Snakes, Monkeys and Jungle

A walk in the New Territories on Sunday threw up a number of surprises. Not far into the first hill climb, we came across a small group of people dressed head to foot in camouflage and carrying cameras on long tripods with huge lenses. Weirdos, we all thought, what on earth could be so exciting in a Hong Kong country park? They seemed to be pointing their cameras at a big tree root. Nature weirdos, obviously. And then we got a bit closer and saw that the object of their zoom lenses was not a tree root at all. No, it was a huge python, stretched across the path, with its head hidden in the bushes. One of the camo group reckoned it was 20 foot long. It had clearly eaten something rather large as it was incredibly fat, which would also explain it being slap bang in the middle of the path, exposed to people and animals that it would ordinarily hide from. Perhaps it had just eaten a small Chinese family. We were on the Family Trail after all.

The giant python wasn't the only wildlife we saw that day. We were walking along a narrow path, high up in the forest, when we heard what sounded like the snort of a boar, followed by a sort of barking. Worried that we might be approaching a pack of wild dogs, we pulled out a walking stick from the backpack and prepared to fight off some snarling canines. When I say 'we' I of course mean The Father and The Husband. I was crouched behind both of their backs. It was only as they were prepared to fight (and I to flee) that The Husband spotted something in the trees. "They're just monkeys!" he laughed. Panic over. A family of monkeys had become separated by the path and they were warning each other of the impending footsteps of The Humans.

The other form of wildlife came in the form of two very strange Chinese men who, judging by their hairstyles, seemed think that it was still the sixties. We actually heard them before we saw them as they were blasting out some terrible song from their mobile phone, held high for maximum volume. They obviously didn't treasure the quiet of the hills we were walking and felt that the howling and shrieking of Canto Pop was more to their liking.

We passed through bamboo forests and thick jungle before finally reaching the car and turkey sandwiches.

"Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time"

So Christmas is over for another year and, despite various illnesses in the household, it was a good one. It began on the morning of Christmas Eve with some kitchen prep. The Mother made the honey-roasted, clove-studded ham, prepared the vegetables and made one of the stuffings and I made the chestnut stuffing and prepped the bread sauce. All to some cracking Christmas music and wearing a gold sequined apron, of course. The Husband and I then walked over to Knutsford Terrace, a row of al fresco bars and restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui, for the traditional lunch with my lifelong childhood friend Jen and her fiance Adam. Good food, good drink, good company and lots of early present-unwrapping ensued. We then trekked through the seething mass of people on the very busy shopping streets of Tsim Sha Tsui to take the MTR (Hong Kong's far cleaner, cheaper and more reliable version of the London Underground) to Central, where we were due to meet The Parents at church. Arriving earlier than expected, we decided to go for a little Christmas drinky and chose the rooftop bar in Prince's Building, where we sipped a crisp New Zealand white wine and a mojito whilst looking out over the harbour and across the skyscrapers of Central.

At the designated time we walked up Battery Path to St. John's Cathedral where the Christingle service we go to every year in Hong Kong was being held. Half an hour before it was due to start it was already full to the rafters, so much so they had even set up a big screen outside with a live feed to broadcast the service to people outside. It was a beautiful sight when the lights were dimmed and the cathedral was lit with the candles held by the congregation, accompanied by the sound of carols being sung.

After the service we hopped on the Star Ferry across to Kowloon and gazed at all the Christmas lights on the sides of the skyscrapers, before elbowing our way through the crowds on Canton Road to reach Civic Square, the cluster of bars and restaurants underneath the complex of apartment buildings in which The Parents live. A couple of lychee martinees later and we went up to the flat to prepare a simple dinner of parsnip and pancetta pasta, eaten in front of The Snowman. An early bed (in order to be asleep by the time Father Christmas arrives with his sack full of pressies) meant that we were up earlyish in the morning, bounding into the living room to see whether the big man himself had been. Bulging sackfuls on the sofas confirmed that he had indeed visited and we got down to the important task of delving into the stockings and pillowcases to discover what he had brought us. Half an hour later, we were still pulling presents out. We must have been very good this year.

A breakfast of ham and hot buttered toast, washed down with Buck's Fizz, was next on the cards, followed by the overseas phone calls to family members in Australia.Then came further present opening and before we knew it, it was time to prepare the lunch which, in our family, is just nibbly bits - smoked salmon on triangles of bread, sausage rolls, a selection of cheese, salmon filo pastry parcels - as we have our main Christmas dinner in the evening. After lunch, we walked around the harbour front to work up an appetite for the feast to come, before opening more presents and playing a fiercely competitive game of Cranium. I managed to draw the short straw and had The Father on my team. He had absolutely no idea what was going out throughout the game and at one point drew the name of the category rather than the thing he was actually supposed to draw. I suppose something like that has always got to happen on Christmas day.

We dressed up for the evening and emerged in our finest, ready to quaff some more Champers before the gargantuan feast that is our Christmas dinner. We had a traditional turkey with all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding and mince pies, all made by The Mother. It was all delicious but we soon fell into that coma-like state that always occurs post-Christmas dinner. Time for bed.

Snot and Shopping

I feel like my eyes are on fire and I can't stop rubbing them. My nose is running so much I barely have enough time to reach for another tissue after I've thrown the other one away. The bin beside me is full to the brim with tissues. I sneezed so loud at one point today that I actually made The Mother jump. I have come down with the mother of all colds and I am suffering. The combination of flying, the difference in temperature between here and Pattaya and the fact that The Brother only rid himself of a cold a couple of days ago has cruelly resulted in a very ill Expat Wife. Just in time for Christmas. The last time we were in Hong Kong for Christmas, The Husband had a fever of 104 degrees C so I suppose it was my turn.

Yesterday was a bit of a wipe-out because of the cold, though I did manage to meet up with The Brother for lunch and then The Mother to walk around the flower market, which was full of festive arrangements and smelt wonderfully Christmassy. This morning we did the disgustingly huge Christmas food shop. Well, The Mother did most of the actual shopping, I mainly I followed her around with the trolly, sneezing and coughing and whimpering slightly. It was no mean feat though - looking at the trolly one would have thought that we were preparing to feed the 5,000. That thing was heavy. When we at last reached the till, the tiny Chinese shop assistants watched the endless line of items in total shock. It's a good thing they didn't know it was to feed and water five adults over the course of just one day or they'd have had heart attacks!

Abandoned WWII Tunnels and Some Rather Bad Skating

Woke to a beautiful day yesterday. Still chilly but with glorious sunshine to warm the cockles. Perfect weather for a hike, and so that is just what we did. After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs with mushrooms on thick buttered toast, we jumped in the car and sped off (well, as much as it is possible to speed in a city of traffic jams!) towards Shing Mun Reservoir at the base of Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong's tallest peak. We parked up by the calm waters of the reservoir and, dodging the cheeky wild macaques that pepper the area, stealing food from picnics and BBQs, we started to climb up to Smugglers' Ridge. It was a tough climb but we were rewarded with some beautiful views - the tall residential and commercial buildings of Kwai Chung, the long stretch of Ting Kao Bridge, and the distant peaks of Lantau Island on one side, two reservoirs and the verdant hillsides of various mountains on the other.

By far the most interesting part of the hike however, was revealed to us via signs warning, "Danger. Desolate Trench. Do not enter." Everyone knows that best things always have warning signs, so on we trudged past the signs, and came across the remains of Shing Mun Redoubt, a series of underground bunkers and pillboxes connected by cement passageways that formed the key part of the Gin Drinker's Line, an 18km-long string of defense positions along the hill separating Kowloon from the New Territories. The tunnels had been named after famous London locations by homesick soldiers, and we saw the inscriptions 'Shaftesbury Avenue', 'Regent Street', Piccadilly', and 'Charing Cross', and explored the main command post of the redoubt, 'Strand Palace Hotel'.

We walked along some of the tunnels, keeping a wary eye out for snakes and spiders, and imagined what it must have been like for the poor British soldiers, knowing an attack by the Japanese was imminent. Many of them died down there in those trenches. In one of the tunnels, the victorious Japanese attackers carved characters in the wall. They translated as, 'Captured by the Wakabayashi Brigade'.

After such an educational afternoon, The Brother and I decided to do something festive, and went to the ice rink in the shopping centre below The Parents' apartment. It was slightly embarrassing to begin with as I hobbled along the perimeter, clutching the side for dear life, especially as there were several young children pirouetting around me. As much as I wanted to, I shunned the plastic penguins you could hire to hold onto, their purpose akin to a kickboard in a swimming pool. Nobody over the age of five was using them so I tried to be brave and skate unaided. I was just about getting the hang of it, skating on my own, away from the side, when a whistle was blown and everybody cleared the rink for an ice hockey game. Oh well, there's plenty more time for skating. I'm sure the Husband will want to show off his prowess on the rink when he arrives.

