Category: Personal

Revisited – Phuket, Thailand

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This my second visit to Phuket. Before the trip, I have been repeatedly asked by many kind people why I am still going to Thailand in spite of the chaos. Even my parents are worried.

Either way, I confirmed with friend who went up the week before and he told me there was no trace of tension or unrest over in Phuket. On top of that, another friend was in Bangkok. If I am not wrong, he stayed just a few junctions away from where the red-shirt protesters were holed up and the fact that he could tweet about his situation there tells me that even in Bangkok, much of the Thai capital is safe. I was not very concerned with what goes on in Bangkok and to be frank, I was actually more concerned with an earlier quake down at Sumatra. After all, I had already taken leave, booked the tickets and hotel rooms. I am quite sure I would be perfectly pissed for the rest of the year if another tsunami wiped out the beaches in Phuket.

Why am I going Phuket again? It’s because I just wanted to get away from Singapore – where every road is always congested and everywhere is full of people. I just want to go to a place where I could get away from the crowd here to just laze around and relax, even if I am not doing much sightseeing or shopping.

Either way, this round I didn’t get out to Phi Phi Island again, even though I originally wanted to go. The reason was that I was running short of Thai currency and end up spending a lot of time near the vicinity of the resort (Phuket Island View) at Karon bordering Kata and two nights sipping beer and looking at ‘ladyboys performing’ over at Bangla Road in Patong.

If I compared it to the last resort (Woraburi) I stayed in, the room Phuket Island View is just passable. I didn’t quite like this because there wasn’t enough power points in my room to go around (I had to ‘steal’ from one of the bed lamps), the air-conditioning was weak on the first day until a technician came by to fix it, and the water pressure at the shower was pathetic. However for the price difference (almost 6000 baht if I remembered correctly) between Woraburi and Phuket Island View, it is difficult to complain. The consensus is that we’ll still go back to Phuket Island View as long as prices stayed at that range. After all, we don’t really spend that much time in the room.

