Accessing the Web

Steve asked how I’m accessing the Internet here in Bangkok.

Right beside our hotel, by coincidence, is a 24 hour Internet/video game centre that charges 10 baht (about 50 cents) for 30 minutes of Internet. The bandwidth feels about 56K, but it’s hard to tell because I’m mostly accessing sites that are on the other side of the world.

The weirdest thing about surfing here is that most of the other people around me are actively engaged in killing each other through various virtual methods; as I type this, there is the sound of constant machine gun fire, a woman’s voice calmly saying “Unit Ready” and “Unit Locked” every couple of seconds, and the occassional speech from a GI Joe-like commander in chief.