Hello again everyone. Finally back on the grid
First some short snappers:
- I didn’t miss all of the basketball tournament – they got rained out a few times, so I was here for the last three games. My team are now the Samui Basketball Club champions. Hooray.
- recently on my way to basketball a man and woman on another motorbike pitched me to buy some opium and/or cocaine. I declined and they sped off looking for another customer.
-why do men in their 50s and 60s wear “do rags” ?
-why do women in their 50s and 60s have tattoos?
-why do none of our friends and family in their 50s and 60s in Canada have either?
-my favourite sign is still “Wear safet helmet”.
-when having soup at a roadside stall, there is an important distinction between pork balls and pig balls.
- I moved here last July with one suitcase and a knapsack. Jacquie came in October with one suitcase and a knapsack (and one dog). On May 24th we moved and it took three full loads on our rented pickup truck.
Moving.
Sucks. Even on a relatively small scale and over a short distance (a touch over 3 km.). On a related topic, my parents moved two days after me – shorter distance but a lot more stuff. Sorry I missed it but hope and trust it went okay.
We moved on the 24th because work for the sailing regatta started on the 25th, so we got a full half day to get settled before spending our week (nine days all in) doing our volunteer thing. Every day we left home a little before 7 am, spent the whole day on the water laying out courses, timing boats, etc., and then raced home to feed and walk Sami before that nights party. Home by midnight so we could get up by 6 am and do it all over. Hectic. On day two I agreed to sit on the jury that decides disputes / protests, Five minutes after I said yes three of the big IRC Racing boats (60 feet long) all headed for the same patch of water rounding a buoy. A collision ensued. And three protests. Suddenly my week got much, much more hectic. A total of 8 protests were filed, 6 had hearings and decisions – and 4 of those were about that one incident. All in my spare time (plus I completely missed the Friday night Land Rover Beach Party because it took us until after midnight to make a decision.
A great time, and we both learned a lot (I now even know who has the right of way coming to a mark). “Jelik”, a beautiful and wicked fast 75 foot yacht with a crew of 19, won its class and the Asian Racing Series title. According to Jacquie we have been asked to go to Phuket to work at the Kings Cup Regatta in December. I also now know to say “no” to the jury gig.
So Sunday June 3rd was the first day we could relax and enjoy our new place. We were exhausted so other than moving some furniture around (surprise) we just laid around and swam and slept (not at the same time). Now it’s Thursday night and it feels like we’ve been living here for a few days.
On the surface this place is awesome. It’s huge – a total of 8 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, 3 kitchens, media room – high on a hill overlooking 3 beaches and spectacular sunsets and lightning storms, often at the same time. But now that we live here we of course get to see below the surface. So quickly big becomes simply more to look after and further to walk to get from the driveway to our living area, and we notice that there is no gate or security of any kind on the back stairs. We still have no internet – it was promised to be working by last Wednesday and this Wednesday, and I have a call in to ask when it is next promised for. Hey, here that is not even late yet.
The top bit of the road is so steep that our motorbike can’t get up with both of us. Jacquie has to get off and walk up the last 20 feet. And now the drinking water delivery guy says he won’t come up anymore (not too big of a deal – I have started buying it from a small store at the bottom of the hill for the same price (50 cents for 20 liters) and bringing it home one at a time on my motorbike, the Thai way driving one handed).
Okay, that’s about all of the negatives. Everything else about this place is pretty fabulous. The sunsets and lightning storms seem to get more spectacular each day. And the media room has the full meal satellite dish, serving up lots of movie channels and sports (read basketball) when we’re not sitting poolside watching sunsets and lightning storms.
We notice also that Sami is starting to smell a whole lot better now that he is not in the ocean every day. And the ever creepy, regular plucking of ticks from him that started last month has ended now.
I have seen my first ever scorpion (two actually, in one of the bathrooms here ) And a large and very nasty looking poisonous worm stung/bit Jacquie on the stomach. Jacquie is fine. So is the worm (but it lives out in the jungle now). The scorpions are both dead.
We have chosen a bedroom located poolside on the terrace level. The terrace bar has a refrigerator and barbeque, and the staff take the dishes up to the kitchen to wash, so it’s all pretty convenient.
We find it difficult to have staff, but we are doing our best to try to leave them enough to do to keep busy. Lots of yard work, watering, and a couple hours per day pool maintenance. And cleaning. We have started having them prepare and serve our Friday evening meal for us – candlelit table for two poolside. It actually costs as much or more for the ingredients than going to a restaurant, but it’s good practice for them and a nice change for us.
We are settling in - again. Getting a company set up to do some property management, and Jacquie will be using the same company for her furnishing contracts. We hope to get the name Big Black Dog Consulting Limited approved. We continue meeting new people and seem to be going out partying a lot. The biggest problem with the move is that I’m too far away from the “barbequed pork on a stick for breakfast” lady to go every day, but that is balanced by the great restaurant nearby where we can call the owner’s mobile phone to place an order, so we don’t have to wait around.
In a new story, the government here is considering a bill that proposes to ban drinking alcohol in certain public places. The proposed alcohol free zones would include temples, hospitals, drug stores and schools. Seems quite progressive. Or repressive.
Oh yeah, we now have some internet access – sort of. The new antenna is up effective June 15th, but won’t be at full power for “three or four weeks”, so we have access only in a couple of areas of the house, and the way it is implemented we only have access on one computer at a time which is and will remain a complete pain in the ass. On the plus side the company was very proud to tell us they are providing a “free” month of access, after they were paid for a month when there was no access. Wow.
I plan to upload a few photos – of our villa and a sunset or two – to our blog page within a day or so. I’ll send a separate email with the link for looking at those as soon as I post them.
Finally - for this "issue" - an unabashed plug for our friend Monika Wright, a visual artist who has a show of her art in Halifax starting on July 5th. See all of the details on her web site: www.monikawright.com and if you're interested check out the opening night. Sorry Monika, we can't make it. Have a great show.
Bye for now.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Big Adventure 25
If you are reading this we have made it back to and then from Nova Scotia safe and sound.
In my last issue I mentioned, "Our plane to New York leaves at almost midnight on the 20th" and that we would be back there on the 21st. Well, funny story - we actually discovered while standing in line to check in that the plane didn't leave at "almost midnight on the 20th" but rather "just a little after midnight on the 20th". This turned out to be an important distinction, as it meant that our plane had actually left Bangkok about 20 hours earlier - in the early morning of the 20th rather than late at night on the 20th.
The exceptionally nice young woman at the check in counter explained that unfortunately tonight's flight is seriously overbooked, and so while she would put us on the standby list she does not hold out much hope. The is no flight tomorrow, so the next flight leaves early Monday morning. She can not give us standby seats on that - so if tonight's standby doesn't work out we will need to call Aeroplan and rebook reward seats - not gonna happen - or buy full fare seats on that plane. In addition we have also of course missed our flight from New York to Halifax, and our rental car may or may not still be waiting for us in Halifax. AND if we do need to stay here until Sunday night we will have 2 more taxi rides and hope we can find a hotel with a room.
Luckily we got to the airport way early - Jacquie was finished at the decor show on Wednesday, so on Thursday we did some shopping and Friday was an extra day to kill with nothing to do but wait for our flight that left the night before. The reason this was lucky is that it gave us PLENTY of time to beat ourselves and each other up over our complete stupidity. So by the time it was time to go back to that nice young woman at the check in counter to find out if we could go tonight we were pretty much finished with doing so.
While giving us our boarding passes she explained how extremely lucky we are, and suggested that she thought we must be good people because we clearly must have good karma.
We ran to the gate where our flight is now boarding, got stuck in two long security lines, but the flight - that we were not booked on - waited for us (and I assume some other people, but we did appear to be last).
One of the disappointments discussed in detail during our wait was that we had spent 25,000 extra Aeroplan points EACH for business class seats and that our screw up will have ruined that. Well, no, it turned out we even got those seats. I am writing this from somewhere over the north pole while stretched out on my bed after a nice nights sleep. The seat/bed is fully electric with a lovely back massager. And right from the welcome champagne at boarding the service and food has been amazing.
We will be sending a letter to Thai Airways telling them about that nice young woman at the check in counter who we believe got us here and saved us a great deal of grief (caused entirely by our own stupidity).
From JFK in New York (where we arrived at 6:30 am) we took a $35 cab ride to La Guardia. The "sticker shock" has officially begun. At La Guardia we needed to go through the same process - convince Air Canada to honour yesterday's ticket. The woman at the counter did not want to help, but her superior was there and told her to say our connecting flight was late arriving (no kidding) so the ticket could be used - she did manage to charge us $30 for our suitcase being overweight, but that's a small price to pay. Four more hours to spare till our 1:00 pm flight to Halifax - then we'll see if Hertz still has a car there for us.
The rental car should be the easy part. It's fully pre-paid, we're just a day late picking it up. Well not so fast. They need to put a small ($60) hold on a credit card, as a security deposit in case we damage their car (since we are a day late, the piece of crap we rented is gone, so we get the free upgrade to a new Toyota Camry). But our credit cards are refused - a phone call later and we hear that a problem at Homesense / Winners resulted in some numbers being stolen, so they sent us new cards and cancelled the old ones (cancelled just a few days before). Now we are almost home, at the Halifax airport, with no other credit card and so no way - not even a cash deposit - to get our car to go those last few miles. So now the nice young girl there (Tanya) makes some calls, and finally reaches a regional supervisor and convinces that person that we are a good risk, so they agree that we can take the car, go through our mail (6 months worth) to find our new credit cards, activate them and then call Tanya with the new number so she can process the $60 charge.
Even as exhausted as we are, sitting here on Saturday night on our patio overlooking the LaHave River, we appreciate how lucky we are, and give a quiet extra "thanks" to those numerous nice people who helped us get here. Including Marlene for inviting us to stay here.
Time passes.
We have had a viciously busy time in Nova Scotia. Between taxes and visiting and Jacquie's store and a thousand (exaggeration) little chores around the mostly finished house. Highlights: seeing our friends and family again, especially at the wonderful party orchestrated by Bernadette (and her helper bees) and getting to see the now (mostly) finished house. Lowlights: the cold and the lack of warmth.
I was really a bit afraid that it would all seem too quiet to us now, but quiet is okay. (The town certainly seems pretty big - the other day I was out driving and I saw the taxi.) The day before we left I drove to town early in the morning. It was one of those perfect mornings - the river was a sheet of glass, and the rising sun was just starting to burn the mist off of the water. I passed an older man and his older dog just heading out for their morning walk, both of them obviously thrilled to be doing so. A strong reminder that I could also be very happy here.
The interesting thing about this visit was that it felt like the first time I really sat back and compared living in Koh Samui and living in Nova Scotia. Last year from the moment we made the decision and I said yes to the job I never gave it another thought - decision made. Of course I was now back in Nova Scotia with nothing to tie us to either place, and now with a grasp of what life is actually like living in Thailand. So of course reconnecting with our family and friends makes it hard to go, but then our life there makes it hard to stay. In the end, as our departure date approached we both started to get excited to be going back, which I figure is pretty telling . Plus we need a rest.
I'm writing this from the airplane, just entering Kazakstan airspace, heading for Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. For some reason we are going mostly east this time, for the first time (still far enough north to enjoy the summer long sunrise to the north. We miss the International Date Line, so it just keeps getting later and later. Next stop Bangkok - only about 6 hours to go - then home for a little hug from Sami.
We're here. Samui, Sami and sleep. I'll write more in a few weeks, when we wake up.
In my last issue I mentioned, "Our plane to New York leaves at almost midnight on the 20th" and that we would be back there on the 21st. Well, funny story - we actually discovered while standing in line to check in that the plane didn't leave at "almost midnight on the 20th" but rather "just a little after midnight on the 20th". This turned out to be an important distinction, as it meant that our plane had actually left Bangkok about 20 hours earlier - in the early morning of the 20th rather than late at night on the 20th.
The exceptionally nice young woman at the check in counter explained that unfortunately tonight's flight is seriously overbooked, and so while she would put us on the standby list she does not hold out much hope. The is no flight tomorrow, so the next flight leaves early Monday morning. She can not give us standby seats on that - so if tonight's standby doesn't work out we will need to call Aeroplan and rebook reward seats - not gonna happen - or buy full fare seats on that plane. In addition we have also of course missed our flight from New York to Halifax, and our rental car may or may not still be waiting for us in Halifax. AND if we do need to stay here until Sunday night we will have 2 more taxi rides and hope we can find a hotel with a room.
