Sunday 18 November 2012

jomtien, thailand

So Ian and I start on this year's Asia jaunt. Expect a few more random jottings as we go.


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Just arrived in Thailand ahead of President Obama and Secretary Clinton. They are off to Cambodia too. Maybe we can hitch a lift on Air Force One.
We got to Jomtien just down the coast from Bangkok, but it’s been raining quite a bit in a wild tropical kind of way.  I like those big old drenchings with warm water, rain drops the size of nuggets and a complete soaking just from crossing the road.  The thunder has been rolling around all day and the lightning providing a constant light show at night, momentarily lighting up the great stacked clouds from different angles, up over the distant horizon.  Not ideal for a beach venue but we have no agenda so it’s fine: just relax, eat and sleep in our small comfortable resort style hotel, run by Madame Jim, our lovely drag queen host from Stirling.  Lovely with the guests, but no doubt runs the show with a rod of iron behind the scenes.  Anyway the staff all seem happy, which is a good sign.
I had my hair cut in a very traditional barbers.  They really give you the works here: facial and head massage as they shampoo you; very careful cutting, advancing inch by inch over the sparse terrain, then standing back to consider the next sortie.  The guy was all smiles but didn’t speak a work of English.  However there’s not many options in my case and little chance of going wrong.  Suddenly, I find myself flung back in the chair with a cooling towel over my eyes and being scraped with a very sharp cut-throat.  I haven’t been shaved like this since two teenage boys were let loose on me in Jaisalmer.  I realize that the tune This is the tale of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is going through my head.  Then he’s clipping away at my nose and eyebrows – all the places hair starts to sprout where it shouldn’t, just as it stops growing where it should – and poking strange devices into my ears.  But I lived.