The main talking point from this week was the weather. How British of me, right?
I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was “end of the world” weather. Well, I might be exaggerating a little since we’re all still here but the rain was certainly apocalyptical. There I go again, exaggerating. It was merely of biblical proportions. Bugger – I can’t stop myself.
It was really, really bad. Is that better?
In fact, Bangkok was very pleasant. Phuket though was experiencing volumes of rain that hadn’t been seen for decades. Roads were flooded and several large landslides caused massive damage. As I flew out of Phuket Airport the plane felt more like a boat, pitching up and down until we broke through the clouds and stabilised. I am not ashamed to admit that I reached for the travel sickness bag. I held it in my hands, sweating, debating whether to open it or not. At the time, I didn’t want to embarrass myself. However, after careful thought, I realised that vomiting all over the passenger next to me might bring me more shame.
I carefully peeled back the perforated top of the bag and surreptitiously puffed up the bag, ready for my deposit.
It was at this moment that we reached cruising altitude and the worst of my symptoms started to pass. It’s always one of the greatest feelings in the world when the waves of nausea begin to subside. It’s a monkey off your shoulders, a winning lottery ticket.
Now For The Team Building Bit
After a cheeseburger and a good night’s sleep, I was welcoming some old friends at Grand Hyatt Erawan for an indoor team building event. My client was a tech company who I had first worked with in 2022. As before, such a pleasure working with them. They only had 2 hours available but I have a program on my menu that is designed specifically for such situations. It’s a non-stop and time-focused event that keeps everyone busy at all times. In fact, this team building program was quite a high pressure situation, just like my client’s workplace.
Two days later and I’m back on the plane to Phuket. Now fully medicated with some travel sickness pills. I arrived in Phuket to similar conditions to when I left. This time however, while everyone else on the plane was reaching for the sick bags, I was able to look down on my fellow travellers with a look of disgust. Amateurs, I thought.
Straight to the Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach Resort for a really fun outdoor team building for 30 pax. There was, fortunately, a break in the rain for the duration of the event. As soon as we finished though, the rainclouds returned and we got soaked packing up.
The week of mega rain continued for several more days. More floods, more landslides, more sick plane passengers no doubt.