My name is "Mobi"; I'm an alcoholic

A Return to Mobi’s ‘Daily’ Dose of Delectable Damsels

17 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: 2nd Amendment, American Presidential Election, Fox, Gun Lobby, Mitt Romney, Obama, Republican debates, Rick Perry

Mobi-Babble

I’m slowly coming up for air after all my recent travels and getting back into my old and familiar routine.

Many thanks to all those who have commented recently and I especially appreciate all the kind words of congratulations on my humble efforts to remain sober and improve my life.

For those of you who have missed my ‘daily’ dose of delectable damsels, you will be pleased to find that they have returned today in all their erotic glory.

I had a mental list of potential subjects that I wanted to write about this morning I was trying make my choice when I was somewhat diverted by a programme on the TV which has now become the subject for today’s blog.

My apologies if you find it a trifle on the serious side, and to my esteemed American readers, please try to understand my point of view, even if you do not agree with what I have to say.

This year, for every article which some may term as ‘anti-American’, I will do my best to include one in a later blog which some may consider ‘anti- UK’ – or at least ‘anti-something’ in the UK or maybe Europe. (That should be easy enough…☺)

‘Fair and balanced’ as they say on a well-known TV cable network….

Some notes on a Republican debate

Waking up late this morning, I turned on the TV to watch the morning BBC news before lifting my sleep-sodden body from the bed and embarking on yet another ‘Day in the Life of Mobi’.

But after succeeding in producing sound and picture through still bleary eyes, I misplaced the TV remote amongst the bed sheets, and ended up watching around 40 minutes or so of the latest Fox debate between the budding Republican candidates who wish to be chosen to represent their party in the forthcoming presidential general election.

I have seen many snippets of these debates on news bulletins over the past month or so, but have had no real desire to watch them at greater length, as quite frankly; they are pretty dire and for the most part, quite boring. To me, they are more a test of who is more adept at delivering snappy, witty and vote-catching ‘sound bites’, rather than a real examination of who is the most suitable to candidate to assume the highest office in the USA. (Or, indeed, who may make an unpardonable ‘faux pas’ that will provide the candidate with unwanted headlines.)

I can certainly see the value of a few, ‘one-on-one’, in depth interviews by knowledgeable journalists, and yes, maybe one or two ‘mass debates’ between prospective candidates might be helpful in trying to decide between two or more with similar views; but this never ending farce of trawling out five, six or seven candidates onto stage after stage, across the American countryside, is to me, little more than a ridiculous ‘Punch and Judy Show’ and does the American electoral process no great credit.

Heaven forbid, but I almost feel sorry for the candidates in having to parade themselves like prized monkeys before the good folks of countless ‘Hicksvilles’ throughout the USA who all joyfully assemble to exercise their democratic rights and to throw their ‘rotten tomatoes’ at the hapless would-be presidents.

The theory being that if they can survive that, they can survive anything – but I’m not convinced that this unbeliveably arduous and ridiculously expensive marathon is the best way to find a president for the most powrerful country on earth.

Feeling more or less ‘forced’ to watch, I did become somewhat fascinated by some of the proceedings. There was the ridiculous spectacle of Ron Paul justifying his almost pacifist views and trying to convince us that there is no need for America to go to war as ‘we’ (America) will still track down war criminals such as Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin laden to give them their just deserts…

Mr Paul, what planet are you on? Now don’t get me wrong, I hold no brief for the war in Iraq, but to claim that we could have sought out Hussein and had him arrested, tried and hanged without America’s involvement in the war is just plain poppycock; ditto, Bin laden. He wouldn’t have even been in Iraq for your gallant forces to track down if Nato hadn’t gone to war in Afghanistan.

And then Mr Paul made his most outrageous statement. He even gave the example of Adolph Eichmann, claiming that it had been possible to track down and execute him without going to war. What on earth is he talking about? Eichmann was an escaped Nazi mass criminal from the Second World War who fled to South America and was eventually tracked down and captured by the Israelis.

Now I know that there is zero chance of Ron Paul becoming the next president of the USA, but come on guys, this man is a total crackpot, yet he still enjoys widespread support from many who believe his nonsensical distortion of history.

Then you have the estimable Rick Perry whose command and use of the English language is so appalling that he makes George Bush appear like an erudite Churchillian orator. I reckon my three year old niece can express herself better than this budding president from the largest state in the Union.

So what did our Rick have to say about the recent scandal of US marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban. He said he felt sorry for them, that they were only kids, and he went on to heap opprobrium on both Obama and Clinton for their expressions of outrage over what these soldiers had done.

Now let’s get one thing clear; what these ‘misguided’ American soldiers had done was in clear contravention of all accepted rules of war, including the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war, to which the USA is a signatory. As members of the US military they violated laws of war, including prohibitions against photographing or mishandling bodies and detainees. It also violated the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs conduct.

On top of that they jeopardised the recent attempts at peace talks with the Taliban, which quite frankly is probably Afghanistan’s only feint hope of achieving any semblance of democratic peace going forward.

Then Mr Perry went on to compare what the marines had done with some of the despicable acts which had been carried out in the past by Al Qaeda in Iraq!

Ermmm… Ricky baby…. These guys were Taliban in Afghanistan… not Al Qaeda in Iraq. Nobody is pretending that the Taliban are a bunch of ‘fair play’ choir boys, but come on, get your facts right, and please try to understand the difference between the Taliban and Al Qaida. Even pacifist Ronnie understood that!

Sheesh! One of these guys may end up being the president of what is still the most powerful military state this world has ever seen.

(By the way, what was all that patriotic crap that the President Obama and his cohorts kept trying to ram down our throats about the American soldier is the finest, the bravest and most honourable in the world? Yeah…pissing on dead bodies… very brave, very honourable…)

Then the debate inevitably turned to the unbelievably liberal American gun laws – the notorious 2^nd Amendment to the US constitution which permits all adult citizens to own and use guns in self defence

I suspect that there are very few non Americans in the western world who don’t think that the American gun laws are completely crazy. Sure there is a massive amount of gun violence in all so-called civilized countries, but I challenge you to find any country that doesn’t suffer more deaths, per capita, by guns, than the USA. (I am not counting central and south America as so-called civilised countries)

It is a complete nonsense to allow every American citizen to buy and keep a gun with virtually no checks or controls over their ownership. The net result is that America is an extremely violent society where hardly a week goes by when there isn’t yet another horrific tragedy in which often dozens of innocent people have been shot and maimed by some deranged gunman.

Can you believe it? A year or so back, there was a huge hullabaloo over attempts by congress to restrict access by the public to assault weapons? And guess who won? The gun lobby of course. Not content with the public owning hand guns and single shot rifles, the worthy citizens of America can also own assault weapons – you know semi- automatic rifles and even weapons such as rifle grenade launchers. If this isn’t world gone mad then I don’t know what is.

Yet candidate after candidate swore their allegiance to the second amendment and the freedom for all to bear arms. They even quoted their voting records in Congress and /or state legislatures to confirm to that they had never wavered in their beliefs that it was right and proper for every citizen to freely bear sufficient arms to shoot up and destroy every other citizen in his/her neighbourhood, and, no doubt, far beyond.

I don’t know if it was me, but as I watched the candidates speak on this subject, I thought I detected an ever so slight hesitation, or maybe even a barely noticeable reluctance to say what they were obliged to say. A bit like the poor citizens of North Korea having to express public grief over the death of their dear despotic leader, or face unimaginably unpleasant consequences.

Let’s face it – the second amendment is a bit like the ‘elephant in the room’. I strongly suspect that a vast majority of right thinking, intelligent Americans know that it is an inherently flawed piece of legislation

But they would no more dare to even suggest that some gun controls should be cintroduced than your local pastor would dare to question whether God really created the universe, even though I suspect many in this day and age of scientific discovery, may think just that.

The gun lobby is just so powerful and it wends its insidious path throughout all strata of American society; politicians and political parties alike, that no one dare gainsay them, for to do so would be tantamount to political suicide. It is one of the many corruptions that run to the very core of 21^st Century American politics.

As many of my readers will know, I am no fan of Obama. Frankly I never have been, even when he was at the height of public adoration with his wonderful oratory and his promise of ‘change’ and to get rid of the entrenched corruption in Washington. But silly me; I looked at his record in Chicago and his associations with some highly dubious characters and I feared the worst.

But when he was elected by a landslide I, like many others, became swept up in the excitement of the occasion and hoped against hope that he might actually achieve something.

Of course it wasn’t long before disillusion set in and he became a salutary lesson in how an inspired orator is not necessarily an inspired leader. He has shown himself to be a weak, vacillating president, with poor leadership qualities and has become completely subsumed by the Washington machine and its vested interests. Washington has eaten him alive and is still spewing out the pieces.

So on the face of it you would think that with state of the American economy and the dire state world in general and America along with it, that virtually any viable candidate put up by the Republicans would be a shoe-in in the upcoming general election.

You would think so wouldn’t you? But what a shower they have come up with! Romney is clearly the best of a very bad, totally inept bunch, but even he leaves so much to be desired.

Sure, over the long years of campaigning he has learned how to speak and behave in a ‘presidential’ manner, but we all know from Obama that a good orator doesn’t necessarily make a good president.

We also know that Romney is a liberal conservative who is trying desperately to move to the right to attract the hard core GOP support. Nothing wrong with a liberal conservative in my book, (but I’m a European), but for many who want Obama out, rightly or wrongly Romney is not the president they are looking for.

But he is trying desperately to convince them that he is, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all that come Election Day, many undecided independents along with a sufficient number of disgruntled right wing republicans will stay away, to let Obama in for a second term.

The problem with Romney is that he is an opportunistic hypocrite, who secretly nurtures liberal views on subjects such as healthcare, gun control and abortion which he would never dare to admit to in public. I suspect that many of the public also feel this in their bones.

So having listened to this hypocritical diatribe for as long as my flesh and blood could stand, I finally succeeded in retrieving my remote control from under the bed clothes and switched over to Al Jajeera…..

BUTT…BUTT…BUTT…BUTT… I don’t give a hoot!…

Mobi’s Thai Trips

14 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: Cha Am, Chang Erawan, Hat Puek Tien, Hua Hin, Khao Toa Beach, Marukhathaiyawan Palace, Meaklong Market, Prachuab Kiri Khan, Railway Hotel, Samut Songkran, Sofitel

Mobi-Babble

In case any of you may be wondering, I will no longer be posting an update on each blog on the number of months and days I have been sober. After my first year milestone, I feel that keeping a daily or bi-weekly track of my period of sobriety is no longer of any consequence.

Hopefully, my drinking days are long behind me and its now onwards and upwards in trying to put some meaning into my post-alcoholic life.

I will, however, mention the length of my sobriety on a monthly basis, and rest assured, I will confess all if I ever have a relapse – although I do feel this is most unlikely.

Someone suggested that I should provide regular updates on my efforts to lose weight and get fitter, and while I have no plans to advise my latest weight loss (or gains) in every blog, I will provide my readers with regular updates on my progress in this regard.

I am very pleased to report that not only have I become much fitter and stronger in recent weeks but have actually succeeded in losing almost 10 kilos in weight. I was hovering on 100 kilos a few weeks back, and I am now a smidgeon over 90 kilos and as a consequence, my pot belly has shrunk considerably in size.

This has been achieved by strictly observing a no chocolate/ice-cream/fruit diet and continuing my daily brisk walks which now last for a minimum of 40 minutes and are often well over an hour in duration. It is also pleasing to note that there are virtually no after effects, in the shape of aches or pains, to show for my much increased exercise.

Indeed, as you will see below, last Thursday I must have walked for the best part of three hours and although I felt pretty bushed at the end of it, I woke up the next day with not a sign of any stiffness.

My ultimate target is to get my weight down to 80 kilos, which I haven’t achieved for a good few years, and I am under no allusions that the next 10 kilos will be much harder than the first 10.

I will never embark on any kind of ‘starvation diet’ and trust in my tried and tested routine of eating three sensible meals per day, (containing the minimum of fat and little added sugar) , plus daily exercise, to work its magic on my fitness and body weight. I will be more than happy if I can get down to maybe 82-83 kilos, get rid of 90 % of the fat on my belly, (it has already reduced by about 50%), and wake up every day feeling reasonably fit and energetic.

Getting my weight below 80 kilos will be a bonus.

I am also pleased to report some progress in getting my blood pressure back under control. For quite awhile, even with my increased, twice-daily medication and daily exercise, the systolic blood pressure reading was still stubbornly high, but at long last, literally over the past few days, I can detect a slight improvement. I am checking my BP in the morning, evening, just before I take my twice daily meds, so I am checking at time when the meds are having their least effect.

Although by no means satisfactory, the systolic is definitely showing signs of coming down, so I am feeling much more positive in this regard. Failure to get my BP back under control will only hasten the day when I will need to have my dodgy aortic valve replaced, so fingers crossed.

Mobi’s Thai Trips

Following our pre-Christmas trip to the North-east of Thailand, Noo and I set off yet again on a Mobi-trip, this time in a southerly direction to Cha Am and Hua Hin, after taking in a brief stop en route in Samut Songkran. I had originally planned this trip last October, but had to postpone due to the floods, so I decided to reschedule early the New Year before the weather became too hot.

I have been to Cha Am/ Hua Hin on several occasions over the years, the first being way back in the mid 70’s when Cha Am was a beautiful, but totally desolate, unspoilt beach-side hamlet, known to only a very few adventurous Thais, and Hua Hin was still stuck in another, much older era, and its historic and architecturally aesthetic ‘Railway Hotel’ still dominated the skyline as the only structure worthy of note in the entire area.

I also remember driving there about ten years ago with my youngest daughter who was visiting me in Bangkok, and I well recall getting hopelessly lost in Southern Bangkok as I failed to realise that I should have followed the Express-way signs to Dow Kanong and thence to Highway four to the south.

I mean, how was I to know that Dow Kanong – a nondescript junction, south of Bangkok – which wasn’t shown on any decent road map, (no Google Earth in those days), was the ‘key sign post’ for motorists driving South? I have since learned my lessons about Thai road sign-age and have had no further problems in finding my way south.

But a few years back, (2008 I think), a miracle occurred. The road that seemed to take longer to complete than the Great wall of China, finally had its southern most section completed, and at long last, it became possible for us Pattaya residents to drive to the south of Thailand without having to go through Bangkok.

From Pattaya, we can now take the 55 kilometre elevated highway from Chon Buri to the magnificent, ten lane, Bangkok Outer Ring road, (often referred to as the Thai ‘M25’), southwards, over the Chao Phaya River and then onwards to the south of Thailand.

There is a famous landmark in Samut Prakan, ‘The Chang Erawan’, (A huge Elephant sculpture with 3 heads), that dominates the skyline at the southern end of the ring road. You see it just before you drive onto the awe-inspiring Kanchanapisek bridge, a span of over 500 meters, which makes it the longest single span bridge in a city full of mighty bridges.

Here are some not very good pics of Chang Erawan and the suspension bridge. (Well, it was a bit difficult, as I was driving at the time!!).

It wasn’t long before we were in Samut Sonkran where we took a small detour off the main road to meet up with Noo’s elder sister who ran a stall in the renowned Meaklong or ‘Railway Market’, so named as it has an active railway line running right through its centre.

It is a fascinating market, as all the stalls are set up either side of the single railway line and the customers walk along the rail line and stop in the centre to buy their wares. Whenever a train comes by, the customers are shooed off the line and the stalls are taken back a meter or so from the track. Most of the heavier stalls are on wheels to facilitate their speedy removal, and some are even on tiny rails.

Last year I made a trip to the market with Noo to visit with her sister and was pleasantly surprised when a train actually came through. Unfortunately on this occasion, in spite of Noo’s sister insistence that one was due, there was no sign of it and I wasn’t about to wait there all day just on the off chance; so regrettably no pics of trains coming through the market and people rushing to get out of the way.

However, here are some of photos I that I did take. Note the tiny wheels on the bases of some of the stalls so that they can make a quick retreat.

