A Blog about the Daily Life on the Tropical Island of Koh Samui
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A few Words about Me
 My name is: Olle
I am living in: Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, Suratthani, Thailand
I am originally from: Stockholm, the capital of Sweden
I am doing for Kohsamui.org: Writing a blog about my life on a tropical island
How about my life here: Please read my blog below, my friends |
So It Is Friday Already
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Friday, September 11, 2009
 
It feels like it was Monday the day before yesterday so the equation that it is Friday today, do not add up. Today we went up to the north of Samui and check out road work. The work had progressed along the Maenam roads as well. They had not finished the right sharp right curve leading toward Bophut where very large amount of water every year caused big problems and at times made the road impossible to use, quite often the water went up several cm above the left curb just before the curve. The curve which is tilting inwards got pretty deep. Now it all looks great and lets hope they will finish it all before the heavy rain comes. Right now the works continue further to the west and they are working at full speed in order to extend the draining system along the whole way. As in Chaweng it is a job that takes time. It is a lot of digging and other things to prepare before they can go in with the casting of the system. In Maenam I have not seen any of the big square blocks that I have seen in places in Chaweng. All this might seem like it would be able to do very quick but I guess that is not the case.
We also went to the craftsmen who will build the sidecar. It was not easy to choose who would get the assignment. We would like to see a finished sidecar before we can say yes, and it would not be that good if the end result I not what expected since it is important that the side car looks ok. Another store wanted to have twice as much, probably because they saw a farang. Without pictures or something to show and also without being able to clarify why we should let him do the job for the double price we were not very interested. The craftsmen who Nui now chose has built several sidecars and they are all well built and he seems to know what he is doing. He had two sidecars that he was working on for the moment so it would take about two weeks before we will have ours so we just have to wait. The hope was that it could have been done in good timing with the arrival of the motorbike.
The café is not going to be active in the meantime. They wanted a half month's rent, although no large sum, the end result would be a profit of a few hundred bath and because I have to sacrifice the time to help open and close and also buy stuff, it is better to use that time for anything else.
Tomorrow is Saturday, which means tennis. Last week the tennis plans had to be cancelled but tomorrow they will not. We now hope that the clouds are gathering but no rain will fall. It is the ultimate weather to play tennis in Thailand, at least when it is outdoors on top of a roof. It should also be somewhat interesting to see how my sore arms can handle the challenge, I might see it as a little stretching.
Today I also had time to visit the gym for almost an hour. For now I do not need more time since I divided the body in many pieces and only do small parts each time. Today I did the triceps and trapezius and it is great to feel the power slowly coming back and that I get a little more contact with the muscle and then also can do a few extra repetitions extra when fatigue compared to before when I did not have the slightest chance of continue when I got tired.
My Sixth Sense
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Thursday, September 10, 2009
I quite recently got home from the gym. I finally got some more power, but only a few percent. I have mostly been sitting inside working today, and I am start to feel the need to go swimming, it was a long time since last time. This morning I drove Nui and gave her the camera and said - Here you have the camera so you can take a picture of the accident here today. She did not understand why I said so and I really did not either but I gave her the camera.
Then I went home again. At midday, I heard a scream, thought it was a baby but it continued for so long and it sounded the same all the time so I went outside and realized that there must be a cat. Slipped in to my flip-flops and went to see if there was a cat in need of help. In the palm forest beside the road Mr. Pink, the pink buffalo, were slacking and I feel a bit sorry for him because he must be so bored. Sometimes he just stands as a giant statue for a long time and probably thinking about what he is going to look at. He would probably need a buddy to hang out with. He bounces up when I got closer on the road and he cut his eyes at me and suddenly I felt less sorry for him. I almost prepared for an attack because he seemed angry at me. I saw a couple white people who live in the area some distance away, looking up toward the roof of a house and up there was two cats and staring at one another. Suddenly the cats started to scream louder and plunges into the bushes beside the house, and the buffalo throws his head to see what was going on. I then saw the white man lift up one cat in the neck and shouted something to his face and then he threw it away. End of that story and I went back continuing what I was doing before.
It has been very quiet in the surrounding area with relatively few observations. The other day I saw a couple of tourists who stood by the road and turned their heads back and forth looking quite lost. One car after another drove past and they were not able to go anywhere. But then the first lane got empty so they walk out, but in the second lane, the cars kept coming and I saw that they were thinking about turning back gain but no, cars kept coming in the lane behind and they got standing in the middle of the road between the two lanes while mopeds and cars passed by. I could not resist laughing, it looked very funny, the two continued to turn their heads back and forth as programmed robots and after a while a gap appeared so they could run to the other side. It is a little different when there are no crossings to rely on.
