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