Game, Set, and Match

And so the family tennis has begun in earnest. The four of us played for over two hours yesterday on the courts of the KCC. I can't lie to you and say it didn't get ugly at times - The Brother hitting me with the ball, me accusing him of deliberately targeting me, the inevitable dubious line calls and the arguments that arise from that - but all the best tennis is intense! The Husband was very upset that we all played without him (and were therefore getting extra practice in) and has swiftly booked a lesson for this morning. He seems to think that after a lesson or two he will play like Davydenko, who we've recently been watching play a court away from us at our club in Pattaya. I haven't the heart to tell him that it will probably take a bit more than that.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Things are getting very festive around here. Thursday night saw us raising our voices at the KCC Christmas Carol night, mulled wine in hand. We sang 'till our voices were hoarse, then refuelled with thick slices of ham, an assortment of cheeses, and mince pies. Only one complaint, and I'm going to sound a right Scrooge now. I know that Christmas is supposed to be a time for children, blah, blah, blah, but there was a gaggle of about ten small kids who kept screeching into the microphone. They were loud. And high-pitched. My ears are still ringing. Parenting rule number 1: keep small children away from microphones and loudspeakers at all costs.

Yesterday was yet another marathon Christmas shopping spree but I have finally finished. Cause for great celebration indeed, so The Mother and I went to Harvey Nics for a glass of Champers. Heaven. Then it was time to race back to the flat to beautify ourselves before going out for a lovely meal in belated celebration of The Mother's birthday. The food was delicious but, in true Hong Kong style, the air conditioner was jacked up to the max, despite it being 12 degrees C outside. As we were leaving, we clocked a woman wearing a huge fur coat whilst eating her dinner! How the staff could have failed to notice that, I don't know.

Baby, It's Cold Out There

It is cold. It is very cold. Thailand, what have you done to me?? I am sitting here in thick socks, joggers, a big jumper and a fluffy dressing gown. It is 15 degrees C. In England this would be considered mild. Of course, 15 degrees C does feel colder in Hong Kong as buildings here aren't built for the cold, they're designed to keep their occupants cool in the heat and humidity that grips the city for most of the year. Last night I was esconced in two duvets as a portable heater blew warm air over me. Oh, and I slept in my socks, something I normally only ever do in the depths of winter in the UK. I'm actually getting slightly concerned about how I willl fair when we do return to England, especiually as it is likely to be winter. It will not be pretty. I imagine our heating bill will be through the roof!

For now, I am indebted to portable heaters, slipper socks and hot Shreddies. I find mulled wine normally helps too.

Hong Kong for the Holidays

Expat Wife is in Hong Kong. I am here for three weeks of Christmas fun with the family and the trip has got off to a good start... with just one slight hitch.

I landed a good 30 minutes ahead of schedule and therefore had my first glass of wine earlier than expected. A very good start indeed. A lovely dinner of The Father's mushroom and olive tagliatelle, followed by one of The Mother's homemade mince pies energised me for the main event of the evening - hanging the decorations on the recently delivered Christmas tree (from just down the road in a small place called the United States of America). It was the first time we have all dressed the tree together in, well, ever probably, so it was a lovely start to the festivities.

This morning was spent unpacking and doing a bit of food shopping, during which I bought a huge box of Shreddies, something I have not found in Pattaya! I have never been so happy to see that blue box! Hot Shreddies on a cold day... heaven! For it is indeed cold. Freezing in fact. I was never much good with the cold in England but after having spent a year in the Tropics, am now even worse at dealing with a bit of chilly weather. I wrapped up to go out and walked briskly to try and get the circulation going. It makes a change from purposely not walking too quickly in order to prevent excessive perspiration!

The Mother and I met The Brother for lunch at the KCC, the club they all belong to, and which I was once a member of too. A nice big bowl of wonton noodle soup both warmed the cockles and boosted my energy for an afternoon of that activity that rules all others in Hong Kong - shopping. If there was an Olympic event for shopping, Hong Kong would most certainly win. They're amazing, especially as many of them do it in heels. I didn't do too badly myself, managing about four hours. I can also feel pretty guilt-free about it as most of what I bought were Christmas presents!

So, all good so far. Until, that was, I decided to stop in at Starbucks on the way home. The barista obviously did not put the lid on my chai tea latte properly as, putting the cup to my lips I felt a splash of wetness down my front. Not so bad, so may think. Well, it wouldn't have been if I hadn't been wearing mum's tan coloured leather jacket. So far, she has kept surprisingly calm about it. We'll see how long that lasts if the stain doesn't come out. A trip to the dry cleaners will be made as soon as it opens tomorrow morning. My life is in their hands.

Up, Up and Away!

I went to the Pattaya International Balloon Fiesta yesterday with a few friends, but not The Husband as he had to work. It promised a hot air balloon display with balloons from all over the world, in all different shapes and sizes. We arrived just before 2pm and the car park attendant swiftly informed us that the balloons started at 4pm. Only in Thailand could you have an all-day balloon festival with no balloons until the late afternoon. Still, the weather was lovely and, with the sun on our backs, we wandered around the few stalls that were open. Lily, the two year old of the group, picked up a stick and had a great time playing with it in the dirt. We all bought some food and sat down to listen to the band rehearsing. We assume they were just a group from the nearby university but the lead singer obviously thought otherwise as he strutted around with an air of great self-importance!

After snacking on fried quails eggs, omelette and rice, crab and pork, strawberries, and banana and raisin pancakes, we headed over to the dirt bike racing track. To be honest, I was quite glad to leave with my life. The lack of any form of health and safety was quite astonishing, even for Thailand. The only thing separating the crowd of spectators from the track was a thigh-high flimsy net. Each time the bikes roared around, they came so close to us we were covered with a splattering of dirt kicked up by their wheels! I suppose the possibility that you might be mown down by a motorbike added to the excitement of it all!

When the balloons did finally go up it was quite a sight. Trucks carrying the balloons toured the ground, lighting up the burners and sending shots of flames up into the air to announce that the balloons were about to go up. It was fascinating to see them being heated up, metamorphosing from large pieces of flimsy fabric to huge balloons, capable of sending people in a little wicker basket high up into the air. Each time a balloon took flight, a cheer would erupt from the crowd and everyone would wave. Later came balloons in different shapes - a towering Coke bottle, a huge pink elephant, a farmhouse complete with farmer and animals, even one shaped as Darth Vader!

An aside: during the day, numerous people took little blonde haired, blue eyed Lily's picture, something I found quite odd but which happens everywhere she goes in this country! Ok, so she's very cute but it's not like we're in the depths of the Amazon - this is Pattaya, a holiday destination that attracts hoards of tourists; I'm sure they've seen blonde children before. And anyway, what do they do with the photos? Do they have a farang baby album which they add to each time they see a cute kid? There was one man who was there with his young daughter but ignored her and just followed Lily about with his camera!

After we'd tired of balloons, we filed back to the cars, only to be stuck in a huge traffic jam as cars tried to get both in and out of the venue. It took us a good half an hour just to get out. This wasn't helped by the Thai inability to queue. We were crawling past an exit to our left whereby a number of cars were attempting to join our lane. We let out two cars but the third pushed his way out, causing us to beep him out of the way. He very nearly caused an accident in his haste to get out and, in fact, did just that five minutes later when he went straight into the side of a car turning right across him. He obviously didn't want him to get in front of him so just kept moving forward! Luckily, we made it back in one piece where The Husband was preparing a roast chicken. I prepared some mashed potato and green beans and we had Christmas pud for afters. What a lovely end to the day!

Mopeds - The Real Terror of the Road

Cars are not the only troublesome vehicles on the road, indeed they are not even the most dangerous. Anyone that has spent any amount of time in Thailand will tell you, normally with trembling breath, that it's the mopeds you've got to be wary of. They appear out of nowhere, cut you up, dodge in and out of traffic through spaces that aren't really big enough to accommodate them, drive down the wrong side of the road, hardly ever indicate, and either pootle along while the driver has a nice little chat on his mobile phone or go so fast they end up screeching to a halt a hair's breadth away from you. Name a driving offence and there's no doubt most moped drivers have committed it. It's made all the worse by the fact that there are millions of them. Mopeds are a far cheaper mode of transport than cars, and, in the heavily congested cities, a far more sensible form too. This is especially so when they can drive up on the pavement to escape a particularly nasty traffic jam, which I have witnessed on numerous occasions.

