Friday, 21 October 2016 to Thursday, 27 October 2016
We gave the yoga instructor some grief this morning, Adri wanted a 45 minute session, I was happy with a 30 minute one, sending the teacher into a tailspin, she had no idea how to handle this conflict of interest. Fortunately she was confined to my Ipad so I naturally won this particular battle… this particular one only…

The news reported this morning that Zuma wants SA to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC) so I’m thinking WTFreak! Many nonsensical reasons were provided as to why it’s being done but believe me; the real reason is that this is an attempt by Zuma to ensure he does not get prosecuted by the ICC when his term is up. Now I totally disagree with this, like most people in SA I suspect, so I hope that the DA (Democratic Alliance) is successful in taking this issue to court.

And then the US weighed in on this  matter. Yahoo reported that “The United States expressed concern on Friday over South Africa’s decision to withdraw its support from the International Criminal Court. While not itself a member of the court, the United States likes other countries to accept its jurisdiction, seeing it as an arm against the impunity sometimes enjoyed by rogue leaders.” Now this is the type of stuff that pisses people off about the US and they don’t seem to get it… rather hypocritical won’t you say? And staying on the topic of rogue leaders, I suggest the US join the ICC poste haste before Trump moves into the white house, heaven help us…

As we stopped for supper in search of a restaurant we noticed a street market right where we happened to stop. Instead of searching for a restaurant we started searching through the street market’s narrow lane filled with goods of all sorts. The stalls contain similar stuff as so many other ones that we have seen such as clothes, shoes, caps, watches etc., but this one contained also an array of curios that we had not seen before. If we were not travelling I am sure I would by now have had a number of these stalls installed in my travel bag, really lovely stuff of varying kinds.

And then we happened upon the food court of which we strolled down the one side and up the other while making up our menu for the evening. While I fetched a big Asahi beer Adri placed the food order and just as I arrived back at our rickety table the food arrived and was placed thereon. The food was a plate of stuff, deep fried in batter, mostly veggies such as a couple of onion rings, carrot sticks, sweet potato fritters and some other goodies we did not know… but of course there were also a couple of prawns and chicken pieces in there, it was great! This was to be a starter to share but by the time we had finished there was no more room, the shared starter ended up being the main course for both of us.

After supper we strolled down and up the main drag and happened upon the drug store, or inter hospital, where Adri had that wooden beam removed from her eye last Saturday. We also found a pizza place that advertizes that they have an Italian chef, we’ll probably give them a chance in the future. There was also a steakhouse that has Wagya beef on offer at astronomical prices; we’ll probably not give them a chance in the future.

We also came upon the Cat ‘n A Cup which is a combined coffee shop and bakery, but with a feline difference. The “cat” in the name is no coincidence as the seating area of this place has beautifully groomed cats all around. Some just walked around strutting their stuff, others were stroked and cuddled by patrons or lying on their laps and yet others were catching a catnap on the ladders and platforms created just for them. This is probably not a unique concept worldwide but it was surely the first time that I had seen something like this. I bet there was a lot of purring going on in there.

We got home and Adri selected the movie The Sunchaser to watch, it was Friday night after all. IMDb describes the movie as “Michael Reynolds is a rich oncologist who has a $175,000 sports car, a multi-million dollar home, and a new boost in his career. Brandon ‘Blue’ Monroe is a dying patient who kidnaps Reynolds.” And it continues blah blah blah… Now I never was a Woody Harrelson fan except when he played, well, Woody, is the comedy series Cheers many years ago. Anyway, I cannot rate this movie it was so bad, but if you put a gun to my head and threatened me with imminent death I might give it a one, one out of 100. The acting was bad, the plot was bad, the dialogue was bad, the music was even worse, it sometimes sounded like a soundtrack for a bad Western.

Now some reviewers, I suspect members of the Harrelson family, rated the movie 10 out of 10, some were less boastful of their uncle and rated it slightly lower, but then there were a few genuine reviewers, one that said it “Made me physically ill”. Another said “The plot of this movie is an abomination. An agonising creature, writhing in pain, begging even for deliverance. It’s not a pretty sight. Were they trying to document every possible movie cliché? If so, it’s a commendable effort: they’ve not missed many. Watch something else. Anything else.” And that about summed up my feeling.

Now you may wonder why I did not just stop watching it… Well, I wanted to but I thought Adri was pretty quiet so she must be enjoying it where she was lying on the couch, and it was her choice after all. Turns out she slept through the whole damn thing and woke up when the end titles were rolling by.

