Riff-Raffles Update #11

[MC_Ldop 40]

Kevin Meacher (board member "cookie"), owner of Jasmine Mansion, has a few new stories up on his Riff-Raffles site. Here are a bunch of excerpts.

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Livid in Pattaya, Part I

Go on, ask me. Ask me if I am angry. No, I am not angry. See…no problem at all. However, whilst not angry, I am fucking livid. I am off my head with lividity. I am drinking from the cup of lividness and I am altogether totally bloody lividacious. If some of these words do not exist in the dictionary then…well…bugger the dictionary! Because at this moment if you come within one mile of me you will likely be requiring a trip to Pattaya International Hospital for major surgery.

 

I have to put up with a lot of things here in Pattaya. Many of them are small, minor and probably totally inconsequential. However, they serve to irritate me and pull away at my remaining strands of sanity like a cat toying with its prey. You can struggle, you can endeavour to escape and occasionally you will have that momentary feeling that you may just make it — that feeling is, alas, short lived. As you struggle to your remaining, yet trembling, limbs and ready yourself for a dash back to freedom the paw wallops down on you and starts tearing away at you again, sapping your strength more and more as new wounds open. You endure a slow and very painful death before your last breath sends your limp body on its voyage of presentation to the feline’s master. That is how I normally feel in Pattaya. I do get up from the knocks. I wobble a bit at first, but soon the strength returns to my legs and I continue to fight on. I take more and more beatings and go through the same routine whilst knowing that one day I will not have sufficient strength to continue. I will, at that time, become just another statistic — another farang Pattaya has successfully pawed to death.

 

The reason for my present ill mood stems from the adjacent property to Jasmine Mansion. We had considered either renting or buying this building ourselves and doubling the size of the hotel but soon dismissed the idea. With land ready for development here and in the northeast of the country, we would be taking on far too much. In addition, if a twenty-three room establishment has an almost constant series of disasters then owning a forty-six room hotel just does not bear much thinking about. We therefore had to sit and wait to see who our new neighbours would be. We found out one Saturday morning at 8:00AM when the drilling works commenced. A deafening noise that sent vibrations though our building and inevitably woke all of our guests, most of whom had likely only recently returned to the hotel after their night out. A brisk walk next door to investigate saw various builders chiseling away at bricks and one standing drilling out a concrete staircase — this was no small scale alteration in progress. A few words from Mrs. Boss saw the cessation of the drilling works, which the contractors agreed not to recommence until after midday.

 

Full story

 

 

 

 

Livid in Pattaya, Part II

After ten days of dealing with the ridiculous and inconsiderate construction I wrote about last time, it was still necessary to go and speak with the builders daily and tell them that 9:00AM, 10:00AM, and 11:00AM was NOT 1:00PM. I was considering buying them all a watch but, know full well that it would not have made the slightest bit of difference. To be fair to the builders, despite their moaning and groaning, they generally stopped immediately and did not get back on the jackhammer and so forth until after the agreed time. Nevertheless, the noise had now been deafening for almost two weeks and for a minimum period of five hours each day. Some of the guests who were prepared to endure a week of this had given up the ghost and checked out early…and I could not blame them — had I been a guest I would have gone the first day it started regardless of what offers the proprietors made. At the time of this writing, the loss of income was in the region of 200,000 baht and that does not include the loss of potential income from customers who came in to look at a room and decided, not surprisingly, that our little slice of Pattaya was too noisy for them.

 

So there — this is what has had me blowing steam out of every orifice and once again seeking out the nearest gunsmiths. Of course, the negative effects are not solely felt by the hotel. These works have also seen a complete halt to my writing and this is the first time in two weeks I have had the energy, or desire, to go near the computer for purposes of continuing my book. I can just about cope with responding to a few emails, but anything else has been beyond me and would, I am certain, have seen me write nothing but foul and abusive language.