The road from Samut Songkran to Cha Am in Petchaburi province) and thence to Hua Hin, in Prachuab Kiri Khan province, is an excellent 8 lane highway and is relatively light on traffic, so good driving time can be made. Within two hours we were checking out the hotels and guest houses on the long Cha Am beach front.

As ever, the rooms came in all shapes, sizes and prices and after looking at half a dozen or so, we opted for a decent sized ground floor room with a little tastefully decorated veranda , which also came with fridge, A/C, cable TV, and very fast wifi; all for the princely sum of 900 Baht per night.

We could also park up right outside the door, which is essential for us with all our baggage, which includes an electric kettle, our myriad breakfast making essentials, plus two lap top computers!

Despite the fact that it was mid-week, the resort was surprisingly busy with tourists – Thais and foreigners alike. We soon discerned that a majority of the western tourists, all married couples and families, hailed from eastern Europe. Russians, Noo told me – and she ought to know!

Cha Am beach front is full of restaurants, small hotels, guest houses, shops and other typical seaside establishments and is very long – quite possibly as long as Jomtien beach in Pattaya, although I didn’t actually get around to measuring it…

Cha Am has traditionally been more of a Thai holiday resort than farang, (rather like Bang Saen, along the coast from Pattaya), and as a consequence, there is virtually no western-type night life in the shape of bars or ‘go-go’ establishments as befits a respectable family style resort.

Most restaurants had both Thai and western food on the menu and all were in the inexpensive ‘mid –price zone’, very similar to, or maybe cheaper than most Pattaya establishments.

The long sandy beach contains areas which boast the ubiquitous ‘wall to wall’ umbrellas but, unlike Pattaya, there are also plenty of ‘open beach’ areas, where the sun and sand are unspoiled by hundreds of these ugly, sun-blocking accoutrements.

After a long afternoon walk seafront and a tasty Thai meal in a quiet restaurant, we retired to our room for a few hours before breaking my latest rule of a life time.

We drove down to the very end of the seafront where we parked up at a ‘pretty pretty’ S & P restaurant. Sitting outside in the moonlight we gorged ourselves on not one, but two banana splits – delicious! Well, you have to spoil yourself once in a while.

Here are a few pics I took earlier that day together with my attempt to snap Cha Am in the moonlight.

Some Pink Bicycles made for two… or three…or four

It was a full moon and the beach lit up the beach with eerie shades of greyish-brown sand and the moonbeams rained down on the glistening surface of the sea. I am not sure if my photo does it justice….

The following morning we took the 30 minute drive to Hua Hin and parked up near the beach to take a stroll around the town centre and also to visit the beach. Once again I was surprised by the number of visitors around, who yet again, were mainly of the eastern European variety.

Cha Am boasts a bigger and much nicer beach that Hua Hin, although it cannot be denied that Hua Hin’s beach is full of character. The Thai word ‘hin’ means ‘rock’; Hua Hin is so named due the proliferation of rocky outcrops in the general area of the town, particularly on and near the beach.

Unfortunately the tide was in when we arrived and we couldn’t stroll along the beach very far. However, I did manage a few photos, including one of Hua Hin’s famous beach donkeys which are available for hire at 800 Baht an hour.

Why anyone in the wildest dreams would wish to change the name of one of the world’s most famous and romantic hotels to ‘Sofitel’ is completely beyond my comprehension. They might as well rename ‘Raffles’ as ‘City Lodge’ or some other similarly inane epithet.

This magnificent, colonial style hotel, which was built in 1923 had its name changed a few years back when it was acquired by the Sofitel hotel group, but to me it will forever be the ‘Railway Hotel’.

I must say however, that to their credit, the current owners have kept the hotel and its 13 hectares of landscaped gardens in magnificent condition and they are to be commended for that – but not for their short-sighted view on the changing of names.

I hope my humble photos have done justice to this wonderful place.

After an extensive wander in the grounds, where, as you will have seen above, we happened upon a bridal couple, we took a stroll through the ‘tourist streets’ of the town centre, which were awash with restaurants, bars and pubs.

This was quite a change from my last visit to the town- maybe some 10 years ago, where there were just a few bars, located in tiny sois, away from the main walking areas. But now bars abound in the central area which is bordered by Dechanuchit Road and Naresdamri Road.

Having resolved to return that evening for a meal and a stroll around the night life area, we set off in a southerly direction and about 20 kilometres down the coast we stopped off at Khao Tao Beach, a beautiful, deserted and unspoilt beach and small fishing boat harbour, which I had first visited some 10 years ago. But on my previous visit, the enormous Buddha images and other temple constructions on the distant hillside had not yet been started.

Here is what Khao Toa beach and the surrounding hills look like today.

I was too lazy to get out of my car, (after a very long walk in the sun along the open beach), but I couldn’t resist taking a snap of this ‘enterprising’ young man with his mobile ‘coffee’ establishment, parked just off the beach. Note the ground level satellite dish and also the sole proprietor, fast asleep in an adjacent hammock!

Even if I had wanted a coffee, I wouldn’t have had the heart to wake him…

After leaving Kho Tao beach, we drove along the coast a short way before coming across another beach, which didn’t seem to bear any name. Anyway, it was yet another beautiful, empty beach with a couple of large and interesting sculptures nestled on the rocks at the northern end of the beach. Note the strategic placing of the mermaid’s hair locks.

We continued following the coast on minor roads until we eventually came to a halt outside the gates of what appeared to be a royal palace. Like a fool I asked the guard if we could enter and he looked as though he might shoot me as he angrily shoo-ed us away…

We retraced our steps past the florally bedecked verges and stopped briefly in a shady wooded area before heading off back to Cha Am.

Back at Cha Am, I drove up to the fishing harbour where I took a few more photos, including some shots of one poor fishing vessel in its death throes.

As planned, we dressed up in our Pattaya finery and returned to the rocky city for an evening meal and a little wander. The town centre was bustling with life and tourists and many bars/restaurants were absolutely jam packed. This was a bit of a revelation to me, especially as it was mid-week, but I guess it is ‘high season’, and there must have been many tour groups in town.

Again, a vast majority seemed to be couples and families from Eastern Europe. In fact, although there were a few single men of indeterminate age to be found, I have to say that on the whole, the bar girls, (most of whom were also of indeterminate age), were struggling to land any punters.

Noo and I enjoyed a nice inexpensive meal at one of the roadside ‘al fresco’ restaurants and after that, we strolled around and stopped at a couple of bars where we sipped our fruit juices and watched the Hua Hin world go by.

It had been a very long day and I was glad to get back to my room in the late evening and was soon ‘out for the count’.

The next day, Thursday, we awoke a trifle late but were soon on our way to our planned destination, the magnificent Marukhathaiyawan Palace, located a few kilometres down the coast, just inside the Petchaburi border where Petchaburi Province adjoins Prachuab Kiri Khan Province. (Midway between Cha Am and Hua Hin)

Marukhathaiyawan Palace, was the Royal Summer Seaside Palace of King Rama VI and is often referred to as “the palace of love and hope”. It was built in 1923 using golden teak-wood from the demolished Hat Chao Samran Palace. An Italian architect designed the palace with a dazzling composition of verandas and latticework.

Long since having fallen into disuse, (the present royals have their own summer residence – Klai Kangwon Palace – further down the coast), some years ago it was restored to its previous splendour and is now a well-trodden tourist spot. This is particularly so, since the extensive grounds in which it stands have been turned into an environmental centre, (‘Sirindhorn International environmental Park’).

I visited this palace some 10 years ago with my then wife and youngest daughter, who was visiting me from the UK and in those days the environmental park did not exist and there were very few tourists. These days the whole area is bustling with tourists, (mainly Thais, school parties and the like), along with many local workers who tend the palace and the large, nearby parkland.

We were only allowed to enter the upper areas of the Palace in organised groups, presumably to prevent it becoming too crowded, and while inside, I was not allowed to take photographs.

So the photos below were all taken from the palace grounds which I hope still provide you with a good idea of this impressive place, although sadly I could not show you any of the rooms which still contain original furniture and fittings and give you a very good idea of how the exalted used to live in those days.

Believe it or not, they lived in a very western influenced environment and their formal ‘western’ evening dinners even had a menu written in French! Also, their dinner dress code wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow by the residents of ‘Downton Abbey’.

Leaving the palace behind, we embarked upon a very long walk which took in a statue of Rama VI, and the last remaining residence of the many that used to be scattered along the beach front – occupied by court officials and other ladies of the King’s retinue…

After this we took a hike to the newly established mangrove swamps.

We didn’t exactly get lost, but it turned out to be a very long walk indeed – some two hours or more before we finally made it back to our car.

After a not very satisfactory meal in the grounds car park, we set off on our final stop of the holiday, which was back up the coast towards Petchaburi city, to visit the coastal resort of Hat Puek Tien.

What a dump this turned out to be! It was a sad experience, as it is touted as a great seaside resort, but clearly the tourists have voted with their feet. The place is awash with empty, tumble down holiday homes and is pretty much like a huge ghost town with evidence of long lost, decaying glories everywhere.

A visit to the so-called ‘beach’ reveals the reason why. There is no beach as such, just huge chunks of concrete blocks which clutter up what used to be the beach area. How this mess arose I have no idea, but the place is a disaster.

As if to make matters worse, there is a massive offshore statue of some mythical female creature which is enough to put the ‘heebie-jeebies’ up the most insensitive amongst us. Not something to warm the cockles of our hearts when we are seeking some serenity and peace amidst the blue oceans of Thailand.

Well, you can’t expect perfection at every stop-off, and overall, we had thoroughly enjoyed all the places we visited. Actually, even Hat Puek Tien gave me cause for mirth; it was so dire it was comical.

Back in Cha Am, we had an excellent evening meal at one of the popular nearby restaurants, and then an early night after our long, tiring adventures of the day.

We hit the road at around 10 am on Friday morning and apart from the usual traffic nightmare in trying to get onto the outer Ring Road from Rama II, (I counted at least 24 lanes jammed with trucks approaching the Outer Ring Road toll booths from every imaginable direction), we made good time, arriving back home to our faithfully waiting pooches before 2 p.m.

So there are no more trips on the horizon for the next few weeks – or months – and maybe I can at long last get back into my oft neglected novel.

A pheast of Phattaya photos…

08 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: Ayutthaya, Bang Pa-In, Bang Sarae, Buddha Mountain, Floating Market, Hard Rock Cafe, Insomnia, Naklua seafood Market, Silverlake Vineyards, Walking Street, Wat Yansangwararam

Mobi-Babble

My apologies for the break in service mid-week, but as you will see, I have been more than a little occupied since last weekend.

When I visited the UK last August, some of you may recall that I went to a weekend reunion up in Northumberland, near Newcastle, where I met up with a number of friends that I hadn’t seen for years, many not since I was a teenager.

Well one of these guys, the son of an older, very dear friend of mine,(long deceased), was there, and, as with all the others who attended, I made blanket invitation to him to drop by Pattaya and look me up, at any time they were passing my neck of the woods.

You’ve guessed it – this particular gentleman sent me an email a couple of months back and asked if he and his lady could drop by for 6 days on their way back from a trip to Oz.

Well I couldn’t refuse, even if I wanted to, and it was with a little trepidation that Noo and I took off of the airport to pick them up last Monday night, the plane arriving from Sidney at the unspeakable time of half past midnight.

I needn’t have worried. Noo and I have had the most wonderful time showing them around, and I confess that I have had one of the most enjoyable weeks in Thailand than I have had in a very long time.

Usually, when friends and family come to visit, I have generally found it more of a chore than a pleasure to drive them around and take care of them, and I have always been seriously out of pocket – as everyone seems to come to Thailand with the idea of having a nice cheap holiday at my expense and leave poor old Mobi to pick up most of the tabs.

But not so, ‘Carnie’, (Joss Carnes, known by one and all as ‘Carnie’), and his lovely lady, Sally.

Carnie is just a few years younger than me and is a giant of a man, around 6 feet four, probably around 18 stone (250 pounds) with a rugby player-like physique and a full blown beard and long flowing hair to match.

He is one of the world’s gentle giants. A lovely man, as is Sally, his lady of about three years, and we had a hilarious and great time together; and the couple more than paid their way – the first time ever for this Thailand host..

Carnie has spent most of his adult life in Cornwall and owns a substantial garage and motor repair shop down there and seems to have done OK in his life; so the loving couple have decided it is time to travel the world before they get too old to enjoy it, hence their unexpected arrival on my doorstep.

So my apologies for those who have been awaiting my next selection of scantily clad females, as in this blog I am going to bore you all with a selection of photos that I took during the week’s travels, in and around Pattaya, and even further afield, as you will see below.

You’ve all seen pics of Pattaya, so I will start off with a few pics of the new-ish Floating Market, about 10 kilometres south of Pattaya which seems to get bigger and better, every time I visit it.

Then we drove further south, to the area of the Wat Yansangwararam complex which has some beautiful and unusual temple buildings, all of which I have taken many photos of through the years.

However, one particular building, set at the back of the main area, has always been closed off and I have been unable to get close to take a proper photograph. This time, I was pleasantly surprised to find it open and was able to drive in and at long last take a few pics to add to my ‘Wat Yansangwararam‘ collection.

We then drove the few kilometres to Pattaya ‘Buddha Mountain’ where, so it is claimed, they have the largest Buddha Image in the world. It is 130 meters tall and 70 meters wide. The carving is inlaid with gold and has been carved into the rock by laser technology in 1990 and was officially opened in 1993 by His Majesty King Bhumibol.

Close to the ‘Buddha Mountain’ is the extensive grounds of Silver Lake Vineyards, and genuine wine producing vineyard ,which looks as though it is also slowly being turned into a theme park.

I have taken many photos of the Buddha Mountain and the vineyards on previous visits so did not bother to add to my collection on this occasion.

Finally to much photographed Bang Sarae, where I was dismayed to discover that my favourite all time sea food restaurant was closed for the day! Not to worry, we drove along to one of the main fishing boat piers and found another large restaurant which was completely devoid of customers. I usually avoid such establishments, but we decided to take the plunge, and weren’t disappointed.

I guess it was just an ‘off day’ after the mad rush of the Xmas and New Year period, and the food was, fresh, well-cooked and, most importantly, very cheap. I reckon the same meal in one of the down-town Pattaya establishment would have been treble or even quadruple the price.

The ambience wasn’t as good as my usual restaurant, but it wasn’t that bad and we enjoyed a great meal, and had the place all to ourselves as a special bonus.

The next day we set off early for a trip to two places that I thought might interest Carnie and Sally; namely Pang Pa-In and Ayutthaya.

I have been to Ayutthaya on a number of occasions abut only once to Bang Pa-In, which I remembered was a lovely, peaceful place, and on my previous visit I had taken many photos but had subsequently lost the camera memory card, (drunks tend to do things like this), and wanted to fill my photo collection gap.

It was just over two hours to drive to Bang Pa-in from Pattaya, arriving at the Palace grounds with little incident, but for some unaccountable reason we, (i.e.Mobi), couldn’t to locate the Palace entrance. We drove round and round the outside of the high Palace walls in ever decreasing circles, until eventually Noo had to ask a passing noodle seller, who pointed to the Palace gate, barely 10 meters from where we had stopped!

Then we, (i.e. Mobi), tried to drive right through the Palace gate, only to be accosted by the Palace guards, who at one point looked as though they may open fire upon me, but in the end they contented themselves with ushering me furiously into a nearby car park located outside the main gate from where we made our way on foot to the elusive Palace entrance.

No doubt my mad cow’s disease is coming along apace….

If any of my Thai based readers haven’t been to Bang Pa-In, I urge you to go. It is a beautiful place which is steeped in peace, calm and tranquillity. I could actually spend a whole day there, just wandering slowly around the beautiful gardens, admiring the architecture, the gardens and lakes and contemplating life.

Hopefully, the photos below give you a taste of what you can expect.

Ayutthaya is only few kilometres down the road from Bang Pa-In, but the city is very large, and as you can imagine, we had a right royal time finding our way to the centre where many of the ancient monuments are located. My guests were quite amused at my lack of planning or lacking any kind of a detailed map for the trip, but it added to, rather than detracted from our enjoyment of the day.

