Scams

BKK, World Trade Centre. I was on my own wandering around when I noticed a chinese couple trying to approach people for help, calling out,"do you speak mandarin?".

The man was in a dark suit, looked older. The lady was in white and looked fair and pleasant. So I turned to them and asked,"yes, I can. What is it?".

The man showed me his passport and gave me his namecard, saying something like,"I am here on business and while here, my money got stolen and..". I did not wait for him to finish. I pushed his namecard back and said firmly,"sorry, I cannot help." Then I turned my back immediately and walked off with the woman calling behind me ,"we would like to borrow money...!"

They continued to loiter in the same place to approach other people but moved away quickly when they later saw me.

When I told this to my friends. They shared their experiences of lending money to strangers. Josh lended money to someone who said he will return the money but gave Josh a fake telephone number. Josh actually saw him again weeks later and grabbed the man to demand his money back. The man was so frightened, he took Josh home to get his money to give back to Josh. That sounded so dangerous to us. Aymes also lended $100 to an old couple who were in the same travelling group to Nepal. They claimed that the housekeeper had stolen their money from the safe. Later on, she received the money in the post from the old couple's son.

Night bazaar

Enrique has lived in BKK for 9 years now and even learned the language. Actually I think he speaks 7 languages or more (English, Malay, Spanish, Thai, some danish, some german, Chinese and that is not counting in chinese dialects). His wife is a Thai Chinese from a privileged family. They are very genteel and humble. We met up and he drove us to the night bazaar at Suan-Lum ("suan loom") Lumpini. It is like the Chatuchat market but more organised and far nicer. It is open from 4pm every day, unlike Chatuchat which is only for weekends. No heat and no crowds to put up with. Although it is smaller, it easily took up more than 2 hours of our time. There is also a huge beer garden and food centre there. I think in future, I will skip Chatuchat market and just visit Suan Lum market instead.

Aymes

Chatted with Amy till 3 in the morning. The last time we chatted late into the nite, we were 18 and at the swimming camp. I still have my diary notes of that in the little scraps of paper somewhere. The conversation now is less angst-ridden but still full of gossip.

Aymes, as I like to call her, has travelled a lot and in fact, even travel quite often on her own for vacation. She has been to Latvia, Estonia, the Baltics, etc. She has even been on the Oriental Express! The trip was won from a dinner and dance lucky draw. She said she and her sister were the only asians on the trip. The rest of the passengers were europeans who find sceneries of passing padi fields and tropical forest fascinating. Much like us getting excited about snow. They also had to dress up formally for every meal.

She has done most of her work in govt; been in the tourism board and at some point in her career, involved in censorship committee meetings where they review a controversial movie, and discuss if the movie should be snipped or banned and the impact it would have on family life or teenagers.

She also shared some things which she learned from the courses at work and from a psychatrist friend: How to communicate - you must first know what you want and ask for the right thing! Most people don't or they ask for what they want in an indirect way which causes mis-communications, problems and side effects.

She also gave an example of bad communication, quite typical of authority figures. A child runs all over the place. The parent tells the child,"please don't run around". Since the child cannot run around, he moves to jump on the sofa, then the parent says,"don't jump on the sofa". So the child starts to get resentful because everything he does is wrong and he doesn't know what his parents want. What would be more effective is if the parent tells the child he wants him to sit down and specifically on a spot. Then the child knows what is the right thing to do instead of all the things he cannot do. By using "Don't" too often, the parent also wrongly builds imaginary limits in the child's mind.

Interesting how simple phrasing can make such a big difference.

Wrong Hotel

Finally I am embarking on my holiday. First stop at Bangkok.

My 115 litre lugagge is 5kg on its own, so I should not be too surprised that it got overweight with my stuff at 23kg. I had actually packed a cabin size trolley bag into this luggage which I thought I will remove if the counter decides to charge me at check-in for the extra weight. They let it through with no issue. Phew!

Josh, Chris and Amy have gone 2 hours ahead of me on another airline. When I arrived in BK, I queued at the taxi box where the service person wrote my destination in Thai on a small form. However, when I gave it to my taxi triver, he hardly took a look at it. It was only after he drove off that he indicated he did not quite recognised what I said. I tried to help by saying,"Holiday Inn - Ploenchit, er..near World Trade Centre". He finally seemed to get it and said, "Oh, Silom". I said,"No,No, no - not Silom. Ploenchit!!" (It was a good thing Josh told me there are 2 Holiday Inns, otherwise, I would have taken the driver's word". It was later that I realised the driver could be illiterate that was why he didn't bother to read the thai destination on the form.

