AWOL Geordie - Steve's travel adventure

Day 2039. Another new year.

2012-01-10T22:11:00.005+08:00

Since my last post I have passed the 2000 days away from home benchmark! June 2006 is starting to feel like a long time ago now. I have been working as a teacher in Thailand for almost 3 years. Another stint in Taiwan takes me to almost 4 years teaching experience in Asia. Working for almost 4 years out of the last 6 is not good.

With this in mind I have been investigating early retirement options. It is possible to retire before 40 if you have no family and you can severely limit your monthly outgoings. If you can spend <4% of your portfolio annually, you've cracked it. I'm not far off which means all my scrimping and saving should pay off in the near future. Check out www.earlyretirementextreme.com for more details. Obviously living in cheaper developing countries makes this more viable. I have no idea how I would survive in the UK anymore?? Some tourist recently informed me that ciggies are £6.50 a pack?? I pay £0.60 here - 1/10th!

Xmas and new year 2006 was in Singapore. 2007 I was in the Phillipines. 2008 I was in Sungai Golok on the Thai/Malay border. 2009 I was in Trang. 2010 and 2011 Phuket. I actually stayed in for the bells this year as I went to watch LFC v NUFC at 0300 on 31st Dec. The match finished at 0500 and I went to a disco until 0600. I then drank down Soi sipet until about midday on new year's eve. I then went home and passed out until 2300. I woke feeling dreadful with only 1hr to go until the bells. I turned over and went back to sleep since I had to be at Michael's bar for free cheese and salami on new year's day.

Ice (my girlfriend) and I finished after only 4 months together. She stole 3000bt (£60) from my wallet while I was asleep. I can't handle having no waijai (trust) in a relationship so I called it to an end just before xmas. It must be remembered that Thai's have very differing values to us chalkies!

My last day at HeadStart school was on Friday 16th December 2011. I had a 2 week holiday where I tried (and failed) to not consume too much booze. I had the rear brakes on the bike replaced while I got my teeth cleaned.

I started my new job teaching GCSE physics at Kajonkiet School on 4th Jan. This job is ace compared to my last place. I have taken a 10k salary reduction (60k to 50k/month) but I now teach 7.5hrs/week instead of 20hrs. I have no homeroom to administer and I am going home feeling fresh. I am effectively working part-time presently for full-time salary. I wish I'd jumped ship earlier! I have signed a 3 month contract until the end of March, then it's decision time again!! I am seriously contemplating moving upcountry even if I have to work for the basic 30k/month salary again. I am even thinking of selling my bike and going to Cambodia or even travelling again for a year.....decisions decisions.

Here's some random recent pics:

Get your feet massaged by hundreds of little sucking fish. You literally sit on the bench with your feet dangling in the tank and the fish suck the dead skin off!

One thing I miss about the UK is the awesome libraries. I still love to browse in book shops but English books are in limited supply and tend to be expensive. I can't imagine they've sold many copies of this particular book?? I generally participate in a free book swap in my mate's bar.

I spotted this sign in Rawai as I am thinking of renting a CBR250cc for a day before I decide to buy one or not. To rent my bike would set you back 400bt/day! I've had my bike 2yrs and 3mnths, if I'd have rented it daily it would have cost me 831 x 400 = 330,000bt. Luckily I bought it outright for 57,000bt and still have the option of selling it for at least 40,000bt.

I spotted this blatantly fake kid's Toon top in a market. Good value at £3.60?

Then on one of my trips I spotted this sign. I had no idea Sunderland was near here!

Banana beach - I had to check this out.

My last day with the year9 kids. I will miss the little sods dearly but I won't miss the workload. I honed their mathematical skills for 1yr and 3 months. I taught yr11 the whole GCSE curriculum and it's looking like 75% of them passed which gives me a great sense of achievement and pride in those kids!! Teaching is hard work (although I think it needn't be) but it can be highly rewarding at times.

Here's a shot of Banana beach.

Another Banana beach pic.

Welocome to Hi-Season in Phuket. We receive millions of tourists every year but December/January is the pinnacle. This is Surin beach. I have stood on this beach alone at sunset before. Now you can't even see any sand because of all the umbrellas - mental. The influx of Russian tourists has been staggering over the last 2 years. Many signs in the full-on tourist areas are in Russian now!

This is my mate Polish-American Nick who runs a bar down in Chalong. He used to fly Blackhawk helicopters for the US military! To his right is Aussie Dave who teaches Hotel staff how to speak slurred incomprehensible Aussie.........G'day copper????? Fair Dincome????

A view down to Banana beach from the road.

Lingo:
Pom bur a leaw yoo tee Phuket - I am bored of Phuket
Yoo teenee song pee laew - I have lived here for 2 years now
Pom yak yoo tee muang thai neau - I wanna live in the north of this country
dewaa, ngern tam ngan noi gwaa - but the salaries are smaller outside Phuket
mewaa kong tuuk gwaa - although things are cheaper elsewhere

Day 1993. Another birthday and shitty balls

2011-11-25T21:54:00.007+08:00

Update

1993 days or
5 years, 5 months, 14 days or
172,195,200 seconds or
2,869,920 minutes or
47,832 hours.

That's how long ago I left home. I was 32. Now I'm 38. I had my 33rd birthday in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China. I had my 34th in Tainan City, Taiwan. I had my 35th in Pattaya, Thailand. I had my 36th in Trang, Thailand. I had my 37th in Phuket, Thailand and my 38th also in Phuket Thailand. I have been living in Thailand for almost three years. I must be due a change!

I just got news that my brother Mick is coming over on the 14th January for three weeks so that should be good.

Shitty balls

Here are some of our students voluntarily making EM balls. These balls are made from organisms rolled in moist balls of cow poo. The balls are then sent to Bangkok where they can be dropped into the flood water to help reduce the spread of nasty diseases. As you can see below, Korean Fred is enjoying himself.

Bike trip

I quit drinking and smoking on 31st October 2011. I needed to do other things to fill in my weekends, so I started going on huge bike trips. This is the walkway to the viewpoint on the recently completed Sarasin Bridge linking Phuket to the mainland.

The steps up to the viewpoint.

The newly completed dual carriageway bridge looking back towards Phuket.

Not all beaches in Phuket are like Patong or Nai Harn. This is the deserted Mai Khao near the bridge.

This was the entrance to the EM Ball place. They were hoping that volunteers would make 20,000. Our kids managed about 200 before the smell had us running.

Islamic food from the North of Phuket Island. You don't see many foreigners in these parts.

Near the restaurant I found a rickety track leading up a mountain with an Air Force comms centre at the top. There was radar:

Satellite and microwave links:

and a shrine for Bhudda gazing over an incredible vista:

After the mountain I found this spooky green lagoon in the jungle:

And then I saw a rare baffalo. These are a common sight in most of Thailand but not so common in Phuket. Tourism, fishing and rubber are the games here - not farming, therefore, not a lot of rice or buffalo in these parts.
I finally managed to 'pimp up my bike' by adding some illuminous blue lights to the number plate. I now look like a mobile disco at night times like many of the local teenagers. These lights do serve a higher purpose and that is to help you be seen by the other lunatic drivers on this island.

We had Loy Kratong again. Here's Arina sporting some traditional Thai attire:

Here's everyone at the school dancing. I refrained as I had ran out of Loys to eat and Kratongs to wear.

A view towards Phuket airport from the rickety mountain road.

On another day I rode up to Phang Nga province and ended up going 1km into 'Elephant's stomach' cave. Here is my guide for the adventure.

We had to negotiate monkeys swinging on the vines at the entrance.

We started off in a little kayak.

Things rapidly became pitch black. There interior of the cave was incredible with many fascinating and peculiar rock formations. A colony of massive bats were defying gravity by hanging upside down from a smooth ceiling. You could only see them as your headlamp swept passed. We then transferred to a raft. We then had to wade through an underground stream until we reached the furthest you can get. It was very eerie in the silent darkness. Later, as I emerged from the dark, the outside noise and light were overwhelming!

This is the elephant statue outside. The cave gets its name from the mountain which is said to resemble an elephant although I couldn't quite see how.

Here's 20yo Nat who works at my friends bar in Kata. Kinda cute.

19th November 2011. Manchester Steve who runs my local O'Malley's set up a party for my birthday. It was also Brum Paddy's 42nd birthday on the same day so it was a double celebration. Steve laid on free bangers and mash and the place was rammed. It was a great night. Needless to say I fell off the wagon and got shitfaced but, worse is that I smoked loadsa ciggies after 3 weeks of abstinence. Thankfully I haven't had anymore so far this week. Another downer was the Toon's first defeat away to Man Citeh. I got over this by drinking until sunrise with Chloe the barmaid.

Here's Paddy and I being retarded.

Steve actually burnt my 'RedBull' vest and gave me a trendy shirt to wear instead. Here I am the next day with Ice in Michael's bar after non-stop booze from 1900 Sat - 2300 Sun. 28hrs of booze with no sleep is quite a feat for a 38yo bloke!

I include this pic to show you what a rip-off Patong is. Patong is the whore-filled Blackpool of Phuket. I rarely venture here as it's full of whores, touts, conmen, mafia-linked taxi dudes, thieving jet-ski swindlers and annoying drunken tourists. The worst of Thai and Western culture seems to manifest itself here. Mango shakes can be had for 40-60bt elsewhere on the island. 120bt is £2.40. That is not cheap for a glass of fruit juice that is locally abundant.

I have only three more weeks left at Headstart Intl School before a two week Xmas break. I then start work at the nearby Kajonkiet School on far fewer hours and a slightly reduced salary. However, I am hoping the new job will be far less stressful.

Lingo:
Pahom - blanket
Morn - pillow
Tee norn - bed
Pa man - curtain

Day 1965. Crashes, Austrians and life changes.

2011-10-18T19:13:00.007+08:00

30/10/11 Five years and five months.

I will be 38 next month and I have been thinking about a change for some time now. I have been in Phuket since April 2010 or about one and a half years. Armin my Austrian travel buddy has just visited Phuket where he had to listen to me complaining about my job. I have quite enjoyed teaching maths at HeadStart school but the workload has been unbearable at times.

So last week I quit and planned a one year trip around Asia with the Austrian guru. However, on Monday this week I was talking to an American lady called Chena who works at Kajonkiet School in Phuket. They need a maths and physics teacher for GCSE and A levels. I went along to the school and was offered the job starting in January. I have one week to think about the offer before committing. Bizzarely, my superior would be an English lady called Rowena who used to live across the street from me in Trang - small world.

The salary is less than what I currently earn but the hourly rate is double if you pro-rata it. I am more concerned with quality of life than money. At my last place I barely had time to spend it. I am excited about the prospect of getting to grips with A level maths and physics after teaching GCSE/KS3 for the last year. Only seven weeks to go before I finish HeadStart!

