The Road to Samet

Thailand celebrated a public holiday yesterday so The Husband and I decided to make the most of the extra day of freedom and spent the weekend in Koh Samet for three days of total relaxation. The Husband went to a leaving do the night before and managed to get horrendously drunk, falling (literally) into bed at around 4am (although the time is a complete guess as he himself admits that he can't really remember getting into bed at all). That gave him approximately four hours to sleep off his inebriation before I dragged him out of bed to shower, pack and get something in his stomach. For reasons unknown to anyone but himself, he decided that cornflakes would be a good idea for breakfast. I have always thought that milk and hangover do not a happy partnership make, and unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before I heard something that sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball emanating from the bathroom. It was about then that I started to feel very smug for feeling fantastic, having decided not to go out with him, knowing that a my-head-hurts-so-much-I-want-to-die hangover was inevitable.

I eventually managed to get him into the car and we were on our way out of an already busy Pattaya and onto the highway shortly after 9am, speeding south down towards the coastal town of Ban Phe where we were due to board a speedboat to the island. Highways in Thailand aren't like motorways in England. Black Box Recorder sang, "the English motorway system is beautiful and strange", though I would suggest that the line is actually more applicable to Thai highways. Nothing ever really happens on English motorways, other than the occasional mooner in a car carrying several university students in the neighbouring lane. For the most part, journeys on English motorways are monotonous, the very point of them being to allow a continuous flow of fast traffic to enable longer-distance journeys to pass more quickly. In Thailand, the majority of highways have junctions, which is slightly annoying but allows men and women to run in between the lanes, waving lottery tickets, newspapers and garlands of jasmine and orchids tied with ribbon to hang in your car for luck. They can still be seen weaving in and out of lanes as the traffic zooms off down the road. Their life insurance premiums must be through the roof!

The Thais also don't see the point of keeping food and drink vendors to appointed service areas - the side of the highway provides an excellent opportunity for trade with all those weary people pootling along in their cars and they make the most of that. We could have bought spit-roasted chicken, a variety of fruit and bottles of fruit juice if we had pulled up on the hard shoulder, although I'm not sure I fancied chicken marinated in diesel fumes. At one point we passed a group of monks, donned in their saffron coloured robes, walking along the side of the road. I don't think they were trying to hitch a ride, but I did wonder if we should pull over and ask if they needed a lift. Figuring they were probably on some sort of journey to enlightenment, we kept going, probably covering them in dust as we did so.

Rest stops here are far more, well, restful, than those in England. We passed a beautifully designed sala on stilts overlooking the paddy fields and mountains in the distance. Far more agreeable than sitting in a crowded Burger King with a child screaming for more chips beside you. I almost wanted to stop the car myself, even though we had only been travelling for about half an hour.

We arrived at the pier with plenty of time to spare and sat outside in the shade of an umbrella, waiting to be taken to the boat...

Hot in the City

It is hot. Very hot. In fact, it is so hot I may just have to use a capital H. It is Hot. I am sitting at my laptop, the fan going like the clappers above my head, trying its best to cool me down, but it is not working. I feel clammy and even the cool air the fan is sending my way isn't deterring the moisture from rising to the surface of my skin and settling in an oily slick. It is 9am. This does not bode well for the rest of the day.

Yesterday morning I knew that the thirty minute walk to the club wasn't going to be fun when I could feel a trickle of sweat working its way down my spine before I had even left the flat. I was proved right as soon as I stepped out from the shade of the building and out into the glaring heat of the sun in a cloudless sky. Before I had even reached the end of our street the one droplet of sweat I had felt in the flat had multiplied and by the time I was on the main road even my legs were damp. Walking past the meteorological centre, I noted the temperature on the digital display. It read 33 degrees centigrade and a whopping 90% humidity. Of course, despite the reasonably high temperature, it was the latter that was causing the unsightly and extremely uncomfortable perspiration. A high humidity level makes 33 degrees centigrade feel like 50. I couldn't have arrived at the club soon enough and, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the changing rooms, I had to do a double take. I looked like I had just jumped in the pool, which was ironic as that was exactly what I craved at that moment. I was dripping. It was not pleasant.

I am about to make that same journey but this time I am prepared - loose, breathable cotton top: check. Bottle of ice cold water: check. Cool flannel: check. Hat: check. It's amazing the preparation that goes into a thirty minute walk in a tropical country!

