July 07 Onwards

As a quick update for those of you who didn’t read my last blog entry, I am in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu at the moment, and I am currently in the middle of trying to cycle from the east coast industrial city of Chennai down to the Land’s End of the subcontinent...

In fact, on the subject of which actually, here is a brief statistics analysis of this new adventure of mine on the old Merc-o-meter for you to read if you like:

Number of towns I have visited since leaving Chennai so far: 6
Number of kilometres I have cycled so far: 470ish
Heat Rating: Very (up to and over 41 Celcius apparently).
Number of times I have had to get off the road pronto because of double/triple overtaking manoeuvres: More than 5, less than 10.

****

So anyway... half-past four am is the time my alarm goes off on the days that I am moving from town to town at the moment would you believe (like I said late last week, I will do anything to escape that heat!)... and when I look at it actually, I must admit that it’s quite funny waking myself up at this unearthly hour I suppose, as in a strange kind of way it reminds me of the time when the Old Lady had me getting up at a similar hour in order to shadow the dealers up there for a short while...

Because the thing is you see, the excitement of it all doesn't hit me until I’ve strapped the few clothes I have with me and my guitar onto the back of my bike just before I set off really... this being pretty much as good a comparison as any to the feeling I got when I first flicked the rates screens on at 7am back then for the pin-stripe boys up there in the Square Mile I guess...

In fact if I’m honest about it on the excitement front, it’s fair to say that as soon as I get out of this zombie-like state of mine and I set off first thing in the mornings here at the moment, it usually turns out that I am on such a buzz it's untrue... as all I seem to be doing is sharing the road with the dogs, snakes and cows that are dotted about the place... and to have this kind of peacefulness in India is quite a blessing to say the least!...

Then on top of this tranquility, and once the sun pushes the night-time out of the sky of course, I am able to see the rural communities starting to spring into life too, which is pretty interesting... the fellas at the roadside who are cleaning their teeth with sticks... the women in their saris who are splashing water outside their front doorsteps... the small families who are having communal washes together at the local village pumps... it's all pretty surreal stuff for me to witness as you could probably well imagine!

Ha ha!...

This is even more the case when I compare it to the madness of 8am onwards actually, as this is when the busy roads and the hot weather combo usually have the effect of sending me into a semi-trance-like state I guess, and so from this point onwards India to me becomes a different experience altogether!

I must say that all this mayhem on the roads does provide me with a good opportunity to get into the whole “India Zone” thing so that I am ready for the next town I am visiting however...

And as a quick explanation on this in fact... have you got a box room full of, well, practically everything in your house?

Most of it being normal stuff strewn all around the place I mean, but in-amongst it all, the odd one or two things of special importance being hidden somewhere in there too?

Well that to me is the average town I have been visiting during my travels here really.

Beautiful temples and forts hidden in absolute chaos! (And I thought China was mad on the busy front!)

Anyway... onto the comedy side of things at these places, and to be honest it's all about these budget range hotels I've been staying at...

Hotel Ganash... Hotel Sea Horse...

My god... these establishments should be on movie sets or something, they really should!

In fact, if it wasn't for the mildew on the walls or the insects running around on the floor, I’m kind of thinking to myself that, what with the high, imposing ceilings and the posh dark-wood furniture inside of them, they could quite easily be referred to as being opulent you know!

I mean, at one of them even, they had this big posh balcony attached to the front of my room right, which they only ended up having me going to use the toilet on of all things didn't they?!

And on the subject of which, I don't know what was worse actually... the fact that the "blood and sputum collection clinic" across the road could see what I was doing on the loo front, or the fact that I could see the "blood and sputum collection clinic" across the road whilst I was doing whatever it was that needed to be done!

But despite the above making me laugh though, by far the best bit of my week so far, and yes, this is still hotel related I guess, relates back to the time when I met one of the room boys who worked at Hotel Sea Horse a few days ago...

In fact if I was to introduce you to him quickly, he was a short, thin, scruffy-looking, wonky-smiling fella who was in his 40’s, oh and he looked as though he was the type who didn’t have two pennies to rub together as well...