So as usual, here are the photos from this trip.

~~~ * ~~~

Back to the situation in Bangkok, as I am writing this post the Thai army is clearing and in fact, has cleared the area where the ‘Red Shirts’ are holed up in. Around 1500 ~ 1530 hrs Singapore time, it was reported that the leaders have surrendered, and two of them have been arrested. The rest will surrender to the police soon after.

My personal opinion is that democracy cannot come to a land when there is no rule of law and a strong and vibrant middle class. The government gahmen must also have a vision for nation building – a ground plan on how the country should proceed for the next 10 ~ 15 years, whether it remains in power or not. A gahmen can claimed itself to be democratic, but it is not just about free elections and universal suffrage. When a country does not have these fundamentals, then its elected gahmen will be as fragile as Thailand’s.

Anyway, I sympathise with the ‘Red Shirts’ for several reasons. First of all, it wasn’t the ‘Red Shirts’ who started this entire mess. The so-called People Alliance for Democracy or ‘Yellow Shirts’ did much worse back in 2008. While the ‘Red Shirts’ have generally stationed in central Bangkok, the ‘Yellow Shirts’ created trouble not only in Bangkok but all over Thailand. Secondly, most of the ‘Red Shirts’ are generally just poor people from the poorer north and northeast regions of Thailand. The People’s Power Party (PPP) gahmen they supported after the last election in December 2007 was removed through a combination of street violence, political intrigue and what I called ‘judicial wizardry’. Not only were two Prime Ministers, Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat ousted, the PPP was ultimately dissolved. It was the political equivalent of razinjg the stronghold to the ground after killing the leaders. Lastly, while the police had issued arrest warrants for Sondhi Limthongkul and 8 other ‘Yellow Shirt’ protest leaders on charges of insurrection, conspiracy, unlawful assembly and refusing orders to disperse, no action has been taken against them until today.

The military operation in central Bangkok may have ended the protest and the violence but it will not end the deep rooted resentment of the poor in Thailand against the more affluent or those considered to be the social elite. The people will pay close attention to the action taken against the ‘Red Shirt’ protest leaders now in custody and it is unlikely that the political situation in Thailand will normalize in the near future.

I will remember Bangkok May 19th, 2010 the way I remember Beijing June 4th, 1989.

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2 years after a traffic accident…

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It’s been more than 2 years after this accident. Now that the verdict has been reached, I could freely talk about this.

First of all, I had wasted a fair bit of time on this, having to turn up at a lawyer’s office to sign an affidavit, and later to attend a court session. This is in spite of the photo evidence we have presented, and I was told the other driver insists that my friend was solely at fault, and he wants to claim against the insurance company covering my friend’s car insurance (NTUC Income in this case) 50% of his repair bill.

His bill was a hefty $10,000 and that means he was trying to claim $5,000. It was shocking to us because it cost my friend less than $2,000 of that to repair his own vehicle which spares are more difficult to obtain. That’s not mentioning, another friend who completely wrecked his Subaru WRX STi when travelling in Malaysia only had to pay $8,500 to restore it to tip top conditions if he so wishes. The front of the WRX was completely ruined, and a large branch fell from a tree to crush the top of the vehicle after the collision. Now compared that kind of damage to the Toyota Altris at fault! (See photos shown on my other blog post.)

The fact that it took long enough for such a minor matter to be resolved certainly reinforce my bad impression of NTUC Income, which reminded me of the acronym – No Trouble Until Claims. In fact, when we were having coffee after the court session, my friend informed me that the insurer didn’t give the photo evidence to the lawyer which represented us in this case until September last year. That is in spite of the fact that the photos were submitted the next day, and my friend was given the assurance that the case was very clear cut and not disputable. Contrary to what he was told, the entire case dragged on until a hearing became necessary. I do not know what discussions and agreements were made between the lawyers, but in the end it was agreed upon that it should be resolved at the Primary Dispute Resolution Centre (PDRC) in the Subordinate Courts.

