Irish Whiskey

Some folk have wondered why I take every opportunity at duty free to lay hands on Irish Whiskey.

The answer lies in my seven month stint working in Cork during 1989/90. Whilst there I asked one of the company directors what were the best Irish Whiskies.

The answer was Jameson 12 Year Old and Bushmills 10 Year Old. So as you could still buy duty free at the airport back in those days the first thing I got on my first trip home was a bottle of the Bushmills 10 Year Old. A month later it was a bottle of Jameson 12 Year Old – and so on every month till the assignment finished.

I made the mistake of taking the Jameson’s back to my parents at Christmas that year. Having been used to the usual cheaper Scottish whiskies my father took a liking to it – and decided that as it was now in his house it was now his whiskey.

Then wondered later why I never took anymore up with me. The answer is of course that it’s not cheap. But as I only occasionally drink it I decided that if you are going to drink whiskey at all then you may as well have a good one.


Years later I took a bottle with me to Thailand. The climate there doesn’t – to my mind – naturally encourage drinking it – I associate it with winter, a fire and a good book rather than 30C and an air conditioner.

So it was hardly touched at the end of my time there. As I couldn’t take it home I took the bottle round to my friend BJ’s. He’s a Texan who normally drank “Black Russians” – so it took a bit of persuasion to get him to share a drink – but once he’d tried it he recognised how good it was.

The result is that every time I go there I take a new bottle – which he and I – plus anyone else we are feeling generous towards – gets to share.

It remains my whiskey. And as long as BJ has some in his cupboard he knows I’ll be back for it.

Bacon & Eggs

When I were a lad (as we say in Yorkshire) Saturday morning was usually used for a lie in bed reading comics. Sometimes however I would awake to the smell of frying. This could mean only one thing – digging!

The choice was simple – either get up, eat the bacon & eggs, and help father with digging the garden – or ignore it and get dragged out of bed later and do the digging without the fortification.

Bacon & eggs forms a central part of what is called the English Breakfast – though I doubt if there are that many folk – including me - who consume them for breakfast on a regular basis. I sometimes find myself consuming them when staying in hotels on business trips – after all someone else is paying for them and since breakfast is often “included” in the price one wouldn’t want the client’s money to be wasted.

When I worked in Malaysia one could not, of course, get them in the quality hotels. They do something called “beef bacon” – which has the toughness and flavour of old boots. They also do a similar abomination called chicken sausages

Here in India it’s possible to get them in hotels – but when I mentioned bacon to my cook in my apartment he hadn’t a clue what it meant. As I’ve previously reported I’m on a semi vegetarian diet in my apartment. My cook only does Indian food – which means I get chicken and fish – but the rest is vegetarian as that’s what the local s eat and he knows how to cook. (I don’t eat lamb or mutton – it upsets my stomach – even my parents – who bought me up to eat everything that’s on the plate – recognised this!)

The problem for me – especially having just had a week’s holiday in Thailand – is that the food gets really boring after a while.

So yesterday evening I went to a “shop that sells everything” to see if I could find bacon. Sure enough they had some – as well as pork sausages. It set me back the equivalent of £13.50 for a pack of bacon, some sausages and a pack of ham – so it’s not cheap. But this morning I showed my cook how to do it – amazingly he’d never fried an egg – and it tasted really excellent.

And even better – no digging to follow!

Back to work

Saturday was my last full day of vacation in Pattaya. As usual it started with a swim, then a check on my e-mail followed by a trip to Greg’s Kitchen for bacon and eggs. After that it’s off to the beach to snooze and read The Economist – then off to “Bam Bam” for a relaxing foot massage.

Back to the hotel – shower – shave and freshen up before evening meal and a final sharing of the Jameson’s with my Texan Friend. About eleven off to my favourite bar for some live music – eventually off to bed about two in the morning.


Sunday night I flew back to Chennai. It took all of about fifteen minutes to check in and get through to the lounge in Bangkok Airport – the only problem then is somewhere to sit. In their anxiety to sell stuff the fact that not everyone there is shopping mad and some just want to sit down seems to have been forgotten.

