July 07 Onwards

Well since I last spoke to you, it's been lessons, lessons, lessons all the way really...

Ha ha!... Why I am putting myself through the best part of 25 hours worth of classes a week instead of putting my feet up in a hammock for a peaceful life on the island of Phuket I do not know...

In fact, I think I'm right in saying that by the time it comes to me going to bed at early'o'clock in the evening these days, I have so many of the questions that have been posed to me throughout the day which are floating around in my head it's untrue...

"What do you think would happen to Thailand if the 1.3 billion people in China all stamped their feet on the ground at the same time?"

"Did you know the reason that mosquitos bite you foreigners is because you all taste of hamburgers and chocolate, and that we Thai people don't get bitten because we eat spicy food instead?"

"Why are you not using your legs to move your arms? And you are not moving your head and shoulders enough either..."

"Come on Mr. Matt. Why are you not keeping your guitar chords in time with the beat?"

Ha ha! I swear all my teachers come to haunt me in my sleep you know!

I wouldn't change it for the world though!

Doing all these things I enjoy I mean.

Actually, the highlight of the week for me at the moment has to be these guitar lessons I have taken up as it goes.

Aw, on the subject of which, and you want to check out my teacher bless him.

He's a local fella, and he goes by the name of Champ actually, oh and yes, he's always calling me "Mr. Matt" as well...

Well anyway, the guy is a musical genius in my eyes, and as a result of this, I think that his talented brain subconciously tires of the simpleton stuff that he has to teach me during my lessons from time to time really, as I often find him disappearing off into a world of his own whilst he is imitating his hero Chuck Berry...

Wow though... I tell you what, I'd pay to see him perform you know! (Ha ha! Well I guess I am in a way aren't I?!)

Moving on however, and despite me being able to listen to these amazing live performances of his, by far the best bit about the lesson has to be listening to him laugh actually, as he does happen to have one hell of a chuckle on him (this is probably due to him being a little on the plump side shall we say).

Ha ha! In fact, I suppose you could say I love it that much when he finds something funny, that I make it my duty to make him laugh as much as I can during the lesson as it goes (this being so much so that it has started to become an addiction of mine!)

If the truth be known, it isn't hard to get him started on the chuckle front though, because by the time I have followed his nice, crisp "D Minor" with my awful sounding "D Twang", we are both rolling about on the floor with laughter!

Anyway... putting my lessons aside for now, and my love affair with Bangkok still continues.

Ha ha! It's a great place to do this part-time people-watching hobby of mine you know...

I must say that I'm loving the little bits and pieces I am finding out about how the Thai's keep their traditions going in their society as well, as it must be quite a hard thing to do really, especially in a big modern capital city like this...

It's the whole Buddhism thing that I find the most striking thing about it all actually.

In fact, as I look back over my recent travels, I think that it's a shame that I only learnt a little bit about Buddhism at the academy in China, and that I don't know too much about it really, as it's been obvious to me (as an outsider) that it is an important feature of the past three countries I have visited to say the least.

Despite this however, now that I am in Thailand, I am finding that the Buddist temples and these small Buddhist shrine type things over here are seeming to outnumber those that I have seen in these other countries by far, and that they are pretty much everywhere actually... parks, markets, shopping centres, people's homes...

I was recently speaking to the lady who runs the restaurant I go to about hers as it goes, and from what I can gather, the general relaxed gist of it is that she lights incense candles whilst presenting a food/drink offering to it "when she can remember" (which happens to be most mornings).

Anyway, she also says a small prayer at the time too, which may be to do with some kind of problem she is having to deal with, then after which she leaves it at that and she gets on with her day.

After this however, as life goes on of course, and if (or when) the problem resolves itself as well, she then puts whatever good fortune has come her way down to her prayer being answered, and she goes on to tie a piece of material around the main supporting pillar of her shrine (it is shaped like a bird-house) in order to show her appreciation.

The thing is though, judging by the amount of material wrapped around it now, I'm guessing that quite a few prayers must have been answered in the past! And this is just in her restaurant alone.

Just one small walk down to the end of my road, and you can see locals stopping to give a small wai type gesture to the small shrine outside the shopping mall at all hours of the day as well... when they are on their way to work, when they are on their lunch-breaks, when they are doing their shopping...

It only usually takes them a couple of seconds mind, and then it's back to business as usual... but the thing is there's loads of them doing it!

Don't get me wrong however, I don't stand there for hours on end watching them, but if I just stand there for a minute or two, I'm bound to see 3 of them wai at least.

So anyway... aside from the Buddhism, what else is important to the Thai people?

