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Brian Jacks & Gary Stretch at Canterbury Tales Cafe, Pattaya, Thailand

Tourism Thailand

So my wife Yao started asking around all the few people she knew for some builder recomendations, after a few days a couple came along and we agreed a price to start on the ground floor, it was basically straightforward, tile the floor, add a toilet room, sort out the drains and dismantle the old kitchen roof and add a strong base where the roof was for rooms above.

So a couple weeks later all done, then onto the rooms above and new stairway at the front as the way these buildings were designed was for to get to the above floors you have to go right through the ground floor to the back and up the stairs which means you have to be open 24 hours in the Bar/Restaurant/shop or what ever.
So out came the old stairwell and a new front stairs was built and door and canopy etc.

A few weeks later and a lot of headaches the rooms were done, after they re hung a few doors that were put on the wrong way round etc, with these guys you have to be around all day or things can get messed up, they are a bit slap dash and poor finishers.

So then the opening of Canterbury Tales Cafe, it was exciting of course but I was anxious as I had never taken part in anything like this before but I was determined to succeed, we did a cheap good quality breakfast and improved on the local competition so fairly quickly became very popular, this didn't go down too well with a couple of close rivals as they had the monopoly on this street or so they thought.

We used to have a pool table and came 2nd in the pool league but the league was run so badly we dropped out and the pool table was sold.

I did not intend to step on any toes but I needed to make a living and and a few would not accept that and got really bitchy, but after a few weeks we settled into a routine and although we had lots of teething troubles especially with finding reliable staff  we began to get a good reputation.

Soon after we began to get a few guests in the rooms and we were on our way, it was quite amazing when I sat for a quiet moment to reflect on my past as to how I ended up here in Pattaya but upward and onward we go.

So a few guests in the rooms and plenty of breakfasts later we are growing stronger and learning all the time, I am as keen as ever to continue as we had ideas of first buying the building, starting a business then selling it on but decided to go with it, then as we were outgrowing the first building, another became available which is the big one we are in now.

www.canterburytalescafe.com

Life upto Canterbury Tales Cafe

28th August 2009

HI

I am Dave from Canterbury, Kent in England origionally, born in Canterbury in 1957, this is my first post to my new blog.

I grew up in Canterbury as a boy I was firstly into Birds, ironic as to where I live now all these years later, I was in them days an avid egg collector as many young boys were of the time, My Fathers family were from South Wales as my Grandparents moved to the Kent colefields I believe in the late 1940's, we would go down to Wales, Abertillery and I remember it very fondly

we would make rafts and paddle around the lakes at Westbere outside Canterbury, we would hang by the legs at a sand quarry where the sandmartins would burrow their tiny holes into the sand to nest, we found sharks teeth in that sand which turned out to be millions of years old and are now if still there in the Beaney Library in Canterbury.

we would go egging over a large area of Farmland where I lived and used to get caught by the Gamekeeper Mr Ron Bean who later went onto to become my mentor, we would search for nests, we would find Goldcrests a really tiny pretty bird of the forests, as well as all sorts of birds.

I found cuckoos eggs, ring ouzel, nightjar, many of which are very rare in England today, we would go to Sandwich where there were Turns and you had to be very careful not to stand on the sggs amongst the shingle, we would spend the whole day from dawn to dusk out in the Kent countryside and I have fond memories of my childhood in this way.

So one day Mr Bean caught us and realised he wasnt going to get rid of us so he told me if I find a Pheasants nest or Partridge nest he would give us thrupence, (pre decimal) and any vermin such as Crows, Magpies nests we should bring him the eggs smashed or not and he would give us a few pence too.

So perfect at the start of the School summer holidays off I would go, normally alone as I was very keen in them days, as I am now actually, I would spend hours hunting down Magpies nests, listening for English Partridges and their nests were so hard to find but slowly I learnt and I was making a good few shillings over a summer, of course not telling my Dad as he would probably have made me buy my school uniform with it in them days.

I have been living here in Pattaya now for nearly 5 years and it has been quite something so I will tell you how it all started.

I had been a Gamekeeper in England for most of my working career up until about 2000, I packed in Gamekeeping as I had been through quite a bad time with it and had a relationship breakup.

So after many years in the English Countryside what was I to do then, I started by doing voluntary work with the deaf & disabled and then onto the Samaritans, I eventually became paid staff at the deaf & disabled centre, I completed the Samaritan training scheme & became a fully fledged Sam

I Listened to some amazing stories while on duty and some so so sad and some so so wierd, but I was as ever very contientious and got right into it going went on to run the Samaritan Listener scheme in the Prisons on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

The work with the Samaritans was fascinating and I learnt a lot about myself which helped me through a long drawn out bitter divorce, the reason it was so long & drawn out was mostly because my Daughter was young and I needed to be there for her.

So there I was getting right into the Prison work and meeting some real interesting guys and some real spooky types, of course when talking to every body from common thieves to murderers is natuarally interesting if your that way inclined.

I found it very easy most of the time to be a Samaritan, you dont really know fully the type of person you are until you do something like this and although my Mum was quite proud of what I was doing my Father wondered why I was doing it.

I would go there after being shown the ropes by Tom who had been running the Listeners for some time but he wanted to retire, 2 days a week, it was purely voluntary and only my Petrol money was reimbersed, I would enter security, get my keys and could almost go anywhere in the Prison & sometimes the responsability would make me shudder.

