28th April 2007 - An English couple abroad

We met a couple from England and spent a few pleasant evenings 'decompressing' for when we get home.

Sean is an Inheritance Tax expert and I may be giving away some Civil Service secrets but they have a new tool in the war against tax evasion ...... it's called a 'Goofatron'. Apparently we all have one of these Goofatrons but are unaware of it's powers, we merely use it to send emails and other new fangled activities. He is a traditionalist and prefers the old fashioned 'informer network' that requires daily undercover meetings at the local pub.

His wife Joy (a very apt name), who works for the NHS Service (private joke), introduced and runs a scheme in the North of England co-ordinating a support network available to children. A very important job for a former self confessed 'wild child'! (I wasn't going to mention her name in case they all think she is normal, but I realise they won't be under any illusions on that score).

They were good fun. Every restaurant or pub we went to Sean was asking how much little things cost, ash trays, beer coolers etc. He said he was hoping to buy souvenirs but I reckon he was assessing their worth for tax reasons.

It's funny to talk to people who are on holiday for a normal period of time and talk about normal (well mainly normal) things, rather than back-packers who are opting out for a while.

They are off to Japan to see their son who they haven't seen for 15 months, and we think we've been away a long time.

22nd April 2007 - Ao Nang in Krabbi.

It is getting hot and sticky here now. Sue and I have come to an unspoken agreement that air conditioning has moved to the top of our list of priorities when looking for a room. (Sorry all you hardened backpackers but we are in our 50's you know!)

I had a shave the other day in a barbers, he hesitated when I asked him to do it and I should have taken that as a warning. I had visions of laying back in the chair, like they do in Saville Row and thinking about weighty matters of 'the city' whilst my personal barber prepared me for the day (a little something for the weekend sir?).

He laid me back applied the cream and then reached for his 'cut throat razor'. "Which way is the market going to move today?" I thought "Shall I invest more in my hedge fund? Maybe a new pair of clippers, or even a Black and Decker". It moved towards me and I noticed his hand was shaking violently and he looked very nervous. I instantly thought of the other scenario involving barbers and cut throat razors (no not Sweeney Todd), the Western where the hero is a notorious gun-slinger and the barber is ordered to carry on shaving him even though a posse of bandits is heading into town to kill him. My hand tightened on my six-gun (aka the arm of the chair) under the smock. He moved in under my nose and nicked me on his first pass. This did nothing to calm his (or my) nerves as he applied wads of cotton wool and other ointments to stem the flow. He reached for the cut throat and moved in again, do I try to help by pulling the same faces as when I am shaving myself (will this just frighten him?) or do I just let my face go loose and let him pull my skin about? Will I look good in the city with bits of cotton wool stuck all over my face? Amazingly we both survived the experience more or less intact and I could tick another experience off my list.

Thais have a real problem with r's. You take your dirty washing to the 'Laundly' and go and listen to music at 'Lockies' bar. (Actually they will often really try to get the 'r' so it is not uncommon to find yourself at the 'Rrraundly'). There is live music every night at 'Lockies' and we went there with our friends from England, Peter and Elaine, they recommended it as an 'experience' not to be missed. How can you play every night for goodness knows how long and be so awful? I don't think the lead guitarist would have known a beat if it hit him continuously in a rhythmic fashion. "You think that's bad" they said, "Try 'Countly Loads'" - a bar on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok, quite near to 'Cabbages and Condoms' - watch this space!

Our daughter and her partner are running in the London marathon and we have just spent a fruitless hour or so trying to see it over the internet. We would be fine if we were in the UK, the USA or Canada - oh well. Apparently it is going to be the hottest marathon so far. We are both very proud - they get a medal if they do it in less than 8 hours!

They did it! We spoke to them on the phone afterwards and Kate said " I am never running anywhere ever again" I think she meant it too. Dan is a teacher and a great motivator (Come on Kate only another 20 miles to go!). It was a great effort, well done!