Ah yes! The elephants!

Wow! To be fair, I have never seen so many of the big-nosed fellas actually, as there are pictures and models of them all over the place! One or two guys even walk real ones around the streets in order to try and scrounge money off people as well!

The most important thing about them though is the fact that Elephant= Protector over here, or something like that anyway... this being related back to the days when the locals used to ride them in the battles which protected their king I believe...

Oh and on the subject of the King...

Well in short, he is adored over here too... in fact, I think that as local tradition has it, it is considered disrespectful if you step on a Thai currency note when you drop it even, because it has his face on it...

Ha ha! It does seem silly me talking about all this on my blog I know, and hey, maybe I'm sad in saying this, but I do find all of these cultural things I am finding out quite interesting as it goes!

I think it's the differences that do it for me really.

Actually, on the subject of which... "Why do you English people eat a cold snack with a hot cup of tea? Oh, and why do you drink a hot drink when you are ill and already hot?!" were the exact words that came out of a Thai lady's mouth when she found out I was from England the other day would you believe...

It's mad isn't it?!

We are so different it's untrue!

Moving on from all these nice things I am experiencing, and I have to say that there are one or two weirdos hanging around this strange city you know...

I think they are immigrants from Malaysia, Vietnam or The Philippines as it goes (or so the locals like to tell me anyway!)

Ha ha!... Take for example this misfit I met earlier on in the week for starters... (he being a guy who to be fair, if he lived in the UK, looked to me as though he would be the sort of person who would probably end up on the Jeremy Kyle show or something)...

So here I was walking on this overpass in the middle of town wasn't I, and there he was striding towards me...

I forget which designer label shirt that wasn't really a designer label shirt he was wearing at the time, but anyway, as soon as he got up to me he then stopped, and he pointed at the two cub scout badges that he had sown onto his chest(!) whilst also proudly telling me that he was a cub scout.

Ha ha!... Well I never. I've heard it all now haven't I?!

"Mate you look like a tuk-tuk driver in his 40's who's gone wrong though" were my exact thoughts at the time I think... a rapid-fire character assessment that soon went on to prove itself right may I add, as he then proceeded to push a book in front of my face in order to try and fleece me with some dodgy deal!

The cheek of it, eh?! I mean, it's bad enough experiencing a rip-off merchant who looks like a rip-off merchant trying to rip me off, let alone one who's giving me the old "dib, dib, dib, dob, dob, dob" routine!

The thing is though, as strikingly obvious as being the Del Boy of Bangkok as he was, there are people like him all over the place over here!

Ha ha! It is quite hard trying to suss these people out at times actually, because as I am travelling on my own, I do kind of feel obliged to actually be bothered to conversate with people who come up to me for a chat you know (aside from nutters like him of course), otherwise I wouldn't get to meet anybody!

Take for example this pleasant looking local called Booby (yes Booby!) who came up to me whilst I was in a local market last Sunday...

A totally boring read for the purposes of this blog, but anyway, after a few minutes of nice chat, he then used the old "My sister is going to live in your country, would you mind coming round to our house to help her out" line didn't he?

A very innocent sounding request from a very innocent looking face, yet it was exactly the same line that the guys in Vietnam used with that German tourist I met in Phnom Penh I told you about, when she then ended up getting dragged into a USD 64,000 bedroom card game.

Apparently it is a line that is used quite often over here, and if you wasn't any the wiser, maybe you would just roll with it, I don't know.

For me personally though, I wasn't falling into Booby's trap this time anyway.

Moving on however... and then finally, on top of these characters, there are the good old tuk-tuk drivers I have to look out for too of course...

Ha ha! Man, if there are two types of people in life who I wouldn't want to get into an argument with, they would be scaffolders and tuk-tuk drivers actually.

Both appear to me to be as hard as nails.

The strange thing is, I don't know what it is about some of these tuk-tuk drivers that give me the spooks you know, and as a quick introduction to them for you, so far as I can gather, they either spend all day revving about on these little taxi things that sound like a mixture between a C-Reg Escort with it's exhaust falling off and a 500cc speedway bike, or failing that they are just sat on the back seat of the above whilst giving me the eye, or they are just being plain nice to me whilst seeing lots of Baht signs light up in front of their eyes.

I think it must be their driving position that is probably freaking me out as it goes, as they sort of sit there in the driver's seat of these things (which as you probably well know is the only seat at the front of the vehicle), and their resulting hunched-up position with the wind flowing through their mullet type appearance kind of reminds me of something that would appear on the front of an Iron Maiden album I suppose.

And the tricks they try and pull on me/every other tourist here? Ok...

