The Ramblings of Boots

How difficult can it be?

It is Christmas eve and I have elected to take the ferry across to Samui to meet my daughter at the airport; the least I can do as the first time I came to Phangan she flew to Bangkok to meet me.

I know her flight arrives at about 8.30, from KL I think. We’re not great at travel details. She has no phone but the airport is tiny, petite perfection, impossible to get lost in, impossible to miss anyone in.

We do.

Miss each other.

She arrives, unaware that I have come to meet her and, knowing the airport well, decides to wait for her taxi inside the arrivals area. An area open to taxis but forbidden to me being held behind a human barrier at the meeting point.

I cannot see the arrivals hall 50 yards away.

She cannot see the meeting point 50 yards away.

She waits an hour for her taxi and heads for the ferry to Thongsala. I wait for three more flights to land. I call my son on Phangan, she has not contacted anyone.

I head for the ferry to Haad Rin.

She arrives at Thongsala and waves the touting taxis away, convinced that at least I will be there to welcome her.

I am not.

I am on the Haad Rin ferry, worried sick and the sea is Moby Dick rough. I have failed her. I was supposed to surprise her at Samui.

She takes a taxi to Haad Yao and with some difficulty persuades the staff that she has a room booked.

“No, no room booked for you” – they are most insistant.

‘My mother booked for me, I am her daughter’.

“Ah” (light bulb moment) “Mama room for daughter”.

Hardly the family welcome she imagined. No sign of her sibling. She walks along the beach and asks the wrong massage ladies if they have seen me. They have never heard of me. They are not my massage ladies.

Finally I arrive home and open up face book. A new post on her page.

‘OK, I give up. Where is everybody?’

Later when we are all together, I suffer serious ineptitude abuse.

‘How could you possibly miss me? It’s impossible to miss anyone at Samui’.

Is it now?

A week later, she has to repeat the exercise to meet a friend also arriving in Samui.

Guess what?

They missed each other.

I’ve moved. Not far. As you, dear reader, will know, I am a settler not a traveller, a creature of habit, a lover of comfort zones.

Not for me the ‘let’s hire a bike and see the island’, or ‘let’s go check out the Full Moon party’.

It all sounds far too energetic. Why would I want to break a  limb or have my stomach pumped?

I see the results of ‘let’s hire a motorbike’ every day hobbling along the beach complete with plaster casts, ensuring a very uneven tan to go with the ‘when I was in Thailand’ stories, on return to their homelands.

As for the parties – 10, 000, club 18-30’s (more 18’s than 30’s), throwing up? Vomit is not even slightly attractive and as far as I am concerned ‘sex on the beach’ should be restricted to cocktails.

‘Why go to Thailand to write then? “ I hear you ask, “if you’re just going to stay in one place?”

Look, I can see the island from my balcony, well some of it, and one bit of rain forest looks pretty much like another. The same could be said for beaches and my new bit of beach comes with an enchanting Thai family who feed me,  pamper me and share their lives with me.

I liked my little room,  apart from the rude staff, the horrible smell and the distinct lack of hygiene when it came to the cleaning process.

I liked the battle scarred dog who adopted me, slept outside my room, made sure I was ‘home safe’ and who fights with every other four legged creature on the island. ‘Dog’ is the best name I could come up with; he has few attractive features.

So I move– upstairs. It seems my room by the pool has been pre-booked for Christmas. I suspect my  boycotting their bass booming, poor quality restaurant in retaliation to their outright hostility might be closer to the truth.

Anyhow I’ve moved. My battle scarred, flea bitten dog whimpered a bit as I dragged my case the 30 yards to my new home but stayed on my old verandah. He is obviously a fickle ‘room’ dog. I think I’m going to miss him.

Surprisingly, I prefer my new home. The smell has gone, the shower is almost a power shower as opposed to a reluctant trickle, and it’s far quieter.

No longer am I woken by the early morning sweeping of leaves or the revving of motor bikes as the staff arrive. I have a wonderful view of the mountain and no neighbours.

Of course there is always a downside. This time it’s the mirror. No, not a ‘fat’ mirror, but rather an extremely skinny one.

“But you said you hated ‘fat’ mirrors” you challenge.

It’s true, generally I do, but fat mirrors have one major advantage. You look in a ‘fat’ mirror and eat and drink less in the vain hope that one morning you will see the sylph like form of yesteryear when you look in the glass.

