Tuesday, November 01, 2005

3 Days to go!

Woo! So it's all go with a mere three days until the first leg of the journey (Gatwick, here I come!). Trying to ensure that I forget nothing is proving somewhat stressful, but I'm sure I'll have all the basics; anything else I need can be purchased when I arrive in Bangkok, I guess.
So what's the actual plan? Not a great deal, to be honest. I have a hotel booked in Bangkok for the first couple of nights so I'll have somewhere to pass out after the twelve hour plane trip. Once acclimatised, I'm planning on visiting the north of the country, perhaps Chiang Mai, then to go south and visit a friend - Peter - on the island of Ko Pha-Kgan. About four years ago, Peter was visiting the country but instead of returning home, he decided to set up a bar and stay in the country for good. I've not seen him since and heard little of his life over there, so I'm eager to meet him again to catch up. The rest of the journey will be decided on the fly, and I guess I'll just follow my nose [insert big-nose joke here].

Objectives/goals? Again, not a great deal. Relaxation, mainly - having only taken two weeks holiday in the past 12 months to move house and drive a couple of thousand K across France for my gran - but also for an ad lib adventure, to experience the famous culture, and hopefully to take some awesome photographs on the way. I'm also keen to find out about the national passion for table tennis that everyone seems to talk of when tell them about my forthcoming visit to Bangkok...

I'm hoping there'll be sufficient access to internet cafes and the like so that I'll be able to maintain this blog. I hear it shouldn't be a problem. Anyhoo... next post will hopefully be from Thailand.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Happy Days!

Arrived in Bangkok!
The journey was as smooth as could be expected, kudos to Qatar airlines for having an awesome service and damned tasty meals. Not much to say about the flights. Doha was interesting, it seems completely acceptable for everyone to skip under barriers before the security checks. Basically it was first-come-first seved...unless you pushed in.
Unfortunately, my plan to sleep through the second leg from Doha failed miserably so I'm writing this e-mail on about 20 minutes of sleep in a couple of days, so forgive me if my vocabulary is uhh... crap.

Bangkok seems to be pretty awesome so far. I arrived at the hotel this morning (mmm... marble bathroom with views of the grand palace, not bad at all) at about 10 local time. I took a quick shower and then went off to the grand palace. The structures there are simply awe-inspiring. However, being a sunday, half of the planet's population decided to turn up so it was rammed full of noisy Japanese with their collections of cameras and obnoxious Americans waddling about. The spiritual feel I would have expected from such a place was unfortunately lost.
Next, I went on basically wandering about aimlessly, popping in on places and seeing what they did. I was very tempted by a tailor-made suit with super high quality cashmere material for US$100, although I'd have no way of getting it back home, plus I didn't come here to buy posh clothing.

It didn't take me long to run into one of the infamous 'gem' stores with 'today specials only' prices and all that. I politely declined their generous offer and made a retreat.
Next up, I went to a tourist office place recommended by a friendly taxi driver (hmm....) who actually seem pretty professional, despite using hotmail accounts to communicate. Through them I can book my onward journeys to the north and then the south. Since my time is limited it looks like I'm going to fly to Chiang Mai and Samu, since it costs only 150quid for the lot, and saves me about 3 days of sitting in a train.

It's coming up to 2pm now and I've finally found an internet cafe after much searching. There's some local lads having a 'LAN bash' with a game that must be from the 90's. Looks like geekism has spread around the world! I'm struggling to keep my eyes open so I'm going to take the rest of the day easy, maybe take a dip in the pool. I keep seeing the odd westerner flying by on a Tuk-Tuk which looks like a refreshing experience, if not shit-scary.

Yeah, forgot to mention the driving.... that's good fun. Took me a while to work out which side of the road every is supposed to drive on.

Take care all and I'll speak to you soon!

Monday, November 07, 2005

Ping pong at Patpong...

