Melly Clit-mat and Happy Noo Yee-Ah!

And there won’t be snow on Ekkamai this Christmas

At least not the kind of snow most people know – Nyacky Flange Aid - *1

It’s the Festive Season in Buddhist Thailand, which, in a nutshell means:

1. For two months, now, we’ve been driven to distraction by relentless and uniquely Thai versions of Christmas carols including “Fwostee Da Snowman,” “Jinger Ben,” and as my gorgeous friend Niki so beautifully puts it “We wit you a melly clit-mat and a happy noo yee-ah?“ In every department store, 7-11, bank, government office, you name it;

2. Corporate sponsorship of synthetic trees, Santas and assorted other silly Chrissy thingeys has blown off the scales. In Bangkok, forget the First Noel and the angel. Our “trees” are brought to you by McDonalds, Visa Card, Master Card, Kasikorn Bank, Bangkok Bangkok, Siam Commercial Bank and the Nakhon Ratchasima Mutual Cooperative Credit Society for Poor People or NRMCCSFOPP. (I only made one of those up) and the preferred colors are deep purple and shimmering silver. There is no such thing as over-the-top in my adopted home country;

3. Most importantly, it’s preparation time for my inner circle’s annual luncheon bash and we’ve got sooo much to do. Actually ‘luncheon,’ aside from being a ridiculous word, is not really appropriate. Usually the food doesn’t appear until about 4 pm, by which time most of us are three sheets to the wind. Some years, we’ve actually forgotten to eat.

I hosted last year's extravaganza, for the first time. 

People had warned me about how much work was involved, but seriously I don’t know what they were banging on about. It was a snap, simple, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

“That’s because you outsourced absolutely everything,” said my mate Stu, who fortunately I had the foresight to appoint as Executive Producer (I’m sorry, I’ve worked in television too long to think or talk in any other terms).

He is right of course. I did. I got everyone to do everything while I popped over to Laos for a little holiday break withy my friend Ginny.

But I knew that Stu was the way to go. As well as being stylish, sexy, a Master of Good Taste and superb cook, he’s so organized it’s slappable . And with his gorgeous significant other, Tam, who can whip up an award-winning cheesecake between Skytrain stations, in tow, one simply couldn't go wrong.

Stu, Craig & Tam

Nicole was charged with buying and decorating the Christmas tree, as well as picking up my pre-ordered turkey from Villa supermarket, Paula and Nadia were in charge of vegetables, Stu provided the music and the sound system. 

Annie came armed with ice (the frozen water kind, don’t get the wrong idea), Phil brought along the Esky – or cooler for my legions of non-Australian readers -- which I got Nadia to return to him seven months later for his birthday party that I shamefully didn’t attend.

Ginny – visiting from South Africa -- whipped up a few platters, Niki brought desserts, Andrew was the ice cream man and my next door neighbour Jeanne, who still doesn’t know this as she was in the U.S., supplied an extra dining room table, six chairs and a gravy boat, an hilarious object that I had never heard of until Stu asked me if I had one, as Paula and Nadia erupted into side-splitting laughter.

Nicole, Stu & Craig

“Does he look like someone who, given his complete lack of culinary skills, would have a gravy boat? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Stu,” blurted Paula while topping up her 8^th vodka as the veggies burned to a crisp.

Craig & Paula

Annie and her hubby Steve, who I have a secret crush on, hosted it one year and almost suffered stress-related nervous collapse, hence my decision to “produce” or “assign” and "outsource" the various "tasks."

Tam, Annie & Craig

This year it’s Niki turn. Niki knows how to get things right.

Okay, her tasteful 'luncheons' rely a lot on domestic staff, as do mine, along with friends, but I’m looking forward to her soiree. She actually dared, then encouraged and finally congratulated me on being able to pull off last year’s frivolities. 

And Niki and I speak the same language – an arcane dialect incomprehensible to anyone except the two of us after a combined 18 glasses of Sauvignon Plonk.

