Not Fake News. Urban LegendsThird night here. Talked to the manager about a monthly rate. Now paying 450b. / night. She’s offered 5000b / month. Which isn’t bad. It’s in a good location , midway between the school and the beach . The staff are good. BUT there are no cooking facilities in the rooms. The manager says I can cook in my room, but no frying. Thinking of taking up the offer for the sake of avoiding the added stress of flat-hunting while I find my feet on the job.
Slept really well at Harry’s Bar and Restaurant, despite the nightclub noise from downstairs. The air-conditioning worked well, and bed-clothes nice n heavy and warm. That might sound all rosy, but see below.
I decided in the morning that I had to hire a scooter. When in Rome… Had a blast. The roads in Thailand are total anarchy. From a very unscientific survey, there are as many scooters as cars on the roads. Who’s riding them? 12-year-old kids, Mums with three youngsters, old blokes, white blokes, smoking blokes, texting blokes. They’re like squadrons of wasps, floating in and out of traffic. Helmets are optional. I don’t think I saw a cop.
Apparently supplying a plug for the bathroom sink was just a bridge too far. I tried to cajole the young and beautiful maitre d’ (?) into hunting down such a thing, but soon gathered I was low on the priority list. Having to check out in the morning, I started getting bug-eyed about needing to shave etc beforehand. Still no good. Finally, she supplied me with a large stainless steel bowl. Sheesh. Other than that, I had to fight like Ronnie Barker to open the door to the room. And there was a puddle in the shower which never went away. And there troupes of drunken old guys ( about my vintage ) ‘romancing’ the local women. Cheap, though.
After the plug-less morning, and scrambling about trying to rent a car to pick up in Pattaya, and return in Rayong, I gave up, and went with the sledgehammer option. I got a taxi. And a fine fellow he was too. His English was nearly as bad as my Thai, but he did introduce me to the wonders of the Google Translate app ( who knew? ). So we spent the trip chatting away by tapping messages into our phones. He was good enough to help me find a scooter hire in Rayong ( the only one, claimed the operators ), and then guilted me into a little tip, even though I’d paid 1000 baht for the trip already.
With the freedom of a scooter and the on-board navigation of Google maps, I set about having a good look around. I found a really nice hole-in-the-wall outfit down the road from the motel who had a smorgasbord deal going. Eggs and ‘coleslaw’, just the thing. Then later I got caught in an eating jag in a supermarket complex, and slammed down a load of ( warm ) pork sausages. Hello food poisoning. Mild, but still bloody nasty. ( update Sunday – still battling stomach cramps ! )
Note to self – crap food is crap food, Thai or not. On the other hand, I discovered new favourite delicacy, a durian. Kind of a cross between a banana and a pawpaw , pure sugary bliss.
Had to return the rental bike today, or face another 500 b. ( baht ) / DAY, which is daylight robbery. Scooters could be had for 2400 b. / MONTH in Pattaya, but much harder to find in Rayong. Found someone who will rent me one for 4000 b / MONTH.
The flight to Sydney was uneventful. Watched ( most of ) The Departed. In the middle of a row of four in the middle of the aircraft. Painful but quick. Got changed at Sydney airport so I looked a bit less Worzel Gummidge. The flight was a trial from Sydney to Bangkok. Something like 8 – 9 hours, and didn’t sleep much. BUT the seats and the service is better on Emirates. Plus I fluked a window seat on that second flight and the seat next to me was vacant.’
I was so shagged when I got to Bangkok that I got fleeced by a taxi driver that collared me at the airport. Cost 500 baht ( $25 ) for a trip that another driver today offered to do for 200 baht.
Was just too tired to think at first when I arrived, and wanted to get to my hotel asap*.
As it was I was so wound up I couldn’t sleep. Luckily about 50 metres from the hotel there were a whole bunch of street vendors. One of them was open and brewing stuff up at 4.30 am! Got a great meal ( big bowl of soup-like stuff, including some that looked suspiciously like refined carbs, not exactly rice but something related ) for 40 baht ( less than $2 ).
* Next time I’ll seriously consider sleeping at the airport. It has air-conditioning, and there were dozens of young-uns crashed out around the airport when I went through. Plus they have wifi and shops.