I would go to my pigeon hole to pick up any notes or letters and then follow them up to mostly the inmates who had requested to see me.

Canterbury Tales Cafe

So this day I picked up the notes in the Pigoen Hole, there was one from an inmate named Smith, well as such a common name it meant nothing until I went to see him and it was a guy I knew from my Youth in Canterbury many years before.

So after the breif long time no see he went on to tell me how he had been on a home visit to see his Mother who was ill and had a bit of a row as his mum never came to terms with him being in Prison.

Unfortunately she died that night and of course he was pretty cut up about it, he also told me that his Brother had died of Cancer a while before and he was having big problems with coping in Prison and a few times he had became suicidal.

I continued to visit him for a few months as he was counting down the weeks to getting released and was looking forweard to starting over.

Cutting a long story short, this guy was the owner of Linx Taxis in Canterbury whgich is how I became a Taxi driver for the last 5 years or so of my time in Canbterbury before moving to Thailand, Smith was eventually Murderd with a shotgun in the Taxi office one evening, I was out in one of the Taxis on the night it happened & I will continue on that further on in the Blog.

During my last years in Canterbury I met Da, a Thai Nurse who was commisioned to England under some foreign Nursing scheme, cut a long story short we got on well and spent 2 & half years living together in Canterbury, it was great to see peoples faces when we went anywhere as she was a stunner and people wondered how I managed to find her, I always concidered it my present from the powers that be for all the Voluntary work I had done.

I always wanted to try to live in Thailand from the first time I came here although I never imagined I would and Da was my short cut for doing this so in 2004 I sold up all my worldly goods in Canterbury and went for it.

We had quite a trip as we brought the dog I had bought for Da a year or so before, a Shihtzu called Bubblegum & we had to get all sorts of paper work together and have him implanted with a chip etc and we had to fly British Airways as they were only one of the few airlines that you could use to take Animals abroad.

Anyway we arrived and started to settle in BKK, we rented a nice little house in Min Buri, about 30 kilometers out of BKK city, we initially traveled a lot aroung Thailand, as Da's Family lived in Chaing Mai, North Thailand.

After a few weeks I met the local Headmaster at the Government School near by, Klanklongsong School, ages from 4 to 14 yrs and about 550 pupils, we got chatting, he invited me to look round the School and I was mobbed by the kids, he asked mne to help the Teachers with their English which I was more than happy to do as I thought I could practice my Thai language on them too.

So I started at first 1 day a week, I was as keen as ever and went and bought a few long sleeved shirts and nice tailored trousers and of course a Tie, little did I realise how hot I would get wearing them as there was no A/C in the class rooms but I loved it and soon was there 2 days a week.

I would arrive before 8am and many of the children would come and try and speak English and I enjoyed it and found it very easy to communicate and got right into it, I did actually have thoughts of persuing this as my next career move, it was only the thought of being tied to a 9 to 5 type of job that made me decide otherwise.

One day I was out for a walk and as I passed this rough looking dog it came up behind me and bit my ankle, It wasn’t a real bad bite although it was bleeding and a bit further along the road a Thai Lady noticed it and asked me why I was bleeding, I told her a dog bit me and she said go DR go Dr.

I returned home by which Time my wife Da was home and she took me to the local clinic for Rabies jabs, we went back to the place where the dog had bit me and the dog was still there outside a house, Da saw a guy there and asked him if it was his dog and he said yes, she told him about the dog biting me and he was very nice and offered to pay my medical bills, after that we became friends and I went onto Teach his 2 Daughters English.

His Daughters were 18 & 23 respectively, one was studying Law and the other Business at University, the Policeman’s wife is a Teacher & they had a younger Son, we still keep in touch and they have been to see me here in Pattaya since.

All through my time Teaching I had a great time with the kids and Teachers, we had a day out at the Safari park which was right beside the School, it was quite strange to look out of the window and see Giraffe’s Rhino's, wilder beasts, Zebras walking by as well as the roar of the Lions & Tigers.

We also visited Dream World in BKK, a small type Disney park, in fact it was the first trip we went on so 550 children, about 14 staff, I wondered how we would over see it all but apart from the really young ones the rest were given a free rein and had a great time, we went sledging in the snow dome and the kids & Teachers loved it, we were given a pair of wellies and an anorak to keep warm, I reminded them that its fun for a while but when you have weeks of it like we can have in the UK its not so much fun.

So as it was coming to the end of my 1st year in Thailand I had been giving it some serious thought, obviously it had gone well enough for me to know I was staying so what next, it was time to head for pastures new, unfortunately I had split up with Da some months before, she didn’t really want to come back to Thailand so amicably we parted, I still miss her sometimes and don’t have any bad feelings for her, it was just circumstances.

I had met Yao ( my wife now) by now who was also a Teacher at the International School in Pattaya, we had that chemical thing right from the off and we got on really well, I was still unsure what to do and it was Yao who suggested renovating property in Pattaya as there were many business opportunities with the high Tourist numbers.

I spent a few weeks in Pattaya looking around at different areas and checking all sorts of resources for prices, laws, rules etc etc, I finally opted to buy a single shop house in Soi Chaiyapoon, between 2^nd and 3^rd road central Pattaya, it was totally empty and in quite a state although the building itself was sound, I started up a company through a Lawyer and purchased the building in the company name.

So onto Renovation, what a learning experience that turned out to be,