With 2 weeks to go we feel like we are on holiday. Staying in a hotel at greatly reduced rates and with 10% occupancy we have our own private pool. Sue is concentrating on her tan and I am reading and trying to sun-bathe but my heart's not in it. What am I going to do when I get home!? It's going to be freezing cold and I won't be able to live with the pace of life. Here I have all day to make a decision and I can concentrate on one thing at a time, at home I know I am going to have to make instant decisions. "Do you want tea or coffee?" "erm....." "Come on I haven't got all day!"

14th April 2007 - Koh Phi Phi

Alone again.

We caught the bus from Suratthani to Krabi and spent one night there. A pizzeria called 'Bolero' had a live band from 9.30 - 12.30 playing all the old rock favourites, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, The Beatles etc - just like being at home.

The next morning we caught the ferry to Koh Pi Pi which boasts the famous beach (Maya lagoon) from the film 'The Beach'. Pi Pi has a strange immigration policy - they normally only allow people in between the ages of 20 and 30 (or so it seemed to us). We were met off the ferry by a very eager young Thai boy (about 10 years old) with a trolley for our bags. He loaded up and off we went to our resort - 'Tropical Gardens Bungalows'. We wound through very narrow streets lined with bars, clubs, internet cafes, dive centres, restaurants, bars, clubs, dive centres ....... pharmacies (pregnancy tests, sunburn treatments, HIV tests), mini-marts, bars, restaurants, stalls selling necklaces, massage parlours, tattoo studios...

Talking about tattoos, I saw the 'Clockwork Orange' logo - on somebody's back and then I saw someone the next day in Krabbi wearing a 'Clockwork Orange' tee-shirt?! (I must have seen that film about half a dozen times when it came out in the 70's)

We left the narrow streets behind and entered, what can only be described as a shanty town.

Actually the hut was OK but we were only there one night before moving to a much nicer (more expensive) bungalow on a street that connects the two beaches on Pi Pi (the narrow point in the photo).

One day we paid 200 baht each to sit by a pool (situated on the beach) and watch a group of young males on one side of the pool 'displaying' to a group of females on the other side, all to the gentle refrain of club music. I think the sun had got to us, why were we there? What made us do it?

We didn't get to see 'The Beach' it would have been too busy. I would rather continue to imagine it's beauty in much the same why as I continually tried to imagine how Pi Pi must have looked before the tourist invasion. The water was fantastically clear and warm and the exclusive areas around resorts like 'Pi Pi Natural' are probably stunning but they were way outside our budget.

The high point of the trip there was witnessing Manchester United thrash Roma 7 - 1 in the quarter finals of the 'Champions League' and - oh yes - Songkran.

Songkran (The Thai New Year) is marked by smearing a little paste on each cheek (face) and splashing a little water on your back whilst wishing you a happy new year, another very sweet Thai custom. Then you leave the haven of your bungalow and your Thai hosts and venture down the narrow streets to find somewhere for breakfast. "Has it been raining, there seems to be water everywhere and those people walking towards us carrying those large toy ray guns are soaked?!" It seemed that Songkran is actually more to do with staging a mass water fight and everyone was free to join in, you didn't even need to be invited. I found a spare utensil and waded in whilst Sue made little girlie noises and hid in a convenient bar. Then we spent a happy 2 hours sitting in this particular bar watching the festivities. There was someone upstairs (who we never saw, but I guess was male) and every time anyone who was relatively dry (and female and young) passed by they had what must have been a dustbin full of water thrown down onto them. After a while they became really accurate and we enjoyed guessing who the next victim was going to be and then relishing that split second of time when they were walking along, oblivious to the mass of water which seemed to be suspended motionless above their heads. I tried to capture it on film by hitting the button the instant I saw the water appear, but a combination of my aging reaction time and the response time of the digital camera meant that the closest I got was the picture above. Their reactions look pretty slow too!