Luckily we got to the airport way early - Jacquie was finished at the decor show on Wednesday, so on Thursday we did some shopping and Friday was an extra day to kill with nothing to do but wait for our flight that left the night before. The reason this was lucky is that it gave us PLENTY of time to beat ourselves and each other up over our complete stupidity. So by the time it was time to go back to that nice young woman at the check in counter to find out if we could go tonight we were pretty much finished with doing so.
While giving us our boarding passes she explained how extremely lucky we are, and suggested that she thought we must be good people because we clearly must have good karma.
We ran to the gate where our flight is now boarding, got stuck in two long security lines, but the flight - that we were not booked on - waited for us (and I assume some other people, but we did appear to be last).
One of the disappointments discussed in detail during our wait was that we had spent 25,000 extra Aeroplan points EACH for business class seats and that our screw up will have ruined that. Well, no, it turned out we even got those seats. I am writing this from somewhere over the north pole while stretched out on my bed after a nice nights sleep. The seat/bed is fully electric with a lovely back massager. And right from the welcome champagne at boarding the service and food has been amazing.
We will be sending a letter to Thai Airways telling them about that nice young woman at the check in counter who we believe got us here and saved us a great deal of grief (caused entirely by our own stupidity).
From JFK in New York (where we arrived at 6:30 am) we took a $35 cab ride to La Guardia. The "sticker shock" has officially begun. At La Guardia we needed to go through the same process - convince Air Canada to honour yesterday's ticket. The woman at the counter did not want to help, but her superior was there and told her to say our connecting flight was late arriving (no kidding) so the ticket could be used - she did manage to charge us $30 for our suitcase being overweight, but that's a small price to pay. Four more hours to spare till our 1:00 pm flight to Halifax - then we'll see if Hertz still has a car there for us.
The rental car should be the easy part. It's fully pre-paid, we're just a day late picking it up. Well not so fast. They need to put a small ($60) hold on a credit card, as a security deposit in case we damage their car (since we are a day late, the piece of crap we rented is gone, so we get the free upgrade to a new Toyota Camry). But our credit cards are refused - a phone call later and we hear that a problem at Homesense / Winners resulted in some numbers being stolen, so they sent us new cards and cancelled the old ones (cancelled just a few days before). Now we are almost home, at the Halifax airport, with no other credit card and so no way - not even a cash deposit - to get our car to go those last few miles. So now the nice young girl there (Tanya) makes some calls, and finally reaches a regional supervisor and convinces that person that we are a good risk, so they agree that we can take the car, go through our mail (6 months worth) to find our new credit cards, activate them and then call Tanya with the new number so she can process the $60 charge.
Even as exhausted as we are, sitting here on Saturday night on our patio overlooking the LaHave River, we appreciate how lucky we are, and give a quiet extra "thanks" to those numerous nice people who helped us get here. Including Marlene for inviting us to stay here.
Time passes.
We have had a viciously busy time in Nova Scotia. Between taxes and visiting and Jacquie's store and a thousand (exaggeration) little chores around the mostly finished house. Highlights: seeing our friends and family again, especially at the wonderful party orchestrated by Bernadette (and her helper bees) and getting to see the now (mostly) finished house. Lowlights: the cold and the lack of warmth.
I was really a bit afraid that it would all seem too quiet to us now, but quiet is okay. (The town certainly seems pretty big - the other day I was out driving and I saw the taxi.) The day before we left I drove to town early in the morning. It was one of those perfect mornings - the river was a sheet of glass, and the rising sun was just starting to burn the mist off of the water. I passed an older man and his older dog just heading out for their morning walk, both of them obviously thrilled to be doing so. A strong reminder that I could also be very happy here.
The interesting thing about this visit was that it felt like the first time I really sat back and compared living in Koh Samui and living in Nova Scotia. Last year from the moment we made the decision and I said yes to the job I never gave it another thought - decision made. Of course I was now back in Nova Scotia with nothing to tie us to either place, and now with a grasp of what life is actually like living in Thailand. So of course reconnecting with our family and friends makes it hard to go, but then our life there makes it hard to stay. In the end, as our departure date approached we both started to get excited to be going back, which I figure is pretty telling . Plus we need a rest.
I'm writing this from the airplane, just entering Kazakstan airspace, heading for Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. For some reason we are going mostly east this time, for the first time (still far enough north to enjoy the summer long sunrise to the north. We miss the International Date Line, so it just keeps getting later and later. Next stop Bangkok - only about 6 hours to go - then home for a little hug from Sami.
We're here. Samui, Sami and sleep. I'll write more in a few weeks, when we wake up.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Big Adventure 24
Well, we’re alright now. The leaders here – I’m not sure if you all have the current name; they are now called the Council for National Security – all went to Chiang Mai this past weekend and consulted with a “renowned” fortune teller there. No more worries for us now.
In the deep south, they have started deploying female rangers and soldiers, and they are suggesting “lipstick and smiles” to present a softer, gentler approach in dealing with the rebels. In related (I think) news, three senior citizens and a few more children were shot dead by those rebels.
I think if I was a woman in the force being sent I’d be reconsidering my career choice – or at least I’d be consulting with a fortune teller before going.
In today’s news, 34 of 35 new doctors being sent to the deep south have refused to go – they are borrowing the money to pay off the government (about $16,000 ) rather than do their required three years there (less time if they’re killed).
Also in the news today, there is a proposal to ban the use of cell phones while driving a car. Interesting that they would address that safety concern ahead of the driving of a motorbike with one hand while talking on a cell phone. With the family on back. Speeding. After a few drinks. With no helmets.
The guys I play basketball with have decided to organize a bit. They have made four teams through a “sort of random” drawing (the best players – and the tallest – were distributed amoung the teams separately to make it more fair. Full uniforms complete with numbers and names have been purchased from Bangkok supplier – about $22 – and a round robin tournament is being organized, complete with entry fees and prizes – bottles of whiskey are being proposed, to be opened and shared at a banquet at the end. All extra money to the school where we play.
The four teams are the Bulls, the Lakers, the Cavaliers and the Heats (I don’t have the heart to tell them it should be Hots). I am #14 on the Lakers – just like Kobe Bryant in almost every respect (the big differences are that his number is a tiny bit different and that I have never been to Colorado).
We have not started playing yet, and I hope I don’t miss it all while away in Canada, especially since I’ve already bought my uniform (not to mention how important I am to our team !!!).
On a related topic, a big “thanks to Geoff for the beautiful Team Canada jersey he gave me, number 99, very high quality, lined, it will be perfect for playing outdoors in Canada in the wintertime. I did wear it once playing here – all the guys were very impressed, most giving their best pronunciation of “Canada”. It was a bit warm to wear playing.
We are now into April, and I find myself reflecting on an important anniversary which in rapidly approaching. That’s right, it will soon be 10 years since I quit smoking – the best thing I have ever done for myself, so far.
The Buddhists try to do things to “make merit” in celebration of their birthdays – do some good deeds for others, meditate, etc. - thus making their current life more meritorious, thereby improving their karma and potentially make things go better the next time around. It’s a good plan really.
As some of you may know, I am now forty-nine and will soon turn forty-ten. As I recently said to Jacquie, there is absolutely nothing that I would want to do on a birthday as a special celebration that I don’t already get to do every single day, so finding some way to “make merit” would be perfect. I will reflect further on that.
In today’s paper is a further report on that whole cell phone while driving a car ban. The ruling CNS has decided that there is insufficient evidence of safety concerns to institute such a ban at this time.
In Bangkok a city bus failed to stop at a light, at least at first – it did eventually come to a stop after slamming into the back of 7 taxis, 7 other cars, 3 pickup trucks, 2 vans and a “6 wheeler”. One dead, many injured. Was the busdriver talking on a cell phone, or maybe drinking a coffee?
The CNS has voted to give themselves another15% raise (they had already given themselves a 15 % raise previously) because they deserve it “in recognition of their dedication and hard work”
In Burma (Myanmar) they have passed a new law to stop doctors from overcharging for services. Five years in jail – I wonder how many packs of Burmese cigarettes they will charge other inmates for a check-up?
We also got the news story over here about the Canadian woman who has explained, in support of her lawsuit, how devastated she was to find out that she does not in fact have cancer. Yeah, it’s got to suck to get that news. I think I’d prefer that misdiagnosis to the alternative misdiagnosis, but hey, it’s not my lawsuit.
This is the hot season here. It is the first time we have been here for the hot season. It is, in fact, hot. It could be called the hot and humid season, since the humidity seems to run over 80% consistently. Thank God we have had time to acclimatize to the warmer weather – now the oppressive heat is almost bearable. Sami is having a hard time, but spending his days wet and his nights in our air conditioned bedroom helps him. Us too.
In a related story, the people here have had thousands of years to learn how to cope with the climate, and so we are now entering the “Songkran festival” (April 13-17), a Thai New Year celebration which started out as involving older people sprinkling younger ones with water from a bowl for good luck but has now denigrated into basically one big long water fight. Tesco is now selling hundreds of different styles and sizes of water guns, everything from the basic pistols for about $0.80 up to the huge cannons with backpacks of water, more suitable for fighting forest fires. We volunteered at a fundraising day for the local international school, and there during the water fight portion of the program all varieties of water weaponry were on display. Actually many people opted for the low-tech buckets full of water. It soon turned into a wet t-shirt contest. I good time was had by all. Can you say “your mommy’s a ho”?
The key here is that everyone takes some time off to have some fun, and everyone – young and old – play and spray each other with water. This year the government is promoting a safe Songkran celebration by banning the sale of the high powered water cannons that can knock people over – apparently thereby hoping to limit repeat of the serious injuries caused in previous years when those weapons take out motorcyclists driving by. We have actually been warned by several people against driving the motorbike during the festival. Great, something else to watch out for while driving.
Sunday April 8. After a “pot luck” brunch and swim at some friends, we spent the rest of the day working at the “Samui Rocks” rock concert, put on by the Rotary Club. Four pm to two am. Lots of really good music (mixed in with a little bad), together with large quantities of food and alcohol at inflated, made for charity, prices. A lot of work but also a good time, and of course I did make a little merit in celebration of my impending birthday. There is something pretty funny about seeing a sixty year old white guy and his 30 year old TG (Thai girlfriend) rock out to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I do wonder if that guy would have been as into it without the many beers.
Clive and Karen, upon discovering that it is my forty-tenth birthday, have invited us for supper on that day. My original thought – play basketball, watch the final of the European Basketball League playoffs, and go to the Reggae Pub to dance and party late – won’t be happening.
Our dog sitting gig is working out great now – Julie is starting to settle in. The other night she got away from me during our walk and ran away, with me and Sami in pursuit (damn she’s fast for a little dog), and she ran straight home to our place – a very good sign.
Today is April 10, 2007. Just after midnight I went to the store and picked up a Lemon Bacardi Breezer and a Reeses “Nutrageous” bar and sat on the beach listening to the surf and contemplating the last forty-ten years. I don’t remember the first few (and some short bits in my twenties) but overall I’m pretty happy so far. I probably could have worked a bit harder at a few things and relationships, and not as hard at a couple of others, but since even small changes would likely impact on the larger picture I can say absolutely that I wouldn’t change a thing.
Here’s to saying that when I hit ninety-ten.
Yesterday at Tesco I ran into the woman I buy the barbequed pork on a stick from every (almost) morning. Remember “you not love me but you love my King.”? Well at Tesco she asked me “Are you here alone?” I quickly explained that I was here with my wife, then hurried off to find her. I sure as hell don’t need Jacquie telling me she won’t let me go there to buy meat – it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s time to remind her that it’s her King that I love.
Yesterday I also found out that the basketball tournament will be held over four days – April 21, 22, 28 & 29. I’m away for 3 ½ weeks out of the whole year and I’ll miss the whole thing. Our point guard – who does a great job of getting me the ball and who is very competitive – seemed pretty disappointed. I am too.
In a completely unrelated basketball story, I have finally admitted to myself that the Boston Celtics will not make the playoffs this year. With 23 wins right now they would need to win 2 of their last 3 games to make it to .300 – very unlikely. Good draft pick maybe? Is Larry Bird available?
