Meanwhile, back in the real world

Wednesday 23^rd

I left the office around 2 on Friday and had a late snack in the club lounge on the 22^nd floor of the hotel. As you can see there is not a bad view. I then packed ready to leave. It was a bit after 3 and they’d put out afternoon tea so I had some snacks, checked out and headed for the underground station. I had about 5 hours before I needed to leave for the airport so I thought I’d go back to Silom, which is where I stayed a couple of years ago. As I was checking the exit map, a couple of girls asked me where the shops were. One was from the US and the other from Nigeria, as I found out later. They also wanted a manicure so I told them to come with me and we headed to Nok beauty where I’d had my hair coloured cut and a manicure and pedicure the last day of that 2006 holiday.

Again I had a manicure and cut but skipped the colour and pedicure. It turned out the 2 girls were med students who were in Thailand for a couple of week's work in a hospital in Krabi. Of course, I then told them about my daughter who’d gone to Aberdeen on a similar trip during her med school days.

I then headed down Silom to the golf precinct in Patpong 3 and the street markets but after all that didn’t buy anything. I then needed to get he underground back to the hotel.

After collecting my luggage I got the limo (Mercedes) to the air port arriving before 9pm. I’d planned that time so I’d be able to get through the check in and customs with time to have a snack and my free massage in the business class lounge before I had to fly out.

When I got to the business class check in there was no queue at all and in fact free staff just waiting for us to arrive. That only took a few minutes. They also have separate customs check points with 2 staff there and no queue again, so the entire process took less than 5 minutes.

At the lounge they informed me my flight was delayed till 1-30, so I had 4 ½ hours to go. I guess I should have checked and I could have had more time in Bangkok. Anyway I did have a snack and a couple of drinks – JW black and coke and then a vodka and Tomato juice. I then found the spa and had my massage. In business class you choose between a foot massage or head and shoulders. I chose the latter which was quite nice for half and hour. An hour would have been even better. The first class passengers get a longer session.

Then back to the lounge for a couple more drinks and snacks. Fortunately I got talking with another woman from Perth who was heading home from Europe, so the time passed relative painlessly.

Still it was very late by the time we were off and after the meal I tried to sleep but probably only had 4 hours.

I arrived about 9-30, got home at 10 and called the golf. They told me I was off last at about 11 so I rushed over and did some shopping before heading for the course. I had no time for any practice and got on the first tee and hit probably the best drive ever on that hole, chipped on and got my par. By the 3^rd hole it had gone downhill and I wasn’t quite up to my handicap.

After golf and the presentations I had time to go home and change for a 7pm hockey game at Joondalup, at the other end of the city. It was bitterly cold – even for those who hadn’t been in Thailand for the last month. We had a win when I scored the only goal, although I should have had a couple more with the chances I had.

Sunday I checked my mail to find my car registration and insurance had expired, as had the mailbox for Mensa. Since then I seem to have been continually on the go, yet don’t seem to have actually accrued many hours of chargeable work. I have done some more documentation for Thailand.

Today I have been planning my itinerary for my trip to Houston, which will start in 3 weeks. My circle pacific ticket requires me to stay in Hong Kong on the way and I hope to have some time in San Francisco, back so that will be my next blog. Stay tuned.

A tale of 2 cities

Friday 18^th

OK, one of them isn’t really a city. I’ve finally left Wichian Buri and am back in Bangkok. Shortly will be leaving the office and later tonight ,flying home.

I left WB at 4:40 after a nearly full day in the office. The operators are starting to put indata and things seemed to be up and running. Still have documentation and reports to finish off once I’m back home.

The contrast between my room up there and the one in the Sofitel Centara is quite dramatic, but then so is the cost. 600 B per night there (about $20) and 5400 B here.

Here is the bathroom in WB. It was built at a time before the Thais got the intellectual rights to those most technical of western inventions – the toilet roll holder and the shower curtain. The pressure problem did get fixed some days ago so I have been able to shower. I then dry myself about 90% with one towel. I then drop this on the floor and wipe the floor so that there is a dry space near the bowl and WC. I use the second towel to finish off.

