19 December 2006

Well that was "funny", me writing about the Thai baht loosing value, just a day before black Tuesday, where the Thai stock market lost almost 15% of it's value (800 billion Baht!), the most since 1997 which started the Asian Economic crisis, which also started in Thailand. The situation is the opposite now, a strong bath versus a weak bath then, and much stronger economies in Japan and China.

Anyway, I had some great days, met some interesting people, had my fair share of "nighttime fun" and tonight staying home recovering from the past few days :-)

Thai Baht

I don't know what happened today, but the euro gained exactly one baht from 46.0 to 47.0 today. That's a rise rarely or never seen. The US Dollar also gained a lotl from 35.2 to 35.9.

17 December 2006 New Evidence

I am not gonna write any more abt Lumpinee Park, but I had to post these two pics that I took today. True evidence of lizards and even turtles that are living in Lumpinee Park.

It's also finally really cooling down here in Bangkok. I managed to walk around Silom and the park for around three hours without a single drop of sweat. That's the way I like it.

15 December 2006

This morning i went for a 2 hour walk again in Lumpinee Park. If I don't walk too fast it is do-able for me :-) Then I thought i saw a crocodile in the park. Getting ready to call the police abt it, i investigated further and i guess it wasn't a crococile but a lizard type of big creature which I really don;t know what they are called. I did take a photo, but since it was taken from around 50 meters (I didnt dare to come closer) there is nothing to be seen. So i found one on the internet.

Then i was wondering how many people actually work in Lumpinee park. There must be hunderds of people, women picking up the leaves and putting them in baskets, lots of security guards who are most likely on the look out preventing me from smoking a cigarette. Why can't I smoke a cigarette there? Unlike on the new airport, there are numerous toilets in the park, and i believe it costs an amazing 2 baht if u choose to use them. Or maybe the sign says u can only use them 2 times per day?

The last time i went there i thought those pigeons always came to you when you sat down, but i guess there are just so many of them, so it just seems they come to you, while in fact they are unavoidable. The birds that are scarier are those big black ones, are they ravens? Does a bird look at you when his head is face towards you, or do they look from the side of their heads?

I came out with more questions then answers, so i'll go back their soon, in search for answers.

On Silom Road they sell fried chicken with sticky rice. I love that food so when ever i get a chance i buy some. When I walked back from Lumpinee Park to my apartment, i saw that they also sell it here, on the corner of saladeng soi 1 and rama IV. I came close to buying some here too, until i saw the quality of the oil they fry them in, or should i say, the non-quality? I know I can;t be as picky with these things as one can be in Holland, but this was abit too much for me.

Three days ago i went on the search for running shoes, size 46. first walked to Silom since they have some sportshops and I imagines that, if anywhere, they would sell bigger sizes there. Unfortunately these shops don;t open in the morning, probably later in the afternoon or so. So onwards to Siam Paragon, my next best bet. And there they did sell some at the Paragon mall. Size 46 here is not exactly size 46 in Europe but they will do for the few weeks here. At least now I can pretend i am doing healthy stuff, like running :-)

Last night i had my first attack, and hopefully the last, of non-stop diarrhea. After going to the bathroom for abt 10 times and only water coming out (yummie) which felt like acid at the end, i decided not to go the bathroom for the next 5 days any more. It still hurts now.

So and i got nothing else to write down, i need to take a nap, did i take naps 10 years ago ??

14 December 2006

Haven't had much chance to get to write much in the past few days. Enough went on though, and certainly not enough sleep. I am gonna catch up tonight!

On the photo is Mr Bao, the tallest man in the world measuring 2.36m, almost half a meter longer then I am. He comes from China and safed a Dolphin this week by going with his 1 meter ling arms into the dolphin's stomach to remove plastic. It all went well, the Dolphin will survive and i Know then the tallest man on the world is also an ugly man.

I am off to sleep now.

10 December 2006 Dinner

Today decided to stay in and have my dinner in front of the tv :-) All I need to do is call room service. The prices are very reasonable, I had indonesian fried rice and one of my favourites, spicy seafood salad, not so spicy here though. All for a total of 219 baht.

