Surprise of the day for my honey when she comes home will be vodka soda with lime. A very relaxing hot summer drink. Since it is hot and summery here all the time why not. I turned down a cold Chang this afternoon knowing I was going to have a vodka this evening. Mine is with tonic. A Vonic with lime. Woo hoo!
So you heard I played my first Thailand golf game on Saturday. Not the best score I have ever shot, 92. But I will take it. Let me tell ya about BKK golf. #1. It is expensive. We got the Chairman of Thanachart best rate and it still set us back $60 per. Imagine what a normal mortal pays. Something like $140. Can't do that. My average game back in TO costs me about $33. And I figure to play here more than at home so I would hope for the ol economy of scale thingie to kick in and get golf for $24 per game. We'll see how this pans out.
The course was awesome. Maybe one of the best BKK experiences according to other players in the group. The course just opened to the public on October 1. Beautiful. One of the marketing guys tells me they are already in talks with the LPGA for a tournament next spring. Didn't bring my phone out so no pics for this blog but I will go back and pics are guaranteed.
#2. Golf in Thailand is the quietest game ever. You are assigned a caddy and she drives the cart. So there are four carts per group. You actually onlly talk to your playing partners on the tee box and a little at the green. (We are amateurs so we are not likely to be beside each other after tee shots! Only meet up again at the green and tee box!) And of course these caddies do not speak much english, actually they only speak golf. So it is awfully quiet and lonely on the ride to your next shot. Not great for the kibitzing that normally goes on during a round of golf.
This doesn't bother me that much. Me being the ultimate single golfer and all. I like to just play the game. There are other people out there with me most of the time but the intersection of them and me is casual and very loose flowing. It will be interesting to see if that mannerism or method will work here as well as it does back home. The aloofness will be amplified by the language issues.
I suspect when I play during the week by myself I will end up playing with Thai, Japanese, German, etc. So the small intersection of our limited language knowledge will draw down the discussions that take place. Really confining it to the three classics. Nice shot, Great shot and either of these with Aw or Oh in front!!
Of course you can short form when you are 48 yards away on the other side of the fairway by just saying -- Shot as you turn to address your ball. The other player adds his own Nice or Great implied! It is an easy game after all.
Saturday night was laid back and just the two of us for dinner. Yeah Deeds got away from me but not for long!
Sunday we did some pool time and then decided to trek out to Chatuchak Market. This is the monster market I talked about in an earlier blog. We figured we can get around now that we know what we are up against, right. Nope. We got lost twice and had to get help figuring out where the jello we were.
But mission accomplished. We found some great material to make lamps out of. Nice vases and stands of various kinds and the people will turn each of these into lamps for us for just an additional $15. So we figure to order up about 10 lamps for all the bed side tables and for the living room. Gotta do this because the only ligthing in the apartment is overhead or sunken lighting. It is just too harsh. Almost 95% of all lights you see here in Thailand are the small energy saving lights that a few of us use back home. Everywhere here. Electicity is very very expensive so they conserve as much as they can. We have even seen escalators that are activated by motion sensors. They are dead still and you think they are broken until you get within 20 feet or so and then magically they start up!. We have a long way to go in North America before we stop being the greedy little piggies of energy!!
I also picked up a great Chang Beer tee shirt. $3. Anyone who is an Everton supporter now knows about Chang Beer. Local Thai lager. Very tasty. I like the two elephants personally. Just think they are cool!
Well enough for now. Monday was a trip to three different Wat. Or temples as we know them. And the Royal Palace. Took about 200 pictures. I will put them up for you to view and tell you the story in tomorrows blog. Enjoy
Sawadee Krup
totally getting one of those shirts
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