It’s Monday the 16th. First of all, “Happy Birthday” to mom.
Yesterday was finally a quiet day. For a while it seemed like the celebration of my birthday just wouldn’t end. Tuesday night was a wonderful dinner at Karen and Clive’s, then to the Reggae Pub (it was pretty dead so we didn’t stay) We skipped the house party and watching the basketball game. Wednesday was “Quiz Night” at the Frog and Gecko Pub with some friends. We came third, out of the money. Thursday was lunch and a swim with the sister of a friend from back home, then to Chaweng for a slight early taste of Songkran (the least exciting day of the birthday week).
Friday was the official start of Songkran. Folks, I COMPLETELY underestimated the magnitude of this water fight. Our beach is very unpopulated compared to a couple of the others, but our road was basically lined on both sides with people with buckets and/or water cannons or hoses and/or white or red paint, and hoses keeping large garbage cans full of water. And a few drinks of beer / whisky. Driving on the road in both directions were trucks full of people on the back with buckets and/or water cannons and/or white or red paint, and large garbage cans full of water. And a few drinks of beer / whisky. All vehicles were repeatedly stopped in little blockades to be soaked, have paint smeared on faces, arms, etc., happy New Year wishes and kisses, then on to the next. When not being stopped, then they simply threw / shot water at you as you drove by. Many used ice water for a much better effect. The people on the trucks, and those of us on motorbikes armed with our own water guns, retaliated as best we could.
Everyone was simply having fun. From 8 am to 8 pm it was pretty constant – after that the twelve plus hours of drinking started to slow some of the people down, so on the way to the barbeque / pool party at friends we got soaked, but on the way home not so bad. By the time I walked the dogs, they all agreed not to soak the dogs, provided of course that I submitted to another drenching.
I felt a lot closer to 5 than 50. We had a ball.
Saturday. This was the highlight of the ‘Five Days of Birthday’. We were invited to join our landlords’ entire family (all here from everywhere to visit for the New Year) in praying with the three Buddhist Monks invited here for that purpose. We found the experience very spiritual, but did agree that it would have likely been even more so if we had understood even one word of what was said.
At the end we then did the traditional Songkran blessing, pouring a small amount of scented water into each Monk’s hands, then he pours it from his hands onto our heads and offers a blessing. This is followed by the same thing with a row of family elders, then the younger people walking amoung the crowd asking the older people (yes, we both obviously qualify) to perform that blessing. It seemed a clear reminder to the young to have respect for their elders.
Finally, and after the Monks had all eaten and left, we shared a wonderful lunch with the family.
The day finished up with a Hash run and barbeque. It was fun, but frankly nothing could compare to how we spent our morning.
So here I sit on the beach on Monday morning. The party is over. Thankfully. The government had been hoping for a 15% reduction in road deaths for this years holiday. Sadly, there were 99 more accidents and 144 more injured. The number of deaths did go down, but only by 18, or about 7%.
We need to pack a few clothes and get ready to leave. Jacquie goes to Bangkok at 6 am tomorrow, then I follow at 10 pm on Wednesday. Our plane to New York leaves at almost midnight on the 20th, and through the miracle of time zones we arrive in Halifax (at Stanfield International) in the mid afternoon on the 21st. I expect the first thing on our agenda will be a little nap.
I’ll write more after our return from the great white north.
In the deep south, they have started deploying female rangers and soldiers, and they are suggesting “lipstick and smiles” to present a softer, gentler approach in dealing with the rebels. In related (I think) news, three senior citizens and a few more children were shot dead by those rebels.
I think if I was a woman in the force being sent I’d be reconsidering my career choice – or at least I’d be consulting with a fortune teller before going.
In today’s news, 34 of 35 new doctors being sent to the deep south have refused to go – they are borrowing the money to pay off the government (about $16,000 ) rather than do their required three years there (less time if they’re killed).
Also in the news today, there is a proposal to ban the use of cell phones while driving a car. Interesting that they would address that safety concern ahead of the driving of a motorbike with one hand while talking on a cell phone. With the family on back. Speeding. After a few drinks. With no helmets.
The guys I play basketball with have decided to organize a bit. They have made four teams through a “sort of random” drawing (the best players – and the tallest – were distributed amoung the teams separately to make it more fair. Full uniforms complete with numbers and names have been purchased from Bangkok supplier – about $22 – and a round robin tournament is being organized, complete with entry fees and prizes – bottles of whiskey are being proposed, to be opened and shared at a banquet at the end. All extra money to the school where we play.
The four teams are the Bulls, the Lakers, the Cavaliers and the Heats (I don’t have the heart to tell them it should be Hots). I am #14 on the Lakers – just like Kobe Bryant in almost every respect (the big differences are that his number is a tiny bit different and that I have never been to Colorado).
We have not started playing yet, and I hope I don’t miss it all while away in Canada, especially since I’ve already bought my uniform (not to mention how important I am to our team !!!).
On a related topic, a big “thanks to Geoff for the beautiful Team Canada jersey he gave me, number 99, very high quality, lined, it will be perfect for playing outdoors in Canada in the wintertime. I did wear it once playing here – all the guys were very impressed, most giving their best pronunciation of “Canada”. It was a bit warm to wear playing.
We are now into April, and I find myself reflecting on an important anniversary which in rapidly approaching. That’s right, it will soon be 10 years since I quit smoking – the best thing I have ever done for myself, so far.
The Buddhists try to do things to “make merit” in celebration of their birthdays – do some good deeds for others, meditate, etc. - thus making their current life more meritorious, thereby improving their karma and potentially make things go better the next time around. It’s a good plan really.
As some of you may know, I am now forty-nine and will soon turn forty-ten. As I recently said to Jacquie, there is absolutely nothing that I would want to do on a birthday as a special celebration that I don’t already get to do every single day, so finding some way to “make merit” would be perfect. I will reflect further on that.
In today’s paper is a further report on that whole cell phone while driving a car ban. The ruling CNS has decided that there is insufficient evidence of safety concerns to institute such a ban at this time.
In Bangkok a city bus failed to stop at a light, at least at first – it did eventually come to a stop after slamming into the back of 7 taxis, 7 other cars, 3 pickup trucks, 2 vans and a “6 wheeler”. One dead, many injured. Was the busdriver talking on a cell phone, or maybe drinking a coffee?
The CNS has voted to give themselves another15% raise (they had already given themselves a 15 % raise previously) because they deserve it “in recognition of their dedication and hard work”
In Burma (Myanmar) they have passed a new law to stop doctors from overcharging for services. Five years in jail – I wonder how many packs of Burmese cigarettes they will charge other inmates for a check-up?
We also got the news story over here about the Canadian woman who has explained, in support of her lawsuit, how devastated she was to find out that she does not in fact have cancer. Yeah, it’s got to suck to get that news. I think I’d prefer that misdiagnosis to the alternative misdiagnosis, but hey, it’s not my lawsuit.
This is the hot season here. It is the first time we have been here for the hot season. It is, in fact, hot. It could be called the hot and humid season, since the humidity seems to run over 80% consistently. Thank God we have had time to acclimatize to the warmer weather – now the oppressive heat is almost bearable. Sami is having a hard time, but spending his days wet and his nights in our air conditioned bedroom helps him. Us too.
In a related story, the people here have had thousands of years to learn how to cope with the climate, and so we are now entering the “Songkran festival” (April 13-17), a Thai New Year celebration which started out as involving older people sprinkling younger ones with water from a bowl for good luck but has now denigrated into basically one big long water fight. Tesco is now selling hundreds of different styles and sizes of water guns, everything from the basic pistols for about $0.80 up to the huge cannons with backpacks of water, more suitable for fighting forest fires. We volunteered at a fundraising day for the local international school, and there during the water fight portion of the program all varieties of water weaponry were on display. Actually many people opted for the low-tech buckets full of water. It soon turned into a wet t-shirt contest. I good time was had by all. Can you say “your mommy’s a ho”?
The key here is that everyone takes some time off to have some fun, and everyone – young and old – play and spray each other with water. This year the government is promoting a safe Songkran celebration by banning the sale of the high powered water cannons that can knock people over – apparently thereby hoping to limit repeat of the serious injuries caused in previous years when those weapons take out motorcyclists driving by. We have actually been warned by several people against driving the motorbike during the festival. Great, something else to watch out for while driving.
Sunday April 8. After a “pot luck” brunch and swim at some friends, we spent the rest of the day working at the “Samui Rocks” rock concert, put on by the Rotary Club. Four pm to two am. Lots of really good music (mixed in with a little bad), together with large quantities of food and alcohol at inflated, made for charity, prices. A lot of work but also a good time, and of course I did make a little merit in celebration of my impending birthday. There is something pretty funny about seeing a sixty year old white guy and his 30 year old TG (Thai girlfriend) rock out to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I do wonder if that guy would have been as into it without the many beers.
Clive and Karen, upon discovering that it is my forty-tenth birthday, have invited us for supper on that day. My original thought – play basketball, watch the final of the European Basketball League playoffs, and go to the Reggae Pub to dance and party late – won’t be happening.
Our dog sitting gig is working out great now – Julie is starting to settle in. The other night she got away from me during our walk and ran away, with me and Sami in pursuit (damn she’s fast for a little dog), and she ran straight home to our place – a very good sign.
Today is April 10, 2007. Just after midnight I went to the store and picked up a Lemon Bacardi Breezer and a Reeses “Nutrageous” bar and sat on the beach listening to the surf and contemplating the last forty-ten years. I don’t remember the first few (and some short bits in my twenties) but overall I’m pretty happy so far. I probably could have worked a bit harder at a few things and relationships, and not as hard at a couple of others, but since even small changes would likely impact on the larger picture I can say absolutely that I wouldn’t change a thing.
Here’s to saying that when I hit ninety-ten.
Yesterday at Tesco I ran into the woman I buy the barbequed pork on a stick from every (almost) morning. Remember “you not love me but you love my King.”? Well at Tesco she asked me “Are you here alone?” I quickly explained that I was here with my wife, then hurried off to find her. I sure as hell don’t need Jacquie telling me she won’t let me go there to buy meat – it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s time to remind her that it’s her King that I love.
Yesterday I also found out that the basketball tournament will be held over four days – April 21, 22, 28 & 29. I’m away for 3 ½ weeks out of the whole year and I’ll miss the whole thing. Our point guard – who does a great job of getting me the ball and who is very competitive – seemed pretty disappointed. I am too.
In a completely unrelated basketball story, I have finally admitted to myself that the Boston Celtics will not make the playoffs this year. With 23 wins right now they would need to win 2 of their last 3 games to make it to .300 – very unlikely. Good draft pick maybe? Is Larry Bird available?
It’s Monday the 16th. First of all, “Happy Birthday” to mom.
Yesterday was finally a quiet day. For a while it seemed like the celebration of my birthday just wouldn’t end. Tuesday night was a wonderful dinner at Karen and Clive’s, then to the Reggae Pub (it was pretty dead so we didn’t stay) We skipped the house party and watching the basketball game. Wednesday was “Quiz Night” at the Frog and Gecko Pub with some friends. We came third, out of the money. Thursday was lunch and a swim with the sister of a friend from back home, then to Chaweng for a slight early taste of Songkran (the least exciting day of the birthday week).
Friday was the official start of Songkran. Folks, I COMPLETELY underestimated the magnitude of this water fight. Our beach is very unpopulated compared to a couple of the others, but our road was basically lined on both sides with people with buckets and/or water cannons or hoses and/or white or red paint, and hoses keeping large garbage cans full of water. And a few drinks of beer / whisky. Driving on the road in both directions were trucks full of people on the back with buckets and/or water cannons and/or white or red paint, and large garbage cans full of water. And a few drinks of beer / whisky. All vehicles were repeatedly stopped in little blockades to be soaked, have paint smeared on faces, arms, etc., happy New Year wishes and kisses, then on to the next. When not being stopped, then they simply threw / shot water at you as you drove by. Many used ice water for a much better effect. The people on the trucks, and those of us on motorbikes armed with our own water guns, retaliated as best we could.