Skinny mirrors are guaranteed to make the jeans you came out in shrink two sizes by the time you have to pour yourself into them for the return leg.

Aware of the pitfalls of the skinny mirror, I have decided to change my eating habits. Not for me the 2 pre-dinner Mai Thai’s or the 3 glasses of wine that generally wash down the green curry. No now that I have to go up and down stairs to the beach or pool (all good exercise), I will resist all fattening temptations and stick to water and salad until my anorexic self beams back at me.

An evening with friends, one Mai Thai, 2 glasses of wine, a not to be denied craving for spag bol later (diets have to be embarked upon with due caution),  I pass my old room and climb the stairs to my new home.

There lying on my new doormat, lazily wagging his tail is – Dog, my beautiful bolshy friend.

Seems the ‘Mai Dee’ incident is forgiven.

I opened my door this morning to find a door mat.

The doormat that was unceremoniously removed the morning after the ‘Mai Dee’ incident.

Thais are like children, which has it’s plusses and minuses. They have a childlike enthusiasm and love of life and a childish response to criticism and any confrontation.

I suspect my losing my room key last night (for the second time) and after 3 red wines, 2 Mai Thais, an evening spent with a delightful Polish contingency and  telling the staff ‘how stupid’ I am might have had something to do with the forgiveness.

Anyway, me and my dog are very pleased the mat is back. He has a comfortable bed for the night and I can stop rubbing my feet on my trousers to get rid of the sand.

Three days of wall to wall sunshine and it looks as though the patchwork on the tanning quilt is finally joining up.

Not having as much luck with the white spots. The ointment with the hieroglyphics was about as effective as a plaster on a severed leg. The Selsun shampoo, (a good friend who suffers with the same affliction, assured me that it worked), is nice and foamy but when washed off reveals – white spots.

Mai has now given me pure coconut oil. I’m not sure whether it is actually getting rid of the spots but they are certainly going darker. Tip for future travellers to Koh Phangan. Go find Mai and buy her pure coconut oil. 80 baht a bottle and it’s farewell to sun burn.

Son returns to my island on Saturday so am on a mission to find a room for him and for daughter who gets here on Christmas Eve.

There is a lovely resort further up the beach. Not as western as mine, but spacious and set back in the coconut groves, with a huge expanse of white sand that has not as yet been ruined by beach bars. It is more like a village. I decide to enquire as to whether they have rooms.

It’s Black Moon (that means no moon) tide, and as I prepare to walk up the beach, I discover – there is no beach, well none where I am. The black tide is in and it comes right up to the bar. The bar – which is some 4′ higher than the beach and built on hideous, environmentally destructive and only just hidden by a thin layer of sand, plastic sandbags. The bar that should never have been built this far out.

I wade through the sea to ‘Ibeza Bungalows’, (even the spelling is charming). Here there is sand, 50 glorious white yards of it. The restaurant looks busy, so I decide to settle by the dive school until the breakfast rush (maybe 10 people) is over.

I lie on my beach mat, open my kindle and look upwards.

Now coconut trees afford wonderful shade but lying directly under one that is bulging with ready to drop fruit is possibly not the best location to pick. I shift everything ten feet.

Carol arrives. Carol is young,  toned and an even golden brown. I hate her. I can’t hate her, she’s so sweet. She offers to look after my fins and snorkel while I go and enquire about the rooms.

She is from Switzerland, a nurse, and has been on the island since April working as a dive instructor. She goes back to nursing and Switzerland in March and has mixed feelings. She is ready to go home but knows she will miss the island.

Booking a room proves impossible, even with Joy from the massage ‘parlour’ (I say that loosely) acting as my interpreter. It seems Ibeza doesn’t do bookings. Ibeza doesn’t even do bookings if you offer to pay for the whole lot in advance. They tell me that the other resorts do bookings.

I KNOW THAT! I didn’t say that. I just thought it very loudly.

Seems they like to work in the old fashioned Thai way; turn up on the day and if there’s a room, fine. Suspect that they actually don’t have a clue as to how a booking system works, but hey, thats fine.

“Come back saturday.”

“What if you’re full?”

“It’s quiet.”

“It might be fucking overflowing by Saturday!”

I don’t say that either, I just smiled and nodded understandingly.

I don’t fucking understand!

