Today is a Thai holiday - Asarnha
Bucha Day, commemorating the day 2,500 years ago on which
Buddha gave his first sermon to his five deciples. Fourth
of July is celebrated here by the U.S. ex-pats - attended
an American-style picnic (fried chicken, ribs, corn-on-the-cob,
potato salad, etc.) at Don's Cafe (about 7 minutes drive
from the house) - an all-you-can-eat buffet (several hundred
attended) with a fireworks display after-wards (Don's
has an all-you-can-eat Texas style Bar-B-Que every Saturday
night) charge $6.! Tomorrow is Buddhist Lent Day. And
since these days fell on Tuesday and Wednesday, the government
declared Monday a holiday as well, so another long (5
day) weekend. As I've stated several times before, Thais
love holidays.
Last week we had the first (of maybe an annual) Rawai
Beach Food Fest. Tents lined the beach road on the landward
side and extended down the short street towards the food
grills (I've written about the grills before). There were
about fifty vendors taking part - selling things like
teak furniture, orchids and other plants, clothing [nice
t-shirts for $1.50], toys and, of course food - grilled
chicken and fish, fish chips (like large potato chips),
all sorts of "meat-on-a-stick [I was sad there was
no crocodile as it is a favorite of mine] and two stands
selling a variety of deep-friend insects.
Looking east along the beach road.
Entrance to games area and performance stage.
Booths line road just inside entrance.
Have a bite!
Deep-fried grasshoppers
Deep-fried grubs
Deep-fried crickets
Deep-fried beetle larvae
Deep-fried giant water bugs
Deep-fried cicadas
The festival ran for ten days from June 22 to July 1,
from ten am to midnight. A large stage was erected in
the park at the other end (from me) of the grill stand
area. Several things will, hopefully, be changed if they
have a 2nd Annual - timing was bad, the festival started
just after school resumed from the month-long break; at
the same time there was a huge fashion/concert seven day
event at Patong Beach featuring some of the most favorite
Thai entertainers (the acts presented here, as a friend
put is "sucked"). Friends operated a fruit drink
stand (delicious mango, strawberry, blueberry, taro, pineapple
shakes plus iced coffees and various flavors of tea shakes
with the added "delight" of small gelatinous/flavored
balls at the bottom [actually these were quite good too]
- and you could add a shot of vodka, gin or rum to any
of these. With all the other events going on around the
island the turnout was smaller than hoped - but as I said
hopefully it was a learning experience for those putting
it together.
Then on the evening of the 4th of July the stage was filled
with musicians playing regae, ska and rasta tunes. Turnout
was very large with many foreigners, lots of dancing-in-the-aisles
- a good time had by all. The band is a very popular one
on the island and this weekend will be playing at a large
local bar (a friend counted 65 bars in the Rawai area!)
Speaking of statistics I'll throw a few at you: Phuket
has 297,645 resistered vehicles (about one for every two
residents) and of those 208,183 were motorbikes or motorcycles!
There are 5,000 varieties of rice grown in Thailand. 97%
of Thailand residents have cell/mobil phones.
The stage, mentioned above, was located only about 200
meters from the house, but fortunately set up so the sound
was projected away from me - I didn't hear the performances
at all. Noise can be a big problem here - one joke says
that the Thai Navy purchased a new submarine and the first
thing they did was remove the muffler and put a garland
of flowers on the rearview mirror! That's funny if you
live here (I found it on a Thai blog listing things that
showed you have lived in Thailand too long if ...) - so
many cars, trucks, motorbikes sound as if they have no
muffler and at every busy intersection in Phuket City
there are vendors going along the vehicles stopped for
a red light selling garlands of flowers (usually some
jasmine and orchids) to hang on your rearview mirror -
these smell great, but in this climate last only a few
days.
Speaking of the climate. It is said that we have two seasons
here - wet and dry. The dry or "high" season
is from November thru mid-April and this is the time we
have the most tourists. And it is, indeed, dry. There
will be an occasional rain, but we can go for two months
at a time without - causing occasional water shortages
(which I avert by having a cistern for the rain water
and a supplementary source from the "city" water
main to "top it off" during the long dry spells).
The "wet" season, from the end of April to the
end of October is now, for "touristy" reasons
called "summer" (it DOES correspond to that
season in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere after all)
and we do, on a rare occasion here, get hit by the edges
of a monsoon when it will rain very hard for a day and
be cloudy with showers a day or two before and after that
day. But even in the "summer" we have extended
periods of sunshine. Many days will see a heavy shower
(lasting all of ten minutes) at some point in the day,
preceded and followed by the sun. For some reason (I think
it because we are protected or "in the shadow"
of Promthep Cape) here along Rawai Beach we get much less
rain that those in Phuket City get and less even than
those a kilometer away from the beach. Kind of like Sequim
back in Washington State is in the shadow of the Olympic
Mountains. I'm not complaining, even though it means watering
the plants when elsewhere mother nature is doing that
job. And now it seems many more tourists are coming during
the "wet" season, especially from China and
the Middle East. (Guess they enjoy the cooler weather
here ... 90°F compared to 110°F+ back home.) We
are also experiencing more tourists from Russia - I was
surprised to see several real estate offices and projects
with signs in Thai, English and Russian - one of the two
local shell shops has a new sign out front in Russian.
A bar near me advertises a dive shop in Russian and the
bar in Bulgarian!
I would imagine you all have seen TV reports on problems
here in the Kingdom. The tourist numbers reflect this
- some businesses and hotels say their clientele is down
40-60% from last year. And here I am in quiet little Rawai
Beach - if I didn't watch TV news or read The Phuket Gazette
(our English language weekly) I'd never know about all
the "problems". Later this month Phuket is hosting
a meeting of Asian finance ministers and then in October
the ASEAN nations meeting that was suddenly suspended
in Pattaya in April when the red-shirt demonstators breached
the meeting area. As an island it is easier to control
access from the mainland and we all are hoping these events
go smoothly.
Previously I mentioned not having encountered many snakes
here. This changed on one of my morning walks recently.
I left home at my usual 5:50 A.M. and headed towards Ya
Nui Beach, then up Promtheap Cape to the lighthouse and
then back down the other side of the Cape to the house.
About 4 kilometers. I saw four different species of snake,
from a tiny one about 6 inches to a large 4 foot cobra!
Fortunately, all were road kill (ha ha) - so am still
awaiting my confrontation with a live cobra. I have had
several small poisonous snakes crawl across the front
porch (presume more have done so - I just have not seen
them). In the six years I have lived here I have not heard
of any fatalities on the island due to snakes. Riding
a motorbike is much more dangerous! As is crossing the
street in town without paying attention.
After six years had to replace most of the components
of the PC - was amazed at how the prices for these had
fallen in that time. Cost me about 1/3 of what I paid
for the original components in 2003 to buy newer (and
more powerful) components this month.
Now if only the prices on everything else (especially
food) had done the same. Though living here is still a
real bargain compared to Europe, the U.S. and other areas
I had considered as my retirement abode.
