Christmas Eve in Lamai, Samui

19:30

"Melly Klistmas Dahling!" the pretty gals with Santa Claus caps on their heads, said. I just took a walk downtown. Walked home after dark, but it did not feel that dangerous. Not yet at least, maybe some hours later.

I had checked weather predictions the other day and just for Christmas Eve it showed clear sun, not half clear skies or overcast and risk for thunderstorm, as it has been for several days.

I had no particular plans. Walk down to Soppköket, to see if they had Christmas table or closed for the holiday - neither. A normal day, they have open from morning to 6PM normally, a small place, but he has lived on it for 7 years now. We talked a bit about practical details about living here. From job conditions to Swedish totally idiotic authorities, whose rulings are basically trying to make all people have it equally bad. One hears that some countries have somewhat more civilized rules about sick leave to Thailand, like Norway and Belgium.

Ah well, sat for a while talking to Mats, the owner, and the steady if small flow of Swedish guys and occassional couple passing by. When I came two guys sat just finishing up a full bottle of vodka, and I hope they had a built-in gyroscope for their evening of further adventures thou it did not look so - at least they did not immediately walk to any motorcycles. Later a middle-aged Swedish couple, an assortment of Swedes, one guy with his teenage sun it seemed. Then one young guy, 25-30, who would try to get a teaching job in English, planned to stay for a year. He admired all the pretty girls here, and I gave him the advice to go for one who ALSO was very smart.......

Down to 31.3°C, from 33.2°C when I went downtown.

Well, had some seafood in green curry, at Soppköket, and a Chang of course, then it started to get somewhat darker, almost 6, so I took the round by my old place, and the restaurant there, and heard "oh you are back, welcome!" from Mimi and the Muslim owner! Seems I am unusual enough so some people remember me after two years. So I talked some, and promised to be soon back. Went a small round, kept the eyes open for an umbrella, none. Also for a cap - sun is hot but the one I have is a bit small, feels like it is flying off all the time, but found none marked "Samui". So some food shopping in my usual Supermart, the owner smiled and said "you came back today?".....

I guess I am easy to recognize with my stick, and also I am never making myself an idiot like getting visibly drunk or screaming at people.

As I cannot use any of the small motorcycles here without balance, my sis has bugged me about checking for a small 3-4-wheelers. Mats talked about two guys iin the village, like a guy from Switzerland, who had lived here for maybe 20 years, handicapped, he had let a guy mount two extra wheels to his motorcycle. Another had fixed some four-wheelers - he came with one leg and now the second started to rot. He also knew some bungalows - from Soppköket not further away than where I stay - he guessed they did not cost more than 8-10000B/m so one of these days I will walk where he said. From my place there is one road to the center, a bit before the center crossing I walk left, and then right to Soppköket. If I instead at the main road walk right on a gravel road - which I have never tried - then 100 m in that direction I would see those bungalows on the right side. I should definitely keep that in mind for another year!

I have never visited Mats on his shrimp party - for 200b you can eat as much as you want. He said he has it every Tuesday evening at 7PM so I should ty if weather is allright. It is NOT small North Sea shrimps.......

Beside Soppköket are several small German restaurants with the same kind of Thai-native food and offerings. Two couples came while I was there so we said Guten Abend and exchenged some politenesses in German. The couple, well, the gals 35-40 the guys 75-85 looking more healthy than I do. Their respective races you can guess.

Ah - I also asked Mats how he lives during his yearly summer visits in Sweden - 1-2 months. It is a Swedish phenomenon it is virtually illegal to live cheap.

There is a special thing in Sweden called "colonies". It started long time ago, when more and more people moved in from the countryside to squeeze into a small smelly dirty apartment with no fresh air and no way to plant your potatoes. So they started to arrange areas near the cities, where they divided the areas in lots of tiny gardens with an even tinier house to get some protection from the rain and have a cup of coffee after working in your "garden". These tiny huts grew more sturdy, and some put in insulation so you could actually get your coffee also in winter. And with prices of normal apartment nowadays taking 25-30% of a normal salary of a full-time worker paying 75% of it in tax, it was only a matter of time when the first person started to live in his colony hut.

I have no idea of details of this phenomenon, more than I know it exists, I do not think more areas are prepared or planned for these "colonies", because it is outside the strictly regulated system of Sweden. I know they have discussed cheap apartments for students who do not ask for all this luxury but - maybe not illegal to think so but strictly frowned upon in Sweden! So it was stopped. They know exactly how to say no even when they have not a clue how to solve the problem.

