One week

A week from now I will be in Taipei en-route to Bangkok for the first time in forever (since 2012). Hopefully pictures and videos of oddities will be forthcoming.

T i T - this is Thailand

Well the first 2 days were hard – travel followed by finding that the lock to my condo had quit working – we had to have the maintenance guy take a large hammer to the door handle – fortunately doors here are made of hardy stuff and fitting a new lock only took a short while. Had a cleanup crew come in for a half hour – amazing how much dust and dirt accumulates in 8 months – I think I had a guest colony of ants living there for part of the time – they were gone but they left a mess behind.

Next day was an 11 hours of driving (on the wrong side with lots of overtaking on 2 lane roads – somewhat stressful) – found Da and her brother at the appointed place in the Thai/Cambodian border market.

Yesterday was more restful – food, beach and shopping (I wasn’t the one shopping needless to say).

Much ado about nothing

Nobody in line to check in - one person ahead of me at security - no body scanners - no groping - just the old fashioned walk through metal detector. Dammit now I am unspeakably early fir the flight.

no cold-turkey for me

Off to the airport tonight - with no icy road misgivings - Sound Transit Link light-rail will take me from a block from home to the airport. Then it is running the groping gauntlet of TSA - I will opt for the full body scan machine - hell I dont care who sees my junk - but would prefer not to be fondled by some illiterate ex K-Mart TSA agent - now if he had worked at Target and could read he might be more "eligible" - then we might come to a groping arrangement. 13 hours by EVA to Taipei, a 40 minute layover then a 4 hour flight to Suvarnabhumi Airport Bangkok. Thence a 90 minute bus ride to Jomtien, a 15 minute pickup truck to the end of my Soi and a motorcycle taxi to my condo. Putting it like that it sounnds intimidating but the end justifies the means plus I enjoy the whole travel process. Then its 85-90 for 10 days out of this cold icky Seattle winter. More later... enjoy your Turkey.

Travelling madness

I have to confess to riding the Link light rail to the airport today for no reason other than to be travelling - I need to be going somewhere to be happy I think - in my defence it is right across the street and it is all paid for with my monthly pass - and it is an unparalleled piece of sociology. As I grow older I realise I am becoming my Father - it's the kind of thing he would have done. I walked around the airport for a half hour reading the departures boards and dreaming - have I lost it? I was actually sad to see that tomorrow's EVA flight to Taipei has been cancelled.

Limited travel

So having become one of the employed again - there will unfortunately be few travel opportunities for a while - so until the next adventure the blog is in hibernation.

Tacoma - okay it's travel of a sort...

I had occasion to be in lovely Tacoma - actually it really isnt a bad place at all despite its reputation - people in Seattle just need somewhere to look down on to make themselves feel superior. Having said that I encountered the most amazing situation I have experienced in a very long time. I needed a visit to the bathroom - I was driving around killing time before an appointment and had had one too many coffees. I remembered the Tacoma Public Library which is a few blocks west of downtowm - I knew they had plentiful free parking - so I headed up there to pee. As you approach the bathrooms there is a sign informing you that due to drug dealing activity and other unlawful activities, the bathrooms are limited to one occupant at a time - at the doorway there is a table with a security guard - this poor guy has the job of allowing one person in at a time and ensuring that they have no bags (I got the impression he was ready to frisk people too) - after someone emerges from the bathroom he puts a barrier across the doorway and goes into the bathroom to ensure that the previous person has not left drugs in there for someone else and/or I guess used drugs. Inside there are 3 stalls, there are no garbage cans, presumably to remove hiding places. So this guy has the job of checking the bathroom after people have done their business - now presumably to detect the use of crack he has to go in there and do the sniff test - public bathroom, sniff test - do the math. He then emerges - removes the barrier and checks out the next candidate. What a job - what a situation - presumably the rest of the library is well covered with CCTV but they cant do that in there for obvious reasons. Now unemployment rates are high but who would take that job?