Everyone was simply having fun. From 8 am to 8 pm it was pretty constant – after that the twelve plus hours of drinking started to slow some of the people down, so on the way to the barbeque / pool party at friends we got soaked, but on the way home not so bad. By the time I walked the dogs, they all agreed not to soak the dogs, provided of course that I submitted to another drenching.
I felt a lot closer to 5 than 50. We had a ball.
Saturday. This was the highlight of the ‘Five Days of Birthday’. We were invited to join our landlords’ entire family (all here from everywhere to visit for the New Year) in praying with the three Buddhist Monks invited here for that purpose. We found the experience very spiritual, but did agree that it would have likely been even more so if we had understood even one word of what was said.
At the end we then did the traditional Songkran blessing, pouring a small amount of scented water into each Monk’s hands, then he pours it from his hands onto our heads and offers a blessing. This is followed by the same thing with a row of family elders, then the younger people walking amoung the crowd asking the older people (yes, we both obviously qualify) to perform that blessing. It seemed a clear reminder to the young to have respect for their elders.
Finally, and after the Monks had all eaten and left, we shared a wonderful lunch with the family.
The day finished up with a Hash run and barbeque. It was fun, but frankly nothing could compare to how we spent our morning.
So here I sit on the beach on Monday morning. The party is over. Thankfully. The government had been hoping for a 15% reduction in road deaths for this years holiday. Sadly, there were 99 more accidents and 144 more injured. The number of deaths did go down, but only by 18, or about 7%.
We need to pack a few clothes and get ready to leave. Jacquie goes to Bangkok at 6 am tomorrow, then I follow at 10 pm on Wednesday. Our plane to New York leaves at almost midnight on the 20th, and through the miracle of time zones we arrive in Halifax (at Stanfield International) in the mid afternoon on the 21st. I expect the first thing on our agenda will be a little nap.
I’ll write more after our return from the great white north.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Big Adventure 23
Retired.
On vacation with no return to work date.
This is a completely new feeling. Even when I finished school all of those many years ago, I had a job lined up.
Work with no end in sight, or no work with no end in sight. This is better.
And Dad you were right. I now have less time than before. Work provides a convenient excuse not to get around to doing a bunch of other things. And Jacquie is, quite correctly, enjoying having some company for more of the day. I have no reason for doing anything “later” or for combining trips or tasks for the sake of efficiency. So I get a whole lot less done in at whole lot more time.
Back there Jacquie was the busiest person around with everyone else trying to keep up. Here the difference is no one is trying to keep up. Not even me now.
On top of everything else we are aggressively searching for new accommodations. So far everything comes with compromises. For what we are paying we can be somewhere off the beach, no pool. For a little more we can be off the beach with a pool. For a LOT more we can be on the beach. Our current place, on the beach with an off-site pool for less money than anything else, is starting to look very attractive. What we have at least determined is that there is lots available, so the threat that if we don’t want it till June it might be gone doesn’t really worry us.
So, all of the above are my excuses for not writing anything for the first two plus weeks of “retirement”
In serious news, the unrest in the deep south continues to escalate. Last week the rebels ambushed and massacred a minibus full of tourists and locals. We think our next “visa” run will maybe be to Myanmar instead of through that region to Malaysia.
In today’s newspaper the Queen is quoted as saying that she vows to protect the innocent residents of the south. To that end she has already initiated a free weapons training program for the local residents, and especially teachers.
I guess her thought is that arming everyone will solve the problem.!?!?
I’ve started running. Sort of. A bit. A couple we met – lets call them Clive and Karen – are members of the local “Hash House Harriers” group. The “Hash House Harriers” is a huge worldwide organization (there is a Halifax chapter) that is largely described as “a drinking club with a running problem”. The original idea was to chase a “hare” (another runner) through the countryside, but now the “hare” has usually been replaced with a trail laid out in advance which includes various “false trails” (wrong turns that are great equalizers so the slower runners / walkers and faster runners can all finish around the same time after the faster runners go the wrong way a few times). Thereupon everyone drinks for a while. There are even various reasons why various persons are required to chug beer from coconuts – for example, I apparently was not supposed to finish ahead of the president in my first “hash”, so chug.
Apparently, Clive is the most competitive minded of all the FRB’s (Front Running Bastards) so now there are two of us. He is in his late 50s and in incredible condition.
Clive and Karen are from Victoria, B.C. and are building an amazing villa on the top of a peak with expansive, 180 degree views of both Choeng Mon Beach and Big Buddha Beach. Six bedrooms / six bathrooms plus two bedroom staff quarters, a theatre, and an infinity edge pool across the entire front overlooking incredible sunsets. They have just moved in and had a big party on Saturday (starting with a late afternoon run up and down mountains for a few of us - I beat Clive, barely).
Now this is where the story gets interesting.
The aforementioned villa is barely ready, and the neighboring properties are in full blown construction. They have moved in anyway because after four years of construction they are tired of renting and waiting, and they wanted to get in and settled before their scheduled trip home to Canada at the end of May. They desperately want someone to house sit while they are away. We desperately want a place to live starting June 1.
Some readers may have guessed where I’m going with this. Yes, we will be living in an incredible villa – one that we could never afford even for a week – from June to October. We will be covering all expenses – electricity, satellite, internet, water, plus the biggest expense, the live-in maid and maintenance man/driver ( but at least there will be no cleaning or maintenance for us to do, and the driver can take us wherever we want to go in Clive’s SUV). All told this will be costing us less than a one bedroom bungalow on the beach, so it’s a pretty sweet deal for us. By June 1 about the only thing that won’t be finished will be the theatre – oh well, I guess we’ll make do without that. Now we have until the end of October to find our next place.
Next door, at the law office where I used to work, they are building a small car port / roof for the almost new truck that now sits unused except for one or two days a month when someone shows up to drive it. The assistant who does not drive told them how wide to make it – so it will take two or three cuts to get in or out without hitting the support posts or the cement wall behind, and Dong will definitely hit something his first trip here.
That was the most important thing they could think of to spend money on here – shade for the unused truck. (The motorcycle that has not even been started since Ja left in January is already parked in the shade of the dining area – thank God).
Last week Mike and Yen went to Koh Tau scuba diving. We kept “Julie” – the former beach dog now their dog, soon to be a Toronto dog – for them for most of the time, right up till the day before their return when she ran away. Needless to say we felt terrible. She finally reappeared three days later, to the relief of everyone.
The other day we were in our bedroom trying to have an afternoon nap when we heard a repeated “hello” from just outside. I got up and sure enough there were two teenage girls on the deck outside our bedroom. They advised that they are here visiting from Bangkok for a month during a school holiday – apparently they are related to our landlords, my guess would be children of another daughter. Anyway, then they asked us if they could borrow our Fino (our almost new motorbike). Stunned by the request, but with no good reason to say no, we said okay, since they agreed to only be gone for five minutes.
The motorbike came back, five minutes later, completely unscathed. I am still totally amazed that they asked. I guess this is Thailand.
Last night we went to the movies with Mike and Yen. “Ghost Rider” with Nicholas Cage. We all agree that it was most likely the worst movie we have ever seen (actually, I’ve rented some real stinkers, so maybe I should say the worst I’ve ever seen in a theatre. Anyway, it was a beautiful evening – Jacquie wore a jean jacket, Mike and Yen wore long pants and socks, and Yen wore a hoody. Apparently after being here for a while 75 degrees Fahrenheit is cold. I wore shorts and a t-shirt and survived the winter chill.
April 1st. One full month of retirement. Still totally enjoying doing nothing but swimming with my wife and dog, playing basketball, reading,.... you get the picture. And I’m rapidly running out of time to say I’m “in my forties”. I trust that those of you affected will remember how gracious and tactful I have been when you “crossed over” to your fifties, and beyond.
Mike and Yen left today for Vietnam. They have moved in with us for awhile. We are caring for Julie for the two weeks they are in Vietnam (we’ll be keeping her tied this time), then they are caring for Sami for the four weeks we are in Canada. Two weeks after our return they head back to Toronto and we move to our new place.
I think this will be an interesting trip for them. Yen was born in Saigon but left there when she was a baby and has never been back – until now. She obviously has no memory of being there. We are anxious to hear how she feels about returning.
The possibility of being retired - permanently - is great. When I said goodbye to practicing law, I did not even for a moment have any feelings of remorse, and I told Jacquie I'd be fine with never practicing again. Time will tell if that feeling persists. I am still a “practicing insured” member of the Nova Scotia Barristers Society – maybe I could practice there part time in the summers.
The important stuff hasn’t changed. We are still on Samui, and we are still convinced that we'll stay - it's nice here and we're meeting some people, making a life, and leaving here to start that process all over again doesn't make that much sense.
We are moving quite certainly towards Jacquie doing furnishing and decorating for my former client's 70 unit luxury apartment development ( infinity samui ) and I will be helping her with that some (I'm actually drafting contracts right now, for Jacquie – no conflict I hope). That project will likely keep us busy enough for 2 or 3 years, and we really don't want to plan past that anyway.
We are still as keen, still as enchanted, but we are both looking forward to the trip to Nova Scotia in a few weeks - curious to know whether we will like it more or less than before - and how it will compare to here now that we are here.
I'll keep you posted as the adventure continues to unfold.
On vacation with no return to work date.
This is a completely new feeling. Even when I finished school all of those many years ago, I had a job lined up.
Work with no end in sight, or no work with no end in sight. This is better.
And Dad you were right. I now have less time than before. Work provides a convenient excuse not to get around to doing a bunch of other things. And Jacquie is, quite correctly, enjoying having some company for more of the day. I have no reason for doing anything “later” or for combining trips or tasks for the sake of efficiency. So I get a whole lot less done in at whole lot more time.
Back there Jacquie was the busiest person around with everyone else trying to keep up. Here the difference is no one is trying to keep up. Not even me now.
On top of everything else we are aggressively searching for new accommodations. So far everything comes with compromises. For what we are paying we can be somewhere off the beach, no pool. For a little more we can be off the beach with a pool. For a LOT more we can be on the beach. Our current place, on the beach with an off-site pool for less money than anything else, is starting to look very attractive. What we have at least determined is that there is lots available, so the threat that if we don’t want it till June it might be gone doesn’t really worry us.
So, all of the above are my excuses for not writing anything for the first two plus weeks of “retirement”
In serious news, the unrest in the deep south continues to escalate. Last week the rebels ambushed and massacred a minibus full of tourists and locals. We think our next “visa” run will maybe be to Myanmar instead of through that region to Malaysia.
In today’s newspaper the Queen is quoted as saying that she vows to protect the innocent residents of the south. To that end she has already initiated a free weapons training program for the local residents, and especially teachers.
I guess her thought is that arming everyone will solve the problem.!?!?
I’ve started running. Sort of. A bit. A couple we met – lets call them Clive and Karen – are members of the local “Hash House Harriers” group. The “Hash House Harriers” is a huge worldwide organization (there is a Halifax chapter) that is largely described as “a drinking club with a running problem”. The original idea was to chase a “hare” (another runner) through the countryside, but now the “hare” has usually been replaced with a trail laid out in advance which includes various “false trails” (wrong turns that are great equalizers so the slower runners / walkers and faster runners can all finish around the same time after the faster runners go the wrong way a few times). Thereupon everyone drinks for a while. There are even various reasons why various persons are required to chug beer from coconuts – for example, I apparently was not supposed to finish ahead of the president in my first “hash”, so chug.
Apparently, Clive is the most competitive minded of all the FRB’s (Front Running Bastards) so now there are two of us. He is in his late 50s and in incredible condition.
Clive and Karen are from Victoria, B.C. and are building an amazing villa on the top of a peak with expansive, 180 degree views of both Choeng Mon Beach and Big Buddha Beach. Six bedrooms / six bathrooms plus two bedroom staff quarters, a theatre, and an infinity edge pool across the entire front overlooking incredible sunsets. They have just moved in and had a big party on Saturday (starting with a late afternoon run up and down mountains for a few of us - I beat Clive, barely).
Now this is where the story gets interesting.
The aforementioned villa is barely ready, and the neighboring properties are in full blown construction. They have moved in anyway because after four years of construction they are tired of renting and waiting, and they wanted to get in and settled before their scheduled trip home to Canada at the end of May. They desperately want someone to house sit while they are away. We desperately want a place to live starting June 1.