Thailand is full of Swedes with health problems, who live on he margin of what they are are allowed to according to the Swedish authorities. They want to control and supervise worse than they did in "1984".

Anyway - Mats has such a colony hut.....

Next day in the jungle

19:30, 30.6°C in the jungle

I was not sure if it was too late for my dinner, when I woke up from my nap not long ago, I just put the door open out to the "garden", lots of flowers outside the two low houses, with a mud road in the middle mostly for the motor bikes of the guests, but sure - the little cute "blonde" with the slanted eyes, came and wondered if I wanted dinner from the restaurant around the corner. Meanwhile she took the chance to put two liter bottles of water here - they apparently feel a little bit guilty that they have not found a working pump for the 20-liter water bottle yet. And she picked up the empty beer bottles. Got another box of 12 yesterday. 12 beer in a week, hm, not too much. Her mother (I think) said she'd take the motorbike to the big supermarket tomorrow to find a working water pump for me. So I am rather sure I will get one the coming week.

Ah, another restaurant girl came with the food and got the tip. Crispy fried pork with vegetables and rice, extra pork, 50B. 10 extra as tip.

Yesterday raining and I did not even go out. Weather changes very quickly here, so there was also sun a few times. Today I walked up to 7/11 for some necessities as toilet paper and sweetener for the coffee. Like two years ago I decided it was more healthy to take brown sugar, than artificial sweetener of unknown quality - not very much used outside the tourist holes.

Hm, slightly more than medium spicy....... Fine! Cough cough.

Maybe you forgot why I go to Thailand in winter as much as I can. Well - I cannot go out in Sweden if there are risk for slippery roads or stormy!

Like many diabetics my balance deteriorated because the nerves in my feet did not give the brain much information. Less and less. Then one evening I got very sick, could barely get out of my bed for several days, the doctors had no idea what it was. When I started to be able to stand up, by balance was real real bad. My diabetes doc was not available, do not remember why, so to Emergency, but they had not a clue. Still I had the idea I had eaten something strange and got food poisoning, and they also wondered if it was something else with my diabetes. It took my next visit to my diabetes doc weeks later, then he said it was to 95% an infarct in the balance center, so he sent me to the magnetic camera to verify that.

He said that it was quite enough to get a disability pension for me, so it was up to me when I was too tired to work. I still wanted to work...., halftime at least.

Then all hell broke lose. He gave me sick leave for winter to be in a warm climate with no risk to slip and fall, and he had also seen that my health improved after a winter holiday in Thailand. Försäkringskassan, the Governmental Insurance Bureau, laughed like hyenas - they use their own doctors who are not at all specialists utan those who have not succeeded in anything else than harassing ill people.

In the middle of that, my doc could not remain my doc - in the big hospital where he was chef of the diabetes clinic, but not a top chef - well, he is a bit like me, he says what he thinks instead of using the full game of diplomacy, and well - I had to use a real lousy doc for two years. During the time I forced a 100% sick leave from that doc, as it was a necessary way to get a disability pension from the Försäkringskassan. I had to fight for a whole year and at time had no money to live on, lost lots of money on that too. But I found of course it was absolutely impossible for an intelligent reasoning with the insurance people, and it was absolutely impossible to convince the high-ups at my job that much of what I was doing, I could perfectly well do with a laptop sitting in Thailand over winter.

Maybe I had to a certain degree believed in Swedish authorities until that happened, but seeing the total incompetence - the insurance doc refused to talk to my doc - made me stop believing in the competency of most other authorities.

Uh, a sidetrack.... Actually I am not retired, they are supposed to reevaluate me after 3 years - and then starting to clean the streets? After 50 years of diabetes and 25 with steadily deteriorating kidneys and they think I will become healthier....... They probably believe in Santa Claus too.

In the middle of the mess I found my wife in Bangkok......

Walk to town. Cold.

Ah well, the pics come in reverse order, I am too lazy to move them one by one.... I just started to move the two first to put at then end. So they start down at the beach and end just outside my guesthouse, Kulatida House. And then two more from the beach, when they cover the view....























Actually my jungle luck.

I decided to walk downtown yesterday.

No formidable act of life-to-death-decision. Not too far after all, now once I have found out I can do it in one go without sitting and resting.



I had decided to walk a bit further, all the way down to the beach, I bought a Chang beer when I approached the town, in one of the usual SuperMarts where it had cost 38 last year, now the regular price of 40, inflation. Continued walking. Hoped to find a bench for my beer but none except where they also wanted to sell me a beer.

