Week 32 - 8 January 2016 to 14 January 2016 - Koh Samui, Thailand
Koh Samui, Thailand
Friday (8 January 2016)
I woke up during the night, Adri was awake reading, I turned around and continued on my journey.
Adri was feeling a bit odd (read nauseous) this morning. Truth be told, it started late yesterday morning, seemingly after our late breakfast at Black Canyon in Central Festival. Adri had a glass noodle salad with prawns and pork mince. Come to think of it, that pork mince did look a bit gray.
As Adri went solo on the bike the other day, I went solo with my yoga this morning, Adri was just not feeling up to it. Felt a bit strange doing yoga without my partner but I persevered and got through in unscathed.
At some stage Adri made a comment that she was craving Marmite, Marmite thinly spread on a piece of dry toast, a remedy that the old people swore by for anyone in Adri's condition. I offered to go to Tops to buy some but she would not have it, it was just a passing thought in her state of delirium. Come to think of it, now that she mentioned it, I was craving Marmite as well. If one did not grow up with Marmite as a child one would probably be quite disgusted with the texture, smell and taste. One of my most favourite snacks is taking a really thick slice of a freshly baked white bread, preferably the crust, hot from the oven, smear that with a thick layer of butter, not margarine, and then adding a thick layer of Marmite on top of that. Man, fit for a king, I tell you.
Pierre popped in with our small travel bag. What…? Where…? When…? How…? And then again… What…? These were the first obvious few thoughts that crossed my mind. The next thought in line that breached my consciousness was that the dog had gotten hold of it and I immediately started looking for teeth marks on the bag, but no, there were none. Anyway, that would be impossible as we had not hung that bag out anywhere where it could be snatched away by a dastardly dog, and by the way, I had not even seen that bag for a long long while… Aha, and therein lay the clue. Turns out we left this little bag in the furthest reaches and darkest corner of an obscure little cupboard in the villa we lived in. Contained in that little bag were my Rado and Adri’s Calvin Klein watch that we have not worn since we’ve been on the island. Also in there were all Adri’s rings, also never worn since we’ve been here. Also, Adri’s purse which does not get used as we are using my… sorry, our purse, but we do have one or two spare credit cards in her purse for safekeeping. Hmm.. so much for safekeeping. Anyway, the owner of the villa obviously did some spring cleaning and found the bag, handed in to Pierre… and the rest is history. Thanks Pierre and ex-landlord.
Adri was feeling better after a Myprodol and a snooze, seemingly ready for supper. We did plan to go to Fisherman’s Village but with Adri not 100% we decided to go to our favourite Thai restaurant situated down the ring road, on your left, 50 metres before the second robot, sorry, traffic light (more about that later), in Chaweng going towards Lamai. Supper was great, as always here, and we began with a shared starter of papaya salad. That was followed up with the main course of stir-fried vegetables with chicken and cashew nuts with a delightful soya based sauce, accompanied by a plate of steamed rice. Now this dish is pretty hot and contains normal red chilies but then, the cherry on the top are the red dried and roasted chilies in there. Man, those are just amazingly flavourful, not as chili as one might expect, but very flavourful…
Further to my earlier mention of the robot versus traffic light, a while ago I gave directions to Steve and Marina to our villa and mentioned the robot down the road. It turns out that it confused them to no end as a robot to them understandably means something totally different, like, well, a robot, as in Bidi-bidi-bidi-bidi of Twiki in Buck Rogers in The 25th Century. But how come we use robot and traffic light interchangeably in SA. A quick search on the web revealed the following:
"The word was imported from the UK where they were known as robots up until the end of the 1930's. South Africa was part of the Commonwealth at the time before leaving in 1961 to become a republic. Now as far as I know, the word robot fell away during the US 'invasion' of Southern England in the build-up prior to D-day. The word 'robot' was confusing to US troops who would be told to 'take a left at the robot' . So the locals switched to the US version to facilitate communication and direction giving."
To be fair to Steve, he is not that old!
I read with interest the following article on CNN:
“German authorities have identified 31 people -- 18 of them asylum seekers -- as suspects in mob sex attacks and muggings in Cologne on New Year's Eve, one of several such incidents reported on the same date in European cities.”
This is madness Ms Merkel. Ek sê maar net (I’m just saying).