As we motored around the province we saw much evidence of the devastating floods, which in some places had risen as much as three meters in height and had created such disruption, loss of homes and livelihoods to the good citizens of Ayutthaya.

But as ever, we finally followed our noses and found our way to two of the major historical sites. The first site was so damaged by the floods that it had been completely cordoned off go prevent visitors from getting too close and damaging the already flood damaged monuments even further.

The second site we visited was the main site for visitors and most of this was open for view and closer inspection.

You may note that I have included many trees in my photo collections, as I have a deep love and reverence for trees and find so many of them – frankly -awe-inspiring. Sometimes trees come close to convincing me that there must be a divine being out there somewhere….

Look at the first photo below. You can see clearly the white ‘rings’, high up on the branches, which show the level of the floods – quite amazing.

By way of a diversion, I managed to capture a Thai squirrel running down a tree to have his supper, in a nearby car park.

Late in the afternoon we went looking for an elephant encampment, but were too late and the site was almost deserted, except for a few elephants in the far distance, left out to graze overnight. There was also an interesting Chedi which had somehow survived all alone in what was now a bit of a bleak wilderness.

How about those ‘fan’ palm trees on the horizon?

Note the dried up elephant footprints caused by wading through the flooded earth.

Can you believe I hadn’t been anywhere near Walking Street for over two years, so on Friday night I broke the habit of a lifetime and took my two visitors to savour some of the delights of that infamous area.

Before we took the plunge, we stopped by Hard Rock Café, a kilometre or so down the road from Walking Street, to enjoy their huge burgers and to be entertained by a very loud, but a very good Philippine hard rock band.

On my previous visits to Hard Rock Café through the years, the bands had always played a mixture of mainly pop and not much rock so it was with some pleasure and surprised that we sat through nearly two sets in which every single song was a genuine rock number – both old and modern. Then, at around 1 am, to my utter astonishment, they suddenly broke into ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba. We hastily paid our bill and departed before they decided to follow up with the Birdie song or Aga doo….

Walking Street hadn’t changed much, although there seemed to be a distinct lack of Lady Boys littering the side-walks who had been so ubiquitous during previous visits. I can only assume that the BIB has discouraged their presence, presumably due to their increasingly dubious reputation of beating up, robbing and drugging tourists.

My guests expressed an interest in viewing a go-go bar, so I took them to one of the seediest that I could remember from my former life. In this particular den of ill repute, as well as the usual batch of bikini clad lovelies trotting their stuff out on the bar, there was as area where stark naked ladies busied themselves getting soaped up before slithering and sliding around the wet stage in ever more suggestive and erotic poses.

Beyond this platform was yet another stage where more naked women were beating each other with black rubber hoses and punters were queuing up to be also beaten by the naked ladies.

My guests were somewhat taken aback by this outrageous, in your face erotica and we didn’t stay too long, although afterwards they told me that they had enjoyed the experience – most enlightening…

We walked the gauntlet of ‘Walking’, weaving our way in and out of the detritus of Walking Street society and finally, at Noo’s entreaties, we ended up in one of the main disco clubs of Pattaya.

I haven’t been in a Disco, (‘club’ to the rest of the world), for literally years and years. Even when I stayed with my last wife we never entered one together. She always went alone, (with friends that is…), and on the odd rare occasion when she tried to persuade me to go in with her, I would politely decline, whereupon I would immediately become embroiled in major domestic incident.

I hate these clubs. They are huge, extremely loud, very crowded, smoky, and full of drunken tourists and Thai whores. Worst of all, they play the most asinine noise that they have the affront to call music that I have ever experienced in my life. I honestly can’t imagine for all the world what it is the younger generation get from these appalling places.

Discos in my days were great places to go. They had tuneful songs, decent decoration and furbishing, and you could actually communicate with each other over the noise of the music.

Now they are just huge great barn type buildings and all you can hear is this horrible BOOM – BOOM – BOOM which goes right through to your very soul and there is absolutely no discernible melody. A club song, (I use the word ‘song’ loosely), can go on for ten minutes or more, and when it changes the next ‘song’ sounds exactly the same as the previous one.

The club we were in – aptly named ‘Insomnia’ was a massive, first floor establishment, almost devoid of seating and no decoration – it looked like an aircraft carrier. The management completely ignored the Thai smoking regulations and you could hardly breathe through the choking cigarette smoke which was potentially a fire hazard. There seemed to be only one small exit and if anything happened I am sure there could be a terrible tragedy.

Carnie and I let Noo and Sally bump and grind their bodies through an hour of this torture, before I called it a day and we made our way back to my car and home.

No more clubs or discos for at least ten years….

Despite the late night, we rose a little early for my guests’ final day in the ‘Land of Smiles’. Our first stop was Naklua fresh fish Market, where Noo bought a load of sea food to cook at home at a little ‘farewell barbeque.

Below are some pics of Naklua beach area and the huge Naklua seafood market.

After loading up our seafood in cold chests stored in the car boot, (trunk), we stopped by a nearby tailor shop where I had arranged for Carnie to have two waistcoats made. I have known this particular tailor shop for a while now, (he made my wedding suit last year), and is one of the best tailors that I have come across in Thailand.

Here’s a pic of Carnie and his girlfriend, with Mr Paul, the tailor at his establishment, the somewhat ridiculously named ‘Prima Mode‘…

Our final stop was the Pattaya crocodile farm, which is located on the way to my home from Naklua.

The Crocodile Farm is an interesting but also a very disturbing place to visit. The gardens, together with the petrified stones and other massive rocks are breath-taking and very artistically displayed. Through the years I have taken many photos of these lovely gardens.

But the treatment of the animals there leaves much to be desired and can be quite upsetting. They stage an hourly crocodile show and it is obvious that cruelty must have been used in the training of these magnificently terrifying creatures which, uniquely, have survived millions of years of civilization and climate change.

Apart from the crocks, they have tigers, including white Siberian tigers, bears and even elephants that are chained up and the tigers are obviously drugged to keep them docile.

Some of the baby tigers had been de-clawed so that visitors could pay to feed them from giant milk bottles.. It is not a pretty sight and I can only hope that one day, something may be done about this.

But I had promised my guests a tour of Pattaya, warts and all, and that is what they got and they had no complaints. In fact, while deploring some of the things they had seen they also had a very sensible attitude to it all and understood that it is easy for us, in the west to complain about such things, but it wasn’t that long ago that we were doing a the same, if not worse things in our own country.

Victim of cruelty? – but probably by another crock…

This is probably the only animal in the park who is free from cruelty

Below, some magnificent beasts – sadly chained and drugged…

Farang tour guides – Is it legal???

Back home, Noo cooked up a storm on the barbecue and we all stuffed ourselves silly before loading up the car and driving back to the airport to say our final farewells.

I had really enjoyed their brief stay and will miss them. They were nice folk.

On Tuesday, Noo and I are going to Cha Am and Hua Hin for 2 – 3 nights, so I will do my best to get out some sort of a blog on Wednesday or Thursday, and maybe even a few saucy pics for those who are suffering from withdrawal symptoms from Mobi’s bi-weekly, sexy snaps…

Mission accomplished! – Mobi’s first year of sobriety…

31 Dec 2011 8 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: 12 Step programme, Alcoholics Anonymous, Anti depressants, Buddhist concept, depression, Happy New Year, Higher Power, Thai Visa

One year – 12 months – 52 weeks – 365 days – still sober.

Mobi-Babble

And what a year it has been!

On this day, one year ago, I was preparing to go out and have a few New Year drinks with friends around the lake, before returning home to spend New Year’s Eve with Noo, who at that time had been with me for about six weeks.

Over the previous few weeks, before and after Noo came to stay with me, I had been making my usual half-hearted attempts to quit the booze, sometimes stopping completely for several days at a time, and otherwise generally keeping my drinking more or less within bounds, with the occasional and inevitable lapses when I would get totally rat arsed.

Here is an extract from my blog of 27^th December 2010:

When my friend Bob departed I somehow fell into the habit of having a few glasses of red wine during the evening whilst watching TV. I confess this wasn’t one of the smartest things for me to do and as ever, it finally got a bit out of control. Christmas Eve afternoon saw me in one of the Lakeside bars with a couple of my old drinking buddies, and after a couple of coffees I got stuck into the red wine. Late afternoon turned into evening and evening into the wee hours. I eventually crawled home at around 2 a.m. where I found Noo, still waiting patiently for me.

I didn’t wake up until Christmas afternoon and was not feeling great. Christmas meant nothing to Noo and my repast consisted of some heated up Thai vegetables with pork and a couple of cheese sandwiches. I seem to be making a habit of eating cheese at Christmas as I recall having a similar repast last year. But the big difference is that last year I was all alone and this year I had the delectable Noo for company.

I continued my habit of drinking a few glasses of red on Christmas evening, but after watching the excellent ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ on Christmas evening, I think I might have finally forsaken booze forever. (Where have we heard that before???).

I may have a couple of glasses of red on New Year’s Eve, but that will be that. New Year’s Day is a great day to stop drinking and a great day to try to turn my life around and I that is what I plan to do. My drinking, apart from a couple of notable lapses has been much more moderate in recent months and I feel I am now ready to take that final step.

Predictably, my excellent intentions for New Year 2010/11didn’t exactly pan out as planned. Here is what I wrote in my blog of 2nd January, 2011:

As ever, I am not proud of my behaviour on New Year’s Eve. It started off innocently enough, at one of the Lakeside bar with two of my drinking buddies. I stuck to red wine but that didn’t stop me feeling pretty woozy a few hours later, especially as I had been drinking on an empty stomach.

Noo accompanied me to the bar but after a couple of hours watching me getting pissed with my mates, she was feeling pretty bored and decided to go to Pattaya and meet up with some friends for a few hours. So off she tooted on her motorcycle and left me to it.

I have only scant recollection of the next few hours but I did make it home, on foot, before midnight where I passed out on the sofa and ‘slept in’ the New Year. Although Noo won’t tell me exactly how I behaved and what I said to her, I can see from her mood and behaviour that I hadn’t exactly been full of love, joy and kindness. So yesterday morning, I expressed my deepest and profound apologies for whatever it is I may have said or done and I made a solemn vow to her never to touch another drop.

I think that in some perverse way, I knew that New Year’s Eve would be my ‘swansong’ as far as alcohol is concerned and it was probably this knowledge, as much as any other thoughts that caused me to drink myself into a stupor.

And the rest is history. Why? Who can say for sure? I guess I finally and irrevocably admitted defeat to the demon booze; the dreaded ‘John Barleycorn’ , as my Yankee AA friends used to say.

Earlier this year I started a debate on the Thai Visa internet forum about my thoughts, and experiences in AA and my subsequent extensive research into the effectiveness, or other otherwise, of the Alcoholics Anonymous organisation in getting alcoholics to quit drinking.

Unfortunately, the debate was cut short by well-meaning but extremely myopic and stubborn moderators who felt that the debate might deter people with a drink problem in seeking the help of AA. This was despite the fact that I stated over and over again that I still would recommend AA to anyone who had a drink problem.

Indeed, I had drifted in and out of AA for a number of years and there is no doubt that I learnt much from that august organisation.Without their help in understanding the basics of alcoholism and being able to share my ups and downs with countless fellow alcoholics, I doubt that I would be sober today.

But in the end, for reasons that will be subject to a special blog item later this year, I came to believe that AA doesn’t work for everyone; indeed for some alcoholics, they are more likely to achieve long term sobriety outside of AA than with in it, and this has been borne out by extensive research.

There are countless thousands of alcoholics, throughout the world who rely on AA to keep themselves sober and cannot exist without regular attendance at meetings. These, on the whole, are the ones who have accepted the concept of a ‘higher power’ and rigorously try to follow all aspects of the 12 step programme, which, if done properly, involves a deep spiritual commitment.

This is fine for them and good luck to them. But for those of us who in the end cannot accept the dogma of the ‘Higher Power’ concept, then quite often, long term sobriety can be achieved on our own, without the need for a quasi-religious supplication. For us agnostics and atheists, long term attendance at AA meetings can actually do more harm than good, as it tends to tear our minds apart, fills us full of doubts and makes us feel guilty if we cannot live up to the AA ideals. And when this is the case, what happens? We take a drink of course.

Nobody could question the altruistic ideals which encompass the principles of the AA 12 step programme and indeed this same12 step programme has been adopted by all kinds of organisations to deal with other addictions such as drug addiction and even sex addiction…

The 12 step programme contains many worthy ideals and precepts which every decent human being should strive to live by, and as stated above, there is much in AA that I took to my heart and found very beneficial in my struggles to stay sober.

Even when I made that final decision to stop drinking one year ago, I still had plans to go back to AA meetings, once I had got 30 days of sobriety under my belt. I still felt they could help me to achieve my aim – long term sobriety, even though I had considered, even accepted (for a while), but had ultimately rejected the concept of a Higher Power.

But one month led to two, and then to three and during this time I started to do some research on AA and discovered that the stats were simply not in their favour. The plain fact is that a great many alcoholics mange to achieve long term sobriety on their own and the relapse rate of alcoholics attending AA, though frustratingly difficult to ascertain due to the AA’s refusal to release crucial information, appeared to be alarmingly high.

So the course I embarked on became the DIY route, and the longer I remained sober, the more I realised that it was the right decision – for me. I will always be extremely grateful to the AA and to some of the wonderful people I met there; especially the ones who gave me support at my lowest ever monuments – and believe me, there were many.

Indeed, if it hadn’t been for a wonderful American who came to my rescue; literally picking me up from the gutter on Beach Road, looking after me and getting me sober, after I had been on a three day non-stop binge, I doubt I would be here today.

So it is with sadness that I reflect that Thai Visa didn’t have the common sense and foresight to let an intelligent debate on the merits of AA continue.

So here I am, one year chalked up and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will never, ever touch another drop. The reasons? Well there are several.

First and foremost, as with that occasion many moons ago when I quit smoking, the longer I remain alcohol free, the more I feel it would be a terrible tragedy, and, to say the least, it would be a dreadful waste of all my hard efforts, if I were to succumb again. Indeed, I feel in my heart that if I were to even pick up another drink, it would probably signal the beginning of the end of my life and would mean that I had effectively thrown in the towel.

Then of course there are all the obvious reasons, especially the health benefits, (not forgetting I am a diabetic with coronary disease) ,the need to find a meaningful life outside of the bars and whorehouses of the world, the increasing cost of a drinking lifestyle and the untold harm I inflict on my nearest and dearest.

While I am in the is self-congratulatory frame of mind, I will also give myself a ‘well done’ for succeeding in weaning myself off anti- depressants at the end of February, 2011.

I had been taking a high dose of antidepressants for a number of years and in spite of this, I went through a very black period in January 2010, when I came within an ace of committing suicide. I don’t know why I didn’t, for I felt there was no way out and that my life was truly over. Alcoholic lethargy, as much as anything, was probably the reason I survived although it would have been easy enough to achieve – all I needed to do was take a huge overdose of insulin and that would have been that.

But I didn’t, and at the urging of some well meaning folks on this blog, I went to seek the help of a therapist, and apart from helping me to come to terms with my situation, he also introduced me to a psychiatrist who prescribed me some new anti-depressants. These worked very well, even though I felt like a zombie for much of the time, but once I had quit the booze for good I realised that I couldn’t live the rest of my life as a ‘zombie’ and within 60 days, had succeeded in getting myself completely clear of them.

Dealing with my predilection for whorehouses and girlie bars took a little longer, and as my regular readers will know, I am still liable to the occasional lapse. But I am much improved in this respect, and have had to check back in my blog to find the last occasion that I entered a ‘den of ill repute’ – which was on 9th December. But that was my first foray for many weeks. I haven’t had any desire to return since, and have no plans to do so again in the near future.

