On Tuesday night Chiang Mai was hit by an earthquake. The quake recorded 5.1 n the Richter scale and the epicentre was just 10miles from the centre of town
At the time we happened to be enjoying an extremely jolly meal with our French friend Oliver, his Thai girlfriend and his parents. Oliver has just closed his restaurant so we were helping them eat and drink the remaining stock and were all a bit merry. The only other time I was caught in an earthquake I was also drinking, so I must monitor this correlation in the event of future quakes.
On the previous occasion I was in such a state of inebriation that I didn't believe it was happening. On Tuesday though I made no such mistake. Even to a novice it was obvious what was occuring the ground gave a big old rumble and the building shook a bit. Nothing too alarming, I am glad to say. We all wandered outside, as this is the done thing as far as safety is concerned but we made sure we took our glasses and bottles of wine with us. Stood around, had a drink and strolled back indoors to continue our revelry. Drama over.
The next day I checked at the pub and nothing was awry (thank you Sue and Simon for providing the correct spelling to this very useful word). Apparently some buildings near the epicentre had some cracks but methinks that's more likely to be an insurance scam than genuine earthquake damage.
As to the pub everything is proceeding although slower than I would like which means opening day is still a big question mark. Jobs like rewiring and painting are suddenly going to take longer. Bloody annoying but I maintain a fairly sanguine attitude, partially because that is what one does in Thailand and partially because as the building has developed I can see that it is going to be a very special pub when it is all done.
Oh and finally the picture is nothing to do with this earthquake but is nicely dramatic.