In late afternoon I went to Nui who said that there has been an accident right in front of the cafe and she wondered why I did know about it in the morning. What should one respond to that? Sometimes you are lucky, or something like that. I sometimes have good luck with things if that is what it is called and it happens kind of often, but most times I do not say anything. It can be all sorts of uninteresting things to more exciting stuff that just pops up. The accident that had occurred fortunately was not that serious. There was a lady who had driven straight into a sidecar, and had fallen, and even scraped up her leg against the sidecar. Now got a bit surprised but took up the camera after a moment at that time the lady has already managed to get up. She were able to drive away after a while on her own, but with a very sore leg however I think she was lucky to get away with that because it could have gone much worse.
Now it has become time for dinner number 2, and then a bit chillin in front of the television. There are a lot of fun things to see some times. One channel is usually broadcast a program which I think is called Miracle, which is about the most strange things you can imagine, mostly from the countryside. In nine out of ten cases, it is about ghosts and I do not belong to the category that believes in everything but far from those who do not believe in anything as well. But in those shows people of frequently get possessed of ghosts and the whole village gather while some try to beat person to get rid of the ghost or in other ways save the person from the evil spirit. I think you just have to believe in something strong enough for it to become true, there for I think it is better to convince one-self about good things instead of things that does not benefit any one. But sometimes it is about other things than ghosts and yesterday it was a temple which had been inhabited by three swallows. They had built a nest up at the ceiling inside the temple. At the temple there was also a very old monk who died and at the funeral ceremony when the body was lying open for people to say farewell the temple got stormed by swallows. The swallows were not on temporary visit, but settled down as the three previous had done. Now the relatively small temple were housing thousands of swallows and were now packed with nests everywhere and while they were filming the birds flew in and out from the temple in big swarms. A exciting and a somewhat odd story.
Bought a Motorbike
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tonight I woke up a couple of times. It was raining heavily and the sound was loud also the wind whistled around the corners of the house. After a few minutes it all suddenly ended and it went quiet again. Not only that but it was a much warmer night than we had before and at night we did not even use the fan at all. Nui think it is funny that it rains so little here. In Bangkok, it has been raining a lot and also on Phuket it has been raining much more than here.
Today we arranged to buy the motorbike. Nui's brother helped us to find a bike the other day and it is basically a brand new motorbike and today we transferred the money so he could buy it. In order to write Nui as the owner of the bike direct, she had to fax a copy of her ID so we went directly to a store that has the service after we made the transfer. When we got home Nui phoned and checked so that the fax arrived but it had not. She went back and tried again and the third time the people at the shop made it work. Now the evening Ben, Nui's brother washed the bike and changed oil and made it even more clean than before and his girlfriend was joking with him and said it was not his bike just so he did not forgot because he was so sure to make everything perfect. Tomorrow the bike will be sent to Samui and it should take about five days until it gets here. As soon as it is here we will arranged the rest and also make some signs to be put on the sidecar.
When I was in the bank I took the opportunity to ask if I could get a new login code and password for the internet bank. I got a log in number and password when I opened the account but now I cannot remember it since I never even used after the activation. The point is that you can very easily access the internet bank any way. You only need to create a new online account by entering the card number and the pin code for the card. But I think it is a little crazy to enter the card number and pin code which is needed for step one. These days I do not think it is entirely impossible that such data can be accessed by people over the internet if unlucky. The bank unfortunately did not understand my concern at all. I have received information that another bank has a similar system but it requires a registered mobile number to transfer money from the account. The mobile phone receives a response code which sounds quite ok. The only thing is that I am, after all, skeptic to put the card number and code through the internet at all. I do not think it necessary to enter the last 3 security digits and those are required to be able to shop online, so it may be a chance that I have an exaggerated fear in general in this matter.
My stomach just started to make sounds again, I did not go to the gym today but decided to rest, that does not mean the hunger goes away. I try not to eat too much which makes me walking around with hunger most of the day.
If I had a fish available I would only have to put it on the porch outside the house to get it smoked because a neighbor has been burning some leaves the whole afternoon and in the evening and the wind has brought the smoke in towards the house. It is on a daily basis people make fires burning leaves and other combustible materials. Yesterday a neighbor made a big fire on the land just by our house but luckily we did not have the slightest smoke on the house. Sometimes you are lucky.
Powerless but good
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Now I have just eaten and I will probably not be hungry for an hour. I was trained in the evening, for the first time, and I must admit that it is not quite as fun to work out now as before. It is hardly surprising that my stamina is not at all the same and that I get tired very quick and I think my conditioning makes it worse. In general I am in good shape but I am used to have a good condition and the lack of that shows in the gym as well.
Today, it has been a day with some sun and some clouds. Most of the clouds were small and not very thick, and there has been a tropical heat that we have not had in the last few days.
I sat by the computer this morning to check my mail and such, and after a while the network suddenly went out of signal without coming back. Then Nui remembered that we had not paid the bill that came some time ago, something I would otherwise be extremely careful to do directly, but in Phuket were both electric and cable television company came by our house so I just have not had time to get the deal here I guess. This was the first month to pay since we signed the contract and that time we did pay at the store.
