Back in Sydney

Well, that was a long time to wait in Singapore.

We could have taken a cab into the city and had a look around, but we thought it would be more interesting to have a good look around the terminal.

Yeah Nah! Bad decision.

Any airport in the world is boring if you are there for hours. It just is.
So we sat. And we waited. And we had a drink. And we waited some more.
And we boarded our flight.

As I said, we were split seated, but it really didn't matter, as the plan was to sleep the whole way.

The problem is that the SIN-SYD flight is about 7 hours. It leaves at 1030 at night and arrives about 0800 Sydney time, so you really want to sleep. Just like that long flight from LAX to SYD, your body is ready to sleep.
But a 7-hour flight? They want to serve you a meal, so that is almost 2 hours gone. They will start waking you up about an hour out, so that just leaves 4 hours to sleep. That's just a crappy sleep.

If we do this flight again, we have to be prepared to forget the food and go straight to sleep. BKK-SYD  would have been much better. A couple of hours longer, just enough time for a decent sleep.

Anyway.

We made it, and grabbed a cab back to Sam's place. This had to be one of the worst cab rides we have had in Sydney.
First, let me say this. Remember the cab ride from my last dentist visit? Less that $5? Well this cab ride hit $5 before we left the airport. Welcome to Sydney.

Anyway, the cabs queue up at the airport waiting for work. The passengers queue up waiting for a cab. Perfect synergy of supply and demand, you say? Correct. And these two forces are brought together in perfect harmony by the guy at the end of the queue, who directs you to your cab. How many? That cab over there. How many? That cab over there.

The guy with this pivotal role has no clue how far you want to go. That remains a secret until you tell your driver your destination.

When we say we are going to Wolli Creek, we always get a predictable response. The guy gets out of the car, hails the queue master, and bellows something in his native language. There is no danger we will ever understand him, but we have a fair idea what he said.

On this occasion, the driver got back into the car and drove like a slot car driver, mumbling under his breath the whole way. Shit. Shit. Shit.

For those unfamiliar with the vernacular, this is a slot car driver.

• Most of us start gently and stop gently, so that the ride is smooth for the passengers. For the slotcar driver, there is just a stop and a go button on the floor.
• Most of us smooth out the bends in the road, to minimise the sideways roll and make the ride more gentle. The slotcar driver places his car the predefined number of inches from the centre line, and stays there, regardless of curve or speed. Every curve is maximised for every passenger. Nice.

Thailand

I may have mentioned in the past, that Bangkok is the place that Sarah's dad was heading for when he died. As a result, we caught up with him in Bangkok, and made the arrangements to take him back to Dhaka.
Because of the way we were all treated by the Thai people, Sarah has a soft spot for them. They are a gentle people, untroubled by bustle and haste.
Sure, it's a busy city. It's never been a favourite as cities go, but it is getting better. Cleaner.

This week we got the opportunity to see the people in their city. Take taxis, travel from place to place. Well, mall to mall mostly.

I now think that I have a handle on the Thai serenity and patience. Just drive one of their cabs on a busy street. Just like in India, they make 3 lanes where only 2 were intended, but there is something else.

Time and again, the driver will change lanes. In a busy, ground-to-a-halt street. More surprising, everybody will let him.

Anywhere else in the world there would be collisions and road rage. But not here. There seems to be an all-pervading sense of live and let live. It's definitely something to do with the religion.

I think I could almost live here. Well, somewhere here.

That reminds me.

I may have mentioned in the past that Malaysia has a program to encourage expats to retire there. "My Home Malaysia" I think it's called. Put a few thousand in a local bank, and you will get a multi-year multi-entry permit to go there and live. All year, part of the year, you choose. You can buy a property there, and on a reasonable pension you can afford a driver and house staff to help you out regularly.

Well, it appears that, not to be outdone by those over the fence, Thailand has a similar program.
Invest some money in a bank, in property, and live a retirement you could never dream of back home.
As we have already established, medical standards here are world class.

Anybody interested in retiring to either country should let us all know how it goes, or what discoveries you make. I for one would be very interested to hear about experiences. Thailand has been a bit of an issue with the lack of English, but it appears to be getting a lot better. By the time I'm ready to kick back in the sun, I expect that problem to be a thing of the past.

We'll see

Change of Plan

Just when we were getting ready to head home from Bangkok.

We are travelling on staff travel this trip, which, as we all know, is on a space available basis. If there are seats available, then staff get a seat at a pretty good price.

Now this is a great concept, but there is an over-riding sense of the unknown. When you buy your tickets, there may be heaps of seats available, but when you rock up to the airport, any number of things could have happened. The flight could have been cancelled, an earlier flight could have been cancelled, filling up later ones. There might have been a last minute sale on, and all of the spare seats sold.

So, there is always trepidation involved when traveling on staff travel. Those who are a tad retentive, like my Sarah, will check regularly on the status, to see how our chances are of getting on the flight.
That's what happened here. The return flight from Bangkok to Sydney, was pretty full even before we left home. As it was, we extended a couple of days to get a flight with more available seats.

Over the days we have been here, Sarah has been checking on the flight. Yesterday, it was clear that we may not get on today's flight. Tomorrows one is worse.
So we decided to fly to Singapore to catch the SIN-SYD flight tonight. At the moment it's looking good, and there are alternatives. Two SYD flights, one to Brisbane and another to Melbourne. Must stay flexible.
So, Sarah goes tapping away on her computer (yes we brought her one this trip). Through her staff travel site, she can book seats on CathayPacific from Bangkok to Singapore this morning. There is a simple method for showing the chances of getting onto any flight. A smiley face, a no smiley face, and a frowny face. Cathay to Singapore has a smiley face. She makes the booking for BKK-SIN and SIN-SYD.

This morning we got up, had breakfast, and got a taxi to the airport. We were going to take the train, but that would mean accessing the skywalk via the mall, but that doesn't open till 1000. Our flight goes at 1150, so we are leaving before 0900.
We miss the train, and Sarah also misses her cinnabons for lunch.
This is something that a friend always bleats on about when they go to the states. At our end of the world, I guess it's called a cinnamon scroll, but in the USA there is a company that has patented the name. To the average Amrikan, these are called cinnabons. Same theory with the Elecrolux company. Some people vacuum, some 'lux'.
Anyway, there is a Cinnabon store in the Siam Paragon food court. We tried one the other day, and she was planning on getting a wee catering pack for the wait at the airport. Because we are not taking the train, we are not taking the skywalk to the train station at Siam Paragon, so we can't duck downstairs and stock up on carbs for the trip. Dots joined enough?

So a cab to the airport is at the mercy of traffic, and can take up to an hour. We did it in about 40 minutes, and gave the guy 700 baht. The standard rate is 500 for a car. This was a van, so we agreed on a little more.
Just for perspective, if it takes an hour, the charge, even on the meter, will never go over 700 baht. And that converts to about NZD28. It costs over $40 to go airport to our house in Christchurch, and we are literally 10 minutes away.

On Saturday when I returned from the dentist, my driver wasn't available. Rather than wait for him, I took a cab. Now this is only about 5kms from the hotel, but the road is often busy. Today took me about 40 minutes. The meter said 113 baht, so I gave him 120. 120 baht is about $4.80 in NZ money. For 40 minutes in a cab, right?

So we rock up to the Cathay Pacific counters, find the standby counter, and we are good to go. Sorry the flight is full, you will have to wait. Just take a seat over there, and come back at 10 past 11. So much for a smiley face. In our staff travel system, the system doesn't change from no smiley to smiley untill there are at least 30 seats available. But not with Cathay.
My theory is that being Thailand (the land of smiles), all systems are compelled to show a smiley face regardless. Always smiling.

We wait. We pace. We look around. 1 1/2 hours goes slowly when there is nothing much to do.

Eventually we go back, wait some more, and are given seats. Row 50-something and row 60-something. Both window seats. Doesn't matter, we are on, so lets get to the gate.
Luckily Customs and security are fast, so that we are at the gate (missing all the duty free shops) pretty quickly. Surprisingly, they are on final call, with over 20 minutes till departure. I'm so proud.

It's a good flight. Boeing 777. We like them. Good crew, good service, good food. I didn't eat, but my own Chef Ramsey tells me it is good.
The TV is good, but they wait till we are up before it is turned on, and turn it off before we are down. Bugger.

