May 16th, 2008 - Bangkok, Thailand

I had to spend a day at the Panasonic headquarters in Bangkok today, located in the equivalent of Langley or maybe White Rock. My videocamera’s playback function collapsed on Tarutao island, and after buying a mini-screwdriver set and attempting to take it apart, I realized (perhaps fortunately early on!) that there was no way I was going to be able to fix it. Luckily for me, it seems Panasonic’s main headquarters in this part of the world is in Bangkok, and with a little persuading I was able to get them to fix it the day I brought it in. {I was a little more adamant about it than I might have been, due to the fact that it turned out there was an upcoming long weekend, and my original given option was to have the camera returned to me the following week – a good 4 days after we’d been planning on leaving town.} $100 later, so far so good with the camera – all seems to be working well. Knock on wood…