Footy

The best players on Phuket Island:

I can't remember if my top is Grimsby, Notts County, St Mirren or Juventus? This is the HeadStart teacher's team.

Wind instruments

I was sitting in my mate's bar in Kata with two French lads when the awful shrill of bagpipes accosted our senses. There was a bloke marching up and down the bar-lined street doing his utmost to attenuate the bars' takings for the night.

Bike

I've done it again. I came off near the blood-donor centre in Phuket Town. I was covered in mud, cuts and bruises at about 0600 when an ambulance unbelievably came past. It stopped, bandaged me up and took me home for free! The next day Paddy gave me a lift to recover the wreck, however, I couldn't remember exactly where the accident occurred! After 30 mins we found it. I then had to push it 3km to a garage because the clutch handle had snapped off. Nightmare - but then you shouldn't go to Soi Sip Et.

Spank bar

This is Nuy's mate in Spank bar in Chalong. I haven't been there for a while. It's such a laugh! I slept there on the floor a few weeks back.

Veg

The Phuket vegetarian festival has been and gone. Phuketians eat only veg for 10 days and stick swords through their face cheeks for reasons that fail me. Like Songkran I'm glad it's over. Worse of all was that my little steak stall closed for the duration. Below is a shot of the chaotic market near where I live:

National Anthem

Our school has started doing the Thai national anthem every Friday morning. They supplement this song with another anthem from a country of one of the many nationalities we have here. Last week it was Russian and this week it was the shortest ever 'God save the Queen'.

Talking of anthems, I run a quiz on a Friday and one little lass didn't recognise her own country's anthem. Having said that another girl correctly guessed the Pakistani national anthem. Kids never fail to both shock and amaze!

Boozing

I've manged to put some boozy weekend shifts in recently. In Chalong they've invented a new noun, verb and adjective. They call me 'The Hepple'. If you go out drinking you are 'Heppling'. If you intend to get drunk you say 'I'm going to get Heppled'. It's such a laugh down Soi Shit in Chalong.

This crazy Suisse lad below stayed in O'Malley's guest house for a while. He had loads of vegetarian paraphernalia such as hats and fans. He wrote me a love letter on the day he left explaining how I have a nice arse - perhaps he was gay and my gaydar had failed me?

Ice Ice baby too cool

This is 22 yo Ice from Talang district on Phuket Island. She studies at Ratchapat university and boosts her funds by cleaning part-time at McDonald's. For some inexplicable reason she has taken a shine to me and we have been seeing each other for two months. She's a canny lass but can't speak English so we rely on my crap Thai to get by.

MMmmmmmm.

Before innovative Ice, I met astute Anne, 19, from Surat Thani. Whereas Ice studies at Uni, Anne works in bar. Anne explained, meticulously, the disadvantages of a Keynesian economic approach to the current possibility of a global financial collapse. I continued to down numerous beers while becoming increasingly captivated. It was her truly inspired reasoning that led me to consider the feasibility of a romantic approach. When I asked 'How much'? She quoted an astronomically high price. She went on to explain that since the inflationary effects of quantitative easing were beginning to bite she had no choice but to raise the bar. Eventually she acquiesced and we eased, quantitatively into each other.

Toon

Can someone please explain how the Toon are unbeaten after 9 EPL games?

Lingo

fen - girlfriend
gick - less than a gf but more than a friend
mia/panaya - wife
mia noi - mistress (literally: small wife)
pooying kai borigan - A lass who'll sell owt.
tilak - sweetheart
joop joop - kiss
gawt - cuddle
pee sue - butterfly, a man who goes with many women
deng ngan - marry
lert gan - split up

Day 1904. Summer holiday.

2011-08-28T12:23:00.007+08:00

One of the perks of being a teacher is the holidays. I've just had 6 weeks off which is the longest holiday I've ever had in any employment. For the first four weeks I stayed in Phuket and the final two weeks involved a motorbike trip around the south of Thailand. I have been back at school for one week where I have met the new staff as our embryonic school continues to expand and evolve. I should receive my PGCE certificate from Nottingham University next week.

Mark Goodman from Manchester. He teaches History and Geography next door to me. Like any Man U fan he is significantly misguided regarding the intracacies of the beautiful game. I like to remind him of how the real United destroyed the red half of Manchester 5 - 0 in 1997.

This is Guy the Mackem who owns and runs Sh'Bang bar in Chalong. He was not happy when NUFC beat SAFC at the Stadium of Light last week!

However, Geordie Steve from North Shields was ecstatic. He runs the Lost Penguin bar next door. We were the sole NUFC representatives for the game. I even wore my Toon top which turned out to be an inspired decision.

I have been thinking about buying one of these. A Honda CBR 250. 110,000bt. According to a mate these things go like 'shit off a stick'. I might wait until I can pick up a second hand one.

One weekend in June, Shan and I went for a motorbike trip to Khao Sok. This is a mountainous region in western Surat Thani province. The windy roads are excellent and the scenery is spectacular.

Here we are at the entrance to the national Park.

A big river flowing nearby the massive dam here.

One part of the dam. There's a big hydro-electric power station near here.

It looks a bit like a inland sea. Parts of this huge resevoir are said to look like Guilin in China. Massive lime stone karst structures break impressively out of the water.

This is Shan's bamboo hut for the night. We had one each for 200bt.

Quite a nice view from the balconey. There are jungle clad mountains everywhere. The tropical rainforest creates a deafening chorus during the night.

At the end of the 2011 academic year, the kids had a party at here. A trendy location with discos, trampolines, games room and of course this swimming pool. It was a good laugh. Obviously there was no drink available and the kids had the teachers dancing. It's a very strange feeling to be dancing sober!

This is Steve (another Manc) and Callum. Callum hails from Galasheils and travels the world attending seminars and selling IT stuff. He has a degree in physics and was hugely entertaining crack down at O'Malley's one night.

This is little Gemma of year 8 demonstrating how much marking I had to do at the end of term. I think you'll agree that it's a canny pile of work. Note the small red M&M Albert Einstein on the shelf behind.

This is where I stayed at Had Lamai on Koh Samui. It was right on the beach and near the centre od Lamai's night life. It was a nice change from Phuket. I woke up one Wednesday and simply jumpeed on the bike and escaped Phuket. I stayed Ao Nang, Krabi for one night. Trang for four nights. Rachapat University in Nakkon Si Tammarat with Stefan for one night and two nights in Samui. Coming back from Samui was a nightmare because of the rain as I crossed the mountains. I got drenched. I had to keep stopping in small bus shelters to wait for the worst of the storms to pass. I left with no map and no plan - the way one should travel in my opinion. Flexibility is crucial.

Lamai beach, Samui from my restaurant chair.

This is Geoff's bar in Chaweng. I met Geoff two years ago when I stayed in one of his guest rooms for three nights. I told him about an Aussie in the Philippines who runs this joker jackpot game and was surprised to see he has started doing it himself. Geoff is Monkey's mate.

I drove across the central road of Samui island. Samui got hit badly by rains and floods earlier this year. Look at what happened to the roads here!

Here I am leaving Samui. It costs 150bt for me and 100bt for my bike but I wasn't at the mercy of the rip-off taxis.

On the way home, as I was crossing Sarasin bridge in the dark, I noticed my bike passing the 30,000km mark. The bike is over 6 years old and I've had it two years during which time I've added 27,000km to the machine.

This is a Thai tradition called Galaa maprow. You have to try and walk on coconut shells. It is harder than it looks.

What else has happened in the last couple of months? I've had my petrol stolen from my bike again. Someone nicked my denim jacket. I lived with a lass called 'Beer' for two weeks at the start of my holiday but that didn't work out - she was 34 from Sukhothai. I started dating a 32yo Hi-So chick from Bangkok but that didn't work out either (she has met Prince William!). I am currently hanging with a lass who works at McDonald's. Her name is Ice and she is 22. We'll see how that goes.

I stubbed a tab out on my ankle in Chalong one drunken night. I passed out in Guy's bar one night in mid-conversation. I've read 12 books. I have not been online for seven weeks which has been liberating. I went out last week and purchased scales, thermometers, compasses and various other mathematical teaching aids.

The best part of my holiday was seeing all my old mates in Trang - particularly Matt the Slayer who likes to kick rocks! I really miss those lads. I had an excellent evening with Tom where we covered such varied topics as religion, history and living in Thailand. There's a few new lads there who are a bit younger and have changed the dynamic slightly but it's still pretty much same same before.

In another three months I'll have been away 2000 days or 5.5 years and I'll be 38! I can feel the BIG 40 looming in the not too distant future! Perhaps I should not delay in buying the new bike as it looks like a perfect 'mid-life crisis' toy!

Lingo:

bogadit - normally

soot thai - last

kwang - across

Philosophy:

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Day 1827. 5th anniversary.

2011-06-08T21:27:00.007+08:00

Six years ago in 2005 I was a 31 year old drone pulling levers at a global corporation. I was a pointless cog who’d been assimilated into the Borg-collective. I existed merely to pay debts to a bank. Bizarrely, I found it completely acceptable that in order to provide myself with basic shelter, I would agree to be a docile wage-slave for the next TWENTY FIVE years of my life. Eh?

I was living in a country that was evolving politically. After seeing communism, Nazism, socialism and capitalism in various guises, the UK was moving into a new kind of –ism – corporatism. A political system whereby banks and corporations run politics. The overall objective is to keep the sheeple massively indebted (and distracted by mindless celeb culture) so that we remain modern day serfs with restricted social mobility. Fractional reverse banking is their weapon – it is a monetary system that cheats the proletariat to staggering degrees. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild once said: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws”.

Presently, the UK people are paying eye-watering taxes while suffering ever diminishing services to pay for banking bailouts, foreign aid, the EU, a massive public sector and welfare burden, unfettered immigration and three unwanted wars. This is all under an umbrella of inflation which the Bank of England appears to be under no rush to rein in. Bollicks to this!

Once I’d decided I wanted out of all that bullshit I quit my job as an IT Technician at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in Morpeth and sold my house thereby relinquishing my mortgage (posh word for debt) to the bank. I embarked on an MSc at Newcastle University while planning my great escape around the world.

Five years ago, at 0500 on Monday 12th June 2006, I was standing at Central Station in Newcastle waiting for a bus to take me to Aberdeen and the adventure of a lifetime. I had a single backpack containing a passport, ATM card, tent, sleeping bag, hiking boots and various clothes; these were the sole possessions of my new life. It was a dark damp morning but my senses were electrified – I was in a curious emotional state – experiencing the duality of excitement and fear. Thrilled about exploring the unknown and trepidation about what might lurk therein.

I arrived in Aberdeen and boarded a ferry to the Shetlands, the Faroes and Iceland. I crossed the Arctic circle, climbed volcanoes and visited steam vents in this geologically fascinating country before sailing to Denmark, Sweden and across the Baltic to Lithuania. I travelled by bus to Latvia, Estonia and St Petersburg before taking the trans-Siberian train across Russia. I passed through the Mongolian wilderness and the Gobi desert on my way to China. I sailed from China to Japan and Korea before spending a month in Tibet. I visited Hong Kong, The Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Borneo, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Indonesia before settling down in Taiwan to teach English for a while.

