Big Drug Bust in Chiang Rai Thailand

"Soldiers in the northern border province of Chiang Rai have seized 500,000 methamphetamine pills and two kilogrammes of crystal meth, also known as "ice"." The street value was estimated at 150 million baht - that's about $5... sorry, $5 million.

OK, not earth-shattering news but the bust took place in the border town of Mae Sai, which made me smile as smuggling seems to be the town's main industry.

I was there a couple of years ago to do one of many tedious visa renewal trips. The no-man's-land buffering Thailand and Myanmar was a sleepy run-down place, unlike the one in Aranyaprathet which has spawned a whole casino industry.

Most borders seem to have a so-called Friendship Bridge which, ironically, serves to remind one of hostilities rather than comradeship. In Mae Sai the rather plain bridge spanned what can best be described as a canal and, rather like Venice, this narrow strip of water was flanked by buildings maybe 3 or 4 storeys high. As I ambled across I could see guys lobbing cardboard boxes across the canal. As there was a perfectly good bridge to cart them across I naturally assumed the said boxes were not going to make it into the trade statistics of either country.

One Myanmar border policeman looked on in disdain. Some things do not need translating and this guy looked dumbfounded at the sheer stupidity and hugely annoyed that it meant him doing some work. It was hot. Nobody wants to work when it's hot - apart from smugglers.

So, the idea of slinging a few kilos of speed across a lazy slither of water isn't that unlikely. Whatever happened to the nearby Golden Triangle?

How to Learn Any Language in 3 Months: Thai

Learning a language in one hour was, admittedly, a bit of a tease but the analysis done in that hour will set you up in how to really learn your new language. Tim Ferriss's research on language acquisition at Princeton and his practical methods for becoming proficient as quickly as possible tear up most other learning methods.

The method consists in three simple steps: Priority, Interest and Process.

For most of us the most immediate priority is in speaking a foreign language. Whether you're a tourist, on business or studying abroad the first skill you need as your plane lands is to speak. This article has a useful list of the 100 most common words in spoken English. As a comparison there is also a list of the 100 most common written English words. Perhaps surprisingly, there is only a 60% overlap between the two lists. Here is another useful word list generator. If you need to be understood by a native speaker then learning to read is not the way to achieve this.

If you're currently learning another language then it is a good exercise to input these word lists into, say, Google Translate and see how many words you need to know. Word lists for spoken languages are pretty consistent as people do pretty much the same things around the world. But once beyond the most common 300 words how do you progress from there? This is where your interests are fundamental. It really doesn't matter what that is - it could be learning judo, going fishing, listening to music, the history of architecture, the football results, whatever - just so long as you have the desire to learn and communicate.

The problem with most language courses is that they largely ignore this fundamental motivation. For example, learning Thai grammar from magazines on Buddhist talismans and sculptures is far more interesting (to me) than paying a school to teach me how to plan a train journey in four different tenses. I can figure that out myself; after all, I'm an adult! And this is one major quibble that Ferriss has with many courses that somehow try to teach a language in a similar way to how a native child would learn it. Adults already possess mastery of at least one language so can make connections between their native tongue and their new target language. Even if your topic of interest is really obscure the grammar remains identical - negotiating the price of a bronze statuette is the same as negotiating a taxi fare to the local zoo. However, how many zoos am I likely to visit?

The third step, the process, is simply the act of repetition. If you're in the actual country whose language you're learning then you have little choice. If, however, you're trying to learn a language in your home country then it's obviously a bit more difficult but there are now lots of free resources online. Listen to music or watch films in your target language. Merely hearing the correct pronunciation helps tremendously in the long run. It may sound like complete gobbledegook at first but you will start to pick up words amid the noise. You will also start to notice common phrases that your textbook has ignored. I carry around a low-tech paper notebook and jot down anything that sounds common and ask a friend what it means.

Most Thais are shy of making any social gaffes, and this includes showing up their poor English. But after a few drinks it is amazing how much English they can dredge up from their school-days. I make enough mistakes in Thai and laugh it off so they can make a few in English. Some Thais will actually speak pretty fair English but were too embarrassed to try with a native speaker yet then seem more interested in perfecting their rekindled English rather than my Thai! So the conversation turns into a bilingual game so that both sides alternate as student and teacher. Mastering a new language is ego-crushing - if that scares the pants off of you then best stay at home! I myself avoided this for a long time as I could get by with very few Thai words.

In terms of sheer volume, the vocabulary of any language seems daunting compared to the grammar. But once you have the nuts and bolts of sentence construction the act of acquiring new vocabulary is pretty easy. Just 300 words make up 65% of written English. With just 1,000 words you can be understood in most situations. Word lists make the adult learning of a new language much more efficient than ploughing through textbooks of often useless situations and unnatural conversations.