I also finally got the laptop set up in the room comfortable.

We made good time down over the first 150km before hitting the traffic merging from Lop Buri. Once we creasted the Mountains we were ubder an ominous black clous that stretch for perhaps 100km. There were periods of very string winds but surprisingly rain was not continuous and not always heavy.

We eventually hit the elevated tollway after about 2 ½ hours and then had a good run again til we exited from it. I then realised we were in Sukumvit, which is where I stayed on my first weekend and not near the office. Much apologies on both our parts. We headed back to the freeway through the traffic and eventually I checked in around 8pm.

I was happy to give a big tip to Pairot who had been driving me for most of the month and giving me ad hoc Thai lessons as well.

My room here was a Deluxe on the top floor. I was taken to the end of the corridor which I think means I have a slightly bigger than normal room. It has a kingsize bed and I’m happy to say for the first time in weeks I haven’t had back pain as soon as I lie down. A hostess arrived with a drink a few minutes later. And there was a fruit tray waiting for me.

I shortly headed out. There is a mall a few hundred metres from the hotel and there are street stalls and lesser shopping arcades surrounding it. I had some salad (10B) a some BBQ chicken omn a stick (7B) and a drink (14) – about $1 all up for dinner. I wondered around a bit more but didn’t buy anything else. When I got back to the hotel I was able to get a softdrink from the lounge. Once again I'd missed happy hour by getting in too late. I suspect It will be too early tonight when I have to check out.

I watched some British comedies on BBC Entertainment and a bit of the golf before going to sleep.

This morning I did a bit of work from 5 to 7 then had a swim. They provide you with a robe and slippers in the room and towels at the pool. The pool is set in gardens with an ornamental pool running around the outside of them and an outdoor restaurant and a bar, that look more like a temple.

I then had a long shower followed bybreakfast in the club lounge on my floor. I got to the office around 9-30 after a short walk from the hotel. There are about 6 ex-pats in today. I fixed a few other things I had thought of to make the program faster and posted the update on the FTP site, then burnt a CD of the source code to leave here.

It’s now 1pm so I’ll post this and head to the hotel. My check out is a 4pm so I’ll have lunch and a bit of a wander before I go tonight.

A busy week

Monday 14^th to Wednesday 15^th

I have a hotel booked for tomorrow night in Bangkok and a flight booked for Friday so its been nose down tail up this week as I make sure I get things finished in time. I have been spending about 10 hours at the office (including travelling to be fair) and then doing some extra work in my room in the evening. It looks like it will be OK.

I have been training the local staff and this has helped find some of the last few bugs. I have also written some documentation.

The field manager, Jim has been in Bangkok the last couple of days but will be in the office tomorrow for a final briefing and handover.

Things seem to be going well for the hotel owner with a new building going up and a couple of carports as well. There is quite a contingent of Pan Orient staff and contractors staying hear, so I guess that’s a good base for his business.

It is also sad to report that the pothole that was fixed last week now seems to have reverted to its previous state with most of the fill lost in the recent rains. And we have had a few storms in the last few days. Not long fortunately. Sunday was fine for my trip but last night the wind was so strong that the washing baskets were blown off the table, the newspaper rack was in danger of taking off and even the condiments on the tables were getting blown off. I headed to my room in case we had a downpour and I got stuck in the canteen.

I continue to be exposed to the various modes of transport here. This shot is of a somewhat full Tuk-tuk. Yesterday I must have left just that bit earlier than normal because there were heaps of kids going to school on their scooters. Some time there would be 3 teenagers per bike with the girls sitting side saddle. In one case, each facing a different direction. Supposedly you need to be 16 to ride one.

I have booked for golf on Saturday with a hockey match at 7pm. I discovered I’d missed a dental appointment and have rebooked that for Monday, since I have actually broken the temporary filling.

This last shot is of some topiary near the railway line in Chai Badan. I think they may be the 12 Chinese zodiac signs (rat, horse etc) but I’m not sure.