Some readers may have guessed where I’m going with this. Yes, we will be living in an incredible villa – one that we could never afford even for a week – from June to October. We will be covering all expenses – electricity, satellite, internet, water, plus the biggest expense, the live-in maid and maintenance man/driver ( but at least there will be no cleaning or maintenance for us to do, and the driver can take us wherever we want to go in Clive’s SUV). All told this will be costing us less than a one bedroom bungalow on the beach, so it’s a pretty sweet deal for us. By June 1 about the only thing that won’t be finished will be the theatre – oh well, I guess we’ll make do without that. Now we have until the end of October to find our next place.
Next door, at the law office where I used to work, they are building a small car port / roof for the almost new truck that now sits unused except for one or two days a month when someone shows up to drive it. The assistant who does not drive told them how wide to make it – so it will take two or three cuts to get in or out without hitting the support posts or the cement wall behind, and Dong will definitely hit something his first trip here.
That was the most important thing they could think of to spend money on here – shade for the unused truck. (The motorcycle that has not even been started since Ja left in January is already parked in the shade of the dining area – thank God).
Last week Mike and Yen went to Koh Tau scuba diving. We kept “Julie” – the former beach dog now their dog, soon to be a Toronto dog – for them for most of the time, right up till the day before their return when she ran away. Needless to say we felt terrible. She finally reappeared three days later, to the relief of everyone.
The other day we were in our bedroom trying to have an afternoon nap when we heard a repeated “hello” from just outside. I got up and sure enough there were two teenage girls on the deck outside our bedroom. They advised that they are here visiting from Bangkok for a month during a school holiday – apparently they are related to our landlords, my guess would be children of another daughter. Anyway, then they asked us if they could borrow our Fino (our almost new motorbike). Stunned by the request, but with no good reason to say no, we said okay, since they agreed to only be gone for five minutes.
The motorbike came back, five minutes later, completely unscathed. I am still totally amazed that they asked. I guess this is Thailand.
Last night we went to the movies with Mike and Yen. “Ghost Rider” with Nicholas Cage. We all agree that it was most likely the worst movie we have ever seen (actually, I’ve rented some real stinkers, so maybe I should say the worst I’ve ever seen in a theatre. Anyway, it was a beautiful evening – Jacquie wore a jean jacket, Mike and Yen wore long pants and socks, and Yen wore a hoody. Apparently after being here for a while 75 degrees Fahrenheit is cold. I wore shorts and a t-shirt and survived the winter chill.
April 1st. One full month of retirement. Still totally enjoying doing nothing but swimming with my wife and dog, playing basketball, reading,.... you get the picture. And I’m rapidly running out of time to say I’m “in my forties”. I trust that those of you affected will remember how gracious and tactful I have been when you “crossed over” to your fifties, and beyond.
Mike and Yen left today for Vietnam. They have moved in with us for awhile. We are caring for Julie for the two weeks they are in Vietnam (we’ll be keeping her tied this time), then they are caring for Sami for the four weeks we are in Canada. Two weeks after our return they head back to Toronto and we move to our new place.
I think this will be an interesting trip for them. Yen was born in Saigon but left there when she was a baby and has never been back – until now. She obviously has no memory of being there. We are anxious to hear how she feels about returning.
The possibility of being retired - permanently - is great. When I said goodbye to practicing law, I did not even for a moment have any feelings of remorse, and I told Jacquie I'd be fine with never practicing again. Time will tell if that feeling persists. I am still a “practicing insured” member of the Nova Scotia Barristers Society – maybe I could practice there part time in the summers.
The important stuff hasn’t changed. We are still on Samui, and we are still convinced that we'll stay - it's nice here and we're meeting some people, making a life, and leaving here to start that process all over again doesn't make that much sense.
We are moving quite certainly towards Jacquie doing furnishing and decorating for my former client's 70 unit luxury apartment development ( infinity samui ) and I will be helping her with that some (I'm actually drafting contracts right now, for Jacquie – no conflict I hope). That project will likely keep us busy enough for 2 or 3 years, and we really don't want to plan past that anyway.
We are still as keen, still as enchanted, but we are both looking forward to the trip to Nova Scotia in a few weeks - curious to know whether we will like it more or less than before - and how it will compare to here now that we are here.
I'll keep you posted as the adventure continues to unfold.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Big Adventure 22
Last week at basketball, while warming up there were several guys chatting, in Thai of course, when suddenly they all stopped talking and the best English speaker amoung them asked me how old I was. They all agreed that I am old, and of course it was my chance to confirm that they are 29, 22, 27 etc. The old guy amoung them is 36. There response to learning my age was “You strong man”. A bit confused, I thanked them anyway.
This week at basketball, while standing around chatting, in Thai of course, one of the guys told me “ You handsome man”. A bit confused, I thanked him anyway.
Tonight at basketball, while greeting one of the guys upon arriving, he said“ You look good”. A bit confused, I thanked him and said so did he.
While there’s not much new here (if we assume that none of the guys I play basketball with are coming on to me, and that is exactly what I am assuming – they are just being friendly) there are a few things happening worthy of note.
The first thing, and this will sound more sudden to some of you than it does to us, is that I will no longer be employed as of the end of February. There have been growing differences of opinion between me and my employers about numerous issues here, and while no one issue has been by itself unbearable, the number and relevant severity of these issues has continued to grow. Some of you – okay, anyone who read it – may have noticed what I thought of Kris’ reaction to Dong drinking on the job. Well, that was only one of many instances where I felt a lack of management skill – and a lack of support for this office and my efforts here. My firm recognizes the importance of getting a retainer signed, and they recognize the importance of getting the bill out. They are however a bit fuzzy on the in between bits.
They are sending Dong back down here later this week, for a few more days of drinking, and maybe a bit of work.
At the end of the day I really don’t feel a burning desire to put up with much bull s**t, and these guys are falling so far short of perfect that I can’t even see perfect from here.
To be absolutely clear to any family or others that might think otherwise, we are still staying here – in fact that decision was made first. We are still coming home for a visit in April – and still returning here in May. Jacquie is still considering the opportunities here for decorating / property management / vacation rental management business(es), and I have several clients and other contacts who want me to move to the next island over (just off of our beach) to practice where my non-competition clause doesn’t apply. I think my preference right now would be for me to work with Jacquie at something different – and consider this to be my long planned retirement at 50, one month early. I am truly enjoying the prospect, which I guess is a sign that it might be time. That Computer Programming degree might finally happen, and I already have some interest from clients in doing some web design work. And then there’s laying on the beach. Oh, and you might see me writing more.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone.!! Year of the Pig.
In a completely unrelated story, a new assistant finally started here this week. Her name (well, nickname) is Koi. She seems very sweet, but is clearly the next in line of the young girls of limited qualifications who are willing to work for nothing. Her first day she got me to show her how to send an email. A week and a half in she asked how to print something. And she won’t drive the truck. Since Ja won’t either, the brand new truck will just sit here getting older I guess.
We have now sorted out the travel arrangements for our trip to Nova Scotia. We are going there on April 21st and are coming back here on May 14th. There had been two reasons for us to plan a much shorter trip – or separate only partly overlapping trips –my limited vacation time and our dog sitting issues. Now I have unlimited vacation time, as does Jacquie. And Mike and Yen have given us a commitment to care for Sami, and he seems to like them at least as much as he likes us. So we have expanded our trip home, and we are both looking forward to it – both to see all (most) of you and to see some spring.
It is a bit of a sad day. The tiny bar directly across the road from our driveway was dismantled yesterday, and is now just a small pile of wood on a concrete floor, two bamboo stools and the hand painted name sign. My whole time here I kept planning to go there for a beer – soon. Well, soon never seemed to come. Even when I thought of it, the timing seemed wrong. Either there was no one there but the girl behind the bar watching television, or there was her and one or two other girls sitting at one of the two tables. I just thought it would be nice to patronize the bar the closest to me here. Clearly they could have used the business. Now they are gone, and I will never get the chance. It was called the “Lovely Bar”. It was a lovely bar.
On the up side, a new bar has opened two doors up from there. The “Burger Bar”. It’s been open for a week and I have seen NO ONE there yet. I think the absolute fastest way to financial ruin here would be to open a bar. And yet people keep doing so. Again, I’m a bit confused.
Mike and Yen have “adopted” a small beach dog, very cute, “Julie” (she only seems to respond to her name when one of them says it – she also seems to respond when one of them says house or car or plate). They had her spayed at a shelter in Chaweng (two beaches over) but she appeared to get an infection and so today we took them and Julie back to that shelter to see the vet.
Wow. An absolutely horrific – and beautiful – sight. I explained to them that while I am extremely glad I got to see it, if they ever need a drive back there again I’ll be waiting in the truck for them. The numerous dogs who had been hit by cars and suffered what I assume are broken hips, now using the front half of their bodies to pull (drag) their back half along. Moments after entering the compound two of such dogs had dragged themselves over to me to get their heads scratched and lick my hand, while Jacquie stood nearby bawling. These people are saints. None of us have any idea how they can do this (run this shelter) and remain sane. There were probably 30 + dogs there, plus a number of cats. They ranged from perfectly healthy to broken hips, etc. to the completely blind dog that was apparently born that way.
This will stay with us for awhile. An extra hug for Sami tonight.
We often chuckle about all of the trucks we see carrying 10 to 15+ Thais. Well in an extremely chilling newspaper story yesterday, a pickup truck was hit head on by an 18 wheeler. Ten are dead, another 3 seriously injured, all on the pickup truck. All the same family. Now it’s not so funny.
Wow, this has taken a negative turn. Time for some happy thoughts.
Our most recent Visa (the right to stay here, not the credit card) was for 3 months and was acquired in Singapore 3 months ago in November. My contract with this firm requires them to arrange for my Visa and work permit, but things have broken down just a bit since I’m now done a week later. So instead of the planned trip to Bangkok to renew both of those things, we are now on our own to pursue a new Visa.
So on Wednesday the 21st we leave for Malaysia on a “Visa run”. This is not the basic “cross the border and get another 30 days” run – this one is a stay over at a city with a Thai embassy and get a) at least 60 days, or b) hopefully for us, since I have already had two 90 day Visas and I have a valid work permit, a 180 day double entry Visa. Double entry will of course let us come into the Kingdom again after our trip to Canada.
The great thing about Thailand – and by great I mean exciting and frustrating all at the same time – is that we won’t know which of those things we’ll end up getting, or anything in between, until it happens.
I am sitting on a mini bus beside Jacquie, flying down the road passing every thing we see. Tooting the horn to warn others to move or die. We are in the third row. It is good, in the mini buses, to not see too much. I am watching and re-watching a Charlie Chaplin movie (as I write these words it is for the second time already, and we are only 30 minutes into our drive – from the ferry pier in Donsak to Hat Yai, to a hotel at the border for the night, then Malaysia for much of tomorrow shopping while our visa (both the credit card and the right to stay in the country) are being processed, then Hat Yai for another 6 hours tomorrow night, then an overnight drive back to Donsak for the first ferry home Friday morning).
I picked Jacquie up at the “Sisters of Samui” lunch at a restaurant near our home, then drove the motorbike to Nathon to catch the ferry. We are guardedly optimistic that we will see the motorbike again, when we return Friday morning. Kris, my soon to be ex-boss, wants the truck left there so Dong the Drunk can get pissed and drive around in it Thursday night when he arrives. And Friday at work. Mike and Yen are staying at our place with Sami, and their new (to them) dog Julie. They have been warned about Dong’s visit.
When you are in a mini bus with eleven people, and one person has some gas issues, then all eleven people end up having issues. It is always anonymous. While I will admit to past transgressions, tonight it’s not me. Painful.
Wednesday night, and we are out of the mini bus and all tucked in at the “Fleebag Plaza Hotel” in god knows where near (I hope) the Malaysian border. I say I hope because I want there to be some reason for being here besides payola to Herbert, the guy who runs this “tour”. Jacquie says the reason the crap supper was so expensive downstairs is that Herbert gets half.
I don’t know what kind of press the insurgency here in the deep south of Thailand is getting back home, if any, but marshal law has existed here for several years. The terrorists spread terror, by regular (daily) random shootings and almost as regular bombings. Lots of teachers being killed and schools being burned. Food vender by his cart shot dead. Garbage collector shot dead. Cop shot dead. Tourist shot dead. Okay, now I’m paying attention.
