Back in Asia. It didn't go anywhere while I was gone.

And thank goodness, I say. Although there was a bit of drama. I arrived at the lovely hour of "middle of the night", with a line in immigration more appropriate for a Starbucks with free PSLs. The airline did a wonderful job of losing not only my luggage, but everyone who connected in Detroit. So, there was quite a line at the office, and in the end, I had to go straight to work without sleep. And then back again after work to retrieve my luggage. Then home to die after about 48 hours without a night's sleep. But, as expected, Thai customs did not care that I was far over my limit for beer. Like always, I just walked out. SE Asia is funny like that, and they simply cannot be bothered to do their jobs when there are candies to crush and clans to clash. Nice to be home.

The beer was all consumed minus one bottle during a collective "beer tasting" sort of get together at our place. While all of the beers seemed to be big hits, Ella and Blueberry seem to prefer IPAs. I know they're getting a bit of a pushback in the states lately, but hoppy beers are not really a thing over here. So, Singha, if you're listening, put out a Leo IPA. It may be a big hit.

So, in Bangkok news a new night market opened in the middle of town called Neon. I thought the name was appropriate, especially that given this weekend Neon's in Cincinnati closed down. I have way too many fond memories for that bar, and I'm hoping this place could help to fill the gap. It's my favorite night market so far, with an interesting selection of food, lots of cute things, and probably the cheapest bar I have ever seen in Asia. They sell large beers for 60b, and they're 56b at 7-11. Not sure how they stay in business to be honest, but I'll be glad to help them out as best I could. The market has a mixture of tents and re-purposed shipping containers, which gives it a very unique and cool look. Combined with the christmasty-looking trees out front, I really like this place. I hope it does well.

Our awesome group made one more interesting stop the following day at Bounce World, a trampoline fun park. I've never done anything like that before, but since my phone was in my locker I don't have any pictures to share. Our friend Erofile brought her camera, and I'll have to wait until I get a hold of those photos to talk about it. But instead I'm going to talk about a day trip Ella and I took to Samut Prakan province, which is SE of Bangkok. It's along the Gulf of Thailand, and I've only been there once before - to visit the Ancient City. Oddly enough, right before the last Star Wars movie (loved Rogue One, btw). This time, we were going the opposite direction, and crossing the river to end up directly south of Bangkok. Aside from some very vague directions from a blog Ella found online, we weren't really sure how to get around. But what followed was one of the best days of travel I've had in Bangkok.

Despite being so close to Bangkok, Samut Prakan has that some phenomenon that Koh Kret and Ho Chi Minh has. It's just suddenly super rural. One minute your beset with 7-11s every block, markets packed with people, and then like someone drew a line in the sand, you have chickens and rice fields. Our first stop was to Fort Phrachulachomklao, at the mouth of the Chao Phraya. In the late 1800s this fort tried (unsuccessfully) to defend Thailand from the French in a thing known as the Pak Nam Incident. For a super quick summary sure to get historians angry: Thailand used to control a lot of Laos. The French wanted it. Thailand wouldn't budge. The French sailed a warship right up the river and aimed their guns at the Royal Palace. Thailand suddenly felt like budging. Fun fact - Thailand successfully took the territory back some 50 years later, and built Victory Monument to honor the occasion. That only lasted for 5 years until the French said they would block Thailand's entry to the UN unless they ceded the territory back to them.

That sucks. Sorry Thailand.


So this fort is actually on a military base, and you have to go through a checkpoint to get in. There are signs saying that you need to disembark and show ID to get in. In typical Thai style, nobody could be bothered to actually do that, so the songthaew driver just went on through. The fort itself is fine. Basically just a series of concrete bunkers connected by tunnels, full of bugs and probably stray dogs. The real star was a warship they had set up there that you could explore. It reminded me a lot of the naval museum in Qingdao, where they just set up this ship and said "go nuts". There wasn't too much that was off limits, and it was a really interesting look at what life would have been like aboard one of these. Also there was a cat with 5 kittens hanging out there, so this could've been the worst place ever and Ella would still be happy. After, we ate at a seafood restaurant that supposedly has some of the best food in Thailand. The shrimp was pretty good. Oddly enough I thought their chicken was great. It reminded me a lot of American Chinese food.

After hitching a ride back to town, the next stop was Wat Khun Samut Chin. Like the fort, this also has an interesting story. This temple used to be in a town. However, rising sea levels have made the temple into an island. The town itself is pretty much gone. The only people still there live on stilted houses, and use boats to get around. The streets are now canals, and you could only tell since they still have telephone poles sticking out. It's kind of a sad situation, and a poster child of sorts to the dangers of climate change. However for the present, it's an interesting trip. You travel along the one road in town, get off by a bridge in the middle of godamn nowhere, and suddenly under the boats there are speedboats. They take you to a pier, and from there is a very narrow causeway out to the temple. In typical Thai fashion, they have a songthaew that will take you there, that drives entirely too fast on an entirely too narrow causeway. The temple itself is pretty boring, although interestingly they never raised it to combat the water. Instead they raised the floor, which means the once tall doors are basically like little passageways. Next to it was a large Chinese temple which I thought looked beautiful, with a giant Buddha statue with his (her? its?) palms forward. They say this is to "hold back" the ocean.

Good luck with that.

Making our way back to town, we had one more destination. Baan Sa Khla is pretty much the last stop on this road. Past this, it's all land that's been lost to the ocean. I expect this village will be as well, which has likely been here for hundreds if not thousands of years,. But it will probably end up like Samut Chin and lose all of its residents aside from a stubborn few. Right now it's a neat looking town of perhaps a thousand or so, and most people commute by boat or bicycle. They were having a festival when we arrived, which just added to the list of surprises for today. Their temple was odd, in typical Thai fashion had a giant statue of the Incredible Hulk. This is one of my favorite wats in Thailand though, because inside they had a pond filled with lotus leaves. Also, one of the annexes had a Hindu temple, which I thought was really nice. Like, can't we all just get along? Why are there no churches in America with mosques attached?

They also had a Khmer-style stupa, which is only notable in that it has a pretty severe tilt to it. The pictures online made it look worse than it actually was, but as heavy as this thing is perhaps it will also fall one day. I hope that wherever we are in the world when it does, I'm still going to hear about it. Because it was a great little town, and a great little province. I remember the last blog I wrote about that a Chinese temple near the river, and how that would be a really popular tourist site if it were near downtown. I have no idea why what we did today is not listed as a day trip by travel agencies. I'm glad it's not, as I did not see a single foreigner all day. I've included a few videos below, and there are many, many more pictures on Facebook. But it was a super interesting, fun day that I can't believe no one has heard about - not even my Thai friends. Bangkok never ceases to surprise.

On the last blog (last last?) I teased about a project that I had been starting to work on. While it's probably not entirely ready for debut yet, I started another blog. This one resulted from the fact that when I was learning how to teach ESL, I was frustrated that there is so, so much bullshit that does not really help at all. "Sure, talking about theory is great. But I have to teach a class tomorrow, so how about something useful?" So, I started No BS ESL. It's still very much a WIP, but I like the direction it's going so far. Maybe one day I can turn this into something lucrative. Probably not. But it's a nice way to vent the frustrations of an industry that I love, but often has its head up its own ass.