One good thing about Patong at the moment is the fact that the traffic is easing up somewhat most times of the day, although there are still a few idiots on big bikes who are putting other people's lives at risk by speedily riding in and out of the traffic, and they usually are shirtless and helmet-less and I would say they range from French Africans to Arabs. That excludes the witless Chinese who decide to drive the wrong way up the roads, usually with both feet dangling a couple of inches off the ground, so I gingerly steer round these idiots. On the subject of motorbikes, I noticed a very large open back truck parked alongside a "shop" in Soi Nanai taking back the motorbikes which were on show at this place, but by all accounts that had no success with rentals although some other places had – – but that is the name of the game. A friend of mine who used to have a bar here but relocated back to the UK when he ran out of money, has just revisited Patong for a couple of weeks to catch up with friends and he told me that "Patong is just not the same anymore" and I would have to agree with him, as do many others who have been here for more than a decade. He says the atmosphere in Bangla is nowhere near what it was (not sure how you measure that) and he believes that quite a few bars will go bust in these coming months, especially as the bar owners (not the renters) are increasing the rents quite substantially? Time will tell in these coming months. I met up with the ex-wife of a friend who had come back to visit her friends and we enjoyed a meal in the Wine Connection, well I say "enjoyed" because after we had sat down, in traipsed eight or 10 Russians, complete with baby in pushchair and they were fairly noisy. The "lead woman" was huge in all departments and not unlike a female version of "giant haystacks" and some, and they must have been from some distant tribe in Russia because they were all huge in stature, not necessarily fat, although a couple were, and they rather spoilt the evening for me. On the way home I looked into the South American restaurant El Gaucho and there were about 12 people dining there and because it's quite a big restaurant, it looked fairly empty. Compare that to my favourite South American restaurant nearby, Churrasco, and that had around 26 diners in it, and I waved at the wait staff as I passed and got a good smile as I always do. I met up with my daughter again yesterday at Lotus's in Phuket town and enjoyed a good lunch with her, and we chatted at length about the teaching aids which she is putting together in order to be the mainstay of her business in the future, and I may be biased, but the diagram of the human heart which she had put together on her iPad was absolutely brilliant, and I was blown away by it. She is a very talented young woman and am so very proud of her and what she has done so far. One thing I forgot to do whilst I was in Phuket town was to visit a jeweller (Ratsada) to see if he could put a value on my Eterna quartz 18 carat gold wristwatch, which is in good working order and I bought it in 1982 in Jersey, so that probably makes it a "vintage" watch, but no one I have contacted so far (including Eterna in Switzerland who do not answer my email requests) has been able to identify the model or put a value on it. It is an unusual shape, but I don't wear it any more as I am worried about damaging it if I fall off my motorbike, and whilst it's water resistant, it's not waterproof and getting caught in the rain here is a fairly frequent occurrence. Having said all of that it is a waste of a very attractive watch just sitting in my desk drawer, so if someone could put it to good use (for a fair price) then I would gladly sell it, but not easy....... Songkran is looming, so that means three days locked away in my condo or only going out in my car, so that I can escape the madness of this event. So I will spend a few days searching out some movies to help me through it! PS. If anyone knows the model name of this watch then I would be most grateful if they would tell me!!
