Friday, 14 October 2016 to Thursday, 20 October 2016
We woke up Friday morning with Thailand in mourning. I think the shock of King Bhumibol’s passing yesterday afternoon has only now set in. King Bhumibol was a most revered leader that led his country for 70 years. The Thai people are understandably extremely sad as he was a father figure to all; he was the only King most people have ever known, so it is really as if a family member, and much more, had passed away.

The mourning period will be one year but the next 30 days will see a curtailment of entertainment-related activities. As per the many news outlets, the following are expected of the people in Thailand:

• Wear black or wear white
• Refrain from celebrations and festive activities
• Postpone entertainment activities
• Foreigners are advised to maintain a low profile and act respectfully
• Behave with a sombre demeanour when in public
• Avoid overt celebrations in public
• Avoid wearing bright colours. Neutral colours are the most appropriate
• Do not wear revealing or bright-coloured clothing
• Follow directives issued by the authorities
• Reconfirm business appointments in case of possible cancellations

Television channels have agreed to suspend normal programs for 30 days while newspapers and magazines will print only grey. Even their websites and that of many other general websites have turned to display all their contents in grey, or black and white, like The Bangkok Post, The Nation, Air Asia, Makro, just to name a few.

People on the streets today were very subdued with most of them dressed in the suggested black and/or white clothing. One cannot help but feel the sadness the Thai people are feeling as they have lost a King and a father. Nelson Mandela was maybe not a king but he was a father figure to all South Africans and I remember the sad empty feeling I felt when I heard of his passing a few years back. It was truly as if a close family member had passed away, so I can understand the feelings of distraught and emptiness the Thai people are experiencing right now.

Lèse majesté in Thailand makes it illegal to defame, insult or threaten the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent and has been a prohibition since 1908. The punishment is three to fifteen years of imprisonment per count. In line with this, during the week there were reports of citizens requesting police to arrest people who did not wear black and/or white clothing; they saw that as an insult to the King. But fortunately the police are following a very pragmatic approach and are not enforcing this rule as some people may not be able to afford new clothes or the black and white clothes may have been sold out, which of course is always a possibility. Be as it may, everything is very peaceful in the Kingdom.

This evening we planned to see Summer and Lucy for dinner – our Chinese children from Nong Song Hong – who were on holiday and came for a visit to Chiang Mai. They’ve been here for four days and tomorrow they will be off to Hua Hin and then Bangkok and by then the new semester will be upon them.

But we ended up seeing them much earlier than intended, but I’m running ahead of myself… It was early morning when Adri was on an sms chat with Summer to arrange a meeting place and time for dinner. As Adri typed the final arrangement message, it could not be sent… bummer, we were fresh out of airtime, just then.

But of course, that was just a minor irritation; the worst was yet to come. We biked off to the local 7/11 to buy top-up on the AIS network called One-2-Call. “Sorry, no have”, came the reply. Apparently AIS is no longer contracted to 7/11 to sell their top-up products, but we were advised to go to Tesco Lotus. There was no Tesco Lotus in the immediate vicinity so the only thing that was left to do right then was to finalize tonight’s arrangements in person. We biked off to their hotel in the old town and made the final arrangements there. It was so great to see them again!

We still had to top-up and with maps.me working against me for whatever reason today, in line with everything else I guessed, after numerous re-routings we finally made it to one of the few Tesco Lotus Express shops available in Chiang Mai. “Sorry, no have”, came the reply. Same same situation as at 7/11. The attendant advised us to go across the road to the AIS Buddy store, seems like only AIS’s buddies nowadays sell their top-ups, and seemingly a few other little cell shops as well. This cancelling of contracts must have happened during the last few weeks because a month ago we still used 7/11. Wow, I don’t think this was a clever move by AIS, makes it just that bit more difficult for their clients to spend money with them. Be as it may, I suggest that if you come to Thailand, give AIS a wide berth and rather go for DTAC or TrueMove.

After topping up we went for breakfast at a Wawee Coffee shop which is linked to a brasserie which sells a small selection of breads, pastries and such. Adri had a thick slice of toasted bread that had an egg and everything else on there; I had a pastrami and cheese sandwich with all toppings including gherkins, which I have not had in a while. Great!