It is a 4 day holiday from tomorrow for Thailand, so there may just be a few ex-pats in the office on Friday. It is the start of the Rains Retreat. This is the time when the monks return to a monastery and stayed there for about 3 months during the rainy season. This allows them to mediate and so forth in a cloistered environment. I also found out that being a monk is not necessarily a permanent situation. Many Thais spend a short time as a monk before leaving and resuming a normal life. Even the King spent some time as a monk.

Sunday drivers

Sunday 14^th

I spent the morning in the office, going again through the process of importing the tanker data. Several more fields have been added to the daily production table, since the information was requested by some reservoir engineers yesterday. Also we have an email from the government department telling us the old daily reports didn’t have all the info required and that we should ensure the new ones include the missing items.

Just after 12, my driver picked me up and we headed, via the Hotel to Chai Badan about 50km away and just off the main road to Bangkok. There we visited two temple complexes side by side. One is a Buddhist temple and the other Chinese. Both have brightly coloured buildings, statues and so forth.

We then headed for the waterfalls, guided only by a 1:1,650,000 scale map of the whole country. Surprisingly we managed to find them relatively easily. Interestingly enough although we saw many signs in both Thai and English guiding us towards them, the final sign at the turn off was only in Thai.

There were a lot of stalls selling food, drink and some T-shirts and similar merchandise. I bought a BBQ chicken half, since I hadn’t had lunch yet. Passing through the stalls, I came to an area with a number of statues, mostly of Buddha but also another that looked like someone else.

I could then hear water and laughter and headed in that direction. Unlike most of the other waterfalls I’ve seen both here and in NZ this isn’t a steep drop but rather a series of natural pools dropping from tier to tier. The water was not a raging torrent either but more like a water slide in a theme park, which is how the local children were using it.

Next we headed south to the dam that creates the huge reservoir in that region. On the way we passed some more large statues, including one of a 3 headed elephant. I bought some more odds and ends at the stalls near the dam parking area and then we headed vaguely back towards “home”. Eventually we found ourselves at the main road and turned north. I saw the signs to the Narai Hills Golf course so we took a detour to have a look. It turns out they do have sticks for hire, so I could have gone there last weekend. The room and 2 game package was slightly more expensive but the stick hire was cheaper so the cost would have been more or less the same, and it is at least an hour closer. From the bit I could see, it seems to have more hills as well. If I get a chance I’ll go there next time.

We then headed back to the hotel, stopping briefly while I bought out the entire stock of chocolates (or so it seems) and some soft drink, arriving at the hotel about 6.

I did get some BBQ corn on the way. Unlike Australia where you get accosted by people wanting to clean your windscreen, here at the stoplights, they have people selling things. 3 cobs of corn for under $1, hand delivered, seems like a good deal.

Saturday night's alright.

Saturday 12^th

I was again cursed with a good idea at 5am and that was the end of my sleep. I have now written a host of small routines to help create Excel spreadsheets. I then converted the routines I have already written to use these routines rather than the more cumbersome fill excel commands.

I went through some of the input routines with one of the production workers and we have decided that, since they have a system whereby they produce a spreadsheet each day, rather than change their routine dramatically, we will jus import that spread sheet. I had already written the import routine to capture the historic data. Everybody wins.

I have also completed another export routine that essentially exports the entire production figures and then creates a stacked plot of the data, all from within the program.

On the domestic front, there has been poor water pressure in the hotel room. Toilets take forever to fill and yesterday I barely had enough water pressure to make the heater kick in. Today there wasn’t even enough for that. There are showers at the office but it turns out these are cold water only. Tonight there is enough pressure to heat the water so I’ll have a shower before going to bed on the off chance it won’t work in the morning.

I had a related but different experience when I visited Telfer many years ago. They had instantaneous heaters there as well and likewise you needed a minimum flow before the heater kicked in. The problem there was that the “cold” water was luke warm and you couldn’t get enough to cool the heated water back to a reasonable temperature. The trick was to get the flow just at the minimum that triggers the heater and turn it down slightly when it got to hot and then up a bit when it got too cold.