Soon enough we are in Singapore. As near as dammit to a 2 hour flight, and we head down to customs. Unlike the Amrikan customs, there is no staffing formula. Every counter manned. End of conversation. We start at the back of a huge mass of humanity, but the asian efficiency has us processed into sausage-like lines and away to pick up our bags in no time.

Now here's the test. Will our bags make it? We know how the back-of-house systems work. It usually takes longer for a bag to make it from check-in to the aircraft, than it does it's hapless owner.
But no. This is Asia. These buggers are good. I think Efficient is the best word to describe them. Process oriented, no deviation, getting the job done.

The bags turn up, we head upstairs to the check-in floor, and look for the correct bank of counters. A few hours to wait, but we'd rather be on the duty free side than this one. Just like Bangkok, not a lot to do on landside. According to the sign, there have been a few cancellations. One Jetstar to Melbourne. A few others. Lets hope that doesn't have an impact on us getting seats.
Off we go, front up at the counter and see what happens.

No problem, we'll take the bags. Here are your boarding passes, not together I'm sorry. Doesn't matter, interjects my Sarah. As long as we are on. We'll be asleep for most of the flight anyway. She doesn't want to talk to me during the flight, clearly.

Then it gets entertaining. There were a couple of women checking in next to us. When the second bag was on the scales, she suddenly remembered that she hadn't put a padlock on it. Please wait, I need to lock it. A debate ensues about how to get the bag from the rear feeder section back to the front so that she could lock it. No madam, you cannot climb up on the feeder belts to reach it. No burley blokes around, so the check-in agent eventually manhandles the bag, probably about 25kg and bigger than she is, back to the first feeder belt. There you are, madam. No "thank you". Charming.
But wait, there's more. Where's the third bag? The one with the glass in it? It was the first one to go. "But it's got glass in it!" she implores the check-in agents. I recognise the look on the check-in agent's face, even the chinese version.

YOU FUCKING MORON!!!

Like I said, we know how the back of house stuff works at an airport. Once it's gone, it's gone, baby. No Mulligans here.

"But it's only just gone!"

And your point is...?                                 .......lost on me!

The girl tried to explain. Once the bag enters the system, it takes a long time to get through the maze of belts, where it will be scanned, sorted, re-routed, and eventually down to the correct lateral belt where it will be loaded into the correct container. Only then will it be retrievable. Let's not mention the number of times that the above sortation process will punch, push, wack, flip, thwack and slap the bag on it's way.
"But it's only just gone."
We had to leave. It was a toss-up whether to laugh in her face, or just slap it.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are more pieces of glass coming out of the box in Perth than there were going into it in Singapore. I'll bet she tries to make a damage claim with Qantas in Perth. Let's hope that the staff in Singapore warn them what's coming.

That was fun.

Now its back through customs to the shopping area.
Let's go this way. Oh look, a train to Terminal 3. Let's go there.
The world's shortest monorail ride. So this is Terminal 3? But back down that way, beside the monorail track, I can see Terminal 1. So all the expense of a train to take you to terminal 3, and you could walk it in a few minutes.

Come on people! Too much money to spend?

The Monorail

Last night we had a few drinks in the Red Sky bar on this hotel's 55th floor. More floors than any building in New Zealand, but not as tall as Auckland's Sky Tower.

From here you get a good view of Bangkok. Until it rains, of course. For a while we could barely see past the glass, but rain doesn't last long here. Just like the other day, it rains hard, but not for long.

Looking down, it was clear that the monorail was overlaid as an afterthought to the city design. Sarah doesn't think there is a design here. Land becomes available, so somebody builds a hotel. Or a mall. Or both.

Anyway, the monorail is just such a cool idea. The one on our street is on two levels, one above the other, with the skywalk creating a third. All this, running down the middle of the street, held up by concrete pillars that straddle the street. Simple stuff.

I wonder why we don't have monorails in NZ. People always say that they are too expensive, but that is just bullshit. How can it be? Just look at the alternatives.

• Drill under the city to make a subway. Take years, cost squillions. Needs huge population to justify the cost.
• Rail on the surface. Buy up and bowl a heap of buildings to lay tracks. Expensive and disruptive in the suburbs, unmanageable in the city. Absurd.

Any of these may be practical solutions when planning a city, but not as a retrofit.

But a monorail? Straddle the streets, clip onto buildings, and create stations and access to buildings wherever you want. It's GOT to be cheaper. They put one into central Sydney, and it is about to get ripped out soon. It only ever went around in circles, so not as practical as a 'real' one. It's done it's job for the tourists, though. Actually, the Sydney monorail was second-hand. It was originally built for the 1988 Expo in Brisbane. In those days it must have looked very "Jetsons" to the retired Aussies and unemployed Kiwis of Brisbane. After the expo closed, Sydney City bought the monorail and had it installed to go around Darling Harbour. 

At the moment in Auckland, the government and local council is signing off an expansion to the current  inner city train service, much of it underground. Millions to be spent to add tracks to the downtown station. Why not just add trains, to increase the frequency? That would just cost the price of any new rolling stock required.

In Christchurch, we definitely need something post-apocolypse. Those who are as old as I am, will remember that many moons ago, there was a tourism proposal. Either build a monorail from city to airport, or a gondola up the port hills. History tells us that the gondola won. The dumbest decision ever.

But in our new, post-apocolypse Christchurch, wouldn't it be a great idea?

• From airport to City, down the middle of Memorial Avenue, and then around or through the park, to where hotels will be again.
• From City to the North, down the middle of Papanui Rd and Main North Rd. Put some big-arsed carparks on the outskirts, and let the commuters commute.

Just a thought.

But I've probably bleated on about this in the past.

Winding Down

Nothing to do today.

Mother-in-law left Saturday morning. We took her to the airport hotel on Friday night, so that she can get over the road by van whenever she is ready, for her morning flight.

Back to our hotel, and I went to the dentist for the final time. Covered elsewhere.

Then we went to dinner at what is fast becoming our favourite Thai restaurant. In the Central World Mall, nice and handy to our hotel.

Something we did discover...
The other day we walked to Siam Paragon. Only one block away, but a bit of a challenge with the heat, the people, the traffic, and with Sarah's mum wanting to stop and rest every 17 paces.

Now our hotel and the convention centre are off one of the major roads of central Bangkok. It seems to be called Rama I. Its a major road, perhaps 3 lanes either side of a median island. The odd thing you will notice in the picture is that there is only one lane going one way, while there are maybe 5 lanes going the other. Many cities have this. The number of lanes in use is dependent on the flow direction. Doesn't stop the traffic jams, though.

Now, you will see down the middle of this road, and straddling it, is a concrete structure. It holds a monorail system. Hanging under the monorail is a walkway, called the skywalk. We can walk from our mall, out to the skywalk, and down to Siam Paragon, without battling the traffic.
In fact, you can walk past Paragon and down to MBK, another huge mall. You can also walk back down the other way to the Central Mall. We have been to all 4 malls this week, but most by taxi. Now that mother-in-law has gone home, we can do more walking.

Actually, Siam Paragon is quite flash. These places are so large that you need a couple of visits to take it all in. On one visit, we found a Rolls Royce agency! With one on the floor in case you feel like checking out the upholstery. But the one that really took my fancy? The Lamborgina agent. They had one of those Matt black ones on the floor. Mmmmm   Lamborgina... mmmmm. This really is automotive viagra.

Getting adventurous, we think about taking the monorail to the airport tomorrow. Take the train from the closest station, connect to the airport line two stops away, and we are there. Simple.

We take the train to that connecting station, just so that we know where to go tomorrow, and then come back again. Because we can.

Done and Dusted

Well, I'm finished.

I went to my last visit to the dentist today, to get the final crowns put in. Should be a quick trip, 30 minutes max, right?

Yeah Nah.
Not so much.
Not even.
Delusional.

The car picked me up on time, so I was about 10 minutes early for my appointment.

Wait over there.

Mr Brian, come this way to have your teeth cleaned. Really? Alrighty then...

Now, in my day, the dentist would put a brush onto his drill mechanism, and dab it into some coarse paste, and then give my mouth a jolly good rogering.

So that's what I was expecting.

Yeah Nah!

Out comes the drill, but no sign of a brush. Grinding away over the surface of my teeth with some kind of drill bit. Not pleasant.
Then she puts the drill away. Phew!

