Blundering Around Isaan - by Peter Jaggs - Chapter 1

It all began with a jet-ski. One minute I was roaring across the blue water of Pattaya bay, bouncing over the waves and enjoying the feel of the wind in my hair and the sun on my back, and deciding which go-go bar to visit that evening. Seconds later, in the wink of a bar-girl’s eye, I found myself lying under a street vendor’s mobile handcart covered in pieces of smashed fibreglass, splintered wood and sticky fruit.

The young Thai guys who rented out the jet-skis could do it, no problem. To impress the watching sun-worshippers on the beach, the muscular young men would roar towards the shore, cut their engines and gracefully perform a broadside, then slide to a halt in the fine golden sand, inches from their mates.

I roared towards the beach, suddenly realised I didn’t know how to cut my engine, did not perform a broadside and very ungracefully crashed into a wooden handcart full of tropical fruits.

When the beach and surrounding palm trees had stopped spinning, I gingerly climbed to my feet. I was relieved to discover that apart from a few minor cuts and bruises, I didn’t seem to have damaged myself much at all. Not so the handcart and jet-ski. I was surrounded by pieces of splintered water-scooter and fragments of wood, and covered in slices of pineapple and mango. An irate jet-ski owner and an even more furious fruit vendor were cursing me loudly in Thai. A circle of a couple of dozen laughing bar-girls and tourists had also gathered.

“Oh well,” I thought, wiping away a sticky mask of black pips and assorted fruit juices, “at least I have made someone happy.” Then two Thai policemen turned up.

Two hours and one hundred and fifty thousand baht later, I was allowed to leave the police station after my apologies ? and money ? had been accepted, and handshakes had been exchanged all round. As I walked away from the local nick in Soi Seven, I forlornly examined the remaining four travellers cheques left in my wallet.

“Shit,” I said to myself. “That’s the end of my six months in Thailand, then.”

(End of Chapter 1.)

Peter Jaggs

© Peter Jaggs. All rights reserved by the author.
ISBN: 978-974-7555-912
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