Opportunity Blog

Am I going to write a Thailand Trouble IV, V, …? I hope no one is coming here to get the latest news on Thailand. I don’t update as much when I’m in the U.S.

The Thailand situation continues to surprise me as well as many others. The state department warnings are getting more firm. Non essential embassy personnel have been sent off. But they are all in Bangkok. As a CNN article shows, things remain peaceful in most (not all, read the State Department warning) areas outside of Bangkok. Buriram province, where we are, has had no unusual activity. One problem with the CNN article is that if you come to Thailand, you will come through the international airport just east of Bangkok. Will protesters close it down again? I don’t think so, but I’m not sure of anything there anymore.

The best thing now is to wait and see awhile. If I already had my non refundable tickets, I’d go ahead and go, otherwise I’d wait. 36 people have been killed in demonstrations so far in Bangkok. Whether that seems a lot to you or not, you should still remember that loss of life in Bangkok alone from car and other such accidents has been much more than that. As I have said before in Thailand II, if you are ever to get hurt in foreign travel, it is most likely to be in a car accident. Even now in Thailand.

I do wonder about that airport. Trouble still seems unlikely there, but…

I have talked about travel in Myanmar in the past. I will certainly be going there again when I can. Just to keep you up to date, here is a link to a recent article on a website sponsored by what I think is a group in opposition to the government. Please read Derek Tonkin’s comment below the article. I think this explains the often heard phrase “Don’t spend tourism dollars in Myanmar, the money just goes to the government .”

Well, I hope no one took my advice and immediately went off to Thailand, especially if you were from Europe or came from the U.S. eastward connecting through Europe. The demonstrations got worse than I thought they would. Originally I was reading how they were taking over the Sukumvit area, where Sue and I used to stay. Now I see they are at the Silom road area, around the Saladang skytrain station. That’s were we stay now when we are in Bangkok. I also noticed that the demonstrations were close (although not in) the Khaosan road area where a lot of the backpacking crowd stays.

They are certainly not everywhere in Bangkok, the city is just too big for that, but they have hit a lot of the tourist areas where Farangs will at least be passing through, if not staying. If we were going to Bangkok now, the only thing we would do different is not stay in the Silom area. We’d probably stay out by the airport or just catch a bus immediately to Nang Rong.

Now along with that we have the airline disruption in Europe which stuck a lot of long distance fliers wherever they happened to be. Some of these were in Thailand. They could not get out of the airport, but did not want to go back downtown where they had been staying either.

As far as loss of life and limb, I am still of the opinion that there is little to fear. I suppose you could get blown up by one of those bombs that were planted, but the likelihood of that is still very slim. Now, as well as any other time, the most likely cause of you getting hurt is a car/vehicle accident. The chance of you catching a bomb or a terrorist bullet is vanishingly small compared to that, provided you stay away from trouble wherever you see it.

Being severely inconvenienced by this current air travel mess appears more likely, however.

There is trouble in Thailand. You can read the US state department warnings here. I feel like I should say something, even though I really don’t know much about the immediate situation.

Opportunity Foundation does not involve itself in politics and does not take sides in issues like the current one, so I will not comment on my feelings about the political issues. I will say that if I needed to get back to Thailand in the next few days for some reason the current political unrest would not have the least influence on my travel plans. The only thing that might bother me is if they shut down the airport there again, but I really think that is not going to happen a second time.

I would avoid the areas of demonstrator activity, however. Unfortunately, one of these near the Chidlom BTS (sky train) station is in a tourist area with some major hotels. The Holiday Inn, Intercontinental and Hyatt Erawan are among them. Other than that there should be no problems for a foreigner in Thailand.

There is no anti American or anti European sentiment that I am aware of. The problem is entirely domestic. I have never heard anyone say they thought foreigners have anything to do with it. Thais are still friendly to foreigners. That has not changed. If you need help out on the street, ask a Thai.

The basic rule in Thailand, Myanmar or any other country is, if you see a political demonstration or some other form of unrest, go the other way. The Japanese news photographer killed recently in Bangkok as well as the one killed a few years ago on the streets of Yangon, Myanmar two weeks before Sue and I arrived in that city were obviously not following this rule.

Our first child home is progressing.

