In the restaurant, I sit at the table next to a young
Thai-looking woman who is seated with middle-aged, ginger-haired man. I
secretly nickname them Ginger and Spice. Is he one of the lonesome desperados
who cannot seem to mate with a compatriot and an equal, who resorts to Thai
escorts thirty years his junior? Something is not quite right between them. His
face has a peculiar kind of palsied list to it. They sit in bleak silence for
long periods. Then suddenly, she reaches up and wipes some imaginary food
residue from his cheek, in a gesture of seeming intimacy. He smiles. What would
I know? Perhaps they are a loving couple after all, sharing the unhurried
intimacy, the mundane peaks and troughs of any long term relationship, including
its irritated silences, and not the awkward couple of convenience I assume them
to be?
Later, I am rudely woken from a siesta by loud bass music
coming from the vicinity of the pool. It turns out to be sound checks for a wedding
about to take place. Nathan and Nicole from Australia, according to the
placards festooning the garden en route to and
from my room.
Apart from the Asians, there are now several groups of
lively Aussie families with young kids, including the wedding party. The men
all seem to be the Thai equivalent of
thongs-and-Bintang –t shirt wearing, beer-swilling Baliphiles,whose other mecca
is Kuta. They get drunk in the pool, are tattooed from ankle to earlobe, and
are built like tanks. I was thinking, if I had a male companion who put away as
much of the price-included bacon and egg breakfast fare that they do, no one
would blink when I asked for a doggy bag. But I don’t. Perhaps in Thai eyes it
is unseemly for a single woman to be so audacious? Even when its paid for.
Phuket is apparently a popular holiday destination for honeymooners and the betrothed. In the gem gallery yesterday, I saw scores of Malaysian couples choosing engagement rings, and one of the lookouts on the Panwa tour, an apparently newly-wed couple happened to stop before my camera in full meringue and retro silver drainpipe tuxedo suit regalia.
One evening, I jump about five feet in the air thinking someone has been
shot. But no, it’s fireworks, an endless display, presumably from a wedding at
the resort next door, at my end of this hotel complex (bass music thumping all
evening, accompanied by the occasional loud whoop, was the giveaway). I can see
the best of the cracker works from my balcony and I race to take a video and
some pics. I love how the brighter fireworks reveal the silhouettes of coconut
palms in the foreground!
I wonder how much it costs to put on such a private display
in Thailand? Can you buy the goodies in the shops? A lot cheaper than back in Perth, where one family pretty
much has a monopoly on any sort of pyrotechnic event. And a lot less red tape and
OHS stuff associated with it, I dare say. Again it reminds me of Singapore, and
people setting off crackers in our street.
Uh-oh, the wedding music is cranking up. Time to make a
hasty retreat to the lobby to paste to my blog, check emails and scrutinize the
weather forecast for island jaunts. Anything to avoid a further earful of the cheesy,
heavily sub-woofered warbles of Celine
and Whitney…
I swear I took this myself when the happy couple happened to land in front of me, it is not from a glossy mag fashion spread!
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