Out comes a hook. You know the sort. Think Captain Hook in a surgical mask. Dentists have been using these things to terrorise kids (and adults, let me tell you) for generations. Good for finding those scraps of food hiding since last Christmas dinner. Also good for taking the tiniest pinprick cavity, and ripping it open. Blech!

So. This girl has one of those hooks, and is gouging away between my teeth.

Now let me just say this. One of the elements of any dentist's training must be strength training. It doesn't matter who your dentist is. As soon as they get on the end of one of those little hooks, they could lift your entire body off the chair with one hand. Forget the magicians and their levitation. Just watch these guys next time.

Anyway, this tiny girl has her hook wedged between my teeth, and is pulling my head off the chair. Jeez! I can only hope that any fillings I came with will hold. If she rips them out, we are back to square one. I wonder if they will pay for a replacement filling if Captain Hook rips any out. A tense time, let me tell you.

Eventually she is finished, and my teeth have survived the ordeal. This is exhausting!

Back to the waiting room.

A few minutes later, it is back into the next room, to see my original dentist for the crowns. At last!

She wants to give me injections for this process. Really?  I'm hardly going to argue. I'm a complete pain pussy. Give me medication every time. Lots of it.

By the way, a couple of days ago, one of the temporary crowns popped out. I was obviously a little over zealous with a toothpick. Bugger! I make an appointment, and get picked up for an unplanned visit. Another dentist sees me, and takes only a couple of minutes to glue it back in place. Anything else while you're here? I might as well get these two fillings done. Save my dentist doing it on the Saturday.

Lucky I did. She fiddles, adjusts, fits, adjusts, fits, adjusts, bite down, adjusts, bite again, adjusts, bite and chew, adjust, bite and chew.
I imagine you get the picture. And there are 4 crowns.
As Lawrence Oates is purported to have said, "I may be some time".

And then it's over, I'm finished.

So here are the details for those who are interested in going to a dentist in Bangkok:

Thantakit Dental Centre.
www.thantakit.com
dentists@thantakit.com

Fillings: 1000 baht per surface. Small fillings use 1, bigger ones take more. Mine ranged between 1 and 3 surfaces.

Crowns from 9000 baht each.

Check out the menu on the website for your own needs.

There is a muppet at work who wants me to find out what it would cost for him to replace all his teeth with some expensive enamel coated metal. I don't understand why somebody would put themselves through this for cosmetic reasons. Weird, man. He can figure it out from the website.

Just a reminder. Stuff like root canals, crowns, implants etc are not only invasive, they are traumatic to the body. You can get medicated up the wazoo, you can be unconscious if you like, but when it's all over and the anaesthetic wears off, your face will feel like it got hit by a truck.
That is regardless of whether you pay top dollar or bargain basement, The best in the world or rank backstreet amateurs. This is still going to hurt, and you are going to take a few days to recover.

So why not do it in a nice warm city, while sipping something cool next to a pool. Bring the family for a holiday.

I recommend this facility to anybody. Lots of foreigners go here. Airline crews who have stopovers here are regulars.

These guys are some of the best in the world.
It looks like they are some of the cheapest as well.
Baking in the Bangkok sun is just a bonus.

Send them an email if you have questions about treatment. Ask me if it's more generic.

Back to The Dentist

At 1615, I am getting organised to head downstairs for my ride, when the phone goes. The driver is waiting in the foyer. Wake up Sarah, time to go.

The driver from yesterday is back, but his car is not. Into the car park, he says. I can see why. It's raining outside.

To call what happens in Asia rain, is to master understatement.
It's pouring. It's pissing down. The heavens have opened. Raining cats and dogs. (In some countries nearby, that would be a godsend for some restaurants)

The clouds have shit themselves.

We get into the car, and venture out into the rain. Flooding up the wazoo. Impressive.

Through the tirade, we make it to the dentist. Up I go, and I'm done in 45 minutes. One crown and one filling. What I didn't realise is that she did 3 crowns yesterday. So that's four done.

Next session will be on Saturday, when the final crowns will be fitted. They are metal, with enamel sides, colour matched to the surrounding teeth. There have been molds taken throughout these two sessions, pre-drilling and post, so that they have a 3-d model of what each crown needs to be.

When we are sorting out that next appointment, Shelley comes out of another room. Shelley is the Emirates manager at Christchurch Airport, and she is the one who recommended this place to Sarah. We knew she would be here sometime this week, and she has just finished her final session of some major work. We share the car back to our hotels. She is staying not too far from us, and is flying home tomorrow night.

Small world, huh?

OK I think I've caught up now. After the dentist, we went back to the central world food court for dinner. The ladies settled on Chinese, despite Sarah's regular protestations about the blandness of chinese food. But then she thinks anything without a chilli safety warning is bland.

I mentioned her favourite chilli sauce in a recent post. Good old Anal Annihilator. What a name.

A free morning

After breakfast, we take a cab to the Central mall. Just a few blocks away. Like a huge department store.

Sarah's mum has decided on some more presents for back home, so they go looking at kid's clothes. I was entertained by a range of kid's shoes. Like those ugly crocs, but with animal faces built into the shoe. There are crocodiles, tigers, elephants, a couple of "Ants" characters, a couple of Sesame Street characters, dinosaurs, sharks. Cool!

On the top floor is the food court. Now this is an interesting experience. As you enter the food court, you are given a barcoded card. Like most food courts, there is thai, korean, japanese, indian, european, you name it, it's there. Unlike other food courts, you don't pay the vendor, you just give them your card to swipe.
As you leave the food court, you return the card and pay the balance accumulated on it. Very tidy. Very well organised.

Taxi back to the hotel.

My face feels funny

Remember my previous posts about keeping motion sickness at bay?
Well I have a little box of those arse-kicking mints in my pocket for the drive there and back.

On our way back from the dentist, I pop one into my mouth. Leave it in the same place in your mouth and you risk it burning a hole though your cheek, and falling on the floor. So move it around regularly.

Suddenly, it's gone. I can't feel it. I'm sure I haven't swallowed it. I certainly haven't chewed it. But it's gone. No wait, there it is. Unbelievable! It had moved into the side with the anaesthetic, so I couldn't feel it any more. Weird, huh?

Anyway, after catching up with Sarah's mum at the hotel pool, we had lunch there. I had a smoothy. Didn't feel like solids. Then we go for a walk. One block away is a mall called Siam Paragon, so that's worth a look. Actually, it feels a lot bigger than the central world one attached to our hotel. Much more open, more mall-like.

Sarah and her mum are at the L'occitane counter, trying to justify buying enough gifts for friends to qualify for a free tote bag. Close but no prize. Shoes, makeup, handbags. Oh I feel so masculine in this mall. There are a couple of 'girls' behind the makeup counter who are also a little more masculine than they should be. Yikes!

We loiter around long enough for dinner in the food court. More liquid for me. We walk back to the hotel in the dark, lots of people, lots of lights and lots of activity.

Time for bed, says zebedee.

The Reason I'm here

OK folks, this is it. I came to Bangkok to go to the dentist, and the time has arrived.
My first appointment is at 10:00 Monday morning. It's 20 past 9, we have finished breakfast, and heading down to the lobby for pickup.

Did I mention that this dentist has a free pickup service from your hotel? No? Well they do.
We arrive in the lobby, wondering how we will spot the driver. never mind, there's the van with the Dental Centre's name on the door. Out we go, and the doorman hails the driver for us. Can my wife come with? Sure, hop in.
Fifteen minutes later, and we are pulling into the car park. Escorted into the building, into the lift and up to the 2nd floor. Sit here, sir and fill out this form. Now please sit over there and we will call you.
Within minutes, I am in the dreaded chair. Looks good so far, modern equipment, young staff. I am soon off to the X-ray room, to get an inside look at what is going on in there. This is definitely more modern than what I am used to. When I used to go to my dentist (to be fair I had him since school), an x-ray involved what looked like a photographic slide wrapped in thin card, held between the teeth, so that a flash pointy object can be held against the cheek, and bzzzz. Done. Next slide. Now wait a few minutes to develop. Not long actually.
Different here. First, I'm given a heavy apron to protect the bits that they are not interested in. Next, a young lady takes a wired little pad off a hook on the wall, holds it there in my mouth, and someone outside the door hits the button. Bzzzz. Now hold it there. Bzzzz. Now up there. Bzzzz. Very fast. Very digital.

