Bodhi Bum: One Night in Bangkok Makes a Hard Man Humble (or so the song goes) (Original Post May 25, 2005)

One Night in Bangkok Makes a Hard Man Humble (or so the song goes) (Original Post May 25, 2005)

Saturday, January 21, 2006 / Posted by Bodhi /

Wednesday evening, work is done for the day, the beer is on the table, the appetizers are on the way, the entrée is being considered, the sea air is coming up off the Singapore river, the sun’s just going down around dusk, Boat Quay is just starting to bustle with the after-work happy hour crowd, food and drink are expensed, and life doesn’t get much better than this. I wish I had my camera to take a picture.

View Talay Building 1 & 2 - The first building completed and the second about 95% completed.

So it was a gruelling day at work trying to abide by the timetable set by the client, but it’s all worth it when you can hop in the cab after work and jet down to the river-side and let it all unwind on the company dollar. There’s nothing worse than spending your own money. I’ve gotten to the point where if I can’t get a receipt for it and include it in my daily expenses, I won’t buy it. Which makes it difficult when you’re between contracts and you start trying to figure out how you can expense that bottle of Whiskey and mixers for the night. Still haven't figured that one out.

Building 1 shot from the road directly in front. The front landscaping has been completed and is amazing. Palms trees and a landscaped U shaped drive around the front.

So I’m now back in Singapore after a whirlwind tour of Thailand. Ok, three weeks hardly constitutes a whirlwind tour, but it’s amazing how time flies in the Land of Smiles. I do a three week contract and I’m ready to resign and retire. I go to Thailand for three weeks and I’ve barely blinked and I’m back on the plane home. Or wherever home approximates for these days. In this case it’s Singapore and my trusty old hotel room which feels like home now. I spend more than a month in one place now it starts feeling like home. But three weeks in Thailand pretty much consisted of cruise around Bangkok seeing old friends, four days on the beach in Jomtien, back to Bangkok for two days to visit frieds, four days on the beach in Jomtien, back to back to Bangkok, etc, etc. Good thing I had a contract in Singapore to make it back for or I could have gone on like that forever.

A shot of Building 2 from Thappraya road in the front. This is the building I originally bought a unit in on the second floor. But I switched to Building 3 after seeing the layout and it being larger and much closer to the ocean.

So the purpose of the trip back to Thailand was officially to check on the progress of my condo and make sure that my money being sent off into cyberspace regularly each month was going to a good cause and not to some mythical construction project. But lo and behold the “View Talay Building 3” which will soon become home does actually exist and is actually about half completed at this point. Upon dropping into the sales office the jolly old Frenchman, Roland, informed me that I’ve made a fantastic investment and should promptly buy three more. In salesman speak it sounds much more convincing. It seems they’ve had such success that they’ve put another three developments on the books. But I can only live in one and one will suffice for now.

The construction crew hard at work on Building 2. If I lived there I could be almost home now. But Building 3 has a long way to go.

Next comes the news that the project is a little behind schedule (mostly due to the death of the extremely obese company director, Dr Kevorkian, or actually Geoff Kevorkian or something. It seems the good life in Thailand was a little too much for his poor old ticker) so my building will be completed a little behind schedule. It was due to be completed by Oct 31, 2005, but now they are saying it will more likely be late December 2005 or so. Now just need to figure out how to spend Christmas in Thailand and explain that one to mom and dad. Just kidding guys.

So now I'm back in the corporate world working frantically over such world changing questions as "who is the second managerial sign-off on the purchase of the copy machine?" and "when Jo-Blo quit the company did IT delete his user account?". From worrying about which book I should read today, to senseless crisis like these is quite the step down in life. But we all have to make money, and paradise just ain't no fun when you're broke. So I'm back on a renewed mission in life to pursue the capitalist dollar and swallow the inane corporate headaches all so I can one day soon lie on the beach and have utter disregard for irritating thoughts of money. If there's one thing this last trip has taught me, well two things, it's: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy peace of mind. And two: I'm really, really lazy.

Slowly but surely it's coming along.

I've included the pics of my condo, or what's currently there of it. You can see from the two completed buildings what the veneer should look like, but Building three and four are in an L shape and I think much better designed. And my building has it's own pool on the second floor directly below my balcony, and they are committing the first floor to a bank branch, restaurants and bars. Which means that although I'm on the seventh floor, in terms of height I'm really about 8 1/2 stories up which improves the view and still keeps the condo building a boutique building with limited number of owners.

With that Crown they put on top one could almost feel like Royalty.

Although the quality is amazing in them all. I took a walk through Building one which is the only fully completed one, and it was breathtaking. As most of the owners live back in their home countries, the place was completely silent with no one around except the staff who were scrubbing the place down to a sheen. The place was all marble inside and sparkling. So mine should be a keeper when it's done end of this year. I just can't wait to get down there and go on a shopping spree for a big plasma bigscreen, surround sound system, huge oak bed, black leather couches, the works.