Tonight i'll go out again.

9 December 2006 Lumpinee Park

This morning walked around for 2 hours or so in Lumpinee Park, which is really just around the corner here. Boy was it hot out there especially when the morning progressed! I am really wondering when the cooler weather will hit Bangkok as this is supposed to be the cooler season.

There were so many pigeons in the park, i don't know why people like them and even feed them all the time. Pigeons are everywhere, just like rats. How sad is it that animal like chimpanzees, Tigers or Elephants are threatened with extinction, while pigeons seem to be able to live everywhere, hot or cold, wet or dry. Pigeons, you can bring them 100's of miles from their cage and they will still fly back to their cage. Some people call that clever, I call that the most stupid thing that exists, flying urself from freedom back into captivity. In Amsterdam there is a square called Dam Square. Nowadays it is forbidden to feed pigeons there because they shit all over the monumental buildings in that area. Since then, there are hardly any pigeons any more. Wonder if that also works with all the tourist :-)

Anyway took some photo's once again. I'll go out later tonight, watch a movie this afternoon.

Photo's of my Apartment in Bangkok

Photo's, This time of my apartment in Bangkok, Saladaeng. It's much less messier then my apartment in Holland :-)

7 December 2006 still a bit sick

Unfortunately still feeling a bit sick however i get the feeling i just need a huge amount of alcohol since I have not been drunk at all in the past 7 weeks or so.

This morning I walked all the way from Saladaeng Soi 1 (I live there) to Silom soi 7, Villa Supermarket. I'll do that once a week or so, not the walking part but the villa supermarket part, next time i think i'll just take a taxi, or a motorcycle since there are hunderds of them in this soi.

@ Villa i bought:
- 3 pieces of bread
- nescafe coffee and coffee milk.
- strawberry jam.
- 2 x peanut butter.
- one piece of Gouda Cheese (from Holland).
- sliced bacon.
- and some other food items.

I took a taxi back home and after that to 7 Eleven to buy some drinks, lots of beer, water, diet coke, and ice.

And now it's time to get some rest this afternoon, try to get some sleep and hopefully feel a lot better tonight!

6 December 2006 in Bangkok

Am in Bangkok now but really don't feel well. And it rained also this evening! Will go to sleep really early tonight and hope I will feel better tomorrow, after 10 hours of sleep or so :-)

4 December 2006

What a day this was. I had to wake up this morning at 6am to leave early. I had to go to Rotterdam for my bi-annual medical check-up. Everyone that works offshore has to go there once in every two years, and when ur over 50 y/o (AND I AM NOT !!) you have to go every year. They take an x-ray of ur longues, take two blood smaples, a urine sample and run some tests on those. They check ur hearing, ur eyes on all that basic stuff. It just takes an hour or so and all is done. I was declared drug and disease free for another two years. They don't check your mental health that's probably why i passed :-)
Still it is a 60 km ride up and down to Rotterdam so it took me the whole morning. In the afternoon did some more shopping and also planned to buy some shoes. However, the sales boy was so damn slow helping someone else that I really didn;t wanna wait, so no new shoes for me. Maybe tomorrow.

This afternoon i got an email from KLM that i could check in for my flight for tomorrow evening to Bangkok. I followed all their instructions to the best of my knowledge, but as almost always, the last step can't be made, i couldn't print my boarding pass. This means i'll have to go to the check-in counter and check in there (that's why it is called a check-in counter i guess), and then the girl there will say "oh why didn't you check in at home?". I promise I will be nice to her tomorrow!

Tonight is packing night. I love packing so it will be the night of my life and i am so slow doing it that it will probably take the whole evening and beyond it :-)

Long Live Your Majesty

It is probably safe to say that no monarch in the world is as popular as King Bhumibol. Or so revered. Or so present. His portrait hangs in virtually every home and office in the land, a kind of benevolent father watching over his children. Every night all TV channels run footage of royal family members attending official functions. Some, such as visits by foreign heads of state, are clearly significant; others would make little television sense anywhere else. But, as former premier Anand Panyarachun says, over the years the King has earned the admiration of his people in a manner that cannot be fully comprehended by foreigners."

