19 Years Southeast Asia - the jungle restaurant runs quite well (Part 10) 🌴

Sok Sabai dear Steemians, on the elephant island "Koh Chang", the main season has begun. The first one for my partner and me. We had meanwhile become acquainted with the restaurant business quite well. That means more my partner because I didn't have a work permit and therefore wasn't allowed to work in my shop. But I should also have enough to do.

While in the restaurant everything was fine and ready for the tourists, behind it, in the hut where we lived, there were a few problems. The hut stood on stilts about 1.5 m high, had only one room and a veranda. The floor consisted of boards cut from the trunk of a coconut palm tree. The walls were made of a material that looked like asbestos to me and the roof was traditionally covered with straw mats.

Die Termiten nagten schon an verschiedenen Stellen der Hütte. Dies führte dazu, dass eine der Dielen unter mir nachgab und ich mit einem Bein durchbrach. Glücklicherweise gab es zu dieser Jahreszeit keinen Regen, weil das Dach auch einige Leckagen hatte. Aber all das war harmlos gegen die Ameisen, die uns mitten in der Nacht im Schlaf angegriffen haben.

Of course, I didn't know what was going on when I was suddenly awakened by many small twinges on my body. When I turned on the light I saw the disaster. Thousands of ants romped all over the bed. Immediately we took the mattress and all the bedding out onto the veranda and sprayed the hut with an ant repellent. Only after all ants had been removed and the for sure very unhealthy repellent had evaporated, we could sleep for a few hours more.

We then did something so that ants couldn't bother us again, but I can't remember exactly what it was. But what I can still remember very well are all the island tourists who came to our restaurant. Now I was also stipulated a little bit more because most of them wanted to have a chat with me while eating. People were interested in how I came to the island and what I had experienced so far.

Beach bars and restaurants at White-Sand-Beach, Koh Chang

I learned that some of the guests were not the first time on the island and some of them even stayed there for several months. There were guests who visited us only once, there were guests who came more often and there were guests who came to us every day and stayed for hours. We had a few hammocks, there were books to borrow and there was always good music. We had added a few simple western dishes to our menu, always keeping everything within a reasonable price range.

On top of that, I introduced a custom that did not exist in the gastronomic world of the island before. Like the Italian Restaurant at the corner in my hometown in Germany, I served every guest a free schnapps after a meal. For this, I took the moonshine, which I had already mentioned in the previous contribution. It was cheap and I got it only a few steps away from our restaurant directly from the source. I never thought that the older, permanently drunk
moonshiner lady would once become a business partner of mine.

The tourists, to whom I told the truthful story of the origin of the liquor, were thrilled. This went so far that some of them let empty bottles be filled with it for taking them back home as a souvenir. I never got to know if they came through customs with it.

Surprisingly fast a group of regular guests had formed, which consisted of the most different people. There was the elderly sympathetic Dutchman who smoked his joint after every meal, the little Italian who allegedly had fled from the foreign legion. The German woman, who for months tried in vain to form a meditation group in my restaurant, the Austrian couple who came to the island with a lot of money and big plans, the Israeli fashion designer and many others.

When at peak times all four large tables were occupied, I always looked at my partner with a bit of concern, who sometimes could hardly keep up with all the cooking. Since she refused to hire a kitchen helper, I thought it would be okay if she did everything on her own. That it wasn't like that I was supposed to find out a few months later.

But first my parents came to visit us, then my cousin and her whole family and then my business partners with whom I originally traveled to Thailand. At the time when this gang was with us, things were, of course, going particularly chaotic. I can still remember exactly how one of them came to us one afternoon with his longstanding Thai girlfriend.

She was known for being extremely jealous. In the course of the afternoon, both of them drank a lot, so that she started arguing again because he allegedly looked at another woman too intensely. One word gave the other, which was still okay, but when she suddenly jumped up, grabbed her handbag and pulled out a long knife, it was time to intervene.

Everything went lightning fast, my friend tried to get away from her immediately. I stood propitious so that I could grab her from behind and two other guests also jumped up and held her arms. She dropped the knife on her own but wanted to continue with her fists. After a while, she calmed down again and the business continued normally. You might not believe it, but after this incident, they were together still for years... that's Thailand.

Next time it will continue my adventures on the Thai island "Chang". I too should learn that it is not only advantageous to be with a Thai woman.

Stay tuned, folks. Upvote, resteem and follow me!

<- Back to Part 9

How it all began