Now this is crazy

One of the downsides to living abroad is it dulls your sense of wonder. Try as you might, you become jaded. Things that were once new, unusual or just plain crazy become commonplace. I remember thinking "Holy crap, was that four people on one motorbike?" Now anything less than six people on a moto doesn't warrant so much as a glance.

Still, just about every day I see something crazy, funny, different or just plain wrong enough to remind me I'm not in Kansas anymore. Heck, I sometimes wonder if I'm still on Planet Earth. I see people doing and carrying the craziest things on motorbikes but, as I've expressed in previous posts, I rarely have the opportunity to get a picture. Even having a camera on my phone isn't enough. By the time I realize "that would make a good picture" the moment is gone.

I literally went out of my way to get this next photo. I was getting ready to turn when I saw one of the craziest things I've yet seen in Southeast Asia. I sped ahead on my motorbike, pulled over, got out my phone and waited to snap a pick. I barely made it in time.

One scam tuk-tuk drivers try to pull on tourists is charging per person. They will try to charge me $2 for a trip that would cost a Cambodian 2000 riel (50 cents). If I am with someone they will try to charge us $2 each. This is particularly funny/infuriating because it's common to see tuk-tuks carrying entire families of locals, and you known darned well they aren't paying per person. By families I mean 10, 12 or 15 people in one tuk-tuk.

How do you transport a family by tuk-tuk when one of the boys is in a wheelchair?


He is holding onto the back of the tuk-tuk as it pulls him along. If there is ever a time when this doesn't shock and horrify me, tap me on the shoulder and tell me it's time to go home.

The less jaded of you might look at the motorbike next to the tuk-tuk and wonder why the father is wearing a helmet but the mother and infant are not? I stopped wondering that a long time ago...

I am in the process of finding a new apartment, for reasons which I will detail in a future post. As you know, finding a new apartment is a time-consuming and joyless chore. Try doing it in a city where you don't speak the language! I will update the blog when the search is over. Wish me luck.

As I was saying...

In my last post I mentioned that Thailand and Cambodia occasionally exchange gunfire over a disputed temple on their shared border and that this tends to end up with a person or two lying dead on the ground.

Like this poor guy

What makes this soldier's death so outrageous is that the temple was awarded to Cambodia by an international court. There is no dispute. Why then do the Thais keep insisting that it's theirs? Allow me to honor the time-honored American tradition of greatly oversimplifying unimaginably complex issues:

It's because of rich people in Thailand with too much free time.

An article I quoted in 2008 explained Thai politics: "[M]ake no mistake that this is class warfare. But forget the usual categories of left and right. This is class war in a consumerist Theravada [Buddhist] technocracy ruled by an uneasy mish-mosh of divine kingship, a shadowy military, business interests and inherited money. It is outside Western categories."

Allow me to rehash some previous posts. There is a political group commonly referred to as the Yellow Shirts (guess why) but officially the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). These people are ultra-nationalist, fanatically loyal to the king and, almost by definition, rich. They're like the radical right fringe dominating American politics now: People who sit around thinking of reasons to be pissed off.

One of my colleagues, who lived in Thailand for many years, said the Yellow Shirts regularly find something to protest simply to remind the government who really runs the country. They are the ones who shut down the airport in Bangkok for two weeks when I was there in November and December 2008. The protest was a ringing success. No planes left or landed at the biggest airport in Southeast Asia for two weeks. The protestors went home for one reason and one reason only: It was the king's birthday.

As I've written before the People's Alliance for Democracy's stated purpose is to take away the voting rights of poor people. I am not paraphrasing, reading between the lines or inferring sinister motives. I quoted a Yellow Shirt supporter at the time who said "Rural people have good hearts but they don't know the truth like we do in Bangkok. It is our duty to re-educate them." Yellow Shirt supporters will cheerfully express this sentiment in casual conversation with complete strangers. Like me. All you can do is smile and nod and make a graceful exit from the conversation as quickly as possible.

That the Preah Vihear temple was awarded to Cambodia drives the Yellow Shirts absolutely bonkers. Thais think of the Khmer as little better than animals. I know this because I have had conversations in Thailand with complete strangers who have told me as much. (I have had the same conversations in Vietnam.)

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is a fascinating character. I will write about him when he leaves office, which will most likely be when he dies. You see where I'm going with this...

However, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya may have crossed the lines of civil political discourse when he said he would "use Hun Sen‘s blood to wash my feet". Usually, speaking of a foreign leader in such terms would warrant dismissal, or at least a public reprimand. But the minister was truly speaking for his people.

This poor Cambodian soldier had to die so the Thai government could appease a group of bored nouveau riche.

I realize that it appears I am putting a pro-Cambodian spin on this because I happen to live here, but I started writing about this situation before I ever came to Thailand. I was in Bangkok during the airport protest. I spent a week resting there because I seriously &%$#ed up my back while scuba diving and was in no condition to travel. When I write of conversations I had with Thais in which they talked about the protests, Cambodia, etc., I am referring to conversations I had before my first visit to Cambodia.