Free intarweb! sweet.
After posting yesterday I took a hair-raising tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel where I promptly passed out for four hours. I was truly shattered. When I awoke, however, I felt a whole load better and decided I'd visit the Bangkok nightlife. Too tired to read up on what are interesting, classy areas I figured I'd jump in at the deep end and hopped into another tuk tuk to the infamous Patpong district.

Interesting place...

The locals sure are friendly with gentlemen offering me all sorts of services from young ladies (some with laminate brochures with different pictures since their english is poor). "No ladyboy, sir, nice ladies only!" one was saying...

I went for a beer in an upmarket hotel bar to calm the nervs after the ride and to compose myself where I got chatting to this australian lad who was travelling with two (hot) aus girls. A beer or four later and we decided to visit one of the world renouned 'shows'.

Seedy is an understatement. What was interesting was the cliantel in this club. 80% were westerner tourist couples of varying ages, and it would seem that the vast majority of people were there out of curiosity rather than kicks (myself included, of course). It was quite a sad place and I did feel guilty being part of what is essentially one stronger economy abusing another. In there I was chatting to a Bulgarian woman who was in the tourist industry in Durban. She was comparing the three cultures, apparently. She gave me a number in case I ever want to stay in a nice hotel in Durban, which was pretty random.

We left the club and went to another nearby bar. It was getting late and the aus threesome were lightweights so they decided to go back to their hotel. I hopped into another tuk tuk and asked the driver to take me to a bar where there were no shows, ladyboys or general sleazyness of that nature.

I walked into the bar he'd taken me to and was immediately greeted by about six prostitues offering me all sorts with special freebee STD's thrown in. I figured I'd pass on it. I started talking to chap -Scott - who didn't even realise he was in the patpong district (I figured the Tuk-Tuk driver hadn't taken me out, by the look of this bar). Turns out scott is travelling Thailand alone to do some photography, not unlike myself.



He's a graphic designer and we chatted for ages about apple macs and all sorts of bollocks that I can't even remember now. We're meeting up to go to some Thai boxing tonight, which should be fun.

Foolishly, I didn't buy any bottled water yesterday woke myself up at 5 am by spilling the complimentary bottle of water on the floor. At 9am I had quite a nasty hangover, but a healthy breakfast with copious volumes of water and fruit juices soon solved that. Right now I'm visiting some shopping center which although is very posh, isn't especially interesting.
A fantastic selection of ties though, I can understand where this country got it's name from now. This afternoon I've got to book my passage to Chiag Mai.

So that's where it's at. So far, so good.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Chiang Mai!

Unfortunately, I failed to meet up with Scott again. The taxi driver didn't really know where the hotel was, which turned out to right the other side of the city, and then when on the freeway there was some serious traffic.
Scott had left a message with some guy outside the hotel, but I think this guy was abusing the situation and wanted me to go to some sleazy bar of his friend, again with 'nice ladies, and no ladyboy!'...

Not to be down-heartened, I figured I'd spice things up a bit with a blast on one of the motorbike taxis. The friendly chap handed me a helmet that would look cheap and unsafe if bundled with a $4.99 action man outfit, and gestered me to get on the back of his 125 kick-through beast. I'm a pretty bad pillion passenger on a bike -mainly because I'm a wuss- but I felt eerily safe on the back of this bike. I suppose it's because everyone on the road expects everyone else do pull out and generally drive like maniacs, so they are seldom caught off guard and are constantly aware. Nevertheless, I've decided to stick to the relatively safer tuk-tuks and regular taxis in order to not end up dead or injured, which would suck...

So today has been fairly uneventful. I grabbed a plane and have now arrived in the hotel in Chiang Mai. It's a quality hotel not more than 6 months old and even has wireless (suckers went for linksys). I get a discounted Thai massage (*JUST* a massage...) which I'm going to make use of as my upper body has been aching since before I left Jersey. I think it was watching videos at Jenson's flat on a screen 90degrees from where I was facing...

