Friday

Dining Room Sofitel

I dreaded today long before it arrived, for today I had to deal with a government agency and you know how that normally goes in Thailand. There is always something additional required, the picture is a fourth of a millimeter to long, you need form xyz not xyzz, you used black ink instead of blue, you know the drill. Let’s find something wrong so we don’t have to deal with this “Dude” today and send him packing or at least to the back of the line.

Well I arrive early and sign in, resolving myself to a long wait while some official has to do a million other tasks until he finally gets to my documents and then combs through them item by item with a fine tooth comb.

Surprise, within minutes my names is called. I hand over supporting documents for my request, the official thumbs through my passport. He only makes two remarks the first being that my passport is getting ragged (it is). Then it came, he found a mistake. It seems as if I had listed my year of birth as 2008. Wait, what does he do? He simply crosses through the error, writes the correct date and places his initials on the mistake. I pay my fee and I am finished within minutes.

Oh, now I see what good customer service is about, for today I was dealing with the United States Embassy not some anal retentive Thai bureaucrat. People who are looking for a way to get things done rather than someone looking for a way to not do anything. It was a pleasure.

The displeasure’s of the day follow soon thereafter though.

This service provided by the Embassy was held in the lobby of the Sofitel Raja Orchid Hotel in Khon Kaen and is a very swank place. Four or five stars. As we had not had breakfast we though we would partake of the advertised International Breakfast Buffet.

For a four or five star hotel, options were somewhat limited in my opinion, with little western fare available. There was plenty of rice gruel; Thai breakfast soups, and half-cooked eggs, if you go for that sort of thing. There were omelets to order which were not bad but the rest was mediocre. The bacon was not crisp, the sausages little more that hot dogs, no dry cereal, juice glasses holding the liquid volume of teacups and miniature pastries. We found enough for a meal though, but nothing luxurious.

Then the next surprise arrives in the form of the check. Breakfast for two 680 baht for not much of anything other than ambiance. I guess I really should have enjoyed using the real linen napkins and actual silverware more. But, just how many omelets can I eat at home for 680 baht? I don’t know, but a hell of a lot and prepared to perfection by Ms Mee.

The next displeasure for the day was a visit to the dentist, which I hate with a passion. But when you gotta go, you gotta go. I had an upper molar, which had been giving me a fit for weeks, so today was the day to extract it. After a short wait in the clinic I was introduced to my dentist who was no bigger that a fart, a tiny things she was. She may have also been cute but she never removed her mask, she spoke English very well with a slight accent, but great vocabulary. She told me her stepfather is an American formerly from the state of Maine. She gave me to quick injections, yanked that bad boy right out, stuffed the resulting hole with cotton and sent me on my way. Total cost of the extraction 300 baht or about $9.55. That made the 680 baht breakfast really seem overpriced and in stark contrast to the realities of Thailand.