I was using my laptop when all of a sudden I pressed something and the whole screen flipped upside down. Way to go with the useless function Microsoft. I fiddled about and tried to re-press whatever it was I’d pressed to make my screen flip the wrong way and I eventually managed to rotate the whole thing 90 degrees.

What was most confusing was that the mouse directions also switched, so I had no idea what was going on. After about 15 minutes of pushing buttons, I finally got it back the right way around. Turns out that holding Alt and Ctrl and hitting an arrow key will flip the screen, but what you’d use this for with Windows XP on a laptop I don’t know. I guess it would be useful on a tablet PC.

In Phuket we’ve had two deaths so far this year as a result of dengue fever. Reported cases on the island are up as with the rest of Thailand. I wasn’t particularly worried about catching dengue fever until I found out that two of the guys from work have had it in the past.

Contrary to popular belief, dengue fever is not solely contracted by babies and infants. About half of all cases in Phuket are of people between 10 and 24 years old. The exact number of cases on the island is anybody’s guess – stats in Phuket are useless because nobody is sure how many people there are on the island compared to how many people are registered citizens. The numbers of cases of dengue this year, however, run into the hundreds.

So, if there is a chance that I might catch dengue fever, I’d like to know how, and also what I am going to go through if I do get it because there is no known vaccination. Dengue fever is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which feeds during the day.

Symtpoms of dengue fever include a fever (as you’d expect), headaches, muscle and joint pains, rashes and vomiting. The disease is known as the bone-crusher disease” in some parts. But it can’t be that bad, can it?

One of the guys at work wrote an article about it today, detailing the time he caught dengue. Here are a few excerpts:

Within about 30 minutes my condition went form normal to bad – very bad. I felt so bad that I was really afraid that if I fell asleep I might not ever wake up. Fortunately, I did wake up the next morning, but the misery continued. It took me almost a month to feel normal again. I heard a high-pitched echo in my head and I felt like I had strong electric currents discharging in my brain. I have had a lot of painful experiences in life, but there is nothing like dengue.

Man I don’t want to catch that.

Techno’ tags: Thailand, Dengue fever

I finished work late today and went to grab something to eat at a restaurant near my place. I was minding my own business when a young Thai couple walked in and sat down at the table opposite me. For some reason I at first thought they were deaf. I soon realised that they weren’t deaf at all but were just moving their hands enough to confuse me. The girl was served what looked like a pork chop and salad. I then watched in horror as she covered it – I mean absolutely smothered it – in chili sauce from a bottle. I was utterly repulsed.

It’s amazing that in this country where people make claims that you can eat the best food in the world, when it comes to any food made outside of Thailand, the locals won’t eat it unless it’s smothered in either ketchup or chili sauce.

I remember my mother and father scolding me when I was younger for dousing my food with ketchup. It wasn’t until I grew up that I saw the wisdom in not using ketchup. Ketchup should be reserved for chips (French fries) and nothing else.

My mother would scream if she saw some of the things I’ve seen here in Thailand. I’m talking adults emptying bottles of ketchup over spaghetti bolognese, steaks, sandwiches and – the cardinal sin – pizza! It’s like drinking a sweet cup of tea and then smacking yourself over the head with a bag of sugar.

Thai food = eat rationally

Not Thai food = go nuts with ketchup or nearest equivalent

Where does this obsession come from? It can’t be for the taste, because a salad plastered with chili sauce tastes vile. If anybody has any answers to this conundrum I’d love to hear them.

Techno’ tags: Thailand, Thai food, Thai people

Phuket Governor Niran Kalayanamit came out this week and blamed Phuket’s low attendance (57%, not 51% as I reported earlier) at the recent national referendum on poor weather. Apparently, some voters arrived at polling stations and became so distressed by the rain (in the middle of Phuket’s wettest period) that they turned back and fled to safety, waiving their chances to vote!

Could it really be that a bit of rain affected the turn out at the national referendum? It is true that when it rains, everything kind of grinds to a halt in Thailand and people become complacent and forgetful. Regardless, 88% of Phuket voted in favor of the draft Constitution.

Flip things over to the northeast, and 63% voted against the draft Constitution. Did the weather have an impact in the North? Was it raining there? One can only speculate. You would have thought that for such an important event (Thailand’s first ever referendum), they would have held it over a period of more than one day… or at least been prepared for the rain in monsoon season.

At polling stations in Phuket, organizers had to put down planks of wood for people to walk on. It was a bit of a disaster really.

Techno’ tags: Thailand, Phuket

I don’t normally lose my temper, but I came very close yesterday. If I could have rationally directed my frustration towards somebody then I might have done so, but as it was, I was unsure why I was so angry.

I had grossly misjudged how long a van ride from Penang to Phuket would take. Even though I made the trip less than three months ago, for some reason I was convinced it would only be a seven-hour ride. It turned out to be 11 hours of hell.

Bus and van rides across Thailand don’t normally faze me, and if I have enough time I will always take a bus rather than fly, but this journey was a nightmare thanks to Thai song after Thai song after Thai song.

I have nothing against Thai music, but on this particular occasion all the songs fused into one maddening stream of clinking bells, electric guitars, love songs, Carabao singing about poor people… and on it went. If it wasn’t Thai songs it was Thai karaoke VCDs or a concert held in Surat Thani that we watched twice because the CD skipped during the first showing.

All I wanted to do was sleep, but it was made impossible by all the blaring Thai music coming at me from all angles. This, coupled with the fact that Thailand’s roads aren’t flat, made me feel like I wanted to scream. I don’t understand why people in Thailand can’t make a journey on a bus (or in a van) without having to watch karaoke VCDs. It was 8 in the freaking morning, for goodness sake.

It got to me so much that when I went to bed after getting home yesterday, the soundtrack to my dreams was an endless chorus of more Thai songs.

Techno’ tags: Thailand, Phuket, Penang, Travel