I'm going to cut this short as I've a very early start tomorrow morning. I've booked a trek to the 'Golden Triangle' up the very north of the country where three borders meet. We set off at 7:30 am.

Take care, all.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Happy Days!

Wow, I'm so outrageously tired, it's unbelievable.

So, the massage was awesome, although I became impatient after a while, but that's just me. My shoulder popping out of it's socket freaked the masseur out, too.. Never had a massage before, but I really enjoyed the floppy, relaxed feeling you have afterwards.

For a moment I thought the masseur was taking the Mick when she employed this 'thumping' technique. I figured she and her masseur buddies would do this to the 'farangs' (whiteys) for a laugh, but then it turned out to work magic. She told me I was super-tense, even though I felt pretty relaxed...

Today was so eventful I daren't bore you with all the details. Instead, I have a bunch of photos which will describe things much easier/quicker. Turns out I was a tard and the Golden Triangle tour is tomorrow. Today was the 1 day trek which involved, unsurprisingly,


trekking but also elephant riding (cute animals), visiting a hill tribe, more trekking to a waterfall, and then some 'rafting'. I stress rafting as it can be described as a raft in only the loosest sense. 10 pieces of bamboo strapped together would be more accurate... good fun though!
The group I was with were pretty cool, and I got the opportunity to meet Antoine; the somewhat weird Swiss chap. He made funny noises pretty much randomly.
I was going to hit the town tonight to experience the Chiang Mai nightlife, but after all the activities and the two serloin steaks for 3 quid, plus the pint of local Singha (6%) beer, all I want to do is pass out.


More of the same tomorrow. Hopefully I'll sleep better and will have sufficient energy to go out tomorrow night...

Got several pretty good photos, although I cant tell how good the colours will be till I get the computer on the go.

This holiday rocks.





Thursday, November 10, 2005

Another long day...

7am start with a three hour drive to the Golden Triangle. Not a bad trip today, although very long (7am - 10pm). We visited several tribes including the long neck tribe, the big flappy earlobe tribe, and a third one who were pretty regular apart from a neato headdress (I'll actually give proper details at a later stage).Quite interesting although these tribes had become somewhat tourist-oriented and you were pretty much forced to run the gauntlet of shops: "heeelo sar! ten baaa, ten baaa!"

We then went up to the border to Burma where there was a huge market selling everything under the sun. It's 200Km from china, so it's all dodgy imported stuff. Things that stuck in the mind were the 'swiss army hammer' and the 'swiss army axe', both of which were like the popular needle nose pliers with fold out tools, but instead were miniature axes and hammers. The best had to be the 'Game station' that looked cunningly like a playstation save for any kind link to sony... the lawyers would have a field day. Another money spending opportunity aside, we went on to the golden triangle where we had a blast in the long boats (powered by 16 valve toyota car engines) which had some serious pace.

With sore backs after the pounding on the water, we made a quick stop in Laos where we tried some of the local delicacies including cobra whiskey and of course tiger-cock whiskey. It took us a while to actually work out what was this weird long thing in the jar that did appear to be straight out of a classic biology lab, especially with the guide not wanting to point to his own wang and trying to describe it politely by likening things to bananas, etc thus increasing confusion. Nevertheless, I gave it a blast but couldn't really notice the taste of cock in the whiskey, not that I know what tiger cock tastes like.... or any other cock to that matter... basically it tasted as crap as any other whiskey has done since that time in my teens when I drank too much of the stuff. I think the idea is to take the spirit of the animal from the drink. I don't feel like a tiger though.

I didn't happen to notice an 'RSPCA Approved' sticker on the bottle, either...

The group I was with were pretty cool, we were a right old motley crew with some mexicans, Israelites, South African twins and myself. The tour guide was from Laos, too. Everyone was of course friendly especially the south African twins. We had a long lunch and discussed our individual experiences of Thailand, as seems to be the norm with any foreigner you meet.