During the last few days Adri and I contemplated staying in Chiang Rai a while longer than the initial one month as it is such a comfortable place, both the city and the apartment. This morning we confirmed such extension with our landlord so we will now be in Chiang Rai until the morning of 9 December 2016. We will use this time to get up to date with all admin related tasks and of course also get the web site fully updated from the old blog.

I watched the New Zealand/Australia rugby match which New Zealand thoroughly deserved to win 37-10. They also deserved to clinch a record-breaking 18th consecutive victory, a record they shared with South Africa on 17. This is just another chink in the armour of SA Rugby and

the current squad certainly does not deserve to be linked to such a unique record, they’re just not good enough at the moment. I noticed that coach Allister Coetzee has now bolstered his couching team with the likes of Cheetahs head coach Franco Smith for the end of year tour to Europe. Should the team be successful it will not be because of, but despite, old Allister.

The New Zealand Herald published a full page clown cartoon of Aussie coach Cheika complete with a red nose and all next to a heading “Send in the clowns“. I always did think of Cheika as a bit of clown watching him perform his antics in the coach’s cubicle with expletives making up the bulk of his sentences as seen on television.

We weren’t looking for it but we found it nevertheless, the Chiang Rai Saturday street market. Wow, I’ve never seen so many people at a street market, the throng of people was like slow moving lava, unstoppable, with no way to really browse along the way. You had to jump off this moving mass and enter the stall of your choice to do a detailed assessment of its offerings. This was crazy, this was great! The market went on and on, we never did get to the finish line as we stopped midway when we got to the food section.

And that’s where Adri quit, the first time I ever saw her quit a good shopping expedition, “The rest can be explored next week”, she said. Supper was a mixed bag of deep fried fish nuggets, porkies, chicken biryani, a couple of potato samosa and an oyster filled omelette. No beer tonight, beer was waiting for me in the freezer at home, chilling out for the SA Currie Cup Final.

After supper we climbed aboard that moving mass once again and were transported slowly in the direction of home, so slowly in fact that I missed the first 15 minutes of the final between the Cheetahs and the Bulls.

The Tiger in the freezer had by now frozen up, with teeth clattering, I saved it from the wintery weather, opened it up, but it was un-pourable. After the contents were coerced into a swirling circle by a makeshift swizzle stick – a long spoon handle – it finally became almost pourable. That golden liquid oozed out of that neck like thick honey, and just as delicious. Anyway, the Cheetahs deserved to win 36 – 16, a game riddled with handling errors by both sides, but a good game nevertheless.

The Swedish Academy’s decision to award the Nobel prize for literature to Bob Dylan has created deep division between peoples of different countries who care to be divided by this. I must admit, I raised my eyebrows into questions marks when I first read about this award thinking “What does music have to do with literature as such?” My dictionary defines literature as “Writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.”

Okay, no music in there, but if you consider Bob Dylan’s music as poetry, then okay. Now let me make it clear upfront, I am a fan of Dylan’s music, but if poetry was indeed his ticket to the award then I would much rather have seen the award go to Leonard Cohen, heck, even Paul Simon. But after all is said and done, personally I do not believe this Nobel prize should have gone to a musician, there are more than enough music awards that musicians can and do compete for.

A Number of quotes from the web bear a similar message as above, such as  “Bob Dylan does not need a Nobel Prize in Literature, but literature needs a Nobel Prize. This year, it won’t get one” by novelist Anna North and “I totally get the Nobel committee. Reading books is hard” by writer Gary Shteyngart… ouch! Anyways, Dylan has been a real asshole about this, he has not yet acknowledged this honour, nor spoken out about it and his silence has been labelled as “Impolite and arrogant” by an Academy Member, and I fully agree.

It was just before 09:00 on Sunday morning that I woke up and got a message from the yoga teacher who cancelled this morning’s session. “Just as well” I thought, as my body was still mitigating the miles put on my muscles during yesterday’s session.

We lazed about – it was weekend you see – and sometime in the afternoon we left for the Central Festival Shopping Centre. Adri was craving carrot cake, not just any carrot cake, but the one she was going to bake. At the Tops Supermarket we found cake flour, baking powder, carrots, etc. and with that the main ingredients were procured. A few ancillary items were still outstanding which we will be searching for tomorrow.

