Big Adventure - Part 6

I’ve been thinking that sometime – soon? – things will get to be just normal. The Thrill will be Gone. Then today I was up a narrow really dirty and very dusty road (it’s called Ghost Road, even by the Thais. Yes, for just the reason you think. Lots and lots apparently. It’s narrow, winding and heavily used.) and about a mile in, and two miles from the other end, there is a CAR WASH.!! People on motorcycles covering their mouth so they won’t eat as much dirt as they drive by it.

I hadn’t been using my balcony yet, choosing instead to sit inside my air conditioned room. Today, Sunday, I have come outside to sit and write this and look, and I now see that I was missing out on a spectacular view. The Gulf today is the most incredible green colour I’ve ever seen.

So I guess the secret is for me to keep doing new stuff, and the thrill will survive a little longer.

I have been out playing basketball three of the last four days – starting to get my legs back. Some of these guys are as quick as I’ve ever seen, and some have awesome range on their jump shot. But there is not much physical play, so “posting up” is pretty easy. It’s kind of neat to see them Wai you (hands together in prayer and bow) when they comit a foul – especially to me because of the much added respect to me for being older (I’m still Mr. David even in a game). Hard for me to resist playing the Canadian way – hard foul if you come to my basket, no apology, don’t come back. Also no one has ever taught them the “proper” way to shoot, so the best shooter has the funniest looking one handed throw I’ve ever seen. I laugh as I watch him score again from 30 feet out.

Every day now, for the past four, there have been articles on page three of the Bangkok Post about Koh Samui. The ongoing subtitle is “Paradise Lost”. The titles are all along the lines of “The Rape of Samui” and “I can’t afford to stay in my ancestral home”. The paper seems to have taken up the crusade of saving Samui. Stop the rape of this island paradise by rich foreigners, the loss of the coconut plantations that it is famous for. Even the industry of raising and training monkees to climb the trees and pick the coconuts is dying. According to the newspaper that is all entirely the fault of me and the other “Farang” ( they say “falang” – a not very nice word for foreigners, widely used.).

That is the backdrop for my work here. To help clients figure out ways around restrictions on foreign ownership of land so they can build their resorts and villas, to rape this paradise in the process of being lost forever.

Oh my god. I’m a pimp. I’m heading to the tailor straight away for a white suit and hat.

“Hey mister, wanna meet my island? Short time cheap cheap.”

I do notice about a thousand coconut palms ringing my beach here at Bo Phut, but I understand that the problem is that there used to be three thousand. Perspective.

Not completely settled yet. The “Thai way” still offers lots of frustrations. The complete waste of time is still at times frustrating the hell out of me, even though I know I have it to spare. To me having something doesn’t justify wasting it.

So Kris and Dong were leaving Saturday (Kris has plans to visit his mother up in Chiang Rai on Mothers Day – Mothers Day here is celebrated on August 12, the much loved Queens birthday), but then they didn’t go. Then I told Kris I was taking the car Sunday afternoon to go play ball – no problem, but could I stay for a few minutes first, a client is coming to sign an agreement and could I be witness. No problem (on a SUNDAY afternoon) I’ll go after that. THREE hours later the client arrives. I was pissed off.

Dong finally leaves Sunday night. Surprisingly, the new bottle of Jack Daniels from Friday night is not quite finished. He must have not been feeling well. Kris stays on – for some reason he is going standby and can’t get a seat. Announces that he is getting up very early and going in the morning. I offer to drive him at 6:30 am because I know that otherwise he will be knocking on Ju’s door and waking her up to make her take him. (and Monday is a holiday, to make up for Mother’s Day falling on a Saturday) So I set my alarm, get up, and wait until 10:45 for him to get up. Yes, it occurred to me that I could wake him, but somehow the three hour wait the afternoon before made it seem like a good idea not to.

So off we go on my first trip of the day to the airport. (Thank goodness it’s only five minutes from here.) Drop him off, he’ll call if he can’t get a plane. Sure enough, an hour later he calls, can I come get him (I do) he will go back at 1:30 (ends up being 2:00 – I wait this time, still no seat) then 4, same thing, then 6 – after the same client from Sunday drops off some plans – and he finally decides he’ll stay there till he gets a flight.

So now it’s Tuesday morning and I’m wondering if it’s safe to turn my cell phone back on, or is Kris still at the airport.

I sit here now and realize that the past two days are likely not an aberration – I need to get used to doing things the slow way. And on Sunday leave my cell phone turned off.

Through all of the frustration of yesterday ( also missed out on ball again because of the repeated trips to the airport ) we did gets plans in place for my trip to Singapore to apply for a Work Visa. Kris booked the flight (he was at the airport anyway) and I booked a room, and he prepared the letter I will need for the Royal Thai Embassy. I leave today (only two days late – my thirty day tourist visa expired Sunday; the fine will be about $30.00) at 3:00 pm, spend two days in Singapore and arrive back here Thursday evening.

Now I’ll miss three more days of ball. At least I get a couple of days in Singapore with very little to do but wait around for the Embassy to, hopefully, issue my Visa. I made sure the hotel has a pool.