We were in Pi Pi for 4 nights and for three of those we had thunder storms and rain at night. Great thunderstorms too, I love witnessing the power of nature unleashed like that, it is no wonder that ancient civilizations dreamt up gods like 'Thor' and 'Zeus' and imagined them battling with each other in the heavens. The rain also 'galvanised' (get it?) the local frog/ toad population into a continuous symphony of sound. As they all seemed to live down large open man-holes the result sounded like an amplified, prolonged burp, totally drowning out the cicadas (no mean feat), ah the peace and quiet of a tropical island.

How about this extract from a brochure promoting Aonang beach in Krabi province. '...situated on the breathtaking Aonang beach, whose golden sand is shaded by swaying palm trees as the wind gently whistles through the leaves on another lazy afternoon.' (Isn't the English language wonderful? But so difficult to learn!)

30th March 2007 - The Sanctuary second time around

The Sanctuary at Hat Thien on Koh Phangan is just around the bay from Hat Rin, where they have the full moon parties (10 000+ people on a beach drinking and dancing til dawn). We had booked there to celebrate my niece Karen’s birthday, the Sanctuary is her favourite place.

A family of Ghekos behind a picture above our bed. Last time we were at 'The Sanctuary' Sue would have screamed blue murder but after 6 months in Thailand she thought they were great. "They eat all the insects".

Last time I was at the Sanctuary we had just arrived in Thailand. It is full of ‘beautiful people’ but we will fit in better this time. Karen actually looks the part so I felt a bit more accepted – by association.

Karen, looking the part

They may be beautiful but I am older and wiser and more ‘together’ than they are. I have read ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ and other books about Buddhism, I am happy with myself and my place in the Universe. I don’t have hang ups like them and it will shine through in the way I carry myself. They will be falling over themselves asking me how I do it. “How do you look so calm and say such wise things? We feel so awkward in your presence,” they will say.

But it was me doing the falling over, tripping up steps that they skipped up (actually one or two did trip – over my legs that stuck out at awkward angles when sitting on the floor). Lumping down steps (like an arthritic elephant) that they floated down. Wheezing up steep concrete paths to the bungalows that they ran up (of course, they don’t sweat!). Languidly flowing to their feet after hours sitting cross legged chatting and laughing gaily as they went down to the edge of the sea to show each other their yoga moves. I too sat down for hours but what they didn’t know was that the last most of that time was spent desperately trying to persuade my legs to unbend a bit and then waiting for an opportunity to launch myself into a standing position whilst no-one was watching.

Maybe they do have hangups, perhaps they looked at each other and thought how gracefully everyone else moved. Maybe they looked at me and thought “how gracefully all these others move, but at least I look better than that old boy in the hammock”. I say the old boy in the hammock because I was in there for ages.

I managed to get into this hammock right in the middle of the communal ‘exhibition’ area, quite well I thought. I didn’t fall out and I fancied I looked as though I was always getting into hammocks. I wasn’t quite so confident about getting out though. The hammock was above a rock which had wooden decking on one side where lots of people were discussing bowels or something and a beach on the other side where more people were sunbathing with little tiny bits of cloth almost covering them. I really couldn’t see me getting out without drawing attention to myself so I thought it best to just stay put …. ! The hammock was one of three arranged in a triangle around the rock and there was a girl in one of them. I was just going to speak to her when she lifted her leg right back until her knee was level with her ear, I don’t know about you but I found this rather intimidating, if not downright disturbing, so I changed my mind – probably just as well.

When Peter and Elaine arrived we all decided to go to Hat Rin for the eveing to check out the bars and restaurants. We ate at a Tapas bar called 'Nicks' (after the owners's son - actually we have come across this before, 'Hopf' in Chiang Mai, 'Cabbages' in Bangkok) and then went off to explore. We listened to a very loud rock band in one bar and quickly moved on to a bar I had spotted, playing Blues music. They lit it with 'UV' lights and then supplied pots of flourescent paint and paint brushes. There was graffiti everywhere and we added our own. 'Lowestoft - UK' and 'Dude'. At about 11.00 everyone except me and Billy decided to head off and find a boat to take us back to The Sanctuary.

