Myanmar Quakes & Bangkok Shakes: Thoughts on the March 28 Earthquake [S7.E65]

Greg 00:00:06 On this episode, we sorta kinda have to discuss the recent Myanmar earthquake and its effect on Bangkok.

Ed 00:00:13 So if you're like us, you find it fascinating to see how Bangkok reacts to major emergencies. You'll do this episode of the Bangkok Podcast. With.

Greg 00:00:33 Our patrons a little pre-show roll, but we're only going to use the audio for the regular regular listeners of the podcast so they won't see this. But because I don't have my laptop, like I said on the main show or the bonus show, you might see us reading a little bit from the sheets here because we don't memorize these scripts every week. So forgive forgive us for that. So Andy, and welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 because I saw a movie about a young guy on a beach chasing the one thing we are all looking for. And of course, I'm talking about the Blue Lagoon.

Ed 00:01:07 Or Brooke Shields.

Greg 00:01:08 That's right. That's what we're looking for.

Ed 00:01:09 Brooke Shields and I met with an American who came to Thailand on your one year teaching contract 24 years ago.

Ed 00:01:16 Thumb in love with the widespread use of red Fanta soda and American brand as an offering to Thai spirit houses. So I never left.

Greg 00:01:25 I never really questioned where the brand comes from, but I guess.

Ed 00:01:28 It's American soft power, dude.

Greg 00:01:30 What about why don't they use that Thai red syrup that they pour into soda water?

Ed 00:01:34 Because it's not American. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

Greg 00:01:36 They're not offering the spirits. Just American stuff.

Ed 00:01:39 No red. Red, no red. Fanta dominates.

Greg 00:01:41 Yeah, I know that, but they're not. They're not saying here Spirit's an American producer.

Ed 00:01:45 How do you.

Greg 00:01:45 Know? That's my point. The ghosts are fans of tariffs now, are they?

Ed 00:01:51 No, it's American soft power. All right, I support. I support.

Greg 00:01:54 It. American soda power.

Ed 00:01:56 All right. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early. Behind the scenes photos of our interviews. A heads up to send questions to upcoming guests and access to our discord server.

Ed 00:02:07 To chat with me, Greg and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics. On this week's bonus show, we chatted about some bizarre ancient skeletons found under a hospital in town brewery actually not far from where we are right now. We also talked about a hospital simulating a mass crash event, which they're preparing for in case it happens during Songkran and the new digital arrival card, which, as you might expect, is not exactly perfect. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 700 bonus and regular back episodes, click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:02:56 That's right. And if you're a patron, you saw the old but the bonus show. And of course we have to give a shout out to our friend Dave, who gave us this one liter bottle of maple syrup. Actually gave one to you. One to me.

Greg 00:03:07 Correct. So that should put you over the top for diabetes supplies for the next little while. Thank you Dave. Thank you Dave. Maple syrup offerings are always appreciated. All right. Well, on this episode, we sort of had our topic chosen for us. And by that, of course, I mean the Myanmar earthquake, which happened on March 28th, 2025, and which was felt quite strongly in Bangkok and other areas in Thailand. Now we dithered about it a little bit, because by the time this episode drops, the quake will be 12 days old. And I'm sure that everyone has seen and heard a ton of news about it already. But things like this are such big news that it is impossible to ignore. So we're going to do it, and we're just going to talk about what our experiences were when it happened, how Bangkok reacted, and what it says about disaster preparedness in general in Thailand.

Ed 00:03:51 Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are wondering if it's safe to travel to Bangkok.

Ed 00:03:57 Bangkok was hackers like us. Notice I didn't say Bangkok. And I got it. Bangkok. I got it. are worried about the future. What if there's another quake? There could be an aftershock. so I think there is a lot to unpack here. Even though, of course, it's been all over the news. I think there's a lot to unpack here. So, I've heard the story before, but what what was your story when the actual quake occurred?

Greg 00:04:18 Yeah, well, I was at work. It happened. It happened at, like, 1:01 p.m. on Friday, around 120. Something like that. So I was at work, and I was on the third floor and, immediately, for some reason, felt like I was very drunk, very dizzy. And then I noticed the lights that were hanging from the roof were, like, really awesome. And and then I looked around and everyone was walking towards the door. And so we just basically it was it was actually it says a lot about our, our little company because we everyone calmly and quickly exited the building.

