My Private Life

When I came to Thailand, the very first thing I did was that I moved from the company-paid hotel to a condominium, very close to the factory (actually HR arranged for me upon my request and they paid for it, too).
The main reason for my move was that I disliked the idea of a daily traffic jam on my way to work.
There were several other reasons, and I never regret this move.

My private life in Thailand can be split into 3 chapters, all pretty much about moving around:
  1. The time before I discovered GPS:
    Staying at home on weekends isn't much fun in my condominium. I'm bothered with the hammering and drilling of workers who do repairs or modifications on the flats. I go down to the parking and see most cars are gone. I shouldn't stay at home.
    I had a company car and getting away was no problem. The problem was finding the way back to my home within a 2-day weekend. Too often I got lost and couldn't read the Thai signs nor find someone whom I could ask for the way in English. I was worried that I would run out of gas before I could make it back to a company-approved gas station, that I would not find my way back before I had to work again on Monday, that the car might break down. My weekends were full of worries and the only thing I enjoyed a bit was shopping. That worried me even more.
  2. The time after I discovered GPS:
    Knowing exactly which direction and how far away my home is, made my excursions a lot safer. Still I got stuck in traffic jams (and water). However, I dared to go outside Bangkok were traffic was less. Mountainbikers from Bangkok gave me an idea which places were worth while going.
    With GPS, I explored a lot of new ways and became more familiar with my area. I also learned how wrong many of the available maps are. It was the time when I started to enjoy driving and felt bad for the time I spent at malls.
  3. The time after I became a reckless motorist:
    I had fallen in love with the area between Ratchaburi / Kanchanaburi, a place perfect for mountainbiking. Only problem, the drive there took me over 4 hours. It was Gary who suggested that I shouldn't be too particular about the traffic rules. He managed to drive the distance in 3 hours only, and this was just about acceptable for a 2-day weekend.
    Since that day, I save a lot of time on Thailand's roads. I expected that people would become angry and throw things at me, that the police would stop me, that I would have accidents. Such things do happen, but not more frequently than before. Today I simply get along faster, dare to go all sorts of places on weekends and enjoy driving, too.
    I now make it a point, visiting places where I have not yet been. I use car, mountainbike and kayak to reach where the Bangkok-crowd cannot go. I try to have an outdoor-adventure every weekend. Malls are now banned, unless during the week.
In parallel to above real life, I'm leading a cyberlife. I've bought kutu.com and put this site up. There are days when I drown in e-mails, so that my cyberlife becomes dominant. It has a potential of filling my weekday-evenings. From time to time it happens that I get fed up with sitting in front of the computer and simply ignore all my e-mails for 2 or 3 weeks.


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