|
|
|
|
|
|
Travel Tips The Adventures of Roman Wanderaugh in Cambodia & Thailand - November 2008
Roman Wanderaugh - National Radio Text Service
Thailand's Loi Kratong Holiday - BEWARE OF THAILAND - During this turbulent political trouble in the country one should be very cautious where they travel. Since the holiday is celebrated with fire crackers and explosives that combined with the political protests involving former prime minister and now fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra creates a volatile situation. - Cambodia's Water Festival - Pedestrians in Phnom Penh BEWARE - BEWARE OF THAI VISA Internet Theft
Tuesday November 4, 2008
THAILAND'S LOI KRATONG HOLIDAY Thailand will be celebrating their Loi Kratong holidays from November 11th to November 13th. The main day is the night of the full moon. The roads will be filled with travelers returning to their provinces to celebrate with their families. Typically the celebration includes floating candles on water and launching hot air paper balloons into the sky in the evening hours. Beauty contests are abundant throughout the country. Chiang Mai is said to have the most elaborate festivities. We took in their festivities in 2003. There was a lot of activity around the Thapae Gate area in the center of town that included a beauty contest. Many restaurants along the Ping River where most of the revelers gather feature a dinner and private riverfront access to the activity. Reservations are advised. Beware…. After we left the restaurant firecrackers and cherry bombs were being haphazardly tossed by youths and some were thrown up in the air. One Thai youth had a bandage on his eye. This is a dangerous situation so take heed. In the riverfront area the crowds are thick so beware of pickpockets. BEWARE OF THAILAND During this turbulent political trouble in the country one should be very cautious where they travel. Since the holiday is celebrated with fire crackers and explosives that combined with the political protests involving former prime minister and now fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra creates a volatile situation. On October 7 two people were killed and over 400 injured during the protests in Bangkok. Some reports indicated 500 injured. Tear gas canisters which exploded were largely responsible. They were purchased from China without being aware of the explosive effects. Last week the Channel News Asia reported that a hand-grenade was thrown into a crowd but there were no injuries. The problems in the south of the country have been going on for years. When we were traveling from Singapore by train in a sleeping compartment the Malaysian person who shared the room with informed us said not to travel by train in the south of Thailand. He said explosives were used in the train station in Hat Yai. We were a bit skeptical but out of touch with the situation having been in Indonesia on the island of Bintan for two weeks. He then explained that he was aware of the problem since he worked for the Malaysian railroad. The following morning he invited us to his home for breakfest and to meet his family in Penang. It was that day that the information he shared with us was printed in the newspaper. He was on top of the story and very knowledgeable about the problem. We then changed our plans and took a flight to Phuket and avoided traveling by train to Hat Yai. Our Muslim friend drove us to the airport and waited until we entered the plane. We did visit Hat Yai about a year later but not by train and had no problems. The point is Thailand's political problems won't go away nor will the anger. This past week Shinawatra spoke to his supporters via video phone. That action continues to add fuel to the political fire. The problem in the south is the Muslim community wants to be treated more fairly and with respect. This problem goes back centuries as the populace feel they are more Malaysian and not Thai. There are questions about how Thailand acquired their territory. The end result is Thailand is filled with problems, problems, problems. Having said that prior to their adopting their form of Democracy in the 90's it was the nicest place we've ever visited. The people were warm and genuine. Since that time they have largely abandoned their Buddhist philosophy of being non material can caring. Now a lager segment of the populace is for the most part greedy and materialistic. That is one underlying reason for the problems they now have as they have developed the country and in doing so have ruined their natural environment to the point where they are constructing imitation wild life parks for tourists. Much of the problem stems from land grabbing. Many have suffered and the land grabbing has alienated many their people and disenfranchised them. We have been visiting Thailand since 1988. On our first visit portions of the newspaper were blacked out by order of the government. A foreigner journalist and long time resident of the country said at a meeting at the FCCT (Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand) "This isn't the country we fell in love with." The irony of that is when he mad the statement Thailand was introducing their Elite Card to the foreign media. The membership for the card at that time cost $25,000 for the honor of having it. One of the perks was a card holder was entitled to a 5% discount at selected businesses and use of certain golf courses at a discount. They wanted to attract a more select group of tourists and eliminate the image that Thailand was a backpacker destination as depicted in the film, 'The Beach.' Since that time the Elite card has been embroiled in corruption. If its problems you're looking for they are in Thailand.