Mopeds and motorbikes definitely rule the roads in Thailand. Queuing up at traffic lights illustrates this better than anything. Two-wheeled modes of transport do not queue up like the cars, vans and lorries. Oh no, as they can fit through the gaps they see it as their right to be able to squeeze themselves up to the front of the queue. There they gather, more joining the group by the second, until everywhere you look there are mopeds and motorbikes. As soon as the light turns green (and often just before!) they rev their engines and speed off, leaving the cars to tail behind them. There is no point in trying to move off before they have all gone as you'll only end up knocking one over and, as a farang, that means trouble. In fact, even if you're involved in an accident and the Thai driver is at fault, you'll still be in trouble. The feeling is that you're a foreigner in their country and if you weren't in the country the accident wouldn't have happened. There's a weird sort of logic in there somewhere. Be warned!

Dodgems on the Road

Our driver drove the wrong way around a roundabout last night. I wish I could say that was an anomaly but, sadly, it was not. Our driver, like most people in Thailand, just does not know how to drive. For the first few months, he drove like a rally car driver, accelerating furiously, then braking suddenly, dodging in and out of lanes. Anyone with any kind of heart problem would have been well advised to avoid getting in the car with him. Then, either a lot of people complained about their drivers or senior management realised that if they didn't step in they'd lose half their work force to RTAs, as the company decided to send all the drivers on a road safety course. Our driver came back a changed man. Unfortunately, he now operates at the other extreme; driving painfully slowly. It's quite embarrassing when you're overtaken by an old man on one of those motorised mobility buggies, especially when he beeps you out of the way first. Occasionally his slow driving can actually be quite dangerous, such as when he wants to turn right across a lane of traffic coming towards us. He waits until he judges the gap to be big enough - which, if he manoeuvred properly, it would be - and then pulls out so slowly that, 9 times out of 10, the vehicle approaching us has to brake and wait for him to cross. I don't know which emotion is stronger - my fear of getting rammed into by the oncoming vehicle (because of course, these manoeuvres put me in far more danger than the driver sitting on the other side of the car) or my acute embarrassment at our car almost causing an accident through sheer stupidity!

The problem is that people just aren't taught properly here. The driving test is a joke, and that's if you even take it at all. Usually, a few hundred baht in the back pocket of the relevant person will do it. I expect our driver went the wrong way around the roundabout because he didn't even realise what it was, or perhaps thought that it was just a suggestion to drive clockwise. After all, our turning was all the way round to the right, it was far quicker just to pull in without going all the way round! At least he indicated I suppose, most drivers here don't.

Tennis, Clams, Sunbathing and... Home Alone?

Another public holiday yesterday. Bliss. Tea and toast for breakfast followed by 2 hours of tennis in the Thai sun. Hardcore, I know. The Husband kept complaining that the heat was exhausting him and tried to take long breaks at each change of ends. There were definitely some time violations there. During one game he had to keep stopping to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Lovely. I of course was jumping around the court, bursting with energy, and only managed 2 injuries!

After a quick shower, we walked down to Bali Hai, a tiny little eatery right by the sea where you can sit watching the fishermen casting their lines and nets as the waves crash onto the rocks. I took The Parents there when they were over and we were all fascinated by the men and women who stood on the perilously slippy rocks trying to catch something nice for their dinner. The Mother was very concerned about one fisherman in particular who swam right into the sea to check his net and kept going under. He was grabbing fish caught in the net and clearly knew what he was doing but every time the waves crashed over his head The Mother thought he was a gonner. Each time he resurfaced, relief washed over her face and she had to take a small sip of her beer. It was all a bit much for her! He wasn't there this time - hopefully just because he was fishing elsewhere! - so The Husband and I concentrated on the menu. We ordered beautifully fresh baby clams with chili paste and fried rice with crab, and washed it all down with a couple of Beer Laos', which were surprisingly good and could just be my new favourite Asian beer.

The afternoon was spent basking in the sun by the pool, so the whole day - tennis in the heat, Thai food, and sunbathing - was in marked contrast to the evening's entertainment. We spent a wonderfully festive evening watching Home Alone by the twinkly lights of our friends' beautiful Christmas tree. Christmas in the tropics can be very surreal!

The UK High Street Storms Thailand

I went to Tesco yesterday - yes, bizarrely there are Tescos in Thailand. It's true, Tesco really is taking over the world, though the Tescos here are nothing like the ones in the UK. I don't recall our local Tesco in Reading having a pick 'n mix meat section, nor a whole aisle dedicated to fish sauce. It is rather strange seeing the Tesco logo on a pot of shrimp paste. Plus, there are definitely more Thai people.

Along with the weekly food shop I needed some more moisturiser. I scoured the skincare section but, despite it displaying well-known brands such as L'Oreal, Olay and Garnier, there wasn't one product that didn't contain whitening ingredients. Now, I go to the pool at least once a week to maintain my tan, I work very hard on it, the last thing I want to do is slather on cream that makes me paler. It's that global irony - those who live in hot, permanently sunny countries want pale skin and those living in gloomy, grey, cold countries want a year-round tan. You won't find St. Tropez in Boots here! Yes, there is also a Boots. Lots of Boots' in fact - it seems they're not just on every high street in the UK, but in every shopping centre and on ever street corner in Thailand too! Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Next, they're all here. There's even a Dorothy Perkins in Central, the smartest shopping centre in Pattaya. Apparently Dotty P's is posh here! Perhaps poor old Woolies should start up afresh over here, the trusty high street shop would probably be considered terribly chic.

Christmas Card Marathon

Finished writing all the Christmas cards at last! Hallelujah! The process started towards the end of November when I began writing the Christmas letter to put in the family cards - a summary of the past year for family we haven't seen in all that time. It's hard to condense everything you've done in 12 months onto a side of A4, especially when you've moved half way across the world in that time! Once the letter was typed out, checked over, revised, checked over again, and finally printed out, I then had to add a personal message to each one in pen. All that before I'd even written the cards and addressed the envelopes!! I finally finished them all yesterday but then came the most exhausting bit - posting them.

This should really be the easy part of the process but not if you have to go to Pattaya's shoebox of a post office. I walked in to complete pandemonium. There were boxes and packages absolutely everywhere, meaning that the already small floor area was hugely diminished. The queues led right to the back wall and then snaked awkwardly around the boxes on the floor. It didn't help that there were only two counters open. To be fair though, when I eventually did get to the front of the queue, I was dealt with most efficiently and wasn't asked twenty questions like I always am back in the UK. Despite this, I was certianly glad to be out of the door, even if it did lead straight out to a soi lined with girly bars! Only in Pattaya would the public post office be slap bang in the middle of a narrow street choked with bars containing girls wearing as little as possible!

Mulled Wine, Anyone?

Woke with a slight headache yesterday morning. Ok, it was more like someone had climbed into my skull and was attacking it with a sledgehammer. We had a Christmas party round ours on Saturday night and I got very much into the festive spirit - and several other spirits too. I had of course made a large batch of mulled wine, which was drunk with gusto. Then came out the bubbly - a very rare treat in Thailand -, followed by some red wine and finally several glasses of rather nice port. Well, it's Christmas, it's compulsory.

With the intention of cooking a lot of the food for the party ourselves, we spent much of Saturday morning and early afternoon trawling around several different supermarkets, searching for ingredients. The Husband was thrilled to be spending his day off touring the supermarkets of Pattaya, but I coaxed him into it by reminding him that he would have the Monday to relax as it was a public holiday for the King's birthday. After the morning's marathon shopping expedition, an afternoon of furious baking, cooking and preparing ensued. Mince pies, a chicken and pumpkin pie, feta, coriander and lime filo parcels, pigs in blankets (or dogs willies as a good, but possibly rather disturbed, friend likes to call them!), smoked salmon on triangles of bread, and lots of nibbles. It was quite a spread and we were both slightly exhausted before our friends even arrived, but a mug or two of mulled wine helped to pep us up and we were singing along to the Christmas music in no time! I even managed a full rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas, complete with accompanying dance moves. Yup, the mulled wine was definitely pretty lethal!

It was a great night but I was feeling a touch delicate the next day! As a result, we spent most of it lying in the sun by the pool, with just an hour of tennis at the end of the day - even that was quite painful! I certainly didn't play my best, which was slightly embarrassing as we've currently got some Russian tennis pros training at the club. They're rather good, as you can imagine, though they have the most awful tempers. We were playing a court away from a couple of them and one threw his racket at the back fence, swearing loudly in Russian, when he put a ball in the net. I guess they have to keep their aggression in check so much when they’re playing the circuit that they like to let all out when training. Which is lovely for us. The Husband has now decided that he’s determined to be able to hit the ball as hard as them (without it sailing over the fence and into the bushes!) and wants some lessons. I think it’s a bit late in the day for him to try to reach pro standard but it’s good that he has ambition I suppose!

