Friday, 4 November 2016 to Thursday, 10 November 2016
It was Friday evening and already dark outside when the hunger pangs drove us to the streets, and more importantly to the street market and its freshly fashioned foods. Adri had been eyeballing the grilled fish for a number of weeks now but each time we were there another dish jumped the queue and onto her plate. It is difficult to decide on a dish when there is so much to choose from, but tonight she was not going to be distracted, she was focused.

Adri walked right up to the grilled fish stand, ordered in a hurry and found us a table to sit at. I had not yet decided what to eat but the drink was a foregone conclusion, beer of course. For some or other reason they don’t sell Chiang at this particular venue but I have no qualms with a big Singha, never have, never will have. I decided on a dish of deep fried chicken pieces to go with that Singha which was wonderfully fresh, the chicken as well. We shared the Singha, Adri did most of the sharing while I did most of the drinking. We also had a couple of divine looking and tasting porkies that Adri had ordered in the meantime, you know, just to keep herself busy while waiting for her fish. And man, when that fish finally arrived it tasted great. We shared the fish, I did most of the sharing, Adri did most of the eating.

After we were trommeldik (stuffed to the gills, so to speak) we waddled along on the way back to the bike. And that’s when we saw two American women bargaining for cigarette lighters they wanted from the one stall. The lighters were going for 150 baht, the stall lady came down to 120 but they would have none of it, 100 or no deal. “Call the boss”, they demanded in that superior “better than thou, better than all” tone in their voices. The boss came over but by that time I was so disgusted by these two women that I left in a hurry, I do not know what the outcome was, I hoped he did not back down. To create such a fuss over 20 baht, it’s like 57 cents (US), c’mon man, what difference is it going to make in your life? It will though make a difference in that stall owner’s life who certainly do not have much. I felt ashamed to be a farang.

One has a good general perception of prices and if something is out of the ordinary expensive I would bargain to a point, never pushing it, but 99.9% of the time I accept the price as quoted. If you perceive the price to be too high, walk away.

During the last few weeks our exposure to France has been at an all-time high. We met so many French people in Pai, was in contact with Didier and Philippe from Montpellier and Paris respectively, then I perchance happened upon that French music station and then the owners of the unit we’re currently staying in here in Chiang Rai turned out to also be French. We met with Baptiste and his brother Gael who manages the apartment on behalf of their uncle Oliver, whom we have now also met. Oliver lives in Gordes in the south of France where he also has an apartment that he rents out and invited us to stay there, at a good price.

Now here’s the thing, Gordes is part of the Luberon Valley in Provence and it is exactly 47km from La Motte d’Aigues. Now you may wonder why that would be important to me, but wonder no more. You may recall that I blogged on Monday 11 July 2016 that my ancestors who were Protestants and persecuted by the Catholics fled to South Africa back in 1688. Pierre Joubert was from La Motte d’Aigues and he uprooted my family tree from La Motte d’Aigues and replanted it in South Africa.

So, something seems to be pointing us towards France… gently pushing us along, maybe it’s time to be “Zipping up my boots… going back to my roots, yeah!”, as encapsulated in that wonderful song by Odyssey in the video below. Although the travel kitty is scraping the bottom of the barrel it has thankfully not yet dug a hole through it, not yet, so we might just consider making a detour via Europe before heading back to SA. But we’ll see what the future holds.

I read on Businessslive that former Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis died, after serving 20 years in prison for the assassination of struggle leader Chris Hani, who was the leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP). The SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila commented that “We do not celebrate death. But it is unfortunate that he died without telling us the whole truth”. Now the SACP may be right in their assessment, maybe everything was not as clear-cut as everybody believed if this article is anything to go by.

I received an email from Didier to recommend that I listen to blues musician Seasick Steve… yes, I’m afraid to say, you read that correctly. Seasick Steve used to be a hobo and a tramp and a bum, as he says “Hobos are people who move around looking for work, tramps are people who move around but don’t look for work, and bums are people who don’t move and don’t work. I’ve been all three”. He still looks like a hobo even though one can only assume that he has now made a lot of money with his music. He also still plays on instruments that resemble a junk yard and he regularly refers to his three stringed guitar as the “…biggest piece of shit in the world, I swear”, but he keeps on playing it, and also on the rest of the junk in his collection. This guy’s got talent; take a listen to him below.