Niki & Craig

It is bound to be fabulous, but we’re hoping our dear leader Andrew, who is currently on a sell-out tour promoting his new album “SAEC” – or Single ASEAN Economic Community" feat. Usher, Sia and Ms. Pichada de Jesus – will be able to join us.

It wouldn’t be the same without you, Andrew. Crouton Craig? I hear you ask.

Andrew & Craig

In the past we've had various themes, usually related to popular songs -- or songs popular known for reasons only to ourselves.

Stu's dos are generally Renee Geyer or Chaka Khan-based. Andrew is a Kate Bush Fanatic. Annie and Steve's was indie-ishly Smiths-ish. (Try saying that after six Shirazs, three plumb-puddings and nine lines of blow, I mean snow, I mean, oh I don't know what I mean). Mine was Kylie or Bust.

Niki's is going to be "Gangnam Style". Except she doesn't know that yet.

So Jinger Ben, Melly Clit-mat and may Fwosty  Da Snowman melt to bits wherever you are this Dec. 25. I am one happy chappy, or as Kylie sang "lucky, lucky ducky" to have so many fabulous friends. And I love youse all.

Thank you for your support in 'TWENTY TWELVE." This Christmas, blow your own fucking trumpet till the cows, and, Randolph the rude-nosed reindeer comes home. Or until you are blue in the face!

* See Footnote 2

Craigy

xxx

* 1- Nyacky Flange is the name of a Bangkok Cult, masquerading as a book club, to which I belong.

* 2 - It's pure coincidence that I appear in every single photo, really, I promise. I have no ego, whatsoever. I'm not the slightest bit self-centered, ask anyone, although preferably me. And not personally, you must forward all inquiries to "my people." And please, no direct eye contact. Have I not made that clear?

Let Them Breed Frogs -- Lao PDR (3)

THE  HMONG

There are certain things one should avoid when traveling in Asia: Malaria-infested jungles, intoxicated taxi drivers, earnest NGO workers and, top of my list, hilltribe home-stays.

But on my latest trip to wonderful Laos on a video shoot last week, we had little choice accommodation-wise.

The remote Hmong village of Houay Ha, high in the mountains of Luang Prabang province, has no Holiday Inn, no faux eco-resort, no private bungalows. In fact it has no electricity or running water. "No Water! Oh my god, my skin will flake and my beautiful hair will be ruined," I attempted to convey in seven ethnic dialects.

A local family graciously put us up in a storeroom at the back of their rudimentary house where we slept on a back-breaking wooden structure  above the dirt floor, along with all manner of insect life, the family’s 18 children and a large rat.

Outside, magnificent stars shone down into the blackness that enveloped the village.

The surrounding hills were alive with the sound of --- no not music – the sound of my cameraman projectile vomiting, the result of our lunch of minced innards that evidently didn’t agree with him.  

Diva producers like myself may be accused of being city wimps, but when it comes to roughing it we are usually way more robust than our macho cameramen, although I wouldn’t exactly classify my good friend Mikael as “macho.” Delightfully, he’s also not sexist, racist, rude or culturally insensitive like some in his profession, which is why I like him. He is open-minded, enthusiastic, intelligent and easy to work with. Just don’t feed him innards!

MIKAEL POST-POISONING

We are here to film a meeting between a Japanese-funded NGO and representatives of four villages about – you guessed it – alternative bloody livelihood programs.

Shifting cultivation or so-called slash and burn farming methods are destroying Laos’ forests, agencies and think tanks have declared. Odd how this has only just occurred to them given it’s been going on since Buddha was a boy. They are a bit slow on the uptake these agencies.

From what Mikael and I could see, the impact was minimal compared to the damage caused by large scale logging, both legal and illegal, and multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects that have destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of Laos’ pristine forests

So now the folk in this Hmong village are being encouraged to stop farming and are being offered a range of fabulously interesting alternatives like goat, frog, pig or fish breeding, pineapple growing – at these altitudes? And 'food processing.”

We had witnessed the ‘food processing initiative’ some days earlier.