Ed 00:04:47 Went out to the road. No screams or anything.

Greg 00:04:49 Nope. Nope. Me, I might have screamed a little bit, but but no. Everyone just kind of walked out onto the road and we just sort of sat there and started sending messages and making sure that everyone was okay. And it was. It was, to be honest, it was pretty uneventful and it was sort of more exciting than it was scary. but we didn't really know what was happening. And we were outside and there were some cranes doing construction projects, and they were they were swaying a little bit.

Ed 00:05:10 So our listeners would probably know this. But for most people in Bangkok, there were no major injuries, no major problems. We're going to get into some finer details, but there was one collapse building, which is quite a serious event because there were a number of workers that were in the building at the time and right now quite distant from the actual quake. They're still actually digging now. So prayers out to those people if there's any possible survivors.

Ed 00:05:36 Right, right. In my case, I was here just a couple of feet from where we are right now. And, I gotta be honest, my, you know, I, I thought I was getting dizzy, and my first reaction was, God, I'm getting old. You know, I was thinking. I was thinking, I'm getting dizzy and I'm sitting down, right.

Greg 00:05:55 Right.

Ed 00:05:55 Right. And in my last thought before I realized that it wasn't me, just me. My last thought was, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like? You know, is this what getting old.

Greg 00:06:07 Downhill from.

Ed 00:06:08 Here? And it's funny because I told this to my students, and one of my students said that he thought the same thing, except he thought he he needed sugar. He's like. He was like, I thought maybe I wasn't eating enough sugar, and I got dizzy.

Greg 00:06:21 That's awesome.

Ed 00:06:21 Yeah. But then I noticed, so I didn't see any shaking of anything, but I could very subtly see when I looked out like what's going on, I could very subtly see the floor shifting.

Greg 00:06:32 Really? And your place here?

Ed 00:06:33 The whole place. It's a very, you know, it's subtle, but, you know, things were kind of swaying. Wow. But but not not in a major way, but just enough that I realized, oh, it's not me.

Greg 00:06:45 Right.

Ed 00:06:46 Yeah. Okay. And it wasn't a listeners out there. It wasn't short, actually. It went on. I don't know how long. I don't know if it went on for minutes, but it wasn't just like a three second thing. It wasn't.

Greg 00:06:58 Like that.

Ed 00:06:58 No, it was maybe like a minute or two.

Greg 00:07:00 I went down three storeys and from the top and we weren't running. We were just, you know, sort of going downstairs. So yeah, from the time we left before we left, actually, because it took us a few seconds to realise what was happening to the time. We got probably down to the first floor. It was shaking the whole time.

Ed 00:07:16 Yeah, a couple minutes probably.

Ed 00:07:18 So very weird. I mean, to be honest, for me it wasn't scary, but it was just weird, right? And then of course, you get online and you hear for some people it was quite scary. It seems the taller the building, the more swaying there was. And, just in general. But for the building that collapsed, mostly there was, superficial damage still. Still potentially scary. Yeah. So things falling off of buildings, there were some, rooftop pools on, on, hotels or, condos where the water's, like, sloshing out of the pool, like falling down the building. And then to me, one of the scariest things was those three towers on Sukhumvit that were connected by a sky bridges and the bridges, detached, which apparently is part of the design.

Greg 00:08:12 Yeah, that's that's the.

Ed 00:08:13 Is good for a lot of things. Yeah. Apparently, the by design, the bridges are meant to detach in case of an earthquake. And that's exactly what they did.

Ed 00:08:22 They kind of separate. and you can see it on video that it separates. You can see the the structures waving back and forth. Now, did you see the story about the Korean dude?

Greg 00:08:33 Yeah. The guy that jumped.

Ed 00:08:35 It's incredible.

Greg 00:08:35 It's like the rock in an action movie.

Ed 00:08:37 So yeah. No, I mean, actually you can barely see him on video because it's like it's.

Greg 00:08:41 Two pixels.

Ed 00:08:42 Tall. Yeah, he is, but apparently he was in one tower exercising when his wife and kid were in the other tower. And during the earthquake, he tried to get back and it had separated. I don't know exactly how big the gap was, but he actually leapt over the gap. Oh, man. Now, would you have done that, Mr. Craig? I must save my boy.

Greg 00:09:03 Yeah, he's probably fine.

Ed 00:09:04 Yeah.