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Two years ago, the Dutch Queen Beatrix visited Thailand's Royal Family. I was in Bangkok during that period. I will never forget it, because when i flew back to Holland with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines i was trying to get upgraded to business class but they kept on claiming it was fully booked. Disappointed I took my seat in economy class, but little was my surprise that suddenly the Queen walked in and walked straight into the Business Class. If I wanted to, I could have touched her so close by she passed me :-)

In Memoriam Jesse Dingemans (Updated!)

Last Friday an 8 y/o boy got murdered at his school in Hoogerheide, The Netherlands. The nation was shocked by this brutal murder. A few hours later they arrested a man, but until today (Monday) he denies any involvement. According to his lawyer, he has an alibi but a very wierd one!

I used to live in Hoogerheide for a few years and my parents still live there. It is usually a small piecefull village with around 8,000 people living there.

Update 4-12-06 : The man arrested is Julien C. An Antillian with a reasonable crminlal record already. Last monday he had to appear in court and the judge allowed police to keep him in custody for another 3 weeks, pending investigation results.
Update 5-12-06 : As it looks like Jesse was murdered because he caught Julien C. during his attempt to break into the school and steal something. Jesse knew Julien because of Julien's son; they were classmates. Julien would not have seen another way out then to murder Jesse to silence him. During his appearance in court, Julien remained calm, admitted having been in the school, but denies any involvement in the murder of Jesse Dingenans.

BBC COVERAGE~

Dutch child dies in school attack
An eight-year-old boy has been stabbed to death by a masked man at a primary school in the Netherlands.
A 22-year-old man has been arrested as a suspect in the killing of Jesse Dingemans, police said.
The attacker was not related to the boy, the son of a local bank manager, and the motive for the attack was not clear, police said.
The attack took place in the town of Hoogerheide, 150km (90miles) south of Amsterdam, near the Belgian border.
"The killer fled but police have now arrested a suspect," said police spokesman Willem van Hooijdonk.
"It does not seem that many children witnessed the incident," he told Dutch broadcaster NOS.
"As far as we can reconstruct it did not happen in front of a full classroom."
The boy is believed to have been stabbed when he went to an empty classroom to retrieve something.
The school was evacuated after the incident, while a helicopter hovered overhead. No murder weapon has been found.
The BBC's correspondent in The Hague, Geraldine Coughlan, said the killing has shocked the Netherlands.
School killings are rare in the country, which has strict laws on possession of weapons.
The Dutch Education Minister has said schools must be a secure environment for children.
A Dutch teacher was shot dead by a student and another seriously injured in a stabbing two years ago.

Photo's of my Apartment in Holland

Where am I: Netherlands - Bergen op Zoom. Rainy, 10C


My living room

Since i have my new Nokia N73 and i am starting to understand how it works, i have taken some photo's of my "apartment" here in Holland.

Please donot mind the mess. I stay here on average about 5 weeks per year and am paying only 295 euro/month rent for it. The Neighbourhood is decent, quiet and clean, i got cable tv, high speed internet and a washing machine included ,a living room, a bed room, a third room which i usually use for hanging my laundry and stuff, an entrance hall, a kitchen and a bathroom and a seperate toilet.

The Entrance The "third" room

The view from my bedroom

2006-12-01 Settling in at home

Where am I: Netherlands - Bergen op Zoom. Cloudy, Dry, 8C

So far today was so busy i am exhausted! I woke up at around 8am and then went to the dentist. I was a bit worried he couldn't fix my tooth but he could. The funny thing though is that it hurts more now then it did before. I hope it will go away soon.

Then at 13:00 i went to the hairdresser. Afterwards back home and then shopping a bit. I really needed a new phone so finally i bought one, a Nokia N73. It's quite nice although it will take ages for me to understand how it exactly works. So far i don't even know how to put in another simcard and i am too lazy to read the manual, yet!

Later i'll go buy some food and then relax the remainder of the evening.