The last paragraph consumed two years of my life and contained enough adventure to fill a book. However, I was far from finished. My original one year journey had already become two.

Four years ago, in 2007 I was hiking through central Burma. I sailed down the mighty Ayerwaddy from Mandalay before swamping my senses at the sublime temples of Bagan. I spent time in Yangon’s discos chewing betel nuts as my visa was about to expire.

Three years ago in 2008 I quit Taiwan and spent two months on the Philippine Island of Leyte. I planted rice and lived without electric or running water in a bamboo shack with a family. I cooled down in the lofty Cameron Highlands in peninsular Malaysia where I met Armin my Austrian travel companion. I then lived on Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand for 2 months where I experienced the famous full moon party. Cambodia followed with a chill out in Sihanoukville and chicken farms in Koh Kong. Back to the Thai-Malay border where 2 bombs went off on the border bridge. A month deep in Islamic Malaysia was followed by a month in Angeles, Philippines. Back to Malaysia where I hung in Penang before obtaining employment in Trang, southern Thailand.

Two years ago in 2009 I had succumbed to employment again. After almost three years of work-free travelling the wheels came off. I can live very frugally but I still need some money in order to fund my expeditions. I spent a year teaching maths in Trang where I learnt to read, write and speak Thai. I bought a chopper motorbike and toured the rural south of Thailand extensively during my free time.

One year ago in 2010 I moved to the island of Phuket in southern Thailand. I started teaching GCSE maths in an international school. I completed the PGCE teaching qualification with Nottingham University. I can now boast that in addition to teaching maths I can waffle on about Gardner’s mulitiple intelligences, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and Ivan Illich’s hidden curriculum. All a load of psycho-babble bullshit. Am I a better teacher? Possibly. Am I glad the course is over? Definitely. I have been rewarded with a new one year contract and a pay-rise. After a 6 week holiday next month I will work one more academic year from September 2011 to July 2012 at 60,000bt/month (£1200/month).

Not too bad considering only 1 year ago I was earning 28,500bt/month in Trang! Additioanlly, I now have a qualification that affords me the opportunity of reasonably paid teaching work all over the world! Can’t be bad. I have also saved some money for a 6 week bike trip around Thailand during my summer break – it’ll be good to be on the road again.

Half decade reflections. In five years I have visited in excess of 50 countries. I have learnt two Asian languages. I have filled a passport. I have had two oriental girlfriends in Taiwan and Thailand. I have learnt to use chopsticks. I have quit smoking about 100 times. I travelled from England to Japan without flying. I felt an earthquake in Taiwan and vicious typhoons in the Philippines that killed thousands. I got tattooed in Thailand and ripped off in Shanghai. I’ve travelled on the fastest mag-lev train in the world and I’ve eaten the most disgusting things ever. Liaisons with the opposite sex of all creeds and cultures has been mind-blowing. The last five years have easily been the best of my life and I hope I remain healthy enough to make it to a decade! I have still yet to reach Australia, NZ, and South America. I have become well and truly stuck in Asia.

Photos

On the bike after taking Nuy around the island.

Ao Sen beach near Nai Harn. There's good snorkelling to be had here.

Last Friday night I got invited to my old girlfriend's new bar. I knew Pla when she worked in Ao Nang. She has just opened 'Pla Bar' in Kata. I was sitting there thinking I'll only have one beer as the music was louder than a Chinaman on a cell phone and I was tired after work. However, Guy (my Chalong bar-owning Mackem buddy from Sunderland) unexpectedly turned up and quickly explained how my one-beer plan will never work. It wasn't all bad as there was these nice lasses to look at.

Here's Pla, my old friend. She's a successful business lady now!

Here's a shot of Ao Yon on Laem Panwa.

Thailand is pretty well-known for been a rip off place. Here is the entrance to Phuket zoo.

And here is the ticket booth. On the left window is Thai script. On the right window is generic Roman script. Luckily I can read both. The left window says: 'Adult 100bt and Child 40bt'. The right window says: 'Adult 500bt and child 300bt'. Even though I can read the Thai and I have a Thai driving license/work permit/tax card they still wanted me to pay the 'white' price. A family of four would end up paying almost 6 times a local family. I'm all for screwing the tourists a little but by a magnitude of 6 is inexcusable.

This is a rare Sunday treat from the Islander bar in Rawai. It is a 340bt traditional Sunday roast. They even let you have all the meats: lamb, pork, chicken and beef. You can not get meals like this in Trang. An old English lady cooks this and it is just like home! I hadn't had one in five years!

Here's where I normally eat: Phuket Town night market.

Trang

Here's the Trang lads wearing salon wigs for some reason? I drove down to Trang 2 weeks ago to catch up with my old mates. I had done my 90 day passport reporting thing at immigration and then I managed to painlessly get my motorbike taxed and insured for another year. I visited my old school in Phuket Town before embarking on the monster drive down to Trang.

I visited my old stomping grounds where I was pleased to see Suchat has started selling thinners alongside the wiskey in his junkyard karaoke joint!

Here's Monkey looking like a cross between a Starwars stormtrooper and a village idiot! His lass has just opened a karaoke bar in Trang so that should keep him out of trouble for a while.

Here's Irish Tom and Suchat. Suchat had only just been released from hospital because of liver trouble. Tom gave me a present when I arrived: a red T-shirt with The people's republic of Cork emblazened on it! Old Tom still loves Cork. This time he informed us that Cork has the second largest natural harbour in the world! You couldn't make it up. I countered with Ashington was the largest coal mining village in the world which he didn't believe!

This is Suchat and I posing in front of a map of Thailand. I miss this bloke, he is very cool.

Shan is the Physics teacher at my school. He hails from India and cooks some great food. He invited me around to his pad one night where we ate Tosai and watched a movie. Canny lad. Switched on too. We often go for fillet steaks after work. We have found a place that does excellent fillets for 90bt (£1.80). You can't knock that.

Here he is again at the kids' wacky olympics day out. English Josh and Russian Vlad are the two bairns. Our school has been operating (illegally) as a secondary school. The Thai Ministry of Education came to inspect it so all the kids had to vanish. The management sent us to Laguna for a fun day out - cool. Fortunately the school jumped through all the right hoops and became a certified center of secondary education.

These wonderful ladies are Kim and Ella, the English and IT teachers. Kim is from Zimbabwe and Ella is Irish (though not from Cork). Unfortunately they are both leaving at the end of term after one year working together.

This is all the activities the kids had to do.

Here's little Alex in year 7. He's very artistic but struggles in maths.

This was hilarious. This team did not move. They had no co-ordination whatsoever. They sucked at this event.

Here they are at the beginning - still. The other three teams had long finished. It was very funny.

Unbelievably, they still won the whole competition!

Lingo:

anacot = future

kang lang = behind

kang na = in front

pra jam duen = period

wong glom = circle

kookao = kneel

Day 1800. Smoking, Uni and illness.

2011-05-16T19:24:00.004+08:00

Update

I left home 4 years 11 months and 5 days ago - almost 5 years! I am still wondering aimlessly on holiday.

Five years ago I was preparing to sail to Iceland via the Faroes. Four years ago I was chilling for a month in serene Laos. Three years ago I was preparing to leave Taiwan and head back to the Philippines. Two years ago I had just moved to Trang in Thailand. One year ago I had just moved to Phuket.

Today, I am still in Phuket. Conclusion? Time to GTF outta here.

Some pics

Drunk in my local with a Czech lad. No idea where our tops are? This pic looks a bit too camp for my liking.

The last time I took a pic like this was in the lofty mountains of southern Taiwan. This pic is near Nai Thon beach near Phuket airport.

When I had my bad motorbike accident last year, here's an idea of how the helmet saved me. Imagine having that impact across the top of your skull?

My bike at Nai Yang beach in the Northwest of Phuket.

Nice weather, max 34 min 26.

This is Thailand's Southern Meteorological Center near the airport. I drove up here to see the airport since I'd never seen it. While I was there I saw two planes land! TWO? Yes, two in 10 minutes. In Trang I never saw one plane in a whole year. That's not the only difference between Trang and Phuket.

This is the posh British International School. Costs a fortune to send your kids there but the teachers are well paid. Nice building. I think my school provides a cheaper 'international' option at about one third of the price!

On an extensive bike ride I passed Phuket mining museum. Again, nice building.

The Thai staff at my school invited me for a BBQ. I went, stayed sober and sung a karaoke song. It was Goong's birthday. Canny laugh.

Smoking

I quit smoking on Sunday 24th April. However, I have failed twice in that 3 week period. I am now one week nicotine free but I have to stay off the beer. I fail when I drink. Next weekend is a 'stay off the lash' weekend. This is harder than it sounds on this alcoholic island.

Ill

I was off work again last week. I picked up something that made me sweat/shiver/poo/puke. I was in bed three days and finally arose 5kg lighter. I am now a paltry 64kg and as weak as a baby. I think the booze does not help in this matter but at least I had my first alcohol-free weekend since coming to Phuket (which is how I got to one week smoke free).

Uni

I have completed 75% of my online PGCE at Nottingham University. I have one more research project to go then I'm done. I'd like to finish this before my 6 week holiday on the 8th of July as I am planning a massive bike trip around the whole of Thailand. I am quite excited about this!

Armin

left for Angeles a few weeks ago. He is sadly missed. I have a day off tomorrow but I am going to crack on with my PGCE tonight and tomorrow so that I can enjoy 6 weeks of worry free bliss.

Date

I went on a date last night with Patti, 33 from Yala. She has lived on phuket for 14 years and works as a PR officer for a big hotel in Phuket Town. She was nice and she has a car which freaked me out somewhat! Don't know if we'll meet again though? We did enjoy the views from Tung Ka restaurant at the top of Khao Rang hill on the same night the Toon drew away at Chelsea.

dalotbai = forever

tong = gold

ngern = silver

rop gwan = disturb

Day 1775. Finally a trip off Alcatraz

2011-04-22T15:43:00.004+08:00

Update

Five years ago I was completing my MSc at Newcastle University and about to embark on the greatest adventure of my life.

Four years ago I was in Cambodia having travelled a torturous unpaved road from Surin to Siem Reap. However, the trip was worth it as the Angkor ruins were simply sublime.

Three years ago I was flitting between Taiwan and the Philippines. I was working as an English teacher - not because of any English proficiency but because I was the only westerner within 10 million Chinese people. I was seeing lovely little Zi Ting from Tainan.

Two years ago I had just getting rid of a Philippine Urinal Tract Infection in Penang before starting as a maths teacher in Trang in southern Thailand.

One year ago I was hanging around in Phuket waiting for my job at Satree school to start. I had driven five hours (from Trang via Ao Nang) with all my worldly possessions loaded on the back of my bike.