Greg 00:09:04 Very fine. When I was outside on the street. Waiting for. Waiting for everything to happen. I was talking to people and sort of figuring out what to do next.

Greg 00:09:12 I was didn't even think of my son because I was like, he's at school, they've got. They've got evacuation drills. Teachers take care of all this stuff. So he's cool. And, And then I thought. And then I got a call from my wife and she was like, hey, our boy, where's our boy? And I was like, oh, yeah. Right. Because then I remembered he's not at school that day. He was at home by himself. It was a parent teacher interview. So the school was closed. So he's at home.

Ed 00:09:37 So she's like, you did not even think.

Greg 00:09:38 I didn't even I just assumed he was at school. Where all the where all the safe, the safety safety drills were.

Ed 00:09:44 Laugh about it.

Greg 00:09:44 Now. Yeah, but anyway, I called him and I was like, hey, buddy, what's going on? He's like, oh, I think there was an earthquake. It was all shaking. And I said, yeah, yeah.

Greg 00:09:50 He said. So I told him to go out there and like find this lady that we know in the building. She has a daughter. I'm like, find her and hang out with her by the swimming pool. And he, to be honest, he he found it more like I said, he found it more exciting than scary. He thought it was kind of interesting. And we live in a low rise building, so it's only eight stories tall. So there was no swaying. There was no damage or anything.

Ed 00:10:08 Now, I think from talking to our buddies and friends, I think it was a scarier experience for people higher up. Yeah. Number one, because there's more swaying things did fall off shelves. So I had friends who, items fell off shelves. the facing one of our buddies, like, in the kitchen. The actual, like, almost the tiles fell off the wall. and then, the elevator shut down, so they had to evacuate down 20, 25 flights in some cases.

Ed 00:10:39 And they had to move quickly, you know? So, like my buddy said, he basically ran down in this case, he was like, 16 floors up. Wow. so I think for some people it was a quite, a quite terrifying experience. and, But we had a lot of things we wanted to talk about because I think it this event, it raises certain questions about Bangkok and whether, number one, Bangkok buildings are safe. Overall, how do you think Bangkok buildings did?

Greg 00:11:10 Well pretty good. And I can say a lot about this now. Over the years, I've heard a lot of random chatter around bars and beers and dinners and things like that. Just conversations about how the city works. And many, many times I've heard someone say, man, if Bangkok ever gets hit by a big earthquake, we are dead. We're screwed. All the buildings are going to pancake because people just don't have a lot of natural built in trust about construction. Bangkok infrastructure. Because call it what you will.

Greg 00:11:41 Like all, there's all skimming off the top. There's cutting corners, there's corruption. There's, you know, people paid to look the other way, whatever you want to call it.

Ed 00:11:48 There's a reputation for corruption when it comes to building. And there's also this. We talked about it when there was that horrific bus fire. Right. There seems to be a culture of non-compliance with safety regulations.

Greg 00:12:03 Yeah. And it happens a lot. There's that's those concerns are not nothing. They're they're based on real events. Like over the years there's been dozens and dozens of incidents where gates have fallen on people or pieces have fallen off of buildings or cement. Screws have fallen off the expressways onto cars, like people get hurt. Or that that woman who was killed with a tree fell over in front of central. Central on Sukhumvit. I forget what it's called. Central, not embassy. Central. Embassy? No. No. Central. no. The other one next door. I forget what it's called. I'm showing my age anyway.

Greg 00:12:39 Things happen. People have been hurt, seriously, or killed by infrastructure not being built properly. So those fears, I think are are well-founded. But save one very tragic event, I think.

Ed 00:12:55 Yeah. So the building that collapsed was number one. It was under construction. So it wasn't completed. Now, I think that even when buildings are being constructed, there are ways to construct, can can construct them, that they should still be safe. Right. Obviously you're you're building the foundation first. I'm not a structural engineer, but they should be safe during the construction process. And right now there's a lot of scrutiny on that building, the company that built it, the construction methods. And I was just mentioning to Greg before the show, the government seems to be taking a pretty damn seriously. A lot of times there's a like a news story and it flashes and then you just never hear about it again. Right? But this seems different. I mean, obviously there's there's still crews there in case there's people still in the wreckage, but the government seems quite serious about figuring out why.

Ed 00:13:50 Why that one building in all of Bangkok. I'm actually kind of surprised that only one building went down. You know, they think of all the old. There's a lot of really old buildings in Bangkok.

