THAILAND

I had been in Thailand for 3 months having obtained a 3 month visa from the Thai embassy in India, and was told that I could extend it in the visa satellite office in Pattaya where I was staying. When I went to the office it was closed for a national holiday, so returning when the office was open I was told that as the visa was now one day past its expiry I would have to go to Bangkok for the extension.  The next day I took the bus to Bangkok and upon arrival at the visa department explained what I wanted and was arrested for overstaying and put in a very hot police cell with about six others.

After a couple of hours, and soaking in sweat, I was taken to an interview room and interrogated – why was I in Thailand for so long, why did I want to stay longer, why had I let my visa expire etc. The lady police officer who was grilling me was very stern, however after answering all her questions she gave me a one month visa extension and told me to be very careful to observe the immigration laws in future. I went back to Pattaya on the bus.

Pattaya in the early 80’s was a very quiet and beautiful beach resort. Unfortunately the last time I visited it had become the “Benidorm” of Thailand, overcrowded, noisy, lots of American fast food chains – McDonalds, KFC, Dunkin-Donuts and suchlike. Although we still enjoy Bangkok city the Thai beach resorts are no longer enjoyable unless you like that sort of thing.

Pattaya then

Pattaya now

CATAMARAN

On my first visit to Pattaya in 1981 I used to breakfast at “Wee Andy’s Bar.” Andy was a Scotsman who whilst working as a sailor on a cargo vessel took a trip to the beach, decided to stay and left his ship. He married a Thai lady and opened his small bar and café on the beachfront.

Anchored opposite was a beautiful luxury catamaran. The guy who owned it was a 30 year old American who also came ashore in a dingy for breakfast at Andy’s.

He said he developed a computer hardware system (this at the time of huge mainframe computers) and had sold it and now had enough money to live comfortably for life. He had the catamaran built in the UK and shipped as deck cargo to Bangkok. He then launched and sailed it to Pattaya where he hired local labour to have it fitted out and finished in local hardwoods. It was fully automated for single hand sailing under sail power with back up engines for when they were needed. One hull had a full size bed, and bathroom, the other a smaller bedroom, shower and galley. The central cross section had the sailing bridge and behind it a stateroom and dining area. The guy said that once the fitting out was finished he was sailing to Australia, and then wherever he fancied. A nice life!

BATHROOM RENOVATION

A couple of years later I was in Pattaya again. My friend John Skinner whom I met in the Middle East was married to a Thai Lady and lived in a lovely old house about a 10 min ride from the north end of Pattaya bay.

His wife was up country with her parents whilst he was away, and in exchange for me living in his house, he gave me money to arrange for his bathroom to be modernised.

When I arrived I met his neighbours who were a pleasant middle class couple who spoke English. John had written to them and told them I would be staying in his house and asked them to help me with any translations I might need.

The house was large with deep verandas and a good size garden with fully grown trees. I bought food and got myself organised and for the first few days just relaxed. The house was about 100m back, through a track surrounded by coconut palms, from a small deserted cove with a tiny beach, where I used to go for a swim each morning.

Although the house was beautiful the bathroom was a disaster. It was large (about 5 meters square) and had been attached to the back of the house some years earlier. It was tiled with old cracked and stained white tiles, had an Asian toilet, a dodgy shower and a large square water tank for washing.

I visited a hardware shop and with torturous language problems eventually contracted them to renovate. I chose nice tiles, a western toilet, pedestal sink, modern shower, extractor fan and all the plumbing equipment and materials. It was a fun two weeks. None of the workers spoke English so it was mainly sign language. When something extra was needed a young lad took me on the back of an old 50cc motorbike, which struggled to get up the slightest incline, to the shop. They were a friendly lot and we had lots of laughs. At the end of the day the bathroom was excellent and I settled down to more relaxing days. When John finally arrived from the Middle East he was really pleased with it. His wife came down to meet him and I moved out and in to a small hotel.

TROUBLE WITH A CONCIERGE AND A TAXI

A couple of weeks later I was due to go to Bangkok for a week and then on to Hong Kong. John came to the hotel to say goodbye and I checked out, left my luggage with the concierge, and we had lunch together in the restaurant. After lunch I went to get my things – a suitcase, holdall and briefcase. When I left them the concierge had put a security chain through the handles, as he did with all the guests luggage, however although my suitcase and holdall were there - the briefcase was gone.

It turned out that the concierge had mistakenly put it in the taxi of the previously leaving guest. This was a real problem because the briefcase held my passport, flight tickets and travelers cheques. The number of the taxi had been recorded and the next stop of the UK guest was listed – a hotel in Bangkok.

We rang the hotel and asked reception to ask the guest when he arrived to keep the briefcase and we would pick it up. When, some hours later, I eventually spoke to him on the phone, unfortunately when he arrived at reception he had already paid off the taxi and told the driver that the briefcase was not his and suggested he return it to Pattaya.

What to do – how to find a single taxi in a city of 5 million people? First we contacted the police and explaining the problem asked if there was any way they could find the address of the taxi number – they said there was not – such were the days before computerisation.

The hotel gave me the concierge for the following day and we took the 05.30 bus to Bangkok. He started dragging me around 5* hotels, checking their concierge taxi records and asking if they knew the owner of this taxi number. It became quickly obvious that this was not going to work, but he insisted on continuing.

By lunchtime and after dozens of hotels we were both hot and bothered and I was contemplating a visit to the British Embassy the following day. I told the guy to forget hotels – we would go to the airport because all taxis would regularly go to the airport.