I had to stay to look after Billy, who had passed the point of no return.

Just when we had resigned ourselves to the adventure of a night on the beach they came back. They couldn't find a boat and thought that if we all went, 6 of us might stand a better chance of getting someone to take us. This was the night before the full moon party and when we got down to the beach there was a full scale dress rehearsal going on. Loud music, bright lights an (almost) full moon and a beach full of people more inebriated even than Billy. We stood about near the only boat and eventually someone came over. He would take us but it would be expensive. "How much?" A long pause ( we were expecting up to 1000 baht each and would probably have paid it) "200 baht each". We tried hard to look as though it was a bit expensive, the normal price is 150 baht. "Oh alright then".

In we all got, it was way past midnight and we drifted out to sea with the waves lapping, the music pounding and the lights stretching across the bay. The lapping turned into ripples and then into waves and still he hadn't managed to get the engine going (after an initial burst to get us away from safety). The waves rocked the boat from side to side, Karen went unusually quiet and the lights suffused her face with a light green colour. Peter informed us that there was an air lock that needed to be cleared which was why diesel was squirting all over the engine. The smell added to the general ambience, diesel perfume and a not so gentle rocking as we drifted further into the night. Suddenly we were away! Leaping across one wave and pounding into the next one we made our way to 'Sanctuary'.

If I just undo this nut .....

28th March 2007 - A good nights sleep and a Snorkel-tastic time.

We had already booked 'The Sanctuary' (That's right! We had been there before, last October!) on Koh Phangan, we were just going over early. So the big adventure merely involved going there to see if they had a room. If they were booked we would ask to leave most of our stuff and go off to explore pastures new.

They did have somewhere. A house, called 'Pond House' which could sleep four, so we didn't have to shoulder our bags and find somewhere else (damn, what a shame). The only problem was that Sue and I were sleeping in the loft, directly above Karen who is a VERY light sleeper. I was a bit worried about having to get up in the night to go to the loo, but Karen was very understanding. "That's OK Mark, just go to the loo before you go to bed and then 'clench'!" Has she no understanding of the workings of aging male bladders? They don't respond to 'clenching', you either don't need to go at all or you need to NOW!

Pond House with the steps to the 'loft' on the left

However, I duly squeezed out my bladder at the appointed hour and we all went to bed. At quarter to twelve I finished reading, "OK Sue? Lights out?" "Yes, OK" I reached for the switch, only to find out that it was a two way switch. One way, it turned our light on and the other way it turned our light off and a very loud disco on. It was a very hot night and there was no air conditioning so all the windows were wide open. Bladders were forgotten (full or empty), all four of us vibrated gently in our beds until six o'clock the next morning when the disco stopped and the cicadas woke up! How stupid of me, why didn't I just turn the light on again!

We all got up at about nine o'clock after a very restful couple of hours sleep and decided to move on and find Billy's paradise beach. We found it at 'Salad Beach Resort' at Had Salad.

Beautiful clear water, air conditioning and a coral reef for snorkeling! The only problem was that you had to wade out two to three hundred yards over coral before the water covered your knees. So Billy and I hired a kayak and we set off, Jacques Clousea and 'Skato'.

Kayaks are brilliant for getting off and snorkeling from but not so good for getting back onto again.

"OK Billy, you go snorkeling and I will stay with the boat for a while"

"Are you ready to get back on the boat?"

"Yep" ...........

"OK Billy, you steady the boat and I'll get back on and then you get back on after me."

"Right Billy, now you get back on" ...........

"OK Billy, you get on the boat first while I steady it then I will get on after you"

"Right, now I will get back on" ...........

"OK, let's both try to get on at the same time" .........

(Starting to get a bit tired now)

"Right, you steady the boat and I will get on and lay crosswise across the boat while you get on"

"OK, Billy, now you get on"

"Good, now I will just sit up" ...........

