NONG AND THE DELICIOUS CURRY PUFFS

“Nong” was a Thai boy named Anuwat Dalodom and he trained and traveled to tournaments with me for two years.  Nong (Pictured wearing cap) came from a well to do family, which in Thailand meant that he would be pampered and would not have to do much for himself.  However he had the biggest, most generous heart and we became very close.

Its worth noting that in Nongs training group there were 4 players whose names were Nong, Dong, Dton and Dtong which, when pronounced correctly in Thai also meant I had to use 4  different tones.  If that wasn’t tough enough for a foreigner Dton and Dtong were identical twins!

Nong also became a very good player. He had an ITF Junior world ranking of 74, was tall for a Thai and had a calm disposition which helped him under pressure.  When Martina Hingis decided to make her comeback to tennis after two years in retirement, her first tournament was in Pattaya, Thailand.  For about 10 days before the tournament Nong and I helped her prepare.  We practiced morning and evening and Nong was the perfect sparring partner, hardly missing a ball and feeding her a consistent pace throughout.

On trips Nong would pack his tennis clothes and equipment but inevitably there would be one bag full of snacks.  This snack bag would contain cartons of dry noodles and packets of chewy dried squid strips.  Nong could live for weeks on noodles and “Squidy” and finding him sitting on his bed bent over a cup of steaming hot noodles was common. He also had a curious habit of taking his mouth to the fork rather than fork to his mouth that I could never correct.

At one tournament in New Delhi, India it was winter time.  The sky in the mornings would be clear, but with the sun only just making it over the distant buildings, temperatures before the matches started were as low as 9 degrees Celsius.  Many of the competitors would assemble near the courts in the morning before the matches, often drinking a hot cup of tea just to keep warm.  Nong and I were staying in the accommodation attached to the stadium so it was a short walk to reach the courts.  On the first morning I had arrived at the courts early and when Nong eventually came up the pathway to the courts I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Nong had just showered and his hair was still dripping wet.  He was wearing a light T-shirt, shorts and sandals, hardly suitable for winter mornings!  As we stood together the cold would begin to counter that warm feeling you have after a hot shower and within a short time Nongs’ teeth would be chattering and his lips trembling uncontrollably.  Each morning I would warn him of the risk of catching a cold but he would never listen.

He had started to really enjoy the curry puffs at the small canteen under the stands.  They tasted great and Nong would eat 3-4 curry puffs each morning.  One morning I was waiting near the courts when I noticed an old bicycle propped against a tree. The bicycle had two grubby satchels slung over the back which caught my attention.  To my horror I saw that the satchels contained Nongs Curry Puffs, all jammed together and wrapped individually in a small piece of waxed paper.  The bicycle obviously made its way through the streets of Delhi each morning, through the dust and exhaust fumes, all the way to the tennis stadium… and to Nong.

When Nong arrived that morning I asked him to take a peep inside the satchels on the bicycle and after seeing his beloved Curry Puffs in that condition he never had another Curry Puff on that trip or any subsequent trips. 

THE KILLER CALLED DOI SUTHEP: CHIANG MAI

Running up Doi Suthep Mountain with the Thai Davis Cup Team

Whenever the Thai tennis teams trained for an important event, we often traveled to the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai.  It helped to focus the players by getting away from the distractions of Bangkok and was also ideal because of the opportunity to run up Doi Suthep, the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai.  It’s a daunting run but always meant that my players were in the best possible shape when competition time came around.

Apart from the regular on-court sessions in Chiang Mai we would conduct an early morning run before breakfast, either a lap of the city or a 5k run part way up Doi Suthep. These morning runs were always competitive and although I would be first on the runs at the beginning of our stints in Chiang Mai, soon the players would be running past me and I would be finishing back in the pack!

Running Doi Suthep was one of the toughest runs I have ever done.  Marina Beach in Chennai, India was difficult because of the length of the beach and the soft sand that made it difficult to get a good footing, but Doi Suthep was tougher.  As you climbed higher up Doi Suthep the air became thinner and the incline steeper.  It was every bit as much a test of character as it was a test of fitness.

I can honestly say that I remember my runs in the various countries I visited with better recall than the matches played there. While in Tel Aviv, Israel I went running through the streets with a woman I was coaching on the tour.  We eventually got lost and as darkness began to fall she began to panic, fearing that we would be stranded miles from our hotel with no way to find our way back. After many wrong turns and numerous stops to ask for directions we eventually did make it back! 

