Southeast Asia Archives - Page 2 of 4

A Near Miss With One of Thailand’s Deadly Rich Kids

Bangkok traffic: Thai driving is some of the deadliest on Earth — Bus, car, tuk tuk, bike: survival of the biggest? (photo credit: see below)

So there I was, bottle of Singha in hand, strolling along the street through On Nut (a suburb of Bangkok) towards the Skytrain station to go meet friends, when this car brushed past me – a matter of millimetres from connecting – angled off the road, and crumpled itself into first the lamppost and then the wall directly in front of me. Had he been an inch further over, or had I been one second further ahead, I would’ve been squashed very much between a car and a hard place.

This was one of those typical roads which make up the capillary system of suburban Bangkok; not the wide thoroughfares which compose the major arteries, not the alleys of central Bangkok with their houses and shop fronts opening to the street (and, accordingly, high foot traffic and – one would hope – therefore more careful driving), but a narrow road between the high outer walls of housing developments, very much for the favour of suburban drivers rather than those on foot.

Fact is, like pretty much all major SE Asian cities, most of Bangkok outside the downtown core just isn’t a very walker-friendly place; but I am very much a walker, someone who likes walking here, there, and everywhere, and started out trying to do so when I first moved to Bangkok. This was in the winter months, when the relatively cooler and drier weather makes walking (just about) bearable – in the months of the hot season (March to May) and wet season (June to October), the idea of walking any real distance in Bangkok is mental!

But living there in the cooler months, I fancied I could try walking a bit – at least for the couple of miles to the Skytrain station, instead of taking a songthaew or a sketchy motorbike ride. The songthaews get horribly packed, they get snarled up in traffic, and they leave you breathing all the fumes; the bikes are way faster and more comfortable (and more expensive), but I just don’t like getting on bikes in SE Asia… the drivers all have helmets, but you don’t get one as a passenger… and I’ve seen an accident in Vietnam and an accident’s aftermath in Cambodia, and you ain’t getting me on a bike.

Anyway, much as I may love Bangkok, I quickly learned that even with decent weather walking can be pretty unpleasant in the Thai capital; the roving packs of soi dogs can be outright dangerous (and the guard dogs in peoples’ gardens are also thoroughly obnoxious as you pass), the waterways you cross smell utterly foul, the suburban bushes are overflowing with garbage, and, as I experienced that evening, walking puts you in the line of fire of some of the shittiest driving on the planet.

As I walked along that narrow road with no sidewalk I kept myself between the drain and the wall, as you do, the small space which serves somewhat as a pedestrian walkway. As you walk along there, the cars are passing perhaps two feet from you, so it’s pretty close already; all it takes is for someone to fall asleep at the wheel, be a drunk-driving piece of shit, or somehow or other lose control and drift over slightly, and you could find yourself directly in their path.

I guess this guy who missed me by a whisker in his shiny sports car (not so shiny any more, dickhead – ha!) had dozed off perhaps fifty metres behind me as he drove along this straight stretch of road, and drifted over to his left; thus he angled off the road, just missed me, and wrecked his car right in front of me, right where I would’ve been walking a second later.

“Holy. fucking. shit!” pretty much sums up my immediate thoughts, followed by, roughly, “well, shit, this car just nearly killed me but now I’m the closest person to the scene of an accident and I guess it’s on me to help the occupants, if I can.”

I didn’t yet have a Thai SIM card in my phone so I couldn’t make an emergency call, but I could see a few people looking on from the 7-Eleven at the corner of a side street up ahead, and some were on their phones; so I just went to check on the car’s occupants, ready to (at least attempt to) recall and finally use some long-since-forgotten first aid training, if necessary.

But I wasn’t even sure who was in there, never mind their condition. If you spend some time in Thailand, you’ll notice that many cars drive around with blacked-out windows. This seems especially true of the cashed-up ‘high-so’ (high society) rich kids who drive around drunk in their daddy’s flash cars, and I now found myself looking at such a car, all smashed up and with steam venting profusely from the engine.

I couldn’t see in through the windows to check how may people were inside, so I just hurried round to the driver’s door, which was still operable – unlike the passenger side which was utterly mangled, as would have been any poor soul sat on that side.

Opening the door, I found the driver was thankfully the sole occupant, a local lad of perhaps 18; he appeared to be uninjured, so I asked him if he was ok… and the smell of hard liquor hit me square in the face. This fucking little dipshit smelled like a goddamn motherfucking whisky distillery, was clearly in no fit state to be behind the wheel, and had just only very narrowly not killed me. He looked blearily up at me through glazed and bloodshot eyes and mumbled something unintelligible; disgusted, I let rip with a torrent of the most colourful expletives I’ve possibly ever unleashed, which I doubt he comprehended a word of – even if the guy did speak English he was too shitfaced drunk to do so at that point in time.

Obviously, if this had been the UK or Canada or Japan, I would’ve stuck around to give the police a statement and tell them that this stupid little prick just almost killed me. But it occurred to me that if I did so that evening, in that city, I might just be making things worse for myself; you can’t exactly trust the police when you’re in a military dictatorship (even one like Thailand which at least outwardly looks somewhat functional), and if this kid was indeed the son of a rich and powerful family he could very likely wriggle his way out of any real consequences anyway – as have so many of Thailand’s ‘deadly rich kids‘.

So did I really want to go through any ballache dealing with the police and the bureaucratic nightmare that might result? I decided not, and hastened away from the scene, leaving this drunk-driving douchebag still sat in the driver’s seat of his expensive wreckage; a short time later I heard the wail of sirens, and hopefully the police found him still sat there and he was appropriately punished. Even if not, he’d just written off an expensive vehicle and I like to think he at least learned a lesson from the resulting financial consequences, or preferably from being ripped a new one by his old man.

So I continued on my way to meet friends in Asok, and told them over beers about my lucky escape; they shared their own stories of the many accidents they’d witnessed in Thailand, mostly involving bikes and scooters. And in the mere four months I lived in Bangkok, I went on to see another three accidents (all involving bikes), but thankfully nothing too serious.

