Author: Rosencrantz O'Dowd

More madness on the roads today as I swapped scooters for the 4th time in a month.

Today’s swap happened early after the owner of the old model went sour on me very fast.

It unravelled after I messaged her saying my scooter contract time was almost up. And did she want to drop her prices considering what a fine customer I’d been, and that someone else was offering a rental at about half her prices.

I’ve been paying 4000 baht / month. Compared with 500 baht / DAY when I got to Rayong. And to the new offer of 2300 baht / month from an operator up the road in big bad Pattaya.

I took a taxi van ( 80 baht ! Rayong to Pattaya ) and songthaew ( 15 baht Rayong south to bus station ) to Pattaya this morning to pick the scooter up.

The attitude here in Rayong is ‘those are Pattaya prices’, and they won’t bother trying to compete. What I think they’ll find is that probably sooner rather than later they’ll be facing extinction as newer nimbler creatures move in with their better-adapted habits.

So during texting about returning the current bike , the owner blew a fuse somewhere.  She started complaining that she’d made a mistake renting the bike to me! I’m not kidding. A mistake. One which netted her 4500 baht,including deposit.

She called in a boyfriend, apparently, to translate, but still headway was not being made. Then I suggested she refund me the bond plus days for early return, and she’s suddenly all cream and blueberries. It’s beyond me.

I turned up with a fellow teacher at the school, a level-headed science type, and a fine chap to boot.

She was all smiles.

So am I now. I have a cheaper AND better bike, and no longer have to deal with FrankenRenter.

I rode my fellow teacher back into town to pick his bike back up, and since I was in the ‘hood, had to help myself to a second dinner at the

All’s well that ends well.

Good Morning, Savannakhet

First order of business – get a coffee.  First attempt, I stopped at a tiny little cafe maybe 100m away from the hotel. They served up a tepid syrup, like a coffee liqueur. Fail.

Then a long wander down the road, getting semi-lost, until I found a larger cafe with maybe a dozen guys sitting around. Under cover, with the fans going. That’s me. After a false start ( iced black coffee ), got a little pottle of coffee about the size of a small sauce jug. Medium strength, black, no milk or sugar.

Pass. Two of these, and I’m on my way.

Yes, I’m prone to hyperbole. No, this Old Dog won’t learn new tricks.

OK, it’s hardly a Biblical epic, I admit, but the last 24 hours have been among the most exhausting of my entire life.

I’m writing from Savannakhet, Laos ( see below ) where I’ve gone to get my ‘Non-B’ Thai immigrant Visa.

I got here after an epic sleepless 15-hour bus trip from Rayong, leaving at 4.15 pm Monday, and arriving at Mukdahan, Thailand, at around 7.15 a.m. The long journey into the Night involved a very slow steady climb in altitude, surprisingly cold temperatures in the bus ( compulsory air-conditioning partly to blame ), and a bad-tempered bus conductor. Meanwhile, the road just kept splitting the seams of the night…

But that was only the start of the fun. Then we had to get a bus from Mukdahan to Savannakhet, jumping through all the temporary Laos Visa hoops, and arriving at the Thai Consulate in Savannakhet before it closed at 11 a.m.

During the bus journey, I met a Ukranian bloke ( I’ll call him ‘Vladimir’ ), and Alessandro ( ‘Alex’ ), an Italian, who both claimed to have done this multiple times. We pooled resources at the Mukdahan border to get a taxi to the Embassy. We arrived on good enough time at 10.30 am to find Bad News – a huge snake of a queue several hundred metres long, and apparently very ill. You could tell, because it was moving so slowly.

The Embassy officially closes at 11 a.m., but such were the throngs that at closing time, they just herded everyone inside, and had them wait there.

There were about 300 people queued to apply for their Visa. There was ONE counter operating. We were there through the middle of the day, around 10.30 a.m. to 2 p.m., just queuing. The heat is just brutal. Luckily I had water and nuts on hand, but my ankles swelled in protest anyway.

It’s hard to escape the notion that convenience and efficiency are low on officials’ priorities, while digging into foreigners’ pockets isn’t;

• 2000 Baht for the Non-B application
• 690 baht for the ( one-way ) bus trip
• 1500 baht for the temporary Laos visa
• 100 baht each for the taxi
• 650 baht for the hotel room

From Vladimir’s and Alex’s wide experience, Thailand is one of the few countries which requires this nonsense ( leaving to apply for a Visa, then returning with one ). It’s one of the major downsides of working here as an ex-pat, and is apparently causing many people to turn their back on Thailand in favour of other South-Easy Asian countries.

After a month’s lay-off, I re-introduced the body to running this morning. It didn’t like the idea.

I have enough stress coming from other departments right now, so wanted to take it really easy. I.e. stay under a set heart rate. Or try to.

Turns out that meant mainly walking. So be it.

details on Strava

So for those who were wondering wtf I’m doing here, I got paid today, as scheduled.

Call me a cynic, but I just wasn’t going to count those chickens before they hatched. Now, it seems real.

