Ok, have finally got returned to my blog after many months (years?) absence. Here is my Thailand diary from 15 September right up until now....
Thailand Diary 2007
26 September Today I arose at 7.15, took a cold shower, did my exercises and had breakfast. Twas good. Then I went to the British Club to swim and do my emails. I received an email from Phuket Schools offering me a job but I don’t think I will take it. I also booked my flight to Krabi this Saturday. I had a delicious lunch with coffee and cake afterwards.
It really isn’t a bad life. I’m leading the life of a wealthy retired person – whilst I’m still young enough to fully enjoy it!
25 September
Today, I took my mother to get a new mobile phone contract. We met Kik at Big C.
She told my mother that I was not nice and that I always teased her.
Afterwards, I drove my mother home and then took the air conditioned coach to Bangkok. It cost me 57 baht for the 2 hour journey. Now I am back at the White Lodge. Mina phoned and advised me to sleep with Pi Kung, her older cousin who lives in Huay Kwang. June, Dook’s friend who is married to a Canadian, rang and arranged to meet up tomorrow evening in Siam. “I am going to dress up sexily so that you will catch hold of me!” she promised. While I was on the phone to her, Jeab rang to complain that I didn’t love her – “but anyway, I don’t care because you don’t care for me anymore.”
24 September
This morning I arose at 6.15am to give alms to the monks. The local mosquitoes were delighted.
“The early Mosquito catches the early Farang!” whooped a large evil-looking specimen gleefully and swooped down to feed on the sweet blood.
“Hey Garnash! Don’t forget to put down lots of poison while you’re feedin’!” advised his friend. “Make the farang itch and swell!”
“Gollnish! Do I look like I’m stupid, eh? I am poison! In fact, if I was a bit bigger and a lot longer, I reckon I could give a King Cobra a run for his money…”
After lunch, I cleaned Dad’s car and took my mother to the temple shop. At about 2pm, Pi At and Pi Nun arrived in Pi At’s car and took me to have coffee at Big C with Pi Domp.
23 September
Today I spent a nice relaxing day helping Na Beer clean his car. Afterwards, I had the bright idea of wiping citronella oil into the wooden side rails of the sala to ward off mosquitoes.
21 September
Today I said goodbye to Mina and went to Chachoengsao to see my mother and grandmother. Chachoengsao is a medium sized Thai country town – very different from Bangkok. There are lots of big heavy trucks rushing through it and very few farangs.
I met my friend Kik at Big C, the town’s main supermarket. Kik is a 25 year old Thai girl with long dyed blonde hair whose ambition is to have a Farang boyfriend and have “luke krung” children. Last time I’d met her, she’d just spent 10,000 baht on having the bridge of her nose made bigger so that it would look more westernized. I asked her how she was.
“Not good,” she replied mournfully. “The other day, a farang came to Big C. Very tall and handsome. My friends asked him if he liked me but he said that my face was too much like a “luke Krung”. He prefers Thai girls – not Thai girls who look like westerners…”
I roared with delighted laughter. “What did you expect?” I said. If a western man comes over to Thailand, he’s going to be looking for Thai girls, isn’t he? He’s not going to want a western look-alike! Som na na!”
20 September
Today I went swimming at the British Club again with Mina. With her waist-length curly black hair and slim tanned body, she looked like a Brazilian beach babe in her bikini. She attracted a lot of attention from both men and women alike and was very pleased with herself.
“Look!” she said. “They are all staring at us! And just now in the changing rooms, a woman came up to me and asked if she could feel my hair.”
She sipped her banana milkshake. “I’m going to eat you!”
19 September
Today I got up before 8am and did my exercises. Mina had changed her mind about returning to America and instead joined me late for breakfast at the café next to our hotel. She had done herself up very nicely and caused quite a stir which she evidently enjoyed.
We spent the day shopping in the Siam Square district and then ate dinner at a rather pretentious and overpriced Italian restaurant near MBK. The pasta dish I ordered was ok but expensive for this soi and Mina’s pizza was soggy and severely underdone. However, it was a great place for people watching.
“Look at that girl there!” I told Mina as a couple walked by. “She has a great figure and has lovely curly hair – I think she must be Brazilian. Wow, she is so sexy – can you go and grab her for me please!”
“Yes, if you like. Because I think that actually she’s a ladyboy and she would love to rape you!”
18 September
Today I got up early and had breakfast with Mina. She told me that she didn’t love me anymore and that she was “bored” with me. “I think I’m going back to America,” she said.
I told her “Som na na!” And then we went to MBK to check out prices of fake Ralph Lauren polo shirts for my students.
We found the shirts – they were all about 200 baht. Mission accomplished, we took the skytrain to the British Club in Silom. There we swam and Mina, who was a good swimmer, tried her best to embarrass me in the water. I told her to stop behaving like a Khao San Road girl and she immediately flew into a sulk.
“I think I’m going to work in Sweden,” she said. “A smart, clever girl like me can find work anywhere!”
17 September
I got up late this morning and felt pretty good for it. Went to MBK in the early afternoon and then met up with Jeab at Starbucks Saladang. She was looking very nice – she is a sweet girl even if she isn’t the most beautiful.
When I returned to the hotel, Mina told me huffily that she’d come all the way from America to see me – and I’d left her to go see an ex-girlfriend…Not that she, Mina, minded by the way. She didn’t like me because I was a “luke krung” and therefore conceited, probably dirty and generally sub-standard…so there!
16 September
Despite my morbid premonitions, I arrived safely in Bangkok. My headache had cleared and my feeling of sickness had also gone. As I walked through the airport, all the big television screens in the lounges were showing live news coverage of a horrific air crash in Phuket. 89 People had died – over 50 of them western tourists. I had been lucky…
I passed through customs and into the waiting crowd outside. “Taxi! Hey taxi – 400 baht!” chanted the touts. I shook my head and went to catch the express airport bus into town for 150 baht. At Ratchamri, I changed to the skytrain and got off at National Stadium. There, I got a spotless air conditioned room with hot water for 400 baht.
Later I met up with Mina, my half Thai – half Arabic friend who had arrived from America the same day. “I’m really jet lagged,” she complained.
15 September
I left home with a strange feeling that I was going to die, that I would never see my family again.
With this sobering thought in mind, I noticed with more than my usual attention that Cornwall was without a doubt one of the most beautiful places on this earth, that I had never really appreciated just how wonderful my father was, that the clear blue sky reflected in a calm sea was quite mind-blowing and the colour of fresh grass by the roadside in the morning sunlight was truly wonderful.
My father took me to the bus station in his silver Volvo estate and we queued in the warm September sunlight while the ancient public address system blared out Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto to frighten away the tramps and drug addicts.
After Dad had dropped me off, I was again conscious of that strange premonition that this was the last time for us and I stared after him from my seat on the coach while he awkwardly turned the Volvo around in the car park and drove slowly away.
During the journey up to Heathrow, I tried to surf the internet on my phone and listen to the mp3 player. But my heart was not in it. I skipped listlessly through tracks of the Muse, Jesse Cook and the Rolling Stones but mentally, I was preparing to die.
I arrived at Heathrow, which was undergoing major reconstruction and consequently a total mess, and checked in with a blinding headache. On the plane, I tried to eat but felt sick so made sure that the paper bag was close to hand. I closed my eyes, reviewed my life up until the present moment and felt at peace despite my bodily discomfort.