Looking at those gherkins with a yearning in my heart I remembered the French word for gherkin is cornichon. Now how did I know that? Did it perhaps have something to do with the French brasserie next door? But no, it was in the early 2000’s that Adri and I were in France and shopping at a supermarket in Paris for ingredients to fill the baguette that was still warm in my hand. We also had Emmental cheese, ham and tomatoes, the only thing missing were the gherkins. We searched high and low but the gherkins kept a low profile. It was then that this very friendly old French lady, must have been in her deep seventies, asked whether she could help us seeing that we were so lost. She had no English, we had no French, but after many hand signals and gestures she suddenly exclaimed “aaaaah cornichon, Oui Oui!” and pointed us to the cornichon that was essentially right before our eyes, just higher up on the rack. At least I possessed a merci beaucoup madame that I could pass on to her.

After our late breakfast we chilled at home and at 17:00 we met up with Lucy and Summer. They were accompanied by a friend that Summer studied with back in China, called Monroe, as in Marilyn Monroe, who is currently studying at the university in Chiang Mai. The restaurant we selected was just over a kilometre away, there were five of us, and we had one bike. “That ain’t gonna work” I told myself. The popular consensus was that I ride to the restaurant and have a beer, and the girls will have a chatty walk there, they had lots to talk about anyway, you see. Oh, I love these kids!

I got to the restaurant and they did not serve alcohol out of respect for the King’s passing. I really did respect their decision but I was really thirsty. I had a big Chang at the Bar Tong Gop just down the road. Once the girls arrived at the restaurant we all had a great meal and of course I ordered extra rotis for the group, you know the ones with the condensed milk dripping all over them. Dinner was our treat for the kids tonight but by the time I asked for the bill, they had already sneakily paid the bill behind our backs! They absolutely refused that I pay them back no matter how hard I tried; they were treating us tonight. Wow, what great kids!

I set the alarm for 08:00 Saturday morning, we got up at 08:40. Why? I accidentally set the weekday alarm rather than the Saturday alarm. “Asshole” I scolded myself as we jumped out of bed and started scurrying to get ready… we ended up having plenty of time actually as we did not unpack many things during our two day stay.

At 10:00 the taxi arrived after which we dropped off the bike at Ten, that is Ten, the owner of Mango Bikes. By 10:20 we were at the Arcade bus terminal nursing our first coffee of the day. At 11:00 we were off on the Green Bus rather than the “clean bus” and what a wonderful trip we had. There was wonderful mountain scenery along the way, a road that I wished I did by bike rather than by bus. It was just past 14:00 that we nosed our way into the Chiang Rai bus terminal in town, were loaded up into a songthaew, and by 14:30 we were dropped off at our new home.

Our new home was even better than what we expected. The building seems to be going through a gradual upgrade and our one bedroom apartment turned out to be fully renovated and just great. There is an open plan kitchen dining and living room area that leads out to a balcony with wonderful views over trees with mountains in the distance. Then there is a huge bedroom with ensuite bathroom, also with a balcony with the same views. In the lounge there is a very comfortable couch and a big screen TV (55 inch), the ame size as I had back in SA. Adri raved about the kitchen which has more utensils and stuff that she had seen collectively during our stays in Thailand. There’s even a stove with an oven and, wait for it, a small electric barbecue! Now if someone can just send me a few kilograms of boerewors!

We organized a bike with reception and 20 minutes later it was delivered in good order from a bike rental company called Soon’s. Really great service and we negotiated a pretty good deal for the month. It’s always a good idea to get mobile as soon as possible when arriving at a new destination.

We were testing out the bike in search of a beer when something or other got caught in Adri’s eye, man was that extremely uncomfortable. I know because she told me so, again and again, and… And that thing would not budge! Now at least Adri knew how Frank felt when he walked around with a steel rod stuck in his eye for almost a month!

To try and remedy the situation we first stopped at a department store to get to decent clean toilet facilities so Adri could try and rinse her eye out with some water. That did not work. We then rushed off to a pharmacy to get eye drops. That did not work either. Adri was by now getting desperate, it was becoming more and more uncomfortable… actually unbearable.

