OznAsia

Lumix @ KL Bird Park

2011-12-02T07:57:00.002+07:00

Back in 2007 I visited the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park for the first time. I wrote about it in a blog which can be found in the archives for June '07 if you're interested. I was annoyed at the time because of the misleading advertising which still persists. It may be the 'World Largest Free-flight Walk-in Aviary' (sic—from their website) but a large proportion of the birds are kept in cages, some with wires that make photography challenging.

I'm coming to terms with it a little more now because, having spent most of the past year in Malaysia, I've come to realise that misleading advertising is part of the Malaysian way of life. Despite this I've felt an urge to return to the Bird Park because it provides an opportunity to get my newer cameras close to some interesting birds. So when Panasonic announced they were running a workshop for owners of Lumix G series cameras at the Bird Park, I jumped at the opportunity.

The workshop started with some instruction from professional photographer Aaron Kok.

The guy who was sitting next to me told me he always shoots in Intelligent Auto. I suspect many of the participants do the same. I guess that Aaron was aiming to give us enough knowledge to be more confident in using some of the features of our cameras.

My neighbour had only one lens, a 14-42. His wife had a similar camera with a 14-45, ie almost the same lens. I have a 14-42 lens too. It is the one I almost never use. Panasonic have come up with a good marketing strategy here. They make the full range of lenses available to you and give you time to play with them. Perhaps you'll become attached to them and buy one or two. And to give you a focus for your photography they had a competition. Prizes were given (not sure what) for the best shot in model, macro and wildlife categories.

I wasn't quick enough. There were a limited number of lenses. By time I got to the table the 100-300 extra-long zoom and the macro lenses were all taken. I settled for the 25mm f1.4 lens. Perhaps it is not the lens of choice for wildlife photography but I'm glad I was given the opportunity to try it out. I'm told that at f1.4 it is the lens that lets in the most light in the entire micro-four-thirds range from Panasonic and Olympus. I love what I do at night with my 20mm f1.7 lens without using a flash. This one would work in a similar way for closer subjects. At 25mm it is a good lens for portraits. So I spent a bit of time with the model. Was that exciting? To be honest, I was getting more excited by the bokeh (blur) this lens created from the light filtering through the trees. It's a great lens for keeping the subject sharp while blurring everything else so it won't be a distraction.

After I had more than fifty shots of the model I decided to try the lens on birds and whatever else I found in the park. You could say it does a good job but to be honest, my preference for this job would be the 45-200 zoom lens that I already own (or perhaps the 100-300 lens that I am still yet to try).

We had a total of three hours for our free shoot. I returned after about one hour in hope that someone had returned one of the aforementioned popular lenses. They hadn't. I hung around waiting and that was when I met Alexis who became stranger number four in my 100 strangers project.

Chatting with one of the support staff, he offered to loan me his own Leica 45mm f2.8 macro lens. I hadn't long fitted it to my camera when a hornbill landed on the verandah of our workshop venue. At first I was disappointed but quickly remembered that this lens is not just for macro. I got one or two good shots of this bird. I also noticed that the model was sitting around now. Everyone had moved on. I asked if I could take a few closeups of her eye. Hey, I was doing real macro! I played with this lens for another hour or so and took a few good shots but I have to admit that a lot of my pics could have been better. I trust more consistent quality comes with practice. Once again, for distance shots, my preferred lens is the 45-200 that I already own.

We each submitted our pics for the competition and Aaron offered his critique on each one. When he reviewed the model pics he insisted that a good portrait must have the subject looking straight at the camera. I was interested to learn more about Aaron. When I returned home I searched for him on flickr. He doesn't appear to be there. I did a general search and found a website for an Aaron Kok, lifestyle photographer. It must be a different Aaron Kok. On the home page of this site are three portraits of a child. In only one is the subject looking at the camera.

And what did I learn from the day? I don't usually shoot in Intelligent Auto. Since I got the G2 I mostly shoot in aperture priority. But in a sense I use it in an auto style. I need to pay more attention to the settings, make sure they are appropriate for the photo I want to take and adjust if necessary. I took a lot of not-so-good shots on the day and one or two good ones. Hopefully I can improve the proportion of good ones.

My better shots of the day are gradually being added to my flickr photostream or you can see them together in a set. Please note that if you use these shots to assess any of the Lumix lenses, what I post on flickr has been processed. It is not the way they came out of the camera.

Panasonic tell me they are planning a G series workshop in Penang. I wonder what the venue will be. In any case, I'm interested.

Guarding the gold

2011-10-29T08:47:00.004+07:00

We were walking up Campbell Street in Georgetown's Chinatown district. This street contains several jewellery shops that deal in gold. In our group there was a three-year-old boy. We passed a security guard who put a hand out to give the child a 'five'. The boy didn't quite get it right so I stopped to show him how to do it. I wasn't even thinking about the stranger project but his Mum said to me, 'This guy—for your strangers.'

Hey, yeah. Why not?

I asked if I could take his photograph and put it on the internet. He was happy about that. Like my previous two strangers, he didn't have internet so was not able to check out his photo or the project for himself. In the photo he is trying to look serious to fit his role but actually he was a friendly guy who smiled a lot except when the camera was pointed at him. I asked his name and he pointed to his name tag which simply stated 'Wahar'. Don't know if that is his personal or family name. While he liked to chat his English was only basic.

He was carrying a gun which he assured me was loaded. I took a couple of shots trying to get the gun in the picture. There's another on my flickr page that shows him up close without a gun.

During our chat I learned the following about Wahar: He is 65 and unmarried. He was previously in the Malaysian army and proudly showed me a photo of himself in uniform and with a guard dog. He and two colleagues guard a row of jewellery shops in Campbell Street.

This picture is #3 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page. My 100 Strangers set.

2011-10-21T14:47:00.001+07:00

Sam Shield

13 November 1940
19 October 2011

Once there were seven.
Now there are five.

Talking to strangers

2011-10-18T10:50:00.004+07:00

Perhaps a month ago I discovered the 100 Strangers project on flickr, joined and until now have submitted nothing. Why? I tell myself if I was in Thailand or Cambodia people often make eye contact. Assuming they speak English or I speak a little of their language, it is easy to get a conversation going. I've spent most of this year in Malaysia and I find that, while there are exceptions, it is less common for people to make eye contact or chat with a stranger. There is someone I've known here for the whole of this year and when we have a conversation she still has difficulty with eye contact. I'm told she's a little afraid that she may get out of her depth with English.

All this has taught me something about myself. I have difficulty speaking with someone who is not making eye contact with me.

I asked a friend, 'What do I do? I look at someone but they avoid my gaze.' My friend suggested I simply say 'Hello, may I take your picture' and hope they understand English.

In Penang there are some old jetties on the waterfront close to the centre of Georgetown. Each one belongs to a particular Chinese clan. There are wooden houses built on stumps over the water. This is on the Western side of Penang Island which is close to the Malaysian mainland so the sea is usually fairly calm. The houses are connected to each other and the island by the jetties. Each one is like a self-contained village.

They have shops, temples and on some, tourists can even find accommodation.

I've never visited these jetties before and have intended to do so with my camera. So one Sunday recently we headed off. First we found the Lim family jetty. It was fairly quiet and we walked right to the end where there was a fisherman repairing a fish trap. We watched for a while and a few pleasant words were exchanged and I decided this man could be my first stranger in the project.

Lim Kah Soo is a resident of the Lim family jetty. He uses the traps he was repairing to catch grouper. We occasionally buy grouper from the local market. Perhaps he caught it. He was a friendly guy and even said that if we returned some time perhaps he could take us out in his boat.

Shortly another man turned up, greeted his friend the fisherman and said 'hello' to us also.

'Are you a fisherman too?' I asked.

'No. I'm retired. He's my friend. I've just come to visit.'

'Do you live on this jetty?'

'No, I live a long way out.'

I asked if I could take his photo and put it on the internet. He was happy about that. I figured this guy to be just a little older then me. I'm 63. But it is more challenging here for someone of that age to retire. 'How old are you?' I enquired.

His name is Yeoh Hock Hoe and he told me that he is 82.

'I hope I can look as healthy as you do when I reach 82,' I said.

Now I have my second stranger and I'm feeling more confident about this project.

As I add more pictures to the 100 Strangers project, you'll find them here. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers here.

Traditional medicine

2011-05-21T15:55:00.001+07:00

I have been asked by a friend for information on my experience with traditional medicines. As there are a few, I decided to write it as a blog. May be useful information for others too.

As a traveller I try to keep the weight of my packs down as much as possible. So I don't carry this stuff unless I believe in it. There are medicines I started using in Australia that I can't easily find in Asia so whenever I return to Australia I top up my supply.

Cold sores don't seem to bother me much these days but if they do, I always have tincture of calendula handy. Even in Australia this is not easy to find. I pick mine up from a pharmacy in Stones Corner, a Brisbane suburb. The pharmacist keeps it in stock for his wife (and me). Tincture of calendula is antiseptic but apparently has healing qualities too. If I get it onto a cold sore as soon as I feel the first itch it doesn't go any further. It's also good for mouth ulcers if you can stand the taste. I use it on any little skin sores or cuts too. When I was first working at Mahasarakham University a few years back I had friends teaching in the pharmacy department. They checked to see if it was available in Thailand. It wasn't.

If I have dry lips or any other minor skin irritations I dab on some pawpaw ointment. Never seen it anywhere but Australia.

I also carry tea tree oil as a general disinfectant for cuts and scratches.

I use citronella oil as an insect repellant. You have to reapply it regularly but it doesn't do any harm as far as I know. In the past I've brought this from Australia too but recently I picked some up in Penang at a much better price than I pay in Australia. I can also get it here in a spray pack for household use but I've never been able to find out if this product contains any other ingredients.

Years ago I started using rock deodorant in Australia. It too is an antiseptic and can be used in the early stages of cold sores or on other cuts such as from shaving. I've discovered I can pick up this product more cheaply in Asia than Australia. It is readily available in markets in Thailand. It's cheaper still and in a much rawer form in Cambodia.

I sometimes get skin rashes which seem to respond to nothing. Once when travelling with some friends in the southern part of Thailand we visited a hospital where they offered natural therapies to outpatients—mainly traditional Thai massage. They were selling a preparation that was suggested might help my rash. It did but somehow I lost the container. In those days I couldn't read Thai and I never knew what it was called. I've never found it again.

I have tried traditional Thai massage myself. Another Westerner teaching at Mahasarakham recommended a masseuse who practised it. My colleague highly recommended this person so I had her come and work on me many times until I had eventually to acknowledge that the treatment gave me more pain than I had without it. This made me quite wary of traditional massage (as against Western style massage). Recently while in Cambodia I was suffering from backache. There were a few massage places near where I was staying. I decided to give one a try. I thought I'd be able to explain that I wanted a Western-style massage but they spoke no English and my Khmer was very basic. The treatment was in some ways similar to what I'd had in Mahasarakham but in many ways different. The young woman who performed it was quite small and she even walked on my back. Yes at times it was a little painful but the end result was that I felt much better. I returned a few times. I've since had another massage in Thailand and this was something between what I had in Mahasarakham and what I had in Cambodia but no walking on the back. I'm pleased, she was quite a large woman. And once again it was OK. I felt better after the experience. Maybe the first woman was not doing a standard traditional Thai massage. Perhaps I'll approach traditional massage with a more open mind in future.

Other than as mentioned above, I have had very little to do with traditional medicines here in Asia. I know they are quite common and it is one of the courses available to students at Mahasarakham University.

2011-04-11T16:20:00.000+07:00

Gaye Harvey
19 April 1953
11 April 2011
'In my life I loved you more.'

Gaye

2011-03-11T10:34:00.002+07:00

Most of my friends and family will be aware that in September '09 I returned to Australia to take care of Gaye who is very dear to me and was said to be dying of cancer. At that time she had an operation which turned everything around and it seemed she was going to get better. She did reach a point when she was officially in remission. But the cancer never completely went away. Now the doctors can do no more. Gaye is no longer able to eat or drink by mouth and rather than face a slow death she has made a decision to turn off life support and allow nature to take its course. She is expected to die in the next few days.

Gaye is facing this remarkably well. I have been chatting on the phone with her a few times and she is in good spirit looking back positively on the life she's had—a truly remarkable woman. I'm honoured to have been able to share a part of my life with her.

Photography as art

2011-03-04T13:20:00.002+07:00

When I was much younger, I painted. Perhaps over the years I've become lazy and now I express myself with photography.

I wasn't the best artist around but I had certain principles that I worked by. At the time I was aware of artists who were very competent but they basically painted the same picture over and over with just a few minor changes; enough so that the person who bought it thought it was original. Perhaps they weren't particularly creative and they probably didn't improve much or learn much as artists but if you took a look at one of the many versions of their 'safe' painting you had to admit it was good.

I believe that art is about taking risks. My philosophy of art was that if I didn't learn something from each painting I created, I was wasting my time. My work wasn't conventional. I had to be pushing boundaries with each painting I created. This meant that probably none of my pictures looked perfect. I didn't care, that wasn't what I was aiming for. I never tried to sell my paintings. That wasn't my goal. I was doing them as a way of testing ideas I had about art. Was I any good? That's not for me to say but I did win some minor prizes in local art competitions and when I sat for the NSW Higher School Certificate my major work (shown here) helped to get me into the top 10% of art students for that year.

I believe that I can apply the same principles to photography. I feel I am more able to do this now that I have a camera that allows me to explore possibilities. Sure I take a lot of 'safe' shots too, especially when I want something quickly. But I enjoy myself most as a photographer when I take risks and push the boundaries. I often find when I admire another photographer's work and ask them how they achieved it that they have done so using mostly automatic settings. I'm trying to learn by using manual focus and other manual settings. It means that my pictures might not be as perfect as the photos of my friends but I'm learning just as I did with each of my paintings. I'm not aiming for 'safe' pictures. I'm aiming for something a little different. I don't want them all to look the same. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but if it fulfils my goal of learning something new each time, then I'm a happy photographer.

Donna at Barney Downs
John Shield, acrylic on canvas, 1980

My photos

Is the post office obsolete?

2011-01-14T13:56:00.001+07:00

I know that email must have almost done the post office out of business but it seems that if you need the services of the post office you still need to queue.

In my ageing family I am fortunate to have two sisters. The older of the two is quite computer literate and easy to contact by email (except when her computer was down recently). The younger chooses to not use the internet. If we want to stay in touch while I'm off in Asia we have to use snail mail. This has not been proving too easy since I've been staying in Malaysia.

I managed to get one letter off to her advising of my new address and soon after there was a reply in my mailbox. I was pleased. It is good to know that my mailbox actually works for things other than junkmail and electricity bills.

Posting the reply is not an easy matter. My local shopping centre is about 1 kilometre from my unit—a hilly kilometre. I don't mind the walk occasionally. Coming back up the hill gets my heart pumping. I'm sure that's good for me. Last time I went to the supermarket I asked where the nearest post office is. It's another couple of kilometres towards town. I prefer to not walk that. I could take the bus. Actually, I think that might be simpler. My friend rang me the other day. She had to go to that same post office. I needed to post the warranty forms for my two new cameras. She said she'd pick me up. When we got there we drove around all the nearby blocks and there was no parking. Outside the post office there is a clamp zone but there are cars parked there. So she parked and I stayed in the car while she went into the PO. Not sure what I could do as I have neither an international nor Malaysian license at the moment. I think she was gone for 20 minutes or more. There were cops on the other side of the road but they didn't come over our side. Eventually she returned and we hadn't been clamped or booked. : ) It cost 60 cents Malaysian (Australian 20 cents) to post the letter. But soooooo much trouble. Puts me off writing letters.

Fortunately my computer literate sister has come to the rescue. Now I email my letter to her, she prints it and mails it to our sister. Fortunately it's easier to use an Australian post office than a Malaysian one. Problem solved.

My two new cameras

2011-01-08T18:43:00.004+07:00

Last June, I wrote a few thoughts on buying my next camera. It's taken a while but I have finally bought myself a Panasonic G2. I bought the twin-lens kit and one extra lens, the 20 mm, f1.7 pancake lens.

I already wrote in the earlier blog why I liked the G2 and so far I am not disappointed. I do, however, have a lot to learn as this is my first interchangeable-lens camera. What I didn't mention in that blog was the one shortcoming that is mentioned in any review of this camera, ie it is not equal to an SLR in low-light situations. That's one of the reasons I bought the extra lens. At f1.7, this lens lets in a lot of light. It is also good for getting a bit of background blur happening.

I took it out with me one night recently and took this shot of some fried noodles with chicken and vegetables. This was taken in an outdoor food court with artificial lighting. I used no flash. Photos I took of people on the same evening look just as good. The fz20 made me a fan of zoom. This lens has no zoom. All shots are taken at 20 mm (equal to 40mm on an SLR). And I'm loving it.

Like most cameras this camera has burst mode for when you want to take a sequence of photos of a subject. I tried that on a portrait shot and the photos come so quickly there is almost no difference from one to the next. I've decided that burst mode is almost superfluous. In normal shooting mode this camera will take 3.2 photos per second. Before I got used to this I sometimes took two photos of the subject because I held the shutter button for too long. Now I use this for burst. I can hold the button down and shoot off five or more pics in quick succession.

For some time I've already had a second camera, a Panasonic fx3, which I bought in 2007. I bought it because it is small and I can take it everywhere and I never have to miss a shot. But it has limitations. The zoom is only 3x and it has no manual controls so if I want to get something a little better in quality out of it, it is limited. I've written about this in these blogs some time back, here and here. When I last left Australia I left the fz20 behind knowing that I would eventually buy another camera. For about six months I've been challenged by the limitations of the fx3. So now I've bought another second camera or should I say a fourth camera.

The Panasonic TZ10 is fairly compact but not so compact as the fx3. It has a 3" LCD and 12x optical zoom. It also has most of the manual controls that you would expect in a serious camera. In many ways it does as good a job as my old fz20 but comes in a much smaller package. Technology has improved in the six years between these cameras. Even when I take the Panasonic G2 with me, I still take the TZ10. I'm anticipating a situation when I'm taking a shot of a flower and in the distance I see a bird in a tree. By time I swap to a long-zoom lens it might have flown. But I can grab the TZ10 and get a quick shot. For the cost of the TZ10 I might have bought another lens for the G2. The TZ10 is roughly the size and weight of some lenses and by carrying it I feel I get a lot more flexibility.

With each camera I got an 8GB memory card. That gives me a total of about 3,000 shots on the two cards. The cards are interchangeable between the two cameras. I know some people store all their photos on their memory card. I don't. I download and delete regularly. I can take a lot of shots on whichever camera I wish before I run out of memory.

Photos taken with these cameras are starting to appear on my flickr page. If you compare them with some of what I've taken with the fx3 over the last six months I trust you'll be able to see some improvement.

Beware of little prawns

2010-12-21T10:13:00.001+07:00

There is a food court near my present home in Penang where there is a stall selling Thai dishes. The first time I went there I tried speaking in Thai but the woman did not understand me. Later I heard some of the others on the stall speaking Thai. Since then I always order my food in Thai. I enjoy practising Thai. I don't want to lose it.

Recently I was disappointed to find the Thai stall was having a day off. I looked around to see what else was on offer. One stall offered a dish called 'Thai noodles'. The photo looked like Pad Thai and had a couple of prawns on top.

'Is this Pad Thai?' I asked. It was, so I started to explain that I didn't want prawns or peanuts. The woman seemed a little confused and when she spoke I think she dropped in a Thai word. Not sure but somehow I got the impression she might be Thai, so I asked, 'Khun pen khon Thai mai khrap?' Are you Thai?

She was, so I was able to order it properly and she understood. At least she seemed to. But after the meal was delivered I started eating it and had eaten a bit when I realised that the little red things were small prawns, what they call 'goong lek'. Fortunately my allergy is not too sensitive these days. I was able to pick out all the little prawns and eat most of the rest of the dish.

I'd finished my meal and was drinking some juice when the woman came walking past. She smiled. 'Me goong lek,' I said to her. 'Phom pare goong.' It had small prawns. I'm allergic to prawns. She looked very embarrassed and started rambling on in Thai much to fast for me to understand her but she ended by saying in English, 'Sorry'. I guess she understands now so perhaps I'll give her another try in the future.

The serviette index

2010-11-10T10:48:00.003+07:00

At the moment I am in Cambodia, a country considered to be one of the least developed in Asia.

Prior to coming here I was in Malaysia. While I was in Melaka there was a celebration because the state of Melaka had achieved developed status. One English-language newspaper had a supplement celebrating this occasion. A whole page was devoted to listing the criteria by which Melaka could be compared with developed countries and found to also be developed.

There was one criteria that I believe was missing. That is the serviette index.

In Asia, dining out is the norm. More often than not it is cheaper to dine out than to eat at home. So why go to all the trouble of preparing a meal? I'm not suggesting that everyone always dines in classy restaurants. Most people don't. They buy street food or something that is just one step above that. The food is still good. But you're not paying for classy surroundings. In Malaysia there are food courts, independent of malls, that sell a wide variety of foods at reasonable prices. This is where many Malaysian people eat on a daily basis.

Until my recent visit, I've had three years of spending very little time in Malaysia. Prior to that I'd stayed in Malaysia for months at a stretch. What I noticed on my return was that most of these cheaper eating places, including many restaurants, no longer provide serviettes.

OK, let's get this straight. You don't get a real serviette in any but the more expensive restaurants and there you still do. In the others, the cheaper restaurants, the food courts and the street establishments, you used to get tissues. They do the job. You finish the meal and you need something to wipe your mouth and fingers. A tissue is all you need. There used always to be a plastic box of tissues on the table and you helped yourself.

They're no longer there.

I asked my friends, 'Has this changed or is my memory deceiving me?'

My friends told me that in recent years tissues have gradually disappeared from the tables of all these cheaper eating places. You need to bring your own.

There is one place in Melaka where I used to eat regularly when I stayed there before. The first night I went there on my return the woman who ran the place didn't seem to recognise me. But the second night she seemed to be staring at me a lot. When I went to pay my bill she said, 'How come you not come long time?'

This place is the exception. They still have proper paper serviettes. Not tissues but real serviette-sized thick folded paper for wiping your face and hands. But they don't leave it on the tables. They have it on the counter.

At this restaurant I recognised a guy, about my age, who seemed to eat there every night. He stares straight at me every night but can't so much as nod. And this guy, I noticed on several nights, goes to the counter and casually takes a bundle of serviettes, folds them and puts them in his pocket. Perhaps it's because of people like him that the other places have stopped providing tissues.

But now back in Cambodia everywhere I eat, even the cheapest street stalls, they always provide a box of tissues. If there was a serviette index for measuring development, Cambodia would be considered a more developed country than Malaysia.

I know where it is—yeah sure

2010-11-09T09:12:00.000+07:00

My return appointment, and hopefully my last one, with the dentist was for 3 pm. When I have a morning appointment I usually walk the kilometre or so. I enjoy walking. It gives me the opportunity to see this city, it gives me exercise and it gives me the opportunity to take a few photos. But walking in the heat in the early afternoon has less appeal. I decided to take a moto (motorcycle taxi).

They are usually everywhere. No sooner have you told one that you don't want him then another starts badgering you. I walked out of the guesthouse expecting to be surrounded but no. When you want them, where are they? Actually there was one there. He was doing a bit of maintenance on his bike and hadn't seen me. But he was only too happy to take me.

I have a business card from my dentist. On the back is printed a map, with wording in Khmer, showing how to find the surgery. The moto takes it from me looking at it upside down.

'I know. I know. It's near Wat Phnom,' he says, pointing in the opposite direction.

I turn the map around. Perhaps he doesn't read Khmer. Maybe he never went to school. I carefully point out all the landmarks to him and explain where it is. 'Yes, yes,' he can handle it.

He's a nice guy. We chat on the way there. He speaks good English. But I just think it's a pity a foreigner has to show a moto the way around this city.

Life in Phnom Penh

2010-11-07T09:48:00.002+07:00

I'm back in Phnom Penh, back to the dentist. My appointment is 10.00 am but thanks to running on Malaysian time I'm there at 9.00 am. He often has no one at this time, I might get in anyway. Besides I brought my book with me, didn't I?