I had heard about a new restaurant/bar at the seaside, with view of the sea so I looked for that, found it. Not exactly handicap friendly but I got in the usual way - they had things standing around the entrance where i could hold when negotiating the big step. Wholly unplanned, why not a normal handlebar?

A bit later an ancient guy came, ya know, shaking all his arms and legs uncontrolled, but refusing to give up, so his wife and wheel chair helped him there and - if one is stubborn, one can keep on for rather much longer than expected. He wasn't smiling though - there are limits.

So finally I got my deep-fried plaa muuk (squid)! And wondered why suddenly they started to cover the view out over the sea with heavy "draperies" - some kind of plastic sheet. "Rain" the guy said - I had not experienced any rain since coming to Thailand but of course I have been here before - warm rain is not at all unusual on Samui also this season thou it is not flooding like during the monsoon rains during autumn. And not lasting too long.

Soon the sky opened, you know this noise so you barely hear your own thoughts. I still had a meter between two of the sheet to look down over the black sea, with some people walking along the beach enjoying the heavy rain. Swimming or walking in the rain, wet as wet......





The portion of plaa muuk was not as big as at my usual restaurant 2 years back (there I showed which plaa muuk I wanted and then they murdered it and fried it) - I passed it a few days ago and it looked rebuilt and new name, but now - when it was not pouring anymore, just normal rain, I left and walked towards home. Still a bit raining so I settled for a moment in a bar, where two other bearded guys like me sat - someone commented on three Santas in one bar..... They were Americans, one of them owned half the bar. So - talked a little and I went off - wanted to come home before total dark, and the rain had stopped.

Survived, came home and then it started to pour again. Most of the night. Besides I had got a backache again from the walk. Did not sleep too well, up at 7.

Shit, kicked down the open suitcase to the floor AGAIN - did it also once n Bangkok but there I had reason - here I have a double bed.

Opened the door out, some sun, but cold, just 28,9°C so I stopped the fan, was freezing when sitting here in my shorts.

I had a mug of pig broth when waking up, but now I need my morning coffee!

And now two ladies, one big and one small, tell me I have been here almost one week, time for cleaning. I didn't konw.

Another holidayday.

Dec. 15,

just home from the exercise of today, up the 100 m or whatever, to the crossing and 7/11. Planned on filling another 300B on the phone as with the new 50 ISMS it was almost empty, and also getting something to have on the German bread - it is a nice change to noodles sometimes, and is getting a bit dry without anything, I found out. Especially after being out of the packet for an hour in this weather.

I had also planned to try to find the alcohol shop I heard about - should be around the Finn apartments and they were supposed to be cheap and transport it home for you - the nice fat lady here of course knew, she was anyway passing on her way to her 7th job, so I gave her 1000B - a bottle of my favourite Chang beer in the shop is 40B, and a box of 12 should be around 500B, 100:- Swedish. Sure, 5 minutes later a guy with motorbike came with the box and the rest of the money, had cost 460B, So - very satisfying! Even if I do not have water I have beer yippeeee! If you are thirsty..... The guy even refused a tip.

I took a few quick photos here, first a few from the inside, first my storage incl. water and beer.



Then a few pics out from my entrance. Towards the entry of the garden and to the air-con rooms on the other side, outside very similar to mine.

I walked up to 7/11 as I had planned and well - the three cute massage girls sat at the usual place, so I said a friendly hello again. Talked a little and - well, I had my short-sleeve t-shirt and she laughed, pointed and said something like "maw!" - and showed very explicitly that one of my too big breasts were looking out the edge! Easy to fix.

December 14, 2009

Dec. 14 2009, 17:15

The first walk to town and back, sigh. I was not sure how far it was but not too far I thought, within Pig Walking Distance. It had seemed short when I arrived in the minibus from the airport. The main problem being that the pavements are un-walkable. Well, some meters are, most are not, and often the edges are too high for me to climb, so one has to walk in the street, where you got more cars/motorbikes than space. Never mind, nothing to do about it. Should not do it regularly when it is dark and the farang drivers less sober thou.

Passed a small Swedish restaurant, offering something very Swedish today, forgot what, something new every day. Some fat Swedish guys there, we said hello. Next shop a mobile phone shop, where they could sell me time for the mobile, they had not a clue about international SMS or internet that I want to know more of, sigh. On that Thai phone card I have, I can buy international SMS cheaper and also use for internet, but how the heck do I put money THERE after I have charged the phone with ordinary phone card money for talking??? When I arrived in Thailand they got a phone service center in the airport, så they fixed it there, but now? Must be possible to call some service to get it done, but honestly I hate calling strange people talking strange languages and dialects or broken Thai-English......