Well anyway, as the story goes, I turned up at this Hotel Sea Horse dive of a place at around 12 noon, and as soon as I did so, he noticed that I had a flat back tyre didn’t he?

But the thing is ok, it actually turned out that because he spotted it, he then had to fix it of course (no two ways about it), so I gave him the equivalent of one pound twenty pence as payment, and I left him and his funny choice of tools to it...

A quick check by myself later on during the day however, and I soon had the pleasant surprise of finding that it was all fixed ok and that my hot rod was good to go again, so I gave him a quick thumbs-up when I saw him a short while afterwards to say thank you, and I left it at that.

Then 9pm came, I was sat on my bed at the time whilst trying to work out the guitar homework good old Champ the Thai had set me or something, and my bedroom doorbell started to buzz didn’t it?

So I answered the door, and there this guy was (my new friend with the wonky smile I mean), and he was beaming at me whilst wearing none other than a pretty dapper button-up shirt of all things as well!...

Now I don’t speak a word of Tamil and this guy didn’t speak a word of English, so I must admit that (other than thinking that he wanted to go for a night out on the town with me) I was a little bit stuck on ideas as to why he had come to call for me to say the least...

Oh and on top of this, the whole body language thing wasn’t working either really, because a "yes" nod and a "no" shake of the head seem to mean nothing in this part of the world, as most of the locals just wobble their head during conversations instead...

So anyway, as a result of these two aliens colliding, both of us were stuck there in our states of confusion for a while weren’t we... me busy wracking my brain whilst trying to think of what he wanted to do for the night dressed up in his lucky shirt like that... him just stood there grinning at me whilst pointing to my bicycle pump or something... oh and then hang on a minute... the lightbulb suddenly switched on inside of my head and it all became clear...

Silly me!

He wasn’t wanting to go out for a beer with me at all was he bless him?!

He was just wanting to come up to my room to show me the new shirt he had bought with the one pound twenty pence worth of local money I’d given him earlier on in the day of course!

Ha ha!

And when I worked this out?...

Well, yes, as I write this now, I will be the first to admit that it was a case of the old "you need to be there at the time" scenario, no doubt about it at all... but even so... I must tell you that I was pretty choked up if the truth be known!...

Because when I sat down afterwards and thought about it for a while you see, it certainly seemed to me to be the most "live for the moment" thing I could remember seeing during these strange travels of mine, that’s for sure!

Rock on in a weird kind of way, eh?!

Speak soon anyway ;o)

For those of you who didn’t read my last blog entry, I caught a flight from Bangkok to the Indian city of Chennai last Sunday.

Within a few hours of arriving in India’s fourth largest urban settlement though, I must admit that I fell out with the toxicity of it all pretty sharpish, and so within a day or so I sorted myself out a bicycle and I upped and left the place actually.

Ha ha! I ended up heading southwards on the eastern coastal route towards India's Land's End as it goes... oh and despite the fact that it is the middle of the Indian summer here now (and the 41 degrees celcius that comes with this!)... I also managed to visit 3 towns along the way since I last spoke to you as well.

The thing is however, despite me achieving the above, I'm sure you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the number of hissy-fits I've thrown out in the middle of nowhere as a result of the overwhelming power of the heat during this past 5 days!...

"Come on Matt, pull yourself together!" I was shouting at myself after stopping for the 3rd time in 10km the other day in fact!

I'm guessing that it is my legs seizing up or something probably, and that the heat is zapping everything out of me to the extent that the chemical reactions inside of me are going haywire perhaps...

All I’m usually doing is cycling along roads that give me no other option but to breathe in nothing but huge clumps of hot air you see.

Then the water I have on me at the time is well on it's way to the none-too-comforting boiling temperature of course...

Oh, and my poor knowledge of food on offer at the places en-route means that I mostly have to rely on eating the mushy raisins and peanuts I have on me as well!

Ha ha! It's all good fun though... as once I get to where I want to be it does end up to be so, so worth it...