A crashed bus in Bangkok — Found this crazy shot on Flickr! Hopefully no-one was seriously hurt (photo credit: see below)

Looking the stats up, Thailand has the 2nd-highest per capita road fatality rate in the world, behind only Libya. It’s actually quite odd – Thailand is wealthier and more developed than the neighbouring countries of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, and has far better infrastructure, but yet manages to have a much worse road safety record. Surely this is something their government should be trying harder to rectify, but sadly it doesn’t seem to be a priority. Have a read of this sobering BBC report, and check out this amazing video about Bangkok volunteers who spend their time taking care of deceased traffic victims, with the utmost respect and dignity; truly, truly, very impressive people, but why are volunteers even required to do that? Sort your shit out Thailand (if you’re not too busy jailing people for writing Facebook posts and the like)

So anyway, what does this mean for a traveller to Thailand, and SE Asia as a whole? Well, personally I’ll always take a metered taxi instead of a tuk tuk or moto (air conditioning, windows, and metered fare vs rip-off with traffic fumes in your face – already no contest before you even consider which one comes out worse in a collision), and you will never, ever catch me renting a motorbike or scooter in Thailand or anywhere else in SE Asia. Or in fact anywhere else at all, for that matter, because I don’t have a scooter licence and I know that means my insurance wouldn’t cover me in the event of an accident.

The best way to not be in a bike accident is, of course, to simply not rent a bike; but if you do, make sure you’re actually insured to do so – something which requires you to have a proper licence. If you’re not, and you have an accident, and it’s serious, you’re basically fucked.

You also won’t catch me taking any (more) night buses in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, etc – I have done so on a number of occasions, especially in Indonesia where distances can be huge (think one driver for two days straight, sleeping only at meal stops – as I experienced during a pretty terrifying journey on the Trans-Sumatra Highway, though at least it led to me learning to appreciate Led Zeppelin), but you know, it just isn’t worth it. Crashes do happen, and the night buses can be pretty shitty experiences even when they arrive safely.

And of course you may very well be in an accident through no fault whatsoever of your own – so again, make sure you have decent insurance. Check out World Nomads as they offer flexible travel insurance which you can purchase even after you’ve already left your home country – I once found out how important that bit of small print can be when my camera got pickpocketed (which was, in fact, another lesson I learned in Bangkok!)

Just a week or so after my near-miss with a drunk-driver, I got bitten by a dog… at that point it seemed like Bangkok was trying to tell me something, and though I stuck around a while longer I stopped walking to the Skytrain and I was already making plans to move back to my beloved Taipei. Bangkok remains one of my favourite cities to visit, but I doubt I’ll go back to live there again!

Any stories or questions about Thailand’s roads? Leave me a comment below!

For more Thailand posts, click here

Check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Photo credits 1:Pedro Alonso 2:Walter Lim (both via Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence)

(This page contains affiliate links i.e. if you follow the links from this page to World Nomads and make a purchase, 4corners7seas will receive a commission from them; this commission comes out of their profit margin at no extra cost to you. I’m linking to them because I know and trust them through personal experience; thank you in advance should you choose to purchase your insurance via the above links!)

Overland Routes from China to Southeast Asia

China, Overland travel, Southeast Asia

If you’re looking to travel overland from China to SE Asia (or vice versa) you have three main route options: Guangxi province to Vietnam, Yunnan province to Vietnam, and Yunnan to Laos (and Thailand); a fourth potential route is Yunnan to Myanmar, but that’s not open at present due to conflict on the Myanmar side of the border.

There also used to be a boat down the Mekong direct from Jinghong in Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna region to Thailand, passing between Myanmar and Laos but entering neither (with no visa required for either), arriving in Thailand near the Golden Triangle. However, this hasn’t been possible since an outbreak of drug-related violence on the Mekong in 2011; the boat was suspended in the aftermath and hasn’t run since, and with the Fourth Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge having since opened it seems unlikely that it ever will.

China to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar route map — Map of the routes from Kunming (Yunnan) to SE Asia (note: China-Myanmar border is presently closed)

This page mostly deals with the Yunnan routes; the outline for Guangxi is that you can take a train or bus between the Guangxi provincial capital Nanning and the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, crossing the border at Dong Dang, or you can cross by bus further south at Mong Cai for Halong Bay. The Nanning – Hanoi trains are direct sleepers (no change required at the border) running daily, with two services per week actually running direct all the way Hanoi – Beijing (see Seat61 for details).

China to Myanmar Overland

Looking at the three routes from Kunming, be aware that it’s only possible to enter Myanmar overland if you also leave again the same way and pay for expensive permits (which also require you to pay for private guides & vehicles). Of course this also means you’ll need to have at least a double-entry Chinese visa too. So, it can be done but it’s expensive, and it’s no good for onward travel to the rest of SE Asia; it’s therefore probably only worth it if, say, you live in Kunming and fancy a trip to Myanmar and back. See my Myanmar page for more details. Update: the Myanmar border is closed due to escalating violence in Kachin & Shan states (see this April 2018 report)

So that aside, essentially you have the two routes available from Kunming – either head to Vietnam by road or rail, or head to Laos by road via Xishuangbanna.

Highway scenery between Kunming and Xishuangbanna — It’s a great drive from Kunming down to Xishuangbanna

Kunming to Vietnam Overland

The first option, Kunming – Hanoi, involves a 6-hour train ride (or bus) to the border town Hekou, with a taxi from the station to the border crossing; once across to the Vietnamese border town Lao Cai, you can take a 1-hour minivan up to the former French hill station of Sapa, or continue on to Hanoi (another 7 to 11 hours by road or rail).

An interesting alternative route you could take here is to head to Laos through Vietnam i.e. cross at Hekou/Lao Cai and head up to Sapa, then after your visit there head to Dien Bien Phu and cross into northern Laos at Pang Hoc, from where you can eventually continue on to Luang Nam Tha. I actually considered this route when I was last in Kunming, but I’m not the biggest fan of Vietnam after all the crazy shit I experienced there and in the end I simply couldn’t be bothered with it – so I just took the most direct route possible, from Xishuangbanna to Chiang Rai in one day via northern Laos (see below).

Kunming to Laos Overland

Xishuangbanna is an interesting area in its own right, which is an attractive point about this option; an 8 to 10 hour bus ride (it really can vary that much) from Kunming gets you to Jinghong (Xishuangbanna’s main town), and after a couple days chilling there you can head on to Laos by bus.