I slept VERY well for almost 4 hours after writing above, wakin up now with a bit of a headache after my long walk in 33°C. As always nowadays, it takes an hour for my eyes to properly wake up and see clearly. Putting up the size on the screen, the small SMS almost hopeless.....

Hm, stomach itchy. Or rather - where I had my hernia operation at the navel a month ago, on Nov. 12, suppose it is a good sign it is mending.

Yui had called her best friend in Bangkok, Pui, a tall Chinese gal, and she fixed 50 international SMS for me, per month, someone said it was half the price compared to if I just do it on the normal phone account. Internet - who the heck knows? Then I remembered another girl..... (strange - only girls here?) So after some food, cold Chang, talk, at Soppköket, another little Swedish restaurant in the same block where I lived before, I walked around the block to see my old place, passed the girl in the associated hotel, that I talked to many times 2 years ago, and SHE was doing internet via her mobile the same way and phone company that nobody knows how.... I remembered she mentioned it at that that time, so the next time I need a refill of that, I go to her, So that fixed too, Thai style.

Midnight, the temperature is down to 29.8°C.

Sort of hungry. Water and bread! Bought a pack of freshly baked German farmer bread down in the shop, remembered it was ok, have nothing to put on but - ah well... And put half a cube of pig broth in the hot water. Survivable. After all I filled the belly with food at Soppköket and I seldom have both lunch and dinner.

So, life on a Paradise Island is not too bad, and it challenges me to exercise more, for sure! I "could" walk to town with no greater problem, the main problem is the dangerous road down there, but I doubt there is any back street one could walk. Should next time extend the trip down to the beach - they have apparently opened a new restaurant/bar with view over the sea, that I should try. Such places are most active after dark though - shit that I have no balance for a little motorbike, otherwise that is the usual way to go here and rather cheap to rent. I might even afford to have a jeep here, but there is not quite any place on the roads for that.....

Going to Thailand again!

Dec. 13

Should add the latest, then send it to the blog. Written offline so far.

First pic is where you come in to this area of low houses. Second pic is the entries to the rooms, mine is O4 if you wonder....

Small things good and bad all the time. I got the internet working with the Nokia phone, 460kbps, which is soso, rather cheap. Bought 3000 minutes when I came, more than 2000 left, to be used within a month. Also bought 50 international SMS, gone long time ago of course. So the question is: how to refill??? After some research I THINK I can call a service number to AIS and do it that way - was messy, first Thai, then I heard something about pressing 2 then 1 and it seems I was on English and not Japanese. I have the feeling that they said I should put in my phone number and they would call back. Ah well, think they can transfer money there from the general phone pot that you buy in 7/11 but only 100B there now, have to fill in a few more before I try to call again.



The fat lady carried in a 20-liter - I think - plastic bottle of drinking water, much cheaper than buying it liter by liter in the shop, but how to get the water up??? Well, the little blonded slant-eyed cute helper - her daughter? - thou minimal English - came with a pump, she succeeded in getting up some water, I did not, so today she came, tested and said she would fix a better pump. I CAN pour up water sort of, but not the elegant way and just in a big cup, not the bottles suitable for the fridge.......

Slept appr 5 hours, up already at 9AM, maybe too hot - the fan was standing in a static position not directed at me, maybe I put it wrong when going to bed. So soon naptime, will try to go downwards at 5 or so to see how far it is.



Dec 11

Agree, nothing written here, it has been a mess, sort of expected mess but now finally I have found peace.

I just sent off answers of assorted mails, ought to make a summary here.

Anyway, for a change and as my friend Micke has talked about all year, he has planned to spend more time in Pattaya, also I feel he got more Swedish friends there, also a reason, maybe also a greater chance to get a job. He is like me, disability pensioner, very different, in a way better in a way worse. Externally rather big and strong and knows things of use here, like different kinds of industrial installations - so he tries to find something there with sensible pay. He fixed a one-year visa, no idea how long he is gonna stay. He has to go home in the middle to visit his doctor, then back again probably.

A few days ago I met him in Bangkok where he went to say welcome to me - and I also got a chance to meet his new gf, they like each other so who knows.

But he found no good place there for me, and I started to think of Samui again, he knew a good place there that I never saw, Yui called down there and they had a room free on the ground floor so - well, I came there tonight! It feels very good, like the old place a few blocks away, actually did a few years ago. Before they built noisy bars/discos outside and a stone wall against the flooding but troublesome for me to get over. Just a big stone to step on, nothing to hold in. There they also seemed to lose interest for those rooms as they built a hotel nearby with much more expensive rooms, sigh. 2 years ago still some people living there but not like before, with people sitting at the tables outside in the evening, talking, drinking.