Mikael and I had envisaged factory production lines with teams of women sorting and packing hundreds of boxes of canned grasshoppers as they spilled from the conveyer belt, singing to pass the time aka Laverne and Shirley.

In fact there were four women in a smoky, dark bamboo structure slicing bananas and deep frying them to sell for a pittance at local markets. Boy did we have the wrong idea. And they bore no resemblance to Laverne or Shirley, which was heartbreakingly disappointing.

I watched with interest as the Hmong men crouched on the soil politely listening to the NGO’s forest-saving initiatives.

“Most of them don’t understand it, it’s beyond them,” one of the NGO-ers remarked condescendingly.

That’s not the impression I got. Being able to understand a reasonable amount of Lao, I heard them ask sensible questions while watching attentively, although with an air of bemused detachment.

Sure, they could raise goats and plant turnips, they nodded, but I suspect what no-one is allowed to talk about, yet is rather obvious if you peek behind any of the ramshackle houses at the beautifully colored poppies, is that their main cash crop continues to be opium! Good on them.

The people in this village are among the lucky ones not to have been relocated – (see previous blog entry.)

But most of the other villagers we filmed in had been. Hideous cement structures had replaced traditional wooden houses and the new ‘bans’ (villages) had been built along side dirt roads that with each passing vehicle, stirred up huge clouds of choking, eye-watering, designer-gown and Jimmy Choo shoe destroying dust.

This is improving their lives?

Aid agencies and other international institutions continually associate ‘poverty’ with, among other things, the “inability to break free from reliance on subsistence farming.” It’s such a fucking Western ‘rich’ nation notion. I have been to many far-flung places in Laos and can state, or at least opine, that from what I have observed many people don’t want to ‘break free’ from it.

People grow enough food on which to survive, or if they fall short, a neighbor will help out. They utilize all manner of forest nutrients, and are adept at slaying wild animals, felling birds with blow-pipes and tossing in everything from ants to worms to garnish their broth.

(NOTE to Animal Rights Activists: I'm not sanctioning this, merely stating the facts so please don't bombard me with threatening emails or firebomb my apartment, I do not want a repeat of the fallout from when I mentioned dog meat was quite tasty). 

Village women may not be able to read or write, but they are adept at setting up and maintaining complicated irrigation systems. The children may be on the grubby side, but in many villages they have enough to eat and are remarkably strong, compared to their western counterparts, from helping carry firewood, climbing trees, fishing and hunting.

In our Hmong village, classed as “extremely poor”, many people used a barter system instead of cash, which they have done for generations. They are close-knit communities where three generations of families live under one roof and all help with daily chores.

I’m not trying to idealize it, many people do indeed struggle. But it continually bugs me, as you by now have no doubt gathered, that they have these livelihood initiatives imposed upon them amid accusations THEY are destroying the land on which they have lived for generations.

To quote Irish author Dervla Murphy, in her wonderful book One Foot in Laos:

“The modernization of ‘backward’ countries like Laos is in no sense a benevolent enterprise: it is undertaken to enrich the developers and turn everyone either into a consumer or an ill-paid laborer. That may seem too obvious to need saying, yet an astonishing number of well-meaning folk remain convinced that ‘we’ are helping when we initiate and implement modernization. Our faith that the West’s way of doing things is the best way has been so firmly implanted that even now, when the evidence that this is not so has piled up on every continent (including the Antarctic), we find it hard to question our own superiority.”

Well said, Dervla.

MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR RUINED!

After our two days in the Hmong village, tripping over potholes, falling on my arse down slippery forest tracks, deprived of my shower gels, Issey Miyake fragrance and my 76 skin creams, terrified I’d be attacked by a rat or bitten by a snake, I neither looked or felt remotely superior to these kind, generous people.

However, next time I’m demanding to stay in the ‘superior’ ‘non-rat’ storage barn digs. I’ve heard they  have their own en-suite, a hole covered in twigs half way down a mountain that a local has to guide one to in order to ensure us pampered, puny, pathetic white folk don’t go hurtling down a cliff. 

