It was 25 years ago, that the People Power Revolution toppled the Marcos regime in the Philippines, so this is an interesting vantage point to watch the freedom movement ride the rails from the home of one Middle Eastern tyrant to the next.
I penned this update the last week in February, after a brief visit to Bangkok where we covered a good deal of ground in our three days. I can relate the experience best by comparison to Manila, the only other Asian city I know. Bangkok is to Manila as Atlanta is to New Orleans. In Bangkok, the king assures that the trains are clean and run on time, the traffic while snarled actually obeys most traffic laws, like driving in one lane at a time—whereas Manila traffic is more like the start of the Indy 500 with drivers scrambling for any opening they see, no matter how slight.
Vince and I got to see several fine temples. We took in an evening show that explains the mythical empire of Siam in a giant stage production that near Vegas in its proportions. We were treated to a “free tour” which had a wonderful beginning, but ended with stops at several shops (which was clearly the reason the tour was free).
The whole trip was done on a shoestring, we stayed at a hotel off the beaten path, but it had a nice pool. We stayed in what amounted to a suite and the dinner special was 50 baht (about a buck and a quarter). Instead of the dinner canal cruise, we took the express water taxi which was 20 baht versus 75 bucks.
Following the DAB's advice, we did a lot of our travel by SkyTrain and in fact we found a great on-line resource for touring Bangkok via the local transit system.
We also made our way to the local version of Christopher Street, which is friendly and well kept, and a couple blocks over the Bangkok version of Bourbon Street, where hawkers kept grabbing Vince by the shoulder and pulling him into the doorway for a sneak peek of the stage show. We had several free transfers in the hotel van, and the driver kept trying to take us to a strip show involving a ping pong ball—in fact ping pong seemed to comprise about 50 percent of the words he could speak in English.
So like, Atlanta, Bangkok is organized, efficient, but also a little stern. Whereas Manila has some of that Red Beans and Rice on Monday laid back, easy going feel, where the service is friendly and even sincere. Admittedly, the fact that about 80 percent of folks in the Philippines speak some English is probably a big factor—the percentage in Bangkok felt like around 20%--tops.
In my message home I wrote:
Wonder if "W" Bush is walking around thinking he started this crashing of dominoes in the Middle East? The NY Times said absolutely not--but one can imagine this will be fodder for debate in years ahead. Being as it is mostly Muslim States with little love for us that are in revolt (and we backed most of the thug dictators who they are ousting), my first blush take is the Times got it right.
It was Dad who penned the above Quote of the Week, in response to my Middle East observation.
Street Hockey Update: The Longman team had to play on, without my stick in the annual street hockey match against the Lyon family and various classmates from Long Island (circa 1978). Brother Bill reports the Longman clan got back on track this year with a victory. Am certain the Pizza at Christiano’s tasted a whole lot better after the match with the victory in hand.
Will send a an update shortly on the final week in Manila. And am looking for an alternate way to post more photos. Flickr set up a way to post through Gmail, but then SUDDENLY dropped that service, so the photos I posted earlier are no accessible…Heck of a job, Flickr! Working on alternate ways of making them accessible on the web.