While at Central Festival we checked out the movies, you will remember that I mentioned we wanted to see The Accountant. Now we found out that the movie only screens with a Thai soundtrack. I was so sure that I saw one screening on their website that had a “EN/TH” next to it which means, English soundtrack with Thai subtitles. The lady behind the counter confirmed “No English”, but then the girl in Maha Sarakham a few months back also got it wrong, so I’ll keep on checking the website.

We went for a sundowner at the same restaurant by the Kok river as a few days back and while there decided to stay for supper. The place was packed and buzzing. We got amazing sunset pictures over the river; the same cannot be said about the supper. I can safely say that this evening I had the worst meal I have had since being in Thailand. Adri’s dish of chicken and basil with veggies and rice was okay, sort of-ish. My dish of chicken with vegetables and rice was plain awful, goddamn awful. Most of the few pieces of chicken in there were all bony with almost no meat; the veggies were sparse with a rather odd (read terrible) taste accompanying it, it tasted like something they picked up from a greasy floor. There was a bounty of mushrooms in there, that thin stringy type that one cannot consume; it becomes a three-strand twisted natural fiber rope in your mouth after chewing on it for a while. I might go back there for the sunsets, but on second thoughts… nah…

Further to the above, the beer was also not up to scratch. Now I have always railed against anybody that drinks beer with ice… that is sacrosanct… it’s just not done, okay, just… don’t… do it. But this evening I ordered a big Tiger and it was delivered pretty much lukewarm. Maybe it was just a tad cooler than that, but undrinkable nevertheless. Now it was decision time, do I force-feed myself with this less-than-cool beer or do I throw my own caution to the wind and employ the ice. Man, I tried but that beer refused to enter my body, there was no other way out than to renege on my ice-free beer mantra. I tentatively dropped a few blocks of ice into the beer and waited a short while for the ice to take effect. Man, did that feel awkward, but at least the beer almost instantaneously turned as cold as ice.

Okay, so here’s how to drink beer with ice, to be used only in emergency situations. Fill your glass with ice, and I mean it, fill it to the top. Very slowly, with the glass at a 45 degree angle, pour a less than generous amount of warm beer into that glass. Wait one minute or so and drink it all up in one big swig, before the ice gets a chance to dilute that deliciousness. Repeat this pouring and drinking process until your beer is finished, then order another warm beer and repeat as required. Replenish ice as necessary. Once complete, make a promise to yourself to never go back to that pub or restaurant again… ever.

During the night I had the runs, not surprisingly so after that awful pick-up-from-greasy-floor food that I was fed. It started off with a jog at 02:00 but then turned into a full blown run by 06:00. “I’m never eating at that restaurant again” I thought as I finished my marathon. By the time I woke up again at around 09:00 my stomach had settled with me.

I dreamed about soft rolling thunder but then I realized, as I was emerging from my sleepy haze, that there was in fact real soft rolling thunder in the air. Just yesterday Adri and I remarked that we have not had any rain since leaving Pai where we had rain almost every day. I slid open the sliding doors to the patio and was greeted by a soft rustle in the leaves in the trees below us. How wonderfully peaceful it was with news and coffee in hand, inhaling the freshness of the morning.

This is when I came upon an article reporting on an interview that Anele in SA had with Julius Malema, the leader of the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), published on 14 October 2016. It seems like Julius Malema has done some growing up, as he himself quite readily admits, and I must confess to being rather impressed at his maturity in this interview from what I saw in others a year ago.

One of the more endearing moments of the interview was when he told the story that, after the recent municipal elections, he was grappling with the issue as to which party to support as a coalition partner, the ANC (African National Congress) or the DA (Democratic Alliance). His son Ratanang, who is 10 years of age, in his innocence suggested that the EFF join the DA, in his words, “Then you can look after the black people and the DA can look after the white people” . Ratanang then went on to caution and remind his dad with “You know how bad the ANC treated you”. I’m sure this did not sway his decision but the EFF did end up joining the DA in a coalition agreement against the ANC. I, like Julius, have nothing against the ANC, it is Zuma and the institutionalized corruption that we all have a problem with. Below is the interview if you care to watch and get an inside glimpse of the real Juju.

On 25 September 2016 I blogged “Trump squandered the full extent of his vocabulary of five words of ‘huge, disaster, amazing, tremendous, very’, within the first minute and kept on repeating them ad nauseam.” Today I read with interest an article on Huffington titled “Donald Trump’s Former Ghostwriter Slams GOP Nominee’s ‘200-Word Vocabulary’” Tony Schwartz, the real writer of The Art Of The Deal, shares my view although he gives Trump much more credit with an additional 195 words!

