The Nongkhai Narrative

Part 20

being Tall Tales from Thailand

  Published 26 July 2005

George Dubyaland

In part 19 I wrote "I know that some of my readers disagree with my views. If any of them wish to write defending George Dubya I will make space for any contributions suitable for publication." I almost felt sorry for George Dubya when no one came forward in his defence, but then yesterday I received the following statement of support from a reader in UK, Mr A. Blair.  He wrote:-

First, let me begin, my defence, of my good friend President George W Bush, by using his proper name, and not that absurd name, used by you, which I suspect, you borrowed, from that dreadful magazine Private Eye. In my opinion, President Bush, is the greatest president, of the USA ,since my good friend, Bill Clinton, was president. The people, of the rest of the world, should consider themselves grateful, that the citizens of America, had the courage, and the foresight, to elect my good friend, for a second term, so that he could continue his war, on terrorism. I have said, many times, that my good friend and I knew Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD's). (Don't publish this because we cannot make it public, but my good friend and I sold those WMD's to Saddam, so we know he had them, we just don't know where he hid them. It did look embarrassing for my good friend and I for a while, but we got ourselves re-elected by remembering those wise words of Herman Goering which you published in your )  When Saddam, refused to hand back the WMD's, my good friend, had no choice, and was forced, by Saddam, to invade Iraq. It is just pure chance, that there is all that oil, in Iraq, now under the control, of my good friend. He is of course, safeguarding it, for the people of Iraq, and this report, that $4 billion, worth of Iraqi oil, has been exported, by USA, without payment, is just the sort of thing, newspapers would say. Let there be no doubt, that my good friend and I, removed a dictator, and gave freedom, to the people of Iraq, who can now go, about their daily lives, free, from the fear of bombs, or of being shot, by the police, just like the people of London.

Surprise Visitor

The Kiwi Sports Cafe features a big screen TV, and for some time has been the haunt of some who watch F1. I attended one Sunday in order to watch the British GP and was very pleasantly surprised to find Andrew (left) in there. Regular readers will not need to be reminded that Andrew was the popular founding proprietor of the Kiwi bar, but had returned to NZ last year. He was here in Nongkhai on holiday, and has no plans to return to Thailand full time (yet). Dr. Jim (standing right f.k.a. Big Jim) perhaps rivalling Dr José, decided to test Andrew's blood pressure.

Another visitor

In part 16 I mentioned an Englishman, Gary, who had met the Dalai Lama. He was back in Thailand this month to marry his girlfriend Latda, and Dott and I were invited to the ceremony. The picture on the left will be familiar to most residents of Issan, where the bride and groom form part of a small circle of close friends sitting around an ornate centrepiece. Sitting opposite them would be the village elder conducting the ceremony, in which monks take no part at all.  Good luck Gary and Latda.

More Italians

News from

Remember that plea from Michael Cane? Once again I include a picture of Tony and Tuy. This time at their house in Udonthani on the occasion of Tuy's birthday. They live on a small estate of very elegant houses, with neighbours from a wide variety of countries. Although Tony provided a large selection   of  delicious   Italian

food, I spent so much time talking that I forgot to eat.

Tony and Tuy

Tuy with her mother and father

So my first stop when we got back rather late to Nongkhai was the Outback bar. There I found Nigel with money in his hand ready to pose for a photo with Greg. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to earn some easy money, and was disappointed to find out that Nigel was simply waiting to pay his bill. (In Thailand it is normal to pay once at the end of an evening, rather than the western way of paying separately for each drink). Due to the lateness of the hour, I had expected a polite refusal from Julio, with the advice that the kitchen was now closed, but I was very pleasantly surprised when he offered to prepare Spaghetti Bolognese for me. It was very tasty, and the serving was almost more than I could manage.