Most of the day we lay low as Adri was worse for wear and just generally felt, apparently, like a heap of misery. I on the other hand started to catch up with my work and published Week 30 at 16:25.
Saturday (9 January 2016)
Today was a typical lazy Saturday, much like we would have spent back in SA. Woke up late, read all morning, had something small to eat and generally just relaxed.
Adri was feeling better than yesterday but still not near 100%, hence the reason we decided to lay low again until further notice. Adri came up with a diet of toast, no butter, bananas, apple sauce and… whoa, I thought, the internet sure does have some interesting advice… but that’s what she wanted and also what she could hold down.
I checked the rand/dollar exchange rate and saw that it was once again starting to flutter and stutter so I checked out bdlive.com and found the following article titled “Now we can see how predictable Nenegate was”. I have included an extract from that article which I think will give you a real and scary synopsis of the debacle, which is Zuma:
“Quid agendum est? This is surely the defining question of 2016. 'What is to be done?’ Now that the dreadful political dust surrounding the Nene-Van Rooyen-Gordhan round of Treasury musical chairs has settled, we can see more clearly how inevitable the events of the past month in South African politics really were. Indeed, with the benefit of some perspective, it is difficult to understand why we were so surprised; Nhlanhla Nene was not the first Cabinet minister to face the chop for failing to toe President Jacob Zuma’s crony line. He was not even the first in 2015, although Ngoako Ramatlhodi’s summary removal from the mineral resources portfolio was not nearly as high-profile. The truth is that Zuma has been telling us who he is for eight long years - eroding institutions, flouting law and regulation and engaging in flagrant acts of personal enrichment; all while the African National Congress in Parliament mindlessly cheered him on and made every possible effort to protect him from public scrutiny. From the findings of the Shabir Shaik corruption trial to the irrational appointment of the national director of public prosecutions; from ‘The Spear’, the Nkandla scandal and the Marikana massacre, to the Gupta landing, the departure of Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and the disgraceful policing of Parliament for Zuma’s personal protection - the list of misdemeanours is as long as it is painful to recite. South Africans have paid a high price for the Zuma presidency. The economic cost is even harder to quantify. If the World Bank calculates the annual cost of our energy crisis at two percentage points of gross domestic product growth, then how much more have we lost to the sometimes hapless, often malignant, always self-interested, presidency of Zuma?”
This is just disgusting… Zuma is a disgrace and an embarrassment to South Africa. It truly pains me to read such articles, South Africa has SO much to offer with SO much potential, which is being undermined by one person’s greed and the power high that he is on, how can we as a people allow this?
Once again, now that my spleen is clean, we watched a bit of television, well, “a bit” is a bit of an understatement, way understated in fact, we binge watched four episodes of Breaking Bad in one sitting. We were contemplating going to Chaweng beach later in the afternoon but Adri was still not up to it, so we continued binging. The storyline of Breaking Bad is pretty good although pretty grim at times, and that grim part I do not particularly like. You know, rather give me kopskiet en donder (headshot and thunder) and get it over and done with, skip the grim, if I wanted to watch a tear jerker drama, I would have watched Terms Of Endearment or something similar. Also, the plot upon plot upon sub-plot gets a bit tedious after a while, but still, it is pretty good I must admit.
Adri made us chicken and vegetable soup for supper which turned out great, and what made it even better than great, was the fact that is was served with bread, not just any bread though, but with a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Now we do not have one of them sandwich toasters/snackwich makers so Adri had to make do toasting this puppy in the pan. Turned out great.
Sunday (10 January 2016)
The cleaning lady/lady-boy arrived, the one with the gravelly voice. He/she was alone so we decided to leave him/her to his/her own devices and biked off to the beach. Chaweng beach was calling loud and clear. Not for a swim though, Adri just needed some fresh sea air, she was feeling way better but sadly still not 100%. We stopped off behind McDonalds and walked through from there to the beach, through some resort. This is the first time on this trip that we had come to this part of Chaweng beach, but on our previous trip we were here all the time. We made ourselves comfortable on the beach under a big old tree, same place where we had whiled away many hours previously, at the time dreaming of the sabbatical that would follow in two year’s time… so some dreams do come true. We sat there in the shade for what must have been an hour or two, chatting, people watching, and watching the waves roll in, in a constant hypnotic fashion. Ah, that was great.
