Saturday 15th February
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| Lotus flowers |
We have caught up
with a few more rallyfriends over the past few days.
Over dinner at Ya
Ya’s little beachfront restaurant (delicious and VERY cheap) I asked Chris and
Keith (Poco Andante) what had prompted them to take up this sailing life. They met in the UK in 1999. At the time, Keith had a 23’ yacht, where,
Chris said cheerfully, it was possible to be cold, wet and miserable all at the same time. She bought him a hand-held GPS for his
birthday –a newfangled gadget at the time.
When she looked at it, she noted that she was at 50 degrees north. What on
earth am I doing here?? she wondered.
Soon after they were on holiday in Musket Cove (Fiji) and met some
happycampers (ie cruisers) and that was that – they immediately sought and
bought Poco Andante, and they have not looked back.
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| Chris and Keith, Christmas, Rebak
I have just
downloaded a kindle book from Amazon – crazy rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan. I listened to an interview Richard Fidler
(King Of Interviewers) did with him last year, and put it on my list. He writes about the super-rich Chinese in
Singapore, Hon Kong, Beijing and how very competitive they are, with weddings
in particular. In his novel one of the
main characters has a wedding which cost $40 million. Richard Fidler asked Kevin if he had been
exaggerating greatly and he said, No no! There has apparently been a recent wedding,
in Singapore, which cost $120 million!!
Entertainment was by Cirque Soleil, with U2 was the wedding band… And
there was a parade of sports cars (Ferraris and the like) at the end of which
each wedding gift was given…a set of car keys so they could drive home. Until now I actually thought that Abi and
Gaetano’s wedding gift of a bag of sugared almonds, beautifully wrapped, was
the height of generosity and poshness…
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Keith’s son
recently married a Singapore girl. The
wedding was very splendid, although maybe not to quite the extent described
above. There were three venues and three
major events, across Singapore and Malaysia.
For the actual ceremony, they hired the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion (Georgetown, Penang,) for
three days… Chris said it was just wonderful, having the run of the place. Pete and I thought we were lucky just to have
a one hour tour… James and Bron??? What are you doing for your wedding??
There were lots of
weddings on the beach, and the rocks, yesterday. Someone I was talking to counted six! I got a glimpse of two, with my camera.
We talked to an
American sailor, Jim*, who said that he has been asked to be “marriage celebrant”
several times, here in Thailand.
Japanese couples are very pleased for him to get dressed up, and to
perform a mock ceremony – the real wedding ahs already occurred, in Japan. But he isn’t doing it again… Both times he
put in a lot of effort, and was his smiling friendly self, but as soon as his
duties were over, he was expected to disappear into the night without so much
as a glass of champagne…
* Jim, if anyone is interested, is looking for
a Mrs Jim to share his life with… He seems like a very nice bloke (retired lawyer, current amateur archaeologist) – I can pass
on any queries, as I have his email address…
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