Yesterday, for the second time since I’ve been here, a sudden squall came up. It is the most amazing thing. You can see the wall of weather crossing the bay, and in five minutes it goes from blue skies to high gusting wind to heaviest rain I’ve ever seen, at first ‘falling’ sideways but then the wind dies before the rain stops so it comes straight down, then it all stops and the blue sky is back.

Five minutes.!

Again as the last time we were hiding out in the kitchen – we flipped off the main circuit breaker when we noticed the rain that had leaked in through the roof running out of the outlet that the fridge is plugged into. (Someone had covered the top of the fridge with a garbage bag so it wouldn’t get wet, but no concern for the water running out of the outlet!!!)

That all happened just a few minutes before my last ( so far) trip to the airport with Kris. The main street was under about eight inches of water. Apparently this island is prone to flooding in the fall, during the rainy season. From what I have just seen, that sounds right. (Last November they got a foot of rain in one day – that is going to be an experience!) The Mini would not work out here.

By the way, for some reason the Thai people all seem to be afraid of the rain. The lightest sprinkle – so refreshing on a hot day – has them running for shelter or an umbrella. (I opened a bank account the other day and got a free umbrella – I’m set now)

Our maid has been gone for a week now, Kris tells us it will be another week (I say at least) till he finds us a new one. I have discovered that when you sweep the floor much of the dirt moves, and much of the dirt that does not move used to. I have a nice ant farm going in my bathroom.

Also, since so many of the bugs are so large, why aren’t the birds bigger?

August 15, 2006.

Ju can’t drive.

She took me to the airport, and OH MY GOD. Before, when she said “Khun David good driver.”, I had taken it as a compliment. Now I know what she meant was “Khun David driver. Sad that the five minute drive to the airport was much more dangerous than the 1½ hour flight to Singapore.

The security in Samui International Airport is non existent. They didn’t even ask if I had a laptop, much less ask me to take it out. The guy checking my passport, who was supposed to charge me 500 Baht per day for being in the country too long, was talking to someone so he didn’t notice.

Singapore is the same, only even bigger. Ethnically it is completely diverse. English seems to be the language of choice, not because a majority are English speaking (in fact it’s the minority) but rather, I think, because it’s a good middle ground for all of the Malays, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Thais, and oh yeah, Singaporeans.
Arriving late, I had a quick meal of Korean barbeque at the food court next door and then off to bed.

The next day. Up early. Breakfast buffet was mostly Indian food (and I would say mostly Indian hotel guests here, so I guess that makes sense). Royal Thai Embassy-application form, take a number, across the street for a passport photo and to change my Thai Baht to Singapore Dollars for the fee, take a number, need another document from employer, call and get them to fax it.

I’m showing my age when I say this, but I can remember a day when there was a pay phone on almost every corner. Try to find one now. I’m in one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. There are on average 4 ATM’s on every corner. Nary a telephone.

I finally found some in a subway station (I had given up and was heading back to my hotel, as time is a bit critical on this – I must get the Visa by tomorrow before I leave).

Anyway, they of course only take cards, no cash - and half only take phone cards. Luckily, the other half take credit cards.

“Insert and remove credit card.” Out comes my Visa card and I do that.

“Visa and Mastercard not accepted – please insert another credit card”

Back at the hotel, I call and arrange (I hope) for the other needed document to be faxed. I won’t find out until between 2 and 4 tomorrow afternoon if it has worked out, which will be too late for me to do anything about it. (Applications only in the mornings, pick ups only in the afternoons)

Now it’s tourist time. Off to "go the wrong way but then eventually find after miles of walking" Sim Lim Square – a huge technology mall – for some lunch at the food court there. Passed on the “Pig Organ Soup” place and had some noodles with pork and Won Ton. Shopped and shopped and shopped – cool stuff.

Back for a swim and rest before more abuse to my feet and a trip to Clarke Quay for some supper. This is a beautiful stretch of restaurants and bars along the river. Every ethnicity represented in Singapore is represented in the restaurants here – maybe more, since I haven’t yet seen a big Mexican population here.

Poor Hooters – they should try to come up with another name for the Asian operation. I’m certain they had to special order the t-shirts.

I passed on Hooters, and I passed on “Raz –Essence of India” who have been emailing us monthly since Jacquie and I ate there two years ago. Ate Balinese food at Lotus Garden Restaurant, on a boat tied up beside their main restaurant. Watched all of the river boats with the red lanterns cruising the river while I ate. Very romantic. Boy, that was stupid.

I just heard on the business news on television the average price to rent commercial space in Singapore is $80 a foot !!! That’s why the high bid to lease the land above a subway station near here – just the land – was $617.5 Million. Sounds like another monstrous mall is coming. (I just read in the paper that the new monster mall in Bangkok – Central World – just opened. 6,000,000 square feet of new retail !!!)

Overall impression of Singapore: no smells, no garbage, no food stalls, no pollution(much), no beggars, no street vendors, no soul – sterile. I’ll be glad to be back home. That seems odd to say.