When you live in Thailand for extended periods of time, most visa types require you to leave the country on a regular basis in order to get a new stamp in your passport. The closest border to Chiang Mai, where I live, is the Burmese border in the very north of Thailand. I have to cross this border every three months to stay current. It is an easy day trip by luxury bus or a multi-day fun excursion on a motorcycle, which is the option I chose this time. Read the rest of this entry

Chiang Mai, Thailand, Flower Festival, Parade Float

Chiang Mai, Thailand, is the undisputed festival capital of Thailand. Between November and April Chiang Mai puts on several huge festivals that draw crowds of tens of thousands, visitors from all over Thailand and from all over the world. A major festival is not just a one day event. Normally they last three days and in one case, Sonkran, even seven days.  During those times Chiang Mai turns into a giant party, a traffic nightmare, and a major holiday destination for Thais. Train tickets in and out of the city are sold out weeks in advance, and it seems that half of the population of Bangkok converges upon Chiang Mai. Read the rest of this entry

Please, anything but your real name!

Would you mind being called a “pig” or a “buffalo”? I didn’t think so. But lots of people in Thailand are called just that and some other names that seem very strange to us. Thais have first and last names like we do, but they are often four or five syllables long and, at least for us, impossible to pronounce, what to speak of remember.

It was not always like that. A few generations ago Thai names were much shorter and simpler. Recently it has become fashionable to take on those monstrosities of names. The Thais actually had to come up with a law that limits the amount of syllables that a name can have. Otherwise those enthusiastic name creators would have made any official business a syllable nightmare. It is quite easy to change your name in Thailand. Don’t like it, no problem, pick another one. It is a relatively simple procedure.

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Why is everyone frozen in time suddenly?

Imagine this: You are walking in a crowded market with thousands of people milling around, and suddenly everyone freezes, standing motionless. What is going on here!? You will get used to it. Every day at 8 am and 6 pm all over Thailand a mini ceremony takes place in honor of the King. A special song is played over the loudspeakers and everyone stops whatever they are doing and is standing motionless until the song ends. At that time everyone just continues with whatever they were doing.

This can happen in all kinds of places. It is a familiar scene at Chiang Mai’s busy Sunday market. While you will not see it in big city traffic, I have been in smaller towns where all traffic just stopped in the middle of the street as soon as the song started to play. If you go to Bangkok’s huge Hualampong train station, all the police and security people will line up in a row and salute while all passengers stand up to honor the king twice a day. Read the rest of this entry

What does it mean to be truthful? In the west we think that there is an easy answer – tell the facts, don’t hide anything, say it as it is. But it turns out to be a confusing fact that other cultures don’t agree with this definition. Thais have a very different relationship with the “truth”. We call it lying, but that is just our own cultural bias, and it is more of a judgment than a correct assessment.

Is there a correct definition for the “truth”?

The western model of truth often places truth ahead of other considerations, like being inconvenienced or put in an uncomfortable position by speaking the truth. We have sayings that confirm this: “Call a spade a spade”, or “Just the truth, nothing but the truth”. Lying is considered totally unacceptable to us, and the truth is upheld as a sacrosanct principle. Read the rest of this entry

What planet do you live on?

What if I told you that I live in a place where the year is 2553? No, I am not schizophrenic, I did not watch too many science fiction movies, and I do not live on another planet. But I do live in Thailand, and the year is 2553 for the simple reason that they use the Buddhist calendar instead of the Christian one.

The Christian (Gregorian) calendar starts with the birth of Jesus, 2010 years ago. The Buddhist calendar starts with the birth of Buddha, 2553 years ago. Most dates in Thailand are written with the Buddhist year which tends to be very confusing for westerners. The trick is to subtract 543 years and you are right back to 2010. Read the rest of this entry

Doi Suthep Temple, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Is Thailand a third world country? I will let you decide. I live in Chiang Mai which is the second most important city in Thailand after Bangkok.

 My home is:

•  5 minutes from one of the biggest universities of the country
• 5 minutes from an olympic size swimming pool
• 10 minutes from a gigantic super modern mall
• 10 minutes from a health food store
• 5 minutes from an organic produce market
• 15 minutes from a national park
• 10 minutes from 3 big computer and electronics centers
• 10 minutes from a modern international airport
• 10 minutes from several  major hospitals
• 10 minutes from a western style supermarket
• 5 minutes from a zoo Read the rest of this entry

If there were a contest who could sleep the easiest and in the most unusual places, I think the Thais would win hands down. In the west, sleeping in public is frowned upon and sleeping on the job can get you fired. In Thailand there is no stigma associated with sleeping in public, and sleeping on the job is not always an offense. Read the rest of this entry

For the second year in late November 10,000 monks assembled in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for a two hour morning ceremony of chanting, sermons, blessings and alms distribution. Two of the main purposes were to honor the king and to support poor temples. The crowd of spectators easily matched the number of the monks, and a main city street was blocked off for several kilometers to accommodate all the participants. Read the rest of this entry