[Discuss] Thai Internet Café Blues - Lesestueck

[Michael H.]

Thai Internet Café Blues
as posted @ http://www.astahost.com/index.php?showtopic=9805

This is my story about how I am accessing the Internet at my current
location, which is Ayutthaya, Thailand. I spend most of the year in
Vienna, Austria, where I was born more than half a century ago. But I
certainly can do without the European winter and therefore enjoy
spending time together with my wife on her home turf. If you want to
see pictures, please check this link http://hoffenreich.at. Sorry, the
captions of the pictures are in German only.

When I was staying here before, I used to go to an Internet Café that
was open 24/7, and the hourly charge is only 15 Baht (some 35
Euro-Cents). So, in a sleepless night, I showed up there at 4:00 A.M.
"CLOSE" said the sign. Drove back home (5 kms), had another coffee,
continued reading a book. At around 9 A.M. I went back to the Café.
"OPEN 24/7" the sign said. Sure :) Before they used to have a guy
there who had something like the faintest idea what a PC was and how
it was supposed to be used. Now they have a bouncer. You might ask,
why in the world would they have a bouncer in an Internet Café? Well,
there is a reason. These Cafés primarily cater to schoolboys who skip
school and have a prolonged PC game instead at the Café. All of the 50
PCs in this particular Café have popular games installed. They are
running on Windows ME (yuck!) and are protected by "Norton Go Back" or
a program called similarly. You cannot even change the mouse
orientation without entering a PW. Very annoying for a leftie like me.
The bouncer is there to keep the schoolboys under control. Whoever
encounters a group of school kids these days anywhere on this planet
will know that they can get quite rude and nasty at times. Therefore
the bouncer is present.

So I am sitting there, checking my email, checking my website, reading
the news from back there in Austria. Speed is not overwhelming but
serves the purpose. I want to access the cpanel of my website, enter
the URL, and there Norton Go Back shows up and asks me for a PW. I
close the window. Norton closes the browser window. I try again, same
result. I call the bouncer. "What is this?" He looks, than shouts, "No
downloads!" - "I'm not downloading; I just want to access my website.
See, this is my website. This is my work!" Screams he, "NO
DOWNLOADS!!!" Now, for those of you who don't know, it's not for
nothing that Thai people are well known the world over for their
kindness, friendliness and their willingness to help each other and
others in every situation that might occur. Therefore, screaming and
shouting is seen as extremely rude and impolite. Shouting at someone
is equivalent to putting a huge knife's tip at your throat in a
western country. The school boys started watching. I got up and
pointed my index finger at him (consciously using this gesture which
is also considered very rude here) and said, "You don't shout with me,
boy! How much?" with an angry look on my face.  "15 Baht" he said, I
put the money on the table and left. On my way out it occurred to him
that I might not be a rude school boy but just an unhappy customer and
he said "Sorry!" I went to another Internet Café, run by the owner
himself, friendly, but this was next to the market, and therefore has
a lack of parking space.

Considering my options, I faintly remembered that my Nokia 7650, (the
first one with a camera built in, 3 ½ years old) has a modem built in.
So I went to AIS, Thailand's largest mobile phone operator, and
inquired there, if I can use my phone to access the Internet. The
friendly lady said, "Sure!" – "So how much would that cost?" – "One
Baht per minute, but we have GPRS packages, for instance 25 hours per
month for 100 Baht." 100 Baht are Euro 2,16. Heaven! "All you have to
do is make sure that there are enough funds on your prepaid phone."
They were. "Shall we help you to set it up?" – "I don't have my
notebook with me, so I'll try and if I fail, I'll come back" – "All
right. Thanks for coming."

To make a long story short, I am somewhat knowledgeable when it comes
to computers, but I am totally clueless when it comes to setting up a
GPRS phone, plus she had not given me the necessary data one needs to
set it up in a working manner. I took the trip back to the AIS store
twice, at the other end of town, but it was worth the effort.
Nominally, the speed is 56 kilobits, but what actually gets through is
32 kilobits at best. But I work and surf at the environment of my
choice, no bouncer bothers me here :) and I would spend more money for
gas going to the Internet Café alone than the phone company charges me
per hour! So a happy end to this story, and an end to my 26 days of
posting silence on this fine board.


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Ciao,

     Michael