Can't Complain

I’ll admit it, I spend a great deal of time on this blog moaning about things out here but only because it’s those things that are most interesting. Plus, you’d get very bored if all I did was go on about how wonderful life is in Thailand. The truth is, it’s pretty great. There have been some incredibly frustrating moments, incidents that have made me laugh out loud with the ridiculousness of the situation, and there are definitely things I miss about home, but there are times when I think to myself just how lucky we are to have had this experience. Times like last Friday evening. The Husband and I went out for dinner at a restaurant right by the beach. We sat at a table under the stars, with the sound of the sea gently lapping at the shore playing in our ears, and ate fried rice in a hollowed out pineapple, spring rolls, chicken and cashew nuts, and a spicy Thai salad. After dinner, we made our way down to the beach and walked barefoot in the sand, the cool sea breeze a welcome relief to the warmth of the evening. It felt like we were on holiday. We play tennis every weekend (without the need for layers or rain breaks), sunbathe by the pool (of which we have a choice between the pool where we live or the one at the club) and on the beach, and have eaten more al fresco meals in the past year than we ever have done. It’s not a bad life here really.

Facebook Types

My blog yesterday got me thinking about the various types that are registered with Facebook and how the way people utilise it is generally a reflection of their personalities. There are those that post elusive statuses in an attempt to illicit dozens of comments from 'friends'. For example, a post might go something like, "Louise Humphries: is worried...", prompting other Facebook users to reply with comments such as, "Oh, are you alright honey?", "Worried about what? Hugs", or "I'm here for you if you need me". Louise Humphries is probably only worried about whether she should order a Chinese or pizza for dinner but she has accomplished what she set out to do, for this is a classic attention-seeking Facebook action. Taken to the extreme, there are those who may have real problems but that really should keep those problems private and not announce them on Facebook. If you have just discovered you have a serious and life-long illness, confide in your true friends and family in person or on the phone, not to all five hundred of your Facebook 'friends'. The same goes for those who find it perfectly normal to post updates on their marital problems, sex lives and bowel movements (yes, unfortunately, I have seen someone do that). One word: don’t.

Then you have the time-wasters/people who genuinely have no life. They are the ones who post dozens of status updates a day. "Ben Daniels: had cornflakes for breakfast", "Ben Daniels: is bored at work", "Ben Daniels: can't wait till 5pm", "Ben Daniels: is thinking about what to have for tea", "Ben Daniels: doesn't want to go to the gym", Ben Daniels: is in the car on the way home" (this will be sent from his iPhone - Ben Daniels cannot even wait until he gets home to post something on Facebook), "Ben Daniels: is watching Eastenders", "Ben Daniels is tired and thinks he might go to bed". All of these are posts that I have actually seen on Facebook. If you haven't got anything interesting to say, don't say anything at all. The world doesn't want to know what you had for breakfast. But then again, there will always be those equally dull Facebookers that comment on those unnecessary statuses. "I love cornflakes!"

There are some who seem to think Facebook is just a big competition to see who can have the most ‘friends’. I have lost count of the number of times someone I have never heard of has requested to be my friend on the site. These are probably the people who don’t have any friends in real life. In fact, to them, Facebook probably is real life.

Possibly the most annoying Facebook types are those that send some sort of quiz to you every day. In that long ago time before Facebook, they would have been the ones responsible for those dull forwards with lame jokes landing in my inbox on a daily occurrence. Why do I want to know what alcoholic drink I’d be? The same goes for which cast members of various TV series’ I’d be, what age I’ll be when I have my first baby and which animal I’m most like. I also don’t want to know what score you have achieved on Facebook Scrabble, bingo, or any other of the games you can lose hours on.

Finally, I can’t forget the photo bores. If I have been on holiday, have attended a wedding or birthday party or have had a night out with a group of friends I haven’t seen in a while, I’ll create an album with a selection of photos. Photo bores take their cameras everywhere with them and will then post every single photo they have taken . Theirs will be the albums with 200 pictures, including the blurred ones and the ones that are similar to five other ones. Often these photo bores will also be serious attention-seekers – this is quite obvious from the fact that they are in every other photo, normally doing some sort of outrageous pose.

I may be a Facebookaholic but I can take comfort in the knowledge that it could be worse. I could be one of the above.

Confessions of a Facebookaholic

Hi, my name is Emily and I am a Facebookaholic. Phew, it feels good to get that off my chest, to out my dirty little secret . It is shameful to admit it but, alas, it is the truth. Facebook is the bane of all those who work from home for, with just the click of a mouse, a whole world is available to you. Sitting on your own in your study, your bedroom, your front room, or at the kitchen table, you can automatically be transported to a party to which all of your friends, both past and current, and from all over the globe, have been invited. You can see what they are up to, with photo evidence, at any time of the day or night. When you’re all alone at home, with no-one to talk to and no-one to glance over your shoulder and see what’s on your screen, the urge to type in that web address can often be too powerful to resist.