"Hello! Where you go?"

"This market."

"Ah. This market bad. I take you to better market. I also do 1 stop-off for you."

"Hey?"

"I take you to good market. I also take you to silk shop."

"Well I want to go to this market." (Besides I'm already here now. And who said anything about a silk shop anyway?)

Ha ha! You get the picture don't you. They want me to spend loads of money at their mate's silk shop. Then they want me to spend loads of money at their mate's market stall. And then they also want to charge me loads of money for their tuk-tuk ride as well.

To be honest, after 3 days of being here I stopped talking to them when they came up to me, as all I was getting was the above over, and over, and over again. Like maybe up to 10 times a day!

Now all I get is the evil stare when I ignore them instead.

Ha ha! The joys of travelling, eh?!

Well anyway, I'd better shoot off now and do the homework my guitar teacher has set me!

Speak soon ;o)

For those of you who didn't read my last blog entry, I got stuck into Thailand's Songkran Festival last weekend.

Actually, I must admit that usually after I have been to a festival of some sort, I always seem to hit a big childish pit of misery as I return to the big bump of reality afterwards as it goes. Big kid me aint I?!

What with Bangkok being Bangkok, there was no way that was going to happen this time though!

There is so much energy running around this place it's untrue!

In fact looking back, and despite the fact that the AUA place I have been studying at shut down for the Thai New Year (which in turn gave me a break from trying to guess which one of my two lady looking language teachers is/was actually a man), it has been a busy week for me really...

Firstly I've been paying my regular visits to those mad guys who tell me to stand strong and protect my liver at all times whilst shouting at me when I forget to duck... oh and then on top of this I've also been... actually check this out...

Ha ha! Over 28 whole years it has taken for me to pluck up the courage to go and start getting this off of my "to do" list!

What a momentous day it was when I decided to do so too!

I tell you what, my fingers have never had such a good workout! It was well hard work! Especially when my third finger along was trying to follow my little finger everywhere!

I tell you what it's amazing though, because here am I doing all these thing in Bangkok now, the most developed city in this part of the world by far, and by my reckoning it is only costing me an extra 20ish UK Pounds a week than what I was spending when I was travelling Cambodia (which was a very cheap country for me to be in indeed).

I must admit that this wasn't the case for me when I got here at first however, but now I have been here for a few weeks, I've managed to find some cheap places to eat at, and I know where the good supermarkets are, how to dodge the tuk-tuk drivers, oh blah, blah, blah... I guess you get the picture don't you?! (I'm a geek at times I know!)

Moving onto the tourist attractions here anyhow... (oh and at this point I promise I won't bore you by me going banging on about all these sites I have been going to too much!)

Ha ha! Where shall I begin though?!

Well if I was to start by talking about the Buddhist things I have been to see, I must say that what with me being a relatively new visitor to the country, so far as I can gather the Thai's do seem to be very religious you know. But it's a nice religious if I can say that?

Anyway, like I've said before, I don't go chasing these places of worship on my travels, but at the moment I must admit that it is a case of the old "hang on a minute, these temple places that I am seeing in Bangkok do just so happen to be amongst some of the finest buildings I have ever seen" scenario really, and it is as a result of this that I have taken great pleasure in being able to walk around them.

Quickly moving on and putting the Golden Buddhas aside for now however, the most interesting tourist attraction I went to see this week ended up being Jim Thompson's house actually.

Have you ever heard of the guy?

Well for those of you who haven't, here is his life story...

Jim Thompson was an American who was born in 1906. In 1946 he went to Thailand and he fell in love with the place, so he decided to live there permanently.

He then went on to make a big impact on the Thai silk industry, oh and he also went and scoured the Thai countryside for various artefacts, so that he could then create an elaborate house on stilts in Bangkok as well.

Things got interesting in 1967 though, as it was then that he decided to go to Malaysia, where he eventually ended up doing a big one.

A vanishing act I mean.

In fact, all that is left of him now seems to be this wonderful house of his in the Thai Capital, oh and some pretty cool action stills of him on SE Asian longboats and the like as well.

Anyway... his house is open to the public now is it goes, and you can visit it in order to see a fuse of traditional Thai architecture that is mixed in with his Western design philosophy...

It is a very beautiful place to visit actually, and I was very impressed when I went there... but even so... hang on a minute though (and forgive me if I am missing the point here) but what if the worst case scenario didn't happen to him in the end after all, and that his disappearance was just an extended gap year or something?

And further to this, what if he decided to return home after all these years of being away, in order to put his feet up and have a good old chill out, only to find the likes of that strange guy from the UK who cycled round Laos with a toilet rummaging around in his bedroom?

