| Author | Message | |||
     Captpete |
Here ya go, Thang:
And before you start on me, no, that's not a typo. It's not The Tails of Two Lobsters. Capt. Pete | |||
| Rocketman |
Capt Pete, your sea yarns are always enchanting. So much so I could never write so well myself. This allows me to include here a tale from a good friend who's storyville I hope you too enjoy. Take it as my way of wishing I could write so well myself, but can't. Be well for the festive season good mate!! I’m in Thailand for the second time in what is a little more than two years. What was last time a tantalizing taste of the place is this time a full on banquet for the senses. I don’t have to tell people who know me well how easily I fall in love with enchanting cities. This time last year I was head over heels with Dar es Salaam. Now I’m besotted with beautiful, berserk Bangkok. When will I ever learn not to be romantic about places which are not romantic about me? I‘m staying with “Middlesborough Mally” Nicolson and his heavily pregnant wife Kae in their coolly spacious house on Sukhumvit 23. As a break from applying for jobs on the internet, I’ve just taken a motorbike taxi to the Khrua Bai Tong, an unpretentious, alfresco restaurant on a busy corner opposite an establishment calling itself the Honeydew Massage Parlour and Spa. The restaurant has a rough kind of roof, shading diners from the sun but otherwise it’s open to the elements. A team of massage maids, dressed in identically provocative skimpery, sits on the steps of the joint opposite, calling out melodically to every passing male. “Foot massage … Oil massage … velly good.” I have noodle soup on my mind. A petite waitress in blue jeans and a black t-shirt takes my order. She has the cutest smile and the glossiest hair I’ve ever seen and I want to bury my face in it. The restaurant is crowded with exotic plants and there is an illuminated aquarium containing live but condemned sea bass. The waitress returns with a large and very cold bottle of Singha. I pour it into the frosted glass, take a glug and sit back to wait for my lunch. I idly wonder how long I can decently stay with the Nicolsons. Perhaps I should start looking for an apartment. It is surely a testament to my personal adaptability that I’ve existed without a permanent address for three and a half months. During that time I’ve been in East Africa, Switzerland, England, the United States and Thailand with fascinating stopovers in places as far apart as Amsterdam, Abu Dhabi and Addis Ababa. Whatever the causes of my recent itinerancy (I’ll explore those in future scribblings) my current lifestyle certainly beats the continual daily commute between Pearson Park and Bransholme. But that was light years ago. It has crossed my mind that I might not want to stop moving at all. I could go to Vietnam or Cambodia. Maybe both.There’s something seductively comforting about constantly leaving and arriving. Friends and relatives who’ve put me up and consequently put up with my social foibles and overbearing personality will doubtless concur. Forever encountering new people makes life easy. There’s no need for the hard graft of forming meaningful relationships. Instead emotional energy gets invested in locations, temporary encounters and experiences of the purely inanimate. I survey the street. There are millions of motorbikes in Bangkok and they carry multiple passengers. Often a whole family with a two year old straddling the petrol tank will travel on a little Honda 50. Female passengers ride sidesaddle on these slight machines which thread their way perilously but efficiently through the jam of cars, carts, barrows, trucks and pedestrians. Loudspeaker vans ply the streets promulgating some unintelligible message. I wonder if there might be an election but soon discover they’re selling vegetables. The motorbike taxis are cheap and easily identified by the orange belts of their riders. I’m told you never take one after dark because the riders are stoned on Mekong whisky. Then there are the tuk-tuks. These are the open three-wheeler taxis, a bit like more ornate Reliant Robins. They’re pricier than motorbike taxis but cheaper than the cabs. Their drivers take huge pride in keeping them smartly polished and they often sport glittering personalized paint-jobs and oriental style awnings. Tuk-tuks come in every colour imaginable as do the more conventional taxicabs which are two-tone red and blue, powder pink and white, egg yolk yellow and iridescent green. Thais are mesmerised by bright colours and the tuk-tuks, taxis and motorbikes drift past brilliant miniature temples and shrines installed in house gardens and forecourts of office and apartment blocks. These are colourfully garlanded with chains of dried flowers. Small offerings of rose apples, lychees and lime segments are left in delicate bowls for the delectation of the Lord Buddha. Magnificent glass and steel skyscrapers loom over jostling sidewalks where ramshackle soup stalls, advertising hoardings, one-legged beggars and three-legged dogs force you to walk in the road. Bangkok is teemingly crowded, noisily fast and, above all, vivid and vibrant. But despite all this activity the country is spotless and virtually without litter. From this point of view Bangkok would put most British cities to shame. And the activity itself is serene, efficient, somehow elegant and far from frantic, frenzied or neurotic in the way that London or New York can be. Human activity here underscores that cheerful materialism which is the hallmark of modern