Land of Smiles

Why do they call it that? I remember wondering the first time I arrived and was bowled over by the Customer service, smiles, a little bow and a ‘wish ya well’ in Thai. Quanta’s service nigh forgotten!! Mind you, the prats did give me a customer service questionnaire to fill in – you can mark it out of 10. Hmmmm, is a 1 or just zero a fair reflection…?! Anyone given more than a 5 if you’re in cattle class?! Still, you pays yr money….

Thailand – wow, as soon as you step out into the connecting tunnel you can feel the warmth - +38 degrees we were reliably informed – I was expecting to melt immediately having experinced the minus version in Russia not 3 weeks before but nope, I was very comfy thanks. Very excited as well, not even the 6 bottles of vino needed to pass out and get some sleep on the plane seemed to be affecting me!!

So, taxi please – Pattaya here we go!! Haven’t seen John for over 2 years, so that’ll be great catching up – many a beer to be sunk – let me tell ya!!

Met John when I mobilised to Russia first time in 2001 – we happened to mobilise together and that was that! Funnily enough, John’s a geordie and we happened to get chatting about the Toon – Phil, James, you’ll be amazed to know that when we lived in Goldspink Lane, it turned out that John and his brother Jimmy lived 2 doors up when they were bairns!! Small world!

John’s quite the entrepeneur now, having opened a bar – ‘Shearer’s’ in Soi Bukkao and most recently a club called ‘Echoes’ in Jomtien. As luck would have it, there was an opening night on Sunday 19th March to enjoy – group of lads, from UK, Oz and Poland as well as Thai had a new idea ‘Chic’ and Jb’s place was the venue to kick it off. The time went like no-one’s business, but of course many beers were sunk and again, met a great bunch of people. Also there were John’s daughters Danielle and Dominique – when I first met them they were precocious 17 and 14 year olds respectively – now 2 lovely young lasses, although they get mistaken for Russians a bit too much for their liking!

Luckily, Danielle’s latest flame, Kessie, another Geordie lad, took pity on me and so I had a good drinking buddy. My only complaint is the the little buger is back there again in 4 weeks – lucky so-and-so! Of course, lets not forget Errol, Echoes bar manager – top lad as well who’d been in Thailand for over a year – lucky bugger! For the opening night, there was a television interview with one of the local channels – don’t think I’ve ever heard such a well spoken Geordie! Even I understood him!!

Scuba diving on the Wednesday – 2 dives but they were disappointing if the truth be told – did manage to see 7 reef sharks – which was cool, bu I had loadsa bouyancy issues – up and down like a yo-yo!! Anyway, don’t think much of the diving off Pattaya – scuba variety that is – think the other type of diving is well documented by others!!

Broke one of my golden rules and got a ‘motor-syke’ as the thai’s like to call it! I could make the joke about which one I was riding….! The little pretty is for decoration, unfortunately! Top motor though! Sad day to leave on the Monday, but picked up a tailored 3 piece suit for….. 75 whole GBP! God it’s expensive here!!

Best of all though was the Starbucks I found near to Soi Bukkao! I loved those early 9am starts where I’d nip down for a coffee and watch the world go past. Had a lot of coffee as it happens, although I didn’t realise until the lads were ripping the piss big time!! Let me just say, in Fostralia (mate) they don’t do Americano’s – it’s long blacks or flat whites! Now, I know Fred’s a tall lad ….!

Fostralia – here we come…….(Awwwwww Yeahhhhhh!)

PS: Guess who I’m flying with…….

F*cking Quantas again – I’m sure I booked with BA you know!!