THE SPA CHRONICLES: D-Day

It takes me a long time to fall asleep on the night I decide to fire PP. My brain just won’t shut down. I am, on one hand, amazed at what a skilled con artist and liar he really is, and how brazen. It’s one thing to pocket a few Baht from a prosperous business, but we are new and anything but prosperous. There’s very little to steal. On the other hand, I am angry, not that he stole money from me, but that he mistreated the staff and, possibly, the customers. 

As all of these thoughts are rolling, endlessly, through my sleeplessness, I realize that I care more about the staff than I do about the actual spa. And I am particularly pissed that PP fired someone, without reason, saying that it was on my command. I can stomach a lot, but I can’t abide people being treated carelessly. I can only wonder what other things were done in my name that I have no knowledge of. 

Sleepless in Samui

Eventually, I manage to pour enough vodka onto my busy brain to slow it down enough for me to catch a little sleep. Still, the morning is not welcome. I know what is ahead of me and I am dreading it. I reason that it has to be done to save my business, to make an example, to vindicate those that were mistreated and a dozen other reasons. And yet, still, it’s not a task I relish. I remind myself that he fucked me over, and that’s enough for me to drag my ass out of bed. 

This morning, the hideous coffee is good for my mild hangover, and I also decide to visit one of the little places near the spa for English (Thai-style) breakfast. 

Breakfast options at the end of our street

Other breakfast options at the end of our street

By the time I am finished breakfast, the hour of doom is drawing near. 

In spite of the fact that Patrick is busy shopping for his menu at Pride Bar, he has very kindly agreed to meet me and act as translator so that PP understands exactly what’s happening. Patrick arrives at the spa and we all sit down in the reception area together. I explain to PP that his massage is awful, and give him the reasons why. I tell him that it does not make any sense financially for me to pay him to ‘manage’ the other two boys who know how to do massage, especially when he cannot speak English to the customers.  I also tell him that I have spoken with Mr. Nut and am very displeased with the way the situation was handled and that I think it demonstrates PP’s inexperience as a manager. I tell him that his services are no longer required and that he may pack his things and leave today, and that he may hand over to me any Sai Roong cash he has on hand. He says there is none.

 

I am ready for him to challenge me, to fight for his job, and I have a whole list of questions and inconsistencies ready to present to him. But he does not fight. He sits very quietly, eyes cast down, hugging a pillow. No matter how many times I prompt, he says he has nothing to say. So I draw the meeting to a close.

While I still have Patrick handy, we call Mr. Pat over to explain to him what’s happening. Pat is completely shocked. Speechless, but accepting. I silently wonder if Pat is on Team PP and if I need to keep an eye on him, or if he’s just oblivious to things.

Firing PP is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I hope I don’t ever have to do it again. I am a mess. I decide that I really need a drink to calm my nerves even though it is barely just noon. Since I am now obligated to spend the rest of the day at the spa, because Mr. Pat is the only staff working and he speaks no English, Patrick very kindly texts Peter at Pride Bar, which doesn’t open until 5:00,  and Peter appears with a beer for me.

Peter and I sit in front of Sai Roong for awhile, drinking beer and chatting. It is calming for me. I explain to him what’s happened and let him know that the new manager, Mr. Long, will be starting in a few days. Mr. Long was managing for Ajay, but was happy to come work for me and Ajay agreed. Unfortunately, it is Songkran, Thai New Year, a holiday that is meant to be spent with family. So, Mr. Long, like everyone else in Thailand, is going home for a few days. Until Mr. Long returns, Mr. Nut will act as manager. Not only is this a gesture on my part that will hopefully make up for him being wrongly dismissed, but Nut speaks enough English to deal with customers and knows how to up-sell.

Eventually, Peter goes to carry on with his day, and I am left with Mr. Pat. We sit in silence on a blistering hot day, nothing to say, no customers in sight. I begin to understand the mind-numbing boredom these guys must go through when there are no customers. And there are many days with no customers. Eventually, I can’t surf the internet anymore, or micro-arrange the furniture, or pace up and down the empty street. I explain to Pat, in bad Thai and sign language, that I’ll be back in one and a half hours. Pat looks terrified at the thought of being alone, but I sincerely doubt there will be any customers. 

I drive to a new-ish spa that Peter has told me about. He said he thought they’d done it up nicely and gave good massage. In the interest of getting a good massage while also checking out the competition, I get a one-hour aromatherapy massage from a very nice young guy, Thanna, who turns out to be the owner. His massage is spectacular. And, even better, I can just relax into it and drift away since I don’t have to assess his skills.

