Saturday, October 23rd, 2021
5:25 a.m. Room 312, SOHO Boutique Hotel
Tak City, Thailand
My two nights at the SOHO have ended way too fast. I’ll be sad to leave. However, my Mystery Benefactor also booked me three nights at a nice hotel in Kamphaeng Phet, where I’m riding to today. The hotel is called the FIG Boutique Hotel. It’s interesting that the name follows the same pattern as the SOHO. It’s a boutique hotel, assuming having that in the name actually means something. And the name is capitalized. That makes me think it is also an acronym. I wonder what FIG stands for? And why is it a boutique hotel? From the pictures, it looks like a very nice hotel with large and comfortable rooms. I don’t know what is considered boutique about it. I associate the word boutique with places that are small, with perhaps a heavy emphasis on design. The SOHO and the FIG don’t strike me as boutique-style places.
Door-to-door on the main road, the FIG is listed as 74 kilometers away. I plan, of course, to take smaller roads, so the distance will be a bit more than that. However, I don’t anticipate a long or arduous day. It’s actually closer than my guest house in Mae Sot. With that in mind, I don’t need to leave super early. As before, I’m going to take my time and eke out as much enjoyment out of this SOHO room and SOHO breakfast as I can, and leave later.
Yesterday was an interesting day. Another national holiday in Thailand snuck up on me. I had no idea it was a holiday weekend, but it is. October 23rd is Chulalongkorn Day, which celebrates the reign of King Rama V. I did a bit of reading about this king yesterday, and I learned that he was Thailand’s modernizing monarch. Thailand was known as Siam at that time, of course. He ascended to the throne of Siam in 1868, when he was just 15 years old. And he assumed the crown in 1873 when, I guess, he was 20 years old. He remained king until his death at the age of 57 on October 23rd, 1910.
He instituted a number of reforms in his lifetime, including the abolition of slavery. He adopted the Gregorian calendar. He organized the country into provinces and districts. I believe the postal system and the first railroad was built during his time as king. He was also instrumental in keeping Siam free from European colonization. As part of his efforts to keep Siam independent and to modernize the country, he travelled extensively and studied modern methods of government in various countries, including countries in Europe. He established relationships with European rulers. He studied English with a tutor named Anna Leonowens. Anna’s experience in Thailand’s royal court was captured in a book by Margaret Landon called “Anna and the King of Siam”, and that book was turned into the famous musical and film called “The King and I.” There is the story that he would dress up as a normal person and walk around Siam in secret to understand the lives and possible hardships of ordinary people. He is now one of Thailand’s most beloved rulers from history.
I didn’t have specific plans for the day, but after some poking around on Google Maps, I decided to explore Tak City on foot rather than get back on my scooter. I thought that as I walked around, I could keep my eyes open for any statues of King Rama the Fifth and see if people were leaving any offerings there. And I decided to walk along the Ping River and visit two places, both of which were associated with history. The first was the Tak City Memorial Museum, and the second was the Ban Chin Alley, an alley filled with impressive homes that once belonged to wealthy Chinese merchants.
To my surprise, the museum was actually open, and I found it without much difficulty. My experience of the museum was not as pleasant as I’d hoped. I was simply too hot to really relax. And just as I arrived and got organized for my visit, the GoPro overheated and shut down again. And I decided to switch over to the Pocket 2. Just the whole process of switching cameras mid-experience got me flustered and out of sorts. And the museum did not have any information in English. I was reduced mainly to just looking at a bunch of random items that, apparently, were connected to the history of Tak City. A woman did approach me at one point and offer to answer any questions I might have. She was the official English-speaking tour guide for the museum. I didn’t really take advantage of her offer, though. I generally prefer to experience places on my own, and I don’t get much enjoyment out of being guided. The highlight for me was the museum building itself. It was a large and beautiful two-story wooden structure, and it was a pleasure to simply walk around its various rooms and up and down the staircases. The wooden floors had been polished to within an inch of their lives, and they gleamed in the sunlight coming in from the windows.
The Ban Chin Alley was just a short distance away from the museum, and I spent an hour or two strolling up and down the alley and taking in the old houses. This alley had been developed heavily for tourism, and there were a fair number of plaques providing information and QR codes to websites. However, they were all in Thai. And it wasn’t possible to go inside any of these buildings or even onto the grounds. They still served as private homes, after all. But it was pleasant to take it all in from the street.
