New Bali Website

We are now working on a new website selling Balinese fashion jewelry and accessories. Hopefully this will be ready this week. It's called Totally Bali. Click on the name to visit it.

Internet Crazies

It's still too hot here to do anything outside of an air-conditioned environment. Tempers can get a bit short. It's definitely not the time to run into an internet crazy. I suspect many internet users have run into these, but it's more likely if you are business. Sometimes it starts very normally but before long you get the email all in UPPERCASE.

Nowadays I tend to try and get out of these email conversations as quickly as possible but usually the crazy wants to continue. Best bet is to agree with everything they say and wind up the communication.

I thought about this a bit as I have been working with the internet a long time. Why does this medium attract the crazies? I think it's explained by the old cartoon of the dog in front of the computer saying, "On the internet nobody knows I'm a dog." By email people who have never said a cross word in real life can let out all their aggression in a virtual world where nobody can see they are really very mousey. They are the internet school bullies, but unlike in a real school yard you don't know their size or fighting abilities.

My only advice is don't get involved and try not to let them upset you.

End of the Holiday

Traffic still wasn't up to usual levels but far more than Tuesday. I suspect about two thirds of Bangkok's workers are back today with the others showing up tomorrow and the really lucky ones on Monday.

Yesterday was cloudy, it almost looked like an early start to the monsoon rains, but the threat failed to materialize. It's so hot and sticky that it's hard to do anything outside the air-conditioned environment.

Songkran - The Thai New Year

Well the Thai New Year holiday is almost over. Most people outside Thailand know it as the water festival and here it's called Songkran. On Thursday almost everyone will be back at work although some companies save up other holidays to make it a week off.

Traditionally it is a time to pay respect to your parents and elders. It was also a time when prayers for rain were made. It doesn't get much hotter here than it is now and the rains should arrive soon to cool it down and more importantly to fill the rice paddy fields.

So many people leave Bangkok to go back to their original towns and villages that it's one of two times in the year that it seems empty here. The other time is Western New Year holiday. Driving to the office today you could imagine you were in a small town in the US or a British country town as the traffic was so light. I have always lived in big cities so I can imagine how pleasant it is to drive to work in a small town unlike the stressful drive we usually have here. Below is a picture Srinakarin Road at 08:30 this morning. You will have to wait to the 31st. December to see morning traffic like this again.

Scams

One unfortunate side affect of Bangkok being the center of the colored gems industry is that we do have a bad name regarding scams and the retail trade. Why it has been allowed carry on I don't know. The authorities should have been able to close the worst places years ago. Unless you are a gem expert any deal offered to you via a taxi driver, tour guide or a man in the street that sounds too good to be true, isn't true!

www.2bangkok.com does cover this problem well and a quick read of the articles linked to this page will give you some background. There are responsible gem jewelry retailers in Bangkok and you can find them in the jewelry areas off Silom and Suriwong Roads or in the large department stores.

Feet of Clay

Bangkok is built on mud. For thousands of years the Chao Phraya River has been dumping silt at its mouth and reclaiming land from the sea. It's only in the last couple of hundred years that the area around present day Bangkok has been drained by canals, originally to bring it into agricultural use.

Now under Bangkok is about 30 meters of dark thick clay. When houses were made of teak and transport was by boat this didn't matter so much. Bangkok is sinking under its own weight. Water is pumped out for fresh water supply. Most buildings are on piles that go down to the bedrock. As the land sinks extra steps are added to reach the buildings, maybe one every few years. Roads are not on piles so they sink at the same rate as the land. This causes a problem where roads meet something that is piled like a bridge over a canal. Here every year or so the road needs to be repaired.

The rains have come a little early this year. They started on Sunday and continued yesterday. The rain water cannot permeate the clay quickly so it just sits on the surface for while. The roads turn into canals quite quickly. Ah well, this year I'm driving a diesel so at least I don't have to worry about the engine electrics getting wet and stalling in the middle of a flooded road.

Green Diesel

The state owned oil company PTT now sells a bio-diesel which I've bought on my last two visits to the pump. It sells at about 1.5% less than the regular diesel. The truck seems to be running the same as always so hopefully there is no mechanical downside.

There have been bio-petrols (US gas) here for a while but giving us the bio-diesel is new. I do not know what percentage of the fuel is made from agricultural produce. I do know that it is meant to burn cleaner with less harmful outputs from the exhaust.

The bad news is we are hearing that maybe making bio-fuels will lead to an increase in food prices and more lack of food in the third world. Here one of the supermarket chains is talking of panic-buying of rice as rumours of shortages are spread.

I guess as with everything a middle path has to be found.

4000 year old necklace found in Peru

A gold and turquoise necklace found in Peru is thought to date back 4000 years to a hunter-gatherer society and is the earliest jewelry found in the Americas. There is a link to the BBC's website and the picture below.

BBC article on the necklace