Greg 00:14:01 Have you seen the the meme going around? It's maybe a little bit distasteful, but more funny than anything. But it's the ghost tower. The old ghost tower? Yeah. And someone put the the muscle arms emoji emojis off of either side of it, showing us. I mean, that's a that's what. That's a 30 year old building that's probably not even finished.

Ed 00:14:18 Right. But there's a lot of old structures. I mean, where we hang out in Chinatown, it's amazing that those old structures, I mean, I guess obviously they're not super tall, but, there's a lot of structures that look rickety. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they didn't go down and with a little research and it was actually in the news. Apparently Thai building codes were updated in 2007 to require earthquake safe construction.

Ed 00:14:45 Maybe not earthquake proof, but earthquake safe construction. And so apparently newer buildings are. Are totally safe as long as we don't have some massive epicenter right here in Bangkok.

Greg 00:14:58 Quick. I'd love to get a structural engineer on the show to talk about that. If anyone knows anyone, let us know because I don't know any and they've got to be pretty. I think they probably got to be pretty confident in their themselves and their career and their work to come on and talk about that, right? Especially now.

Ed 00:15:13 Most people.

Greg 00:15:14 Sorry. Let me say one thing more about that building that the building that collapsed, obviously, that was that was a terrible tragedy. Dozens and dozens of people were trapped inside. probably a lot of them were dead, were killed or. Things are not looking. Well, we're recording this on April 5th, so it's been eight days since since since like like that. So yeah, it was a definite tragedy. But I read that building broke two records, not good records.

Greg 00:15:39 The first one was, it was the, the the only building the, the the building that was furthest away from an epicenter to collapse like in history. Oh, wow. And it was also. Oh, there was another one. One more like that I can't remember like. But it was the, the only. The only building like something, something, something to collapse as well. So it set two very not great records for building building.

Ed 00:16:02 They got to get to the bottom of it. I mean, given the fact that it was the only one. Yeah, I mean, it does indicate that there was something super shoddy about the.

Greg 00:16:11 About, although I did, and I've spent too much time on Reddit, but someone linked to a, I think, a Der Spiegel article. So I translated it from German and some structural engineer in German, which I think you could probably trust German structural engineers. They said that actually cement gets stronger as it cures. So like over a period of several months, it actually reaches its full.

Ed 00:16:33 Strength that the cement wasn't cured. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. but, there was plenty of damage done to buildings. We want to make clear that there's a lot of towers that have damage to the facing cracks. Yeah, there's a lot of, a apparently superficial damage.

Greg 00:16:52 So hopefully it's.

Ed 00:16:52 Superficial officials.

Greg 00:16:53 So cosmetic and structural.

Ed 00:16:55 I think most almost everyone has been allowed back into their buildings. But there's a few. One of my students said that there's something wrong with her condo, and she still hasn't been allowed back in her condo, so she had to. So she had to leave Bangkok and stay with her parents. So I think there's a few buildings that, they haven't let residents back into. Even though the buildings are standing, they see something funky, maybe with the cracks or the the damage.

Greg 00:17:21 Yeah, man. Can you imagine being stuck outside of your building? And then someone says, okay, you can go back in now. I have declared it safe.

Greg 00:17:26 Yeah, right. I'm putting a lot of faith in you, stranger.

Ed 00:17:28 Well, you and I have some friends who can rename name, remain nameless, but they wouldn't go back in their building for a few days. So they got a hotel for a few days. Yeah, yeah.

Greg 00:17:37 It's.

Ed 00:17:37 Pretty early. I mean, in the case of my building, it did, shake a little bit, but I haven't seen any crack. Have you seen any any damage to your building cracks?

Greg 00:17:46 None at all. None at all. We live in a low rise, so, it was probably spared a lot of the swaying and swinging, but, yeah, we weren't evacuated. As far as I know, there's been no no problems at all.

Ed 00:17:59 Well, for me, the the craziest effect of the whole experience was the fact that they decided to close public transportation, in particular the MRT and BTS. Dude. And it's the only it's the only time I can remember where the whole system was shut down.

Ed 00:18:15 in the past, there's been accidents or power outages where they've shut down partial parts of it.

Greg 00:18:21 Yeah. From this station to that station.

Ed 00:18:23 I don't. Can you remember a time where they shut down both the BTS and MRT?