The minibus from the airport, I was the last passenger the driver had problems to get rid of me, he called this place three times on my phone before finding it. He almost passed my old one, looked rather different. Should take a walk down there one day. The fat friendly lady caretaker waited of us at the main road (hot very "main" admittedly) and then she took my backpack on her back and dragged my black suitcase in on a little gravel road and to the place, Kulatida House, and the door to my room was open and waiting among the flowers..... She was a bit worried about my not very stable walking but what the heck, I came here to stabilize it somewhat! She asked if I needed anything, so she took the motorcycle and went to the farmacy to get a little bottle of "blue alcohol" and cotton as my big toe was bleeding a little - must have kicked someone but as I do not feel anything anymore with my feet - like any guy with lepra, losing pieces of himself because he does not feel damage anymore.

Yui called here yesterday and they sort of expected her to come later to keep order of me, so I had to make them disappointed.

Different parta of Thailand are so very different. Bangkkok big big city - even though I seldom go to the center, keep to my tiny corner where anyway most stuff is to be found. Samui is to a high degree a Wild East, everything a mix, the road from the airport - ha, remember when I went to Penang 2 years ago to renew the visa, also that a tropical island,I don't know exactly the relation of sizes, but there it was a highway of 5-6 lanes at the airport, at Samui, a small jungle path where it is hard to pass motorcyklists..... Especially when people try to do it from both directions at the same time. Ah well, it mostly works.

Along the little road you find everything, small shops, hospitals for humans and animals, a catholic church, restaurants, cheap and expensive hotels. Somewhere midway on the way to Lamai the road goes up a little and you got a nice view over the sea - and they were actually improving the road there, with asphalt machines taking up almost all the road huh.


Mo Dec 7

Next morning. Tried a little bit more to connect, seems I got the Bluetooth pairing ok by putting in the same PIN code in both laptop and phone, still no connect internet. Very irritating, paid 600B in the airport for one month.......

Amp & bf have had no success in getting jobs as nurses here, even German-speaking ones, very low status job here and low pay. So they go back to Germany soon.


Sun. Dec. 6

Going out in a few minutes, down to Popiang as always...... Will meet Amp and her new German boyfriend - both newly examined nurses in Germany, now looking for jobs here in Bangkok. I have known Amp for many years, a Thai girl of course.

No success in getting the Mobile phone to work as internet server, sigh. Yui got it working last summer with this laptop but her Nokia phone, should have brought her but......

Wandering on with my stick

Like most people I get older.

Am I "old" ? Who decides? Me or others?

I am recently retired after 50 years of diabetes, but do not feel senile just yet - only somewhat slower. Brains still running and I am not supposed to be worse than normal in the cognitive, thinking, brain.

Should not complain - one of my standing "wise words" is that "hey you - who do you want to exchange your life with?" And honestly, that turns me cool. I want to be just myself!

I am basically a scientist, not a politician. I mainly blog about politics, Middle East Politics. Why? Because too many lies, especially in the Swedish media, irritate my scientific mind.

Some of my colleagues are now pretty rich and retired - with real good pensions because they had not taken any time for experiencing reality.Now they seem to be too old to dare to travel the more adventurous way that I have done for a couple of decades.

Last winter I sat thru the horror of Swedish winter weather, my body hates it. I love to walk out when it is nice and warm and something to experience - which the last decade has mainly meant Thailand, as far as I could in the winters, took out just about every holiday day then.

Actually I was in a lousy state when I, back in 1999, after not having been in SEAsia for 12 years, told myself: "either I go now or I do not go" - after having had a depression for 3 years including some medicine for that. So I went. Remember - at the time I had most of my penfriends in Indonesia for some reason, so I went there for a month in summer. Result, see the link. In short: I managed, well enough and besides, during autumn I was teaching a course that gave some extra money, enabling me to be back in Thailand already that winter. Link. Got the first serious - and not too good - experience of Thai girls...... And learned from my mistakes.

And then it continued. Go to the web site, http://ralphtheogre.dyndns.info/ and up in the menu you can find more pics from my winters in Thailand, without too much of an intellectual strain.

I got my Pig Pest vaccination two weeks ago, I got my hernia operation a week ago, on Monday I will go check ordinary vaccinations, should have at least hepatitis I think. Then on the 4th of Dec. Yui will help me down with the travel bag the three floors, to the bus, to the railway station, to the train, and then I am on my own. Unless she wants to accompany me to the airport - one hour on the train, let's see. Depends on her.

