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The loo step of death
My sandal shows that the step is probably rather more than a foot highI didn't go to the Reggae Bar yesterday. After my last blog I went to have some supper and I was quite hungry as I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, most of which I'd sicked up. I had a really nice meal of pork with rice and ginger and garlic and a Diet Coke and then I also had a dessert of Maya Pancake and Hot Chocolate.
I was a bit worried about the Hot Chocolate because the last time I'd had some in Thailand it had been some horrid powdered stuff called Milo which seems to be popular here but tastes pretty bad. But it was great, it was rich dark bittersweet chocolate without any cream or milk.
The pancake was with chocolate and nuts and I'm not sure if it was named after the Maya people of MesoAmerica (perhaps for the chocolate connection) or the Maya Beach here. At any rate the pancake was lovely too and I was fully replete when I got back to the bungalow. I thought that I would doze for a bit and if I woke up before eleven I would go down to the village again and look for the Canadians
The White Tiger
At the PhantaSea the White Tiger prowls its palace in the Reggae Bar. In the event, however, I slept until gone midnight and then, because I knew you shouldn't sleep overnight wearing contact lenses, spent several minutes taking them out.
The plastic things you put the contact lenses into were labelled left and right, but so faintly that I couldn't see which was which. So I used a pen to put a big "R" on one of them and put the right contact lens into that one. It is important not to get them mixed up as my eyes have very different prescriptions one from the other.
Then I slept until morning apart from occasional excursions down the loo step of death.
The stuff the doctor gave me yesterday wasn't Dopamine, as I'd thought, but Diazepam which is another name for Valium. This indicates that he thinks my problem was not so much physical as psychological.
I've been thinking that myself. I build things up in my mind as problems and then worry too much. With the snorkelling trip this tendency was exacerbated by the delay in the trip's going ahead and the uncertainty every day as to whether it might be that day. Likewise,
on the trek, I probably didn't do that badly for someone of my age. The other two were in their late twenties and early thirties and had trekking experience. I shouldn't have really expected that I'd keep up. But as soon as I fell behind I started to worry about holding them up and maybe that brought on the hyperventilation.
Maybe I should try snorkelling again - but take some Valium first!
But I'm not sure about the potential for interaction with the other drugs I'm taking. Maybe I should try to contact Dr Sireling to check.
Did I mention the bicycles on thios island? There are no cars but loads of bikes. They come at you silently from behind as you navigate the streets and paths and rarely bother to ring their bell. The most you usually get is a mumbled "Beep beep" making you aware that it's time to dodge. I think "Beep beep" probably means the same in Thai as it does in English and represents the way Noddy warned people to get away from his little car in Toyland.
I hadn't understood why men are supposed to say Krap and women Ka
My bungalow
A place for everytihing and everything in its place! after a sentence to show that they are being polite, but I now think it's because Thai is a tonal language. In English I can say "Thank you" sarcastically by changing the tone but, presumably, if you say "Cap khan" in a sracastic tone it wouldn't be understood as Thank You at all, but would mean something random like "The gannets have nested". So I can understand you need a special word.
What I don't understand yet is whether the default, if you don't use Krap / Ka is impolite or just neutral. Is there a word you can tack on to show impoliteness, or is that understtod from the absence of Krap / Ka?
It seems unfortunate that I have to say what sounds like "Crap" at the end of every sentence. I have decided that when I want to be really polite I'll say Crab instead and only say Crap if I'm not feeling all that polite. That should work and will keep me and the Thais happy.
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