I have never, thank goodness, been a fitness fanatic. In fact, there have been quite lengthy periods since I retired to live in Pattaya when I have been - not to mince words - slothful. But every now and then the urge comes over me to stir myself and establish a daily exercise routine of sorts. Well, we're forever being bombarded with media messages that it's a good thing, aren't we? So I was an early-morning jogger for a while, until a case of plantar fasciitis in my right foot put an end to that. Very painful condition, especially that first tentative placing of the foot on the tiled bedroom floor of a morning. Six months of limping and wincing before that wore off.
I then decided that a morning swim in the condo pool was the way to go. Everyone knows how good, good, good swimming is as a form of all-round exercise. Unfortunately, I only have a rather prissy breaststroke at my disposal and I soon developed such an ache in my neck from keeping my head above water that the daily swimming had to stop too.
Tramping up and down the condo's emergency staircase was my next great idea. There are a lot of floors in my condo building, it's not a scheme for the faint-hearted. It got to a point where I could manage three bottom-to-top-floor trampings in one session. Pretty damn impressive, if I say so myself. One morning a Thai girl was sitting on the stairs making a mobile call. As I tramped past her for the third time, her eyes widened in stupid-cow alarm. The look irritated me so much that I nearly turned to face her, waving my arms about and making deep mooing noises, in order to truly alarm her. What put an end to my staircase exercise routine? Knee pain.
Quite a long period followed when I took no exercise at all. I had almost convinced myself that I was finally too old to need to bother about that kind of thing. But earlier this year lingering guilt resurfaced (oh, those sneaky media messages!) and I started jogging again, this time with intervals of walking to make it less stressful. Walk, jog, walk, jog, walk, jog, thirty minutes in all, that's the routine. So far it's been working well. I feel better for it, verging on self-righteousness. My route takes me along Jomtien beach, which at about 7.30am is usually a cheerful sight: cool, clear sunlight, glistening sea, blue-grey islands sharply delineated in the distance, Thais setting up their concessions for the day, a few more Thais and farangs exercising. It's almost possible at such times to convince oneself that Pattaya is a civilised place.
Not all Pattaya residents, as you can imagine, are as diligent and enlightened as I am when it comes to exercise. I have a farang friend who is reluctant in the extreme to shift his fat sorry arse unless he absolutely has to. 'Why do you do all that rushing about?' he'll say to me. 'Do you really hope to extend your stay in this sad prank of a world?' Bit of a philosopher, my friend. He maintains that watching sport on TV is quite enough exercise as far as he's concerned. What an inane sense of humour he has.
A couple of years ago we were sitting outside a Chiang Mai cafe one afternoon, enjoying our coffees. An overweight fortyish farang hoved into view. Technically I suppose he was jogging, but his whole sagging, grimacing demeanour was more suggestive of a punishment drill. As he passed by, wheezing, his sweat-soaked yellow singlet could be seen to bear the proud slogan 'No Pain - No Gain'. An evil grin swept over my friend's face and I knew another of his inane jokes was on the way. 'I think I might buy a tee-shirt,' he mused, 'And get them to print on it the words 'No Pain - No Pain'. He eased back in his chair and took a satisfying sip of his cappuccino.