Sue and I are now back in the U.S. We find that tax time is always a good time to be back. Most of our bills get paid by auto deductions from bank accounts, but piles of mail, a few pieces of which is actually important, have built up while we were gone. Anyway, we’ve finished figuring our taxes and have a bit of time for other things, like this blog entry.

I have wanted Walai to contribute more to this blog, but she has not had the time lately. Last month Walai became the managing director of the foundation, and so has been pretty busy with literally everything that is going on there. She did have time to send me a pictures of the village’s first two buildings, which appear here. She also told me that 68 trees averaging about 30 feet high have so far been moved from the forest and planted in the village. I think we are shooting for about 200 trees this first time.

This Sala will provide shade and a place to relax for our children, staff and volunteers.

Our children there are doing well. We have seen some improvements in their academics.

We are enjoying being with our children and grandchildren here, but are already missing Thailand.

Buddhist ordination parade late this morning. Morning market building behind.

It’s time for us to leave Nang Rong. There are already some hot days in late February this time, although there are number of cool ones as well. A few things have happened.

Regarding restaurants and chain stores, it appears the local KFC may make it (refer to previous blog entry). I do often see it empty, but on a hot day the air conditioning is a draw. I remember two years back when I first brought my wife Sue to Nang Rong. I think it was a hot day in March. I can’t remember what we were doing, but when lunch time rolled around she just had to go to an air conditioned restaurant. At that time there was only one choice. We ended up standing in a corner in Seven Eleven with a hot dog and a slurpee.

Anyway, Sue has hauled me over to KFC in Nang Rong three times now. They now have the complete KFC line of food. In addition, rumors are floating about that the large area of land being prepared on the highway seven kilometers west of Nang Rong is going to be a new Lotus Tesco, which is a large discount store with groceries.

The new highway 24 just went all four lane as far east as Nang Rong last year, and development will come more quickly along its route. This will be at the expense of the old east west route 50 km north of here which passes through the capital cities of Buriram and three adjacent provinces.

Times are changing, but it will take years for change to get into Nang Rong once you get off the highway. Land rights and existing buildings will keep the old layout. Roads are narrow and corners are sharp, with most turns made at 1 – 2 miles an hour. The growth will be east and west of town along the new four lane road.

We have a foundation board meeting this Monday, then we leave for Bangkok the next day. We have a few doctor appointments there (we are certified medical tourists) and then we’ll leave for Singapore. We’ll be back in Nang Rong by early October for sure.

The forms were completed, rebar inspected and we started pouring foundation concrete the same day we were planting the first large trees. Sue was helping out in both areas, although she spent a lot more time on the tree project. Landscaping and gardening are things she really likes. The second picture gives a better overview of the low beams which will support the driveway to the side of the house. The higher beams for the house itself have not been formed up yet.

Ho and I put a bag around the roots of a small tree in the forest.

Sue and I just got back from a short 35 km trip east to see Thai forest land. We went with Uan, a Thai friend, and Ho, one of our fathers. When we got there we picked up Uan’s mother and went a few more km to the house of some of their friends. Uan’s mother grew up in the forests and knows a great deal about the trees there.

They were clearing their forest land to grow sugar cane. Uan explained that the old Thai forests may well be gone from the area in the future. At some trouble and expense they were delaying so that Uan could come in and dig up some of the larger trees for replanting on our foundation property. A large tree prepared for planting can cost a lot. We are getting them free, just paying some for labor and gas. The last load of seven trees (installed) cost us a fraction of what one tree would normally cost.

It’s dig up trees in the morning; transport and plant in the late afternoon. Ho was up past eleven at night watering the first load to get them initially settled in.

Most of these people are sad at having to do this. They grew up in the forests and would love to keep them. Their economic situation tells them otherwise. The land is an asset that they must use if they are to educate their children and have a normal life in modern Thailand. Some have taken to growing pineapple, which can be done under the trees with little forest clearing, but the cane gives a much better return.

In the future it may be that our foundation property will be one of the few places left in our area where some of these trees still grow.

Planting a tree. The burlap bag keeps the root ball together for a short time.

Just yesterday the first load of larger trees came to the foundation property from the forest. We dug holes with a backhoe and planted them with the help of a crane on Uan’s brother’s truck.

The foreground concrete is for a volunteer shelter. There will be a toilet also. Have I ever mentioned that volunteers are welcome here?

Our two first loads gave us fourteen trees and a few mistakes. I think we know more now.