Thus, we were ‘summoned’ before a judge a few days ago to whom both sides will present their case. It was to my disgust when I discovered that the other driver gave a completely different account – one that in my opinion defied the laws of physics and a load of blatant lies. It was quite interesting to see how the other lawyer tried to ‘grill’ us in defense of his client, even presenting an utterly ridiculous scenario. In this scenario, the accident was a result of ‘bad handling’ in which the fault solely lies with my friend. He suggested that our vehicle has hit the central divider first, and the deflection then caused us to hit his client’s vehicle. He also repeatedly rephrased his questions in his attempt to get my friend to admit that it was his fault.

Fortunately for us, it seems the judge found the photo evidence to be more credible, and she has asked the other driver on several occasions to explain the photo evidence and why it differs from his account. At one point when the other driver was talking out of point she told the interpreter to remind him to look at the photos and explain again how that tallies with his account of the event. To me that was quite a relief, as it was quite clear who the judge has found more credible. It was rather difficult for us to keep ourselves from wanting to interject, though we refrain from doing so as we do not wish to offend the judge.

After a gruesome 40 minutes or so, the judge asked for us to leave the room and the lawyers to stay behind. In the end she told the lawyers that the photo evidence was more credible in describing the event, and told the lawyers that the matter should be settled 80 – 20, in our favor. It was an acceptable outcome, even though we would prefer that the other driver gets nothing and be made to bear 100% of all his repair cost. After all, that fellow has not only failed to be responsible for his mistake, he has lied thorough his teeth to take advantage of the insurance claims.

Either way I hope this would be the final conclusion to the matter since I do not want to waste more time on this matter. However, as a result of this experience, I would like to point out several things.

Firstly, it is not good enough to have photos of the final resting position of the vehicles in the accident. It is also necessary to show clearly in the photos the lane markings, especially when the other driver is at fault. Thus, have a photo further away showing the road in front and behind the vehicle. Preferably, these photos should capture any u-turns, arrows indicating the direction of travel, traffic lights, speed camera, ERP gantry etc. All of these will help when there is a dispute on who has the right of way. It also gives an indication of the traffic condition at that point of time, i.e. clear or congested. Also, take photos of any brake marks on the road, since the speed of the vehicles is also taken into account. Beyond that, take photos of the damage of not only your vehicle, but also that of the other vehicle so you will not be caught by surprise when you are shown the damages and presented an entirely different account of the events.

Beyond that, allow no one from either vehicles to leave the scene. Friends or relatives or not, these people are witnesses. Take special note when ‘helpful people’ who are not involved showed up to give suggestions where to take both vehicles for repair. Ask whether these people are related to the other driver since these people are choosing to get involved. My personal opinion is that these might just be people from shady workshops nearby who are trying to pull a fast one.

It is most likely these people will not want their presence to be noted down down in the statement. In my opinion, if the other driver is adamant that nothing like this had happened that may work to his disadvantage since he appears to be covering up the details. If the passenger is assisting the driver to take photos, it would be best if the photos capture some of these people in negotiation with the driver.

Lastly, take note of who the other party has called, especially if you are asked to speak with someone on the phone and told to take the vehicles to their workshop for evaluation. Get hold of the number called if possible but if that information is not available, at the very least that should be mentioned in your statement. Both of us got some a little chewing out from the lawyer previously when he questioned us about our statements and found that we failed to put these details in.

Basically, the more details and visual evidence in support of your statement of the event, the less room there is for the other guy to worm himself out of his fault and waste the collective time of everyone – lawyers, the judge, the insurance company, and yourself. There is entirely no reason to waste so much time on a minor accident especially when the other person is at fault.

