‘Home’ again – 1

It’s been a very long seven and a half months, with the apartments full every day and the launch of our new travel business Outstanding Holidays – www.outstandingholidays.com, so I was very pleased to shut up shop and hop on a plane to Ireland and see my daughter Deyna for a week, before heading back to Thailand. We had a great time, but it went far too fast as usual. We made some halloween pumpkins and went out for a few meals. We also went to a pub quiz and were doing very well (2nd place) until the last round, which was all about the Netherlands. Sadly this round didn’t go too well, so in protest I’ve scratched it off my holiday list for the foreseeable future!

Plans this time include a visit to Sumatra, maybe also Laos and Penang (Georgetown). My mother is coming over to visit in January, so I have to plan a trip around Thailand and try to pack in some of the highlights. It will be good holiday planning practice for the business.

My Qatar airways flights were uneventful, if long. I booked an aisle seat on the first leg and saw someone had already booked the window seat, so there was a hope that the middle seat might remain free. It was looking good, when suddenly a guy arrived, out of breath, just as they announced the doors were closing. Of course he was in the middle seat. Apparently he booked it at the last minute for a couple of hundred quid. Oh well..

Sasipa was waiting at the airport, as usual in the wrong place, but getting nearer every time. 🙂 I thought I’d try and book a Grab taxi as they were a fair bit cheaper than the airport ones. This proved to be a mistake, we were told to go to an area that I don’t think was there last time I was at this airport. This area is specifically for Grab pickups and there must have been a couple of hundred people there all waiting for for their cars to arrive. It was chaotic, with the traffic gridlocked and our driver kept telling us for at least half an hour, via the app, that he’d be there in 10 minutes. I eventually gave up and cancelled. Leaving the scrum behind, we walked down a level and hopped in an airport taxi and were off straight away. The air conditioned cab was very welcome as I am still in the clothes I was wearing when boarding the plane in Ireland and as usual the temperature is well into the 30’s and entirely unsuitable for my attire.

We stayed at the Korbua House hotel in Bangkok, which is set on the canal about 500m from the Khaosan road. I’ve had a beer there once or twice on previous visits, sitting on their terrace overlooking the canal. It’s relatively peaceful and a really nice place to chill out. The lobby area looks good too, so I had high hopes for the deluxe double room with canal view, but unfortunately it was quite a disappointment. The room wasn’t particularly cheap, but there were no facilities. No tea and coffee, overly bright lighting, no hairdryer or safe or any other little touches. The balcony with the view had no chairs and no table to be able to sit and enjoy said view and the bathroom stank of sewers most of the time. The staff were very friendly, but otherwise I won’t be back.

There is still a lot of building going on, as there has been for three years now. They are building an extension to the underground into this area, which will have quite an impact I am sure. One of which will be to put the Tuk Tuk ‘mafia’ in their place, as the options for travel into the area are limited at the moment. I did discover a great app called Muvmi. This allows you to call a Tuk Tuk rather like a Grab, but they are limited in the area they cover, although there are numerous different areas in Bangkok served by them as well as new ones being added all the time. On the plus side these Tuk Tuk’s are all clean, new and I think electric. The other benefit is that you get the price in advance, like Grab and then you just scan the QR code on the side of the Tuk Tuk when it arrives. It is invariably much cheaper than hailing one in the street as you get the normal Thai price.

The only caveat is that you might have to wait a bit. I’ve only taken two so far. One arrived within one minute, but the second time it was 10 minutes. I’m not sure if you can top up the Muvmi app from a foreign bank account/card or not, but it obviously works fine from my Thai account.

It’s great to back in Bangkok and visit all the old haunts. One thing I wanted was to buy some cotton sheets and duvet covers. They seem difficult to come by where Sasipa lives, as most Thai’s just go for the easiest (aka cheapest) option. Personally I really don’t like microfibre, especially in the heat, so we took the canal river bus to Siam and did some shopping. I also popped into see the boss at my favourite IT shop in the MBK centre to tell him that the imitation apple ultra watch that I bought last year was crap. A lot of people like them and they do look really smart, but I didn’t get on with it at all. It’s numerous failings are too many to list here, but a couple of examples include the weather information being anywhere but where you are and the watch ‘stealing’ the sound from your phone and rerouting it to the watch at random times. Add to this regular deletion of your health data, which I think the watch fabricates in any case and a rubbish app which pairs with your phone and I had it packed it away in it’s box almost the moment I got home.

As he knows me well he agreed to take it back and I promised to come back and buy a real apple watch if I can’t fix my GT2 watch that was damaged at a massage parlour in Pattaya! Yes the mind boggles, but actually it just fell of a shelf in said massage place. Lazada (Thailand’s answer to Amazon)will be delivering the parts I need this week so fingers crossed.