urban Asia. Miss Glossy brings my soup. I eat slowly with chopsticks, savouring an individual shred of spring onion or some less recognizable but nonetheless delicious piece of greenery. The soup contains slivers of pig liver and entire cloves of garlic. It is that exquisite combination of variety and frugality which makes Thai cuisine so mouthwatering and imaginative. The sky darkens quite suddenly. A young western couple hurry in as the first spots of rain fall. They both have backpacks. He looks like David Baddiel and she has curly raven hair. They are both in excess of six feet tall, a feature worthy of notice in this country of short, wiry men and dinky, doll-like women. Four inches of bare midriff shows between the hem of the girl’s t-shirt and the waistband of her shorts. Her belly protrudes. The Thai men at the next table stare and comment to each other. She seems oblivious of them and the fact that, except for the massage girls, Thai women don’t sport this style. A deafening thunderbolt startles everyone and is followed almost immediately by a blaze of sheet lightning. The massage girls shriek and rush inside. The skies open and, within seconds, the street is a brown torrent of fast moving water. I finish my soup, lifting the bowl to my lips and draining every last drop. I savour the hot chili which stings my lips and tongue. The rain is falling with such fierce power that I can no longer clearly see the buildings on the other side of the street. I take out my camera from my backpack. I haven’t touched it since I left England and I push the button to view whatever photos are there, waiting to be downloaded. The first image is of my grandson, Lewis, with whom I have so recently bonded. He’s asleep in his chair and I remember his warm, fragile little bulk against me as he slept on my chest. A great lump springs to my throat and, absurdly, I have to fight back tears. I love him, miss him and worry about him but I know it’s ridiculous. I’m the footloose retiree now. Let his dad and mum take care of him. It’s their generation’s turn to put someone else first. I’m going to be exquisitely selfish in my unattached, unobligated dotage. The young couple are now seated behind me. Unsurprisingly they are Americans and they’re attempting to order. She squints with hostility at the menu which is entirely in Thai. Her expression is one of someone who has just been handed a poison-pen letter. The young man is speaking loudly in that voice which a certain type of American reserves for foreigners and village idiots. He keeps saying, “What would you recommend?” as if he were taking lunch at the Waldorf Astoria. The rain stops as quickly as it began and the sun gleams hotly on the wet street. The gaggle of girls from the Honeydew Massage Parlour and Spa re-emerge and occupy the tiled stoop. When they speak it’s as if they’re singing as they joke and fiddle with each other’s hair.Thai women are the quintessence of femininity. Now the afternoon is hot again. The pavement steams and the air is thick with incense, coriander and sweet basil. I sling on my backpack and leave a 20 baht tip for Glossy who is clearing my table. She smiles, puts her palms together and touches her lips with her fingertips in that charming gesture of gratitude and respect known as a “wai.” The quintessence of femininity, indeed. I will be back, dear Glossy, and perhaps next time should you recommend it, I will eat the sea bass. Author, Rob Watkinson Rocket | |||
| Captpete |
Two things, Sean: First; Who is this friend, Rob Watkinson, who has such a wonderful voice? And such a keen eye to see what is about him? And such a great perspective to be looking in the first place? Are you sure you’re not protecting the privacy of your old buddy, Paul Theroux? Rob could sit atop a trash heap and make you want to book the next flight to join him. Thanks for passing that along. And if you get the chance, tell him how much I enjoyed reading it. Second; Why you want to blow a bunch of sunshine up your old mate’s behind? You know how much we all enjoy your stuff. I even enjoy some of it when I know I shouldn’t.  A lot of writing skills can be learned, but only a few start out with a natural affinity for writing well, and you are among them. But just so you’ll know I’m not guilty of that sunshine accusation, I must also say that what you have does not preclude also having the affinity for being the occasional butthead.  And a word about wishing: Spit in one hand and wish in the other. See which one fills up first. Throw another chunk of coal on the fire and keep your socks dry. I know what goes on over there this time of year. Take care of yourself, mate. CP | |||
| Rocketman |
Rob is a fifty (late) something year old friend of mine. He's an English teacher of the old school by profession, but his last few years in England have seen him in senior management, specializing in what we call over here 'special measures'. That's where an under performing school, academically usually, calls in a manager or team to get them back into the performing league of schools, otherwise failure means the government intervene which can lead to closure if the school can't be improved. That's a lot to do with environment and local government budget too let me tell you. Anyway, Rob spent a lot of years in the 70's teaching in South Africa, and he had a yearning to return to Africa, a continent he has a great affection for (read Heart of Darkness), so he took up a post last year in Dar es Salaam as head teacher in a newly built all girls school. His post