Engrish in Thailand, Funny Signs

McDonald’s is an international corporation. We have McDonald’s here in Thailand. I was eating my big BIG fries when I noticed a sign being placed on some chairs in front of me.

For the LIFE of me I could not figure out what the sign was talking about.

Here’s the sign >

Finally after a few minutes of trying to figure it out I took some photos and asked my girlfriend to tell me what the Thai words meant.

She said, TEMPORARY CLOSE

Oh my, so at Thailand McDonalds, “Tamper During Close” means Temporarily Closed….

Wow, that’s a new one.

Isn’t McDonald’s standardized so they all must have things make sense - even in Thailand? WHO is keeping track of this stuff?

It’s almost as funny as the ocean going ship I saw on a beach a while back… What on earth do you think the name means?

I was going to get some ROTI with banana - one of my favorite foods, and saw this sign…

The funny thing was, there was a sign on the other side of the cart - that had Lemon, Fruit, and Orange spelled correctly! Hmm… There’s not that much attention to detail with spelling in Thailand. I wonder if they spell in Thai incorrectly a lot too. Is it a cultural thing where they just aren’t that concerned with it? If so, I like the idea!

Meditation Calling… Is Vern home?

Over the past few days it’s been in my mind. Part of the reason I came to Thailand was to talk to some senior English speaking monks at Wat Pah Nanachat and Suan Mokkh about the process of “jhana” and losing the ego and other things that appeared to have been going on while I meditated so long ago.

I also came to see if Thailand’s culture - which accepted Buddhist meditation as normal, unlike the USA, would facilitate the process if I chose to go forward with it again. I’ve been here for a while now and just not felt the urge to go back and start the process again. Until recently.

Over the last days and even some weeks there have been times when I’ve felt like meditating again. I’d pretty much stopped cold 10 years ago because the process, once it kicks in is so overwhelming, and the changes it makes so profound… So hard to explain anything about it.

I’ve written a little bit about it on my other blog (www.aimforawesome.com) and thought I’d keep the topic going here as well.

I’m planning on going to a mountain-top temple in a day or so and meditate for a day, 2 days, 3 days. I don’t know how much I’ll post to the blogs, depends on the phone service up there and if I’m able to upload the photos to the blog or not. I’ll need to do a test to see if posting works since I’m FTP’ing my blog to my own hosting plan at Godaddy and the usual functions of Google’s “Blogger” may not be functional.

If anyone is interested in meditation - a simple meditation without following Buddhism or any other religon or “ism” I created a free e-book on my www.aimforawesome.com site that is in the “Pages” link in the upper right hand side of that site. It’s a PDF file and it covers about 22 days of meditation. The meditation is very easy, and it’s basically all I did. I took it from a few sources… SN Goenka’s Book on Vipassana Meditation primarily.

Ok, I’ll be testing the upload photos functionality to see if it’s working and then maybe one more post before I go to my meditative retreat on the mountain.

Thailand Apple iPhone Vs. Nokia e70

The Apple iPhone is NOT a phone that I would buy - even if I could get it here in Thailand. Supposedly availability of the iPhone in Thailand will be 1st quarter of 2008. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Here’s a very brief rundown of the Apple iPhone vs. Nokia e70 which I have now and use daily.

I don’t know what features the iPhone will have when it hits Asia - but it needs to make some serious changes before I’d purchase it for $599 USD. (19,257 b).

Price:
The iPhone is priced the same as my Nokia e70 according to today’s exchange rate (32.70/1). The e70 was 19,200 at Telewiz when I bought it in March. That’s expensive as hell, but it does so much that to me it was well worth it. I think the prices have come down a thousand or two by now. Don’t quote me on that.

Keyboards:
Apple’s iPhone has a virtual keyboard as part of the software. A number of people testing have already said that they can’t seem to “get it” when trying to type out a paragraph or so. There is also a hard to find comma - which is stupidity defined. I use commas EVERY time I write, and it’s making me wonder where the dash (-) is because I use that 9 times more than commas.

The Nokia e70 has a full QWERTY keyboard with comma that is large enough for my big fingers to type on. It has a full row of numbers at the top and full shift capability. It even has a Thai Keyboard written on the keys as well.