Well it is a possibility!

Ha ha! I love a good mystery me!

Anyway... I'll stop there for now!

It's Saturday night here at the moment, and this past week has worn me out completely, so being the old codger that I am, I'm off to bed for an early night.

Speak soon ;o)

Hello and Happy New Year to everybody!

Ha ha! Did you know that Thailand started celebrating it's New Year (otherwise known as the Songkran or Water Festival) this weekend just gone?

Well anyway... as a quick insight for those of you who weren't aware of this... even though this special occasion was something that was initially set by astrological means, the dates are now fixed, and as a result the Thai's now celebrate it between 13th-15th April every year I believe. Oh, and for those of you who are interested actually, whilst I am on the subject of dates, it is in fact the year 2551 in Thailand now as well (this being in-line with the Thai Buddhist Era). Hang on a minute, does that make me 571 years old whilst I am over here?!

Seriously though, and by far the most important thing about this festival however, lies in the fact that the Thai people quite simply love to celebrate the occasion... oh and that when you add the madness that is Songkran to a mad city like Bangkok, there is going to be chaos everywhere of course.

Ha ha!... Actually, when it comes to this special time of year in the Thai Capital, the general concensus amongst everybody here (amongst both locals and foreigners alike) is for you to stop whatever strange thing it is that you are doing for a couple of days, and well... do no other than just get amongst it!

****

An invitation to a meal with the lady who runs the local restaurant was first on the cards for my own celebrations as it goes.

An entirely classy event, it started off with her taking me to a posh hotel a couple of blocks away early on in the evening, where I was then introduced to the funky cosmopolitan mix of people that she socialises with from time to time.

A very Italian looking Italian, a cool cat from Hong Kong, a cheeky Chinese chappy, a success story from London. Yes they were the real deal. And they were all good fun too. Ha ha! It was nice for me to get dressed up for once as well actually, and I have to say that the erm, ever so authentic Diesel jeans that I bought from a local shop stall earlier on in the day did me proud. They were the first pair of jeans I had worn in 9 months of travelling by the way! (My adopted Essex-Boy ways must be slowly creeping back in eh?!)

You wanted to check out the name of the place we ate at though. A proper dapper little restaurant it was, and why it was called "Cabbages and Condoms" I do not know. In fact, whilst I am speaking about it now, you wanted to see the state of the place too!... There was the good old atmospheric lighting at it's best... there was the odd nice bit of posh decor here and there... there were the smartly dressed waitresses who were serving us left, right and centre... and then on top of all of this (in stark contrast to all of the above may I add) there were these rubber things of all shapes and sizes that were dotted all about the place too! Ha ha! Very strange! They were practically everywhere!... Under the glass table tops... in display cases in the middle of the restaurant... in frames on the wall... I even got a chocolate flavoured one to take home with me would you believe?! (Hang on a minute, that wasn't somebody's dessert was it?!)

As nice as the evening was however... on the streets was where the festival was really at for me, and the deal for anybody who was new in town was to just make your way down to one of two areas in the city where the other people were meeting up to party. (I decided to go to "Th Silom" for the second day's worth of celebrations, this being the place where I heard there would be less trouble).

Anyway... as I was walking through the streets to get there the following morning, I have to say that the part of the Bangkok I was in appeared to have a very sleepy Bank Holiday feel about it, and there wasn't a lot going on really.

As soon as I got to where I wanted to be though, a few cries of "Farang!", a few buckets of water, and a few flour bombs later, and I have to say that it was rock and roll all the way...

Ha ha! From this point onwards in fact, it soon proved to be a day of making friends, giving hugs, drinking ice cold beer and eating tasty street food (whilst trying to get in-amongst all of the water fights of course!) Oh, and it also became a day of saying "Happy New Year" and giving a "Really?" answer to the numerous ladys who came up to me to tell me that "their sister lives in England now and is married to an Englishman" too. (I never realised how common this was before I came to this part of the world you know!)

Speaking of fellow Englishmen actually, and you wanted to check out these lads from Northallerton chasing round this Southern lad with their water guns early on in the day... "Come 'ere ya Southern Softy" they were all shouting, as he was skidding about the place trying to get them soaked! Well, then five minutes later, one of them decided to come up to me didn't he, and I'm thinking to myself, oh here we go... Anyway... "you got a condom?" he then asked me (not what I was expecting at all!)... "Erm... wait a minute, I have as it goes. It's a chocolate flavoured one though. Why, you got lucky?" was my cheeky reply... "Oh nah mate, I just wanna put one over my mobile phone to protect it from all this water" he then said. Ha ha! I then proceeded to give him my free gift from the previous night of course, and there he was 2 minutes later, trying to bite the packet open with his teeth... "Mmm... it tastes quite nice actually mate. Do you wanna taste?" he asked me, before he then went on to put it over his (very small) mobile phone, where it eventually snapped in half. (Hmmm... I think that there is maybe a moral to that story, eh people?! Don't trust chocolate flavoured condoms!)