Apparently, my fat white mouth is a little awkward for this flash Asian equipment. So it's back to the first room and back up on the chair. Out comes a wee mobile x-ray unit, with another wee probe to stick in the mouth. Up there, bzzzz. Back a little, bzzzz. This side up here, bzzzz. Down there, bzzzz.

We now know what is going on, and what is to be recommended. We have a chat about the various options, and the cost. I will need 4 crowns, and 3 fillings. Sounds expensive.

Crowns start at 9000 baht each, and each filling is 1000 baht. That adds up to 39,000 baht. By today's conversion rate, that's just under NZD1600.
I believe that in NZ, a crown starts well over $1000. A filling is usually about $200.

Looks like a good deal.

Anyway, we begin. I'm in the chair till my bum gets numb, 2 crowns and a filling. There is a temporary crown to be fitted, and I get to wait in the waiting room with Sarah for about 45 minutes while that is being made. Back in for another 45 minutes to glue the temporary crowns in place.

That'll do for today. Back tomorrow at 1700. The driver will take us back to our hotel. From pick up to drop off, about four hours, thanks.

One thing that I had forgotten about. This sort of work needs anaesthetic. Give me heaps, thanks.
With my last dentist, the pain of the injection is up there with the pain of the drilling. Not here. She rubs something on the gum, and I don't feel the needle at all. Nice.

During the onslaught, there are periods when I'm asked to rinse my mouth. Simple stuff. Take a sip, swirl it around in your mouth, and spit it into the wee bowl. Been doing it since I was a kid.
Today, it's hard. Take a sip, swirl it around, and it all falls out!! I can't even keep my mouth closed, no matter how hard I concentrate. It doesn't help that I start laughing at this situation. Sheesh!!!

If you get a chance, listen to a story by Bill Cosby about going to the dentist. Always think about that when I'm sitting there, and it always makes me laugh.

A Free Day

Sunday was a free day. First appointment with the dentist is 1000 Monday.
So we go for a look around.

This hotel is attached to Central World, the largest shopping centre in Bangkok. It's a bit of a process to find, but we made it. Down to the foyer of the hotel, which is on the 23rd floor, then through the doors to the Convention Centre, then down the lift to the 7th floor, out into the carpark and the entrance is right there. A little convoluted, but I guess it'll have to do.

I don't know if I mentioned, but Sarah's mum is with us again. She comes to BKK for her medical checkups, so booked herself one, seeing we would be here. She got herself sorted out on Saturday, before we got here, so she has the week free.

The ladies were talking about the number of lifts here. There was the bank of lifts from the ground floor up to the reception floor. Then there were the bank of lifts up to the rooms. Then there were the lifts on the convention centre side of the door, which seem to service just the many floors of carparks.

I tried to explain the way lifts work in big buildings. I was told about this when we visited the Empire State building in New York. This process was best demonstrated in the twin towers there.

There is a formula for how many lifts you need in a building. The more offices per floor, or the more floors you have, the more lifts you need.
You need enough lifts, so that people can get on and off on all floors, without waiting too long.
If you have 10 floors, you might get away with perhaps 4 lifts, so that all people can reach their floor, without waiting for more than a minute for a free lift.
However, simple mathematics dictates that doubling the number of floors perhaps triples the number of lifts required. So, if you have a building 200 floors high, then the number of lifts required would take up the entire building, without any space left for offices or people.
The designers of these buildings came up with a cunning plan; Using the above example numbers, a 10 story building requires 4 lifts, but a 20 story building requires 12 lifts, and so on. Their solution was to put 4 lifts on the bottom 10 floors, and 4 lifts on the top 10 lifts. Total 8. Each lift only needs to service 10 floors. So, if you want to go to the top floor, you take 2 lift rides. This is what happens in the Empire State Building. Go part way up, change lift and carry on up. Works a treat.

So that's enough about lift design. We went for a visit to the shopping centre. Being a circular building, the layout is a bit odd. This is not an open plan mall, it has been cut up into lots of nooks and crannies. Easy to get lost, and hard to see how big it is.

I saw something in the food court that entertained me. Fresh Ice Cream. Nothing surprising there, but by fresh they mean literally. You actually watch your ice-cream made in front of you. Not scooped out and popped into a cone, but actually made in front of you.

The 'cook' standing in front of a metal bowl with a flat bottom. Imagine watching pancakes or an omelet being built. The cook stirs, folds and scrapes the mix from the bottom as it cooks. This is like that, but the flat bottom of the bowl is freezing cold, so the 'cook' is actually making an ice cream omelet. Cool!

More entertaining, people not only want to buy this, they want to be photographed buying it. They take their own photos, but there is actually a staffmember whose job is to take a photo of you enjoying your creation. Odd!

Bangkok

We get out of the terminal pretty quickly, and decide to slum it by taking an ordinary cab to the hotel. I know, right?

We zoom along pretty well, until we leave the motorway and get onto city roads. We are stuck on one piece of road, probably 200m long, for 25 minutes. Crazy, right? We came all the way from the airport in less time than this 200m. Once we get moving again, we are about 5 minutes from the hotel. It's the Centara Grand, next to the central Convention Centre, and next to one of the largest shopping centres in Asia. That was Sarah's price for coming.

The reason we are here, is for me to go to the dentist. Nothing dramatic. No Osmond makeover. I have a few fillings that have fallen out over the last few years. Firstly, they didn't hurt, so didn't matter. Second, my dentist retired, and the new one was expensive and, well, new. So I didn't bother.

But we have been hearing about this medical tourism lark in Asia, specifically Bangkok. Shoot over for a wee procedure, and it costs a fraction of what it would back home. New hip, boob or molar, it's all here. Special price, one time offer, just for you mister. ...sorry, I was thinking about something else.

The insurance industries in NZ and AUS are vehemently against people coming over here to get anything done. Can't understand it myself. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, within 5 years, they suddenly twig that they can send somebody over here, on an airline of their choice, stay at a hotel of their choice, and go to a hospital of their choice, and have the operation of their choice, all for probably less than half what they would be paying for back home. The Insurance industry could control every aspect of the procedure, from flight bookings to return home, and save themselves a fortune. One day.

So we are at the hotel. It's an odd shape, kind of like a figure of eight, 2 circles. Circles feature prominently on the inside as well.

Our bathroom is circular, with a circular tub in the middle. There is a circular track above it, for the shower curtain to run around the tub.There is a rain shower coming out of the ceiling (Sarah's favourite), and a hand shower head on the wall. This must definitely be built for hobbits, because the shower head is so low on the wall. Personally, I hate rain showers. Being a non-swimmer, I am very uncomfortable with water on my face. Because there is no way that I can stand under the wall mounted hand piece, I am forced to resort to the water-boarding procedure. Let's try not to panic, chaps.

Racing This Time

OK so we're off on another jaunt. Bangkok this time.

Day before yesterday we flew CHC-SYD on good ole Air New Zild. Ah, I just love the IFE on these things. Watched a movie and something from TV I think. That's Alzheimer's for you. Yesterday was... um... Friday... I think. No SYD was Friday, BKK was Saturday. This is Sunday morning.

Anyway, we stayed with Sarah's brother Sam. He lives near the Airport in a suburb called Wolli Creek. No sign of a creek, but there is a train station there. Very handy as it's the next stop after the Airport station.

While I remember, we brought a snowboard over for a friend. It belongs to her son, and he was going to meet us at the airport to pick it up. Now before anybody from our industry gets all uppity about taking other people's luggage, just back up a minute. We were given a snowboard, some boots, gloves, glasses and clothes. I packed them up in some giant plastic bags, and wrapped the shit out of it with orange airline tape. So yes, Noddy, I did pack it myself and yes, Bigears, I do know the contents!

Now the reason I mention this, is that we check it in at the oversize counter at Christchurch, and pick it up at the oversize counter in Sydney. Can I just say this? Never, NEVER, take an oversized item to Sydney, particularly if it is fragile, or if you have somewhere you need to be after the flight.
They have seats in this area for a reason. It takes SO LONG to get anything this way. In fact, this is the only area in the arrivals hall that there are seats for the public. Paint drying, grass growing, cricket matches. these are all faster than your fragile or oversized items take to be regurgitated from the bowels of the building. There is an orifice that emerges out of the floor at a steep angle, and the items are eventually spat out, partly digested, into the hands of the waiting, often dozing staff member, who then proceeds to throw the item across the floor towards where we are allowed to congregate.