Paddling in the Indian Ocean... eating at a restaurant looking over a beach... speaking to the local women wearing their saris... yes, it's fair to say that the nice parts of India have captured my attention all right!

On top of this, I must say that I am quite impressed on the random side of things here too as it goes... but the thing is I wouldn't know where to even start talking about the weird stuff I'm seeing on this blog of mine however, as it all gets just a bit too natural out here in the countryside at times.

Moving on anyway... and the most important thing I have found since I got to this part of the world is that the locals seem to be a very nice bunch indeed... in fact most of them have been very kind and helpful when I have needed it, if not a little bit too inquisitive perhaps as well...

Ha ha! When it comes to this inquisitive nature of theirs though, it’s not a problem really, as I'm sure the main reason for it is probably down to a lot of them not having seen many Westerners turn up on their doorstep before...

Oh, and besides which, I know I'm not really helping things on the whole "looking strange" front much either... because by me sporting the old multi-layers and head-coverings combo which I have on me (I will do ANYTHING to keep that sun off my skin by the way!)... I must look like a huge pile of washing on wheels in their eyes!

The countryside fellas here are that hardcore you see, that all a lot of them seem to do clothes-wise is wear nothing but a skirt type thing whilst letting the sun bake them dry.

And I would quite literally fry in minutes if I did such a thing, no joke!

Putting the locals aside now however, and I must say that the few tourists left out here in the low season are a bit of a different breed...

Firstly there was the Swiss lady who was telling me all about the time she cried herself to sleep for 9 nights in a row because of the things she was seeing here in the day(!)... and then the rest of them here... well they all seem to be into the whole “peace out man” way of life thing and all that jazz don't they, and I’m not too keen on that...

Mind you, when it comes to this “Traveller’s Panache Syndrome” that most of them seem to be suffering from, I must admit that I myself have been a little bit guilty of it too recently I suppose... as I only went and made the decision to style myself a pretty decent moustache today didn’t I?

The thing is, they really do appear to be the "in" thing on the subcontinent at the moment, as everywhere I look around here everyone has got one... the guy on reception at the hotel... the owner of the restaurant... the taxi driver down the road... so why not eh?!

I'll be the first to say that mine does make me look like a cross between a younger, poorer version of Magnum PI and the Queen lead singer circa 1986 though...

But don't you worry, because with a quick name-change to Matt Merc whenever I introduce myself to somebody new from now on, it should be all cool...

And speaking of which, I had better get back out there and amongst it now... because what with India being India, there are plenty of people to meet out here!

Rock on ;o)

Did I ever tell you about the time it all kicked off when I went out for a bit of a pre-Christmas celebration with the lads at the academy in China?

Well if I didn't, let me just set the scene for you quickly...

It was at the end of a weird night at some dodgy karaoke house in the middle of nowhere, and things were getting a little bit tasty amongst a few of us...

There was ADHD suffering Nigel from India who was shouting at everybody...

There was Scottish Gordon (the unemployed fella with a bad snot problem) who was threatening to head-butt anybody who came near him...

There was the strange, pale-faced quiet fella from England (that no-one could really get on a level with) who suddenly made a last-minute decision to bolt it during the heat of the moment...

There was Kyle from the USA whose eyes and veins were popping out of his head (who also, by the way, went on to make a "massage girl" tap herself out of a leg lock he got her into the previous week, this being after she apparently tried to lay him out with a right-hand punch of course)...

Oh and then there was me too... and I was just stood there in the middle of all this whilst thinking to myself "My God. Isn't this whole Shaolin way of life meant to chill everyone out??"

Ha ha!

With hindsight, the argument was one of the side-effects of keeping loads of blokes with high-testosterone levels cooped up with each other for long periods of time I suppose...

But anyway.

This Nigel bloke from India.

Hmmm... looking back on it, I think it was three months into my stay with the Shaolin Monks when I saw him turning up on the doorstep of the academy actually...

He had just flown over from his home on the Indian subcontinent as it goes, and I when I first saw him wearing his posh clothes with his hair slicked right back, I remember thinking to myself that he appeared to be of a different class altogether really.

