Bangkok Shutdown

Day 1 of the "Bangkok Shutdown" is coming to a close.  Tens if not hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Bangkok closing many major intersections.  If you needed to get to any the occupied areas today you were plain out of luck.  The pictures below came from twitter and show a number of the protest sites.

Our condo is close enough to the Lumpini and Asok protest sites that we can hear the whistle blowing protesters, but the protests did not block access to our condo.  Mary stayed home today with no school (although she does still have school scheduled tomorrow).  I had no problem traveling back and forth to work and even made record fast time coming home this evening.  It seems the threat of terrible traffic was enough to keep most folks off the roads today.  The picture below was the view from our condo at 5PM tonight.  Not your typical Bangkok rush hour.

This could last anywhere from a few days to a few months.  We'll keep you updated as things progress.

Bangkok Protest Update

A quick update on the continuing anti government protests in Bangkok:

In case you hadn't heard, there have been anti government protests going on in Bangkok for the last few months.  So far protests have not been located in our neighborhood and haven't had much direct impact on our lives.  That might change tomorrow.

A large number of protesters are planning a "Bangkok Shutdown" to try and get the prime minister to resign.  Their plan is to occupy major intersections in central Bangkok to more or less paralyze traffic.  A number of the intersections are close to our condo which could make getting around town rather difficult.

The graphic below from the Bangkok Post shows the approximate areas where traffic will be impacted.  We live on Rama IV Road in one of the "Crucial Impact" areas.

Mary's school is close to the Asok-Sukhumvit intersection which will be occupied by protesters, and classes have been canceled for Monday.  The status of classes later in the week will depend on how things go on Monday in Bangkok.

I am planning to get out of town early tomorrow morning for work ahead of traffic (same as every workday).  We do live very close to an expressway which should remain open, so I'm optimistic that I may be able to get home tomorrow night.  I'll check with Mary before heading home.  If things are really bad I will just get a hotel near the factory for the night.

We'll keep the blog updates with any new information.

ICB Retreat

Earlier this month we spent a weekend out of Bangkok on a church retreat. Along with people from Jamaica, The Congo, Pakistan, Thailand, Philippines, Australia, England and other countries from around the world, we feel blessed to call International Church of Bangkok our home church in Thailand. Here's a video a member made of weekend highlights- we just happen to be the opening shot.  Enjoy!

Protest Season

Political protests in Thailand are nothing new, especially in the capitol city of Bangkok.  In recent decades there has been a pattern of major political protests every few years, often resulting in a change of government.  Some of you might recall that there were major protests in Bangkok in 2010 shortly before we moved to Thailand the first time.

Once again, there are major political protests going in Bangkok. Some of the recent political protests in Bangkok have escalated into violence and have started to make international news, so we thought we should at least acknowledge them here on our blog.  Thus far the direct impact to us has been minimal, but we are staying alert.

Here's how things have affected us thus far:

• We've spent a lot more time on local news websites, particularly Twitter, to make sure we know any areas in the city to avoid.
• Traffic.  At times a number of major roads have been blocked by protests.  The result is everyone thinks traffic in central Bangkok will be terrible.  The reality is many people avoid the city and traffic has been remarkably light.
• Some of the half day pre-school kids at Mary's school had to be picked up late from school a few days due to lunch hour protests in the area.  Fortunately the protesters were business people that needed to head back to the office after lunch and things cleared up in the early afternoon.

I'm not a political analyst, so I won't even try to explain the complexity of Thai politics here.  If you're interested in that sort of thing, this link below provides a reasonably concise summary of the current political landscape in Thailand.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1064867

More major protests are planned for this week.  So far our neighborhood has not been directly impacted by any of the current protests, but we are paying close attention to what is going on.  During the 2010 protests and ensuing government crackdown our neighborhood was briefly turned into a battle zone as the protesters were driven out of the city center. The link below is to a photo-essay of the government crackdown on the 2010 protests.  Many of the pictures were taken in the street in front of our condo.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/protests_turn_deadly_in_thaila.html

We don't expect a repeat of 2010, but it does serve as a reminder of why it's best to stay alert when protests are going on.