Well, he already had a patient and when I checked my bag I didn't have my book after all so I headed around the corner to where there is usually a young woman selling English-language newspapers outside Lucky Supermarket. The vendor is there and also a middle-aged woman with two small kids, begging.

'How much is Cambodia Daily,' I ask.

'1,500 reil.'

'But on the cover it says "1,200",' I point out.

'Yes, 300 for me.' She can't be more upfront than that, can she? I know that when she sells the Phnom Penh Post she charges the cover price. I guess whoever she gets the Dailies from doesn't allow her a margin. And 300 reil is less than 10 cents. I give her the money.

All the time this transaction is taking place there is a two-year-old kid at my ankles with his hand out asking for money. Without paying him much attention I interrupt my purchasing a couple of times to say 'no'. When I have my paper in my hand, he's still there with his hand out. I look him in the eyes, 'Ot tay.'

He obviously understands Khmer because now he backs off. The mother/aunt/grandmother smiles at me with betel-stained teeth.

Taxi ripoffs

2010-11-02T19:16:00.001+07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was in Kuala Lumpur and wanted to go to Melaka. I was staying in the Chinatown-Petaling Street area and the bus station was just around the corner. Or so I thought. When I got there with my far too many bags I could see that the entrance I usually used was closed. I asked a passerby how to get inside. 'Oh, it's closed. They're rebuilding it.'

I asked where I needed to go to get a bus to Melaka. Fortunately I was more or less outside a railway station on the line that would take me to the temporary bus station. I didn't have a deadline and it was still early in the day so not a big deal. When I got off the train I had to walk perhaps 200 metres to the bus station. The bus fare to Melaka was about RM12 (about A$4).

The Melaka bus station is no longer in the centre of Melaka. Unfortunately these days, it seems, bus stations are not being built in the centre of cities, or downtown as the Americans say, they are built out in the suburbs. When I first went to Melaka the bus station was in the Hung Tuah area which was not all that far from Chinatown. If that was where you were heading you could walk assuming you knew the way. It's still walkable from the new bus station but only to a long-distance trekker with a boy to carry his luggage. Now there are taxis to take the rest of us there. There are also buses if you know which one to get and I do but this time I was carrying way too many bags and felt I really needed a taxi.

But I needed something else even more when the bus pulled into the bus station. I needed to eat. So when the taxi tout approached this skinny guy with far too may bags I was able to say 'No, I'm going to eat first.' That was only postponing the inevitable. So I returned a while later and tried to negotiate a fare. It didn't matter who I asked. The fare was RM30. I pointed out that I'd travelled all the way from KL for only RM12 and that paying RM30 to go the last two or three kilometres was absolutely crazy. But they wouldn't budge. I didn't like either of the other options, ie bussing or walking so I shut up and paid up. BTW, taxis in Melaka don't have meters.

I had a delightful two weeks in Melaka. I had forgotten how much I love this place. Eventually it was time to return to KL and the guesthouse rang a taxi to get me to the bus station. When he turned up, I asked how much.

'Fifteen ringgit'.

I'd already put my far-too-many bags in his boot. He could have asked for 30 or maybe more. But this time it seemed I'd got one of the honest taxi drivers. I trust there are a few more of them.

When the bus reached the bus station in suburban KL there were half a dozen taxi touts waiting at the door. I was the last to get off. There was only one tout left. 'Where you go? You want taxi?'

'No, thank you. I'm getting the train.'

'Train? No train here. You have to walk six kilometres.'

'Bullshit,' I said, grabbed my far too many bags from the hold of the bus and walked past him. Ten minutes later I was on a train on the way to Chinatown.

Making merit

2010-10-27T14:49:00.002+07:00

When I first started spending time in Asia I was drawn to the many beautiful temples in Thailand. At the same time I couldn't help noticing how many people in that country live in poverty. Eventually I came to realise that the reason the temples were so elaborate was that people would give money to the temple building fund in order to make merit. Money was often given for the building of new temples but nothing would be given to maintain old ones so they were often left in disrepair.

Everyday Buddhist practice in Asia depends on the interpretation placed on the teachings. The concept that we in the West usually refer to as karma may have a slightly different interpretation in Asian countries.

Most Asians who consider themselves at least nominally to be Buddhists place a lot of emphasis on the practice of making merit. The belief is based on the principle of what goes around comes around; what you give out, you get back. Most Buddhists are not seeking enlightenment in this life. They generally believe there are a few more lives on their way after this one and they see it as a gradual process. By making enough merit in this life they hope to be born into a better life next time around.

Practices that are adopted for the making of merit include donating to temple building funds and feeding the monks. But do these donations actually bring much benefit to anyone? I know monks in some temples barely have enough to eat but in others food is thrown away. I recently visited a temple in Malaysia which was a huge complex and the building was just going on and on and on—another pagoda, more Buddha images, a huge statue of Kwan Yin. And everywhere there were notices encouraging visitors to donate to the building fund. The same temple had many shops around the complex selling items of worship or perhaps more accurately, souvenirs. It seemed obvious to me that this was a huge money-making concern. Some of these buildings were being used at times for teaching dhamma but I suspect most served very little practical purpose.

When I was in China I found that many old temples had been beautifully restored and they charged admission to tourists. Chinese people were queueing to get into such temples. And yet when I wandered into another temple there was no entry fee. There were no tourists there but many people were busy actually doing things that might be considered as practicing dhamma. I felt a much warmer atmosphere in this temple than those being used as a tourist attraction.

In another temple in another Chinese city I noticed there were many monks and nuns entering a pagoda meeting hall. I struck up a conversation with a monk who could speak English. He told me there was a conference to discuss the problem of commercialisation of Buddhism. Apparently what was happening was that businessmen would invest money for the restoration of an old temple and later they would get a cut from the entry fees paid by tourists.

Another supposedly merit making process involves the release of captive wildlife. There will be a market outside a temple. A vendor will sell you a cage full of birds which you then liberate. You feel good because you've freed the birds. But unless there was a market created by this practice the birds would not be captive in the first place.

Many markets also sell tortoises for 'liberation'. The tortoises already had their freedom in the wild but someone caught them so they could then sell them in the market for releasing, hopefully back into the wild. This process gets even more crazy.
The large temple complex I mentioned above has a 'tortoise liberation pond'. People bring the tortoises to the temple and they think they will make merit by 'liberating' the tortoises into this extremely overcrowded pond from which they have no escape. If only someone would liberate the thousands of tortoises from the liberation pond.

It's not all like that though. In one temple I bought some home-made cookies. As the woman took my money she said that the money raised from the sale of cookies supported the orphanage. I'd much rather contribute to an orphanage than a building fund.

If you've been reading this blog for some time you'll know that in the past I've done volunteer work for Tzu Chi. This organisation encourages supporters to make merit by donating to their charity work that really does help people in need in what I'd like to believe is the true spirit of Buddhism.

I'd like to end today by paraphrasing Buddhadassa who said that the Buddha said that a glimmer of mindfulness makes more merit than to feed the entire sangha and the Buddha himself.

No hippies

2010-10-25T11:13:00.001+07:00

When I crossed the border from Thailand into Malaysia on the Bangkok - Butterworth line, while I was waiting in line on the Thai side I noticed this sign.

Notice

By virtue of section 16 the Immigration Act BE 2522 (1979), the minister interior issues the following order to identify an alien with 'hippy' characteristic.

1. A person who wears just a singlet or waistcoat without inner wear.
2. A person who wears shorts which are not respectable.
3. A person who wears any type of slipper or wooden sandals, except when these are part of national costume.
4. A person who wears silk pants that do not look respectable.
5. A person who has long hair that appears untidy and dirty.
6. A person who is dressed in impolite and dirty-looking manner.

An alien with such characteristics will be prohibited from entering the kingdom. If an alien has the above characteristics after entering the kingdom he will be immediately deport.

So guys, you've been warned. If you're planning on visiting Thailand, smarten up.

Express to Butterworh

2010-10-23T12:30:00.002+07:00

The Thais have a way of using English that makes everything sound better than it really is. I used to stay in Jirapong Apartments. My 'apartment' was a single room with an attached bath and a balcony. But Jirapong Rooms doesn't sound quite so classy. There are often developments called Somethingorother Mansions. These 'mansions' are usually just normal bungalows. Once again, I'm sure you'd prefer to live in a mansion than a bungalow.

Recently I took the Bangkok Butterworth Express. Just to be sure, I checked the 'New Oxford American Dictionary' that came with my computer. It says that 'express' comes

from express train, so named because it served a particular destination without intermediate stops, reflecting an earlier sense of express [done or made for a special purpose,] later interpreted in the sense ‘rapid.’

Without immediate stops? Let me assure you that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bangkok Butterworth Express. We stopped at every two-bit station between Bangkok and Butterworth. And once we crossed the border into Malaysia I noticed that we often pulled off onto a sideline to allow a freight train coming in the other direction to pass. At times we had to wait there on the sideline for some time. Perhaps the freight train was running late and no doubt it is more important than a mere express train.

And rapid? Let me assure you there was nothing speedy about the way this train moved between the two B cities.

But who am I to complain? I had a whole bunk bed to myself and it was comfortable. We got to Butterworth within two hours of the scheduled time and my friends who had offered to pick me up were still patiently waiting.

So, now I'm in Malaysia until my next express journey.

Proud to be humble

2010-09-19T11:07:00.001+07:00

My mother seemed to think that pride was one of the worst sins. And if we are talking about excessive pride then I have to agree that it does not make a person attractive to others. However, if we ever said anything positive about ourselves we were put in our place. It seemed that even the smallest amount of pride was a sin. I suspect that what I say is right about many of my generation, we grew up with very low self esteem because every time we felt good about ourselves it triggered a follow-on feeling of guilt.

I want 'proud' to stop being a dirty word because if we can do that we can start being honest. I'm hearing so many people saying these days 'I felt humbled' when under the circumstances they are describing they should be saying 'I felt proud'.

My dictionary defines humble as 'having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance'. If someone has just paid you a big compliment or said something that acknowledged your ability in some way, why would that make you be humble? Let's be honest. There is nothing wrong with admitting a little pride. Let's cut the bullshit and without getting carried away by it all simply say 'I felt proud.'

Not a review

2010-09-16T14:43:00.001+07:00

For some time I have been feeling a need to respond to the books I'm reading. I don't want to commit myself to being a book reviewer. My reading is quite diverse and is certainly not just new releases. I've therefore decided to start a new blog called 'Not a review' in which I can indulge myself with my thoughts that perhaps agree or perhaps argue with the writer. If you're interested, you'll find the page here.

Getting out of Pakse

2010-09-12T10:37:00.001+07:00

I had no real purpose in coming to Pakse. It was just where the bus happened to stop on the way from Phnom Penh to Vientiane. Still, I decided to stay a couple of nights as I was in no hurry to go on. While in town I inquired about my options for travelling on to Vientiane.

Apparently there is what is known as a local bus. It is very basic, non-aircon and stops at every little place along the way. If I wanted to take a few days to see Laos stopping here and there perhaps that would be the way to go but I'd set my mind on getting to Vientiane and the only other way was the sleeping bus.

As far as I know, there are two bus companies operating sleeping buses between Pakse and Vientiane. I chose the one that the travelfish website said would take you all the way into Vientiane. The bus station is actually on the edge of Vientiane, perhaps about 10 km out. You think you've bought a ticket to Vientiane but once you get to the bus depot you still have to get to Vientiane.

The bus leaves at 8 pm. I needed to checkout of my guesthouse by midday. I didn't want to be taking tuk-tuks back and forth. I decided to pack my stuff and head off to the bus station at midday and then decide what to do with the rest of the day. I went outside the guesthouse and found a seat under a shady tree and just sat. I had plenty of time.

After five minutes a samlor came along. This is the same kind of vehicle that had brought me into the guesthouse from the bus station. To me a samlor is a pedicab; a three-wheeled cycle with a seat for a passenger in front of, alongside or behind the driver. This one was a motorcycle with a sidecar. The roof of the sidecar was the same style as on cycle samlors found elsewhere. I wasn't sure what to call this vehicle. After, I asked some tuk-tuk drivers and they told me 'samlor'.

I had already checked out the going rate to get to the bus station with the guesthouse manager. He told me to expect to pay about 6,000 kip. I asked the driver if he knew the Kriang Kai bus station. At first he didn't but when I changed my pronunciation (kree ung kai) he did. He was ready to throw my bags on board. They do this. They just want to get going, get you to the destination, we can discuss the fare later. But no, I said. How much? 20,000 kip. It would be easy to just pay this amount and be done with it. It wouldn't break me but I had plenty of time and I don't like to be ripped off. No, I said.

How much you pay?

5,000 kip.

10,000 he came back with. Amazing isn't it. A minute ago he's asking 20,000 and now he is ready to accept 10,000. What would he have charged me if I'd gone without negotiating?

As I said, I had plenty of time. I stuck to 5,000.

He sat there for five minutes. He asked again, 10,000? I said 5. He drove off.

Five minutes later he returned. 7,000 he said. I agreed and off we went.

At the bus station I bought my ticket. The woman spoke reasonable English. She offered me top or bottom bunk; front or back of the bus but beyond this made no effort to explain ticket options. My fare was 150,000 kip. On the ticket she wrote in English 'DOUBLE'. Fair enough, I thought.

I noticed there was an internet cafe there but first I went off to a food stall and got some lunch. At the internet cafe I was able to plug in my own computer, upload some photos and answer a few emails. It wasn't airconditioned but there was a fan. I was happy except that the woman running the place kept playing online games that played repetitive loud music. That was giving me encouragement to cut my time short but after a while she stopped so I stayed online long enough to do all I needed and my computer battery had almost expired.

When I came out the sky was full of rain clouds and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. It was now not unpleasant to sit in the semi-open waiting area so I got a book out of my bag and sat and read for most of the afternoon. After the storm had finished I went and visited the market next to the bus station. I was able to amuse myself one way or another until it was time to get on the bus.

By time I got on board most of the other passengers had already done so. I showed the conductor my ticket. She pointed to a bed. The beds are all roughly equal to the size of a regular single bed but in most of them there are two people. The bed she pointed me towards had a young man already lying on it. I have double I said. But she didn't speak English and wasn't interested in discussing it. Laos people have a great knack of ignoring you when they don't want to get involved. I was left to make the most of half of a single bed.

I wasn't impressed. But perhaps the young man wasn't impressed to be sharing with me. I don't know. The point is that if I had been given the option I would have chosen to pay to have the whole bed to myself. This option was not offered to me. Perhaps in a communist country such as Laos it is normal to share ones bed with ones comrades.

And I should have known better. I should have known that the English used by people in their own country does not necessarily have the same meaning as we use in the rest of the world. I had learned something. Now I know that in Laos 'double' means you share a single bed with a stranger.

The challenge for me was that I had brought my technology bag with me. It was too big to fit on the rack provided so I had to put it at my feet, greatly reducing my leg room. Eventually I was able to work out a way to stretch my legs. Perhaps I stole a little of the young man's room but he didn't complain. I slept reasonably through the night. The driver rarely, if ever, sounded the horn. Once I got used to the road noise and the swaying it was not too uncomfortable.

When I woke at about 5.45 am we were driving through suburbia and it was raining heavily. We arrived at the bus terminal on time. There was water about two inches deep where the bus pulled in.

There was no option of being taken into town as the travelfish site had said. I had to get a sorngtheau. Set price was 20,000 kip. It took a while before we left. The sorngtheu wasn't leaving until he had a full load. It seemed that on the way into town he dropped all the locals at their homes so the trip into town was not exactly a fast one.

I met my friend, Chantelle at a fountain near the centre of town. We had breakfast before she went onto work and I spent a relaxing day at her house that overlooks the Mekong River.

Rules of the guesthouse

2010-09-11T10:52:00.003+07:00

This notice was on the back of the door of my guesthouse in Pakse. I post it here for the benefit of other travellers. If you have difficulty reading it, click on it for a larger version.

Phnom Penh's new transport system

2010-09-10T11:05:00.003+07:00

When I think about the issues in Phnom Penh that make it difficult for anyone to get around I am aware that there is a lack of transport infrastructure. Phnom Penh is a city of 2,000,000 people but it has no co-ordinated public transport system that I am aware of. I have a dream that before they start building too many tall buildings, which is happening, they could put in an underground rail network. This would provide regular meaningful work for so many people but somehow I just don't see it happening.

At the moment I am in Pakse, a Lao city much smaller than Phnom Penh and what I see in Pakse are sorngtheaus. It hit me. This is the answer for Phnom Penh. The word sorngtheau means 'two rows'. Basically a sorngtheau is a pick-up truck with a roof over the back and two rows of seats. In a town like Mahasarakham I can travel from one end of town to the other on a sorngtheau for eight baht. Every medium-sized Thai town has a system of sorngtheaus which gets people around the town quickly and cheaply.

Surely the investment in such a system is not huge. I am aware that Phnom Penh is looking more prosperous than it was eighteen months ago. Previously, new cars were relatively rare. Now there are many. The last guesthouse I stayed in in Phnom Penh this visit is owned and operated by a man who has been living in Australia for about twenty years. He returned to Phnom Penh a relatively rich man. There must be many such people, Cambodians who have migrated to Western countries and been successful. They can now return to Cambodia and create a new middle class.

Perhaps such a person would be able to invest in Phnom Penh's new sorngtheau transport system. Hopefully the government would see the value of this and give support to such a person.

Getting to Laos

2010-09-08T14:54:00.003+07:00

Originally I thought I would have to go to the Laos embassy in Phnom Penh for my visa. At most land crossings into Laos it is possible to get a 30-day tourist visa on entry. The route I was taking, from Phnom Penh to Vientiane via Pakse did not, until recently, have a visa facility at the border. Online reports suggested this may have changed but it was not certain. I had advice from two people that it was definitely possible, so I decided against making the trip to the embassy—actually it would have been two trips on a moto. This option seems to be much better.

The distance between the two capitals is apparently less than 800 kilometres. My first thought was that it should take about 12 hours. That wasn't really smart on my part because I have a lot of experience with Cambodian roads. I should have known better. Perhaps it was wishful thinking.

There is a bus that leaves from Sorya bus depot every morning at 6.45 am. It costs US$45 to go to Vientiane and $27 to Pakse. When I checked the arrival time with the ticket seller, she told me 24 hours. 24 hours! How could that be!? I simply did not want to believe it. And that would mean staying overnight on a bus. I've only ever once done an overnight bus trip. It was horrible. I didn't want to do it again.

Eventually I decided on a ticket to Pakse. That is a 12-hour trip. I figured I'd get off in Pakse stay overnight and then get a day bus the rest of the way the next day. So, yesterday morning I set off. Sorya bus station is only a few blocks from my guesthouse in Phnom Penh but I'm carrying far too much at the moment so I relented and took a tuk-tuk. I didn't want to do my back in before I started.

When I got on the bus I was pleasantly surprised. The seats were quite wide and comfortable. I was in the second row. The front row was raised as it was above the driver. This meant that the view to the front was obscured to me as would oncoming headlights be. And somehow the arrangement gave my seat lots of leg room. I was pretty content and even started thinking that maybe I could cope with overnight on this bus.

Most of the seats were empty including the one next to me. I even had space to spread out. However, along the way the bus stopped and picked up passengers and also dropped them off. I had the company of a pleasant young Belgian lady for a few hours but for the rest of the journey the seat was empty.
I sat back and watched the view, taking the occasional picture. We crossed lots of rivers and passed through many flooded fields. We also passed through towns and villages and rice fields. I really enjoy the Cambodian countryside. Just before 4.00 pm we reached the border.

Cleared the Cambodian immigration, no problem. Paid the $1 fee that these guys charge for doing their job. They were most obliging and even accepted it in reil. Walked the 100 metre no mans land in the hot sun. Filled out a form to state I didn't have any flu symptoms and presented my fee and papers for the Laos visa (including the extra fee here also). The hardest part was that I had to stand on a west-facing verandah in the hot sun and it takes about ten minutes. I was lucky, I got in first. The dawdlers had to wait while everyone else was processed. Altogether it took about an hour.

I see there are buildings under construction. I trust this rather primitive system is only a temporary one.

We had a couple more hours of driving on Laos roads which are much better than on the Cambodian side of the border. I'd also say that on average the Laos housing was slightly better than Cambodian. There seemed to be fewer vehicles on the road. There weren't so many rice fields and there was a lot more bush.

I had still been thinking about staying on this bus but I noticed that on the Laos side of the border the driver beeped his horn much more. Are Laos drivers more dreamy? They seem to be. Also the conductor told me that it was a different bus from Pakse on. That convinced me that I wanted to get off at Pakse.

Eventually we reached Pakse and I discovered that the onward bus was a 'sleeping bus'. It had proper bunks rather than reclining seats. But I grabbed a moto with a sidecar and headed for my guesthouse. I'd got a couple of names from the travelfish site. I rejected the Narin Thachalern Hotel. The fan room did not have any window or ventilation. When I lay on the bed I could feel the springs sticking into me. No thank you. I ended up at Sedone River Guesthouse. It is very basic but has a firm bed that suits me and after Phnom Penh, it is incredibly quiet. : )

I decided to stay a second night because I didn't want to be rushing in the morning to find a bus. After I paid for the second night I asked about buses to Vientiane. There is very little choice. There are two bus companies and both offer only sleeping buses that travel at night. There are no day buses. I have to wait until Thursday evening and will still have to endure a night on a bus.

Teaching violence

2010-09-05T10:43:00.001+07:00

Two recent incidents in the news in Thailand have been getting a few comments in online forums.

First a teacher was charged for caning students. A student filmed the act on his mobile-phone camera. The film showed the teacher, who really looked like he was enjoying it, swinging the cane wildly before bringing it down on each boy's bottom. There were also shots showing the bruises left by the caning. The students' crime? Their dormitory rooms were untidy.

In a separate incident, a nine-year-old boy was shot dead while leaving a Bangkok bus on his way to school. There was apparently a gang war between students from two different schools and this unfortunate kid got in the way.

Some of the forum posters suggested that the reason there are gang wars is that there is not enough discipline and that kids should be caned more to make them behave themselves. I disagree strongly and would like to explain why.

I believe that one of the most powerful teaching tools is demonstration, ie kids learn from what is demonstrated to them at home and in the world at large. This has been shown, for example, with literacy. There has been much research to show that children who come from homes where parents are seen to read and write regularly are more likely to do well at reading and writing tasks at school.

I believe that if we want to stop this gang warfare that occurs in Australia, perhaps as much as in Thailand, we need to ask what we demonstrate to our children about the use of violence.

If we demonstrate that when we have a problem with someone, we smack them or beat them then the child grows up believing that violence is a way to solve problems.

If we demonstrate that we can exert our power over another who is smaller than us, the child grows up looking for smaller or weaker people to bully.

If we demonstrate that we are more powerful because we have a weapon, the child who wants to be powerful will be looking to acquire weapons.

If we sit at home with our children watching movies where violence is seen as a solution to a problem, the children are learning that violence is the best solution to problems.

If our children watch the news every night and see people with shirts of one colour or another challenging authority with violence then they may grow up believing that they have a right to use violence to get their needs met.

On the other hand, if we demonstrate that we can have rational discussions with our children; that we can set clear boundaries so they know what they should and shouldn't do; that there are rewards and punishments that are fair and understood and administered fairly and consistently then there is some hope that our children will inherit a peaceful society where one can catch a bus without the fear of being shot.

Gallery plug

2010-09-01T17:06:00.001+07:00

If you take my advice and come to visit Cambodia and you ignore my advice and spend time in Phnom Penh then I would like to suggest an art gallery for you to visit. Most art galleries have hand produced copies of copies of copies of rural and Angkor scenes. What you see in one is almost the same as the next. Over the years I've spent a lot of time in Phnom Penh and so far I have only noticed one art gallery displaying original work. The work still draws on Khmer traditions but they are interpreted creatively. The gallery is situated diagonally across from the entrance to the National Museum (also worth a visit). It's called Asasax Art Gallery. I trust you will enjoy it.