After the massage, I introduce myself and tell him that I own Sai Roong. He tells me he knows PP. I smile and remain vague, knowing that the island telegraph will very soon inform him that PP no longer works for me. He seems genuinely pleased when I tell him that I think is massage is fantastic, and he begs me to give him a good review on TripAdvisor. Business is bad for everyone on Samui these days, and every little bit helps. 

I return to Sai Roong a bit more relaxed. Mr. Pat tells me there has been no customers. It is now past 5:00, Pride Bar is open, and since I can’t leave Pat alone at the spa, I decide to spend the night at the bar. It is, conveniently, right next door, and it is my last night on Samui. I have accomplished a great deal in a short time, and I am going to allow myself to have one night of silly fun with all the various eccentric and colourful characters that pass through Pride Bar. 

I drink, I eat, I talk to strangers and acquaintances, I play a little pool, I flirt with the dancer boys from Starz Cabaret who have come to drink….I enjoy myself thoroughly for the first time since arriving on the island.

As I was not in the least interested in picture taking on this night, these pics are gleefully borrowed from Pride Bar's website and re-purposed here.

 Crazy Terry from Starz Cabaret and a galpal

By midnight, poor Mr. Pat has had only one customer, and a troublesome one at that, so much so that I end up giving the jerk a discount. I tell Pat to shut the place down for the night, which he does, gladly. And I head home, while I still can, to pack and organise for departure tomorrow.

THE SPA CHRONICLES: The Nut Cracks At Last

The jet lag is slowly wearing off. Instead of waking up at 5:00 a.m. I am now waking up closer to 8:00. I should have my body clock back on schedule by the time I have to leave. (insert scrinchy face)

On this morning, I simply can’t face the hideous instant coffee anymore. After one cup of that swill, I jump on my scooter and head to Fisherman’s Village in Bophut. This is a quaint, though very touristy area, packed with restaurants, tour operators and chachki shops. 

There is also a very good coffee shop, Karma Sutra, where I can curl up in a Thai-style day-bed, with a REAL cup of coffee, and either watch the shop keepers opening their stores, or read the local newspaper, or just gaze out to sea. 

My desperation for coffee becomes clear to me when I realize that I am drinking a latte, the world’s hottest beverage, in an open-air coffee shop where the outside temperature is already verging on 35 Celsius (91F). My face is flushed, my entire body is slick with sweat, and yet I continue to sip the sweet, seductive flavour of real coffee. It is worth every drop of moisture lost through my over-worked pores. 

I decide to extend my peaceful morning and take a brief walk down the narrow street.  I love the quiet at this hour, the stray dogs,  the tiny stores crammed with crap, the restaurants setting their tables out on the beach.

 Once a week, this narrow street is completely closed off to traffic and turned into a "walking street". Vendors put their tables out, restaurants add outdoor seating and the whole atmosphere becomes very genial and carnival-like. Each community on Samui has a walking street on a different night. One night Chaweng, one night Lamai, one night Fisherman's Village, etc.

I head back to my scooter, stopping to dip my toes in the ocean on the way. The air is so hot that the ocean feels like bathwater and offers no relief from the heat. No matter. There is shopping to do.

I make a stop at a little store just outside of Bophut to buy the boys some Thai fisherman's pants. I’ve wanted them in some kind of a uniform since the beginning, another thing that Ajay never got around to doing. The selection at this store is small, but the price is certainly right. I settle on a deep green and negotiate a price for 6 pairs. I can’t put together too many sentences in Thai, but I’m good with the numbers, and I usually get a discount just for the attempt at bartering in Thai. 

Next stop, HomePro for a few small items. I want every customer to receive a cool foot-wash while they decide what services they want, so I'll need a basin. Also, I’d like everyone to be served home-made, chilled, ginger tea on arrival, so I'll need a pitcher. As well, there are a few other small supplies that are needed. On my way out of the store, while trying to fit my purchases onto the scooter, I hear a monkey howling in the trees nearby and am reminded that I am on a tropical, jungle island. Reality creeps in at the strangest times.

Packing the car, island-style

Back at the spa, I unload my purchases and explain what everything is for and when and how they are to be used. PP decides to use me as the test case for the first foot wash before he gives me a massage. There’s something nice about having your feet bathed in cool water when you’re in a hot country. And the boys float orchid blossoms in the water, which I think is a lovely touch.

