Testing Your Travel IQPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
You have signed up for Royal Orchid Holidays’ Fly/Drive programme. You have picked up your Avis or Budget car and are prepared to drive to Chiang Mai. But first, you want to check petrol prices. At the petrol station you learn fuel is sold by the litre. No Problem. There are roughly four litres to a gallon. But what gallon? US or imperial?
In southern Thailand and Malaysia you see many rubber plantations. You hear the stock market report on the radio that rubber is selling at ten Malay dollars a picul. You ask how much does a picul weigh and they tell you a picul is 100 katis.
You are in Bangkok and drink a San Miguel beer at the Bamboo Bar at the Oriental Hotel; it tastes different than the San Miguel you drank in Manila. The barman says it's because it's 3.5 San Miguel export. Then he tells you Mekong whiskey is 35 proof. What’s the difference?
You want to buy a ruby. The salesman weighs it. Not in grammes but in carats. What is a carat?
Two men are talking, one English, the other an American. The American has gained ten pounds; the Englishman says he has put on more than a stone. Who gained more?
Aboard your Thai International flight you study Sawasdee, the in-flight magazine and notice it lists distances to various cities given in nautical miles. Is a nautical mile more or less than a land mile? What, then, is a sea mile, and a knot? What did that rug salesman mean when he asked how many knots did you want?
You look around Asia and see a Dynasty Hotel and a Dynasty Restaurant. And you learn the king of Thailand is from the Chakri Dynasty. What actually is a dynasty?
We all know what a rickshaw is, but what about a trishaw, and how does it differ from a pedicab? A becak? And where does the samlor come in?
In Asia we can take a sampan or a wallawalla, dine on a junk, and cross a river in a prau. Or is it a prao? And then there is the dhow, banka, pumpboat, Macassar schooner and Rhio trader. From which countries do they come? And how many riggers does an outrigger canoe have?
We begin to fill out our landing cards, and on the customs declaration we read that it is unlawful to carry more than US$2,000 in cash without declaring it. What's the difference between unlawful and illegal?
We use terms in our everyday life without really knowing what they mean. We talk about wine having vintage, putting our children into kindergarten, that a gun is 12-gauge or 22-calibre, that we prefer pilsner to lager—yet what do all these things mean?
When we travel it's even more confusing; we are suddenly confronted with more terms, weights and measures we don't understand and with strange names that baffle us. But don't let it turn you off. It's all part of the fun of travelling.
To answer the questions above, first, which is larger, an imperial or a US gallon? Before the metric system was adopted throughout Asia, all fuel — petrol, gasoline, benzene or whatever you want to call it—was sold not in litres but in gallons, imperial gallons. An Imperial gallon (4.546 litres) is equal to 1.2 US gallons (3.785 litres. Thus the imperial gallon is larger.
Piculs and katis are still widely used as measurements in Southeast Asia. A kati is 1.33 pounds (0.603 kg) and a picul is 100 katis, or 133 pounds (60 kg.)
When it comes to alcohol, the relative strength of alcoholic liquor with reference to the arbitrary standard for proof spirit is taken as 100 proof. Pure alcohol is 100 per cent—but not 100 proof, which is approximately half alcohol, half water by volume. Most whiskeys are 86 proof—42 per cent alcohol. Wine is about 12 per cent; beer averages less than six per cent. Mekong whiskey, surprisingly, is 35 proof, and it is not aged. The date of bottling Mekong is printed inside the label. San Miguel beer sold in the Philippines is a strong six percent, but by law that which is exported to Asian countries is 3.5, a rather weak content.
Pilsner and lager, what's the difference? Lager is beer stored for six months before it is used. Pilsner is merely a light lager.
The value of a gem is determined, in part, by its size. A "carat" is a unit of weight for precious stones and pearls, equal to about 3.086 grains troy, or 0.2 of a gramme. When weighing gold, 24 carat is pure gold; 20 carat gold is 20 parts pure gold and four parts alloy. In Thailand we use the baht weight for gold.
The American and his English friend who were arguing about weight: the Englishman would have gained more. The American put on 10 pounds (4.5 kilos) while the Englishman put on one stone or 14 pounds (6.3 kilos).
Which is longer, the nautical mile or the land mile? The nautical mile is (6,080) feet while the land mile is 5,280 feet According to solo circumnavigator Ed Boden, actually, the nautical mile is 6076.1 feet to five significant figures although rounding to 6076 feet is quite acceptable. The Brits have further rounded it to 6080 and documented it as such in some of their tomes. It’s okay for a user to do the rounding but it shouldn’t be documented at 6080 feet.
And for rugs, the more knots in a rug, the better the quality.
We usually associate Dynasty with age, but what it really means is a span of time. Thus, a dynasty is the period during which a certain family rules; or it can be the succession of rulers who are members of the same family.
Nowadays the rickshaw is only seen in Calcutta and some remote towns in Bangladesh. The modern version of the rickshaw is the trishaw. It's any pedalled vehicle with three wheels. The name trishaw is interchangeable with pedicab. In Indonesia it's called a becak. Put a motor on a trishaw and in Bangkok it becomes a samlor, or tuktuk, and in Indonesia a helicak.
The dictionary term for a junk is a seagoing ship used in Chinese waters, having squarish sails, a high stern and a flat bottom. A sampan is any small boat seen in Asian ports, propelled by a single scull over its stern. In Hong Kong sampan taxis are called wallawallas.
Prau can be spelled proa, prao and prahu, and is a swift sailing boat balanced by a single outrigger.
In Asian ports you see sailing craft from many nations: dhows, from the Arabian Sea; Macassar schooners from the Celebes; Rhio and Bugis traders from the Sulu Sea; and banka ferries from the Philippines. Bumboats, sometimes called pumpboats, carry cargo and passengers from ship to shore.
In weapons, gauge is the size of the bore of a firearm, while calibre is the size of a rifle determined by the bullet or shell as measured by its diameter.
Finally, unlawful and illegal. Give up? Unlawful is anything done against the law, while ill-egal is a sick bird. Sorry. I couldn't resist.
Next week we will tour Bangkok and take a look at the many monuments.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERSQ. Dear Mr. Stephens, Thank you very much for answering my question about how the Chao Phraya got its other name, River of Kings. It was very, very informative. I hope you don't mind but here is another question for you. Why are some of the images of the Buddha swathed with a saffron colored textile while others are not? Again, thank you for your help. Sincerely, Marlyn from the Philippines
A. Dear Marlyn,
I could reply to your question by saying with the hundreds of thousands of Buddha imagines around Thailand there is not enough cloth in all the land to cover them all. But, that’s not the reason. Robes placed on images of Buddha are donated by devotees who are seeking merit, asking for blessings or want to give thanks. The devotee selects the image he or she wants robed and gives a donation for purchasing the cloth to the monks at that temple. I hope this answers your question. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
