An ordinary life in an extra-ordinary place
Archive for September, 2008
It’s a feature of Asian commerce that the establishment of a successful business in one place will result in other businesses selling exactly the same product setting up next door. Open a shoe shop somewhere where there are no shoe shops, appear to be making a profit, or at least stay open for more than a couple of months, and the whole road will rapidly fill with shoe shops. Great for the consumer, stupid for the businesses.
This approach extends to roadside stalls where you can drive for kilometres and be offered a continuous choice of stalls selling the identical type of fruit. A similar phenomenon is developing outside Pattaya. Travelling south on Sukhumvit Road there has been a man selling paddling pools and swimming pool toys.
Having apparently sold a few and survived a couple of weeks, another stall has now opened up nearby offering an even wider selection of junk desirable items:
In can only be a matter of time before this escalates and the road south of Pattaya becomes an obstacle course of bouncy dragons and paddling ponds.
Proof, if any were needed, that not every visitor to the wide wide world of web spends their time downloading porn; visitor stats for this site continue to rise. Admittedly most people come here looking for porn to download, and quickly depart having not found it; but at least we are saving souls for a few moments. From something around 30 visitors in May, to something around 4,030 visitors in August; it ain’t exactly mainstream; but at least it is growing.
And what bountiful delights are forthcoming in September? Well, none really, although I am looking forward to some upcoming events.
First we have the bikers birthday bash where the MD of Highside Tours turns 40 and a lethal combination of racing bikes, suckling pigs, German beer, bikers, suckling bar girls and kart racing are muddled together into three days of excess. I will be there to capture the action and join whenever I think I can get away with it. Beer and kart racing almost certainly, suckling bar girls almost certainly not.
Next is the imminent arrival of my our SUP board. This is the secret weapon for me to hone my rippling torso to perfection and for she who must be obeyed to lose kilos of excess fat; although she might describe it differently.
I am going to fall off, a lot; and if this blog suddenly stops, I have probably drowned; but I am looking forward to the arrival of the new toy, sometime this week possibly.
Continuing the SUP theme, later in the month around 12 SUP boarders will embark on a journey down the river Kwai. Anyone with a sense of adventure and a reasonable level of fitness would volunteer for this trip; so that excludes me. But I am going along to photograph the event from the safety of the support boat. Should be an interesting photographic challenge. Some already absolutely whizzo SUP photographs can be seen here. Who takes these photos? *cough*
Best of all, at the end of the month I head off to Malaysia to spend a few days with my son and his girlfriend who are visiting on holiday. It coincides with a time of the year where, both of us happen to have birthdays of a significant number of years, so we plan to have an amazing meal somewhere in KL to celebrate the occasion.
More generally, whereas there are a number of perfectly acceptable tourist attractions around Pattaya, there are also a few horrors. I feel the need to visit these horrors, photograph them, and denounce them in cynical and vitriolic posts for the education and amusement of my loyal readers. Please keep reading,
Having dinner with she who must be obeyed this evening and I was updating her on the latest news from the ongoing stupidity in Bangkok.
A small bomb went off in a police box, I told her.
It exploded?
Yes.
So why don’t you say, in English, “it went on”? It went off, sounds like it didn’t work.pause, damn she is right.
Well, that is just what we say. (an incisive explanation I feel). I can’t think of an occasion when we would say that something goes on.
pause, she is thinking.
How about: Life goes on. Unless a bomb goes off!
She is too smart for me sometimes.
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