Now I have been in Phuket for 1 year and I am working at Headstartphuket International school teaching GCSE maths. I have just been to:

Ko Phi Phi

I finally managed to escape Phuket during my Easter break. Here we are leaving Rassada peir in Phuket Town headed for the idyllic Phi Phi Island (where Leonardo DiCaprio starred in The Beach):
As you walk onto the jetty you have to survive a swarm of touts:

We headed up a very steep path towards a viewpoint:

And here's Austrian Armin and I in one of the most beautiful locations on Earth. The Thai reads Joot Chom Wiew Goh Pee Pee Don:

We then proceeded to explore some lesser visited parts of the island. I had to dress like an Arab in the insane heat:

This is the unbelievably modern tsunami village built after the devastating 2004 destruction. It is at the top of a hard-to-climb hill:

Water shortages are a common theme here. Look at Phi Phi's vast reservoir:

Look at the standard of cabling here. These are telephone and electrical wires strung thoughtlessly through the jungle:

This is one of Phi Phi's power stations. You can see a diesel generator in front of a barrel of oil.

After trekking to Phi Phi's lesser visited parts (we didn't meet anyone out here) we had to stop for a water refill. In the shops on the island 0.5L = 15bt, here in the jungle 1.5L = 5bt. As a maths teacher I should be able to calculate which offers best value for money.

BOT BOT BOT BOT. This is the constant cry from the predators praying on gullible tourists. These are longtail boats with Ko Phi Phi Leh in the background. Pretty nice eh? I went snorkelling near here.

After getting drunk watching Citeh beat Manure in the FA Cup semi-final I had to be carted back to the jetty. As you can see my luggage was weighing me down:

Bikes

Armin and I went to Laem Panwa on Phuket Island to eat some Tom Yam Goong in an Isaan restaurant. The menu was Thai but the staff were surprised to discover I could read it all. Words I could read but couldn't understand Armin translated. He speaks great Thai but can't read so we make a good team. On the way there my bike passed 25000km. I had a bottle of cold Leo to celebrate.

Birds

This is Nui who works in Chalong. She's a canny lass but she's going home to Nakon Phanom soon.

Booze

This is a pic posted on facebook from my early days as a RN apprentice. Neil, Jez, Daz and myself enjoying a night out in Pompey. I have no idea why I'm wearing a suit?

Back-breaking labour

Our school has updated its website and they have included a profile of me here. I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders as I try to guide these unfortunates through the numerical maze of maths. I have also taught some basic Geordie phrases - to say they were perplexed is an understatement. I showed them a clip of Oz on Aufweidershen Pet and even the English kids were querying which language he was speaking??? They wouldn't believe it was English??

In my homeroom class I have 17 students including: Thai, Russian, German, American, English, Australian, Italian, Pakistani, French, Irish and Korean. To think these kids will potentially leave school with knowledge of Geordie words and phrases warms my heart!

We start term 3 on Monday and I have failed miserably with my PGCE work. I didn't start the third assignment. Instead I got pissed and toured the Island. On parents evening I had to deal with two knobhead parents. This isn't too bad considering the amount of parents I spoke to. Suffice to say one was from the North American continent and the other was from somewhere on the Rhine, mmmmmmmmm?

Toon - the real United

United secured a draw against Manchester United on Tuesday night. We've reached 40pts and should have secured survival.

Lingo

kaijeow sai song fong = two egg omelet
heng/biak = dry/wet
mai dong jing jang ngai gor dai = don't take this relationship too seriously
tanakan tang bai nai = which way is the bank?
Wan nee wan sook, pom ja bai gin bia = today is Friday and I'm off to drink some booze.

Day 1766. Songkran.

2011-04-13T13:02:00.003+08:00

Update I'm currently on my Easter holidays, or to be more exact, my Songkran break. Songkran is the Thai new year celebration which manifests itself into one massive nationwide water fight. In Patong, (Phuket's tourist mecca), the celebrations are exacerbated by thousands of drunken westerners armed with machine gun style water pistols. A place to avoid at the best of times but especially at times like this. In March I spent another lonely two days in hospital. This time I had some kind of tropical fever compounded by tonsillitis. These illnesses are totally debilitating. The bill from Phuket International Hospital was 21000bt (420gbp) but luckily my school insurance picked up the tab. That is unbelievably expensive for two nights in a hospital with a saline drip and some paracetamol. I can confirm that this hospital values profits before health. They couldn't drip the saline into me fast enough at 1200bt (24gbp) for a one liter bag. Remember saline is only salty water - the sea here is full of it! I then went to a dentist for a teeth clean and two fillings. This cost 2000bt (40gbp) which my insurance doesn't cover. I nearly went for laser-whitening but wrenched at how much booze I'd have to sacrifice to pay for it. Anyway, as a teacher I don't need teeth like Cheryl Cole. Geordie Penguin Steve This title doesn't refer to me wearing a tux. Rather, old Geordie Steve from North Shields. He has a bar in Chalong called The Lost Penguin: Like myself he's a Geordie. Like myself he's travelled to many fascinating locations. He has many pics of penguins in his bar from his time in Antartica. We've shared many beers and tales over the last couple of weekends. Armin My Austrian polyglot friend is back. He's spent the last week in Patong. We have shared a drunken night in Patong and I've taken him around the island on the bike. He is hindering my progress with my PGCE. I must finish the third assignment before returning to work. Here he is below with a creature of dubious gender:

This is Ann below. She's just gone home for the Thai new year. Nice lass. I miss her.

Here's the family from my local bar in Chalong:

And here they are finally replacing the pool table cloth:

And here's a random pic of a randon sexbomb in Patong. Old 50yo Phil and I had a mad night there at the start of March.

As for now I intend to spend Songkran working on my studies. This is difficult with Armin tempting me to go to Koh Phi Phi with him. This is a famously beautiful island near Phuket that I have never visited. Perhaps now is the time.

NUFC look like they have secured another season of EPL football. However, SAFC seem to have gone into freefall. This does not please Guy, the Mackem owner of Sh-Bang bar in Chalong although Geordie Penguin Steve seems to be smiling more than before?

Lingo

Sak pa - wash clothes

tam eng - do myself

bac wan - sweet mouth

Day 1719. Half a jingjing teacher in Thailand.

2011-02-25T12:07:00.005+08:00

Update

Almost two years in Thailand and five years in Asia! I submitted my fourth assignment for my PGCE yesterday. Only four more to go then I'll be a real teacher - understanding such pyscho-babble as the zone of proximal development! I'm currently investigating the possibility of teaching HNC Electronics in Burma since my colleague used to do just that.

Photos

I managed to get my phone back in action and decided to share the following snapshot of life in Thailand:

Om at the massage shop. She crashed her bike pissed the other night.

View doing a Churchill in her bar.

An aggressive long blue fish trapped in a rock pool. It bit my finger.

Geordie Neil, myself, Lee and Phil in a bar in Chalong.

New Year's Eve in Patong. This is looking down the infamous Bangla Road. It looks like Wembley way on cup final day - mobbed.

Bueatiful - watching the hundreds of lanterns float to the stars.

I hear gas is getting pricey back home. You can buy it in bars here. This tasted like shite by the way.

Now who would live in a house like this? The way to the toilet down soi sip et in Phuket Town.

Nat perched on the edge of a bed about to start a monologue on the state of Burmese politics and how this is affecting the mood in Libya.

Da enjoying Khao Man Gai on a brief break as a masseuse in Phuket Town.

Chinese new year. I am reminded of my time in Taiwan.

Thai writing with a Chinese flavour.

Had an enthralling afternoon with Moon and Porn the other day. After three hours in a temple we studied Shakespeare.

This is Wan who lives in Phang Nga. She played softball for the Thai national team. She works as a teacher and invited me for dinner one night. It was a nice evening. I then headed to Ao Nang in Krabi before visiting the lads in Trang again. I managed to pay my bills and collect my bag that I left the previous time.

One of the Trang lads. This is what can happen if you get pissed and fall asleep in the sun - it looks horrible - like real burns.

Where we drink in Trang is right outside a beauty salon. All the students agreed to line up for this shot. Looking pretty good eh?

Little Nit and I at the Big Buddha on a special Buddha holiday.

Had a long weekend last week where I spent most of it in a drunken haze. It's Friday and I only have three more GCSE maths classes and then I'm done for the weekend. I'm in a good mood since I finished my assignment yesterday. I just have to decide where to go and get hammered and with who. Probably with Nit from Rawai who just SMSd.

Best wishes from Asia.

Lingo

Yang mai yoot soob buree - I still haven't stopped smoking

Day 1696. Long time no blog.

2011-02-01T21:00:00.003+08:00

Update

I left Newcastle 1696 days ago on the 12th June 2006 - or: 4 years 7 months and 21 days ago. This trip has evolved into the Mother of gap years.

Five years ago I was working on an MSc at Newcastle University. I wrongly believed that this would be the last studying I ever did in my life. I am now 3/8 of the way through an online iPGCE at Nottingham University. This is a UK teaching qualification that costs 2900gbp. I paid the final instalment today which means I have to complete five more modules in order to make it 'worth' the money. I should be able to work anywhere in the World after obtaining this. Hopefully on reasonable salaries too!

Four years ago I was exploring Penang in Malaysia with Fen Xiao my ex-gf. She worked as a nurse at Newcastle Freeman Hospital before travelling with me for 5 months. She was originally from Wuhan in Hubei province in China. I wonder what she's up to now? Four years ago today she was touring the whole of Penang Island with me on a rented motorbike. We ate Laksa in small Malay fishing villages.

Three years ago I was on a flight from Taiwan to Manila. I ended up hanging in the Manila slums for 3 weeks before gaining my senses and returning to Taiwan. I was seeing Zi Ting who hails from Tainan Province in Southern Taiwan. I remember the delicious runny oyster omlettes she used to make at the night markets.

Two years ago I was flying from KL to Angeles in the Philippines. I hung out with a lass called Gemma from Olongapao. She was good crack. We visited Subic Bay as a break from the prolific sex industry in Angeles. That was my last trip to the Philippines after a total of 6 months spent on and off there.

Last year I was in Trang, Thailand starting to look for work in a different location. I was coming to the end of a 1 year contract as a maths teacher. I viewed it as a good way to build some experience in the sticks of Thailand. It also facilitated my reading and speaking Thai. I still miss the lads from Trang and I regularly call them.

Now I am in Headstart International School, Phuket teaching GCSE maths. I am also studying for an iPGCE. I have been in that school 4 months. I feel settled although it is harder work since I teach 25hrs/week with only 4hrs free to plan and mark etc. I know this island inside out now and I have a few lasses on the go which helps somewhat.

Phuket life

Not much to report in the last few months. I have managed to mess up romances with:

Nit 31 from Chaiyaphum.

Om 24, a kickboxer from Chonburi.

