More trials and tribulations as our trip to Thailand concludes

After last times fun at the airport I'm sure you will be delighted to hear that we did make it to Thailand......

Suntan
I always find it interesting that when in sunny parts of the world, anyone without much of a suntan looks like they must be new arrivals. After over a week and a half I still looked like I wouldn't be arriving until a week next Thursday.

Fellow Hotel guests
The usual bunch of sock and sandal wearing Brits, a couple of miserable Germans (the original Sour Krauts), hoards of little Thai people who arrive at the pool at about 7 in the morning, stay for about an hour and then vanish for the rest of the day. Then there was Gavin. I never actually spoke to Gavin, I just happen to know that he was called Gavin because that is what was emblazoned on the only shirt he wore. It was a rather fetching polyester number in grey and blue with red piping. The shirt also informed me that Gavin worked for a well-known photo processing company and served as a warning to give Gavin a wide birth. I duly obliged.

Fake paradise
With any purchase in Thailand you are never sure what you are going get, other than there is a 99.9% chance that it will be fake. This ranges from the obvious CDs, DVDs and fashion items (don’t worry, this does not apply to me) to the less obvious. I speak of fake bridges and rivers. Our day trip to Kanchanaburi and the famous bridge on the river Kwai proved this. Not only did the bamboo and wooden bridge of David Lean’s film no longer exist, but we were over fifty years too late. (In my defence, I couldn’t get Mrs B out of bed.) The river was actually called the Mae Klong during the war and not re-named Kwai until the mid sixties. Sir Alec Guinness must be spinning in his pint glass..According to my made up statistics there is
only a .1% chance that this is not a fake sign.
Thai language
As anyone who knows me will testify, I am more than capable of crucifying the English language, let alone a foreign tongue. Sadly my attempts to master the Thai dialect sank my linguistic inabilities to new depths. At one point I found myself meowing at bewildered Thai’s with an accent that even McG would have been proud of. Judging by some of the looks I got from the locals, you would have thought I had said “Your great uncle’s pet elephant has left his nostril hairs all over my fridge” or more alarmingly “If you want to have access to my bank account, just leave your grandmother’s left shoe under the Water buffalo wearing the green pyjamas”. I eventually reverted to my normal tactics of speaking to foreigners very slowly in English at high decibels and with a funny accent. (Always works for me, although Mrs B gets that glazed over expression that reads, “God I wish I was anywhere but here”.) For the last few days of the holiday I attempted to play it safe, sticking with “hello”, “thank you” , “That gorilla looks like it might be related to you!” and “Has your wife not heard of Immac?”.

Thai massage
It was very noticeable that when Mrs B and I booked a massage, Mrs B quickly selected the slightly more attractive of the two (but when you are comparing the back end of a hippo with the back end of a rhino it doesn’t make a lot of difference). Part way through the massage I regretted accusing my masseuse's uncle’s elephant of shedding in my fridge. I must admit the left shoe proved very useful for keeping away the legions of cats that followed us around, sadly I never did find a home for the damned Water Buffalo which had to be abandoned at the airport. I believe it did OK, with the Green Pyjamas it looked like a slightly slimmer than usual American tourist and was adopted by a well to do Thai family ..... Mrs B's Masseuse was much sexier than mine
Thai taxi drivers
Despite my aversion to taxi drivers, Mrs B and I found ourselves having to use the local scrapheap-challenge offerings that passed for motor vehicles for hire. The first taxi we used appeared OK on the face of it - a little too many dials on the inside and additional skirting on the outside for my liking, but it had working seat belts, air-conditioning and the engine had a throaty roar (which quickly became an annoying humm when sitting in the back of the car for more than 30 seconds). The driver even quoted a decent rate to take us back to our hotel, so we did not even bother attempting to barter. The next taxi we took was a whole different ball game; the driver quoted a ridiculously high amount for the same trip, so I set about beating him down. Just as I got him to the amount I was willing to pay, Mrs B chimed in with a counter-bid. This caused confusion for both me and the taxi driver and resulted in a bidding war which ended with us paying more than his original asking price. To make things worse, when we got into the taxi it looked like we had found out where the first taxi had obtained all his extra dials from - this car had been stripped of everything - except a few seats and a steering wheel. I would love to know if he was still building the car or had stolen it a couple of nights before and was in the process of stripping it down.Magical Mystery Tour - It's always much more fun when
the taxi driver can't see where he is going.....
Thai Glue
Mrs B and I (at huge expense - something like £1.50) invested in a beach bag, which promptly broke within a day. Since I was determined to extend the bag’s life to the end of the holiday, I purchased a Thai version of superglue. The picture on the packaging showed a huge elephant glued upside down to the underside of a palm leaf - now you don’t get much more reassurance than that. I certainly can’t complain about the sticking power of the product. I was, however, a little disturbed when the tissue that I used to wipe up some of the excess glue started to smoke. I can assure you, any plans of experimenting with the product by attempting to stick my fingers together went out the window after that.

The Thai toilet incident
Mrs B censored the true horror of this story. All I can say is - think of the worst loo in Scotland (as portrayed in the film “Trainspotting”), take away the flushing mechanism and toilet paper - then you might just start to get the picture. I will either face years of therapy to get over the incident or alternatively blank it from my mind. I think I’ll choose the latter. Far cheaper and I certainly never intend to revisit that toilet even under hypnotic conditions.

Thai Brides
It is with a morbid fascination that we saw so many old English Guys (many sixty plus) wandering around hand in hand with young Thai girls. At one stage we were considering bringing back a Thai Bride kitten for McG (at 9 years of age it puts him in the correct age bracket) but then remembered that we have had him neutered, so it would probably have been more cruel than anything.....Ting Tong - I'm sure she is just
very close to her favourite uncle
That’s it for another BlackLOG - historical – if you have enjoyed it please pass it on to anyone you know who might also enjoy it or to anyone you don't particularly like and would like to see suffer. You can also tune into the up to date version BlackLOG.