Greg 00:18:27 Maybe for like, the the Red Shirt riots or something like.

Ed 00:18:30 That, but I don't think they did. I mean, they might have shut down like CM, I don't think they shut down the whole system, maybe not even during the riots. I don't think they did.

Greg 00:18:38 When they had snipers on the train tracks, they probably just shut down the Sukhumvit Line, not the C line.

Ed 00:18:42 Well, just to show you how clueless I was. so the quake happened. It's all over the news. but again, I'm okay. My building's okay. And I'm supposed to meet a buddy of mine over near Coulson Road. So I, it took me a while to get a taxi, and things seemed a little bit weird, but this was, like, 30 minutes after the quake.

Ed 00:19:02 I'm like, I'm gonna go out.

Greg 00:19:03 It was just like, 230 in the afternoon kind of thing.

Ed 00:19:05 Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm going to go meet my buddy. Wow. And,

Greg 00:19:10 And so you were you weren't very shaken up.

Ed 00:19:13 No, we were not shaken up. I go meet my buddy. And then as we're sitting there, we're following up on the news and we start realizing, oh, wow, this is really serious because I didn't I didn't know about the building collapsing. Oh, yeah. I didn't know that the TFS and MIT got shut down. I just thought it was this wobble and everything was fine. And so I just went on with my day. Wow. I just went on with my day. And so I'm sitting with my buddy, you know, over beers in the afternoon, and we're realizing, oh, my God, this is a really serious. Wow. and then, so I probably at that point, so after hanging out for a few hours, another professor came by.

Ed 00:19:48 We're talking about it was a lot to talk about. You know, Post-quake and I probably should have went home, but I was supposed to meet another buddy.

Greg 00:19:57 Another.

Ed 00:19:58 Beer. but this time on Sukhumvit. And I was thinking, I'm trying to be smart about it. I was thinking, well, traffic's going to be bad. and I already knew the MRT had been shut down, so I did something that I never do, which is I never take long motorbike rides. I don't I do take motorbike rides, but I tend to take short ones. Right. And I do think motorbikes are very dangerous. And the longer the ride is, especially if they're riding fast, I just I get too scared.

Greg 00:20:25 So the numbers game, the longer you go. That's right.

Ed 00:20:28 Yeah, but I figured traffic was going to be bad, which actually slows down the motorbikes, you know, is what I was thinking. So I figured I would take a motorbike all the way from San to. To Tong lor, which I normally would never do.

Ed 00:20:42 And that's right. And I was using grab and bolt, which is, you know, roughly the same thing. And it took forever. And I almost gave. I mean, it was like 20 minutes, 30 minutes before I could just get a motorbike. Really. And so this this is how it's starting to dawn on me, like, wow, this is weird. And just the size of the problem is, is becoming more apparent. But I did get a rider right at the time I was going to bail. I got a rider or. No, I'm the rider I got. I got.

Greg 00:21:09 A driver.

Ed 00:21:10 A driver. Sorry. And, we headed out from San, basically Detangler. And it was a nightmare. It was constant traffic the whole time. And so the motorbike is going like this, weaving in and out of traffic, like narrow, like with a rear view mirrors.

Greg 00:21:28 He's got to lean to go around this mirror and then lean to go around that mirror.

Ed 00:21:31 My back started, my ass started, and I'm like, I'm too old for this.

Ed 00:21:34 And it was about, it really was bad. I mean, I don't want to exaggerate, like I was, you know, I wasn't injured, but it was miserable, dude. Yeah. It took it took an hour and 45 minutes to get to power.

Greg 00:21:48 I've never spent that long on bike, on my life.

Ed 00:21:50 45. And it was just awkward. Also, it's awkward riding. It's not just going straight. It's like weaving in and out, stopping a lot like exhaust fumes. Yeah. and and traffic was just bricked in. Just deadlocked. So I think, it's the worst traffic I've seen in 25 years. 24.5 years. I don't remember any other time. Where? Just the whole city. So basically, from Samsung law, it was just bricked in.

Greg 00:22:21 Yeah, I agree. Without a doubt, the worst traffic I've seen in 23 years. And I was at work, and I usually leave work by 530 or so. And I pulled up the Google Maps and it was like Jackson Pollock had had, used only red paint.