Storage:
The Ipod comes with 4GB or 8GB of storage. I have a whopping 1GB plus another 64 on phone so my phone is lacking in storage, BUT I have the opportunity to expand it at any time since there is a memory slot. The iPhone HAS NO MEMORY SLOT for additional storage.

Camera:
The iPhone has a 2MP camera. So does the Nokia e70. The iPhone takes photos, but NO VIDEO! WHAT? Yes, it’s true - the iPhone takes NO video. The Nokia e70 has 3 different resolutions of video available and it works incredibly well. There is also a zoom on the video - and none was mentioned for the iPhone in the review I saw - but it MUST have one right?

Connectivity:
With the iPhone you can use WIFI, EDGE. With the Nokia e70 you can use WIFI, EDGE, CDMA, 3G, Infrared, BlueTooth, VOIP and use your phone as a modem connection for your laptop so you don’t need to buy one of those stupid PCMCIA EDGE cards for your notebook - which are 10,000 baht and don’t give you any additional functionality over that of a 4500 baht Nokia phone with EDGE.

Display:
The iPhone has a resolution of 320 x 480 for it’s very large screen. The Nokia e70 has 352 x 416 which, without doing the math I’m going to guess it pretty close.

Weight:
The Nokia e70 is 129 g. the Apple iPhone is 135 g.

Battery Life:
The iPhone claims 5 hours of talk time and the Nokia e70 claims 3.2 - 7.7 hours - depending on how I’m connected.

Operating System:
The Nokia has a Symbian operating system for which many applications have been developed already - like VOIP with FRING for instance (free). Apple’s iPhone will have software developed but give it 6 months to have anything decent. And, give it a year or more before it has anything approaching the amount of programs already in existence for the Nokia e70.

I’ve used the Nokia e70 for about 3 months. It is very stable and works very well with EDGE service in Pattaya, Bangkok, and other areas on both AIS and DTAC SIM cards. The phone has not locked up on me EVER, though I’ve turned it off and back on 3 times to get it working faster. I’ve never lost data. I’ve never scratched it - so the exterior can be called “tough”. The web browsing is easy with the joystick and the keyboard is heaven compared to the Nokia e65 that didn’t have one.

Overall I think the iPhone is an OK device, however, it has some serious shortcomings. Lack of 3G, lack of video capability!, lack of a solid keyboard, lack of a memory slot and lack of availability for another 7 months (or more) is just too much for me. Add to that there will be software problems for a while and other things to work out in Asia because the phone was really made for the USA and the networks and users there.

I will stick to Nokia e-series while I’m in Thailand.

By the way, I’m selling my Nokia e70 if you didn’t already know. I’m moving back to the states at some point and I won’t need all the functionality it has back there. There are NO scratches and it works perfectly. All original paperwork and the box included.

Photos and full specs:

Nokia e70 for sale in Thailand > (11,900 baht)

Short Time Hotel in Bangkok

We (my girlfriend and I) had been seeing some temples and were pretty tired out. The trip around Bangkok by motorbike was something I’d rather not repeat too many times. Rush-hour is a bitch in sin city, though I think on a motorbike it’s much, much easier than in a car or truck.

We had sucked in traffic fumes for about 4 hours on this day and we got just on the outskirts of Bangkok when we started looking for a hotel. Everyone we asked in this city (Samut Sakon) kept directing us towards short-time hotels! Apparently that’s all they thought a farang with a Thai girl needed. We kept trying to explain that we wanted a clean, decent place that we could sleep in all night. We weren’t looking for a place to bang secretly, just eat and get some sleep!

Finally we paid a guy 40 baht to lead us to a hotel that he knew. He said it was about 500 baht per night. We said great. We followed him as he and his girlfriend rode the motorbike ahead of us. We pulled up to the entrance and this guy said - “Here it is!” (in Thai of course).

It looked like a short-time hotel to me - lots of curtains pulled in back of the parked cars and motorbikes so nobody could see, and maybe recognize the vehicles parked there.

We told the guy that led us to the place that we really DON’T want a dirty short-time hotel and that we needed a “regular” hotel. He insisted this one was clean and that it was a great hotel. We were so tired at that point that I decided we’d go have a look as I’d not been into a drive-in park your car behind the curtain type short-time hotel before.

Upon entering the guys that worked there were wai-ing us profusely. It was comical even - they wai’ed us until their heads went between their somewhat open stanced legs. It was bizarre. Later we realized they were doing that so they didn’t look at our faces and we’d feel comfortable coming in for some anonymous sex.