Death in the morning

2010-08-29T18:15:00.001+07:00

If you are a regular reader of these blogs you will know that one of the things that puts me off living in Cambodia is the loud noise associated with weddings and funerals. Being here at this time of year is a conscious choice. It's the rainy season. Most weddings are held in the outdoors and people don't often get married in the rainy season. Unfortunately most people don't have the luxury of choosing the time of their death.

When I left for Phnom Penh last week I noticed the sounds of a funeral starting up and was pleased to be missing it. After I returned to Kompong Chhnang I noticed music was being played from loudspeakers across the road—another funeral—a few nights ago. It didn't go too late into the evening so I was quite pleased. This warning also meant I could be prepared for the morning. I had my iPod and headphones ready. I bought them specifically for this purpose. When the music started up again at 4 am I was ready. The music I was playing did not drown out the external noise. I didn't want to burst my eardrums so I put up with a little of their noise seeping in. But at least I had something else to concentrate on. It was bearable but only just. When the mournful howling songs started at 4.30 it was a bit much but I survived.

Later I was told the story of the death. My informant speaks only passable English so maybe I didn't get the details correct but here is the gist of the story.

The man concerned was a father of five. I don't know how old he was. He drove a remorque moto, a Cambodian form of public transport with a motorcycle pulling a box trailer. His route took him to another town in the direction of Phnom Penh.

Coming in the opposite direction in the early hours of the morning was a truck returning from delivering a load of contraband timber taken from a national park to Phnom Penh. Perhaps the driver had been driving through the night so as not to be seen with his illicit load and in the early hours of the morning he fell asleep at the wheel and veered across the road right into the remorque moto which was pulled over on the side of the road.

The moto driver and his son were on board and were both injured, the father seriously. An ambulance was called. And here my informant veered off into a side story of how a spotter's fee is paid to the person who calls an ambulance. Apparently the ambulance passenger is charged a large sum of money for the journey. But the father died soon after he arrived at the hospital in Phnom Penh. The family was expected to pay another fee to bring the body back to Kompong Chhnang otherwise the hospital would sell the body for use in scientific experiments to recoup the costs.

Apparently the family paid up so they did have a body to cremate. But it all sounded rather tragic and helped me to understand the mournful singing.

Profit making on the buses

2010-08-25T16:40:00.001+07:00

I found my dentist. His surgery is in another part of town but still walkable from International Guest House. I had my first appointment with him on Monday morning. I need to return for root-canal treatment twice a week for about three weeks. He'll be working on the tooth next to the one that the dentist in Mahasarakham treated and crowning them both.

After my Monday morning appointment I took the bus to Kompong Chhnang. The KC bus service no longer operates. If you want to get a bus to KC now, you have to take one of the buses that goes to the towns beyond Kompong Chhnang. The Soriya Bus Service has made a few other changes too. I always wondered if the bus service made money. The bus was staffed by a driver and a conductor. Most people got on the bus at Phnom Penh (on the outward journey anyway) and paid at the bus station. So the conductor's main duty was to check your ticket as you got on the bus. They usually picked up one or two passengers along the 90 kilometre journey. But the conductor was hardly run off her feet.

In Thailand they have a similar system but the conductors who dress up like flight attendants serve you refreshments, such as they are. Even then I think they're superfluous.

I always wondered if Soriya trust their staff because once or twice along the way an inspector would get on to check the tickets. So there were a lot of people employed on those buses.

But this has all changed. We no longer have the little school-bus sized vehicle on the KC run. We get a real bus with comfortable full-size seats. I bought my ticket at the counter in Phnom Penh and showed it to the conductor who left the bus before it left the terminus. There were no ticket inspections. I had a comfortable ride and arrived in KC just before a mother of a storm hit.

I headed for Holiday Guesthouse but it's not there anymore. Never mind, they still have rooms and are happy to accommodate an old friend.

I've been enjoying the smiles of my friends for a couple of days and today returned to PP so I can make my 9 am appointment tomorrow with Dr Chum. The first bus that came along this morning was a GST Express. I waved, it stopped so I got on. It did have a conductor who showed me my seat and then disappeared for five minutes. When he returned he gave me a crumpled ticket and asked for $3. That's 50 cents more than Soriya charged to get me there.

Somehow I thought the ticket looked a bit sus. I was hoping an inspector would not come on board or one of us would have some explaining to do. When I got to PP I checked the ticket. It was dated 23 August. (Today is August 25.)

10,000 reasons to be pissed off with Phnom Penh

2010-08-22T13:57:00.003+07:00

I arrived in town late on Friday afternoon. At the airport I was besieged by tuk-tuk drivers offering to take me to town for $7. (US dollars are semi-legal tender in Cambodia.) I said, no that was too expensive and they quickly pointed out that car taxis charge $9. I said last time I was here I travelled by motorcycle and paid $2. They pointed out how difficult it would be with my bags on a motorcycle. But I've done it before. It can be done. Then a motorcycle driver who looked like he was blind in one eye turned up. He offered to take me. "How much?' I asked. '$5.' 'No way. I paid $2 last time.' Eventually I got him down to $3.50, so off we went. I'm sure if I'd actually walked out into the street outside the airport I could have found one to take me for less. But the one-eyed driver seemed a nice sort of guy so I went with him. He even knew where International Guest House was and while he tried to talk me into accommodation where he might get a commission, he was happy to take me there.

I first visited Phnom Penh early in 2005. At that time I remember one of my challenges was the fact that many of the motorcycle-taxi drivers knew the city hardly better than I did. Since then, whenever possible in Phnom Penh I walk where I can.

During this visit to PP I have several agendas. I want to visit a dentist who worked on my teeth a few years ago. I want to catch up with my friend, Vana, who is now working and living in Phnom Penh. On the plane from Australia I sat next to a young woman named Erika who was heading to Cambodia to do volunteer work on a similar basis to what I do. We agreed to try to catch up. And I needed to go to the Australian embassy to vote. To communicate with all these people I also needed to get a Cambodian SIM for my phone. I needed Vana's help for that. You need citizenship ID to get the SIM. I got my last one in his name.

Before I left Australia I emailed the Australian Embassy and asked if they would be open for voting. I got a quick response saying they would. I borrowed a phone from the reception guy at the guesthouse on Friday evening, called Erika and arranged to meet her at the Oz embassy at 10 am. I left the guesthouse at 9 am. This allowed me plenty of time to visit the dental surgery and walk to the embassy. I knew where it was. I'd been there before.

At the dental surgery they told me the dentist was now working elsewhere. They checked the number I had and said yes that would find him. OK, off to the embassy.

When I reached the corner of the street where I expected the embassy to be I asked someone for confirmation to make sure I had the right street. He said that the embassy had moved but he couldn't tell me where. I went on anyway. He had to be right because it certainly wasn't where I expected it to be.

On a corner there were two motorcycle drivers and a tuk-tuk driver. They offered to take me somewhere just as every other motorcycle and tuk-tuk driver had done on every corner I had passed. I asked if they knew where the Australian embassy was. One guy was very confident. He searched my map for about two minutes and then pointed to a mark on the map where it clearly said US embassy—and this was in the other end of town. One insisted that it was further along roughly in the direction I had been heading and the third vaguely described how to get to where it was before. Despite their inability to convince me they knew where it was now located each of them thought I should still go with them. I decided to continue walking but in the direction that seemed the most probable.

At the next corner another tuk-tuk driver asked if he could take me somewhere. I asked if he knew where the Australian embassy was. He described the direction that I thought had the most potential which suggested I was heading the right way. I was concerned because I was supposed to be meeting Erika. I didn't want to be late. I was prepared to get this guy to take me so I asked the fare. '$3'. He quoted. "No way.' I said.

To put this into context, you need to understand that the average income in Cambodia is about $50 a month. So, if he was quoting this fare to a Cambodian how many fares do you think he would get? Obviously this is a special price for foreigners. And having been raised in a country where all taxis have meters and therefore everyone, no matter who they are, pays the same fare. I find this attitude unfair. (No pun intended.)

He dropped his price to $1.50. I said 'no'. He asked what I'd pay. I said '2,000 reil' ie 50 cents. He rode off.

I simply kept walking in the direction I believed the embassy to be; stopped here and there to ask directions; spoke gruffly to any tuk-tuk or motorcycle driver who dared to approach me and eventually found the embassy at 10.30 am. There was no sign of Erika. When I signed in I checked the list of previous visitors and Erika's name wasn't there. I did my democratic duty, went outside and waited until a little after 11 am. Still no sign of Erika.

I walked back home dodging the motorcycles and tuk-tuks as much as possible, had some lunch and during the afternoon went to the National Museum where I was to meet Vana. He was almost an hour late which meant I sat in the shade on the opposite corner and I noticed the motorcycle and tuk-tuk drivers. Most of them never moved. It became obvious, if it wasn't already, that there were far too many of these guys so that very few of them can make any sort of living out of it. They sit around all day doing nothing, thinking they have a job but complaining how little money they make.

Compared to my first visit in 2005 the number of tuk-tuks has increased greatly. There are probably more motorcycles too but proportionally, the tuk-tuks have increased far more. My guesstimate is that there has to be about 10,000 tuk-tuk drivers in town—maybe more than there are in Bangkok, a much bigger city. There must be far fewer tourists than tuk-tuks. I certainly don't see as many Westerners as I do tuk-tuk drivers. Most have a spot where they sit all day and return to if they are lucky enough to get a fare. I guess they pay someone for this right. Whether such a payment is official or not I don't know. This being Cambodia I suspect it's not. Those who don't have such a spot cruise.

The cruisers can be more persistent. They come along beside you as you walk, engaging you in conversation. One guy was quite good. He saw me going to a statue to take photos and waited where I had to pass coming back. He started chatting and was a good conversationist, drawing me out. In fact, I dumped a lot of my feelings about his profession on him. He didn't disagree but during the conversation pointed out, as they often do, the costs and other challenges involved in running this business.

I can sympathise but the reality is they have got themselves into a business that simply can't make money. There is far too much competition. In most of the world of business competition means lower prices but not in Cambodia. The way they figure it is that because they can't get so much business they have to charge more to get the same income. Elsewhere they would go out of business but somehow they hang in there and it is simply a crazy situation. If other travellers feel the same as me they are actually having a negative impact on tourism. I don't recommend anyone visit Phnom Penh unless they are prepared to put up with constant harassment from these guys. Come to Cambodia by all means but go elsewhere.

I want to end this on a positive note. I love Cambodia. The Cambodian people are the friendliest I've met anywhere. They are so generous with their smiles it is a delight to be among them. Please come to Cambodia and enjoy your stay anywhere outside of Phnom Penh.

Hang in there

2010-08-18T14:27:00.002+07:00

There is a young woman who lives in the building where I'm staying in Bangkok named Roxanne. No, Roxanne is not a Thai name. Roxy, as she is known, is Philippinno. She was staying here when I lived here two years ago so she's been here a while. She teaches English at a primary school nearby.

Yesterday when I went downstairs to fill up my water bottles at the ionised water machine she and Titee were sitting having a chat so I joined them. At one point we got talking about names and their meanings and Roxy said that her name meant 'sexy girl'. This didn't make sense to me. Would a parent give such a name to a little baby knowing that is what it meant?

I checked online to find the meaning and I have to say that the site I found disagrees with Roxy. According to this site it has two optional meanings 'graceful rose' and 'dawn'. Nothing there about sexy girl.

I noticed that the site also gives meanings of last names so I decided to check 'Shield'. Here it says that our name means 'dweller at Shields (shepherd's summer hut)', guess that makes us shepherds or 'one who made armour'. (Is that armour or amor?) On the same page it shows a small family crest which links to a page that offers to sell you a larger version. Personally, I wouldn't bother but I notice that as well as suggesting we had something to do with pigeons the crest gives a family motto 'Vincit qui patitur'.

Isn't the internet wonderful. A few years ago that would have stumped me but it doesn't take long to do a search and I discovered that it means 'He who endures will conquer/succeed.' So, to all family members reading this who might be having a tough time now or in the future just remember, hang in there, you'll get on top of it in the end.

Old routines 2

2010-08-08T14:14:00.001+07:00

With my allergies I have to be careful what I eat. It can be a challenge, especially in a foreign country, to communicate what I don't want. Every now and then, despite speaking in my best Thai, 'mai sai goong, mai sai tooah', when the meal arrives it has prawns and peanuts all over it.

Therefore, to keep life simple, once I know a particular place will serve what I want, I go back again and always order the same thing. At this place it's pad thai, at that one it's pad see eu, at another it's pad pak and so on. The people at each of these places probably think that I only eat one thing. But I don't. It's just that when I want to eat something else I go somewhere else. It works for me.

When I arrived back at Jirapong Apartments I asked myself, 'Where did I eat when I lived here before?' Then I remembered the little place on the other side of Ramintra Road, more or less at the foot of the overpass. But what was it that I used to eat there? I couldn't remember.

I decided to go over and just see what would happen. When I got there the woman who runs the place beamed. She seemed so excited to see me and started rambling on in Thai. I think I managed to understand about 25% of what she was saying. I smiled and nodded and gave an answer when I really did understand. She asked where I'd been and I told her I'd been in Australia. All the time I'm thinking 'And what did I used to eat here?' Eventually, she solved the problem. 'Au pad see eu gai mai ka?' I was able to answer 'Au khap' and the problem was solved.

I'm back in the routine now. I go there for lunch every few days and order my pad see eu gai. Sometimes her father sits down and chats with me and I understand about 10% of what he says. Life is pleasant.

What goes around...

2010-08-05T20:10:00.002+07:00

The way my chosen lifestyle has developed over the past (almost) eight years, I have learned to live with little. Because I move on fairly regularly I have to accept that when I do I have to cull many of the possessions that I have accumulated. If I'm looking to stay somewhere for a while, I do start to accumulate things—speakers for my computer, a microwave oven, bedding, etc—but sooner or later I move on and if I can't carry it, I have to leave it behind.

I spent most of last year in Mahasarakham and I was seriously thinking at the time that I would like to stay there semi-permanently. When circumstances took me back to Australia, I put my stuff into storage with an expectation that I would return sooner or later. When the time came to return to Asia, I decided there were other fish to fry so it was time to let go of all that stuff. In Mahasarakham I sorted through my stuff, carried off what I reasonably could and left the rest behind. MSU is setting up a house for scholarship students from Cambodia to live in. We agreed that what I left behind could be put into that house.

For much of 2008 I lived in Jirapong Apartments on the outskirts of Bangkok. That time too I accumulated a few possessions. At the end of the year I returned to Australia via India. I was running out of time when I was sorting and packing. I suggested that if I left stuff in the room for them to clean up they could have anything of value for their trouble. They agreed.

Now I'm back in Bangkok but will stay for only three weeks. I returned to Jirapong. There's not a lot of point in investing in things for the sake of a three-week stay but I do appreciate some basic stuff like an electric jug. I asked if they would have a spare jug lying around, then I went off to the store to buy some of the more disposable things I would need. When I returned to my room, inside was a jug, an iron, various bowls, dishes and other things. I thought they look familiar. It seemed they'd kept much of my old stuff and now I get to use it once again.

Respectful relations

2010-08-02T18:25:00.001+07:00

On the way back from Mahasarakham I dropped into Korat to spend some time with Nid. She knows that I don't mind visiting the occasional temple so had picked out one or two of the, literally, thousands of temples in the district, that she thought I might find interesting. But first we took a look at the floats for the Tian pansa candle procession. You can see the photos of these on my flickr page.

We started at Wat Phayup which includes a 'cave' temple. Wat or วัด is Thai for temple or monastery. At Wat Phayup we found a small open-air tour bus that was doing the rounds of temples and other interesting sites of Korat. It was only 20 baht (less than A$1) a head so we joined and got commentary as well—in Thai.

I would have been happy with this. Nid seems to feel an obligation to this man she calls 'Dad'. I have no such expectation. Still, she wanted to show me even more on Sunday before I checked out of my hotel at midday and headed on to Bangkok.

She met me for breakfast Sunday morning. She'd managed to find a map and we set off to Wat Narai Maharaj. The main temple was locked and Nid went off to find someone to let us in. She returned with monk, a young man about the same age as my son David.

Chut (ฉัดร) was a friendly guy who spoke good English and after he'd shown us the various shrines around his monastery he offered to take us to Mahajula University, a Buddhist university that he had attended. I was concerned about how much time we had but neither he nor Nid seemed to think there was a problem. So we set off in a sorngtheau.

At the university we passed some classrooms and even though it was Sunday morning there were classes in progress. Chut started a conversation with a teacher from one of the classes and next I was invited to take over the lesson. It turned out that it was an English class and the Thai teacher was keen to have a native speaker talk with his students, just as I used to invite any visiting foreigner to speak with my students at Wat Xam in Cambodia.

Eventually it was decided that we should start making tracks back to the wat and then to my hotel. While we were waiting for the sorngtheau Nid and Chut were carrying on a conversation in Thai about what Chut should call me. He wanted to call me 'Dad' (he actually said 'Daddy') as Nid does and I have no problem with this. I really like this young man who was going out of his way to be kind to two people he'd only just met. Then again, this sort of thing is not uncommon in Thailand. On the other hand Nid suggested to him that 'Sir' might be more respectful considering the age difference. He felt that 'Dad' was indeed respectful and suggested a much closer relationship and I agree. The last thing I need is to have someone calling me 'Sir', especially someone I am fond of.

So, to Nid and Chut, thank you for your kindness and respect during my visit to Korat. I look forward to seeing you both again on my next visit.

Red shirts

2010-07-30T16:01:00.003+07:00

Next to Talat Noi on the MSU campus is a parking lot. I walk through it on the way to buy my dinner. One evening I noticed a small bunch of kids on the back of a ute/pick-up leaping about noisily and waving toy guns in the air. As I passed, one of them must have noticed me and called out 'farang' ie Westerner. I ignored them and kept walking. Then my mind ticked over what I had seen, some of these kids were wearing red shirts. I already had my camera in my hand. I was planning to take some shots of the market. So I turned around and walked back to them.

'Tai roop mai khap?' May I take your photograph?

They were most happy to oblige. I would loved to have got them in action as I'd seen before but didn't know the Thai to make that request so had to settle for the posed shot you see here. How subdued they look in contrast.

I can only guess what was going on. This is just a bunch of kids playing with toy guns. Sadly, that's what kids do. They don't know any better if some adult is prepared to buy the toys. Was there any significance in the red shirts? Perhaps it was just a coincidence that two of them happened to be wearing red. Or perhaps not. Their parents are probably stall holders at the market and so would be members of the poor class that the red-shirt protesters claim to represent. I don't know the answer but I have to wonder if this is perhaps some subtle form of indoctrination of the young.

Old routines

2010-07-29T10:03:00.001+07:00

As I write this I'm back staying in the Ajahn's Condos at Mahasarakham University in the building next to the one I lived in last year. Some things have changed around here but in many ways it is easy to slip back into the life I had before.

It was my regular practise to visit Talat Noi, the little night market on campus, to buy my dinner. Talat Noi had, I believe, grown organically over the years. As new stall holders came, they fitted in wherever they could in the area around the canteen. Since I've been gone, they've moved it to an open area and now the stalls are all in neat rows. To me, it's lost a little of its charm and there are so many stalls now it hardly deserves to be called noi, ie 'little'.

Still, I was able to find the stall where the young couple make Pad Thai and got back into that routine quite easily. I also recognise many of the other stall holders but there are many new ones too.

It was my Saturday morning routine to take my laundry to a young woman who lives about 100 metres behind the Ajahn's Condos. Perhaps I was a little early this time because her shop was not open. Another one was and I delivered my dirty clothes there. I went across the road to where I used to regularly get my haircut but the barber shop was not open either.

At lunch time, I had to change my routine. I didn't have my bicycle. I couldn't ride to the restaurant where I would usually buy gai yang, BBQ chicken, and sticky rice. But there was a street stall selling it just behind the Condos so I still got my treat.

Before I went back to collect my laundry I went back to the barber shop. My barber was there. When he saw me his eyes lit up. I could see he was smiling behind the surgical mask he was wearing. When I sat in the chair he asked 'Bai nai ma?' Where have you been?

I told him I'd been to Australia. I've been letting my hair grow lately to keep my ears warm in the Australian winter. He pointed at it and made some comment suggesting I'd not had it cut since the last time I'd visited him. It didn't take long for him to restore my monk-like hairstyle. I asked if I could take his picture (for this blog) but he declined. Unlike most Thais he is apparently camera shy.

I went back across the road and there was the young woman who had usually done my laundry. She was beaming. I waved and went on to the other laundress. On the way back I stopped and chatted with my regular laundress. She asked where I'd been and I told her. 'Kittung' she said, I missed you.

Was he missing me?

2010-07-27T16:46:00.001+07:00

I first met Ead and Tong in Australia many years ago. This was back when I had made just a few visits to Thailand. I was moving towards spending more time in Thailand and had been trying to learn the language by myself. I reached a point where I thought that I needed real Thai people to practise with.

One night I was at a party and saw a guy in the crowd who I thought looked Thai so I went and said 'hello'. Sure enough he was Thai so we chatted for a while. Before the evening was over I suggested that we could get together for a language sharing.

Ead and his wife, Tong, were both studying for MBAs in Brisbane. They invited a few of their friends and we had a little group that got together from time to time to practise each others languages. As a group we did a lot of things together as well as practising language. We often visited each others homes and we participated in Thai cultural celebrations. I saw my first Loy Kratong festival at UQ in Brisbane.

They all returned to Thailand before I made my move there at the end of 2002. Ead and Tong's house became my base whenever I was in Bangkok. They were always good to me. Ead was always waiting at the airport whenever I flew into Bangkok. I see them as my brother and sister in Bangkok.

When I made the decision to return to Thailand again I sent an email to both Ead and Tong telling them I would arrive on July 21 and giving flight details. On June 21 Ead turned up at the airport and there was no sign of me. He rang Tong and asked her to check my email to see if he had the date right. 'No,' she told him. 'He comes on 21st July.' I guess he was just keen to see me.

Thanks Ead and Tong for the love you have both given me over the years. It is really appreciated.

Democracy in action

2010-06-24T17:24:00.001+07:00

If you've ever wondered who's running Australia, events of the past 24 hours make it clear—the mining companies.

Is it time for a new camera?

2010-06-10T13:25:00.003+07:00

After five years of travelling with me, my Panasonic fz20 is showing signs of wear and tear. If you look at the pics attached to this post you'll see that it doesn't look so good anymore. What is left of the plastic grips is now held on by what we in Australia call Blutack. The body isn't holding together well and the viewfinder doesn't work anymore. I posted these pics on a photographic forum and one response I received was 'Boy, you've certainly beaten up your fz20 badly.' But it still takes fairly good pictures. If you're not familiar with them, click some of the links in my sidebar.

I am not a four-star traveller. I move around slowly and I'm more interested in people than monuments. I get down and dirty and mix with the locals. I love to meet people who might be considered 'exotic' to us westerners. (Though I'm sure they don't think they are.) I'm interested in getting to know them and experiencing their lifestyle. Sometimes a camera is a novelty to such people. I've learned not to show the pics I've taken as people want to grab the camera for a closer look and they don't always know how to handle a camera. All this is often done in tropical heat. Does this make me rough on cameras? I don't really think so. I have to wonder if cameras of today are built so well as in the past. I might add that I've found Apple computers are not so strong today as they were five or more years ago.

Most cameras available at less than A$1,000 today are made of plastic. Would any other plastic camera survive better than my fz20? I don't really know but I have my doubts. Therefore I have decided that when I get around to buying a new camera I want it to do two things. First I want it to extend me as a photographer, to give me possibilities to take my photography further, to learn more about photography. Secondly I want it to survive my lifestyle better than the fz20 has. I'm interested in a camera with a metal body.

The last thing I want is to add more weight to my packs. Hey, I'm 62 and I weigh only 57 kilos. I travel with two backpacks—a biggish one for clothes and other necessities and a Crumpler for technology. If I have to walk any distance the Crumpler is mounted over my chest and the big one on my back. The combined weight of the two is about 25 kilos—equal to about 44% of my body weight. I don't really want to add more weight to my packs.

