Day 4

This was my last full day in Bangkok-the tough work day that the trip was planned to accomplish. Jon Dunn and I were to visit at least three different shops to evaluate the fit for manufacturing in Thailand. Our company has experience with Multi Design Company owned by Anucha Choeisuwan pictured here with Jon Dunn, Director of our UK office. We toured all day traveling full circle around Bangkok. I was impressed with Anucha personally and his technical knowledge for a 30 something engineer. The shops we visited however were not as impressive as I'd hoped. Thailand is supposed to be a step up in quality compared to Mainland China, but the shops we're using in China were producing better quality at a lower cost than Anucha. He does have one niche to fill however. For the machines we sell to China, we could purchase the heavy steel at low China costs and bring over to Thailand to assemble and then ship back to our China customers. Why you ask? You need a special office license to ship directly to a China customer machines that are built in China. This way we skirt around that license legally. Anyway we'll see. We are giving him equipment to quote and we'll see how his prices look.

The only funny side story outside work was learning about the "Bangkok Bow" as I call it. Everywhere we went people kept bowing to us and putting their hands together like praying hands. We're talking everyone everywhere. Each time we walked in and out of a place, in hotel hallways, taxis, if we met anyone, served and received any food, got the dinner check-EVERYTHING came with the customary Bangkok Bow. When I passed by McDonalds and saw the Ronald stautue doing the bow-I had to call it out. I asked Anucha to explain what and why it was. He said it was just their age old custom of greeting someone and showing respect. He said it's exactly like our Western culture handshake but alot cleaner. I asked him what"cleaner" meant. He explained that a long time ago, people's hands were very dirty-no sinks or bidets- get the picture? The thought of touching some stranger's hands still grosses them out. I'd wished he'd told me all that before morning number two and I grabbed his hand and gave the customary Western business grip! I do remember his hands being very limp as I squeezed. poor guy, he'll probably be washing for a week.

We got back to the hotel about 6:30pm. the traffic downtown was killer. It makes New York look like a freeway. I sat and thought about how 5 million poeple enter and leave a downtown every day. Jon and I traveled by elevated rail to Siam Square to ahve dinner. Boy was that place hopping on a Friday night. We found a quiet little Italian Restaurant and gobbled down some poorly prepared pasta. I had to have fish for Lent so I had the shrimp with angel hair. Sounds better than it tasted . Oh well, tomorrow's Saturday and the traffic to the airport should be better. I hope so, we're leaving at 7am for a 10am flight.