I told them we wanted the “Sweet” room, not the SUITE room like maybe it should have been named in English… they pointed us to the best place they had and I told them I wanted to stay until Noon the next day. They said, 620 baht. I thought this was very high - and so I thought I’d check out the room before we left.

I walked into the room and was FLOORED. It WAS nice. It was super clean - I found not one hair (of any sort) anywhere, not in the restroom, on the bed, on a table or chair - nowhere. It was VERY clean and the sheets were perfectly white and sanitary (so it seemed).

I looked around the room and was shocked to see… a HUGE TV - complete with 6 channels of varying porn movies… and some other non-porn channels… A California King Sized bed - or bigger… Mirrors everywhere… a SAUNA complete with barbeque cooker and rocks on top - to spoon some water over top of for steam… a 4 person tub… and a very tasteful glass wash basin with naked ladies all over it.

I couldn’t believe it!

I told the guy we’d take it. We ordered some food and sodas and when the guy brought them to me - I opened the door and he dropped his head down so he was staring at the ground - so he didn’t see who I was! Very funny the lengths they go to ensure anonymity because in the morning as we were leaving and they pulled back the curtain, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE 8 WORKERS THAT WE SAW craned their necks to see who the farang was with - they all wanted the gossip to tell to the whole town.

Oh - there was a DANCING POLE in the middle of the room - placed strategically between the enormous bed and the 27 inch porno TV. I didn’t feel inspired to dance for the video but I did try a few moves and I’m not as smooth as I used to be…

Anyway, we had a great time shooting pictures and videos of everything. Parts of the video - the bathroom and the sauna were very dark - though it was midday sun when I shot the video. I lightened it up enough that you can see everything. The file is 20MB and a large download if you have a slow connection, but it’s worth it just to see the place.

The Thais’ REALLY have this side of the anonymous sex business down to a “T”. The level of attention to detail was pretty incredible and could be compared with a home that would go for 10 million baht here.

The place was doing a VERY good business for a Tuesday night. They told us they had 63 rooms available! That’s like 30,000 baht per night if they’re packing it in (so to speak)!

I took pics of the hourly rate price lists that you can see in the top right photo.

Ok - Download the Video and have a look what you can get in Thailand for a night of sex as interesting as you can make it. 620 baht is roughly $19 USD with the current exchange rate. Can you find this for $19 in the USA?

Someone MUST start some hotels like this, I think it would be big news.

Ok - enjoy the video and photos.
Click photos for larger versions.

Video: Thailand Short-time Hotel in Bangkok
(Ok, video is live now)

YouTube Thailand Returning Soon?

Andrew over at The Bangkok Bugle blogged that YouTube is coming back to Thailand.

If it does, that’d be great… but I’m not using it to post anymore video to - what’s the point? It won’t be too long before it is blocked again!

I’ve been just uploading the videos to my own server space. Jason at Isaan Style has been sending his to Blip.tv I think it’s called. I downloaded something over the Nokia e70 the other day from Jason’s site a movie file - and it went about 35KBps which is FLYING. EDGE works when it works sometimes.

Ok, great post coming in next few hours - just need to upload a 20MB video first… Coming soon - a short time hotel review… a NICE short-time hotel if you can believe it. Maybe I’m oldschool and I’m one of the few that doesn’t know about these nice “high-so” short-time rooms, or maybe most farang don’t know about them… or care?

Ok - stay tuned…

Success! re: Blogger "Draft" Beta with Video Uploads

This is great news to see this actually work well with my phone (Test Blogger Video)

- no need to edit my .mp4 file the phone creates either - just upload and it looks great. Problem is that the phone video camera has a high resolution and 8 seconds of video is half a Megabyte… I should run some tests with the other resolutions allowed by the phone (Nokia e70) to see if they all show up as nicely as this one did.

Another reason for newbies to use Blogger as it’s so simple… Don’t know when this beta version will be out but some of us that signed up to test advanced features can see this link to try it…

Now video blogging (vlogging) with your phone is quite easy… Nokia has a lot of phones with the 2MP cameras and 30 frames per second video capability so check them out!