Until recently, to improve on an fz20 one had to upgrade to an SLR camera. The idea of an SLR doesn't excite me so much. The main advantage they have over point-and-shoot cameras is a bigger sensor. This makes a huge difference to the potential image quality. I say 'potential' because the biggest influence on image quality is the photographer. The best SLR in the world is no better in the hands of an incompetent photographer than the cheapest point-and-shoot. I'm tempted, but not too tempted.

The weight of my fz20 is just under 520 grams. That includes a lens that has a zoom range equal to an SLR 36-432 mm lens. If I buy an entry-level smallish plastic SLR, they may be a similar weight—without the lens. How much weight will it add to my pack to include either one or perhaps several lenses that will give me the same zoom range I get with my fz20? Yes, I will get more in terms of picture quality but at a price in terms of weight that I would be reluctant to pay while I continue my travelling lifestyle. And I would still have a plastic camera. How long would I expect it to last?

Pay a little more and I could get a mid-range SLR with a metal body. I've seriously considered this possibility and perhaps have not ruled it out completely. The Nikon D 300 looks promising weighing 825 g without a lens and the Pentax K 7 comes in at about 750 g. This Pentax camera has a good reputation as a rugged camera which I find tempting. It has a weather, dust and cold resistant shell. Interesting that they make them to survive the cold but make no mention of heat. I often find myself in temperatures over 40 degrees c. Can it handle that?

I am interested in a relatively new camera format known as four thirds that, I believe, has been developed jointly by Olympus and Panasonic. The latest version of this is known as Micro four thirds. I first noticed the Olympus models which are quite small and have a metal body. The sensor size is larger than that found on most point-and-shoot cameras but smaller than those on the smallest SLRs. Like SLRs they have interchangeable lenses. The design of the camera is such that unlike SLRs they do not use mirrors to transfer the image to the sensor. It goes directly from the lens to the sensor. By comparison, this reduces both the weight and size of the unit. Overall the lenses are smaller by comparison to an SLR, much more like those found on a point-and-shoot camera but picture quality is very close to that of an SLR. And like an SLR, they give the photographer the opportunity to expand their ability by using different lenses.

I've been aware of these Olympus models for some time. I've observed that they've been a bit slim on features. While they interest me, they don't excite me. I was also aware that Panasonic had some similar models too but they appeared to be more expensive so I did not look too closely.

Recently I was killing time and found myself in a camera store where I saw for the first time one of the Panasonic Micro four thirds models. I took the time to have a look. The guy in the store seemed to know so little about it but I could see that it had features that interested me and most importantly I was impressed by its light weight and compact size. When I got home I looked it up online and discovered that there were currently three models available. One that was very basic, similar to the Olympus ones and two with a few more features. I also saw that there are two new models coming soon with even more features.

At the moment the one that interests me most is the G2. It is scheduled for release this month. It is available with various lens combinations at various prices. I favour the twin lens version which has a list price of A$1,599. Yes, I could replace my fz20 with Panasonic's latest evolution of that type of camera, the fz35, for about a third of that price. But I expect that will give me a camera that will once again last me about five years. That is one way to go—use it for five years and then get another that is updated with the latest technology. However, the Panasonic Micro four thirds cameras, like the Olympus models, have a metal body. I trust it will last longer, though at the moment I have no way of knowing.

Apart from the metal body, here's what else interests me with the G2. The weight of the basic camera is about 371 g. That's about half the weight of the metal-bodied SLRs I mentioned above and theoretically the picture quality is not far behind them. Add the weight of two lenses and it comes to 1,032 g all up. That means I'm looking at carrying around twice the weight of the fz20. I'll get a similar zoom range but have to change lenses from time to time. Not always convenient but hopefully, coupled with the bigger sensor, they'll do a better job. The G2 has a 3" LCD that rotates. A bigger LCD appeals to my ageing eyes and being able to rotate it gives me much more flexibility in seeing the screen when I want to take a picture from an unusual angle. It has many more features such as a touch screen, perhaps some of them are gimmicks, but to me the important ones are those I've mentioned.

I haven't made a decision yet. My mind is open until I put my money down but this camera has a lot of appeal to me.

Symbols of evil

2010-04-25T06:41:00.002+07:00

In countries such as Thailand and Cambodia I observe that spirit beings are often a part of local belief systems. Often these beings are considered to be evil. These beliefs come from Animism that dominated these cultures before Buddhism was introduced. Unlike some religions, Buddhism doesn't usually attempt to replace existing religions but offers its teachings as further enrichment. Over the years the two have blended. It is not uncommon to find Buddhist monks refer to spirit beings. In fact, such beings have been adopted into Buddhist teachings.

In my early study of Buddhism I read several books by Trevor Ling whose interest was largely with the Theravada Buddhism of Burma. Recently I discovered a book of Ling's 'Buddhism and the mythology of evil' first published in 1962 which discusses the various mythological 'evil' creatures and compares them to Mara as a symbol of evil.

Ling points out that Buddhist teachers have embraced the existing folk beliefs rather than contradict them but have used the all-encompassing name of Mara. Instead of trying to teach that these beings do not exist (as I'm aware of Christian missionaries doing in Cambodia) the Buddhist teachers have used them as a way of describing that which is a distraction from ones path. The stories may describe horrible beings that do terrible things but this is intended as a metaphor for our own inability to concentrate on our path. Ling also sees the Christian concept of Satan in the same light.

The problem this raises in teaching religious paths in the modern world is that science has cast doubt on the existence of such beings. However the existence of distractions from ones path is very real. Ling suggests that perhaps the symbols of Satan and Mara have had their day but the reality which is symbolised by these mythological creatures is still relevant.

'If, because the symbol is outworn and irrelevant in a scientific age, it is discarded, then the reality to which it pointed has no longer any representation by means of which men may be constantly reminded of it. There is thus a need to find other effective ways of speaking of this reality which these symbols formerly represented.'

Buddhism and the mythology of evil
A study in Theravada Buddhism
Trevor Ling
first published George Allen & Unwin, 1962
republished 1997 by Oneworld Publications, Oxford

My battle with God

2010-04-21T18:10:00.001+07:00

I've had an interesting relationship with God ever since I decided he didn't exist back when I was eight years old. God shouldn't blame me for that. Certainly the responsibility must rest with the Methodist Sunday School I attended. They couldn't provide a realistic enough picture of the Almighty to convince this sceptical child. At that stage my atheism remained a secret between me and God. I couldn't trust anyone else with the information because if it ever got back to my mother she might have beat the Jesus out of me.

Probably at that stage of my life I didn't even know the word 'atheist' but I knew what I believed. When I did discover the word I decided it was the best one to describe me. That was until a few years later I discovered the word 'agnostic' and decided that to be an atheist was just as arrogant as being a theist. Both of them think they know the answer.

A little later in my life I discovered Buddhism and was pleased that it didn't come with a prerequisite of a belief in God. I also dabbled a little in the New Age and didn't object to the concept that God might be something that exists in all of us and binds us together (but perhaps not so well) rather than the anthropomorphic God created in man's image.

Perhaps my belief system has been a fluid one throughout my life. Recently, Gaye, who is about to become a Catholic, asked me to define my beliefs at this point in time. I stated that it depends on ones definition of 'God'. If God is the all-powerful being who created everything including man in seven days then I am an atheist. At this point I looked up into the sky and said, 'I'm sorry God, but you don't exist.' On the other hand, I explained, if God is something that exists in all of us, then I am an agnostic.

The day after this it was rainy on and off. Whenever it rained it would last about two minutes and then stop again for another hour or so. That afternoon I needed to go to the supermarket which is just over the road. When I left the house I looked up in the sky and noticed it was looking like rain once again. I decided it wasn't a problem considering the current pattern. I wouldn't have to wait more than two minutes for it to pass over. I clearly didn't need an umbrella. When I was leaving the supermarket the rain was really pissing down. It was too heavy for me to run through. I would have been soaked in no time and I already had a cold. So I sat down under shelter outside the supermarket. Occasionally it seemed to be slowing down and I would get up to see if it was worth making a run for it. Each time, as I got to the edge of the awning it would come down heavy once again.

It was obvious that God was playing a game with me. It was his gentle way of letting me know I was wrong. He was serious about it. In the end I did have to run back through the rain and got soaked through. But not too serious. Let's face it, if he was really serious he could have zapped me with a bolt of lightening or sent a bus to knock me down as I ran across the road. He obviously likes me because he didn't do either and I'm still here writing this blog. But I don't give in easily. When I reached the house I looked up into the sky, shook my fist and yelled, 'You still don't exist.'

Since then there have been a number of similar incidents. God is not being mean but he obviously wants to remind me that he is more powerful than me.

When I first got my car, I was parking it in the space right outside the house. But flowers would fall from the trees and stain the paint. So I started parking it in the parking lot where there are no flowering trees. This morning when I came out to my car I could see that God had been at it again. He had sent a big bird with diarrhea to fly over my car and caused it to let fly just as it was passing over my car's windscreen.

OK God, I acknowledge that you may be more powerful than me but I still don't believe you exist.

My next holiday

2010-04-15T11:04:00.001+07:00

The Australian government has decided that it will no longer process asylum-seeker applications from Afghanis and Sri Lankans. Australia's Department of Immigration has decided that it is now safe to send them back to their own countries.

What wonderful news I thought. These countries must now be safe for me to travel to. Just to be sure I decided to check the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) website. Unfortunately DFAT does not seem to be aware of the improvement in the situation in these countries. Their site's recommendation (as of 15 April) for Afghanistan is 'Do not travel'. It goes on to say, 'We strongly advise you not to travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack. If you are in Afghanistan, you should consider leaving.'

Looks like I need to put off my plans for a holiday in Afghanistan. So, how about Sri Lanka? I'm particularly interested in going to the northern and north-central areas because that is where the asylum seekers have most likely come from and where I assume they'd return to.

For Sri Lanka in general, DFAT says 'We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to Sri Lanka at this time because of the volatile security situation. Sri Lanka remains in a State of Emergency.' And, 'Attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Sri Lanka.' Specifically on the northern and north-central areas, it says 'We advise you not to travel to the north of Sri Lanka'.

Well, maybe I won't go to Sri Lanka either. I suppose I could always go to Thailand??? Unfortunately for the asylum seekers, they're probably not going to be given that choice.

http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Afghanistan
http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Sri_Lanka

Hazel

2010-03-24T11:17:00.001+07:00

Hazel Shield nee Costin
Born 20 June 1913
Died 23 March 2010

Pleasing all the people

2009-11-15T15:00:00.001+07:00

Perhaps democracy is the best system of government we have but it is certainly not perfect. In Thailand politicians are often accused of buying votes but is it so much different in the West? Perhaps our politicians don't put actual money in the hands of voters but they do often come up with policies that will directly benefit a large number of voters, sometimes to the detriment of the country as a whole.

But it is impossible for a government to get it right and please all the people all of the time. A case in point is the situation that the Australian government is faced with in relation to boat people trying to reach Australia as refugees. At one end of the spectrum are those who say the government should be compassionate and allow asylum seekers in. At the other end are those who say that to do this would be to send a signal to millions of other potential refugees that Australia is easy, just find a boat and push off in that direction. Both sides are right. The answer therefore lies somewhere in the middle. This is the path that the present Australian government is currently taking in relation to asylum seekers who wish to escape the possibility of being victims of genocide in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately in the eyes of most Australians the government has got it wrong. Half the country seems to think Australia should open the doors and welcome all those seeking asylum. The other half thinks we should use all means necessary to keep them out. I'd hate to be a politician. The government's current path appears to me to be the right one but it doesn't seem to be pleasing many Australian voters.

Noah

2009-11-07T13:28:00.004+07:00

Noah Ouedraogo, my seventh, grandchild was born on November 1 to my daughter, Melanie. That's Mel's third boy and my sixth grandson.

Streetwalking in Bangkok

2009-10-04T21:15:00.003+07:00

Today I had a free day in Bangkok. As you may be aware I particularly enjoy walking around with my camera/s, snapping away. In the past I've often done this in the evening and let me assure you it's way cooler then, but that didn't suit me so I decided to spend the morning wandering.

My friend, Ead, was heading to Victory Monument. I got a lift with him and from there headed on foot in the direction of Din Daeng. I walked up and down the streets and laneways (sois) until I reached the slum area under the expressway.

After I returned to Victory Monument I took the sky train to Siam, had some lunch and spent the afternoon in the relatively new Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. There were several interesting exhibitions and I was able to wander with the sound of live classical music in the background. And it sure was cooler than out in the street.

I pretty much used up all the battery power in my cameras and as I have time I'll process the best and post them on my flickr page. The first of them are there already.

Thai names

2009-10-02T09:14:00.001+07:00

Thai people tend to have rather long names often extremely difficult for Westerners to pronounce. It seems all Thais have nicknames which makes it a lot easier for us.

Nicknames don't always seem polite but Thai people are not usually bothered. My friend's nickname is Moo. That is the equivalent of calling someone Piggy in English but he doesn't seem to worry about it. His daughter's nickname is Eiko (not sure of the spelling) which is actually Japanese. When his son was born they chose the nickname Mac but wanted to keep the 'i' sound a the beginning. He became iMac. And my friend is not a Mac user.

The baby got his nickname as soon as he was born but his formal name takes a little longer. An astrologer has to work out what is auspicious for the child. There are certain conventions. They like lots of syllables but I did hear that there is a limit. Only royalty can have names over a certain number of syllables. Don't quote me on this. I can't find anything authoritative but I'm sure I heard something like that.

It's become fashionable for Thais to receive English nicknames these days. But you can't be sure. Some words sound English but perhaps they have a Thai meaning. For example, one kid in a class I teach is nicknamed Poo. They might choose to spell it differently but that is the pronunciation. I looked it up in a Thai dictionary and in Thai it means soil; ground; place; land. Take your pick.

Here are a few more nicknames from my classes. I'll spell them the way they sound: AA, Ache, Bam, Base, Bim, Copter, Fa, Film, First, Gate, Gong, Jack, Jam, Jay Jay, Jeanie, Joke, Joy, Jerry, Lily, Miaow, Mo, Oat, Parn, Pee, Pie, Pin, Pim, Ping, Ploy, Prim, Program, Pry, Spy, Youie.

Tooth story, latest chapter

2009-09-26T10:25:00.001+07:00

To put these present tooth issues in perspective I'd like to go back to the beginning.

I had teeth that were giving me lots of twinges, thermal aches and such. This dentist in Mahasarakham was recommended. He removed a couple of old fillings and replaced them and told me to come back in three months. Up to that point everything was fine.

Apparently most Thais don't come back for follow up if they feel fine. He was surprised to see me back. The teeth were not bothering me, at least way less than before. In retrospect, I think he saw this as an opportunity to 'make business'. He told me that the second tooth had a crack and that I should get the root canal treatment and a crown or I would end up with continued troubles. He's the expert, I thought, I took his advice.

After all the troubles (see earlier blogs) I got a second opinion from a dentist who said that my continued pain was coming from the tooth next to the one that had been treated. She suggested I not go back to the first dentist but return to the specialist in Khon Kaen.

I did. She checked it all out and I put my case that I wanted either her or her husband to put the crown on the tooth and also to do the root-canal treatment on the next tooth. She called her husband to take a look, for a second opinion. He was reluctant that they should do this for 'ethical' reasons, ie I had been referred to them by the dentist in Mahasarakham and it was unethical for them to take his patient from him. I've encountered this before in Australian medical practice. The ethics towards colleagues are higher than the ethics to the patient.

I explained that I'd been upfront with the dentist in Mahasarakham and told him I was going to get it finished in Khon Kaen and that he should call him and get his OK before he went ahead.

He spent ten minutes on the phone and came back in to say they had agreed that I should return to Mahasarakham to finish the treatment.

During this discussion I mentioned something about them having treated the second tooth and I was corrected. No they had treated the first one. It took me a little while to wake up. It seems that somehow they'd got the wrong tooth. I didn't think of it while I was there or I would have asked to see the original referral document (if they still had it). Did he tell them the wrong tooth? Did they get the wrong tooth? Or am I still confused?

But one thing they all seem to agree on is that the second tooth is the one with the crack and that is the one from which I am getting pain at times (thankfully not now).

Someone recommended another dentist in Mahasarakham. I caught a sorngtheau into town one night to pay her a visit but I backed out. I found the clinic but I changed my mind. Somehow all of this has undermined my faith in dentists. The temporary crown is still in place. The tooth is not bothering me. For the moment I have decided to leave well enough alone.

About a week later I was riding my bicycle home from the night market. My phone rang. I stopped and took the call. It was the wife of the dentist in Mahasarakham. She told me my crown was ready could I come in and have it fitted. I said that I didn't want to do that. 'OK. Thank you,' she said. And that was it.

Say no

2009-09-20T08:23:00.002+07:00

My mother who is 96 recently went into hospital because she was having difficulty breathing. Here is a report I have received.

'...the upper chambers of the heart, the heart beat is irregular. She has not had a heart attack. This problem with the heart only started a few weeks ago. Because of the difficulty of her breathing it is putting extra stress on the heart. If she was to go home she would be back in again in about 4 to 6 weeks and then it would be the end.'

The report went on to say she has been hiding her pills and they think this means she wants to end it. I disagree strongly.

I think my mother and I are very similar on this one. We both believe that drugs don't make you better, they make you sick. When I was diagnosed with prostate troubles, the drug the urologist scared me into taking caused symptoms ten times worse than the ones I had. I only took one. That was several years ago. And my prostate condition is still manageable without drugs. I think my mother believes the drugs are, if not actually killing her, at least making her much sicker. I don't blame her for hiding them.

Perhaps in thirty years time I'll be in a similar situation. When my time comes I hope to die naturally, not because of the drugs someone makes me take. However, I hope to be a little different from my mother. Instead of hiding them, I trust I'll be able to just say 'no'.

Too many strays

2009-09-14T18:06:00.001+07:00

There must be more stray dogs in Thailand than in any other country that I have ever visited. It is an aspect of Thai Buddhism that people take care of stray dogs. If you feed a dog, that is considered to make merit (good karma) for you. I have not seen this, at least not so commonly, anywhere else.

When I was in China there were stray dogs on the campus where I was staying. I never noticed anyone feed them until some Thai students came to stay. I was having dinner with them one night and when we finished they collected all the scraps off our plates in a plastic bag. 'What's that for?' I asked. 'To feed the dogs.'

Mahasarakham University has grown since I was here in 2003. There are twice as many students. And it seems there are at least twice as many dogs on campus. They (the dogs) are not aggressive, at least not towards me, but at times they can be noisy. Often that's early in the morning when I'm trying to sleep. As I ride my bicycle around the campus I notice there is also a lot of sexual activity going on among the dogs. I decided something has to be done before they multiply more and more.

My friend and boss was recently appointed as a vice-president of the university. Prior to this, it was easy to see him. I could walk into his office for a chat just about any time. Now it seems he spends most of his life at meetings and going backwards and forwards to Bangkok. I mentioned to his secretary how hard it is to see him these days. She suggested that she would make an appointment on my behalf. By time we met the list of things I needed to discuss with him had become quite long. But right near the top was the dog population issue.

I suggested to him that it would be a good project for the veterinary science students to catch the dogs, sterilise them and release them. He was inspired and immediately picked up his phone and rang the head of the veterinary science department who was also enthusiastic about the idea. It's nice. My friend has a lot more sway as vice-president and indirectly it gives me a little more sway.

The MSU veterinary science department is quite new. They only have first-year students and they do not have the experience to be able to handle this project. But no problem. They'll borrow a few final-year students from Khon Kaen University and our students will work with them. A decision was also made that our department would chip in some money to buy some drugs to immunise the dogs against whatever canine diseases are prevalent here.

They felt sure the students would be enthusiastic about the project too. They would see it that they are improving the dogs lives and thus they too would gain merit from the exercise.

My garden

2009-09-11T20:32:00.002+07:00

I do like to have a few plants around me but I don't have much opportunity where I'm living now. Well, there is a tree outside my bedroom window which attracts birds to wake me in the morning. I would love to have a few potted plants inside but this place is so tiny, there just isn't room.

Then I moved into a new office. There is room in the office for a few plants. That inspired me to start looking around. When the stalls turned up on campus for the Science Fair there were a few that were selling orchids. As they were in hanging pots it dawned on me that I could hang them on the window grill in my flat.

The woman who sold them to me was quite keen that I look after them properly and between her lousy English and my lousy Thai I got to understand that they needed to be watered morning and night. Trust they'll survive when I head off for Khon Kaen for the root canal treatment.

They've been there a few weeks now and as you can see they're looking quite healthy, even have a few new shoots.

Scammed through facebook

2009-09-08T17:01:00.002+07:00

Here’s a story of yet another internet scam. Not so long ago I received a similar letter from a facebook friend—someone who is a friend of a friend and who I have never actually met in person. It never occurred to me at the time that it might be fake. I thought to myself ‘he’s got a hide’ and sent an email saying I couldn’t help out at the moment. In this particular case the person was asking for US $2,500 because he’d lost his wallet in London.

I look at it this way, assuming the request was genuine, if someone is asking for something from me that I would not consider asking from them then I have no reason to feel bad about rejecting the request. When I travel, I do it on the cheap. If I lost my wallet, even in London, I doubt that I would have been carrying $2,500 in it. I can live for a long time on $2,500. I doubt that I would ever need to ask anyone to transfer $2,500 to me and if I did I have a relative who handles my finances in Australia. If that relative got such a request I think they would know if I’d written it. If the writing style was different they should be suspicious. There is no one else I would ask. And certainly not someone I’ve never met.

If you follow the link above to the article I’m referring to, read the comments. There are many suggestions of ways to avoid this sort of thing happening. Most importantly, don’t trust your information to facebook. I’ve written before about not giving sites access to files on your computer. Facebook and many of its subsidiary applications request access to your files. Don’t allow it. Get a life. Find some other way to communicate with people.

Root canal update

2009-09-05T20:41:00.001+07:00

This follows on from my previous dental report.

I needed to go back a few times for the dentist to make and fit the crown. The next time I returned he said he would give me an injection. I said OK. I wasn't concerned if I had an injection or not. I had decided that I would use some relaxation techniques and control the pain on my own.

He jabbed me several times but I wasn't aware of any numbness. He didn't seem to take too long before he started working on my tooth, preparing for the crown. There was some pain as he worked but I did not complain. I used my own techniques to keep it under control. He took a cast to prepare the crown and then put on another temporary crown.

On the way home I could feel a little pain and I was aware that there was no wearing off of the numb feeling. There was no numb feeling! Had he put any anaesthetic in that injection or was it a placebo?

By the following morning the pain was quite intense. It lasted for about a week. I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to go back to that dentist, not if he believed my pain was psychosomatic. If that was the case, he'd discounted the possibility that there could be some dental reason for the pain.

I decided I needed a second opinion but I had a complication in that my throat was also sore. A friend had H1N1 swine flu and was in hospital. (Perhaps an overreaction.) On Friday we were chatting online and he said that his symptoms were just a sore throat and a temperature. We've had a lot of hot, humid weather lately and it feels like you have a temperature whenever you are out in it. I decided I needed to be sure. On Saturday I went into town to do my shopping and I bought a thermometer. When I came back I checked and it was exactly normal.

I went to see the doctor on Monday and he said he thought the throat problem was caused by the tooth. He recommend I see a dentist who comes to the university clinic on Tuesdays. She was able to demonstrate quite convincingly that the pain was coming from the tooth next to the one that had been treated. She tapped the treated tooth, I felt nothing. She tapped the next tooth—intense pain. She shot a burst of air at the treated tooth—nothing, the next one—intense pain. She squirted cold water on the treated tooth—nothing, the next one—intense pain. It was pretty convincing.

So, how incompetent is my dentist? Has he been treating the wrong tooth all along? I have no way of knowing but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. What I'm sure of is that he certainly wasn't able to diagnose the real source of my pain this time. The clinic dentist advised that I go back to the root-canal specialist in Khon Kaen and get all the work done by her and that's what I'm doing. The pain has since subsided I might add.