Saturday morning we watched Brexit over breakfast on Sky News and it seems like there is no end in sight for this puppy. The judgment delivered by the high court ruled that “Parliament alone has the power to trigger Brexit by notifying Brussels… the most fundamental rule of the UK constitution is that parliament is sovereign” This is a huge setback for Theresa May, who had insisted the government alone would decide when to trigger the process. I suspect the UK is going down another rabbit hole as May had already indicated that they will appeal the decision though the supreme court.

In an unrelated article the following is mentioned: “There was general shock at the (Brexit) results in June, when most people voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. That was followed by news reports of ‘leave’ voters quickly regretting their decision.  Several were quoted as saying they’d assumed the ‘remain’ camp would prevail and wanted merely to send a message.”

As I mentioned last week, I suspect Brexit was a protest vote that went horribly wrong, and it seems like others share my sentiments.

It was late morning when we left for the Wat Rong Khun Temple which is generally referred to as the White Temple because, well, it’s dressed up all in white. The temple lies about 15km south of Chiang Rai, just off the highway, and gets pretty busy when the tour busses arrive.

On our way there, as I sometimes do, I give the bike a bit more throttle than it deserves on taking off from a traffic light and it responds with a low throaty “Whaaaaaah”. This is inevitably followed by a “Whaaaaaah” from Adri, albeit at a much higher pitch, but hers is also followed by a “Slow Down!” with the expletives fortunately edited out before it leaves her mouth.

The temple was built by artist Ajarn Chalermchai Kositpipat who is well known throughout Thailand. He wanted to build the most beautiful temple in the world and also to show the glory of modern Thai Buddhist arts. He, together with more than 60 followers devoted all their effort and energy to make this structure their life’s work.

On arrival we first went to the art gallery which contain some amazing paintings from Ajarn, truly impressive, after which we went to the temple proper. Entrance to the temple was always free but they started charging a 50 baht admission fee only last month and I do believe that this fee applies only to foreigners. I suppose the man has to put bread on his table. We strolled around the grounds, took pictures from every angle, there is just so much beauty one does not know where to click next. I suspect that the best time to take pictures there would be late afternoon, so we just might return at a later date, at a later time.

After our stroll we had coffee at a coffee shop just across from the temple and it felt like we were on holiday with all the tourists all dressed up in their holiday mood and all. It’s then that I realized that we were indeed also on holiday, sometimes one forgets! Although it was pretty busy it was a very pleasant experience and we’d love to go back there.

On our way home we stopped off at the Central Festival Shopping Centre, specifically to go to the Tops Supermarket. We have an electric barbecue at home, brand spanking new, never been used before and that’s no use to anyone. And tonight the Springboks were playing the Barbarians so what better time for the initiation of that piece of steel. I have had two amazing braais (barbecues) since leaving SA 18 months ago, one with Andre and Thea and one with David and Jenny, that’s it. The time was nigh…

At Tops we found these amazing looking pork rib chops and, huge and thick as they should be. And of course not expecting to find boerewors (duh) we did find what was called English breakfast and dinner pork sausages. These are essentially pork bangers made by a company called Sausage King in Chiang Mai. And by the way, Sausage King makes some kind of a beef sausage that I suspect would be close to a boerewors, but not quite, nothing can. Anyway I did ask the manager lady at Tops to order some beef sausage for us so we’ll monitor the not-quite-boerewors situation.

After our bad choice of Aro filter coffee the other day at Makro – they should not be selling that stuff – we opted for a Douwe Egbert Moccona Blue Mountain filter coffee which proved to be very smooth and very drinkable. I still prefer the dark roast Douwe Egbert that one gets at Makro though.