They do show me the bungalows which are, in all fairness, not as nice as mine, but the location is just so pretty. I agree to come back on Saturday.

I probably won’t. Go back on Saturday.

I’ll probably book rooms in my resort. I am far to British and repressed to take a chance of a room being available on Saturday.

The children will have to settle for  high tide, no beach, a dog who thinks he belongs to me and ‘maybe’ a doormat.

The last few days have passed in a blur of new faces and new experiences and many times I have had to remind myself about that books and their covers.

An electricity cable is down somewhere between Samui and the mainland. I am not sure how it came down, rumours abound. Some say it is an underwater cable that was cut buy a passing ferry, others that it is an overhead cable on the mainland.

The result has been to throw tourist land into disarray and make for very snappy resort staff. We have had no power for 2 days and are now limited to an hour or two a day when a mass exodus to power sources occurs as everyone rushes to charge their iPads, mobile phones and kindles.

Barnard and Eva arrived sometime in the evening of the first day of no power. A few years older than me and very hospitable. They were keen to introduce themselves as they tried to find someone to book them in and somewhere to deposit their rucksacks.

Originally from Poland they moved to Sweden in the early 70’s. The part of Poland they lived in having vacillated between German and Polish Authority for decades, making building any kind of lives difficult.

Eva’s father had made his money after the second world war when Poland was left with nothing, including, much like ourselves in paradise today, peripatetic electricity and few electrical goods. He started a small electrical business and thrived but the family could never show their wealth in a country where communism was in the ascendant. They lived simply in an apartment, had no car, no bank account and, to the outside world looking in, little wealth. Her father would tell Eva that it was safer to behave like that. “Don’t let people know you have money” he would tell her.

They would holiday in Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria where they could spend freely and enjoy the comforts they daren’t enjoy at home;  for Eva and her siblings it was a happy childhood.

Her parents eventually divorced for whatever reasons, only to remarry when they were in their late 70’s. A strong glue must have bound them and Eva regards them as a great influence in her life. So much so that when she met Barnard at 20, he so reminded her of her father that she knew he was the one for her and they have been happily, and monogamously (women love to share secrets) married for 45 years.

Barnard is retired from a well know Swedish manufacturer. He has a good pension and they love to travel widely. They now have homes  in Sweden and  in Poland and in the summer months divide their time between the two. In winter they prefer to travel to the warmth, although Barnard enjoys ski ing somewhere in the alps with their 2 sons and their families in March. Eva does not join them as, like me, she sees no pleasure in chasing down snow clad mountains with planks of wood on her feet, nor does she enjoy sitting at the first stop up the mountain drinking Gluck wine with noisy, bragging strangers. She is warm and gentle and, despite being ‘shy’ to speak english, when we are alone she chatters on delightedly, enjoying, I think, the company of another woman.

Barnard is gregarious and loves to talk on any subject and in many languages. He tells me that as a young man in Poland when someone asked him for directions in English, he was so disturbed at being unable to reply that he vowed at that moment to learn as many languages as he could. He taught himself. First English then enough French to get by and later Swedish and some Spanish.

We talk about literature and film and find we have many favourites in common. He compiles a list of books ‘I have to read’ and I do likewise. They want to know about the British royal family and Eva is delighted when I tell her that Kate is pregnant; they were travelling when the news broke.

Eva is a huge ‘Diana’ fan and Barnard tells me they were staying at the Ritz at the same time as she was when the fateful ‘accident’ occurred and that they drove through the very same tunnel the next day and found it to be awash with flowers.

The Swedish royal family is somewhat of a thorn in their flesh, constantly demanding more money from taxes and seemingly giving little back in return.

I confess that I quite like our royal family who, as I see it, bring in millions in tourist revenue and act as a pleasant if non effective backstop to the ambitions of our various scurrilous politicians.

We discuss politics and age and sex and they tell me I am very un British. We decide we are the lucky ‘old generation’ and that those who follow will not have the freedom to travel nor the pensions to facilitate it.

We discuss the british press and whether  or not they are now too intrusive. Eva says that women love to gossip and if the press didn’t uncover the stories then title tattle would. We agree that this has been the case throughout history and it will never change.

We talk about men. Eva tells me that Swedish men do not covet younger women as they get older in the way that Polish men do, or Italians, or many of their non Swedish friends who have mistresses and find Barnard an oddity and ‘a perverse’ in being happy with just one woman (this over lunch while Barnard is running on the beach, keeping his already bronzed and well toned body in shape).

