I have with people on my way from the car to the plane.

I’ll thank Mandeep for his services and give him a tip, which differs depending on the number of days I have been in Delhi. It took quite a while to find a driver with whom I am happy, most of them either spoke zero English, would continuously burp while driving (I’m not kidding, two of them did!) and be one of those honking Delhi maniacs. Mandeep speaks English, is a kind and gentle person, never honks, picks up my routines without me even telling him, etc. So I’m settled on him. See you next time, Mandeep!

And into the first queue I go, to be allowed into the actual airport building. As I wear a suit, I’ll be hassled by two or three unofficial people who try to make themselves look official by wearing tags. Business class, Sir? Business class? I made the mistake of saying yes once, which made them take me out of the line and walking me to do ‘business class entry’ where I could enter without lining up first. For a fee, of course. Tricked, again! At the door of the airport building, my passport and ticket will be inspected by a government official to see if I have any business at the airport at this time. As I always have e-tickets, which I generally forget to print, I sometimes open up my laptop and show the guy the email containing the e-ticket. Works for him too.

I’ll line up for check-in and be approached by a lady from the airline who will hand my luggage tags. As I painfully learned about the tags¹ on my first trip, I know I should accept them. I then talk soft and sweet to the check-in lady, as she determines how good a seat I’m going to get on the flight. Thank you this, thank you that, if at all possible, whatever you can do for me, you’re so kind and thank you so much. And off I go!

Next step is immigration. This goes in two steps, the first line is always ridiculously long and will take you half an hour to get through. And this line is there because they employ a guy (two, actually) to check if you have filled out your departure card and hold a boarding card and passport. After having done that line once, I’m now a complete asshole and fill out the card on the tables at the front of the line and then simply sneak into the line. Nobody ever says anything, and then I wait in line for my departure stamp (which I get in exchange for a departure card from the immigration people). It is here that I regularly see the flight crew of KL872 pass by on their way to work. There are usually a lot of KLM boarding cards around me in these immigration lines too. A little home away from home. Or something.

Then I line up for security. Here there is a guy who checks if you have a boarding card and passport. Again. Then there are the regular security people checking your bags, the guys who are checking the guy who checks your bag, the guy who frisks you, the guy who is checking the guy who frisks you, the guy who stamps the luggage tags when they are cleared and the station manager who checks the guys who check the guys who do stuff. I am NOT kidding.

Then comes boarding time. There will be the lady, often two, who stand along side the queue to make sure everybody is holding their boarding card but is not holding their passport. Because the passport is no longer needed after this point, thank you! Then there is the lady who checks if you have actually put away your passport but are still holding your boarding card, then there is the government official who checks if the tags on your luggage have actually been stamped, then there is the government official who is chatting up the airline girls, errr, who is there for security. Then there are the ladies who take your boarding card and give you the small part back and then there is the airline duty manager who oversees the ladies who take your boarding card and give you the small part back.

And then, sawadii kaa, welcome on board sir.

Katoey in India

Wednesday, 29 Aug 2007 | Journal

In Thailand, transexuals are called ‘katoey’ and are a very common sight. They are accepted within society, not fully but definitely to a certain degree. Department stores for example will knowingly hire them to man (har har) the make up counters, as they can be absolute experts in this field for obvious reasons. In some cases it is really obvious she used to be a guy, but all to often the surgeons have done an incredible job and it is hard to pick them out. Give aways are the size of feet, hands, adams apple, the way they walk, talk and act, but by no means should one ever consider to be able to positively identify all of them.

Arriving to our Indian office today, I was faced with a different practice. Not at all accepted within society, they have resorted to extortion for their income. City blocks are assigned to groups of these katoy, in Punjabi referred to as khusra, and several times a year they will visit all business in that block and ask for money. They will dance in front of the office building, if that does not help dance within the office and if that does not help start stripping. They will not leave unless one pays. The same applies to marriages, babies being born, etc. Security will not stop them from going into a building because they will get beaten up, police will not come because they will get beaten up or are perhaps on their payroll, so a company is left with no option other than just paying.

What was the most amazing part was intelligence collecting. These groups have such detailed knowledge that they for example know we rent out a room on the top floor of our building to a small company and they will not leave until that company has also paid them. They will know when you are getting married, even if you got married in another city. The way they collect their ‘intel’ is by using communal sources. Indian communities for example have someone who does the laundry for everyone in that community, these are usually the people who get paid a small fee for providing the right information. In the case of how many offices in a building, I assume the chamber of commerce would be a reliable source of information. They will even know that, as is the case with us, the basement and 2nd floor are the same company but the first floor is a different company. Incredibly detailed information, the CIA could probably learn a trick or two from them!