I went off to Tesco where the TT & T have the office and made the payment and then went on to Big C and bought chicken fillets, vegetables but before that I help Nui to set up the cafe that soon has seen its last days. It does not make any income and Nui were lucky to have the sunny weather at the beginning which attracted more people.
I saw that the work on the road is making progress and they had now prepared a pretty long stretch that starts a bit south of Bangkok Hospital, and then continue north past the hospital and further more. It is a pretty big job that requires that they first dig out a trench nearly a couple of meters deep and also about a few meters wide and then place the big concrete frames. I am very curious to see what happens in places where there is a bit narrower at the side of the road. Maybe they do nothing there or maybe there is a plan for those sections too.
Big C was quiet and nice until I came. I figured that it would be fun to listen to some speaker systems. I mean, it is good to know what different stores have to offer. Although I did not have any music that I know how it sounds in other speakers, I was positively surprised. I only listened to a system which would be their very best. For a brand I never seen other than in Thailand so probably no big name, at least not to me, and also in a mall did not make my expectations sky high. One of the guys working at the store plugged in a memory stick and put on a track and the system had really good pressure and sounded quite ok through the whole register, considering the price of just over 11 000 bath I have to say it was fantastic and it is unbelievable that you can assemble a system and have a profit with a price like this. They are not afraid to crank up the volume at the store at all, the sound filled one quarter of the store and the guy who helped me seemed to enjoy it very much. The name of the system is Soken, a brand that seems to be quite popular here and I guess it is a domestic brand. Quite often I hear speakers here that play loud but sound crap, so it was nice to listen to this one and it will be interesting to see if there is any real audio store here, something I never checked.
Why do ants my computer? I have noticed a long time ago that there occasionally show up ants on my screen, not that it is crowded by ants but one or two from time to time. I had only put the computer at the new desk and there were sporadic ants walking on your computer, sometimes the screen and sometimes on the base. I wonder if there is anything in my computer that attracts them. I am not so keen on getting a smaller ant farm in the computer so I have made sure to blow them away quickly and it seems that the message was understood because it has hardly been a single ant here today or yesterday.
A New Week, Time Flies
Text by Olle - Living on Lamai Beach - Monday, September 7, 2009
I have said it before and I say it again. I think time goes faster here in Thailand than it did in Sweden.
The weekend was quiet even though it felt we did not have the time that we needed.
Most things take more time than what you first think, like on Saturday we went looking for a used motorbike again and I thought that we better buy one even if it is significantly more expensive here than elsewhere in the country. Since we will make a sidecar we feel no need to buy a new one. Prices are set at more than 30 000 bath for most of them but some we have found for 26 000 bath and just above. The funny bit is that prices are still the same no matter if the vehicle has done 6000 km or as in another case, 30 000 km, and in that case it was much more expensive. Nui said she would ask her brother to check in Bangkok where she knows that prices are about half. We bought no one but went home instead. Quite a few hours had blasts away while we drove up to the north side and I also took the chance to look at a place that I for some reason thought might be a good area to live in, it was not the case and on the way home we also stopped in Chaweng and bought a hair trimmer. When we got home the time was already 15:50 and I had not eaten other than breakfast. This meant that the long-awaited tennis time was lost.
We made food and ate, then I got my hair trimmed, so nice. I am always disappointed when I go to the hairdresser and last time here in Lamai a girl fixed my hair in 2-3 minutes, seriously, and as most people can figure out it did not look that good. I had to go home and shave my neck and fix the hair a little here and there and the girl who cut me did not even use a trimmer at all. Now I my hair by myself, something I did for 10 years before, but for convenience when living on Phuket I went to the hairdresser because I found one that did the hair ok and also it is nice having a little head massage. Now, I was pleased and my hairstyle is not so difficult to make. Hardest is make a smooth transition from short to long in the back and on the sides but I have no problem doing that. Nui thought I was joking when said I would do it myself.
I remember that I last week said that the furniture at Winner was expensive. I was looking through a catalog from Winner the other day and saw that the price we had was not the same as in the ads. The price was for a full set and in the shop she said the same price for just a piece of furniture. So it will have to be evaluated further before I can say that it is more expensive than general.
On the motorbike front Nui has now spoken to his brother, who arranged a Honda Wave, which just passed 320 km for a price almost
10 000 bath less than what we found here on Samui. It is from a shop he knows well. It seems to be a rather common thing that a person does a purchase by installments and after a time can no longer continue with the installment for some reason, and of course the customer has to return the goods which than can be sold again. So we hope he will be able to send it down in just one day or so and then we should not have to wait long before we can pick it up and fix the rest.
I have even had time to sit a few late nights tweaking my synthesizers and created some music but with very little reflection on what style to make but more to get some flashbacks and remember how everything worked and get some feeling back.
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