Thai Society/Culture
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Fugu me? No, fugu you!
From the “you shouldn’t be eating salmon in Thailand anyway” department: BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) – Unscrupulous vendors in Thailand have been selling meat of the deadly puffer fish disguised as salmon, causing the deaths of more than 15 people over the past three years, a doctor said Thursday. Although banned since 2002, puffer fish continues to be sold in large quantities at local markets and restaurants, said Narin Hiransuthikul of Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University Hospital. “Some sellers dye the meat of puffer fish and make it look like salmon which is very dangerous,” Narin said. Narin said over the past three years more than 15 people have died and about 115…
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Carabao’s Made in Thailand Cover by Farang
In my ten months here, I’ve heard this song (which was written by Carabao) performed live dozens of times by many bands… As corny as this clip might seem, this guy’s rendition is the best I’ve ever heard.I basically cannot stand pop music from any country, but Thai pop is especially insipid IMHO. The traditional Thai music is fascinating, though, even if I can’t understand 90% of the lyrics. It has a lot to do with the energy of it, the groove, especially a live performance.(thx t)
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Carabao Bike & Death Merchant
Yesterday, on the way to check the progress of the new house we’re building, we came across a couple of awesome motorcycles, one right after the other. First up was a kid riding the Buffalo Bike (aka Carabao Bike): Next was the Death Merchant (I talked about his trade before in this post: Banks and Blades and Monster Geckos): All photos by Nam.
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Thai Boxers in Japan
This article is interesting as hell because I’ve heard many, many times about how weak Thai boxers/kickboxers are used to prop up their Japanese counterparts, but never actually bothered to research it. Thai boxers downed by punches that missed him (via F*cked Gaijin)
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Pink armbands for Thai cops
Over on AOL news: Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring Hello Kitty, the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame… Great! It should match their panties very well… (thx sis) UPDATE: Nico actually has a photo….
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fruit sacrilege
Thai farmers dumped a ton of mangosteens on the street in front of city hall to protest the low selling price. I’m pretty sure all the government workers rushed out to scoop up their share. 3 baht per kilo does sound pretty low, though. They retail for 18-20 baht/kilo up here in the northeast; the best quality ones at their peak went as high as 25 baht/kilo a couple months ago. I do have to say that if you’ve never had a fresh mangosteen, you are missing out on one of life’s real pleasures.
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Precursor to official Ubon Candle Festival post
I don’t have time to go sift through all the photos I took at the candle festival we saw in Ubon Ratchathani last weekend, but I wanted to post a couple that caught my eye. //////////////////// If you can come up with a caption for either of these photos, you win a kiss from the person in the bottom one.
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On the Road 2007 (Part 6) – The Animatronic Chicken Roasters of Rayong, Thailand
On a previous trip to Thailand, I wrote about the most delicious roast chicken I have ever eaten. I have many special memories of Rayong, and the awesome roast chicken stands by the roadside are certainly counted among them. I had been looking forward to reevaluating the chicken itself since the last time I visited, to be sure it hadn’t been a fluke, or just how hungry I had been at the time. The chicken stands to which I refer are concentrated along a half-kilometer stretch of a long road into town, from the east end of Mae Ramphueng beach. We scoped out the whole stretch a couple times and…
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Riot in Bangkok
The situation described in this article is rapidly developing into a riot on live television. It looks like the anti-coup protesters have erected some sort of bastion in the street in front of the Privy Council President’s house and the police may have used tear gas. The riot police, I must say, are really disorganized and poorly trained. You can tell by their loose formations when advancing that they are not very good at controlling a crowd that is turning increasingly violent. The crowd was originally throwing what appeared to be empty plastic bottles, but have now turned to throwing rocks and other debris they find on the street. There…
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I traded my 100Mbps FTTH for mangosteens and monkeys…
…And I think I made the right decision. This article by Robert Cringely hits home, though. My theoretical download speed is now 1/50 of what it was last year in Japan and the theoretical upload is 1/200. Actual speed ratios are about the same, however, downtime here is pretty awful as you can see by my sporadic blogging – sometimes lasting for almost a week. The whole censorship thing is pretty lame, too. On the flip side, the mangosteens and monkeys sure are tasty! ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Let me tell you a secret about (relatively) insane connection speeds: When you are wired to the net through a $50/month hikari connection, your connection…
