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.

Another day in paradise

Just one of those days when things are going either slow or badly. Not sure why. I didn't get away to the coast on the weekend and yesterday was busy so that might be it. At least we never get cold here;-)

I was just told on Saturday how much a round of golfer costs. Not being a golfer I had no idea. To pay 5000 Baht to walk after a little white ball for a few hours seems far too much. I can think of so many better ways to spend that much.

Bali and Bangkok

Our location here in Bangkok gives us access to local jewelry suppliers. For a long time it has been the center of colored gem trade with jewelers both cutting and setting all sorts of stones.

The history of jewelry in this part of the world goes back far into history. The region has mined colored gems with Burma, the eastern part of Thailand and Cambodia supplying rubies, sapphires, and many more precious stones. Silver has been worked in Laos and amongst the hill tribes since recorded times.



Bali is now famous for and is the real center for organic jewelry using shell, coral, horn, bone and wood. The eastern part of Java and the next door island of Bali have a history of supplying jewelry to kings of Java. The designs seen in architecture and tattoos are being translated by the modern day jewelers into jewelry designs.

We are lucky to have our factory in Bali to get the best of both worlds. Although China and Korea do supply the jewelry trade they are both left behind by the skill of the workers for handcrafted jewelry in our two locations.

As promised here is the Google Earth view of the Bangkok office. We are to the east of the city with a number canals around us. Click on the picture for a full-size picture.