Flying with Continental Flop Airlines

Where am I: Netherlands - Bergen op Zoom). Sunny, Dry, 8C

Flying with Continental Airlines is usually a guarantee for :

- Stewardesses from the stone age.
- food that sucks
- Huge delays.

There was one steweardess she was shrinking so fast that i doubted she would make the whole trip Houston - Amsterdam. She was wandering around the cabin before take-off, seemingly looking for a terrorist or so. After a while she gave up and I never saw her again.
I was not disappointed with the food, especially breakfast was jusut great! Some dried up fruit and something that looked like a croissant, how exciting.
The positive thing was, there was no delay. Even though when we departed from Houston everybody thought we were going to drive to Amsterdam instead of flying. Wow did that take a long time. And after landing at Schiphol, we thought we were driving back to Houston. That took even a longer time. It's always fun to taxi at Schiphol. Holland is one of the smallest countries in the world, but we have found enough space to make taxi-ing a whole new never ending experience.

ANyway, i got home, after having hit several traffic jams on the way, but hey, it's Holland and no traffic jam would just be an impossible thing. After it quiets down in the evening, they will start with the road construction causing new traffic jams, so if you're lucy, you will even be in one at 2 am! Isn't that fun!

I'm back home, it is horrible cold here. Tomorrow i gtg to the dentist and then to the hairdresser.

at Houston Airport

The first part of my crewchange went really well. I had an earlier flight from New Orleans airport and am now at the business class lounge at Houston International Airport. Flight leaves for Amsterdam around 7 tonight, so 5 hours to kill :-)

Hoping to post another blog when i am really at home!

29 November 2006 - Going home !!!

So Finally, after 5 weeks of hard work, I am going home tomorrow. I am packing my bags as we speak which is one of the nicest things to do here :-)

In my previous blog i mentioned my company is investing 1 billion dollar into a new vessel. Actually i was thinking, since there are around 810 fully employed people working for this company, what if they just gave that money to those people. Everyone would end up with over a million dollar and surely i would be ably to stop working! I'll keep on dreaming!
Anyway, for the people of this company it is really great news, since we'll own the best pipelaying cranevessel in the world, while actually, we own that one right now already, the one i am working on here!

Hopefully the crewchange goes well tomorrow and my next blog entry will be from my home in The Netherlands.

The people that work here, I hate you

Where am I: USA - Gulf of Mexico (offshore). Sunny, 24C

Man that walks around like he has nothing to do all day: You have horrendous body odor. Not just a little bit, but when you walk into my office i feel like dropping dead!

Man that works here as one of the big bosses, I truely don't care that your wife can drive a car too, or where you spend your holidays. Did you know you have a very bad smell coming from your mouth? They have toothbrushes and chewing gum for that!

Little man that sits the whole day and has the body that shows for it! Don't think you need to check on me all the time since you lack all the authority. Get a life and stop talking to me!

The guy that i still don't know what he does here. You proud of yourself that you wanted to call me because i didn't wear a helmet inside the ship, but you saw me on a camera?

And then this guy that is so stressed out the whole day and even starts kicking machines when they don't do what he wants them to do! Don't you get it, oh no you are too stupid anyway, but machines do exactly what you make them do! There is no need to shout at people when they don't know what you need just by looking at you running their way.

For the rest, everything is just fine and I'm going home tomorrow!

27 November 2006

Where am I: USA - Gulf of Mexico (offshore). Sunny, 24C


Today I had a little arguement with our superintendent. Of course I lost and ended up apologizing. The good thing is he'll instantly pretend it never happened and business as usual.

The last few days have really been crazy. We are preparing for a project that no-one in the world has ever done before. Loads of equipment coming on board or need to come on board and yep, it's my job to take care of that. One piece of equipment missing and we can't continue. It's a bit stressfull but I have done this sort of things many times before and I don't make many mistakes.

Wednesday my crewchange is coming up when i should be going home. However, a cold from, and a very strong one, i pushing southwards which may cause bad weather, just like two weeks ago when things didn't go really smooth!

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see how it goes. Tomorrow i'll post some photo's of something cause I know not everyone likes to only read . . . . . . . . .