Midday we were back to Breaking Bad… after which we read and snoozed until it was time to make a move, we had arranged to meet Natty and Rene for supper. Natty had always wanted to go to Stacked, a restaurant next to Ozo in Chaweng, which advertises there amazing looking “stacked” burgers, looks like the tower of Pisa without the lean. So, initially we arranged to go to Stacked but in the meantime she had been there and reported that the burgers were not just mediocre, they were downright tasteless. So it was due to this that our preferred venue was changed.
We met at the Billabong Surf Club in Fisherman’s village, right on the beach, a beautiful setting. We had not been to Fisherman’s Village much since we’ve been here so it was great to walk around now with a lot less tourists than what we expected, very pleasant indeed.
As Adri’s stomach had not yet recovered 100% she opted for the tuna salad which looked great. Natty, Rene and I opted for the burgers and they were great. Rene and I had the Downunder Burger, an Australian specialty which had beetroot in there as well, which was a first for me. Not sure whether the beetroot added or subtracted from the taste or not, but the burger was great. Still think the Black Duck burger is better, not sure, will have to go back there to judge.
We had a great chat and after supper we ambled west along the Fisherman’s Village street and got to Bar Baguette, a very civil looking place where you can sit outside and admire the wonderful sea view just across the walking street. This is an old haunt of Natty and Rene so they knew the owner and waitresses which made for really great service. Because the bar/restaurant has an obvious French feel and ambience to it we naturally thought it was owned by a Frenchman, but no, a local Thai family started the business, I was pretty impressed.
Rene and I had a couple of beers here but unfortunately had to stop at a couple as Natty worked in the morning so we had to cut the beer supply early. We got home around 21:30 and settled down for an early evening.
Monday (11 January 2016)
We had a good night’s rest, woke up to coffee and another beautifully bright day. Today was our first scheduled one hour yoga session at home. We had been doing 45 minute sessions but today we progressed to the one hour combination class which includes a mix of strength, flexibility, relaxation and balance poses. Just perfect, we really enjoyed this one and will stick with this class for a week or two before upgrading once again, not in time, but in difficulty.
“Oh ****”, I exclaimed to no one in particular, the toilet was playing up again, water seeping out the bottom where they still needed to finish the procedure they had started a week or two back. Pierre was called to action and once again he came through for us.
Adri insisted on doing the laundry run on her own today even though she was not herself yet. What makes this more difficult from normal riding is that you have to put the clothes in a bag and place it in front of you on the foot platform, thereby minimizing the space for your feet, with part of your feet dangling over the edge, making it a bit awkward if you are not used to it. So Adri first went for a warm-up run to the Family Mart for a few things before attempting the laundry thing. She came back with bike intact so that was a good sign. After selecting all the clothes that needed a dousing she proceeded to the bike with caution. Trepidation set in and, seeing that the selected cloth did not amount to much, she place that all in the helmet hole, trepidation averted.
Adri came back smiling after having had a successful trip loading up the washing. She was back to make me breakfast and today I was treated to an uitssmijter again, yes, there was ham in the house again. An hour later she bounced off again on the bike and returned with the, “oh so clean” clothes, successful solo laundry trip accomplished and in the bag.
While working Adri was reading the news and announced that David Bowie had just passed away. Now that was truly sad news, one more great talent is no more. And would you believe, just last night they played David Bowie’s Life On Mars while we were having supper at the Billabong Surf Club and I still commented on what a great talent the man was, well, I said “is” at the time, if you catch my drift. Rene, being a music lover, concurred and questioned whether I knew that Bowie had just a short while ago released another album, the first one in many years, which I did not know, and which I was sure to check out. And by the way, I did mention that Rene was a music lover, he was also a drummer of note, playing in a band with a couple of mates of his, playing in pubs over weekends in the Amsterdam area many years ago.