This may sound terribly corny, but I am developing a very deep and abiding love for little Noo. Not the highly emotional, all-encompassing infatuation that characterised so many of my previous love affairs, but a love that has grown out respect for a kind, generous, honest, cheerful, easy going, lovely, sexy young lady who has succeeded in making me very happy in every conceivable way.

She has put up with a great deal from me during the past year, and for the future I will do my best to make her happy and do the right thing by her. I hope that I can.

So one year under my belt and where do I go from here?

Well I think I have achieved much but there is still a way to go to completely turn around my life.

On a mental level, I know that I spend far too much time worrying about things: my investments and my pension; the state of world economies which may have a disastrous effect on my income; how to be more productive and improve the quality of my daily life; my low blog readership levels, the slow progress of my novel, my health problems and how Iam going to pay for costly operations; all the myriad world problems – Arab uprisings, the riots and all the unbelievable evil in the world, and so on….

My new year’s resolution will be to stop worrying so much and try to enjoy what I have. I may be dead next year, so why worry about something that may never happen, and if something does, there’s nothing much I can do about it?

I must try very hard to live the Buddhist concept which is to live for ‘today’. Now is the time to be happy – not tomorrow or next month or next year – for it will never come. I know that, but it does take a great deal of mental adjustment.

At least I am in the right country to try and do this – as the Thai Buddhist culture is steeped in the live for ‘now’ philosophy. Through the years I have often wondered how Thais manage to stay so cheerful and happy-go-lucky when they do not know where their next meal is coming from, and I came to realise it is all down to their deeply embedded Buddhist philosophy – something I will try very hard to emulate in 2012.

But ‘living for today’ doesn’t mean that I abandon all attempts to put structure in my life. I know that I am weak- willed and at the slightest opportunity I will procrastinate.

I believe that as a recovering alcoholic I must try to organise my time, whether it is purely allocating a period of the day to read, or going shopping or taking Noo out for a meal, or getting down to slightly more serious pursuits such as keeping my personal and financial affairs up to date and properly organised, and keeping my blog going, and last but by no means least, continuing with my somewhat neglected novel.

There are other activities that I wish to do persevere with, such as photography, exploring Thailand, and taking regular exercise amongst others. So in theory I shouldn’t get bored – or depressed – or hanker for a drink or to go back to my old degenerate lifestyle.

I will be perfectly honest with you; I am not deliriously happy and there are still not infrequent occasions when I wake up feeling quite low. But I know that trying to make such major changes to my life at my age, with a lifetime of drinking behind me, is never going to be a ‘walk in the park’, and that I must soldier on and hope that eventually I will start to feel better about things.

I do know that when I start to procrastinate and put off doing the activities that I have previously decided I would carry out on a particular day, then I get depressed. The opposite happens when I succeed in sticking to my resolve and achieve something worthwhile.

I especially feel good about myself when I get stuck into my novel, and also, to a lesser extent when I am writing my blog, as these are ‘creative’ pursuits, which I now understand help to take me ‘out of myself.’

Whenever I – or indeed anyone – is totally immersed in a worthwhile activity, be it creative or whatever, they can free themselves of their ‘egos’ and truly live for the present. All their worries, fears, hopes, dreads, prejudices, hates, loves, resentments, emotions and all the other stuff that makes us not at ‘one ‘ with the world, disappear for those precious moments when we are totally immersed in ‘doing’ something we care about deeply. These rare moments are similar to the state of mind some people achieve when meditating; they are uplifting and are the very antithesis of depression.

So its onwards and upwards for 2012 and I will re-double my efforts to find a happy and contented life with my wonderful new partner.

My successes and failures will be faithfully recorded in this blog as the year progresses, along with my usual pithy comments on current affairs, Thai affairs, arts reviews, my Mobi-babbles, my outrageous comments and diatribes on just about any subject that takes my fancy to write about on any given occasion.

Not forgetting, of course, to continue to entertain you with more of my selected Asian erotica….

On 2^nd January I have a ‘long lost friend’ and his girlfriend from my teenage years visiting me for a six day stay, en route from Australia back to the UK. This will be his first time in Thailand and I may take the opportunity to take the pair of them, plus Noo, out to a few places – night and day spots – so it will be a bit of a holiday break for all four of us, to celebrate and to start off the New Year in style.

Tonight, New Year’s Eve, Noo and I will spend the evening in, as the fireworks will be blasting into the sky from every conceivable direction, and our dogs will be beside themselves with terror.

So it will be an evening on the sofa watching telly with our three pooches, lying amongst us for protection from the wicked world of thunder flashes.

So it only remains for me to wish all my highly regarded and treasured readers a happy and prosperous New Year.

Don’t let the bastards drag you down…

BUTT…BUTT…BUTT… I don’t give a hoot!..

The long Loei rocky road home.

28 Dec 2011 2 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: Dan Sai, Loei, Nong Khai, Petchabun, Phu Rua, Saraburi, Wat Neramitr

11 Months, 28 Days, still sober – Yes folks only 3 more days to go…..

Mobi- Babble

Here is the second part of my trip report.

On Thursday, Noo spent the day with her family, while I stayed back at the guest house doing my usual computer stuff. In the afternoon I decided to have break and took a long walk along the riverside, and thence to a nearby thoroughfare which led me to this Chinese temple, virtually in the middle of nowhere.

I then retraced my steps back through Taa Sadej market.

Where I found this interesting busker, trying to make a few Baht…

On Friday we rose quite early, and checked out of our room at Mut Mee Guest house in Nong Khai. We were soon on the road that follows the Mekong in a North Westerly direction, up through Nong Khai and into Loei province.

We made a quick stop at Tha Bo where Noo bought a new fridge for her Dad. His existing fridge is over 20 years old and is held together with rubber bands. It was so rusty that it was in imminent danger of electrocuting the next hapless person who tried to open the door.

Having arranged for a songtaow to deliver the fridge to his home a few kilometres away, we were back on the road which was becoming increasingly unsuitable for my low slung beamer. It was full of deep pot holes and deep fissures and in some places the road had disintegrated entirely into a dirt track littered with sharp rocks.

Some of the views of the Mekong along route 211 were quite spectacular; but the driving was very hard work, as for the most part I had to drive at extremely slow speeds and navigate our way along roads that could easily damage my wheels and/or suspension if I wasn’t extremely careful.

A Laotion truck on the Laos side of the Mekong. (Not bad zoom quality from my little Canon)

This little trip was starting to convince me that if I wanted to do any more of this ‘exploring’ up-country, then I would be better off changing out my vehicle for something more suitable.

After what seemed an eternity, we finally made it up to Chiang Khan and took a drive up a very steep mountain track to a huge Buddha and Wat that over-looked the Mekong.

We then made our way inland, but the terrain was still extremely bad, so by the time we finally made it to Phu Rua in Loei, the sun was setting and I was completely exhausted from the concentration involved in protecting my trusty BM from damage.

The road to Phu Rua - one of the better stretches

There is a huge national park at Phu Rua which has a number of mountain ranges, waterfalls and other worthwhile views, which on a typical weekend attracts many Thai tourists. We discovered this to our cost as resort after resort was fully booked by Thai tour groups who were descending on the area in Busses and minivans for a weekend away.

We were starting to think we may have to spend the night in the car when we came across a delightful little place, a bit off the beaten track, which had simple, but very clean rooms available, at simple prices. The room was 400 Baht and very basic, but it had all we needed – a double bed and a bathroom.

As night descended, the temperature plummeted to around 12 degrees Centigrade and we both put on our winter woollies to keep warm. I even bought Noo a woolly hat which she didn’t take off until about noon the following day!

The place was empty when we arrived, but later in the evening a number of Thai guests arrived, who in time- honoured Thai fashion, turned on their stereo and proceeded to have a party, all of which we could hear through our paper thin walls. But I was so tired that it didn’t really bother me and before long I was sound asleep.

Just as well I got a few hours sleep, for the night was still upon us and the cocks had yet to get into high gear when our considerate fellow guests turned their radio on at full blast and we were treated to a rousing, early morning, music reveille.

When I had cleared my bleary eyes sufficiently to focus on my watch, I found that it wasn’t yet 6 am. But I reasoned, somewhat philosophically, that it was probably just as well, as we had a very long way to go if we were to make it back to Pattaya before sundown.

Much as I wanted to drive to the Phu Rua National Park and up to some of the scenic summits, I decided that if we were to do this, we may never make it back to Pattaya that day as we were now even further from home than when we were in Nong Khai; and we were also quite a long way from the major trunk routes.

Resolving that we would spend a day in Phu Rua National Park on the next occasion we went to Nong Khai, we headed off towards Dan Sai, before making the long trek home.

The road to Dan Sai was good and once again the views were spectacular as we travelled through the steep hills of Loei.

One of the major sights of Dan Sai is Wat Neramitr and we stopped off there to admire the beautiful temple and the murals that adorn its walls.

One of the many beautiful murals at Wat Neramitr. (I used a flash to cancel out the top light.)

I decided to drive back south on route 21 which runs all the way to Saraburi, via Petchabun. I had travelled this road several years ago when I stopped off in Petchabun on my way back from Chiang Mai, and found it to be a little used, very good, fast 4 lane highway. And so it proved to be again, and we made excellent time along the entire length of the road.

Again, there was some spectacular scenery en route, both in Loei and Petchabun, which also is a very mountainous province.

It was on the final leg of the journey, just when I was starting to feel rather weary, that I experienced the biggest problem of my journey. After driving through Saraburi, I headed east, past Nakhon Nayok towards Prachin Buri, with the intention of picking up route 331 which runs from Kabin Buri, all the way to Banglamung, near my home in Mabprachan.

I don’t quite know what happened, but I got to Prachin Buri OK but then found myself on route 304, which I hoped would lead me to the 331 , but I ended up getting completely lost. By time I realised I was lost, I had driven quite a long way off my route. I was in fact heading back towards Kabin Buri, so what with retracing my steps and a more few false starts, I finally managed to find the elusive 331, after driving for an hour or more across country on a very slow, traffic congested, one lane road.

So it was home at around 5.45 pm, having been on the road since very early that morning, and to be honest, I think I am still recovering…

The dogs went ballistic as you might expect and the next day, Christmas Day, we had a quiet, restful day at home with them before deciding to go out in search of a turkey dinner in the evening. We failed miserably to find a suitable restaurant (they were either fully booked or weren’t doing anything special) and ended up sharing a pizza an empty restaurant just down the road from my home.

But it was fine – I’m not big on Christmases and Noo doesn’t know any different.

BUTT…BUTT…BUTT…BUTT…I don’t give a hoot!….

A Very Merry Christmas from Mobi, your Darkside Blogger.

25 Dec 2011 Comments Off

by mobidark in Uncategorized

May I wish all my dear readers, both long suffering, and more recent aficionados, the very merriest of Christmases.

One way or another, it hasn’t been a great year for the human race, so I hope you all manage to forget about the world’s and your own problems for a day or so, relax and enjoy the festive season.

Your Darkside Blogger arrived back in Pattaya last night after a marathon, 9 hour plus drive, so today I am taking it easy, and getting my energy back. I shall update you on my recent travel adventures before the New Year.

In the meantime, here is a little gift from Mobi to you; a selection of festive womanhood. I hope you enjoy.

The road to Nongkhai, via the City of Angels

22 Dec 2011 2 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: Honey Hotel, Laos, MBK, Mekong River, Mut Mee Guest house, Nana Entertainment Plaza, Nong Khai, Soi Cowboy, Terminal 21, Tha BO

11 Months, 22 Days, still sober

Mobi- Babble

I am breaking a rule of a lifetime in this blog, as for the first time I am publishing photos of people in my life. In this blog you will find a few pics of Noo and her family as I cannot see any harm – given that neither she nor her family nor anyone who knows her, will ever read any of my blogs.

No, this is NOT Noo….

Last Sunday, we packed our bags and rove up to Bangkok for a couple of nights before heading off up to Nong Khai for a few more, leaving our three lovely pooches in the capable hands of our trusty gardener/pool cleaner.

The purpose of my stay in Bangkok was to see my two specialists at Bumrungrad Hospital.

Amazing though it may sound, even though Noo once worked as a fork lift driver in the Bangkok suburbs, somewhere out in the boon-docks of Bang Khae, she had never set sight on central Bangkok. So it was with an ‘ooh’ and an ‘ah’ at the sights of the towering, fanciful skylines of one of the world’s most exciting cities as I drove into Bangkok and along Sukhumvit Road to check into my regular Bangkok lodging – the Honey Hotel, on soi 19.

I have been using this hotel for the best part of 35 years, and I think all my wives, bar one, have slept with me there on one occasion or another through the years, to say nothing of the countless long term, short-term and even ‘one night stand’ lovers who have shared my bed there through the years. The Honey Hotel is like a favourite pair of old slippers – it may be a bit worn out and past its best, (like me), but it always feels so comfortable to me.

The room rates are extremely reasonable, the rooms are clean and have everything I need – air conditioning,TV, fridge, and hot water ; the coffee shop serves up excellent Thai and farang food at reasonable prices, and there is convenient covered car park, where the long serving security guard always gives my car a wash without having to be asked, even if I haven’t been there for over a year.

I rarely use my car in Bangkok as taxis are cheap and plentiful and the ‘sky train’ and underground are just five minutes’ walk down soi 19 to Sukhumvit. I don’t mind driving – the problem is parking. Years ago, when I lived in Bangkok, I employed a driver, purely so that he could stay with the car and find somewhere to park whenever I went out anywhere.

So on Sunday afternoon, I took Noo out for a walk along Sukhumvit Road, from Soi 19 down to soi Nana, fighting through all the street vendors that cram the side walks. Then across the road for a quick ‘looksie’ at the Nana Entertainment Plaza (NEP) bar scene, (she had never heard of it), before jumping on a Sky train to go to the massive MBK shopping complex, where we spent an hour or so wandering around to buy a few bits and pieces for her folks in Nong Khai.

I had a bit of a ‘bad turn’ in MBK and realised that my forthcoming medical check-ups were not before time. Anyway, after a good rest I felt better and we retraced our steps to Nana, where Noo had to collect a wheelie bag that we had bought earlier and then we walked back up Sukhumvit to the hotel, where we both collapsed from exhaustion on the bed!

Later, after we had recovered our energy, we took a walk to Soi Cowboy, where I showed Noo the ‘sights’ and before having a meal nearby. On the way there we passed the newest addition to the Bangkok landscape, the towing ‘Terminal 21’ shopping complex at the corner of soi 19 and Sukhumvit.

Soi Cowboy

Xmas Tree outside Terminal 21

The last time I was in Bangkok, this latest addition to the Bangkok Skyline was still under construction, and a year or so before that, the corner was the well known location of ‘Country Roads’, a live music bar with loads of whores for hire. For many years, in front of ‘Country Roads’, was the site of ‘On & Off‘, a street beer bar, owned and run by On, the wife of my friend Rob – the one who passed away a few weeks back.. On was a very lovely lady from Korat, who I referred to briefly in my recent ‘obituary’ to Rob. (‘Death of a Salesman’).

Bangkok’s skyline is forever changing, and over the decades I have come to expect the unexpected but it was quite a jolt to find the glitzy hi-tech 21^St century ‘Terminal 21’ where – only a few blinks of my eyelids ago – was the seedy ‘Country Roads’ and the even seedier ‘On & Off Bar’ with its third rate hookers and drunken, often impecunious farang customers.

The next morning, (Monday), it was up with the dawn chorus to drive down to Bumrungrad Hospital at the crack of dawn to have my ‘fasting’ blood tests.

I had to drive as, through the years, I have come to realise that no taxi will take me from Soi 19 to Soi 3 in the morning rush hour, ostensibly due to traffic jams. I always find this a bit of an enigma, as it never takes me more than 20 minutes, max, to drive there at that time of the morning. From Soi 19, I take a right into Soi Asoke, which, I admit is a bit of a traffic night mare, but once I have edged my way up Asoke to Petchburi Road– a distance of about half a kilometre which takes about 15 minutes, I am home and dry. Straight down Petchburi and a left into Soi Nana and then a right into Bummers. Easy peasy! These taxis don’t know everything.

