LAEM CHABANG & BANKOK, THAILAND (3/16/2007 - 3/17/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (biggiroot)
Date: Mar 18, 2007 2:05 AM
Subject: Friday, March 16 & Saturday, March 17, 2007

Friday, March 16, 2007
&
Saturday, March 17, 2007

LAEM CHABANG, THAILAND
&
BANKOK, THAILAND

Laem Chabang is just the port town for Bangkok. Bangkok is two and one half to over three hours away by bus. The roads are very crowded and are not limited access. There are even unpaved roads that bisect the main highway. They are in the process of building a larger highway and some parts are already being used.

As we travel we many fields being planted with tapioca by hand and dozens of fresh water fish farms.

Bangkok has some of the worst traffic I have seen anywhere. Cars and even trucks and buses dart in and out and often change lanes with no warning. For the amount of crazy traffic you hear very few horns and I have never seen two drivers mad at each other.

Bangkok is one of my favorite cities in the world. The people are always friendly and smiling. It is an extremely interesting place of contrasts. You can see it all. Ancient pagodas to brand new sky scrapers. Ultra luxury to total poverty and everything in between. You can get almost anything you can get anywhere else in the world and most things are readily available and low priced. But buyer be ware. It is also known as one of the most crooked places for sales of high end goods. Glass and badly flawed jewels are often sold as the best of the real gems.

Last year we stayed at the Peninsula Hotel. It is right on the river and is much larger. Regent owns the Four Seasons Hotel where we stayed and Four Seasons operates it. Both are outstanding with beautiful and very expensive lobbies. The views from the rooms are far better at the Peninsula if you have a room looking on the river, which we did. The river traffic is something to see.

The Four Seasons Rooms look on nothing of interest for most. Most, obviously does not count Bobbi. Our room was on the second highest floor. There are only nine floors in the hotel. We overlooked the outstanding scenery of a new high rise being started. Bobbi was fascinated by the drilling of the holes for the pilings and foundations and all the other work going on. I was afraid there would be noise 24 hours but the glass on the windows was very thick and we heard nothing. In fact, we also looked at a main road and an elevated railway. We still heard nothing.

The rooms at the Peninsula were very nice but those at the Four Seasons were even nicer and much larger. While the food was very good at the Peninsula, the food at the Four Seasons was outstanding.

For lunch, dinner and breakfast we had buffets. There were so many buffets with the same food, there was never any waiting. There were so many options of great and expensive foods, that you could not even put a drop of each on a large plate without overfilling it. They had so many tables in the ballroom we ate with only four people at a table comfortably set for ten.

The food was predominantly Thai but there was always plenty of other varieties such as sushi. Sushi is fantastic with Thai rice. Thai style rice is very sticky and has a slightly sweet and coconut flavor.

For breakfast, along with the Thai dishes such as Thai noodles with pork and chicken, there are the usual prepared to order eggs of your choice, bacon and English bangers of two different kinds. The bacon was available either crispy or soft. There was delicious Nova Salmon with all the condiments except bagels. There was a lot of other stuff I had no Idea what it was. Something must have been normally eaten with a thick creamy horseradish I mistook for cream cheese. Try not to do that. It was very strong. It hurt a lot, especially when you bite a bunch thinking it is cheese.

Another thing I did, I do not recommend, is loading up a plate with several different kinds of hams and bacons, and sausages and then sit down next the Rabbi. Can Jewish people be excommunicated? Maybe I should set the scene.

Bobbi had sat down at a table next to where the Rabbi was sitting. He seems to be a nice guy and we have talked several times but I don’t do services. He keeps trying to get me to attend. Anyhow, I have this plate loaded with above mentioned traiff. (Very non Kosher food) Without thinking, which I usually cannot do without my first cup of coffee, I sit down right next to the Rabbi. Bobbi was already telling a very funny story about our adventure the night before and the Rabbi was laughing. Then he wanted something to drink and saw his glass was empty. He was very picky or maybe worried about food cleanliness. He was having a problem getting the waiter to understand he wanted bottled water. Finally a supervisor was sent over and the Rabbi got across that he wanted a certain kind of bottled water. The supervisor gets the water and is pouring it when Mr. picky Rabbi notices what is in the plate next to him. After all this trouble getting the water of his choice, he is suddenly no longer thirsty nor does he want to hear any more funny stories. He suddenly finds it necessary for himself to leave. Betcha he doesn’t bother me about coming to services anymore.