View 19 from Phitsanalok.

Nan 19 from Udon Thani.

Daa 19 from Udon Ratchasima.

Nit 24 from Si Saket.

Admittedly, 19 is almost half my age so I should be looking elsewhere. The fact is I don't think I'm cut out for a Thai lass. They are undoubtedly beautiful, however this beauty seems to come with a greedy streak that'll end in trouble. I reckon I can't afford one of these lasses on a mere teacher's salary. I've met many foreigners who have been scammed here.

I enjoyed a Christmas dinner at my local bar O'Malley's. I then attempted to quit alcohol and nicotine on Boxing day. I failed in this endaevour on New Year's Eve. The health angles are starting to worry me. I woke up on Boxing day shitting blood. I also had a huge lump on my gums. However, such is the lifestyle here on this party island, that it is very difficult to extract yourself from the fun. I am pleased I have a job through the week to mitigate the effects of 72hrs of booze every weeekend. I'm aiming for a dry February.

Trang

A couple of weekends ago, I just had to get off this island (Lee and I call it Glueket). I finished work on Friday, jumped on the bike and headed down to Trang to catch up with some old friends. The problem was that it was another insane boozing session. It's all I spend my money on! I watched Spurs equalise in the last minute against the Toon (similar to the Mackems away) before leaving my bike jacket at Mike's house. I then slept at a bar and left my weekend bag at that same bar (I still owe them 500bt too). I drove 4hrs home in only the clothes I was wearing. What a tramp.

On the way home a muslim lady let me sleep on her porch for an hour as I was almost falling asleep at her fried chicken stall. She lived in the sticks between rubber plantations. I was fretting incase her husband or sons came home to find a strange white man crashed on their porch. I woke up refreshed and continued home.

Smudge

Smudge, an old Royal Navy Submarine mate came to visit me in Phuket last weekend. Here we are below:

We had a wonderful time on the booze, spinning dits. We wore monkey T-shirts to remind us of when we sailed up the West coast of Scotland in 1996 (15 years ago - Jeez). He gave me a Russian Navy flag as a present. This flag now sits alongside the Thai flag on the bag of my bike.

Niece

Here's my little neice Gabrielle. This is Craig's daughter. Looking good in her stripes. I hope she's worth as much as Andy Carrol when she's older (36M????)

Lingo

Phoom Jai - proud

Wanjai - sweetheart

seeya - broken

eecha - jealous

sapson - confused

ngor - stupid

Day 1626. 37th birthday.

2010-11-23T21:48:00.003+08:00

Watching a ladyboy show
Nid - a love interest?

Steve's class rules

My year 7 class

O'Malley's

Update

I have been away from England for four and a half years. My memories of home are starting to fade - drastically.

Five years ago I was celebrating my 32nd birthday on a night out with post-grad friends in Newcastle. I remember feeling old as a young student couple snogged on a seat right next to me.

Four years ago I turned 33 in Chengdu, China after an amazing two week trip through the Himalayas where I lived with hardy Tibetans.

Three years ago I became 34 in Tainan City, Taiwan after experiencing terrifying earthquakes in Taipei. I'd just met the lovely Zi Ting with whom I spent around 9 months.

Two years ago I was in Pattaya, Thailand pondering my 35th year of existence among the many ladies of the night. I then headed to Cambodia for the second time to check out Sihanoukville.

Last year I was 36 in Trang, Thailand having just been dumped by little Pat. I still miss the lads from there.

This year I am in Phuket. I have been here eight months. My birthday night was in my local O'Malleys bar in Phuket Town. The bar had just opened after a renovation.

Busy

I changed jobs at the beginning of October. My new job is teaching IGCSE maths from year 6 to year 10. I teach 25 periods/week but we have a lot of extra tasks which means you can be in work from 0730 until 1800. On top of this I have to study for my PGCE in the evenings. I am knackered every night. Therefore, not too much to report other than crazy weekend antics.

Dates

I have been on a few dates recently now that I'm over Oi. I met Da who works massage but keeps going to Bangkok too often. I met Phyu, a nanny from Burma. I have been seeing Lek who works in a gogo bar in Patong. I have also been dating Nid (pic above) who works at the ladyboy show place (pic above).

However, all these dates seem to be going nowhere. I went to watch Skyline at the cinema on Sunday alone.

Pool

I haven't even been in the pool much at my new place. The rain is beginning to stop and the weather is gloriously hot again. I really feel for the folk back in England. I have been very drunk at weekends and managed to lose my ATM card twice in a week. Going to the bank the second time was embarrassing.

It's 2140 and I'm exhausted so I'll be off to bed soon. I'm really looking forward to three weeks off at xmas.

Lingo:

Newcastle HAA v NEUNG Sunderland (I don't think I need to spell that out)

Meut = dark

Suang = light

sapson = confused

Day 1604. Dengue Fever - a brush with death.

2010-10-29T17:21:00.003+08:00

Update

I have been away from Blighty for four and a half years. I am into my fifth job since leaving.

Five years ago I quit work as an IT Tech at Pfizer to pursue an MSc at Newcastle Uni.

Four years ago I was in Chiang Mai on my first ever visit to Thailand. I was hanging out with a lass going by the name 'Goong' from Sukhothai. She told me she was pregnant when I headed back to China! This was my first brush with a lady from the Land of Lies. It was nice to be in the tropical heat before my trip to the Tibetans in the freezing Himalayas.

Three years ago today I was in the Shulin district of Taipei. I had started work as an English language teacher. On this very day in 2007 I headed to Tainan province to meet the lovely Zi Ting for the first time. She was an amazing lass and I'm still gutted I messed things up with her. I went on to live with her and her family for 7 months in southern Taiwan where I learnt a chunk of Mandarin lingo.

Two years ago I was living on Koh Pha Ngan and taking drug fuelled visits to Koh Samui with 'Taff' a deranged Welshman. I was living with Pare. I still have no idea where she got her money from as I never seen her work. I suspect she was dealing drugs at the infamous full moon parties.

Last year I had driven my new bike from Pattaya to Hua Hin. I ran out of money and had to borrow 400bt from a ladyboy so that I could fuel my bike to get back to Trang. When I got home I was dismayed to find that Pat wanted to dump me (just before the romantic Loy Kratong festival). C'est la vie.

This year I am waiting to go to a Halloween party at my new school. I have been teaching GCSE maths and history at Headstart Phuket School for almost one month. I'm enjoying the differences from my last school, particularly the international diversity of the students.

Dengue

I started work here on Thursday 7/10/10 after my trip to Trang and Malaysia. At the end of my first full week I was beginning to feel dreadful. I went home early on Friday 15/10/10 and had a weekend of mental and physical torment. After hallucinating for a while I collapsed in the street as I went for some water (I had nobody to help me with these sort of things). My local taxi driver took me to the hospital (for free - wow) where it was established that I had contracted dengue fever. I was off work the next week.

This potentially fatal disease (also known as breakbone fever, since it can be extremely painful) was easily the worst illness I have ever experienced.

I ended up having to spend two nights on a drip in Mission Hospital. I hadn't eaten since I got the disease and I'd lost 6kg. However, a stay in a Thai hospital is not cheap. Two nights cost me 15,000bt or 300gbp. That is my savings gone! However, I'm simply pleased to have beaten the worst ailment I've ever had.

Local

This is the pool table in my current local: O'Malley's. I think it looks very British??

Vegetarian festival

While I was sick and delirious, the noise from the fireworks and drums of the vegetarian festival were deafening. I had to break out my old crusty earplugs to combat the noise. Additionally, on my way to work last week, I had to wait for mass processions of Chinese people parading past with swords stuck through their cheeks!

War of the Worlds

One of my students noticed this massive insect just outside our classroom.

Swedish Eric

I got out of hospital on Thurs 21/10/10. On Friday I went to see Eric who used to live in Trang. He was in Phuket with his lass from Surat Thani. Here we are in Kata where Eric (not me) is enjoying a beer. I look OK considering this is my first outing since losing the dengue.

On the way to meet Eric my bike passed the 20,000km mark. That means I've done 17,000km since I bought it 13 months ago.

New School

A shot of the front of my new school. Unbelievably we had blue skies this day. There is a lot of rain in Phuket in October. I'm inclined to conclude that the rain had some bearing on me getting dengue fever.

Here's a shot of my own maths classroom. I have tidied, changed things around and even begun a display of the kids' maths art! I have my own computer and everything.

Changing rooms

This has been my room for the last 7 months (except a brief ill-fated stint in Rawai with Oi):

Nanachart Mansion (means international) on Muntri Road in the middle of Phuket Town.

However, I am moving to Patra Mansion at the foot of Khao Rang hill. It has nice rooms, gardens and a pool! I will move there this weekend. A few of the lads I know live there too. It's a little pricier but well worth it in my opinion. I can chill out in peaceful surroundings while I work on my PGCE.

PGCE

As a condition of accepting a position at this school I agreed to do an online PGCE with Nottingham University. A PGCE is a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. The school require their English, Maths and Science teachers to be qualified to this level.

I have just started the course (although I missed some stuff in Bangkok because of the dengue) and I should finish next summer. I met the tutor who came to Phuket for a holiday and she filled me in on the things I missed. I am all raring to go now on another academic adventure. I am going to end up with more qualifications than Stephen Hawkings.

One downside is that the course costs 2900gbp. This is offset slightly by the fact that I earn more in this international school (50,000bt/month as opposed to 30,000bt/month in a govt school).

I now have a Nottingham University email address and online access to all my coursework etc. A few beers tonight and then crack on with this tomorrow.

Lingo

Fever = Kai wat yai.
Hospital = Rong payaban
Medicine = yaa
Doctor = more

Job changes, Old Trang mates and Malaysia.

2010-10-05T20:12:00.005+08:00

Khota Bharu

Greetings from an Islamic city in the North East of peninsular Malaysia. I'm here to get a new Thai Non Immigrant visa. I'll collect it tomorrow and head back to Phuket via 3 buses and about 12 hours.

I'm staying in the Bunga Raya hostel where I've been lucky enough to catch up with some old friends.

No update on this entry as I don't have my diary.

Oi

A quick pic of little Oi. I include this as I have no idea how longer we'll be together. As much as I'm fond of her, our relationship is nothing like pretty woman. I think she needs a millionaire to support her and her family's insatiable thirst for cash. Their greed combined with an extreme aversion to work is something to behold.

Patong

Here's a Patong sunset on one of my after school island drives. I think I've been in the sea 8 times in 6 months in Phuket.

Schools

These are some kids doing an end of term test in the corridor???? Can you see the teachers doing their utmost to prevent copying??? As I mentioned before, Thai kids DO NOT want to learn anything. I have found it very difficult to work in this environment recently. I can't handle being constantly ignored and talked over in class. The extreme laziness and copying is frustrating beyond belief. I have not witnessed one example of curiosity, initiative or critical thinking in 18 months in Thai schools. Asking any question is like pissing against the wind.