An account of my marathon 10 hour stint at Bumrungrad hospital can be found below, under a separate heading.

After driving back to the Honey in the late afternoon, we had a brief rest before driving to Soi 22 to meet up with an old friend kin Washington Square. (Ye I know I said I use taxis, but Washington square is one of the few places that you can easily park – albeit for an extortionate fee.)

We met up at the Hare and Hounds, one of the very few bars still open in what was once a thriving area of Bangkok bar and restaurant-land. The square is now a total dump and seems to be getting worse.

All the long-term tenants have been thrown out by the Indian owners of the land, but they have yet to do a deal with potential property developers. Apparently, the Central and the Beer Chang people have come and gone after failing to come to an agreement. Meanwhile, the enormous square is a blot on the landscape. I wonder how much longer it will stay like this?

We didn’t stay too long; my bar days are behind me – particularly with Noo in tow, and it was noticeable how pissed my friend and a few others were becoming with a consequent deterioration in the quality of their conversation. In any event, we planned to rise early and it had been a very long day at the hospital.

No, this is NOT Noo…

So on Tuesday we set off for Nong Khai, and in spite of the morning rush hour it wasn’t long before we were heading Northwards on the express way for the 7 hour drive to Nong Khai.

The trip was pretty uneventful, with the only item worthy of note was the quite extraordinary number of police road blocks throughout our journey. A combination of luck, and possibly having a dark windowed beamer meant that we succeeded in sailing, unsullied, through all the check points; but I did notice that it was not only trucks and pick-ups that were being stopped; many decent looking cars were also being ‘waved over’, by the swarming, officious-looking traffic cops.’

This is by far the largest number of police check points I have ever seen on the roads of Thailand – even during such festivals as Songkran – and in Nong Khai itself, the roads seemed to be teeming with cops who were stopping and checking vehicles of all kinds..

I am not sure if this phenomenon is due to the police coffers being unusually empty, prior to the New Year season, or is it due to something a bit more sinister? Is there something going on? Are they looking for something or someone in particular? Who knows?

We checked in at my pre-booked guest house – a charming little complex over-looking the Mekong River entitled Mut Mee. The views and ambience are excellent, So far so good, but the good stops there.

The rooms are charming but very basic. There are no TVs’ (no problem), no fridges, and believe it or not, no water or glasses. They have a strange system; something that I have never come across before. Meals can be ordered by writing your order in your ‘room book’ and leaving it in the kitchen, and similarly water and other drinks can be obtained by helping yourself from a central fridge in reception and writing the details in your room book. Coffee and other hot drinks also can be obtained like this but you have to make them yourself. All meals and refreshments so obtained are to be consumed in a communal outside area. So there is no free water and not even a glass in your room to wash down your late night pills.

‘Room with a view’ – the Mekong River and Laos beyond.

Morning coffee outside my room

You know who…

Sorting the Mobi provisons

The Mut Mee complex. Mobi’s room straight ahead.

To make matters worse, they even charge you for toilet paper!

I confess that I seriously considered moving, but in the end it was all too much hassle. In any event we got round their silly system as fortunately I then had the foresight to bring with me our own coffee and breakfast supplies (cereal, milk, orange juice etc), together with mugs, bowls cutlery , tissues etc and we also had a cool chest. So we made a quick trip to the 7/11 and bought some water and ice and we were in business.

We resolved not to partake of any of their additional catering services and have dined out every day for lunch and dinner and catered for our own breakfasts, coffee, and so on.

Yesterday morning drove to Noo’s home village, near to Tha Bo where we went to her home and met up with her family, including her parents and her two children. This was my third visit to her home and I am now treated as one of the family.

After all these years, I think I can tell the good folk from the ‘not so good’, (or shall we say mercenary), and I can equivocally state that these folk are amongst nicest, friendliest and most caring I have ever met out here in Issan-land. I speak precious little Issan but with my bad Thai and their Thai/Issan, we managed to communicate quite well. Of coursed it goes without saying that a lovely good hearted girl like Noo would also have a lovely, good hearted family.

Some alternative forms of transport at Noo’s home.

The ubiquitous ‘family table’, situated underneath the home on stilts.

Noo’s youngest – couldn’t resist sharing this with you.

Then I took the family to visit a nearby Wat where they did all the usual praying for ‘good luck’, as well as ‘freeing’ some terrapin-type creatures in the river for extra good luck. This was a variation on a theme I had not come across before. Usually, you pay a few Baht to let birds free from tiny cages.

Loadsa luck for Noo and her family…

Buy your terrapin’s freedom here!

The river behind the Wat.

When we were all ‘prayed out’, we drove down to the nearby Tha Bo Market, and did a bit of shopping. I bought myself some Adidas trainers for 450 Baht!

Tha Bo Market

Then we took a 25 kms drive along a picturesque road that borders the Mekong river, to Nong Kai City, where we are staying. The family went to look around Taa Sadej market – a famous riverside market, while I stayed back at the room.

Today, I have sent Noo off to spend the day with her family in the village near to Tha Bo, and I am spending the day at the guest house.

I am writing this blog, outside my room, which looks out over the Mekong river, and I am quite content and at peace with the world.

It really is very pleasant here, and I am quite sure that I would be a regular guest at this place is it wasn’t for the silly, unnecessary, mercenary-like catering arrangements, which have been invented by its misguided farang owners. But there again, they seem to have plenty of guests, so who I am to say they have got it wrong?

But it’s just not for Mobi.

Tomorrow we will head off into the wilds of Loei province to check out some recommended sights and will stay the night somewhere en route, before heading back to Pattaya on Saturday – just in time for Christmas!

Mobi’s medical miscellany at Bumrungrad

I was reluctant to go back to this hospital as it is very expensive. I can manage the consultant’s fees, meds and blood tests – just about – but if I need to have any ‘procedures’, God Forbid, you are talking big money.

So what with one thing or another, I hadn’t seen my diabetic specialist for a year, (should be every 3-6 months), and its about 3 years since my heart specialist saw my ugly countenance.

But in the end, I decided to bite the bullet and do the necessary. Why don’t I go somewhere cheaper? Well the plan fact is that I really don’t trust hospitals and doctors in Thailand. From my own, and also many other farangs’ experiences, it is very obvious that most Thai Doctors just treat their profession as a business and they are out to maximise their profit/income.

This is the reason that most of the best doctors practice in the major Bangkok private hospitals. This is where the big money is. Sad to say, it is largely the ‘dross’ – the medical light weights – who go to work the provinces.

Over the years in Thailand I have had many experiences of countless doctors in all manner of hospitals , including expensive and cheapo ones in Bangkok, to hospitals in places like, Chon Buri, Sri Racha, Bang Saen, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Sa Kaeo and goodness knows where else.

So I think that I do possess a reasonably objective view of the state of play here, being a long term out- patient (and in-patient) who has kept himself well informed about his own medical conditions, and the latest treatment options.

In particular, excluding the major private hospitals in Bangkok, the Thai medical profession’s attitude to diabetes is stuck somewhere in the 1980’s. Apart from the aforementioned,elite hospitals, you will never find a Thai hospital where there is a specialist whose full time speciality is diabetes. Diabetic patients are always referred to the regular GP or ‘internal medicine’ doctor, whose knowledge and treatment of the disease is woefully lacking.

I was once admitted to Samitivej Hospital in Sri Racha with Dengue fever., Samitivej is on the top rung of Thai private hospitals and the specialist who treated my dengue fever was first class, I couldn’t have wished for more expert and caring treatment.

Yet the doctor responsible for looking after my diabetes couldn’t understand why I was taking 4 insulin shots a day, instead of only one! I won’t write an essay here on the advances in diabetes treatment through the years but I can assure that his knowledge was decades out of date. This was by no means the first doctor I have come across, outside Bangkok, who seemed to know less about the treatment of diabetes in the 21st century than I do.

Not so, my wonderful specialist at Bumrungrad, who I have been seeing for over ten years. She always keeps herself bang up to date with frequent trips abroad to learn and discuss with her peers the latest advances in drugs and techniques and treatment.

(She is also very cute, and maybe I am imagining it but I always feel she has a soft spot for me…)

As for heart specialists – well I am sure there are hundreds of good ones around – but how can you tell a good one from bad one? Or how can you know for sure which one will only recommend a certain procedure because there is money in it for them?

The lady I have been seeing at Bumrungrad, (yes, you’ve guessed it, all my doctors are female), once thought my arterial stenosis was serious enough to justify a ‘stent’ implant. But just to make, sure she arranged to do a confirmatory angio-gram, to be immediately followed by the stent procedure.

I was required to make a very large monetary deposit in advance of this ‘operation’ and you can imagine my surprise when I was subsequently awoken from the anaesthetic to be informed that she hadn’t after all gone ahead with the stent as the narrowing wasn’t sufficiently acute to justify it. Subsequently, about 90% of my deposit was refunded.

For those of you who know anything about such ‘cash cows’ as Bangkok Pattaya hospital, I will ask you, in your wildest dreams, can you ever imagine anything like that happening there?

So I fell in love with my ethical cardiologist and was broken hearted, (excuse the pun), when I learnt she was leaving Bummers to go to live and work in the USA. Hence no Mobi heart check-ups for the past three years.

However, I recently heard through the grapevine that my lovely lady of the heart was not only back in Thailand but was back at her old job at Bumrungrad, so I needed no further inducement to have a long overdue check-up. It was about time too as the meds I have been taking for years no longer seem to keep my blood pressure under control, and when I was in Bangkok Pattaya last year with my smashed wrist, the heart doctor there told me that I had a dodgy heart valve.

I had to be at the hospital before 8 a.m. for my blood tests and then had to hang around till noon for my first appointment with the cardiologist. Unfortunately the results were not too promising.

My blood pressure was so high that the nurse actually took it twice as she didn’t believe the first reading. Not a good portent.

It turns out that the reason my blood pressure is so high, despite the mountain of medication I take, is because my heart is struggling to pump blood through my partly blocked aortic valve.

The doc arranged for an echo cardiogram stress test in the afternoon which confirmed her diagnosis. The echo cardiogram showed that my aortic valve was quite bad and she actually cancelled the stress test part of the procedure, which involves running on tread mill, as she feared what might happen to my heart!

The bottom line is that the damage to my aortic valve is just below the ‘danger limit’ of 40% in ‘lack of functionality’, (mine’s about 38%); but rather than jump right in and put me under the knife, she has proposed a programme of treatment for the next three months to see if I can arrest or slow down the disease progression and delay the need for surgery. She as good as admitted that surgery will be necessary at some point, but the longer I can postpone that time, the better.

Replacing a heart valve entails major open heart surgery, involving a week in hospital and several weeks of after-care/recuperation, and also involves a moderate degree of risk, especially in diabetic patients. It is also bloody expensive – the doc said around 700,000 Baht (15,000 pounds, give or take) for the op, (not sure if this includes everything), at Bumrungrad.

I guess I’m going to have to do a bit of shopping around.

So the current plan involves a continuation of my efforts at daily exercise, which will help to make the valve stronger, some fine tuning of my medication, and re-doubling of my efforts to lose weight.

These steps might ameliorate the state of the valve, but my condition will have to be monitored very closely. She has warned me that any major re-occurrences of my recent symptoms, such as chest pains, breathlessness and feeling faint will be a signal that surgery needs to be carried out sooner rather than later. If some or all of these symptoms re-occur, she told me to go back and see her straight away for a further assessment of my condition.

Finally, more doom and gloom from my diabetes doc. My weight gain has resulted in dangerously high blood sugars, although the few kilos I succeeded in losing over the last week or so have already resulted in a slight improvement over the last few days. Again, some adjustments to my medication, plus more exercise and weight loss will help to put things back on course.

BUTT…BUTT…I don’t give a hoot…

A Lustful Gentleman – some more of Chapter two…

15 Dec 2011 Comments Off

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: a lustful gentleman

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I will publish the latest completed bits of my novel on different days to my normal blog days.

So here is some more of chapter two; sections, i, ii, & iii.

Section iii is completely new, and sections i & ii have had some more of the Mobi-editing treatment.

I hope you enjoy it.

A Lustful Gentleman

Chapter Two

Ying turned her little Jazz into her driveway and drove slowly up the long driveway and under the carport. The car stereo was blaring out so loudly that when she opened the front door of the car, it sounded like one of those mobile discos; the ones that drive along Pattaya’s roads at night, blaring out music with such ear-splitting intensity that bystanders can barely even think, let alone hear themselves speak. The deafening pop music reverberated harshly across the peaceful, still night.Until Ying’s abrupt arrival, the only sounds to be heard were those of the toads in a nearby pond, emitting their repetitive mating calls.

She cut the ignition and suddenly the world returned to its state of somnolence and once more the toads held pride of place in the humid night air. Ying unlocked the side door to the house, dumped her handbag on the dining table and then summoned up one last burst of energy to climb up the central staircase, enter her enormous bedroom and collapse, fully clothed, on her bed. She lay there for a few minutes, unable to move. She had been drinking but was not wholly drunk – she had drunk just enough to make her woozy and very sleepy.

It had been a very long day. She had been woken before 8 a.m. that morning by the girl who usually opened her hair dressing salon, with the news that she was sick and would not be able to make it in to work that day. As a result, Ying had only had about four hours sleep and it had taken all her will power to drag herself out of bed, take a quick shower before jumping into her car and make it to her salon before the regular opening time of 9 a.m.

She had spent the whole day there and at around 8 p.m. when the final customer had finally left, she had driven to a friend’s house where they had spent the next seven hours playing cards and sipping Bacardi Breezers. By three a.m, Ying was down about three hundred baht and she decided to call it a night. She would have to get up early, yet again, to open her shop in the morning.

She roused herself briefly – just long enough to pull off her jeans and top before collapsing once more onto her bed in her underwear. She lay there for a few minutes with her eyes closed, but for some reason sleep wouldn’t come, a problem she often encountered when she was over-tired and feeling tipsy. She was so tired but her mind kept going round and round.

What sort of life was this? Living in this huge house virtually all alone? It was far too big and it was a daily battle to keep it in in a half way decent state on a minimal budget, while at the same time trying to start a business that was struggling to break even. It was all a bit of a nightmare; now that her assistant was ill, so she wouldn’t even get a decent night’s sleep.

But the longer she lay there, in her heart she knew that on this day she would never make it to her salon much before noon. She was just too tired. She idly speculated on how many customers she might lose if she had yet another unscheduled closure. It had been difficult enough to attract customers in the first place, and for sure, if any of her regulars came in the morning and found her closed, they would not come back. There were simply too many other hair salons in the vicinity for them to remain faithful to a place that kept closing without warning. What a mess!

She curled up with her favourite cuddly panda in the enormous four- poster bed, but still she couldn’t sleep. It was a strange journey indeed that had brought her to this point in her life: thirty four year’s old, living in a huge house, with a nice car in the driveway, but almost perpetually broke. Her estranged husband, Toby, barely sent her enough money to cover the utility bills; she knew that he was also financially distressed and very soon, even that cash stream would probably dry up. There was no way they were going to be able to sell their jointly owned house in the foreseeable future. The market was dead – no one was buying. It was a veritable ‘albatross’ around both of their necks. If they succeeded in selling it, they could both move on with their lives, but as it was, they were both broke and unable to make the clean break that they both yearned for.

Finally, she dozed off. She drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep for a few exquisite minutes when she was rudely awakened by the screeching sound of a Thai rock song, piercing the blessed silence of the early morning. She slowly regained consciousness, wondering for a moment where the music was coming from. Then she knew; it was coming from her phone – her mobile phone was ringing.

She reached out blindly, grabbed hold of the phone and without looking at who was calling, she put it to her lips. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Khun Ying?’

‘Yes. Who is that?’

‘This is Pattaya Police station, I am Lieutenant Somkid. We would like you to come here immediately.’

‘Why? Why? What is it? What have I done?’

‘You have done nothing – it’s your husband. We want you to come here and see us about your husband. He is in a lot of trouble.’

‘My husband! He doesn’t live with me anymore. He left me ages ago! I can’t come – I’m not free!’

