Last night Somchai told us he hadn't been able to find us "gigs" for the 2nd or the 3rd (the last 2 days of our Phuket leg of the Tour). We had thought we were going to commute up to Khao Lak for gigs on these 2 days - but he says he couldn't fix anything. We ask him to try again, but he rings today late-morning and says it is not possible, because of the 1-6 January holidays. We are rather fed up - if we had known there was this early January school break (and I did ask!), we could have taken OUR little holiday break on the same days, and then have gone up to start Khao Lak on 7 January. But nobody told us, so 2 weeks ago Hags and I booked up for a liveaboad diving trip evening 3rd till evening 7th, and then my son Jake is joining us for 2 days - so we have to stick to the original timetable (which was gone through masses of times - I really can't understand why the people this end did not pick this up) whereby we travel to Khao Lak on 10th and start work there on 11th. Hey ho!
We decide to try to organise our own gigs for 2nd and 3rd and start ringing around, but it really is a bit late to set up a proper gig for today - so we decide we will just go to the second Sea Gipsy Village and "wing" a show - but then we discover that San, the man with the van, can't come today anyway - and with no van we have no props or PA, so today is totally shot. Hey ho! The performers do quite a bit of rehearsing, particularly of the club passing routine and the fire routine, and I catch up with all my paperwork - so the day is not completely wasted - but what a shame not to be able to do a show!
In the end we decide the best thing for tomorrow, the 3rd, is to get San to collect us 8.30 in the morning, and take us up to Khao Lak for the day. We will visit the Tsunami Volunteer Centre, and various other useful leads we have been given, and also meet up with Somchai who is working up there tomorrow, to try and get the timetable sorted out before Hags and I set off diving.
I think most of the weekday gigs on the Khao Lak leg of the Tour will be in schools - this makes sense up there as ALL the children suffered from the Tsunami there (the devastation was far greater up in Khao Lak than it was down here in Phuket), but we want to discover which would be the most important venues to visit on Saturdays or at out-of-school times.
Also we need to find accommodation - the deal with the big hotel up there has not materialised and we need to find cheap accommodation - at the moment we only need 2 rooms (Hags/Bella and Jo/Jake/Rooben) but from the 17th January we will have Trent and Martha (2 great clowns, who also play really good live music, which will enliven the show enormously) and their 3-year-old son Lelio with us, which makes 3 rooms, and on the 19th, 20th and 21st Lee Hayes (a great juggler from Amsterdam) is joining us with his family, so we will need 4 rooms for those nights.
The budget is looking very tight, and we will probably have to go a bit over-budget, which is a pain - but food is far more expensive here than in Sri Lanka - there we were doing fine on £125 per person per week for accommodation and food - once we start paying for our accommodation, which is not going to be cheap as it is absolutely the "high season" (we have been so lucky to have this hotel deal in Phuket, which has really helped the budget enormously) and food for so many, money may get very stretched. We may well have to go a bit above the original budget, but a few more donations have come in to CWI in England, so we should be covered thankfully. I just want us to spend as little as possible, so that we have some money in hand for more trips to Sri Lanka, especially the East Coast, as soon as the Tamil situation calms down a bit.
So a good reccy tomorrow for rooms (and even look, perhaps, at the possibility of renting a whole house - if we had a kitchen we could eat more cheaply) is a very good idea. We will also definitely try to "wing" a show up in Khao Lak tomorrow and entertain as many children as we can before Hags and I set off diving and the others return to Phuket.
Steve Groh is sadly now not coming to join us on the Khao Lak leg of the Tour (as he has been offered 2 weeks of work on the relevant dates with Cirque du Monde) - a financial saving (which is good, considering the state of our budget) but a great loss, as his workshop energy was tremendous, and he was great at translating for us. We will have to ensure that we have Somchai with us for as much time as possible for the rest of the Tour. Life really is incredibly busy without a translater! Hey ho!
Must rush - got to pack (minimally, as the cabins are very small!) for our diving trip, and get the new badge bits and beanbags sorted to go in the van when San arrives at 8.30 - then we are off. So that is the plan - to achieve as much as we can today re accommodation and gig booking for the Khao Lak leg of the Tour, and "wing" a show for as many children as possible. I will report back on how it went when I get back to Laguna from the liveaboard trip on 7th (provided I don't get eaten by a whale shark like Jonah first!) And then we will be on to Khao Lak, Krabi, Koh Jam and Koh Phi Phi - onwards and upwards!
Special greetings to my lovely friend and assistant Chris Fewer, whose birthday it is today - if she wasn't in Children's World's Glastonbury office holding the fort and ensuring that our English work continues more than satisfactorily, there is no way that Children's World International could have undertaken these Tours of Sri Lanka and Thailand - so lots of thanks and love to her for her huge loyalty and support - have a very happy day Chris!