I wasn't able to get into my usual Sunday morning appointment this weekend as the dentist is going to Bangkok. I took a Saturday afternoon slot. But I didn't make it. This morning when I took a sorngtheau to the bus stop there was a bus there when I arrived. But they wouldn't let me on. It was already overcrowded and there seemed to be a quite a few students waiting already for the next one. I joined them. When it arrived about half an hour later it was seriously overcrowded already and there were about 20 or 30 students who were attempting to get on too. I decided to give it a miss. I rang the dentist and booked my usual 10 am Sunday slot next weekend.

Real or not—revisited

2009-09-04T18:08:00.002+07:00

I was visiting the Biological Sciences Building again. When I walked past the room where I'd seen the dead bodies I peeked in. They were still there. Maybe not the same ones but ones in a similar state of dismemberment. There was a class of medical students busily cutting them up. I wandered in and had a chat with their teacher and here is what I learned.

People will their bodies for medical research and/or study. After death they are put in chemicals to preserve them. Two years later they arrive at MSU where they are kept for one year.

The university uses them to teach human anatomy to students of medicine, nursing and other relevant courses. In this case the students were second-year medical students. Anatomy is seen as belonging to the Biology Department so the bodies are kept by them and students from other faculties visit for their anatomy lessons.

I stayed about ten minutes for this chat but admit I was feeling mildly queasy again. I chose to not look too closely at the corpses. These young med students, on the other hand, appeared to be completely comfortable as they hacked away and pulled out bits and pieces that they compared to the pictures in their anatomy text books.

Denial of death is very strong in Western society and perhaps humanity in general. I've written before about the use of the euphemism 'to pass away' because, for some reason, we are afraid to mention death. The idea that we should die and end completely is something we seem to not be able to accept. We have to go to heaven or be reborn.

While Buddhism appears to accept the concept of rebirth it is a little vague on what is reborn as Buddhism denies the existence of a soul.

Buddhism teaches detachment from the body we are living in and also from any others that we might happen to become attracted and attached to. Theravada Buddhism in particular teaches one to contemplate one's own or another's body as a rotting corpse as a means of bringing about this detachment. I'm not aware of any lay Buddhists here who put this into practice. A friend who considers himself to be a staunch Buddhist could not bring himself to look at any of my photos of the corpses.

I suspect those young medical students have learned detachment in a very practical way. Maybe we could all gain something by this type of interaction with the dead.

This is a follow up to an earlier blog.

Dad's advice for buying a camera 6

2009-09-03T21:10:00.001+07:00

Hi Dad,
Thinking I might go for the canon because a little extra weight isn't really an issue for me. When buying the SD card do I need ultra 11 or standard. Do I need an LCD screen protector?

Love Mel

Hi Mel

I think that's a good choice then. Just make sure the price you pay is a good saving on what they are charging for the new model otherwise you might as well buy the new one. I assume it's better but I haven't really checked it out.

Is there a card that comes with the camera? What sort? How much memory? When I've been looking at cameras in Aust in the past they tend to give you a card with a piddly memory so you have to put out extra for one and you buy one that suits you. In Malaysia the shops were generally offering 1GB cards included as an incentive to buy the camera. But they are standard. When I asked about Ultra, they didn't want to know about it. So, I got my 1GB standard and I shopped around and found another shop where I could get a good deal on an Ultra but I only got a 500 MB. I use that as my main card and use the 1GB standard as a back up. Don't get to use it often. The batteries usually run out first.

BTW, if your new camera is 10MP it will fill up a card twice as fast as a 5 MP (or maybe it's four times as fast). So, maybe a 1GB card is a good idea. Depends how many photos you can take in a day. It's rare that I will fill up both my 1GB and 500 MB. But that's a really interesting day.

Anyway, to answer your question. For taking pics, 90% of the time it doesn't matter. For downloading to your computer the Ultra is quicker. The other time it is useful is if you get into the habit of taking burst photos. (I rarely do—mainly because I don't think of it but it is a good idea.) For example, if Iz is running across the soccer field you can point the camera, focus once and hold the button down. It will take maybe five photos per second without refocusing (assuming he stays about the same distance). Not sure but maybe you'll get one or two more per second with the Ultra.

I don't have an LCD screen protector but if it is cheap or free go for it. If it's exxy I don't see the point unless, of course, little boys like to point at it with grubby fingers. Anyway, it's more important to keep their fingers off the lens. One of the problems with big lens is that they can collect fingerprints. You allow someone to look at the LCD and if they don't know better they wrap their fingers around the camera right onto the lens. I try to avoid letting anyone hold my camera for this reason.

I think I mentioned about batteries. Not sure what sort Canon uses. Some use standard batteries. Which is handy but they're bigger. Panasonic use special ones. I can't even swap them between my Panasonic cameras. It's good to have a backup and in the case of Panasonic I found that cheap Chinese copies are just not worth it even though they're a fraction of the price. Panasonic ones are exxy but worth the difference. Unfortunately their Thai website doesn't answer service enquiries and the shops don't stock them. They miss out on a sale and I'm not too well off for batteries. The point is, if I had my time over, I'd buy two (or maybe even three) of the genuine ones when I bought my camera.

The other problem I'm having with mine at the moment is downloading. The cable is something that is interchangeable, at least between my Panasonic cameras. But I threw the spare one away so that I'd have less to carry. Now, the fz20 won't download direct to either my Mac or my work PC. Thought it might be the cable but with the fx3 is OK. Not a big deal. I bought a card reader for about $A3, I take the card out of the camera and put it in the reader in the computer. If you have two cards and you are taking photos at home, you can put one in the reader and keep on taking photos with the other.

Anyway, have fun. Look forward to seeing the photos. And remember, the biggest fault most people make is including huge amounts of irrelevant background. You have a good zoom. Use it to get in close.

love

Dad

Dad's advice for buying a camera 5

2009-09-02T16:09:00.002+07:00

Next thought, Lumix DMC FZ28. All 3 are in a similar price range. This one maybe slightly cheaper but much of a muchness.
Love Mel

Hi Mel

I've been looking at a few reviews. Have you seen this one?

It compares many of the long zoom compact cameras available at the time. That includes both the Panasonic fz28 and the Canon SX10 IS. And those two cameras won. The Pentax wasn't in the review because it's newer. If you haven't already, you should read this review, in particular the conclusion. Because, the difference between these two cameras comes down to what sort of photographer you are. The Canon takes slightly better pics but it is much bigger. The Panasonic is closely behind in quality but is much smaller and lighter. Which is more important to you? BTW, there is now a Canon sx20 IS to replace the sx 10 IS. This means two things. 1. You might want to take a look at it to see if it is better still and 2. There might be better deals on the SX10.

And there is still the Pentax. The wobbly lens is the biggest thing against it in my book. Take a look in the shops and see if the lens seems wobbly to you. If it's not then maybe it is a good choice.

One thing to remember with this sort of camera, the way they get such a big zoom in such a small camera is by reducing the size of the sensor. Generally, the bigger the sensor means the better the quality. (That's what SLRs have, a big sensor) I can't really say, but I suspect that the quality of pics from these cameras might not be as good as I get in mine. The quality issue is most noticeable with low-light shots. I see it in my shots and you might see it in some of yours. So, for example, if you want to get a shot of Hamad performing at night it could be challenging. If you are up close you can use the flash. Then again you might not want to do that either because the flash makes reflections and sometimes it affects the colours. If you can't use flash because you are not so close, you can zoom in but the picture becomes a bit 'noisy', ie a bit speckly. Having more zoom with a small sensor creates noise in low light situations. It will also depend on stage lighting. Often I take night shots in that sort of situation and the lighting is so good there is no problem even without flash.

The point is, all these cameras will have this problem. If you want to avoid the problem you go for a midrange camera without the big zoom. Then you've got to get in close to the subject. Personally, I like the zoom. For you, how important are those night shots?

love

Dad

Dad's advice for buying a camera 4

2009-09-01T16:23:00.001+07:00

Dad
Was thinking could maybe go for the pentax x70, or now looking at the canon SX10IS. What do you think?
Mel

Mel

I can't find a lot about the Canon but the specifications sound good.

The Pentax zoom shot on the Steve's review is absolutely amazing. Wish my camera was that good. The main thing Steve says that’s bad is that the lens is a bit wobbly. Not sure if that is bad in the long term. And that the battery life is short. I think you'd want to get a second battery—buy authentic—when you get it. Add that onto the price. And always keep one fully charged and then you never run out.

I'd be handling both of them in the shops and decide which one feels best for you. How do they compare in price? What sort of battery does the Canon take? How does the weight compare? The Pentax seems to be fairly small for what it does. Seems like my sort of camera except for the wobbly lens. If it was for me, I'd probably buy three batteries and then never run out.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. Tell me what you decide.

love

Dad

Dad's advice for buying a camera 3

2009-08-30T17:23:00.001+07:00

Dad

You've pretty much got my general needs sussed. What would you buy? I'll have to choose something soon cause I'm getting sick of trying to figure it out.
Love Mel

PS Bub is going great. 30 weeks now.

Hi Mel

I can't say specifically what I would choose because I haven't really been studying the reviews. I would do that pretty thoroughly before I made my decision. I didn't do that when I bought my little camera and not long after I bought it I realised that I should have spent a little more money and got one with a few more features. I saw one I would have preferred (think it was a Pentax) but I'd already parted with my money.

My criteria would depend on my situation. I would only buy an SLR if I was planning to do some professional photography, ie trying to sell my photos in some way. For publishing on the net as I do, it's overkill and way too much to carry when travelling, by time you buy all the extras. And without the extras maybe you're only getting a basic camera, but hopefully a good one.

I'm a bit addicted to zoom so I would look for a camera that gave me a good zoom, with a good quality lens and had as big and high quality a sensor as possible. Whether I got something like my fz20 or something smaller would depend on whether I was planning to do a lot of travelling. And I would consider what would I lose by buying the smaller camera—is it almost as good or is there a big difference. If it's close, maybe I'd go for the smaller one. If the bigger one was way ahead, maybe I'd go for that.

It's also important to consider what features appeal to you. eg. I like a camera with a fold out LCD, the more possible angles the better.

I'd also consider what it is made from although I'm not sure how important that is. My fz20 is all plastic. They specify that it should be used within a specific range of temperatures and Thailand goes over that range. So, some of the bits of attached plastic are falling off these days. The camera still works but it is not as grippable. I'm not sure if an all metal camera is better but I suspect it might be. Then again if the all metal camera still has plastic grip bits on it, it might do the same. In the climate you are in this might not be an issue anyway.

When you get a short list, let me know and I'll make a few comments.

love

Dad

PS. Does that mean you still have 10 weeks to go?

Dad's advice for buying a camera 2

2009-08-28T20:51:00.004+07:00

Hi Dad,
Am thinking that you brought up a few valid points and I figure that I don't really need an SLR. So down to that do you have any advice? What size zoom would you think is useful to have? Basically want good snapshots at the end of the day but a camera that can play around with to get better shots. Sometimes we want to take pictures to use for a poster or flyers for things, otherwise something I can use to take nice photo's.
Love Mel

Hi Mel

First I'll give you two links to my blogs where I wrote about my cameras. This will give you an idea about why I have what I have:

Why two cameras?

Camera comparison

What size zoom depends on what you want to photograph. 3 x zoom is very common and for everyday photography it's usually fine. Sometimes I like to photograph wildlife. If you get too close then it moves away so my 12 x zoom on the fz20 is good. When there was a monkey on the roof of the house next door at Kompong Chhnang I could get a pic of just the monkey. (BTW, I have not cropped this pic.) With 3 x I would get the whole roof and would hardly see the monkey. If you want to take a pic of Iz or Hamad on the other side of the soccer field, you'll need a good zoom to take that pic. However you'll also need a camera good for action pics if you want to get them while they're moving. It can be a challenge to do that especially with full zoom. 5 x to 10 x is somewhere in between. That might suit you depends on how important those soccer shots are to you. You can also get more powerful zooms these days. Panasonic have one that does 18 x. I asked a guy who had one about it and he was pretty happy. Other manufacturers are bringing out cameras to compete with this. Not sure how good they are. The Panasonic Lumix lens has a good reputation. Read the reviews before you make a decision.

Here's an example of the sort of long-distance action you can get with an fz20. I took this at Scarborough back when I was last in Oz. BTW, someone once said to me that to get a lens on an SLR that does what I can do with my fz20, it would have to be about 45cm long. Another BTW, if you click on these pics you'll see a larger version.

OK. Some general info. If you go to my flickr page and take a look at my pics, see if you can see the difference between the pics done on the fx3 and fz20 and which do you prefer. I put that info into the tags at the side of each pic. You have to click on the pic to see it. You might think the fx3 is just as good but consider that in relation to what I have written in the blog—fx3 has its limitations. They may or may not be important to you. But if you want to take better shots you will probably want a camera with more features. BTW, fx3 and fz20 will have been superseded several times. The current models will have different names. Last time I checked the latest version of the fz20 was fz50. Not sure if it still is. It has a few more features and other improvements over mine. I like the way the LCD screen tilts so you don't always have to hold the camera up to your face. You can hold it at waist level or hold it over your head—and still see the LCD.

If somehow I lost both of my cameras I wonder what I would buy now. Rather than buy two cameras I could get a compromise, a camera that is fairly compact but has a lot of features. Canon have one called the G10. The Canon G series have a good reputation but these days other manufacturers are bringing out good cameras like it. Read some reviews and see if it does what you want. Some of the reviews will also mention other cameras to compare it with. Check out their reviews too.

There are two websites that have good reviews that I recommend:

dpreview

Steves Digicams

Read a few reviews and see if you can get more idea of what you want from that. Also on these sites are user forums. I followed the Panasonic forums for about 18 months on Steves before I bought the fz20. People tell you what they like and don't like about their cameras. It is a good way to discover which camera to not buy. You can also join and ask questions yourself. If you have narrowed it down and you are not sure, you can ask people who use the camera, eg. 'Is this a good action camera? Is it good for night shots?'. They'll tell you.

One other thing to remember is that you can have the best camera in the world but if you don't have an artistic eye you'll still take lousy shots. You need to learn a bit about framing your shots. It could be worth visiting the library and borrowing a few photography 'how to' books.

OK, that's it for now. Feel free to send more questions.

BTW, I'll expect to see lots of pics of the new baby on facebook.

love

Dad

Dad's advice for buying a camera 1

2009-08-26T15:35:00.002+07:00

My daughter, Melanie, is buying a camera back in Oz. We've been having an email dialog over the past few weeks. I decided to post it here, a bit at a time, as it may be useful for other camera buyers.

Hey Dad,
I'm looking for a new camera, for about $500. Am thinking maybe a Sony A230. Other thought was a canon EOS XS. Got any opinions?
Love Mel

Hi Mel

Just having a quick look at the cameras on your short list. Have you decided on an SLR for any reason? An SLR is for serious photography. Is that the direction you want to go? It doesn't make you a better photographer. It gives a good photographer more options provided they are prepared to spend more money. Had a quick look at the review of the Sony A230. If you buy the cheapest version, the lens you get is 18-55 mm. That gives you good wide-angle but do you ever need it? (I rarely do.) It doesn't give you much zoom. If you want to get zoom, then you also need to buy the 55-200 mm lens or you can get a kit with the two. (Maybe $200 more.) And that still doesn't give you as much zoom as I have with my Panasonic fz20. If you want still more flexibility and better photos you buy more lenses such as a portrait lens or macro lens. (another few hundred $ more) This is the way of SLRs. You keep adding to them. You end up with lots to carry around and you can spend quite a lot. It's a good way to go if you are serious. But not the best way if you just want quick snaps.

Not sure if you actually get a built-in flash in the A230 from the review. (Surely you must) They are recommending an external flash which is better than built-in anyway but more expense and more to carry. The A230 is a cheaper version of the A330 and A380. They have more features such as a fold-out LCD screen which I'd be prepared to pay more for.

That's some quick thoughts on that one. Haven't seen the camera of course, just going on the (brief) review. Haven't checked on the Canon. Maybe tomorrow.

BTW, I finally have internet at home. You can catch me on skype from time to time if you want.

And how's the baby in the belly?

love

Dad

Real or not?

2009-08-18T21:39:00.003+07:00

I have a note in my diary that Tuesday August 18 is Science Day in Thailand. No, it's not another public holiday but apparently King Mongkut predicted a solar eclipse on this day in 1868 and now we acknowledge the father of science in Thailand. Keen to promote science, the Thai government has now declared the whole week as Science Week.

I knew something was happening because on the weekend a whole heap of stalls sprang up on the road outside the science buildings but no one told me why. I had decided to go and do some stuff on the old campus this morning. It wasn't a commitment, just a plan.

There were many sorngtheaus and big buses parked along the road that I was walking towards the local sorngtheau stop—and more still arriving with kids of varying ages getting off and heading towards the science area of campus along with their teachers.

I took a few photos and asked a friendly kid where he'd come from. He gave the name of his school but that gave me no more clues. As I got to the bridge that crossed the canal and led towards the science faculties, I decided to change my plan.

Most people were heading into the biological sciences building and so did I. I discovered that there was a science fair with displays from the various science-related faculties and also many of the high school students from schools around the region, that would be MSU's feeder schools, had set up poster sessions based on experiments they'd done. There was a lot of stuff there that would make an environmentalist proud on topics such as natural pest control, paper recycling, composting, earthworms, biodiesel and alternative electricity generation.

One section was attracting quite an audience. I managed to get close enough to see that one of the nursing students was testing male students to see if they knew how to put on a condom. She had a wooden erect penis on a table. This guy had to open the condom packet, remove the condom and place it properly on the wooden penis. But that wasn't all. She gave him some tissues and he had to remove it in a manner that would not allow any fluid to escape. He must have got it right because all his friends cheered.

Just past this was a room that most people coming from were holding their hands, a tissue or a cloth over their mouths and noses. I wondered what could be in there. I saw groups of people gathered around tables.
It took a while before I could see what was on the table—some sort of dead animal I guessed. There was lots of meat and organs exposed. As I looked more closely at the shape of the legs and then the rest of the body I realised that this animal was in fact human. 'It can't be real,' was my first thought. When I got close enough I asked the student who was taking care of it, running her bare hands through the various organs, picking them up for everyone to see, 'Jing reuh?' (Is it real?)

'Jing jing,' she replied. (It sure is.)

'Ma jark ti nai?' (Where did it come from?)

'Khon Kaen University.'

I asked if she was from the faculty of medicine. Nursing, I discovered. I was told that on the other side of the room were students from the faculty of medicine. There were several tables on each side of the room and on each was a similar body, cut up sufficiently that the gender was not obvious. The skulls on most had been sawn open. They weren't newly dead. They looked like they'd been preserved in some chemicals. Perhaps that is what was giving off the smell that many found offensive.

There were kids in the room, perhaps no more than ten, and no one was bothered to protect them from this sight. I was having a mixed reaction. On the one hand I was fascinated and got a few photos. On the other, I've been known to have bad reactions to this sort of thing in the past. I checked myself and decided that I wasn't about to pass out but that perhaps I'd feel more confident if I got out of there.

It was an interesting exhibition. Now I'm wondering if I should go back tomorrow.

Dentists and pain

2009-08-12T17:38:00.002+07:00

When I was a kid if I needed dental treatment my mother took me to the dental hospital at South Brisbane. Some of my friends went to private dentists. But my family could not afford that. At the hospital you did not get to choose your dentist. Some were good with kids. Some should have been banned from working with kids. I remember when water drills came in. They were so much easier to handle than the old mechanical ones we used to be subjected to. I also remember one cranky old dentist threatening that he would use the mechanical drill if I couldn't keep my mouth open wider. As a kid all of my fillings were done without an injection.

At the age of 18 I went to live in Sydney. When I needed dental treatment I discovered Dr C. He was wonderful. I know it is not common to hear people say they think their dentist is wonderful but compared to what I grew up with I found him to be a kind and gentle man. He would take time to explain what was needed and give me choices about how that was done. He seemed to be impressed that I didn't need an injection for a normal filling. I remember one time he got his nurse (he always had cute nurses) to take a look at how much drilling he'd done without an injection. I had tried injections and I decided I preferred the short-term pain of the drill that stopped as soon as he stopped drilling to the longer-term discomfort and numbness created by the injection.

When I moved away from Sydney I tried other dentists. None of them came up to Dr C. One refused to accept my decision to not have an injection and immediately injected me without waiting for me to disagree. I never returned to him. Nor did I return to others I tried for one reason or another. When I was living in Brisbane I had to go to an annual conference in the Sydney area. I would usually arrange to go a week early so I could visit Dr C for a check up and any work needed. Eventually he said I didn't need to keep coming as at the stage I had reached my teeth should stay good for some time.

When I decided to retire and move to Asia over six years ago, I had one or two little problems with my teeth. I decided to visit Dr C and get them fixed before I did. I didn't know if he'd still be practising but he was. By this time he was about 70 years old. I expressed surprise that he was still practising. He said he had fewer patients these days and it suited him. He'd slowed down rather than retiring. 'And what would I do if I retired?' he asked. I could think of a thousand things but obviously he is happy with dentistry.

He refilled one tooth for me and recommended I get a crown on another. I had a choice of a post and crown or just a crown. He said the post should be better but there were no guarantees. As it turned out I did not have time for the post before my flight to Asia so I settled for the crown.

It didn't last. It fell victim to some sticky rice in Thailand. I didn't do anything about it at the time. I was still able to chew and I found I had less trouble with food becoming trapped. Some time later, when I was living in Cambodia a filling came out. This one was causing some problems so I decided to have it fixed. You can read the story here.

I got the same dentist to replace the missing crown too. I was wary at the time about getting such work done in Cambodia but that was September '06 and I'm happy to say that it is still there and in that time it has been responsible for assisting in the chewing of many kilos of sticky rice.

Having had such success in Cambodia I was not concerned about finding a good dentist in Mahasarakham. The dentist I was referred to was recommended by several people. His practice is clean and appears to be professional. I assume you've already read my previous two posts. Now I'll carry on from where I left off.

Since the first root-canal treatment the tooth stopped hurting and has given me very little trouble. Last Sunday I made my final visit to the lady dentist in Khon Kaen. (Lots of Khon Kaen pics now on my flickr page.) She gave me the final treatment which lasted about an hour and was done without an injection. But I still had to return to my dentist in Mahasarakham to get the crown added. I got someone to ring and make an appointment for me. It can be a little frustrating communicating via someone else who may not understand fully what you want. I usually make an appointment for 6 pm and don't often wait too long. She made the appointment for 5 pm. I made it there by 5.20 knowing that there was no way I'd go in straight off at 5. I waited until 6.40 before I finally got into the dentist chair. I thought they'd forgotten me. Before I left to head into town I noticed that if I bit down on the problem tooth there was a slight twinge there. I tested this a few times on my way to the dentist and sometimes it twinged and sometimes it didn't. I mentioned this to him when I got into the chair. He just said 'Hmmm.' After he removed the temporary crown he stuck his drill into my mouth. I guess he was polishing the tooth but whatever he was doing it was quite painful. 'Relax. Relax.' he said. 'I can't,' I answered. 'It's hurting.' He said it shouldn't be hurting as there was no nerve left in the tooth. I understood that but I know pain when I feel it. And it was painful. So, he put another temporary crown on it and told me to come back in two weeks. I'm not impressed. I wanted to be over it. I've had enough of this. I want to be able to eat whatever I feel like instead of having to eat omelettes and curries all the time. I want to eat sticky rice again. But it seems I have to wait another two weeks—at least. It has been sore to bite on since then but today, not quite so bad. Let's hope it gets better this time.

Root canal update

2009-08-04T16:41:00.002+07:00

I went back to Khon Kaen on the weekend for my second root canal treatment. Since the first treatment my mouth has felt much better with no pain. I stayed overnight as before and took quite a few photos (coming to my flickr page--but give me time to process them) at the market in the morning before I went for my dental appointment. Once again I have been pain free but despite eating only foods that are relatively easy to chew this temporary crown is starting to break away. I only hope it lasts until I get back for what I hope is my last treatment next Sunday.