Adri was in agony; our next stop was going to be a hospital. On our way there, as a pre-last resort, we stopped off at a drug store which is also what is referred to as an ”inter hospital”, whatever that might mean, but Adri could see a doctor there. The doctor, who’s English was fortunately very good, had a quick look, found the culprit and removed the piece of crap from her eye with something that looked like an obese ear bud. Adri screamed and jumped from the pain and then she was quiet, relieved that the piece of crap had left her body. It ended up being a very tiny black particle that did the damage, not sure exactly what it was. We were quoted 200 baht to see the doctor, we ended up paying 500, the price probably reflecting the relief they saw on Adri’s face. Either way, it was still a small price to pay for that relief.

A celebration was called for so we stopped at the Easy House Restaurant/Pub and had a beer and shandy there. We may have settled for supper there as well but there was an old English lout with a few hangers-on occupying the only other occupied table. Quite a pathetic character, loud, dirty mouthed, lewd, sexist to the extreme – maybe he was doing a Trump impersonation – so we decided to move on elsewhere for dinner. And what a good decision that turned out to be.

We walked 50 metres down the road and came upon a very tiny establishment called the Oak and Awe Coffee House. I had a cheese and bacon burger, Adri had a red Thai curry, both dishes were superb. Of course the beer was superb as well.

Tonight we watched a movie called The Siege of Jadotville which IMDb describes as “Irish Commandant Pat Quinlan leads a standoff with troops against French and Belgian Mercenaries in the Congo during the early 1960s.” This is a true story and here one can see how political wrangling at the highest levels show absolute and total disregard for the people. We rather enjoyed the movie; of course it was even better on the big screen.

Waking up in a new place for the first time is always a bit disorienting, having to remember where one is and all. But that amnesia-like feeling was quickly set aside once the first mug of coffee appeared.

The internet in the new apartment is pretty zippy so I happily worked my way through the plentiful news sites. The Huffington headline this morning read “What the flock? Republicans stand with Trump”. Now the “flock” part of that headline reminded me of a joke and an attempt at dark humour that was going around in the early 80’s and it went “My Vlok man, moenie Worrall nie, liewe Heunis sal sorg”. I’m sorry but this is untranslatable, there is too much going on here, but safe to say that some of these dudes mentioned were really bad dudes, but that’s not the point.

Now you’re not going to believe me… really, you’re not. Last week I mentioned that we met, at the Mountain Bar in Pai, “a young and friendly French guy, of slight build, who danced the night away, by himself or with anyone who cared to join him”. We were on our way to Makro this morning when we stopped at a traffic light and this very same guy stopped right next to us. What are the chances that we meet up with this guy in a different part of Thailand a few days later, in a city the size of Chiang Rai? Wow, how strange, what a coincidence! We had a quick chat while waiting for the light to turn a more agreeable colour and he mentioned that he was flying back to France tomorrow. What are the chances of us meeting up with him again in the future? Seems like the odds are better than one would expect!

We got to Makro and of course we found everything we went for. Veggies, cheese, bacon, eggs, olives and everything else… and would you believe, it was just before checking out that I fortunately remembered the box of vanilla ice cream! That was close…

We lazed at home the rest of the day and now that we had plenty of provisions Adri made us a home cooked meal of pork, sweet potato, chips and mixed veggies. Wow, this tasted like home!

We woke up for the first time on Monday morning just before 08:00 and I was hungry. Straight after our first coffee Adri started assembling a breakfast wat skrik vir niks (that’s not afraid of anything). We had plenty of ingredients after yesterday’s shopping bonanza at Makro so we had eggs, toast, bacon, cheddar cheese, fresh tomato and baked beans, and of course toast with mixed berry jam. I think this was the first time we have had baked beans – for some or other odd reason – since we’ve been in Thailand. Wow, I missed that.

We were planning to go to the Central festival

Shopping Centre today but Adri got stuck into washing and cleaning and once she starts she cannot be stopped, she’s like a machine, man. So I chilled a bit, worked a bit, procrastinated a bit, chilled a bit, worked a bit… you get the picture.