Google Blogger Beta (Draft) Video Upload Test 2 from Thailand

OK, using DTAC phone service (GPRS/EDGE) to upload this 2nd shot at a video in Blogger just to see if it’s working…

This one is an 8 second video taken with my Nokia e70 phone… it is a shot of a “Double Dump Truck God” blowing down the road in a rain storm that I was sitting out after riding the motorbike a few hundred kilometers.

Nokia e70 Business phone video test (.5MB)>

Wow, it appeared to work as I see the box in my preview mode… let’s post and see what happens.

Am I STILL the first one in Thailand to post this?

Tell me I’m cutting edge, SOMEBODY tell me!

Riding Motorcycles in Thailand (Long Distance Trips)

I love riding the motorcycle (motorsai, motorbike) all over Thailand. I have not ever rented a car in the almost 3 years I’ve been here.

I bought a new Mio “ZR” (I think is the model), when they came out last year and it’s basically like a moped. Nothing new to learn. If you can ride a bicycle you can ride a Yamaha Mio.

I’ve not met anyone that goes the places I do on my motorcycle. In the states I’ve had motorcycles on and off, sometimes I told my family about them and sometimes not. Usually not since the older brother of a friend on the street where I grew up smashed headfirst into a telephone pole and killed himself and his best-friend passenger.

I don’t like driving a car in Thailand for a number of reasons:

• The car to me is MORE dangerous because I don’t know if it’s been maintained properly. In Thailand my automatic guess is that it has NOT. Thais’ DON’T take care of their vehicles - as a rule. As the LAW actually. I think they’re prohibited from doing simple oil changes and spark plug changes, brake checks, etc.
• The car is more of a liability to me because if I crash it I’ll pay a lot more.
• It’s easier to hit people on the motorcycles since they’re everywhere and sometimes unpredictable.
• The trucks, buses, other cars and other trucks are less forgiving with other cars on the road than they are with motorbikes. I think the theory is that - people in vehicles KNOW they can easily kill someone on the motorcycle and they’ve seen it happen hundreds of times in their lifetimes so they’re more careful, and give more leeway.
• With a car I can’t just park ANYWHERE like I do with the motorcycle. I can’t just stop anywhere I want either which is pretty Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for me because I love to take digital photos and when I see something that is interesting I MUST stop and see - just how interesting is it? During a 2 hour trip on the motorbike I might stop 2-10 times for photos and/or digital video.
• I’m a bit leery of sitting on the right side of the car and driving on the left side of the road. With the motorcycle I learned the drive on the left side part - no worries. I’ve only had a few near misses as I drove head on into traffic when my mind switched countries for a few seconds.

I’ve driven the motorcycle all over Thailand and I’ve had a blast. I’ve gone from Bangkok to Surat Thani, Surat Thani to Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat to Krabi, Krabi to Patong, Patong to Phangna, Phangna to Surat, Pattaya to Bangkok, Ubon to Khon Kaen and back, Ubon to Chong Mek (Laos border crossing), Ubon to Sisaket to Surin to Buriram to Chantaburi to Rayong and back to Pattaya, Surat Thani to Ko Samui and back many times.

I’ve gone so many places and I rarely ever see a farang on a motorcycle. During any long trip - 4 hours or more I might see one. Usually it’s a guy and he’s on a rented Harley style motorbike. It’s good to see SOMEONE else on a motorcycle and it makes me wonder WHERE IS EVERYONE ELSE?

Don’t tourists take short day trips to different places around Thailand without going by car, van, bus or train? There’s a lot of freedom in taking the motorcycle as you can stop anywhere you choose, go as far as you want in one day or stop 3 times during the day, stay overnight in a small town and meet cool people… everything is “up to you”, which is what I like.

I’ve taken a large backpack, a small backpack and another medium sized backpack on the motorbike when I go someplace long distance. The big backpack fits on the floor of the Mio - it’s flat and you can jam the backpack down in there. It comes up to about your seat level. Then I put another backpack on top of that one and put one on my back. I only need one waterproof cover for the backpack on the top of the big one because the Mio’s shell protects the big bag from rain and the one on my back is blocked by my body. My body doesn’t get that wet because the small bag is in front of my chest and blocking the rain, and my legs are covered by the Mio shell. My arms get wet, that’s about it… unless it’s really pouring hard - then I stop anyway.

For me the best thing about riding the motorcycle instead of a car or other form of transportation is that I get to see places that I wouldn’t otherwise. I have gone up and down streets of towns just to see what’s there. I’ve pulled into dirt roads that had a sign for a Wat (temple) that I’d never have gone down with a rental car and that nobody would take me to if I was in public transportation.

