The Songkran festival seems to have gone on forever this year. There are definitely an awful lot of city people who slipped away for a “long weekend’’ about 10 days ago and haven’t been seen since. Not to worry. By the time they get back they should be just in time for another long weekend.
Can’t say I blame them taking it easy as it has been a bit on the warm side lately, or to use the correct meteorological term, “bloody hot”. If it was in England we would be treated to daily headlines of “Phew, what a scorcher!” With the equally sweaty month of May approaching, I’m resigned to perspiring my way through the rest of the year.
Non-Thais tend to feel the heat more than the locals. In the old days, it was thought that any foreigner staying in the tropics for an extended period was in danger of going native, or “troppo” as it was more commonly known.
You don’t hear much about it these days, but I got a reminder this week when a visitor nearly choked on his beer when he heard how long I had been in Thailand. It was as if he half expected me to speak in pidgin-English, don a pa kao ma and start dancing the Ramwong out in the street.
Admittedly, if you have lived abroad for a lengthy period it does help to be a trifle mad, or as grandma used to say, “away with the fairies”.
Certainly there are some farang wandering around in Thailand these days who look like they could have experienced close encounters with fairies, or are simply a few satang short of the full baht.
Mad dogs and Milligan
Noel Coward took an entertaining snipe at British colonial life in the tropics with his song Mad Dogs and Englishmen, a favourite of Winston Churchill. The song has some wonderful lyrics which include, ‘‘In Bangkok at 12 o’clock they froth at the mouth and run”. I know that feeling well.
The exact position of that particular line in the song reportedly sparked a heated dinner party debate in 1941 between Churchill and US President Franklin D Roosevelt. It turned out to be a rare occasion when Churchill admitted he was wrong.
Someone who spent considerable time in the tropics and who also was familiar with madness was British comedian Spike Milligan of the Goons fame. Adapting Coward’s theme some years later, Milligan observed of Sri Lanka,
“By midday in Colombo, the heat is so unbearable that the streets are empty, but for thousands of Englishmen taking mad dogs for walks”.
The Old Hand
In Thailand there are definite signs when a foreigner has been here for too long. There’s that silly fixed grin for a start. Here are a few other indications for foreign residents that your stay in Thailand might have been a little longer than most:
- You look in four directions before crossing a one-way street.
- You never cross the road at a pedestrian crossing.
- You can sleep while standing up on the skytrain.
- You have no qualms about blocking an escalator in the rush hour while you check the latest message on the smartphone.
- You don’t complain when a waitress puts ice in your glass of wine.
- You stop thinking a girl riding pillion on a motorbike, side-saddle, wearing a miniskirt, while putting on make-up and checking her smartphone, is anything out of the ordinary.
- While staying in Isan, you react with delight when informed your breakfast will be deep-fried ants eggs.
- Anyone whose name is Steve you call “Sa-teve”.
- You realise that nearly everything you own is counterfeit.
The dog paddler
There was a much-needed feel-good yarn earlier this week featuring a dog which was rescued an amazing 220kms offshore in the Gulf of Thailand. Chevron oil rig workers, who spotted it swimming near their drilling platform, hauled the shivering dog out of the sea and helped it to recover. He is now happily back on the mainland in Songkhla. It is not clear how the dog, an Aspin and popular in the Philippines, was so far out to sea. As it was unlikely to have dog-paddled all the way from the mainland, it is believed he might have fallen off a passing trawler.
Vitisak Payalaw, a Thai member of the rig crew, named the dog Boonrod (Survivor). There are wonderful images of the dog that looked so forlorn at the time of rescue yet so happy upon being back on dry land in Songkhla. Giving the dog a lei garland was a nice touch.
The pub crawler
My favourite faithful dog tale was submitted by a reader some years ago. His friend living in north London had an Irish Wolfhound called Rex. After working Saturday mornings, the dog’s owner would spend the afternoon in one of several pubs in the Hampstead area. Every Saturday, Rex the dog would leave the house and catch the bus by himself (a Routemaster with an open door) and get off at the correct stop. The dog would then embark on a pub crawl, poking his nose into every watering hole until he found his master, who would then reward Rex with a half pint of beer. He surely deserved a full pint.