I have booked my usual hotel in Bangkok, for 5 nights. Feel safe - not so mobile nowadays to run around to places. I actually mailed two guesthouses in the area, one did not answer, the other answered something like "just a moment, we will answer"......

Depends how I feel, I have too often had a heavy cold at just that moment, like 2 years ago, when I even had to go to the hospital in BKK for two nights with a bronchitis, and sort of felt tired for a long time - in some way I feel a little bit stronger now - but when I feel for it, after those 5 nights, I book a minibus from the hotel to Pattaya and then it depends on Michael, hopefully he has found me a nice cheap room or apartment for 2½ months there, with Wi-Fi, and nice view over the South Chinese Sea and nice micro-environment, supermarkets, nice cheap Thai restaurants with good view, to sit and gaze and eat slowly in the warm night with a cold beer! A pleasure.

Coming to visit me?

Going on dreaming

It has been windy for a week, so not out since I was downtown with the passport to send to the Thai embassy to get a tourist visa.

Got mail from my doc yesterday, lab values as usual, so it is just to go. Of course it is a certain resistance to all the travel troubles I know I will get, but so far I manage, lately I do look rotten enough so I usually get help without asking, in airports etc, so I do not really worry.

I wrote a "book" http://ralphtheogre.dyndns.info/Bok/ about 4 years of my life, intended to edit it enough to send to some book companies to see, but I have never got ready for that. Still, interesting to read there - during 9-10 months in Sweden hardly anything interesting happens, all of it has been during the winters in Thailand! Meeting interesting people, experiencing many things.

I have of course decided to take long walks outdoors all this summer but - never found any reason, to go out to see the same boring houses every day. Maybe I have gone out a little twice a week, which of course is not enough to keep muscles in order but - time is full in front of the computer, reading and writing, until I am tired and then I sleep! 2-3 hours in afternoon, then the rest during night, however long it is. Rather much pain in the legs, so I have no idea how long my effective sleep is. OK, now I regularly take 2 Paracetamol before going to bed which helps a bit.

Hm, 4AM, bedtime and too much homemade white wine!

Less than 3 months left yippeeeee!

I hope.

Yesterday I was to the hospital for the usual diabetes lab tests, sent to my doc, so I oughta wait for them but....... I often feel like shit before going thou it has usually been because of autumn cold, flu, sinusitis whatever. Now as retired since 2-3 years I do not meet many pipul so i do not get infected, only old.

I saw a cheap ticket so I bought it quick-like, 6500 Sw. Crs, so I go on Dec 4 for 90 days.

If the lab tests say my kidneys are gone, ah well - but they have been fairly stable the last decade, and the rest too. What I need now is 3 months of hot air, good food, hopefully my friend Micke will find me a suitable little room/apartment in Pattaya for most of the time. He was up here today for a chat, he goes down on Nov. 15 so 3 weeks before me - I stay in my usual quarters in BKK for a week, then a minibus down to Pattaya.

Yesterday I walked home from the hospital, a distance for me, not walked that far for some months, so still some little ache in the legs - which probably is healthy. If I feel for it, I go out tomorrow to mail the passport to the consulate, after fixing two ugly photos, so that thing is done. Then the question is about vaccinations...... I haven't checked the yellow booklet, last time I did not need a refill, now? And pig flu?

I spent today reading around the Thailand forums, to see what the guys do down there - it's the usual, but some are rather good writers and sort of fun to read :)

Anyway, a trip will be really useful for me, I feel - already from my walk from the hospital, I do WANT to go out there all the time, and I also need to if I want food. Hee - what's the point, you is doing the food shopping........

Sort of bedtime.

Warm day

I took my outdoor walk today without pain in the left hip, good. I could even buy fresh milk for the coffee!

Once in a while I sit outdoors where I can listen to all people - and it scares me. I do not have my nose in the air but - do they have no interests at all except what's been on TV? They seemed to have the coming TV program memorized and the daily routine according to that. For the rest, some know about sports sigh..... Probably healthy to participate, but to look at sweaty guys with empty eyes???

I remember when I was in a cheap ($5/night) hotel in Phnom Penh, the only good thing with it was the good pirate decoder to the TV (but the cabling was scary....) - they seemed to have the cable TV broadcasts from most Asian countries around, plus the main Western ones. Sometimes I even looked at sports - like a Japanese channel that regularly sent progs from female mud wrestling, kinda cute.

