Big Adventure - Part 8

Another Sunday. A new book, a new hammock (put up by me on Saturday, closer to the beach than the other one, under a coconut palm). Not a cloud in the brilliant blue sky.
Swims in the ocean.
Reading in the hammock.
Massage next door, on the beach in the shade of a mango tree.
Two hours of basketball.
Spectacular ginger pork for supper.
More swimming and reading.
I have lived a perfect day. Except maybe for that nagging problem of missing Jacquie.

As I have said, I now finally have time to just think. Like how much oil is in a barrel? How does the first ant know which way to go? Where does wind go? I really did wonder about the oil question. So with my new found spare time I discovered that one barrel contains 42 gallons of crude oil. The total volume of products made from crude oil based origins is 48.43 gallons on average - 6.43 gallons greater than the original 42 gallons of crude oil. This represents a "processing gain" due to the additional other petroleum products such as alkylates added in the refining process to create the final products. - Source: California Energy Commission, Fuels Office, PIIRA database. Answers to the other questions can wait for another day.

Tuesday. I am headed to the neighboring island of Koh Phangan to meet Charlie, a real estate broker, developer, contractor, furniture and decorative item importer, and publisher of the “Phangan Explorer”. He said on the phone he had lived in California, so I was not expecting him to be Thai. He is 30ish, speaks perfect English and is Thai. Seems like a really nice guy.

The ferry over was the classic overcrowded ferry rolling in rough water, but with a twist – the passengers were 90 % Israelis, with the other 10% being a mixture of Thais, whites and Arabs. Now if profiling was legal, I would have said these young Arab males would have fit, and I’m thinking what a PERFECT terrorist target that boat would have made. A couple of hundred wealthy Israeli youth on a boat full of un-inspected luggage.

Anyway, I’m writing this so you know it didn’t happen. Yet.

Koh Phangan is BEAUTIFUL. Unspoiled mountains falling into beaches at the shoreline. Now I know why people are saying Koh Samui has been raped. I imagine it used to be like Phangan. I could live there – in fact, I might. Charlie is going to put together a proposal for a little house on a spectacular white sand beach that we passed. I’ll need to buy a speed boat to take to work though – the ferry ride costs $4.50 each way, so living there and working here wouldn’t work without my own boat.

I already have a “black hole” client. Gee, that didn’t take too long. Every day I answer a new set of stupid questions received through the evening and overnight by email. What fun.

By Thursday Charlie has already sent me a client – actually, six Italians who all arrived an hour late after getting lost, then spent two hours trying to ask questions in broken English, and understand my non-Italian answers. Two of the six did all of the asking and translating. It struck me that as difficult as it is at times being here and not understanding Thai, at least everyone here knows a little English. I bet none of the Thais I’ve met know any Italian – except maybe “pizza”, if that counts.

Every day, at least once, I see something or something happens that I want to write about, that I subsequently completely forget when sitting in front of my computer.

Case on point. For four weeks I have been on a quest to find the place that Ju sometimes buys “Kao Phad” – Thai Fried Rice. It comes with a half of a lime to flavour as wanted and tastes exquisite. I keep telling Ju how much I like it – she even laughs every time I eat every last grain of rice on my plate and asks if I want more. “No, Aloye, Aloye.” Then she doesn’t buy it again for a week, and I’m thinking don’t you like me? Why won’t you get me my Kao Phad fix?

Well, I have found it! Turns out there was a communication problem – apparently "same side of street as 7-11” in Thai translates to "opposite side of street from 7-11” in English. Anyway, I’m a happy guy now – it costs a dollar and I’d be happy eating it daily.

Now I need a new quest.

Today there was no rain here, but when I arrived at the basketball court 5 km. away it had clearly been raining. Hard. For a few minutes it looked bad for playing, but then one of the guys arrived on his motorbike carrying large squeegees and we all got to work. Soon the flooded court was just wet and slippery, so we played at one end. I few guys fell a few times, (me once) but it was way better than not playing. (for me the slippery surface was like playing on the filthy Bridgewater High School floor after a dance).

Today is Friday. I finished my book last night, I have answered my Black Holes stupid questions of the day, and I just finished lunch. As sometimes happened at my old firm, I think we’ll quit early today. (I’ve been down at the beach working all morning anyway, that line gets pretty blurry here.)