So at the quick toilet stop earlier tonight we were advised – no, we were told – that all curtains on the buses from that point onward must be closed. I have not been able to find out if we are potential targets – good reason to keep the curtains closed – or potential shooters, making us police / army targets – good reason to keep the curtains closed. Anyway, we passed through about fifteen checkpoints, with blockades across the highway, rolls of razor wire, and lots of soldiers.
Tomorrow we must be in the minibus at 6:10 am sharp, for the drive to Malaysia. It’s after midnight now, so I must sleep.
In Samui we have many “street dogs” and “beach dogs”. Here, wherever “here” is, they have many many “street goats” and a few “street cows” but not a dog to be seen. At 6 am they are still sleeping on the road as we leave for the short drive to the border. A boat ride across a river and we are in Malaysia, then a taxi to Kota Bharu (now we know where all of the Datsun’s have gone) and the Thai Embassy. Same rules as everywhere – apply one day and get your visa the next. The magic of Herbert’s tour is that we give him our passport and paperwork and he applies at 9 am, pays a bribe and gets our visa by 3 pm the same day.
We are back. The trip was just as hellish as we expected, but no more so. And Herbert delivered what he promised – we both now have 6 month double entry visas. We are good till August.
The ferry to Samui only runs from 6 am to 7 pm, we can’t make the last one today so the target is the first one tomorrow. There is NOTHING in Donsak but the ferry pier, so we will go part way to Hat Yai, then kill six hours shopping, etc. till 1:30 am then head to the ferry.
Thank god – by driving 130 kph and passing everything in sight we have made it to Hat Yai in time to spend an extra 30 minutes wandering aimlessly. Luckily, nine of us found a really cool pub with an excellent band and spent about 5 hours drinking. I ordered one SangSom and got one – bottle. It comes on a cart with a bucket of ice and a bunch of cokes and our own waitress standing at the cart full time mixing drinks. One of our new Ukrainian friends (three web page designers) tried it and liked it so much she ordered a second bottle.
We stumbled out to the minibus just in time, then sped some more so as to be one hour early for the ferry. The drive was more exciting after two bottles of rum. More like a roller coaster ride.
Friday was a long long day. It was kind of funny – meeting Dong in the parking lot at 8;30 Friday morning, me with a staggering hangover and him staggering to the truck to head for court after downing one last beer. The clients apparently didn’t mind their lawyer being drunk – he arrived back with them after lunch and they were all drinking in the truck, and so on for the rest of the day. By the time he hopped on the back of the motorbike at 9:30 pm for Ja to drive him to the airport – drinking one last Heineken – he seemed quite loaded. By that point I was just really really sleepy.
Now that we have our visa we know we can stay at least until August, so we spoke with our landlord (actually, Jeet the daughter) about extending our lease here past the current expiry in mid April. Yes, we sort of can. Turns out that her German boyfriend has convinced the family to turn the front half of the house into a restaurant, and so renovations will start in May and mom and pop will move into the apartment behind to live – our apartment. We think It’s craziness, and not just from the self serving, it sucks that we’ll have to move perspective (although it does). We’ll have till end of June / July if we need it to find another place. We’ve started looking around, and anything comparable costs much more. So, pay more or get a worse (away from the beach) location. There is a nice place just up the beach for exactly twice as much. Otherwise a very attractive option.
This bites. But I guess we’ll live in the moment and enjoy living right here right now.
Two work days left.
This week at basketball, while standing around chatting, in Thai of course, one of the guys told me “ You handsome man”. A bit confused, I thanked him anyway.
Tonight at basketball, while greeting one of the guys upon arriving, he said“ You look good”. A bit confused, I thanked him and said so did he.
While there’s not much new here (if we assume that none of the guys I play basketball with are coming on to me, and that is exactly what I am assuming – they are just being friendly) there are a few things happening worthy of note.
The first thing, and this will sound more sudden to some of you than it does to us, is that I will no longer be employed as of the end of February. There have been growing differences of opinion between me and my employers about numerous issues here, and while no one issue has been by itself unbearable, the number and relevant severity of these issues has continued to grow. Some of you – okay, anyone who read it – may have noticed what I thought of Kris’ reaction to Dong drinking on the job. Well, that was only one of many instances where I felt a lack of management skill – and a lack of support for this office and my efforts here. My firm recognizes the importance of getting a retainer signed, and they recognize the importance of getting the bill out. They are however a bit fuzzy on the in between bits.
They are sending Dong back down here later this week, for a few more days of drinking, and maybe a bit of work.
At the end of the day I really don’t feel a burning desire to put up with much bull s**t, and these guys are falling so far short of perfect that I can’t even see perfect from here.
To be absolutely clear to any family or others that might think otherwise, we are still staying here – in fact that decision was made first. We are still coming home for a visit in April – and still returning here in May. Jacquie is still considering the opportunities here for decorating / property management / vacation rental management business(es), and I have several clients and other contacts who want me to move to the next island over (just off of our beach) to practice where my non-competition clause doesn’t apply. I think my preference right now would be for me to work with Jacquie at something different – and consider this to be my long planned retirement at 50, one month early. I am truly enjoying the prospect, which I guess is a sign that it might be time. That Computer Programming degree might finally happen, and I already have some interest from clients in doing some web design work. And then there’s laying on the beach. Oh, and you might see me writing more.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone.!! Year of the Pig.
In a completely unrelated story, a new assistant finally started here this week. Her name (well, nickname) is Koi. She seems very sweet, but is clearly the next in line of the young girls of limited qualifications who are willing to work for nothing. Her first day she got me to show her how to send an email. A week and a half in she asked how to print something. And she won’t drive the truck. Since Ja won’t either, the brand new truck will just sit here getting older I guess.
We have now sorted out the travel arrangements for our trip to Nova Scotia. We are going there on April 21st and are coming back here on May 14th. There had been two reasons for us to plan a much shorter trip – or separate only partly overlapping trips –my limited vacation time and our dog sitting issues. Now I have unlimited vacation time, as does Jacquie. And Mike and Yen have given us a commitment to care for Sami, and he seems to like them at least as much as he likes us. So we have expanded our trip home, and we are both looking forward to it – both to see all (most) of you and to see some spring.
It is a bit of a sad day. The tiny bar directly across the road from our driveway was dismantled yesterday, and is now just a small pile of wood on a concrete floor, two bamboo stools and the hand painted name sign. My whole time here I kept planning to go there for a beer – soon. Well, soon never seemed to come. Even when I thought of it, the timing seemed wrong. Either there was no one there but the girl behind the bar watching television, or there was her and one or two other girls sitting at one of the two tables. I just thought it would be nice to patronize the bar the closest to me here. Clearly they could have used the business. Now they are gone, and I will never get the chance. It was called the “Lovely Bar”. It was a lovely bar.
On the up side, a new bar has opened two doors up from there. The “Burger Bar”. It’s been open for a week and I have seen NO ONE there yet. I think the absolute fastest way to financial ruin here would be to open a bar. And yet people keep doing so. Again, I’m a bit confused.
Mike and Yen have “adopted” a small beach dog, very cute, “Julie” (she only seems to respond to her name when one of them says it – she also seems to respond when one of them says house or car or plate). They had her spayed at a shelter in Chaweng (two beaches over) but she appeared to get an infection and so today we took them and Julie back to that shelter to see the vet.
Wow. An absolutely horrific – and beautiful – sight. I explained to them that while I am extremely glad I got to see it, if they ever need a drive back there again I’ll be waiting in the truck for them. The numerous dogs who had been hit by cars and suffered what I assume are broken hips, now using the front half of their bodies to pull (drag) their back half along. Moments after entering the compound two of such dogs had dragged themselves over to me to get their heads scratched and lick my hand, while Jacquie stood nearby bawling. These people are saints. None of us have any idea how they can do this (run this shelter) and remain sane. There were probably 30 + dogs there, plus a number of cats. They ranged from perfectly healthy to broken hips, etc. to the completely blind dog that was apparently born that way.
This will stay with us for awhile. An extra hug for Sami tonight.
We often chuckle about all of the trucks we see carrying 10 to 15+ Thais. Well in an extremely chilling newspaper story yesterday, a pickup truck was hit head on by an 18 wheeler. Ten are dead, another 3 seriously injured, all on the pickup truck. All the same family. Now it’s not so funny.
Wow, this has taken a negative turn. Time for some happy thoughts.
Our most recent Visa (the right to stay here, not the credit card) was for 3 months and was acquired in Singapore 3 months ago in November. My contract with this firm requires them to arrange for my Visa and work permit, but things have broken down just a bit since I’m now done a week later. So instead of the planned trip to Bangkok to renew both of those things, we are now on our own to pursue a new Visa.
So on Wednesday the 21st we leave for Malaysia on a “Visa run”. This is not the basic “cross the border and get another 30 days” run – this one is a stay over at a city with a Thai embassy and get a) at least 60 days, or b) hopefully for us, since I have already had two 90 day Visas and I have a valid work permit, a 180 day double entry Visa. Double entry will of course let us come into the Kingdom again after our trip to Canada.
The great thing about Thailand – and by great I mean exciting and frustrating all at the same time – is that we won’t know which of those things we’ll end up getting, or anything in between, until it happens.
I am sitting on a mini bus beside Jacquie, flying down the road passing every thing we see. Tooting the horn to warn others to move or die. We are in the third row. It is good, in the mini buses, to not see too much. I am watching and re-watching a Charlie Chaplin movie (as I write these words it is for the second time already, and we are only 30 minutes into our drive – from the ferry pier in Donsak to Hat Yai, to a hotel at the border for the night, then Malaysia for much of tomorrow shopping while our visa (both the credit card and the right to stay in the country) are being processed, then Hat Yai for another 6 hours tomorrow night, then an overnight drive back to Donsak for the first ferry home Friday morning).
I picked Jacquie up at the “Sisters of Samui” lunch at a restaurant near our home, then drove the motorbike to Nathon to catch the ferry. We are guardedly optimistic that we will see the motorbike again, when we return Friday morning. Kris, my soon to be ex-boss, wants the truck left there so Dong the Drunk can get pissed and drive around in it Thursday night when he arrives. And Friday at work. Mike and Yen are staying at our place with Sami, and their new (to them) dog Julie. They have been warned about Dong’s visit.
When you are in a mini bus with eleven people, and one person has some gas issues, then all eleven people end up having issues. It is always anonymous. While I will admit to past transgressions, tonight it’s not me. Painful.
Wednesday night, and we are out of the mini bus and all tucked in at the “Fleebag Plaza Hotel” in god knows where near (I hope) the Malaysian border. I say I hope because I want there to be some reason for being here besides payola to Herbert, the guy who runs this “tour”. Jacquie says the reason the crap supper was so expensive downstairs is that Herbert gets half.
I don’t know what kind of press the insurgency here in the deep south of Thailand is getting back home, if any, but marshal law has existed here for several years. The terrorists spread terror, by regular (daily) random shootings and almost as regular bombings. Lots of teachers being killed and schools being burned. Food vender by his cart shot dead. Garbage collector shot dead. Cop shot dead. Tourist shot dead. Okay, now I’m paying attention.
So at the quick toilet stop earlier tonight we were advised – no, we were told – that all curtains on the buses from that point onward must be closed. I have not been able to find out if we are potential targets – good reason to keep the curtains closed – or potential shooters, making us police / army targets – good reason to keep the curtains closed. Anyway, we passed through about fifteen checkpoints, with blockades across the highway, rolls of razor wire, and lots of soldiers.
Tomorrow we must be in the minibus at 6:10 am sharp, for the drive to Malaysia. It’s after midnight now, so I must sleep.
In Samui we have many “street dogs” and “beach dogs”. Here, wherever “here” is, they have many many “street goats” and a few “street cows” but not a dog to be seen. At 6 am they are still sleeping on the road as we leave for the short drive to the border. A boat ride across a river and we are in Malaysia, then a taxi to Kota Bharu (now we know where all of the Datsun’s have gone) and the Thai Embassy. Same rules as everywhere – apply one day and get your visa the next. The magic of Herbert’s tour is that we give him our passport and paperwork and he applies at 9 am, pays a bribe and gets our visa by 3 pm the same day.
We are back. The trip was just as hellish as we expected, but no more so. And Herbert delivered what he promised – we both now have 6 month double entry visas. We are good till August.
