What it should look like

I watched a documentary the other night about Indonesia. Apparently they are getting rid of the rain forest at a rate of 300 football fields / HOUR! Not a month or a week, AN HOUR! (I hope I heard that wrong) Then they set it on fire so they can grow Palm oil trees. Indonesia is the number 1 country in the world when it comes to Global warming, according to BBC. That makes me really angry but what made me incredible sad was to hear about the Orangutans. They obviously have nowhere to live and many of them die. If the loggers find an orphan monkey they can sell it on the black market and make an extra 50 Dollars! It is so f##ked up. Where I´m from you cant drive an old car if it spits out to much fumes, which is good, but then you have countries in Asia where you need to wear a mask if you go out because the pollution is so bad! So how come the Eskimos have to suffer just because countries around the world don´t give a damn!? 

After logging

Orphan going to the market

  

Fire

Palm oil plants

One thing I love about Thailand except for beautiful weather and lovely people is the simple way of life. Thais eat when they are hungry. They sleep when they are tired. It doesn't matter what time it is or where they are. If you walk into a shopping centre like MBK (not Siam Paragon...) you see people sit on the floor with their legs crossed having a bowl of noodles. In the same shop someone could be sitting behind the counter with his/hers head firmly on the desk next to the till, sleeping in between customers. 
There are so many people working in every shop so I guess if a couple of them fancy a kip for a while there's no problem.

Sydney Sandstorm 23 September 2009
http://classesblogspot.blogspot.com/

www.thaiprisonlife.com

The human takraw ball

 If you have been to Thailand then you might have seen a group of men kicking between them a small ball made of rattan. The idea is to keep the ball off the ground without using your hands. 
This version of the ball was much larger. A man was put inside the ball. 
If you look closely you can see that the inside has many nails sticking through. 
This large ball was then kicked around by elephants! (They do NOT do this today!)

After a person has been sentenced to death, he is transferred to Bang Kwang Central Prison in Nonthaburi Province, just to the north of Bangkok. This is the only place in Thailand with a Death Row and an execution chamber. Sentences are not carried out straight away as the inmates can appeal at two more courts. These are the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. It is quite possible that the courts will commute a death sentence to a life sentence. If they don’t, the inmate still has one last chance. He can apply for a King’s Pardon to reduce his sentence to life. The cells on Death Row measure 4 by 7.5 meters. The walls are 4 meters high. At the top there is a 20cm gap for ventilation. This is blocked by bars. Each cell is built for 18 prisoners, sleeping in two rows. But due to the crackdown on the drug trade, cells these days have at least 24-25 inmates. They each have a thin mattress measuring 50-70 cms by 170 cms. Their belongings are kept in bags and hung on the walls. Each cell has ceiling fans, a TV, and a toilet. Death Row inmates are let out of their cells at 8 a.m. They have two hours to eat and exercise before they are locked back in at 10 a.m. They are again let out at noon to eat, exercise and to bathe. They are locked up again at 2:30 p.m. where they remain until 8 a.m. the following morning. The lights are kept on all night. They also have to wear shackles all the time until the time they are executed or their sentence is commuted to life. A total of 325 inmates have been executed at Bang Kwang. Most of these were executed by machine gun. The last execution of this type took place on 11 December 2002. This was then changed to lethal injection. Four inmates were executed by this method on 12 December 2003. Six years later, on 24 August 2009, two more inmates were executed. There hasn’t been any executions since.

 Source: correct.go.th and www.thaiprisonlife.com

Peek inside a Thai prison!

Click HERE and HERE 

Or watch a BBC documentary HERE

My friend is opening up a Bungalow river retreat outside Chiang Mai, Thailand. Check it out:  


http://www.sugarcanelampang.com/

Please take part in my survey by clicking HERE

Beggars in Bangkok

I overheard someone talking about a woman walking in to a hospital in Bangkok and stole a new born baby. I thought maybe she cant have kids on her own but that was not the case. If you have a baby in your lap when you beg for money, you get more! If it's true it is really sad because that kid have no chance to grow up and live a normal life. He/she is probably going to live on the streets of Bangkok for the rest of their life, involving drugs/prostitution...
Then there are other types of beggars. We came across a monk one night selling arm bracelets. We had just arrived in Bangkok and did not know that Monks do NOT sell anything! They get out very early in the morning to collect food from people. Thats is not begging! Anyway, we bought two bracelets from this guy for 200 baht!!! (Normal price is 20 baht without bargain) 6 month later and I am still pissed off by this! I put it down to: I was new in the country and did not know...
Read more about begging in Bangkok by clicking  HERE
As a "farang" you get ripped off all the time. Went to a night club with some Thai friends. I had to pay 300 baht to get in. Thais go in for free. I would love to see what would happen in Sweden if you put up a sign at the door saying: Swedes go in for free. Foreigners pay 300...