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"The Rounds" Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Mekhong Kurt * * * * * * * * * * "The Glories Of APEC" It seems the rapidly-approaching APEC meeting has made authorities here go crazy. Individual activists and NGO's who have any sort of protest during the summit have been informed by His Excellency Thaksin Shinawatra, Prime Minister of the Kingdom, that if they are known to have participated in any protest activities during the summit, then those individuals and organizations will find themselves holding the short end of the stick should they need government assistance later. * * * * * * * * * * "Unlcear Connections" One does wonder about what, if any, connection there is between the activities detailed in various media reports on controversial issues. There are the new visa restrictions for one, something causing a great bit of constipation in the foreign community here in Thailand. It has been reported that various categories of people will be rounded up and either, if foreign, deported, of, if local, shunted away, should they not meet certain legally-defined criteria. And there are the new restrictions on what were previously normal activities in the world-famous Patpong; seems publicans can serve booze only during restricted hours, though just what those hours are is a matter of debate. Several places that previously were open day and night have partially shut down their operations, letting their employees go in the process, something of debatable economic benefit. After all, to be able to ply one's main seller only during fewer hours than was previously the case hardly suggests profit. And who knows, at this point, if bars will be required to close for several days during the peak of APEC? Rumors that such will happen abound, though no one -- not even police officers with whom I've spoken -- seem really to know. "Later we will say," they reply. If Thailand wants to get serious about tourism that isn't sex-oriented, fair enough. But to shut down tourist venues without providing alternatives hardly seems the answer, at least to me. One can take only so many river cruises, tours of temples and so on, etc. etc. etc. before some (if not all) would like to be able to sit down over dinner and have a glass of wine or a cocktail or a -- whatever -- without some Puritan looking over their shoulders, frowning. And many of the current restrictions rumored to be being put into place are, if true, are counter-productive. Through no particular fault of its own, Thailand is world-renowned for being a major destination of sex tourists, a haven for international drug dealers, and so on. None of us foreigners who know and care about the Kingdom condemn the country for these aspects of its appeal. But what else that is a major source of foreign revenues is there? National parks charge foreigners ridiculous prices compared to those paid by Thais. Hotels have two fees, in all too many cases, one for foreigners, one for domestic tourists. In Bangkok, at least, visitors halfway knowledgeable about the city have to wonder about priorities. Cars park illegally in major avenues morning, noon, and night, thereby contributing to the horrendous traffic congestion -- without the police doing anything at all to rectify the situation. Environmental laws are in place to make transport not so noxious, yet buses owned by the city government itself continue to ply the streets emitting great clouds of noxious black smoke. A news story the other day said there was consideration being given to removing rubbish bins from public view because people tend to pile rubbish atop them when they are full. No mention of having the darned things *emptied* on a regular enough schedule that people don't have to pile their trash on top of the containers. These are all matters that affect residents' daily lives. Yet it seems the major concern is to "give a good impression to visiting dignitaries." Does anyone really think that people attending APEC have never even *heard* of Bangkok and its reputation? Let's switch tack. Much of the international reputation of this city is grossly unfair. There are very, very many wonderful people here of all nationalities -- most significantly, the Thais themselves. There are many fine qualities of the city, the country, and Thai people that can be emphasized to foster a better international reputation than the city currently enjoys. I guess it's easier to issue diktats. . . . * * * * * * * * * * "Sumhumvit Soi 33 Update" A few nights ago I went to several Soi 33 bars I haven't been into in awhile, in one case not for about 3 years. Just sort of wanted to break my routine and refresh my knowledge. The bars haven't changed since I last visited them. All lovely hostess bars, as are all the bars in that venue, but all are suffering even though they are meant to appeal to resident expats and upscale Thais -- just as places oriented towards