Fourth Report, Thailand July 2022

Fourth Thailand Trip Report 2022 July 20, 2022. So long day. Renewed my Sportsmen card for another six years. I hope I live long enough to use it. It expired a year ago and I had extended it for year ending in June. It allegedly gives discounts at golf courses. I am not so sure now that is the case. Went to Central festival shopping center for more money. Golf eats it up money. I then went and played bridge Wednesday afternoon. Involves a long motorcycle ride. Thrilling. Actually all the trips above involved long motorcycle rides. Bridge here has developed into a whole separate phenomenon. They do not use convention cards. Also, the playing cards are filthy. Cards can only be obtained from certain outlets in Thailand and they are very expensive. Cards brought in from out of country, not through authorized dealers can result in legal fines. That means, the cards are used over and over again. Really. Stick to your fingers used. The bridge group does not have a bridge card sorter into the duplicate bridge plastic card holder slots so we hand deal them and insert them into the slots ourselves. I repeatedly had to resort to redealing the cards into four stacks because the cards would not come out correctly. Cards had stuck together. At one time this bridge group here, a few years back has been arrested as a group, hauled down to the police station and fined because a disgruntled worker at the place where the bridge was played at reported that they were gambling. An article had been written about it the ACBL magazine. I had just left Thailand a few weeks earlier and returned home and was fortunate to not have been arrested (can lead to being barred from returning to Thailand). This resulted in the leader of the group being called to report to a Thailand judge over a period of time. I had never seen signs of gambling there. Duplicate bridge internationally and locally in the US is played for points and the satisfaction of doing well. Many of the players are familiar faces for years of playing here and are terrific players. John Hadden, Australian retired Major from the Australian Army was my partner Wednesday (and one of the coordinators of the group) played bridge with me. He told me that during COVID his wife had taken a trip to Australian and was not allowed to return to Thailand for a period of two years. Wow. Two of the players are Dutch and from the Netherlands. When they talk, it sounds like dog’s barking. They are both also hard of hearing and the noise can be very distracting. Other players were yelling at them. I can see why the Dutch over the years were not the most successful colonizers. Who wants to learn a language that sounds like dog barks? So, this bridge group plays a lot more hands than I am used to. We played 50 hands yesterday and on the 49th hand I had trouble seeing the cards still overcoming jet lag. I split a set of 7 spades into two sections of my hand and thought they were clubs and opened 1 no-trump. A significant error, and when the director was called when I trumped a lead, we were assessed a penalty. I had made the contract of four spades. Too bad, as a developing player, I had played the previous hands fairly well. What did not help was the person who called the director is a person, I had just objected to giving constant lessons to his partner after each hand. He loved to do that and was a little upset at my request. I later told him that I had not regrets and “tough bounce” if he was up set with me. We ended up next to last with three tables in operation full. Where we are playing is a restaurant and a master chef owns it. I was fortunate to be able to buy a vegetarian pie, they warmed it for me and I brought it back to the hotel and it was a delicious eat. July 21, 2022, Thursday Today I was to play with a new golf group. Everything was going well until we got to the golf course. Very nice course named Burapha. One of the best. The rain came down in sheets and we played in it until it was too much and then drove back to the meeting place. Of all the years I have come over here, this is the first time we had to stop play because it was so bad. Previously we only needed a temporary delay. Not today. To make matters worse, the way back to the hotel we had a long delay on the highway while a party of the Royal Thai Family drove by in a monster caravan going at an extreme speed. They flew by after our long wait. I got a rain check and it means nothing to me because it is unlikely that I will return to that golf course this year. There is a expiration date on it.