~~~ * ~~~

And talking about such accidents… it was to my dismay that on April 23 I was again involved as a witness in another one on Keppel Road around 10am in the morning. I was in a cab on the center lane of the 3-laned Keppel Road somewhere next to the KTM Station at Tanjong Pagar. The cab was straight and stationary in its lane, waiting for the traffic light to turn green when I heard a loud bang. I didn’t even realise the cab I was in was hit until the taxi driver turned his cab towards the KTM station. It was then I noticed that the left mirror twisted in an odd angle and the culprit: a white van (with hazard lights on) at the drop off area in the KTM station.

How that idiot van driver hit us with a glancing hit was beyond me. I was too shocked to react and it was over within a few minutes after the 2 drivers exchanged particulars. By the time I got off the cab and look at the damage at the destination at Anson Road, I realised that there was a big dent on the side of the cab and the left head light assembly and that side of the bumper was totally wrecked.

But here’s the good news, I will be taking the MRT for some time…

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A Gecko that ruined my Easter Weekend

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I came on from work on Good Friday (Apr 2) to discover from my parents that the circuit breaker has tripped after a loud bang of thunder. They tried to reset it to restore power to the flat but failed. It was fortunate that it was still the afternoon and I could go around every switch in the house and toggle every switch off. I know for sure something has shorted and there is no way to reset the circuit break until the appliance causing the fault is disconnected. Had it been at night it might have been a rather tedious affair since I might not have notice some of the power sockets which switches are in the ‘On’ position.

After some time, I managed to identify that whenever I tried to turn on the water heater in the shower room, it would trip the circuit breaker. The water heater was only replaced a year ago and I was rather annoyed that it broke down so quickly. I left the circuit break in the off position and dismantled the cover to the water heater and disconnected the mains from it. I did so to confirm that the fault is with the heater so I can call in the service as it is still under warranty.