The bus ride from Kunming to Jinghong takes you through some cracking terrain; most of Yunnan is at significant altitude, but Xishuangbanna is a low(er)-lying jungle area and the overall elevation drop is some 1,400m, most of which is in the middle section of the journey. It’s a really good, relatively new highway which soars along viaducts above the lush carpets of the rice terraces below, plunging through tunnels in the mountainsides and re-emerging onto dramatic bridges over the valleys, everything green and verdant with stands of bamboo exploding out of the hillsides like frozen bursts of forest shrapnel.

Unfortunately, last time I did it my camera was on its last legs; bus window photography is bad at the best of times, but my photos are barely usable from that journey (and from the first time I did it, I only have the pic at the top). Anyway they don’t do it justice but here’s a couple of passable snaps:

It’s definitely a cool bus ride, and I even enjoyed it the second time round (which is often not the case); one thing though – if, like me, you hate the sleeper buses in China, get to the bus station nice and early to make sure you have the option of a seater (there are multiple departures through the day, some sleepers, some seaters, but it seems to be only sleepers from lunchtime onwards).

Despite being in China, Jinghong in many ways feels like the biggest Laotian city; it’s certainly a fascinating mish-mash of SE Asian and Chinese cultures, with a whole multitude of ethnic groups present and all the signs in both Lao and Chinese; it’s a far more bustling place than the sleepy Lao capital Vientianne, and worth chilling in for a day or two. For up-to-date local information (and good coffee, beer, books, wifi, and food), the neighbouring Mei Mei Cafe and Mekong Cafe are the places to go; also just next to them is the Mekong River International Youth Hostel which is where I always stay in Jinghong, a solid and centrally-located backpacker option with helpful staff and surrounded by good restaurants. If you happen to catch him, the Belgian owner of Mei Mei Cafe is a real character and a great source of information and stories (he showed me how to remove an old visa from my passport with steam to make a blank page)

An enormous moth with striking markings — This beauty was at the Boten border post

From Jinghong you can take the bus to Luang Nam Tha in northern Laos (a lovely area to explore, also well worth a few days of your trip), a journey of around 8 hours via Mengla. You might be able to change money when you make a rest stop in Mengla – first time I did this route, a fruit vendor just outside the Mengla bus station offered good rates (and delicious fruit), but the second time we stopped somewhere different and there wasn’t anywhere to change money so I changed some at the border.

The bus was full of fruit & veg! — Be prepared for the possibility of sharing the bus with a load of produce from Mengla!

Be very careful if changing money with one of the many black market money changers hanging out at the border post – make sure you know in advance the correct rate for the day, which you won’t get but make sure it’s not too far off, and watch very closely for some sleight of hand. She tried every trick in the book on me, pretending not to have any 50,000s and trying to give me a huge stack of 10,000s with a bunch of similar-coloured 1,000s hidden in it, then trying to pass some 20,000s off as 50,000s, miscounting the number of bills, and pretending not to have small bills for the last little bit. I insisted on 50,000s, counted it all back out and checked the notes before accepting it, rejected the smaller bills she’d slipped in with the larger bills, and eventually had the correct amount we’d agreed upon. That was already at a rate which was a bit more beneficial to her than the official rate, so although it made her a bit stroppy I didn’t feel remotely bad about blocking her scam attempts. Actually it was kinda fun and I was having a laugh with her by the end of the transaction but anyway change money in Mengla if possible, or just wait until you reach Luang Nam Tha… I only changed at the border that second time as I was going all the way through to Thailand that same day and thought I might need some Laotian kip for food and for the evening bus to Thailand (turned out I didn’t – read on).

Also, if you need a visa-on-arrival remember you need cash to pay for it; the price varies according to both your passport and the currency you pay in, and you get a better price paying in Chinese yuan or US dollars than you do in Laotian kip (another reason to avoid changing money at the border).

Deforestation in northern Laos — Luang Nam Tha is a beautiful region, but sadly you’ll see a lot of this – the price of development in northern Laos

From Luang Nam Tha you can then either travel further south through Laos to Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, and beyond, or cross over to Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

China to Thailand Overland in One Day (via Xishuangbanna – Huay Xai bus and 4th Thai – Lao Friendship Bridge)

I don’t recommend skipping Laos – it’s a great place – but if you’ve been before and are in a rush to get to Thailand, since the opening of the 4th Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in 2013 it’s become possible to make it the whole way from Jinghong to Chiang Rai (or even Chiang Mai) in a single day’s travel. Prior to the bridge opening, the necessity of crossing the Mekong by boat meant spending at least one night in Chiang Khong, Huay Xai, or Luang Nam Tha (I once spent the night at the border town of Chiang Khong, having arrived too late for the boat – even ending up in a face off with a couple of sketchy street dogs)

To do this, you need to catch the 5am bus from Jinghong to Huay Xai, the town on the Laos side of the Mekong (if you don’t get this first bus of the day, Luang Nam Tha is as far as you’ll get). The bus drives from Jinghong to Mengla where you’ll have a rest stop, then crosses the border at Boten. Don’t worry about changing money in Mengla, and definitely not with the scammers at the border – you can use Chinese yuan or US dollars to pay for your Laos visa and lunch near the border, and when you reach Huay Xai in the evening the bus station has official moneychangers where you can change your remaining Chinese yuan for Thai baht, and you can buy your onward bus ticket using baht.

On the Laos side of the border you stop for lunch (which was where this conversation happened), then drive the whole way across this beautiful northern corner of Laos to reach Huay Xai around 5pm, the bus dropping you directly at the new international bus station (an impressive setup, part of the bridge development) in time for the last bus to Thailand.

The staff there are very much on the ball – as soon as we got off the bus they were checking whether we wanted to go to Chiang Khong, Chiang Rai, or Chiang Mai, whether we needed to change money, and getting us through immigration as efficiently as possible to the waiting bus. Remember to have some small denomination bills (US 1$ bills are best) ready for your Laos departure tax; if you want to go all the way to Chiang Mai, they’ll switch you to a minivan on the Thai side – this would make for an insanely long day though!