Late afternoon we went to Makro to stock up on veggies and the remainder of the carrot cake ingredient list. And now that we’re staying a few weeks longer, “Why not stock up on some booze while we’re here”, I thought to myself and on its own accord the trolley started wheeling itself in that direction. We ended up with a Cabernet Sauvignon from Down Under, a Thai brandy, and finally a cream liqueur to go with that vanilla ice-cream. A poor substitute for Amarula but a worthy one nevertheless.

The first thing I opened when I got home was that bottle of Meridian VSOP Thai brandy… actually, I first opened the door. It was initially with some trepidation but I was pleasantly surprised at my first whiff which had a slight cognac air about it. When I tasted it I was rather impressed when that cognac on the nose pulled through to the taste buds below. Now let me not deceive you, this is not a Rémy Martin, or a Hennessy or a Camus or such, but it’s good enough for me. Now of course I would always drink a cognac neat and at room temperature, but this bottle said it was brandy so I doused that brandy with a good dash of Coke and… aaaah! Was that good or what? The second one had exactly the same “aaaah!” effect.

Adri tried the red wine with the label that read “The style of Cabernet Sauvignon offers scents of red berry with complex flavours, vibrant ruby in colour”, and berry red and bloody great it was.

The baguette we got yesterday didn’t last past breakfast on Tuesday morning. It was enjoyed with scrambled eggs, pork sausages, cheese and tomato. Man, was that good or what?

Today we were listening to music via the radio app on AppleTV and I blindingly selected the first 80’s music channel. It ended up being a French station that plays mostly English music but with a good smattering of French songs interspersed amongst those. One French song caught my attention, it was Vanessa Paradi singing her 1987 hit called Joe Le Taxi (Joe the Taxi Driver) pretty cool song, she was only 14 when she recorded it. Just a bit of useless information, she was in a relationship with Johnny Depp from 1998 to 2012, how she stayed with him for so long I cannot fathom. A while later another French song, this time of 1986 caught my ear, it was Jeanne Mas with En Rouge Et Noire (In Red And Black), take a listen to both songs below.

 

After reading the news, if I tell you that this one particular politician acts erratic, is volatile, flies off the handle at the slightest provocation, say things in the heat of the moment and then having to backtrack or “clarify” later, you would think I was talking about Trump… But you would be wrong. It is the Philippine president of a few months, Rodrigo Duterte that I am referring to here. A while back he called Obama “the son of a whore”. Yesterday he was severing ties with the US while on a visit to China, today he’s not so sure anymore, you know, that’s not really what he meant. Wow! If you want to know what a Trump presidency would look like, look no further than Duterte.

Philippine senator Leila de Lima urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to launch an investigation into, what she calls, Duterte crimes against humanity. How long do you think it will be before Duterte make the Philippines leave the ICC, just like Zuma had just done in SA? Any bets?

Today Adri continued readying posts to be migrated to www.travelandall.com and I continued with some blogging, a rather relaxing day I’d say. I will soon start publishing the older migrated posts, they’ll be coming through thick and fast very soon.

We had a great supper but the superstars tonight were those pampoenkoekies (pumpkin fritters) that Adri made, a whole pumpkin’s worth, it wasn’t a very large pumpkin though. Man these things were great, coated with cinnamon sugar to make the slightly sweet pumpkin really sweet, you should try them using the recipe here.

Tonight I was in the mood for watching NFL (National Football League), or Gridiron Football, always been a fan of the game. Just for some background, the NFL in the USA is made up of 32 teams divided up evenly between the two conferences, the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The regular season runs for 17 weeks starting early September through to the week after Christmas. After the regular season, six teams from each conference, which includes four division winners and two wild card teams, go through to the playoffs. The playoffs culminate in the Super Bowl, played between the respective winners of the NFC and AFC. The Super Bowl normally takes place early February with the next edition, Super Bowl 50, which will take place on 7 February 2017.

So tonight I searched for NFL games on YouTube via the AppleTV. I eventually fine-tuned my search for the best results thus far to “NFL 2016 W07”, with “W07” depicting the week number you wish to watch. You won’t find many complete games but look for the videos with a running time of between 35 and 50 minutes. These are videos that show the complete game without all the stoppages for team changes, dead time between downs and stoppage times, etc. This takes some getting used to but I now actually prefer this format, one can watch many more games! I spent so much time on my new toy; I only got to bed around 01:00.