Flight was late but I touched down in Chennai 11.30 pm local time and was through immigration by midnight. I then waited 40 minutes for my luggage to turn up before meeting my driver to get back to my apartment about 1.00 am.

Today it’s back to the grind. One letter has also turned up – a welcome to the company’s Twenty Five Year Club. 13 November 1984 I joined the company – have to admit I never thought I’d end up travelling as much as I have when I joined. After all, Procurement is generally an office based activity.

And expeditors and inspectors aside – it generally still is. Just that the company has more offices these days and international clients expect the work to be done in offices in their countries rather than them sending a representative to our offices.

The Music of Pattaya

The music on offer in most of the bars in Pattaya is of the canned variety. If you are of the opinion that rap, hip hop and other such variants constitute music then this might just be to your taste.

Though as ought to be obvious to any visitor here the majority of the denizens of such places haven’t come here to listen to the music.

For those of us that prefer something to listen to a number of bars however do live music – the quality of which varies from bar to bar. Most of what is played stems from British and US hits from the 1950’s to the 1980’s – from such groups as Deep Purple, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Zee Zee Top, the Rolling Stones, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin and The Scorpions. Given that my taste in rock music got stuck around there (with a few exceptions – The Road to Hell for instance) this suits me fine.

Some songs that never really made it back home still get played – Dire Straits “Walk of life” for instance still gets a regular airing over here.

My late friend Noi would sometimes break into Delilah – which used to go down quite well as everyone got into the chorus.

One also realises that some songs you never noticed – such as “Final Countdown” – can actually sound quite good when a band goes at them full tilt.

A few years back part of “Wish you were here” became popular – although most local artists did tend to struggle with the lines “Did you exchange, a walk on part in the war, for lead role in a cage”.

The Cranberries hit “Zombie” became quite popular here – though I doubt if any of the people either singing or dancing to it have any idea what the words are about.

The song most regularly heard – and which to many people is the song for Pattaya – is Hotel California. Many of the words are so relevant – “this could be heaven and this could be hell” – some dance to remember, some dance to forget” – and – of course it’s final cry “you can check out any time you like but you can never leave”.

Though why the band in my regular bar associate “Soldier of Fortune with” me is anyone’s guess. Paranoid perhaps..........

Who'll stop the rain?

It is, as I write this, raining.

Rain is not unusual at this time of year in Thailand since we are, after all, moving towards the rainy season proper which runs through September and October. When I was first here in 1991 we carried out a refinery shutdown in October. It must have been planned by some accountant in an ivory tower somewhere who had spotted that there was less activity on the refinery in October than at any other time of year but obviously wasn’t smart enough to ask why.

For the first two weeks of the shutdown the site was knee high in water and mud – then the sun came out, it hardened to concrete, and all the work was finished during the last two weeks of the shutdown.

At least today it’s raining before I have reached the beach. Yesterday we had a shower whilst I was there – one might think you’d stay dry under the massive sun umbrellas but reality is more a case of hiding under canvas awnings and hoping for the best. At least it stopped after about half an hour and things returned to normal.

Like most beach resorts Pattaya is a bit thin on things to do in the daytime if it’s raining. The hardened 24 hour drinker can always find plenty of bars here to sit in. There are also these days quite a number of massive shopping malls which one can wander around – perhaps buying clothes or trinkets at bargain prices.

Cinema offers another alternative – all the “summer blockbusters” seem to appear here – with English soundtrack and Thai sub-titles. I can’t remember the last film I saw at a cinema in the UK but during my time here I’ve seen all sorts from Shrek to Gladiator. Some are not all that intellectually taxing – I went to see GI Joes on Monday – possibly the best thing in it is the villainess who wears glasses and looks a bit like Sarah Palin. You just know that she’s going to join the “good guys” sooner or later as she’s way too good looking to get killed off.

