9 November
Today is my last full day here. Mournfully, I packed my suitcase and checked out of my apartment. We drove into town and checked into Grand Tower for one night. Tomorrow morning, I need to leave at 8.30 for the airport.
Mina and I went for a wander in the town and discovered a really good café with amazing home made bread and fresh coffee. It is called May and Mark, after the couple who own it and is near the Thai Hotel.
In the afternoon, we went to Ao Nang and met up with Mina’s friend Sara. We went for a coffee and she brought Mina up to date with her life and told me all about herself.
Sara and her husband are both TEFL teachers from the north of England. Sara has two babies and it sounds pretty tough for a westerner to bring up children on a low income in Thailand. She cannot send her children to the local school because they would not receive an English education. International schools are expensive and there is no help from the state. If she were back in England then she would have all sorts of income support, grants etc. However, she seemed to think that the lifestyle here was better than at home.
She told me that her house was near the forest and that snakes were sometimes a problem. Once her daughter heard a loud hissing coming from the bathroom. Sara went to investigate and found a large cobra rearing out of the toilet bowl. It had found its way through the plumbing from the klong outside the house, apparently.
What amazed me was the way in which she “dealt” with it. After a while, she said, the snake “went” away but would sometimes reappear.
So rather than calling in the experts from the local snake farm or zoo, she was happy to sometimes share a bathroom with a deadly snake! Still, I guess nobody spent longer than was strictly necessary on the toilet – so queuing time for the bathroom must have shortened considerably.
I personally have a bad reputation at home for spending “hours” on the toilet of a morning. My mother would always shout through the door.
“Ben! If it won’t come out then don’t just sit there, dear! Get on!”
I should imagine that having a cobra swaying under your exposed bottom would “make it come out” pretty quick!
After we’d had coffee, Sara went off to a job interview and Mina went to see another friend and I went for a swim. The sun was setting and the beach was lovely. I went for a run and then cooled off in the not so cool sea.
It was nearly dark by the time I had dried myself and changed back into dry clothes. We ate at an Indian restaurant opposite the Irish Pub. Half the menu was vegetarian and all the staff were Indian. It was my first at a proper Indian restaurant and the food was really delicious. We ate and ate.
Afterwards we went for a stroll along the seafront to help digest our enormous meal. At night in the high season, the place was bustling with wholesome looking Scandinavians browsing the many stalls selling food, drink, clothes and pretty much everything.
I saw a maimed beggar sitting on the ground with the stump of his amputated leg stretched out beside his begging bowl. He seemed oddly out of place in this clean, up market resort. I noticed that his face was unusually bright for a beggar with large intelligent eyes. Mina laughed when she saw him.
“Look at that beggar! He is very rich, you know. He was here last time.”
A middle aged western woman stopped when she saw him, her eyes filled with concern when she saw his leg. She stooped down to put a 100 baht note into his bowl and say a few kind words to him. He replied in good English. Mina snorted.
“See, he speaks English! A beggar who has enough money to learn English. But he is very rich. Everyone knows him here. He has land worth 20 million baht. He was born with a silver spoon…”
We had coffee at a little Swedish Café and then headed home on the motorbike. After we’d left the lights of Ao Nang behind, the road through the mountains was very dark. Fog was creeping down from the forested peaks and the air was very cold.
“Drive fast!” said Mina as she hugged me from behind to keep off the chill. “Bandits may try to rob us on the mountain roads where there is no-one. They don’t just usually rob – they will rape the girl as well and maybe shoot the man. Drive fast and stick to the centre of the road.”
I drove fast.
Today is my last full day here. Mournfully, I packed my suitcase and checked out of my apartment. We drove into town and checked into Grand Tower for one night. Tomorrow morning, I need to leave at 8.30 for the airport.
Mina and I went for a wander in the town and discovered a really good café with amazing home made bread and fresh coffee. It is called May and Mark, after the couple who own it and is near the Thai Hotel.
In the afternoon, we went to Ao Nang and met up with Mina’s friend Sara. We went for a coffee and she brought Mina up to date with her life and told me all about herself.
Sara and her husband are both TEFL teachers from the north of England. Sara has two babies and it sounds pretty tough for a westerner to bring up children on a low income in Thailand. She cannot send her children to the local school because they would not receive an English education. International schools are expensive and there is no help from the state. If she were back in England then she would have all sorts of income support, grants etc. However, she seemed to think that the lifestyle here was better than at home.
She told me that her house was near the forest and that snakes were sometimes a problem. Once her daughter heard a loud hissing coming from the bathroom. Sara went to investigate and found a large cobra rearing out of the toilet bowl. It had found its way through the plumbing from the klong outside the house, apparently.
What amazed me was the way in which she “dealt” with it. After a while, she said, the snake “went” away but would sometimes reappear.
So rather than calling in the experts from the local snake farm or zoo, she was happy to sometimes share a bathroom with a deadly snake! Still, I guess nobody spent longer than was strictly necessary on the toilet – so queuing time for the bathroom must have shortened considerably.
I personally have a bad reputation at home for spending “hours” on the toilet of a morning. My mother would always shout through the door.
“Ben! If it won’t come out then don’t just sit there, dear! Get on!”
I should imagine that having a cobra swaying under your exposed bottom would “make it come out” pretty quick!
After we’d had coffee, Sara went off to a job interview and Mina went to see another friend and I went for a swim. The sun was setting and the beach was lovely. I went for a run and then cooled off in the not so cool sea.
It was nearly dark by the time I had dried myself and changed back into dry clothes. We ate at an Indian restaurant opposite the Irish Pub. Half the menu was vegetarian and all the staff were Indian. It was my first at a proper Indian restaurant and the food was really delicious. We ate and ate.
Afterwards we went for a stroll along the seafront to help digest our enormous meal. At night in the high season, the place was bustling with wholesome looking Scandinavians browsing the many stalls selling food, drink, clothes and pretty much everything.
I saw a maimed beggar sitting on the ground with the stump of his amputated leg stretched out beside his begging bowl. He seemed oddly out of place in this clean, up market resort. I noticed that his face was unusually bright for a beggar with large intelligent eyes. Mina laughed when she saw him.
“Look at that beggar! He is very rich, you know. He was here last time.”
A middle aged western woman stopped when she saw him, her eyes filled with concern when she saw his leg. She stooped down to put a 100 baht note into his bowl and say a few kind words to him. He replied in good English. Mina snorted.
“See, he speaks English! A beggar who has enough money to learn English. But he is very rich. Everyone knows him here. He has land worth 20 million baht. He was born with a silver spoon…”
We had coffee at a little Swedish Café and then headed home on the motorbike. After we’d left the lights of Ao Nang behind, the road through the mountains was very dark. Fog was creeping down from the forested peaks and the air was very cold.
“Drive fast!” said Mina as she hugged me from behind to keep off the chill. “Bandits may try to rob us on the mountain roads where there is no-one. They don’t just usually rob – they will rape the girl as well and maybe shoot the man. Drive fast and stick to the centre of the road.”
I drove fast.
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