Darn those alternative out-house initiatives!

Mekong Reflections -- Lao PDR (2)

SUNSET OVER THE MEKONG

For me, rivers are magnetic. I can sit and watch the water move past for hours. They are places of contemplation – contemplation about the river itself to be sure, but also a place to reflect on the passage of time, of life, of experience –The River’s Tale – A Year on the Mekong – Edward A. Gargan.

Like Edward A. Gargan, I’ve done my fair share of river gazing over the years.

I vaguely remember, decades ago, staring mezmorized at the Nile as we drifted in a felucca boat from Luxor to Aswan in Egypt, although that may have had something to do with the amount of hash we’d consumed.

In Bangkok, I lived for a while in a condo with spectacular views of the Chao Phraya, which I never tired of. It’s a bustling, working river that embodies the city through which it flows.

But the Mighty Mekong is my favorite.

And in Laos, I do the Gargan thing: contemplate and reflect, usually while imbibing quite a few bottles of the local brew Beer Lao.

The Mekong flows through countries and cultures starting in the Tibetan Plateau, continuing through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

It is much mightier in the Vietnam Delta, in Yunnan, China and in Cambodia than it is in Laos. In fact in the dry season it virtually empties and you could easily wade across to Nong Khai in Thailand, directly opposite Vientiane, although you would probably be shot if you tried.

But during the monsoon months it fills up and is at its photogenic and contemplative best.

It is a remarkable river.

Sorry to get all factual here. As you know this isn't my normal style and I promise to revert to my self-promoting embellished nonsense soon, but it should be pointed out that it's the second most "fish diverse" river in the world after the Amazon.

“There are about 60 million people in the lower Mekong basin and most of them are entirely dependent on these fisheries for protein and their livelihoods," Marc Goichot, head of the WWF Greater Mekong Program told me in an interview in Vientiane recently. "And these people cannot afford other means of providing protein."

But these people, apparently, don't count. They certainly are a much lower priority than multi-billion dollar hydropower schemes under way such as the Xayaburi Dam, which despite a moratorium agreed to by Southeast Asian nations on halting work pending a proper impact study, is going ahead in Laos.

“The Mekong River is the lifeblood of Southeast Asia, feeding and employing millions of people. To move forward with the Xayaburi Dam would be reckless and irresponsible, as the dam would fatally impact the river's ecosystem and fisheries,” warns respected U.S. based group International Rivers.

And this makes me mad.

Mad that the "little people" are treated like this over and over again. Uprooted, cast aside, forced to move to appallingly slapped together "new towns" miles away from the coast and their traditional ways of life and told, by major aid agencies and smaller NGOs to grow pineapples, breed cattle or make straw mats, conical hats or ethnic instruments carved from bamboo to earn money.
In NGO-speak, this is called "Alternative Livelihood Initiatives." In Craig-speak it is called "Fuck the Poor". Okay, I know I'm getting on my high horse, but it really gets my goat!

PHOTO: JOHN MANGILA

About five years ago, I embarked on a wonderful adventure to shoot a video in the remote ethnic hilltribe regions of Laos with my AsiaWorks colleagues Derek Williams and Somyot Pisapak.

As it turned out, the area was no longer so remote. We had to get there by flying from Bangkok to Chiang Rai, taking a vehicle to the Chiang Khong border point and crossing the river to Huay Xai in Laos by canoe -- with about 80 kilograms of equipment, before embarking on what we imagined would be a long drive.

In fact the drive was much shorter thanks to the new superhighway that had just been constructed -- with funds from Thailand and China -- right through the middle of their communities.

The 'transport corridor,' had brought increased mobility, amazing cross border trade improvements and the potential for a whole range of new industries including tourism, according to governments, private sector behemoths and development institutions with a stake in it.

It had also brought an enormous increase in visiting businessmen, long-haul truck drivers and migrant workers, which resulted in demand for prostitutes soaring, leading to the first cases of HIV ever reported in the area.