Well anyway, after experiencing that funny episode, I spent hours wandering the streets. It was such a good atmosphere! Half way through the afternoon things got even better as well, as I stumbled across a long-haired, heavily-tattooed Burmese guy who was belting some of Nirvana's finest out of the little street cave where he made model Harleys every day. Ha ha! I was only meant to stay at his place for five minutes actually, but after hearing Kurt tell me about the fact that he didn't have a gun at an unbelieveable amount of decibels, I soon became totally entranced and I was there for the rest of the day as it goes!

Beer in my right hand. Left hand high up in the air. Me shouting away. I set up my stall on the plastic ice-box that this guy was selling his Beer Chang out of, and I did none other than what I like doing best! Sad aint I?! In my defence though, to be honest, listening to "Come As You Are" booming out during Bangkok's Songkran was as close as I was going to get to the Foo's playing at V'03 I suppose (plus there was the added bonus of me getting sprayed with water by the passing crowds every 2 minutes or so as well of course!)

I have to say that the toilet situation there was a bit strange though. Ha ha! Because of the madness of the festival and the fact that it took over quite literally everywhere in the local vicinity, it kind of made me forget where I was really. Well anyway... whilst I was in this mini mosh-pit, the toilet everyone was using just so happened to be in the local hospital, which was located directly behind where we were. It was so embarrassing when I went there for my first visit there actually, as I walked straight into the middle of none other than a trauma team who were waiting outside for a call would you believe. Well I didn't think it was going to be that sort of hospital did I?! To be fair, they looked like something that would meet a crew up at the Royal London as it goes. Ha ha! After laughing at the sight of the soaking wet, caked in flour mess that was me, they then proceeded to surprise me even more, by going on to ask me if I needed the toilet as well. (I mean, is trying to help a random farang find his way to the toilet a part of their protocol on receiving new patients over here?!) Well regardless of the answer to this question, I replied yes, and before I knew it a porter was showing me the way to the gents, where there was a queue of other festival goers who were waiting to use the loo too. Unbelievable eh?! (Needless to say I made different arrangements for going to the toilet for the rest of the day though!)

Back to speaking about the partying now, and before I knew it, the day had turned into night, and conscious was turning into semi-conscious. The evening was a haze, but I do remember being at this place with this guy, his family and his mates, with a few of us being sat round him whilst he was playing a mixture of Burmese, Beatles and U2 songs on his acoustic guitar. The cover of his music cave gave us all temporary relief from the flour bombs and water guns as we all drifted off into a world of rock and roll actually, and as the hours wore on, we found that he was still playing his guitar so long as we were still singing along to whatever was being played.

Pretty soon though, the end of the day was upon us, and I was having to say goodbye to the people I had been spending the afternoon and evening with. All apart from this mad Burmese guy however. Ha ha!... During the last half-hour of my time there, I must admit that I was sort of aware of the fact that he was in the tired, drunken halfway-house that everybody visits at the end of one of these mad days on the sauce... as one minute I was looking over at him whilst he was trying his best to fixate on the tiny characters that were running about on his television screen during the Lazio-Siena game, and then the next minute I looked over, he was laid flat-out on his back whilst sleeping away soundo. "He up party ALL last night!" his wife told me as I got up to say goodbye to everybody. Say no more I thought to myself. The man is a hardcore rock and roll veteran, and besides which, he has just spent the best part of his evening keeping me and all those around him entertained, all for free as well. "Say thank you and goodbye to him from me" I said as I wandered off into the crowds, still buzzing from the energy of all that was around me.

Ha ha! What with all the flour all over me, I must have looked a right old state at the end of the night to say the least! As I got back to my accommodation later on in the evening in fact, Mint gave me a knowing look at reception, and she chuckled at me as I collected my room key from her sister. I think us foreigners have a bit of a reputation for wanting to go and join in with the Thai's and their New Year's celebrations you know!

What a fantastic experience it was though!

Speak soon ;o)

Well since I last spoke to you, one "walk around the city of Bangkok without a plan" later, and I have to say that I fell in love with the place even more.

Ha ha! All I was doing was having a good old nose around the streets, and I was still loving every single minute of it!