Visiting a woman in Khon Kaen

2009-07-27T15:19:00.001+07:00

On the weekend I visited Khon Kaen, the province west of Mahasarakham. I didn’t go there for fun but I did enjoy myself—most of the time. Even though I hadn’t been there for a few years I returned to Sawasdee Hotel where I’d stayed in the past. The rooms are adequate for my needs and the rate still reasonable. In the area there is a night market—at least on Saturday night—that is worth a visit. There is also quite a large market—selling fruit, vegetables, some live produce and much more—that is very active in the mornings. Over the weekend I picked up a few bargains that I couldn’t have got in Mahasarakham.

The purpose of my visit was that my dentist had referred me for some root-canal treatment. Apparently this was not available in Mahasarakham. For the size of this city there are not so many dentists. On the other hand they are abundant in Khon Kaen. I put this down to the fact that Mahasarakham University does not have a faculty of dentistry but Khon Kaen University does. Locals who study dentistry there probably stay on to practise after they graduate.

My dental specialist is a woman and I have to say that the hour I spent with her was not the most fun I’ve ever had with a woman. Once she got down to serious work I was not allowed to close or rinse my mouth until she finished—more than half-an-hour later. She asked if I could read Thai. ‘Nit noy—a little,’ I answered. She gave me a fact sheet on my treatment but at the speed I read Thai I think two A4 pages would take me far too long. A friend scanned through it and declined to explain it to me claiming it was too depressing. Gee thanks.

One day later and my mouth doesn’t feel too bad. I’ll be visiting Khon Kaen again over the next couple of weekends as this treatment is still a long way from finished.

Obvious mistakes

2009-07-15T10:04:00.002+07:00

While I'm reminiscing about my early career as a typographer in the days long before personal computers, here's a story from those days.

At this particular time I worked in the Sydney office of a large American publishing company—a publisher of books and magazines. I won't mention the name but you would know them. I worked in the art department as a typographer. My assistant and I had the job of specifying the typography for all publications and promotional materials produced by the company.

The head of the art department was a man we'll call D—a nice man but he had a huge ego. I don't think he was particularly creative or knowledgeable. He was basically an administrator. Everything produced by the art department had to have his initials on it in a little rubber-stamped box in the corner. And before he would add his initials he always had to change something.

This drove me crazy. If I had a typographic layout I'd done I would take it to him and he would say something like, 'That looks good, John, but I think you should add just a little more space between these two lines here.'

And I would reply, 'Well, if we add more space there, then we need to take some space out of here and that upsets the balance of these elements here.'

He'd say, 'Yes, you're right John, then what you need to do is this...' and he'd make another suggestion that was worse than the first. I'd explain why that wouldn't work and he'd come up with another suggestion. At this point I realised that it was better to accept what he said because every suggestion got worse than the previous one and one way or another he was determined to have some input into my layout.

Among my colleagues in the art department were two illustrators, we'll call F1 and F2. They were both about the age I am now. F1 did very fine pen illustrations that resembled hand engravings. He got a lot of freelance work from publishers who wanted illustrations that looked like they were from a previous era.

F2's style was almost the opposite of F1's. Where F1's illustrations were fine and detailed and took hours, maybe days, to complete, F2's were very loose. He had the ability to pick up a pencil, put a few rough strokes on the paper and in no time you were looking at a very free representation of the subject. F1 greatly admired F2's ability. In fact, both of them were masters at their own particular form of illustration.

One day I returned to our section after having one of my layouts destroyed by D's ego. I had a chat with F1 (perhaps one of my first mentors). He pointed out that when F2 took a drawing down to D for approval, D would say something like 'That looks very good F but look at this guy's leg. It's a little too short.' F would return to his drawing board, throw the picture away, angrily grab the first pencil that came to hand and redo the picture, being very careful to get the leg right. Ten minutes later he'd take it down to D and D would say, 'Well, the leg looks great now F but unfortunately this guy's hat is a bit crooked.' So F would return, throw that one away and start again. Sometimes he would end up doing 20 versions of that one picture and eventually would end up with an F2 rendering of a D illustration.

F1 then showed me how he handled the situation. He would very carefully make an obvious mistake in his illustration, one that was easily fixed. He would take it down to D and D would say, 'Look at what you've done here, F. This guy's got six fingers!'

'How silly of me,' F would reply. He'd return to his drawing board and make the illustration the way he wanted it to be in the first place.

After that I started making obvious mistakes in my layouts and D and I got on fine.

BTW, there's a footnote to this story. There was a photographer in the art department about my age. He often worked back late. I discovered much later that after the others had gone home and before the cleaners had gone through, he would collect F2's reject drawings. I once saw one of F2's sketches framed in a gallery. It was selling for about the same as my weekly wages. Perhaps that photographer was smarter than all of us.

Legacy of the typewriter

2009-07-14T08:48:00.006+07:00

Forty years ago not many offices had computers. They were too big and too expensive. Those that did certainly didn't use them for day-to-day writing tasks. The cost couldn't be justified. In those days the most commonly used writing tool, apart from pens and pencils, was the typewriter.

Today we writers are spoilt with so many fonts, so many sizes and weights and styles to choose from when we want to create emphasis. Most typewriters in those days had one style, one size, no bold, no italic. Also the letters were designed to be one fixed width, ie the lower-case i was the same width as the capital W.

Typists were, however, quite inventive in the use of their single font to create different degrees of emphasis in, say, a heading. For a major heading it could be typed all in capitals and underlined. A less-major heading might have capitals without underlining. A lower-level heading perhaps had initial letters capitalised. Sometimes when a typist thought a heading might be particularly important they might add an exclamation mark. Such skills were taught to typists at typing schools.

On the other hand, publishers had their publications typeset on machines such as Linotype and Monotype. Such machines could set type in many different sizes and styles. One particular font might have bold, extra bold, normal, light, condensed, expanded and of course italic. Without changing the basic font, the publisher had many ways to create emphasis.

When the typesetter received the copy to be set it had been created on a typewriter and he might have a challenge to decide which of the typist's styles he should follow and when he should use his typographic training and substitute something perhaps more appropriate. If he made a decision that did not suit the customer the setting might have to be done again at no charge.

To alleviate this problem, publishers and advertising agencies employed editors and typographers to mark up the copy with clear instructions so that the typesetters knew what was required.

I was such a person. I gained my typographic knowledge first from my superiors and also from studying Publication Typography and other related courses at Ultimo Technical College, School of Graphic Arts in Sydney. I was committed to understanding the craft and read every book on the subject that I could lay my hands on from the college and other trade libraries.

I and my colleagues spent much time going through the copy putting vertical lines through each of the capital letters we wanted to be set as lower case.

Why did we go to so much trouble? Because the purpose of print is to communicate. Our job was to create the best communication possible.

One of the maxims which guided my decisions was: 'Anything that doesn't add to the communication probably detracts from it.' Therefore if I was in doubt about whether to follow the typist's style or change it, I would ask myself, 'Is the communication improved by this?' If it wasn't, I removed it.

In a heading do we need to put all the initial letters in capitals? To decide, ask 'What does this practice communicate?' If it is intended to communicate 'Hey, this is a heading.', doesn't the fact that we've put it a few sizes larger than the text and in bold do that? I feel that overemphasising something can be condescending to the reader. We're saying, 'Pay attention stupid! This is a heading.' I trust my readers are intelligent enough to have already figured that out. How about yours?

Sometimes those trained in the Typist School of Typography go even a step further. They add an exclamation mark/point to a really important heading. The purposes for an exclamation mark are to indicate something that is shouted or exclaimed; to indicate an intensity of emotion or loudness; or to express a speaker's dumfounded astonishment (refer dictionary.com). Overuse of exclamation marks is a sign of a writer's lack of ability to communicate.

Following the maxim I quoted above, I have my own personal campaign to remove all unnecessary punctuation. Regular readers of this blog might have noticed, for example, that I write 'eg' without punctuation. Do you understand what it means? I'm sure that if you know that 'e.g.' means 'for example' then you won't be confused by my 'eg'. If I think a reader of average intelligence might be confused I'll add the punctuation. You'll notice I do a few little things like this. Perhaps I'm being a little innovative but I don't believe I'm the first person to do so. I'm not aware of any dictionaries that acknowledge this spelling but no doubt they'll catch up in due course.

On the other hand, words such as Mr, Dr, Ms etc have been spelt without full stops/points for many years. I remember my eighth grade teacher pointing this out almost fifty years ago. He said it wasn't an abbreviation but an alternate spelling and quoted the Oxford Dictionary to support him. This practice is common in both England and USA. Check dictionary.com once again. It shows that there are some American dictionaries that still use the full stop/point but the more progressive ones have dropped it. Likewise, the more progressive ones also accept that tertiary qualifications such as PhD, MBA etc may be spelled without full points. Eventually, I suspect, everyone will be doing it this way. If you want to be the last to change, feel free.

So, am I alone in this or is what I am advocating standard for respected publishers? I made a list of ten English-language news publications without knowing where they stand. I thought it might be an interesting exercise to see how many agree with me. The publications are Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Bangkok Post, The Nation (Bangkok), New York Times, Los Angles Times, Washington Times, London Times, The Economist and New Statesman.

Eight of these ten publications, like me, do not capitalise initial letters in headings. Seven of these publications do not use full stops for Mr, Dr, Ms etc. Two of the other three seem to avoid the issue. They simply use the person's name without a title. I'm sure they have a ruling in their style manuals but I suspect their style manuals encourage journalists to avoid use of such titles altogether. Therefore, only one out of ten is regularly adding full stops to these short titles. I did not find one publication that used an exclamation mark in a heading.

Photos from Wikimedia Commons

Sharing the germs

2009-07-09T09:10:00.002+07:00

A student commented the other evening that there was a case of H1N1 flu at the demonstration high school on campus and asked if I recommended they should wear masks to protect themselves. Dr John has no particular expertise in this area however I had read the advice on the WHO website because I incorporated it in a newsletter article I wrote. It said that there was no evidence that masks reduced infections. It then went on to give advice on how to use masks. I guess because, despite what they advise, there will still be people who use them. I told the student what WHO said and he said that the Thai Health Department advised wearing a mask.

If you have a cold or the flu and you wear a mask WHO advises that when you cough or sneeze, you should replace the mask. If it's disposable, get a new one. If it's washable, put it in the washing. The point seemed to be that we shouldn't wear the same mask all day long. Think about it. If you're coughing and sneezing into that mask over and over it will soon be full of germs. WHO also advised keeping hands away from your mouth and regular washing of hands.

We've just had another of our five-day weekends here in Thailand. If you live in a tourist area that means it gets busy. If you live somewhere like Mahasarakham, that means it virtually dies. The place you usually eat may no longer be open. I went to a different place for lunch on Saturday. The woman who served me was wearing a mask. After she served me she started coughing and automatically put her hand to her mouth. A series of thoughts entered my head: 'How long's she been wearing that mask? Does she have flu? Did she cough before she handled my plate? Did she wash her hands? Did she help to prepare my food? If she's not the cook, does the cook have the flu?'

Living in Asia, I rarely cook my own food but the danger of eating out is that you simply do not know the hygiene standards of the person preparing your food. Will her mask protect me from her flu? Not if she's been wearing it all day. In this case it will aid in the transmission of the germs.

End the craziness of nuclear weapons

2009-07-03T13:38:00.003+07:00

Does it seem dangerously crazy to you that previously insignificant, possibly unstable governments have nuclear power now and are developing nuclear weapons? To me it is crazy that any government has nuclear weapons. I don’t think humans have enough intelligence to be trusted with weapons with the potential to destroy the planet.

It seems I’m not the only one who thinks like this. If you agree too, perhaps you can sign the petition and show your support.

Does it seem dangerously crazy to you that previously insignificant, possibly unstable governments have nuclear power now and are developing nuclear weapons? To me it is crazy that any government has nuclear weapons. I don’t think humans have enough intelligence to be trusted with weapons with the potential to destroy the planet. It seems I’m not the only one who thinks like this. If you agree too, perhaps you can sign the petition and show your support.

Why do we work?

2009-07-01T15:34:00.002+07:00

I’m aware that some of my friends check this blog from time to time to make sure I’m still alive. Therefore I’ll post this one to let you know that I am not sick, dead or in jail—just busy.

I’ve had a few trips to Bangkok lately as my flickr page will attest. In fact, I have more pictures to post but haven’t had time to process them. And I have another trip away this weekend. More about that later. I’m still finding time to do a little reading so I’ll share a quote from my favourite Buddhist teacher:

'Allow me to oppose the statement "Work is money. Money is work." which is a false statement not in line with Buddhist principle which teaches that work is duty and duty is work and the "work" here implies the morally right kind of work for every kind of living being. Work is not something to be done for the sheer purpose of earning money to pander and indulge ourselves in vices or various sensual pleasures which are in reality, merely a matter of "flashes of madness".'

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
'A Consigned Legacy'

New neighbours

2009-06-08T08:40:00.002+07:00

My friends, Ead and Tong, live in the suburbs of Bangkok not far from where I was living last year. There is a small canal that runs at the back of their house. When I first visited, some years ago, there was what they described as a 'traditional village' among the trees on several acres of land on the other side of the canal. I gather that the land on which the village stood changed hands a few years back and the village was pulled down. Some time later, squatters built what I would call 'temporary dwellings' on the land. They lived there, apparently happily, for a few years. When I arrived earlier this year much of the land had been cleared and it looked like roads were being built. On my latest visit, last weekend, I see that many new temporary dwellings have appeared. Some but not all of the old ones have gone.

In Thailand, it seems from my observations, builders labourers don't have a permanent home but move onto the site where they are going to be working, along with their families. Before they erect the permanent buildings they build temporary homes like these. I guess there is going to be quite a lot of construction going on there over the coming months and in the mean time these dwellings house Ead and Tong's newest neighbours.

My new icon

2009-05-25T09:11:00.001+07:00

When I was preparing documents for my visa report I realised that I was getting low on ID photos. It's quite cheap to get someone to take them for you here in Thailand but I decided I could do better myself. I put my camera on a tripod, pointed it at my wardrobe, set the camera on delayed exposure, stood in front of the wardrobe and 'click'. I took several shots, experimenting with draping different types of cloth over the wardrobe to change the backdrop. Occasionally I pointed the camera a little carelessly and took one that was off centre.

This particular one with a silk-sheet background inspired me. On my computer I cropped it, fiddled with the exposure and sharpening, then put it through a watercolour filter, sharpened again and this is the result. Years ago I would spend many many hours with paints and canvas to produce a picture. This little effort took me about ten minutes all up.

I decided to link my flickr page more definitely with this blog by giving them the same icon and name. And at this point in time my ID pics are about as up-to-date as they can be.

Buddha's descendants

2009-05-20T08:46:00.002+07:00

Over 2,500 years ago Siddhartha Gotama sat in meditation under a fig tree (ficus religiosa). He stayed sitting until he achieved enlightenment and became known as the Buddha. Cuttings from that tree were planted and cuttings from the progeny also. Since then cuttings from the descendants of the original tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment have spread around the world and are revered by Buddhists as Bodhi (enlightenment) trees.

Before Siddhartha left home to take up the path of searching for enlightenment he had one son named Rahula. At the age of seven Rahula joined his father as a novice monk, apparently the first. I assume Rahula remained a monk until his death and so there are no descendant of the Buddha himself.

Perhaps we can think of the Bodhi trees that have now been planted around the world as the closest thing to a living descendent of the Buddha. I photographed this one close to the bank of the Mekong River in Mukdahan which I visited yesterday for the first 90-day reporting of my current visa for staying in Thailand.

Islamic dominoes

2009-05-13T09:43:00.002+07:00

On Sunday night I watched the BBC's review of the week's news. It showed the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan along with Barack Obama showing their solidarity and talking about the need to suppress the Taliban in these two countries. And of course there is the suggestion that is so often raised that if the Taliban take control of Pakistan they will have access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The thought is planted in our minds but no one seems to want to take this suggestion any further. We are left with the thought to do what it will in our minds.

I want so much to give Barack Obama a chance. He talked about the need for change and he talked about withdrawing from Iraq. Is this man sincere? I hope so, but...

And then it dawned on me. Change? Nothing has changed.

I cast my mind back to the late 60s and early 70s, to the time of the Vietnam war. The justification for that war was the domino theory—if one country fell to communism all the others would fall too like a row of dominoes. We were inculcated with the fear of communism to entice us to accept that war just as now we are inculcated with the fear of al-Qaeda and extreme Islam so that we support today's wars.

Did the communist dominoes fall as we were told they would after Vietnam won the war?

'If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish.
If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given.
This is called the subtle perception of the way things are.'

Ajahn Sumano Bhikku
Monk in the Mountain

Stay thin and see no evil

2009-05-12T08:33:00.002+07:00

We've been having an abundance of holidays here lately. After nine days straight for Songkran we had Coronation Day last Tuesday. Friday was Wesak and Monday the Royal Ploughing Ceremony. The astrologers who chose that date gave us another four-day weekend.

I decided that was a good opportunity for a change of scenery. I decided to go to Udon Thani because I remember that when I was there years ago there was a bookshop where I bought a few English-language second-hand books.

As I said it was years ago when I was last there. I figured my memories and a 2003 edition of LP Thailand would be enough for me to find everything I needed in Udon. I did have a quick look at a more recent LP a week or so ago and the description of one hotel being suitable for conversion as a prison made me think that the one I stayed in was still there. The 2003 edition also listed another in the same street that looked more promising. I figured with two in the same street I'd probably be able to find one that was suitable.

When I got off the bus, off course I was approached by a tuk tuk tout. I figured it wasn't too far to the hotel but it was hot so I asked him if he knew the street. He didn't. Nor did he know either of the hotels. I decided to trust my feet rather than a tuk tuk.

I walked up one of the streets running off the highway and shortly ascertained that it was the right one to get me where I was going. I came to a major intersection that looked promising. I asked a couple of passers by if it was Thanon Mak Khaeng. They said it was but didn't know the hotels. There was another hotel named Siri Udon in this street that looked about my budget level but I didn't remember seeing it in LP. When I reached the other end of the street I realised it was not Thanon Mak Khaeng at all but Thanon Amphoe. I remembered it from the LP map and knew I still had a way to walk in the heat.

Eventually I reached Thanon Mak Khaeng and walked up and down the block where I should have found the hotel Tang Porn Dhiraksa but I couldn't. No worries, the other one would do. Headed further up the block. And right where I remember my prison-like hotel being a few years back there is now a brightly coloured almost refurbished building that will no doubt be a hotel when it reopens. Or was Chaiya Porn hotel in the vacant block next door?

I found a shady seat and pulled out my 2003 LP again. Siri Udon was indeed listed and while they didn't say anything good about it, they didn't say anything bad. So I headed back there. They had a fan room for 180 baht. The sheets looked clean and so did the bathroom. The bed felt firm. I took it. The room was cool and the bed was comfortable. I crashed for about an hour.

It was already mid afternoon when I woke and I hadn't had any lunch so I headed off to find somewhere to eat. On the way I noticed the bookshop I wanted to visit and returned there after lunch. They mostly stock Thai books. In fact, from the front you'd think it was a specialist Buddhist bookshop but the back half of the shop has more general books. They used to have quite a few second-hand English language books but I must say the range has declined in those years. Perhaps they're not restocking as they sell them. I didn't see anything there I couldn't live without but still grabbed half-a-dozen that looked OK.

When I had paid for those I asked if they had any other English books. He said 'no'. But as I was leaving, walking through the Buddhist section, my eagle eyes noticed 'Monk in the Mountain' by Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu. It looked appealing so I bought that too. When the shop man realised I was interested in Buddhism he went off and returned with a selection of books in English. Five of these were by Phra Buddhadasa (Buddhadasa Bhikkhu on the cover). I had owned one of them before but had to dispose of it when moving on. I bought all five. I might not see them again in a hurry—not likely in Mahasarakham anyway.

Vendors gather in Thanon Amphoe and around the corner in Thanon Pho Si selling Buddhist amulets and also some Buddha images. The amulets are supposedly blessed by monks and have powers. It is not unusual to see a man wearing five or more amulets around his neck. No doubt he thinks that'll protect him from his bad karma. I don't go in for this sort of thing. I believe the Buddha specifically denounced the practice. Still, I find it an interesting aspect of Thai culture. Newsagents stock many magazines for collectors of these amulets. When I went out for breakfast the next morning a stall had set up right outside the door of the hotel. They had a mountain of amulets selling for 20 baht each. I have a friend in Australia who is fascinated by Buddha images showing the Buddha in his anorexic stage. I thought I might find an amulet like that. I did but the woman said it wasn't the Buddha. I asked who it was and she replied 'Samdet'. I would have liked to know more but that was the extent of my ability in Thai. I found another that interested me. A Buddha-like image with hands covering eyes. I asked what it was and she said 'pit dah'. I could already see that. 'Pit dah' equals 'eyes closed'. 'Thammai pit dah'. 'Why are the eyes closed?' I asked. But once again her answer was beyond my Thai language ability. I bought both of them anyway. I'm not sure what these are going to do for me. Maybe I'll never get fat nor see any evil.

Fruit-lover's bliss

2009-05-07T09:43:00.003+07:00

Fruits are one of the delights in my life. I like so many fruits it is hard to decide which one is my actual favourite but I'd put both mango and lichee on the shortlist.

A few weeks ago sweet yellow-skinned mangoes started to appear on the market stalls. I was happy to get them at 50 baht a kilo. That's about A$2. Since then I got some lichees at 30 baht a kilo. They weren't the best I'd ever tasted but at that price I wasn't complaining. Since then the price has come down to 20 baht and the quality has gone up—such beautiful texture. Mmmm mmmm. Mangoes have also come down. They put little bundles on the stall—probably around a kilo each bundle—and sell them for 10 baht. I'm in ecstasy.

I've been watching the price of durian. I look for it to be sold in a single serve because you're not supposed to eat too much at one time. It's been selling for quite a bit more than I was paying in Bangkok last year but last night I got a serve for 30 baht. I'm happy with that. It made a nice dessert after the BBQ fish I had for dinner. I saved the lichees for breakfast.

How's your traffic jam?

2009-05-04T08:41:00.002+07:00

One of the things I appreciate about the internet is the way it makes it possible for us to communicate with people we would never otherwise meet. Recently I have been communicating with someone in Cairo and I must say that my knowledge of Cairo is scant. My online friend mentioned being caught in a traffic jam which prompted me to wonder just what a Cairo traffic jam is like.

On my last visit back to Australia some friends who live in Toowoomba were complaining bitterly about how terrible the traffic was in Brisbane. To hear them speak you might think that to be caught in a traffic jam in Brisbane was completely intolerable.

I lived a long time in Sydney. For some years prior to leaving, my work required me to visit schools all over the city. When I got the opportunity to move back to Brisbane, the thought of being able to escape the traffic jams of Sydney was an incentive for the move. Let me assure anyone who thinks Brisbane traffic jams are terrible that by comparison to Sydney, Brisbane's traffic moves very smoothly.

I learned to put Sydney's traffic into perspective after I'd spent some time in Bangkok. The population of Bangkok would be more than double that of Sydney and when all those people are trying to get to or from work the traffic is utter chaos. Anarchy is the norm on Bangkok roads. Lane markings mean little and traffic lights not much more. When you notice the inside lane on a Bangkok road is free, you ease yourself into it and fly along for a little way until you come upon a vendor slowly peddling a heavily laden three wheeler ahead of you. If you're lucky he is actually going in the same direction as you are. For pedestrians it is extremely dangerous to put a foot on a Bangkok road and even on the footpath you have to contend with motorcycles that have given up trying to make progress on the road. When I visited Sydney after living in Bangkok I was surprised at how courteous Sydney drivers are.

Last year I made my first visit to India and when I'd spent a little time in Delhi I realised that traffic in Bangkok isn't so bad after all. You haven't really experienced a traffic jam until you've been stuck for a few hours in Delhi traffic getting absolutely nowhere. And when the traffic is moving fast you have to hope you have a good driver because traffic is moving every which way with horns blaring constantly. I have the greatest respect for the ability of Delhi taxi drivers. Without them I probably would never have gone anywhere. There's no way you'd get me behind a wheel in Delhi. Returning to Bangkok after experiencing Delhi I have to say the traffic is quiet and almost pleasant.