A Little Bit of Switzerland in Thailand

We had our first Swiss meal in Thailand last night. In fact, it was my first Swiss meal ever I believe. I didn't really know what to expect - what is Swiss food anyway? The Swiss are hardly known for their cuisine, other than, of course, the biggest food phenomenon to hit the 80s - fondue. And yes, fondue can still be found in modern Swiss menus. Our friend Michelle (of the Christmas tree - see festive post) picked the meat fondue, which is basically like the Swiss version of an Asian hot pot. You stick your strips of meat in a big vat of soupy liquid until it's cooked, then dip it in a variety of sauces. It was actually quite yummy, though I've always tended to spurn those kind of dishes - like Korean BBQ and Japanese and Chinese hot pots - for being a little too much like hard work. After all, I go to a restaurant so I don't have to cook!

We were warmly welcomed at the entrance by the owner, who happens to work with The Father-In-Law, alongside running a Swiss restaurant. He is, funnily enough, Swiss, and took us through all the dishes on the menu, recommending a few for a group of 8 to try. I now know that Swiss food basically consists of meat and potatoes, but they were all very good meat and potatoes! At the end of the meal Robert, the owner, produced a round of pear Schnapps on the house, which was surprisingly nice. After that, plus the two or three glasses of wine I'd had with the meal, the urge to sing The Lonely Goatherd was irresistible. It was definitely time to leave.

A Gorilla, a Golf Club, and a Handshake

A couple of weeks ago, when The Parents were still here, we decided to play a round of crazy golf at Adventure Golf, a course roughly a twenty minute drive from our apartment. We had been shopping at a factory outlet complex and so needed to charter a baht bus down the busy Sukhumvit Road. Cue total confusion and miscommunication. We were approached by a driver and I told him that we wanted to go to Adventure Golf, upon which we received an puzzled look. "enter golf?" he asked. "No, Ad-ven-ture Golf" I replied. Another confused expression. I tried another tactic, miming swinging a golf club. "Ah, you want go to golf club!" he exclaimed, somewhat triumphantly, before eyeing us more closely, obviously taking in our very un-golf club attire. "No, no, not proper golf, crazy golf," I said, my hopes of ever reaching Adventure Golf sinking fast. At this point he took out a walkie-talkie from a clip on his belt loop and spoke very quickly in Thai. Another man walked up as he did so, and asked us where wanted to go. We repeated what we had told the other driver and he gave us the same quizzical look. "You want watch golf?" he asked, hesitantly. Oh dear, this was not going well. In a desperate last-ditch attempt I mimed a gorilla. This may seem like a strange thing to do in the circumstances, but there was both a picture of a gorilla on the road-side sign at the front of Adventure Golf, and a large replica on the course itself. I thought that one of them might have seen it at some point as they drove past. Apparently not. Cue embarrassed laughter and even stranger looks directed largely at me.

Another man then turned up to try and work out where these crazy farangs wanted to go, until eventually I said the magic words - mini golf. Immediately, the banter between the three men and the man on the other end of the walkie-talkie stopped. "Ah, mini golf," they said in unison. Why I hadn't thought to use that term before, I don't know, but after uttering those magical words we were soon our our way. We were slightly concerned when the driver pulled up outside the entrance and went in, leaving us locked in the back, unable to get out, but he did eventually come back and let us out!

After a highly entertaining round of crazy, sorry, mini golf, we needed to catch a bus back, a somewhat difficult task on the busiest road in Pattaya, where most of the traffic is merely passing through on their way to somewhere else. We eventually managed to stop a bus and he even seemed to understand where I wanted to go. Result! He was a little bit shifty looking so when he invited me to sit beside him in the cab at the front of the bus I politely declined and swiftly jumped in the back with The Parents. That's when I saw that there was a woman on the bus. If she wasn't going in the direction of our apartment before, she certainly was now. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before she rang the bell and hopped off, giving the driver a scowl as she headed off. I guess our 150 baht charter fare trumped her 1o baht fare.

We had gone about five minutes down the road, when the bus slowed to a halt at the side of the road. I should have known it was too good to be true to believe he might have actually understood where I wanted to go. I leaned out, expecting him to ask me to repeat my desired destination but he said something in Thai which I didn't understand. It soon became crystal clear what it, however, as he walked up to the bushes, a mere few feet from us, parted his legs and unzipped his fly. I either looked straight ahead of me and had a perfect view of him relieving himself, or I looked behind me and copped a lungful of fumes from the lorries speeding past us on the road. So I looked down. Unfortunately, it was the longest wee in the history of mankind and an uncomfortable couple of minutes elapsed before he jumped back into the cab, grinning inanely to himself. Well, I suppose if you've got to go...

Miraculously, we got back to the apartment without further incident. Until, that is, I paid him, when he thrust his hand out towards me. Not wanting to be disrespectful, I shook it. It wasn't until I was walking into the apartment that I realised just what that hand had been doing a mere ten minutes earlier. I have never been so glad of antibacterial hand wash in all my life.

Food and Feather Dusters on the Go

Food is not the only thing that mobile vendors sell. Oh no, those ingenious carts have far more uses than that. My favourites are the feather duster vendors. Yes, these vendors just sell feather dusters and brooms and are normally so packed with merchandise that it’s hard to spot the vendor himself. Often, you can just see a little head poking out through feathers and bristles! A slight hazard on the road perhaps, but a very amusing sight! There is also a man who rides around with pictures and newspaper clippings of and about the king plastered all over his cart. He doesn’t seem to have anything to sell, he just rides up and down the streets near our flat tinkling his bell and waving at people.

In a round-up of mobile vendors, it would be amiss of me to forget the fruit and veg sellers. These vendors use a pick-up truck rather than a bike and cart and squash an entire market into the back of their vehicles! Every sort of fruit and vegetable you can think of is displayed in their trucks, and scales and plastic bags hang from the roof. Fancy a bunch of bananas or need some small Thai aubergines to add to your green curry? Just flag down a market pick-up truck and they’ll weigh them out and pop them in a bag for you before driving off again. It couldn’t be easier!

I can’t say I have ever bought anything from any of these vendors, though I suppose I should before we leave. The satays and sausages always smell so good but it does worry me that they have been out in the sun for who knows how long, so perhaps I’ll go for something safe like fruit. Or a feather duster.

How to Feel Festive in 30 Degree Heat

Yesterday heralded the first day of the festive season and I was determined not to let the fact that it does not feel Christmassy here at all to detract from that. I opened day one on my advent calendar and got stupidly excited about the candle the window revealed, and propped up our first Christmas card. In the afternoon I made mince pies, while listening to Christmas music on a strange online Christmas radio station that seems to only play Christmas music all year round. The smell of mincemeat gave me my first Christmas buzz, the smell of them baking my second! Our friend Michelle very kindly donated her Christmas tree to us as she has moved to a much smaller apartment since last Christmas and doesn’t have any spare sockets for it this year, so the tree went up, plus decorations and lights whilst some mulled wine heated on the hob - Christmas smell number three; check.

In order to be able to enjoy drinking mulled wine, I jacked the air-con up until the living room was at a nice, cool temperature. Not exactly very green I know, but we’re so good during the rest of the year and I think the occasion warranted it. I roasted pumpkin, potatoes, bacon, sausages and sage for a quasi-Christmassy meal, followed of course by the mince pies made earlier in the day. We then slumped on the sofa and watched a Christmas movie with hot chocolates. Who says you can’t feel Christmassy in 30 degree heat in Thailand?!

Fast Food

I was walking towards the gym yesterday when I was beeped out of the way by a mobile vendor, in this case a moped with attached cart from which which hung dried squid and cuttlefish. These moped and cart sellers are common in Thailand and offer a wide variety of wares. Those that sell food either ride to a favourite location, where they settle for the day, or they ride around the streets, ringing their bell to alert people to come out from their houses or places of work and buy a snack. It's a complete mystery how most Thais are so slim as they do not stop eating. They snack throughout the day and still seem to be constantly hungry. These mobile carts therefore do a roaring trade, throughout the day, and sell a huge variety of foods.

Some carts sell an array of tropical fruit, displayed in a glass container and packed in ice to keep it fresh. You simply choose what you want and the vendor will whip out a chopping board and frighteningly large knife and chop it up into bite-size pieces for you. It's then popped into a plastic bag (which has a million different uses in Thailand - more on that in another blog), with a skewer to eat it with, and handed to you along with a smaller plastic bag which contains sugar and chilli - apparently fruit eaten on its own just doesn't cut it here. For Thais, everything needs a little extra spice! I may be strange but I personally prefer my fruit non-spicy and I think pineapple is sweet enough as it is, so I always forego the dipping mix.