Well, it's 10:50 and I still have some energy left and no early start tomorrow. I'm finally going to see what this town offers in the evening, although the tour guide did point out to me that my hotel was right in the center of the red light district, so I might go for a little stroll before settling down in a bar.

As yet I have no plans for tomorrow, apart from maybe a slightly later start than I've had over the past few days. Looking at my location, I might be able to sleaze some photos from camera onto the blog.

I hope all is well in the UK, I tune into the wolrd service every so often but haven't really noticed any major news. Don't forget the silence tomorrow!

Friday, November 11, 2005

Phew...

So it turns out there are a lot of bars with ladies of the night operating within them. After walking some distance I figured I'd stop in at one for a beer. The bar was owned by a yank who of course had a Thai wife. I played pool and connect four with some young lady for a while (and, embarrassingly, was beaten) before I wandered off. The prostitutes here are far less pushy than in Patpong. She didn't even suggest anything until just as I was leaving. She seemed happy just sitting around playing games.

I went to another bar down the road and started chatting to Johan, this german chap who owns a bakery here. He was a great laugh and we chatted for ages over a few beers. He had a quite successful life back in Germany but decided to pack it in and live a much more meager lifestyle here, simply for the atmosphere. Next up, we hopped on his bike (yeah, dodgy) and went down to this nightclub that was truly awesome. In there I met all sorts of people, including these French guys who I was chatting to in french for an age. Turns out my french is much stronger after a few beers! I stayed there until about four, chatting to random people, including a ladyboy (woo!), and then grabbed a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Somehow the young lad driving it managed to powerslide round a corner, probably due to crap tires rather than engine torque!

I awoke this morning feeling as though I had been kicked in the head by a mule. The local beer- Singha really packs a punch. I'd missed breakfast but I scraped my ass out of bed, hailed a Tuk Tuk and asked the guy to take me to a market. He took me to some almost interesting craft places where I think he got commission for bringing tourists. I quickly tired of this (I wanted to get away from the touristy crap I'd been exposed to so far) and got him to drop me off in a local market. It's incredible seeing all the sights, sounds and smells as you travel through the various districts. The foods are interesting and varied. I spent roughly three hours idly drifting around from street to street observing this people's way of life.

I can really understand why people pack up their lives and come here. The people are so friendly, smiling broadly if you catch their eye. They have a genuine beauty that's much more than skin deep. They're healthy, too. You seldom see fat people or even spotty skin, even on the teenagers. I love the way they combine hard work with being laid back.

I tried a few of the local foods in the market and had an awesome authentic curry in a little restaurant that appeared to be more for locals. I have a new liking for spicy foods. Here they serve you fairly non-spicy food, but give you a little bowl of chilli sauce with these tiny little peppers that melt your eyes. Great stuff.

I really can't describe what this place is like in this blog without going on for quite some time. Basically it's fantastic, and I felt so relaxed and welcome cruising about the city. I get great pangs of sadness just thinking about leaving here.

My aching legs need a rest, but I'm going to take a little walk and find some decent food. I'm off to Ko Samui tomorrow, so it should be a real change of scenery.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Good-bye Chaing Mai.

After grabbing some food in this neat little restaurant I went out for a beer. I got talking to the owner of this bar called 'Nancy's Bar' who was dead friendly. She introduced me to her family and showed me pictures of a recent trip she'd been on. He husband is english I think.

It was in this bar that I got speaking to Ladti, a Thai girl who was cuteness personified. She had playful, cheeky mannerisms and an endless supply of smiles. She wanted to come to Samui with me, but I had to turn her down. The tempatation was there, though! Unexpectidly, I got a little emotional after we went our separate ways but I swiftly berated myself for being suckered in to what probably was the first step of the whole Thai bride thing. Seriously gorgeous though, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't a ladyboy too.