This was a boon for HIV NGOs and Corporate Social Responsibility programs who set up AIDS education programs to prove they were doing their bit to help.

Despite being impoverished, the people here at least had not lost their livelihoods. We were treated like Royalty, mobbed upon arrival, garlanded by every village member and forced to down copious shot glasses of a potent local rice 'wine' concoction that I'm convinced was 80 percent kerosene.

"Great, we've been here half an hour, havent' shot a frame and already we're three sheets to the wind," I remember slurring to Somyot and Derek.

That was actually my first visit to Laos and possibly what sparked my ongoing love of the country and respect for its people.

Somyot, Derek and Craig' Warm Welcome

I'm not saying all development is bad, but in Southeast Asia's poorest countries it has come with a cost. There, that's my few Kip's worth. I would sign off by suggesting "countries find a balance between the economic improvements and the personal costs" but this would sound bombastic, arrogant and dogmatic, three of my most prominent character traits that my therapist and friends have advised me to tone down.

Plus I'm not really a 'balanced' person myself -- oh really, Craig! -- except when I'm standing on my head during morning yoga, so this sort of remark would smack of hypocrisy. I love that phrase.

But witnessing this has made me consider what would have been absolutely unthinkable -- and caused my friends to guffaw with laughter just months ago: Becoming an environmentalist! Just kidding. Can you imagine?

Lao PDR -- Please Don't Ruin (1)

PHOTO: JOHN MANGILA

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve just been cleared to land at Wattay International Airport,” the Lao Airlines pilot announces in a relieved tone that suggests we’ve been circling for hours waiting for the 17 flights in front of us to touch down, in danger of running out of fuel and plunging in a ball of flames into a rice paddy.

In fact, QV 0415 from Bangkok, an antiquated Fokker affair, is the only flight to land in the past several hours. There are only 10 international arrivals a day.

Given this, one would assume ‘clearance’ would be a piece of cake. But things happen a lot slower in Laos – the Land of Shadows, Saffron and Smiles -- than in other countries. Or at least they used to.

Wattay Airport isn’t like other airports, with the possible exception of Dushanbe in Tajikistan, which is constructed entirely of aluminum foil and twigs.

It’s not unusual to arrive on the night flight to find the immigration and customs staff have not yet turned up, so patience is a virtue here.

I come to Vientiane once a month and have been doing so for the past four years.

It’s my second home: A respite from frenetic Bangkok, laid-back, at times somnolent and slow but always friendly.

That’s what draws me to it. Okay, okay, well that and a 6-foot-three strapping American-Hmong-Lao  man with gorgeously chiseled cheekbones, my sort of significant other.

I’m on a first name basis with the Visa on Arrival officials – Mr. Somphon, Miss Vath and Mr. Somphon Number 2.

It’s the only city in the world, I reckon, where you can take a tuk-tuk from the airport to downtown in approximately 6 minutes.

This tiny landlocked Communist nation – which incidentally remains the most heavily bombed country on earth, thanks the U.S. Secret War -- is known as Lao People’s Democratic Republic or Lao PDR, but locals and regular visitors joke it actually stands for “Please Don’t Rush.”

PHOTO: JOHN MANGILA

The capital Vientiane sits on the Mekong River, which dwindles to a trickle in the dry season. Aesthetically it’s not the most attractive city I’ve visited. And it can be challenging.

Journalist and author Christopher Kremmer in his book Bamboo Palace many years back described Vientiane as “a low-slung, balmy town cradled in a bend of the Mekong River, where the only tension was an intermittent struggle between the rising dust and the rising dampness in the air.”

The wonderful Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy in One Foot in Laos wrote:

“Vientiane’s charm is engendered by its population and its quirkiness.”

I love its quirkiness and its people.

I’ve taken many visiting friends to Vientiane, who after a few days, have overcome their "Oh my God what a hellhole" initial impression and warmed to its ‘unusual’ charm.