THE WATER FESTIVAL IS HAPPENING IN PHNOM PENH IN NOVEMBER November will be a busy month in Phnom Penh where the Water Festival also known as Bon Om Tuk will be celebrated from November 11 to November 13th. During this period Cambodians flock to the city to celebrate and visit family and friends. Phnom Penh will be crowded. Celebrations are mostly held along the Tonle Sap riverfront areas between the Naga Casino and Wat Phnom. Activities include boat races during the day whereas provinces compete against each other for a cash prize. Vendors are everywhere selling food. Some of the downside is that banks are closed, heavy road traffic with people coming into town and many of the foreign owned business in the area closed and their owners leave town during this time citing that customers can't access their business due to the crowds and closed roads. NOTE: BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETS. Roads are closed usually from Norodom Boulevard to the riverfront. In the evening there are fireworks that begin at nightfall. Colorfully lit floats parade in a circular motion on the Tonle Sap River. The floats are assembled by various Provinces and compete for a cash prize. Entertainment stages are set up in the parks. There are two trains of thought on the event. Avoid it or enjoy it. For those that prefer not to watch boat races under the hot sun the festivities are also televised. PEDESTRIAN BEWARE Walking the streets of Phnom Penh is no easy task. Quite frankly IT IS DANGEROUS. The sidewalks are primarily used by businesses for auto parking or restaurants extending their business on the public sidewalks by placing chairs and tables to the extent that pedestrians must walk in to street to get through. Lining up motorbikes forming a wall as well as glass counters, flowerpots, beverage coolers and equipment for vehicle repair also creates barriers. Once in the street you must look both ways as motorcycles and vehicles go the wrong way and on the wrong side of the street. If you're used to looking into the oncoming traffic take the time to look the opposite way for the wrong way driver. If you're injured the medical facilities in Cambodia area nightmare and not recommended. Those that can afford it travel to Thailand or Vietnam for medical treatment. If you're using a motor taxi for transport make sure that they are sober before getting on the bike. It is seldom that a motor-taxi driver takes the time to look before moving into another lane of traffic. Should you feel uncomfortable about your driver, get off and look for another. The life you save may be your own. Make sure you hold your purse or bag IN FRONT OF YOU ON YOUR CHEST. A French girl recently died after an unsuccessful snatch and grab of her purse while she was a passenger on a motorcycle. She fell into traffic and was run over by an oncoming vehicle. NATIONAL RADIO PUBLISHED IN 5 LANGUAGES We are published in five languages, English, Thai, French, Russian and Khmer (Cambodian language). Any of our foreign language material and our Roman Wanderaugh columns are legally available ONLY on our National Radio site. AD INTEREST We have received interest in advertising on National Radio via email . Please note those who are seriously interested please include your telephone number(s), address and contact person and our account executive will contact you. Due to security procedures we do not click on links or open attachments sent from unknown sources via email. INTERNET THEFT? In researching the findings we have found that search engines Yahoo, Google and MSN are all guilty of misleading the public. They have linked our story information to other sites without our permission. Those sites include Thai Visa, Washington University in the USA and UNESCO. We have tried to contact Yahoo regarding this matter but there was no response. For our story on Digital Divide Data titled Bridging The Digital Gap Yahoo linked our information to UNESCO and Washington University web sites as noted below. Cambodia (PDF) 13 James Loving, "DDD - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have. Notes," (by James Loving, National Radio Text Service, 8 April 8, ... www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/Metasurvey/CAMBODIA.PDF - 117k - View as html The questions are: 1. Why would a company that is valued at billions of dollars employ dishonest practices? 2. Who is responsible for manipulating information that is misleading to the public? 3. Who is responsible at UNESCO in permitting the practice? Yahoo used the same story to mislead the public to the Washington University (USA) web site as noted below: Cambodia (PDF) 13 James Loving, "DDD - Bridging the Digital Gap of Have and Have. Notes," (by James Loving, National Radio Text Service, 8 April 8, ... www.com.washington.edu/ict4d/upload/2004052712430458_03760155.pdf - 117k - View as html WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Our Roman Wanderaugh columns have been linked to other web sites by all three search engines without our permission. The most flagrant violator is Thai Visa. We have contacted them in the past but they have ignored our request to take our stories off their site. All three of the mentioned search engines have used our story information and linked it to Thai Visa without our permission. Thai Visa actually stole our story and posted it on their site. In the past they not only stole our Cambodia By Land & Sea story but also used our photo. Since that time the photo is not on our story on their site. Google provides advertising for the site. The question is why would a company that is worth billions of dollars resort to supporting a web site that steals? The information of our information page on the Google site also had the following endorsing going to the Thai Visa site. ©2007 Google - Google Home - Advertising Programs - Business Solutions - About Google FRONT PAGE WITH THAI VISA MSN did the same. They listed incorrect information and linked our work to Thai Visa as noted below: Thaivisa.com The latest updated Thai visa immigration news; work permit and residence permit in ... Friday, 15 December 2006 Cambodia visa trip "TRAVELING AROUND" by Roman Wanderaugh o www.thaivisa.com/344.0.html o ˇ¤ 7/14/2007 o ˇ¤ Cached page Cambodia visa trip "TRAVELING AROUND" by Roman Wanderaugh "AN INEXPENSIVE TRIP from BANGKOK to CAMBODIA by LAND & SEA" If you're an adventurous traveler the trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia from ... o www.thaivisa.com/border-run/page_2.html o ˇ¤ Cached page o +Show more results from www.thaivisa.com MSN also listed the headline TRAVELING AROUND on the Cambodia Land & Sea story. It raises the question why was it necessary to make two listings on the same story to link to the Thai Visa site? Roman Waderaugh and any other National Radio columns are only legally available on the Internet on National Radio. We DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION for any other web site to use our material including soliciting our photos to the public. We negotiate directly with interested parties for use. We are published in print in five languages. We do not approve of Thai Visa using our material and all of the search engines misleading the public to other web sites using National Radio information. Isn't a search engines job to lead the public to the information they seek? It is clearly stated on our National Radio web site:
© Copyright: National Radio. Any use of these materials, whole or in part, is prohibited unless authorized in writing by National Radio. Contact: nationalradio@yahoo.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
|
|
