Basil Fawlty comes to Pattaya

Published on July 29, 2007

RIFF-RAFFLES

BY KEVIN MEACHER

Published by Bangkok Press

Available at leading bookshop

Reviewed by James Eckardt

The Nation

 Here you are, an overweight, middle-

aged Brit with a Thai wife, two sons

and a packet socked away from London real-

estate deals. What better than to spend your

golden years supine in a hammock, basking

in the sun in Pattaya? Simply turning an

apartment block you own into Jasmine

Mansions, a 23-room boutique hotel. Haw!

Haw! Haw!

The laughs are already coming. Hiring

incompetent staff? Dealing with shady con

tractors? Coping with lunatic guests?

Basil Fawlty, welcome to Pattaya.

Kevin Meacher has written an hilarious

account of his tribulations as owner of the

"Riff-Raffles" hotel. Bug-eyed bewilderment,

sputtering rage, babbling confusion, spastic

slapstick - Meacher goes through the whole

gamut as he runs full-tilt into the brick wall

of the Thai way of doing things.

"The biggest problem for me was that

there didn't appear to be any sense of

urgency," he writes in an early diary entry on

Christmas Day, 2004. Construction dead

lines for two new floors had been cavalierly

ignored. Meacher arrives on site to find work

at a complete standstill.

"Our building was being used as tempo

rary accommodation for the workmen, there

were hammocks hung from the ceilings,

there were dirty clothes everywhere, there

were cooking pots across the floor and the

entire building was full of plastic bags...  One

couple was actually 'on the job', albeit not the

job I was expecting them to be on!"

Meacher plunges into heavy construction

work, while his wife Sujinda (a steely eyed

Thai version of Sybil Fawlty) handles the

staff on the first four floors. The place is packed

with displaced tourists following the tsunami. When

the maids quit, the couple turn to changing sheets

themselves.

"I am especially fond of finding used condoms under the

sheets, that really sets me up nicely for the day, I can tell you,"

Meacher writes. Meanwhile, the couple go looking for a temporary home and are

astonished by the astronomical rents. "Such

were the ridiculous demands made, I had

been thinking that perhaps whilst asleep

someone had tattooed COMPLETE TOSSER across my forehead."

Back at the hotel, two drunken louts in their underpants, merrily shrieking obsceni

ties, have tossed out a pair of glass balcony doors to the pavement four floors below. Just

a normal day. After three months on the job, Meacher

reflects: "The behaviour of farangs, unfortunate ly the English in particular, borders on the bar

baric... The Thai people here are also driving me around the bend.

Their work ethic is non-existent and they live in a bubble." And off Meacher goes on

a rant about his sublimely oblivious staff. He'll tell someone to do something, the

employee will nod and do the opposite. Leading to a towering temper tantrum,

to tears and a disappearing act. "The other character trait guaran

teed to have me climbing up the wall is the commonly seen inane grin,"

Meacher writes. "This grin appears whenever you suggest to someone that

they have made a mistake… It is as

though they are mocking you!"

As you can imagine, Meacher

eventually begins to loosen up and roll with

the punches. "I have changed and, I believe,

changed for the better," he writes in his

introduction. "I have become more tolerant

and I have started to understand a new and

very different culture."

But what fun it is to watch him learn!

He also makes some physical progress.

With all the work he puts in painting and

decorating the hotel rooms, plus healthy

Thai food, he finds that he has dropped from

100 to 80 kilos. The hard work has also won

him brownie points from fire-breathing

Sybil. He explains the points/marks system:

"Brownie points are awarded for exemplary behaviour, however they have a relatively short shelf-life. They need to be used

almost immediately...

"Black marks are accrued for whatever

your partner considers to be unacceptable

behaviour. They have a long shelf life and in

some cases can last a lifetime. Black marks

are rarely ever removed from your record..."

Sujinda awards Meacher a night on the

town. He is playing pool with a bar girl when

he makes a brilliant shot and she throws her

arms around him in delight, which is the

exact moment that his wife walks into the

bar. Back home, he faces a torrent of abuse.

His wife demands that he empty this pockets

so she can see what's left of his money. Then:

"I looked at the pile of coins, crumpled

notes of various denominations, my cigarettes, my lighter and my handkerchief. I

then screamed, although no sound was emit

ted, as I saw, perched on the top of this pile,

my death warrant ... a pair of lacy white

panties."

He has no idea how the bar girl managed

this or why, but the panties are literally as

well as metaphorically thrown in his face

forever more. Eternal black mark!

James Eckardt's eighth book, "Singapore

Girl", published by Monsoon Books, is on |

sale at Kinokuniya, Bookazine and Asia

Books.