My son Yael and I have a small on going inside joke. We both love Penang Beef, a common dish at most US Thai restaurants. When in both Bangkok and Penang, I could not find the dish a year ago and we would go up and back with, “Where’s the beef?” Well Yael, I didn’t see any Penang Beef here again this year. That’s because they simply call it beef in red curry sauce. I had that for lunch the first day and it was great as was all the Thai food at this hotel. However, I found something even much better. For dinner they had Penang Duck. At dinner the sauce was even better if a bit stronger. Sometimes the beef can be a bit dry to my taste, but this duck was the best curry I have ever had. You have to see if one of the local Thai restaurants will make it for you.

There are about 620 aboard the ship who were eligible to get this included side trip. About 360 are full world cruisers and we were the only ones to stay at the Four Seasons. The others went to the Shangri-La. Also very nice, but not as nice.

The first afternoon we had planned to go for a ride on a long tailed boat, but it was crazy hot out. The forecast said only 100 degrees but it was about 112 or 113 and very humid. Even two or three minutes out and you were a fountain of sweat. There was a six story shopping center right next door to our hotel and that’s where we went instead.

Things in Bangkok are ridiculously cheap, but at this center things were priced crazy high. They only pay help little more then a dollar US a day and these guys want fantastic prices. We walked around a lot but bought nothing believe it or not. We found a piece of crystal we liked but it was much more then we thought we could buy it for at home. We just looked it up on line and it was.

We walked back across the street to our hotel and went into a small section of high end stores on the hotel grounds. There were about a dozen small shops with very pretty and very expensive art and artifacts. There was also a Jim Thompson store. No, not the ex Illinois Governor. This was a well known American who had been an intelligence officer who came to Thailand at the end of WW II and revitalized the Thai silk industry. One day, many years later, he went off into the jungle and no one has seen or heard from him since. It was busy and Bobbi decided to come back another time.

That night was the fabulous dinner. After, we got a taxi and went to the night market or night bazaar as they call themselves. It was about a 15 min ride. At night it was still hot and there were thousands of people milling about. This market was all under roof but open air. It is more then a square mile with tiny stalls, one after another, all selling pretty much the same stuff. It was Friday night so there was live entertainment. A good singer was singing American pop music in Thai.

After walking from row to row of the same stuff we decided to go home. In all this junk there was nothing we wanted, it was still very hot and very humid, and the tiny aisles between stalls made it far too uncomfortable. We hailed a taxi and asked how much to go to the Four Seasons. He quoted a price of about double what we had paid to get there. When I said never mind, the price became half of what we paid to get there, but now I didn’t trust him. Besides I never had ridden in a Tuk Tuk.

A Tuk Tuk is a three wheeled vehicle made from a motor scooter. The name Tuk Tuk comes from the sound of their small two stroke engines. They have no doors. The steering is done with handle bars and the transmission is like a regular motor cycle’s. They are loud and smoky because oil and gas are mixed for fuel. The tires look like golf cart tires but not quite so wide. They are the only suspension.

We hailed a Tuk Tuk that was standing near by, and then the fun began. Until you go up to one you don’t realize how impossible they are to get into. The roof is very low and there is no side step. You have to step up higher then you can lift your foot. Bobbi finally, somehow, crawled and wiggled in. Next it was my turn. In case I have not mentioned. I am even bigger then Bobbi. I did not fit through the area that Bobbi wiggled through. The driver was hysterical. I’m glad someone was having a good time. I was not and I think I was doing serious damage to me. Finally I pulled me through a small opening and over a rail and sat down while all kinds of horns were beeping because we were blocking all the traffic all this time. I guess we had been quite a show because there was now a small group watching and laughing at us instead of watching the singer.