I think my favourite student remark in this latest school was when I asked a young lad why he wasn't tackling the questions I'd set. Answer? "I'm too lazy to think". WTF? I give up.

So, I was going to quit and decided to look for a new job. Perhaps even in a different country as I've been here a while. I applied for a few and had a few offers but ended up accepting a position at Headstart International School.

That's how I'm now in Malaysia ready to go back and start there next week. I will teach 19 periods of Maths and 6 periods of History. The classes are much smaller and the kids seem much more willing and able. It's even more money and holiday but I'll have to study an online PGCE at Nottingham University at a cost of 2900gbp. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm hoping it's a big improvement on my previous employment ventures.

Boats and monkeys

On a biking outing to the less visited parts of Phuket I came across this beautiful wooden boat being upgraded in the boat yard. I'd love to sail it somewhere.

Just over the bridge on the way to Koh Si Rae you can see locals feeding hundreds of mangrove swamp monkeys. I like to come here and sit for half an hour around sunset.

Trang

I finished at Satree Phuket School on 30/9/10. On Friday 1/10/10 I went to my new school to collect some papers to take to the Thai consulate in Malaysia. This presented an ideal opportunity to spend a weekend in Trang with all my great old mates. USA Alex came up to Phuket for a few days where we had massages and drinks. He then went to Krabi and I carried onto Trang. Mike was waiting for me at the bus station and we headed straight to Johnny's shack below:

This bar is set in a market on the edge of town. It's basically a 3rd World bamboo shit hole but we all seem to like it. Johnny the owner is a policeman who walks around pissed with a loaded gun. He's mental. He's the guy with the red bandanna above.

This is a new bar and possibly the most surreal one I have ever seen. They even have a fire show in the middle of the market road:

I had two nights here and had a whale of a time. It was great to see my old mates and I really felt like I'd made a mistake going to Phuket. However, my hangover on Sunday was probably my most extreme one ever. I am really thinking of quitting the evil ale - it controls me and I can't control it. That hangover was gruesome.

Border

Here's the Sungai Golok / Rantau Panjang border crossing. You have to walk across the river.

Toon

After a fairly encouraging start things seem to have slipped back into mediocrity. However, at least Liverpool may have assumed the dubious honour of being the Premier League's calamity BIG club.

Computers, visas and insects.

2010-09-07T17:01:00.014+08:00

Update

Four years ago I was in the south-western part of The People's Republic of China. The city of Kunming is Yunnan province's self-congratulatory City of Eternal Spring. On this very day I was on a spectacular all day boozing binge where I even managed to get lucky with a stunning Beijing lass going by the name of Lemon. Nice memories.

Three years ago I was in Taiwan. I was in the Taipei sub-district of Shulin. I'd only been in the country one week when I experienced an earthquake. It was terrifying as I was thrown around my bed at 4am. I'd also just embarked on my teaching career. I was teaching English to Primary kids. Little did I know I was going to fall for gorgeous Zi Ting in Tainan Province and end up doing a flit from this position. This nullified the contract and prevented me ever working legally in Taiwan again.

Two years ago I was chilling on the idyllic paradise island of Perhentian Kecil, just off peninsular Malaysia's north-east coast. I had kayaked around the island and spent many sunsets fishing for squid. I swam with sharks, sustained hideous injuries and passed the PADI SCUBA four day course. You can read all about my 25 days in paradise here: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/stevieblunder/25-days-in-paradise.html.

Last year I’d found a Geordie bar on Thailand’s tourist mecca island of Ko Samui. I stayed at Aussie Jeff’s guest house in the bustling Hat Chaweng on the eastern coast. I got plastered with the expats before heading to Ko Pha Ngan to catch up with some old friends from when I spent two months there in 2008. I was enjoying a nice break from my first job in Thailand as a Maths teacher in Trang.

This year I’m looking forward to a two week holiday next month. I’m feeling the need to get off Phuket Island for a while. I would like to visit Trang to see my old buddies. I haven’t seen them in over five months. I’m also thinking of my brother’s imminent wedding next weekend. Craig will be the first of my five brothers to tie the knot. Good luck to him and Joanne. I hope their union provides a solid foundation for their new daughter Gabrielle.

Youtube

I have discovered a video of me singing Rhinestone Cowboy on the internet. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcbmiWSwKKM‏ for this embarrassing episode. I only feature in the first 40secs. I was totally oblivious to this since the group who filmed it were unknown to me. They even complain that 'some British guy grabbed the mic first'!

Visa

On Tuesday 24/8/10 I had my visa extended until 31/3/11. The 24th August was the very same day that my initial visa expired so there was no room for error. Now, I have a job, visa and work permit for the next 7 months (until March 2011) which is cool.

The immigration office was a modern building full of Westerners. There was even a Western volunteer policeman (from Middlesborough) to help bewildered Falangs with any problems. I was grinning as I compared this with Trang's antiquated provincial immigration situation. In Kantang (a small town in Trang province) there is a small wooden shack with an old fat woman slouched in a chair who appears to do nothing. A young lad will stamp your passport for you if you offer him some fruit or something even though you are probably the only 'customer' they will see that day. The chances of seeing a Westerner there are slim.

Chinese festival

There was another festival in Phuket Town last month. Brett and Mick went for a butcher's while I supped beer in the Tricycle bar. Mick came back some hours later with a big stuffed panda bear. He gave it to me to use as a pillow - I was over the moon. I wish I had a pic. My bed looks ridiculous with a big conspicuous panda peering at you from the top of the bed.

Talking of beds, my current rack is rock hard. It's like sleeping on a tiled floor. I'm slowly getting used to it again as my complaints to the apartment staff seem to fall on deaf ears. Even Oi finds it uncomfortable and she's Thai (meaning she can sleep on anything, anytime, anywhere)!

Another walk

On one of my frequent dusk strolls around Phuket Town I snapped the following pics:

This large golden dragon marks the entrance to a small park near my room.

This is the clock in the centre. Can you see the Thai numbers?

Everywhere in Thailand, sunset seems to be an excuse for middle aged women to dress in unflattering clothes and do aerobics to a backdrop of hard core dance music.

Toon and creepy crawlies

Here's Joey Barton receiving a yellow during Wolves 1-1 Toon. I watched it with Oi on a big screen in a bar in Chalong. Even though Chelsea were on the small TV and more people were watching it, they let NUFC remain on the big screen since I was the only guy actually from the same place as my team! There were no CFC fans from London!

Oy, understandably, got a little bored with Carroll, Nolan and Co. so headed off for some snacks. She came back five minutes later with a bag full of Maleng. I laughed as she wolfed down a packet of insects like it was a bag of crisps.

Here's the bag..........mmmmmmmmmm.

I only ate the small ones. Ever seen that movie Starship Troopers?

Spicy Duck Restaurant

Oi screwing up her face after yet another mouthful of molten Tom Yam Kung. This is the Spicy Duck Restaurant just north of Patong. Oi likes the spicy minced duck here.

The entrance to the restaurant with a rip-off tuk-tuk heading to Kamala beach.

The Guru

After the spicy duck we headed to this guru's house on the northern fringe of Phuket Town near the big Tesco Lawtaat. Oi had previously been to have two tigers and a load of Buddhist scripture tattoed on her lower back. This time she avoided tattoos and went for the 'getting-splashed-with-coconut-oil-and-having-strips-of-golden-foil-applied'.

I'm still unsure as to what this is all about but Oi tells me it brings good luck?

Here's the heavily tattoed tattooist given a fat bloke a tattoo:
(How many times can you fit the word tattoo in a single sentence?)

Also note the three bar girls in the background dropping in for their weekly dose of 'good luck'. It's not too expensive at 100bt per single dose of good luck???????? Asians and their superstitions! Those small brown bottles are called M150 and are similar to Red Bull.

Now it's Oi's turn for her 5 minutes with the heavily tattooed good luck guru. He was chanting some mumbo jumbo which lended the whole occasion a sense of authenticity. Look at his array of good luck paraphenalia around him.

Oi revealing her golden foil. Since this ceremony I have won the UK lottery an amazing 12 times (according to my emails). I also have the chance to claim a fortune from an orphan of the former Rawandan president, providing I let her cash rest in my bank account for a while. I only have to send her 500gbp as a 'set up fee'. After this, I should be worth something in the region of thirty million pounds with my African windfall and 12 lottery wins!

Khao Rang

On the top of Rang Hill in Phuket Town is a restaurant called Tung Ka named after a small stream that runs through the town. It's a wonderful place with affordable food in a five star setting. This is the stairway down.

And this is the view from our table.

After this I went to O'Malley's for a Sunday night beer and ended up boozing until 6am. Needless to say I missed the next day at work and subsequently received a warning. More positively however, is that I won 100bt in a game of killer! Note to self: Take more care with the licquor. I could do with retaining my employment.

Sapan Hin

I went for a walk around Sapan Hin looking for the Olympic sized swimming pool. I found it but on the way I thought I might have been in Paris for a moment as I saw these folk playing a game of boules.

However, 'location reality' soon kicked in as a dozen youngsters were doing Muay Thai kickboxing next door.

Skit

Last Friday I headed to Karon beach to see my teaching buddies perform a skit for their young students. It was hilarious. It involved a 10 minute play about how the students behave in class and how difficult it is to teach them:

Computer

Last Sunday I bought a new computer in BIG C shopping center. I got an Acer Aspire One D255. It has:

Intel Atom 1.66GHz processor

1GB RAM

250GB HDD

10.1" screen

WIFI

Windows 7 + Office 2007 (ripped)

It cost 9600bt with a free mouse. That's 192gbp. Not too bad. I'm writing this blog entry with it now.

Here's the guy writing the 1 year warranty:

Here's me taking it out after waiting 3hrs for the software to be installed.

On Monday at school I spent all day downloading 100GB of movies and 50GB of TV shows from Mick's external HDD. I watched Avatar last night and seven episodes of South Park the night before. I have enough stuff on here to last me months and months.

Markets

This is a fresh market (Talad Sot) near Chalong. Oi and I bought Pad Thai (fried noodles) and Isaan sausages for 100bt. We took it to her room to eat. We were stuffed. I love buying food from these places:

Lingo

Oi has started teaching me the Isaan dialect of Thai. It is somewhat different to regular Thai. Oi has a Laos dialect. The following is regular Thai.

Maleng - Insect

Saduoc sabai - convenient

Talad Sot - fresh market

Mokkara - Jan

Gumpa - Feb

Meena - Mar

Maesa - April

Putsapa - May

Mituna - June

Garackada - July

Singha - Aug

Ganya - Sept

Doo La - Oct

PiJiGa - Nov

Tanwa - Dec

If the month has 30 days add yon, if 31 days add kom. Feb add pan.

