First off, a little quiz to break the ice! Go ahead and take your best guess what this is. If you get it right and provide us with some sort of proof, we will happily send you a nice little post card from the next country :).
Lend me your ears! Because the last couple of days have been great.
Even though I totally know to appreciate the fact that flying in an airplane is the most amazing thing (you’re in the sky, sitting in a chair! Think about it), I did find the flight from Fankfurt (Germany) to Bangkok (Thailand) rather annoying. The guy sitting next to me was moaning to an extent where I actually asked him if he was in pain an needed medical attention … no he said, he’s just tired (well thanks a bunch for keeping me up man!). However, the smooth touch down and finally meeting Benni, Hannes, and Lincoln at the Bangkok international airport made my day and I was sucked into the rediculously chaotic, awesome, confusing, and beautiful world of … BANGKOK!
Same same but different. Cheap cheap. Lady boy. Ping pong. Flied lice. Frog ladies. Pad Thai. … If you’ve been to Bangkok, you will probably know those or similar words and phrases. Some of them with positive memories, others not so much?! So we stayed in Bangkok for a couple nights since the guys had a number of appointments scheduled with musicians and producers to record a couple of songs. We stayed right next to Khao San Road, which is the main road of clubs, little shops/stands, bars, backpackers, hostels, and so on. And we focused on some of the bars that had live music acts all night, trying to recruit new artists to record. The recordings included a professional Thai singer, Mai, and we were able to film her singing in front of the Kings Palace which you will be able to see in our next video! Just before this great session, we were also able to get some recording done at the very top of the highest building in Thailand, the Baiyoke Tower II. Benni and Lincoln played and sang on the rotating platform as Hannes recorded and filmed, with which I tried to help out a little. Additionally, we recorded Jay, a talented young violonist. And also got to hang out and record some stuff with another Jay, a well known producer.
What I’ve really been enjoying is that we’re not doing the normal sight-seeing stuff. We still get to see beautiful places but mainly because we’re so fortunate to meet local musicians. And we’re delighted to see that Thai people in general really enjoy and respect the Sailing Conductors project. Many people around Khao San Road know us, and the restaurants usually ask us if we will be having the usual. Since many Thais, especially the people you meet in the streets, don’t really speak english, you usually have to engage in some sort of activity with them in order to interact. We went to a free outdoor gym and worked out with a couple of Thais, played a Thai sport which is a mixture of soccer and hacky sacking, and later went to get some custom suits tailored. The tailors were truly impressed by the porject, and have now become a small sponsor of the Sailing Conductors, and you will get to see a little video about this very soon! Having connections is the best way to roll in Thailand … people here will help you out the best they can. So from Monday we probably have a place to stay for free and possibly even a motorized vehicle of some sort. That should help us a lot in getting the boat fixed up asap.
Check out some more pics right here and also on the Sailing Conductors Facebook page.
Most of all; check back soon, the next report is almost ready!