There was only Europeans, Americans and Chinese at the place at the time you see, and we were right scruff-bags the lot of us as well.

The strange thing about him though, was that he had a problem with drink didn't he?

In fact this was so much so, that it is fair to say when he wasn't training during our downtime in the evenings, he would either be chuffing away at the cheap dirty fags that the Chinese store sold down the road, or he would be tucking into the bottle of brandy that seemed to be permanently living in his back pocket...

Ha ha!... "I come here because the hard work will tire me out and I will be able to sleep properly at night" was the reason he gave us for going to train at the academy as well actually.

Apparently his ADHD gave him insomnia you see.

Moving on however, and despite his quirkiness and all of these bad points of his, the best bit about him had to be his stories of India...

And what a mad, messed-up country he made it out to be!

The thing is, I guess that because he was rich, he ended up knowing a great deal about the weirdness that goes on in the society on the subcontinent really, and it was as a result of this that I used to be laughing away at the things he told me when we saw each other at the weekends...

In fact, thanks to those inspirational tales of his, I'm actually here in India myself now aren't I?!

Ha ha!

And what a funny end to my travels I'm hoping it should be!

I have to say that travelwise (to get here I mean) it was none too inspiring though...

You see, despite the fact that it appears to be quite close to Thailand on the map (in terms of the whole world), doing the whole overland thing to India from where I had been staying recently was not a possibility for me unfortunately, as Burma's borders were closed, oh and the whole Tibet situation to the north was a bit dodgy too.

Anyway... to get around the above, this in turn left me dreaming about the ferry journey between the two countries that didn't exist (this was quite annoying when I saw how close the Indian territory of the Andaman Islands was to Thailand by the way), before I then had to go on and book a flight for this part of my trip instead.

And now I'm here?

My God!

Well, putting Nigel's mad tales aside, my main reason for coming to this part of the world basically amounted down to the fact that my year of travelling is coming to a close now, and so I guess I was looking for one final good old fashioned shock to the system really...

Like for example the times when I found myself feeling like an alien in Moscow and Beijing when I visited them for the first time last year...

Ha ha!

It was with this in mind that I originally wanted to go and travel South America actually, as I was wanting to try and give myself a good opportunity to compare the chilled-outness of the locals in South East Asia to the passion that is meant to be over there...

But as amazing as that would have been, when I looked at it seriously however, I found that I was needing a much larger timeframe to do that mad continent the justice it deserves of course... plus there's the fact that I want to be older when I visit it too (so that I can get a bit of Spanish under my belt).

So no, the subcontinent it is for me for now.

I tell you what though... I know I've only been here for half a day or so, but my head is still spinning!

Geographically speaking I am currently in Chennai, this being a big sprawling industrial city that is situated on the east coast of the country, and in short, it's a pretty weird place for me to be a part of indeed...

In fact, I was sharing a lift in a taxi with an Italian guy just after I touched down here earlier, and he was sat next to me whilst banging on about this leather shoe making business of his or something, whilst I was just sat there looking at all that was around me and thinking to myself "oh dear... what on earth have I let myself in for?!..."

Ha ha! I could expand on this and go on to say that the area I am staying in is a pit... the street I am on is a pit... my room is a pit... blah, blah, blah... but no... that wouldn't be fair really...

So instead, I'm finding myself just looking at the strange aspects of all that is around me at the moment (as there are plenty of them about!)... and whether it be the meal that was just served up to me that the shape and size of a bazooka... it be the fact that the locals heads seem to wobble up, down, all over the place whenever I try to speak to them... or it be the weird 50's type cars that are driving about on the roads over here... it is fair to say that it really does feel like I am in a different world altogether right now!

And when I look at it, I guess that's the whole point of travelling really isn't it?!...

So all in all, me coming to India seems to be a job well done!

Speak soon ;o)

I don't know what it is with the elephants over here you know, but I must admit that I do kind of feel drawn to them as it goes!

Ha ha! I saw a local walking yet another one down the street here the other day actually, and despite me feeling sorry for it being dragged around like a dog all day long when I first saw him, I still had to stop and stare at him whilst admiring his strange ugly beauty for a while.