Ice cream, Thai-style, can also be bought from some of these carts. Often made from coconut milk rather than cream, and with flavours and toppings such as corn, red beans, and bright green noodles flavoured with pandan leaves, they're not the sort of ice creams you'd find in your local ice cream van. Although cones and cups are often available, the most popular way of eating ice cream is in a bun. Yes, a bread bun. The ice cream is scooped into the bun, heaped with your choice of topping and then eaten like a hot dog. I have not tried this - funnily enough I have never had a craving for an ice cream bun - but I always imagine that the bun must get awfully soggy and would have to been eaten fairly quickly to prevent the whole thing from falling apart.

Many carts have an inegrated charcoal grill or hot plate, upon which they cook up food once they've settled themselves somewhere. Grilled pork, chicken kebabs, salted and grilled corn on the cob, meatballs on skewers, Thai sausage (which is very similar to Spanish chorizo), and spicy pappaya salad can all be found cooking on parked carts, sending delicious aromas wafting into the air to tempt passers-by.

Some carts are more like mobile restaurants, like the one that overtook The Parents and I as we were walking up to the Royal Cliff Sports & Fitness Club a couple of weeks ago. When I say it overtook us, I mean it just about crawled past us. It was so heavily laden it managed to only just keep moving up the small hill, its moped sputtering away as it strained to reach the top. It probably wasn't helped by the driver and his wife who, proving the exception to the rule, were rather on the heavy side. As well as the couple's considerable frames, the cart was weighed down with whole chickens hanging from the roof, plastic bags full of condiments and sticky rice, a variety of vegetables displayed in a glass case, a hot plate and wok, a large chopping board on top of which can only be described as a machete precariously sliding about, bowls and plates stacked up against each other holding a selection of cutlery, a large ice bucket, various cans of drink, and a few plastic chairs. I really don't know how the poor moped managed it.

Tennis in Pattaya and a Tornado in Reading

Sunday morning saw me wrenching myself from the wonderful world of sleep, donning a tennis skirt, and hitting the courts with The Husband. All seven courts at the Royal Cliff Sports & Fitness club, of which we're members, were booked on Saturday at the time we wanted to play so, to stop his sulking, I agreed to play for two hours on Sunday morning. Two hours isn't that long, I hear you all scoff. Perhaps not in colder climes, but in 30 degree centigrade heat and under a blazing sun in a cloudless blue sky, it is rather draining (especially with a slight headache from the previous night's activities!). At one stage, towards the end, my head was radiating so much heat that I thought it might be about to explode, but we ended our three sets with our bodies (just about) in one piece. I have to admit, it was fun (especially as I won all three sets!), and it was a great feeling to think that we still had most of the day to play with - our free time is even more precious than ever here as The Husband works six day weeks. We spent the rest of the day lazing by the pool at the club, just reading, swimming, chatting, listening to our iPods. Bliss. The weekly Skype with The Parents took place at 5.30pm, then I enjoyed a delicious roast cooked by The Husband. All in all, a pretty perfect Sunday.

This morning, I was eating my breakfast whilst reading my emails when I came across a link to an article on the BBC News website sent to me by The Mother. It appears that Caversham, the ... in which our ‘proper’ home is, was hit by a mini-tornado on Sunday, causing some damage to a primary school and a few houses. My interest piqued, and starting to feel a little worried now, I researched further. It appears that this freak tornado was only a couple of streets away from our house. From the little I know about tornados, they only cause damage to buildings in their direct path so hopefully our little house is still intact, but I’m sending an email to the letting agents just in case!

The Case of the Back-to-front Cardigan (And Other Stories from Last Night)

Last night The Husband and I went to the cinema. I love the cinema, especially here, and not just because the tickets are a tenth of the price they are in the UK, with double the leg room and reclining seats. For a couple of hours I get to wear clothes normally out of the question in a city which is perpetually warm. Thanks to the arctic conditions in the cinemas here (it seems to be common in South East Asia to jack up the air-conditioning in cinemas to frostbite levels), it is necessary to pull out the winter clothes getting moth-eaten at the back of the wardrobe. I pity the unsuspecting tourist who enters wearing just shorts and t-shirt. The upshot is, I got to wear jeans, a short sleeved t-shirt and a beautifully soft cardigan given to me on my birthday and previously worn just once (in the cinema, of course). The irony! Back in England I long for the days (which normally can be counted on my fingers) I can wear skirts and strappy tops and leave the house without it being necessary to take a coat, let alone a cardigan. I live in jeans there and they can become very boring, worn day after day. Here, jeans are a treat!

Speaking of cardigans, I seem to have discovered a phenomena unique to Thailand. In the course of one evening, I clocked two women wearing their cardigans back-to-front, with the buttons at the back. In both cases, the buttons were not done up, leaving their cardigans to flap at their backs like wings. I was obviously doing it all wrong and was probably deeply unfashionable, walking around with my buttons at the front of my cardigan. How embarrassing.

Before going to the cinema, we ate at a Japanese restaurant where I tried my first hot sake. I think it is safe to say that it will also be my last. I have had cold sake before, and quite enjoyed it, but somehow the heat brings out the strength of the alcohol and it was like drinking a neat spirit. It was more like an endurance test than an enjoyable drink with dinner and I found myself recoiling with each sip. It was strong. Very strong. And felt like I was sipping at a shot from the tiny thimble-like cup. I think I'll have an Asahai next time.

Day 4 on Samet: Do, a Deer

Other than the crystal clear waters, fish swarming around me as I swim over multi-coloured coral, and velvety soft sand cushioning my feet, it may surprise you to know that my overwhelming memory of Le Vimarn will be The Sound of Music. Yes, the classic musical film set in Austria featuring the Von Trapp family and Maria, the sweet and innocent young postulant. Why? Well, from morning to night the main restaurant in the hotel, where breakfast was served and which was situated next to the pool and a few steps from the beach, played the same music over and over again. Their only CD consisted of a lot of old jazz numbers, plus 'Do-Re-Mi'. Of course, a song taken from a film made in the 60s and set in Austria at the brink of WWII is an obvious choice to play in a five star resort in Thailand. It was rather surreal to be lying by the pool, looking out at palm trees and the tropical waters of the Gulf of Thailand, and hearing the inimitable voice of Julie Andrews singing 'Do, a deer, a female deer, ray a drop of golden sun, me a name I call myself, fa, a long, long way to run...' We did have a good sing-along to begin with, but upon hearing it for the tenth time (not counting the number of times it ran through our heads), it did start to become slightly irritating.

Snorkelling on the final day was better than ever, and I emerged as the Pied Piper of the sea. After encountering a huge shoal of black and white striped fish, I noticed that they were following me as I swam away. Each time I swam past fish, they joined the growing group of marine life keeping a close tail behind me. Eventually, I even noticed that fish were swimming towards me, only to join the crowd. As I took one last look behind me before swimming towards the shore, it seemed that every fish in the area had joined the party. It was incredible; a seething mass of multi-coloured fish of varying shapes and sizes following me wherever I went. It must have been the bright yellow flippers.

Later on, showered, changed and packed, we checked out and headed to the beach-side bar for a last drink before taking the speed boat back to the mainland. There was a cool breeze and I felt very relaxed as I sat back against the cushions and sipped my nicely chilled Chardonnay. Then out of nowhere, came a whistling sound and I was hit on the back by an unidentified object that exploded upon impact. Immediately came the distinct stench of vomit. I screamed and jumped up (careful not to spill any of my wine though, of course). "What is it? What is it? Have I been pooed on?" The splattered remains of the torpedoed object did look suspiciously like some sort of animal dung. As The Mother tried furiously to remove the pungent splatterings from my back, one of the waiters, presumably alerted by my screams, came over and asked us if we were OK. Once he clocked the brown substances on the cushions, sofa, and me, he informed us that it was in fact an over-ripe fruit which had fallen from one of the towering trees around the bar. "It smell very bad," he added, somewhat needlessly, as the whole area now stank of sick. The Mother managed to remove the offending splatterings from my top and, smelling slightly less of vomit now, I gratefully glugged my wine down. It wasn't the best end to an otherwise fabulous holiday, but then again, I've never had a tree poo on me before.

Day 3 on Samet, Part 1: All Hail the Hose!

Another day, another buffet breakfast. As I walk away from the fruit station with my carefully portioned pieces, I pass a table laden down with plates of food. There are only two people sitting at this table but they seem to have gone round the buffet and loaded multiple plates with everything they want, all in one go. Did they think that there might be a sudden rush of guests, like a plague of locusts, swarming over the food and leaving only crumbs in their wake? Or perhaps they felt that it would be too much effort to get up between each course? I like to think that the little bit of exercise I get walking to and from the buffet table might offset some of the calories consumed with each plateful. Plus, I don't look so greedy by having it all spread out before me. Pacing myself means that no-one really knows how much I've gorged. I find it helps in fooling myself too.