Super Typhoon Haiyan

While the headlines out of the Philippines may have dwindled, the damage of Typhoon Haiyan is still very real.  Six days after the storm hit, my school had the regional director of Childfund (non-profit that has helped over 408,000 children in the Philippines over the past 40 years) do a short presentation for our staff. His children attend my school. After hearing how three of our Filipino staff’s families were spared their lives and not much else; he wanted to educate us on what was happening on the ground. The facts I state in this post are from his presentation.

The logistics of getting help to the people who need it are a nightmare. The Philippines are made up of 7000 islands, 2000 of those inhabited. 36 provinces were devastated by the category 5 storm. It was possibly the worse storm ever recorded. They are not prepared with earth moving equipment to clear roads and getting the right equipment in is expensive, plus it takes time.  I hadn't thought of this before, but the water and wind damaged not only the infrastructure above ground- schools, homes, health faculties- it also ruined all infrastructure below ground fuel reservoirs, sewer pipes, water pipes, and  the electrical system

My school has many Filipinos on staff. Three related staff has been praying for their families ever since Haiyan, locally called Yolanda, hit their homes. My school immediately formed a committee to help raise funds to give them to send to their families. So far between donations, a bake sale, and causal for a cause Fridays we've raised over 100,000 Thai Baht, around $3,300 USD.

My co-worker Noren works in the classroom right next to me and has been willing to share with me how her family is doing.  All the photos on this post came from her sister in the past two weeks. They have been able to get money to the Philippines and it has been used to buy rice, propane for cooking, water, and other canned goods. Her family believes they have found a good resource for obtaining the basic necessities. However, they are concerned about a young baby in the family. At the time of storm, there were over 200,000 pregnant woman and 135,000 lactating women. Young children have a high risk of malnutrition during a time of crisis. The community in which my co-workers family lives have come together to live in structures still standing. Everyone is taking care of everyone.

My school’s committee leading the fundraising efforts is made up of parents and teachers. Their plan is to set up appeal efforts throughout the next two terms and into the next school year. Noren and her family plan on using the money to help rebuild their community and take care of themselves. As she told me, “They can only trust that God will provide.”

If you are out and about Christmas shopping and don’t quite know what to get someone, consider giving a gift towards helping Noren and her family in the Philippines.  If you’re interested, please send me an email, mary.k.macleod@gmail.com and I can give you the details. Otherwise, please continue to keep the Philippines and their people in your prayers. 

Kanchanaburi

It's been a few weeks since we've managed to escape the city for a weekend, but we finally managed to get away on Saturday and Sunday to the mountains in the nearby province of Kanchanaburi (about a 3 hour drive)

Our resort was along the River Kwai Noi, not far from the boarder with Myanmar.  It was quite close to the Sai Yok Noi waterfall.  We've been to this waterfall before, about 3 years ago, but it was during the dry season and there wasn't any water.  Seeing it again after the recent rains was much better.  The Thai people in the pictures are our friends Nun and Yo who we were traveling with.  Nun is featured in the top middle picture below shortly before she took an unintended bath.

Just a typical Sunday riding elephants around the mountains:

On the way back to Bangkok we made a short side trip to the Sri Nakharin Dam.  We may need to make another weekend trip here sometime for kayaking and fishing.

We're back to the city for now; refreshed and looking forward to the next time we can get out and explore more of Thailand.

Lost in Translation

We are lucky to live in an SE Asia city that caters to the tourists and expats. When going to restaurants in downtown and in the Bangkok area, there is usually a menu in English. We can usually tell immediately if they just used Google translator or had a person/company help them accurately put the Thai into English.

When you happen upon a restaurant using a word-by-word translation method you can end up with some... let's say unique... menu items.

Here is a list of menu items all from one Thai restaurant that was located in the neighborhood we stayed when we first came back in July. Some of them you can figure out... some of them you just have no idea!

• Prison Break Trailer
• Topping
• New Octopus Garden
• I hope the Lemon
• Plaza Forum
• A Golden Needle Mushroom Butter
• Stir in Spagetthi Drunk
• Dip Fish Balls Roughly
• Ancient Fish
• New Items in the Chicken