Pattaya to Crown 3

Mr Wut's son Taw arrived at the field to take us to our accommodation, a collection of chalets on the outskirts of Watthana. We booked in and left our gear in the chalet. It was then back into the pick-up to drop off Taw. We were going to visit Mr Wut, known to the flyers as 'Woody', who is in hospital at Sa Kaeo. He's suffered a major injury to his foot and it was thought a visit from some of his 'falang' sports flying mates from Pattaya, would give him a boost.

Tom drove us to the hospital, he and his partner May on hearing of Woody's accident had been to visit the day before. We parked up behind the hospital and walked through the grounds to the entrance. White faces are not very common in the more rural parts of Thailand, so a group of falangs caused lot's of heads to turn, observing us as we walked past. We entered the reception and Whoa! Gasp! What the--? In amongst the line of chairs where people were sitting awaiting to be called for examination, were beds, not only beds, but beds with patients occupying them? In the reception? Believe you me, if Thai hospitals are anything to go by, the NHS is in good shape, so if you're worried about it? Well Don't be! We proceeded through reception to the lift, again heads turned to follow our progress, including the heads of the bed-ridden patients. I don't know who was more surprised, myself or the patients? Maybe it gave them something to take their minds off their troubles. The six of us managed to squeeze into the lift, with the couple of occupants already in it moving up to let us in. In a private room Mr Wut was in his bed with a concerned looking young woman sitting next to it, Mr Wut's wife. He seemed pretty stoic sitting with a dressing just covering the wound loosely. The prognosis was, as long as the injury didn't become infected, some re-constructive surgery to save his foot would happen in a week or so. (Woody's Sonex aeroplane pictured below)

It was obvious Tom held Woody in high regard, so intrigued I asked Tom about him? Tom answered "I first met Mr Wut at an air show in Tak province about 8 years ago, he was interested in flying and we got talking. He's became a close friend to me over the years and helped immensely in various projects and engineering problems we have encountered.
He is one of the few people I know who can competently repair damaged aircraft and also comes up with loads of ingenious solutions to do so. He has his own machine shop and regularly gets orders from abroad for 4x4 vehicle suspension parts, which he manufactures on his premise's".

After around an hour it was time to leave Woody and his wife. We'd expressed our good wishes for his recovery and a speedy return to his flying so we said our goodbye's. The latest news of Woody is that he's had another operation in an attempt to connect the tissue. It'll take a few days to learn if it has been successful this time. It was back to the pickup with a repeat performance of the swiveling heads. That evening we again piled into the pickup to travel to a restaurant Tom used when in Watthana Nakhon. He declared the food to be good, however when some dishes arrived and others did not, he realised something was amiss. A little investigating by Tom revealed a different cook was now employed and the food not as good as before. It tasted alright to me but I deferred to his experience. The communal meal gave me another chance to get to know my companions a little better. Although of different nationalities and walks of life, the generosity of spirit that most sports flyers seem to have, was evident in them. The fact they were here at all proved that. They had responded to an appeal by Tom to accompany someone they had never met, giving up their time and money in the process. Of course what was in it for them as flyers, was to look over a new horizon and to add a little known airfield to there log books. Very few pilots have Loeng Nok Tha recorded in their logs. Artem had been dropping off periodically during our traveling around, cat-napping in the pickup and dozing off in the hospital. He came in for some good old banter which he absorbed like a true Brit. He hadn't slept well the previous night, an affliction that I too had suffered from, only sleeping for a couple of hours. My stomach was churning although my mind didn't seem to be racing, it stopped me from dropping off. I put it down to nervous tension and excitement, maybe a little adrenalin too. That Artem was also afflicted was reassuring, as he was an old hand at flying in Thailand and it was all new to me. We drove back to the accommodation to settle down for the night. Tom had bought a laptop with him and was accessing the web to view his weather sites and determine our plan for the next day, Wednesday 4th April. Whatever happened would be down to the weather. I had received a call a couple of days earlier when in Bangkok, from Ray Hough who is in Ubon, to say the forecast was for localised tropical thunder storms. I had seen a BBC TV World News weather forecast about the same time which took a different view, saying the rain was moving south east into Vietnam and the South China Sea. I hoped the BBC forecasters we on top of their game. In the room was an old TV set and DVD player. Both proved to be useless, so I tried to settle down to sleep as I'd had little since leaving Bangkok. Sleep again was not forthcoming. Too much residual adrenaline still in my system from the mornings flying? It was a possibility but my stomach was knotted, I suspected it was a little more than adrenaline. It was still quite early maybe 22.00 - 22.15 hrs when a knock came on my door. It was Tom asking me to come and view the weather forecast on his laptop. It was not good news. Frequent tropical thunderstorms were forecast for the whole of Issan for at least the next two days and maybe longer. Ray had been right and as usual the BBC wrong, what do we pay them for? Tom said there would be a group discussion on this in the morning, but his gut feeling was I should be prepared for disappointment. He explained that two of the flyers had businesses to run and to wait for the storms to pass through before we could depart, was probably not on. I went back to my chalet to try to sleep, it must have been around 23.00 hrs. The group were to meet by the resorts front gate at 06.00 hrs for an early start, they were sleeping unaware of the forecast, I was not sleeping at all. Another night of trying to settle down but my nerves were getting the better of me. Anxiety knotted my stomach, what the hell was going on? My thoughts were not fearful, I knew what lay ahead, no matter which compass heading we took? I tried to clear my mind and think of nothing, but the stomach kept on churning. A relaxed laid back type I'm not, something I knew about myself anyway. The night passed slowly, my two alarm's were set for 05.00 and 05.15 hrs. They weren't needed. If I slept, it was very little, an hour at the most. I checked my watch again for the umpteenth time, 04.45 hrs, still dark. I got out of bed, what was the point of laying there? I showered, dressed, packed my holdall and exited the chalet. I disturbed some little creature which scurried off into a ditch, as I walked to the resort reception. There were coffee and tea making facilities on the patio of the reception building and I needed some caffiene to get me feeling brighter. I made the coffee and sat under the lights by the resort gate. It was dark, quiet and peaceful. I was by myself, with the resident chit-chat hunting in the gate light reflector, catching and eating whatever winged insect was attracted to the light. My mind slipped back forty plus years, to the light above the Nash gate, where long gone chit-chats had done the same thing.