the tourist trade are badly suffering. Even the ever-popular The Office Bar and Grill was virtually empty at Happy Hour, rather to my surprise. Some expat business people have returned since the crash of 1997, but it appears that clubs catering to those clientele are having a rough go of it. Perhaps most telling of economic woes (about 3 weeks ago, not on my most recent scouting expedition) was what happened as I walked along the sidewalk in front of Renoir, once one of the most frenetic places on the soi. Until that time, never *once* had I been accosted by a girl to come inside -- the bar didn't need my custom, and I never really cottoned to it the few times I visited it in years past; too crowded, too noisy, too expensive, too plastic, for my tastes (but only for my tastes; lots of folks loved it). Yet on that particular evening I was hailed by several girls standing outside on the veranda, with them saying, "Come inside, Sir!" I was downright shocked -- no, "stunned" is a more accurate word. Hundreds and hundreds of times have I wandered along the same path with no one from Renoir paying me the slightest attention (and rightly so). The soi now has about 20 bars, considerably more than when I first found it nearly a decade ago. And there is construction going on next to Bacchus said to be the making of a new sub-soi lined with 8-10 shophouses, most destined to become bars. I would say the major problem (besides the absence of customers) with the bars is that they keep raising prices to compensate for reduced numbers of customers. Stupid, in my view. Not that my view means anything here, particularly given that I've never owned any business, let alone a bar. But I'm pretty expert from the *front* side of a bar, and when they keep jacking up prices without doing anything at all to make the bars more attractive, eventually I jump ship and move on to more reasonable outlets. To be fair, this is scarce restricted to Thailand. I remember when I lived in Beijing way back in the 1980's. The Lido Holiday Inn in central Beijing had a Western manager who decided that since his room-occupancy rate was running just barely enough for the operation to break even at a starting price for a standard room of US$70/night (with an occupancy rate just north of 60%), the answer was to raise the starting rate to *US$90*/night -- in the middle of a northeast China winter! He sure was moaning some weeks later when his occupancy rate fell down to not much above *40%.* "Business is down, we're desperate, so let's jack up prices." Pretty stupid, I reckon. Can one imagine if, say, a department store had made a misjudgment and ordered too many swimsuits for the season RAISING its prices at the end of the season for said swimsuits? All that said, let me say that Sukhumvit Soi 33 remains one of the most attractive venues in Thailand. While the prices are on the upper end for regular bars, they aren't over the top. Service continues to tend to be noteworthy, as it has for years. At the end of the day, the bars may be girlie bars just as those in Soi Cowboy, Soi Nana, Patpong, Pattaya, etc. are -- but unlike in all those venues, the bars in Soi 33 are low-key, low-pressure, for the most part. Not too much of the garbage "Buy me drink? Buy me drink?" -- only to have the lass so inquiring, once one gives in and indeed does buy her a drink, run off to the next customer, leaving her nearly-full drink sitting there, you stuck with the bill but no one with whom to talk. * * * * * * * * * * Switch to a Happy Gear Let's move over to something pleasant, a report on music. The Moonshine is Queen's Park Plaza [Sukhumvit Soi 22 about 100 meters off Sukhumvit Road] has some great musicians playing together Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights, Saturdays 5-7 P.M. Sundays 4-8 P.M., and Mondays 6-8 P.M. Drop by -- well worth it. * * * * * * * * * * More Music Taffy and Ray, owners of New
Square One Pub in Washington Square, * * * * * * * * * * Washington Square News The uncertainties of the economy, especially in the entertainment-eatery industry, doesn't seem to be keeping people from taking the plunge, at least in Washington Square. There are several new additions to outlets there. First are the two new (since I wrote about the venue in this context) massage parlors on the south (back) side of the Square, the Kazanka a Korean-style place, the other, Sunflower, a traditional Thai regular and foot massage one. A little west of those is the new (really -- about 2 weeks old at this writing) Alpine Steak House. Now, the name is a bit of a misnomer, as there aren't any thick, juicy beefsteaks to be had there; in fact, there is only *one* actual beefsteak, one that comes with mixed vegetables and a slice of garlic bread. There also are a pork "steak," a chicken "steak," and a fish "steak" -- I use the quotation marks (okay, "inverted commas" to you Commonwealth types) deliberately, because as a true-blue, steak-eating, raised-on-a-ranch