In fact, it was as a result of this, that a day later I decided to ditch my room that was just off the infamous Khao San Road (which is on the NW border of the city proper), and I then proceeded to move myself to a small guesthouse in the centre of town, so that I could explore Bangkok properly.

Actually... on the subject of my new accommodation, it is only a little old white house bless it, and it seems to me to be the type of building that the big skyscrapers around it have tried to bully out of existence over time really... but it still stands there strong though. The girls who run the place, Mint and her sister, happen to have the simplicity of running it down to a tee which is good, oh and on top of this my room is also nice and clean as well. I like the windows in my room too. Sad aint I?! But there's loads of them! I mean, I'm no feng shui expert or anything like that, but the layout of my new pad and it's general brightness... well it does all feel kind of right I suppose!...

And my mission for this mad city?! Ha ha!

Well let me bring the American University Alumni into the equation first. "The what?" I hear you say?!

Yes I agree, it is quite a grand, intimidating title for a language school isn't it?!

Well anyway, and on the subject of this rather professional sounding "AUA" place... I have to say that one of my most favourite things about travelling so far has to be when I have tried to learn a little bit of the local lingo as it goes, and so when I found out that this university was just down the road from my new digs in Bangkok, I thought to myself "well why not, eh?" and it was as a result of this that I just couldn't resist enrolling myself on a course there.

I tell you what though... only the Americans or the Chinese could come up with a teaching style like the one they have on offer however...

Ha ha!... Where do I begin?!

Well firstly, for what it's worth, here's how I tried to learn a little bit of local language in the places I visited before I came to Thailand anyway...

I would make a start by grouping the important words together that I had learnt from the locals into groups of 10 (for example "Hello, Goodbye, Yes, No, Please, Thank you, Me, You, This, That"). Oh and then I would do the same with numbers too.

Then I would go on to drill these word combinations in their batches of 10 (but I must stress that this was not in a religious way or anything like that, it was just like when I was in the shower or on a bus doing nothing, that's all).

After this though, before I knew it, I would have the numbers 1-100 and around 100 words in local in my memory (half of which I forgot after a couple of weeks of leaving the country they belonged to and I started to pick up a new set of words)... but anyway... I suppose you get the idea of what it was that I was at least trying to do perhaps...

Now put me in this university however, and I am gunning to go aren't I? I'm going to pick up words in the lesson, then I am going to go home in order to learn them in a similar way (until I am black and blue in the face this time though), and then finally I am going to go back to my teacher the following day, where I will have a big old show off session in front of the rest of the class...

Ha ha!... Wait a minute actually!...

Oh no you don't Matt!

In fact as I speak about it... I must say that it is very strange at this school you know... and it turns out that instead of me doing the above, they have me and a few other foreigners sat in a classroom doing absolutely nothing would you believe?! Well apart from getting us to listen to and watch two Thai teachers communicate to each other that is. Of course, the conversation they have is all in Thai (it is accompanied by some comical drawings on the board as well though)... but anyway... the most important thing out of all this is that there is no writing and very little talking on our behalf at all.

And the theory behind all of this?

Well apparently, according to these educated American guys who I am assuming are running the place, learning a new language isn't about focusing on specific things in an adult-like way (ie. the sounds, the definitions, the grammar, and the memory repetitions that go with this), and instead you should just sit there and observe a foreign conversation the way a child does, as you should pick it up better that way.

Obviously there is more to it than this, as there is a science involved I'm sure... but in a nutshell though... all I know is that I am sat in this classroom right... and there are these two teachers who are using both their local tongue and their body language to communicate with me, and they are doing so in a very similar way as to what I would speak to a baby...

They pretent to cry with big rounded closed fist type gestures in front of their eyes one minute... then they are singing a Thai version of "Old McDonald" the next... then I am being asked to recite the English version of my "ABC" of course... before they then go on to "hurray" me with a big, big round of applause afterwards.

Ha ha! Then if that isn't bad enough, there are the pictures as well. Oh the pictures! For example, in my second lesson, a photo from a Thai newspaper was pushed in front of my face, and I basically had to guess if it was 1) A picture of some cake mixture 2) A picture of something to do with a dead pig or 3) A picture of the afterbirth from a pregnancy.

After dealing with a few Birth Before Arrivals at work, I ended up going for option 3 actually... but to be honest, in the end I think it ended up being something to do with the dead pig as it goes. But how bizarre anyway?! I'm sure it all fitted into the grand scheme of things somehow!