While I was still playing competitive tennis I had a regular Sunday run from the township of Bluff at the southern most tip of New Zealand, to Invercargill.  Someone would drive me to Bluff on a Sunday morning and I would run the 15 miles back home. It seemed to always be either cold, wet or windy, and often all three conditions on the same day was the norm. 

I must have run around Lumpini Park in the centre of Bangkok several hundred times.  It was never boring as the thousands of people in the park kept you motivated with their running styles, unusual running attire and crazy warm up routines.  You had to plan your run so that you finished before 8:00am or started after 6:00pm so that the Thai National Anthem didn’t break your run. The whole park would stand still in respect for the 2-3 minutes and then snap back into action once the music had finished. This ritual is repeated at the same time in parks and government buildings every day throughout Thailand.

But for sheer difficulty Doi Suthep was the toughest. I’m glad I don’t have to do that run anymore.

MY FIRST TRIP TO LONDON 1979

Back in 1979 I had several interests that kept me going.  Tennis of course was my priority but art was a close second.  I was painting oils well enough to be accepted at exhibitions in my province and had exhibited several times.  I was also very keen on learning about the great masters and had a library of books on art which kept me well informed.  I was able to identify artists at a glance and tell the school of painting they belonged to and I still retain that knowledge until today.

So keen was my interest in painting that I decided to travel to England and visit the major galleries in London.  So, during Christmas 1979 I set out for Europe on a flight that would take me first to LA, and onto London.

I spent two nights in LA and stayed at a hotel across the road from the Forum, home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.  It was also overlooking Hollywood Park Raceway (horse racing).  I think it was the first night there that I went across the road to watch the Lakers play the Portland Trail Blazers.  I don’t remember much about the game, I was so far up in the cheap seats that the court was the size of a matchbox; however the goings on around me were enough to entertain.  I do know that the Lakers at that time included Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson

The flight across the Atlantic from LA took the regulation time but by the time the plane got near London’s Heathrow Airport we were told that snow had created a backlog of flights and we had to divert up the Scotland, eventually landing at Penrith Airport and sitting on the runway for close to 3 hours.  Three hours doesn’t sound that much time but coming on the end of a flight from LA most of the passengers were exhausted.  Finally we were given the all clear to take off for London’s Heathrow and once we arrived still had to circle for quite sometime.  The details are fuzzy now, probably because of my tired state at the time but there then came another 3-4 hours of waiting for our bags which according to the airport authorities were delayed because the baggage compartment on the plane was frozen and couldn’t be opened.

When the bags were finally in my hands the next problem was finding transportation into the city, as all transportation was closed due to the weather.  There were no trains running and with the backlog of people trying to get into London from the airport I was in trouble. 

Finally I was able to jump into a private van commuting people into London for cash.  I already had a hotel booking before I left New Zealand and the guy seemed to know where the hotel was.  At last we arrived at the hotel, I paid the van driver and wearily walked up the steps to the front door only to see a notice taped to the window announcing that they had changed address!  My night was just beginning.

I remember standing at the top of the stairs, snow was softly falling and of course it was bitterly cold.  The body however seems to have reserves for times like this and I felt a charge of energy run through my body as I decided to find the new address given on the door and walk through London to find it.  Hell, I was young and this was an adventure!

With the help of my trusty map of London I began the journey and quickly realized that even if I wanted to hail a cab they were all busy taking people to New Years Eve parties and, I imagined, warm homes where their families were waiting.  It soon became apparent that I needed to break my journey in half and try to find the hotel the next day.  For tonight I needed rest badly and started going into every hotel I passed.  Every hotel was full; I couldn’t have landed in London on a worst night!  Finally one hotel took pity on me, the lady behind the counter obviously saw I was in a state, after all I had been on a plane for 33 hours continuously and then spent several more hours getting into London and walking the streets.  I must have looked a sight!

She told me they had one room that was under repair, a window was broken and hadn’t been fixed yet.  I was keen to sleep and convinced her that the room sounded fantastic.  That night I remember turning the TV on and watching a few minutes of England celebrating the New Year, a refreshing breeze swirling over the bed (and the odd snow flake).  When I woke in the morning the TV was still on and the room was even colder than ever but I was in London and my adventure had just begun.  I couldn’t wait!