For future reference, more fragile stickers do not denote more fragile. More than 5 stickers on an item and they take it as a personal challenge. The loader at the reclaim belt seemed almost disappointed that 'my' snowboard appeared unscathed.
We eventually emerge from the arrivals hall, with everything intact, and give the parcel to it's grateful owner. After picking up our bags, we must have waited more than 20 minutes for that snowboard.

Although it wouldn't have been so bad if we had old passports. I don't know if I've mentioned before, but we have at this end of the world, new snazzy passports, with a wee chip built in. A smart passport, they say. Let's just say that there are a few Australians who would come off second best in an IQ contest with my passport. And one or two kiwis, to be fair.
The advantage of these new Mensa grade passports, is no queues. Go to a machine, put in your passport, hit yes or no at the appropriate time a couple of times, and it spits out a ticket. Go to the next machine, put in aforementioned ticket, smile for the birdy, and voilà you're through, past those other poor schmucks with non-NZ or AUS passports, or older passports. Sam has an older passport, and he comes to Christchurch regularly. He knows all about the queues. By the time you get through the queue at that time of the morning, even the oversize items would be waiting for you.

Next morning we are back at the airport checking in for the SYD-BKK flight on Qantas. Surprisingly helpful check-in agent, considering we are on staff travel. Does a bit of fiddling and makes a call to get us 2 seats near each other. At many airports, staff travel is like being a second class citizen. Don't ask for anything and you won't be disappointed. Sydney is not usually this accommodating, but we'll take it.

After check-in, we had breakfast with Sam in the food court. They have a good range of food outlets at Sydney Airport. Everything from Subway and Maccas up to designer restaurants. Even a very popular Krispy Kremes.  Mmmm donuts!!!

When we went to board, they had changed our seats. We are now within food-throwing distance from each other. Across the aisle.
We get all settled in, and I notice the guy at the window next to Sarah is in jeans and bare feet. Not a young, smelly hippy, but a middle-aged guy. Probably a businessman.
I know many people take their shoes off once they settle in, but their socks as well? Lets hope any wafting does not make us regret his decision. Anyway, he did it so quickly, I can't even see his shoes. Surely he didn't board the plane in bare feet.

Now there's a funny thing. Airlines get SO retentive about making sure that their passengers do not board the flight in bare feet. A serious safety issue, we are told. Go and buy some shoes if you must, but you are NOT getting onto MY aircraft dressed like THAT! Reminds me of the parents who would punctuate their scolding of a wayward child with some kind of societally acceptable violence every 3 or 4 words. Ah, brain damage. Those were the days.

So where was I? That's right, boarding with no shoes. The funny thing is that in an emergency, one of the first things the crew tell you to do is remove your shoes.

Anyway...

During the flight, particularly while Sarah is sleeping, this guy decides he needs access to his cabin bag, so climbs over Sarah. He then gets his bag down, and puts it on the floor to get something out of it. Now, this guy is not one of those bend at the knee types. He bends at the waist, putting his arse as close  to my face as you would want to be without dinner and drinks first. Very flexible, but really?
He assumed the 'arse-face' position a couple of times during the flight. Nice!

There was another guy there that pissed me off as well. I have mentioned this before, when talking about our trip to Dubai, but there was another one on this flight.
A young guy, maybe late 20s, with his wife and 2 kids. He is wearing jeans and a FCUK hoodie, a baseball cap and a pair of those shoes that look like hobbit feet, rubberised moulded over each toe individually. Really cool, probably very comfortable, but kinda weird looking. So, he was dressed like that, and his wife was in the full-arsed burka outfit, with only the functional parts of the face visible.
Just like I said when I saw this in Dubai, if you are going to have your wife follow the religious dress code, then you can at least follow it yourself! Wanker!

So this is a daylight flight, and I am not tired. I watch The Hobbit movie. First time I've seen it, really very good. I look forward to seeing it on a real TV when I buy the DVD. I then watch some movie called Olympus has fallen, about a secret service agent who saves the world from nuclear armageddon. It stars Aaron Eckhart as the president. He played "two-face" in one of the Batman movies, but I prefer him in "Thank you for Smoking", a wee comedy about the advertising industry and Big Tobacco.
Then there was a Steve Carell movie about a Vegas magician. Finally the remarkable Oz, the prequel to that little film that made Liza Minelli's mum famous. A little slow to get started, but it eventually got a bit of colour. Come on! It's a 9-hour flight, people. What do you expect me to be doing?

Flight comes in to land, and Sarah's mate putes on his crocs. Yes, crocs! That explains everything.

But Wait. There's More

Surely you didn't think it would be so easy.
After moving back to the Bali option, we are now leaning towards Bangkok to get my teeth looked at.

But hey! Who knows, right. Until we actually board an aircraft, it's all up in the air.

The Next Holiday

Yes I know.
She is just getting over jet-lag. She says that she could go back to work the day after flying in from The States. But from Asia? Give her a week to stop waking up at 2 in the morning.

Anyway....
This may give you a sense of how Sarah's brain works, as well as what I have to deal with.

As you know from previous posts, Sarah wants to go back to Boston, to get across to Cape Cod for a look around. That's on the agenda for year after next.

She also wants to do a cruise around Hawaii next year for her birthday.

And then, of course, there's Bali. We were never interested. Until Air New Zealand decided to start flying back there. Now it's on Sarah's bucket list. We have leave booked for this July, so that's going to be crossed off soon. Thanks for that.

Sometime in the next 3-4 years, we will do England and Europe. Maybe in one trip, maybe split into two.

A few days ago, she had a cunning plan. If we're going to Hawaii next year, we will be half way to the mainland, so let's do Boston then too.

She then woke up yesterday and said let's go to Boston in July. So we start looking into that.

Getting from Boston to places like Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is harder than you would think, so by lunchtime she was thinking about London.

As you were. I've started a PhD on Cape Cod. I think we can make this work. So Boston is back in focus.

Head spinning much?

India's Most Wanted

Something I have been thinking about since leaving India. On many of our bus trips, we would see billboards like this

The problem is, I can't tell what it's for. Is it a political poster, these are the good guys wanting your vote?
Or is it Al Qaeda's senior terrorists? India's Most Wanted?
Somewhere with dubious politics like Bangladesh, it could be either. Or both. Depending on which party was in power this month. Remember the two main parties there are run by women, so things really might change on a monthly basis.
Just a thought.

Anyway, looking at those posters made me think.
According to scientists, there are a finite number of variations to facial features that the human brain can differentiate. We subconsciously paste a face together just like those identikit photos.
Small eyes, big nose, round cheeks, square jaw. We can construct a pretty good shorthand, to remember someone's face for future recall.

But here's the problem.
I could probably recognize lots of different faces. Maybe over a million. But they are mostly white. It sounds terrible, but I think it's true. There is a racial bias to our ability to recognize people.

There is an old saying, that all (insert racial group) look alike. But it's true.
If I can recognize a million distinct faces, maybe a few hundred are Asian, a few hundred African, and a few hundred Indian.
I think it is because, when we look at similar faces all the time, we can distinguish between the smaller nuances. Look at an uncommon race, and you are not looking with the same resolution.

Bring someone from a village in China or India, and drop them on the streets of any large, predominantly white city, and they will struggle to differentiate between more than a few faces. They will either think they just saw them around the corner, or they won't recognize anybody.

So outside our own race, we are unable to recognize faces with the same nuances as with our own race. I don't think there is anything radical here. I just think that people are afraid to say it, in fear of being accused of racism. Am I a racist? Doubt it. Oh sure, some sanctimonious prat will find a way to show how evil I am for uttering the blatantly obvious.

Look at the poster, though. Take an Indian guy in his 30-40's, put on one of three mustache shapes or one kind of beard on him, brush his hair that way (by the way, the hair is black), and voilà. Identikit Indian politician. Or to an American, an identikit terrorist. They all look the same.

Anyway, while in India, I recognized a lot of people.
There was a guy in the foyer of our Mumbai hotel, that used to work in our favourite Indian restaurant in Christchurch.
There was one of the guides who we last met in Bangladesh.
And then there was the guy driving the bus one day, he also works in our restaurant in Christchurch.

And so it goes on. I would be constantly recognizing people who I have never met before.