‘Khun Ying, if you don’t come here and help your husband, he will be in very serious trouble. He will go to jail.’

‘I don’t care! I don‘t care! Fuck my fucking husband! I don’t care what happens to him. I told him! I warned him! I don’t care what happens to him!’

‘Khun Ying, if you don’t come down her immediately and help him, your husband might even die.’

‘I don’t fucking care!’ Let him fucking die!’

She cut off the call, turned off her phone, and closed her eyes, praying that sleep would come back again and blot out the images in her mind.

‘Fuck Toby. Fuck him…fuck him… fuck him…’

Despite the air-conditioning, she suddenly broke out in a sweat. ‘Oh No, not again!’ she said out aloud. ‘Please not again…’

In spite of her antipathy, she suddenly worried about what horrors may befall her errant husband… her fucking husband. Surely that fucking cop didn’t mean it literally? Why should Toby die? But she continued to fret. Die ? No, surely not…she had already seen too many deaths in her life to contemplate yet another one.

***

Ying was sitting cross legged, at one end of a huge, roughly hewn wooden table cum workbench, which served as part cooking area, part sleeping area, part drinking area and part part living area; which has such a ubiquitous presence in Thai rural life, so popular in the poorer Thai villages. It was the central meeting and gathering area for the occupants and friends of any particular abode.

This particular ‘family bench’ was probably around two meters in length by about one and a half meters wide and covered the entire shaded area in front the modest, two room single storey wooden house that had been the only home Ying had known for the entire eight years of her young life. It was a home that she shared with her mother, younger sister and two younger brothers.

Barely ten minutes ago, she had arrived home from her long, daily walk from school; but already she was hard at it, preparing the vegetables for the family’s evening meal which she would soon start cooking for the five of them – possibly six, if her father decided to stay and eat with them.

She looked across to the far end of the table where her father was also sitting cross-legged in an alcohol-fuelled conversation with one of his drinking cronies from the village. Both of them were well into their ‘cups’. Ying had noticed one empty bottle of Mekong whisky on the ground near to them and a second bottle was already half empty. The two men sat facing each other on the table, the space between them occupied by the whisky bottle, along with a dirty ice bucket and some empty soda water bottles.

Her father snarled at his daughter, ‘Ying! Get me another bottle of soda!’

She jumped up and ran to the side of the house where a half empty case of soda bottles was standing and grabbed a couple of bottles and quickly delivered them to the two men.

The drunken man barely acknowledged her existence as she put down the bottles and returned to her cooking chores. Mama would soon return from the rice fields where she toiled daily at her back- breaking, twelve hour shift in the flooded paddies – up to her chest in the warm, mosquito-ridden water. Ying’s two brothers and baby sister were inside the crudely built house, watching a small black and white television in the corner of the room. They would all be very hungry.

As poor as there were, there weren’t many families in her village who enjoyed the luxury of a television, and on most evenings, a large crowd of villagers would descend on their humble abode for a couple of hours to watch the nightly ‘soap operas’ put out by the only two Thai Channels they were able to tune into from their somewhat isolated neck of the woods.

Ying wasn’t sure whether she should be grateful or resentful of the fact that her father was one of the ‘big wigs’ in the village and had been able to provide them with a coveted TV. She knew well enough that there were many occasions when they wouldn’t see him for days – sometimes weeks – when he would disappear, without warning. On such occasions, the sparse food money he occasionally gave her mother would dry up completely. Sometimes, they wouldn’t eat for several days and it was for this reason that her mother had recently started to work in the paddy fields, as a sort of protection against the vagaries of her common law husband’s largesse.

One of Ying’s friends from the village had told Ying that her father had several other ‘wives’ in a nearby village and that when he disappeared, he would go and stay with them. She wasn’t sure of the truth of these stories, but suspected they were probably true. She did know for sure that her father was not a very nice person. Often, he would return home very drunk and pick a fight with her mother, beating her mercilessly. On more than one occasion her mother had been so badly beaten that they had to call for a doctor to treat her injuries. He had even hit Ying and her brothers on the odd occasion, so whenever they realised that he was particularly drunk, they would do their best to keep out of his way. But no one would dare to say a word to him about his brutal behaviour. He was a very powerful, well-connected, ‘mafia-type’ figure and everyone seemed in awe of him. No one had the courage stand up to him.

Ying could see that her father was getting very drunk and feared that it wouldn’t be long before trouble started. She wanted to warn her mother to stay away but she didn’t know how to go about it. If she left off from her food preparation, her father might get angry; he was so unpredictable. In the end she did nothing; she just sat there, working away and hoped that something would happen to take her father away from their home before her mother arrived back from work.

She couldn’t believe her luck. Almost at the very moment that she wished something would happen, a motorbike drove slowly down the narrow track which led to their house. She could clearly see one of her father’s friends driving the bike but she didn’t recognise the young man on the back. She assumed it was another member of her father’s ‘criminal-gang’. ‘Good,’ she thought, ‘maybe they are all going off to do a ‘job’ somewhere.’ That’s what usually happened when his low-life friends came to see him in the late afternoon.

The bike came to a halt outside the house, less than a meter from where her father and his drinking companion were sitting, but they didn’t get off. In fact, both men remained seated and the engine remained running. As Ying watched, she heard the man on the front yelling something angrily at her father, but he behaved as though nothing had happened. Deliberately ignoring the shouts from the motorbike driver, Ying’s father picked up his whisky glass to take another sip. As he put the glass to his lips, the angry driver shouted something to the youth behind him, whereupon the young pillion passenger lifted his right hand to reveal a handgun; the dark metal glistening in the late afternoon sun.

Although Ying hated her father, she suddenly felt a jolt of panic and revulsion at what was about to happen. But before she could even shout out a warning, the youth fired three shots – one after the other – at almost point blank range, into her father’s head and body. Her father had been so drunk that he hadn’t even seen the shots coming. The smoke was still clearing as the driver snapped his bike in gear, raced the accelerator and skidded his tyres on the dusty ground as the two killers sped away, out of the village.

She instinctively rushed over to her father’s slumped body, hoping against hope that he might have survived the violent attack, but one look at his head told her that it was all over. The bullet had taken half of her father’s face away and Ying stood transfixed, aghast at the grizzly sight. She started screaming, becoming hysterical as the villagers emerged from their nearby homes and rushed over to see what all the noise was about.

Into the midst of this commotion arrived Ying’s mother. Quickly taking in what had happened, her mother grabbed hold of her, and led her towards the house, just as her other children were emerging to see what was going on.

‘Go inside! All of you!’ her mother shouted, ‘and stay there until I say so,’

‘But Mama…’ Ying started to protest.

‘No, Ying, go inside and look after your brothers and sister.’ She shouted loudly at her.

Although Ying knew her mother to be a kindly woman who loved her children dearly, her hard life and difficult circumstances had given her a nasty temper. Woe betides anyone who tried to cross her or gainsay her when her ire was roused – except of course, her now deceased husband. But Ying always did what she was told when her mother was in this kind of mood, so she led her younger siblings back into the room and back to the television, dreading what disastrous effect this tumultuous event may have on their family’s fortunes.

In her wildest dreams, Ying couldn’t have imagined quite how catastrophic the after effects of her father’s untimely death would actually turn out to be.

She stayed away from school on the day following her father’s killing, as had her mother from the rice fields. There were many things to sort out, least of which was the cremation of her father’s body. Her mother had no money to pay for a funeral and was wondering what on earth she was going to do when the problem was solved for her by the appearance of her husband’s elder brother and sister, who lived in the next village.

Ying had only seen her ‘in-laws’ once before – when her father had invited them to a big party he held in the village. She doubted her mother had seen them very often either, as on that occasion they had been very unfriendly and had virtually ignored them. So she had expected the worst when they suddenly turned up, but her misgivings were soon assuaged when she heard the brother tell Mama that her father’s family would assume full responsibility for her father’s funeral arrangements.

‘Mama, that’s god news. Now you can stop worrying about it.’

‘Ying, go inside the house, I have some things to discuss with these people,’ she told Ying who once again felt aggrieved at being dispatched away from the centre of action.

She reluctantly walked into the house and tried, without success, to overhear what was being discussed. But it wasn’t long before she realised that whatever they were talking about, it wasn’t good news. She could hear her mother’s raised voice and the responding loud voices of her father’s relatives. She knew that things were not going at all well.

At length, she heard her Mama shout out in anger and after a long pause, she started to cry. She heard the man bark something back at her mother and then there was a long silence. Ying sat, waiting for somebody to say something, becoming ever more fearful at what might have transpired between them, but no sound could be discerned. Eventually, she gingerly peered out of the house; all she could see was the sight of Mama, her head in her hands, weeping quietly to herself. There was no sign of the others. They must have gone.

‘Mama, what has happened? Where have they gone? Did they refuse to pay for father’s funeral after all?’

Her mother looked up bleary eyed at her daughter – incredibly mature for her young years. ‘Funeral, my love? Why yes, child, they will pay for the funeral, don’t worry about that.’

‘Oh that is good news Mama,’ Ying said with a smile. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes, my child, it is good news. But I’m afraid that we have to stay away. They have told me that we are not allowed to go to the Wat. If we do, then they will refuse to pay for the cremation.’

‘That’s terrible Mama, why won’t they let us go to father’s funeral? I don’t understand.’

The tired woman looked at her eldest daughter. She wasn’t sure if Ying would understand. ‘They don’t want us there, my child, because they say that I am not his real wife and that you and your brothers and sister are not his real children. They say that his real wife lives with them in the next village and it would bring a big shame on his family if we go to the funeral. They said that nobody wants us there.’

Ying tried to absorb all this confusing information. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked herself. ‘Why can’t Papa have two wives? I don’t understand. What does it matter if we go to the Wat and pay our respects to our father?’ She considered everything for a few moments, before finally speaking, seeking to reassure her mother.

‘So we can’t say goodbye to Papa. Never mind, Mama, please don’t cry. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, he wasn’t a very nice man, was he?’

Her mother looked at her daughter, lovingly. ‘No Ying, you are right; he wasn’t a very nice man,’ before bursting into a new flood of tears.

‘But Mama, Mama, if he wasn’t very nice, why are you crying? We don’t have to go to the Wat. It’s not so important. Please Mama, please don’t cry.’

Eventually, her tears stopped and she dried her eyes. ‘Ying, my child, I am not crying about your father’s funeral. Yes I want to go. He was an unkind and selfish man, but he was the only man I ever loved and her bore me four beautiful children – but that is not why I am crying. You don’t understand.’

‘Try me Mama, try me. Why then?

There was an even longer silence before the distressed woman finally explained the bombshell news to her daughter. ‘Because, my child; because Papa’s family have told me that we must leave our home. They say it belongs to them and they want it back.’

‘Leave our home! They can’t do that! Where will we go? Surely Papas’s family wouldn’t be so cruel to us…’

‘Yes, they would, my love. It belongs to your father and I wasn’t married to him – not properly – and they want it back. They don’t care about us. They hate us.’

‘Oh, Mama, why are people so bad? When must we leave?’

‘Tomorrow!’

‘Tomorrow! We can’t leave tomorrow! Where will we go?’

‘I don’t know, my love, I don’t know where we will go. I have no money to go anywhere.’

‘Then you must refuse to leave Mama, you must tell them we have to stay here until we find somewhere to go.’

‘I already told them that. That man – your uncle – he said if we don’t leave by tomorrow evening, he will bring the police and have us thrown out; and he means it, I know he does.’

‘But Mama, where will we go?’

‘I don’t know, Ying, I just don’t know…’

***

iii

Ying sat with the rest of her fellow-villagers on the hard benches at the village Wat and stared at the ground. Around her, the adults held their palms together in prayer and joined in the resonating incantations being chanted by the saffron robed monks, who were seated in front and to the left side of them on a long bench. The somnolent drone of the incomprehensible Pali prayers had almost caused her to drop off to sleep, but without warning, the chanting momentarily stopped and she looked up, wide awake once more.

At the centre of her deeply tanned, Issan face that was already showing signs of promised beauty to come, her cavernous, deep brown eyes, were transfixed on a point several meters in front of her. She stared at the raised plinth at the far end of the temple grounds, where, hidden from view, her beloved grandfather was lying in a large casket dressed in his finest traditional Thai clothes, awaiting his journey to the next life.

It was just yesterday that she had arrived back from school and was in the process of getting changed to join her mother for her late afternoon session in the nearby paddy fields, when her brother had come running into the house, with a message for her to go quickly to her grandfather’s home. Her worst fears had been confirmed; Granddad’s disease-ridden body had finally given up the unequal struggle in his seventy fifth year on this earth – a worn out, skeleton of a man, who had lasted a lot longer than anyone could have reasonably expected, for he had been sick and infirm for several months.

To Ying, he was one of the few souls who had shown her kindness during the past few years of her brief but careworn life and although she had been expecting his death for some time, it came as a huge shock when she had rushed into his primitive room and found the poor old man, stiff and cold, lying on his dirty worn out mattress, his tattered, soiled clothes reeking of death and decay.

The next twenty-four hours had passed in a blur, and now here she was, at the village Wat, attending the last rites before her poor Granddad’s body was incinerated in the primitive crematorium.

She remained seated as the as the villagers around her rose to walk over and form a line in front of the plinth to pay their respects to one of the doyens of their humble village. ‘If it hadn’t been for Granddad, God knows what might have happened to me and my family when we arrived here from our previous home, some four years ago,’ she pondered to herself,

She would never forget that long journey of some twenty kilometres from the village where Papa was viciously murdered, to the village where her mother’s father – Ying’s grandfather – still lived. It had been in that village, some twelve years previously, that Ying’s father had first met her mother and had taken her away to live in his own village near to the Cambodian border, where his four children were subsequently born.

It seemed only yesterday that they had made that long, arduous trek, the five of them dressed in tatters, carrying all their worldly possessions, either balanced on their shoulders or piled perilously high on a primitive, two-wheeled cart, which they had borrowed from a neighbour. The trip took two exhausting days to complete, and at long last, the family had made it back to the place where Ying’s grandfather had made his home and where, some twelve years ago, Ying’s mother and father had first met.

Ying knew from her grandfather that Mama was originally from Chaiyaphoom, in the North-east of Thailand and that being desperately poor, she – along with many other Issan folk – had migrated to Sa Kaeo province to find work and start a new life. Thus, many villages in the area had become almost entirely populated by ethnic Issans, who all spoke Issan in their daily lives and had brought their Issan culture with them to this little part of Sa Kaeo province. But Ying’s father was an ethnic -Khmer, as were a majority of Sa Kaeo residents, given its proximity to Cambodia.

Ying then started to realise that there was another, more sinister reason why her mother and her family had been so hated in her father’s, Khmer-centric village. Who knows? It might have contributed to the reason he was killed, such was the hatred and distrust between the two cultures.

When they had arrived back at Granddad’s village some four years ago, they found him still in reasonable health, but eking out a poor existence as a field labourer. However, he did own a small plot of village land, which he had been smart enough to buy at a give-away price some years ago, when the previous owner had been desperate for money. Ying’s Grandmother had been dead for many years, and since then, he had lived alone in a small, makeshift house on stilts, which he had built himself. After his wife passed away, his needs were modest and he informed his daughter that she was welcome to take the remaining part of his unused land for her family to live on.

Ying was still rooted to the bench, now the only one left seated. ‘Come on Ying’, a village elder called out, breaking her reverie, ‘Come and pay respects to your Grandfather before we burn him’.

She rose as if a trance, without offering a word of acknowledgement, and joined the end of the line; but her mind was still in the dreams of yesterday.

The very next day after their arrival, her mother had gone to work in the rice paddy fields from dawn to dusk to earn sufficient money to feed her family. They now had to fend for themselves for much of the time; they had no money to build a house, and for many months the family had to make do with a few rusty sheets of corrugated iron, kindly donated by neighbours, which was fashioned into a lean-to.

