Brown suede shoes

Patrik and Elisabet, a Swedish couple whom we met in Hanoi, popped by Bangkok this weekend. As a "grande finale" of Saturday night we headed for the magnificent view of the “60-storey-something" roof top-bar at State Tower. But the whole group was halted by an elevator guard: "No flip-flops allowed", she proclaimed, pointing at one of us.

After running down a soi, looking for a late night open shoe shop (yeah right...), and a lot of head scratching at the side walk we heard the sound of two suede loafers, size 45, hitting the asphalt.

"Now you go up", a Thai man said and smiled at us. We all dropped our jaws.

Apparently he had overheard our conversation and - in some magical way - hauled out a pair of shoes out of nowhere. Correct size and all.

And up we went! I knew this was a huge city, but seeing it from above made things even more impressive.

The torch was here

A happy torch tour of Bangkok on Saturday 19th. No major protests. I wonder why.

The Vietnam escape

Mina, Minna and I escaped the “soak all the westerners with plenty of ice cold water-tradition” of Bangkok, also known as Songkran or the Thai new year.

Instead a low budget airliner took us to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi: Great food (Mina and Minna indulged in the art of ordering food across language border, see photos), museums (where my dear travelling companions took a well earned rest in the Ede longhouse at the Museum of Ethnology), some shopping and a breathtaking boat tour watching the lime stone cliffs and a fantastic stalactite cave in Halong Bay, one of Unesco´s World Heritage sites.

Building city

Riiiriiiriiiriiiriiiriiiriiir!!! The sound of pneumatic drills cut through our apartment from time to time. Our neighbours are not one, but two, construction sites. One house just started, the other one is almost finished.

The demand for new apartments and office space seems endless in this city, judged by the construction workers pace - Saturday and evening work seems mandatory - and frequency of building sites.

But some empty concrete shells still stand empty as reminders of the economic crash in 1997.

"It was like a ghost city, one of Mina’s colleagues", told me. "Quite nice in one way, since much of the traffic vanished as well", he added.

On our tv I watch CNN-reports about the financial crisis in the US. It might spread to Asia the commentators say.

The other week an accident happened. The huge building crane next door collapsed with a sqweeking sound and hit the ground at the entrance gate to the building site with a bang.

Luckily, no one was killed or injured one neighbour told me. But it looked like a sign of a possible future and sounded like doomsday. Like if the crash stated: "There is no need for another sky scraper here".

The times they are a-changin' – and I am out of tune

I feel old when I realize that I don’t have a clue what kind of new pop wave this Bangkok hair fashionista is into. It´s something about new "emo" music someone told me.

My own music taste just seem to lose itself in long forgotten decades. Anyone who want to join in for a Led Zeppelin concert if they go on a reunion tour?

Klong tour with Minna and Gittan

Minna, Mina´s good friend also working in Bangkok, took me and her mother Gittan on a tour of the Bangkok klongs (canals). A lush, quiet and serene, four hour ride indulging in nice canal side houses, an orchid farm and the temple of Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). Read more at Wikipedia.

The geeks´ Mecka approved by a buddhist

A new electric circuit to your graphic card, the latest zoom lens to your sister´s camera, pirate DVD:s or some home made ink to the printer? It´s all to be found at Pantip, a six-storey electro-shopping-bonanza-heaven.

And it´s obviously ok for everyone to expose the more materialistic side of your personality… I like.

Pacific Heights

Even though our apartment is not situated on the hills in San Fransisco - as the name of the building is suggesting - it´s all that you need to lead a comfortable "farang" life. And at a decent rate as well.

Touchdown at wedding

Mina threw me straight in to the everyday life of Bangkok. The day after I arrived from Stockholm she brought me to Noo´s wedding. Noo is a colleague of Mina.

The food was a blessing and the children’s "sitting dance" a new experience for me.

Nice start on my my year in Bangkok.