Tomorrow I hope to knock off around the middle of the day and go for a drive down south. There is a big lake with a dam, waterfalls and temples to look at.

A good Friday

Friday 11^th

Today has been a good one. I was awake at 5am with some ideas of how to handle multiple users on the server, handling updates and so forth. I wrote these down and went back to sleep. Once I got to the office I started to put these in to practice. Preedaporn arrived with the server and set it up and by lunch time we had multiple users up and running.

In the afternoon I finished the monthly report, word document. I had got some of the tables worked out last night and today got the plots automatically generated and inserted into it.

I actually left a bit earlier today and the sun was shining for a change. I went for a little walk up the road towards town taken some photos on the way. Just about every body waved and smiled. The do call Thailand the Land of Smiles for a reason I guess.

I also have a new driver – Dave. Pairoj, who has been driving me for the last few weeks is actually Nick’s driver. Now that Nick is back he is going back to driving him around.

Today I have include some photos of a few of the many scooter riders I have seeen here. Despite seeing 3 on a bike all the time it has been actually difficult to get them in the camera.

There is also the shrine near the gate to the company compound and one of the guards. When our car approaches they open the gate and always salute as we drive through.

Finally there is a shot of some pots being sold at one stall just up the road and one of the nearby houses.

…to late at night

Thursday 10^th

What a long day. I was still working in my room (much more comfortably than previously) till after midnight. I think I probably had about 3 hours off in the 21 that I was awake yesterday.

The day started with a session with the staff that will be using the program. I did an overview and showed them the main screens they will be using for input. We only did about an hour and will have sessions today and tomorrow.

The rest of the time was spent refining the daily report and staring on the monthly report. The latter is a word document and I had to revise the routines for writing those plus work out some new techniques, particularly for creating a Table of contents. These challenges were solved by the time I went to bed. But there is still a lot of grunt work to do.

Today is crunch time again. Should I go home tomorrow or stay on? If I stay do I take the weekend off and what can I do? I’m not sure I want to risk the weather again playing golf.

Later

It’s now official – I’m not going home tomorrow. Progress is being made and we had a second session this morning. This raised a couple of issues, which I have incorporated into the program. We have also decided to start processing of the data from the 1^st of June. There is historic data going back to 1995 in some cases but not consistent enough to allow recalculation of production for stock changes, exports etc. Data before the 1^st June will be taken as is. Of course that required some further changes to handle the initial conditions for the calculation period.

I tried to rebook my flight for next Friday but was told the flight was booked out, as was Thursday,s. The next confirmed seat was the following Wednesday. Apparently it is a long weekend and lots of people travel. However by the end of the day I had a confirmed seat for next Thursday and still wait listed for Friday.

Fortunately both hockey teams have a Bye next week so I don’t miss any further games.

I have decided to stay here over the weekend and will probably spend time in the office. If that allows me to finish early, I can have a couple of days in Bangkok. Otherwise I will have needed the extra days work to leave on time.

A quick shop on the way home. More junk food and soft drink plus, I hope, some leave in detangler / conditioner spray for my hair.

Barbeque night again. This time we had donuts and buns for desert as well. I hate to think what my weight will be when I get home.

No photos today. I have been taking some on the way to the office but they aren't very clear. Will try again tomorrow.

Early in the morning

Wednesday 9^th

No I’m not behaving like a drunken sailor. I have however, been awake since 3 am.

On Tuesday, I finished another Excel report and clarified specifications for another 5 or so reports that will be required. I continued to work back in my room after dinner. Then early this morning I was lying in bed thinking about some the things I had to do, so decide to get up and do them. Normally I can then relax and get back to sleep. This morning however, it turned out to that there was enough to keep me going till 7, when I had a shower and breakfast. Not sure how alert I’ll be at the end of the day.