Sometimes I wonder how people back in Australia are coping with the economic downturn. On the news here I see garment workers in Wollongong protesting about the loss of their jobs. If you lose your job in Australia you have to contend with the poverty of living on the dole. Let me assure you, your poverty is relative just as traffic jams are. I have friends in Cambodia who even with a job have a lifestyle way below that of an Australian on the dole. My Cambodian friends who are unemployed are even worse off. They have no running water and no money to buy bottled water as I did when I lived there. If they are lucky enough to have a pump, they boil the water from underground before they drink it. Some boil the river water and drink that but that doesn't kill the germs from the human faeces in the water. Most Australians, even if unemployed, have drinkable water piped into their homes.

If you happen to have lost your job recently because of the economic downturn, I'm sorry about that. As you drive to your next job interview if you get caught in a traffic jam and you think you'll be late for the interview, take it easy. Just think of someone in Delhi trying to get to their interview on a broken-down motorcycle or perhaps someone in Cambodia riding through the traffic on the way to their interview on a borrowed bicycle. Stay calm. I hope you get the job.

So, who invented soap opera?

2009-04-27T09:46:00.005+07:00

Last week Thai language students at MSU gave performances of a play adapted from a traditional Thai folk tale called 'Khun Chang Khun Pan'. It was presented in Thai. I didn't expect my Thai listening skills to have progressed to the point of being able to follow it. But being a storyteller I was interested. I found an abbreviated version of the story online that gave me the plot. At Saturday night's performance I don't claim to have followed the details but I knew who the important characters were and had some idea of what was going on.

Khun Chang and Khun Pan are two men who love the same woman, Nang Wantong. She agrees to marry Khun Pan. They plant a tree as a symbol of their love. When Khun Pan goes off to war, Khun Chang pours hot water on the tree killing it. He tells Nang Wantong that this is proof that her husband is dead and offers to marry her. This goes well until Khun Pan returns and demands his wife back. However Khun Pan has not exactly been faithful to his wife. He has a few other wives who he married in his travels. Eventually he goes off again and Wantong takes up with Khun Chang once more. But she is pregnant to Khun Pan and bears his son who doesn't get on too well with his stepfather. There are many fights between them and the son wants the stepfather dead. After many years Khun Pan returns and declares his love for her. The king steps in and tells her she has to declare which husband she really loves. She can't make up her mind. I guess the moral of the story is that a woman should not have two husbands as the king has her executed.

The standard of the production was up to what I would expect from a better amateur production in Australia. The costumes were colourful and, to me, looked authentic. Musical backing was well integrated with some of the musicians also taking small parts in the play. I look forward to their next production.

More pictures of the play are on my current flickr page--see 'my latest photos' link on the sidebar.

What is it?

2009-04-23T08:59:00.001+07:00

I recently purchased a device that was manufactured in China. There was a caution on the package in both Chinese and English. Here's the English wording:

'This product was easy to burning. Aloof the high temperature, please, because may-be beget any danger and the product's definition distort.

'The product only befit measure and study, unable to doother definition's measure. Needed the pate-rfamilias accompany, if the children haven't3 years'

I guess you've figured by now that my purchase was a plastic ruler.

Mahasarakham Songkran celebration

2009-04-18T14:14:00.003+07:00

Thailand has been in the world news once again in the last week with protests coming to a head. These protests coincided with Songkran, Thai new year, which this year was a five-day weekend. Here in Mahasarakham I was oblivious to what was going on in Bangkok for several days. This is how it all looked to me.

The university organised some celebrations on Friday commencing with a parade. They sure love their parades here in Mahasarakham. Many of the floats could have been for any celebration with people in various forms of traditional dress. Some were specifically Songkran, a utility/pickup with barrels and revellers throwing water on the onlookers.

Outside the gymnasium there was a talent show with singing and dancing. Awards were given by the university president. Later people queued to wash a Buddha image and then to pour water respectfully onto the hands of elders from local villages. As the afternoon moved on there was a local band and dancing and some revellers got around to throwing a lot of water around. But generally it was kept for those who'd come to enjoy that aspect of the celebration. I caught up with some old friends, made some new ones and generally had a good time.

My biggest challenge during the day was keeping my camera dry. It survived. I'll be uploading the most interesting of my Songkran pics to my flickr page (see sidebar). Hopefully they'll be there by time you're reading this. If you read it some time after I post it the photos will have moved back through the photostream. You can find them quickly by searching 'songkran', alternatively take your time and enjoy the newer photos on the way.

After that I knew it would be pretty quiet around Mahasarakham. On Saturday morning I took a sorngtheau into town specifically to buy a Bangkok Post, so I'd have something to read over the long weekend. I tried two paper shops and found none. At the second I asked if they had the Post and was told 'mai ma', it didn't come.

At lunch time I went out to get something to eat. There were very few eating places open and those that were had few customers. Sunday I took a longer ride on my bicycle to buy some fruit and got wet several times by Songkran revellers. Apart from little pockets of people with barrels of water the area around the university was unusually quiet.

Before I went out for lunch on Monday I got a call from Nathanon. He was ringing to check where I was and if I was OK. I had not watched any TV over the weekend and until this time I knew nothing about what had been going on in Bangkok. I turned on the TV to catch up. Bangkok was big news on the BBC. I also watched a few Thai channels but with my limited Thai I wasn't able to discover much more than I got from the BBC.

To put it in perspective, yes it was probably worse than what was going on last year. It might have affected me if I was still living in Bangkok and needed to go into the city. I often used to catch a bus from Victory Monument to get home and that was one of the areas targeted by the protesters. It looked pretty bad for people living where it was all happening but for those who live out in the suburbs where I did I expect there wasn't a lot of change provided they stayed close to home.

In Mahasarakham there was nothing happening so far as I could see. In fact Mahasarakham couldn't have been much quieter. I went into town again on Tuesday morning and this time I did manage to buy a Bangkok Post. The reason I couldn't get one on Saturday was that the roads out of Bangkok had been blocked by the protesters.

On Wednesday I took a look at the TV again. Thailand had ceased to be of interest to the BBC and the Thai TV stations were showing the Songkran revellers. The protesters had deprived Bangkok of four days of celebrations. It looked like they wanted to make the most of it for the one day left.

When I woke up Thursday morning I had a text message from an unknown number saying that the holiday had been extended for two more days. I figured this was a gimmick from the phone company so took no notice. But on my way to the office Thursday morning I noticed that the campus was unusually quiet. The office was locked and the guard advised me to come back on Monday. The quietness has continued since but at least I've stayed dry.

Mangosteen juice in Thailand

2009-04-08T09:01:00.002+07:00

Further to my blog last year on the cost of mangosteen juice in Western countries; back in Thailand I discover that there are now mangosteen juice blends on the market here.

Unlike some available in Western countries they tell you just how much mangosteen there is in the container. I bought the Tipco 3 x 200 ml pack from the supermarket for 50 baht, that's pretty close to A$2 at the current exchange rate. It contains 30% mangosteen, 25% orange, 20% grape, 10% beetroot, and 5% each of passionfruit, banana and lychee juices. The Queen Berry juice cost about the same price in a restaurant. It is 275 ml and contains 20% mangosteen, 10% blueberry, 15% blackberry, 25% cranberry, 25% mulberry, 1% honey and 4% fructose.

How does that compare with what you're buying?

Disappointment

2009-04-03T09:18:00.003+07:00

'The summit's biggest loser may have been the fight against climate change. Diplomatic sources said China led the opposition to green language in the final communique. David Norman, the WWF campaigns director, claimed that the summit had been "a huge missed opportunity".'

The Guardian 3 April 2009

Sad.

About somtam

2009-03-30T09:18:00.002+07:00

When I first lived in Mahasarakham, six years ago, I befriended a couple of guys who ran a milkbar close to the university campus. If I had nothing else to do of an evening, that's where I'd hang out. There was a restaurant next door. Both had tables in the open. In fact, everything was quite open in both these places. Not much separated them.

One evening there was a horrible (to me) smell coming from the restaurant. 'What is that smell!?' I asked the guys.

'That's barrarh.'

'What is barrarh?'

'Fermented raw fish.'

I discovered that barrarh is one of the ingredients in a very popular dish, somtam or spicy green papaya salad. I had no desire to try this dish but I found it hard to avoid in this area. Another popular dish here is gai yang or BBQ chicken. This is one of my favourite Isaan dishes. The chicken is marinated in local spices before cooking. It doesn't taste like the BBQ chicken we might get back home. Gai yang is usually eaten with khao neeow (sticky rice) and somtam. Every time my friends ate gai yang they ate somtam too. And they would encourage me to try some.

'I don't want barrarh.'

'OK. You can have somtam Thai. Only somtam Isaan has barrarh.'

'What else is in it?' The list included peanuts and prawns to which I am allergic. It also included lots of chilli.

In time I learned how to order a tolerable somtam for myself. 'Somtam Thai, mai sai goong, mai sai tooah, pet nit noy.' That's somtam without barrarh, prawns or peanuts and only a little chilli. I even used to order it when I was eating alone. I was making a commitment to participating in Thai culinary culture.

One day I was eating with a group of both new and old friends. One of the new friends enquired, 'John, can you eat somtam?'

'I eat somtam Thai,' I said.

One of the others butted in, 'No, you eat somtam John.' In other words, as far as they were concerned, what I was eating was not the real thing. I asked myself, 'Why do I eat this stuff? I don't really enjoy it.' So I stopped.

But don't let me influence you. From time to time I meet Westerners who actually enjoy somtam Isaan. Maybe you will too. If you get a chance, give it a try. BTW, Our Japanese visitors seemed to enjoy it.

Mahasarakham cultural visit

2009-03-24T08:42:00.003+07:00

At Mahasarakham University there are programs for people who want to spend a week or two (or perhaps longer) studying Thai language and culture. A group of ten Japanese university students come for a visit last week. On Sunday we took them for a tour of some interesting parts of the district. There are also Chinese students at the university. A couple joined the trip. With them, me, the Japanese and the Thais we had four different nationalities represented on the bus.

First we went to Bahn Nong Khuen Chang, a village where they still weave silk and other fabrics by hand to traditional patterns. They gave them a weaving demonstration and the students who wanted to could then sit at a loom and have a go. There is a shop in the village where they stock a huge range of hand-made goods that are typically Thai—lots of cloths and clothes and a few other things too. The Japanese students enjoyed browsing and bought a few souvenirs.

We took a long drive then to Bahn Pang where we stopped for lunch on the edge of a dam. All local food. I was enjoying talking to the Japanese because some of them spoke little or no English and we each got to practise our Thai. Sticky rice is a popular local variety. One guy was taking his time tasting a little bit. I asked him if they had 'khao neeow' in Japan. They do but he said it is different. A girl was cautiously trying out some dessert. I like this Thai dessert. It's like a thick green jelly (don't know what it's called) served with shredded fresh coconut. I asked the girl if she liked it. 'A little bit,' she answered.

At Bahn Pang they dry, dye and weave a particular kind of grass. They mostly make it into mats that people sit on on the floor to eat their meals and some still use them to sleep on. They had some foam backed ones that would, I guess, make it a little more comfortable than the plain ones. I have slept on the plain ones, once or twice, back when I was in Cambodia. They have developed a range of products made from this grass: place mats, coasters, hats that I can think of. Almost the whole village is devoted to making these products. As you wander around you can observe people under their houses weaving or sewing or working in some other way with the grass. You also see grass spread out on the edge of the road to dry.

Later we went to the home of a university staff member who has a small acreage. He is a music teacher so has a little museum of traditional Thai instruments. They were pumping water from one dam to another. They keep fish in the dams and for some reason were emptying one out. They had a guy down in the mud catching the last fish as the water got lower. A few of the students joined him. They seemed to enjoy being up to their knees in mud. We had the fish bar-b-qued for our dinner.

It was a delightful day. This is not a touristy area but it's a pity, if you go to the tourist areas you see lots of bars and overpriced hotels. I think this is the real Thailand but don't tell anyone. I don't want it to get too crowded.

I took a lot of photos during the day. I'll upload the best of them to my flickr page over the next few days (or weeks). See the link on the sidebar.

Like to teach English in Asia?

2009-03-19T11:03:00.001+07:00

Over the past six years I have been fortunate to have had some input from time to time into the lives of young Asian people from disadvantaged backgrounds. As an English teacher in both Thailand and Cambodia I have made many friends and I believe made a difference in their lives. The number involved is relatively small compared to the many who desperately want to improve their lives through education. I wonder if people in developed countries such as Australia realize the joy they can receive while contributing to the lives of others. I can think of two groups in particular who might like to think about doing something like this. First is the young person who might have recently completed their teacher training. Why jump straight into a job that you might stay in for the rest of your working life? You could defer for a year and spend that time in Asia gaining a different type of experience; likewise teachers who have reached the end of their career and might not be ready to retire quite yet. A year of teaching in a developing country could give you much joy as well as helping others.
I have been told of an opportunity for such a person. The university at Mahasarakham runs a demonstration school. This school is quite innovative, has a good reputation locally and is therefore in demand. They are, I believe, selective in choosing their pupils. At the moment they are looking for an English teacher for the primary school. The contract will last until September this year. Pay is not what you would get in a Western country but would be sufficient for living a Thai lifestyle while you are here. Travel expenses would not be paid. The person should be a native English speaker with teaching qualifications. Mahasarakham is an interesting place to live. It is in the northeast of Thailand which is not a tourist area therefore Thai culture is still alive and well. Like to know more? Then email me at johnshield (at) optusnet.com.au.

Dance performance

2009-03-09T08:55:00.003+07:00

When I lived in Mahasarakham, back six years ago, I remember I had to go to the dance department of the university to meet one of the dance teachers who also helped teach the English students drama. When I got there he had a class and I was invited to sit and chat with him while his students practised their dance movements.

Students at Thai universities wear uniforms. Mostly they are plain black and white. Some departments have their own uniforms. These dance students were wearing theirs which included a sarong that somehow wrapped back between their legs and connected again at waist level at the back turning the sarong into a baggy pair of pants. That's what these students were wearing on the day I visited. I felt I was very lucky to be able to sit and watch them practise. It was like I was getting my own performance and it was very beautiful to see.

During that year I had many opportunities to see the dance students perform, not in the uniform but in beautiful traditional costumes. One night I was asked to be MC for a night of performances of traditional Thai dance and music that was presented for visiting palaeontologists. I've always enjoyed these performances. It's part of what makes it special for me to live in Mahasarakham.

On Friday night I was wandering around the night market when I noticed some students in the baggy sarong uniform. I knew they must be from the dance department. Later I could hear some announcements being broadcast from the amphitheatre which is right next to the night market. I went to look. In fact, there's been something happening there almost every night of the past week. It's getting close to the end of the semester and I guess the various departments have special presentations to make. This looked like it might be a performance of those dance students I'd just seen. I decided to wait and see and it was.

First there were some group performances like the one you see in the photo above. This was followed by solos from each of the students. Perhaps they were being assessed. I'm not sure but I got to sit in on some wonderful performances and had a delightful evening.

My only regret was that I only had my little camera with me. It's OK for day-to-day shots but doesn't handle the night-time action shots so well. Still I got one or two half-reasonable shots that show some of the intricate and often colourful costumes. You can see them by following the link to my photo page on the sidebar. To see the pictures larger click on them. If you are visiting this page some time after I post it you might find I've added many new photos. You can go straight to the dance photos by clicking this link and then clicking through the photostream by clicking the thumbnails of the photos both before and after the one that opens. Enjoy.

Shopping the Thai way

2009-03-05T16:49:00.003+07:00

When I arrived in Bangkok less than two weeks ago my flight arrived early in the morning. Thai Airways served breakfast on board. But Ead had to get up quite early to meet me at the airport. He had not had breakfast so on the way home we stopped at a street market a few blocks from his house. It was so busy we had to park a block and a half away. Ead's comment was 'They can build a big air-conditioned shopping mall with underground parking but Thai people still prefer to park in the street and walk a couple of blocks so they can do their shopping in an open market.'

When I reached Mahasarakham last week I was surprised to see that since my last visit in the early part of last year Big C (so what does the 'C' stand for?) had built a new shopping mall - strategically about halfway between the university and the centre of town. This mall comprises one big shop that sells just about everything from electrical goods, sporting equipment, furniture, clothing to typical grocery items such as fresh fruit and vegetables and a wide range of packaged goods, plus there's a range of specialist stores and a food court. You'd think this would attract many of the university students but my observation was that while the place is busy it is not all that crowded.

On the other hand each evening an open-air market appears on the university campus surrounding the canteen. I often go there for my dinner and to pick up some fresh fruit or other items. A huge range of goods is available such as clothing, watches, hardware, etc, etc and generally at competitive prices. The students vote with their feet. This place can be quite crowded.

Six years ago there was quite a good restaurant in one of the Ajahn's Condo buildings. It was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was very convenient for me, especially for breakfast. But they've closed it now. I've learned that for my simple lifestyle a really easy and healthy breakfast, provided I can boil some water, is instant oats. But oats aren't all that popular in Thailand. You can't buy them at the night market. So, last Saturday morning I took a sorngtheau to the shopping mall to pick some up along with my favourite Thai soymilk that I pour onto my oats each morning.

After I'd made my purchases I crossed the highway to pick up a sorngtheau to take me back to the campus. There was a young woman waiting with a couple of shopping bags on the side of the road.

'Lor sorngtheau mai khap?' (Are you waiting for a sorngtheau?) I asked.

'Ka. Bai nai?' (Yes. Where are you going?')

I assumed she was a student familiar with the university and simply replied, 'Ajahn Condo'.

Shortly I could see a sorngtheau approaching and asked if this was the right one. She said it was so I waved it down. We both got on. It was quite crowded. She got inside but I had to stand on the step at the back.

Off we went, crossed the river and after the river I was expecting we'd turn left but we didn't. I didn't let that worry me because there is another way to get into the university and I figured we would go that way. It is a couple of kilometres further on. But we sailed past that turnoff too. 'Bai Mor Mai?' (Do we go to the new campus?) I asked the girl. No we didn't. She realised I was on the wrong sorngtheau and rang the bell for me. He didn't stop for another 200 metres or so. And then I had to walk with my shopping bags back to the second turnoff. From there I had only another 2 km to go. It was about midday and a hot day.

I had walked about one kilometre. Quite a few cars had passed. In Australia I would have stuck my thumb out. Thai people would happily give a stranger a lift but I don't think they would know what an extended thumb meant so I just walked. I'd gone about halfway and was passing a driveway. A woman was coming out on a motorcycle. She said 'hello' and asked where I was going. I told her and she offered to take me. So I got home safely and not quite so hot and bothered as I might have been. Next time I'll eat some oats first to ensure I have enough energy for a long walk.

Intruder

2009-03-03T17:03:00.005+07:00

When I lived in Ajahn's Condos six years ago, security was very tight. You had to have your fingerprint scanned to open the front door. Sometimes you pressed too hard or too soft or on the wrong angle and it would refuse entry. Then you had to find a security guard and if he knew you, he would open the door for you. All visitors had to sign the visitor's book on the way in and out. One of my friends resented this and used to give the guards a bit of cheek. (Not a typical Thai) They did not appreciate this and gave my friend a hard time in return.

This has all gone now. The front door seems always to be open but security doesn't appear to be an issue. The place is still crawling with guards 24/7. As well as the regular lock on the front door of my little flat, I have my own padlock. The lock on one of my windows won't work but I'm not concerned. Someone might be able to push it open if they manage to get past the guards and scale the wall to my level but there is a grille covering the window that no human could get through. All but the front windows have insect screens. I leave the screened windows open at night to let the cool air in. But not the front windows. The intruders I most fear are small six-legged, winged creatures that bite and may carry disease. The screens are kept shut at all times.

You can imagine my surprise yesterday evening when I opened my front door and was immediately aware of an intruder. No, not a mosquito nor a human but something in between. There was a sparrow perched on the curtain rod of my living room. But not for long, it panicked when I came in and fluttered over behind the refrigerator. I closed the door, went to the bedroom which faces the front of the building and opened both the curtains and one of the unscreened windows.

I went back to the living room and made a bit of noise to try to chase it towards the bedroom. I could hear it fluttering around behind the fridge but it didn't come out. When I searched, I found it had somehow got itself inside a cellophane bag that happened to be lying there. I picked up the bag containing the nervous wriggling little creature and let it fly out through the grille on the front window. It took off and kept going in a straight line for about 100 metres. Guess it was happy to be free.

How did it get in? I searched all the windows. There was no gap anywhere, not even big enough for a sparrow. I wonder if there will be another visitor when I get home this evening. Another sparrow I can cope with but if I find any of those aforementioned six-legged creatures, I won't be happy.

Back to Bangkok

2009-02-22T18:53:00.003+07:00

On the day of my flight back to Bangkok I checked the weather report in the Bangkok Post. On Friday the temperature range was 25 to 35.

Today Ead and I took a trip in his car that necessitated it being parked in the sun for a couple of hours. Fortunately he had a screen covering the inside of the windscreen. He has a cube-shaped device that sits on the dashboard and gives a reading of the time, date and temperature. You can see for yourself what the temperature was.

Just checked the Thai Meterological Department for today's temperature range. It says 26 - 36 for Bangkok. Humidity at 4 pm was 56%.

Tomorrow I'll be heading for Mahasarakham. It reached 37.5 there today and they're expecting 39 by the end of the week. The humidity, however, will only be 44%.

I hope to stay in Mahasarakham for a while. Drop back to read the latest hot news.

How many fingers do you have?

2009-02-11T11:57:00.003+07:00

On my first visit to Cambodia some years back I met a few young people and as we were chatting some made some disparaging remarks about Thai people. 'How many Thai people do you know?' I asked.

'None,' came the answer.

'So, tell me—How many fingers do you have?'

'Ten.'

'Mmmm. Same as Thai people. And what about toes? How many toes do Cambodian people have?'

'Ten.'

'Just like Thais. How many eyes do you have?'

'Two.'

'So do all the Thais I've met. And ears—How many ears do you have?'

'Two.'

'The same as all the Thai people I know. You know,' I said. 'Thai people are even more like Cambodian people than I am. You can be friendly with me, why not Thai people?'

I don't want to put these people down. I don't want my Thai readers to think any less of them. They simply didn't know better. They'd never met any Thais but they'd been taught to dislike them. They perceived differences but I pointed out how much Thais and Cambodians have in common. How different their attitudes might have been if they were taught this as children instead of being told lies.

Mem Fox is an Australian storyteller and children's writer. I know that Mem and I share similar attitudes on this issue and others. It seems that Mem has undertaken to write a book to teach the same concept that I was talking about. It goes...

'There was one little baby who was born far away.

'And another who was born on the very next day.

'And both of these babies, as everyone knows,

'had ten little fingers and ten little toes...'

The text of the book does not mention any differences at all but Helen Oxenbury's illustrations show babies from many different races and the book subtly and beautifully suggests that we all have more in common than we are different.

I've bought copies of this book for my grandchildren. Maybe I should buy a few for my friends in Cambodia.

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
Mem Fox, Helen Oxenbury
Penguin / Viking, 2008
Mem Fox's website

Get 'em before they get us

2009-01-26T11:22:00.002+07:00

How do you feel about Germans? Personally I have found those I've met to be honourable people. Yet, in WWII Germans were able to commit atrocities against millions of Jews. How could normal, good-living people bring themselves to do this? Hitler's propaganda campaigns were largely responsible for turning good German people into monsters. An example I found in Wikipedia is that "Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover because 'Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah.' "

I would prefer we could forget all this and move on but sadly it is still happening today. Someone quite close to me recently forwarded an email with a story of an Imam who was alleged to have admitted that all Muslims have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of their faith and by doing so they will go to heaven.

I challenged the person who sent the email and asked if they knew any Muslims, 'Yes, two,' she answered.

'And do they believe this?'

'No, they're not that sort of person.'

But somehow the sender of the email insisted that most other Muslims—the ones she's never met—are that sort of person. I cannot understand the logic.

If we believe stuff like this, doesn't it help to justify (to some people) otherwise unjustifiable acts like the invasion of Iraq and atrocities committed by America and its allies in that invasion? Let me state my position.

The torture and killing of innocent Jews in WWII is unjustifiable.

The 9-11 attacks are unjustifiable.

