Tag: Thailand

Bangkok Street Traffic as Seen from My Balcony

I often enjoy sitting on my second-story balcony and watching the ebb and flow of Bangkok street traffic. I don’t live on a major boulevard — my neighborhood is almost entirely residential, and what I typically see is motorcycle taxi drivers ferrying passengers to their houses, people walking out to the main road nearby, folks meandering up to a noodle stand close to my front door, or my neighbors doing nothing more than hanging out and talking. I captured this 45-second video using my digital camera; the quality isn’t great, but it should give you a sense of what I see outside every day.

Some things to note:

— All the people are wearing yellow shirts in honor of the King’s 60th year on the throne.

— You’ll notice a scooter go by carrying three people. This is quite common — you’ll often more than three folks, in fact, on motorbikes here. Motorbikes and scooters are considered family vehicles in Thailand.

— The banging you hear in the background is from construction nearby.

Categories
Misc.

Photos from Railay

Longtail, Karsts, Beach

A and I just got back to Bangkok after four days at the beach in Railay. It was a magnificent trip.

(Yes, as I’ve noted before, my life is so trying here in Bangkok that I require frequent therapeutic trips to the coast in order to maintain my sanity.)

I will shut up and let the photos — all 49 of them — speak for themselves.

Here’re a few of my faves.

Our Deck
The view from our deck

Beach Reflection
The beach (a stone’s throw — no, toss) from our house

Our House
Our house

Me and A
On the beach

Football Tournament
A football tournament

Karsts
One of the many karsts (towering limestone formations) that surround the beach

Beach Dog
A friendly beach dog

Water in a Link in a Chain
And finally, if you’ll allow me to indulge my inner artiste, a pic of a drop of rain on a rusty chain.

Categories
Misc.

Bangkok’s Pickle Factory

In my most recent Gridskipper post, I examine Bangkok’s Pickle Factory. (It’s a pizza joint — get your minds outta the gutter.)

By the way, big congrats to my former editor at Gridskipper, Chris Mohney, who was recently promoted to managing editor of another Nick Denton property, the famed Manhattan media gossip blog Gawker. A hearty welcome to new Gridskipper editor Joshua David Stein.

England Crash Out

David Beckham Crying

So I went to The Bull’s Head, a venerable Bangkok pub, to watch the England-Portugal match; the 150 or so English supporters in attendance were excited, hopeful, nervous, and then dejected, all in that order. Unbelievable game. Finished 0-0 after 120 minutes of regulation and extra time and then England absolutely imploded in the penalties, making just 1 of 4 attempts. The Portugese goalkeeper Ricardo single-handedly won the game for his side, saving Lampard and Gerrard and Carragher.

There were tears — Becks, a la Gazza in ’90, limped off injured and collapsed on the sideline, his finely-chiseled facial features contorted into a rictus of sadness as he downright blubbered and blubbered and blubbered. Holy crap. There was also rage, with Wayne Rooney stomping on an opponent’s crotch and the getting a red card. (Rooney proved that he has a long way to go to reach his full potential; he must harness his temper if he wants to improve as a player.)

On the subject of penalties: As a goalkeeper myself — and occasional penalty saver — I love the institution of penalty kicks, though the cliche is that they’re a terrible way to decide a game. I disagree. I think that for the penalty takers, the act demands skill and concentration and inner calm. Penalties are not simply a lottery; you have to have five good players who can step up and take them and take them well. And you need a goalkeeper with the ability to produce a fine save here and there.

In Saturday’s other match, France beat Brazil 1-0, which was perhaps the shock of the tournament so far, as everyone (including yours truly) thought the Brazilians would sleepwalk though to the final. Sadly, I didn’t see the match, since the police in Bangkok have been cracking down on bars staying open late past the official 1 a.m. curfew; I was, thus, stranded and had to follow the match online. Which was too bad.

Related: The game theory of penalty kicks.

Up next, the semis: Germany vs Italy tomorrow, followed by France-Portugal on Wednesday. This’ll be the first time since 1982 that all four semifinalists are European squads.