Whenever intelligence comes in, the group will act on it and start negotiating a fee with whomever is the leader. The father of the groom, the head of a business, etc. When they reach an agreement, money exchanges hands and everybody packs up and leaves. As I was outside the office watching all this and talking to someone in our company, allof a sudden the music stops, all the ‘ladies’ pack their stuff and walk away and 5 or 6 ladies walk out of the building with the money and their accounting book in hand.

Big business, no doubt about it.

Back in the old airport

Saturday, 25 Aug 2007 | Journal

When I first came to Thailand, the plane landed at Don Mueang airport. The last time I had been there was when I landed at the airport on September 6th, 2006 when I was moving here. Shortly after, the new Suvarnabhumi airport was opened. The new airport was a project that had been in the works for quite a long time and was actually already known to be too small in the very near future when it opened. The old airport closed when Suvarnabhumi opened.

For a while anyway, because a few months after the new one opened it already started showing signs of wear and tear. The new airport has been struggling with criticism from the very first day (or actually even before) it opened and for a while there, the daily newspapers had a new thing to report on every day. The one I will never forget was the article which explained why the runway had started cracking under the weight of heavy planes after only a few weeks of being used - it was the result of poor quality work, due to the workers ‘being tired’. Only in Thailand.

After a long and public debate, it was decided to re-open Don Mueang. I think it was actually those cracks that lead to the decision of re-opening the old airport to reduce the load on the new one. Despite it having been re-opened for a long time, I had never been back. Despite being a frequent flyer with an average of about two trips per month, all those flights left from Suvarnabhumi. But today I had to fly up to Chiang Mai for a meeting and my flight up left from Don Mueang.

It is closer to my home, but because it was Saturday with the Jatujak market not far from my home, traffic was hell and so it took me as long to get there as the other airport. Being back at Don Mueang was kinda nice. Recognizing things I had noticed on the first arrivals in Thailand, those first impressions that will stay with one forever. Breezing through procedures and having to walk the whole of 100 meters from the taxi to the plane. It being a much more ‘Thai’ experience than the big business Suvarnabhumi airport - which, as much as I like it, is just another one of those glitzy shopping mall airports. It was all a very pleasant experience.

If you fly within Thailand, Don Mueang I think is a much better option than Suvarnabhumi. No high tech, big bucks, glossy shine. But real soul.

(or maybe i’m just being sentimental for no reason)

A day in Khao Yai

Saturday, 18 Aug 2007 | Journal

When I was having dinner with friends earlier this week, they invited me to join them today to go up to their new plot of land. I did not have to think about it very long, the plot was right at the edge of Khao Yai national park in the middle of nowhere but fairly close to Bangkok.

We drove up for about an hour and a half and within minutes after we turned off the highway we were in rural Thailand. Little roadside stalls selling fruit, small businesses and eateries and most of all - the relaxed vibe of outside-the-big-city. You relax right away with the change of scenery from endless streams of brick buildings to beautiful lush green roadsides with the occasional house built far away from the road.

My friends had bought a 12 rai piece of land (approx. 5 acres, 2 hectares) to build a weekend retreat. There is nothing there yet, but they needed to go there for some paperwork and just wanted to have a look how the result of the first stage was holding up. They had commissioned local builders to take out some vegetation for two driveways and two flattened plateaus and wanted to see if the soil was settling the way they expected it to. Once it has, they will first build a small guesthouse and later on on the other will build a larger house. Long term project, but you can imagine how incredibly jealous I was. Go to the site to see the photos, it is absolutely stunning and breathtaking!

After doing the paperwork and inspecting the work, we went for lunch in a local vinyard and on the way back to Bangkok stopped for coffee at a little place suggested by a local to have good coffee. Not the case at all, their cheesecake however was quite good. So I was a happy little boy.

It was a great Saturday and they invited me to come up again with them soon, perhaps staying a bit longer and exploring the area a bit more. I will certainly be game for that!

Lots of traveling

Friday, 17 Aug 2007 | Journal

This morning I walked into the office sipping my coffee and as I walked past our office manager, I asked her to confirm the ticket to Tokyo she had reserved for me, to book me a ticket to Delhi for a week and a half from now and a ticket to Singapore right after that. Delhi will be another business trip, Singapore is combined business and tourism.