Texan, only the meat of BEEF qualifies to be graced with the name of "steak." "Steak" means "beef," just as the gods intended. But back to the point. Alpine is more akin to a fast-food outlet than anything else. Not that I'm condemning it for that -- it's nice to be able to pop in and get a decent meal in a very few minutes. The first time I ate there was a bit of an experience. First, there is an open-front dining area, with a glassed-off dining room to the side. One presumes, given the laws regarding smoking here in public venues, that smoking would be legal in the open-front -- and thus open-air -- dining area. Wrong, according to my cute-as-a-button young waitress when I asked for an ashtray. (No e-mails on the evils of smoking, please! -- think about "Food, food food," not about "the Devil's Weed"!) She assured me it's against the law to smoke in *any* eatery, which simply isn't true (I checked with a local lawyer to be sure that all the news media and police hadn't gotten it wrong in the year since the restrictions were introduced). But things got even more interesting. I ordered the aforementioned beefsteak, and asked for it to be cooked medium-rare. The waitress went to place more order, speaking through the doorway into the cooking area -- I'm hesitant to call the former CP meat outside retail counter a "kitchen" -- and I was positioned such that I could see her. She got a perplexed look on her face, then came back over to my table and told me the cook had informed her the only way steaks are prepared in that restaurant is well-done. I told her that was fine (though I really normally prefer to go to the department store to buy shoe leather to eat if I have a hankering for such). In what seemed like only, oh, about 9 seconds but was in fact about 90 seconds (seriously), my food appeared. It was my turn to be perplexed. First off, though the steak wasn't very large, it was far too large to have been cooked to the well-done point unless it was prepared at Ground Zero at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or a nuclear test site -- right after detonation. Further, despite there being a small bowl of brown gravy (in itself unusual, as a sauce for a beefsteak), there was a dark brown sauce of some sort already spread on top of the meat. I decided to taste the meat without trying the gravy, not knowing if the gravy and the unknown sauce would mix well. The meat was tasty, and in fact cooked about medium, not well-done, which suited me just fine. The brown sauc e had a taste hard to describe, other than it had a hint of sweet to it, something I normally dislike when eating any meat, but which in this case was delicious. The mixed vegetables were done just about to perfection, as was the garlic bread. But I had to send the lot back before completing my meal. Why? -- it was cold. I don't mean refrigerator-cold, but I *do* mean room-temperature cold. Completely. From my vantage point, I could see a couple of feet through the back door of the cooking area, a view that included the back end of a kitchen counter, on which was perched a microwave oven. Now, I'm no chef, but to my way of thinking, the fastest, easiest, and most logical way of handling my particular request is to use the microwave to nuke the meat and veggies and to run the bread back through a toaster (if there is one) a few seconds. I don't know what the cook in fact did, as she was out of my view, but when my food came back, the meat was satisfyingly warm, the veggies acceptably so -- but the toast and the gravy both just as cold as when I had sent the lot back. I ended up scraping the dark brown sauce off a portion of the meat and trying the gravy, which, despite being cold, was delicious. The garlic bread was run-of-the-mill garlic bread -- perfectly edible, tasty enough, but nothing to write home about. My darling little waitress (with whom I was already madly in love, despite her being maybe a third my age and a quarter my body weight) was practically frantic with worry. She obviously had been cast into the midst of a sticky situation with which she had no experience -- this all took place on the second day the joint was open, and five will get you ten she had never worked in a restaurant before. She anxiously asked me if everything was all right, which I assured her -- each of the 10 or 12 times she came over to inquire -- it was. She was especially concerned that I didn't clean my plate, but, then, she doesn't know that ever since I went on a diet over a year ago to become my current svelte self, my appetite has shrunk dramatically, and I almost *never* clean my plate -- a child's plate is often more than I can handle at one feeding. Anyway, my new love went so far as to follow me out onto the street when I departed, nervously babbling (but charmingly so). Her last question was "Will you come back?" I assured her I would, to her visibly obvious relief. My take on the situation? -- easy: the cook