I hooked our music up via Adri’s laptop, through Apple TV using Home Sharing to the TV in the apartment. We llistened to Patti Smith’s album called Easter and who can forget that wonderful song Because The Night. We also listened to Mike Oldfield’s Greatest Hits with songs such as Tubular Bells, To France, Moonlight Shadow, Islands, Etude and so many more.

The last-mentioned song, Etude (as per video below), is a hauntingly beautiful piece of music that features during the closing credits of the movie The Killing Fields. The movie is about the killing field sites in Cambodia where collectively more than a million – probably closer to two million – people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979. The movie is amazing, incredibly sad and draining on ones senses. To hear Etude at the end of witnessing all that sadness and senseless killing just sends chills down ones spine.

I woke up on Tuesday morning to the smell of Douwe Eggbert coffee permeating the air, pulling me up and out of bed by my nostrils where I joined Adri in the lounge for a cuppa on the sofa.

They offer yoga classes in the apartment building where we’re renting and we considered signing up for a month. Yesterday we ventured down to the yoga facility to familiarize ourselves with the details but was met by a large body of bodies, there was hardly enough space for all the mats let alone the bodies doing its thing. We thus decided to continue with our Yoga Studio teacher on the Ipad this morning with a 30 minute session.

The breakfast in this apartment never ceases to amaze me. This morning it was eggs and toast, combined with leftover pork from last night, baked beans, cheese, pork sausages, fried onions, fresh tomato, man, that was great.

After breakfast I spent most of the day fleshing out and fine-tuning last week’s blog and published it by around 17:00. It was now time to give the bike a run for its money so we ventured down to the local Central Festival Shopping Mall about 4km from where we stay. Although the mall is not that big, it has everything that one would need. It also has a Tops Supermarket which always has good quality products, much like Woollies back in SA.

We also discovered the Major Cineplex Central Chiang Rai so a movie on the really big screen will be scheduled soon. I noticed that The Accountant with Ben Affleck was showing which I am quite keen to see. I noticed that this movie is only being released in SA on the 28^th, so I’ll keep you posted whether it’s worth seeing! If you were wondering about the prices of movies in Thailand, here in Chiang Rai it is 200 baht per person which I guess is about 25% more expensive than in SA.

After our window-shopping trip we entered the Tops Supermarket for a few things we needed…. And some we did not need. A case in point, as I walked past the bakery section, two guys were deep-frying doughnuts, dusted them with a few grains of sugar after which they were placed in a plastic bag, ten in a team. Before Adri could protest I grabbed a bag and shoveled out my first doughnut, burning my fingers in the process so hot they were still. Man, these things were light and fluffy and tasty as hell, they slipped effortlessly down the old hatch… three of them before we even reached the checkout counter.

On the way home Adri suddenly got tired and made it known that there was going to be no cooking at home tonight, and so, not totally against my will, we stopped off at the same restaurant as Sunday, the Oak and Awe Coffee House. Our first course consisted of a one litre pitcher of Leo draught beer and the second course was Thai curries allsorts, and the food once again was just great.

While on our first course an oldish guy struck up a conversation, he’s an Australian and on hearing that we were from SA he jokingly remarked that all South Africans living in Australia are called a Japie which I assume is used as an ever so slightly derogatory but playful banter. Anyway, I thought to myself, we call the Aussies much worse names back in SA. It was then that he mentioned that his name was Dick and I thought, “How did he know that!”

Anyway, Dick was a nice old guy from somewhere south of Perth but has been living with his Thai wife in the southeast of Thailand for the past eight years where they had a coffee shop that they have now sold. His wife is originally from Chiang Rai and their arrangement is that, once a year, she visits her family in Chiang Rai for three months while he goes travelling on his own. This year he will be going to China. Just before we left he invited us for coffee sometime at their home which is just down the road; and we may just take him up on his offer.

We lazed about before and after another exemplary breakfast on Wednesday morning. My hair was growing wild, it was at least 1.5cm long, looking disheveled and all, so Adri ordered me to sit down, keep quiet, and shaved that head down to 4mm or so. While we were in maintenance mode, I trimmed my beard, clipped my nails from fingers to toes, heck, now I could face myself again.