We are told that everybody has a double. A doppelgänger. Given that we can only identify the difference between faces in the low millions, there must be thousands of me somewhere. Poor bastards!
New Delhi alone has nearly 14 million people, so even with the locals' ability to identify a million more individual faces than I can, there has to be 3-4 of every Indian just in New Delhi alone.
By the way, there are aver 1.27 billion Indians in India.
A little more Chinese in china.

We're ok here in New Zealand. There is only about 4.5 million here. Just one of everybody, thanks.

Home

Well, that was painful.

Couldn't risk sleeping in transit in KUL, so I sat and watched while Sarah snored.
So as soon as I got onboard our KUL AKL flight, I went to sleep. Woke up with 5 hours to go, so watched a couple of movies and had dinner, and we were there.

Now, watching movies on Malaysian is trickier than a tired white man can deal with. There are a shitload of channels, so lots of movies, but they are all running, over and over. What a pain! How old is this system?

Worse, I couldn't figure out what movies were on what channel. All it would say when you switch is how many minutes into the movie it is. You have to sit there for a minute to see if you recognize what it might be, and then decide if you want to see what's left of it. Sheesh!

I tripped over the new bond movie, and it was only a few minutes in, so I sat on that. Not a bad movie, really. Watched it restart, and all I had missed first time was the pre title sequence, kind of important to this movie, and being a Bond, was about 15 minutes long.

Then I trawled around, and Mr and Mrs Smith was starting, so that'll do.

While I was reading through the inflight magazine for a hint of what movies were on what channels, I discovered that you can ff, rw, stop and restart movies. Thanks for that!

But wait, there's more. There is obviously a range of aircraft in the fleet, and each one seems to have a different handset fot movies. You're KIDDING me!

So there's a chart of which model remote (no, not which aircraft, so you have to decode that first) does what. I still couldn't find a simple list of channels and movies.

Just too fucking hard!!!

I must be spoilt, but I was certainly missing the IFE on the Air New Zealand flights. So simple. Ish.

Sure, there are different systems, but you don't need to fight with the remote. On most aircraft, I never touch the remote at all. All touch screen, thanks.
Also, you start with a menu, choose a movie, and watch it. Colour me simple, but that works for me.
Why would you have movies permanently playing on all channels if you have the individual ability to restart a movie from the beginning, as long as you know the secret sequence of buttons to do it?

Anyway, back in newzild now. Arrived just after midnight, bags were off quickly, and we were in our hotel room by 0100.

Did I mention the Novotel? It is the new hotel they have built at Auckland International Airport, and it is LITERALLY just across the road from the terminal. Walk out of the building, use the pedestrian crossing to avoid being hit by a taxi, and you are five steps away from the hotel reception. Brilliant!

Got up early ish, because we were going to meet a friend for breakfast. Our flight is at 1200.

Check out, head off to domestic, and ring to hook up. Oh, is it today? I thought it was Saturday? Sorry, I'm at work.

Did I mention this was one of Sarah's friends? My friends wouldn't do that? They probably would, but they just wouldn't be arsed dragging themselves to the airport to meet me.

So we are sitting in the Koru Lounge. We missed the breakfast menu, so we are making do.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote.

I don't know when or where our next adventure is, so the next entry may be minutes or months away. Who can say.

Once again, I apologize to those who were hoping for graphic details of Delhi Belhi, Bombay Bum, or whatever else you may like to call it. I came away completely unscathed, except for the odd mozzy bite taken out of my arse.

I won't apologies to the weak of heart who fell into palpitations whenever an expletive crossed my page. They just need to fuck off and find an Enid Blyton book to read.

Sorry, Noddy.

Kuala Lumpur at 0400

Bloody hell!

It's fucking closed!

Sarah had these grand visions of spending the four hours between flights flitting between duty free, hush puppies store, more duty free, toblerone shopping, and back to duty free again.

After being pushed to restrictive shopping timetables on the train trip, four hours should have been just about right.

So this glorious airport, with a massive departure lounge, might have flights arriving at all hours, but there is no retail therapy till about 0700. Bugger!

Oh, there's a Burglar King open, and some other goody outlets. So you won't starve to death, you'll just get bored senseless.
If she had brought any Indian sweets, she could have eaten herself into a diabetic coma. I don't know if you've tried Indian sweets or not, but they are all made out of milk products. Condensed milk, it tastes like to my untrained palate. One of the popular ones is gulab jamuns, camel testicles marinated in syrup. There are a bunch of others that taste the same, and look kinda the same, but have completely different names. Then there is the range of dry sweets, all made from condensed milk and almonds. Again, many variations on a theme. There are even some with edible silver paper stuck to them. I HAVE NO IDEA!

My personal favourite would have to be jalebis. They are bright orange (food colouring, kiddies), and look like pretzels. But bite into one, and your mouth will explode with sugar. They are filled with, and probably made of, flavoured sugar syrup. They appear to be made by squirting the mixture into a deep fryer. Jenny Craig would just LOVE this.

But she didn't bring any. She did her PhD on them, and MAF won't let them into NZ.

So we sit. She tries to snooze while I write this drivel.

DAC/KUL

We are on our way to Kuala Lumpur. The drive from CDC took about 75 minutes, so quite busy. This is the first normal day since the strikes, so I guess people are still playing catchup. It's always sad to leave here, because the staff look after us so well. They don't speak English, and I don't speak gibberachi, so communication is always a challenge. I just need to make sure I don't piss Sarah off, or who knows what concoction I might be eating.

As we approach the terminal, Sarah reminds me again about not letting anyone touch our bags. I must say it is hard work, because there are always more crowds on the footpath than there should be. We drove up to the front of the building, just like most normal airports, except that at the beginning of this stretch of footpath is a gate with armed guards waving us through.

Not sure if I mentioned, but at the Taj hotel at Mumbai, they have three steel posts that come out of the ground, blocking your car's way onto hotel property. Shiny steel, with a ring of LED lights around the top. Standard stuff, mirrors under the car, look under the bonnet, everything you see in the movies. Hit the button, the three poles go down, and you're in. Same deal to exit. One car at a time. Complete control over their sandpit.

The same deal at the Leela in New Delhi. Mirrors, bonnet, yada yada yada. Even for their own hotel cars. Impressive.

Now, back to Dhaka. Gate, permanently half open, guy in uniform with a rifle on his shoulder.
Now these guys. The Bangladeshi army. You've seen photos of the people and the vehicles on the streets of Dhaka, right. Dirty, weather-beaten and covered in scratches and dents. And the vehicles are worse. Every time I see either soldiers in this town (and you can hardly avoid them), or one of their vehicles, the thing that strikes me is that they are clean, freshly painted, brand spanking new. And so are their vehicles. The uniforms are brand new or freshly laundered, perfectly pressed. It's as though these little soldiers come in matching sets, and you just pull them off the shelf, inflate them, and off they trot. Hut, hut, hut.

Now the other thing about them is their uniform. The freshly laundered one. It is in camouflage pattern. I was about to say camouflage colours, but that's the problem.

Camo uniforms from the days of jungle warfare were shades of green, khaki, stuff like that.
When George Bush decided he wanted a holiday home in Baghdad, his personal couturier came up with some sandy shades in a nice pastel. People were into the colour tea about then in their decorating choices, so it fit right in.

But these guys? The most obvious colour in their camo uniform is blue. Blue! Where the hell are they going to hide with bits of blue all over their clothes? Are they going to guard the waterfront from a deck chair? Jump out of the sky? I'm thinking this place has had female Prime Ministers for a little too long. Too many chiffon or silk saris floating around the corridors or power.

So, back to this guy at the gate.

If he is manning the gate, and he's the only guy with a gun, how the fuck did all these dropkicks get past to bug us on the footpath?

That's all I was going to ask.

Anyway...we get checked in. Sarah has left a bag of shoes that was inside my suitcase coming over, back at CDC, so that her shopping will fit. It's now 23 point something, and her big pink one is 26 point something. We are going to have to move a little out of that one before we check in for the Auckland/Christchurch flight tomorrow.
Oh, yes. And there is a box. A dinner set. I know! Sarah, remember. Don't worry, it's not hand luggage, so she will spend the entire trip hoping that the loaders can read the 47 fragile stickers on it. I know, I know. Good luck with that.

Money, Money, Money

I was reading today that Walmart is planning on reducing its reliance on Bangladesh. Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, and Bangladesh is the second largest supplier of garments behind China.