During breakfast we were yet again entertained by Le Vimarn Staff (they really should think about going on tour, they'd be a sell-out!), this time by a group attempting to clean one of the paths, or at least one rather small section of path. This task apparently required ten people: four women on their hands and knees diligently scrubbing away at the cracks, five men standing around doing not very much and one man directing them. Well, when I say directing, I mean sitting on a chair and glancing over at them now and again. The women were working incredibly hard and doing a fabulous job, not even pausing for breath. God only knows what the men were doing. Four had long-handled brushes and were half-heartedly sloshing the water around on one paving stone, whilst the other poured water from what appeared to be a child's bucket. This clearly wasn't working. The size of the bucket meant that probably only a cupful of water was poured onto the path at a time and as soon as the four men descended on it with their brushes, the water was gone.

Then came another Eureka moment, not from one of the path cleaners but from the gardener, who had obviously been watching this spectacle from the grass. He walked up to the group carrying his hose and the men watched on in amazement as water gushed forth and soaked the path. From the looks on their faces, we half expected the men to drop down on their knees and bow to the gardener as a God. It was almost as if they had never seen a hose before in their lives. Of course, this momentous event meant that work ceased for several minutes as the men stood gawping in awe so I'm not entirely sure the hose actually helped in the end. The women paid absolutely no attention to the hose or the gardener and carried on with their work. I'm sure there's something to be learnt from that.

Day 2 on Samet, Part 2: Snorkelling, Sandflies and a Seriously Funny Spectacle

Bikini donned, belly sucked in, I reconvened with The Parents on the beach. We settled ourselves on some sunloungers on a raised wooden platform (to keep that pesky sand away presumably!)and ensured that book, ipod, water and suncream were easily reachable so that movement from said sunloungers could be kept to a minimum. Well, The Mother and I did so anyway. The Father can sit still for approximately five minutes before he gets bored and looks around for something to do. The Husband is the same; it must be a male thing. He was quite content to sit still for a while however, as we were unexpectedly entertained for the first 20 minutes or so by a performance group known to us as Le Vimarn Staff. They had obviously decided that 10am, when many people were already on the beach, was the best time to deliver the aforementioned wooden platforms to their allocated spots. Of course, they had to move the sunloungers that were in those spots out of the way before placing the platforms down and moving the sunloungers onto them which, as you can imagine on a full beach, caused mayhem.

The couple next to us came back from a swim to find their sunloungers in the bushes as five men (three watching and two actually doing the work, as is usual in Thailand)scuttled around, trying to work out the best way to get the platforms off the tractor used to transport them onto the beach. At least they were actually away when the men moved their beds and belongings out of the way. Guests further down weren't so lucky. They were asked to get up and move away when the platform construction team moved in. The whole fiasco wasn't helped by the fact that they spent about five minutes each time scratching their heads and trying to work out the best way to get the platforms off the tractor, which angle at which to put them down on the sand, and then how to get the sunloungers onto the platforms. Safe on our platform (there when we arrived), we thoroughly enjoyed the show.

The rest of the day was spent reading, sunbathing, swimming and snorkelling. Previously too terrified to do so, I cleared a hurdle by snorkelling on my own for the first time, something of which I am very proud. I was startled a few times by some thin pointy fish swimming near the surface that, from the corner of my eye, looked distinctly like sharks but, other than that I was perfectly fine and discovered I actually preferred going out on my own. For one, it feels like more of an adventure, like you're discovering a whole unchartered underwater world for the first time (yes, I knew that I had only swum a few minutes out from the resort beach and many guests would have done the same but it felt unchartered to me!). It also meant that I wasn't in danger of being kicked in the face by the flippers of the person I had gone out with as I followed them meekly round the coral. The snorkelling was good, very good as a site that you could swim to from the beach. The resort had the best of both worlds really. A large sandy-bottomed area of calm sea to swim in without worrying that you are about to step on a giant sea urchin, and a few metres out, a large area of coral teeming with fish.

The afternoon concluded with a prematurely halted game of beach tennis. The Father, after having sat down for at least ten minutes, had been pestering the Mother and I to play with him and I finally relented. Unfortunately, not two minutes into the game, my ankles started to itch. Then my arms. Then the tops of my thighs. Sandflies. As soon as the sun started to lower in the sky, the sandflies came out in their droves. Of course, they only seemed to attack me; The Parents were completely unaffected, which meant that The Father was even more disappointed when I announced that we had to stop and go in. He said that it reminded him of the time when, as a child, after spending hours trying, he at last convinced his parents and all of his four siblings to play French cricket. His youngest brother was then promptly sick and the game was over before it began. At least we managed a few hits before retiring to our rooms.

Day 2 on Samet, Part 1: Just a Little Bite to Begin the Day

I woke early after a fairly restless night - it felt strange to be in a big bed all on my own, without The Husband there. I imagine he, however, probably slept brilliantly, able to fully stretch himself out in the middle of the bed, as he is not allowed to do when I am there. I met The Parents on the beach for a pre-breakfast stroll and was greeted with glorious sunshine, blue skies and a light, cooling breeze. The tide was in so we ducked under the low branches of trees normally far from the water, stepped over kayaks tied together at the top of the beach, and dodged the murmuring sea, creeping up to our toes. The sand was soft and cool under our feet and only our rumbling tummies convinced us to take the few steps from the beach up to the restaurant where the buffet breakfast was laid out.

We sat at an al fresco table and were immediately served fresh cups of steaming coffee, which we drank whilst looking out at the sea. Well, that lasted for about 30 seconds before the lure of the tables groaning with food was too much to resist and I undertook the preliminary sweep, calculating in my head what I would have and when. These things have to be thought out very carefully to ensure that you have room for as much as possible and don't spoil your hunger on a big bowl of cereal. I have seen many a person fall at this first hurdle. Rookie mistake. I pick up a small bowl and place a few pieces of pineapple, papaya and cantaloupe melon in it, topping it off with a spoonful or two of bircher muesli. The fruit is fresh and bursting with flavour, and the muesli is packed full of coconut slivers. A perfect starter. Time for course 2.

On my initial reccy I noticed a sushi station with an assortment of different types on five platters. A tad unusual for breakfast maybe, but then again I have on various occasions had fried rice, noodles and dim sum at this time of the day before. I do live in Asia, after all. So I selected four different types, spooned a small amount of wasabi onto the side of the plate and took it back to the table. The Parents weren't convinced that sushi at 9am was a good idea and declined to try any. It was absolutely delicious though, and a perfect breakfast dish. After all, the English have kippers and smoked mackerel for breakfast so why not sushi? Other than a couple of dangerous wasabi moments, which left me with tears streaming down my face and my nose close to exploding, it was possibly the most enjoyable part of my breakfast. So, to course 3.

I thought I would continue with the fish theme and order scrambled eggs from the egg station, topped with some smoked salmon, served on a slice of toasted crusty bread. Perfection. I just had room after this for course 3, or what I like to call 'a little sweet something' (this makes it sound less naughty than 'pastries and cakes'!). Accompanied by a second cup of coffee, I indulged in a pineapple pastry and a pan au chocolat. By now I truly was full but it was worth it. The only problem now was that I had to get my bloated breakfast belly into a bikini!

Day 1 on Samet: Eureka!

The Parents and I spent a very relaxing four days on Koh Samet, an island not far from Pattaya, during the week they were visiting us. We had an easy journey down there, being dropped off at the pier by our driver, A (yes, his English name is just the letter A, though I suppose it is better than some of the names we have encountered - fancy being called Porn, Turd, or Bum?), and then ferried across to the island on the hotel's speed boat. The first views of the small bay in which Le Vimarn Cottages & Spa is nestled amongst lush forest, promised a chilled few days on a secluded, powdery white sand beach.

Upon disembarking from the boat we were led to a cool reception area and handed sweet iced lemongrass and pandan tea as we were swiftly checked in. All good so far. We had booked two different room types, one a deluxe cottage and one a spa villa, the latter of which was more expensive than the former. We had requested the two rooms be as close to each other as possible but realised that they probably wouldn't be right next to each other. We therefore thought it a little odd that the two rooms they led us to were 603 and 604. Inevitably, we soon found out that they were both deluxe cottage rooms. We had not been given the more expensive spa villa at all.

Upon questioning this, the receptionist told us brightly that she had thought the most important thing was that we were together. She had obviously thought long and hard about finding a solution to the vexing problem of giving us adjacent rooms when the rooms we had booked were in fact on separate sides of the resort. Perhaps it was ridiculous of us to think that somone might have emailed to inform us of this rather than take the decision to give us a different room to the one we had booked. Nevertheless, it was sweet of her to give it so much thought. The problem was that she obviously hadn't give much consideration to the fact that we had actually already paid for the more expensive spa villa. She thought she had come up with a brilliant solution though, and seemed bewildered when we weren't quite as pleased as she. This was to be the first of what I termed the 'Eureka moments' of which the staff at Le Vimarn had so many.

