Friday night was “team bonding” night as YMOTG took his group of staff out for some fun. We started with some ten-pin bowling at MBK, which got everyone loosened up and laughing. A friend of mine once told me about the perverse pleasure he used to derive from taking tiny thai women bowling and watching them struggle to throw a ball that was a quarter of their body weight down the lane, and I have to say he was right.

It was hilarious seeing a 40 kilogram girl waddling down the lane and dumping the ball with a giant thud, only to see it travel about 10 metres before it hit the gutter time after time. I’d only recently learned a new Thai phrase “som num na!” which basically means something like “sucked in / too bad / loser!”. The first time I said it I received many laughs from everyone, but it backfired on me when I threw a few bad balls of my own, and soon I had seven Thais pointing at me and screaming “SOM NUM NA!” every time I threw a gutter ball.

Later we saw a Thai movie called “Jom Khamung Wej” (“Necromancer”) – an over-the-top horror flick with some really graphic scenes in it. Well shot and kind of entertaining if you go in for long drawn out close-ups of people slitting their own throats etc, but I think everyone was glad to see the end of the film. Several three-litre barrels of Asahi beer at Suan Lum Night Bazaar later, and we were all back in the laughing mood again, ending the night on a good note.

The weekend was spent getting blisters, bruises and burns as we once again went yacht racing off Jom Tien. The saturdays race was an absolute disaster, as everything that could go wrong went terribly wrong, though Sunday saw us break a new personal speed record of 18 knots in the boat, so we must have done something right.

So now I’m back to work this morning nursing my wounds and trying to get as much coffee and gatorade down my throat as possible. The monitor in front of me is still swaying as my brain fights to regain my land legs, I feel like I’ve aged 20 years in two days, and I’m here whining like a girl about the hard work involved in sailing sports boats. I think Waylon Smithers was right when he said “women and sea men don’t mix.”

*The obscure title of this blog entry may be made clearer here or downloaded here.