The internet has made language learning more accessible. These methods will make your language acquisition more efficient, more relevant and hopefully more enjoyable.

How to Learn Any Language in One Hour: Thai

Learn a language in just one hour? Must be a joke or a cheap sales pitch, right? Well, the full title is "How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour", so this isn't a miracle method but rather one intense hour dissecting the basics of your chosen target language. With just six simple phrases translated from English plus a look at your target alphabet and pronunciation should be able to answer one simple yet fundamental question: can I learn this language quickly?

This simple exercise will also highlight any serious problems that can arise. For example, I am fluent in English and Italian and proficient in a couple of other European languages. However, I'm currently trying to learn Thai, which is totally alien. So let's learn some Thai in one hour!

Completely different script - OK, that can be learnt.

Although the script is read left-to-right words are constructed as 'consonant clusters' so that a vowel spoken after a consonant may actually we written before it, or even above it! OK, that can be learnt too but is a bit weird!

The grammar is relatively straightforward - phew!!

Thai is a tonal language with 5 different tones - nightmare!! This needs some serious immersion as it is almost impossible to distinguish many words that to a European ear sound identical. For the casual tourist it may be worth forgetting to learn Thai at this point and just learn enough to get by. If living in Thailand then the logical consequence of this is to learn the Thai script. The written language includes tone marks so one can start to group together words with the same tone. Most Thais will forgive the lax foreigner as the correct word can often be guessed from the context. Trying to learn Thai just using the English transliterations is a waste of time.

Thus a quick analysis of Thai immediately reveals how to best proceed with learning it: learn the script and chat to Thai friends who will appreciate you're learning their language while they have a good laugh at the mess you'll make of the five tones.

One other consequence of this analysis is that the syntax of Thai is more similar to Italian than to English; for example, "red bus" becomes "bus red". Sadly, I don't have a 'learn Thai for Italians' book!

Is anybody else learning a fiendishly difficult language?

When it rains, it pours

To paraphrase the opening line of Apocalypse Now, "Aran... Shit!" It's that time again when I have to dip my toe outside of Thailand just to set foot inside yet again. A pointless exercise that, perversely, earns far more money for Cambodia than Thailand. But that's not my problem - my problem is steeling myself from the coming assault. I can cope with the children carrying parasols. "Free?!" I beam a smile "Free, OK!" They don't understand much English but they know that 'free' means an empty outstretched hand. It works.

The visa touts are more persistent but in a world of scams and lies just keep walking and lie. "I have a visa from one of your scamming friends, thank you." Is far too complex a sentence but makes me feel better. "Cambodia visa stamp. Quick. No long waiting! This way!" I keep on walking... smile and lie and walk. The visa to get into Cambodia officially costs US$20 - the actual price being whatever they can take off people - but the actual border stamps are free. The scam is to tell foreigners that they can just sit in no-man's-land for a few minutes and all will be done... for a fee. Except that walking the extra 100 metres reveals that there is rarely a queue for foreign visas. However, looks like some of the guys manning the Cambodian side must be feeling they live at the arse end of the border food chain so have started charging for the stamps. A mate of mine reported this back to me after his recent adventure.

Being in no-man's-land is always one big joke. It must be one of the largest bits of lawless land in the world, crammed with casinos and peddlers of alcohol and cigarettes. You could, of course, get one of the visa touts to get you some smokes as you wait idly for your visa stamps, except that they charge you double the going rate, which is about 10 Baht for a packet, that's under 30 cents. Even if you don't smoke, worth buying some to sell to your friends in Thailand. The actual packaging is an illusion designed to charge you more for popular international brands such as Marlboro, but once unwrapped the actual cigarettes are all the same.

The Cambodia visa scam seems to have moved up a gear. I figure the border guards are probably making more than I do, which is pretty impressive for a third world country. However, once into Cambodia the air is a touch more peaceful - the busy border market is on the Thai side as that's where the money is. I was offered a trip to the famous Angkor Temple and a young Vietnamese girl, so figured there must be just two types of tourists here. I can't believe a Vietnamese girl is going to be working in a Cambodian border town - Thailand or Singapore, yes, but here!?

I got my free stamp on the way out so was waiting to see what would happen on the way back in. Things were not looking good. A group of Asian tourists were shouting at the Cambodian guard who was safely shielded from the barrage behind his glass counter. It was hot, I could be standing here for ages before the UN sorts this out. They speak a bit of English: Vietnamese tourists doing the Southeast Asian trail. The guards want money for a splash of ink that by the sound of it should be free. "Ask them for a receipt!" I say helpfully. It worked - I jumped the queue as they were getting processed en masse. The UN wasn't needed and I got an appreciative round of bowing. "Enjoy Thailand."

