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.