Not Muzak

At our offices on the campus of the Ministry of Public Health, outdoor loudspeakers sometimes broadcast background music—pleasant, traditional sounds, usually a woman singing softly. Never a loud guitar, never an advertisement. The kind of thing you might hear at a trendy cafe.

So it’s been quite a jarring and reverberating change to have big construction happening next door. We’re treated throughout the day to the poundpoundpound of a giant hammer, several stories tall. This device whacks its business end against an eighteen-inch-wide, one-hundred-foot-high cement chopstick, again and again and again, until only a tiny fraction of the piling is still visible above the ground. Then the huge machine rolls a few feet and clobbers a new piling, overandoverandover.

Hundreds of pilings await their turn to be brutally pummeled into the earth. Why not drill many holes first, and then bury these long poles that will become the foundation of a future building? Because apparently you have to dig a long way down in Bangkok before you reach anything that can be considered solid. The Earth’s crust in this corner of the continent—once known as the “Venice of Asia”—is mostly muck. We’re talking sea level and below! Can you say “water table?” Can you say “we’re sinking!?”

No wonder nobody in this town props up their structures on rectangles of concrete. Instead, every new project, from simple garden wall all the way up to high-rise hotel, starts with the pounding of pilings. That way, the finished product has a pretty good chance of staying level.

The engineer who explained all this for me also solved a mystery that had been bugging me for some time: he said that Bangkok’s sidewalks crinkle because they rarely have pilings underneath them. Unlike the buildings they pass in front of, the sidewalks float on the city’s slurry soil. That’s why they often consist of small pavers or bricks instead of poured cement blocks, and why it’s not unusual to see large gaps form between the sidewalks and the steps of buildings.

Some day I’m sure we’ll forget these few weeks of trying to tune out what sounds like a hardcore punk rock club next door. Today, I’d rather have Muzak.

Leap of Faith

Going back to a place can be tricky when your memories are happy but dated. I knew I was taking a risk returning to Koh Si Chang, the island with the deceptively industrial façade off Thailand’s eastern coast. It had been two years since a pleasing day trip there made me think an overnight would be twice the fun.

But when on arrival we couldn’t find a decent spot for lunch after several minutes of sweaty walking, my friends began to make noises about suddenly needing to be back in town that evening. Things looked up after we hailed a passing “skylab” (the dominant transportation on the island has a unique shape), though our plans remained decidedly uncertain throughout the afternoon.

We had tracked down food and explored a well curated museum of marine life (lots of touch tanks) before we again broached the subject of where to sleep. Our skylab driver mentioned Paree Huts, a new resort at a far corner of the island. However, his credibility had suffered somewhat after we discovered that he had been double dipping—ferrying around other passengers rather than waiting for us at each new circle tour destination as promised, and as my driver two years before had done. I began to have the return-trip-is-never-as-good blues.

That was before we reached Paree Huts. Looking out at an empty Gulf of Thailand rather than at the expanse of supertankers we had navigated on the way to the island, the resort felt far removed from the big city. The manager welcomed us warmly before sending us off across a series of limestone ledges with an intrepid guide to look over the available bungalows.

These bamboo structures seemed to have been designed for the African veldt rather than for the steep side of a rock-strewn island—they were tall and tufty, as though spores had blown in on the wind and established themselves randomly among the crags. Each hut was an engineering marvel, perched on skinny scaffolding but solid when walked in. They never swayed, even when the wind picked up and a rainstorm passed through during the night.

Equally impressive was the design of the swimming pool, which integrated rock outcroppings and cement to form a strange shape that hugged the contour of the hillside. I took a quick dip, my habit when surveying any new lodgings, and quickly determined that the true star among the resort’s water attractions was elsewhere. Sure enough, when we registered, a sign caught our eyes that began, “Please wear a life preserver when jumping off the cliff.” As soon as I saw that, the blues were gone for good.

My friends talked me into waiting until morning to make the leap. The light will be better then, they said, rightly suspecting that I would want photo documentation. I couldn’t wait to get out of bed the next day and head for the edge. Nobody else on land seemed to be awake, so I waited in a life jacket for my cameraman as a seabird and a fisherman each plied the now calm waters in search of sunrise catches.


When the time came to jump, I never hesitated. New memories were being made. Koh Si Chang had risen to the occasion once again.

Grandma Rests

Jip’s grandma passed away peacefully on Monday. She took a nap around noon and never woke up. That morning she refused breakfast for the first time in the 99 years and seven months of this existence (rounded up to 100 years by the designer of a large banner that hung outside the house all week).

Everyone in the village knew her. She wasn’t born there, but since arriving in the 1920s she hadn’t left often. For both of the relatively long periods she spent away from Ban Krud, she was with Jip. They lived together during Jip’s tween years, when her parents sent her to the next province north to attend middle school, a luxury that Ban Krud couldn’t afford at that time. Several years later, Jip took a job in the far north of the country, and invited Grandma to join her for a year. While there, Grandma added a few new basket making tricks to her repertoire.

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, everyone also participates in sending a grandma on to her resting place. This week dozens of people helped cook, put up tents, arrange flowers, and hang the blankets that recently have replaced wreaths as the tribute of choice. It used to be that a coffin would sit surrounded by decorative wreaths, many of them on tripods bearing a sash with the name of the donor. Nobody ever recycled those wreaths. Somewhere along the line a new tradition was born, which allows the merit associated with such a gift to keep on accumulating as the blanket gets donated to a monk at a temple or some other worthy recipient.

Five Thai kings reigned during Grandma’s life. Many years’ worth of stories about her got told during the mourning rituals at the house each evening. This afternoon’s cremation ceremony at the temple was filled to overflowing. At around 11 a.m., loud explosions were set off to let the whole village know that the ceremony would begin soon. By noon every seat was taken and the big open room was buzzing with conversation.

Jip chuckled and grinned throughout, glad to be surrounded by old acquaintances. We brought along two caregivers, which meant that she didn’t have to repeat her story endlessly to the many neighbors and classmates who hadn’t seen her for a while—in some cases over thirty years! Jip’s mom was also in a good mood. Grandma’s health had been good until about ten months ago. Since then the demands on Mom have been pretty exhausting.

Monks chanted. Boe, the only great-granddaughter, did a fine job reading a biography of Grandma that Jip’s brother Chao had done a fine job of writing. Various people went to the altar for various reasons. And then with a minimum of melodrama, the simple casket was delivered to the crematorium that is a standard part of Thai temples. Chao lifted the large photo of Grandma off its stand and walked it away from the altar, never looking back.

For much of this afternoon’s drive back to Bangkok, Jip closed her eyes and smiled. She had worn the same expression all weekend, shedding a tear only once when Boe read aloud a mention of the time Grandma had spent up north. We both were tired. Outside our bedroom window, card playing, dominoes, and chatting had lasted into the wee hours. Most likely they’ll continue till dawn tonight, as often happens on the seventh and final night of a Thai funeral.

French Street Scene

Five weeks after a fantastic reunion in Europe with mes amis and mis amigos, the memories were just starting to fade. Then Jennifer sent these pictures and instantly I was right back there.