The American wars against Muslim countries are unjustifiable.

And for the record, the email I got was shown to be false by snopes. Check it out for yourself.

Owning your own

2008-12-31T12:13:00.001+07:00

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the subject of karma. We agreed that neither of us believed there was some omniscient being who kept tabs on everyone in the universe. So what is karma?

I don't claim to know. I've heard many versions, many interpretations, and I can't say that I know which is correct. Who truly does? And yet in some sense I still believe in karma.

The Buddhist view is that karma is action and that it brings a result dependent on the intention behind the action. If one rolls over in the night and inadvertently kills an insect that happened to be in the bed there is no bad intention so no bad karma results. At times I choose to kill a mosquito knowing exactly what I am doing. I make a decision that I would prefer this mosquito to be dead rather than buzzing around me with the potential to make me sick if it bites me. Often in such circumstances I say to myself, 'I accept any karma that comes to me from killing this mosquito.'

I believe that in countries where most people consider themselves to be Buddhist there is often a misinterpretation of karma. People go out of their way to make merit (good karma). They feed the monks or give money to the temple. I remember the time a friend had gone to the bank and got brand new notes to make a donation to the temple because she believed that more merit would accrue. I doubt that such actions result in any merit because according to Buddhist teachings karma is the result of intention. If the intention was to create merit then the intention was selfish and no merit would accrue.

Many people in such countries drive fast under all circumstances whether safe or not. There is no mindfulness of karma at this time. The intention is 'I want to get to my destination as quickly as possible and I don't care about anyone else'. Such selfishness cannot lead to merit. If such people drove with more care for others they might not feel so much need to create merit through donations.

I seem to remember a quote from the Buddha saying that one glimmer of mindfulness brings more merit than to feed the entire sangha and the Buddha himself.

In India at times I encountered people whose way of doing business I would consider to be dishonest. It was suggested to me that such practices were so entrenched in India that if you don't adopt them yourself you lose—if you can't beat 'em join 'em. I strongly disagree. No one is responsible for my karma except me. It is only by maintaining my integrity that I maintain any good karma I might have. If someone else is intent on dragging themselves into 'hell', let them do it. I can't stop that. But I can take responsibility for myself.

And what about the bad stuff that does happen to me? There is plenty of evidence of it in the pages of this blog. I've been robbed quite a few times. I have been in situations that I have found to be extremely challenging. Does this suggest that I have been a very bad person in the past?

I don't claim to know but what I believe is this. We do influence our karma by the attitude we carry in our minds. I know many people who have very little to complain about and yet they suffer from deep depression. In the Western world (and perhaps Asia too) how many people are there who can say they can live without the aid of drugs? Nor just the illegal ones, when I say drugs I'm talking about the many drugs that society offers us to help us cope with the unsatisfactoriness of our existence: from caffeine to heroin. The fifth precept of Buddhism requires one to refrain from the taking of intoxicants. Many of the intoxicants popular today were not available in the time of the Buddha. Would they have been acceptable to the Buddha if they were?

When shit happens to me I too sometimes get depressed. I immerse myself in this depression and observe. I don't take anything to get me out of it. And eventually I reach a point where I can say 'thank you'. I say 'thank you' to the situation that brought it about and I ask myself what I have learned. The reality is that I have not learned anything new, I've just been reminded of the Buddha's first noble truth: there is dukkha (unsatisfactoriness). I'm also reminded of the second noble truth: the cause of my dukkha is my attachment to my desires. Basically, I am attached to things being different from the way they are. I have an expectation that things should be otherwise.

I can't change the world. I can only change myself. I ask myself what can I change in my life that will improve my situation. The reality is that while I can change the situation my new situation will also contain dukkha to the extent that I am attached to an expectation of how things should be. I can choose how to see that dukkha. I can let it get me down or I can smile and move on. In this way, I believe I am creating my karma each and every day. What happens to me is not in itself my karmic inheritance. It's the way I handle it that creates my karma.

Thai politics and human rights

2008-12-30T13:00:00.003+07:00

So you want to know what is happening in Thai politics? I like this version of the current situation.

Are they still playing my tune?

2008-12-28T18:17:00.002+07:00

I wrote a review of Tune Hotel in Kuala Lumpur some time back. Have returned there recently as I stopped over in KL on my way to and from India. I think an update is appropriate.

They now have a safe in the rooms, big enough to hold a laptop and more. I had some difficulty reading the instructions which are printed on the door. The positioning of the safe on the floor means that one needs to get down on the floor to read it and if your eyesight is not great for reading, the small type size is not going to help. On the first of my recent visits I only stayed one night and gave up trying to figure it out. On the second visit I stayed two nights and ended up asking the front office staff for instructions. It's easy when you know how: just enter a pin number of your choice followed by the hash key and the door locks. Repeat the same pin and hash and the door opens again. Just don't forget your pin.

If you want air-con at Tune it's an optional extra. I'm not big on air-con. I prefer to live without it. As regular readers of this blog know, a little heat doesn't bother me. In my room in Bangkok I would turn on the air-con when I came in on a hot day and leave it on for about ten minutes. That was enough to bring the room to a temperature that suited me. On a really hot day I would turn it on again no more than once an hour for about five minutes.

At Tune you pay in advance for five or twelve hours of air-con. This is registered electronically on your keycard. On the first of my recent visits I probably used about half of my five hours. When I checked out I asked if the balance could be credited for my next visit. They said 'no'.

On the second visit I once again took five hours. I used my usual method of conserving electricity. In fact the weather wasn't hot. I arrived during the evening. I went out for breakfast and a walk the next morning. When I returned the air-con was not working. I figured I'd used less than an hour of my five. I went to the counter and a staff member, ever-polite, came to check it for me. He had an electronic card that he said could check to see if there should be any balance in my account. The card showed I had none.

Now there are two possibilities, either I made a mistake or the card did. If I made a mistake I am a long way out. I reckon I'd used less than one hour. You figure it—five minutes maybe five times, even if you double it, that's less than an hour. But five??? I suggested the technology was faulty but he politely told me it is never faulty and if I want more air-con I'd have to pay for it. Well, I'm afraid I don't believe in paying for something twice. I declined.

Watch this space. Next time I go to KL I'll be reviewing another budget hotel.

Credible India

2008-12-27T06:53:00.001+07:00

My visit to India is over. India is indeed incredible as the campaign claims. There are so many aspects to India, in one month I was barely able to scrape the surface. Perhaps one day I'll return but for now I'd like to revisit my preliminary blog Anticipating India.

Voluptuous and sexy women? Perhaps they exist but the India I saw was quite conservative. Indian women generally dress quite modestly. Saris and variations of them are designed to cover not reveal. However women wear them with style. I enjoyed the bright colours of Indian traditional dress. And a beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman without revealing all.

Enlightened beings? I have never in my life met someone who I could say 100% is an enlightened being, not in Australia, nor Thailand and not in my one month in India. Do they exist or are they the subject of legends? I don't really know. If they do, perhaps they are there in Australia in the same proportion as they are in India but having a much greater population, India may have a greater number just as they would have a greater number of charlatans. As for finding enlightened ones and separating them from the charlatans, let me know if you are successful.

Lofty principles? I'm sure they exist among some of the population. What stood out more for me was the poverty. Perhaps for a vast number of the Indian population their principles are based on the need to find enough food to survive the day. Perhaps it is up to those who have the luxury of lofty principles to address the issue of the great disparity between rich and poor in this country.

Shit in the street? I have been to another extremely poor country where I've seen more evidence of people using the streets as their toilet. However, in India, with the large number of holy cows that wander freely one still needs to be careful when walking in the street.

Bag stealing on trains? I didn't do a lot of train travel. I encountered no problems. Hey, I still have my passport : ). Perhaps we need to be careful wherever and however we travel.

Honesty in business dealings? I've already written about one hotel where they charged over the quoted price. I encountered one travel agent who charged an exorbitant booking fee and had all sorts of reasons to justify it. I didn't believe them. Quoted prices in India often do not reflect the final price. Considerable taxes may be added and people are not always upfront about this. Apart from this, I found the vast majority of Indians I had dealings with to be open, honest and helpful. I believe it is time that more emphasis was placed on these people. Instead of promoting Incredible India perhaps the government tourist authority should be promoting Credible India. How about a campaign to ask travellers to dob in someone who was honest and helpful? I'm sure there are many of them in this incredible country.

Leaving India or not?

2008-12-26T04:38:00.001+07:00

I got the feeling that somehow India didn't want me to leave. When I was about to enter the departure terminal of New Delhi Airport, I was stopped by a security guard who insisted on seeing my ticket. 'Ticket? Ticket? I don't have a ticket. Haven't you heard of etickets?' Lately I usually rock on into the terminal, show my passport and that's all they need to find the details on their computer and give me a boarding pass.

'Who are you flying with?'

'Malaysia Airlines.'

'Go to their office in the building over the road and ask them to print you a ticket. You can't enter the terminal without a ticket.'

Down the corridors of the building over the road I find a door with the Malaysia Airlines name on it. But the door is locked. I hang around for a while; wander around in case there's another but there isn't; wander back to the same door; still no one there. I go back to the main entrance. Fortunately I came plenty early.

He asks to see my passport and then asks again which airline I'm flying on. He goes inside and gets someone from Malaysia Airlines to come out. This guy takes my passport, disappears for a few minutes and returns to confirm that yes I do have a seat on the flight. I am allowed to enter. The guard, by the way, is quite friendly. He's just doing his job.

I join a queue which eventually brings me to a check-in counter. I show my passport and yep, there is absolutely no hassle getting a boarding pass. They have some forms on the counter. I notice others have been taking them. I ask if I need one. 'Yes, and take one of these for your hand luggage too.' She gives me a tie-on label.

I find a seat and fill in the form and label. I find a couple of money exchange counters but neither have Malaysian ringgits. Nothing else to do. No one to see me off. They won't allow anyone who isn't flying to enter. Nothing to do but enter through the immigration gates.

Go through the gates. My form is OK. I'm legally out of India. No hassles. And then I get to the security section.

There are several gates with a guard on each. There doesn't appear to be a reason to choose one or another. I choose one. He wants to see the label for each piece of my hand luggage. I have three pieces and one label. 'Well, what am I to do? I have only one label.'

'Go back outside and get labels for your other pieces of hand luggage.' He points back through immigration.

I go over to immigration and ask if it is possible to go outside and get some more labels. The answer is a definite 'No.'

I ask what I am to do as security won't let me go on. He answers in English but what he is saying is not within my comprehension. I say 'I'm sorry, I don't understand.' He repeats the same sentence a little louder and a little faster and points towards the security gates. He then turns away as if to say 'I don't want any more to do with you.' I still do not understand what he said. I decide to go to a different security guard. He lets me through.

I am scanned and frisked. My bags are scanned and a stamp is put on the label. I go inside and wait. I am quite early. The exit gate is not even acknowledged on the electronic notice board. I sit down and read.

Eventually my flight is called. I join the queue. While I'm waiting a woman says to me that I had better put my small black bag inside my larger white one or security won't allow me to bring it on board.

Eventually I reach the security guards at the exit door. They want to see the stamp on each piece of my hand luggage. I have one on the label that is attached to the largish bag that contains my computer and camera but I don't have one on my white cloth bag.

'You stand over there,' one guard tells me in a firm voice.

I feel like a naughty school kid. 'So, what are you going to do?' I ask. 'Keep me in India?'

The second guard comes over and takes a closer look at the white cloth bag. He finds that the stamp has been put on the bag itself. Perhaps they put one on the black bag too but of course it wouldn't show. Anyway, I'm allowed to board my plane.

Security in India is stricter than I have seen anywhere else I have travelled. I understand. Terrorism from various sources is a big issue in India. Every time I entered a shopping mall in India I was scanned and frisked. I accept that this is for my protection and safety. However, I wish the security guards could be taught how to do their job without having to unduly inconvenience innocent people. How simple it would have been if the security guard I encountered after passing through immigration had a supply of extra labels.

What do you want for Christmas?

2008-12-24T20:06:00.001+07:00

I was raised in a Christian home and taught to believe that Christmas is a Christian celebration. I have since come to understand the real meaning of Christmas.

Christmas is training for children in the only commandment of the religion of Capitalism:

Thou shalt covet.

'What do you want Santa to bring you?' we ask of children too young to separate the fairy tale from reality. Even the most selfless child soon learns that they have to come up with something to ask Santa to bring. And those who've been through it before can demonstrate to younger siblings and friends that you don't have to be modest in your desires.

I confess that I too covet. Perhaps what I want for Christmas is too big, too much. Maybe Santa can't even fit it in his sleigh. Dear Santa, this year for Christmas can you bring to children of all ages (up to 99 or so) throughout the developed world the understanding that there are kids in many countries who not only have no toys but don't have enough to eat? Dear Santa can you somehow help us to put the needs of those people ahead of our own never-ending insatiable desire for more and more toys that won't make us happy anyway?

Smoke with your meal

2008-12-22T14:56:00.001+07:00

One of the things I really like about India is that they've banned smoking in public places. One of the things I dislike about smokers in India is that they refuse to accept that a restaurant is a public place.

Handling the hawkers

2008-12-21T12:25:00.001+07:00

I wrote before, back when I was in Hanoi, about the way so many tourists ignored the hawkers as if they were afraid they would be forced to buy something. Generally I like to to talk to people in the countries I visit. In India I am finding the need for a different tactic.

When I am in a different place I often stop and stare. Others may not realise what I am doing. In my mind's eye I am framing a picture. I am looking at a scene to see if it makes a good composition. If it looks good then I'll take my camera out and shoot it.

This was happening one day in Rishikesh. I had just crossed the Laxman Julha bridge. Already I had said 'No thank you,' politely to several hawkers. I had turned around because there was a group of people posing for photos with a particularly friendly monkey. I was thinking it might make an interesting shot to show the photographer and the models and the monkey. While considering this I was approached by yet another hawker.

'Would you like to look at some postcards, sir?'

'No thank you.'

'I have some very nice...' I can't remember what it was but these guys have a whole heap of things on their trays. If you don't want postcards then they'll try you with something else.

But I'm still trying to concentrate on framing my picture. 'No thank you,' more firmly.

'I can show you some...'

At this point I lost it. 'Do you understand English? I don't want to buy anything. Fuck off!' I had also lost my concentration and walked off.

I admit I didn't handle the situation well. Later on the same day I was browsing in some shops for souvenirs for my grandchildren. I noticed a way that many of the sales assistants treated me that I found off-putting. If they reached a point where they believed I was not going to buy what they were trying to sell, they would ignore me. The wouldn't politely say, 'Well, have a nice day' or close the conversation in some other way. They would behave as if I didn't exist. Not sure what they were trying to achieve but they certainly ensured I would not return to their shop for anything else.

I decided that if this was the way people behaved in India then in this case perhaps I could learn something. Next time I came across the bridge I was again approached by several hawkers. I stared straight through them and kept walking as if they weren't there. It worked.

Maybe those tourists I observed in Vietnam had visited India earlier.

Crossing the holy river

2008-12-20T06:04:00.003+07:00

The holy Ganga River passes through the holy city of Rishikesk. Seekers from around the world come to study under the yogis, gurus and sadhus who abound here. Indian people come to bathe in the holy river. It certainly looks cleaner here than further downstream. Crossing the Ganga is another matter. For me that brings challenges.

My mind was open (and still is) to the possibility that one or two of the sadhus had acquired the ability to walk across the water. If that is the case, I have yet to see it but what I do see are sadhus walking across the bridge like me and many others. Let me assure you, if I knew how to walk across the water, that would be my preferred choice but I can't so the bridge is my only option.

There are actually two bridges perhaps about a kilometre apart. They are of similar design—suspension bridges. What I hesitate to call the walkway on the one near me at Laxman Jhula is wide enough for four average-sized people to walk abreast.

Indian people like to pose for photos on the bridge, sometimes alongside the monkeys who hang out there looking for handouts. I don't know how successful they are at getting these photos as the other Indians, the ones not having their photos taken, usually do not wait but walk straight between photographer and models.

The occasional sacred cow (they are quite plentiful in Rishikesh) also wanders onto and across the bridge and invariably drops some holy shit before reaching the other side—just another challenge for us to avoid while crossing.

Pack donkeys are sometimes driven across the bridge. I haven't actually encountered any while I've been on the bridge but I know that the ones in the street give way to no one.

Why I hesitate to call the walkway a walkway is that it is also used by motorcycles. The riders (not all, but many) of these show as much sense and manners as do the donkeys except for the fact that they do beep their horn to warn you to get out of the way. Often they are riding too fast for the situation and often the bridge is so crowded with pedestrians, cows, donkeys and people taking photos that the only way to go to escape the oncoming beeping motorcycle is up.

Let me assure you—and them—that if I had the ability to levitate at will, as they seem to expect, I wouldn't be walking on the bridge. I'm sure it would be way easier to walk across the water.

Getting to Rishikesh

2008-12-19T09:28:00.003+07:00

The map on the back of the Hotel White House brochure has been quite helpful for finding my way around Dehradun. I've found most of the landmarks. However I didn't find the railway station. I'm thinking that perhaps the map is not to scale and I simply did not walk far enough.

But it seems I might not need the railway station after all. A website for one of the guesthouses in Rishikesh says there is a bus direct from Dehradun. If I get the train, I still need to get a bus or taxi from Hardiwar. The bus option sounds better. I ask the White House manager about it. He says there is a regular bus—a good one—and that if I walk to the Parade Ground I can pick up an auto that will take me to the bus station for five or ten rupees.

The following morning I'm checking out and when he sees my bags decides that walking to the Parade Ground is not such a good idea. He says he'll send one of his staff to bring an auto back for me and it'll cost 80-100 rupees to get to the bus station. I seem to be missing something here. Last night he's talking 5-10 rupees. Now it's 80-100. It won't break me but that's a big difference. It turns out there are two kinds of autos. Some are like your personal three-wheel taxi and go where you say. The others are like three-wheel minibuses that hold about eight people. They follow a set route—they are the cheap ones. As I said the bus is not to scale. The bus station looks like it is a block or two past the railway but it's actually seven or eight k's, hence the price.

OK. Now I understand. He sends one of his staff out to find my personal three-wheel taxi but the guy comes back five minutes later quoting 160 rupees for the fare. The manager is not going to lose face over this. He sends another guy out who returns with an auto that'll do it for 110 rupees. I accept.

The journey is both fascinating and horrible. Fascinating because of all the sights—people and places, mainly people. This is one of those National Geographic occasions because despite my years of travel I'm seeing what previously I've only seen in books and docos. When I see unusual characters in a book, I assume they are one-offs but half the people we pass could be in National Geographic. On the other hand, the bigger autos—usually the minibuses—are noisy and belch horrible fumes. I'm glad I'm wearing a cloth hat. I use it as a makeshift gas mask for the whole journey.

Apparently the auto can't drive right into the bus station. He stops outside and points to where I should be able to get my bus. After lugging my bags to where the buses wait I am told no, and someone points to where there are one or two buses back out in the street. I try one, cross the street, try another and then the next says 'yes' they go to Rishikesh.

This bus is old. The ones I used to joke about in Cambodia look modern compared to this but I don't care, so long as it gets me to Rishikesh and so long as I can get the weight of these bags off my body, I'll be happy.

Five minutes later we're on our way. It takes quite a while to clear Dehradun and until we do, there are people everywhere heading this way and that along the side of the road reminding me that India is indeed the second most populous country in the world.

We pass through some smaller (but still busy) towns on the way; some forest and it too is busy—monkeys seem to be lined along the roadside to watch cars go by; and also we go over some hilly country before we reach Rishikesh.

I have been given instructions by a friend of a friend who lives in Rishikesh. 'Walk down the road to the corner and catch an auto. Tell them you want to go to the second bridge at Laxman Jhula. It will cost you five or ten rupees.'

The bus pulls over to the side and before it backs into the station (just a vacant lot) there are auto drivers waiting to latch on to each and every passenger. I wait until the driver has backed in before I carry my bags off the bus. One auto driver has seen this foreigner with too much luggage and is waiting patiently. I tell him where I want to go. He quotes me 80 rupees.

I realise that the autos at the corner that charge 5-10 rupees are the minibus type but I don't know which way to go and with all these bags I'm reluctant to head in the wrong direction. I tell this driver what I've been told and ask where I catch these autos. He tells me it's about 2 k away and waves vaguely in no specific direction.

I try to call my friend's friend but there's no answer. Another auto driver turns up and also quotes me 80 rupees. I try the friend's friend's other number. Still no answer. I offer the driver 50 rupees but he knows I'm stuck and won't budge.

I try the first number again. Still no answer. Finally I agree to go with this driver for 80 rupees. This is not a lot of money but I think it's a reasonable assumption that if I was an Indian I'd be charged less. I resent being charged more based on race.

He grabs my big bag and puts it in his auto which is one of the bigger type but I've got it to myself. He lifts the seat up and starts the motor with a rope, the way any Australian of my age would remember we used to start motor mowers years ago. It starts put-putting straight away. I'm intrigued by this motor. What is it? Diesel? Two stroke? I ask him what sort of motor it is. All I get from him is 'six hp'.

We head off down the road. After about 100 metres we turn and there are all the autos parked—the ones that would have taken me for about 5 or 10 rupees.

As we drive through the town I am not impressed. This is supposed to be a 'holy' town but it's just as busy, noisy, dirty and polluted as Dehradun.

We travel quite a distance and eventually reach the river—the holy Ganga. By now it is not quite so busy and there are patches of beauty in the countryside.

Eventually he stops in a place that is busy and has no beauty—not to my eyes anyway. This is it? He says it is. Then where is the bridge? Just down there. He gives another of his vague waves. 'I want to go to the bridge,' I say.

He gets his rope out and starts up again and takes me several hundred metres down the hill that I wouldn't like to have been walking with these bags. Eventually he says he can't go any further. I still can't see the bridge. He waves 'Over there. Just one minute. One second.'

I try again to ring my friend's friend. Still no answer. I pay the 80 rupees—the ride really was worth it—and the driver helps me load my pack onto my back and I walk off in the direction he'd been waving.

After about 50 metres I see the bridge. But which is the guesthouse that's been recommended? I have no way of knowing. Alongside a temple there are two guys with a stall selling jewellery. One says 'Are you looking for a room?' I'm wary of touts but I really want to get rid of this load. I take a look.

It's on the second floor, which is actually the roof. It's tiny—more a cell than a room. But it's clean, has it's own bathroom with hot water and has good security. Half the roof is a terrace with 180 degree views of the Ganga, the bridge and the surrounding hills. All things considered, it's not too bad. I ask the price and for India it is amazingly cheap. I take it.

I dump my bag and go off to get some lunch. As I walk back I feel the warm sun. I'm enjoying this environment. For India it's relatively quiet. It's not unpleasant. Perhaps I'll like it here.

From cold to cough

2008-12-16T13:07:00.001+07:00

I had very little idea of what to expect in Derhadun. I went to escape the cold of Mussoorie and with an open mind as to how long I'd stay.

My taxi driver from Mussoorie recommended Hotel White House, saying it was in a street with restrictions on traffic and therefore quieter. The building looks to be about 50 years old and apart from painting has had very little maintenance in that time. My room was quite large with an attached bathroom. It opens to a large covered verandah at the front and an uncovered area at the back.

When I was inspecting the room the hot water shower was pointed out. Later when I went to take a shower no hot water would come out of it. It would come out of the lower tap but not the shower. I took a bath Asian style but at least with warm water. Later, I mentioned this to the manager who shrugged his shoulders and said, 'That's because the geyser (hot water system) is lower than the shower head.' Yeah, I'd figured that. But why? Later again, I was told that Indian people dislike the problem of getting the temperature adjusted correctly. They prefer to run the water into a bucket and wash from that. So that's how I did it too.

On my first afternoon in Derhadun I went for a walk to check out the town. Visually I found it stimulating. It is a busy town and busy in India means noise and air pollution. Away from the cold air of Mussoorie my nose had stopped running but with all the pollution I'd developed a cough.

I've met some pleasant people in this town, found a good place to eat and the hotel is indeed quiet at night. But with all this pollution I've decided to start making enquiries about getting to Rishikesh.