Gringo's week

When I – about 11 years ago – moved to Thailand permanently, I wrote long “newsletters” to the Netherlands, because there was so much to tell that was new, fun and exciting. I also put some of those newsletters on this blog later on. The amount of news is becoming less over the years, at least less spectacular, many things have simply become daily routine. Still fun and engaging, not really, but often not something to make a story out of. Yet remarkable things happen almost every day. This was my last week.

Sunday: Russians in tournament

I think everyone who follows the blog knows that I am regularly in the Megabreak pool hall and help organize the weekly tournaments there. Also this Sunday, 40 registered players from 18 different countries. Remarkable this time was that we had 3 Russian participants and that was a first. We knew all three, Maxim, Dimitry and Oleg, but they had never played together in a tournament.

Of course that gave rise to our "babble", that now that Pattaya is being flooded by Russians, Megabreak is also slowly but surely being conquered by the Russians. We suggested to the management to think about Russian posters, price lists, etc., but the answer was a thorough “fu”. None of the Russians, who are very well behaved and quite nice guys, won any awards.

Monday: Modern Ritual

Monday was a quiet day, did some shopping, took a long walk in the afternoon and had dinner at Patrick's Belgian restaurant in the evening. This time the choice fell on my favorite soles. Meanwhile, the other tables were also occupied. Two young (approximately 25 years old) Belgian men settled at one of them. While I - with a cigar - was still bloating from my meal, their order was served. From the old days I still remember the custom, also in our home, of folding our hands before eating, closing our eyes and muttering the words: Lord, bless this food.

I thought of that when I saw the two boys perform a modern ritual. Their plate was placed in front of them and as if on a sign, both took the smartphone from their pocket and almost immediately took a flash photo of their dish. Then they changed places to photograph the dish of the other. What do you do with such a photo? "Share" on Facebook maybe?

Tuesday: Fon challenged

Fon is a beautiful Thai girl of 23 years old, whom I have known for several years as a good pool player in Megabreak. She is a bit fickle in character, because sometimes cheerful and giggly and then a bit depressed with a big mouth. She is not thanked by everyone for the latter, but I do like such a bold, nice girl who doesn't have her mouth in the wrong place.

We like each other – without any ulterior motives, I should add, because she has had an American boy as a 'boyfriend' for a long time. In the early years I could still beat her, but she improved herself to such an extent that in most cases I lost out. We actually only play against each other if that is arranged in the draw for a tournament.

This time I challenged her to play against each other again. We played 9-ball and whoever won 10 frames first won the match. Because she is much better than me, I got the first four frames as a gift, so 6 more to go. She won the first four with ease, gave me no chance.

Then a friend of her "boyfriend" came in, an American vacationer. Fon greeted him, had a chat and then the concentration was gone. She made mistakes, and I finished the match neatly, winning 10 – 6! In fact, she is often a sore loser, pout and angry face, but this time she took it sportingly!

Wednesday: dentist

Ah, another day that started dramatically, at least that's what I think of it. The appointment for check-up and tartar removal has been made and I patiently await the date. That is, I had an appointment before, but just moved it for a week. On the day I made another appointment I was relieved, no dentist, but hey, it had to happen, didn't it?

So today with fear and trembling to the dentist for the semi-annual check-up. Nerves rush through my throat as I sit down in the chair and, after he pats me reassuringly on the arm, the dentist begins to rumble in my mouth. Nothing wrong of course, as usual, and moreover hardly noticed that he chipped away the tartar and removed the brown (cigar) deposits. When I've paid and said goodbye, I quietly get on my motorbike, cheering, this day can't go wrong!

Thursday: pub crawl

Chris, an English friend, has finished his holiday, it is his last evening and so (?!) it must be celebrated. The six of us start a long pub crawl through Pattaya. We start in the Atlantic Bar at Soi 3, a nice place with nice ladies and good music. A little flirting with the girls is fine, and if you make it clear that you have a Thai partner and live here, it's often just fun company.

Then down to Drinking Street for some more booze and then on to Soi 8, where another friend, Terry, has a bar, or rather three of them linked together. Good music from a Filipino band, of course the eternal songs from the Pattaya Top-10 (Rhinestone cowboy, Roses are red, My Way, you know them), but the Gangnam style song is also regularly performed.

With quite a few drinks now, I give – it is now about two o'clock in the morning – a demonstration of that gangnam style dance. General hilarity, bis, bis! The next evening in Megabreak I have to do the trick again, but I am sober and then of course I refuse. I give up after that, take a motorbike taxi home, while the others continue their journey towards Walking Street until early morning. Hi Chris, see you next time!

Friday: heavy traffic in Pattaya

Another long walk today. This time I take the route from Pattaya North via Sukhumvit Road and Pattaya South, back to Second Road and then home via Pattaya North. So a kind of rectangle with a length of, I estimate, 10 to 11 kilometers. I notice that it is very busy in traffic. What I often do during my walks through the main streets of Pattaya is counting the (tourist) buses. There are quite a few, because those tourists are transported from place to place every day. Usually about 80 or 90 busses come one at a time, but today I have an absolute record. I counted 309 buses along the indicated route! Buses, which I see more often, because they only run locally, scheduled buses to Bangkok, etc., school buses, but this time many tourist buses, from elsewhere, who visited Pattaya.

Apparently there is a national shortage of luxury coaches, because I saw an unusual number of scheduled buses from other regions. Buses, which normally go from Bangkok to e.g. Roi-Et, Mukdahan, Laksi, Chiang Rai, Uttaradit, Sisaket, Khon Kaen, Lampoon, etc. were used to bring the many tourists to Pattaya and the many attractions in and around Pattaya. I don't think many of those tourists can be found on Walking Street at night.

Friday evening: dinner at Louis

Joseph Jongen, another blog writer, was in Pattaya and had discovered this nice restaurant Louis in Soi 31 of Naklua. So the three of us, Joseph, fellow blog knight Hans Geleijnse and I went there to eat, talk and laugh. The food was more than excellent, we also laughed at each other's stories and we found a good solution for almost all (world) problems. Lots of booze of course and at a quarter past twelve the owner of this family restaurant kindly asked us to be the last guests to “go away”. His mother, his wife and his children were already in the car to return home. A great evening!

Saturday: Burapa Bike Week

With my son Lukin to Silverlake to watch the spectacle of the large-scale Burapa Bike Week. On an immense and sloping terrain dozens of stands of all motorcycle brands and everything related to it and, I originally estimated, as many as 2000 motorcycles. All kinds of brands, all kinds of models, one more strange than the other and one more noisy than the other.

At four o'clock a tour of several hundred enthusiasts was organized in the area – to Pattaya was impossible due to the large crowds there – and the start was a beautiful sight. My estimate of 2000 motorcycles was ridiculous, a good friend of mine, a Norwegian, was there all weekend and according to him there were already more than 10.000 motorcycles on Friday and Saturday he said there must have been at least 20.000. I don't know anything about motorcycles, but I'm sure that there are videos of the Bike Week 2013 on YouTube, for example.

You see, all stories that fit in the section “Useless Information”, but I enjoyed telling them.