I must admit that the funniest thing about all this though... is... well me! You see, despite me feeling humiliated, highly entertained and highly interested all at the very same time, I am sat there in these lessons with my eyes wide open, and I am visually following these animated characters around just like I am a big kid! In fact, you know the way a small child looks at you with those big eyes, and when he just sort of blankly smiles at you because he does not yet have the ability to speak? Well I'm sure that is what I look like in these lessons you know!

Ha ha! It is so strange it really is!

One of the teachers came up to me after my first lesson as it goes...

"How much did you understand?" he asked me inquisitively.

"About 5%" I replied.

"Ah, that is good... we wouldn't expect any more, and we wouldn't expect any less from your first lesson..." he then went on to say.

I had to set him straight though... "I only understood the 5% because I spent some time in Laos and they use a similar language over there..."

Well he wasn't having that as an excuse anyway. He was happy with the fact that I had appeared to have understood 5% of the baby conversation he just had with me over the past hour and that was all that mattered to him.

I'll be honest however, I'm not yet convinced, as I know the way my brain works... but hey... I like the concept of all what is being taught, and judging by the way I am sleeping at night, hopefully I must be taking in just a small amount of something at least!

Anyway. Aside from this, there is my daily 2 hour visit to a place where I spend a 50/50 split between using the services of a very nice guy who was on the Thai Olympic Team, oh and a guy from France who seems to be extraordinarily fit and talented as well. (And after spending a couple of hours at the baby creche that is the university, these guys are a godsend I tell you!)

But by far the best bit of the day though is the walk home after all of this... the street break-dancers, the orange-juice sellers, the people selling clothes in the street, the tuk-tuk drivers roaring about left, right and centre...

Bangkok really does do it's best to impress me with it's extraordinarily busy nature you know...

In fact after this walk, it is time for me to do no other than kick back and relax by visiting the sweet lady who runs the most chilled-out, friendly, cool cafe I have ever been to...

It is set just back from the guesthouse I am staying in actually.

What a place it is though!

Ha ha! I don't quite know what it is about this eatery that makes it so striking really, but what I do know is that as soon as I set foot in there, it is like I have stepped back in time to the 1950's or something. There's this strange atmospheric music that plays out of a small radio type thing, then there is the dim lighting and the weird decor as well... well it all takes me into another world anyway!

Oh and the food is pretty tasty there too as it goes... actually, is that a meal I am being served up there each night that is made up of at least 20% meat protein?! (Ha ha! This has been quite a rarity over the past few months I'll have you know!!)

All good fun eh?!

Actually, speaking of fun though... I'd better dash off to get some food now- before I head over to start today's installment of nursery classes of course!

Bring it on!

Speak soon ;o)

Since I last spoke to you, after giving up on the strange idea that was put into my head by a fellow traveller to go and see Pol Pot's grave on the Cambodian/Thai border north of Siam Reap (incidently it was also here that the son of one of ex-leaders of the Khmer Rouge now works as a tourist guide by the way)... I then decided to make use of the time that I had left on my Cambodian visa by getting stuck into visiting a couple of quirky museums instead.

Learning more about the recent history of the country... speaking to a below-knee-amputee landmine victim (who then went on to let me feel the ball-bearings that were permanently lodged in his arms and his remaining full leg)... visiting these mini-exhibitions (and meeting him) meant that it was a strange end to a strange month as it goes.

In fact, looking at it from a broader perspective actually, and in me summing up the time I spent in Cambodia, I guess you could say that if I thought about the things I saw around me whilst I was a tourist there too much, I'd probably end up in a very confused, upside-down, inside-out state to say the least. So instead, and for the purposes of this blog, I will just say that Cambodia is a mad old thought-provoking place indeed. It's much easier that way I feel.

So... with my visa time running out in the Land of the Khmers, it soon became time for me to head west over the border into Thailand, with my plan of action being to travel the 450ish km overland from Siam Reap to Bangkok on a direct bus service I had seen advertised.

Ha ha!

And what a journey it was!

The lady who I bought my bus ticket from saw me coming didn't she!

Well it is the first time I ever bought a ticket for a bus that didn't exist anyway!

Instead, on the morning of the journey, a dirty old white car rolled up to take me to the border would you believe... the back seat of which both me and my bag were going to have to share with 3 other passengers as well!

It was never going to happen. Lucky it didn't in the end (as we were all pretty big people)... and as luck would have it, another car had to be rather reluctantly pulled into the equation as well.

So... five minutes later and there we were. Bombing along. May I take this opportunity to introduce you to the occupants of the car before I move on though... the 3 French guys, the local cap-wearing driver, oh and me of course. Not that this is important... but I just like to keep you in the picture, that's all.