 

I have now learnt that the adjacent establishment is to become a go-go bar. Now this was never going to be up there on my list of desired businesses, but we are in Pattaya and some form of sex-for-sale establishment was always likely. Having taken a while to digest this information, I am presently of the opinion that in a straight choice between a bar and a go-go, the latter is preferential. These establishments are closely watched by the wonderful Pattaya police and they are very strict on the opening and, more pertinently, closing hours. Beer bars on the other hand are a little more lax and whilst they have to turn down the lights and switch off the music at 1:00AM they continue trading. This often results in about half a dozen young Thai girls laughing and screeching into the early hours and makes the noise from a jackhammer seem almost soothing by comparison.

 

 

Full Story

 

 

 

The Mystery of the Pattaya Rabbit Mangler

After living in Thailand for three years without having a pet, December was a month where we had seen animals coming and going from our home with alarming regularity. Yes, I am aware that we have owned goldfish over the years. However, for me, you really cannot call fish of any description pets. You put them in a bowl of water, feed them once a day and really that is it. They do not endeavour to protect you from criminals and they do not look longingly and lovingly into your eyes. Most certainly, they do not have the slightest interest in whether or not you are around, given that fifteen seconds after seeing you, they have completely lost all recollection of your existence. Fish, in their way, are not dissimilar to Pattaya hotel guests: give them a place to live, offer them some food and then as soon as they go home you no longer exist, until they start to book their next vacation!

 

After living in Thailand for three years without having a pet, December was a month where we had seen animals coming and going from our home with alarming regularity. Yes, I am aware that we have owned goldfish over the years. However, for me, you really cannot call fish of any description pets. You put them in a bowl of water, feed them once a day and really that is it. They do not endeavour to protect you from criminals and they do not look longingly and lovingly into your eyes. Most certainly, they do not have the slightest interest in whether or not you are around, given that fifteen seconds after seeing you, they have completely lost all recollection of your existence. Fish, in their way, are not dissimilar to Pattaya hotel guests: give them a place to live, offer them some food and then as soon as they go home you no longer exist, until they start to book their next vacation!

 

 

Full Story

 

 

The Pattaya Rabbit Mystery Continues

The day following Lan’s departure, another rabbit appeared. Mrs. Boss had secured this one from a neighbour, from whom she had purchased one of the previous two, and thought it most adorable. It was, to be fair, a relatively attractive rabbit (as far as rabbits go) — very small, fluffy white coat and red eyes (very much like mine after a few beers the night before). The new housemaid had still failed to appear (not an uncommon occurrence in Pattaya), so we left for the hotel with the house empty, save for two rabbits who were, of course, totally incapable of protecting themselves let alone our possessions. We returned some twelve hours later and to our amazement found only one rabbit remaining — the new, small, white, fluffy, red-eyed one had gone!

 

James suggested that the larger rabbit may have eaten it, but the lack of blood and bones suggested that this was as fanciful a thought as either of Mrs. Boss’ suggestions relating to the first disappearance. The fact that someone had simply climbed over the garden wall and stolen the first rabbit and then undertaken a similar exercise this day was, to me, the rather obvious answer. I had kept this thought to myself the first time around but now felt compelled to share it with my family before we entered the realms of aliens abducting our rabbits, or worse. Now whilst I was obviously correct in my assumption the matter of who did what and when was beyond my skills. The neighbour who sold us the now missing rabbits is a kindly old lady and scaling a two-meter high wall is something well beyond her capabilities, even were she to be seriously considered as a suspect. The market where the other rabbit came from did not know us or where we lived, so they too were not able to be included into the category of potential suspects. Added to all of this was the fact that the larger rabbit had remained with us now for a week, whilst its two partners had come and gone. Surely if you are a rabbit thief and you break into a house and find two rabbits, you would take them both?

 

The only certainty from all of this was that the disappearances had nothing to do with Lan. The continued failure of the new housemaid to appear led to Lan’s immediate re-employment and, as such, my joy at her departure was short lived.

 

 

 

Full Story

Edited March 5, 2008 by MC_Ldop