An ordinary life in an extra-ordinary place
Archive for December, 2008
Thanks to an almost total lack of regulation, you can rent a jetski on every stretch of beach around Pattaya. For a few hundred baht you can whizz around generating noise and oil pollution whilst lining the pockets of the undesirables who rent these machines. You will probably be drunk, which means you will make stupidly dangerous manoeuvres near other craft on the sea, will narrowly miss swimmers, and will generally act like a dick. There is a chance you will drive head-on into another drunk jetski-riding idiot and kill yourself, a delightful example of Darwinian evolution in action. More >
My regular reader will be familiar with photos of racing bikes, taken at Bira circuit during the Highside Tours track days.
A couple of days ago, someone entered the circuit at night and stole three racing bikes. Unpleasant, but as nothing compared to the fact that they tied up the night guard and then beat him over the head with something heavy until they had killed him. Very, very nasty, and yet another example that some people are prepared to kill to get what they want.
But what would the perpetrators want with three distinctive and highly tuned bikes, suitable only for the track? Smuggle them overseas, or break them down for spares through some international stolen racing bike spares syndicate perhaps? No, what they did, within hours of the theft, was put them up for sale on the internet, on a Thai website, for 1.2 million baht. Naturally, the whole racing scene in Thailand was already looking out for these bikes and the killers were quickly arrested.
The stupid murderer was 15 years old. One can only hope he rots in jail for a very long time.
When you buy a Mac, you get the machine and a very small cardboard container in which you will find a recovery disk and a couple of stickers. No manual; the inference being that if you are smart enough to buy a Mac, you are smart enough to learn how to use it. The other inference might be that Apple are tight bastards who are just saving costs, and you will have to spend your own money to go out and buy a 893 page guide to the operating system. At least, that is what someone I know did.
But when it comes to a truck, how much guidance do you actually need? A single piece of paper taped to the driver’s door with the instruction “get in, insert and turn key, drive it” is probably overkill. But Mitsubishi have seen fit to produce a 360 page tome to explain the workings of their essentially simple machine.
There is an entire page dedicated to the use of the horn. There is a picture of the steering wheel, with an arrow pointing to the horn symbol in the middle. Then the instructions; “Pressing the horn mark on the steering wheel causes the horn to sound.” No shit, Einstein, and there I was punching the interior light switch (which gets two pages of explanation).
Next there is some advice on the airbags. There are several pages of warnings and cautions regarding these apparently potentially lethal devices, culminating with a graphic showing that you should not put a mug of hot tea on top of the passenger side airbag.
This would be dangerous if the airbag was triggered. No mention of the fact that it would also be dangerous if the airbag didn’t trigger, as the first hint of acceleration would dump the scalding contents over the legs of the passenger.
Anyway, not something I need to worry about because my truck does not have a passenger-side airbag, neither does it have many other features which are explained in glowing terms and at length in the manual. The only reason I opened the monster book was to help me fathom out how to operate the entertainment system which continues to show me the latest episode of “Have I Got News For You” when I am trying to listen to a Placebo compilation instead (note to Billy: Placebo are a popular music combo which formed after the 1980s so you will not have heard of them). Sure enough, although the manual enthusiastically dissects the inner workings of two separate entertainment systems, neither of them are mine.
So I a drive around with Ian Hislop grinning at me, interspersed with messages flashed on the DVD screen telling me that I shouldn’t be watching the screen while driving. And I can find no way of turning it off. Maybe put that cup of tea where the airbag should be and then turn sharp left, depositing hot tea into the internals of the entertainment system. There are probably instructions to this effect somewhere in the manual, but I am currently wading through the seventeen pages dedicated to moving the passenger seat.
She who must be obeyed is getting a bit of beating from her relatives at the moment. Fresh from recent abuse from her mother, her visiting grandmother gave her a hard time today.
Grannie sat my wife down at the table, looked her straight in the eyes and told her she must not call her husband a pig.
And I agree, she should not call me a pig; although I have never heard such abuse from her. The worst I get is “gwanteen” which means annoying, and I will admit I do get a degree of pleasure from annoying her on occasions (at least daily), in an entirely loving way you understand.
She who must be obeyed’s response to Grannie’s accusation was along the lines of “Eh? What”, except in Thai; for she too had no recollection of accusing me of porcine affiliations. Further investigation revealed the misunderstanding.
To save having to remember my name, or blurting out the name of a previous boyfriend by mistake, she who must be obeyed has a tendency to call me “babe”, usually in a loud voice which means my presence is required immediately for some menial purpose.
Grannie speaks no English, but she has been exposed to English movies, and one of her favourites is Babe, the story of a farmyard pig (you can see where this is going). She had made a logical jump and assumed that the English word for pig was babe….
I am going to start calling my wife Lassie, let’s see how Grannie reacts to that.
With the world economy in the toilet and the country in turmoil, at least something is putting a happy face on things.
And the something is…… More >
Receive a mail from a man called Jan who is concerned about my safety. He suggests I should carry a rolled-up copy of The Telegraph under my right arm so that I can be spotted in any TV news reports.
With a name like Jan, it is entirely possible he is actually referring to De Telegraaf, which I am sure is a very fine Dutch newspaper. But the UK offering, The Telegraph, is a right-wing rag. Blackadder would remark that it was soft, strong and totally absorbent, ideal for wiping your bum on, but little else.
The ongoing crappiness of The Telegraph was confirmed this week when a lady named Francisca Kellett decided to list the twenty most dangerous countries in the world; and Thailand came straight in at number seven, just behind Sudan and ahead of such charming locations as Haiti, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
But you know, she’s right. This weekend we visited a local market and there was this suspicious undercurrent of goodwill. People were relaxed, smiling and friendly, a sure sign they would slip a grenade into your shopping bag if you relaxed your guard for a moment. I was rattled, I can tell you. Sure, there are loonies at the airport, but the rest of the country carries on life in the same charming way it always has, very suspicious behaviour under the circumstance and entirely deserving of a travel advisory.
Contrast and compare with the last time I visited Nigeria, languishing at number fifteen on the list. We had a convoy of armed guards to get us from the airport into Lagos, an indication of the warm welcome the Nigerians give visitors. Two men on my aircraft spurned such obvious displays of hospitality and were found with a bullet through the head by the side of the road the following morning. The guest house I was staying in had staff sleeping under every barred window at night to listen out for potential raiders. The food was stringy chicken or stringy chicken. The beer was good though and I drank a lot of it.
I have never been to Haiti or Zimbabwe, but I am relieved to hear they are less dangerous than Thailand; maybe I will book a tour next year, the voodoo and cholera special.
She who must be obeyed has her grandmother staying for a few days. She is not the most active of ladies. She appears from her bedroom, prepares her food (on the floor, not at all impressed with farang-style kitchens), eats large quantities and then retires to either sleep or yell down the phone at her friends. Her lifestyle could be described as “mainly inert”.
So it was quite a shock yesterday when she accompanied the SUP to the beach, and then declared she wanted to have a go. And away she went, paddling like a veteran.
Turns out she was born on a river and, although she has never owned a car, she has owned a variety of boats; so sitting on a plank and paddling it was no big challenge. In fact she enjoyed it so much that it was dark before we could coax her out of the water.
I wonder if I can get her windsurfing before she goes…..
Recent Comments