Bangkok

I am in Bangkok for a few days and know I'll never come close to seeing all there is. It's a huge city but there are any number of ways to get around, so today I try a few. Walking to the Skytrain station I detour through the large Lumpini Park, and take in the early morning tai chi groups as well as families settled in for the day at the picnic sites.  Oh, and three foot long monitor lizards rising out of the lake to bask on the grass. The Skytrain takes me three stops to the bank of the river and I manage to find the right boat which takes me to stops at Chinatown, and then to the temples of Wat Arun and Wat Po. Then a mile more walking to a small canal and a high speed boat through the center of the city to the Jim Thompson house.  More walking back to the hotel. I manage to avoid the taxi come-ons and the tuk-tuk drivers who pull up to the curb next to me but I'm awful hot and sweaty by the time I get back to the hotel.
Impressions? Bangkok seems like a city working hard to make it's future, but it stumbles with the effort. Everywhere there is new construction, but even on the main streets, I am forced off the sidewalks by piles of trade goods in front of shops or by food vendors whose customers block the way. Parts of the downtown are so frightfully busy that they have a Blade Runner-esque feel - multi level transportation with trains an pedestrian skyways, gigantic advertising, chaotic intersections; everything but the announcements recruiting people to a better life on the off-world colonies. Many of the places I saw today were free from foreign visitors, but at the religious sites of Wat Arun and Wat Po,  the crowd is thick with tourists and it is difficult to appreciate the extreme religious devotion that inspired their creation. Even at the busy sites, I look forward to finding areas of tranquility. At Wat Po, the main attraction is a huge guided reclining Buddha and visitors crowd each other for photo angles.  But nearby, the main temple hall is much more tranquil with worshipers and visitors sitting side by side on the floor before an ornate alter. I sit to contemplate for a while and enjoy the breeze from circulating fans that line the space.

What Happened to Laos?

I am leaving at the end of this month to travel in Indochina. So, to prepare, I began looking into the phone networks that might be available there and I found an interesting coverage map.

I will be visiting Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia and was glad to see there is extensive cellphone network coverage throughout the area. Everywhere, that is, except for Laos. What's up with that? It is just simply off the map. I don't know if this is due to incomparable networks, or what, but I think this calls for more investigation. When I look it up, there seem to be four carriers available, so that's a positive sign.

Humm, let's see - I'll try Lao Telecom:
(Not much help here)





















No, wait, there's a link to an English version. let's see what comes up:
(I think I have an opportunity to vote for Miss Laos - 2012?)

 

A little further down the page there is a list of helpful links; almost all of them "Coming Soon".

 

To cover my bets, I just arranged with AT&T to "unlock" my new phone, so I can buy local sim cards when I travel, but four countries means four different networks to negotiate. I suspect that other countries may be just as opaque to deal with so I may just rely on hotel wi-fi to upload travel posts to the blog.
Seriously, it's easy for me to poke fun at a country's cell service, but the amazing thing is that there is coverage nearly everywhere there are people, if you have the patience to investigate.

Visas

I recently got my passport back in hand with needed visas for my trip to Southeast Asia in a few weeks. I worked with a local visa service rather than having to deal separately with three different embassy offices in SF or DC. When I got them back, I looked over the documents from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and definitely approve of the graphics. Very Official. Vietnam is actually the only one that requires me to get a visa prior to leaving the US, but I went ahead and got all now to head off any potential hassles when making entry. I'll be in Thailand too, but they don't require a visa for entry.

After I scanned them so I could carry a copy (just in case), I thought they would make a nice collage...

Sadly, the story of the national flags for these countries contains remembrances of all the blood shed in struggles throughout that region.

It is interesting that Cambodia, which was devastated by the murder of millions under reign of the insane Khmer Rouge in the 1970's, chooses to look beyond that in the description of their flag. (I've never seen a flag that attempts to represent the structure of the universe - I rather like that.)
I picked up this from Wikipedia:

Thailand 

The red stripes represent the blood spilt to maintain Thailand's independence. The white stands for purity and is the color of Buddhism which is the country's main religion. Blue is Thailand's national color and it represents the Thai monarchy. The blue is also used to honor Thailand's World War I allies, Great Britain, France, United States and Russia, who all had red, white and blue flags.

Laos

The Red stripes represent the blood shed in the country's fight for independence. The blue stands for Laos' wealth and prosperity and the white symbolizes unity and justice. Another interpretation of the Laotian flag states the white circle symbolizes the full moon over the blue Mekong River, which runs through and alongside the majority of Laos.





 
 Vietnam 

The red base represents blood spilt during the country's fight for independence. The star represents Vietnam's unity and the points on the star represent the union of the workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals and young people working together in building socialism.





 

Cambodia 

The blue color symbolizes the country's royalty. The red represents the nation and the white represents the religion, beginning with Brahmanism, and the current major religion - Buddhism. The emblem of the temple represents the structure of the universe.