We are driving 8 meter (26 foot) concrete pilings into the ground to support our new child home. It would be a bit cheaper if we could just dig down a ways and pour some footings, as has often been done in the past in this area. I had been wondering about the necessity of this until I went out and watched them drive some of the pilings. I include a U Tube movie of the driving of one of these pilings. It is pretty typical. I don’t yet know how to edit these things so it is nearly ten minutes long, the time it takes to drive this piling.

Basically, they drive the piling until it goes all the way in, or until it won’t go any further. Either way works fine. We are building one house now, but driving pilings for the two next door houses as well. This avoids having to later drive pilings right next to a completed house, which could cause it to crack.

*** Click here to view pile driving video ***

What you see in this movie is how easily the piling goes in for the first few meters. It really sinks in fast until it hits deeper more dense soil. Apparently that is due to the nature of the soil in the old rice fields, and also that we have placed 1.3 meters of fill on top of that. That is why, where we have built the road, we first dug out a half meter of dirt before filling that half meter plus the other 1.3 with a different kind of dirt we haul in. Every 20 cm layer of road fill was compacted, so the road areas are different.

In the above picture you see Ho, one of our fathers, walking toward the pilings for the first three houses.

By the way, the area around here is very flat, no hills. If you want dirt for fill, you must dig a hole, which becomes a lake. Fortunately, the government wants a reservoir ten kilometers north of here. We are digging it out for them, and get the dirt for free. It’s a good deal for both of us.

The last few weeks we had a family of four from the U.S. but who works in India visiting Nang Rong. They liked being here and had a lot to say about things, some highlights of which were: it is more comfortable here than they thought it would be, and the food is better than they anticipated as well. I have been wanting to check just how easy it is to take a quick trip to Siem Reap and see the huge temple complex of which Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm and Bayon are the most famous parts. They were up for it, and so were a few Thai friends, so off we went.

I was there seven years ago and think temple area is one of the three most impressive sights in the world, the other two being St Peters Basilica in Rome and the Taj Mahal in India. I place the pyramids, the Louvre, Chartres, etc. in the second tier.

There are plenty of places on the internet to learn more about these places, so I will just give you a summary of how we got there from Nang Rong and how much it cost us. We left Tuesday morning and were back by 3 PM Thursday. The full day of Wednesday was enough to see all the major sights in the Archeological park. A second day would allow for more things to be seen, but we covered the highlights and well known areas.

P. California arranged for their van to take eight of us to the border at Poi Pet and later to pick us up at the border and take us back to Nang Rong. They also arranged for a second van to take us from the border into Siem Reap and back. This van was also at our disposal while we stayed there. All this transportation came to $394, or about $50 per person. We could have easily fit nine people, maybe ten, for this same total price.

We did not reserve hotels. There are a number of very nice new and no doubt expensive hotels in Siem Reap if you want that sort of thing. We just had our van drive into the “Old Town” area of Siem Reap and stopped at a likely looking small hotel, the Mandalay. Air conditioned rooms were about $14, but they had only one. We walked across the street and that hotel had three rooms with air but they were up a few flights of stairs. So we went next door to the Millennium and found three rooms on the ground floor. At all three hotels these rooms had air, small TV, their own bathroom and were judged clean and usable by those more particular in our party. They were all about $14 per night.

– Click here to view Siem Reap – Angkor Temple Site –

Here is the cost breakdown we paid per person. We had one full day to see the site, and two evenings to shop and enjoy the Old Town area. We had use of the van and could have seen anything else on those evenings had we chose to do so.

All transportation: $50
Hotels: $14 (per person, two nights, two per room)
Visa: $38 (a visa service speeded things)
Admission to site: $20 (for one day)
Meals: $3 per meal, some at hotel, some in Old Town or site
TOTAL: $140 per person (figure 6 meals)

With what we learned, here is a less expensive way that may be a little more inconvenient:

Transportation: $6.70 bus Nang Rong-Poi Pet, both ways
Cambodia Van: $25. ($200 total for 8 people)
Visa: $25 (get it yourself at the border)
Admission to site, meals, hotels are the same as above

TOTAL: $108 per person

Next time we will spend a few more days. Siem Reap as at the north end of Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. We want to catch the boat through the lake and down the river to Phnom Pen. We’ll spend a day or so there, and then on down the river, through Viet Nam and to the coastal area.