Evan (back) in Thailand

Jait with Siri's mom.

01 Dec 2006

Back to Thailand for 6-weeks, primarily to introduce Jait to Siri's family. We'll do a few fun things, but mostly I'll be holed up in our hotel room working with a bunch of computer gear we brought with us.

Chonburi, Siri's hometown, is not really on anyone's list of places to go in Thailand, so there is only one Hotel in town that has the DSL I'll need to do my work. A few blocks down the street is apparently a cosmetic surgery center specializing in gender reassignment. The guests are pretty envenly split between Thai businessmen and medical tourists in various stages of transformation. Welcome back to Thailand.

One side note, I brought our Vonage phone with us, and I was amazed at how well it worked. Plugged into the hotel DSL, the quality was good enough that I could do conference calls to the states, without anyone realizing I wasn't at home (other than the lag in my voice that comes from being in staff meetings at 3:00am). And, all this fun for free, or $30 a month, depending on how you count.

25 Dec 2006

We flew down south to celebrate Christmas in our old stomping grounds. It was strange to see how little everything has changed, even in the aftermath of the tsunami

Jait toasting Christmas.

Jait on Railay.

30 Dec 2006

In Thailand, New Year's is a much bigger deal than Christmas (doh!). We took Siri's family to Kanchanaburi (of "Bridge over the river Kwai" fame), also a popular destination for Thais. And home of the...

Tiger whisperer

Ok, it might not be clever or sensible, and it's not clear whether it's good for them, but I went to the Tiger Temple and it was really cool.
Some claim the tigers are doped, etc... But, the way the story was told to me (by the abbot), is that they exercise the them in the morning, and then feed them before the afternoon visiting hours, so the tigers are naturally sleepy. These seems consistent with everything else I know about cats, and I basically trust most abbots.
On the path up to the tiger grotto, there are warning signs about red shirts. In general you don't get a lot of warning signs in Thailand, so if you are planning on visiting I wouldn't wear a red shirt.