I woke up just before 10:00 when Adri also rose to the occasion. Unbeknownst to me, Adri woke up at about 03:00, decided to have tea, and read until about 06:00. I guess when you don’t have to go to work in the morning one can do such things.

Today we dared to do a 45 minute yoga session with fortunately no over stretched muscles or broken bones to report.

Breakfast was a very late affair just before 13:00. Breakfast dessert was a croissant, thickly spread with butter and mixed berry jam, man… was that good. We have a liquidizer in the apartment and a while later Adri surprised me with a banana and apple fruit shake. Wow!

Since I was told on Sunday that The Accountant screens only with a Thai soundtrack I have been double-checking the daily screenings on Major Cineplex’s web site. Today I was rewarded with a “EN/TH” screening of The Accountant at 20:20 tonight, “I knew it!“ I exclaimed within myself. It pays not to believe everything you hear, even if it is from so-called experts… especially if it is from so-called experts.

We lazed about for most of the day and we were planning to watch the SA budget speech by SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan at 19:00 but we had other financials to attend to, we had to go see The Accountant.

It was around 19:00 that we left for the movies. We placed our order for two seats and the lady attendant displayed, on a screen that was facing me, the available seats. I gently pressed down on E14 and E15 and when nothing happened I pressed down slightly harder… And then even harder when nothing still happened, my fingertips by now going white as the blood drained from them, nearly pushing my fingers through the plasma and into the screen’s carcass. And that’s when I realized that it was not a touch screen and proceeded to mumble my selection to the lady.

When the lady handed back my change I at first thought she took pity on me for being feebleminded and charged me only half price. Or, I thought, maybe Adri paid the full price; mine was for free as I would obviously not understand the movie, I could understand her reasoning though. But thankfully that was not the case, it seems like Wednesday is movie night and tickets are half price… or so I hoped. With my change I also received a voucher for a buy-one-get-one-free pizza at The Pizza Company which we will surely put to good use. Does everybody get this voucher, or was it just me…?

We rather sort of enjoyed The Accountant and I guess it’s worth watching, but I certainly cannot recommend it, there was something missing, just cannot put my finger on it, but something…

By the way, I have mentioned previously that before a movie starts, the Thai Royal Anthem – as opposed to the National Anthem – is played which is accompanied by pictures of King Bhumibol portraying various stages of his life. It’s just such a beautiful piece of music, composed by the Russian composer Pyotr Shchurovsky, with a haunting start and an amazingly stirring ending, please watch it below. With the King having passed away a few weeks back the pain of the Thai people must still be raw in their hearts and I could not begin to imagine how this music must affect them. I know it affected me, I felt electric chills going up and down my spine for the length of the song.

It was close to 23:00 when we exited the movie house and things turned rather eerie. The shopping centre had essentially shut its doors for the evening, the lights were out low, the escalators were not functioning and had a “no entry” sign which kept you from entering the steps. Not sure about what to do we put on our sheep’s clothes and followed the few Thai’s that were in the theater with us. Right and then left down a long passageway eventually entering a goods lift, down a few levels and then exited via the goods entrance. As I said, it felt rather eerie.

Thursday morning we woke up with a knock, a knock on the door. It was the maintenance man coming to replace the toilet seat that had somehow divorced itself from the toilet; maybe it came loose when I was running my marathon the other night.

As we did not watch the SA budget speech last night we read about it today and watched the pertinent video clips. The most pertinent video clip that stole the show, as per below, was of course the one where Zuma fell asleep… can you believe that doos dozed off right in the middle of that very important speech. Hau!!

After a breakfast of oats with banana discs, and a croissant for breakfast dessert, I was slogging away at the blogging while Adri was doing the same at her carrot cake that she had been craving. It was two hours later that we ate the fruits of her hard labour, real carrot cake. It turned out great and some helpings later I was pulling a Zuma all of my own.

On Tuesday I wrote “If you want to know what a Trump presidency would look like, look no further than Duterte.” Today Time reported “… looking at Duterte’s actions in his first few months in office may give the clearest indication of what a Trump presidency might look like.” Hmm… ‘nuff said.

On a suggestion from Lood we started watching Outlander on Netflix tonight. IMDb describes it as “The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened.” It started out slowly in the first episode, continued in the same vein in the second but I must admit, this story grows on one very quickly. It is beautifully filmed with that breathtaking Scotland scenery ever-present. And I know how much Lood loves Scotland having once gone to visit old Nessie!

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