So I now have my share of converts, including famous ones such as: 

Multi-award winning ABC Australia Africa correspondent and former Mr. Squiggle host, Ginny Stein:

And talented photographer, artist and designer, John Mangila, whose blog:

http://atbloominglovely.blogspot.com/

Blooming Lovely is exquisite, among my favorites and is finally bringing him the attention he deserves.

But in the past 12 months, I’ve noticed that Laos is changing, and not for the better.

In fact, it’s in danger of becoming the Land of Shadows, Saffron and Cement and Please Don't Rush is quickly turning into Please Don't Ruin it.

The ramshackle lean-to bars where I used to sit, sipping a delicious Beer Lao watching a brilliant orange sunset across the Mekong have been razed to make way for a stark promenade. There are billboards everywhere advertising soon-to-be-built Chinese and Vietnamese monstrosities, and bus loads of ghastly, obese tourists are becoming a regular sight.

The government is quick to point out that this will help the economy and the people of Laos.

But there are a lot of “people of Laos’ who stand to lose – their homes, their livelihoods and their traditions, as you will find out in part 2.

Coming up:  Xayaburi: The Damming of the Mighty Mekong

Street Tweets: Motorcycle Madness & New Media

Bangkok's Ubiquitous Motorbike Taxi Drivers

In all my years in Bangkok, I’ve only had three motorcycle taxi accidents that would rate as “credible.”

By credible, I mean where I’ve sustained injury, ended up on the asphalt or at the emergency department of my local hospital. Minor mishaps, including bumps, scrapes and the occasional SUV side-mirror in the ribs don’t count. They are too numerous to mention. Many of my friends have not been so lucky.

In the worst misadventure, I was hurled face-first onto my busy street, breaking my spectacles and ending up with shards of glass in my eyes, skinned knees and various cuts and bruises. But as the motorcyclist and myself had veered over to the wrong side of the road to avoid being sideswiped by a mini-bus, we count our lucky stars that, miraculously, there were no oncoming vehicles to crush us to crumbs.

In the most embarrassing one, a car cut across lanes – in Bangkok indicating lights are optional – ploughing into us. Somehow, in order to be prevent myself from falling into an open sewerage drain, I leaned in the other direction, towards the offending vehicle, ending up on its hood, where I rode for the next half a block, much to the amusement of the sidewalk noodle vendors, pedestrians and everyone else watching.

.

You would think that these narrow escapes would have put me off motorcycle taxis forever.

Nope.

Years in Southeast Asia have imbued me with a rather distorted karmic outlook on life. While two accidents within six month should have signaled it was time to ‘stop’, I saw it as a sign that the odds were against it happening again, for a while at least.

I’ve never understood people who cancel their flights on an airline that has just crashed. I mean, what are the chances of the same airline exploding in a fireball or ramming into a mountain the next day?

My friends and I are the type of people who embrace danger. We book holidays at destinations where bombs have just gone off, insurgencies are raging and in countries that have been recently put on Embassy warning lists as places to avoid. 

Terrorist threats, civil war and natural disasters, to us, mean fewer crowds, reduced airfares and bargain accommodation! Yes, I realize ‘normal’ people don’t think like this, but ‘normal’ people don’t live in Bangkok, or if they do for any length of time, they cross the threshold from normal to mildly insane and, often, beyond.

You know you’ve become a local when you only have a vague recollection of when the very prospect of getting on the back of one of these death machines induced terror: of when you would cling to the driver white-knuckled and close your eyes awaiting imminent head injury -- helmets have never caught on -- or limb loss.

Now, you don’t even hold on. In fact you are able to balance on the back of a bike with 5 bags of groceries and a carton of beer while talking on your cellphone. And the fact you are driving the wrong way up a pavement doesn’t faze you in the slightest.

I have learned to lengthen the odds. These days I don’t travel long distances on motorcycle taxis, but they are essential for beating Bangkok’s appalling traffic. They are fast, convenient and oh so dangerous!

