The Olivers In Thailand

Still no new tea supplies! We are currently preparing to invade a neighbouring tea-rich nation.

Jenny did return from her search safely, but got distracted by enemy forces. We consumed our last tea bag this morning, shared between two.

As part of our preparation, on Friday we upgraded our truck to have air conditioning in the rear cabin. Venturing out into the unknown, we headed for a garage near "Big C". There we were told it would cost 10,000 TBH, and that it would be ready that day at 17:00. We were then driven to another garage nearby.

There a group of guys immediately started work on our truck. W enquired how we would get home, as 17:00 was still some 7 hours away. We were told to site and wait. So we waited, and waited. Knowing what Thai culture was like, we had no idea what was going on, other than our truck appeared to be having the correct stuff done to it.

Some time later, a "car" appeared. I use the word lightly. It did appear to have 5 wheels (1 sterring wheel plus 4 wheels touching the ground). We were told it ran on LPG, and told that we needed to put in 100 Baht of LPG. Okay, we can do that...

So away we drove. Well, first, Jenny had to get in the car. Her seat was reclined flat. When I shut the driver's door, the window handle flew off. Seat belts - mine was fixed position "loose", and Jenny's, although slightly "less loose", did not want to clip in... Steering wheel was certainly not "fly by wire", but very manual, with a nice "no steer zone" in the center.

The best bit was when we drove away. I believe the car probably had a turbo - it certainly went very well - well, as fast as we dared take it. But the "turbo" was not very quiet. At first we thought the police were after us in their Starsky & Hutch cars. Having realised that there were no other cars around us, we released that the siren sound corresponded to how much I was pressing the accelerator. And it was loud!!

Well, we did get home, eventually. Next time we will take a flashing blue light to put on the roof.

We collected the car later that afternoon, now fully equipped with air conditioning in the back cabin.

Saturday morning we held another war council.

Notice that we were only 5 people (me taking the photograph) to comply with Thai government regulations which state that meetings of more than five people are not permitted.

It was decided that because it was after 16:00 on Friday afternoon, and therefore officially the weekend, we would hold off further preparations until Monday. We might use this time to play cricket...

More importantly, it was decided that Thomas needed to practice his cinnamon bun making skills...

and David his chocolate cake making skills...

Adrian