We planned to go for a ride. While waiting, waiting, waiting for Adri to get ready I played around on the Apple TV and rediscovered the Radio app on there, selected an 80’s channel and was sent down memory lane with songs like Juliet by Robin Gibb, If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher, The Look by Roxette and Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins. And no, the band members were not twins, the band was named after the two bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson in the comic strip The Adventures of Tintin. But then you knew that.

Still waiting, waiting, waiting, I enquired “Can we go now please?” I was raring to go but was ignored. I continued listening to my music and reading the news and…

And that’s when I leant a brand new word in an article on Bdlive. In the article Zuma is described as being part of the kakistocracy, no seriously, it means “Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens” or “Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power”.  And to make this even more relevant, the first three letters in this word is “kak” which is Afrikaans for “shit”, so very appropriate. And of course there’s no denying that a Trump presidency would be a kakistocracy.

At around 14:00 we finally rode in the opposite direction as before to see what lies on the other side of town. We ended up at the Chiang Rai Beach for which one has to fully engage ones imagination to see such. The “beach” is no more than the banks of the Kok River (and yes, that is the correct spelling). Be as it may, it is a lovely spot along the river, right opposite the Queen Sirikit Park, where there are an abundance of hut-type shelters where one can sit, watch the river, have something to eat and/or drink… which we did.

The kitchen where food is prepared is across the road in this park-like setting and is about 50 meters away. It was quite a treat to watch the waiters deliver food on their bikes, riding with one hand, tray of food in the other, also maneuvering down a steep embankment to where the food needs to be delivered. Wow, what waitressing skills!

After we had a big Chang and Sprite we went in search for the other “beach” in town, oddly enough also called Chiang Rai Beach and found a same same scene. The first one seemed to be a more relaxing environment though. After exploring that area we went in search of a pub in town, any pub, that was located on the river in order to watch the sunset. We found a perfect spot at the Yunnan Restaurant where we had another big Chang and a sunset, and man, that sunset did not disappoint. I think we’ll be back there soon.

We got home with my stomach grumbling at me for not feeding it. Adri prepared a wonderful supper of grilled chicken, mixed veggies and chips. One cannot eat this well in any restaurant, guaranteed.

I set the alarm for 07:30 on Thursday but fortunately woke up before then and thereby thankfully avoiding an ear splitting heart stopping wakeup call. And the reason for early rising? Well, the third and thankfully last US presidential debate, of course. Trump just seemed to make a bigger mess than in the previous two debates, or maybe it was just that I was watching on a big screen TV this time. Be as it may, Trump once again put both his feet squarely into whatever he was challenged with, also sticking with his rhetoric that the elections will be rigged in favour of Clinton, with no evidence evident. Oh my, I fear this was his last chance to redeem himself and he failed miserably.

We had just yesterday run out of eggs and ostensibly our local 7/11 had also done so. No biggie, this morning we had breakfast of oats and a mixed fruit yogurt. Not a full Monty breakfast as the previous few days, but great in any case. The oats we normally buy is an Australian make called McGarrett which was unavailable so we bought a German make called Hahne Haferflocken, which turned out to be just as good.

Adri read and snoozed the afternoon away while I progressed the current week’s blog. We scheduled a yoga session for this morning, postponed it to this afternoon and when the time came it was again postponed to tomorrow morning.

When Adri started supper I thought it best to get out of her way so whipped out the big beer that I bought yesterday, to have out on the patio. When I popped the top there was no familiar and reassuring pfssssst sound. Uh oh, I thought, maybe the beer had gone flat. Checked the expiry date but it was all good. I then started to pour the contents into a glass and it was a very pale, extremely pale colour, almost like water. It smelt sweet, not too terrible, but then again also not quite nice. I was reluctant to try it so Adri grabbed the glass and took a tentative sip. Sweet… wine-ish… I chanced a sip and concurred… sweet… wine-ish. After a quick search on the internet I found that this stuff, that is called Siamsato, is a type of a rice wine which is a little like wine and a little like cider. “Yup, that about covers it” I thought as I poured the contents down the drain.

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