Straight Out of Bangkok

January 2000 Edition 

Happy New Year 2000 ! ! !
 
 
 
 

Special Welcome to the Dawn of the New Millenium. 
Wishing you another eventful year of success, inner peace and fun.
 
 

Welcome to my January edition!! ! 
 
 

Hello everyone......
 
 

Hope you all had a good christmas and new year. Mine was rather uneventful, but good family times. If not for Y2K concerns, I should have been traveling during the new year. Well, there are still many more new years to come.

As you can see, I have change the leading picture of my home page. It’s a picture of the new Bangkok Sky Train – the BTS. That picture will stay on most of 2000 instead of the Grand Palace, and Wat Pho pictures I used last year to be in-lined with Bangkok 2000 campaign by the city of Bangkok. Don’t know exactly what they have planned but it sure sounds catchy enough.

I will begin the 2000 edition with less talk and more pictures. What can I say, I’m a quiet man. Ok, maybe not, I just happened to have a lot of materials to be posted on my homepage from the past 2 months.

Enjoy……..

 Moo

Pete
 
 

Lam Pang (northern province of Thailand).

I was there for two days visiting one of our ice cream distributors.  Before we flew back to Bangkok, we went to the temple called Wat Phra That Lampang Luang. Big temple with several interesting artifacts such as the thousand year old Buddha image, and the projection image through a small hole on one of the temple door where you can see the upside down reflection of another temple outside in full color.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Palace in Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia

It’s my first time to visit Sumatra. Since I went there on business, I didn’t get to trek up in the forest and visit the hill tribe people.  Mostly stayed at the city of Medan and visiting the surrounding towns. Indonesia is a very populated country, 200mil  vs. 62 mil people in Thailand.  We went to the small towns about 2 hours from center Medan and along the way there are houses, commercial buildings, traffic lights, and traffic all the way.  Unlike Bangkok where you can find empty lands between towns.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Market at Surin province, Thailand

Very autentic market, and clean. I was there in December and the weather was nicely cool. Market like this in Bangkok is being replaced by super stores like Makro, Tesco, Carrfour and etc.



 

We were there very early in the morning, but as you can see the market is already festive with people.  I'm not a morning person, but my colleague convinced me to get up early and go the market to give foods to the monk.  A common ritual to any good buddhists.  Does this mean I'm a good buddhist?



 
 

People're selling things on the street, literally as you can see



 
 
 

They are red ants! The white ones are the ant eggs.  I forgot to ask the seller how people eat them.   I don't think I would try anyway.



 
 

My breakfast.  Chinese tea, hot coffee with sugar and sweetened condense milk, and Pa Tong Ko (deep fried dough).



 
 

Do I have to explain more?????   My list of places to see has shortened by one........



 
 

A pleasant side trip to the great Preah Vihear, Cambodia.  Just across the border from Thailand.  It's a Khmere style ruin, about a thousand year old.  The road up to the temple was great, thanks to the Thai army.   Preah Vihear temple was situated on the top of a hill accessible only from Thai side.  This temple was closed for visitors for more than ten years from the Thailand - Cambodia dispute on who owns the temple.   Thailand rationed that since the path to the temple is only from Surin,  but Cambodia claimed the temple protudes into their territories, plus it's a Khmere temple not Thai.   After the long debate, the temple was finally opened to visitors in August 1998.  Thai army has many barracks along the highway up to the temple.   The Cambodian soliders set up a booth collecting entrance fee of 50 Baht, or USD 2 (obviously they haven't change the USD rate since the Baht devaluation).   If you want to visit Preah Vihear temple, make sure you get there before 3:30 p.m.  We were lucky to get there right before the gate closed.  The gate is run by Thai soldiers on the foot of the hill.  At the beginning, I was surprised that they close the gate so early.   But by the time we finished seeing everything, it was getting dark!   Yes, I saw the sunset from Preah Vihear temple.   The temple is bigger than I expected.  There are four levels.  Cambodian travelling rule applies.... do not wonder off from the path.   Last year, two Thai students tried to sneak in without paying entrance fee.  They walked along a small stream and went around the ticket booth.   Once they got off the stream, they hit a mine.  Sadly, One of them lost his limb.    At the temple, we met a Cambodian guide who knows enough to tell us all about the temple.  There is also a Thai soldier there looking after us.    That's how I got the gruesome details of the two Thai students.



 
 

Some scenary on the way back.   A lake from Lam Ta Kong Dame, Nakorn Rachasima (Korat) Province



 
 

If you haven't been to Thailand, this is a typical Thai highway.  We drive on the left side of the road.
That's all folks.  See you next month!   There will be the tale from my trip to Kanchanaburi and Singapore, and perhaps more aerial pictures during my previous trip to Indonesia (haven't got time to retouch them yet)..



 
 

Back Issues..... (I have received numerous responses from readers that there are some particular back issues or previous month homepage that they really like, therefore if you want to take a look at the previous months.... here they are.  Let me know which one you like best)
 
 
 

The Exodus (first page)	July The Star Wars Edition	August Buriram province
September Home Sweet Home	October Singapore, and asian gastonomies	Novemeber/December Moon Cake Festival, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Scheviningen, Oldenburgh, Breman, Hamburgh, The Thai Royal Barge Procession

 
 
 

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