A friend of mine goes down to Pattaya in mid-November, a month before me, so he will check for suitable apartments. He just called another Swedish guy there, who talked about furnished apartments 5500-15000 Baht/month. I am comparing with those 8000B I paid on Koh Samui, the general prices are lower in Pattaya. I do not need any luxury, no TV, stereo, swimming pool.... I just need accessibility for me, not lots of stairs and high jumps to make, one of the problems with my last place on Samui. I would appreciate a WiFi in the room of course, to get cheaper internet.I asked my friend, so he will investigate. Otherwise I use the mobile phone - Yui did like that in her home village, rather cheap and reasonably fast, 0.5 Mbits/sec or so.

I definitely enjoy the thought of being able to sit and read/write on the laptop with a view out over the Chinese Sea!

Heard again from my friend - he meant that according to his experience lots of places where he has stayed has WiFi.

Sneaking around, I came in on some Swedish tourist sites about Pattaya, talking so much about everything you can do, that you can do as well at home, about all the Western restaurants???? Heck, I try to avoid them! I remember last time in Pattaya I walked around a number of blocks searching for a genuine cheapie Thai restaurant before I found one!

OK, at those places the food and a big Chang is the same price, but so what.

I also came in on some sites about retiring in Pattaya - telling the obvious things like you had to look at a dozen places or two before deciding where to stay, but especially the fact that it is so horribly boring to be a pensioner with nothing to do and nothing to think about until you die....... I am happy I will never have THAT problem, until the first stroke. Always interesting stuff to read and write and contemplate.

Dreaming on

Days go and I sit in my pig sty. I had lots of pain in my left hip joint for a few days so I could not go out, tomorrow I really should as it feels almost ok.

If you look at where I have written about my last four winters in Thailand - well, I also wrote about Sweden as an interlude between my Thailand trips, virtually nothing happened here. It was like a yearly 9-month wait for some action! Thailand might possibly be somewhat passivating mentally - thou it is better since I started to bring a laptop along - while here I am more mentally active but physically - NOT. I know I have to move much more, but - forcing myself to go out only to move around a bit, is plain boring.

Birds still singing outside

The balcony door is wide open, half sun outdoors, I should really take a walk.

Yui came home after her month at home. After 2½ years in Sweden, she saw how poor her village is, she wanted to put more money on some improvements than only a new fridge - the first for her mother - but as long as we live on my disability pension (diabetes)....... She will start with Informatics at the uni in a month, The coming 3 years will be full for her, then hopefully she is a top student, her Swedish has matured and the economy has improved and she will get horribly rich.

As far as I have heard it is not too hard to be a top student on that course..... It is "systems sciences" and not computer science. She is pretty good with many aspects of computer handling, so she will have that for free, many are beginners. I was teaching programming there last century and well......

A good point is that she will miss me less when I go for 3 months to Thailand - which I need very much if I do not want to browse around on internet for a second-hand wheel chair very soon. Besides she plans to get a kitten, so then she will probably not miss her Pig at all.¨

Summer in Sweden!

So - sent my wife off home today. No, already yesterday, today is the longest day of the year, from now on it will become darker and darker and darker.

Obviously only temporary - she has not been home with her family for 2½ years, we have no money to go more than once each this year, I need to go in winter because of my rotten body, see last post, and then she got no time. Yui has not got "accepted" yet to the university course, too early, but she has many more points for it than needed, and all the necessary prerequisites so no risk she will not get it. And then she will be busy from September 1st and the coming 3 years, will hardly see when I pop off in the most rotten weather, probably around mid-December, for 3 months.

Yui took Austrian, so I got a quick call from Vienna, before she jumped on the big plane, taking her to Bangkok in 10 hours, so she is on the plane now. Once in BKK she will take taxi to some node point at the outskirts of BKK, where her brother will drive from the home village and pick her up with his pickup truck. He is not experienced in driving in BKK or to the airport, so that is easier. Taxis are still cheap in most places of Thailand (except out of my jungle island, Samui.....) so in BKK one can go for an hour for 100B or so. From the new airport, ah well, 3-400 Baht if one forces the guy to switch on the taxi meter, a must.

She has speculated forth and back, she wants to spend half the month in her home village with family, and half in BKK with friends and with shopping. but as we all know, things change from day to day, probably also it will end with a full minibus of villagers going to the airport with her in the end with her (i.e. me) paying a few thousand bath for the trip, as it is a sensation for all of them to see this new big place. It IS a big jump from village to Suvarnabhumi airport!