The ferry to Samui only runs from 6 am to 7 pm, we can’t make the last one today so the target is the first one tomorrow. There is NOTHING in Donsak but the ferry pier, so we will go part way to Hat Yai, then kill six hours shopping, etc. till 1:30 am then head to the ferry.
Thank god – by driving 130 kph and passing everything in sight we have made it to Hat Yai in time to spend an extra 30 minutes wandering aimlessly. Luckily, nine of us found a really cool pub with an excellent band and spent about 5 hours drinking. I ordered one SangSom and got one – bottle. It comes on a cart with a bucket of ice and a bunch of cokes and our own waitress standing at the cart full time mixing drinks. One of our new Ukrainian friends (three web page designers) tried it and liked it so much she ordered a second bottle.
We stumbled out to the minibus just in time, then sped some more so as to be one hour early for the ferry. The drive was more exciting after two bottles of rum. More like a roller coaster ride.
Friday was a long long day. It was kind of funny – meeting Dong in the parking lot at 8;30 Friday morning, me with a staggering hangover and him staggering to the truck to head for court after downing one last beer. The clients apparently didn’t mind their lawyer being drunk – he arrived back with them after lunch and they were all drinking in the truck, and so on for the rest of the day. By the time he hopped on the back of the motorbike at 9:30 pm for Ja to drive him to the airport – drinking one last Heineken – he seemed quite loaded. By that point I was just really really sleepy.
Now that we have our visa we know we can stay at least until August, so we spoke with our landlord (actually, Jeet the daughter) about extending our lease here past the current expiry in mid April. Yes, we sort of can. Turns out that her German boyfriend has convinced the family to turn the front half of the house into a restaurant, and so renovations will start in May and mom and pop will move into the apartment behind to live – our apartment. We think It’s craziness, and not just from the self serving, it sucks that we’ll have to move perspective (although it does). We’ll have till end of June / July if we need it to find another place. We’ve started looking around, and anything comparable costs much more. So, pay more or get a worse (away from the beach) location. There is a nice place just up the beach for exactly twice as much. Otherwise a very attractive option.
This bites. But I guess we’ll live in the moment and enjoy living right here right now.
Two work days left.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Big Adventure 21
Hello again. Well, it’s been just shy of three weeks since I’ve written anything. And I am about to have the audacity to say that I’ve been too busy to write .
I’ve been too busy. Bridgewater, Nova Scotia is a long, long way off – in many, many ways. Like for instance my definition of the word “busy”. Here the word isn’t just a synonym for “work”.
Anyway, it is Saturday morning. So nothing – not work, basketball, supper, evening swim, Sami walking – is getting in the way of writing a few words. We did plan a mountain top hike with Mike and Yen to see what we can see – and what we are told is a spectacular waterfall, but this morning at around 8 am we had one of those awesome intense squalls that lasts 10 minutes, when the rain is so loud you can’t hear each other speak, so we decided to postpone the trip. Of course it is now sunny and hot, but the jungle trek would have likely been a bit steamy. So now we are all going to see a crocodile farm and show near here this afternoon.
Here we go again – morning swim after coffee and newspaper, then I barely write one paragraph and now lunch is served, so there is only time left for a quick swim before the crocodiles – busy again.
It’s really hard to remember all of the things I wanted to write about that we experienced over the past three weeks. That is made even tougher by the fact that I just today saw a man put his arm down a crocodiles throat and put his head in it’s mouth. And another guy kissed a king cobra (I also have a picture of a cobra around my neck. Everything else that has happened recently pales by comparison.
I am in a quandary. I want to express my deep sympathy to everyone back home about what I understand is a bit of cooler weather, but I also want to mention the spectacular shade of orange the water is right now while I write this at the beach as the sun sets.
I want to be very clear. Just because I’m glad to be missing it doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with minus 18 and minus 27. Sorry you guys. You know, in a twisted sort of way I almost miss it.
No, I don’t, not even a little bit. That was a lie. But I do sympathize. Today it was plus 27 here. In the water.
The minor story is about the family - another daughter of our landlords and her husband and two daughters – who came to stay for one night and then made it two, at her parents house. I guess it was to visit the parents for New Years, but they didn’t even arrive until the 2nd. Anyway, by the next morning they had moved their truck down to our beach house and were drinking beer and enjoying our waterfront, kitchen and cook – yes, Ja was cooking for them! The parents yard with the new sala on the beach wasn’t good enough I guess. And it didn’t come with a cook.
I should mention that by that night Ja was eating with them all and really enjoying the company.
At about 9:30 pm on the night of the 11th Ju (she arrived back on the morning of the 4th, only a day and a half late) stopped me in the parking lot to say she wanted to talk to me. She needed to go home she said – her mother and father need her. She is leaving tomorrow lunchtime. She won’t be back.
Thai “Notice”.
I am quite certain that she had made this decision before her return on the 4th, and I’m sure – things like the parting gifts she delivered the next morning that were already bought, and she advised that Kris and Oh in human resources already knew – that she knew before 9:30 pm on the 11th. Nonetheless, that was my notice.
So now there are a few new realities:
-people who call the office phone number get no answer;
-people who come to the office find it locked;
-Dong won’t be coming here for social visits anymore;
-Ja has become hugely more friendly and she and Jacquie work on their English / Thai together daily;
-a week later no one had even tried to contact me, from human resources or anywhere else, to say if they are pursuing a replacement or not. They call me the General Manager of this office, but I’m less than sure that I’m treated as such/
I am hoping for someone with stronger English, but it seems clear that I will not have much say. They will probably find another marginal person from up north who will work for almost nothing.
Children’s Day.
A national day of celebration of children, filled all over the country with games, activities, and of course free food, for children. We went to Nathon to help the Rotary Club give out free ice cream, water and lunches. A very fun day.
Well, here I sit two weeks later. In the meantime, Dong the Dick has been here to go to court. The firm did not provide any advance notice, as they had agreed to do. Here we go again.
By mid morning he has popped his second beer to enjoy while laying in the hammock. At noon he hopped into the firm truck with two more beer (travelers) and headed TO COURT !!!! At four pm Jacquie saw him sitting in a bar near here drinking.
Kris arrived on the late flight that night so I of course advised him of the drinking DURING WORK. As I sit here writing this, I am still shaking my head – Kris laughed and said ’Dong loves it here”. That’s it – no negative repercussions for openly drinking at work.
I can accept a lot, but that attitude is a problem. I’m starting to feel that this firm might not be part of our long term plans.
A quick aside. Tight fitting white short – shorts that you can see the thong through. Things men should not wear while out walking.
We have until now been humming and hawing about our trip home – worrying about Sami while we are gone. Well, we have now got some pretty firm indication from Mike and Yen that they will be here, and we have met a very nice young couple who are missing their black lab terribly (it is back in the UK) and would love to dog sit, and we have been out to visit the local boarding kennel (“the Dogfather”) and all bases I think are covered so we are going to now go ahead and book to come visit. Looking like you will (most) see us in late Aprilish. When the weather is a bit nicer.
We’ll keep you posted.
Okay, it’s 2:20 on a Friday afternoon. Time to close the office up early and go for a swim with my wife and dog (you could, sort of, call me the Dogfather)
I’ve been too busy. Bridgewater, Nova Scotia is a long, long way off – in many, many ways. Like for instance my definition of the word “busy”. Here the word isn’t just a synonym for “work”.
Anyway, it is Saturday morning. So nothing – not work, basketball, supper, evening swim, Sami walking – is getting in the way of writing a few words. We did plan a mountain top hike with Mike and Yen to see what we can see – and what we are told is a spectacular waterfall, but this morning at around 8 am we had one of those awesome intense squalls that lasts 10 minutes, when the rain is so loud you can’t hear each other speak, so we decided to postpone the trip. Of course it is now sunny and hot, but the jungle trek would have likely been a bit steamy. So now we are all going to see a crocodile farm and show near here this afternoon.
Here we go again – morning swim after coffee and newspaper, then I barely write one paragraph and now lunch is served, so there is only time left for a quick swim before the crocodiles – busy again.
It’s really hard to remember all of the things I wanted to write about that we experienced over the past three weeks. That is made even tougher by the fact that I just today saw a man put his arm down a crocodiles throat and put his head in it’s mouth. And another guy kissed a king cobra (I also have a picture of a cobra around my neck. Everything else that has happened recently pales by comparison.
I am in a quandary. I want to express my deep sympathy to everyone back home about what I understand is a bit of cooler weather, but I also want to mention the spectacular shade of orange the water is right now while I write this at the beach as the sun sets.
I want to be very clear. Just because I’m glad to be missing it doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with minus 18 and minus 27. Sorry you guys. You know, in a twisted sort of way I almost miss it.
No, I don’t, not even a little bit. That was a lie. But I do sympathize. Today it was plus 27 here. In the water.
The minor story is about the family - another daughter of our landlords and her husband and two daughters – who came to stay for one night and then made it two, at her parents house. I guess it was to visit the parents for New Years, but they didn’t even arrive until the 2nd. Anyway, by the next morning they had moved their truck down to our beach house and were drinking beer and enjoying our waterfront, kitchen and cook – yes, Ja was cooking for them! The parents yard with the new sala on the beach wasn’t good enough I guess. And it didn’t come with a cook.
I should mention that by that night Ja was eating with them all and really enjoying the company.
At about 9:30 pm on the night of the 11th Ju (she arrived back on the morning of the 4th, only a day and a half late) stopped me in the parking lot to say she wanted to talk to me. She needed to go home she said – her mother and father need her. She is leaving tomorrow lunchtime. She won’t be back.
Thai “Notice”.
I am quite certain that she had made this decision before her return on the 4th, and I’m sure – things like the parting gifts she delivered the next morning that were already bought, and she advised that Kris and Oh in human resources already knew – that she knew before 9:30 pm on the 11th. Nonetheless, that was my notice.
So now there are a few new realities:
-people who call the office phone number get no answer;
-people who come to the office find it locked;
-Dong won’t be coming here for social visits anymore;
-Ja has become hugely more friendly and she and Jacquie work on their English / Thai together daily;
-a week later no one had even tried to contact me, from human resources or anywhere else, to say if they are pursuing a replacement or not. They call me the General Manager of this office, but I’m less than sure that I’m treated as such/
I am hoping for someone with stronger English, but it seems clear that I will not have much say. They will probably find another marginal person from up north who will work for almost nothing.
Children’s Day.
A national day of celebration of children, filled all over the country with games, activities, and of course free food, for children. We went to Nathon to help the Rotary Club give out free ice cream, water and lunches. A very fun day.
Well, here I sit two weeks later. In the meantime, Dong the Dick has been here to go to court. The firm did not provide any advance notice, as they had agreed to do. Here we go again.
By mid morning he has popped his second beer to enjoy while laying in the hammock. At noon he hopped into the firm truck with two more beer (travelers) and headed TO COURT !!!! At four pm Jacquie saw him sitting in a bar near here drinking.
Kris arrived on the late flight that night so I of course advised him of the drinking DURING WORK. As I sit here writing this, I am still shaking my head – Kris laughed and said ’Dong loves it here”. That’s it – no negative repercussions for openly drinking at work.
I can accept a lot, but that attitude is a problem. I’m starting to feel that this firm might not be part of our long term plans.
A quick aside. Tight fitting white short – shorts that you can see the thong through. Things men should not wear while out walking.
We have until now been humming and hawing about our trip home – worrying about Sami while we are gone. Well, we have now got some pretty firm indication from Mike and Yen that they will be here, and we have met a very nice young couple who are missing their black lab terribly (it is back in the UK) and would love to dog sit, and we have been out to visit the local boarding kennel (“the Dogfather”) and all bases I think are covered so we are going to now go ahead and book to come visit. Looking like you will (most) see us in late Aprilish. When the weather is a bit nicer.
We’ll keep you posted.
Okay, it’s 2:20 on a Friday afternoon. Time to close the office up early and go for a swim with my wife and dog (you could, sort of, call me the Dogfather)
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Big Adventure - 20
Christmas in Thailand
I will attempt a description of Christmas here but probably won't do a great job.
