Job interviews and rip off merchants

26.5.11
James and I rose early as he had a phone interview with New Zealand. Remember the last job he went for... well they offered it to him but he could not start any earlier so they suggested that he apply for a management position that was coming up. The position is like a ward manger of a day cases unit specialising in cancer and chemotherapy and other day case like stuff. James was of course reticent about applying as he had not had enough time to think about being a manager but after much procrastination he agreed to put in an application. Low and behold he was shortlisted-as his greatest fan I thought he would be that combined with him being asked to apply!

At 9am we went to a local bar that we had agreed would act as landline provider- yes we 1) like to save money and b) like to plan ahead. 10 minutes late the phone rang and the interview began. James answered the questions but felt it was much #harder interview that all the others he had ever had. Only time will tell as now they will ask for references (yes we contacted his old work to put them on high alert) and from then they will make their decsio0n.

In a hot climate this was about 10 times more that we had been used to doing so the rest of the day was spent in the pool or avoiding sunlight!

27/5/11
We hired mopeds today and headed out to a war cemetery on behalf of Elspeth one of mum’s friends who collates pictures of all of the fallen soldiers from Sedbergh. There were rows and rows of headstones and again we found ourselves thinking what a waste and in the same thought how nice it was that the men and women were honoured in such lovely surroundings. One can only hope that the war graves commission will continue to receive funding to keep the cemeteries in such good order. It would be a crime to let such sacrifice dim with the passage of time.
One our return trip (well rather circular trip as we got lost) we stopped at the monkey training school. The book told us that this was a rescue centre but upon reflection we are not sure how much rescuing was going on. It was a bit like planet of the apes but with the humans watching the monkeys doing tricks including riding a bicycle, slam dunking a basket ball and diving into water to retrieve a watch. Not sure about the ethics or standards of the place we left pretty sharpish but not before a thought passing though my mine @those monkeys were very well behaved do you think they could teach James some new tricks?’


Upon our return to the moped shop we handed over the bikes and the keys. Unfortunately the key ring had broken off my bike key. This of course was the end of the world and would be very costly. Normally I would have no truck with such outrageous claims but as they had my passport we entered into a protracted standoff. We stated be discussing the matter and a figure of 150bhat (3gbp) was suggested as a suitable compensatio0n. As we had only paid 130 BHAT to hire the bikes and the fact that there was no negligence on my part and the fact they were obviously scamming bastards I stood my ground and refused to pay. After a period of time the conversation entered the shouting phase but still I stood my ground. The next trick was a call on the owners mobile from the ‘tourist police’ This did not shake me as they had to call them outside and the voice did not sound very confident. After a period of 15 minutes the owner headed off on his bike to get the tourist police. Fearing this may be a by word for a big chap or a corrupt officer I began to negotiate and we settled on 80bhat.

With the passport duly returned we left. Walking back to the hotel James did remind me that it was rather stupid to leave ones passport and that in the future we would not be doing that again. Agreeing with him we set out sights on exacting our revenge and agreed to start an internet travellers website hate campaign.... oh they will rue the day they ever tried to #take our cash said the Yorkshire man!