had blown it with an earlier order and decided to pawn the stone-cold screw-up off on me. As for the fact the steak was medium and not well-done, well, one finds in Asia that local cooks have difficulty grasping the concept; except for the extremes of bloody rare (and still only half-dead) and burnt-to-a-cinder, they are seemingly incapable of distinguishing the differing degrees to which steaks are cooked. I always smile when I hear a tourist saying, "Could I have that, oh, say, a little this side of halfway between rare and medium-rare?" Little does said tourist know that s/he will be darned lucky if it comes out anything other than mooing or looking like an artifact from The Great Fire of Chicago. But go back I did, the second time trying the chicken tempura. tasty enough, but again, nothing to write home about; I doubt Japanese will be flying here for the weekend just to sample it. At least it came out piping hot! So, do I recommend the place? -- yes. A number of us have tried a variety of dishes, and we've found all of them good enough -- especially for the price. I paid an astonishingly cheap 69 baht for my steak and 49 baht for my tempura. The place is spotless, the service very good, and the food served *very* quickly. By the way, there are some Thai dishes on the menu. Alpine is owned by the CP Group; I guess they had the whole shophouse and decided to do something with it beyond maintaining the tiny retail outlet -- not much more than a carnival stall, really. Apline is open 11 A.M.-10 P.M. A bit west of Alpine is a Korean barbeque house, even newer than Alpine. I haven't tried it yet, but I did pop in and look over the menu. There were people eating and food cooking, and the aromas were wonderful. Prices appear to top out in the range of 300 baht, not bad for such an outlet. I intend to give it a try, and will let you know about it later -- especially whether they serve decent kimchi, the national dish of Korea I came to love when I lived in northeast China, home to countless refugess, refugees who, presumably, introduced the dish to the Chinese, despite the fact the Chinese always insisted to me the introduction was the other way around. Some time back another Japanese restaurant opened on the east side of the Square, immediately adjacent to the well-known Texas Lone Staar. I've never tried it. George, proprietor of the Lone Staar, has chatted on numerous occasions with the owner, who assures him the place is not only not Japanese-only but that he is completely cold to any Japanese who complains when a smelly gai-jin comes in, apparently telling them something along the lines of "If you want to see only Japanese, time to get on a plane and go back to the Nippon countryside." Though I've never tried the food, I've seen people order it from inside the Lone Staar, and it came beautifully presented, for sure. Everyone who has eaten it loved it, and said it is excellent value for money. (Don't ask me the name of the place -- the sign is in Japanese only.) Besides the Nippon restaurant mentioned above, there are two more Japanese places on the back side of the Square about the middle of the stretch, neither of which I've tried, in part because different friends have had different experiences in them, some friends being refused admission to both because they aren't Japanese, others admitted without a word. I understand they are nice, if pricey, places; at least one serves Japanese food. In general Square news, *maybe* business is picking up a [very] little bit. George "Fat Boy" Pipas is due back late this week from his normal extended stay in Florida with his belovèd wife Mary Anne, with whom he has been since back in the first part of May of this year. He had three "operations" on his back while there, though what sort of operations those were no one [here] knows, as George is very close-mouthed about it all. Apparently the treatment did him quite a lot of good, going a long ways towards easing the pain he suffered around the clock after falling in the restroom a couple of years ago and hitting his back on the sharp corner or the tile dais on which the commode perches. Rumors have been racing around the past week or two that Washington Square will be no more than a memory in 15 months or so. If that's true, either no one's telling the lessees, or said lessees are lying -- all with whom I've spoken have told me they've heard of no such thing. Doug Harrison, owner of Bourbon Street restaurant, felt compelled to join the fracas in the thread discussing the issue at www.nanapong.com discussion board (thread: "Washington Square Closing?" in the "General" category) and describ ing his lease, which runs a heck of a lot longer than 15 months. Several *years* from now, everyone fully expects it -- after all, when the Square first came into existence, the neighborhood wasn't developed. Now it is, especially with the developments of the Imperial Queen's Park Hotel, the Jade Pavilion Hotel, Regency