Heavy-hearted, I packed my gear up and made my way to the airport where I said my final farewell to Chiangmai. I really loved every aspect of the city and was truly sad to leave it. I got on a plane with fat, bolshy greeks, a french woman with eye-watering BO and a really arrogant fat twat who was so disrespectful to the Thai staff it was beyond belief. I find the way westerners behave over here is often abhorrent as they show no respect for the subdued nature of the Thai people.

So I've just arrived at Ko Samui and bumped into the two Isreli women who were on the same tour as I in Chiangmai. Small world. I'm staying in this complex where you have your own 'bungalo' which is essentialty a small room and a bathroom with a leaky roof. Some lizard keeps making noises outside my window, but I guess it keeps the numbers of mosquitos down, of which there seems to be many.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Samui.

Samui is very much geared toward the westerner party-boy with bars and clubs all over the place. It's a million miles from traditional Thailand, and seems to be closer to something like ibiza, although classier. Peeling skin and beer guts all round.

The island is gorgeous with picturesque white beaches and hilly, green land climbing steeply from the beach. The sea is calm, flat as a mirror, and crystal clear.

I grabbed yet another beer in this jazz bar (I've actually worn a hole in my elbow from leaning at too many bars) and got chatting to Ming (as in dynasty) who's opening comment to me was 'You look boring', although I think she meant 'bored'. Some would argue she was right on the money...
She was telling me about her boyfriend and invited me to this club to meet up with them which I gladly accepted. We hopped on her bike and went to 'Solo Club' which was a riot.

The music was great and played with a bowel-loosening level of bass. I met Ming's other half, Stu, who's family owns a sea plane here; he's a bit of a geezer but is a decent guy. We drank JD and cokes from these buckets which must hold maybe two of three pints a piece. It was all good fun and we partied hard till dawn.

I awoke with an enormous sense of well-being having generously provided a feast for the local mosquito, midge and gnat populations. I grabbed some food and met up with stu and ming again. We lounged about in bars and generally chilled out. We're taking a break for refreshment right now but I think we're going to meet up again tonight and see what happens.

Phan gnan tomorrow where I'll hopefully meet up with peter. It's all very busy on the two islands at the moment as there's one of the (in)famous full-moon parties this friday. The partying is fun, but it's not really what I had in mind for this holiday. If I were to do the trip again, I'd probably spend more time in the north of the country.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Samui -> Pagnan -> Samui

Hi all, sorry for the lack of communication.

So I went out with Stu, his brother John and Stu's girlfriend 'Mint'. We had a pretty good night in several bars, including 'The Pharmacy' where all the staff are dressed as nurses and they serve shots in syringes. It wasn't bad, although not a million miles from a decent night out in any British city save for the warm weather and lack of fights/crying women.

Next day I went to Phan Gnan on the ferry. Due to one of the legendary full moon parties coming up this friday it was packed full of English/western tourists, with 'tribal' and Chinese lettering tattoos all round. I found it quite depressing, especially since these weren't the hippy style of people that I would like to have expected, but were instead more of the hardcore ravers or big bastard northen lads who were boasting to each other about nights of debauchery they had had. Not cool.

I swiftly parted from the mob and took the minibus up to Haad Salad, a pretty small beach with less of a tourist influence than other areas of the island. I arrived in the bar that peter works at 'The Reggae Bar' and spoke to his in-laws who informed me that peter had been held up in Bangkok and wouldn't be back until the following evening. I grabbed several beers and went to bed at 6pm as I'd been partying pretty hard the previous night and had had little sleep.

I awoke at 7am and went to the beach to explore, going for a long walk around the bay then returning for some brekkie (Awesome bacon, cheese and onion omelet.. Authentic Thai, I'm sure...). I chilled in a hammock having decided that I'd take the last couple of days easy, but I got bored pretty quickly after finishing my book, so at midday I hired a motorbike and went cruising around the island.