Back to Thailand

I departed for Chennai airport at about 8.20 Friday night – the traffic was heavy – and got there about 9.00 pm. It took about 45 minutes to get through all the security, passport and customs checks and reach the passenger lounge – which was quite crowded – and there’s not a lot to do there other than sit and wait. Unlike many of Asia’s airports these days Chennai really has very little to offer the shopper – even the Duty Free had only the usual suspects when it comes to whisky or whiskey – and only the normal Jamesons on offer.

The flight left at 25 past midnight – Thailand is 1 ½ hours ahead and the flight time about 3 hours. It was a bit of a struggle in that the only logical thing to do on such a flight at such a time is try and get a few hours sleep – but the crew insist on trying to offer you food, or sell you drink, or interrupt one’s fitful sleep with an announcement from the captain to tell us we are at 29,000 feet and somewhere over the Bay of Bengal. Like I really needed to know that?

Anyway, we touched down 5.30 local time in Bangkok – there’s hardly anyone there at that time and I was through Immigration and even had my luggage collected by 5.45. I also spotted a booth before Customs selling “Classic whiskies” – so naturally I gave it a look and lo and behold they had Jameson Special Reserve 12 Year old Irish Whiskey at Baht 1,150 (about £21.00).

Suitably provisioned I got an airport limo and we were off on our way to Pattaya at about 150 kph – thus ensuring an arrival at my hotel at 7.00 am and a chance to get some sleep.

After awaking at 10.30 I was able to have a swim and then off for a haircut. Onto Greg’s Kitchen for a full English breakfast – bacon, eggs, beans, sausage, potatoes & baked beans with toast to follow and a cup of tea. A welcome break from my semi vegetarian diet in India.

That accomplished it’s down to the beach to sit in a deckchair for a few hours – then off shopping for new shoes, glasses and trousers.

Funny - when I worked in Thailand I’d get such things back in the UK when on leave. Now I’m in India I go to Thailand for them!

Delhi Again

This week saw me once more off to Delhi.

On the tarmac the portable air conditioning unit broke down – which meant by the time the aircraft took off and the aircraft’s own air conditioning switched in we were on a very hot airplane. Two seats away was an American woman – one of those who have been here too long – dressed like a local and adopting what I believe is called “the lotus position” in her seat.


This week’s hotel was The Trident in Gurgaon. It is closer to our company’s offices and recommended by our security consultants as the most secure hotel for us to stay at.

As hotels go I have to admit it’s “something else” – lots of water screens and incredibly high ceilings. It sort of has the feeling of walking into an English cathedral. My first night there I went to their Indian restaurant where they had a group playing classical Indian music on sitar and associated instruments.

The flight back on Friday was delayed by about an hour – and this week when I turned on the TV all I got to see was England 102 all out at Headingley!

Anyway, next week will hopefully be my last trip to Delhi – I fly tomorrow and come back Thursday – and on Friday night am off to Thailand for a week’s holiday.

Delhi

Wednesday saw the boss and me making our trip to Delhi – a place my driver helpfully informed me is the capital of India

We caught the 17.05 flight with Jet Airways. I got a window seat next to the emergency exit over the wing – so was instructed by the nice hostess on what I had to do in case of emergency. Saddled with such immense responsibility we took off on time – and to my surprise we actually had edible food in the meal we were served.

Delhi touchdown was at 19.35 – and after collecting our bags and meeting the hotel limo representative we had a brief walk across a building site before climbing into the limo for a trip through the traffic to the hotel that took about 40 minutes.

The Sheraton hotel we stayed in was very nice – and their restaurant serves quite a good buffet evening meal. The most noticeable thing about Delhi was that the people dress in a less traditional manner than is the case in Chennai.

Thursday was a long day at our Delhi offices – we got back to the hotel about 8.40 and headed again for the buffet. Next morning we were away at about 9 to the airport for the 10.25 flight back to Chennai. The lounge area of the airport is certainly a lot nicer than it was in 1996 when I spent a day there due to a plane breaking down.


Back at my apartment that evening am pleased to discover that my landlord has fixed the sat box on the TV and I can watch the cricket. Even better when I turn it on England have discovered how to bowl and Australia are 203-8!

Next week I get to do it all again...............