We went to the resort's beach-side Thai restaurant to wait for a spa villa room to be cleaned and we saw the funny side of it all after a few beers and some delicious food. When we were eventually given the keys (after being shown a room in an entirely different resort - another 'Eureka moment') the room proved to be lovely, with a large terrace facing the sea. With everything now as it should be, we were able to begin the arduous task of lying on the beach, swimming and snorkelling.

The Corpse in my Bed

The Parents have gone. I've said my goodbyes and waved them off in the Mercedes booked to take them the hour and a half trip to the airport. The Husband has not said goodbe to them. Indeed, right now he probably does not even realise they have left, as he is currently dying a slow and painful death in bed following a rather large night out with the boys last night. After crawling into bed at 5am he mananged to leave the now rather fetid smelling bedroom at 9.30am for a sausage and egg sandwich but, frankly, he was far too sprightly. When he started dancing round the kitchen, shaking a carton of mango juice like a maraca it became quite clear that he was still drunk. After wolfing down his man-size butty he sheepishly slunk back to the bedroom and, three hours later, still hasn't re-emerged. The Parents and I went out for a walk down to the beach earlier and, upon attempting to ask The Husband whether he wanted to come with us, received only grunts.

We had a lovely night last night, beginning with drinks at the flat. The Husband geared himself up for his big night out by polishing off two very strong rum, lime juice and sodas in quick succession, whilst still assuring us that he would be absolutely fine to play a couple of sets of tennis in the morning. A freak cold spell last night forced me into a cardigan for the first time since arriving in Thailand (other than when in the ridiculously over-air-conditioned cinemas). It was a chilly 20 degrees centigrade! How I'm going to cope when we return to the UK, I don't know. We dined at a restaurant by the sea called Sunset and feasted on fish cakes, chicken with pepper and garlic, stir-fried prawns and asparagus, kale in oyster sauce and deep-fried mixed seafood, washed down with ice cold Singha beers. The Husband then went on to meet the boys in a bar on notorious Walking Street. The Parents and I walked back in the cool night air, ending up in an Irish bar for Baileys, hot chocolate pudding, the rugby and a read of The Daily Mail. It's amazing what seems exotic when you live in the tropics!

It's all for charidee folks

It's the event of the Pattaya calendar, the night the creme de le creme of Pattaya society ditch the shorts and flip flops and don their finest. The annual Pattaya International Ladies Committee charity ball was held last night, complete with Champagne reception, five course dinner, a live band and free flowing wine, lubricating many a wallet during the live auction. All the proceeds go to worthy causes in and around the Pattaya area, as the American auctioneer reminded us again and again during his hour long performance - and a performance it was. Whoever this guy actually was, he took to the role of auctioneer with gusto, enjoying being the centre of attention so much that he only upped the bids by about £10 at a time. Luckily, someone had the sense to remove him from the floor just as most of the ball-goers were about to find a creative use for their cheese knifes.

As there was nothing in the live auction that we particularly wanted, we instead participated in the (most) silent auction (in the world). We didn't realise at the time that they were being literal when they called it a silent auction. When we enquired at the end of the evening how The Parents should pay for the antique Buddha head that they had successfully bid for, we were informed that their name had been read out and as no-one had come forward, the Buddha had gone to the next highest bidder - some £80 less than the £100 we had bid. No doubt that bidder was one of the 'Pattaya Ladies' from the afforementioned committee as, unless the names were whispered at the back of the ballroom, The Parents' names were certainly not called. It is a shame that the no doubt incredibly worthy charities couldn't benefit from the extra £80 that our bid would have provided but then, I suppose, they do say that charity begins at home.

Despite all this, and the fact that the wine was pretty terrible (whoever was responsible for selecting it should get a full tastebud check-up), we had a fantastic evening - the food was delicious, the Champers was a rare treat in a country that imports so much import duty that even wine is a luxury, and we rarely left the dance floor.

Tomorrow The Parents and I are off to Koh Samet, a nearby island, for a three day jolly, sadly without The Husband who has to work. Being a small island, gaining internet access may prove difficult, so please forgive me if I am amiss in my blogging regularity over the next few days.

Beach Safari

The Parents are here. One way in which I differ from a typical Expat Wife is that when we relocated to a distant and foreign country, I actually moved closer to my parents and my brother. They live in Hong Kong, previously a hellish twelve hour journey of cramped legs, screaming children and three day jet lag, and now a mere three hour flight and one hour time difference. We've seen more of them this year than we have in the previous five years put together.

Today we took a walk along Dong Tan beach, just down the bottom of the road from our apartment, an outing that proved to be more like a safari. A people safari. Creatures not often seen openly in society seem to climb out of their holes and flock to the beaches of Pattaya, creating fantastic people watching opportunities. Everywhere we looked, we saw middle aged men turned beetroot by the sun and the heat, sweat running down their wrinkled brows and forming pools in the folds of their stomachs bloated by alcohol. They were slumped in their deckchairs, beer in hand, gobbling down bowls of fried rice. We looked on with perverse fascination, unable to tear our eyes away from the circus acts before us.

Tonight we're off to one of those quintessential expat events, the annual charity ball. We shall don our finest attire, drink Champagne, eat fabulous food and dance into the night. Now though we are headed for the tennis courts, to fit in a set or two before we begin to beautify ourselves in the cool of the air-con. On days like this I can't believe how lucky we are.
   

Adapting to Life as an Expat Wife

I have to admit, my first few days in Pattaya were hard. Don’t get me wrong, we were put up in a very nice hotel and given a generous living allowance to provide for daily meals out – a necessity when we were in the hotel (my spendthrift nature ensured that I stuffed myself at the hotel’s huge buffet breakfast each morning so that I didn’t need to eat lunch. That saved, well, probably a couple of pounds a day. Unfortunately, it also meant that I gained quite a few pounds in weight during the two weeks we were there!) – but it took a while to get used to the city. Not just because it was new and I didn’t know my way around but because I had never been anywhere where the sex industry is thrust in your face quite so often or so openly. Go-go bars line most streets and even the seemingly innocuous beer bars are staffed by scantily dressed women who expect any man that enters to buy them drinks. Down the infamous Walking Street, to which we ventured one night, menus were shoved at us by skinny Thai men with shrewd faces – not menus for food or drink but sex shows. Judging by what was advertised on those laminated pieces of card, you’d be amazed (or perhaps shocked) at what some of these girls can do! Even walking down streets away from the bars, it is impossible to forget where you are as old men with ruddy complexions hold the hands of young, slim, pretty Thai women everywhere.

I barely notice all this now, and I gradually realised that it is easy to avoid that whole scene if you want to, but to the uninitiated it is quite a shock. It didn’t seem like a very female-friendly place at all. Back then, I wondered again and again how I was ever going to be able to feel at home here. This probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I was doing most of this exploring on my own, as The Husband was, of course, at work – our entire reason for being here. I worried that I was never going to get used to the sight of half-naked women dancing around poles in clear view of anyone walking past on the pavement, but I also worried about the things all expats must upon first arriving in a new and strange country. How was I ever going to know my way around all these streets? Would I be able to pick up any of the language? Would I be understood if I spoke English? Would I be able to find the foods that I was used to back home? Would I fit in here? I had that horrible feeling of being twelve again, having just moved to Hong Kong with my family, walking into my new school for the first time. I had left the top year at primary school to start in the third year at secondary school in Hong Kong – the school seemed huge to me, everyone was already in tight friendship groups and I fretted that I would forever be the outsider that didn’t know her way around. Of course, I made friends and learned to navigate my way around, but on that first day I was petrified. It was odd to realise that, however old you are, you can still feel like a child when encountering the new and unfamiliar.

Those first two weeks were spent trawling the streets of Pattaya, trying to get my bearings. I was convinced that it would be easier for me to start to remember where things were if I shunned the baht buses (sort of semi-covered pick-up trucks that operate a circular route of Pattaya) that tootled past me every few seconds and walked everywhere. That was a good idea in theory, anyway. What I came to realise pretty quickly however, was that no-one walked anywhere in Pattaya, and for good reason. 1: Pavements don’t really exist. They either end abruptly and for no reason after a few feet or they have been appropriated by street sellers and their carts, forcing you to walk in the road to avoid them. 2: You don’t really appreciate just how hot and humid it is until you start to put one foot in front of the other. Unless you’re Thai, in which case you will be able to wear jeans and jackets and still be perfectly comfortable, you will start to sweat after a mere few minutes. My reward after every exploration was therefore a swim in the hotel pool... and perhaps just a quick spot of sunbathing... ok, maybe I’ll just have a cool drink... and get to the end of the chapter of my book. And therein lies the biggest draw of living abroad in a tropical country. You may encounter language barriers, homesickness, and difficulty adapting to the different cultural and societal mores but you have the sun, the sea, and, for an expat wife, the time to enjoy it all.