I opt for an aloe vera massage from PP. It is, well, terrible. Truly terrible. Possibly one of the worst massages I’ve ever had, and as a long time massage-whore,  I’ve had some pretty bad massages. He splashes the ice cold aloe vera onto my back, instead of putting it on his hands first. He is a tiny man, which is fine, but doesn’t know how to use his body weight to apply pressure, and his tiny hands have no strength either. His massage has no structure and he moves from body part to body part at random. It’s even possible that he pulled a muscle in my neck from twisting my arms awkwardly while I was lying on my stomach. I am less than impressed. Dumbfounded, even.

I take care of a few more administrative things, and chat with Ajay online about Mr. Nut.  Ajay promises that Nut will show up tonight. When I am finished, it is past cocktail hour, and I haven’t eaten much of anything all day. So, back to Pride Bar it is.

More drinks, more socializing, more avoiding Terry, and then, eternally optimistic as I am, I head off once again to Ajay’s spa to (hopefully) meet the elusive Mr. Nut. 

As I pull up to Ajay’s place, he is also just arriving. He tells me that he actually went in search of Mr. Nut, found him in a bar and dragged him out, demanding that he show up for the meeting. A very un-Thai-like move for Ajay, but an effective one. A few minutes later, Mr. Nut arrives. 

Mr. Nut is nervous, and clearly uncomfortable. I'm sure he feels like he's in front of a tribunal, so I tell him that I simply want to hear his story and give him a chance to defend himself. I let him know that Ajay is present to act as translator, so speaking in Thai is fine if it allows for more detail and/or comfort. The first move is mine, apologizing for the way Mr. Nut was ejected from the spa with no warning and no money.  I tell Nut all the things that PP told me about him and ask him to give his version of the story. It is, as one might expect, the complete opposite of PP’s version. I ask Ajay to translate very clearly, (by using not-polite Thai), if there is any truth to PP’s allegations of Nut having drugs at the spa, stressing, again, that drugs are unforgivable and that I asked PP to obtain proof before taking any action.  Nut is absolutely emphatic about never once, ever having had drugs at the spa, and insists that there's no possible way PP could have evidence to the contrary.  I look to Ajay for his take on it all since Nut has worked for Ajay and they know each other well. A quick nod from Ajay confirms that I should believe Mr. Nut’s story. And I do believe him. It is clear that he has suffered at the hands of the child-tyrant PP.

I offer Mr. Nut my thanks, and a few thousand Baht as an apology for the difficulty he went through trying to find a place to live, and I send him on his way. Ajay is looking at me, waiting for my thoughts. I tell him that I feel like I have to fire PP. Ajay agrees, and reminds me that it looks as though PP gets rid of anyone who either questions his authority, or knows too much about him. I have no actual proof that PP is stealing from me, but it’s pretty clear that there are many things that he’s hiding and/or lying about. 

I tell Ajay that I will fire PP in the morning. Ajay thinks it’s best and says that he will keep his phone turned off because he doesn’t want any calls from PP begging for work.  

I am too stressed out to return to Pride Bar. I go back to my apartment, pour a vodka from the freezer and slip into the pool to gaze at the stars. My head is spinning, my stomach is churning. I've never had to fire anyone before.

THE SPA CHRONICLES: Cracking The Nut

The day starts early again. Very early. Not so bad really. It’s not a part of the day that I get to see very often, and if you have to watch the sunrise, an island in the Gulf of Thailand isn’t a bad place to do it.

It occurs to me, as I’m drinking my hideous instant coffee, that I have been on the island for days, and haven’t even thrown my body into the ocean yet. This is an indication of how distracted and stressed I am by the spa, because the ocean is renewal for me. It continues to be a mystery to me that a boy who was born in the prairie and raised in the arctic north can have such a love affair with the ocean. The ocean is where I am truly happy. The only place where I feel that I am complete. I have said many times that when I step into the ocean after a long absence from it, it feels like a missing part of myself returns, every atavistic gene in my body reveling in being returned to its birthplace in the primordial ooze. It is a spiritual experience for me, which is why I am so surprised at myself for not doing it sooner. 

Since Aiman is not chasing his cats around the pool this morning, there is nothing holding me back from taking a dip in the sea before the day takes me over. I finish reading my blogs, finish my tragic instant coffee, and jump on my scooter. 