By the way, I saw some good-looking beef at Makro the other day marked as top round and bottom round…  and all around. I was not familiar with these terms but searching the internet later it seems like the top round and bottom round could be used for a barbecue, so maybe for the next braai…

It was at around 19:30 when Adri started walking around aimlessly in the apartment; she had finished her braai preparations and was waiting for the show to start. The unasked question on her mind was probably “So when are you going to start the fire?” but there was no need for a fire. I moved the braai out onto the patio, switched it on and voilà, there was instant fire in the belly of that braai. Now I will admit to being rather skeptical about this electric barbecue, the one I had back in SA just never got hot enough for a decent braai so was never used beyond the first attempt. This one however was a demon of another kind; it would hold its own against any charcoal fired barbecue.

First up were the selection of pork bangers and the taster confirmed that all was well with the banger and the braai. Next up were those two large pork rib chops which were turned over once, and then another two times thereafter… just perfect. This lot was had with kapokaartappel (mashed potato), some veggies and a baguette-looking-ciabatta-tasting submarine bread which made for a perfect companion to the pork bangers. By the way, the baguette never pretended to be a real one, it just inherited its look, it was delicious.

We ate and we ate and we ate… how wonderful it was to be having our own little barbecue just like at home. I suggested that we do this next weekend again and Adri said “What’s wrong with during the week?”

Oh, and we did watch the South Africa/Barbarians game which ended in a draw, nothing spectacular but not all bad.

After getting to bed rather late, feeling like a pig after all that pork, I at least had the good sense not to stay up to watch the New Zealand/Ireland game that was on at 03:00 Thai time. This morning’s news revealed that Ireland won handsomely to the tune of 40-29. This loss ended New Zealand’s 18 game winning streak as well as their winning streak against Ireland who they have never lost against in their 111 years of doing battle. I watched the retransmission of the game at 09:00 and boy, Ireland sure did play with fire in their hearts. They thoroughly deserved to win.

After the game I settled in for more news while Adri was preparing breakfast. South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s is accused of letting her friend and confidante Choi Soon-sil view confidential documents and presidential speeches. Choi is accused of using her relationship with Park to accumulate millions of dollars in donations to her foundations. Choi succeeded her father (who was Park’s spiritual leader) as leader of the Eternal Life Church after his death in 1994 and has been described as South Korea’s “Rasputin.” If you want to check the parallels between Choi and Rasputin you can check out the Wiki article, or if you do not have that much time, check out the music video below of Boney M’s song of the same name. Read the subtitles! Anyway, let’s see whether Park does the honorable thing and resign as demanded by her people, unlike our Zuma.

After a late start to the day and a resultant late breakfast we made our way out of Chiang Rai at 12:30 heading in a south-westerly direction. We were on our way to the Doi Chaang Coffee Farm, but really just to get out of the city and into the mountains. Once you reach the outskirts of town the scenery is rather lovely and soon enough you feel the road starting to rise ever so slightly, hardly noticeable at first. And then suddenly the climb becomes steep and ever steeper until very steep.

We stopped off at a road with a river that runs through it… seriously. There’s a not very high or very substantial dam wall that runs parallel to the road with water overflowing it, creating that river across the road. This road river joins up with the river proper again on the other side of the road where it continues its journey south. This was not normal. I pulled back on the throttle but the bike seemed to speed up, Adri had decided to jump off the back which explained my illusion of acceleration. I heard Adri thinking aloud “I am not going across that, no, definitely not”. “Surely we could not have come this far to be stopped by water barely 20cm deep?” I thought to myself. “Oh yes we can” Adri answered my thoughts.

We watched from the sidelines and monitored as a number of bikes crossed this watery mass without incident. Adri announced that if I promised to follow her exact planned route across the road river she would get back on the bike. We nosed our way down the embankment, entered the water at the centre of the road, then veered left and across, then a sharp right to exit at an angle up the embankment on the other side. We needed coffee.