"Right I will just swim away from these rocks before I try and get on again"

"Err Billy, do you want to just paddle over here and then I will try to get on? No no I'm not tired. I'm fine"

We finally managed to get back on both facing the same way and in a sitting position but minus Billy's headband, my snorkel and Billy's goggles (oh no, we later found billy's goggles). Luckily for us we had decided to paddle round the headland to a different bay before all this happened, so we were spared the derision of Sue and Karen.

That's enough of paradise, on the 28th we set off back to 'The Sanctuary' and party! (It's hard work keeping up with these youngsters)

25th March 2007. Koh Samui, the elusive airport and the case of the disappearing petrol.

6 months in Thailand having fun doesn’t prepare you for ‘responsibility’. Karen and her friend Billy were coming over. They were landing in Koh Samui and could we just find them some accommodation? No problem!

We went over early hired a jeep and spent a day combing the island. Too quiet, too noisy, too expensive, too cheap, proper toilet but cold shower, lovely view but what will they do in the evening? We finally settled on a place called ‘Eden’ in a quiet garden but on a road where there were lots of bars and restaurants.

Eden - Karen and Billy's bungalow through the trees.

Eden was in Bo Phut, a quieter bay along from Lamai beach which was very busy. Not much petrol left but enough to get to the airport and pick them up the next day. We set off in the afternoon, well before they were due to land.

“That’s funny the petrol gauge hasn’t moved off red”. 100 yards up the road it started to splutter and we finally coasted to a spot near the main road. What a good job we left early. We walked up the road to a little garage “Hah hah, falang ran out of gasoline?” I bought three bottles of gasoline and borrowed a funnel promising to return the empties and the funnel. Still plenty of time. Unfortunately the arrival of a ferry at ‘Big Buddha’ beach along with major roadworks at the junction outside the ferry port and ‘leaving off time’ resulted in a Thai style traffic jam. By Thai style I mean that it was every man for himself. No sign of a policeman or traffic lights, cars were just all over the place but everyone (apart from me) seemed to be quite laid back about it. Imagine cars converging from three directions onto a junction which had been reduced to half a lane which meant that to turn left you needed to do a three point turn whilst all the cars from the other two directions waited for you! We made it through with less time now to get there, but we should still do it and we would have if….we hadn’t driven straight past the airport! How do you drive past an airport and not notice it? When there are no signs and the airport is just a collection of rickety wooden huts! We eventually realised but by the time we got back Karen and Billy were waiting so our little idea of holding up a notice (like taxi drivers do) at the arrivals gate saying ‘Drug Couriers’ didn’t come off. We drove back, taking our turn to do the three point turn and settled in to ‘Eden’. Next morning I got up early with Sue to return the Jeep whilst Karen and Billy slept.

“That’s funny the petrol gauge hasn’t moved off red”. 100 yards up the road it started to splutter and we finally coasted to exactly the same spot near the main road! How strange I thought, well, at least we know which way to walk. Notice how calmly I accepted this situation, 6 months in Thailand has taught me patience. “Hah, haha hah!! Falang run out of gasoline? Sorry no have, garage run out of gasoline!” Oh, what a lark, Sue was overjoyed. So we walked back (past the jeep) to another little garage bought 2 litres of gasoline and borrowed a funnel which was handily kept on a hook right next to an even handier piece of clear plastic tubing, ideal for siphoning. I expect those cynics amongst you are already way ahead (just like the flat tyre episode) but it wasn’t until that point that I thought, “Some B…… is siphoning my gasoline, in fact I am probably in the process of buying it back!”

2 days in Koh Samui was enough, Billy had visions of laying in a hammock on a deserted beach, so on with the back packs and off to Koh Phangan on the ferry from 'Big Buddha' beach. Nowhere booked but heh, let's just go, it will be an adventure!

(l-r) Billy, Karen, Sue and me.