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Published: February 26th 2008
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Have you ever had one of those moments when you would swear that you are on Candid Camera? I did just yesterday. We were in a second hand book shop on Hat Yao beach, Ko Phangan, just browsing the selection, when suddenly I spotted a book that I know Scott has wanted to read ever since our last trip. It's a comedy called "One Night in the Call Center" and takes a comical look behind the scenes at the call centers in India that you have to call if your computer breaks down etc. I am sure you have all had to deal with them at one point or another!
Anyway, I couldn't believe that I had finally found the book!
And it was only two days before Scott's birthday and I still hadn't gotten him a present - what luck! The problem was that I wanted it to be a surprise, and so decided to hide it and then sneak back later on my own and buy it. Hiding it amongst the most boring array of books I could find, I felt convinced that no-one would notice it, let alone buy it, in the time it would take me
to sneak back.
Wrong! Literally about 30 seconds later, a girl walked in and walked directly to that particular shelf and picked up that particular book and bought it without hesitation right there and then beneath my nose!!! Unbelievable! There must have been over 500 hundred books in the shop, so why oh why did she have to choose that one? She could at least have been considerate enough to read the back and place it back on the shelf while she considered buying it, thus giving me time to snatch it back up! But no, it was gone instantly! I swear I was just waiting for Jeremy Beadle (of Candid Camera fame) to leap out from behind the scenes and announce, "You're on Candid Camera!" Ah well, you win some, you lose some.
Two days later we woke up on Scott's birthday to the defeaning sound of rain pelting on our hut's corrugated iron roof. At least it gave us a good excuse to catch up with some CNN news whilst eating breakfast...doh, the tribe of kids from several huts over were already watching Nemo. Luckily, we found a TV somewhere alse and managed to get caught up.
Cool classroom!!!
It's actually a SCUBA classroom, not a real classroom!!! (Not much going on in the world, it seems) After watching the same stories five times over, we decided to move on and went for an hour long swim - why not? The beach was deserted because of the dull weather so we had it virtually to ourselves.
The rest of the day was spent eating and sleeping and walking in between rain storms. Then, disaster struck! Scott lost his $500 prescription sunglasses, his worst nightmare. We spent time searching our hut to no avail, and then looked back on the photos to see when he had last had them on (thank God for digital), trying to jog our memories. We thought we knew where we'd left them, but they were no-where to be found. We ended up making a poster offering 2,000B to the scoundral that had stolen them if they were returned (afterall, what would they do with prescription sunglasses anyway?). Dejected, we watched some more TV and ate some more food, then decided it was time for a pre-dinner beer. Before we went out for food, Scott insisted on going back to the hut for one more look, just in case. He found them!!! Unelievable. I
do actually recall vaguely putting them on the floor by his backpack, and they must have got shuffled under it - oops! Oh well, crisis was over, and we could at least go out and truly enjoy a birthday meal and beer.
Now it is the day after and it is STILL raining - has been all day! We've decided to throw in the towel (the Thai towel that it) and head back to Laos for some sun, great food, and cheap prices!
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Andi and Paul
Andrea Kenyon and Paul Matthews
Laos
Can't believe you're heading to Loas, Katherine just got back from there today!