The problems I faced were the two that have become common: the heat and camera failures. It was midday, and the sun was beating down strongly. And this affected me and my GoPro. I began sweating profusely, and my GoPro just gave up. It overheated and shut down in short order. I decided not to mess around this time, and I just put it away instantly and got out the Pocket 2. I have to say that as much as I love the Pocket 2 in many situations, it can be difficult to use out in the rough-and-tumble real world. The main problem I faced yesterday is that I often struggle to understand where the camera is pointing. The gimbal is often pointing in strange directions, usually far too high. I think I am aiming the camera straight ahead, but it will be angled upwards, and I’m not filming what I think I’m filming. It’s difficult to keep track of. And the screen is so small and my eyesight is now so poor that I can’t really see anything unless I put on my reading glasses and hold the Pocket 2 right up to my face.
I started to think yesterday that it was time to abandon 4K on the GoPro when it is so hot. Shooting in 4K produces too much heat. And perhaps I should go back to using my Panasonic G85 more often. True, it is bigger and heavier. But it is very much a reliable workhorse. I don’t think it will overheat. And the screen is big. It just works. It isn’t as fidgety and delicate as a Pocket 2 or as temperamental as a GoPro. If only it had better autofocus. It’s crazy that after these years and after so much thought put into cameras in general, I still don’t have a single camera that just does what I need it to do without complaint. I keep going back to the Olympus cameras in my head. Perhap my life would have been much happier if I’d taken the time (and spent the money) to switch to the OM-D E-M5 II or even the OM-D E-M1 II. Would I be a happier man today if I’d done that? Or are there problems with those cameras that I’m not aware of?
Once I’d come to the end of my time at the Ban Chin Alley, I walked back along the Ping River and returned to the SOHO. I had to get out of that sun. And I wanted to enjoy this room. It was actually pretty late in the day by that point, and other than going out to get dinner, I spent the rest of the evening here at the hotel.
I just realized I haven’t mentioned the breakfast. That was a big part of my day as well. I went down to the lobby, intending to just go outside and return to the Awake Owl for my breakfast. But a hotel staff member anticipated what I was doing, and she stopped me and redirected me into the hotel’s actual breakfast room. And a large buffet spread was laid out there. I don’t know the reasons for this, but I assumed that on my last visit, there were so few guests at the hotel, that it didn’t make sense to put on a full breakfast. So they used the services of the Awake Owl. But this weekend, they have many more guests. This could be because of the holiday. And it was worthwhile for them to open up their own dining area. You still ordered your main meal from a menu, and I got the usual breakfast set plus rice porridge. That was brought to my table by a waiter. But I could help myself to orange drink and toast and coffee from a buffet. Five or six other tables were occupied, and I was able to observe the other guests as I ate. I noticed two things in particular. Neither thing was particularly positive. I noticed that most of the Thai people at the other tables were quite fat. They were fat enough that I couldn’t help but think they could benefit from skipping the large breakfast they were eating. I’ve never been a fan of fat. And I often wonder about married couples that become fat, particularly if just one of them becomes fat. There was one couple across from me, and I couldn’t help but notice just how fat the man was. He was a young guy, much younger than me, but he had a huge belly and giant thighs. He was wearing shorts, and the design of the shorts were such that they couldn’t really wrap themselves around all that fat. The result was that they were sucked in tightly around his crotch and butt. It just looked so uncomfortable. And I looked at the woman sitting across the table from him, and I felt sure that he didn’t look like this when they got married. And how must she feel now? Does she feel cheated? She married this guy when he looked normal, and now he was very fat. Does she feel upset about that? This fat theme was spread across nearly every table in the place.
The other thing I noticed was that there was zero conversation happening. Every single person, even those sitting at tables with friends and family, was absorbed by their phone. No one was talking. Every single person was staring at their phone, swiping through screens, tapping on things, and typing messages. No one was talking to their breakfast companions. I’m always sitting alone, but I rarely have my phone out while I’m eating. If I do have a phone out, it’s because I’m listening to a podcast through earphones.
I just checked the weather forecast, and it looks like today will be a comfortable day. It might be cloudy, but they aren’t calling for thunderstorms or anything like that. The decision I have to make is which route to follow to Kamphaeng Phet. I can try to follow the small roads on the east side or the west side of the Ping River. I haven’t been able to decide which side might be more interesting or more scenic. I think I will take the road on the east side. The small road on the west side looks nice, too, but the main highway is also on the west side. That is the main highway that runs from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and I want to stay as far away from that highway as possible.