We didn't expect to get a job offer back on Ko Phangan, however the project and the contract were favorable, and the deal clincher was the welcome news the building site served Earl Grey tea!

Back on Ko Phangan we checked into the Blue sea bungalow and after a couple of hours, Harry and his wife Leam pulled up with a yute load of Thai decorations they had been buying in Chiang Mai. The four of us drove over to Harry and Leams Thai mansion currently being built in the centre of Ko Phangan. The house is a traditional Thai design with a grass and tile roof, teak floors and window frames, brick and plaster walls, and all built on concrete posts one storey above the ground level. We crossed the moat (designed to keep the gazillions of ants out of the house) and walked up the entrance stairs. Around the whole house is a balcony, inside there was two bedrooms with bathrooms and a kitchen/dinning room. Even though it was a building site with dust and paint pots everywhere, it had a really nice feel to it and you could tell when it was finished it will look amazing.


We met Leam's dad who was working on the house and Harry gave us a tour of the house, showed us the half built swimming pool, a second smaller bungalow being built at the other end of the garden and the plot of land where he plans to build a giant pond with a small platform in the middle to relax on. I said to Harry when it is all finished will you permanently live in it? He replied I might just sell it for the profit. I asked him what sort of a person does he imagine would buy this type of home. He replied, "Oh some mad ****". Harry, more f words that Gordon Ramsey.



We stayed for dinner in the house, after removing the building tools from the kitchen table, we sat down and ate some tasty giant crabs and a papaya salad. We told them stories about our travels and they explained about the difficulties of Leam getting a visa into the UK. She was refused for the first five times and finally allowed the sixth. Harry and Leam were married last year and they run a small business called Budda magic, importing carved budda's into the UK and selling them at shows. Harry came to our wedding and told us it was while he sat in the church and listened to our Christian wedding he felt inspired to address the balance of Christianity in our country and resolved to import Buddas into the UK, hence he established Budda magic and had been successfully running the company for three years now. It was funny to hear our wedding inspired his business idea.



There is no water, gas or electricity in the house yet so we went back to the blue sea bungalows to wash and sleep. On the way back Harry told us they would be working on odd jobs around the house for the next two weeks and we said we would be happy to help out. The next morning Harry took us for breakfast back at the house and said he had a job for us if we wanted we could treat all the teak wood in the house with a special oil. We looked around, there was more wood than Sherwood forest, and said sure we would take the job.



For the next two days we spent our time on our hands and knees, treating the floor boards, trying not to paint our selves into a corner and trying (unsuccessfully) to stop the dog running over the teak oil. We treated the balcony handrails, the stairs and all the posts around the house. We played music from our ipod, drank plenty of tea and relaxed in the hammock. In the evenings we all drove out to lovely Thai restaurants where Harry treated us to dinner and we ate some awesome Thai food.



During our teaking time, teams of builders arrived, they worked around the house getting the electricity connected, rendering the outside concrete, tilling the bathroom in the smaller bungalow and installing some wrought iron work. Sometimes the builder team would be a husband and wife team. Always the husband would do the work while the wife watched and commented on the work. Very comical to watch the husbands face.



After the teaking we took on another job. The ceilings inside the house where plaster boards, polyfilla had been squashed in where the screws were and in-between the boards. We tackled the bathroom first and wrapped everything up in sheets of bubble-wrap until it looked like a children's playpen. We sanded down the polyfilla and painted the ceilings with rollers. It was hard work holding your hands up above your head and moving them backwards and forwards. Its not an everyday action to walk around waving your arms in the air, if we did this job would have been easier and people would point more at us.

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We went out one evening for a very fun meal. A Korean BBQ that you have to cook yourself. It started off well when we arrived and it was 'all you can eat' for 99Baht, about 1.50p. In the middle of the table you get a small BBQ which collects some of the juices in a tray at the bottom. You collect a plate of meat and vegetables. The meat goes on the BBQ and the vegetables go in the stock at the bottom of the tray. You put sauces on the meat and then eat that with a small bowl of vegetables. Then repeat again and again. It was delicious.

It was fun pottering around the house. We all took regular breaks for tea and biscuits, but after four days we decided to go to Bangkok and see my uncle Guy. Harry and Leam took us out for chocolate mousse in the morning. Harry kindly paid for our accommodation at blue sea bungalows and paid us for the work. He was very grateful and said we had saved him a lot of time and effort doing jobs he would have to do himself. We left them at the new ferry port and took our overnight bus to Bangkok.

Cooper Out

Love Dan & Kat