Bangkok is it’s usual crazy, wonderful, hot, vibrant self and we enjoyed a few days eating and drinking and seeing some great live music at both mine and Danika’s favourite bars. (secretly I think I prefer her favourite bar to mine). It’s great to sit at at a bar on Soi Rambutri and watch the world go by. If there is a big storm which sometimes happens this time of year the road can flood to at least a foot deep, but it doesn’t affect you in the bar and you can sit and watch people hopping from obstacle to obstacle in the vain hope of trying to get a bit less wet. It’s all gone in less than 30 minutes, so it’s not a big deal.

There are a few new open air restaurants just over the bridge from the Korbua House, which they were renovating last year, but are now open. We thought we’d give one young couple a try, but sadly the food was very poor and overpriced. The egg on top of my Pad Krapaow Gai was fried to within an inch of it’s life and Sasipa’s request for pork, didn’t go down well with the hijab wearing chef. Also the amount of meat in my Pad Krapaow would give your average Indian dish, as served in France, a run for it’s money. In other words practically non existent.

We went to Chatuchak market again, on the smoke belching number three bus, which is always an experience. Today it was an original non aircon version of the bus, built some time last century, so we got the full experience as the driver crunched the gears, raced through the lights and squeezed through impossibly tight gaps while swinging around corners at breakneck speed as the suspension bounced in sympathy, along with the G force. It’s great fun! I wanted to buy some ‘Birkenstock’ sandals again, but the shop selling them had changed hands and now they only sell trainers. Despite there being in excess of 10,000 stalls no one else (that I saw) sold them. This is where the footwear fiasco started. Determined to buy something similar I found a shop selling a Thai version and snapped them up. The replacements to the ‘best flip flops in the world’ that I bought two years ago are sadly anything but, so I needed replacements urgently. Within a couple of days I decided I didn’t like my Thai ‘Birkenstocks’ and then I happened on some Crocs in a market and bought them on impulse, even though I swore I’d never buy a pair of Crocs. However, despite being my size I am convinced they are too small, so I bought some more pricey sandal type shoes in another shop. Then I came across yet another shop with a fab selection of just what I wanted. To cut a long story short I now have a long line of shoes by the door at Sasipa’s house and try to give each of them a go from day to day.

Just as bad is the ‘designer’ underwear they sell over here. Armarni, Hugo Boss, Givenchy, Calvin Klein etc etc. I thought I’d buy some and went for large as apparently the sizes are a bit smaller here. The seller said no problem for an exchange if they were too small. Fat chance of that I thought, however next morning had me deciding otherwise and I was soon on my way back to the seller at the Night Bazaar, Pattaya. Promised by him that if XL didn’t do the job another exchange was no problem, I assured him that I wouldn’t be back and went about my day. Next morning, off we headed back to the shop to enquire about the XXL version. No problem he said swapping them again, I have XXXL and XXXXL too. Thank you and goodbye, I said firmly. If they don’t fit this time they’re going in the bin! I’ve no doubt you could fit two of me into XXL in European size and who wants to see XXXL on their underwear, even if it is Thai size!

So now we are in Pattaya, after a two hour jaunt down the motorway. It was a Sunday (Won a tip) in Thai, so the roads were slightly less busy and we made good time and were soon checked in to my home from home when in Pattaya, the excellent Quba hotel. Last time I was here, Danika was staying in the room next door, but sadly not this time.

It’s the Loi Krathong, lantern festival while we are here in Pattaya. Last year we were at Sasipa’s for the festival and I met John and Steve. Pattaya is very busy anyway, but it was even more so for the festival. The temple we went to has a small lake, so along with myriad others we launched our ‘flower/reed’ boat into the lake with a few prayers to Buddha for success and happiness in the future. Our candle was still alight as it sailed across the lake, whereas practically everyone else’s went out, so I’ll take that as a good omen. Fighting our way back through all the plastic strips hanging down that were filled with cash offerings and the money trees, we made it to the funfair and then out the other side. Then it was only a couple of minutes walk to my favourite noodle place and some well earnt ‘thin lek nam tok’ for dinner.

One of the most popular places to visit around Pattaya is the big Buddha. Set in the hills overlooking Pattaya it has great views over the city and the sea. You can park near by and then walk up quite a few steps, but they are very shallow and you hardly notice them, even in the heat. The main statue is golden in colour and 18m tall. There are quite a few other smaller statues to look at as well. While looking around a westerner came up to me and asked what you had to do to be able to pray or make merit as they often say here. I explained that you could buy a garland and some incense sticks, which you light from one of the braziers and then place upright in a tray by the different buddha’s etc. He had promised someone he would come here and pray and asked me if I would film him on his phone camera doing the deed. This I did and he seemed very happy. Good deed done, I had a go myself which Sasipa took a photo of and then plastered all over facebook!