Apparently, Walmart is growing a conscience, because of the substandard conditions of garment workers in Bangladesh. Their pay is not flash, either. It seems that wages range from 18c to 26c. An hour! Of course that's in Amrikan dollars, so it's not as bad as it seems.

But wait, there's more. These staff work 12 hour days, 13 if you count lunch. That's all at ordinary pay, by the way.

Walmart could go to China, but the average rate there is about $1.50. Exorbitant!
It seems they quite like the look of Cambodia, where pay averages about 36c/hr, or Vietnam, where it is about 50c/hr.

Mmm. I think I'll ask for a pay rise when I get home.

View From The Top

This shot is taken from the roof of CDC, looking out the back of the property. Not sure if the pond is man made or not, but it is the source of food for many on its shores.

It's not often that you can take a photo looking directly into the sun, is it? It's a special filter we use on the iPhone. I like to call it pollution.

Diseases

I haven't mentioned diseases much. I guess that's because everybody takes them for granted over here.

What always amused me over the years, though, is the world-wide panic over things like mad cow , bird flu, HN something. The diseases themselves didn't amuse me. It's that they were never mentioned in India and Bangladesh. But I can see why.

Bird flu is like the little fat new kid with the geeky glasses. He parks himself up the front where the teacher can see him, but in the back row are the rough kids. Malaria, typhoid, cholera. You just know that the new kid is going to get his glasses broken, his lunch money stolen, and his undies pulled up over his head before the day is over.

So no. No mention of the pussy flues here, thanks. We have the industrial strength models here.

Politics

Another reason I am parked up here, is the political situation here in Bangladesh.

As you will have read, there was a recent court ruling of the death penalty for war crimes during the 1971 separation war with Pakistan. Just like at Nuremberg, sometimes it takes many years to bring people to justice.
Anyway, the political situation here is volatile at the best of times, with both main political parties constantly bickering like 12 year old girls. No different from any country, then.
The difference here, is that when one party doesn't agree with what the other has said or done, they tell the people to strike. Now, this bit really baffles me.
If in New Zealand, the opposition party told the public to stay home from work because the government said or did something they didn't like, they would be laughed out of business. Why should we do what you say? You lost the election, remember? Piss off and grow a pair, noddy!

Here, though, people listen, because they are threatened with violence if they don't. Apparently there are gangs who roam around, and cause trouble for those who ignore the order. Cars burnt, homes burnt.
So everything shuts down. People don't drive to work. Sarah says that in some places, if the staff can walk to work, they go. Don't know the logic of that. Otherwise, a complete shutdown. Society grinds to a halt.
Today it's because one faction wants this convicted guy to be released.
The current strike started at midnight and will finish at 1800 tomorrow.
So on the street outside, all we can see is baby taxis and rickshaws. No cars, no taxis, no buses, no trucks.
Apparently on the first day of the strike, a couple of people died and about 50 injured. Others died in the prematch scuffles.

Did I mention that Bangladesh is not a tourist destination. Saw on tv today, that a New Zealander just did a walk through North Korea. Aren't us kiwis so adventurous? Living on the edge. Him camping on a mountain, burning cow poo, me sitting under a ceiling fan in Dhaka drinking coke and writing this drivel

Finally, while I write this, Sarah has an app running on the iPad, and is listening to the Si and Gary morning radio show in Christchurch. Look up SAD in the dictionary, and guess whose picture you will see?

More Glamping

We are holed up in the CDC compound. When we come here, I don't tend to go out much.
Sarah may go visiting her old school friends, but I rarely go.

One reason is that I'm a crap traveller. I look at a car and start feeling motion sickness. Go out for an errand here and you may not be back for 4-6 hours.
My new magic ginger chews seem to be helping a lot.

The second reason is that Sarah is keeping me away from food and water. If you visit somebody, even for five minutes, out come the snacks and drinks, and you are there for over an hour before you can leave without giving offence.
In CDC, the staff are very thorough when it comes to hygiene and water treatment. All drinking water is boiled to death, and stored for our use. Most households drink water from the tap. That's fine for the locals, but foreign stomachs cannot deal with the cocktail of microbes populating the water in most of these countries. Considering what we saw from the train, what people are happy to do onto the ground anywhere and everywhere, it is no surprise that the water table is not the purest on the planet.

That's how Sarah has kept me alive for the past month.
Rule one: No water that doesn't come out of a bottle you opened yourself. And that includes brushing your teeth!
Rule two: No fresh or raw fruit or veg that may have been washed in unknown water. So no salads.
Rule three: No ice. You don't know where the water came from that made it.
Rule four: Don't touch your face or mouth with your fingers. It's surprising how often we unconsciously do this, so it's a hard one to self-regulate.
Rule five: Wash your hands as often as possible, and between washes, use sanitizer.

We found pen sanitizers in the states, and then a friend found them in a Chinese $2 shop in Christchurch. So I always had a couple of pens in a pocket.

I may have mentioned that my flash phone decided not to play well with the telcos, about two days after we landed in India. That day I was showing my crocs a good time at the pool, I noticed that my phone said No Service. I had automatically connected to the Idea network when we landed in Mumbai, but not any more. It stayed like that for the whole India trip. It actually doesn't matter, because I don't make calls while overseas, but I am planning to go into Telecom when I get home and get my sim replaced, because everything else worked. You have no idea how irritating it is to have Sarah bleating on about the wonders of her all-powerful brick. Bloody cheap Nokia. Anyway, we get off the plane in Dhaka, and it chirps into life with a local network. Go figure.

I actually don't mind staying at CDC. The entire top floor is the family home, so there is room to sit in a corner and read or write. I have managed to update the blog with photos. It's a little harder on the iPad than the laptop, so It has taken longer. But what else am I going to do, right?

Despite the size of the apartment, it does not really qualify as having a large initial on the roof. It was laid out to accommodate many visitors, so there are about six bedrooms. Some have ensuites, some not so much. Because this organization runs on the goodwill of sponsors and donations, they are often entertaining church groups who want to come and see where their donations are being spent.
That is the reason for both the number of bedrooms, and for the spartan fit out of the building.
This is a school, in a third world country. There is no justification to have hotel features anywhere in the building, so you won't find them in the apartment either. When Bishu designed the building, his plan was that when he and Vijaya are both gone, the top floor would become office space.

While locals from the villages might see this building as palatial, for Europeans it is more of a hostel. So we are glamping again.

A History Lesson

It's probably a good time to explain why Sarah's mum lives in Bangladesh and not India.

A century ago and beyond, India was a collection of small kingdoms (I think it might have actually been the poms that unified them). These kingdoms were of assorted sizes and strengths, and each had a Maharaja ruling it. We saw some of the palaces, and in Rajisthan there are still some living maharajas. Our tour guides often referred to our various stops in Rajisthan as the princely states for this reason.

We have heard about the caste system in Hindu society. There were the Brahman, the highest caste that provided the scholars and religious leaders. Then the warrior caste, who are now the businessmen and politicians. Then the working class, the service industry. Finally the untouchables.
Sarah's dad comes from a Hindi Brahman family. That's one down and to the left of god.
A couple of generations ago, his family were from the time of the Maharajas in the state of Bengal. Today, Bengal is split into West Bengal, where Calcutta is, and the new Bangladesh. In both of these areas, the local language is still Bengali.
When India gained independence from the British in 1947, the one thing Gandhi couldn't do was get his people to agree on an inclusive government for all religions. There are many signs of this secular nature in both the flag and the currency of India, but it wasn't going to work for who would actually run the country.
Against Gandhi's best advice, the decision was made to split the country on religious boundaries. The bulk of central India would remain Hindu, while the Muslims would take the two top corners. These would become east and west Pakistan.
Those who were trapped on the wrong side of these new borders were often compelled to flee to 'their side'. Hindus in the east side of Bengal were pushed across into West Bengal, which stayed inside the new India. All lands they left behind were claimed by either the Pakistani government, or whoever was standing at the gate waving the last owners goodbye.
This is what happened to Sarah's dads family. They actually relocated to Varanasi, or Brahman Central.

Fast forward to this generation. Sarah's dad, Bishu, was a recent university graduate working for the Indian government in some kind of nuclear facility. During a laboratory accident, Bishu inhaled some chemicals, and within 24 hours he was completely paralised from the neck down.

He spent seven years in hospitals and in rehab in both India and Australia. The first few years in India were just keeping him alive, so no attempt was made to rehabilitate his body. According to the Australians, if he had come down under a few years earlier, he would have walked out of rehab. Instead, he was destined to live out his time in a wheelchair.