I haven’t done the journey in the opposite direction, but as of March 2017 (see Houei Sai – JingHong in final image here, and check locally for the latest information) a bus for Jinghong leaves the Huay Xai international station at 10am; this is too early for direct connections from Chiang Rai, so being in Huay Xai (at the right station) in time to catch this after waking up in Chiang Rai would require taking the first bus at 5am to Chiang Khong (having them drop you at the turnoff for the bridge), then local transportation through immigration and over the bridge. You might want to spend the night in Chiang Khong (the town on the Thai side of the border – a pleasant enough place to spend a night, except for the sketchy dogs) or in Huay Xai itself instead. Or in Luang Nam Tha! (I’d love to hear from anyone who’s done this route from Chiang Rai to Jinghong in one day)

Any updates you can share for future overlanders? Got any questions? Leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

Make sure to sign up for a VPN service before arriving in China so you can use the internet as normal – see here

For Yunnan pics see here, and for a useful Chengdu-Yunnan shortcut see here; for more China posts, click here

See my China overland travel guide here, and also my Laos and Vietnam pages. Use 12go Asia* to search & book Chinese train tickets, and Baolau* for Vietnamese tickets.

(*these are affiliate links i.e. if you use them to book train tickets, 4corners7seas will receive a commission; this comes out of their profit margin at no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance should you choose to use my links!)

Dog Bites Man: on soi dogs, getting bitten, and rabies shots in Bangkok

Southeast Asia, Thailand, Travel tales, Wildlife

Bitten in Bangkok

Khao San Road, circa 3am… (and this is not the first story I’ve told on these pages that picks up at that time & place!) …my Canadian buddy’s waiting for me in the street while I pop in to a bar to grab us two more beers and make use of their restrooms.

(drinking in the street on Khao San, toilets are an issue; you have to use the (paid, shitty) public toilets, pay to use a hotel’s, or, best, pop into a cheap bar to take a leak and grab takeout beers… guys can also pee in alleyways of course, but that’s running a high risk of being cornered by a pack of ladyboys… happened to me once and I only narrowly escaped!)

Heading back out to rejoin him and resume whatever political debate we’d been in the middle of, I suddenly felt the most unexpected of sensations – a set of sharp teeth sinking themselves into my Achilles tendon… this fucking little bastard dog just ran up out of nowhere, unseen and completely unprovoked, and got stuck straight into the back of my leg!

I shook it off, and when it gathered itself to lunge again I aimed a kick at its face, which didn’t connect but caused it to back off. At this point, the owner of the bar intervened – very much on the dog’s side! The mangy little mutt didn’t look like anyone’s pet, but she was obviously fond of it and told me to leave it alone.

Me leave it alone? Haha… I was most definitely not the aggressor here!

Fact is, Thailand unfortunately has an issue with street dogs, or soi dogs (soi is the Thai word for alley); living rough on the streets and forming into packs as wild dogs do, they have tough lives. It’s awful to see animals living in lousy conditions like that, but that’s not the only issue. They can also be really sketchy, sometimes outright aggressive, and human fatalities do occasionally occur directly from dog attacks, and more frequently from rabies contracted from dog bites.

As much as I pity the soi dogs, they also shit me right up; though this was the first time I’d actually been bitten, this wasn’t the first run in I’d had…

Territorial Soi Dogs in Ayutthaya

On my first visit to Bangkok, my buddy Danny and I took a day trip up to Ayutthaya; as we got off the boat across the river from the station, a random dog snapped at Danny’s bare ankle, Danny just pulling his leg away in time. Totally unprovoked, and of course it makes you worry about rabies. A short time later as we walked to the ancient ruins, we rounded a corner to find a pack of seven or eight dogs straggled across the road; their ears pricked up and they all stood and took interest in us, and not in a friendly way judging from their body language. We turned back and found a different route.

Ayutthaya… cool place, but watch out for the soi dogs!

A Face Off with Two Soi Dogs on the Laos Border

A few years after that, when en route from Chiang Rai to Laos, I’d spent the night in the Thai border town of Chiang Khong (this was before the 4th Thai – Lao Friendship Bridge existed, and we hadn’t made it in time for the last boat over the Mekong); my beloved Leeds United FC were playing in the League One Playoff Final that day, and I went off in search of an internet cafe to follow the game (smartphones and wifi everywhere weren’t a thing yet). I totally failed to find an internet cafe though, and in fact the whole town was shuttered up for the night; but what I did find was a pair of stray dogs blocking my way back along the town’s only road.

Attempting to calmly pass them didn’t work; they jumped to attention, growling and snarling and adopting threatening postures. It seemed they’d attack if I got any closer, so I backed off and waited for them to hopefully lose interest or wander off.

But they stayed right there, so I tried to pass again by walking flush against the wall at the side of the street, giving them as wide a berth as possible; but they still wouldn’t let me pass.

I couldn’t see any other way around, but there was a pile of bricks at the side of the road. I picked up a brick in each hand, and decided I’d just call their bluff and walk past them; and if they actually attacked, I’d just have to fucking well bash their skulls in… or get ripped to shreds… even odds, perhaps; any more than two though and there’d have been no chance.

So, thus armed, I approached again; as they snarled and gathered themselves to lunge, I told them (as calmly as I could) to chill out and let me pass, and started walking through.

They snarled; they growled; and then they ran at me. This was it, they were actually attacking, I was in a fight to the death with two dogs… shit! I raised my right hand, brick at the ready, and shaped to smash it into the first dog as it leapt – and the dog slammed on the brakes, whimpered and yelped, and ran away with its tail between its legs, its companion following suit.

I guess they were as scared of me as I was of them; their threat display was menacing, but all it took was a threat display in return and they backed off. These dogs live hard lives, and have likely taken a kick or two before. And so, thankfully, I got back to my guesthouse unshredded (where I eventually learned (via SMS, I think) that Leeds United had lost the final).

Bangkok’s Soi Dog Problem

There are an estimated 8.5 million (Bangkok Post, via Wikipedia) to 10 million (Canadian Medical Association Journal) stray dogs in Thailand with 300,000 in Bangkok, 1 in 10 of which are estimated to have rabies. Dog attacks are a regular occurrence (I can’t find any full national statistics but according to the above CAMJ report, 1.3% of foreign visitors get bitten), occasionally severe enough to be fatal – and even if the wounds themselves aren’t severe, the victims sometimes get rabies and that is virtually always fatal.

By day, the soi dogs look positively wretched and pathetic, curled up in gutters and keeping a low profile; but come midnight when the road and foot traffic dies down and it’s dark, packs of soi dogs roam the streets and you don’t want to bump into them when they’re on the move with their tails up. Half a dozen growling dogs in a dark alley is seriously scary, even if they are skinny little things. Some people even carry weapons for just that reason.