It’s hot as hell. At 4.30 am it was just bearable. Any other time of the day I have to scuttle back under the cover of air-conditioning after quick 30-minute forays outside. It’s so extreme that I don’t think there are (m)any hotels without air-conditioning.
Busy? Bangkok , in the area I was, wasn’t actually crazy busy. In hindsight. Today I decided I better start moving toward Rayong. But between grappling with the hotel wifi, and keeping the sustenance and water up, I couldn’t figure out how to negotiate catching the bus. It goes through Bangkok to Rayong, but trying to locate something on a phone across Bangkok is hard work.
Not very many Thais speak English either. Even the young ones serving at the 7-11s ( American-styled ‘dairies’, full of rubbish food ) hardly had any English. Two people I found in the whole complex of hotel and street vendors spoke English well enough for a conversation, the hotel receptionist, and the taxi concierge.
The taxi concierge because I decided getting to Rayong and getting settled was a better plan that saving a few baht on a bus I couldn’t find. So I opted for a taxi trip to Chonburi, about halfway from Bangkok to Rayong, with the guy who offered me the cheaper airport fare. But turns out he was the ‘concierge’ , and I got driven by an attractive woman maybe in her 30s. Had a good chat with her, her English was ok, and I tried to regurgiate some very basic Thai she taught me.
Anyway, when I got to Chonburi, I hated it. It’s like a bigger, hotter, dustier Te Hana, but with a six-lane highway splitting it. So I forked out even more, and got the driver to take me to Pattaya, only about 30 – 50 kms away from Rayong. It’s supposed to be by the seaside. Instead it’s a flesh-pot, full of aging pot-bellied Poms with young Thai women. From having spent a whole 6 or 7 hours here, they don’t seem to do very much except drink beer, play pool, watch soccer, and eat. Much like what they would likely do in dear old England, except more cheaply. There are dozens and dozens of eateries, and most of them cater for the ex-pat ( white-skinned ) crowd, rather than offer any Thai cuisine.I guess it needs more investigation. The coconut milk / cream they have here is un-believably good. There are also dozens of bordellos – the women hang out outside, often in ‘company’ uniforms.
I feel like a smoke.
I’m a bit over-tired, and – get this – got lost in Pattaya about 500m from the hotel :-/ . My phone ran out of charge. All the streets look the same. None of them are signposted. It’s hot. There are motorbikes everywhere. There are no footpaths. If you’re not on your toes you’ll more than likely get them run over. There are something like 4 different 7-11s within a 200m radius, so it starts to feel a lot like Groundhog Day. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film) )
I’m knackered, but surviving.
Time for a shower and bed.
Melbourne is cold.
Yes, it is Australia, which is warmer than New Zealand, right?
Wrong. In winter, you’ll find everyone here wrapped in overcoats, and wearing scarves. Only the seriously fashion-challenged wear shorts.
A quick look at a map will tell you why. Melbourne is on the same latitude as that tropical paradise, Hamilton, where on a fine winter’s day the fog may just lift by 3pm.
Isn’t it amazing what ‘righteous’ Christians believe, and are capable of, when they’re convinced they have the infallible Word of God on their side?
The idea is nothing new to me, or to many others, but Sam Harris‘ The End of Faith, has rammed it home lately.
In it, Harris details some of the more “transcendent level[s] of cruelty” achieved by the Righteous in medieval Spain.
“Sceptical?” piped up the old-timer. Of course I’m flamin’ sceptical ye addlepated mudfish!” –
“Aye, but it wasn’t always so. I was a dour and solemn presbyterian from birth onwards, and bar the whisky, gossip columns, loose floozies and muckraking, a devout one too! But all this changed suddenly in the winter of ’94, twenty years ago, when Auckland was struck by drought.
I was lucky enough Thursday evening to meet a small cohort of extraordinary people via the friend who originally put me onto the The China Study.
I spent the evening soaking it all up, like a pup loose in a seal colony, and finding some surprising points of similarity. One of those was an interest in podcasts.
Which reminded me that I’d been meaning to write something pointing to some favourite podcasts, and a couple that were mentioned, and new to me.
Hell will be smelly , not hot as the Bible and Billy Graham tell us.
I surmised this today, as I laboured to rid my whare and surrounds of bad odours.