So we’re riding along slowly at full throttle up these very steep hills and, while going ever so slowly I took a furtive glance at the instrument panel and noticed to my dismay that the petrol gauge was down to only four bars. What the hell happened to the other six, I asked myself, but no answer was forthcoming. I took a gulp and hoped that things would be okay and just then I lost another bar. The bike was taking strain which in turn took strain on the petrol consumption.

Adri is normally the one that belts out that high pitched “whaaah” when the petrol runs low, this time it was me, I was not going to push this bike up these impossibly steep roads. Adri was quite blasé about the petrol situation with a “oh, let’s just get there and then worry about the petrol”. I went ahead with that notion until another bar disappeared, this shit had to end, we weren’t even there yet and we still needed to get home.

I noticed a small village way down in the valley and found a very narrow road that led us down to it via an almost passable road. Not much was stirring in the little mountain village called Ban Doi Chang so I assumed there would be no petrol station, but they may sell petrol by the bottle as so many places in Thailand. We stopped off along the long way down at two little Thai restaurants for directions, each time we were shown to carry on. Carry on but where to? We eventually did find a decrepit service station with two pumps, one of 95 octanes the other unknown. The Honda Click greedily accepted the 95 as it guzzled down litre upon litre until it had its fill.

We arrived at the Doi Chaang Coffee Farm with 10 bars intact. The farm does not seem to do coffee tours as such but they do have a wonderful coffee shop right there where we could taste the fruits of their labour. After getting a negative response regarding a coffee tour the one waitress offered to take us onto the farm to show us around. We followed her on our bike up along a dirt road and about 1km further we stopped, walked up numerous steps to a house from where one gets a beautiful view across the farm, the mountains and of course the coffee plantations.

The coffee trees currently contain mostly green coffee beans with some purple/brown ones interspersed amongst those. The flesh of the purple/brown coffee bean when tasted is rather sweet on the palate, rather pleasant. The two coffee beans inside is of course a creamy colour at this point which will be dried and roasted to become that old bean we so love.

We whiled away a lovely few hours here in the middle of not much, really peaceful. It was 16:00 when we left our peace. On the way down the mountain we smelt the varying sweet smells of something, the one merging into the next… but we were not sure where it came from. On a number of occasions we stopped to smell the roses, so to speak, but the producer of those sweet smells alluded us. I did not remember smelling anything like this on the way up but I put that down to my being preoccupied with the smells of the petrol fumes the bike was running on.

We stopped off at the road with the river that runs through it. Kids were now frolicking in the dam and using the dam wall as a waterslide to slide down and onto the road. On the other side of the road there were a number of minivans and 4X4 vehicles parked on this road river, their owners using the rushing water to bathe their babies. Some people were gathered under the trees next to a shoddy little restaurant having beers. Everyone was having so much fun so we stayed awhile to have our share as well.

Further along our way home we came upon Singha Park, or Lion Park. This park is the largest agro-tourism park in Thailand with a total area of over 8000 acres of well manicured gardens and greenery. We rode into the park expecting to pay a small fortune, but entrance was free. We rode around and stopped off at the first of two restaurants on the premises, the very la-di-da Bhu Bhirom Restaurant which sports wonderful views across a large portion of the park.

After taking a number of pictures there we went on to the other gathering place where the Barn House Pizzeria is situated. In that vicinity there is also a tower building from where one can zip line down towards somewhere, a place to rent a bicycle and also another little place where one can buy something to drink and sit outside and do some people watching and listening to jazz music. The atmosphere in the park is very laidback and cheerful, very much a family affair.

While having my second Singha Adri said “There’s a guy with four birds!” and I thought “What the hell, is one not enough already!” The birds were beautiful, dressed very colourfully and anyone that cared to could touch his birds, for a small fee of course. While this one bird was being held by a stranger she flew up into the tree and would not budge from there, no matter the cajoling done by its owner. Eventually the bird flew down into another man’s arms who promptly returned her to its rightful owner. The bird was placed back into the cage, I suspected there was not going to be dinner for that chick tonight…

By the time we left Singha Park it was pitch dark and we still had 15km to go but it ended up being quite a pleasant drive back home.