It isn’t just the soi dogs that are scary in Thailand either; pet dogs very much double up as guard dogs, and walking through residential areas at night you’re constantly subjected to aggressive barking from the dogs in the houses you pass. It’s not so bad by day, but even then they’ll still sometimes give you a bit of verbals as you pass. The houses all have high walls and solid gates so it isn’t scary per se, but it’s extremely tedious and they don’t half scare the bejesus out of you sometimes when you’re not expecting it – what’s more, the barking of the house dogs attracts and excites any soi dogs in the area. Between the aggressive guard dogs and the roaming packs of soi dogs, I quickly learned to simply not walk around late at night.

In a perfect world, all of these poor animals would be rounded up, the rabid ones put down humanely, and the rest adopted and taken in by people who would show them a bit of love. Some lucky dogs do get adopted, but given that that’s not going to happen in anything like sufficient numbers what really needs to happen is a large-scale program to spay & neuter enough of the existing dogs to control the future population. The Soi Dog Foundation is a Phuket-based charity also active in Bangkok which runs adoption and spay & neutering programs; if you want to help, check out their website (and here’s the Wikipedia page for more background reading)

So anyway, back to Khao San Road; I’d just been bitten by this little shit that may or may not have been a pet, or perhaps semi-stray, and now the bar owner lady was giving me shit for not being happy about getting bitten!

Although it was a bit like adding insult to injury that she was having a go at me, it was actually a good thing from a rabies perspective. And that was the real issue – although the bite did hurt a bit it was only a small dog and I was wearing jeans and socks, so the wound was light. But a light wound is still enough for rabies transmission, and a rabies infection is a death sentence; if the animal is wild or stray, a full course of shots is required (usually 5 shots over a month) with the first within 24 hours of the bite.

But if the animal is known (e.g. someone’s pet), it helps as the animal can be observed – rabid animals are only contagious in the final days before death, so if the animal is still healthy 2 weeks after biting you, you’re in the clear. You still have to have a shot within 24 hours and a second a few days later, but the full course can be discontinued if the animal can be observed and confirmed healthy within the relevant timeframe.

So, while I didn’t appreciate the bar owner taking sides against me, at least it would help that the bar staff seemed to know this animal… or at least, it should have helped. But when I tried to ask about the dog’s health, where it lived or if it belonged to anyone, she got really defensive; when I persisted (politely) I was told to fuck off, right to my face, with a few guys appearing to back her up. Having seen some vicious beatings on Khao San in the past, I knew I had to just walk away and accept I’d need the full rabies course.

It did occur to me I could still report it to whatever body is responsible for dangerous animals and rabies in Bangkok (if indeed there is one), but it also occurred that the dog would likely then be destroyed, and I’d have made some enemies on Khao San Road – not a good idea when you live in Bangkok and drink on Khao San several times a month! And perhaps that’s why she got so defensive of the dog – she didn’t want it getting put down. Fair enough I suppose.

Hungover Sunday Hospital Visit for Rabies Treatment

So, anyway, there I am on Khao San, they’ve just told me to fuck off and pulled the shutter down to end the conversation, and my buddy has to leave soon anyway with an early morning flight to catch. So we finish those beers and call it a night, and I head home to deal with the bite. This means first thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting the wound, then getting to a hospital within 24 hours for the first shot. As I got home at 4am, I decided to get some sleep after cleaning it, and head to hospital when I woke up.

Not how I like to spend my Sunday, especially when hungover! To make matters worse, the public hospitals close on Sundays so I had to fork out for a swanky private clinic (the Sukumvit Hospital next to Ekkamai Skytrain station, near where I was living at the time – yes, Sukhumvit is usually romanised with an ‘h’ in it, but the hospital styles itself without the h for whatever reason). I have to say it was top notch – the doctors and nurses were excellent and all spoke great English – but factoring in the consultation fee, a rabies shot, a tetanus shot, and some antibiotics, made it by far the most expensive night out I ever had in Thailand!

Fortunately (and to my surprise) they said the rabies vaccination I’d had many years earlier was still good, so I only needed two shots rather than the full 5 and this would be the same regardless of whether the dog could be observed or not, so no need to try checking back on it.

A few days later I went for the second shot at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University Hospital (near Victory Monument Skytrain Station), which was far cheaper but still gave exemplary service and care. The young doctor cracked a nice joke referencing Khao San’s reputation for crazy behaviour, asking if I was sure it was actually a dog that bit me?!

This actually happened in the same month that a drunk driver almost took me out when he totalled his sports car right in front of me… seemed like Bangkok was trying to tell me something! (and I took the hint – I moved back to Taiwan a short time later)

So anyway, a few injections and that was that. Not nearly as good a story as my Canadian friend who got savaged by a monkey in southern Thailand a few months before that and had to get all 5 shots – she was a good source of advice!

Should You Get the Rabies Vaccination Before Travelling?

So is it really worth getting the rabies vaccination in advance before you leave? Well, the shots are likely more expensive at home, but in the event of a bite you only need 2 shots, which will be far less disruptive to your trip than having to make 5 separate hospital visits! And on the one hand, only 1.3% percent of foreign visitors get bitten by dogs in Thailand; but then on the other hand, a whopping 1.3% percent of foreign visitors get bitten by dogs in Thailand! That works out as more than 400,000 tourists per year, which is quite a lot really (and that’s not even counting monkey bites).

One line of reasoning is not to get vaccinated in advance as, in the event you do get bitten, you can then claim the costs back on your travel insurance; this is probably fine so long as you’re never going to be more than 24 hours away from a clinic, you’re able to cover the cost of the full course until you can make your claim, and are prepared to accept the extra disruption to your trip of making five separate hospital visits. I always use World Nomads for my travel insurance, especially as I’m usually buying insurance on the go when I’m already overseas (which most travel insurance companies don’t allow – as I once found out the hard way when my camera got pinched in Bangkok); however, another thing to consider is that if you’re not vaccinated, in the case of severe bites they’ll also want to give you an immunoglobulin injection which a) may not be available outside major cities and b) sounds deeply unpleasant (it’s a big old injection, apparently), so take that into account too.