In fact, the big nosed chap even inspired me to go on a bit of an elephant pilgrimage and visit the Elephant Tower last Sunday would you believe?!...

The "What? What?" I hear you say?!

Well as a quick explanation for you, what with the Thai's being the way they are, when they think that something is special or sacred in their society, they do tend to make a big old fuss of it (as I have probably already mentioned before)...

And on this particular occasion, in the case of Dumbo I mean, a few years ago they decided to celebrate it's protector status (which I spoke about in a blog entry last month) by doing none other than making a block of flats, yes a block of flats, into a giant elephant shape...

But the thing is, as much as I love elephants though, I must admit being pretty gobsmacked when I went to visit this particular eyesore...

Check out the state of it below!...

Ha ha!

Can you imagine when it was first built and the salesman was trying to sell it off??

"Ah, so you want to buy a flat here at Elephant Tower do you? Well I'm afraid I've only got one 10th floor apartment left which is situated in the mid-section of the trunk... oh, hang on a minute... I have got a 2-bedroom one on the 1st floor which makes up it's rear right foot up for sale too... but the view isn't that good out of that one I'm afraid..."

Unbelievable eh?!

Moving on however, and like I said above, it was last Sunday when I went to visit it... this being the one day of the week which I take off from my strange lesson schedule...

And so after me seeing the delight of the above, it was then time for me to meet up with my mate from the UK actually (who I know from the club I go to in the evenings), oh and when I did so, I ended up having a right good time of it as well!

You see, I guess I find it nice to be able to meet up with people from my own country now and again really, as I don't have to work at building up conversations with them the same way I do with a foreign person, because our words tend to flow a lot easier and we have a lot more common ground which we can work on.

Ha ha! If the truth be known, this is probably down to us English people having our own dry sense of humour I suppose (though I must admit that the subtlety of which can be handy when it comes to trying to get back at those kind of people who come from backgrounds which are louder than that of my own of course!)

Anyway, broadly speaking, the day itself consisted of me joining this mate of mine and his friends at his batchelor pad, and a bit later on we made our way over to a tv studio in the north of the city as it goes...

When we arrived there, we followed his local mate to a warehouse at the back of the premises, and after keeping the man who ran the door sweet with a few bottles of M-150 power juice, we were then able to sit down and watch a live televised performance of the Thai national sport for the afternoon (at what ended up turning out to be a very reasonable price indeed).

Ha ha! The crowd was mad for it at this venue you know... there was lots of cheering and shouting, oh and there were a lot of coded finger gestures flying about the place whilst bets were being put on too. (A few of the locals here do like a good bet as it goes!)

After a few hours at this place however, we all went back to my mate's pad again, and his Thai friend's wife and another Thai girl then went on to treat us English lads there to some homemade food which was served up with a few local beers...

The thing is, I will be the first to admit that I'm not quite sure what happened at the end of the night though... as Thai beer seems to get the better of me you see! All I know is that before long, it was the following morning, and I was waking up in my own bed with my guitar laid next to me.

Ha ha! I dread to think what I put my neighbours through when I got back the during the nightime... as if it was based upon the homework my guitar teacher had set me, I was probably trying to drunkenly work my way through the chord pattern of Robbie Williams "Better Man" or something!

But all in all, it was a good day out!

Seriously though, it was the people that did it for me actually... as we were a good mixture of English and Thai's who were having good old-fashioned innocent fun together.

And I mention the word "innocent" in the last sentence for a reason really, because the one thing I have found so, so, so disappointing about my stay in this country so far, is seeing the sheer number of tourists who visit Thailand simply because it seems to be the only place in the world where they can call the shots on their sex lives.

In fact, on the subject of which, they are geeks, losers, chumps the lot of them... and they are probably the sort of guys who don't fit into society back at home at all me reckons, as they seem to me to be the type to either just sit there and play with their model railways, or they surf the internet whilst giving girls from this part of the world cheap false promises instead.