Greg 00:22:38 It was just it was just red, like, not even a little bit red. It was dark red and it just looked horrible. And I was like, well, I, I would rather drive longer the long way round if I'm moving. Versus the short way. Sitting still. You know what I mean? So I'm like, I'm not going. I'm not sitting in that car for for that long. So I'm just going to stay at work for a while and get some work done. So I stayed at work and I had a, I had a, I had a soda and I left I finally about seven, seven, 15, I was like, that should take the edge off. It's still going to be bad. But what are you going to do? I'm not going to stay at work overnight. So I got in the car 715 and I didn't get home until almost 10:00. Brutal. Now, the thing was, was interesting because it took a good a good 60% of that time was spent getting to the highway.

Greg 00:23:32 Once I was on the highway, it was actually fairly painless. Oh, gotcha. Because I think and my wife sent me a message, she said, don't go on the highway because people were scared an aftershock was going to happen and the highway was going to crack, or maybe it had already been cracked. So I think a lot of people were avoiding the highways.

Ed 00:23:45 Smart people avoided the highways and then dumb people like you were like, let's go on the highway.

Greg 00:23:49 You said, dumb. I think you mean brave, but whatever. Yeah. So most of the trip was spent just inching like bumper to bumper.

Ed 00:23:58 Dude, I was going in between car. It really was miserable. Yeah, I mean, so I get. So finally I'm meeting another buddy for a beer, and I just got there and I just sat down, and I'm just like, this beer is going to taste so good. Yeah. And he was like dude, did you take a motorbike the whole way? I'm like, yeah.

Greg 00:24:15 If you were to take a taxi, you'd still be on Cal. You'd have been 500m from Kawasaki.

Ed 00:24:19 Okay, the weird thing about Sukhumvit at the time is the streets were super crowded. Not not just the the the traffic, but there were tons of people walking on the street because some people couldn't get back in their buildings. And because the BTS and number two were closed and traffic was so bad, people decided to walk.

Greg 00:24:35 Were you the one that said it felt like a zombie apocalypse movie? Like where everyone just has to, like, get out and go?

Ed 00:24:40 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was packed. And so actually the bar I was at was actually pretty crowded in front of me, like people didn't have anywhere to go. They couldn't go back into their condo, so the bar was pretty packed. Everyone was talking about the quake.

Greg 00:24:51 No one has any ID because their wallets are all back in the hotels.

Ed 00:24:54 It's kind of funny when, when I was buying drinks, they made us pay as we went instead of running a tab.

Ed 00:25:01 And I asked the girl why? And she was like, well, we might have to flee. Like, we might have to run, like, because people didn't know about aftershocks. She's like, we went. And so then I was speculating. I didn't ask, but I was wondering if when the quake occurred at 130, maybe they lost businesses or they got or maybe people ran out on their checks.

Greg 00:25:20 Maybe. And then they're standing next to the waitress and they're like, see?

Ed 00:25:25 So they made us pay as we went. it's pretty smart. But by the time. So I ended up, end up, ended up actually staying out. Not super late that night, but I think I stayed out till midnight. And by then the traffic had relaxed. Right, right. So it took. It took the whole day.

Greg 00:25:40 Well, I have to make a confession here, and this is a little bit embarrassing, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to say it. But because I don't think it's actually as embarrassing as I'm making it out to be.

Greg 00:25:51 But like I said, I was stuck in traffic for almost three hours. Brutal. And before I left, I had a soda.

Ed 00:26:02 I think I know where this is going.

Greg 00:26:03 Dude, I peed in a bottle.

Ed 00:26:04 You peed in a bottle?

Greg 00:26:05 I peed in a bottle in the.

Ed 00:26:06 Car, man, you're a survivor. That's the way I look at it.

Greg 00:26:09 Dude, you are stuck in traffic. And I know there's people listening to this now going like, oh, gross or something like that, but you were. You were in the middle of the road. You cannot get out. There's motorcycles flying by all the time. There's people walking by. Literally. The only option was to step out and piss on the road in the middle of other cars.

Ed 00:26:26 Yeah, in front.

Greg 00:26:27 Of other people. In front of other people when they're walking around. Literally.

Ed 00:26:29 You're lucky you had a bottle, dude.

Greg 00:26:31 I had a one liter bottle, an empty one liter bottle in my car. That was.

Ed 00:26:35 Awkward. Did you accidentally like piano?