was to run the school in the way he saw fit but that wasn't to be the case when the chap who employed him kept intervening. Rob is very much 'in it for the kids' and not for making money for the pocket lining of some wealthy private school owner you see. So Rob moved on to a better post in Dar es Salaam, but as you can imagine 'someone' put the spanner (sorry, wrench) in the works, corruption and all that being rife out there, and Rob found himself traveling rather a lot in search of more work (in) and paradise. He's living in a several starred hotel at the mo still in Bangkok, and can afford to for however long just on the income he raises every month from renting out his place in our home town. How daft is that. He's applying for jobs constantly, which he describes as a job in itself, and doesn't know yet where he'll end up. Bangkok or Nagasaki seem to be his favourites at the moment. Me, I never fancied the Bangkok - Thailand experience. So many friends I know have 'been there and done that'. I'm not one for Thai women myself, nor paying for the privilege, and that seems to be an inherent part of the Thai experience. Well that was until now. See Rob has a way with words that only I could dream of, but he's the only person that's ever made me want to visit Thailand, which I may well do if he keeps his feet on the ground there for long enough. Be well Pete, and by the way, Rob plays and sings like Bob Dylan on the old acoustic! Rocket | |||
| Road_thing |
Oh, man, did that ever conjure up some memories! My wife and I had a Beneteau 37, "Little Queen", in charter out of Tortola with The Moorings from '87 til '92. Ever run across her, Cap? rt (Message edited by road_thing on December 04, 2005) | |||
| Captpete |
No, Tom, I was there in the winters of '81 thru '83. But I got to know the BVI pretty well. My friend, Jim, here on Guam, was selling cruising sailboats in CT., and conveniently had a charter company for all those boats he sold. They worked out of Newport in the summer and then sent the boats all down to Tortola for the winter. I know I spent at least one night on at least half the charter boats in Tortola, though. I got real good at packing and unpacking my sea bag. We were living cheap, now, hopping from one boat to another, staying on anything that wasn’t out on charter. Cruzan rum @ $1.80 a fifth. If you ordered a rum & Coke at a bar and they served you a strong drink, you’d been cheated. The Coke cost more than the rum. Sometimes, I wonder what happened. Life was so easy back then. But I got my sextant pic. Running sun shot, somewhere south of Bermuda.  | |||
| Captpete |
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| Captpete |
What's up with this? Exceeded 700 x 100 pixels? What kind of ratio is 700 x100? It was 500 by something less, and only 39k. This was the sextant picture, not the boobs in the cockpit one. I think I'm being discriminated against. I'm a damned senior citizen, fer tha love of Pete! | |||
| Captpete |
I want a refund! | |||
| Blake |
Oops. Should be 700x1000. Fixed that. Carry on. No refund for you! Blake charge you extra $58 for special VIP service!  | |||
| Road_thing |
Pete: What year was it when Hurricanes David and Fred blew through? 1979? 1980? That was the first year I sailed the BVI, chartered a Moorings 50 with two other couples. Having done both, I've decided chartering is better than ownership. But you probably already knew that! rt | |||
| Captpete |
On the way to Paradise  I don't suppose the couples charter would allow anything like this?  | |||
| Bomber |
Rocket -- Thailand is every bit as enchanting and your mate would have you believe -- native girls, paying, or not, there's always been a lively ex-pat community there, and, as is the case in many asian cities, more motorcycles than people -- the roads ain't much, and the market for knowledgeable SAAB bodgers is likely thin, but a gorgeous place, indeed Capn -- thanks for the warm, smile-inducing tale (tail?) -- just the ticket for sundown in chilly Chicago today! (Message edited by bomber on December 05, 2005) | |||
| Captpete |
Funny about those things. After a couple of weeks your eyes stop popping out of your head and it's just not that big of a deal. Of course, now it's 25 years later, I'm an old man living with my dog, and I have to keep referring to pics like that to remember what they look like. Moral of the story... take lots of pictures. And I lived in Dekalb for a couple of years, Bomber, and my advice to you is the same as for Rocket: Throw another log on the fire and keep yer socks dry. (Don'tcha hate all that salt that seeps into your boots/shoes?) | |||
| Rocketman |
Great advice Capt.  I always listen to my elders. Rocket | |||
| Captpete |
Well there ya are, Sean; that's how ya get to be one! | |||
| Captpete |
And BTW, I'd expect no less from you. I see you've removed all the baffles from that thing to get those last couple of horsepower out of it. You may have overdone it a bit, though. Looks like it threw a pushrod out onto the hearth. (Message edited by captpete on December 07, 2005) | |||
| Rek |
Ahoy Cap'n, Great tale. I spent a few years on my own boat in AK, F/V Karta Bay, a 42' cyprus hull Higgin's conversion w/ 671 'Jimmy.' A lot'a lot'a fun but my wife eventually dragged me south and I sold the boat and permits. Hardly a day goes by that I don't wish I were back on the water chasing urchins and cukes (yeah, a bubble-head). Rob | |||
| Bomber |
Capn-- right as rain -- got my sno-paks and down out already! |
Anegada - A Tale of Two Lobsters