The owner and manager of Shakers restaurant in Patong, Olivier has been coming to Thailand on and off for many years, but has been living in Phuket full-time for a decade.
He’s the first to admit that like many foreign males on the island, the reason he decided to move to the Land of Smiles in the first place was for a woman.
“It’s quite funny though,” Olivier says with a wistful look in his eyes, “The main thing that separates me from the majority of farang here is that I met a Thai girl in Belgium.
“In fact she is still there, she owns a Thai restaurant. It’s quite funny because I am in Thailand running a Belgian restaurant.”
Olivier concedes that the majority of the fare on offer – including panini, pasta, pizza and kebabs – is more international dining, though he is proud of the range of Belgian beverages he serves.
Open for seven years, Olivier admits that the average Shakers patron has changed in that relatively short time, with more people coming from China and Russia and fewer from Europe and Australia.
“But every night I am full,” he says, “It’s good.” This is probably because little has changed inside the Patong restaurant over the years, with nightly themed cuisine, and live music every evening.
Patong itself, meanwhile, has seen huge changes, “They’re building everywhere, and it’s not for the good – like perhaps can be seen in the Laguna area with high-quality buildings. Here it’s cheap stuff, and we don’t have the infrastructure to support it.”
When he’s not running his business, Olivier is also the GM of running group the Phuket Hash House Harriers (HHH) – better known by its slogan as a ‘Drinking Club with a Running Problem’.
“I became GM this year, but sure it’s not for everybody. It’s open for everybody but it’s not for everybody,” he says, in reference to perhaps some of the more controversial, and less understandable elements, like new members having to drink out of their trainers.
The HHH is so named as it resembles a social version of nature’s ‘game’ played by hares and hounds. Each and every week, a pack of hounds (runners) chases down a unique and different trail (usually denoted by flags) set by the hares (other runners).
“I like the sport,” he says, “We start running at around 4pm, it lasts around 50 minutes, then we come back and rest for a little while, before we have the ‘Circle’.
“Here we make fun out of people, make speeches and welcome new arrivals. These are called 'new virgins'.”
Woe betide any new arrival who turns up on their virgin run wearing new shoes. They will invariably be asked to, rather humiliatingly, drink from their sweaty shoe.
It’s not all about the drinking though.
“Hash is great,” says Lambert, “Because we always discover new places, beautiful places that I would never have been able to find without it.”