I had another brilliant idea after my shower. The TV was on a stand that is pretty much a writing desk. After moving the TV to the larger of the wooden tables (about 3ft x2ft) I now have a comfortable place to use my laptop. I wish I’d thought of this 4 hours earlier or even 3 weeks earlier since I have been working on the bedside table while sitting on the bed. It sort of works but I find I’m bending over which doesn’t do my back any good. Ho hum. It is better though as I’m sitting at it now.

I also seem to have broken a temporary filling. This has been annoying me for some days and last night I used a toothpick to push out some small bits of the filling caught between my teeth. I ran out of my “spray and leave in” hair product last week and my shampoo and conditioner have nearly run out as well. I already had to buy new deodorant. I think my toiletries are telling me it’s time to go home.

I’m pretty sure I won’t have finished everything, but it should only be reports and documentation still to go by the end of the week, and these can be done back in Australia.

Some other exciting (?) news from WB. Over the weekend they installed an air conditioner in the open area in our office building (where the blessing was held). This means the doors are now kept closed. I found if I left my office door open the A/c in my room attempted to cool the whole of Thailand. Also, and possibly related, the doors between the 2 office building and the other outside door in my building have had the solid panels at the top half replaced with glass, so you can see if someone’s coming.

Breaking news – the pothole in the road through town has been filled in. The excitement never ends in WB.

No photos yesterday so I’ve included- some of the various self contained units and other scenes from the resort.

Taking the long way home

Monday 7^th

I had lunch at the café near the pro shop again and afterwards was wondering what to do for the next 2 hours when I saw my driver arriving early. Since I had nothing else to do, I checked out and we were on out way by 3. I asked to stop at a Lotus or similar somewhere on the way. We headed back to the Bangkok highway the same way we came in. Again we passed a multitude of places selling the bone reliquaries, as they are called, and after many attempts I finally got a couple of photos that weren’t blurred or out of focus or badly framed. We also passed a dozen or so Chinese temples as well as the usual number of Thai (Buddhist) ones.

The other things we passed a lot of were those huge buses. I kept having to revise how many we saw but I suspect it was 60 or more. Most of them are painted in bright colours with cartoon characters being a popular theme, both Disney and manga.

We skipped the turn off to Pretchabun and headed into Saraburi and a Lotus. I bought some needed deodorant and some less needed soft drink and chocolates. I was thinking of a few other things but it was so busy I decided to give them a miss. WE came out the back of the Lotus parking area and travelled down one of the main streets. It had these poles down the middle with the interesting figurines aat the top and an ornate clock also in the median strip.

Back on the road again we soon met up with the usual North bound highway and sped home. About 5 o’clock the rains just pelted down. It has of course rained very heavily on a number of occasions since I’ve been here but this was the first time I was actually in a car during a rainstorm. Even my driver reacted by slowing down to within 30 kph of the speed limit. I pitied the many people on scooters or in the back of pickups that were on the road at that time.

It did clear up and we eventually came to the white Wat on the hillside I’d noticed on the first trip up. I had since been told that Pan Orient had donated time and money towards this building and the driver again mentioned it. We decide to have a closer look and headed up the mountain in 4 wheel drive. The building is still under construction and this is much more apparent close up. Still needs painting for example. My driver pointed to the tiles on the steps saying Pan Orient and also that he’d actually helped build them. They also paid for the inside tiling. We climbed right to the top where they have 3 copies of the Emerald Buddha, one in each of the 3 costumes for the 3 seasons. The original is in Bangkok and I couldn’t get to see it when I was there a few years ago as the temple was closed for a visit by the prince. The king or his representative changes the cloths on the real statue at the start of each season.

The view from the top of the wat is commanding, as the whole plain can be viewed and I took a movie as well as some still shots. Some times you just can’t fit in the width in a photo without giving up all details.

We headed back to the main road and shortly it was raining again. In the end, with the diversions it was about 3 hours to get back – longer than my round of golf that morning.

Today I got stuck into the main daily report and have more or less finished it, although there will be some fine tuning I expect. I also was given a CD with the standard monthly reports which I will get the program to create if possible. A busy few days still to come if I want to leave by Friday.