26 November 2006

Where am I: USA - Gulf of Mexico (offshore). Sunny, 26C.

It's weekend :-) Nothing much here though, just worked the whole day and tomorrow as well.

Things i have been thinking of today:
- nothing
- absolutely nothing.

The weather in The Netherlands has been very warm this year, as last year. Today they had a record max temperature of 19C in the south. Don't forget, it's the autumn season now and it shouldn't be warmer then 8C. Meteorologists think it's because of the continuous winds from the South, warmer sea temperatures because of the hot summer, and of course the greenhouse effect. Why don't they just say they don't know?
Whatever it is, it is great isn't it?
In Thailand they are expecting a very dry season for the South. This again due to the El Nino effect which is simply said a warmer then usual water current in the Pacific Ocean. El Nino also caused the fact that there were hardly any Hurricanes in the Atlantic this year, as opposed to last year. El Nino originates at the North West of South America and causes strong upper level winds over the Atlantic Ocean, thus creating unfavourable conditions for hurricanes to develop.

In Chiang Mai they have some kind of Flora expo. The Tulips that are shown there come from Holland, at least the bulbs are. These bulbs were flown from Holland to New Zealand, grown there in the cool mountains, and then flown to Thailand. There they were put temporarily in airconditioned areas other they would have died too soon.

Now I have no more nonsense to share, so i am off.

25 November 2006

Where am I: USA - Gulf of Mexico (offshore). Sunny, 25C

I didn't get pissed off with someone for a while now (couple of weeks at least). Usually it doesn't take much or that person gets slammed with lots of my verbal aggression, in which i am very good by the way. I got many people scared and walking away but not daring to ask their questions any more.

But the last few weeks i have been kind, friendly, helpful to all people, answering the phone with a smile and replying emails kindly and patiently even if I find the question stupid (which doesn't necessarily mean it is a stupid question). At the daily vessel meetings i laugh if someone makes a joke and i even share one of mine, and everybody else laughs. If that is because the joke is good, or out of surprise to hear me tell a joke, i couldn't care less.

With all this i am ruining my long build-up repuation, of being a bad tempered (especially in the morning) unapproachable unsocial guy.

Now i can smile without people thinking "what's wrong with Robert, he smiles!"

I am feeling good, I had some good talks with people up the hierarchy, taking their advise after they did really listen to me. Another part, the last two weeks were high profile weeks, especially logistically, and when it gets crazy then i get the best out my self. I just felt so confident, and now that it's over and seeing that everything went perfect, Well it just makes me happy. The people that work for me are happy too, cuz they know how i can be at previous occasions.

Well it's hard to explain, but i'm feeling happy. Good in my skin. Hope this will last for a long time
For the good of myself!

Pregnant Men

Where am I: USA - Gulf of Mexico (offshore)

If you think you have read everything .. Today i read this on the news ;

SANTIAGO, Chile - A boy has been born in Chile with a fetus in his stomach in what doctors said was a rare case of "fetus in fetu" in which one twin becomes trapped inside another during pregnancy and continues to grow inside it.
Doctors carried out a scan on the boy's mother shortly before she gave birth on Nov. 15 in the southern city of Temuco and noticed the 4-inch-long fetus inside the boy's abdomen.
It had limbs and a partially developed spinal cord but no head and stood no chance of survival, doctors said.

23 November 2006

Where am I: USA - Gulf of Mexico (offshore)


As i promised in my blog of the 21st, i would tell you how i would fly back to Holland. I should never have said i preferred to fly through Minneapolis, because I am flying through Houston.

DUH!

The elections where held today in Holland and the results are that I know you don't care and neither do I, isn't that great.

No more politics in this blog. After the results it has become clear that the formation of a new govervment will take months!

I'd like to learn something new each day. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy.
Well, today it was simply amusing to see how someone taught me how not to do something. When some-one, at the top of the hierarchy at any kind of organization, makes a wrong decision with incidents as a result, but won't admit to it, he will loose all his credibilty and respect. In order to avoid loosing face, which unavoidably he does anyway, he will use any means to justify his actions. He is therefor the looser of the day!