there are a thousand things to do

Raja Stadium

This week I had the pleasure to welcome my first and probably last visitor from Berlin –  a challenge for my city guide skills, a chance to broaden my BKK horizon and pure morphine for my home bound soul. Having had a few rough days prior to this reunion with my dear friend and neighbor from the Nice House Alley, the short 36 hours of her stay helped me rediscover the beauty and the potential of my current home by choice. There were the facts: 2160 minutes and a visitor who already knew all the temples and stuff; How was I gonna show that I know the big BKK better than the next best tourist? My plan was pretty uncreative: A night at the “Levels” and the “Sugar” club, a day of mall shopping and last but not least a cocktail in one of the urban sky-bars. Just when I thought I had figured it out, Paolo, a friend from the 13 coins gym, my Muay Thai gym of choice, gave me a hint that there would be a good fight staring one of my training partners in the Raja stadium that day. So Muay Thai it was. I’ve written about Thai Boxing before, but let’s give it another more detailed shot. Once we decided to visit the fight night in one of the two big stadiums of the city, we had the choice between expensive class 1 ringside seats and cheaper class 2 or class 3 no-seat tickets behind the fences. In contrast to what the ticket promoters say you also have the opportunity to sit in the class 2 and 3 area which we ended up taking. Once we had paid and took a seat inside the “cooking pod” we found ourselfs in the middle of a spectacle that is hard to describe to those who haven’t witnessed it with their own eyes. Wild arm paddling  is going on everywhere– some paddle to chase away flies – others to place and receive bets. Officially gambling is forbidden in Thailand but here it is as much a part of the weekly fight-night as the beat ups themselves. In front of the ring there was an assembly of 4 musicians jamming on drums and cymbals. One man who is operating what seems to be the Asian version of an oboe leads the noise and seems to set the pace for the little orchestra in accordance to the fight situation. There even seem to be rules and customs for specific melodies before the entrance of the gladiators, during warm up and for the fight itself. With each new child gladiator pairing entering the ring the sound of the orchestra swells and then fades into the background once the fight begins and the mob gets going. But before they start, the fighters perform an endless series of moves and bows in order to please the spirits of all the important combat gods and spirits. Once they have finished their round across the ring they restart from the beginning - just in case they forgot any move. After this whole ceremony the referee takes the kids to the ring middle in order to tell them not to break the rules – kind of funny, because it appears that there are barely any rules at all. Now they go back to their corners, do another set of bows and get rid of their spirit pleasing head decorations. Finally the brawl begins! The matadors try to use their elbows, knees and heads to knock each other out. As the beating takes its course the noise gets more and more ear-piercing. Once the audience has observed the fighters skills the gambling reaches even more chaotic spheres than before. During each fight-break the people turn their backs to the ring in order to face the bookkeepers which are spread across the stadium receiving bets with undefinable hand-paddling movements. Up to this day it’s a miracle to me how they manage to keep any overview without any written fixation, but somehow it seems that they are able to memorize every single bet, the respective amounts and quotes. Each time a fighter lands a hit or a kick the mass shouts “chock” or “iiitch” which seems to mean something like “hit”. After six rounds of massacre the judges are ready to roll the dice in order to cure a winner. Again the volume swells, the fighters leave and the next ones enter the ring. While the first gladiators seemed to be no older than 15 years old, the age and size increased as the night went on. 8 fights later we went home deaf and sweaty but proud that we have witnessed a piece of authentic Thai culture… A few days later I am sitting by the window of my apartment and reminis over the past days. Nice that I had a piece of home with me, even if it was just for 36 hours.. 

language

Once again I’m trying not to fall asleep in the class room. When I returned to BKK last Friday, I had to go through the final exam and a make-up-assignment for the days I missed the Organizational Behavior Course due to my Vietnam trip within two days. Once that was done, I decided to apply for two November Courses, so December would be free for traveling. Now I’m sitting in one of them and Professor Mattieu Cheveux somehow has managed to exorcise even the last bit of vital energy of every student in the room with a monologue that reminded me of a looong airport call out. While flicking through my economics book in order to stay awake, I’m stumbling across the same theories and definitions that I’ve heard and read so many times before now. One definition somehow tickles my brain: “Perceived Value - A customer’s opinion of a products value to him or her. It may have nothing to do with the products real value and depends heavily on the products ability to satisfy his or her needs or requirements.” I’ve read this definition several times now, but this time I perceive it in a different context. All of a sudden it seems totally adaptable to social life. Breaking it all down it appears that the choice of an employee, friend or partner is no more than an exclusive non-monetary exchange. I offer myself and my services to a counterpart, in exchange for him/her and his/her services. According to business economics our choice will soly be determined by one another’s perceived value. So if I get rejected in this equation it means no more than my perceived value in that case was inferior either to somebody else or to no emploee, friend or partner at all. What’s interesting about this is the difference between the perceived value and the actual value and the human tendency to neglect this difference. According to this concept it is not right to say I’m not good enough, but it is just his or her perceived value of me which is not sufficient. In order to enhance the chances of getting a yes or even turning a no into a yes I’m not limited to working on my value, but I can also influence perception. On this point it get’s practical but going deeper on that interesting theme would require some place quieter than this and someone actually caring about that stuff more than I do, because all I care about right now is the lunch break.