Christmas does exist here - it is completely an accommodation for the foreigners, an opportunity to make some money from their silly little holiday. Decoration is marketed and sold as being for Christmas as well as New Years, so for the most part what is available is chosen so it can do that double duty. As I said before, we bought a 6 kilogram (about 13 pound) turkey with bread stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce, cooked and packed in a Styrofoam cooler. And we found a bottle of our very favourite Wolf Blass wine. However, we paid more than it costs to feed me and Jacquie for a month.
Seven of us ate Christmas dinner together – me, Jacquie, Mathew, Mike, Yen, Ju and Ja. Ju and Ja were good sports and tried all of the bland flavourless food – I think it was made palatable by piling the spicy lime glass noodle salad with shrimp Ja made on top of it. I guess I’m settling in – I too thought that was the highlight of the meal.
After dinner six of us (not Ju) went swimming. Five of us acknowledged that it was the first time in our lives any of us went swimming on Christmas day. Ja didn’t say one way or the other, at least that we understood.
The bars along the road mostly celebrate the season by having the girls selling themselves wear skimpy red outfits and Santa hats. Can you say ho, ho, ho? One place has a large inflated Santa out front pole dancing with the girls, and on at least one occasion getting a lap dance. That particular bar also had live music and free barbeque to celebrate “number 25”, so of course that is where we went for Christmas evening. Continuous music from two excellent bands, delicious barbeque (no turkey), a pool tournament (“killer”, about 3 bucks to get in and the winner – not me or Mike - made about 60 bucks) and dark rum and cokes (no eggnog).
A Thai Christmas tradition at the hooker bars.
New Years is a different story. All over Asia it is intensely celebrated. A news story out of South Korea explains an initiative to get celebrants to promise not to keep the tradition of getting a prostitute at the end of the liquor soaked new years eve parties. And from Thailand, tens of thousands of police cracking down on “drink driving” in an effort to reduce the usual 6-7000 accidents with the accompanying 500-600 deaths across the country over the 4-5 day holiday. (I figure the rule on Koh Samui where the death toll is always high will be to stay off the roads completely). The vast variety of gift baskets available at Tesco almost all have a big bottle of Johnny Walker (most either red or black label) in them.
I don’t know if it even hit your news channels there, but the earthquake near Taiwan has severely damaged 6 of the 7 underwater optic fibre cables which provide most of Asias internet connectivity. The vulnerability of the whole system has been demonstrated, with the entire financial sector being seriously affected. It will take until Jan. 16 to effect any repairs and until the end of Jan. to achieve full repair. In the meantime extensive rerouting is occurring, and our connection is often gone and at best very slow. So for now it’s no phone or video chats and very little email. My work will be compromised also.
Completely unrelated to any of this, if anyone would like to read another, and different perspective on life here, check out Mike and Yen’s blog at:
www.roamingwanderlust.blogspot.com
We are even mentioned, so I periodically check it to make sure there is nothing too bad in there.
Sabadee be mai. Happy New Year.
My plan for this edition, the last of 2006, was to attempt a review of the events that happened in our lives this year. While I at first thought that would be an overwhelming task, after some reflection it has occurred to me that only a few of the really, really important things have actually changed after all. We are still together and still happy ( I guess I should say I am and let Jacquie speak for herself) and Sami is still with us and I think happy (he can't speak for himself). We all still have our health, and sometimes are too tired or too hot or too cold or working too hard (but not as often). We still don’t have enough free time with our friends and family, and that is worse now – except the new friends here. I still get to play basketball and go for walks with Sami and Jacquie (more often now) and we still watch the odd movie on television (instead of renting for about $1.50 we now usually just buy for about $3.00, and usually they are just released and still in the theatres).
So really, what has changed? I guess I’m a lot more relaxed and calmer about life now. That is the biggest change for both of us – the reduced role that work now plays in our lives – the newly achieved balance that I now cherish so much.
Speaking of relaxed, we spoke with Nigel (Nigel’s Barbeque) and he advised that the place to go for New Years Eve was Chaweng beach, because all of the resorts and beach bars and restaurants (and there are hundreds and hundreds) all have fireworks. We all decided that sounded cool, so we ate at a local restaurant first then all (me, Jacquie, Matt, Mike and Yen) jumped in the truck and headed to Chaweng in time to see it all.
Now, I need to mention the running stats being published daily in the Bangkok Post on this years death and injury toll for traffic accidents this holiday, better known as the “Seven Deadly Days”. Like a score sheet, each day they add yesterdays totals with comparisons to last year. So far we are down 14% from last years grand total of 609 dead and 2500 injured. About 50% are drink driving related (note Johnny Walker gift baskets mentioned above), and another 25% from speeding. In excess of 80% of the dead and injured were on motorbikes – hence our choice of going by truck and walking a bit further.
I also need to tell you that since arriving here Sami has developed an extreme fear of thunder and fireworks. So all of Sunday has been a long day for him, and especially since sundown when the fireworks started to be basically constant. Our being there really didn’t help much, so we put him on our bed with the A/C on and left him.
I have now seen - really seen - fireworks for the first time in my life. They are clearly plentiful and inexpensive, and they were everywhere on Chaweng beach. Yes, all of the resorts had large displays, each one about equivalent to Bridgewater on July 1. And yes, each bar and restaurant added their own smaller display. But what Nigel hadn’t mentioned was that every drunk with an extra ten or twenty bucks in his pocket had some too. I figure we now know what Beirut was like back in the day. On two occasions the blast went off so close to us we could feel it. On one of those occasions the blast caused a wind that blew Jacquies dress. You had to be very careful where you walked, so as not to be in the line of fire. I saw three large rockets go wrong and shoot into the crowded beach, then go off in the crowd. We didn’t hear any screams over all of the explosions and rock music and drunken hollering, so we are happily assuming no one was seriously injured.
I will never forget having a large rocket go off ten feet from me, and then the firework go off directly overhead. . By 12:30, after about 45 minutes of intense fireworks going off in three directions as far as you could see – and overhead, so I guess that’s four directions, we were fully shell shocked and the display started to subside. All that was left in the sky by then were a few late fireworks and the thousand hot air balloon lanterns that had been sent up by revelers, creating a new artificial solar system for our viewing pleasure.
And a happy new year to all, and to all a good night.
I will attempt a description of Christmas here but probably won't do a great job.
Christmas does exist here - it is completely an accommodation for the foreigners, an opportunity to make some money from their silly little holiday. Decoration is marketed and sold as being for Christmas as well as New Years, so for the most part what is available is chosen so it can do that double duty. As I said before, we bought a 6 kilogram (about 13 pound) turkey with bread stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce, cooked and packed in a Styrofoam cooler. And we found a bottle of our very favourite Wolf Blass wine. However, we paid more than it costs to feed me and Jacquie for a month.
Seven of us ate Christmas dinner together – me, Jacquie, Mathew, Mike, Yen, Ju and Ja. Ju and Ja were good sports and tried all of the bland flavourless food – I think it was made palatable by piling the spicy lime glass noodle salad with shrimp Ja made on top of it. I guess I’m settling in – I too thought that was the highlight of the meal.
After dinner six of us (not Ju) went swimming. Five of us acknowledged that it was the first time in our lives any of us went swimming on Christmas day. Ja didn’t say one way or the other, at least that we understood.
The bars along the road mostly celebrate the season by having the girls selling themselves wear skimpy red outfits and Santa hats. Can you say ho, ho, ho? One place has a large inflated Santa out front pole dancing with the girls, and on at least one occasion getting a lap dance. That particular bar also had live music and free barbeque to celebrate “number 25”, so of course that is where we went for Christmas evening. Continuous music from two excellent bands, delicious barbeque (no turkey), a pool tournament (“killer”, about 3 bucks to get in and the winner – not me or Mike - made about 60 bucks) and dark rum and cokes (no eggnog).
A Thai Christmas tradition at the hooker bars.
New Years is a different story. All over Asia it is intensely celebrated. A news story out of South Korea explains an initiative to get celebrants to promise not to keep the tradition of getting a prostitute at the end of the liquor soaked new years eve parties. And from Thailand, tens of thousands of police cracking down on “drink driving” in an effort to reduce the usual 6-7000 accidents with the accompanying 500-600 deaths across the country over the 4-5 day holiday. (I figure the rule on Koh Samui where the death toll is always high will be to stay off the roads completely). The vast variety of gift baskets available at Tesco almost all have a big bottle of Johnny Walker (most either red or black label) in them.
I don’t know if it even hit your news channels there, but the earthquake near Taiwan has severely damaged 6 of the 7 underwater optic fibre cables which provide most of Asias internet connectivity. The vulnerability of the whole system has been demonstrated, with the entire financial sector being seriously affected. It will take until Jan. 16 to effect any repairs and until the end of Jan. to achieve full repair. In the meantime extensive rerouting is occurring, and our connection is often gone and at best very slow. So for now it’s no phone or video chats and very little email. My work will be compromised also.
Completely unrelated to any of this, if anyone would like to read another, and different perspective on life here, check out Mike and Yen’s blog at:
www.roamingwanderlust.blogspot.com
We are even mentioned, so I periodically check it to make sure there is nothing too bad in there.
Sabadee be mai. Happy New Year.
My plan for this edition, the last of 2006, was to attempt a review of the events that happened in our lives this year. While I at first thought that would be an overwhelming task, after some reflection it has occurred to me that only a few of the really, really important things have actually changed after all. We are still together and still happy ( I guess I should say I am and let Jacquie speak for herself) and Sami is still with us and I think happy (he can't speak for himself). We all still have our health, and sometimes are too tired or too hot or too cold or working too hard (but not as often). We still don’t have enough free time with our friends and family, and that is worse now – except the new friends here. I still get to play basketball and go for walks with Sami and Jacquie (more often now) and we still watch the odd movie on television (instead of renting for about $1.50 we now usually just buy for about $3.00, and usually they are just released and still in the theatres).
So really, what has changed? I guess I’m a lot more relaxed and calmer about life now. That is the biggest change for both of us – the reduced role that work now plays in our lives – the newly achieved balance that I now cherish so much.
Speaking of relaxed, we spoke with Nigel (Nigel’s Barbeque) and he advised that the place to go for New Years Eve was Chaweng beach, because all of the resorts and beach bars and restaurants (and there are hundreds and hundreds) all have fireworks. We all decided that sounded cool, so we ate at a local restaurant first then all (me, Jacquie, Matt, Mike and Yen) jumped in the truck and headed to Chaweng in time to see it all.
Now, I need to mention the running stats being published daily in the Bangkok Post on this years death and injury toll for traffic accidents this holiday, better known as the “Seven Deadly Days”. Like a score sheet, each day they add yesterdays totals with comparisons to last year. So far we are down 14% from last years grand total of 609 dead and 2500 injured. About 50% are drink driving related (note Johnny Walker gift baskets mentioned above), and another 25% from speeding. In excess of 80% of the dead and injured were on motorbikes – hence our choice of going by truck and walking a bit further.
I also need to tell you that since arriving here Sami has developed an extreme fear of thunder and fireworks. So all of Sunday has been a long day for him, and especially since sundown when the fireworks started to be basically constant. Our being there really didn’t help much, so we put him on our bed with the A/C on and left him.
I have now seen - really seen - fireworks for the first time in my life. They are clearly plentiful and inexpensive, and they were everywhere on Chaweng beach. Yes, all of the resorts had large displays, each one about equivalent to Bridgewater on July 1. And yes, each bar and restaurant added their own smaller display. But what Nigel hadn’t mentioned was that every drunk with an extra ten or twenty bucks in his pocket had some too. I figure we now know what Beirut was like back in the day. On two occasions the blast went off so close to us we could feel it. On one of those occasions the blast caused a wind that blew Jacquies dress. You had to be very careful where you walked, so as not to be in the line of fire. I saw three large rockets go wrong and shoot into the crowded beach, then go off in the crowd. We didn’t hear any screams over all of the explosions and rock music and drunken hollering, so we are happily assuming no one was seriously injured.
I will never forget having a large rocket go off ten feet from me, and then the firework go off directly overhead. . By 12:30, after about 45 minutes of intense fireworks going off in three directions as far as you could see – and overhead, so I guess that’s four directions, we were fully shell shocked and the display started to subside. All that was left in the sky by then were a few late fireworks and the thousand hot air balloon lanterns that had been sent up by revelers, creating a new artificial solar system for our viewing pleasure.
And a happy new year to all, and to all a good night.
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