Please be advised that this trip has been postponed due to the political climate in Bangkok.  Khao San Road has been rescheduled for July 21st.  Our regular 1st and 3rd Wednesday Bangkok  trips will resume in May, when Peggy and Celia have returned from holidays.

Those of you who planned on joining us on Saturday, March 13th, for Chatuchak, please make a note that it has been rescheduled for Saturday, March 20th.

We regret having to rearrange our schedules, and yours, but feel it justified in maintaining the safety and quality of our trips.  Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to signing you up again in the near future.

Friday, March 5                     

Ko Sichang is a quiet little island just off the shore of Sriracha.  The lack of traffic, combined with the surrounding clean water and fresh air, can make for a very relaxing getaway.  We’ll take a van up to the pier, then ferry over to the island, where we’ll transfer to their version of the tuk-tuk.  We’ll visit the Chinese temple, the old palace ruins where the Vimanmek Mansion in Bangkok once stood, beautiful beaches, and the Institute of Marine Sciences.

We’ll lunch on the island before catching the ferry back to the mainland.  On the way home, we’ll stop at the Meyer Cookware showroom in Laem Chabang for some quick shopping.

This is a great opportunity to do some exploration close to home, at a location that is largely overlooked by Pattaya dwellers.  If you’d like to join us, please contact Peggy Wragge, or look for the sign-up sheet we’ll have at the Luncheon at Pan Pan.  See you there!

                            Mid-May, 2010

We’re in the planning phase of a trip to Israel and Jordan, and would like to know the volume of interest from our members.  It would be around the middle of May, and would be approximately a 9-day trip.

If this sounds like something you might like to do, please register your interest by contacting Peggy Wragge by the end of this month.  There is no obligation at this time.  If you are interested, we’ll get back to you with specifics (i.e. dates, prices, tour details, etc.), and you may decide at that time.  Spouses and friends are welcome to join us.  We’ll look forward to hearing from you.

photo by Gauis Caecilius

We are now taking sign-ups for Celia’s Bangkok trip scheduled for March 17.  This time, we’ll take the river taxi all the way to the last stop, then hoof it over to Khao San Road.  This popular spot in Bangkok has long been known by back-packers for having some of the best deals in town, whether it be accommodations, eateries, or shopping.  It’s a lively, colorful part of Bangkok, and Celia’s next stop as she continues our exploration of Bangkok.

Once again, we’ll meet at the bus station on Pattaya Nua (North Pattaya Road) near Sukhumvit, at 7:30 am.  As usual, this trip is limited to only 6 people, so don’t delay, contact Peggy Wragge to sign-up.

Tuesday, March 16  -  10:30 am  

Our Coffee Morning this month will be hosted by the Amari Orchid Resort, Garden Wing.  Come and chat with friends, catch up on Club news, and enjoy a nice cup of coffee or tea.  Your Tropics Topics newsletter will be waiting there for you also, hot off the press.

As always, reservations are required, so e-mail Robyn Cedotal, and cc Connie Kwok, to sign up.  They’ll send you a confirmation of your reservation.

The Garden Wing is located on North Pattaya Beach Road.  At the Dolphin round-about, head toward the beach.  The Amari is the first drive on the left, before you get to the beach.  For information or directions, please call them at 038-418418.

Photo by Professor Bop

Pack up the family and slather on the sunscreen, we’ve got a boat to catch!

Bring the kids, the spouse, or just come yourself, but don’t miss this day at sea with other PILC families.  We’ve organized a double-decker boat with water slide and snorkeling equipment to take us out for a day at sea.  We’ll stop at one or two of the islands, swim and snorkel, have lunch, and just enjoy the time away from the hustle and bustle of Pattaya.

Contact Peggy Wragge to sign up.  Cost is 1000/adult and 500/child, and includes everything except drinks.  This must be paid no later than March 19th.  Remember to bring your swimsuits, towels, sunscreen, and any drinks you might enjoy.  Coolers are welcome.  See you there!

Tuesday, March 2  -  10:30 am – 2:00 pm    

Our next function will be the March Luncheon at Pan Pan Restaurant, on Thappraya Road at the Theprasit Junction.   There is always good food and limited space, so be sure to reserve early.

E-mail Robyn Cedotal with your full name, and cc to Connie Kwok, no later than Saturday, February 27th.  They’ll send you a confirmation of your reservation.  If you signed up at the Coffee Morning at the Sheraton, there is no need to register again.  For directions, please contact Pan Pan direct at 038-251874.  See you there!

photo by avlxyz

Bangkok is once again hosting its annual International Dance Festival, with local and international dance troupes gathering to perform everything from contemporary, to folk, to ethnic dance.  You can take it all in, plus art exhibitions and markets, for free in Benjasiri Park and some theaters in Bangkok.

On a sadder note, the other photo shows Khun Somjit, who is a recipient of our monthly food bags, being very tenderly looked after by Roisin from Kate’s Project.  She has very little time left to live, and although she has a son and a sister, they both work long hours and cannot attend to her as needed.

Fortunately, Roisin is over on a visit and has been seeing to Khun Somjit, and between her and Khun Noi, also from Kate’s, they have been making her as comfortable as they can in her final days.  The PILC has helped also by giving her a mattress, and some of the other items where kindly donated by the Regent’s School Pattaya.  I had the pleasure of meeting this lady during the food drops and she was always very welcoming and glad to see us, and was never complaining even though she had only one leg and lived in a small shack off the new road.  So I was very saddened to hear this news.

