Monday, October 23, 2006

Gas gas gas

Pleasant weekend on the relatively-unspoiled-but-not-for-long Koh Chang (Elephant Island). Mostly spent eating, reading, dozing, although some gentle sea kayaking assuaged any indolence-related guilt. Along the dirt roads, it seems that every other shop has a neat display of whisky bottles outside, with a hand-scrawled sign saying "30 baht" (43p to you, guv). Closer inspection reveals that it's not booze, which is cheap, but not that cheap. It's ready-measured portions of petrol for the motorbikes that are the main form of transport around here. In any other country, such a display would be asking for trouble: all you need is a few tampons and a Zippo and you've got yourself a nice little arsenal of Molotov cocktails. Welcome to Thailand, the country where they just can't be arsed to riot.

On Saturday night, I tried to teach Small Boo to play pool which, since I've played it about once, is a bit like Stevie Wonder offering flying lessons to David Blunkett.

SB: This shot's difficult. I think my arms are too short.

TF: Do you need a rest?

SB: I'm not tired. It's just my arms are too short.

UPDATE: "She could also have saved money by choosing 'hard-class' train seats." Another way to get to Koh Chang.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope you had a good weekend. Whiskey bottles full of petrol wouldn't stay unused around here for long, that's for sure.
Parenthood seems to be a succesion of occasions when you try to teach your kids things you don't do very well yourself. My eldest,12, has now learned to ignore any advice we give her. I guess that's growing up.

Dick Headley said...

Not sure about 'can't be arsed to riot'. I think it says more for intergenerational relations than anything. Thai kids obviously haven't caught up yet.

Billy said...

I'm so rubbish at pool I have beaten people who are loads better just by being so inept they don't know what to do.

I usually lose though.

Annie said...

You're a shark, Billy.

FirstNations said...

...and here I've been using twists of newspaper all this time. i feel so obsolete *snif*
whats cool about teaching kids things you can hardly do yourself is that you can both have fun being inept on the same level!

Tim F said...

Um, just to clarify any confusion, Small Boo isn't my daughter... she's my wife...

(Rushes back to previous posts and wonders what unsavoury inferences might have been drawn from mentions of SB.)

Annie said...

Heh, I totally thought she was your little kid. Got the wrong end of the stick there.