I managed to cover every road (not the greatest achievement: there are about four) and explore the center of the island which is seriously hilly (The island is slightly smaller than jersey, but the highest peak is over 600m in altitude). The roads in Phan Gnan are the twistiest, steepest roads I'm yet to see and really are comparable to a rollercoaster. The 125 beast coped pretty well and I enjoyed the low-end torque that's so lacking on my bike. Great day and I actually got a decent tan which is handy.

In the evening, peter returned along with his mother and step dad. We ate and had a few drinks, and peter introduced me to his family, including his wife and his young son JJ.
Pete appears to be having a really great life over in Phan Gnan and certainly is doing an excellent job of being a father. It was good to see him after all this time.

The internet in Phan Gnan is a little temperamental as first it has to be sent up to a Satellite, which then beams it back down to Bangkok, which in turn beams it to another satellite. If there's electrical activity or thick cloud in either area then the signal breaks. When I tried to use the internet there was a thunderstorm in Bangkok apparently, so it was out of action. Pretty impressive technology, though.

This morning I came back to Ko Samui where I was going to get my flight back to Bangkok this evening but I decided to swap the flights over and have one more night here instead of two in Bangkok. To be honest, two days in Bangkok would be a little too much on the senses just before returning home...

I'm still enjoying myself a lot, but I know for sure that I prefer the north of the country so far; there seems to be something lacking down here, a 'spirit' or soul, perhaps. I'm going to have to come back some other time though to ensure my opinion is just! There's the north east which as yet I've not touched and all the land down south on the Indian ocean coast. I'm not sure how it's all going after Boxing day though...

Not sure on my plans tonight, another bar, another night out I suppose. I'm meeting up with 'Naagn' who is a friend of Mint to go for a couple of drinks.

Tomorrow I'll probably be posting from Bangkok in my penultimate night here (cue violin).

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Final Night

So I went out with Naagn for the evening. We had a meal first and I felt just like one of the thousands of westerners with Thai girlfriends over here, trying to form some kind of relationship through the language barrier. Not really my cup of tea. Despite being very polite, there's a clash of culture which I wasn't expecting. Us westerners are accustomed to the male being the gentleman and helping the woman in every way, whereas over here, it's completely the opposite which really made me feel awkward when this young lady was trying to do everything she possibly could to please me. Naagn is a really nice girl, and after the meal we went and celebrated the full moon in the traditional way instead of getting shit-faced on drink/drugs and dancing till dawn. We picked up a beautiful offering which consisted of a base made from the leaves of a banana tree, lavishly covered in flowers, with some incense and candles. We took her bike (she let me ride: a kick-through semi auto which I had no idea how to use) to what I believe is a moat where all the locals go to make their offerings. Her young sister and giggly friends were there to greet us.

As is custom, we took a piece of our fingernails, a piece of hair and a small coin donation, placed these on the floating base, lit the candles and incense and sent it on it's way. There were hundreds doing the same. Also, they were setting off mini hot-air balloons which were very similar in appearance to Chinese lanterns. They look incredible as they float off into the atmosphere, glowing from the flame inside. It was a great experience all round.

After this, Naagn took me to a club seldom visited by westerner. In fact, I was the only one there. It was an interesting place with dodgy europop music that made my cheese-o-meter(TM) reach unprecedented heights on the scale. It seems the music simply has to be upbeat and with a good tempo in order to satisfy the Thai locals... no surprise really, there's very little effort in trying to be 'cool' over here. I like it...

The club was good fun, but I was wondering who all these immaculately dressed women were who seemed to be up there with geicher women save the white makeup. Turns out they were a whole breed of ladyboy that I had not yet seen. They looked truly amazing, and it took a few adam's apples before I was convinced. Yet again my post has gone on to ladyboys... people will start to worry. There was a competition for best dressed/dancing ladyboy which was great fun.

So Naagn and I got on really well, but this morning (we met up for breakfast) she became seriously upset about my leaving. I had made it very clear that I wasn't going to be leaving my life in Jersey and coming to live in Thailand right from the word go, but she was still gutted that I was leaving. I had no idea what to do with myself and felt overwhelming guilt having caused such a reaction from someone. I did the best I honestly could and we exchanged details; I said that if I were to visit Thailand again I'd be sure to pay her a visit. She still wasn't exactly beaming smiles as I left, however.