During the first few months, he would ask anybody who would visit, to read to him. Anything, fact, fiction, anything. This is where he met Vijaya, a nurse from a Christian family, who was to become his wife.
After some time he was able to read for himself, but his voracious appetite for reading only grew. One work of fiction that quite entertained him was in his bedside cabinet. The Gideon Bible.

Towards the end of his time in India, he had take his reading material seriously, and decided to convert to Christianity. He had a strong sense that he had been saved from certain death for some higher purpose, so he set about finding it. Obviously his relatives were not best pleased that he abandon his Hindu upbringing, and he was ostracized from the family.
Bishu and Vijaya went to Australia for his final rehab. When he was released from hospital, he was offered a position back home with the Indian government. A desk job. He declined.
What he chose instead, was for them both to enrol in a missionary school in Australia.

When they graduated, they were offered a position with the immigrant Indians in London.

Now, Bishu has always enjoyed a challenge. He never took the road well travelled.
Rather than the "safe" option of a desk job in India, with employment and pension for life, he took the challenge of a new career with a new religion.
Rather than the "safe" option of another desk job in London with an established ministry, he took the challenge of going to the land of his forefathers, the new Bangladesh.

Remember, this is a country that has no great liking for Hindus, and has even less tolerance for the workings of Christians.
Also, those missionaries that had already come to Bangladesh, were in the villages, where the real need for education and enlightenment was to be found.
So, a newly graduated missionary, going to a country with a low tolerance for mission work, and who had no way to join the established missions in the villages because of his wheelchair.
I did say that Bishu liked a challenge, didn't I?

His solution? Start his own mission, based in the city. Bring the villagers to him, for courses ranging from the spiritual to the practical. Heath care, education, learning to teach, many subjects that would set them up to build their own ministries in their own villages. It is called church planting over here. He established his school, The Christian Descipleship Centre, in 1979.










After many years building his reputation for quality graduates, and building low level sponsorship and support from a handful of small churches in different corners of the world, he was in a position to establish a purpose-built school for his students. He found land on the outskirts of Dhaka, and The Christian Descipleship Centre had a home.

Despite his success on both his chosen path and his work for the rights and conditions for the disabled around the world, living in Bangladesh remained challenging. As a foreign missionary, he was only ever issued a visa for short periods, usually one year at a time. In later years, the government began issuing five year visas. In spite of this, however, they were always under the threat of expulsion. Missionaries must live to a strict set of conditions, and even the accusation of a breach could have the Chowdhuris expelled from the country within hours.

Even with this Damocles sword hanging over his work, Bishu never lost his love for his Bangladesh.

There have been many close calls with Bishu's health.
The damage caused by his initial accident had compromised many organs. He operated for the rest of his life on only one lung, operating at about 20% capacity.

He had been declared clinically dead after he collapsed while in Sweden for a conference. He proved them wrong, and spent many weeks there recuperating.

Another time, he was rushed to hospital in Sydney, only to recover in record time.
Each time, he had been near some of the best medical care available, and each time he survived.






In 2010, he fell sick and was admitted to a hospital in Dhaka. It was decided to airlift him to a hospital in Bangkok. During that flight, he passed away. His body was taken from Bangkok airport to the hospital by helicopter, where his family would see him later.

Apparently, there were a couple of things left on his bucket list.

• First, he didn't want to die in Bangladesh. He passed away in Burmese airspace.
• Second, he had always wanted to ride in a helicopter. It was the last thing he did.

Anyway..
Sarah's mum has done a magnificent job of continuing the work that her husband started.
Unlike too many Indian widows, she has found something to live for, and has decided that there is work that still needs doing.

And that, my friends, is why she is an Indian, living in Bangladesh.

Goodbye to India

Well I survived India. Against all odds. After breakfast, we hopped into a hotel car and off to the airport. And a very nice airport it is. HUGE. Sarah is enjoying the duty free shops, but our gate is 15 minutes away. Yes. Fifteen minutes! See why?

A painless flight and we are in Dhaka.

Back to the old buses blocking the roads. I wonder if the Delhi traffic was better because they now have a workable rail/subway system, compliments of the Commonwealth Games. If the public transport users have the choice of rail, perhaps the result is fewer busses to clog the arteries.

Remember I said that it is now illegal to travel on the roof of a bus in India? Well, obviously that memo never got to Bangladesh.

I'm sorry but saying it doesn't make it true.
Yeah? Nah!

And yes, they are touching.

There clearly is a difference between the driving in India and in Bangladesh.
Every car will have some kind of a ding in India, that's a given. But nothing like the demolition derby that these buses endure every day.
Sure, there is the train to reduce the traffic, but there is something else.
In India, they create the extra lanes, they duck and dive around without warning, but it works. The traffic moves. It's almost like some kind of a fluid dance. Ever seen a video of blood or any bodily fluid at a microscopic level? The particles wriggle past each other like rush hour at Grand Central Station. Not too many collisions, they each play their part in the dance.

Not so much in Bangladesh. I once said that a Japanese video game designer should come here and put a camera on the bonnet of their car, and just drive through town. Forget guns and explosions in the car chase games. "Driving in Dhaka" would be an adrenalin overload.

Fit in that gap, get past that bus, don't let the baby taxi cut you off, those kids will get out of the way, ignore the rickshaws to your left. Drive up on that footpath. Phew! What a rush.

The drive from the airport to Sarah's mums place takes over an hour. We do it later at midnight, 10 minutes. Yes, ten!



Now for a different subject, this is how you chicken is delivered. Fresh fresh.

But if you want your chicken from the supermarket...



No, that is not quail. That's a chicken in this part of the world. Can you see why "authentic" Indian curry always has the bone in? There would be nothing left for the pot!

Out For Dinner

Went out for dinner with the rellies. Sarah's cousin painted Sarah's hands with henna. It's a paste made from the leaves of henna trees. You can always tell when an Indian girl is a new bride by two things. First, she will have bangles up the wazoo, all the way up her arms, heading towards the elbows. Apparently, they need to wear these bangles for 40 days after the wedding. Not sure how they get away with bangles and a uniform if they have to go back to work.
Second, she will have red doodles painted all over her hands. And on their feet. That is henna.

For those into elephants, these photos are from the entrance to the hotel

And Again

.Well, we did it again. We ventured out into the real world that is New Delhi.
Sarah's mum wants some more saris. Yes I know. I've just learned to go with it.
Took a cab to another shopping area Sarah had read about.
It's supposed to open about 1000-1030, and we arrived at 1050.

And it's closed. The driver says it might be open by 1130. Might? Oh, goodie. Now what?

Sarah suggests to fill in time, the driver could take us to a few touristy spots. So off we go.
Tourists. In a taxi. In Indian traffic. In New Delhi. Second day in a row. Holy crap!

The driver also says that, while we are at it, he can take us to a good place to buy saris, without having to come back over this part of town. Sure, lets do that.

So we check out a monument or two. The first one of interest was the Baha'i temple. I couldn't help but notice the similarity with the Sydney Opera House, built about 13 years earlier.

Then off to the shopping. Three saris later and we were back on the road again.

Seeing we had swallowed up half a day for our driver, he needed to pop in for fuel. Over here, all commercial vehicles, buses, cabs, small delivery vehicles, even the little baby taxis, all are compelled to run on CNG, rather than petrol. Trying to keep pollution at bay, not a bad initiative.

We also saw India Gate, a monument kind of like the Bridge of Remembrance in Christchurch, or the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. This is in the absolute centre of a wheel and spoke arrangement of roads, that house all of the offices and homes of parliament. A beautifully laid out and maintained part of town.

At the other end of one spoke are the Government Buildings.

I don't know if I have mentioned this before. The stuff we are buying in these markets are very nice quality. You'd be hard pressed to find this quality elsewhere in the world.

But. And it's a big butt! Looking back to those shops the tour took us to, the ones that ABBA whined about? The quality of THOSE shops was head and shoulders above what is in these markets. You just need to feel the fabric in what you are told is a pashmina. Then feel the fabric of one of the pashminas that Sarah bought in one of those exclusive shops. No comparison. Oh sure, they all pass the pashmina test. Thread it through a wedding ring and its a pashmina. But the softness of those good ones.  

Sorry if this sounds a little, shall we say "Metrosexual".