Food Again

So for now, I have some money. I spent up medium-large at the local bulk supplier to avoid buying meals each day. The good stuff like olive oil, cheese, olives, sauerkraut, kimchi, coconut cream, walnuts, mussels ( cheap as, frozen in bulk ! ). Other stuff which is very cheap at local growers’ stalls, like bok choy, mustard greens, cucumber, eggs ( 5 baht [ ~= 25c ] apeice ), tomatoes ( little ones which look like overgrown Jalapenos ).

Food here is so cheap, though, I’m not sure whether bulk buying is making a saving.

What I have realised is that the food stalls’ fare is really tasty, but usually not the best quality. The oils used are usually … crap ( seed oils like canola ), and the spicy sauces nearly always contain lots of sugar. I know because I can taste it, and it creates dramas in the gut department.

The Thais are very big on fish, pork, and chicken. I’ve been slamming them in that order, avoiding chicken. But the roadside stalls offering tasty titbits of the former two on kebab sticks are just too much to resist. Beef is way harder to come by.

Budget again

So barring getting run out of town, or the office, it looks like I’ll be here at least another month. Which I’m happy about.

One more big hurdle, and dent in the budget, though. That’s the to Savannakhet to get the Non-B Immigrant Visa.

I leave Monday night on a bus. It’s an 18-hour trip. Followed by a day in Laos, then pick up the Visa ( all going well ), then return. It’s unavoidable, a rite of passage all foreign teachers have to go through. Sigh.

It’s 3 a.m., and there’s Sound and Fury outside.

Not the kind produced by a lively party, or train wreck, or nucelar explosions, or even a Stooges concert. No, this is in a league all of it’s own. It’s a cacophony, it’s Armageddon.

Turns out it’s none of the above, just a mere … thunderstorm. Not the tame type we have in New Zealand, with a bit of rumble in the distance, and a quick flash. Those are the sparklers of the fireworks kit. These, on the other hand, are the Thunderbolts.

It’s near, and it’s nasty, and it keeps me awake for an hour or so. I’m wondering if this is a harbinger of the upcoming Monsoon season.

This morning, all is bright and warm per usual. It’s overcast, sure, but a bit of a sheen is the only clue to last night’s havoc.

That, and the fact that the school’s compulsory morning prayer assembly is held indoors, allowing some to shirk….

I’m left wondering, what happens when one of these calamities strikes during the day?

Let me borrow from cardboard TV Irish for a second to say “feck, but it’s dusty here.”

The Bangkok caper started unravelling when I knocked a lens out of the favourite aviatory-style sunnies I’d been chuffed I’d taken. That was less than halfway in.

This is when I discovered the dust, with the results you see below.

Bangkok is the worst, but it doesn’t get much better on the open roads from there to Chonburi and Pattaya, and on to Rayong etc. Loads of heavy trucks, and the routes are lined not with farmland and tree plantations, but with industry, which worsens the dust. Manufacturing plants, etc, and dozen of As Vague As Possible Logistics ( Thailand ), all in forbidding concrete. It could be a Mad Max movie.

So, flustered and dusted, and trying to listen to my phone for motorway turn-off details, I got myself well lost several times. On the way. I discovered that motorways ( they’re marked with big blue signs ) are not the domain of little scooters. Little scooters are not allowed on motorways. When little scooters approach motorway toll booths, rabid Thais come out of booths shrieking and waving their arms. It doesn’t help to shrug and play the stupid foreigner, they forcibly U-turn you quick-smart, never letting up with the yapping. They’re not at all amused when you do it again.

Google Maps

Once I figured out that I should have told Google Maps to avoid toll-paying roads, I quickly found my way through Bangkok to the Police Clearance Centre Headquarters. I arrived around midday, possibly why it was a cattle pen. BUT, what with the aid of some 1980s ticker-tape-style number chits, I was through there in less than an hour. I was, strangely, only one of two Caucasians there.

Even given the time of day, Bangkok seems way dustier, and hotter, than Rayong. The swarms of scooter-riders are also more aggressive, lots of people enjoying games of dodge through the traffic. More advertising, of course.

I got out of Bangkok as fast as possible, what with having to be back at work today. The escape went ok, except for a slow leak in my scooter’s front tyre, and a never-ending slow climb to Chonburi, about midway to Rayong.

So, here are the numbers, bearing in mind that Einstein here managed to get lost on the way back as well. Gas – 270 Baht ( ~= NZ $13 ), mileage – around 350 km total , time – left Rayong 7.10 a.m., return about 4.30 pm. Stopped for mid-afternoon lunch ( 3 eggs, olives, cucumber, nuts, cocoa drink ), pumping tyres, getting lost, re-fuelling ( the tank takes about 80 baht worth ), and Bangkok.

I might have made another tactical blunder. Given a choice between collecting the police clearance slip in TWO weeks, and receiving it in THREE weeks ( by post ! ), I chose collecting it.

I’m now wondering whether this is wise.