I grabbed a plane to Bangkok and arrived at the hotel.


Whist gazing from my 18th floor room window, I wondered what to do with myself on my last night in Thailand, and the tallest building in Bangkok caught my eye. I remember Antoine telling me there was a bar at the top, so I figured I'd navigate my way there and experience everything that was in between my hotel and it. From up there it only looked like two or three K max as the crow flies.


 It was an awesome journey, taking me through rich and poor districts of the city as well as a couple of markets. As I arrived within 100m of the building I walked into one of the biggest markets I've seen here so I gave it a tour. Somehow I ended up going through some tiny backstreet and ended up on a railway track where a slum had been built on either side. It was a little unnerving and I'm sure ideas of robbing me were going through the heads of those I'd passed, so I hastily walked through and back to the building.




The views from the top are awesome, and I have a couple of pretty decent dusk shots of Bangkok, but I'm totally gutted as I tried to do a night shot but it most certainly requires a tripod, which I had left at the hotel. It seemed fitting to get some decent dusk photos of my last night here, though. I really had earned the outrageously expensive beer up there on the 84th floor.

So this is where I'm at. I've just had some seriously tasty spicy Thai noodles which are sure to give me 'ring of fire' syndrome on the plane tomorrow, but I'm sure it was worth it.

I'm feeling quite sad about leaving this place, especially thinking of what I'm going back to: chavs, eastenders and cheesey chips. This holiday has been life-changing and I'm sure it'll remain as one of my fondest memories for life. I've met great people, and experienced every emotion under the sun at some stage or another. It'll be one hell of a mission to better this past two weeks.

Put it this way: when we placed our offering into the moat, Naagn told me to make a wish, but I had no idea what to go for other than good health and a long life so that I can do more of this in future. No amount of material possession or similar could outweigh the experience I've had. I fear greatly, though, that if I were to return I'd suffer a huge anticlimax since the shock value wouldn't be there.

Next post will likely be from Gatwick, if the crap computers there work this time. I'm off for a wander about this area of town and see what happens.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Back In Jersey :(

My last night in Bangkok didn't amount to much. I went to a couple of bars but was so exhausted I went back to the hotel after picking up a pile of tasty food, including these things that look like sausages on a stick, but contain fine noodles and other tasty treats inside.

The next day I wandered about Bangkok, checking out the markets and was really tempted by this tailor who was offering me (after a hefty amount of haggling), a tailor made cashmere-silk suit with a spare pair of trousers, plus two tailor-made shirts and two silk ties for.... £200. I was tempted, but if the guy decided to rip me off there would have been little I could do.

I did a whole load of mileage and my knees have started aching from a sports injury I got before I came to Bangkok which blows.
I got in a cab just as some super-heavy rain broke out in central Bangkok, quite a wet goodbye from the city.

Later on I grabbed the plane and had a very pleasant, although long, journey back to Jersey.
I'm seriously tired right now and am going through my photos. Whilst it's good to be home, I really miss Thailand and the people I met. I think my feelings towards jersey/the UK have really changed and I think it will be some time before I feel like I 'fit in' or am accustomed to the way things are here.

I doubt I will continue this blog for much longer. Unfortunately my life is quite uneventful here in jersey, and who is there to read up on my 'progress' who I don't speak to daily/weekly?

I've really enjoyed maintaining this blog. It made me think about what I was feeling and how to express it throughout my time abroad. I also think it will serve as a great personal reminder of the way things were in a way that photographs cannot describe.
I guess I'll fire it up again next time I'm on some adventure. I loved traveling alone and am certainly going to be doing more of it in future. Where? I don't know just yet.... I guess I'll send an e-mail around just before as I did this time.