Torture by Karoke




I can't sleep. Across the street from us is a shabby little Karoke bar that blasts its horrible cacophony right into our bedroom window. Most days of the week both of us are dragging around sleep-deprived because of this place. When we were looking at the house at first several months ago, we were worried about the Karoke bar across the street and asked the owners about it. "Oh, don't worry, they will keep you company. You won't be lonely!"
At first we were having dreams and fantasies of what we were going to do to make it go away. Blow it up, for example. Unfortunately, we can't do anything, not even complain about it. They are within the law, as long as they shut off at midnight or 1a.m. or something like that. Things are not the same here as America. The other Karoke bar in this area is owned by a policeman. You get the picture.
So we just kind of lay in bed in resigned misery.
It is miserable. Tonight I went to bed late because they were loud and I knew I couldn't go to sleep anyway. So near midnight I went to bed. I was in bed listening to the horrible screeching of drunk men to some of the worst music I've ever heard in my life. I didn't feel like crying, like so many other nights, but just decided I'd get up and blog about it instead!
I'll have to upload a picture of the place tomorrow. It looks so harmless, the name of it is Fern Leaf and it is a one-story green building with no glass on the windows and a huge speaker system.
Actually, last night was even worse than tonight, the singer and the music were just about unbearably horrid, all synthesized electric organ tunes. At least tonight there is a little guitar mixed in there. But still bad, very bad. Now that I can understand the words better I get to hear how stupid the lyrics are, too. I know someday this will be so funny, I know it is funny now, it is just so awful it is funny, really, but I wish I could get some more sleep at night!!!

Today Gee brought me some chili-tamarind candy to wake me up.

We are just yawning our way through the day. I should record this noise from the balcony and put it on the blog for you to listen to, it is so bad it is comical.

Comments

Anonymous said…
That sure brings back the memories of the karaoke bar across the street from us when we first lived in Chiang Mai! The only thing that helped was installing an air conditioner in our bedroom PLUS using ear plugs. And even that only worked if I was really, really tired.
10/11/06 9:15 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Airport-Closure Adventure

We knew that time was tight between the end of our conference in the Northern end of Thailand and our flight out of the country from the Southern end. We figured that since we would be flying there would be no problem getting home in a day and giving ourselves 2 full days before our flight to the U.S. We were scheduled to fly back to Southern Thailand on December 1st and get on our flight to the U.S. on December 4th. We flew to Chiang Mai with no inkling that the beautiful new airport we transferred at in Bangkok would be seiged by protesters just a few days later. At our conference we realized that we were not going to be flying back. The alternatives were train, bus, rent a car or rent a mini-van with a driver. Being economical we chose the train or bus, and in the end, due to scheduling, it had to be the bus. It would be a grueling 20+ hour trip home, but we weren't overly concerned because Thailand has beautiful VIP buses that are really nice to ride in. Unfortunately ther...
Read more

Red-Necked Keelback Snake

This is our "snake of the month," this time just a few steps from our kitchen door. I found it Monday afternoon, a strange pattern unlike the grass surrounding it. I yelled for the kids and our guest to go upstairs, handed them the dogs, and got my cell-phone and snake book. Kennedy, Trevor (Dean's intern) and a handyman all came to help, and the Thai handyman killed it. It was a very pretty snake, I'll upload a picture later. It is venomous, with rear-fangs. Most keelback snakes are not venomous, (we just got lucky?)
Read more