What to do if You Get Bitten

Firstly, clean the wound thoroughly with disinfectant, soap and water, or whichever of those you have available, and then seek medical attention – remember, the most crucial thing is to receive the first shot within 24 hours. If you’re somewhere remote like rural Laos, you need to get yourself to a large town with a decent hospital as pronto as possible.

As for the animal, if it’s possible to observe it for the next couple of weeks, and if there’s a relevant authority in the country you’re in, then it’s worth contacting them and possibly saving yourself having to do the full course of treatment; otherwise, you have to assume the worst and get the full set of shots.

For more detail, see here

Again, don’t forget to buy a good travel insurance policy! If you did leave home without one, World Nomads will still cover you.

And finally, if you want to help soi dogs in Thailand, here’s the link to the Soi Dog Foundation again.

Have you had any run-ins with soi dogs in Thailand? Been bitten? If you have any questions or stories, leave me a comment below!

For more Thailand posts, click here

Check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Dog photo credits 1&3:Thai Dogs 2:nist6dh (all via Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence)

On Khao San Road, late night beatings, and sticking your neck out

Southeast Asia, Thailand, Travel tales

Street party on Khao San Road — Khao San Road at night: lots of sketchy fun! (Photo credit: see below)

“That little fucker just tried to take my wallet!”

Not from what I’d seen… “You sure mate?” I replied, “looked to me like you just bumped into each other.”

We were drinking and dancing in the middle of Khao San Road at 3am, as you do, drunk on buckets and still chugging big bottles of Singha from the street stalls. I was with this Belgian guy called Albert I’d just met once previously (the week before), a friend of a friend who was living in Bangkok, and if I was a 6 on the drunk scale he was probably a 9; not quite a write-off, but too far gone to make much sense (or remember much later). We’d lost the other guys we’d been out with and were getting stuck in to the weird & wonderful zoo that is Khao San Road in the wee hours of a Saturday night.

This was a short time before the military took power in the 2014 coup d’etat, before they cracked down on the wildest elements of Khao San Road. Packs of predatory ladyboys prowled on the lookout for foreign tourists too drunk to notice a missing wallet, the party went on all night with no curfew enforced on alcohol sales or loud music, and there were a lot of drugs being taken – not so much by backpacker party addicts, but by the local kids.

The drug of choice was yaba, some sort of shitty amphetamine derivative (crystal meth, more or less) manufactured and smuggled in from Myanmar, and a lot of the local kids were on it, wild-eyed, sweating, and dancing like nutters.

On one occasion around that time, myself and a few others tried to help a girl who appeared to have had a bit too much yaba – her eyes rolled up into her head and we tried to stop her bashing her skull or swallowing her tongue while she had a seizure. The police from the station at the end of the street were absolutely fucking useless when asked to help; nasty stuff, and it definitely seemed to be causing a few problems.

The combination of drunk tourists (hailing from Europe to America, Japan to Brazil, all over the place) with the local party kids, the ladyboys, the hill-tribe ladies hawking their wooden frogs (and the colourful hats right off their heads), the heartbreaking sight of the street kids selling roses and ‘I ♥ DICK’ bracelets, and even the odd random hooker from Sub-Saharan Africa, made for some wild scenes on the street; a total zoo, sketchy for sure, and usually a lot of fun.

(It’s been a bit less mental since the military takeover and subsequent crackdown, but only relative to what it was before – it still qualifies as a madhouse by most measures!)

Bad taste fancy dress masks for sale on Khao San Road — Always a random touch (photo credit: see below)

I say it’s usually a lot of fun, because there are always victims – the Manchester lad who’d been robbed blind by a girl he took back to his room, the Canadian guys who’d had their passports swiped, the Korean girl who’d had her phone swiped. And the high energy atmosphere could sometimes turn sour in an instant; one time I saw a couple of backpackers running from a bunch of tuk tuk drivers who caught them down the street and gave them a short, sharp beating. On another occasion as I was sat with a Korean friend having late night street food a fight broke out just down the road between two groups of Thai kids; my friend went over to see what was happening, and the stall holder (who she was friends with) called her back, warning they might start shooting so she shouldn’t get too close (not that the stall would’ve been a much safer place had firearms been used). Then there was the time I saw a big American skinhead get into an argument with a stall holder; he threatened physical violence, with the result that he was subjected to exactly that. Within moments an entire crew of Khao San lads had descended on him and dished out a brutal 5-second pasting and then disappeared again just as quickly, just like that.

I love Thailand and the Thai people, but you simply do not fuck around with the locals there; sound practice anywhere really, but especially so in Thailand where verbal arguments can quickly become fatal confrontations if someone feels they’ve lost face, and on Khao San Road they’re very used to obnoxiously drunk foreigners and not shy about dealing with them vigilante style.

A busy bar on Khao San Road — Khao San Road, early evening (photo credit: see below)

So when my drunk Belgian mate bumped into a yaba’d-up local kid and got it into his head it was a pickpocket attempt, I tried to reassure him otherwise and change the topic whilst manoeuvring us away from the kid and his mates; any trouble and we would come out of it very badly. Unfortunately, these kids were high as anything and covering a lot of ground with their hyperactive dancing, and before we’d moved far enough away one of them bumped into my buddy again… “That’s it!” he snapped, “I’m not taking this shit!” and went to remonstrate.

So this Belgian guy drunkenly accused this mashed Thai kid of trying to steal his wallet; the Thai kid, high as a kite and with eyes bulging, insisted he’d done nothing. The kid actually looked mortified at the accusation, and I believed him; meanwhile his crew had gathered round, we were outnumbered 5 or 6 to 2 and were the ones causing the scene in the first place, and I urgently tried to persuade Albert to drop it.

“C’mon man, he’s just wasted and bumped into you, you’ve still got all your shit, right? Lets just go get another beer down the road,” I suggested, and he seemed to realise that was the best course.

But just as the situation appeared to be diffusing, Albert had a rush of blood and raised both hands to the kid’s face, middle fingers up in a pointblank double bird.

“Fuck. You!” he shouted, before turning and walking off.

“Shit,” I thought, “what happens now?”

In the space of a second I watched the kid’s face cycle from aggrieved innocence, to shock, to anger; he and his friends started shouting to each other and the other guys they knew on the street, and in moments there were a dozen of them, including one huge guy who emerged from the shadows somewhere who I think had been involved in battering the big American guy a week or two earlier, and now they were all picking up empty beer bottles and taking off after Albert.