Although I have been signed up to Facebook for a few years now, back in England I would only occasionally log on to the site, perhaps when I had half an hour or so at the weekend to kill. That is, I suppose, partly due to the fact that most of my friends live in England and therefore if anything interesting happened I’d get a phone call, if there were any great photos to see I would be shown them in person. The main reason that my relationship with Facebook was as a casual acquaintance rather than a full-blown love affair whilst in the UK, however, is that I couldn’t access the site at work. Without being able to log on during the day, and not wanting to switch on my laptop at home after a full day in front of a computer screen, little time was available to check the statuses of long-lost friends.

Here, the first thing I do when I switch on my computer is check the BBC website for any important news that might have passed us by in Thailand, then my emails, and then Facebook. It has become part of the structure of my day. Facebook appeals to my passion for the details of other people’s lives. I, along with The Mother from whom I must have inherited it, am an avid people-watcher, and can miss whole conversations on my table in a restaurant by listening intently to the conversations on other tables. On Facebook, this often leads me to click through wedding albums of people I don’t even know. If a friend has been tagged in an album, I will have a look but then peruse the entire album. Sometimes, as I am looking at newlyweds , I have never even heard of in the church and at their reception, and people I have never met at a party or on holiday, I do have stop and ask myself what I’m doing. It is disconcerting to think about how much time I must have wasted looking at the photos of strangers and the statuses of people I don’t even care about.

I do have a single, but really rather good, excuse - that I am merely ensuring that I don’t lose touch with people whilst abroad and thousands of miles away from them. I really must stop attempting to keep up with the lives of total strangers though.

Aged Leather

There lives a special breed of people here in Pattaya that can be found in pretty much every hot and sunny holiday destination around the world. I have spotted them in Greece, in Costa Rica, in Spain, in Bali, the list goes on. I am referring to those who have spent so long baking in the hot sun, with only some sort of oil slicked over their parched bodies, that their skin has turned as brown as a nut and looks as though it would feel like the hide of an elephant. These sun worshippers have left their colder countries of birth to enjoy year-round sun and warmth in retirement. Don't get me wrong, I too am partial to days lost to a good book, a sun lounger and the warmth of the Thai sun on my skin. I do, however, limit myself to a couple of days a week and slather my body with a high-factor suncream. There is something rather off-putting about an OAP with skin hardened to leather and browner than the locals' and I don't plan to join this group in my dotage.

It's always lovely to have a bit of a tan - it's slimming, gives your skin a healthy-looking glow, but above all makes you feel happy and healthy. What isn't so attractive is a tan so deep that you don't look like yourself. We recently drove past a man who was probably in his sixties and both burst out laughing simultaneously without even looking at each other. His skin was so dark it looked like he was in a movie from the first half of the twentieth century, when any character from foreign lands was played by a Caucasian actor who was simply 'blacked up'. It really did look like he had applied a thick layer of stage make-up all over his body. He probably thought he looked great but the effect was laughable. Goodness knows the damage he has done to his skin. He was walking towards the beach, no doubt to spend another day roasting on the spit, turning occasionally to brown on all sides.

No, I Don't Want To High-Five You, Go For A Drink With You, Or Get On The Back Of Your Bike

There is something about Pattaya that turns all males here into lecherous old men. I expect it has something to do with the fact that, walking down many of the sois here, men will be wolf-whistled at, cajoled into entering bars with the calls of 'herro sexy man' and even physically get pulled into them by a bevvy of scantily dressed Thai women. They get used to being wanted, and seem to forget that it's only their money these women want and therefore sleazing on a normal girl walking down the road won't result in them running up and jumping in their arms.

It's this 'money for honey' philosophy that pervades Pattaya which draws, to be blunt, the ugly, the boring, and the social outcasts to this city. Pattaya is perfect for the type of man that no girl would look twice at in their home country. Here, they have their pick of beautiful Thai women, even if they do have to pay for them. Go-go girls are experts at making even the ugliest men feel like Adonis’. Many of the male tourists here don't just pay for sex - when they hand their money over they are paying to feel good about themselves. The girls will hold their hand, hug them, tell them they're handsome, funny, intelligent. That's all fine, as long as these men remember that they can't just approach any woman and expect them to fall at their feet or, as most often happens, expect them to jump on the back of their mopeds.