Bay of Pigs-April 1961

Bay of Pigs- April 1961

On the ferry to Koh Larn, I began talking to a guy who told me he was one of 56 soldiers to survive the Bay of Pigs invasion by swimming from Cuba to the United States where the coast guard picked him out of the water near Florida. He told me he was a navy seal who trained to swim long distance and in this case it saved his life. He told me the battalion sat on the runway in Florida for days allowing Kennedy time, he said, to give the exact location to the Cubans on where they were going to land. He said they had no firepower and were supposed to meet up with another battalion bringing the weapons, which, he said, never happened. It was a total slaughter, he said, and needless to say, Kennedy was not his favourite president. From what I know, this story does line up with the reality of the history I have studied.

As I was sitting on the beach, I started talking to a German actress who was doing NGO work in the south of India. She just came to Thailand for the week-end to escape the oppressive poverty she said. As she does these NGO stints, she told me, they all ultimately add to her ability to think introspectively and make her a better actor.

What I am doing in Thailand, you might ask, when I said I was going to the Philippines? The story here is that I went to the Bangkok Post Travel Fair ( largest English language daily in Thailand) thinking I would get some hotels and flights to the Philippines. Instead, I got sucked into going first to Jomtien Beach, where I am now and next to Issan. Why Jomtien Beach? Because the hotel booth said I was getting a penthouse where the shower looked out over the ocean. It was $50 instead of $400 or something like that so I jumped on it. Little did I know that what they meant was that the bathroom simply was glassed in so you could see out and everyone else could see in, but that is not the story. After spending about 15 minutes figuring out how the elevator worked to get to the top floor ( you needed to insert your key into the elevator panel), when I got to my room, I could not open the door. Frustratingly, I went back downstairs and went through the whole process again only to find out the door still would not open. When this happened three times, I asked for my money back. (This always get their attention!) Instead of giving me my money back, they upgraded me to a suite (which, of course, I knew they would). However, the story does not end there. I had a few minor complaints about the suite, so I got a complimentary dinner. At breakfast this morning, the manager personally came up to me and told me he had a sleepless night worrying about the service I was getting.

Now I know why I was woken up at 8 am with 3 people in suits bringing me some fruits and so on compliments of the manager. Why I wondered were they going to such lengths? One of the suits told me he also worked at the Bangkok Post for ten years and asked me if I knew so and so. Because I got my hotel voucher at the Bangkok Post Travel Fair, for some reason they assumed I worked at the Bangkok Post. Having bad publicity is about the last thing a luxury hotel needs at this time in history.

When I got home from the beach today, the suite was covered in real flowers. Frankly, I did not even notice until I read a note explaining they were with the hotel’s compliments. This morning, the general manager told me the hotel car would drive me to the port to get the ferry. Little did I know he would be personally driving it!