Barnard is not happy with the resort and tells me that the staff are very rude and have done nothing to help solve their problems of no hot water and a bad smell in the room and that they were surly and downright rude when he asked for hot water to make coffee. As yet I have not found this.

They decide to move on to Koh Tao and, having swapped emails, they invite me to stay with them in Sweden. I can tell by the way Eva hugs me closely that this is a genuine offer and I hope to take them up on it at some point in the future…I probably won’t.

I wander down the beach that evening determined to find a passable pedicure, my previous manicure experience being little short of a disaster.

Having walked past the first ‘beauty parlour’ two nights ago thinking it too rowdy, filled with laughing, chattering women and a pack of dogs and their puppies, I decide to give it a second chance – and we’re back to those books and their covers.

What a lovely ‘family’, what delightful girls, and their menfolk. They had seen me walk past 2 nights ago and had decided I was ‘good Farang’. They welcome me with open arms and much fuss.

Joy is maybe 24 and in charge of the manicures and pedicures, I think it is her business. Mai who is 45 is busily stamping all over a friend and shrieks with laughter at my grimaces when she pulls body parts into impossible positions and I hear bones crack. Joy tells me she is the most experienced masseur and it takes 14 years to learn how to ‘foot massage’. Mai has been masseur for 24 years, here in Samui and Phuket.

Another Farang is being pummelled by the third woman, just as cheerful as Joy and Mai, whose name I wouldn’t dare attempt and Joy’s husband is giving Enya, the spanish photographer, an oil massage. A lively, merry bunch.

Night falls and my toes are still being primped and preened. I am the last one there. Joy’s husband brings a torch so that Joy can paint my now almost attractive nails and, before I leave, she insists on covering my throbbing sun burn with lashings of aloe vera gel at no extra cost. I promise to return so that Mai can pummel me to death.

Joy asks if it will possible for me to return tomorrow as Mai has not had work for 2 days? I think that Mai may be slightly ‘Down’s syndrome’ as she has a broad flat face, somewhat hooded eyes and loves to touch, which might not make her the Farangs’ first choice, but if Joy says she is the best then she will be my masseur.

Yesterday another book revealed it’s true contents. No electricity, no hot water, no air con, no apologies or even explanation from the staff or management and even I am beginning to get a little bit grumpy. Last night I had to feel my way to my room where I could hear a cockroach scampering across the floor.

I go to the office and a sign says ‘ask in restaurant’. I go to the restaurant and ask to speak to someone, the owner? A manager?

One of the young men comes over to me.

“Why? What you want?!” No longer smiling or charming.

I explain quietly (I know being strident will only court anger) that I have a few problems and that nothing is working and his eyes narrow.

“What I supposed to do?! No power! Nowhere power! I have business to run! You yak yak yak Farang all the same!”

Stung, and beginning to understand what Barnard had experienced, I try to explain that I did understand but that he really shouldn’t advertise for amenities that he couldn’t deliver and perhaps like the other resorts should invest in a generator, perhaps he should explain the situation to his guests and, at the very least, perhaps he should provide torches so they can safely navigate the pool on the way to their rooms.

Off the Richter scale he goes, poking his fingers in my face, shouting, waving his arms around.

“How I get generator?! Generator 1 million Baht! You go. You go now! You go stay other resort!

On and on.

When he stopped (I remained unusually silent during the tirade), I just said quietly:

“You Mai Dee”.

Mai Dee means no good and I suspect that tipped him over the edge.

“YOU MAI DEE !!!” He screams and more poking of the air in front of me, waving his arms, cackling to the other staff, whose heads are bowed, and ranting followed.

I walk away to the sound of his screams and along the beach to the girls, feeling somewhat tearful and abused.

The girls are brilliant. It is the king’s birthday and also father’s day. They have to contact their fathers at some point during the day as a mark of respect and they have to celebrate the king’s birthday, Buddhist style.

They share fruit with me, hard red round shells the size of an apple cut in half to reveal orange like segments of delicious white pulp. One section containing a hard stone, a bit like the fruit of the lychee but native to southern Thailand. Ten maybe twenty they cut in half and place on a plate, handing me a spoon, which I decline (they are happily eating with their fingers), and then they produce a tower of paper napkins.