After the sad news Adri exposed me to I was compelled to listen to more music from the great man, so I selected The Singles Collection, a two disc album which contains his best music over many years. I was re-acquainted with songs like Life On Mars, Starman, The Jean Genie, Sorrow, Rebel Rebel, Rock And Roll Suicide, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Sound And Vision, Heroes, Boys Keep Swinging, Fashion, Under Pressure (with Queen), Let’s Dance…, China Girl, This Is Not America…
Many years ago, in the 80’s, I used to record music from music TV programs such as Pop Shop on Friday evenings onto VHS video cassettes, I still have most of those (Marc, please look after them). Surely you will still remember presenters of Pop Shop such as Karl Kikillus and Alex J. We used to watch those VHS cassettes over and over during parties and braais, man, those were the days. Anyway, I was reminded of this little fact when I listened to Bowie’s songs, Let’s Dance and China Girl, replaying its music videos in my mind, recalling them frame by frame from those old VHS tapes.
Tuesday (12 January 2016)
I had a really great sleep but that was negated when I saw the rand/dollar exchange rate, still lingering above 16.80, having hit a high of 17.43 at some time during the last 24 hours. This is pure madness. I vented by spleen on this issue this past Saturday so I will not expose you to that again, but believe me, my sentiments stay the same.
I had a really great yoga session but that also was negated when I saw the rand/dollar exchange rate, still lingering above 16.80.
Adri was still not feeling very well, can you believe it. Her stomach had settled but she was still feeling a bit nauseous from time to time. I have been urging her to go to a doctor but she insisted it was not necessary, she however allowed me to take her to the chemist today to get something for her ills. She had tried various tablets from our travel tablet kitty but those have had no positive effect. We stopped off at the main Morya pharmacy which had become our go-to pharmacy with good English and good stock. Adri spoke to the pharmacist explaining her condition, and at first he suggested that she just wait it out, it will come right in a day or two, no need to spend any money. It was only after we insisted on a quicker remedy that he produced the appropriate pills. Can you believe that? Back in SA, before one could fully explain what was wrong with you one would already have at least three or four packs of capsules and effervescent tablets on the counter. The medical industry is very much a money making, money hungry industry and I do not believe that they always have one’s best interest at heart… not anymore that is. Anyway, I appreciated this particular pharmacist’s honesty.
We also needed to go to Makro for fresh veggies, we still had more than enough meat which we need to finish before we leave for Chiang Mai, else, no problem, we will just give it away to the workers around the complex. Opening that fridge it seemed like we may just make it in time before we leave.
On the way home from Makro we stopped off at the little Air Asia shop where the same trio of friendly Thais greeted us in unison, it’s so nice to do business with them. As we entered the one started shuffling papers in the one drawer and came out with the printed tickets for our trip. What had happened the last time was that the printed version that I eeceived had my name spelt incorrectly which she rectified subsequently on the system. Now I was in possession of the correct one so no problems should be experienced at check-in time. Anyway, the reason why we were there was to up our baggage allowance. We were planning on travelling light but subsequently decided that we needed to take more stuff with to Chiang Mai, so we bought a coupon for another 20 Kg’s. The cost to this is a mere 340 baht, but if your luggage is overweight at check-in, you pay 400 baht for each additional kilogram. Now that could become a relatively expensive gamble, hence our side trip there.
While Adri was preparing supper we listened to a compilation album called Hot Summer Mix 2002 which includes covers of some really great songs from that era. The one song that drew my attention was Because I Got High which is about a guy that essentially threw his life away in every possible way imaginable, because he got high, on marijuana. It’s actually a fun kind of song, but apparently very true of the songwriter’s life. There is an ex-colleague and friend that made me listen to this song one day and jokingly remarked that this song could easily have been about him, had he not stopped getting high in his young and reckless days of indulgences.
Wednesday (13 January 2016)
Adri had taken the remedy, which we had to fight for yesterday at Morya pharmacy, one in the afternoon and one last night, and this morning she was feeling great, apparently better than ever. Not sure what was in there. The weather was amazing, so we could not waste all this goodness and decided to drive out to our favourite part of the island, the south west.
Before we could leave I had a few fine tunings to do on the draft of the latest blog entry and finally published it at 10:30. We packed the pony with our swimwear, just for incase, you see, and left a blurring, or was that a blazing, trail behind us. We drove south along the ring road, passing through Lamai, Hua Thanon… you know the drill by now.
We took a few turns down little roads that we had never taken before, not even knew existed, just doing some general sightseeing, but I was getting thirsty, so we stopped off at a kayaking centre to quench that lust. What kind of a kayaking centre was this, I questioned when advised that they only sold water… I was not that thirsty.
