The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on Fire!!!
With the recent competition firmly behind us and the euphoria finally abating, I can return to my normal task of updating you with the happenings here in Pattaya and beyond.
A couple of weeks ago I was awoken by my mobile phone ringing away in the early hours of the morning. Bleary eyed and rather bad tempered, I struggled to answer the phone and whilst grunting ‘hello’ to the caller I heard Mrs. Boss’ mobile also start to ring. My caller had the audacity to ask me if everything was okay. Given that it was 03:30 in the morning and I had been woken from my slumber by this idiot it was hardly likely that I would describe anything as okay.
As I started to come to collect my senses, I realised the call was from a friend who had just learned that there had been a fire at the Jasmine and had assumed the news referred to our hotel. I began to inwardly panic and felt knots forming in the pit of my stomach and was convinced that the call Mrs. Boss was attending to was indeed confirming that our hotel was ablaze. I put my caller on hold and enquired as to what was happening only to find out a friend of Mrs. Boss was calling her with the same news and concern for our well being. We thanked our callers and Mrs. Boss called the night receptionist at Jasmine Mansion whilst I sat rigid waiting and praying he would answer quickly and before the fear that was gripping me turned into total paralysis. The phone was answered and an agitated Mrs. Boss was chatting away firing questions off without, it appeared, waiting to give the receptionist any chance to answer. She eventually turned to me and smiled telling me that the hotel was fine and there had been no fire.
When we arrived at work the following day the news filtered through that there had been a fire at the Jasmine Hotel located only a short distance away from our establishment. Fortunately the fire was not serious and there were no casualties. It appears that at this hotel, some of the rooms have ‘hot-plates’. A soon- to-depart guest had used these hot plates and neglected to turn them off before putting his suitcase on top of them and going out for the last few hours of his holiday. I am given to understand that there was a small fire in the guilty party’s room and some smoke filled corridors. Thankfully the smoke detectors did their job and everyone was evacuated from the building without any injuries (and the hotel only suffering minimal damage). The best part of this incident was an article covering the fire that appeared in one of the local Pattaya newspapers a few days later. The journalist wrote, “As the fire alarm sounded several middle-aged Western men could be seen fleeing from the hotel with their recently adopted daughters.” Quality reporting!
I was obviously pleased that the fire had not caused any harm to come to the guests or staff of that hotel and also that the damage was minimal. However, if truth be told, my greatest relief was that the fire was not at our establishment but somewhere else.
Less than a week after the fire I was staying overnight at our hotel as I was required for cooking duties the following morning. It is far easier for me to stay in the hotel, if there is a spare room, when I have to be on duty from just after seven in the morning than traveling in from our home. I had retired to bed reasonably early and was sound asleep when I was awoken by the room phone ringing. By the time I had woken sufficiently to realise that this was not part of my dream, the phone had ringing had ceased. I presumed there to be an issue with a guest or prospective customer and meandered over to the phone to call the receptionist but before I got a reply there was now loud banging on my room door. I went to the door and saw the night receptionist through the spy hole and opened the door sufficiently to peer around. “Boss, quick, come quick boss, hotel on fire,” the receptionist blurted out before turning and running back down the stairs. This could not be happening, surely. I thought, this must either be a practical joke, which if it is has no humour attached to it whatsoever, or alternatively I am actually still asleep and this is a dream. Reality hit me, I was awake, I was standing naked in a cold air-conditioned room and I had just been told by a very frightened receptionist that the hotel was on fire.
I dressed quickly and headed downstairs presuming this is where the fire was, being the direction the receptionist had headed after alerting me. I could not smell or hear anything that would indicate a fire until I accessed our lobby which was at zero visibility and filled with (what I at the time presumed to be) smoke. I went towards the front doors and then saw the receptionist, one of the hotel guests holding a fire extinguisher and several other people gathered around the front of the restaurant next door to Jasmine Mansion. They all then started to speak at once telling me what had happened. The first thing that became clear to me was that there had not been a fire at the hotel but a fire at the adjacent restaurant. The gas fired kebab cooker located to the outside of the restaurant had caught alight and sent flames shooting four to five meters in the air lapping over the balcony of that building and also across one of our first-floor balconies and the hotel awning. The hotel guest who was armed with the extinguisher had been unable to sleep and was standing outside taking in the night air when the fire started. He had apparently darted back into the hotel, collected a fire extinguisher and put out the fire along with an equally armed local bar owner.
About twenty minutes later, what I presume passes for the Pattaya fire brigade arrived. It was actually two men in a white van with “Fire Department” written on the side, but a distinct lack of hose pipes or any other device likely to dowse flames or save lives. They exited the van, saw the fire was out, spoke to a couple of Thai motorcycle taxi drivers for a couple of minutes then returned to their van and drove off. I had endeavoured to explain to them that it would be advisable to check that there was nothing alight or smoldering on the upper floors where I had been told the flames had reached but they were completely disinterested in such a suggestion. Next on the scene were the police who arrived moments before the restaurant owner. The police thought all of this was very amusing and the only question they asked was, “How much did that machine cost?” and, on hearing the answer, laughed loudly, returned to their vehicle and also drove off. The restaurant owner did go and check the upper floors to his building and reported back that all was fine — by the way we called our guests in the balcony rooms earlier who had advised us that there were no problems inside of our building.
As the receptionist and I returned to the hotel, we noticed that what we had thought to be smoke was, in fact, the dry powder from the extinguishers. This powder no longer impaired visibility, instead it had nestled down onto every surface we had and, as you can well imagine, a long night of clearing up was immediately embarked upon. The clean-up operation was finished just in time for me to start my duties for the day as chef, which I worked my way through without ever shaking off the incredible coincidence of these two incidents occurring within a matter of days of each other.