Fortunately there was just sufficient room left to try the first slice of a freshly made lemon meringue pie. It had a firm almost crunchy, biscuity base, a zesty, tangy lemon layer, and a light fluffy meringue topping. It was perfect! I'm sorry Mum, but I am not exaggerating when I say that it was the most delicious l. m. pie that I have tasted in the whole of my life! Dott agreed with me, but as it was the first she had ever eaten, what else could she say? In some ways it is a shame that her first experience of l. m. pie was a perfect example. She could now spend the rest of her life seeking its equal, whereas I know its equal will only be found chez Julio & Sang (pictured right).

Ranger was also visiting Nongkhai (yet another visitor?) and enjoys it's 'sleepy backwater' quality that I and so many others that live here appreciate. It seems a great shame to me that there are plans afoot to destroy that atmosphere forever, and turn Nongkhai into a thriving tourist destination with the noise, crowds, pollution, high prices and everything else that you can find in Phuket, Pattaya, Bangkok and Chaing Mai. If it happens, so be it, but I won't be here to see it, I will have moved to a different 'sleepy backwater' town on the south bank of the Mekhong. I suspect that I won't be alone, and many of those who have chosen to live here in Nongkhai, rather than the places I've mentioned, won't want to stay.

Ranger is a respected journalist with a highly reputable London newspaper. I had the temerity to ask him to write a piece for this website and gave him specific guidelines. In keeping with journalistic tradition, he completely forgot his commission and wrote something entirely different. Here it is:-

“Yo, Tony, how’s it goin’.”

“Er, who is this?”

“Tony, babe, it’s me, Georgie W.”

“Right, as if I’d believe that.”

“Tone, dontcha remember those simulcast firework displays from Baghdad. July 4 had nothing on it.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, Georgie W, but let me please pass you over to security.”

“Tone, babe, whatever you want. By the way, and before you go, this Isle of Wight place. Have you cottoned on to its Al-Qaeda connection?”

That was how it started.

After painstaking (and costly) investigations, Blair was told his “hoax caller” with the Texan drawl was, indeed, the US president. But the intelligence?

Until, that is, the night of September 11 and the multiple missile strikes on Osborne House, the Chines and the ferry that plied between Southampton and the holiday island.

There was outrage in the House of Commons, although some MPs churlishly suggested it was because the tearooms were closed. There was a draw in the fourth Test at the Oval and commuters were aghast, and stranded, when they  discovered that, for one day, all the trains ran on time.

The presence of American special forces marines on the island raised few eyebrows until five middle-aged women were shot dead as they left Tesco's.

At a press conference Charles “Big Ears” Clarke, the home secretary, described the killings as “regrettable”. At a White House briefing Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, described the women as “wearing head apparel not unlike those worn by Al-Qaeda suicide bombers and emphasised that the British government should institute a daily curfew and recommend Tesco’s exceptional home delivery service.

A Senate hearing that day ordered Ms Rice to declare her shareholding interest in the supermarket chain.

It was all quiet on the south-western front for the next 10 days until disturbing reports, known as tip-offs, reached the Nag’s Head, favoured watering hole of Fleet Street’s finest.

“Fortress Shanklyn” roared The Sun. “Shanklyn is new Guantanamo” observed the Daily Mirror. “Lady Thatcher woman of the century”  opined The Daily Telegraph.

The phone lines between the White House and10 Downing Street were running red hot as Blair and George W  discussed the “ever-worsening” situation on the island. Parliament agreed an early day motion to reopen the tearooms, England drew the fifth and final Test and military strategists in their bunker at the Reform club agreed to offer razor wire at “a discount” to the US occupying forces at Shanklyn. Shares in Tesco plummeted.

The Muslim Council of Great Britain offered its “heartfelt” sympathy to the Jaeger head-scarfed women on the Isle of Wight and said it defended their right to wear whatever headgear they chose. Five million women (and men) wearing similar headscarves demonstrated in Trafalgar Square and Lord Livingstone, the former London mayor, called on the Greater London Authority to make a congestion charge on  any person  found demonstrating within the congestion charge area, which now stretched west to Salisbury, east to Southend, north to Watford and south to the recently US-occupied Bordeaux region of France.

Condoleezza Rice was censured by the US Senate for not declaring her shares in the dominant St Estephe vineyards outside Bordeaux.