Anyway. What a road. I have never, ever been on (and off) a road like it. Most of it never even existed in fact (I did read from one source that up until very recently, the government were not showing too much of an interest in upgrading the route as it goes, as they were receiving a bit of a back-hander from an airline who were keen to keep the tourists between Cambodia and Thailand off the road and in the air)...

Ha ha... it was a nightmare! It almost took over the Nemesis as being my favourite ride even!

After a bit of the old "oohh laa laa'ing" from the French guys here and there, we eventually made it to the border though... and at which point my bags were dumped on the dusty road, oh and it was a case of "see you later mate" from the driver of the car as well.

Nice one!

What an awful place it was to be in. Border towns give me the creeps. Fun but nasty.

And this place?

Dusty roads, strange people, big casinos and not a lot else really.

Passport check one. Passport check two. And then I was in Thailand. Thank god! (No bribes paid this time may I add!)

Anyway... according to the car driver from the first part of my journey, once I was on the Thai side, the plan was for me to show this piece of paper I had in my hand (the receipt the bus-ticket lady gave me in Siam Reap) to "somebody at the market" there.

Ha ha! "Like that one's going to work" I was thinking to myself at the time!

As the story goes though... I am surprised to say I soon found out that it did all fall together quite nicely actually. Well sort of anyway.

At this point may I introduce you to the thought process of the person running the Thai-side of the tourist-bus scam:

"It's 12 midday. Let's get all these farangs (foreigners) who are coming through the border with these bus ticket receipts all grouped up together. Then let's make them wait in the heat until 3pm before boarding them on a bus to Bangkok. At this point we'll get the bus driver to drive really slowly, and before they know it they'll be getting off the bus in Bangkok after dark. They will be so tired and naffed off when they do so, that they will jump all over our taxi-driver mates offering to give them lifts to their accommodation- where both the journey to which and the room at which will be way overpriced- and as a result we can go on to line our pockets with some extra money from these tourists (without them being any the wiser of course)..."

So... in a nutshell... the road journey from Siam Reap to Bangkok (when the Cambodian's finally fix their side of the road) should really take no more than 6-7ish hours (this including the passport paperwork at the border).

My journey ended up taking a tactical 12 hours. It didn't bother me in the slightest though. But it took 12 long, drawn-out hours none the less.

I left Siam Reap at 7:30ish am and I got to Bangkok at a similar time in the evening.

(Ha ha! Repeat after me... "Matt you was scammed!")

Anyway... Bangkok...

The bus stopped and we all got off. It was dark and we appeared to be at the junction of a very big road with no buildings on it (the sort of place you'd only stop at if your car happened to break-down there perhaps).

For me, rule number one of me being in a new strange city in a strange dark place without a clue of where it is I am to go, is to get myself out of the strange dark place as safely and as soon as is possible. (Not that this is overkill or anything by the way... I mean this place was hardly the bronx... but then again it was hardly your average heavingly-busy city-centre bus station either)...

So... back to the story... and I got my bag from under the bus, before I then went on to have the pleasure of meeting my very first Bangkok taxi driver (a guy who was undoubtedly in on the bus scam).

Have you ever met an English-speaking Thai guy who works in Bangkok's tourism industry?

Well, for those of you who haven't... these guys are cool. Like super cool. They've got the lingo, they've got their own funky way of dressing, and... oh yes... they've got that smile of theirs too. That unmistakeable smile. Judging by the number of tourists they must see, sometimes you can see through the smile as the eyes don't do it with the mouth, but it doesn't matter though. Their whole general demeanour of coolness makes any little bit of cool that you think you have about yourself disappear and hide somewhere within a flash anyway.

And my taxi-driver? Yeah he was the above. But as impressive as his chat was about all the hostels being booked up in an approximately 600 mile radius, oh and that he would have to drive me to a special office in order to find "a good deal" as a result, he was still talking to a brick wall however (due to me being in SE Asia for over 2 months now, I suppose you could say that I heard it all before... just in different formats and different situations that's all)...

Anyway... I was loving the randomness of the whole experience... I was loving him... I was loving the madness of the street he dropped me off at... In short I was loving Bangkok.

And that is where I am at now.

A rather uninspired definition of it actually, would be to call it a modern city that belongs to the world perhaps. The atmosphere here is like the mad big metropolises I travelled through in China, the mad lad's holidays I have been on in the Med, and the chaos I know that is London- all rolled into one extraordinarily big heaving mass of people, buildings, sights, smells and sounds.

Please excuse me whilst I explore this strange place.

Speak soon ;o)