We meandered further along tracks that took us to unexpected destinations and many dead-ends, unknown pubs and restaurants, even a fishing spot on the river. My thirst had by now increased to a level where I would have settled for water, but it just so happened that we stumbled, or re-stumbled upon a place we had passed with Patrick and Oi previously, a lovely little beach pub called Coco Beach Bar and Restaurant. We made ourselves at home, looking out across the ocean, stretching out on a very comfortable couch. Adri had a soda water, I had to have a Chang, there was no way out, nothing else could curb the onset of this dehydrated state in my throat. The little beach in front of us was punctuated with about 20 people at most, all residents from the little resort across the dirt track, ever so peaceful.
We sat there blissfully looking out over the ocean, thinking, don’t ask me what, just thinking… or maybe not. It reminded me of the time when a friend, Richard, and I, went to Durban for a beach holiday in the early eighties, we stayed in the Four Seasons Hotel which in those days were one of the places to be. On the way to the beach there was this mandatory beach t-shirt shop with the most amazing selection of t-shirts imaginable. The one that caught my eye though was the one with a drawing of a frog, sitting nonchalantly and seemingly uninterested on a bar stool with his arm on the bar counter, big beer in hand, his long frog’s legs dangling down the high bar stool, with a look of “neither here nor there” on his face. The caption read “Sometimes I sits and I thinks… and sometimes I just sits” (sic). This was the exact same feeling I found myself in now, probably leaning towards the “… and sometimes I just sits” (sic) part. Pure bliss.
With my second Chang in hand we got hooked up to the wifi, settling back on that comfy bunk, man, this was life in the slow lane, we whiled away a good three hours here. This south western part of the island is so peaceful, so different from the rest of the island, the people seem to be friendlier, more accepting and more genuine than in the busier touristy areas.
It was around 16:30 when we headed home and would you believe, to a well deserved snooze, after which it was time to get ready for supper with Andre, Thea, Wayne and Joy. Wayne and Joy, who stays just up the road from us in the complex, picked us up in their car, it felt a treat being in an air conditioned car for the first time in a long while.
It was 30 minutes later when the six of us gathered at The Butcher Restaurant in Lamai at 20:00. It is a small restaurant and was fully occupied at the time, so we made a booking for 21:00, went across the road to the Irish pub to while away an hour and a beer. The real men ordered two Old Speckled Hens, an English ale draft, while the other man ordered a normal old Carlsberg which he so dearly loves. Just after 21:00 we made an appearance at The Butcher Restaurant and ordered our preferences, mostly steaks. Adri and I both ordered the Australian rib eye steak with a wild mushroom sauce, Adri’s came with a baked potato and a side salad, mine with coleslaw and chips. Now the steaks at Black Duck are truly great, but man, these were magnifique, as Didier would say. It has been a long while since I have had steaks as juicy and tasty as these, done to perfection. I will be back, most definitely.
After a delicious dinner, the end of the evening was nowhere to be seen, I was looking but I did not find it. Everyone moseyed across the road back to The Shamrock Irish Pub while I went to have a financial conversation with an ATM up the road. When I arrived at the pub, it was only Thea and Joy there holding on to the bench we had booked to watch the resident band. The others had apparently gone to the ladies and gents respectively, although later when I had to go there was a Thai lady in the gents. I went and sat next to Thea, holding a place for Adri and Andre.
Now unbeknownst to me, there was this older chap, drunk as a skunk, who was making a play for Thea, offering her drinks and what not, and moving closer and closer to her. Apparently, no matter how vigorously Thea shook her head to his offer of drinks, he persisted. When I went and sat next to Thea, essentially coming between the two of them, so to speak, asking him to move up and make way for Adri and Andre, he got pretty antagonistic which I at first misinterpreted as a drunk playing the fool, not having been made aware of his amorous advances. From his subsequent behavior I gathered that he was from New Zealand. Stay with me here.