Then I woke up and asked my American GI jailer if I could use the lavatory.

Meanwhile back in the 'real' world

My wife Dott and I went to visit her father and step-mother recently. Just outside their village I espied a couple of elephants approaching, so I stopped to take photos. The elephants appeared to be a mature female with one of her progeny. Suddenly the young elephant charged our car. It was quite exciting, and I was about to learn that young elephants do not like large red shiny objects. Just in time the handlers arrived to stop the passengers being trampled, but it was a bit scary!

Dott's father's house, suffered a chronic termite attack which eventually rendered it very unsafe. When we visited him, he was living with his wife and her extended family in an adjacent location in primitive conditions. A house with no walls, just a corrugated tin roof, supported by rough timbers, and a dirt floor. It reminded me that in 1985, Dan and I visited a hill-tribe village in North East Thailand. We travelled forever down a bumpy unmade road to reach the village. We met a bunch of carefree people living in dwellings made from natural materials with mud floors,  who

cooked on an open fire in the middle of the dwelling. Later that year I took my children to a reconstruction of a 7th century Anglo-Saxon village in East Anglia. Although separated by 6000 miles and 1300 years, the dwellings were virtually identical. That juxtaposition of imaginary C7th life in UK and real C20th life in Thailand changed my own life forever. For one thing, I could no longer subscribe to the western 'rat-race'. Inevitably I lost those of my friends who still continued to subscribe. When I told them that the Emperor was naked, they responded that he had a fine set of new clothes for all who subscribed to see. It was only me that had been 'converted' by Thailand. If only I would re-subscribe, I would see them myself.

I saw it as an opening of my eyes and an end of delusions. I remain sorry for the loss of those friends, but we must each choose our own path. I have no regrets about my choice. It had brought me to Ban Na Jaan, where Dott's father Samlet makes a living from growing rice and weaving cotton on hand looms. We had arrived in our shiny red car. When we left, we were bearing gifts from him. As I first learnt in Indonesia, it is truly those who can afford least, that are the most generous!

I had planned to 'treat' myself to a new motorcycle. Last year I sold my Suzuki 400R 'bat out of hell'. I was going to buy a  400cc

the kitchen

Honda Steed. It is a chopper style motorbike, more suited to my accumulating years. But how can I possibly justify spending money on a motorcycle I don't need, when my father-in-law, a man for whom I have the most enormous respect, is living in a house without walls?

I cannot.       I must not.      I will not!

Chez Nous

With Dott at our weekly Korean barbecue (Neua Yang Gow Lee) are her sister-in-law Oy, and Oy's son Farng. Two months ago Oy was looking for somewhere to stay, and Dott asked me if they could stay with us. I could see no problems, and said they could stay with us for free as long as they wanted. Oy was apprehensive about living with a farang, so moved in with a Thai friend but it wasn't good for Farng, so they moved in with us the next night. Oy's first act was to clean the house from top to bottom, and she has kept the house spotless ever since.

I thought we were gaining a lodger, but it turns out that we have gained a housekeeper. In addition to providing free accommodation and food I now pay Oy a salary each month. This seems to work well for all parties. The house is a lot busier, more what you would expect from a Thai household than a farang household, which suits Dott and me. From time to time Oy's husband, Dott's brother Nong (in red) comes and stays for a long weekend, bringing their daughter Manao (far left & below). It was the six of us who went to visit Samlet in Ban Na Jaan.

It has become a tradition with Nong and his family that at some point during each visit I take them to The Pizza Company in Nongkhai. This weekend was no exception as it is Manao's birthday on 26th July, a day she shares with our Prime Minister Dr. Shinawatra Taksin.

The Pizza Company features a 'help yourself' salad bar, for which they provide you with a small bowl. I guess that each person who wants salad is supposed to order (and pay for) their own bowl. However, Nong has perfected the art of maximising what he can get in the bowl (below left). There is enough in that one small bowl to provide all six of us with a reasonable portion of salad as an aperitif.

I have the feeling that there is some sort of biblical precedent for the feeding of six people from one bowl of salad, but I could be mistaken.