“Flitting between jammed cars with knee-endangering speed, the motercy (motorcycle taxi) is the one sure way to make an appointment. Perhaps with your next life,” writes my good friend and famous author Phil Cornwel-Smith in his best-selling book Very Thai -- Everyday Popular Culture.

I have relied on motorcycles taxis to transport me, quickly, to military coups, romantic rendezvous and to sneak me into no-go areas during Bangkok’s periods of civil unrest.

When you get to know your local ‘gang’, and they are very much gang-controlled, you build up a  rapport. My local boys have known me for years, they know that every Songkran – Buddhist New Year – I will present them with cash gifts and bottles of Johnny Walker as is customary – to thank them for their services. I know them so well, that I trust them to transport important documents, such as my passport, to Embassies unaccompanied.

When I was stricken with a particularly bad case of Dengue Fever a few years back and had to visit the local hospital three times a week, the same guy would turn up without fail to ferry me there, then wait until I’d had my treatment and check up and take me home again, even going against his nature, to ride slowly, despite the effects of half a dozen Red Bulls, given my frail condition. Between my motorcycle boy, my maid and good friends, dealing with this debilitating disease was so much easier than it would have been in the West. I knew I had people to look out for me.

Recently, I’ve noticed, much to my delight, that the motorbike taxi mafia are no longer all male.

Meet Khun Noi.

Khun Noi is Soi Thonglor’s first female motorbike taxi driver. When I featured her on Facebook a while back she became a sensation. She’s gorgeous, sensible, safe and keeps the kamikaze boys in their place. Noi is building up a fan base and is in demand for her driving skills. She also offers occasional make-up, beauty and hair care tips, or at least she did with me!

“Men in Thailand think that women can't drive or do anything. In fact we do everything, so why can’t we be motorcycle taxi drivers? I have proved them wrong,” she told me while ferrying me home from the Botox clinic.

Motorcycle taxi drivers transport, deliver, pick up, and have a wealth of inside knowledge of where and how to obtain a variety of products, that I won't go into details about except to say that some of these 'products' are not exactly legal. So I'm told.

Now, much to my astonishment, they’re embracing the digital age and have moved into social media.

Heading the charge is Dejchat Phuangket, (pictured above), who became a celebrity by scooping everyone earlier this year, tweeting and blogging photos of bombings that happened not far from my home.

He also used his iphone to film the aftermath, and, as a result, was featured in hundreds of newspaper  and TV stories around the world. Other motorbike taxi dudes are following his lead and rip around Bangkok's mean streets with smart phones, mini cameras, you name it.

Dejchat, 39, bought a book to learn basic Internet skills and spent two years studying it. He now has two blogs and a Facebook page, as well as his Twitter account where he has 7,500 followers, including moi. I am green with envy. His Klout score must be through the roof!

As well as Bangkok happenings that he witnesses on his travels, he retweets international news events and is currently following the U.S. election campaign and the aftermath of devastating storm Sandy.

A modest man, Dejchat is perplexed at his superstardom, which now includes appearing on social media panels!

Not bad for a guy who left school, aged 11, to help work in his family’s rice paddies in Sisaket province in Thailand’s poor northeastern region.

When drought hit their crops and their livelihood, Dejchat moved to Bangkok, like so many others, and took a job in a factory, which he hated.

So he decided to become a motorcycle taxi driver and despite a potentially lucrative career on the public speaking circuit is content to remain one, earning between 400 and 900 Baht ($13 - $30) a day.

He is a remarkable man who prides himself on ethical and unbiased reporting on Twitter and his blog sites. 

“I try not to state my opinion, I just stick to the facts,” Dejchat messaged me. “This is very important, especially in regards to politics. Opinions would cause conflict, and I don’t want that, I want peace for all of the people in Thailand.”

Well said, Dejchat, my latest Bangkok hero and, now, story advisor and vital 'breaking news' source.

Follow Dejchat at:

Twitter.com/motorcyrubjang and

 www.oknation.net/blog/motorcyrubjang 

Follow Phil Cornwel-Smith at
@verybangkok