When we got there we went to the taxi stand and told the guy what we were looking for. He brought out some huge accounting style tomes that had thousands of taxi numbers, dates, times and destinations. After 2 hours, sweating and drinking litres of water under the hot sun we were still no wiser, having gone through hundreds of lists. Various curious taxi drivers came over to ask what we were doing, then went away shaking their heads.

At 15.00 I was about to give up when one of the procession of curious taxi drivers said to the concierge in Thai “I know who owns that taxi number.” We jumped in to his taxi and he took us about a 20 minute ride to a suburb of Bangkok where there was a new housing development. Lots of single storey starter homes which were very modern, had nice gardens and were laid out along wide streets.

We stopped at a house and were introduced to a lady in her early thirties. She confirmed that her husband had the briefcase and would be home around 18.00. She invited us in, sat us down, put on the electric fan (thankfully) and gave us some lovely home-made lemonade.

I fell asleep in the chair exhausted. An hour later two children arrived home in school uniform, a boy and girl about 7 and 8 years old, and peeped at us from the next room.

Finally, at 18.30 her husband arrived home. He took us out to his taxi, opened the boot and there was my briefcase wrapped carefully in a towel. He insisted that I open it and check the contents – it was combination locked. I thanked him profusely, gave him a reward, thanked his wife for her hospitality, and he then took us to the bus station.

On the way he explained to the concierge, who translated for me, that when he dropped the guest off who said the briefcase did not belong to him, he went to a phone box and rang the hotel in Pattaya and said if someone would pay the fare he would bring it back. Whoever he spoke to in reception said no! ARGGGGH!!!!

BEACH BARBEQUE

Back in Pattaya a couple of days later and after quite a few beers John and I could laugh about it.

John’s wife had gone back up country and he was following in a few days time. We went to see a lay Buddhist who John and I had known for a while to say goodbye. He owned a rattan furniture store and lived above it with his wife, son, daughter and yaya. He was in constant demand in his area and was regarded as an honest and helpful man to those in trouble in the community. I always found him to be a jolly person with a deep humanity.

He immediately invited us to a member’s only beach club for a barbeque that night – as we were both going away.

He picked us up in his car with his delivery van and driver following. It was mid-week and the place was quiet. The club was in a remote area and we were on the beach sitting at a long trestle table with flame torches set around us – no other lighting and the sea lapping almost to our feet. We were there for 4 hours, the children and yaya running up and down until they tired, John, Arthit and I chatting and drinking beer. Arthit’s wife and the driver organising the club’s cooks and unloading the food from the van.

What a feast, served slowly over the 4 hours – first we had chilled salad’s, then a large whole fish barbequed, followed by a small barbequed suckling pig, rice and vegetables, finally chilled fruit and sweet rice-cakes.

A lovely evening with good company in a quiet location under the stars, a light breeze with palm trees waving and the sound of the surf.

CIRCUS

Years later I had been in Bangkok to buy furniture for my newly purchased home in the UK. I intended buying hardwood furniture and shipping it by container to the UK.

Hiring a taxi by the day I had spent 3 days visiting furniture manufacturers in industrial areas, but eventually owing to export documentation problems decided to buy retail because the retailer could arrange the documents.

On a Sunday afternoon having nothing to do, I asked the taxi driver to take me to somewhere “interesting where tourists do not usually go.”

He took me to Bangkok’s suburbs and to a huge park and amusements area. The place was full of local families and as we walked through gardens came across various activities – musicians, singers, poets, magicians and such like on small stages throughout the gardens, children’s play areas, picnic sites and more.

At the far end of these huge gardens was a big-top advertising the Russian State Circus. It was obvious that the taxi driver wanted to see it so I told him to get two tickets for the 3pm show.

When we got inside the tickets were by bench seat number and he had got us seats second row from the front with all the parents and small children, I wanted to change them for seats further back but he said it was not possible so we sat there and waited for the show to start.

The ring-master was all he should have been – mustachioed, red coat, polished black knee boots and a booming voice – fortunately in English.

After the horses, acrobats and elephants came the clowns and we had buckets of confetti thrown over us, all the children squealing who were expecting water. After each act the ring-master shouted that the finale would be “the ferocious man-eating tigers” and built up the tension with terrifying stories of their aggression.

There was a break whilst metal screens were constructed around the ring, and ice cream was sold by ushers – I had to buy one for the taxi driver! On my other side on the bench seat was a young girl about 8 years old who had been thoroughly enjoying herself. Next to her, her brother and her parents. I had noticed that each time the ring-master had mentioned the “ferocious man-eating tigers” all the children had become very quiet.

Finally the time came and the Tiger Tamer came in to the ring, again mustachioed, wearing a leopard skin costume, black knee boots, whip and a revolver and holster. “Open the gates!” he shouted. The tunnel gates opened and eight huge tigers ran out and lept and roared at the cage bars.

Suddenly I felt a pain in the top of my thigh, and looking down saw the little girl’s hand digging in to it. She was rigid with fear and her eyes were like saucers as she stared in to the jaws of death!

Oh dear, I put my hand over hers and said “It’s OK they can’t get out” her father further along was smiling at me. The Tamer did his routine and ended by having the largest tiger open its mouth, took out and held his pistol ready, then put his head in to the tigers jaw. I wonder how long he lived.

When we came out it was getting dark and there were lights and lanterns in all the trees in the park. Barbeques and food stalls had been set up and people were buying all sorts of foods from the vendors – of course my taxi driver was hungry so I bought noodles for us both, before we went back. It was a lovely day out.