Day 1538. เห็นช้างขี้ ขี้ตามช้าง

2010-08-23T11:56:00.015+08:00

Title

The Thai language in the title is: hen chang kee, kee dam chang.
Literally translated it means: Don't try to shit as much as an elephant.
An equivalent English idiom would be: Don't try to keep up with the Jones.

I think Thai and Chinese proverbs are great. Many Thai proverbs are based on elephants, tigers, crocodiles and buffalo - everyday things here in tropical Thailand. This one above is my favourite!

Today, a student asked to go to the toilet. I quoted this proverb to them in Thai and the whole class was laughing. The laughing soon receded as I moved on to graphing sine wave functions with phase shifts in measured radians!

Update

Four years ago, I was on a 48hr ferry from Shanghai, China to Osaka, Japan. This trip across the East China Sea was the culmination of my ambition to travel from England to Japan without flying. Japan was fascinating - particularly Hiroshima.

Three years ago I was drinking heavily in touristy Kuta on the Indonesian jewel of Bali. I remember hanging out with a lad who had a tattoo of a cigarette behind his ear! I watched the surfers doing their thing while smoking the smelliest cigarettes in the World. Indo tabs reek of perfume man!

Two years ago I was in Penang watching the Olympics and buying cell phones that could connect to the net via WIFI! I climbed the train tracks up Penang Hill with Norwegian Geir and Filipina Rose. I was warming up after spending two weeks in the cool, lofty Cameron Highlands of northern peninsular Malaysia.

Last year I took Russel to buy his new million baht car in Trang. I then headed to Surat Thani for the Southern English Program Competition. I remember staying in an amazing hotel that had a bath!

Toon

NUFC 6 - 0 Villa? What is going on? And who is this Andy Carroll character? Wow?

Massage

This is Lek and her shy daughter. Lek often gives me an oil massage on Sundays. The daughter helped me buy bedding at Sapan Hin market for my new room.

Do you fancy a coffee at the Orgy Cafe? There are so many silly names out here in Asia that I don't even register them anymore. You can have your haircut at the Piss salon. Or how about a visit to the Tittyporn law firm? There really are so many crazy names out here. China is even worse.

Motorbike

I've learned some interesting things this week regarding motorbike paperwork. I've been driving for 2 months with no tax and 11 months without 3rd party insurance (both of which are legal). I also learned that my bike was 5 years old on the 7th June. So my bike was first used on 7th June 2005! I thought it was only 3 years old?????

I headed to the Thai transport office in order to sort out this mess. It took me ages to find the office since no signage is in English. Luckily I can read Thai so I eventually found it. A helpful lady explained that in order to renew my tax I need to have a bike inspection to check safety and emissions etc. You have to do this once your bike is older than five years. This is the equivalent of an MOT in the UK. The test centre was 1km from the transport office. The test takes about 5 mins and costs 60baht (1.20gbp). Here is the guy below carrying out the test.

Now armed with my test certificate, I headed back to the transport office. I was then informed I need a Por Ror Bor. This is the insurance you need along with the inspection certificate in order to get your new tax sticker. These are the Por Ror Bor ladies below. This cost 640baht (13gbp) for one year.

Now armed with my Inspecshan paper and my Por Ror Bor paper, I am ready to proceed to the tax counter. Check out the flooding in the car park below! This is normal during monsoon season.

Just outside the transport office is a beautiful banana fan tree. I love to see these - highly symmetrical.

Here is the new tax sticker. It cost 100baht (2gbp). Now I have a road worthy motorbike, insurance and tax. All for 800baht (16gbp). In Thailand the year is 2553. That is because dates begin from when Buddha died, 543 years before Jesus was born! So my tax will expire in Mitunayon 2554 (or June 2011).

Oy

Oi joined me in Phuket Town for some Moo Ga Taa last week. This is the wonderful eat-all-you-can buffet - similar to shaboo shaboo in Taiwan.We were absolutely stuffed. We had to sit at the table and wait for half an hour for the pain to subside. This is Oy enjoying yet another shrimp!

English Camp

The school is determined to not allow the kids a full week of tuition this term. Last week we missed Thursday and Friday since we had to go to an English Camp. This was based in a posh hotel at Karon Beach on the West coast of Phuket.

Here's the staff and students at the briefing.

This is little 'Art' in M2. He is possibly my favourite student. His English is awesome and his inquisitiveness is infectious. He can also type faster than anyone I've ever seen! I think this kid is going places.

Here's a replica of the serene faces of Angkor Thom in Cambodia. However, here you can take a beer at the bar underneath.

Look how nice the hotel grounds are. You can see the room rates etc on their website here.

This is Canadian Thomas, Nicky and myself enjoying the fact we are being paid to be here when it is costing everyone else a fortune!

We even got to sit at a VIP table!

This is the grand entrance.
And there's my bike right outside! Today some daft female teacher drove her car into my bike in the school car park thus smashing the left wing mirror and moving the clutch to an unergonomic position. I've sorted it out now but these things are still a pain in the arse.

There was fancy art all over this hotel.

Look at this incredible ship carved from ivory! I wonder how much it costs?

This is little Thomas. His is half Thai half Farang. He ate eight massive donuts during one break. Unfortunately this profile doesn't show you his awesome kite.

This is the view from the balcony. I had to share the room with American Brian. This lad wears a bow tie to school! It's been a while since I've seen someone wearing one of those!

At dusk on the first night I sneaked out to watch a Karon beach sunset. Pretty nice.

English camp = crazy games and fun. Here, the kids have to burst their friend's balloons (tied to their ankles) while protecting their own.

Another sneak out. This time to walk around Nai Harn lake with Oi and Bor. Oi looks hot to me!

Aaaahhh. Dinner time at the VIP table. My five fingers represent the 5 stars of the hotel! The food was great here - and all paid for too!

The final skits. Look at this young lad doing a brilliant Michael Jackson. His moonwalk was class.

Reluctantly, I left the Hotel at 1100 Saturday morning and headed to Rawai to eat some Som Tam with Oi and Bor in an Issan roadside shack. There are no words in the English language to describe how spicy this shit is.

When Oi was a baby, her Mother used to suck the spiciness from the shreds of papaya. She would then feed the de-spiced morsels to Oi. This is exactly what Oi had to do for me. Here she is doing it. The pink plate contains the evil concoction of ten-chilli-som-tam.

After this we went for a crazy drinking binge night out resulting in a supreme hangover yesterday.

Work

Today I was back at school. After reviewing 'weather' with my youngest students in an English class I was delighted to see this young lady in the office. She is a saleswoman selling electronic body massage devices. She offered a trial run and I accepted - only to remain in her presence a little longer. The device felt great. However, at 4000 baht I told her to wait until next month.

My three month Non-B immigrant visa expires tomorrow. We are still waiting for paperwork from Bangkok so it is touch and go whether I'll be illegal or not by Wednesday!

Lingo

Mokkarakom = January
Gumpapan = February
Meenakom = March
Maesayon = April

Keep living the dream guys!

The Match

2010-08-09T15:15:00.013+08:00

Liverpool?

In Thailand people are crazy about LFC. I don't see the fascination with a load of thieving Scousers, but there you go, what do I know? If you want a tent with a over-rated-non-champions-league team plastered all over it - come to Phuket Town.

Sports week

On Thursday 5th Aug, my school descended on Surakun Stadium for their sports day. As I've commented before, Thais are a hugely ceremonial bunch. The opening ceremony lasted two hours. It was amazing. Immaculately dressed kids suffering in the extreme heat. These lasses below freaked me out somewhat:

The extravagance of the costumes was far better than the sports performances.

It's a nice day for a white wedding.

This nice young fella gave me some spray for my aching shoulder. He was running the 400m which deserves a medal in itself given the temperature here.

Here's the brass band. I'm reminder of a Wembley cup final. Talking of which, I watched Man U beat Chelsea last night - scary for the Toon's first game!

Boozing Yanks

At about noon (Thai time) we went to a bar where Ashley demonstrated her skills with a bottle of Black Cock. What a name for a spirit! Look at Brett's smile! On the World Cup chart behind, you'll find that SAPAIN won the whole thing. My name is Sateeb and I wish I was from Sapain.

Rawai

I left the folks to their afternoon boozing and headed to Nai Haan beach for a swim. On the way home I saw a mass of lanterns being launched.

After our reconciliation, Oy and I went for a dinner date. We ate fiery Isaan food from Oy's province in the North East of Thailand. I can eat spicy food but this stuff was from the Earth's core. I had to order an emergency supply of ice to supplement my tea. We met at the massive shopping mall. I'm getting used to all the mod-cons of Phuket - this place makes Trang seem like the stone age!

The following day - only because I'm romantic - I took Oy up To Sae hill to see the aerials. There is a mass of comms gear at the top of Phuket Town's tallest mountain.

We went on the trusty old bike. I'm slowly getting my confidence back although, admittedly, I'm driving like a pensioner.

Here's Oy taking a break to look at the monkeys. I don't know why, but it turns me on when she drives the bike?

This is the alpha male. There are hundreds of monkeys up this hill.

And also really ugly soi dogs.

Being a Buddhist, Oy is prone to praying. I was impressed by this temple's tiger theme. Plastic animals are a huge thing here. One of the soi dogs stole one of Oy's shoes here. It took us half an hour to find it.

This a view of Phuket Town from Khao Rang - another hill near town.

There are many tourists up here and for some reason, this group from Singapore decided to sing their national anthem - weird!

Here we are appreciating the view. My room is somewhere in the background.

Ko See Rae

We then passed through Phuket's fishing port and crossed the bridge to See Rae Island. We ended up at Laem Tukgae - a sea gypsy village. You can still say 'gypsy' in Thailand as political correctness has yet to raise its stupid head here - thank Buddha. This village is basically a place where fat Islamic fishermen laze around all day. It's really filthy here too. We ate some fruit and I was laughing as Oy was worried about throwing the skins away. The place was literally covered in shit and she was worried about adding a few bio-degradable rambutan skins!

As ever, the tourists aren't far behind. Just across the bay from the filth is this five star luxury hotel. The contrast is startling.

This sign says: 'Krua yip see' which means Gypsy Kitchen. This is possibly the most expensive restaurant in Thailand. We settled for a sprite as we couldn't afford the food here.

Near the village is a temple on top of the Island's biggest hill. We took a drive up to see all these Buddha images.

This is the final staircase to ascend to the small temple. I like the dragon handrails.

I prayed and asked if the Toon can have a trophy this season. It remains to be seen if anyone was listening to me.

Another view towards town.

Inside the temple is a huge reclining Buddha. Oy decided a prayer was in order here.

Deep in contemplation in this thought provoking environment. What made me laugh here is the little golden money tree. Many local people think all Westerners are millionaires. This is reflected in the double pricing strategies deployed here. I'm sure they think money grows on trees in the West. Well, here's the proof money grows on trees in Thailand:

I feel like that bloke at the beginning of those old movies. There's no feeling like giving a massive bell a whack with a big stick.