After not doing any blogging over the weekend, Monday morning saw me getting stuck into that task after a good yoga and breakfast session.

But this was not before getting my fill of the latest news of course. And as suspected, this morning FBI director James Comey backtracked and took away the bombshell from Donald Trump that he left Donnie to play with for a whole week. Comey told lawmakers on Sunday that the agency hasn’t changed its opinion, i.e. that Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges, after a review of the new emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. I’m afraid the damage has been done and I fear that there will be enquiries into Comey’s conduct real soon, and so it should. Some people believe that he was forced into making that controversial statement last week due to rogue entities that are at play within the FBI who support Trump. Time will tell.

Late afternoon Oliver came around for a quick chat and also to advise us that he and his wife will be going to Isan on Thursday for a while but will be back before we leave Chiang Rai. Anyway, we’re still hoping to have a beer sometime, even if it is in Gordes?

We had wonderful pork steaks for supper with veggies and sweet potato with dessert being the last helping of the carrot/banana cake. This was a sad but also an exciting event, now at least I can start looking forward to that “Three-ingredient Japanese cheesecake” I lusted after and wrote about last week!

Tuesday 8 November 2016 finally arrived. The US started voting at one minute past midnight so midday Thai time. I said last week that I, like I suspect everyone else, have had US election fatigue for the last few months and finally this will all come to an end, whichever way it goes. I think the decent people in the US is hanging their heads in shame as to how this election campaign played out on the world stage, and hopefully those people are the majority and bring sanity back to their world.

After a late breakfast of perfectly boiled eggs, toast, sausages, cheese, tomato and fried onions with garlic (apparently garlic is good for you) we signed off with watermelon and a few langsat. Langsat is a small round seasonal fruit that is available in Thailand between July and October. Once you peel away the thin skin you come across a translucent like juicy flesh divided into five segments. The fruit itself as well as the taste reminds one of a mangosteen, very delicious indeed.

During breakfast the last few days I have had sneeze attacks, this morning was no different, and why should it be. I suspect that fine pepper powder sneaking its minute particles up and into my nostrils, but I may be wrong. And of course, that sneeze emerges only at the most inconvenient time, when your mouth is filled with all the deliciousness that was on your plate just a while ago. And this morning was no different, and why should it be.

I could feel that sneeze being formed; welling up from deep inside my stomach and then it suddenly shot up, unstoppable, like a giant fart that you know will cause you either grief, embarrassment or admiration. I tried to prevent sneezing by blocking my nose with my fingers, they were going blue from the pressure and my nose was going red for the same reason. My eyes were streaming tears, I felt like screaming fears, but I was holding. The next moment all hell broke loose when the proverbial dam wall burst and that sneeze escaped with a blowout reminiscent of a volcanic eruption. There were food particles on the floor, the ceiling, the balcony, the walls were covered in… okay, maybe it was not quite that bad, but it was bad enough nevertheless. I should cut down on that pepper powder.

I woke up “early” Wednesday morning at 07:00 to watch the results of the US election on CBS News that started to trickle in. So, the first one with 270 electoral votes is the winner and they were starting off at a slow pace with Clinton trailing 19/3. I felt sick to my stomach…. Maybe I should not have gotten up, but there was still a long way to go, I calmed myself.

At 08:30 it was 68/66 for Clinton, still feeling nervous but okay, at least the numbers were heading in the right direction. It was 09:00 with the score at 97/123 for Trump when I felt like breaking out a beer but settled for a sober breakfast. At 09:45 with the score at 104/137 I started getting nauseous. At 10:20 and the score at 109/150 I started retching, I was close to vomiting. With the score at 122/168 at 10:35, CBS showed a tweet from a Rashida that read “I’m so scared, how did we get here?” I was monitoring the Rand, it had left its very comfortable perch of 13.18 this morning to jump despairingly to 13.80! I could not help but think WTFornication is going on!