Tokyo is obviously the trip I look forward to the most, but being 9 weeks away it feels like an eternity for me. Putting down the actual number of weeks though, makes me wonder what I will be doing when I am there. I previously wrote that I might make it part to be a scouting trip as it is not a destination I will visit very often for quick trips in the future. I’m certainly going to enjoy stuffing my face with sushi every meal of the day. But other than that, I really should set aside some time to figure out what else is worth doing there.

Lots of travelling ahead of me, but that seems to be the norm rather than the exception this year.

The secret password

Tuesday, 14 Aug 2007 | Life in Asia

One of the movie trailers currently doing the rounds here (maybe its already playing?) in Thailand is for Rush Hour 3, the third part of an incredibly stupid movie series, and shows the following dialog:

Cop: I’ll be asking the questions old man. Who are you?
Old Chinese Guy: Yu.
Cop: No not me you!
Old Chinese Guy: Yes I’m Yu!

(see IMDB for the full exchange, which also includes a guy called Mi, har har har)

Imagine how stupid I just felt when I sat down in a cafe advertising free internet access and asking for the password, as the network was password protected. The conversation went something like this …

Me: you have wifi?
Waitress: wifi?
Me: yes, wifi?
Waitress: internet?
Me: yes, you have?
Waitress: yes, have
Me: do you know the password?
Waitress: password
Me: yes, password, do you know it?
Waitress: yes, password
Me: what is the password? do you know?
Waitress: yes, password
Me: what is it?
Waitress: password
Me: the password is password?
Waitress: yes

And indeed it was. Now before you start writing me off as a complete idiot, you should know that a habit of the Thai is to repeat what you have just said to show that they have correctly received your words. This does not mean they actually understand what you’re talking about. So these kind of interchanges are quite common and not at all as frustrating as one might think, I always try to see the humor in them. I’m sure the waitress just thought I was incredibly stupid.

Hotel evenings

Friday, 10 Aug 2007 | Journal

Last Sunday I flew from Bangkok to Delhi and I spent the week in our Indian office. Those visits to India usually are something along the lines of “arrive at the airport, go to the hotel, sleep, go to the office, hotel, office, hotel, office, airport, welcome back to Thailand”. Remember that scene in that movie with Brad Pitt as a boxer, where the guy who sits in New York gets on a plane for something and you see the taxi pulling up to the airport, his passport being stamped, an animation of an airplane flying accross the ocean, etc. and then he does what he needs to do and goes back to New York? Thats exactly how it feels. I forget the name of that movie. Anway, I’m flying back as I write this.

Every time I go somewhere for work, I write down a few things I can do during the evenings so that I don’t get bored. These are typically things like “do my accounting”, “write that email I’ve been meaning to write”, “research something on the web” and things like that. I even pack things for it. But I never do any of them. Its not like I don’t have time, but for whatever reason I simply don’t do them.

In a way its really weird, because you’re away from home and have a lot of time on your hands when back at the hotel. You would think the ideal time to do these things, with no phonecalls coming in or other things to be done. I tend to work quite late and then go back to the hotel, where I have a quick bite. The rest of the evening will usually be spent either working or vegging out in front of the tv. I never, ever do the things I set out to do in the evenings.

It used to be the same when I travelled in my previous job. I wonder why that is. Maybe I’m just lazy.

Japan, here I come

Saturday, 4 Aug 2007 | Journal

The other day I was reading my email (yes, on my new phone) and I got a message from Natalie confirming that she had booked a ticket. She will visit me in Thailand first and then on her way back visit another friend who lives in Japan. When she told me of these plans, I decided (and she didn’t mind, or so at least it seems!) to join her for the visit to Japan. So I’ll be looking at some tickets this week.

Visiting Japan has been a dream for a long, long time. I have all these wild ideas about Japan, dreams that in some cases without a doubt will turn out not to be true at all but in other cases I expect Japan to be even weirder than I think it is. It’s only 11 weeks away now!

I know a few people here in Bangkok that have lived in Japan and they will hopefully provide me with some ideas. Natalie without a doubt has a lot of things planned. And at some point I’ll do some research myself of where I would like to go and what I would like to see. I might also use this as a scouting trip, spending some time trying to network a bit. We’ll see I guess.