I went over to the circuit breaker and it refused to be reset even when the water heater is disconnected from the mains. That simply means the short is elsewhere and I was a little relieved that the fault may not be with the heater. So, I unscrewed the switch from its mountings as it doesn’t take a genius to know that there will be 2 sets of wires going into it, one coming from the mains and the other going to the heater. The only problem is, the wires are laid inside the wall which means I have no way of telling where which set goes to. The only way to test was removing one set from the switch and turn on the power. The good news is there’s an indicator light on the switch which means that if the set of the wires going to the heater were disconnected, it will still light up when connected to the mains.

Still no luck when I just connect only the supply end to the switch. Without the water heater connected, everything was fine when I toggle the switch on. It is only when I connect the heater that it trips again. Since I ain’t an electrician, I dumbly decide that the fault lies with the switch and bought rather a cool looking new one from a DIY store. As it was getting dark, I decided that I would do the change the next day. It was a night without warm water for a shower… but as it was rather warm, it really didn’t matter.

I woke up early the next day to replace the switch, since I would like to get the water heater working again for my morning shower. Changing the switch was a piece of cake, as electrical connections are rather straight forward. The sad part is, it still trips the moment I tried to turn the heater on!!

I decided that this was beyond me and a professional electrician should be called in. As it was Saturday it would not be possible to get an electrician. Fortunately I had 2 shower rooms in the flat so I had no choice but to use the other one for both Saturday and Sunday.

I woke up early again on Monday. For some reasons unknown to me, I suddenly remember that I missed out an important fact when I was troubleshooting. That is – one of the wires coming out of the switch is brown, and none of the ones going into the water heater is. There is a red one however, and that means somewhere between the switch to the water heater, there is some kind of connector which links the two cables. I noticed that the part where the power cable enters the ceiling and it was covered with a little plastic cover. After cutting off power to the entire unit from the circuit breaker, I took the ladder and a screw driver and promptly removed it to take a look what is inside.

Other than the ants that came scrambling out because their nests was disturbed, there were no surprises here. There was indeed a connector inside but the problem is, it’s a little dark and I couldn’t really see how it’s connected and what’s in it with my head tilted in a rather discomforting angle. I went for a torchlight but the batteries in it has gone flat. Fed up, I took my Blackberry Storm mobile to take a photo with flash on so I can examine the connection in a more comfortable position.

I was a little shocked to notice the head of a gecko sticking out somewhere in between. How it got inside there was anyone’s guess and I don’t really care. Suspected that I caught it on photo while it was fleeing, I took another shot and it is still there. Annoyed, I decided that 170cm of male human being has nothing to fear from a small gecko that’s at most 10cm long. I jammed my screw driver into the area where I estimated it to be.

Something rather disgusting dropped out – It was just the head of the gecko and some black stuff which I believe is carbon. There was no blood anywhere and on closer examination it appeared to be rather dry. It suddenly dawned upon me that I didn’t catch it sticking its head out for a look when I took the photo. In fact, it is probably dead since the day the thunder was heard. My guess is, lightning struck somewhere nearby and leakage from the ‘Earth’ wire surged through and caught the poor creature while it was scrambling through the wires and charred it to death. That certainly gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘smitten by God’.

Unfortunately for me, whatever remains of the thrice damned gecko which the surge didn’t turn into carbon remained caught between the ‘Live’ and ‘Earth’ wires. That caused a perpetual short in the circuit. After confirming that the remains are now cleared, I went on to restore power to the flat and turned on the switch to the heater.

The circuit breaker didn’t trip, because I could hear the radio which I left on. I turned the knob on the heater to make the water warmer and sprayed it on my feet. Still no trip, and the indicator on the heater showed that it is powered up and I could feel warm water spraying on my feet.

Success, at last! I finally get hot water for my shower before I go to work.

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Rant – Of wusses and douchebags

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Not too long ago, I was accused by someone of finding every little opportunity to bash the gahmen or criticise its policies because of what he called my ‘intense hatred of the government gahmen’. It doesn’t matter that I have been quite a big fan of the ERP, and at times I have presented the viewpoint of the gahmen after I receive a better understanding of the policies. While I do not deny I can be rather vehement in my anti-gahmen stand, that doesn’t mean I allow that to cloud my decision all the time.