 At 11:00 with the score at 190/172, Clinton was in the lead and I was breathing easier, but vote counting was being analyzed and it seemed like Florida, with 25 votes, would be going to Trump, which meant that Trump was actually ahead. At 11:10 Florida was still not in with the score at 190/187 to Clinton. It was around this time that I conceded that Trump would win this contest. Florida seemed a definite for Trump and most of the swing states were leaning towards Trump… a dark day… a dark day indeed… Let’s hope sane people within the Republican Party can keep this man in check.

At 11:30, CBS had called Florida and the score was now 197/222 in Trump’s favour. Ten minutes later Trump had increased the lead to 197/228, it was dark and getting darker for Clinton. At 11:45 it seemed like Clinton was treading water, behind by 197/244. Now that I have resigned myself to and accepted that Trump will be in the white house I once again was amazed at how strong one’s mind is. My mind had by now made a u-turn from total despair to normal functioning and I already started looking forward to the Trump presidency. Whichever way it turns out there would never a shortage of news, for sure, should be exiting!

Okay America, start up those cement mixers, you have a wall to build. I was never sure though whether that wall was to keep Mexicans out, or to keep Americans in, I think we have a better understanding of the situation now.

One has to wonder whether this was this yet another protest vote, like the Brexit referendum, that went so horribly wrong…? Who knows, I surely think it is.

Lastly I will leave the US elections behind with a comment from that wise old sage, Donald Trump himself, who was quoted in an article in People Magazine dated 1998 and it reads “If I were to run (for president) I would run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific!” America, you’ve been had, you deserve him, ‘nuff said…

It was 12:15 with Trump leading 215/244 that we left home and ten minutes later we stopped at the Leelawadee Restaurant on the Kok River. I ordered a big Heineken to drown out the remaining few strains of uneasiness that lay far below the surface and that my mind had not yet reached. I was hoping the Heineken would help in this regard, and it did.

I was in need of another big Heineken just at the time the service staff settled down for their well deserved lunch. Now there’s one thing you don’t do here; you do not come between a Thai and his food, so I waited out their lunch before ordering. It was late afternoon when I heard the name a table of Thais mention Trump and I assumed at that point that he had won. And then it started raining, how lovely to see the rain on the river dancing a million dances as the raindrops punch the surface… so peaceful out here. I wished the whole world could be as peaceful as this.

After the disappointing news of yesterday I decided on a news blackout for at least 24 hours, no newspaper, no internet news, not even TV news. The latter of course to the utmost irritation of Adri, but I did not want to face any further disappointment which was bound to follow. I immersed myself in a book, with France as the main character, ah… now that was much better.

Adri’s Iphone battery had been playing up. Once it gets to 43% it dips down to 17% and shortly thereafter to 0%. There are a number of cell phone stands at the Central Festival Shopping Centre and that’s where we headed just before 16:00, and just before the rain started. The cloud cover was hanging heavy in the air. After the battery was replaced 50 minutes later we did a spot of shopping at Tops and then headed home. And would you believe, as we headed out, that rain that had been threatening for two hours started coming down. Easy at first and torrential after we got home and it never did let up until just before midnight.

Last week I got myself a chocolate bun from the bakery outside Tops. It was only today when I saw its cousins flirting with me as I walked past that I realized that I never did have the pleasure of nibbling that bun (no pun). That one got away, it mysteriously disappeared… it… just…

disappeared. I hate it when that happens. So I bought another one today and to prevent this mystery happening again, the moment I got home, before unpacking anything, I unpacked that chocolate bun and stored it safely in my belly where no one would find it. It was a short while later when tea arrived with Chelsea buns containing raisins. And no, not Chelsea’s buns containing raisins, Hillary would not approve. Man, these were truly eats of art.

Later on the evening we watched an Indian movie called Amal which I thought was really good. It is a sad but heartwarming tale of Amal who is a very honest auto-rickshaw – or tuk-tuk – driver which draws the attention of a very rich man who leaves his estate to Amal when he dies, to the chagrin of his rich family of course. The movie ended rather abruptly but maybe a sequel is planned which would be a very plausible explanation as there are lots in this story to work with still.

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