If ever you have anything you can donate, should it only be your time, or perhaps need to ask about any of the welfare projects, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the welfare team.

Thanks, Alana Clarke

Kenya Airways fly direct to Nirobi, the overnight flight takes just over nine hours.  Alex, our two year old, was asleep for at least seven of these hours, and seven month old Lucy, who was on my lap for the entire flight, latched on to mummy dummy and slept the whole way.  A good start.

Time for a hot cuppa of Kenya’s finest export (coffee, not ground rhino horn) and a change of terminals, and we were soon up in the air again for the one hour transfer to Mombassa on Kenya’s coast.  Andrew, David’s brother, met us with his grunt of a 4×4 to drive us an hour north, up the coast to their home in Kalifi.

The roads in Kenya make Thai roads seem world class.  Unmarked, massive speed bumps at random intervals and random places had us airborne several times during our fortnight visit.  Imagine foot high speed bumps on the 36 that keep being removed and then replaced in a totally different place every other week, and you start to get the idea.  The potholes large enough to take the entire car might be easier to see, but they are near impossible to avoid.  Handcarts, donkeys, bicycles and motorized-bits-bobs-welded-together dodge chickens, goats, children and each other in a ridiculous game of survival.  Or not.  Accidents, injury and death are common.

Approaching a village, we start to see increasing numbers of people walking along the roadside with yellow water containers on their heads.  At the village there is a tap, one tap, and a snake of over fifty yellow water containers neatly lined up waiting for its owners turn to fill it and walk however many miles it is home.  “Many of them spend half their day collecting water”, Andrew informs us.  It is a scene repeated everywhere we travelled.  Some lucky villagers had bicycles allowing them to carry three or four containers at once.  There were other people with handcarts loaded with up to ten containers of water, and perhaps some mangos, bananas or grain.  But getting clean water into their mud huts was a time consuming burden, dominating huge chunks of many Kenyans lives.  Time that, if clean water was available closer to home, could be spent tending crops or generating a small cottage-industry income.

Andrew’s house looks similar to those around here.  Nice bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen, a large swimming pool and a huge, well maintained garden.  But there are differences.  The red buttons that look like light switches are panic buttons that call a security company.  Additional grills, known as “rape gates” block the bedrooms from the rest of the house, so if intruders do break in, they don’t have immediate access to the sleeping occupants.  A private guard is on duty from six till six and the gardener doubles as a gate boy during the day.  Electricity is extremely expensive, so very few people have air conditioners, and lights and fans are turned off as people leave the room.  Kenya in December is as hot as Thailand in April.  Expecting aircon at night and fans during the day, I soon realized I’d packed wrong…

The difference between my house here in Thailand, and the Thai’s living in the tin shacks only 200 metres from us are extreme, but Kenya’s extremes make ours look marginal.  We spend Christmas eve waterskiing in the day and at a cliff-top mansion drinking fine South African wine and singing Christmas carols as the sunset.  A wonderful jazz quintet performed at a kid’s birthday party.  A Scottish band played at the New Year’s Party.  Andrew and B’s private cook prepared and served dinner most nights, and cooked up a storm for twenty people on Christmas day.  A private leer jet buzzed us as we drank chilled wine on a deck overlooking the reef near Hemmingway’s famous hangout.  The boatyard has a few million dollars worth of boats parked out front, and small private planes dot the small Kalifi airfield.  The highs in Kenya might be higher, but the lows are lower.

The night before we arrived, B was called out to assist a friend who had been stabbed by an intruder.  She’d woken to a man straddling her chest, holding her down with a knife through her shoulder (in the chest side and out her back – two punctures) screaming “give me your money”.  Disbelieving that the money handed over was all she had, the intruder slit the skin of the friend’s throat and would have killed her had the security company not arrived (lucky for those panic buttons).

Between Christmas and New Year, another friend had intruders trying to smash through the rape gates, and was frantically on her mobile phone calling people for help.  Her neighbor jumped in his car, smashed through her front gate with his 4×4 and raced around her house, actually hitting at least one intruder with his car before the intruders raced off (and before the security company arrived…).

Kenya is tough on those caught stealing.  A man caught pick-pocketing at a market was seized by an angry mob that immobilized him with a stack of car tires (so his arms were pinned to his side), and then set the tires alight and cheered as he burnt to death.  But people are starving and desperate, and the money from theft is obviously worth the risk of punishment for some.

Where most people I meet here are either teachers or associated with car, household appliance, or oil and gas processing and manufacturing, most of those we meet in Kenya were doctors, scientists or missionaries.  My sister-in-law is studying the effects of malnutrition on infants’ hearts – and there are more than enough malnourished children coming into their hospital to keep her busy.  Andrew is studying tropical diseases and working at finding a better, cheaper, more efficient way to treat and avoid these diseases.

Educating people and setting up systems so people are treated promptly is a big focus, as all too often people come to the hospitals too late.  Everyday Andrew and B see children die from things that could have been avoided.  Many of the doctors and scientists are paid their home salaries by Bill Gates’ Welcome Trust charity.  They are a financial world apart from the missionaries, out either self-funding their time in Kenya or earning a meager local salary; one woman I met earns equal to 2000 baht a month…  Even the extremes between the expats in Kenya make our financial differences seem inconsequential.

It was truly wonderful to visit family and be welcome into the lives of those who call Kenya home.  Lovely to see how other expats live.  I’d definitely go back for another visit.  It was the best holiday we’ve had in a couple of years.  But I’d much rather live here.

Karen Brent