Don't Cancel Your Visit

Although news from Bangkok might make a visit to the Gems & Jewelry show not seem a good idea, this would be a mistake. The present situation is not that unusual here and any problems are usually contained in a fairly small area around the government buildings. At the show you find nothing other than the welcome you always get here, so do go ahead and come.

Bangkok Gems & Jewelry Fair Heads Up

Just a warning, it's less than a month to the fair opening now. You can still pre-register on the website at http://www.bangkokgemsfair.com/. If you need a Bangkok based agent or you are looking for jewelry manufacturing here in Thailand then come by our website at http://www.cjmsea.com/.

Political Problems and Visiting Thailand

From outside Thailand the present political difficulties here might well put you off coming on a visit. This would be a mistake as there is a long history of disputes like this livening up the local political scene and rarely do they interfere with life-as-normal for both the average local inhabitant and the foreign visitor. Bangkok is still the thriving center of the colored gems trade and much other jewelry manufacturing. Visit and be guaranteed of a good, profitable and fun time.

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.

More Photography

So I fixed the light box. I haven't used a soldering iron in years but it came back easily. The extra lamp didn't make that much difference; it looks like it needs a couple more tubes under there but I'm not sure how to do that.

Photography isn't a hobby of mine so I don't enjoy it, but I found the manual and started playing. Changed with the exposure setting and started getting something we could use. See the first shot below. I'm storing them in Flickr and found the built-in Picnik photo editor. The second picture is where I let Picnik set the contrast automatically. I like this program.

Keeping up with the Canons

I was experimenting with a light box and my 3 or 4 year old Canon PowerShot A70 last week. It wasn't quite right as one of the lower under-floor lamps was out so I had to blast up the contrast afterwards. You can see some of the results below. The A70 has a 3.2 mega pixel resolution and that seemed great when I bought it. On Saturday a friend was showing me his Canon PowerShot G9 with 12.1 mega pixels. I thought I had matured from wanting the latest gadgets but I'm starting to get some pangs of envy. Click on the pictures to see a larger size.

Jewelry Trade Still Important to Thailand

I just saw this in the JCK Online edition. The new government looks like it still thinks that jewelry is an important export and business of Thailand. The Deputy Minister of Commerce, Viroon Tejapaibol, was quoted as saying the following.

"The contribution of the gems and jewelry to the Thai economy is significant. Gems and Jewelry exports last year exceeded $5.3 billion, up 46.72 percent from the previous year, ranking fifth on Thailand's export lists."

The industry does need all the government help it can give as we are heading into an uncertain economic period. Today on the BBC news I saw how diamond cutting was now undertaken in Botswana which although good for Botswana is probably bad news for India. The present exchange rates do not favor us while the dollar weakens, so government tax breaks make sense.

Bangkok traffic gets worse

The traffic snarl-ups are getting to resemble the bad old days. This is in spite of improved public transport systems and new overhead expressways. I think we will need to go the London Congestion Charge route in the end. If people have to pay to drive into town they may think twice about it. (This is of course from someone who drives over to the office in pick-up truck when only 10 minutes away. I should bike it but that is taking a risk here.)

The excitement of the Bangkok Gems and Jewelry Fair is over for another year so it's back to just solid work. Maybe I can fit in a trip to the coast this weekend though;-)