Actually, if you happened to read my blog entry entitled January (which, funnily enough, was written back in January!), just think of Derek as having morphed himself into approximately 10,000 pathological saddo's over here, because that's what it feels like sometimes!

The funny thing is, all people like him end up doing is taking these girls out to restaurant places like the one my mate runs, where (according to her) the girls they are with just end up sitting there and slating them in Thai as they are ordering the food for the pair of them.

Anyway, rant over now I promise(!), and at some point during the next week I will be leaving Bangkok and the room that has had to put up with having my travel books piled up in one corner, my stinky gym kit hanging up to dry in another corner, and my guitar and chord sheets sitting in yet another... as I am moving onto pastures new...

Ha ha! I tell you what... it's been one hell of an experience for me during my stay here in Thailand, it really has.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't been "travelling" here as such though, because as soon as I got into the country in fact, my feet ended up staying firmly planted in the Thai capital city, as you probably well know.

And I know I keep on mentioning it, but this language university I've been going to!

It really has been something else!

You see, the way they teach things at this place means that after my experience there, I now seem to have Thai words like "umbrella" and "tortoise" on islands of their own in the middle of nowhere, with not many words to link them up as it goes!

Despite this however, I have to say that I do agree with their teaching method actually, and yes, if I could afford to stay in Bangkok for a couple of years, I am sure that I would reach a very good level indeed.

But for me and my travelling experience?

Well it has been a very good insight as to what learning a language is all about for me, and that is all that matters really. It's been fun, interesting, oh and very puzzling at times too... I mean at one point for example, I even had some animated Thai lady telling me a story that involved her hopping between talking about a hospital, a tv game show, some yoghurt from Scotland, a deadly disease, oh and something that was free as well would you believe... so yes... thinking about it, I will be the first to admit that I was left feeling rather confused at times!...

All good fun, eh?!

Oh, and speaking of which, on top of attending these language lessons during my time here in Bangkok, I am pleased to say that I have also got a good grounding in two new pastimes of mine as well which is important to me... as these will be things that I will continue when I am back at home in the UK of course, in order to help me escape the void that is normality...

Well anyway, I'd better stop babbling on and leave you now, so I can get back to making the most of the few days I have left here... but before I do go (and what with me being as predictable as I am!)... here are some golden nuggets of information I learnt during my time in Thailand which I have to share with you...

****

1) I am not to marry a woman who is good at Thai volley-ball, as if we have any arguments her slaps will apparently hurt me.
2) Tiger Woods is half-Thai, yet despite the this, my Thai language teacher still doesn't like him (but she does like Tiger Beer though).
3) Us Western folk call Bangkok "Bangkok". The Thai folk call Bangkok *"Krung Thep" ("City of Angels").
4) Champ, my guitar teacher, lied to me when he said he couldn't make it to my lesson one day because he'd injured his leg playing football.
5) Apparently it only hurt him because he is so big (well according to the office receptionist anyway).
6) Thai curries can be way, way hotter than Brick Lane curries.
7) It hurts me if I walk into a tall Russian's fist at the wrong time.
8) The Thai version of a pig going "oink oink" is a pig going "ut ut" (but you do have to actually witness a local doing a pig impression to see the comedy side of this).
9) According to a Thai person I met, the rats in Bangkok are getting so big that they are starting to chase the cats (instead of it being the other way around).
10) After watching the Mr Bean movie, one of my English teachers thought that all us English people were like him (and that we all had a low IQ and carried teddy bears around with us most of the time).
11) Bangkok almost convinced me that I like shopping.
12) A good way for a Thai language teacher to insult a man from India is to mis-pronounce his name as "Moose" before going on to ask him if the women from his country have beards.
13) Each day of the week has a special colour here in Thailand: Sunday-Saturday = red, yellow, pink, green, orange, blue and purple respectively... (so if or when I come here in the future, I must remember to pack a variety of different coloured clothes when I am packing my bag).
14) It is possible to fit 7 people in the back of a tuk-tuk.
15) I am not to trust the local smile when it is mixed in with a bit of English lingo AT ALL. IT IS JUST A SELF-DEFENCE MECHANISM. (Remind me to tell you the story of the sweet fella in his 70's who nearly got me stranded on a boat whilst having to pay the equivalent of 3 days spending money to his beefy mate when I get back home)...