My new quest begins now – I have loaded my first “Learning Thai” disk into my computer. This weekend I begin studying in earnest. It has been increasingly annoying that I don’t even know who’s winning when I play basketball. After a hoop I run down the court. When everyone else is walking to the side for water, I know the game is over. We won/lost. Hooray/boo. Also, when I do a good job of asking how much at a store, they will usually respond in Thai. Then I need to look as stupid as I can and hold out bills so they can take some. Or play it safe and hand them a 1000 Baht bill for my 30 Baht Kao Phad – that always goes over well.

So learning my numbers is job “neuhng” on my list. (yes, that is “one”).

Well, here it is after “jeht nar li gar”, and it has been raining hard since “har nar li gar sarm sip nar tee”. So obviously basketball has been completely rained out. Bummer.

Since I’m around for the first evening in a while, Ju and I ate together. Knowing what I like she got Squid soup and fried cauliflower for supper. Bitch. We talked about Thai grammar and English grammar. They basically construct questions by adding the word no at the end – which explains how they speak English.

“You want dinner tonight, or not.” is how Ju asks me.

Also, tenses are a bit foreign to Thai grammer. They would say I go – I go today, I go last week, I go next month. Same with pronouns. To Ju I am not you, I am Kuhn David, and she is not I, she is Ju.

Ju go Tesco. Khun David want something, or not. Next Wednesday.

Ju also tell Khun David about four (“see”) maids that be here since Ju be here, and time here all alone – twenty (“yee sip”) days when she did not tell her mother and father because they worry. She seems pleased that she was able to survive that.

I also found out that Ju turns “yee sip hoc” (26) on the 15th (sip har) of September. There is a party supply store just up the road, open to “yee sip sohng nar li gar” every evening. I have never seen a customer in there, and I often wonder how that idea sprang to life, but I will go there Thursday night and get some helium filled Happy Birthday balloons.

Saturday morning, and my leisurely read of the newspaper while drinking coffee by the beach is interrupted by Richie the Torontonian arriving to get free legal work. Free weekend legal work – the worst kind. I had agreed to do a will for him. Well, now that will all change because he and his Thai girlfriend are buying a house, and since the house must be in her name not a foreigner, that will be security for her. Better than a will. Problem is they are invading my Saturday morning wanting an agreement of sale and purchase prepared and translated into Thai and printed and witnessed. Today.

Well, of course we did. My part was easy, but Ju worked all afternoon and into the evening doing the translation and typing and witnessing. They say they “looked after her”. I hope so. They bought me a Soda Water at the Ting Tong bar that night to say thank you to me. Gee, you’re welcome.

While Ju worked away Saturday afternoon, I went to another beach, Lamai, to check it out. I didn’t find it as impressive as Chaweng, but apparently at night it is better. Probably won’t interest us, since as far as I can tell the partiers on Samui pretty much consist of two distinct groups – young (teenage and twenty – something) people, and sixtyish year old white men.

Sunday morning, and I have my back to our driveway and my iPod turned up loud. Lets see Richie interrupt me now. Oops – there is Ju waving to get my attention. We have no water, and she looks distressed. Our well is a large concrete affair with a maze of pipes around three pumps serving our property and two neighboring properties. I sure as hell ain’t fixing it. Our pump is running, and it is getting hot with no water. I suggest unplugging it and getting a plumber. Someone arrives and pours water into the pump I assume to prime it and leaves. It works again. Back to my paper and coffee.

Well (ha ha), by afternoon the current edition of my adventure has Ju and I living here with no water and no prospects in the short term. Turns out this mornings fix was to switch to the rooftop tanks. Now that is gone and the plumber looking guys here tonight left with no fix and no suggestions. At least one of the properties fed from the well has water – Richie the Torontonian. So Prem (Kik's daughter) and Ju had a hose rigged from their outside tap up and across my balcony, then across Ju’s balcony and into her room where I assume she was having a makeshift shower. I went in the gulf for a swim after basketball. A working toilet will soon be a priority.

Kris plans to come on Tuesday. I don’t think I’ll tell him until he gets here. Maybe he can make some calls – or rent me a room at a nearby hotel. My list of priorities for him is now WATER, maid, truck.

I’ll keep you posted.