Wan'in It

Matt Foley: Now young man, what do you want to do with your life?

Brian: I….actually, Matt….I kinda want to be a writer.

Matt Foley: Weeeeeellll la-de-freakin’ da! We’ve got ourselves a writer here! Hey Dad, I can’t see real good, is that Bill Shakespeare over there?

Dad: Well, actually Matt… Ellen and I have encouraged Brian in his writing.

Matt Foley: Dad, I wish you could just shut your big yapper. Now, I wonder…Brian from what I’ve heard, you’re using your paper, not for writing, but for rolling doobies! You’re going to be doing a lot of doobie-rolling when you’re living in a van down by the river!

- Saturday Night Live

Coming in with a late post this week. Been super busy/lazy this week.

Last weekend was a blast. I went out with some friends to a trendy area in Bangkok called Thong Lo. This is apparently where all the Thai yuppies go and other expat professionals in Bangkok. The bar we went was like the “World of Beers” equivalent in Thailand and was able to savor my first IPA in 8 months. This was really cool because there are generally only about 4 beers available in Thailand. Quick tangent-

There are only a handful of options for any product in Thailand. Three cell phone companies (AIS, TruMove, and DTAC). Two motorbike brands (Yamaha and Honda). Two major convenience stores (7-11, Family Mart). Two major grocery stores (Tesco Lotus, Big C). I could go on and on but it’s interesting that a few companies completely control a given market. While in America there are usually smaller competitors in each market (God bless those T Mobile users), here there are none. I guess letting new brands in would mean less money for the existing ones. Capitalism is a rough game man.

Anyway, back to the beer. Here a quick guide to sampling brews in The Land of Smiles:

1.      Leo. Just a regular beer. Kind of like the Bud Light of Thailand.

2.      Chang. A heavier beer coming in at a whopping 6.8%. However, I’ve heard that the actual alcohol content is unregulated. You could wind up with a bottle that is 4% or 12%.  A real Pandora’s Box.

3.      Singha. This is a bit classier than the last two. More refined, if you will.  

4.      Heineken. You’re a big shot if you drink this. You need to let people know that you have standards and that you like your beer imported, even if it really just tastes average.

And that’s pretty much it. There are few other random ones you can find at restaurants but these beverages rule the street. I mean that quite literally, you can usually see people drinking these on the street at night.

The next day we hit up the beach. We rented a van (colloquially referred to as “the wan”) for the entire day, so this driver could take us wherever we wanted. The beach was great for about an hour before it started raining. Thailand is in the rainy season now so it can pour at the drop of a hat. Since we had this wan that could take us anywhere, the spontaneous decision was made to go to Pattaya.

I had gone there a couple months ago and it’s a pretty sleazy town. We wandered down a side street and received some wolf-whistles from the ladyboys. Several people in our group were not too excited about that. After dinner, we watched the sun set on the beach.

Not bad for sketchy place.

A quick swim later and we began the three hour trek back to Bankgok. Awesome weekend.

The Beautiful Game

One of my recent pastimes has been asking students who they want to win the World Cup. These are the most common answers:

1.      Thailand. Not in the World Cup but that doesn’t stop them from being patriotic I guess.

2.      Lionel Messi. He’s a soccer player, not a team, but why should that stop anyone?

3.      Manchester United. Again, it’s a pro soccer team that isn’t in the World Cup. Loyal fans though.

Honorable mentions: Brazil, Chelsea, Cristiano Ronaldo, Liverpool, and German. Next week’s lesson will clarify that “German” and “Germany” are not exactly the same thing.

Coup update

Daily life goes on. People were getting arrested for throwing up the sign from “The Hunger Games” in public but that seems to have quieted down. The junta has been trying to boost national moral so they decided to show all World Cup games on public TV instead of cable. That would be great except that the games air live at 11 PM, 2 AM, and 5 AM. Not really conducive to a normal sleep schedule.

They were also showing free movies at some places. Unfortunately they were all in Thai so I had no idea what was going on. I clearly am not reaping the benefits of this PR campaign.

The next two weeks should be pretty chill as I start saving up for my next big purchase- my plane ticket home. Whoa.

Mark