Thai Society/Culture
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Surviving the Great Floods of 2022 in NE Thailand (Part 1)
It’s been six weeks since my last post… On October 5th, at around 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon, I wrote about how the whole country was flooding from heavy rains of the past week and how our neighborhood usually floods, but that this time the drainage systems in our area were working really well. Later that evening, Nam and I gathered shovels and twine and started helping people from the neighborhood fill sandbags just down our street in an effort to block off rising waters from the rear of our estate, where there’s marshland on an open property. Our entire housing estate (which has expanded greatly since we built our…
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Highway rest stops in Thailand
Coming from Japan to Thailand 15 years ago, the state of the roads here was lamentable, and many of the streets/rural highways in the Issan region and around our city weren’t even paved – or had big enough holes to break wheels and axles, a common sight back then. I used to go on university trips every term and we would often take the uni bus or minivans on long road trips, ostensibly for work, but more just to get out and travel. This was always a nice perk for government university work, because we could often take the whole family, as well. It also made me very aware of…
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Thai Seafood Lunch
Just a short clip of lunch in Prachuap Kiri Khan province on our recent trip. Shot on a Osmo Pocket my trusty Poco F1, the best smartphone of its time (3+ years ago and will either be replaced by an F3 or the impending F4). Photos to follow. Map link: ป้าเอื้องป้าอิ้ง Pa Aung Pa Aing Thai Restaurant
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Tong Peng
At the beginning of our trip to Hua Hin last week, we boarded a plane for the first time since the pandemic started, and flew into Don Mueang. Nam’s older sister picked us up and we went to see a van we would pick up on the back end of our trip and have lunch. She took us to Tong Peng, a family-oriented Chinese restaurant in the Chok Chai area of Bangkok, south of Lad Prao. As a sidenote, it feels good to blog about travels again – it’s been too long. Google Maps link: Tong Peng ภัตตาคารตงเพ้ง
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Loi Angkarn – Scattering of Ashes at Sea
We just got back from a weeklong trip to the Hua Hin area. We thoroughly enjoyed being at the beach for the first time in a few years, and always love HH, but were there mainly to spread Nam’s grandmother’s ashes and a great uncle’s ashes on the water. This is known in Thai as loi angkarn (ลอยอังคาร ณ ปราณบุรี). In a weird twist of fate, it was arranged to do this at the very harbor in Pranburi/Pak Nam Pran where we set off on a honeymoon cruise with family and friends who came from overseas to our wedding in Thailand 15 years ago. I wish to cover this more…
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Linkdump AF 2022
Across the Multiverse: A four chapter story with an epic revelation at the end. I did not get that far, but I got a lot of chill. Technicolor Tokyo: Screenshots from CyberPunk or real photos? Phra Rahu: This week I learned of Rahu worship in Thailand, which is extremely interesting and apparently widespread, and although I’ve seen images and statues of Rahu before, I never really knew his story – it’s interesting! The Story of Phra RahuThere are many variations of the story of Rahu, which stem mainly from Hindu, Buddhist, Tamil legend. The most common legend is the Hindu one which describes Rahu as an Asura (demon deity) who…
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Farewell, Uncle Chet
Our beloved cowboy hairstylist has passed from natural causes. He was a local philanthropist, often offering free cuts at pubs along the canal and various festivals in town. I just loved him because he was a hardcore cowboy that popped up here and there quite often. All four of us have had our hair cut by him many times over the years. He was a real pro, and will be missed.
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Toyota 2000GT in Thailand
Tucked somewhere in between a bunch of other cars in an underground parking lot in Bangkok, a true legend is waiting for Sumitomo/Dunlop brake seals that are probably impossible to find… Reading this forum post from 15 years ago reminded me why I had to change out my entire brake system for the Crown. There simply were no replacement parts to be had. My calipers were also marked Sumitomo, and I sent all of the parts to someone who needed them online. It would be a real dream to see the king of Toyotas cruising down the tollway in BKK. Just like this:
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Yam Pla Muk and Larb Moo
Just feel like posting some old food photos that have been sitting patiently in a folde called “blog” on my desktop for a couple years. This is Yam Pla Muk, or Thai Squid Salad. I don’t remember exactly where we ordered this one. “Yam” is a type of Thai salad that’s spicy, sour, and kick-ass: Thai salads… These are among my favorite foods here, and we eat them all regularly. This one is larb, which is also one of the Thai Salads mentioned in the link above. Specifically, it’s larb moo, or pork larb. Larb is also known as a meat salad (which is obviously the best type of salad).…
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Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University
Otherwise known as MCU, this is the oldest higher education institute for Buddhist monks in Thailand and the main campus is located on the temple grounds of Wat Mahathat Yuwaratrangsarit, one of the ten “royal temples of the highest class” in the country. The length of the name is interesting and is compounded by the choice to leave no spaces between individual words of which the name is comprised. I had to break it down in the following way to make any sort of sense of it, otherwise it just looks like a keyboard accident: Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya = Maha / Chulalongkorn / Raja / Vidyalaya Maha = great Chulalongkorn = the…