Greg 00:26:37 No, not not. I'm not going to get into the details, but things worked out okay. Lucky I'm a man. The physiology happens to work out pretty well.

Ed 00:26:43 A little.

Greg 00:26:44 Bit easier. But also, I think I'm not sure if you remember, but back in the day, like back before the BTS and everything, when this was normal, when three four hour drives in Bangkok were normal, they used to have. I remember there was two competing products and I, I didn't Google them, but but listeners, if you do Google them, you I'm sure you can find them. But one was called like Peabody or something like that. They were things that you would keep under your seat and they were set up to so you could pee in your car.

Ed 00:27:11 I don't remember this.

Greg 00:27:12 I'm not a car owner. This was before either of us were here. But I have seen news before, so it's certainly not unusual in Bangkok. It's like a.

Ed 00:27:20 Normal thing if you get stuck in a snowstorm.

Greg 00:27:22 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Ed 00:27:23 Okay, well, maybe you. Maybe you need to get a Peabody.

Greg 00:27:26 I got to get it. Maybe there's a new market for, like, a resurrected market for them. Again. People are a little bit nervous about these kind of things. That's right. Now we've got to deal with airport shutdowns, more coups, floods.

Ed 00:27:36 Well, my lesson from the earthquake, besides the obvious thing about whatever's wrong with that building that went down, is that if the beats and misses close, then Bangkok basically shuts down. So if you're ever in Bangkok and you hear the Martin B test is closed. Just stay home. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just don't try to venture out.

Greg 00:27:59 But.

Ed 00:28:00 So basically, the Beatles are essential now, right? They've become essential.

Greg 00:28:05 But it also makes me think to like for me, like it wasn't so bad. And. But what's my plan B? What if I can't drive? Like, what if.

Greg 00:28:13 What if there was a big crack in the road?

Ed 00:28:15 I mean, all I can think of is you hotel. I mean, you you could have stayed at your office longer, I guess. It took a it took until about 11 p.m.. Yeah, for traffic to start flowing again. But, there's really there's not much you can do.

Greg 00:28:28 There isn't. No, no. And we should also say all of this is couched by the fact that, although there was tragedy in Bangkok and people were affected in various capacities, it pales in comparison to what's happening in Myanmar. Yes. which is just like we said on the bonus show, that poor country just cannot catch a break. So people in Myanmar are dealing with real tragedy and real loss there. So our hearts, our hearts go out to those.

Ed 00:28:51 So most of you are probably up on what happened in Bangkok since you're fans of Bangkok. But if you if you want to see the effects of being close to the epicenter, then just Google a Myanmar earthquake.

Ed 00:29:07 You see, you'll see the real damage.

Greg 00:29:08 Yeah, really bad for them. Anyway, I think the takeaway from this is that I think Thais are pretty resilient. Like like I mentioned, there's coups, there's riots, there's airport shutdowns, there's whatever. And I think generally speaking, they handle emergencies and the surrounding sort of chaos that goes with them. I think they handle them pretty well, I agree.

Ed 00:29:31 You know, Thais are chill. They are chill. Yeah. And I at least I didn't hear of I wasn't at my university debate. I heard from my buddy who was there, that the students were pretty chill. No one panicked. panic. No one freaked out, right?

Greg 00:29:44 Yeah. Let's just hope it doesn't happen again. The thing that's a little bit different about this and a little bit scarier, is that at least when there's a coup or a flood or something like that, you can prepare, you can see it coming. Something like this. There's there is no warning. So sure, we're I mean, we're there's nothing new, right? People in Japan and Los Angeles and things have to deal with this all the time.

Greg 00:30:04 So.

Ed 00:30:05 Well, now we've had, one and we handled it pretty well.

Greg 00:30:08 So. But that's all I want. That's a good sign.

Ed 00:30:10 Yeah. We don't want another one.

Greg 00:30:11 Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. All right. Well, like, we I don't think we mentioned this at the beginning of the main show, but patrons will know this because we're doing this one on video. but regular listeners who are getting the audio version might not know this, but Ed and I are sitting together tonight, and you might understand. Or you might notice that it sounds a little bit different, but one of the reasons why I'm talking right now is because I'm going to actually read the notes off of a piece of paper, which I don't normally do, because I usually have the computer in front of me. All right, let's do something we call would you rather wear one of us picks? Two contrasting situations tied to Thailand to debate and choose which one we'd prefer. And this week, I think it's your turn.