Now the ride began. This nut case is darting in and out of traffic and cutting off one car or truck after another. Bobbi won’t look. She has her head turned around looking back and her eyes partially covered. It did her no good because suddenly nut case slams on the breaks and a bus right behind us stops just inches from us. Of course with no suspension other then tires, this ride was not what anyone could call comfortable, or even nearly so. A pain in the rear end, and most other places, is a better description.

I am sure it was really about 15 minutes, but in what seamed like only two minutes we were at the Four Seasons. You have to understand this picture. This is one of the fanciest hotels in town. There are doormen dressed in pith helmets and long flowing coats helping people in and out of cars and taxis. The hotel has it’s own fleet of Mercedes to pick people up from the airport. In the middle of all this comes us. This thing sounds like it will blow any second and it smokes badly. Some of those Tuk Tuks are cute with different colors and pictures. Not this one. It looks it has been pulled out of a crusher when only half crushed. Both sides are banged in and it is not clean. I know the driver is really enjoying this. They are not allowed anywhere near the hotel unless they have a guest aboard. Then of course there is the further show as we try to extract ourselves from this thing.

As we pulled into the driveway, instead of coming to help us get out, the elegantly dressed door man gets this look of disgust on his face and walks the other way. Good move. I wasn’t going to give him a tip anyhow. I suppose we will never forget this one.

The next day we had to be at the hotel by 4:00 PM for the ride back to the ship. So we were going to get a taxi to somewhere we could get a ride on a long tail boat. Let me explain long tail boat.

After WW II the river people wanted motor powered boats like the ones they saw the foreigners using. The only motors they could get were from military trucks. These were of course not marine ready. So what was done was to take one of these huge engines and mount it on a boat with just its radiator. These engines were balanced on a ball at their center weight point. Out the rear of the engine is a long shaft with a propeller at the rear. The steering is done from a long pipe or bar connected to the front of the engine.

The engines used now are not little 4 cylinders. They are big American V8s of at least 300 horsepower. These engines weigh a lot. They cannot be maneuvered easily or quickly and they cannot be turned very far. These things go flying all over the place in great numbers.

You might think these drivers are strong from handling these boats and very good at driving them as that is all they do all day, every day. No to both. These Indonesians are very small people. Not only are they not strong and heavy enough to handle these boats, but many are just plain, not very good at it. We have seen them smashing into docks and each other. Many haven’t a clue on how to bring one to a dock. But these suicide boats are very fast and look like a lot of fun and I really wanted to go. Last year we did go to see everything worth seeing by boat, but those were regular boats with normal marine engines.

Not only was it ridiculously hot again, it was smoggy. Their forecast tells it very plainly. They just say smoke. There were no real clouds and the sun should have been out brightly but all you could see was a small red yellow ball. It was hard to breathe so we gave up and just went back to the Jim Thompson store at the hotel because I would really rather shop for more silk and purses. I can’t decide which is more fun. Purse shopping or getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

Now we had a real mission. We had Thai Bots we had to spend. About $70 worth. Needless to say, it cost me far more then that $70 worth of Bots. She didn’t have a purse with a big elephant on it in the tub back at the ship.

At about 4:00 PM we did take the Bus back to the ship. It was over a three hour ride, but did that slow Bobbi down? Noooooooooo. They were selling more stuff in an air conditioned warehouse back at the dock. With guards standing all over the place they were selling sunglasses that had to be real or if not, no different. Some purses too. Naturally Bobbi was immediately drawn to the purse counter. I moved right in, took my shot and got away with it. I grabbed her boarding card, ran and told her I was going aboard. If there was one more purse, she was not getting aboard. She believed me as well she should. I was serious. However, I stupidly only said purses. I had failed to mention more glasses, perfume, and other junk which I am now the proud owner of. My bathtub is really overflowing now.