Dealing with Business

Tuesday, June 16, 2009--Bangkok

The breakfast buffet was better than I expected this morning even though it has been moved to a smaller venue. The only thing I was missing from the previous one was French toast. When I left, I walked over to the hotel manager and told her that I was happy to see that it was almost as good as it was in the ballroom. Then I pointed out to her that what I missed most was the French toast and suggested that one of the THREE kinds of eggs could be changed to offering French toast, since it is also an egg choice. Later in the day, I was told that the manager had requested that French toast be offered tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed!

I made one of my usual stops to see the art on exhibit at the gallery on the campus of Chulalonghorn University. There were two exhibitions. One was of photography. Most of the work I did not like, but there were two really special photographs. One was a photo of the riverside of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar that looked almost like a painting. The other was a photo of a landscape during a colorful sunset. A big portion of it was the black sky with the crescent moon and a star shining brightly at the top.

My dental appointment went well. My teeth were cleaned, and nothing else was found to be a problem. They made me an appointment for tonight with a specialist to help me with my partial plate. I need the two artificial teeth that are a part of it rebuilt. That's the main reason I am returning to Bangkok after my trip to Cambodia. I had been told previously that it would take 10 days to do that work.

Because they have free internet at the dentist's office and I considered it to be safe from password copying software, I went online to check my credit union accounts where I have my travel credit cards. I discovered a problem. Just before leaving on my trip, I transferred $5000 to my "cash" card I use from there. I always do that so that I have a negative balance. That way, I never have to pay interest on cash withdrawals. I also have a letter in my file there requesting that the negative balance be maintained (since they will otherwise move it back into my savings account). Well, there was no negative balance in the account. Because a special program is needed to see the history of the account (through a download), I could not see what had happened. My guess is that they moved the balance back into my savings account. I went into my e-mail and wrote them explaining the problem, asking them to fix it, and requesting that they reverse any charges to my account that were made because of this mistake. Why can't people do their jobs right without having to be corrected?!!!

Actually, one person really impressed me today. From the dental office, I went to Chawla Travel. They are a private agency which specializes in around-the-world tickets and special tickets of other kinds (such as one-way tickets). I decided to use them this time to purchase my ticket rather than going directly to Thai Airways. Well, what a good choice that was. I had my ticket in my hands within 45 minutes of arriving at the office. Ranee, the lady who assisted me, took my itinerary and put it directly into the computer quicker than anyone ever has before. Only one problem cropped up, a change in schedules at Tap Portugal Airlines meant that I had to adjust the dates of my flights from Morocco to Lisbon and on to Caraccas to a day later than originally planned. A few minutes later, she had all the taxes figured and I was making my payment. The ticket was cheaper this year, but not by much. The ticket with all taxes and fees included came to $4285 U.S.--about $400 less than last year.

After resting and watching a TV film in my room, I am now headed for my night appointment with the dentist. When that is finished, I will stop at a food stall to eat dinner. Last night, I had a bowl of noodle soup with chicken for about 60 cents U.S.