Ed 00:30:48 All right, man, I was thinking of this, from the bonus show where we talked about, those.

Greg 00:30:54 Crazy.

Ed 00:30:55 Skeletons found, ancient skeletons from a couple hundred years ago, right in Turnberry. Yeah. And I know you're a history guy, so I know you're a fan of, Rome. You've done some.

Greg 00:31:06 I'm a buff.

Ed 00:31:07 A buff. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was just thinking of this. we've talked before about your your so-called Canadian identity and how much you how much you whether or not you care whether you want to pass them onto your son or not. Right. So would you rather study at this point, this juncture in your life? Would you rather study Thai history or Canadian history?

Greg 00:31:32 Ooh, that's a good one.

Ed 00:31:33 Do you care more about some cool Canadian stuff in the past, or would you? Or is Thailand just cooler now?

Greg 00:31:41 You know, And this is this is again, this is going to be an embarrassing affront to my beloved home country. But but it was about 5 or 6 years ago when I was at the Canada Day thing, which is held at the British Club, which is a little bit on the nose, if you ask me.

Greg 00:31:55 But but, someone asked me someone, some type person was there and they were talking to me and they said, so when, when was Canada like formed? And I said 1860 and I couldn't remember. And I was like, that's embarrassing. Like, I gotta remember that. So I felt as penance I went and I bought a book on, on, on my Kindle about Canadian history. And I was like, I'm gonna read up on it and get familiar with it all. Dude, it was so boring. Oh, really? So but I have to say, I'd rather learn about Thai history, and not just because I think it's more interesting than Canada, although there's there's probably really fascinating historical aspects of Canada. Maybe that book I thought was just bad. Right. But I think it's just everyone is probably more interested in a different place than the place they grew up in. So I think for me, I would rather learn about Thai history.

Ed 00:32:47 You know, there's a cliche that people who, you know, I do American studies for a living, and there's the cliche we like to say about American studies is that, the reason American history is filled with so much drama is that the British basically screwed up.

Ed 00:33:05 They screwed up the American colonies or the British colonies in America. And that Canada is really, you know, it's America 2.0. And the British had they'd learned a few things. And so Canadian history is just more organized. There's less drama, there's less insanity.

Greg 00:33:20 Interesting.

Ed 00:33:21 There's less chaos because the British were like, okay, now we know. Now we know how to handle.

Greg 00:33:26 Now we really got this problem solved, wrinkles ironed out. So let's start again.

Ed 00:33:29 Yeah. So where the America where the wrinkles okay Canada. Is it the.

Greg 00:33:33 Smooth get it is the smooth sailing the smooth brain of colonization.

Ed 00:33:38 So anyway I think that's a fair answer.

Greg 00:33:40 Would you rather learn about American history or.

Ed 00:33:43 Probably still America? Because I do America. I mean, I do feel guilty that I should know more Thai stuff. I know some, obviously, you know. yeah. I like what we do on the I like what we do on the show. I'm interested in Thai history, but I'm always feeling that I should know more American stuff.

Ed 00:33:59 I'm always running into something. Or like you said, someone asked me a question. Not. Not quite. Not quite that easy. But someone asked me a question about American history, and I'm just like, oh, shit.

Greg 00:34:10 Like, I can never remember.

Ed 00:34:12 I can never remember. The president's, like, in the middle of the 1800s. It's like. It's like a black hole.

Greg 00:34:18 Yeah, right. And then they come at you from the other side.

Ed 00:34:20 James Polk. Jesus. Like, how am I supposed to remember James Polk?

Greg 00:34:24 Did he come with you from the other side? Do you speak Thai? You're like, no, I don't do that either. I suck on two fronts.

Ed 00:34:30 Yeah, I would say I'm interested in Thai stuff, but I'm still more curious about American history. It's so complex. Yeah, a lot of wrinkles. A lot of wrinkles in American history.

Greg 00:34:39 I'm still always going to go back to Roman history, though. That's my baby.

Ed 00:34:42 All right.

Ed 00:34:43 The final thanks to all of our patrons. Support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online or Bangkok podcast on social media Bangkok Podcasts on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg 00:35:07 Yeah, you can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website that will feature on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky at BC. Greg. Thanks for listening, everyone. Take it easy out there. Take care of your loved ones and we'll see you next week.

Ed 00:35:19 No doubt.