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Sukhumvit Soi 71

Posted by Garth on Monday, April 27, 2009

That's where I'm staying right now.  In Bangkok.  Probably gonna be here for a couple more weeks.  The place is decent.  Air conditioning, furnished, small balcony (3rd floor)... 4500 baht/month.  Internet too, though it hasn't been working since I moved in about 10 days ago.  Yesterday I went to an Internet cafe and spent about 6 hours configuring my laptop since after removing the offending RAM stick (see previous post) I did a factory restore and had about a thousand updates and apps to install.  Never got my WiFi fixed per ce, as the prospect of trying to get the native card replaced seemed far too daunting when it had already taken me 2 hours the previous day to find canned air (sometimes the language barrier can be a bitch), so I just bought a USB WiFi stick and left it at that.  At any rate, I was gonna go back today to finish up but it started pouring rain, and since I forgot my backpack rain cover in Phuket I decided it wasn't in my best interest to take my laptop out in the rain.  So I went downstairs and asked the manager if I could try to fix their internet issues.  Took me all of 5 minutes.  For one, their Linksys router was in default configuration, so that was easy enough to hack into (ok, not really hacking since I was given permission and didn't need to really do anything other than use the default password, but hack sounds better than log).  Took a quick look at the config.  Turns out the IP assigned by the DSL modem was 192.168.1.2.  The internal addressing scheme of the Linksys was 192.168.1.x.  Error!  Routing not possible.  So I changed the internal scheme to 192.168.2.x and instantly had 'net access.  Why oh why don't people that set these things up check these things?!  So now I have Internet in my room (though only 1 out of 4 bars since they haven't blanketed the building yet, but still better than nothing).

As for other points of interest near my humble abode, there's a little night market down the street that has a couple of "restaurants" (basically some dudes with gas flames and woks) that sell fantastic Thai food for about 25 baht a plate (~$0.90 CAD).  They also sell this stuff called นารีรำพึง (that's naa ree ram peung for the uninitiated) which is some sort of homebrew Thai whisky that's got a very peppery flavor (kind of reminds me of the bacon vodka that we made for the bacon party before I left Toronto, since we totally over-peppered it).  I'm guessing it's not super strong (maybe about 25-30%), but it's 130 baht (about $4.60 CAD) for a 750 mL bottle, so you can't beat that with a stick.  And it beats the hell out of เหล้าขาว (lâo kăao) a homebrew rice whisky - a single shot of which makes you want to vomit faster than Ipecac.  Interestingly, the translation of naa ree ram peung is:

นารี
   naa ree






  • woman ; female ; lady ; girl



  • รำพึง
       ram peung






  • groan ; lament ; mourn ; bemoan ; cry over ; complain  




  • Other than that I haven't ventured too far in the walking neighbourhood.  The streets around here are super narrow and there's no sidewalks, which makes me constantly afraid of being hit by a car, truck or motorbike.  Have I mentioned previously that Thai drivers are fucking crazy?  If not, let me point it out now.  They are fucking crazy.  Very little concern for anyone (or anything) else on the road.  But, c'est la vie.

    3 comments:

    Gregg said...

    Garth your adoring readers demand PICTURES!
    Good to hear you're alive. Try not to screw up your ankle heh. Last thing we all need is another ankle post from your hotel room

    MoM said...

    What's the scoop on "meeting people?" Guess I'm looking for details!!

    Anonymous said...

    Back in the hood.
    Do you remember the neighbourhood you played pool at ? Sukhumvit Soi 6.

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