View from my gym to the pool area

There are some advantage living in a condo or a compound, two are they come with gyms and/or pools. Perfect for my daily workout I just resumed two weeks ago. If there is one thing I am missing from Germany then it is the hour long walk in the forrest with my dogs.

Living behind closed walls

We live in Bangkok behind walls. The essential reason to move to a compound were our dogs. If you live in Bangkok, then you can actually forget to walk your dogs. Either you live on a main road, where the sidewalks are packed by vendors, or you live in a side street, having 300000000 with you in. For most dog owners only options are big garden or compound.



The advantage here is that we can walk our four dogs without the racing cars passing by or just street dogs make our lives difficult. Not that it is understood here wrong: We have nothing against street dogs, three of our dogs are such. Only the soi dogs here just extremely territorial, and we have little desire every morning to settle any disputes. In Laos, the number of dogs was less, and above all, they were not all in one place.

Another reason for the compound is the rest. We live in Samut Prakan, what is technically the neighboring province of Bangkok. Still, life here is lively enough, and if we leave our Muu Ban, we are right in the city life. But in here, behind the walls, it's quiet. Exactly what you need if you live in Bangkok. (This is why we loved Phu My Hung in Saigon , because it was similar).


And finally, there is the security. A Muu Ban has a large gate with security and barriers. Who wants in here and does not live here, must give his ID. Distributed in the compound are four more security guards. They even call me a taxi or moto taxi. (One comes from Isaan, northeast Thailand. With him I can show off my Lao skills.)

That we have a very nice pool area and fitness center that everything is clean, are further plus points.


Some expats may say that it is not authentic (although I wonder if they say so to the predominantly Thai neighbors here), or it is not in the middle of the city. The latter is intentional: it is cheaper, more quiet, and we can be with the train in 30 minutes in downtown Bangkok.


Oh, by the way, the location is also good: Central Bangna, Paradise Park and Mega Bangna shopping Smalls are in close proximity to the airport is 30 minutes away, hospitals, supermarkets, vets and Starbucks we have around us. Who needs Thong Lor ?

Points, Discounts and Promotions

When I was a kid, my mum sent me sometimes to a small grocery store called Seifenplatz, and always insisted to not forget collecting the stamps. Not that she was passionate in writing letters, the stamps she meant were discount stamps. The more you have the more discount you get (or sometimes certain items for free). I thought it was ridiculous, but who will stand against mums order?

Now, about 35 years later, I find myself sitting at the kitchen table and sticking stamps from BIG C into the small brochure. I am quite close to get the whole knife set, made in Germany, for free.

Points and discounts are a very important sales technique, that works all over the world, but it seems to me that Asia is even more responsive to it. Purses of the average shopper are full of membership and discount cards rather than money. Park a truck full of cheap Chinese shirts on the street and shout "Discount", and the whole village is on gridlock. When I left BIG C a couple of days ago, an old women asked me for, no, not money, but the discount stickers.

It goes even further: Yesterday, after dinner at a restaurant, we queued up behind a big family at the cashiers counter. They ate a lot, but for some reasons decided to split the bill. But right before grandmas bill was payed, they spotted the sign: 10 percent discount if you pay with a credit card of a certain bank. Bingo, the whole family has accounts with this bank, so the poor cashier had to cancel all payments and bill it again, this time carefully watched if every bill has the discount on it. In the meantime we made friends with the Thai couple behind us, and already considered where to go for breakfast next.

People even cheat for points: When I was asked at TOPS if I have a member card and said "No" (of course I have one, but forgot it at home), she instead typed a different number (I guess her's) in the system, before start to scan the products. And the next guy, apparently forgetful as me when it comes to hardware, remembered his member number and told it the cashier. I saw similar incidents at TESCO LOTUS.

UPDATE : stupid me. They just give the phone number. And database connects to their account.

It is kind of fascinating that we do not remember the phone numbers of our family members anymore, since we just ask Siri to call them. Instead, we fill the empty room with membership numbers. Times are changing.

A sense we can't post on Facebook

When you come to a new place, then there is a lot to digest new impressions. In the age of Facebook and Instagram photos and short texts we invite high for each of our friends (and enemies) know how beautiful it is here. But that's only half the truth. The sense that we use in new places most is the sense of smell. With the eyes we perceive mainly movements, with the ears we check the environment we can't see, but with the nose but we scan for danger.

 When I came to Laos, I walked every morning around our village. It was not a nice experience for the nose. Almost every house had a fire and burned the garbage that had just swept along. Then there were barbecue stands, which was mostly fueled with wood soaked in kerosene. Passing by an undeveloped plot of land usually meant walking along a garbage dump.

 Bangkok is a already completely different experience. For one thing, the food street stalls smell better. It is not just grilled chicken or other grilled meat. Actually, passing by food stands in Bangkok is one of the best olfactory experiences ever. And then there is this mix of nature, in our compound, the fragrance of flowers of frangipani and jasmine and other flowers.

 The house where we live smells like a new house, a bit like IKEA. The little Minimart has its own smell of dried fish, which is sold at the door. The laundry smells of the very own fragrance that is added to the washed clothes - whether or not the customer wants it. Somewhere it stinks from the sewer and the wastewater in Bangkok smells different than in Laos or Vietnam.

 I know that Google made a nice Aprils Fool joke with Google Nose. In some way, they are right: without our nose, we can't smell (and taste as well). That means, we can't experience the world around us as it is. Sometimes, we should close our eyes and walk around by just using our nose as a guidance.