Hoi An

After my arrival in Da Nang I met Easy Rider Chien who agreed to take me 30 km south to Hoi An on his Honda for 100000Dong. He even bought me a coconut coffee, showed me his little moleskin filled with stories of people from all over the world who traveled with him and gave me some Vietnamese History  lessons on the ride. Unfortunately I won’t have any time to go on tour with him any further since I was on a tight schedule. Hoi An turned out to be one of the nicest places I’ve seen in my life. There are three major factors responsible for that. #1: The city made it through Vietnam War almost unharmed, keeping the mixture of French, Chinese and Vietnamese architecture from different centuries. 2#: The usage of motorized vehicles in the town center is strictly prohibited. After a few days in Hanoi this silence gives you a guaranteed eargasm. 3#: Each store has to be decorated with traditional lamps by law. Doesn’t make any sense but it gives the city an awesome ancient appeal. I did set my basecamp in the sunflower hotel together with the majority of the backpacker community. It seems that most of the North-South travelers make their halftime break in the sunflower in order to get their bikes fixed, play drinking games in the backyard pool area and head of by bicycle to the beaches in the north or the old center with the famous tiger tiger bar in the south. After only two days of this silent paradise I had to take the bus back to Da Nang in order to continue my Orient Express Trip all the way to Saigon. After 17 hours of radio less ride (I would have killed anyone who’d dared to touch the radio switch) I arrived in Hoh chi minh city this morning at 4am and asked a mototaxi to take me to the pham ngu park. So here I am on a park bench, surrounded by hundreds of house wives doing their morning sport. Since my flight back to BKK departs this evening I won’t have any time to explore this city, so I guess there is more than enough reason to come back to Vietnam in the future. I will really miss it for its chaotic charm, the funny people and of course the food! Bhan Mi! Pho! Cau Lao! Coconut Coffee, Bia Hoi!!!! Words cannot describe the pleasure a tongue goes through in Vietnam! Two minutes ago I bought 3 huge Bhan Mi Special Sandwishes for the flight, but they are already buried in my stomach… It’s a shame they don’t have something like this in BKK, but at least I will be reunited with Madame Coconut from the coconut waffle stand...<3

Vietnam Orient Express

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dynamite

This is a short story about how I almost blew up into pieces. It starts with a small sign on an intersection on Cat Ba island. The sign was placed in the middle of a big road and had something written on it in Vietnamese letters. “Does it mean the road is blocked?” “Well maybe we should check it anyway. It’s the shortest way home” “Okay, but let me take some pictures of that bay over there first” With that proposal Big Jonas saved our both lives. Right after we parked our scooters and entered the beach a big bang echoed through the bay… The road which we wanted to take was just blown up. Another bang and a huge cloud of smoke sank down over the side of the bay where the road ran along a minute ago…  What do we learn from this? I have no idea

Cat Ba Island

“Where are you from?” A frequently asked question with a simple answer, you might assume. “From Germany”, Big Jonas, whom I was traveling with the last couple of days, answered. “From the Sunflower Hotel”, I replied at the same time. Right in that moment I realized the astonishing amount of possible answers to the question about HOME. We were jetting around the beautiful Cat Ba Island and it appeared we would have to go back HOME to the hotel soon from where the next day we would have to return back HOME to our boatel which was anchoring in front of the harbor. One day later we would cruise back HOME to the main land of Vietnam from where apparently I would fly back to Bangkok, my current HOME, far away from HOME in Germany. I guess I’ll have to call a few more places HOME until I’ll be ready to reduce the amount of possible answers to that question to only one. Apart from this I had an awesome time in the North of Vietnam so far. Hanoi with its dazzling traffic-light-less old town spreads a really special charm. I could have walked for days across the night market street between the Ho Tay Lake next to the impressive ho chi minh mausoleum and the beautiful Hoan Kiem Lake where hundreds of couples have their marriage photos shot around the water puppetry theater. While observing such a puppetry show the feeling emerges that the Vietnamese are even crazier than the Thais. I mean I dig the culture and the metaphors, but when you see four naked baby water puppets being smashed into the water over and over again, you kind of ask yourself what’s wrong with these people. The show program titled this scene “the fishing”… After the funny little show it was time for some action. So we went out for some clubbing, which is quite an adventure in this town. The police shuts down all the venues at midnight and patrols through the streets, so the pub owners have to run their parties behind closed curtains. From time to time they ring the silent alarm “Police outside!” and everybody goes silent for a minute. Before getting out you also have to wait for the streets to be clear. Quite adventurous…The next morning we decided to do a Ha Long Bay cruise including the whole activity package…So we did kayaking, fishing, tracking, biking and caving, drank snake booze from the Island Locals, visited a pearl farm and had cooking classes on our boatel (Boat-Hotel). The crew was a well-mixed bunch stairing Cohen from Mexico, Edyta from Poland, Korian, Jorga and Sara Marie from Holland, Ki from Korea, Minji and SemiYoon from China, Mark from Ireland, Tim and Dee from the UK, Flo from Paris, Amy from the US, Big Jonas from Stuttgart and me from the sunflower hotel. The arrival at the boatel was quite a funny story. A bus took us to the peer, where a transfer boat awaited to take us to the bay, where all kinds of bigger boats were anchoring in peace. “Look at that boat! I guess that would have been ours if we had booked the cheaper alternative.” Just before Dee was able to finish that sentence the captain swung the steering wheel and steered us right towards the “cheap alternative” which from that moment was ought to be our boatels name. Once we got on board the cheap alternative turned out to be really nice and comforting. That moment when you open your room door and you feel like you could just walk out there on the slick surface of the peaceful water that unfolds directly in front of your feed is something that burns into your memory. It’s a petty that I have to leave the Ha Long Bay Islands, our boatel and Hanoi soon, but who is going to take care of South Vietnam if I don’t? �