Ying had returned to her village school and despite the harsh conditions under which she lived and the responsibilities she had to endure during the evenings and weekends, she continued to make good grades. Not only did she have to look after the family but she often had to join her mother working in the rice paddies to supplement their meagre income.

Ying’s mother may have been illiterate, but she was a canny woman and she soon realised that the land given to her by her father was worth more to her than just a place to build a home on. So after months of battling through frustrating, bureaucratic ‘red tape’ at the local government offices – particularly problematic given her illiteracy – and with the help of some village elders, the desperate mother finally succeeded in transferring Granddad’s parcel of land into her own name.

She was then able to borrow some money from the local government bank, lodging her newly acquired land as security and utilised the money to build a rudimentary house for her family to live in. It was more of a shack than a house, but it did put a solid roof over their heads, and did provide them with a proper, albeit very basic, toilet. This was to be Ying’s family home for many years to come.

Since then – several years in fact – life had settled into a hard but relatively uneventful routine. Her younger sister and brothers had started school and her mother had continued to keep the finances afloat by her daily labour in the paddy fields. She knew that Mama was for ever having financial problems and sometimes she had to borrow money from her neighbours to keep up the payments up on her bank loan. Mama’s constant fear was that the bank would seize her little bit of land and render the family homeless yet again.

At the tender age of twelve, little Ying, could not devote too much of her precious time thinking about such matters. She had too many other burdens on her young shoulders: surviving day to day, keeping up with her schooling, working with her mother and having a major role in the care and upbringing of her young siblings. Even as she stood in line at her Granddad’s funeral, she fretted that they had now taken two days off from the paddies and they must get back to work tomorrow, or by the end of the week, there wouldn’t be enough money to buy food.

At length, the formalities – unusually brief, due to the family’s lack of funds to pay for something more ostentatious - drew to a close, and her dear, worn out Granddad was sent on his way to his next life with puffs of black smoke bellowing out of the tall chimney, high above her head.

She wasn’t a particularly spiritual person – what girl is at that age – but on impulse, she closed her eyes and sat silently in prayer, begging ‘whoever may be out there’ that her Granddad be granted a better life the next time around. She felt sure that he deserved it as he had been a virtuous man and had made much merit in this life, now sadly at an end. When she eventually opened her eyes, she looked around and was surprised to find that everyone had gone.There was no sign of her mother and siblings, so she assumed that they had left her to her prayers and already taken off for their trek back home.

Overcome with grief but still dry eyed, Ying started to take the long, hot slow walk back to her home when just as she walked out of the Wat grounds, she was unexpectedly intercepted by the local head man – the Kaman of the village. He was Khun Somsak, the final arbiter of all village matters and the political ‘tool’ of the provincial party bigwigs. Ying knew him to be a strict, but fair old man and she surmised that he had decided to come over and pay his respects.

‘Sawasdi, Khun Ying,’ the old man started, ‘Do you have a moment? I would like to talk with you.’

‘Yes, of course, Khun Somsak, is it about my Granddad?’

Not exactly, Ying, come, follow me to my home, and we can have a quick chat.’

Ying dutifully followed the man to his own home, near the Wat, where she was bidden to take a seat in the porch, while a maid brought out a welcome glass of cold water for her.

‘Ying, your mother has asked me to talk to you on her behalf.’

‘Why, Khun Somsak, is something wrong? Has something happened to my Mama? She seemed fine at the Wat.’

The old man was silent for a few moments; not a man for quick repartee or unconsidered responses. ‘Yes… and… no… my dear. Yes, something is wrong, and no, your mother is perfectly well, as far as I am aware.’

‘Then what, sir?’

‘Ying, you are aware that your mother has problems making the monthly payments on her bank loan?’

‘Why, yes, of course, she is always talking about it and worrying herself silly.’

The old man remained silent.

‘Oh no! No!’ she suddenly exclaimed. ‘Don’t tell me we are going to lose our home again. This is too much – not now that Granddad has died. What will we do?’ she asked him, almost in tears.

‘No, Ying, the bank is not foreclosing – not yet, at any rate. No, the problem is that your mother has borrowed a lot of money from people in the village and she can’t pay it back.’

Ying thought about this for a while. ‘So what can I do about it? Why are you talking to me?’

‘Because your mother asked me to and because I think I have been able to find a solution to your family’s financial problems.’

‘So…this solution – it involves me?’ she enquired, fearing what may be coming next.

‘Yes, my child, it involves you, but please don’t be scared. We are not going to sell you to a massage parlour or anything like that. We are poor folk but we are not so bad as that.

‘Ying, my child, your mother has asked me to tell you that we have arranged for you to go and live with a family in Bangkok, to work as their as their maid and as a nanny to their children.’

‘Bangkok? I… I don’t understand…’

‘Ying, I have some friends who know a very nice family and they live in Bangkok and they need a young live-in maid. I am sorry, but it seems to be the only way out of your family’s money problems. The family will pay you a small wage and they will send it home to your mother to help with her daily expenses.’

‘But…what about my school?’

‘I’m afraid that your school days are all over, my child. You can already read and write – very well I hear – so that will hold you in good stead. Now you are grown up and you must help your family by going to work in Bangkok.’

‘But…what about my family? If I go to Bangkok, I won’t see be able to see my brothers and sister any more, will I?’

‘Well maybe one day you will be allowed to go home for a few days. You will have to discuss that with the family after you start work.’

Ying sat for a long time in silence, trying to absorb all these sudden and unexpected changes to her life. No more school – no more work in the paddy fields – no more looking after her family – no more village life with her friends…It was almost too much for her to take in all at once.

But the longer she thought about it, the more puzzled she became. It didn’t make sense – surely the money she would earn as a maid wouldn’t be that much more than she could earn in the paddy fields. And if she left home, who would look after the children? Who would cook their meals? If her mother had to do everything, then she would have to stay at home and she wouldn’t earn any money to buy food. What about the bank loan and the money she owed in the village? How was all that going to be paid back on a maid’s salary?

The canny old man seemed to sense what was going on in Ying’s young, over-active brain. ‘You are wondering how your mother will pay off her debts, aren’t you?

‘Yes, how did you know?

‘Because I know that you are very smart young lady. Well Ying, here is the crux of it all. We need you to be a very good girl and promise that you will stay with this family in Bangkok and work hard for them until you are eighteen years of age. Can you do that?

‘Well…yes… I suppose so… but why?’

‘Because the family have very kindly agreed to give your mother enough money to pay off all her debts, and in return, you must stay with them and work for them for six years, until you are eighteen. Is that OK?’ Can you do agree to that?

‘Agree? Why yes, of course. I have no choice do I?’

The man looked at her in silence.

‘But what happens… what happens if they are cruel to me and beat me and don’t feed me… what then?’

‘Don’t worry Ying, they won’t do that. They are good people, you have my word.’

‘And Mama? Will she be able to stop working in the paddy fields?’

He smiled at her concern. ‘Yes, Ying, you mother will have enough money to give up her work and stay at home. Your salary should be enough for the family’s daily needs, once she no longer needs to make the monthly payments on her bank loan.’

There was little more to discuss so she thanked the old man for his intervention and help in this matter, bade her farewells and walked slowly back to her own home.

Ying found her mother sitting cross legged on the ground outside their little home, waiting patiently for her return. She looked at her deeply troubled mother. Despite her tender age, she was not completely ignorant of the toll these past few years had inflicted on her mother; toiling in the hot, unremitting sun, up to her knees in muddy water, with her back bent at acute angles. This had left her with permanent back problems and severe arthritis. The child could see that Mama had been experiencing difficulty in getting about, even though she was still only in her forties. But to Ying’s young, but wise eyes, her poor Mama looked to be in her sixties.

Her mother looked at Ying, terrified what her eldest daughter might have to say.

‘It’s OK, Mama. You can stop worrying. I will go to Bangkok, and you can pay off the loans and stop working in the fields. I have agreed to everything.’

Her mother looked at her with tears in her eyes, and Ying knew that her Mama hated doing this to her daughter. The Kaman had told Ying that there was no time to be lost if Ying was to take up the position in Bangkok, so both of them were also distressed at the imminent departure of the family’s eldest daughter.

Like most Thais, Ying’s family weren’t particularly demonstrative, but on sudden impulse, she crouched down next to her Mama and hugged the disconsolate woman closely to her chest. ‘It’s OK, Mama – it’s OK; everything will be just fine.’

Her mother remained stiff and motionless; her moist, myopic eyes, transfixed on a nearby mangy dog which lay spread eagled on the hot dusty earth. As she stared, the dog’s shape slowly faded from view in the ever lengthening shadows of a fast approaching dusk.

***

Sanyo’s off! Who’s next?

14 Dec 2011 3 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: diet, exercise, Health & Fitness, John le Carré, Our kind of traitor, Re-insurers, Sanyo, Thai floods

11 Months, 14 Days, still sober.

Mobi-Babble

I know it’s still early days, but, health-wise, things definitely seem to be on the up and up.

I can well recall, way back in 1999, when my diabetes and coronary problems were so bad that I was told by my two Harley Street specialists that if I didn’t give up my high pressure job and adopt a new, healthier lifestyle, that I would probably be dead within 10 years.

There then followed a planned process towards early retirement,which occurred in June 2000, and was followed by my determined efforts to take some exercise and lose some weight.

For a number of years, in spite of my pre-disposition towards alcohol abuse, I was a bit of a medical success story. Subsequent medical check-ups revealed that I was a fine example of what could be achieved if the patient was sufficiently determined and dedicated.

I well remember those early days and weeks, when I was so unfit that I couldn’t even walk down the driveway of my home without breaking out into a sweat, experiencing chest pains and my legs aching from the effort.

Yet slowly, day by day, things started to almost imperceptibly improve. It really seemed at the time that the ‘mountain I was trying to climb’ was so great, that I would be unlikely to achieve anything beyond the simple ability to take a short stroll without dropping down dead.

But within weeks I was heading off on brisk daily walks into the East Northamptonshire countryside, gradually interspersed with short periods of jogging, and within months, I was actually jogging, non-stop for up to thirty minutes a day.

Along with my ‘sensible’ eating – without really depriving myself or going on a specific diet, (just watching my sugar and fat content and cutting out sweets, cakes and so on), my weight came down, from 90 kilos to about 78. So did my blood pressure and sugar levels, and despite my continued drinking, I actually started to feel healthier and fitter than I had for many years.

Over the next few years I did try quite hard to keep to this healthy regime, but the break-up of my fourth marriage, my subsequent move to Thailand, and my disastrous 5th marriage all took their toll.

But even as recently as around 2006, I was still using the tread mill, (which I had bought in Bangkok, as jogging is so hard to do in Thailand, what with the soi dogs and many other distractions), and also did a daily swimming routine. But inexorably, my emotional and drinking problems got the better of me and in the end, all efforts to stay healthy evaporated and my body weight and health embarked upon a five year decline.

Up to recently, apart from a few odd ‘miracle’ occasions, such as the one when I travelled to the UK earlier this year , I have felt like a very old man, with aching, stiff limbs, unable sometimes to get up from my sofa or from sitting on the floor, without assistance.

I haven’t been able to walk more than a hundred meters without being in pain from chest and joints, and my weight has been higher than at any time in my entire life – almost 100 kilos. (15 stone to you Brits), with a belly so pronounced that nothing fits me any more.

But during the past few days I have noticed a marked improvement on all fronts. My weight has dropped to about 93 kilos (14.5 stone), my ‘belly line’ has gone in a couple of inches, and most of all, I feel quite a bit fitter.

For two days in a row, I have experienced no ‘muscle/joint’ pains and hardly any ‘heart’ pains during my evening walks, and I have felt so much better, that I have actually extended my walking time by around 50% and have still felt pretty good when I arrive back home. In particular, the pains and aches in my leg joints seemed to have more or less vanished and I feel much more able to get around and stay active.

Anyway, it’s onwards and upwards, and it is now important that I continue to build on these encouraging signs. It is fortuitous that we have now entered the ‘cool’ season here in Pattaya and it is extremely pleasant to take our evening strolls with temperatures in the early to mid – 20’s, with low humidity and a nice breeze wafting across the lake. It could almost be a stroll in the English countryside on a nice summer afternoon.

Our trip to Bangkok and Nong Kai is still on and I am looking forward to taking long, cool evening walks along the Nong Khai waterfront promenade that looks out across the Mekong River to Laos.

This morning, even my sugar levels and blood pressure were better than they have been in weeks, so all in all, I think it really is time for some cautious optimism.

I don’t have to tell you how much this has improved my mood, and I am already thinking about becoming more active in the home, rather than being permanently stuck to my computer chair and TV sofa. I actually want to get up and so something useful.

I am now dreaming about a time in the New Year when I might even be able to do a bit of jogging….

Yesterday, I had a call from a car dealer in Bangkok who said he had a buyer for my car and wanted to see it in Pattaya that day. I quickly re-arranged my plans for the day, sorted out all the car papers, took the car for a wash and drove to the agreed meeting point in Pattaya for the afternoon inspection.

Five minutes before the appointed time, the dealer called and said that his buyer could not make it and requested to reschedule for the next day – today.

Whether or not he is playing games with me to try and drive the price down, I have no idea, but I don’t really care. I have no great desire to sell, and I am not prepared to be messed around by effing farangs who break appointments with impunity. So I have told the dealer to forget it.

I still have it advertised on Thai Visa and another expat website in Bangkok, so I’ll see what happens in the New Year, but if it isn’t sold by the end of January, I’ll probably take it off the market and keep it for another couple of years or so.

I have just finished reading John Le Carré’s ‘Our Kind of Traitor’ (see review below) and have now started reading something very different; Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness.’

Our Kind of Traitor

One of my all-time favourite authors, John le Carré, seems to be back to something approaching his best, at the ripe old age of 79. ‘Our Kind of Traitor’, published last year, is a welcome return to his more familiar ‘British espionage’ genre, peppered with wonderfully crafted, typically ‘Le Carré’ characters and a relevant, topical plot, which for the most part has sufficient credibility to hold the reader’s attention.

Hand on heart, I can’t honestly say that it’s quite up to the standard of some of his best works, notably, ‘The Spy who came in from the cold’, the ‘Tinker/Smiley’ series, ‘Perfect Spy’, ‘Night Manager’, ‘Little Drummer Girl’ and a few notable others, but it’s a good yarn nevertheless.

The book seems to have been generally well received by the world’s press, and most agree with my view that it is a welcome return to the Le Carré of old.

The only issue I have with the book relates to the ending. Obviously I am not going to give the plot away, so I will simply say that, to me, it is almost as if he lost interest, and in my view the end is a bit of a ‘cop out’.

I feel that if he is going to write an absorbing story that will hold his readers’ attention, then he owes it to his readers to wrap up the events in some kind of satisfactory manner. That doesn’t mean it has to be a ‘happy ending’ – or indeed a ‘sad ending’ – but frankly, in ‘Traitor’, it is almost as though the final chapter is still waiting to be written.

I hasten to add that this is purely my opinion, as no one else has seen fit to take him to task over it – but there again, they are professional reviewers with maybe a slightly different literary perspective – I am just in it for the fun and enjoyment of reading a good book.

The Flood aftermath

I have already written that I believe that Thailand will probably suffer some short term adverse effects to its economic growth, but in the long term, in all likelihood, its economy will recover completely and probably go from strength to strength.

This is because all the underlying fundamentals for a thriving economy are still in place and once they carry out the necessary infrastructure investments to ensure there is no repeat of the 2011 floods, then the world will once again be their ‘oyster’ with their growing industrial based exports, agricultural and commodity exports and ever flourishing tourist industry.

The ‘fly in the ointment’ has been the horrendous floods and as the water finally recedes, serious action must be undertaken if the economy is to get back on course. Failure to act quickly and decisively will result in a damaging economic slowdown.

But in the final analysis, it is the world’s reinsurance companies who will call the tune. Thailand’s key manufacturing auto and electronic industries are largely owned by Japanese and South Koreans. These international conglomerates have invested heavily in plants in Thailand, but they will not continue to operate their factories if they are unable to obtain adequate flood insurance.

