Dear All,

Thailand is very rich in a lot of ways. One of them is scams
(oplichterijen). It is definitly full of them, and I am just enjoying the
last one I ran into. Yesterday I went into a normal CD shop. I wanted to buy
the CD of Pa La Phol, the biggest rockstar in current Thailand. Three days
ago I saw him perform in Sukotai, at a big festival, together with 10.000
thai, a canadian girl and a frenchman. Very very funny. Not as funny though
as the day after when I found myself being the only fallang in Suphanburi.
Which ment, for instance, that the only sign with a little western writing
was one with 'Internet' on it.. This and of course, the always available
Heineken, Amstel, Johnnie Walker, Nescafe and other commercials. So, after
using the web (and chatting live with two of you in Holland, very funny!), I
went to a bar with live music. When labor is cheap, this is one of the
advantages, you will have people doing a lot of things, that in the west are
machinised or automised. The latter is less attractive, but I think that a
question or two to people that do these underpaid jobs will prove that life
is a little better our way, that is if you think that a working week of less
than 50 hours is normal, and a pension or any other kind of insurance is
normal too.

I am in this bar for 30 seconds, and then invited by three local boys (that
seem to be the only english speakers in the whole town. And 'English' here,
should be read as a very limited subset of the original language.) For the
first time in my whole stay in Thailand, I decided to drink that night, and
as one of the boys suffered a serious case of Broken Heart, the drinking was
real drinking. Whisky, local brew. I felt really really sorry the next day
(as the Lonely Planet warns), but what a night! After getting drunk in the bar,

we moved to a disco. Yeah baby yeah, Fallang in the House!! I think I
must have been the first ever. There was a band playing there, too, and they
had an interview with me. Where you from? Have Girlfriend? I took pictures,
I'm glad I have auto focus in my camera, it was great fun, and the alcohol
poored richly.

And to get back to the original line of the story, the band played Pa La
Phol, also. I told you, this guy is the Marco Borsato around here. So when I
saw a normal CD shop on arrival in Katchanaburi (which I reached without
having to go through Bangkok, yoopie), I went in and asked for panabon, they
helped me translate, and sold me a CD that looks good from the outside, It
was nicely wrapped in plastic, and when I asked to check wether it was the
right artist, they pleyed me a cassette. Same same? yeah, same same. F* F*
F*, it is a very very bad recording of a pre-testing rehearsal kind of
thing. Luckily, I am still in town, and I decided to listen to the CD while
typing this email. Tomorrow, on my way out of here, I will have to pay this
shop a little visit.

And then it is over. Tomorrow, I plan to go around here a little, and return
by train, over the River Kwai track. Then, collect my stuff and take a bus
and taxi and plain and train and another train, and then walk through the
cold in Maastircht to Lot, who will hopefully welcome me with hot coffee and
my winter coat. I got a snowreport of east belgium (50K from Maastricht).
There will be snow this weekend, so something to look forward to.

Regards,

reinier