“Fuck,” I thought, “they’re going to smear him into a red paste on the sidewalk, and I’m literally the only other person who knows it or has any possibility of preventing it.”

Shit, shit, shit… what to do? Do nothing, Albert gets fucked up; do something, maybe he doesn’t, or maybe I just get fucked up along with him… or maybe I get pasted in his place! He was the one being out of order (not badly enough to warrant getting bottled and headstomped, you might think, but in Thailand, for sure), and I don’t even really know the guy so am I really going to stick my neck out and risk a beating on his behalf?

But although this all flickered momentarily through my head, it wasn’t really a question; doing nothing wasn’t an option. I wasn’t sure what to actually do, but I had to do something…

So I sprinted after them, catching up a few seconds before they’d have caught Albert a short distance from the waiting taxis at the end of the street, and got round in front of them… and then what do I do?

I had no idea, so I just raised my palms and pleaded with them to let him go.

“Wait, wait, please stop,” I said, or words to that effect, and then turning to the big guy who seemed to be the leader, gave the deepest, most respectful wai I could or ever have (the wai is the Thai greeting where you place your palms together with the tips before your face; the lower you incline your head and the higher you raise your hands, the more respect you show).

I started explaining that the guy they were after thought someone was trying to steal from him but was completely drunk so made a mistake and accused the wrong person, but he cut me off with a question.

“Are you his friend?”

“Not really… I just met him once before… but I think he’s a good guy and he’s just too drunk tonight… if you let him go, next time I see him I’ll tell him he was wrong to say those things,” and I wai’d deeply again.

There was a bit more back and forth, the guy complaining about the insults Albert had given, me apologising profusely on his behalf, waiing repeatedly, and ending my English sentences with the humble Thai suffix khap.

Finally it all seemed to be up to the big guy, and the others (and myself) waited for his decision; I was effectively throwing myself on his mercy, and though I tried to hide it I was absolutely shitting my pants, bracing for a rain of bottles to the back of the head.

But the blows never came, and after the longest of seconds he finally let me off the hook.

“Okay, okay… there is no problem. But you,” he said, jabbing his finger in my chest, “you go home right now.”

“Okay, khap,” I said, and we moved away in opposite directions, me heading for my hotel round the corner on Soi Rhambuttri. I tried to find Albert on the way, but I guess he was already gone in a taxi, completely oblivious that he’d just come so close to a vicious beating or that I’d prevented it by practically prostrating myself to the local hard nut; in fact, he was probably still feeling angry about someone trying to pick his pocket, and perhaps even feeling pleased with himself for giving them a mouthful for it.

I never saw Albert again after that, and I left Bangkok a short time later. So I was never able to tell him, and to this day the way he probably tells it is that some little shit tried to steal his wallet and he told them to fuck right off… well… that is, if he even remembers it!

Moral of the story? Khao San Road’s a lot of fun, but watch out for yourself and others and absolutely don’t get into any aggro with the drivers, stallholders, and party kids (and make sure you’ve got good insurance). Show respect and you’ll receive it; show disrespect and you’ll likely get your head kicked in…

Got any Khao San Road stories? Leave a comment below!

For more Thailand posts, click here

Check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Photo credits 1&2:Filipe Fortes 3:NeilsPhotography 4:Ronald Tagra (all via Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence)

How to Get Travel Insurance When You’re Already Overseas (and how I found out the hard way)

Southeast Asia, Thailand

Whoever took my camera that day, hats off to them; they were good. I never felt a thing… one minute I was snapping photos from the Chao Praya Express boat, but the next (as I was wanting to take a pic from the Skytrain window) I found myself reaching into an empty pocket.

My camera was stolen shortly after photographing this temple (Wat Arun), and my travel insurance didn't pay out — The last thing I’d photographed with that camera: Wat Arun, from the Chao Praya river (this pic taken with another camera on another visit)

To be honest, I’d made a schoolboy error; I usually put my camera in a button-up or zip pocket, but when transferring to the Skytrain that day I’d just lazily slipped it into the side pocket of my shorts.

I don’t mean to single Bangkok or Thailand out here; in all the time I’ve spent there that’s the only petty crime I’ve personally experienced (though I’ve witnessed a few late night beatings on Khao San Road). It’s just good practice to take close care of your stuff when you’re travelling, especially in the big cities; I’d say lesson learned, but really I already knew. I just got sloppy, and paid for it.

And in fact, pay for it I did. I bought a new camera up in Chiang Mai a few days later, but I never got the insurance payout – the real lesson I learned from that experience was to be more careful when buying travel insurance and pay more attention to the small print and check boxes.

Problem was, the travel insurance I’d left home with had run out, and I didn’t extend it because I no longer needed winter sports insurance but their inflexible system wouldn’t allow me to extend without continuing to include it.

So instead, I’d just bought a fresh new policy – and apparently when doing so I’d checked a box saying I was still in the UK at time of purchase (I was actually in Japan). This meant the policy was void from the start, and the time and effort I spent traipsing to the Chiang Mai police station (while coming down with some sort of tropical illness) was wasted; worse than that, it meant I travelled from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines and then around Southeast Asia for months without any insurance cover.

Fortunately, the only thing I ended up needing to claim for was a low-end compact digital camera (people always say the worst thing is losing the photos, but thankfully I’d loaded mine onto my hard drive the night before so I only lost that day’s pics of Wat Arun and the Chao Praya river)… but what if I’d been in a tuk tuk pile-up, or smashed myself in the river while tubing in Vang Vieng, or that illness had turned out to be malaria?

The insurance company would’ve left me up shit creek without a paddle, that’s what would’ve happened. My fault of course, for checking the box; but I realised then that I needed to find a way to get insurance while already overseas that would suit my preferred flexible style of travel.

Well, pretty much as soon as I asked the question, I found the answer. And if you’ve landed here by asking the same question, the answer is World Nomads. They’ll sell you a policy wherever you are, their website is nice and easy to use, and their customer service was excellent on the one occasion I needed it. Since losing that camera in Bangkok, every travel insurance policy I’ve bought has been from World Nomads. Don’t learn the same pricey lesson I did – if you need flexible insurance on the go, they can provide it. Get a quote:

(Yes, this is a bit of a sales pitch – the above links to World Nomads are affiliate links, meaning that if you visit them via my links and make a purchase, 4corners7seas will receive a commission from World Nomads (this comes out of their profit margin at no extra cost to you). But I’m not linking to them just because I can get commissions; I’m linking to them because I use them, they’re awesome, and they answered my question about how to buy travel insurance when you’re already travelling – if that also answers your question, and I’ve helped you to find them, please consider using my links. I thank you in advance should you choose to do so!)