The availability of flood insurance cover will depend on whether or not the major re insurers of the world are willing to take on, (i.e. re-insure the local insurance companies), up to 90 % of the underlying flood risk.

Without re-insurers’ participation, there is no insurance cover, and if the businesses are uninsurable, the Japanese industrial giants will move elsewhere. The re-insurers have already put Thailand on notice that they will not take on new flood risks unless action is taken to introduce and build effective flood prevention controls.

So it is clear that the government must indeed take urgent action, and I believe that they understand all this very well. The only problem is that most governments, and the Thai government is no exception, are only interested in short termism.

The investment required to ensure Thailand’s industry is flood proof will be enormous by any standards. Will this government have the courage to do what is necessary, or will they simply continue to feather their own little nests, and trust that the future will take care of itself?

There is much to commend the notion that in Thailand there is always a huge enthusiasm to launch major infrastructure projects, as they provide the ruling elite with so many opportunities to skim the ‘cream’ off the top of lucrative construction contracts.

But a word of warning: these days, there are so many people and organisations in Thailand of all political hues, who are fully aware of the potential for corruption and corrupt practices, that the fear of getting caught with their ‘hands in the cookie jar’ may outweigh the politicians’ passion for grafting easy money.

We shall no doubt watch it all play out over the coming months.

In the meantime, in the flood aftermath, the Japanese electronics giant, Sanyo, recently gave a salutary warning to Thailand on the kind of action to which they may increasingly become victim.

The company says it will lay off about 1,600 workers and close its plant in Thailand permanently. Sanyo Semiconductor (Thailand), which has operated since 1990 producing semiconductors, transistors and large-scale integrated circuits, has decided that it would have to spend too much money repairing or replacing the flood-damaged machinery.

It was determined that given the severity of the flood damage to the production facilities Sanyo ‘operates in Thailand, and the excessive cost required to recover and reconstruct these facilities, it is not financially viable for them to fully restart the assembly and test operations in Thailand for an indefinite period, if at all.

Sanyo Semiconductor (Thailand) is a business unit of US-based ON Semiconductor Corporation. The disruption at Ayutthaya’s Rojana Industrial Park had an impact on the supply chain of ON Semiconductor worldwide.

Sanyo’s Thai operations are estimated to have produced about 5-10 per cent of ON Semiconductor’s worldwide output as measured by revenue of US$905.8 million (Bt27.92 billion) for the second quarter of this year.

The bulk of the company’s Thailand operations will be permanently transferred to other existing ON Semiconductor facilities that have available production equipment capacity and excess floor space, and to some external subcontractors as appropriate.

The Sanyo Semiconductor case confirmed the concern expressed by Thailand’s Electrical and Electronics Institute that some electronics companies would leave Thailand because of the damage they sustained from flooding.

The Institute is keeping an eye on whether other electronics plants decide to close and flee Thailand because of the disaster.

The Sanyo decision follows that of Maxon Systems, a South Korean electronics firm, which recently decided to move one of its operations to Cambodia to avoid the planned rise in the Thai minimum wage to Bt300 per day in April, as well as uncertainty over future floods.

The institute said it was not clear whether other electronics companies would close their operations, as some of them were still evaluating the damage from the floods.

It is expected to be a month or two before a clear picture develops. Electronics companies are currently evaluating the damage, so the result of that assessment should come soon.

The Thai electronics industry employs 500,000-600,000 workers.

Let’s hope the government acts quickly and decisively…….

A Lustful Gentleman

For those of you who may be wondering, I have I have written another small piece of Chapter two, but I have decide to publish these ‘tracts’ on days other than my normal blog days, just to keep the blog going and not have my ‘best work’ hidden’ at the foot of a long blog!

So tomorrow, or maybe on Friday, I will publish some more of my novel in progress.

Next Blog

I am driving to Bangkok on Sunday so I doubt whether I will publish a blog on that day. An alternative may be to write it on Saturday, but I’m making no promises. If all else fails I will write my next blog once I am settled in the north-eastern kingdom of Nong Khai….

BUTT…BUTT…BUTT…I don’t give a hoot!..

mmmmmm

Mobi breaks his vow!

11 Dec 2011 2 Comments

by mobidark in Uncategorized Tags: A Q Khan, Adolf Eichmann, Cameron, Countdown to Zero, EU Regulations, Euro fiasco, Gentlemens' clubs, Nong Khai, Nuclear Arms Race, Reynard Heidrich, The Nazi Holocaust, Wansee Conference

11 Months, 11 Days, still Sober

Mobi-Babble.

The roads to hell, along with most of us travellers, are always filled with the best of good intentions, but as they say, sometimes even the best laid plans….

For those who know me of old, you will understand that this much flawed reprobate doesn’t always live up to his avowed aims. This can be anything from quitting the booze, to taking more exercise or merely becoming involved in some new worthwhile activity.

Our minds are willing but sometimes our hearts are weak – or is it the other way round? Anyway, I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes the Mobi-will power is a little lacking.

On Friday, I had a lunch appointment with my investment adviser who came down from Bangkok to meet with me. After we had discussed the deplorable state of the world’s finances, the worrying political state of affairs in Thailand, and the even more worrying state of Mobi’s finances, we concluded an unsatisfactory meeting but a nice lunch.

So being at a somewhat loose end, temptation got the better of me, and I ended up in one of my favourite ‘Gentlemen’s establishments’ in suburban Jomtien.

It was a completely ‘spur of the moment’ decision, as I had not even come dressed for the occasion – wearing jeans, rather than the obligatory ‘loose shorts’ which are usually ‘de rigour’ for such places.

I’m not going to beat myself up too much over this rash decision, as this was my first foray into any such place for several weeks, and I suppose, deep in my heart, when I resolved that my life as a whore-monger was over, I always knew there would be the occasional lapse. Why not?

Anyway, I confess I had a pretty good time. One of my favourite, very sexy young ladies was there to greet me, and before long I had no less than three of the most gorgeous young ladies, all clad in figure hugging, low cut, deep red mini-dresses that barely covered their scanty knickers, sitting with me, around me and almost in to me.

They were a bit put out by my ‘formal’ attire, but it wasn’t long before they found a satisfactory to the solution the problem, as long as I didn’t suddenly stand up from my bar stool , which might have proved embarrassing. (Note, I said ‘might’ as these days it takes a lot to embarrass Mobi – or indeed the young ladies who work at these establishments).

Anyway it was great fun, and as ever, the customers at nearby tables just couldn’t believe what they were witnessing; many, no doubt, were eating their hearts out. In all, I was probably there a couple of hours and by the time I departed, there weren’t too many girls there who hadn’t come over to ‘sample’ the Mobi-goods. It must be very boring when I’m not there to provide an afternoon’s entertainment!

I nearly went home, but at the last minute, I diverted to another one of my favourite haunts – this time, east of Suk. The place was devoid of customers, but all my ‘old flames’ were there – in particular three young ladies, of 21, 25 and 31 years of age respectively.

I was welcomed like a long lost ‘brother’ and it wasn’t too long before I was replicating the pleasures I had just reluctantly left back in the Jomtien club. It is quite ridiculous how much pleasure a gentleman of a certain age can derive from sitting with three young ladies, almost a third of his age, and indulging in a little slap and tickle and a fun-filled session of light hearted repartee.

I was back home by 6.30 pm where little Noo who was waiting patiently to prepare my evening meal. She had also been out for the afternoon to see her friends and do a bit of shopping, so I didn’t feel too bad about my own activities.

Apart from going on the occasional shopping trips and meals with Noo, I hadn’t really been out of the house for weeks and I really believe it did me good to have a bit of a ‘break out’.

I did feel guilty enough to take her out for an evening meal, which we both enjoyed and after which, we reaffirmed our love for each other – as if that was necessary…

My trip schedule to Bangkok and Nong Khai is all finalised. We will go to Bangkok next Sunday and stay a couple of nights, during which time I will see my specialists at Bumrungrad.

On Tuesday, we will head off for Nong Khai and I have booked a room in a nice little guest house overlooking the Mekong River for three nights. We shall catch up with Noo’s family, and do a bit of sight-seeing, which will also include a trip over the Friendship Bridge and into a Laos for a day trip.

I am actually looking forward to it, and plan to do a bit of blogging en route – time permitting. The folks at the guest house have suggested that I extend my stay till Christmas as they will be having a big party, so I’m a considering this; it might be good fun. I will decide on this after we arrive there.

Today we are all feeling the ‘cold’. It actually dropped to about 22 C last night, and right now it is about 24C and I am sitting at my desk with a shirt on and no fan. Noo is walking around with a jacket on, and any moment I expect her to start lighting fires to keep her hands warm. If it gets any colder it will start to feel like an English summer.

The on-going Euro fiasco

So many millions of words have been written on this subject, particularly from the British aspect, that quite frankly, you can ‘pays your money and takes your choice’ from the so-called experts with as many wide ranging views and opinions as they are days in the year.

We are in uncharted territory, and no one can really say for sure where this is all going to lead.

For my part, I have blogged on several occasions that I had always been totally against the UK joining the Euro, right back to the time when the whole of the British financial community was convinced it was the only way to go. I knew it wouldn’t work, for all the reasons that have now become apparent and I derive no great pleasure from being proved right.

But where are all those learned and famous people who told me, and others like me, that we didn’t know what we were talking about? Where are they now?

Have they apologised or in any way admitted they got it wrong? Not a bit of it. Most so-called public figures are too full of their own hubris to ever admit to being wrong.

And it seems to me that this has happened to the entire Liberal Democrat Party who has been vehemently flogging the ‘Euro’ dream for so many years, that they simply cannot find in themselves the courage and honesty to admit they may have been wrong. They would rather stick to a manifestly misguided and unpopular policy and see the British economy collapse, than re-think their now discredited policies.

Cameron is out there alone and good on him. Even now, so few people realise that the Franco/German axis is out to get us, determined to cut us down size and try to destroy our financial services industry which accounts for about 9% of Britain’s GDP and countless millions of jobs, both directly and indirectly.

Make no mistake, if we had signed up to the deals this week, it would be the beginning of the end of Britain as an influential world economic power. The French would like nothing better as they have always hated us, and I suspect the Germans have never forgiven us for refusing to join the Euro in the first place, and probably for the World Cup… and the Second war….

EU regulations have been stifling British businesses for decades and it been forever getting worse, with crazy restrictions on how many hours an employee is permitted to work and even the latest assault on agency /or contract workers, the use of which has made o9ur companies more versatile and has been highly beneficial for businesses and workers alike.

If we became free of all this EU bureaucratic crap, but still being able to access the European markets, (after all there is such a thing as WTO agreements), I truly believe our entrepreneurial and hard-working Anglo Saxon ideas and inventive culture will make this nation prosper like it hasn’t in a very long time.

I only hope that Cameron has the courage to stick with it; and while I understand his reluctance to hold referendums in the middle of all the recent negotiations, I say bring them on – sooner rather than later. I am totally convinced he will get a strong mandate from the British public to move further and further away from this increasingly monolithic European malaise.

And we all know what happened last time Gerry hatched a little European conspiracy… (see below)

American Factoid

Did you know that 80% of students in American colleges who study Maths and computer science degrees are foreigners, and once qualified, they return to their home countries.

They do not stay in the USA because, due to Al Qaida mania, they cannot get visas to stay, so they go back home, and join companies that compete with American companies.

Thousands of American businesses are unable to develop and expand due to lack of Americans holding computer science and maths degrees.

The increasing government regulation on the American business environment is probably far greater than it is even within the EU. Even the Germans know how to free up their business from too much bureaucracy, (hence being the most successful manufacturing nation in the west), and recognise the need to import much needed ‘third world’ scientific skills, without too many silly visa restrictions.

The great American Dream was built by immigrants. WTF happened?

Taking care of illegal, non-productive, Hispanic families has a far higher priority.

Until they all go broke….

‘Conspiracy’ and ‘Countdown to Zero’

I watched two very different, but in their own ways, two very disturbing movies recently.

Conspiracy, (2001) is a ‘made for TV’ movie by the BBC in conjunction with HBO –and is a re-enactment of the 1942 ‘Wannsee Conference’ in Germany where the ‘Final Solution’ phase of the holocaust was devised.

The story is based on notes recovered of the actual conference and all the characters taking part and the views they convey are historically accurate.

In some ways an impartial, uninformed viewer might wonder why a bunch of Germans sitting around a table dispassionately discussing an aspect of their war strategy could provide interesting viewing. At first, this could well be the case, but as soon as the whole purpose of the meeting becomes clear – the question of how to ‘deal’ with millions of Jews in Europe – then what initially appears to be a boring ‘business’ meeting’, transforms itself into an evil plan to ‘dispose’ of an entire race of people.

Yet the discussions take place in an atmosphere of apparent civility and politeness, as though they were merely debating the pros and cons of a new sales campaign rather that the annihilation of millions of fellow human beings.

One of the few major disagreements is over whether or not any regulations need to be amended in respect of non-Jews who married Jews or in the disposal of the offspring of such marriages. This seems to create far more argument than the central point of the conference, which is how to kill and dispose of the Jewish people in the most efficient manner.

The characters are played by a power house of British acting, with the notable exception of the American actor, Stanley Tucci , who plays the affable but very evil Adolph Eikmann, who was subsequently put in charge of the ‘Final Solution’.

Top British Shakespearean actor, Kenneth Branagh, plays General Reynard Heidrich, who was in charge of the conference and ultimately persuaded the attendees to agree to his ‘solution’, which was, in effect the transportation of Jews throughout Europe to specially constructed concentration camps which had been fitted with the ‘death’ gas chambers.

The entire ensemble cast are brilliant in portraying what appear to be ordinary, loyal, hard-working Germans; some from the military branches: army, Gestapo, SS, and others from the Civil Service, all going about their daily business in a perfectly normal, matter of fact manner.

Yet over the weekend of the conference, they finalised a plan which resulted in the killing of over 6 million people; one of the most appallingly chilling events in the entire history of the human race.

Countdown to Zero (2010), is actually a movie-length documentary about the ever escalating and proliferating nuclear arms race and the increasing likelihood that one day, we all might disappear in a puff of radioactive dust.

I won’t go into details, except to say that I would recommend this film to all who are interested in world affairs and I can certainly say that I learnt quite a lot about the history of nuclear arms, and the alarming number of authenticated ‘close calls’ that have occurred over the past fifty years.

I also was interested to learn how alarmingly simple it is to make a basic nuclear bomb – not particularly efficient, but powerful enough to flatten a large city the size of New York. No sophisticated missiles or warheads are required – in fact with a chunk of enriched uranium, no larger than the size of a briefcase, and some materials that can obtained in the hardware stores of virtually any city in the world, just such a bomb could be made and ignited.

And we have to thank a certain Pakistani gentleman who goes by the name of Abdul Qadeer Khan, for not only providing nuclear technology but also nuclear materials to North Korea and Iran to name but two, nuclear hungry ‘rogue’ states. He is still fêted as a ‘hero’ in his own country.

Back in the 1960’s John F Kennedy said: “Every man woman and child, lives under a nuclear ‘Sword of Damocles’, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness.”

This statement is clearly the underlying thesis of the film and there are fascinating insights by such luminaries as former CIA agent Valerie Plume, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair, and Robert McNamara, which all add the credence of this well researched and chilling documentary.

Download it and watch it if you can. The next bomb, if and when it happens, could outdo the atrocities committed on the Jewish race back in the 1940’s.

BUTT…BUTT…BUTT…BUTT…I don’t give a hoot!…

mmmmmm….

My name is "Mobi"; I'm an alcoholic

A Return to Mobi’s ‘Daily’ Dose of Delectable Damsels

Mobi’s Thai Trips

A pheast of Phattaya photos…

Mission accomplished! – Mobi’s first year of sobriety…

The long Loei rocky road home.

A Very Merry Christmas from Mobi, your Darkside Blogger.

The road to Nongkhai, via the City of Angels

A Lustful Gentleman – some more of Chapter two…

A Lustful Gentleman

Sanyo’s off! Who’s next?

Mobi breaks his vow!

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