My Story on World Cup Supporters in Thailand

English World Cup Supporter

I have a story in today’s IHT/ThaiDay about international World Cup supporters here in Bangkok. I tracked down some Germans (easy), some English (also easy), an Italian (not so easy), and an Argentine (quite difficult). I tried to capture these fans’ hopes for what their squads might accomplish over the coming days. A snip from a part that I quite enjoy:

If Germany wins the title on July 9, will the Germans celebrate in any special manner? A Bei Otto patron named Klaus pipes up, chuckling. “If Germany wins, we will sit here and drink beer like Germans,” he says. “We will not dance in the street. We are not Dutch.”

Thai Monks and the World Cup

Thanks to the fine folks at World Hum for 1) pointing out a funny story about Thai monks enjoying (perhaps too much) the World Cup, and 2) mentioning my recent IHT/ThaiDay articles about the Kingdom’s contribution to the tournament.

Bangkok’s Coolest Web Cafe

True Urban Park

In my most recent Gridskipper dispatch, I take a look at True Urban Park, a Web cafe (and much more) in Bangkok’s Siam Paragon mall.

Categories
Misc.

Back in Bangkok

So. I’m back in Bangkok. SC was fun. DC was great. The wedding on Cape Cod was fantastic. And now I’m back home in the Kingdom. Wow — that was a whirlwind two weeks in Amurica, that much is certain.

A few pics for your viewing pleasure. A and I watched England beat Ecuador 1-0 last night. My heart wept for Ecuador. But England were the better team. You have to hand it to Becks. He may be a metrosexual (or would that be machosexual?) with frosted hair but when push comes to shove, he can step up and blast a free kick under circumstances that would make lesser men wilt.

Anyway, we took in the game with about 1,000 fellow Thai and English supporters; it was broadcast on a big screen at Central World Plaza in downtown Bangkok. Here’s a pic; not the greatest of images, but still.

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A monsoon rain battered us during the last 20 minutes of the game and the whole place flooded, lending a suitably manic atmosphere to the end of a manic match (for those of us — and by that I mean, in sun total, me — rooting for Ecuador).

And, finally, apropos of nothing: one more pic of Sammie, my family’s new seven-month-old golden retriever puppy. Is he not a good looking fellow, even when he’s pouting?

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My New Story on World Cup Gambling in Thailand

World Cup Gambling in Thailand

I’ve got a story in today’s IHT/Thai Day about illegal gambling surrounding the upcoming World Cup.

The first two grafs:

Sunton Tansiri represents the face of illegal football gambling in Thailand. Over coffee in his dimly-lit Ramkhamhaeng studio apartment, the 33-year-old punter explains that he and all his friends plan to wager extensively on the World Cup football games. “Everyone will bet more during the World Cup,” he says, a smile enveloping his round face. “The games will be on all the channels. Every match will be on TV every day.”

Sunton and his pals are not alone: gambling on football – what some call Thailand’s new national pastime – is about to explode with the kickoff of the World Cup on Friday. A recent ABAC poll found that over 850,000 Bangkok residents would collectively be wagering some 2.14 billion baht on the tournament. A separate Assumption University opinion survey that examined the country as a whole determined that about three million Thais planned to wager on the matches, with 14 billion baht expected to change hands.

I’ve also got another piece in today’s paper about which teams are most likely to win the World Cup. Sadly, it’s not available online, but here’s how I begin:

Just four teams have been finalists in six of the last seven World Cups: Brazil, Germany, Italy, and Argentina. Will the squad that lifts the trophy in Berlin on July 9 be among these traditional heavyweights? Or will this tournament belong to the likes of England, France, the Netherlands, or Mexico?

Which Cinderella squads will make memorable runs? Could this year’s dark-horse teams hail from the Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Ukraine, or maybe even Togo? The issue of upstart outsiders, of course, may prove moot in the end. For the emerging forecast for 2006 World Cup Germany amounts to this: world champion Brazil, a scintillating footballing machine fueled by a roster jam-packed with some of the beautiful game’s most luminous stars, may simply prove unstoppable.

Thailand’s Contributions to the World Cup

Adidas's Official World Cup Game Ball

I’ve got a couple of stories in today’s International Herald Tribune/ThaiDay about two contributions Thailand’s making to the upcoming World Cup (despite that the fact that the country’s national team didn’t qualify for the tournament).

First, Adidas is manufacturing the official game ball (pictured above) in Chonburi province. And second, assistant referee Pratya Permpanich is the only Thai — and one of only four Asians — who will be officiating the games. Here’re more photos from my visit to the game ball factory.