I am fairly pleased with the progress of my Thai. I can understand quite a lot of words and even sometimes pick up the sense of conversations overheard. I often still don’t pronounce words correctly (use the wrong tone), but luckily Sasipa can understand me. The structure and grammar is not complicated, it’s really the tones and how different it is to european languages that makes it so difficult, to say nothing of the vast number of consonants and vowels.

We are staying a few extra days in Pattaya (as usual) and I wanted to check out the reservations I made for Christmas. We took a song theaw – the 10 baht shared taxi to nearby the first one and walked the rest of the way. It wasn’t far, but it is still a little bit out of the centre. We had a look around and it was nice, but we decided we’d prefer to be nearer the centre and so went in search of the second apartment I’d reserved. This one was right in the thick of things, but was built around an internal pool and courtyard so it wouldn’t be too noisy. I am still unsure though as the apartment here is a studio and so does not have a separate bedroom.

I decided to look again online and saw a good deal on a junior suite at the four seasons, not far away, so I reserved it online and we went along to have a look. Due to the festival they were fully booked, but said come back tomorrow. On our return the manager showed us the apartment, which has a separate bedroom, lounge, kitchen etc and is 65m2. It’s a little old fashioned in its furniture, but comfortable and well equipped. So we went for it and I cancelled the other reservations. The manager asked what price I had been quoted online and then said he’d try and do better and sat down, furiously tapping away on his calculator. In the end he came up with a further 800 baht reduction, making it 7800 baht for 5 nights over Christmas which I thought was excellent. So I cancelled that reservation too and did the deal direct.

We drove along to Jomtien beach, because I wanted to visit Tinnies Pies, that my friend Steve always goes to when in the area.

It’s an Aussie pie shop, that does a roaring trade in takeaways as well as having a restaurant. We ate in and I enjoyed my steak and kidney pie with chips and salad, but I was mightily impressed by a large bellied chap sitting opposite us, with his Thai wife, who polished off three pies all on his own and then another one for desert as well! You would have had to roll me out of there if I’d had that much.

Today we are off to Buriram province in the North East Isaan region. We are heading back to Sasipa’s house, but will stay the night in Buriram and have dinner with her sons and daughter-in-law. It’s about a six hour drive so fairly tiring, but we arrived at around 6 pm without incident. Dinner was at a restaurant over the road called Ma Maison. Very french sounding, but the food was Thai and there was a live band. The only nod to France was that we drank red wine. Wine is expensive here, but cheaper than it used to be as the government halved the duty a year or so ago. The food was really delicious or ‘aroi’ in Thai or ‘sep u’ in the Isaan dialect, which is very similar to the Lao language. Khymer or Cambodian Thai has a bit of a French flavour, as you might expect and Sasipa finds it hilarious when I speak French as she can understand some words due to them being the same in Thai/Khymer.

Sasipa is up very early as she insists on going home ahead of me to tidy the house. She’s certain her daughter won’t have tidied much, if at all and is worried about the mess outside as well from the animals. She finally gets through to her son, who was no doubt sleeping soundly and probably feeling a bit groggy from the wine.

I get up at a much more sensible hour, but find my foot hurts this morning and so I limp backwards and forwards to the car with all our bags and then head to big C supermarket, where I take a big trolley, half in high hopes of a successful shopping trip and half to lean on.

Unlike Big C in Pattaya, there isn’t that much here, western food wise. I though I might buy some English breakfast sausages and bacon, plus some cheese and a few other bits. In the end it was just cheese, plus lots of Thai stuff. I found out later that there are a few dedicated smaller supermarkets where us ‘farangs’ can buy produce like that.

I then planned to head to Jimmy’s where I went once with John and Steve and where they did a mean English breakfast, but it was permenantly shut according to google maps. I saw a few other options and chose The Swan. The owner, Mel, is a friendly chap and makes his own sausages, pies and bacon. The full English breakfast was excellent and he apparently does a great Sunday roast as well. Maybe next time I’m in town I’ll give it a try. :). He has been here in Buriram for 13 years and in Thailand for 17 years. He hasn’t been home to the UK in all that time. He’s certainly not missing much I think, especially at the moment.

Full up with a tasty breakfast, I head off to Sasipa’s about 40km away and no doubt a whole host of jobs to do, but that’s fine because I love to keep busy and potter around fixing things.