Park Hotel (all on Sukhumvit Soi 22), the entertainment venue of Queen's Park Plaza, the bars and eateries along Sukhumvit Soi 33, the many new-ish retail outlets of all descriptions along this section of Sukhumvit Road, the UBC II Tower, The Emporium, and the nearby Queen Sirikit Convention Center, this general area has become hot property. There are unconfirmed reports that yet another major hotel is set to go up at or near the corner of Sukhumvit Road and Sukhumvit Soi 29, currently the site of the well-known short-time Crown Hotel (which, to be fair, has its share of straight tourists and even a sprinkling of long-term residents, not just randy boys and girls). * * * * * * * * * * Asoke Plaza/Asoke Corner News The seemingly true news is that within a few short months these adjacent venues will be history sometime in the next [very] few months. I've been in neither venue in some months now, as I'm not an aficionado of outdoor beer bars, which most of the joints are. I do plan to pay a visit to them and to Soi Cowboy soon, the latter of which I have visited, most recently about a month ago. * * * * * * * * * * Soi Cowboy Update I was in Soi Cowboy a few weeks ago, and was startled by just how dead it was; friends who are regulars there tell me that pretty much continues to be the case. Even the popular Suzie Wong, Sheba's, and Long Gun are hurting, according to reports. The inconsistency of the enforcement of the laws governing night spots can't be helping, something for which the Thonglor Police are particularly "famous." They've been known to swoop in, in force, and closing one a-go-go for having nude or near-nude dancers -- but departing without saying a word to the *other* a-go-go's featuring precisely the same sort of show. Whether or not such a show should be legal is an entirely separate issue; at issue here is just what *is* legal, anyway? -- if nude dancing is legal, then leave the dancers and their employers alone; if it is illegal, then close the lot -- nation-wide, including venues owned/controlled by the police (of which there are more than a few, if street intelligence -- usually the best source of information across Asia -- is to be believed). Country Road Bar continues to be the home of a good band that plays lots of 60's and 70's stuff, the singer doing a decent job with the covers. A friend reports he and his buddy checked out Tilac A-go-go a few days ago and that they were impressed; seems the management has gone to some pains to add a lot of new girls and to get the girls to actually pretend to *dance,* not just stand there slightly swaying, occasionally shuffling their feet just to show they really are still alive and breathing, as is too often the case in a-go-go's everywhere, at least in Thailand. * * * * * * * * * * Banking Miseries A friend is due to receive a check today drawn on a major local bank, a bank in which he has an account himself, though in another branch than the one where the account on which the check is written is. He inquired at his branch about just cashing the check -- issued by a major local medical facility -- at his branch, but was told he will have to deposit it and wait 2-3 days for "the check to clear." Now,
even Thai banks are computer-equipped and thus able to see at a glance that the
medical facility's account has ample funds to cover this quite small
check. The excuse that the account on which the check is drawn is in
another branch is just that -- an excuse, and a flimsy, completely transparent
one at that. The fact is that banks here continue to insist on floating
one's money, but refusing to admit it, since to admit it would involve losing
"face." As if they have any face in the first place. As
I've written before, it wouldn't be so bad if they were honest about it, as was
The Bank of China when I lived there in the late 1980's. Then, even with
electronic fund tranfers the bank staff would tell you quite matter-of-factly
that it didn't matter whether your money arrived in 2 nanoseconds, you couldn't
get it for a month. Ditto a check drawn on a foreign bank (in which case
the time was longer, to make sure the issuer didn't cancel the check). At
least one could plan, other than in emergencies. * * * * * * * * * * Koh Chang Trip The Expats' Association of Thailand plans to lay on a weekend trip to Koh Chang over the Loy Krathong weekend November 7-9 (Loy Krathong itself falling on November 8th this year). Bangkok Airways has been operating twice-a-day flights to Trat since earlier this year, from whence a transfer via van and a ferry to the island costs 150 baht per person. We'll be leaving on the afternoon flight Friday and returning on the afternoon flight Sunday. Though the price isn't confirmed, it will be approximately 7,000 baht for Association members and approximately 8,000 baht for non-members. The price includes air far and taxes, transfers from and back to the airport in Trat, and a banquet Saturday night; all other expenses