At first he moved up and wai’d me, which is a Thai greeting and done by placing your hands in a prayer position in front of you, a sign of respect. I wai’d back. If he respects me, I respect him, end of story. But then he pulled an All Black haka move on me, you know the one where they hold the left arm horizontally out to the left and move the right arm up and down along the left arm with the right hand doing a buzzing bee movement while the arm is in motion. This was the reason I was sure he was from New Zealand, doing the haka and all. Fortunately he did not do that sticking your tongue out move from the haka, I might have gotten the wrong impression. Now the haka is a call to a challenge, or war, and I would have seen this coming had I known that I had come between him and his lady love. Anyway, I haka’d him back with the same move after which he slapped his face, probably mimicking what he wanted to do to me, so I also slapped mine, ouch, and then he gave up, he paid up and left. Unaware of his challenge, I accepted his challenge, and he backed down. What a weird situation. What a ****-cat he was.
Drinks were ordered and I noticed that Andre had had enough of beer, I felt the same. He ordered a scrum and Coke, sorry, make that a rum and Coke, I felt the same. I do not drink scrum, I mean rum, very often, but I heeded Captain Morgan’s call to arms. And did we go to war…
The band that was playing is from the Philippines and apparently they have been performing at this particular pub for a number of years now, five days a week. Man, and were they good. They did songs from Journey, Blondie, even Abba, Eagles, Kings Of Leon. They did a perfect rendition of Still Loving You by the Scorpions, wow, and also Highway To Hell by AC/DC, wow. There were six members in the band, the three guys were on a five string bass guitar, drums and keyboards, two of the three ladies were on vocals and the boss lady was on lead guitar and vocals. Normally lead guitarists have quite heavy fingers on the frets, but no, not this lady, she had a feather touch on those frets, effortlessly creating the same sounds as the heavy handed heavies. This gal was cool, we will be back.
It was past midnight when Thea tore us away from that band, they were still in fine form after three hours of solid playing, no breaks. While walking back to the cars Wayne’s right sandal finally rebelled against its years of mistreatment and tore its thong from where it was attached to the sole. I was happy to note that I was not the only one that was burdened with plakka problems.
Wow, what a great evening, great food, great band, shared with great people.
Thursday (14 January 2016)
Woke up at around 07:30 feeling pretty good, just pretty tired, having only gotten to bed at 02:00 this morning. I drank our last still water and opened a soda water, had a bit of the thirsties this morning after the scrum and Coke last night. It was just past 08:00 when I heard people digging outside, the problem with our toilet goes a bit deeper than thought at first, so to speak. I was hoping to sleep in until 10:00, you know, to get my required eight hours sleep but apparently that was not on my to do list today. I tried, I really did, I even ignored the coffee that Adri prepared for me which had to be reheated in the microwave later to make it palatable yet again.
After the reheated coffee made itself smelt on my bedside table I turned to the news and read the following article on CNN:
“Attackers struck in the middle of the day, in the middle of a busy central Jakarta commercial hub -- killing at least two, wounding 19 and raising alarms about terrorism once more, this time in the world's most populous Muslim country. The attack in Diyarbakir comes on the heels of the suicide bombing Tuesday in Istanbul. Turkish authorities have blamed the Istanbul attack on the terrorist group ISIS.”
As you may be aware, we were planning to go to Jakarta soon, but now we are not so sure anymore…
The toilet guys were in and out, out and in, trying to sort out our potty problem while I continued reading. After a late breakfast we continued in the same fashion, watching some Breaking Bad and generally just relaxing after a taxing evening last night.
Late afternoon we got ready to go out, once again, this time back to the Samons Restaurant in Maenam where Andre and Thea took us to some time ago, their food is really great. Now if you do not know where Samons is you will probably never find it, a very small restaurant with no flashy signboards to announce its presence. This is the reason we agreed to meet the crowd, which consisted of Didier, Sylvia, Steve and Marina, at the petrol station just past the Fisherman’s Village traffic light at 19:00. Once we had all arrived Adri and I lead the way to Samons, some 5 kilometres away.
Everyone mostly ordered different dishes, and they were all great, this place one can seriously visit at least every week or two. Although the food order was a hodgepodge of dishes, the one thing we all had in common was, no alcohol. Yes, you read that right, no alcohol. There were soda waters, fruit juices, ginger ales, plain water and what not, but the percentage alcohol consumed stayed at zero. See, it can be done, I was so proud of the crowd.
Once again we had a great evening out, once again with great food, and yet again with great people. Adri and I really feel blessed to have met such a wonderful bunch of people during our time on Samui.