An American in Asia: His Quest for Cosmic Truth (or at least a Decent Espresso)

 

Alien Stingers, Tsunami Buoys and a Taxi Rebellion

I was sitting on my porch last week, as I am often wont to do of a cool evening, when, casual as you please, a red-necked keelback crawled past my feet.

I wasn't aware of its particular nomenclature at the time. I just saw a brown snake with red and yellow markings around its head, probably a meter long were I brave enough to stretch him out next to a ruler.

I have excellent reflexes, so with lightning speed, I did absolutely nothing. It was probably the right thing to do. The snake crawled past and moved towards a small row of shrubbery just in front of the porch.

Once it was past my feet, I called my wife to bring the broom. I may have managed to keep some of the panic out of my voice. I didn't know if the snake was poisonous, but it's safe to assume that everything in the tropics is poisonous. Even food.

I kept a close eye on the snake while I waited for her to arrive with the broom, and her Thai farmer's opinion on what kind of danger I was looking at.

Before she could arrive, though, the snake slithered around the base of a short bush. Its head disappeared and I was looking at its tail. A moment later I was looking at nothing. The bush wasn't that dense, but the snake had just disappeared right in front of my face.

My wife arrived with the broom and I did my best to describe what I'd seen. "Is it poisonous, darling?" I asked.

"Hmm. Maybe," she said helpfully.

I went back in the house and came out with a baseball bat. My wife looked horrified. "Don't kill it, darling. It's bad luck."

"What kind of luck is it when you get bitten by a poisonous snake?" I asked. My next hour was spent perched on the porch railing, glaring intently into the bushes, but the snake never reappeared.

The next day I found a book on Thai snakes while browsing at a bookstore, and there it was: a red-necked keelback. And yes, if one bites you, you'll be wanting to hit the very nearest hospital that stocks anti-venom. Potentially deadly, that one.

Attack of the Alien Stingers

While on the subject of animals that want to poison you, jellyfish continue to be a nuisance in the waters around Phuket. They're not big jellyfish. In fact they're so small, I've never actually seen one.

But I feel them often enough and they're really annoying. The stings aren't dangerous - no stronger than a nettle sting - and the sensation disappears after a few minutes. However the mere thought that something with tentacles, no matter how small, was doing its best to kill and eat me, is just plain icky.

I don't know why it makes me feel better to know exactly what those little stingers are, but it does. So I futzed around with Google and I think I found them: cnidarian planula.

No, a gecko didn't just dance on my keyboard, cnidarian planula are jellyfish larvae. They float around randomly stinging things until they find a nice rock to stick to, where they mutate into little stalks that eventually start sprouting jellyfish clones. See the nifty jellyfish life-cycle illustration (above left) I found at Alienstingers.com, along with a sexy video of spawning jellyfish.

And now, for the news:

The US ambassador visited Phuket this past week to drop a tsunami warning buoy in the ocean. Nice speech, ambassador.

The buoy, which is attached to sensors that rest at the bottom of the ocean, can detect the passage of a tsunami wave and transmit the info via satellite to warning stations. It is a way to confirm whether a large undersea earthquake or landslide actually creates a tsunami (they don't always).

The buoy is to be placed in the middle of the Andaman Sea, just beyond the Nicobar Islands. It's certainly a nice gift from the US government however, I've got one question.

I was looking at the map that showed where the buoy would be placed. The location is quite far from Banda Aceh (the origin of 2004's Asian Tsunami) - almost as far as Phuket is. So if there were another quake in the same area, how would the buoy detect the wave before it hit Phuket? Wouldn't the wave reach the buoy after it had already demolished Phuket?

On a related note, I learned that "buoy" is Thai slang for a certain part of the female anatomy, which explained why my wife thought this news item was so funny.

Meanhwile, up in the capital, the airport was blockaded for some hours by ranks of taxi drivers. They were protesting the fact that a driver was issued a traffic ticket for refusing to use the meter when bringing a tourist to the airport.

Thai taxi drivers have long been notorious for ripping off tourists - overcharging, even refusing to take visitors to their destination and instead delivering them to a different hotel where the driver receives a kickback. But this is the first time I've heard of them actually organizing a protest to uphold their nefarious activities.

It's also one of the few times I've heard of Thai police standing up for the rights of tourists without some sort of kickback involved.

Horticultural Horrors

For professional reasons, I've been following the development of the Horticultural Exhibition in Chiang Mai, ever since Thailand started losing its bid for the event two years ago.

It was originally to be the International Horticultural Exhibition 2006, a bi-annual event that is held at various cities around the world. It is a huge deal for any city - a planty olympics. Thailand was lucky enough to be named the 2006 venue back in 1990.

However, when the Thaksin regime demanded that Chiang Mai be used as the venue, the World Horticultural Association (WHA), noted with some concern that no venue construction had commenced with less than two years to go before the opening.

They decided to hedge their bets, and split this year's exhibition between Genoa Italy, Shenyang China, and Chiang Mai Thailand.

The Thais responded to this with a schoolyard tantrum. They got pissed and threatened to pull out of the event entirely, saying, "We're going to have our own show and you're not invited!"

When that didn't faze anyone, they changed their tune and renewed their appeal for funding from the organizers. But by then, the WHA had already shifted committments towards the Chinese show and now the Chiang Mai expo is just a blip on the radar, international in name only. Two years ago Thailand was looking forward to 5 million international visitors. Now they'll be lucky if they see 1% of that.

I covered this story for my newspaper from the beginning with enthusiasm, only to watch bickering bureaucrats fritter away a wonderful opportunity for their country.

I like Thailand and the Thais. A lot. In my work and daily life, I try to do what I can to help this country enter the First World with its unique culture intact. But I am often made to wonder why I bother. Sometimes I think Thailand is like the favored son of rich parents, who keeps wrapping Ferraris around trees.

For our final item: those who don't live in Pattaya will feel better about it when they read this item from the Pattaya Mail: Transvestite amphetamine dealer leads police to live hand grenade in lover's room. I......I really can't think of anything to add to that.

Happy Holidays!