Near-death by mini-van

You wouldn’t have thought that the man driving as if he was in a Formula 1 race was the same who had only minutes previously slouched in a chair at the airport and lumbered off to fetch the van as if he’d just run a marathon. At the beginning of the journey, feeling the effects of jet lag, I almost drifted off to sleep a couple of times but on each occasion was jolted into consciousness by the sharp movements of the car. I soon realised that attempting sleep would be futile on this journey. The driver’s earlier relaxed attitude had vanished the moment he had sat behind the wheel, to be replaced by his inner speed demon as he sped along the road at top speed, dodging in and out of lanes and cutting up a number of vehicles as he did so. As we were in fact in a 12-seater mini-van and not a specially designed F1 car, you can imagine what that must have felt like for a passenger. At one point he had to brake hard as the traffic suddenly slowed ahead and my stomach flipped as I thought I was going to go through the front seat. “Oh my God!” I exclaimed, eyes wide and hands clutching the seat in front. The driver merely laughed, obviously finding it very funny. Mai pen rai, mai pen rai, mai pen rai, I chanted under my breath.

The drive took a couple of hours along a monotonous stretch of highway, with only paddy fields and an occasional dilapidated building to gaze at, though I missed most of this as I diligently kept my eyes shut to avoid seeing every near-miss and to keep myself from feeling nauseous as the mini-van accelerated, braked and swerved. I was both relieved and amazed when we managed to reach Pattaya in one piece and, although I felt exhausted and slightly dazed from the theme park ride of a journey we had just made, a rush of adrenalin surged through me as we neared our home for the next year or so.

Late afternoon had turned into early evening and the light was fading fast as we passed row after row of shops and restaurants, as well as roadside food carts and night markets just beginning to open, all advertising their wares with the aid of blazing lights. Our driver dodged dozens of men on bicycles selling everything from feather dusters and brooms to toys from their side carts. I gawped at the sights flashing past my window - Pattaya was far bigger than I thought it would be. I’m embarrassed to admit that, despite knowing that it was a city, I had the naive idea that Pattaya would consist of unpaved dirt streets on which you had to dodge the elephants that would slowly lumber past, kicking up dust.

The mini-van had barely drawn to a halt outside the Amari Orchid hotel when my door was opened by a uniformed bellboy, who then took our bags and placed them on a trolley. As The Husband and I approached the doors of the hotel, we were greeted by a beautiful Thai woman wearing traditional dress. She lifted her hands to her face, placed her palms together in a prayer-like gesture, bowed her head slightly and said with a smile, “Sàwàt-dii khâ, hello and welcome,” before leading us over to a plush sofa in the lobby. Immediately, two ice cold drinks were placed on the table before us. Now this was more like the legendary Thai service I had heard so much about. Check-in was swift and done from the comfort of the sofas and, before we knew it, we were being taken up in a lift to our 15th floor room. From our balcony we could just make out the sweep of Pattaya Bay to the left and the bright lights of the city to our right. We were here, and I couldn’t wait to explore our new home the following morning.

Further Lessons in Mai Pen Rai

The heat and humidity hit me like a train. We had left snow in England, boarded a heavily air conditioned plane – why are aeroplanes always so ridiculously cold?? – and, stepping into Suvarnabhumi airport, we could have been forgiven for thinking that the plane had taken a wrong turn and ended up in Alaska. So we were not prepared for what lay outside the automatic sliding doors of the airport.

It was 5pm in what was supposed to be the cool season and yet the air was still incredibly warm and thick with moisture. Attired in jeans (which were destined to see the back of our wardrobe for the length of our stay in Thailand) and multiple layers on top, I quickly began to feel oppressively hot and sticky. Back in the UK, which was already beginning to feel like another life, I had needed the singlet, long-sleeved shirt, cardigan, jacket and pashmina; now I felt like I was swathed in some sort of heated wrap in which you stew in your own juices to aid weight loss. As that thought entered my mind I decided to leave myself wrapped up as if I were in a snowstorm, in the hope that I might actually lose a few pounds. That lasted approximately two minutes (although it felt like twenty), until I thought I might either pass out or find myself melting to the ground like an ice-cream. I furiously peeled off layer after layer, flinging items of clothing on top of our cases, until I was left in just my singlet and jeans. It was only when I felt a modicum more comfortable that I realised we had been out at the pick-up area for ten minutes. Where was our driver?

“Don’t worry, he’ll be here soon,” said The Husband, attempting to soothe me. In response I fear snapped at him, voicing my opinion that the driver hadn’t exactly proved himself to be very reliable so far. The combination of heat, jet lag, and the enormity of what we were doing had left me feeling rather emotional and my fuse had become very short. I definitely needed to work on the whole mai pen rai thing. The Husband’s promises of good food and a comfortable bed as soon as we reached Pattaya didn’t help either, as that was exactly why I was getting antsy in the first place – the longer we were kept waiting in this natural steam room, the longer it would be until I was fed and tucked up in bed.

When the mini-van eventually pulled up in front of us, the driver stepped out and, still smiling, nonchalantly strolled over to help The Husband load the luggage into the boot. Mai pen rai, mai pen rai, mai pen rai, I chanted under my breath, hoping that the incantations would somehow flood into my body by osmosis and allow me to react to frustrating situations in the same way the Thais do. Hot-footing it into the cool of the van, I was finally able to relax as the air conditioner blasted blissfully over my body. The Husband and the driver climbed in and the engine roared into life. We were on our way to our home for the next year.

Thailand Beckons...

“...so the long and short of it is, we’re moving to Thailand. In 1 month.” Those were The Husband’s words to me on one of those miserably cold, damp, grey days that November can often bring in the UK. The engineering company he works for had assigned him to a project in Laem Chabang, a couple of hours south of Bangkok on the Eastern Seaboard, and they wanted him there ASAP.

Let me paint the scene for you: sales pitch over, list of all plus points of moving to a foreign country where we know nobody complete, he looks up at me, nervously awaiting my reply. “So, let me get this straight,” I begin solemnly, staring him straight in the eye, “you’re trying to tell me that this January, rather than being stuck in post-Christmas blues, recession-mired, freezing cold England, we will be in the hot, sunny climes of the Land of Smiles?” At this, my mock serious expression softens and I break into a huge grin, barely able to contain my excitement. In turn, his anxious face quickly morphs into a look of pure joy as he realises that I am actually happy about this monumental life change. Happy? I am more than happy! I am over the moon! I can’t wait! I want to pack up my bags and jump on a plane to BKK this very instant.

You see, having grown up in Hong Kong I have always wanted to live in Asia again and, from numerous holidays in Thailand I know what a fantastic country it is. Admittedly, the timing wasn’t perfect. We had bought a house only two months previously and I had just been promoted at work. Still, this was the opportunity of a lifetime and there was no way I was going to pass it up! So, one hectic month of packing our lives into boxes, arranging for our house to be let, wrapping things up at work, and saying goodbye to loved ones later, and we were watching Bangkok unfold outside the tiny cabin window of the plane.

We sailed through Immigration, partly because, as we had both forgotten to fill in our landing cards on the plane we had to stand outside the toilets in the terminal scribbling away, so by the time we got there everyone had already gone through. Genius really! A brief moment of panic ensued when our bags were nowhere to be seen on the practically empty carousel. I quickly spotted them though – they were so heavy they had been thrown in the naughty pile with the other ridiculously large items of luggage.

With a carry-on bag over each arm and hauling my oversized case behind me, we staggered through to the arrivals hall, looking out expectantly for the driver who had been sent to pick us up and take us to our hotel in the seaside resort of Pattaya. He was nowhere to be seen so we waited. And we waited. And we waited. The Husband went to look for him outside, quickly scurrying back in to the safety of the air con after being hit by a wall of heat. Eventually we went over to the information desk to ask them to put out an announcement on the loudspeaker for us and there we found our driver, sitting next to the pretty girl behind the counter, chatting away. “Ah, Mister Matthew,” he exclaimed after we told him who we were, “I been here long time. You no see me?” Considering he was sitting behind a raucous congregation of taxi touts, with the sign bearing our name on his lap, I’m not entirely sure how he expected us to see him. Having only just landed, we were already having to learn to master mai pen rai, the Thai attitude of not worrying about anything, a skill we continue to attempt to hone every day!

So that’s how we ended up here, in this land of crazy taxi drivers, even crazier motorbike riders, stray animals of every species, food that will blow your head off, strange and intoxicating smells assailing the nostrils, and massage parlours around every corner. And, for the most part, I love it!