This was a pleasant discovery at the Big C down in Pattaya. All you need is to drive a Chevy and you got a parking spot near the front of the building.

I decided to tape our friend Arkom because I just knew he was going to give me a good story. This was from a couple of nights ago around midnight. The background to the story is that Arkom, for all intents and purposes, has a 5 year old daughter named Geena and a wife named Sai. We were having a typical discussion about life and here Arkom is telling a story about a typical saturday afternooon at home. What’s great about this story is that it begins with 500 baht and ends with 500 baht. 500 thai baht is $14.95US. It’s the middle of the month, there are 3 mouths to feed and Geena wants to go to 7/11. And who can blame her? And to sum the story up, it’s cheaper to send Geena to summer school than it is to deal with 7/11 and the ice cream man. Sorry for my swearing.

Now, you know… I spare the food in the refrigerator, almost finish now. Have to spare the last time again. Have only 500 baht left. And Geena “I wanna go to Seven, Seven, Seven, 7/11″. Noooo. “I just want to buy some candy, not toy”. Geena, I tell you now, we don’t have any money for toy, for candy, only food. Only. You understand? I tell her. “Yes but, I want to go Seven.” You want to looking Seven? 7/11? You want something, you want something there? You want to, only looking ok, I take you go. “I want some only candy.” She don’t understand. She don’t understand her mother don’t have any money. But when ice cream coming, she run to me. (hum, damn fucking ice cream cart, ya know? Right? Does it come past the house?) Yeah. (Ice cream cart, will you get the fuck…. (Unintelligible. Laughter.) And this evening, roti. (Wait, what is it? Wahl’s?) Wahl. (Wahl?) They have like a sound doo-doo-doo. (Does he say something?) Yes. (What’s he say? He says it in Thai, what’s he say?) Hey say, uh, ‘Ice cream pormae (mother and father), Wahl coming or something’ (laughter, Wahl coming). And then, then the kids running (yeah, of course) and then Geena, running to me, “I want to buy”. If… I can’t say no because, the kids go around the ice cream and then Geena… if… she upset… I have to give her. (How much?) 20 baht. (Shew, Lorraine only spends 9 baht at the Dairy Queen). But, they come, you know, every 3 hours and different brands. (Oh good lord, ya know when you hear it coming, close the door. You should tell them like, listen, don’t come around). No, now I realize about teacher said, uh, you want, you want Geena coming to school for summer? 500 baht. Now I agree with her, I agree with teacher. (Yeah, 500 baht, cheap).

And… a picture of the bar food from the other night:

Some better video from takraw tonight.

We now have our own Thai Premier League team, Pattaya United FC!

What a view! The Nong Prue Municipality Stadium is less than a 5 minute motorbike ride from our house. Lorraine and I took off about 10 minutes before the game. We arrived, she hopped off the bike, bought 2 tickets, hopped back on the bike, handed the tickets to the ticket taker (who I think was a police officer) and drove on in. In another 10 minutes, I had my new jersey and we had beers in hand. Now we just needed to find a place to sit.

I threw on my jersey and a fellow jersey wearing fan called to us and said “Pattaya!” and pointed to the stands across the other side of the field and led us to where the serious fans were. We took off in his direction and he kept looking back to us to make sure we were following him. He must’ve been the foreign ambassador because he brought us over to the packed stands and he introduced us as ‘new fans’ in Thai to everybody. Next thing you know, the obvious happens. They made room for 2 more seats in the front row for us. Just another one of those “man, I love Thailand’. The usual local hospitality was waiting for us. I think Lorraine and I will become a fixture for the home games.

Ticket to get in: 50baht ($1.38)
4 Leo beers: 120baht ($3.32)
1 Loaded home jersey: 780baht ($21.59)
Living in Thailand: Pretty f’in cool

More pics…

A view from the right hand brake. This is where I live, have a look! High quality version is here.

So, beautiful Sunday morning, Lorraine and I hop on the bike and head down to the beach. Our first stop of the day was going to be Starbuck’s. The bikes are stacked up one by one and we go around the block in hopes a slot would open up for us. We swing around and still no open spots. So, in my Buffalo mentality I pull into a no parking zone which is about 1 foot from the last motorbike slot. I remarked to Lorraine, “hey, we’re only blocking Starbucks and since we’re going in, let’s just park it here”.

We discovered the 2nd floor outdoor patio which overlooks Beach Road and the beach and enjoyed our coffee for no more than 15 minutes. We come back down and I immediately notice that my bike is not there and I can see the bike we parked next to is still there. I turn to Lorraine and say “they took the bike”. Sure enough, we walk out and the street vendors are all smiling and say “police take bike, you go Soi 9, you pay 400baht”. I think we found it more humorous than anything else. We were more than ready to chalk this up to another Thailand experience. And anyway, we were at Soi 13 so, it was a short walk down to the police station.

We couldn’t remember the license number, we had the numbers, just not in the right order. We said, Yamaha Fino, brown. “Not here yet, wait 20 minutes”. Smartly, Lorraine says, you have a picture of your bike on your phone, don’t you?”. Sure enough, I had a couple, but none of them were clear enough to see the plate number. Then, I dug up this bad ass photo:

2-501, yep. I walked up to the policeman again and said “Sorng, Hah, Soon, Neung!”. He laughs, digs through his stack of tow tickets and finds my citation. “Tim, 400baht”. That’s a $12 ticket-and-tow, not too bad for a Sunday morning. Then he says “you take taxi to impound, 2kms, outside”. We pay, stroll outside and grab a taxi. Not just any taxi, a motorbike taxi. The three of us hopped on the bike and drove the 2kms to the impound yard which held at least 100+ bikes. Our bike is only 1 row deep, our helmets still hanging from their hooks.

Back on the road and lesson learned.