For more Thailand posts, click here

Also check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Robert Plant’s Lemon Juice: surviving the Trans-Sumatra Highway (Sumatra to Java overland)

Indonesia, Music, Overland travel, Travel tales

Sumatra to Java overland: view of Gunung Kerinci (Mt Kerinci), Sumatra — A view of Gunung Kerinci (Mt Kerinci) across the tea plantations, West Sumatra: the best thing about my journey to Jakarta!

I flopped into a chair and ordered a plate of nasi goreng and a bottle of Bintang, now running on empty and entirely on autopilot. The nasi goreng was to satiate my hunger, the beer to celebrate my having survived the Trans-Sumatra Highway; it was hot and humid even in the small hours, and as I sipped the deliciously cold beer my faraway eyes were drawn to the TV screen, a DVD of live concert footage of Led Zeppelin in the 1970s (I think it was this one), Robert Plant exhorting me to squeeze his lemon, to squeeze it until his juice ran down his leg…

It was my second visit to Sumatra, but now I was making my way to other parts of Indonesia for the first time and I’d just spent some 36 hours or so travelling from Sumatra to Java overland, from Sungai Penuh in Sumatra’s Kerinci Seblat National Park, mostly on a banged-out old clapper of a bus flagged down on the Trans-Sumatra Highway (following a long initial minivan ride to the highway!) – and that was after the previous day’s 10-hour journey from Bukittinggi to Sungai Penuh (with a change of minivans in Padang). Exhausting stuff by its very nature, but made even more so when you’re fearing for your life the entire time! Finally arriving in Jakarta at 2 in the morning, I dumped my shit in a cheap hotel and stumbled down the road like a weary seadog finally back on dry land, or maybe more like a good old-fashioned zombie. A hungry zombie, looking for some quick food before finally collapsing into bed.

The National monument in Jakarta — Jakarta

The first day’s minivans from Bukittinggi to Sungai Penuh had been reasonably pleasant (bar a lot of faffing around changing vans in the city of Padang), with some cracking scenery including views in Kerinci Seblat park of Gunung Kerinci (Mt Kerinci, Sumatra’s highest) and the tea plantations surrounding it (I detoured off the Trans-Sumatra Highway in order to visit the park, but really it needed a longer stay to be worth it). But seriously, that highway bus ride down to Jakarta on days 2 & 3 was absolutely ridiculous. There was only one driver, one driver the whole way from Bangko (at least, I think that’s where I switched to the highway bus) to Jakarta, and I think the bus had actually originated in Padang (or perhaps even further north than that), and I think he’d been the only driver from there too, meaning that same one guy drove, singlehanded, for at least 30-something hours with just three 90-minute meal breaks per day – breaks during which I observed him nailing a plate of food and then power-napping for an hour, running to the prayer room to quickly pray (for our survival?), and then calling everyone to board again.

Jakarta's skyline as seen from the National Monument — The Jakarta skyline

As if that wasn’t mental enough, the Trans-Sumatra Highway is a real mountain roller coaster in places and our man had a penchant for overtaking logging trucks on blind corners, pulling back in just in time to avoid a head on smash by a whisker – but not before I’d soiled my pants (again).

How he achieved this feat of endurance without killing us all, I will never understand. The one enjoyable bit of this Sumatra to Java overland slog was the ferry crossing, when I passed out for a couple of blissful hours in one of the deck chairs out on deck under the stars, the only useful sleep I could snatch on that terrifying journey.

A group of Indonesian tourists I chatted to in Jakarta — A group of Indonesian lads (tourists from Sulawesi) who stopped for a chat in Jakarta

So there I finally was in this cheap restaurant in Jakarta, a decent plate of food before me, a decent beer in my hand, deliriously tired but alive; I devoured my nasi goreng in short order and all I wanted was to go to bed… and yet I was utterly transfixed by the TV screen, rooted to my seat. Led Zeppelin cast a spell on me from four decades in the past, and I was mesmerised. Somehow, I’d never really seen or heard any of their live recordings before, never appreciated how god damn fucking tight they were, with how much heart and soul they played the blues:

…or how seriously fucking incredible Bonham’s drumming really was:

…but what the fuck was Plant on about with all the lemons, anyway? Actually, it’s a lyric borrowed from the one and only Robert Johnson, one which Plant loved to use:

Seems strange to say it now, especially as I was and am so into both heavy rock and the blues; but for some reason, Led Zeppelin had never really blown me away before. I guess I’d never listened to their stuff closely enough, perhaps due to the familiarity one automatically has with their more famous (and, Stairway aside, imo generally less interesting) numbers.

Well, they blew me away that night and I finally saw the error of my ways. I sat through the whole DVD, knocking back a few more Bintangs, and eventually staggered to bed at perhaps 4am. I then proceeded to sleep all day, only stirring in the evening when hunger roused me to head out into Jakarta’s bedlam. And over the following days and weeks I worked my way through Led Zeppelin’s back catalogue, devouring it as I’d devoured that nasi goreng.

Thinking about it, I suppose I would always have eventually realised how awesome Led Zeppelin were; their brilliance would have demanded it. But we often attach certain songs, albums, and bands to episodes and periods in our lives (and I personally find this to be especially true during periods of travel), and I love the way that now, thanks to the way I really got into Led Zeppelin for the first time, whenever I hear Robert Plant singing about his lemon juice it transports me back to a 3am plate of nasi goreng in Jakarta, back to that feeling of exhausted relief at having survived the Trans-Sumatra Highway in between seeing the many wonders of Sumatra and Java.

Any thoughts or questions on either Led Zeppelin or the Trans-Sumatra Highway? Leave a comment below!

For more Indonesia posts, click here

Also see my Indonesia overland travel guide

(This page contains an affiliate link i.e. if you follow the link from this page to the DVD on Amazon and make a purchase, 4corners7seas will receive a commission from Amazon. This commission comes out of Amazon’s profit margin at no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance should you choose to do so, and the DVD is money well spent!)