Being retired, feeling the wet nose of death on my neck, obviously creates all kinds of feelings. I got my particular brand of religion - you know, these etheral thoughts in all human beings including those who consider it a weakness to hope there is something stronger and smarter than themselves. I often wonder if I have created something good with my life - I can only hope so. I think I am considered a positive person, with my kind of sharp logic. I have not been able to do my biological duty of creating 2.1 babies, so I have to do things some other way. There are a million religious and philosophical sayings and I hope that some suit me. Did I spread some wisdom? Did I acquire enough to spread? I am not to say.

I grew up in the Pentecostal Church, with its advantages and limitations, I went to Israel the first time in 1971 and started to acquire another kind of understandings among intelligent and beautiful people there. I learned a lot during more than a dozen trips there, up to 5 months each, in the seventies-eighties, just a few occasional visits after that.

My first trip to Southeast Asia back in 1975, as a young student - sigh..... A real pity I did not start writing a proper diary then! I wrote tons of post cards to friends and family with the smallest possible handwriting, not preserved. In spite of having diabetes since 9, my mother, the typical hen mother, was never worried about my travels, more like she expected it. OK, I was well grounded , my father loved italy and loved to drive there with the family during the summer holidays. 1955, 1958, 1962, 1965, 1966-68 with an old caravan. if I remember right. We lived in Osby during those years when I grew up. I just now have such a clear memory when we tanked the car, with the caravan behind, at one of the petrol stations there, before driving south, before everyone had been south on the charter trips. Before Spies filled old propeller planes with people down to Mallorca end of the sixties....... Remember in 1970 or so, as a new university student I popped off with one of those planes to Mallorca, 4 hours sounding like an old bus, think it was 1972, after a successful exam.

A lot in a human life after all! In some aspects people have compared me with my grandpa on my mother's side - he loved books even thou he had no formal education. Farmer, son of farmers, up in central Sweden in the forest. He had never travelled, once or twice he came down to us in southern Sweden, what I remember from that is that he loved eating pig feet! I have acquired that taste, scaring off the crowd here :) If I remember right one had to put the feet first in very salty water for 3 days, then boil.

I actually have a plate here beside me......

Bedtime.

One year later . . .

Everything pains in my body. 

I have spent all winter in Sweden! Certainly, southern Sweden, but bad enough - I have extremely bad balance so I cannot go out when there is risk for slippery roads or it is windy - and anyway southern Sweden looks horribly boring in that weather. We do not even have much snow like up north, sort of more beautiful. If you look from the indoors out.

Back pains, legs pain, we just came home from a walk in the sun, the first one this year when I only needed a jeans jacket over the sweater and t-shirt 

Me and my Thai wife are happy enough here, but we live on my pension, and even if it is somewhat better now (as it is because of bad health, not age) than it will be when I turn 65, so we can afford food and rent, there are no money to go out to eat or fancy stuff like that - if we do so, we have to save for a month!

The expensive but necessary thing is to go to Thailand.

It is too expensive "just to go". I have a lousy economy but no time constraints, Yui has no money and time constraints.  She has not met her family for 2½ years, home in the village, see pictures on her website, she has studied Swedish since she came to Sweden and also boosted up her English to the level people learn here in high school. Around September she will start computer studies here at the university - very hard to get a qualified computer job in Sweden without - and then hopefully the trend and economy will be ideal for her. And for me......

Obviously our dream is to have a small house in Thailand somewhere. Her dream and the dream of her family is to have a small house in her village, my dream is - not. I know my limitations. I still have my driving licence, I COULD drive - but have not done it for ten years. My health is - well, the lab told the doc that it was slightly better a month ago than last summer, still - I get tired very fast, my eyes are - still ok, but also getting tired fast. 

I dream of life in Thailand really! Have a small bungalow or similar - a fridge and aircon and hot water, well...... is that too much? I had it for 8000 Bath last time I wrote here, and they have problems getting tourists now, for political reasons (that you do not feel anything of except in some parts of Bangkok) so mostly it is the same price or lower - I hope at least to be able to go to the same place next winter for a while. find a better room - better in the sense of more accessible for me. The room I have had for 3 winters there - the room itself is ok, but there is a high stone edge in front, that is a big risk with my bad balance, every time, nothing to hold in when getting up and down. Ah well, should not be hard to find another room or bungalow.

A colleague is in Thailand now, have not heard from him for a month or so but he might still be alive. I asked him last time for the e-mail address of a mutual friend in that village on Samui, Lamai, let's see if I get it. That guy has had a small restaurant there for 5 years called Soppköket, and should know most things.