Ironically, the accusation was thrown in my face after I had in fact agreed with this person and put up my own opinion in support. I could only speculate why my comment upset him. He probably thinks only he had the proper justifications or he had better reasons to do so. If not, he must have thought that his way of bashing the gahmen was the only acceptable way. Another friend suggested that the person was upset because he had considered his comment to be perfect, and my ‘greatest sin’ was for adding on and ‘marring his perfect comment’. Whatever the case is, I took this as a grave insult, as it suggests that I am insane and incapable of reasoning as far as the gahmen is concerned. That’s not mentioning that when I started to defend myself, this person waved it off with a comment of ‘whatever’.

What a wussy!

~~~ * ~~~

Next, it amuses me that a 40-over year-old someone was denouncing another person as ‘self-righteous, antagonistic, extreme and hypocritical’ on his blog after he ‘visited his blog and the forum he was running’

Since I am the only person who runs both a blog and a forum, and we once disagreed strongly on how to run my forum, I take this accusation personally. As far as I am concerned, he is apparently still bitter over the fact he was not allowed a free reign on my forum almost four years ago. The fact is he repeatedly threatened me with leaving the forum if not allowed to do things his way. Though I did not object to him creating more than one account, he ultimately created a fake account with a fake email address that caused some concern with the business owner of the hosting server. After she advised me to delete the fake account, I announced publicly on the forum and asked to be informed if anyone wants to create such accounts in the future. He then confronted me on MSN Messenger and again threatened to leave. I decided I had enough of his childish tantrums and simply reply with these two words: Go ahead.

It probably never occurred to this self-centered sorry excuse of a man that there’s only so much emo shit I can take from a bachelor in his late 30s (then!) like him. I suspected he was shocked and angered because I did absolutely nothing to try and pacify him. I simply left him with no choice but to make good his threat. As far as I am concerned, whether he stayed or not would be a great loss of face to him.

Left he did, and the actions he took thereafter simply convinced me that I have no reasons to remain acquainted with such a person. I have been on the receiving end of his tantrums more than once whenever I disagreed with him. That’s when I wasn’t even rude or being an ass to begin with! I simply wasn’t even allow to express a different opinion or to stand firm on my disagreement. His sudden mood swings in a cordial conversation shocks me, as it is even more intense than those I have seen among my female friends or colleagues under pressure. Perhaps a serious hormonal imbalance has caused this oddly feminine behavior… and might probably even hint why my recent posts upset him.

He apparently still behaved just like I first knew him almost two decades ago. I am convince I made the right choice to cease all communications with this douchebag and blocked him on Facebook right after I joined. He has the honor or being the first to be blocked on Facebook and the only person blocked for the longest time compared to the rest in that ‘roll of (dis)honor’

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Phuket

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This is my first visit and I arrive on Wednesday (16-Sep) to a… rainy Phuket. It was quite a turn off and all of us were quite disappointed, since the main objective was the sun and the nice beaches there. Anyway, the weather did start to clear up a little in the afternoon and the days after, though we get rain often in the early hours of the morning.

The sand on the beach is very fine, not the variety you get at the old playgrounds in Singapore (which we don’t see anymore these days). The waves are rather deceptive and while it laps harmlessly at the shores some distance away at times, the next one could rush up all the way and one would find himself knee deep in water. The pull back of the waves is so strong and I almost fell into the water once. My friends who went swimming had a ‘near death’ experience as they struggled against the waves back to the shore when they got too far out. The lifeguard appeared a little upset as he blew his whistle loud and repeatedly while he waited impatiently for them to come back nearer to the shore. (I personally didn’t understand why he wasn’t down in the water though, but it was later we saw him running back with a surf board while we headed back to the rooms.)

Beyond the beach, my first impression when looking at some of the more urban areas near Karon beach was that it’s like Singapore stuck in the 80s. There doesn’t seem to be too much traffic around either around the beach areas (or at least the areas I am in) and all transport are either by hiring private cars (and if more than 4 then they are SUVs and Minibus) or the ‘Tuk Tuk’. One can bargain a little before the trip starts and usually you might get a 50 – 100 baht discount off the regular price from the drivers. As for taxis, I recalled I only saw one taxi on the way from the airport to the resort.

At the later stage of our trip we have given up on the ‘Tuk Tuk’ and just hire a private car to take us to the Phuket shooting range. There is a counter at the resort’s lobby which will call one for us. Surprisingly, one can also bargain at the counter. The driver will show up usually like 10 ~ 15mins later (or at an arranged time). This is where we befriended one of the drivers and he complained a little about how the ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’ (i.e. ‘Tuk Tuk’ syndicates) makes life difficult for those driving hired private cars. For e.g. if he gets a call to pick up a passenger in Karon and then drop people off in Patong, he will have to return with his empty vehicle to Karon or respond to another call before he can pick up another passenger. If there’s a prior agreement to a return trip as well, then he park and serve as a tour guide as long as the passengers did not object to it. He seems to be unhappy that the ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’ work in concert to drive the cost up for all tourists even though he agrees it doesn’t really matter to the White Men as their powerful Euros, Pounds and American Dollars makes everything cheap to them in Thailand after the currency exchange.

I joked with my friends that we have ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’ in Singapore too, the largest being Comfort Delgro. We agreed that if the government gahmen isn’t strong enough to be in control, then another power will always step in. While it is not necessary good for these syndicates to fix prices and run others out of business, it also creates and maintain some semblance of control. At least now tourists don’t end up being charged / cheated by ‘Tuk Tuk’ drivers quoting ridiculous fares. In a way, it is really a double edged sword and nothing we would complain about.

As for the shops at normal tourist locations like Patong, the driver says that the prices for some items are usually inflated once the people there identify us as foreigners. The ladies in our group usually help us to bargain the prices down and that is when I noticed that some of those shops there are now run by foreigners from Myanmar and India.

After arranging with the driver for another trip, he took us to a place where the seafood is nice and cheap that night. The place looked a little remote and like Punggol in Singapore in the past. On the last day, he took us to the night market at Phuket Town, and also arranged for a minibus to pick us up and send us back to the airport. Apparently, it’s a business some of the drivers in Phuket run at the sides in the face of the limitations placed by the ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’.

In general, the food in Phuket is nice, and I think they probably watered down their Tom Yam way too much to make it not spicy for the tourist. The coffee they made is great and it puts all the coffee made in Starbucks, Coffee Bean, TCC etc to shame. (Hey, at least I didn’t feel more thirsty after I drink their coffee and I can’t say the same about our coffee here!) There’s obviously no problem with hygiene there since I didn’t get a stomach upset for all the 5 days I am there. Even though the water from the taps in the hotel can come out brown at times, all you need to do is let it run for awhile and it will then be clear. That was a clear sign you can’t drink it off the tap though among the guys, we just boil it and drink it anyway, at times without checking whether the water that comes out of the tap is ‘naturally colored’ or not! Either way, it did taste a little funny but we couldn’t really quite sure what it tasted like.

As to the locals, most of them are friendly though not all of them are conversant in English. None of them were actually outwardly rude. However, it might take one some time to get use of their accent and English pronunciation. Being a non-English speaking country and where it only started teaching English in schools only recently, one has to give the Thai people credit for trying to accommodate us and attempt to speak our language to serve us.

It wasn’t long that our trip in Phuket ends, and because of the weather we didn’t manage to take a boat out to the surrounding islands like Phi Phi. I guess I’ll be returning again to visit those places some time next year.

So long, Phuket… see you again next year.

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