I don’t know how many temples I’ve seen as a result of just spontaneously turning off the road to explore them but I guess maybe I’ve seen 100 temples in nearly 3 years? It seems like a lot, but man, I’ve seen a lot of temples. I try not to miss one. I remember one place I was up on a hill at a temple and I looked down into the city below… I counted 17 separate temples… so I had to go find all of them and take photos.

Some people think that the motorcycles are not safe to ride here. Most people don’t go over 40-50 kilometers on their motorcycle in Thailand. Even grown guys in their 20’s and 30’s. Why IS that? I worked with some teachers in Suratthani that just refused to take the motorcycle anywhere further than about 50km. There were SO many waterfalls and caves that could be found if one just went a bit outside that 50km radius. Some did, but overall it sounded like nobody really had fun riding that far. I don’t know, for me - the journey is half or more of the trip. Sometimes it’s the ENTIRE point of the trip since Thailand is not known for it’s road signs. I’ve ventured off to find a waterfall or hotspring many times and been disappointed to find no signs, and no local Thai people that could tell me WHERE the attraction was. Seriously, sometimes they could be living next to the waterfall and not be able to tell you where it is. My Thai is decent now, it’s not a language thing - It’s a Thai thing. No signs, if there are signs they’ll almost never (90%) tell you HOW FAR you have to drive…

Anyway… so sometimes the point of the trip becomes the trip itself. How fun is it in a car or van or bus? For me not fun at all. I hate the way Thais drive vans and buses in this country - so much so that I refuse to ride in another one. So many brainless moves I’ve seen and I’ve nearly become a statistic. Seriously consider any other option avaialable to you when you travel - even renting a motorcycle and going!

Motorcycle travel in Thailand is exciting, adventurous, and there’s always something you see that is better than you’d see riding in a car or other vehicle since you can go more places more easily… spontaneously… that’s the key for me - being able to see something and GO. Must be the Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)!

The other key for me is being in control of my vehicle. I trust myself so much more than I trust anyone else. I also know that my motorcycle is checked every 2000 km at the Yamaha dealer. I make sure they check things that they wouldn’t normally check. The brakes on the Mio are fairly good with the disc brake in front, but a dual-disc brake motorcycle would be even better if you can find one.

Ok then - take a motorcycle around Thailand, you’ll see so much that you probably wouldn’t see otherwise. You’ll meet people you wouldn’t have otherwise. You’ll take photos you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

You’ll enjoy the TRIP as much as the destination in some cases!
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Other articles I’ve written about driving in Thailand:

Motorbike Driving in Thailand >

Driving in Thailand: Motorbikes, Cars, Trucks, GOD!

Thailand’s Roadkill… YOU!

Article written by Jason at Isaan Style about Girl in Accident with Motorbike
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Google Video Beta Uploader - not working yet

As you can see - no link in the post from yesterday - it didn’t work. It was a rather large video and maybe it was the phone’s fault that I was uploading it with. I used AIS GPRS for it and it may have become corrupt during the upload.

DANG!

Ok, another try when I get to a broadband connection unless I can find a smaller video that’s interesting…

Google’s Blogger Blogs getting Video Upload button in Dashboard

This is cool - I’m expecting Blogger to release a TON of stuff in the next couple months to try to gain back some of the edge that other blogging platforms have in terms of advanced features.

Not sure how many blogger in Thailand are using Blogger - but I use it for some of my blogs (this one) and it’s easy to learn and really the best platform to get started with.

Well, FINALLY they have a beta version (unreleased) but that I’m composing this post with - and there’s a Video button in the editor. So - I’ll try it and upload a short video here to see if it works since I’m on a free broadband connection tonight - traveling.

Here goes… Wow, says it’s accepts: avi, mpeg, quicktime, real player, wmv files up to 100MB

Video test of New Blogger Function >
io
M3 Students giving Math presentation

If it works this might be the FIRST Blogger video on a blog in Thailand - this is history!

It’s about 20MB large - so, if you don’t have a fast connection you might now want to try to view it.

I’m anxious to see it it works well since Thailand has blocked YouTube and that’s had quite an effect on some of my blogs - in particular my girlfriend’s Try Thai Food blog.

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