Oh and finally...

16) (For Dad, Grandma and anybody else from the blue and white side of the Steel City)... Apparently it has been "unfashionable" for the locals in Thailand to support Sheffield Wednesday since Chris Waddle left us. The good news though, is that despite this, Bangkok does have a Sheffield Wednesday bar.

(*Re. No. 3... The full ceremonial name for Bangkok is "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit", and apparently it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as being the world's longest place name).

****

Speak soon ;o)

For those of you who have not read my blog recently, I have been staying in Bangkok whilst participating in my own, erm, DIY cultural exchange programme since the start of April...

The day after I last spoke to you properly though (which was about two weeks ago) my original 30 day Thai tourist pass was due to run out on me as it goes, so it was then that I made the decision to try and get it renewed for a month...

Ha ha! In order to do so, I will be the first to admit that I had to have a mad old 36 hours of it really, as it meant I had to undertake a border run that consisted of 2 overnight bus journeys which were crammed into the space of a day and a half would you believe...

You see, as a UK citizen, I am only allowed to stay here for 3 lots of 30 days in any 6 month period as a tourist without a visa, oh and then on top of this, if I do want to get my second or third lot of 30 days, I have to exit The Land of Smiles before entering it again in order to get the necessary passport stamp...

Is this easy to follow by the way?! (it's a bit boring isn't it?!)

Well anyway, from the 12'0'clock position, Thailand shares it's land borders with Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar (Burma), and so in short, as I was making my decision as to which of these places I was going to use for this particular border run, I was kind of thinking to myself that I had been to Laos already of course, oh and that I'd already been subjected to the Cambodian bus scam too...

This in turn left Malaysia (which was too far away for me to contemplate), me wading into the sea to exit the country (which is an impossibility with a paper passport), or me going to the ex-British colony of Myanmar (this was before the cyclone happened by the way)...

So Myanmar it was then.

Actually... let me just explain though...

Myanmar + Tourism = A Big No No

Well if you read what is written in some of the travel books anyway...

They all tell you about the dodgy government regime that is in place there you see, oh and the fact that money spent by foreigners visiting the country usually ends up getting into the wrong hands as well, blah, blah, blah... hmmm... on second thoughts I'll hold it right there, as I shouldn't really be talking about the politics of the place on here I suppose... so for now I'll go back onto jabbering about my travels for a while instead me reckons...

And on the day itself, the overnight bus ended up dropping me off near the river border crossing at 6:00am, half an hour before it opened, so I sat there on the curb for a while and I cleaned myself up a bit...

Thirty minutes, one bridge and two nice, cheery border guards later I was across the border though...

And from that point onwards it was all different...

Men in skirts (traditional not kinky), women chewing betel nuts, people with white paste all over their faces...

The thing is, I guess it wouldn't have come as too much of a shock to me if I had have been staying in rural Thailand recently, but the fact that I had been living in Bangkok meant that the contrasts were quite striking really.

Anyway, when I got across to the other side, I was under strict instruction from the guard at the border not to leave the boundary of the town I was in as it goes, but even so, it is still fair to say that I got a good insight into Myanmar during the short time that I was there...

In fact as soon as I arrived in Burmese territory, I found myself being escorted round by a local which was pretty cool, and despite the fact that he started the day off by showing me around, surprise, surprise, a couple of the Buddhist sites there, a couple of hours later the really interesting stuff began, as it was then that he started to relax over the couple of beers that I had pushed in front of his snout...

As a quick introduction to him, he was in his 30's I think, and he was called "Zaw Myo Win ", this being a name that (by his own admission) sounded like "Some You Win"...

The strange thing about it actually, was that this ended up being quite apt for his life story in a weird kind of way, because until he poured his juice-making business down the drain a couple of years back, he was quite a successful businessman in a big Myanmar city...

