Days in the Life of a Pattaya Hotel Owner

I am now another year older, although whether I am any wiser is somewhat questionable. I reached the age of 54 on the 21^-July and, although the mirror often proves me wrong, I still imagine myself as being in my mid thirties — sometimes younger than that. At least I am fortunate enough to I live in a country where young women will still look and smile alluringly at me. I accept that more often than not their x-ray vision is trained on my wallet rather than my small dumpy frame, complete with its reflective dome. None of the reasons for the behaviour of these lasses matters though,. At my age you start to take all such actions as being flattering. This is especially relevant knowing that back in the West you would not even be noticed by such visions of loveliness.

Every year, if possible, on the anniversary of my birth we take a trip to northeast Thailand where we visit Mrs. Boss’s mother and other family members. We then go to a boys’ orphanage close to Nong Khai where we provide a meal and assorted goodies for the one hundred or so children. These boys are aged between six and eighteen, and either have no parents or are from families who simply cannot afford to look after them. The facilities are okay, albeit rather basic and the institution is heavily reliant on donations from outside for anything more than the bare essentials.

The meal is prepared by the owners of a restaurant in Udon Thani who are known for their excellent noodle soups. The food for one hundred boys plus the administrators and our own ensemble costs in the region of 7,000 baht — that is ₤1 or $2 per head. There is also absolutely no Oliver Twist scenario. Should any boy want more then all he has to do is go and fill his bowl. The ‘goodies’ usually take the form of a basket of toiletries such as soaps, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, and talcum powder, as well as laundry detergent and fabric softener. Added to this we include some pens, pencils, writing paper, fruit juice and a few sweets. We also donate sports equipment; this year took along several dozen footballs, over fifty badminton racquets and shuttlecocks, plus several badminton nets. Very fortuitously, for her, a lady selling ice creams came onto the campus shortly after we arrived and we treated all the boys to an ice cream after their meal. With the final tally being over 1,000 baht, closer to a week’s rather than a day’s takings, I imagined the lady returning home with a huge smile and clutching her 1,000-baht note only to be accused by her husband of having gone ’short-time’ to earn so much!

I enjoy this charitable day. It makes me feel good to be giving something, however small, to those who are less fortunate. I also get to see how every baht is spent and received which is unusual with charitable donations. Unfortunately it is not prudent to donate cash, as a percentage will undoubtedly not reach the intended recipients. This day also serves as a good lesson for my children and gives them a small dose of reality that does them no harm at all. Usually for two or three days afterwards I do not receive any requests for toys from them — something of a record period.

This year’s visit was in the company of my friend Peter who arrived in Thailand from Baltimore, Maryland, USA on 18^-July and joined us in Udon Thani the following day. You will see a picture of Peter accompanying this story — he is endeavouring to eat all of the noodle soup before the children arrive! To be fair Peter did his bit and chipped in a fair proportion of this year’s expenditure, so I suppose it is reasonable to let him have a bowl of noodle soup in return.

After returning to our chosen hotel in Udon Thani, we managed an hour or so with our feet up, having been on the go since 6:00AM. It was then time to change and go out with friends and various family members for my birthday meal, complete with a wonderful Swenson’s Mocha ice-cream cake. We dined at the same restaurant that, two years to the day earlier, had seen young James, then aged three, attempt a balancing act between a couple of chairs and fail miserably. Unfortunately, as both Mrs. Boss and I had opened our mouths to tell him to stop, it was too late and the next couple of hours were spent in the emergency ward of the nearby hospital. Fortunately James’s injuries looked far worse than they were as blood gushed from his chin, just below the lip, covering me almost totally. I can still recall his screams of pain and panic attack although I was almost in the same state of panic as we sped towards the hospital. As it turned out, it was only a small cut and when cleaned up did not even require stitches. It was therefore with some degree of trepidation, that we entered the establishment this time around and although we enjoyed a pleasant evening, I do not think either Mrs. Boss or I totally relaxed.