will be borne by the individual. I've never been to Koh Chang, but people who have say it's marvelously lovely, tranquil, and clean, and is itself surrounded by numerous picturesque islands one can tour by boat. Koh Chang is home to 9 tame elephants (the island's name translates as "Elephant [Chang] Island [Koh]"), which one can ride. A friend who lives there tells me there are lovely low mountains, on top of which the air can be downright chilly at night. My one concern is transport about the largish island itself. There are "taxis" in the form of pick-ups that roam about at random, but that's it, making transport impossible to plan with any certainty. This may be partly due to the fact that only recently has Koh Chang become a real destination, so maybe in the future there will be a real taxi service started, though if Pattaya and Jomtien are anything to go by -- the only forms of public transport in those places being motorcycle taxis and the infamous "baht buses" (similar to Koh Chang's pick-ups). But at least transport is ubiquitous in both those destinations. Even so, friends tell me Koh Chang is far more than well worth a visit, so charming is it. Anyone interested in joining us please e-mail us at exat@thai.com, and write "Koh Chang" in the subject line. We will be ponying up the fees about mid-month, so payment will need to be made by then. * * * * * * * * * * Expats' Association of Thailand News The Association is coming along nicely, and moving closer to becoming a fully-registered non-profit organization. We now have a president, vice-president (me), and a governing board of me and eight other members. We now have about 45-50 registered members, with another 15-20 on our mailing list. We expect to complete the registration process by the end of the year. Recent events have focused on speakers. Authors Christopher G. Moore and Dean Barrett have spoken to us on their fiction and on being expatriate writers in Thailand (and each was able to flog a few books after finishing his presentation). People interested in these authors can see their websites at http://cgmoore.com, http://chrismoore.com, and http://dean-barrett-thailand.com. Next up was an immigration bureau official speak to us about immigration laws and the new visa schedule (under which visa fees went up drastically effective August 26th of this year). We then had attorney Dawn Kitt of the law firm Kitt and Murray make a presentation centering on rental contracts and the obtaining or mortgages/buying property (residential and commercial). Following her, this past Sunday sports medicine specialist Dr. Francis Nettl spoke to us about living a healthy life-style in Bangkok, giving us a whole array of cautions and pointers. This coming week (October 12th) I'll be speaking about the dramatic changes in mainland China since I first went there to live August 18th, 1985, since which time I lived three years in northeast China (1985-88), four years in Macau (1990-94), and southern China near Macau (1999-2000). The week after that Association member and board officer James Holt will make a presentation about doing business in Thailand and making offshore investments. We're in the midst of dickering with insurance companies about obtaining group medical coverage. We're also gearing up to go around and ask merchants of all types to give Association members a discount. Annual dues are 500 baht (for now -- we may raise them later) plus a one-time 50-baht fee for a laminated membership card. Anyone interested can e-mail us at exat@thai.com; just write "Membership" in the subject line. * * * * * * * * * * Where Is *Your* Name??? So you've been a slacker and still haven't signed up for the free BangkokAtoZ.com Updates Mailing List??? ;-) Well, get with the program and sign up right now to be notified via e-mail whenever we add something to the site -- that way, you don't even have to visit the Updates Page to see if there's anything new -- we'll let you know by e-mail. If you want to sign up, just go to the sign-up page. I'm pleased to say that more and more of you are signing up, and I urge all of you not to hesitate! * * * * * * * * * * Where is *Your* "Traveller's Tale"??? Got a "Traveler's Tale"? -- send me a line! Just send me a *query* note at MekhongKurt@BangkokAtoZ.com. * * * * * * * * * * Linking to BangkokAtoZ.com If anyone reading this has a website and would like to place a link there for BangkokAtoZ.com, you can copy-and-paste the banner and text link below into your site; they are live links to this site's homepage:
I'll appreciate an e-mail telling me the URL of where you placed it. If you want me to put a link on BangkokAtoZ.com for your site, do tell me where you have placed our link, and I'll give you a link in a comparable position, of the same nature (i.e., banner-for-banner, text-for-text). * * * * * * * * * * Enough for one go . . . Until next time -- Mekhong Kurt
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