Now however, and what with times being different of course, unfortunately his only work option at the moment seemed to be based upon him trying to earn a living out of the 3 or so tourists that came his way each week at this weird border town instead.

He was also trying to secure his 13 year old son a place in the school at the refugee camp which was situated in nearby Thai territory at the time as well.

In general I did feel that he appeared to be quite embarrassed about the bad situation he had gotten himself into you know, but despite this he still managed to keep a certain "I'm not beaten quite yet" demeanour about him, oh and funnily enough, he did seem to me to be very kind and sincere too...

I have to say that he did have the strange habit of covering his top teeth with his upper lip whenever he smiled though...

"I had accident 7 year ago. My teeth fall out and now I embarrassed at my dentures. They bad colour..." he went on to explain as we came more relaxed around each other half way through the morning, bless him.

So anyway... Myanmar... a very strange country indeed.

I may have got it wrong, but I am sure this guy was trying to tell me that it has, or has had 3 capital cities... erm, there are roads there that are only able to be used by traffic going one way one day and traffic going the other way the next...

Ahhh... the thing is, I will be the first to admit that the conversations we had were all a bit disjointed at the time really, as we'd start them off in a tea house or a restaurant, only for them to be finished off half-an-hour or so later when we were on our own together whilst walking down the road.

It's illegal for the locals there to talk about affairs concerning their own country you see.

Moving on to the rest of the day now, and as much as I love travelling, I will be the first to admit that me and overnight bus journeys don't mix well!

In fact, by the time midday came I was good to go back over to Thailand, as it felt like my last legs had disappeared on me 3 hours ago!

I was shattered!

I was still with it enough to check out the funny sight of the road lanes swapping half-way over the bridge though (Thailand and Myanmar drive on opposite sides of the road)... oh and I could also see a couple of the Burmese locals floating across the river toward Thailand on inner-tubes as well which was quite comical...

But anyway... soon enough, I was back and safe in Thailand, my passport was stamped and I was good to go back to Bangkok...

Well once I got my return bus ticket sorted of course!

As luck would have it, it turned out that the next bus wasn't until 9pm in the end, so I found myself catching a lift into the local Thai town of Mae Sot and booking myself into a flea-pit there for a few hours kip instead...

Ha ha! It was a strange sensation when I woke up in the early evening and I realised where I was actually. Me being in Bangkok for a long while meant that I had gotten used to being into a routine of sorts I suppose.

A quick rub of my eyes and one quick shower later I was fit however, and at which point I then spent the rest of my time waiting for the bus by walking through the dark streets whilst looking for some food and dodging heavy raindrops (it is rainy season here now).

After a bit of hopping about, I soon stumbled across what appeared to be a nice, dry place to eat of course, so I then sat myself down for a hot chicken and rice combo (very nice too), oh and I had a go at playing the old flirting game with a Burmese girl who was now living in Thailand as well.

She ended up speaking no English and I spoke no Burmese of course, so we could only use what little Thai we had between us at the time.

It was a good way to spend a couple of hours though. Ha ha!

Well I guess I'd better leave you now... but before I do go...

After reading about what has gone on recently in Myanmar, I decided to put my name forward to 3 volunteer groups who are working there as it goes...

I suppose I was thinking that the type of job I was doing at home before I went away meant I might be useful to them for a week or two you see.

The strange thing however is that I don't seem to be required.

I'm guessing that it is either too early to be sending people to the area, or there is a full quota of workers there already, or that there is too much red tape involved in order to start getting a newbie included in things instead maybe.

Strange eh?!

Oh well, at least the thought was there!

Speak soon ;o)

Hello people.

Aside from the times that the headmaster at the academy couldn't be bothered to put his hand into his pocket to fix the internet late last year, since I left the UK last July I made it a priority of mine to update my blog on a weekly basis at least, in order to try and turn the old anti-social Matt into a new communicative Matt.

This week however, all I am writing you is this very short note to let you know that I am still alive and well here in Thailand, because a few days ago I received some very bad news from one of my workmates at home, news which requires a silence.

Speak soon,

Matt