I park my scooter outside the spa and walk across the road to the beach. The beautiful thing about Chaweng being a party town is that the beach is deserted in the morning, most of the tourists having only gone to bed a few hours ago. There is the occasional jogger, the odd Thai fishing boat, but mostly, the beach belongs to me, a vast expanse of sand stretching miles in either direction.

Sadly, at this hour, on this day, it is also low tide, so even after wading in the direction of the open ocean for a few minutes, the water is only up to my thighs. I give up on trying to reach neck-deep water and lay down in sweet, healing, emerald green liquid. I close my eyes, and breathe, and search my mind for that peace the usually comes so quickly. Alas, I am too distracted, too focused on the tasks ahead of me to let go completely. It occurs to me that it’s a bit like bad sex. You really want it, but for whatever reason, it’s just not going to happen like you hoped it would. And, as in the case of bad sex, it’s best to just admit defeat and move on. So I do. 

I pick up my scooter from the spa and drive to a furniture store that Ajay told me about. I want spa clients to be able to lock their personal belongs away because Ajay has had problems in the past with staff stealing money from clients. I had checked for lockers at the Makro Cash and Carry,(an institution for small business on Samui) but the only option there was an 18-locker unit, which is a bit ridiculous for a spa with 3 treatment rooms. And I certainly wasn't about to spend 8,000 Baht !!!

The furniture store, the name of which I can neither pronounce nor spell, is run by an odd, yet charming Burmese guy. He has wide selection of lockers that are more suited to my needs, and they come in a variety of sizes and colours. Perfect. I choose a 4-door model, in green to go with the spa colours, and ask if they can deliver it if I supply the address. They offer, instead, to load my purchase into a motorcycle with a side-car, and follow me to the spa, all included in the price of course. Having my purchase follow behind my scooter makes me feel more 'local' than ever before. 

We arrive at the spa, purchase bouncing merrily in the side-car, and I tip the delivery guys a few hundred Baht and send them on their way.  After finding the perfect position for the lockers, outside the shower room, it is time for my assessment-massage with Mr. Jay. Once again, I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of massage I receive. Mr. Jay has good hands, and does some really brilliant things to the muscles in my legs. My only complaint is that he uses WAY too much massage oil. At the end of the massage, I feel like I’ve been prepped for Turkish Oil Wrestling. (Google it) 

With the help of my new friend Patrick (Thai name, Surasak), who is a fluent Thai/English speaker, I gather the boys to give them my feedback on their massages. Mr. Pat has no English at all, and Mr. Jay understands only a little.  PP is doing his best to look managerial whilst sitting in on the meeting, pen and paper in hand. 

Once the assessment meeting is over, PP seizes the opportunity to use Patrick as translator, and asks if he can tell me some of his future plans. He lays out his plan to get a credit card system installed, free of charge, his plans on how banking and cash flow will be handled in the future, his plans to increase business etc. All of this is admirable, and most of it quite sensible, but it does seem odd to me that these plans should be presented now, knowing, as I do, that PP already called Ajay to ask for a job. It smacks of a desperation. I wonder if he has even thought about the fact Ajay may have informed me of this, or perhaps he thinks that because Ajay and I argue we don’t talk about other things. As I have still not yet had the chance to talk to Mr. Nut, I tell Mr. PP that I will consider everything he’s presented. And I also let him know that tomorrow, it will be his turn to give me a massage. He pales. 

Once again, it is after 5:00, Pride Bar is open, and I have not yet had a cocktail. I park my exhausted ass in a bar stool and, once again, enjoy some social time, some wine, and some of Patrick’s (Surasak’s) delicious, home-cooked Thai food. (Soooooo yummy). 

We, Ajay & I,  have arranged another meeting with Mr. Nut at Ajay’s spa. I depart from the bar and head over to Ajay’s place, praying that Mr. Nut shows up this time. When I arrive, as we wait for Mr. Nut, Ajay continues to tell me small bits of gossip he’s heard about PP. How he always seems to have a lot of gold jewellery, how he would allow people to believe that he was the owner of Sai Roong, how there was an incident with a customer complaining about stolen money, which PP never told me about. The more I hear about PP, the more I feel that a shit-storm is coming.

Once again, Mr. Nut does not show up.  This does not help my increasing frustration and agitation. I tell Ajay to tell Mr. Nut that tomorrow is his last chance to redeem himself, to tell his story, to perhaps even win his job back because things are going to be changing. 

In the name of therapeutic self-medicating, I return to Pride Bar and immerse myself in noise, friends old and new, and in the constant game of trying to get away from crazy Terry, who is still calling me Sally for some reason.