Half my day's work was done and I drove off with my Thai friend. The horizon, however, looked bleak. As the sky turned to lead the rains descended. The windscreen wipers were overwhelmed by the waterfall so was safer to pull over and grab a late lunch. The rainy season has now started in earnest. Unsurprisingly, this coincides with the monsoon in India, as Thailand gets the trailing edge of India's weather patterns. It's at times like these that I feel justified in my dislike of the ubiquitous pick-up truck. The open back-side has some advantages over an estate or van for stacking boxes of beer or cramming Thai workers, but during the rains everything, and everybody, gets drenched. I need to pick up some furniture and try to calculate if better to abandon the project today and postpone it till tomorrow morning. My friend is adamant that this will pass and we'll get it all done by night-fall. The rain is deafening as it hammers onto the tin roofs.

The rain eventually eases a notch just below torrential so this is obviously a cue to resume our drive. The rains signal the end of some cycles and the start of others. Many fields of cassava had recently been dug up and lying fallow, waiting for a fresh crop to be planted once the rainy season comes to an end. In contrast, I saw many workers planting rice in the paddy fields. Much of the land around this area is without an irrigation system so the rains are crucial to avoid even more paddy fields being turned over to less risky products. The occasional break in the cloud cover shone bright beams of sunlight to reveal a lush emerald landscape below a petroleum sky.

The lack of irrigation is coupled with a general lack of drainage so that water-logging and mudslides are not unusual. The landscape here is fairly flat so there aren't the same serious problems as in the mountainous north, but sliding the car into a paddy field is not on our itinerary so we take a detour through the dirt-tracks rather than the slick and slippery tarmac roads. We see a cow standing in the middle of the road like a sentinel. Cows and buffaloes are not an unusual sight but a solitary beast parked there seemed slightly surreal. Driving slowly past it so as not to startle the creature (as it can do serious damage to a car) we noticed one hind leg was raised up off the ground, most probably nursing a broken bone. Cows are expensive and seems unlikely the owner would just abandon it but in its statuesque grace it showed no intention of moving so was probably safe to leave it where it stood, waiting for the butcher to arrive.

Our work completed and back in town I needed some food and a drink and headed for my local bar. People don't go out much when it rains. As scooters are the main mode of transport around town, arriving drenched from the rain and steaming from the heat is not the way to start a night out. However, Thais are a sociable lot and any break in the rain is a cue to drive around and check out who's hanging out where. But just as night follows day, so a power cut inevitably follows a rainstorm. A city plunged into darkness is an eerie sight, illuminated only by the searching beams of cars and motorbikes and the flickering of hundreds of candles quickly lit to ward off the darkness. A bar immersed in a candle glow may seem a romantic setting but without music or TV there is just the sound of subdued human voices, as if telling stories of import round a camp fire.

The glow of my mobile phone could illuminate the short path home, so long as the battery didn't drain away. But why hurry, there's always another beer and the light will come back soon... probably.

Durian Season

Love it or hate it, you just can't ignore it - at least, not if you live in Southeast Asia. Durian has hit the streets and aficionados of this controversial fruit are in raptures.

I have never seen fresh durian in Europe which, on the one hand, is surprising as should be very easy to export, yet on the other hand is perfectly understandable as every supermarket would stink of durian all year round! Durian is native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia but also grows in the Philippines, Cambodia as well as here in Thailand. It looks like a spiky version of a jackfruit and once opened has large fleshy parts surrounding stones the size of an egg - the colour and sizes depend on the precise variety and country. However, what is controversial is the smell that durian exudes once opened.

The 19th century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace rather kindly described it as "a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds," although even he had to admit to certain wafts of "onion-sauce". The novelist Anthony Burgess is less complimentary, writing that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory." The overarching stench is often described as like rotten onions, yet to me it smells as if someone has thrown up after eating a crème caramel.

Thais are not immune from the smell but, like many other foods here, they've grown to like it. In spite of the popularity of durian it is banned from most public places such as hotels, trains and buses. I've seen 'No Durian' signs in hotel lifts just in case anybody was thinking of taking one up to their room as a snack. You can, however, get a feel for the fruit's popularity from these articles from Malaysia and Cambodia's The Phnom Penh Post.

Much of what we describe as the flavour of a food is also partly due to its smell - witness our lack of taste when we have a blocked nose. The taste of durian flesh is not unpleasant and it has a thick rich consistency like soft bananas and high calorific content, but it's just not feasible to try and eat it whilst holding one's breath! I've almost got used to it - my stomach doesn't churn at the durian haze enveloping the market - but I'm not about to rush out and buy any as can eat fresh watermelon, pineapples and bananas at a fraction of the price. Maybe one day I'll try some again... just not today.