I was quite happy when our taxi arrived at Ploenchit road. Before I knew it, the driver suddenly turned into a hotel which looked like 3 star. The driver kept asking"right? right?" So I tried to look for the hotel sign and saw the back of some large cut -out sign facing the main road. It was blocked by the bushes but I made out some spelling like Y A D I L O H and thought, "yeah, I guess this is it", even though I was puzzled it was not the standard I would expect of Holiday Inn, but Josh did say this is not as grand as the one in Silom. So I paid the driver and the bell boy took out my heavy luggage. As we walked towards the reception counter, I suddenly turned to the bellboy and asked,"er, is this Holiday Inn?". The bell boy was taken aback and said,"no, this is Holiday Mansion" EEK!

We rushed back to the taxi just before he drove off. This time, I got the bellboy to give the driver the instructions and explain where to go. After another 5 minutes on the road, the driver pulled into the correct hotel. What a difference this one was from the Holiday Mansion and what a way to start. I have had so many bad experiences in Thai taxis, they never fail to stress me except when they are taking me to the airport. Thank god for sky trains. I am sticking to these other transportation if possible.

Goodbye

The weather turned damp this evening and everywhere, there was a jam. I rushed home to collect Itsy. I took him out of his glass cage and transferred him into a smaller cage with a handle. I tried to clear my mind to avoid him sensing his impending death and be frightened. I transferred some shavings from his own cage into the portable one.

I also put some seeds in it with lots of sunflower seeds. He loves them. He got lively and was focused on eating them all the way to the vet. So much so, that when the vet saw him, he was indignant to hear that I asked to put Itsy down. He said , "why? He looks happy enough to me".
My response was a little distraught. Then he realised Itsy has a lump on his arm too and quickly informed me that they can take care of him and if I want to leave the cage with them or take it back. I said I will leave the cage behind. I thought perhaps they would let him live a little longer if he has a cage. The vet told me Itsy will be injected and will pass on immediately. He assured me Itsy will be cremated and not carelessly disposed of. When he said that, my imagination ran to the thought of Itsy being thrown down the rubbish chute - a hideous thought. The bill came to $10.

There were 2 kittens running around the clinic, waiting for adoption. I turned down the offer, they will probably die of loneliness under my care, even if they are independent.

After I left the clinic, I dropped into the NTUC on the way home and wandered around in it in a daze for a while.

The Vet

I smsed Ms.Goh - "do you think the vet will be willing to put itsy down?"
Ms.Goh has been the one who introduced me to dwarf hamsters and got me in love with one.
She responded and several sms later, she offered - "why don't you give me the $50 instead of paying the vet. I will look after it until it passes away and give a burial in my garden?"
I wasn't too sure about that since she has dogs and they might just dig Itsy up as a game. Besides, $50 bucks!?
The more I thought about it, the more I think I have to do the inevitable. My heart feels heavy every time my mind touches on the thought. Unfortunately, I am not sure what to do should Itsy die on me, and worse while I am away. Bitsy died at Ms.Goh's place while I was on a trip too. I have a bad feeling, he will be out in the next couple of weeks. I will be on a trip and no one can take care of him this time. It would be unfair to expect someone else to look after a sick or dying pet.

Itsy

I was cleaning out Itsy's cage when I noticed Itsy, my dwarf hamster, has only one eye. His right eye is closed so tightly that I couldn't even find the slit. I have been so busy, only feeding him, I do not know when this happened. I now see his right ear is also blocked by a growth, perhaps a tumour. He has been staying in the corner of his cage the past few days, not moving much and sleeping a lot. I thought it is just old age since he is almost 2 years old, short of 2 days. My heart sank with the thought that his days are numbered.

Valuair to JetStar

The acquisition of Valuair to Jetstar certainly created troubles for its passengers.

I have a free return ticket to Bangkok which has to be used up by Oct 31 . Yet for the last 2 months, Valuair was not been able to open the bookings for Oct 31. As such, neither way could be booked, since bookings going there and back have to be done together. We had planned to flyout to BK on friday, Oct 28. Messages were left to call back but nothing was heard from Valuair about the status.

Finally a few days ago, just two weeks' short of the Oct31, Valuair has some status on what's going on. Valuair is no more flying to Bangkok on Oct 31 and passengers have to book their seats on JetStar. But by now everything is fully booked on JetStar by Jetstar's own passengers. Valuair is not extending their expiry of their tickets. Thanks a lot. The situation stinks. These two companies have not get their act together properly.

Finally, after some merry go around where the service people told us to write in to their management about our situation, my friend banged table and gave their customer service and managers a scolding before they took the trouble to help out. If we have to go through the trouble to write, it might as well be sent to the Straits Times' forum. Eventually, they agreed to help us locate seats. The only availability is thurs, Oct 27. I might have to take another half day of leave. Not nice but in these circumstances, we have to make the best of it.