They plonk a young puppy in my lap to cheer me up and promise me that all Thai people are not Mai Dee. Joy brings me over a bag of Thai purses that she says they give to all their good customers and she had meant to give one to me last night but it was too dark to choose

Mai, who I think may be poorly named or more likely I have spelt wrong as ‘Mai’ means ‘bad’, strokes my arm and makes clucking noises, repeating one word over and over.

“Souwai”

I look questioningly at Joy as she is the only one who speaks english.

“She says you are beautiful”.

I smile at Mai who beams in return.

One fantastic, and surprisingly gentle, oil massage later, I am in far better spirits and prepare to leave.

Joy again covers me in aloe vera gel and presses a bunch of bananas on me.

“Thank you but only if I pay” I insist, “and only one”.

“No, it is King’s birthday. We have to give friends gifts. It is good for us to give gifts, it brings good luck.”

We settle for 2 bananas and I press my hands together and thank her.

Mai has disappeared and I need to pay. I ask Joy where she has gone.

“She gone get torch for you.”

I feel tears welling up in my eyes for the second time that day, but these are tears of a different kind.

Mai returns and hands me the torch.

“Dee Mac Mah” I say, as I gratefully take it.

Dee Mac Mah means ‘very very good’, I hope they understood that I meant them.

Sun bathing for me is akin to a week at the coal face. Bloody hard work, an exercise in logistics and, at times, life threatening.

Now sunbeds are a completely different matter. 10 minutes a day for two weeks and you achieve a perfectly even tan at the fraction of the cost of 2 weeks on any costa. OK so maybe a few cancerous cells have been awakened but the temporary result is a perfectly even, all over, golden tan. The sun bed wraps itself around you and lightly toasts every nook and cranny.

For me, sun bathing holds as much promise as a New England ladies’ course in patchwork quilting.

You pack everything you need for a day on the beach. Beach mat, suntan lotion, sand gritty bottle of water, sand encrusted kindle that you know will never work after the first week of beach exposure, and the ubiquitous sarong.

Sherpa laden you find your patch on the beach only to realise you’ve left your beach towel back in the room.

Half an hour later you return to find your perfect patch has been commandeered by two perfectly formed and already Caribbean brown, young things. You move to the patch next door, the one where the tree overhangs the beach ensuring only half the suns rays will ever get through and finally you settle, covering the eu de mosquito repellent with a thick layer of factor 30 and pointing yourself in the direction of the sun’s rays. All day you will be repointing yourself in the direction of the suns rays as they do not have the good manners of a sun bed and continually shift.

By the end of day one, you have traffic light knees to show your my efforts. A vast expanse of white, and throbbing ‘I did warn you to stop’, bright red legs.

Day two is worse. Pink buttocks, pink thighs, pink fleshy bits where the arm meets the chest (supposed to be an erogenous zone but currently so sore – a no go zone), pink breasts, but only bits of them; the white triangles appearing above the neckline of the spaghetti strap top you decide to wear for dinner ensuring that everyone knows you are not a professional tanner.

At this point, ‘To topless or not to topless’ should be discussed. On sunbeds and in the med – absolutely. In countries where it is considered offensive to their culture – absolutely not. I really do hate it when european women think it is fair play to flash their nipples in countries where it deeply offends, and I hope that their green curry is spiked.

By day three the turkey neck road map that makes Birmingham’s intersection look like a two lane freeway appears, you have white creases on your inner elbows where you have been holding the book, your face has that ‘I’ve been on holiday- look at my sun glasses eyes’, look,and you closely resemble a zebra, as your sides have yet to see the sun.

Day four and you think it’s looking good.

Think again.

Those who are skilled in the art of sunbathing know that one of the secrets of an even tan is to put your hair up.

You however think it’s far sexier to let your now sea water clogged, matted straw hang softly (crustily) around your pink shoulders. Result – a stretch of white from the hair line to the top of your shoulder blades.

Day 5. You put your hair up. You fall asleep in the sun.

4 days of near death, living in a darkened room with sunstroke  later you emerge; white enough to scare a ghost, with only red mosquito welts to show for your efforts and begin the whole tortuous exercise again.

And you wonder why I prefer sunbeds.

What about the scenery though? The beautiful plants, the sea? I hear you say.

What do you think Google Earth is for?!