Town

This is my local eatery at the moment. Nice cheap food and beer. You can also take a tricycle tour around the old town.

This is soi sip et - or the 11th side street of Pom poon road. There are a whole host of gangsters and prostitutes down there. It's a neon haven of sleaze after dark. Local Thai men like to drink rice wine down there.

On Saturday night, Oy and I went to eat some Joom Jim. It's kind of like Moo Ga taa. This probably means nowt to English folk. Here she is taking care of the logistics.

Expo

On Sunday we went to Expo. This is Phuket's huge indoor market. Oy wanted a dictionary and I wanted a coffee.

A view down the huge food court.

Rawai

This is Paradise bar in Rawai. An old Navy lad owns this. He did 9 years in the mob. He's been in Thailand about 5 years. I love the tropical bamboo feel. This is where Oy will work as of today.

While we were in Expo I bought a Thai flag and some little England stickers for the bike. The number plate indicates that the bike is from Nakkon Si Tammarat. Anyone with a basic grasp of Thai should be able to see this! I like looking at number plates in Thailand to see which province they are from. It helps your reading skills too.

The match. Phuket 2 - 0 Hat Yai.

At 6pm on Sunday 8th August I went to watch Phuket Town v Hat Yai at Surakun Stadium. Here's Lee from Derby and Colin from Dundee preparing for the game with snakebites. I don't know why they're wearing those hideous tops. Something to do with the charity shield?

First, I had to buy a ticket. Only 50bt (1gbp)!

On into the satdium. They kicked off at around sunset.

Unfornuately I didn't win the half time lottery.

A crowd of about 2000 watched Phuket cruise past a lacklustre Hat Yai to establish a 6 point lead over second placed Satun in the Southern Thai second division. Playing in their famous green kit, Phuket easily overcame 10th placed Hat Yai.

In typical Thai style the kick off was 5 minutes late. However, Phuket dominated from the start. They had a goal disallowed on 20mins. Hat Yai were limited to tame long range efforts throughout the first half. On 25mins Hat Yai conceded a sloppy free kick 25yds from goal. The resulting strike broke the deadlock in spectacular fashion. The goal galavanised Hat Yai but Phuket were back on top after 5 mins. Just before the break the Hat Yai goalkeeper pulled off an amazing save to keep hopes of an unlikely comeback alive.

The second half was a carbon copy of the first. Again Phuket dominated. They spurned two golden opportunities to increase their lead. Finally, Hat Yai, unable to prevent the inevitable, conceded a second on 83mins. Here's the Phuket players celebrating their 2 - 0 win by the corner flag.

Trang are 4th placed! You can see the league table here. If Phuket win a play off I'll be watching Premier league football next season!

Free drinks!

After the game, I headed to O'Malley's bar in town to watch the charity shield. I then went to Chivas nightclub to meet the lasses. Unbelievably, there was free beer all night. This is where my alcoholiday abruptly ended.

Lingo

Chanat - win

len - play

hai daa - shoot

In the Navy you can sail the seven seas?

2010-08-06T14:15:00.003+08:00

Update

Four years ago I had just cruised down the Yangtze in central China from Chongqing to Wuhan. It was a memorable cruise providing panoramic views of central China. I particularly enjoyed passing through the massive Three Gorges Dam - I delivered a 1hr engineering presentation at Newcastle Uni as part of my MSc. It was great to see something I had spent hours researching for real. You can read all about China here - and also see pics of Iceland, Mongolia and China from four years ago.

Three years ago I was on the Indonesian jewel of Bali. I toured the whole east of the Island by motorbike. I enjoyed attending a Balinese wedding with my friend Rene - a Florida lad who sold artifacts from Borneo tribes. Interestingly he could purchase things cheaply since he spoke many of their bizarre tongues. He could then sell his artifacts for huge profit to museums and individual collectors - fascinating to see! I hung out with him and his family in arty Ubud in the central cool mountains of Bali. I was amazed how I never tired of walking around the emerald green rice terraces - stunning.

Two years ago I was chilling in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia. I had just left the Philippines and was hanging with a Kiwi Buddhist Monk going by the name of 'Manna'. He was an interesting guy. He used to take me to a Buddhist Temple in Tanah Rata for free scran - although we had to help with temple chores a little. I hiked through dense jungle to mountain tops affording spectacular views.

Last year I was in Trang, Thailand complaining about it being the rainy season and helping Pat to buy a car.

Phuket's beautiful beaches

I have recovered sufficiently enough from a motorbike crash that I was able to drive to beautiful Nai Haan beach for a swim yesterday afternoon. I got a little sunburnt as I frolicked in the big waves trying to avoid the surfers. One wave knocked me over and sent my swimming goggles to somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

I've been on Phuket for 4 months now and I can't believe how little I've been to the beaches?

I then met my ex-gf 'Oy' for a meal as the sun dropped over the horizon. We've settled our differences and hopefully we'll remain friends. She was upset that I never called her after my motorbike crash. I explained how she'd beaten my face black and blue only eight days earlier - hardly indicative of tenderness and care?

Oh yeah, she doesn't remember thumping me since she was drunk and the reason she left me was because, and I quote "You boom boom best friend me" and "You kiss many girl disco". This is bollicks of course but she claimed to have photographic evidence. I asked to see it but she'd conveniently deleted the incriminating (never existed) pics........mmmmmmmmm? She also never questioned her actual best friend about our illicit get together......mmmmmmm?

Health

I quit smoking last Saturday - that's six days now. In an attempt to make this the final ever attempt, I've decided to quit drinking for the whole month of August. So far so good. I feel better already although, as any ex-smoker will tell you, it's tough.

Work

Another week of non-teaching this week. Why? Because we've just had 'Sports Week'. At my school I distinctly remember a 'Sports Day'! Next week we have Monday, Thursday and Friday off! I don't think I've taught any additional maths since May! I can't see me getting through half of the official curriculum.

Cinema

One perk of Phuket is the cinema. This week I've seen 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' and 'Inception'. I also finished one of the best books I've ever read: 'Hannibal' by Thomas Harris - awesome - couldn't put it down.

Ambition

I want to own a better cell phone than my students. Chances of this? Nil.

Royal Navy

Peering through the repository of bullshit that is facebook, I came across this photo from 1991 (when I was 17 years old). 32 blokes joined this group and only 14 finished the 3 months of basic training. Some lucky lad won a plaque with an embedded shoe - WOW!

Then I got thinking about that famous song "In the Navy you can sail the seven seas". I joined the Navy 'To see the World'. That's what I told them at Newcastle Naval careers office. They assured me I would indeed 'see the world'.

However, what they failed to explain was that I would have to spend four years in a Naval Engineering college before been sent to a nuclear submarine where you see the inside of a metal tube for 3 months at a time. I have seen far much more since I left the RN than I ever would have staying in.

Listen to me kids......."DON'T BELIEVE THEIR BULLSHIT".

In my Naval career of ten years ('91-'01) I went to a war (Yugoslavia 1994) on HMS Coventry and spent more than two years of my life submerged under the Atlantic on HMS Victorious.

If, like me, you want to "See the World", do it independently. You have the added advantage of doing things on your own terms too. For example, you might want to stay somewhere longer than Captain Dickhead will permit you.

What was the name of the ship in the movie 'Mutiny on the Bounty'?

I'll post some more pics next time but, as I'm off the sauce, things are much tamer!

Language

ลงชื่อ = longcheu = signature
จำนวนชั่วโมง = jam nuan chua mong = number of hours
โรงเรียนสตรีภูเก็ต = rong rien satree phuket = Satree Phuket School
อาจารย์ = ajarn = teacher
ชื่อโครงการ = cheu krong gan = name of project

Fixing things

2010-07-31T19:01:00.004+08:00

Licking Wounds

As the motorbike crash wounds were healing I started trying do undo some of the damage done. My first job was to repair my phone. This bloke below managed to salvage it for 1000bt:

Next was the bike. Here is a snapshot of the damage. You can see that the forks were caved in amongst a whole plethora of other problems. The whole thing is OK now and I got the bike back last Friday. However, I didn't drive it until I went to work on Tuesday - still shit scared you see!

Here's the other guy's number plate that I decided to keep as a souvenir. If the Thai police ever read this site I hope they now go and get the twat!

Walks

The week off work was unbelievably boring. I was so lonely. I actually managed to read 4 books. I went for tentative slow strolls around town. Here's a shot of the clock tower roundabout close to where my room is:

Look at this street. I am reminded of Brighton. This is a legacy of the historic Sino-Portuguese architecture abundant in Phuket Town.

The lads

Here we are on our end of the week session. From the left we have Mick (US), Derek (Can - who's also just had another little girl this week), Brett (US) and Bill (Can). I merely go along to provide some ethnic diversification.

This is a little later the same night. Here I am next to a massive plastic world cup with some sexy dancers behind me - canny!

The lasses

This is my friend Miaow. She treat me for dinner one night in an authentic Thai restaurant in Town. I was grateful for the company.

Here're the girls who look after the apartments. They were very helpful during my incapacity. They went and fetched medicine and food for me when I was in particularly acute pain. The best were the sleeping tablets. 'Gan' on the right drove me all over the Island on her day off! Thanks love!

This is mental Nicky dancing with the Katoeys down the infamous Bangla Road in Patong. Once this lass is out of her teaching tweed jacket and brogues, she mutates into some kind of PARTY ANIMAL. And I mean party in the same sense the Beasty Boys meant it! GO GIRL!

Ao Nang

On Sunday 25th July, one week after the crash, I headed to Ao Nang to meet Richard, Russel and Mike from Trang. We had a drunken two nights but it was great to catch up with old friends I have missed sorely. I bumped into Scott and his girlfriend from Phuket and they agreed to take me back in their car which was good.

I was at work last week and this weekend I spent Friday night in crazy Patong and Saturday with Maiow driving around the Island re-building my motorbike confidence. I finally got to Phuket's massive night market.

Tonight is Sunday 1st August and I'm off to meet a lass in Patong for a coffee. I treat myself today to a massive prawn salad followed by spag bol - nice. Maybe I'll get lucky tonight?????

Only 13 days to go until Old Trafford! Haway the lads!

Chokdee = good luck.

The worst month - ever. A brush with death!

2010-07-20T11:08:00.006+08:00

Another crash

It's Tuesday morning and I'm sitting in the On On Hotel's internet cafe with very uncomfortable seats. I'm complaining about the seats because my whole body is aching after another motorbike mishap. I've been off work so far this week. Given the pain I'm in I don't know if I'll make it to school at all this week. I've been eating nurofen painkillers like smarties!

It was about 7pm Sunday night. I was riding from Khatu to Rawai. I was planning to eat some fresh seafood by the night sea. I was cruising in the fast lane at about 80km/hr about 1 km north of Chalong circle. That's when some penis-brain on a scooter decided to turn right. It would have been nice if he'd have indicated his intentions by using those flashy orange things. It would have been even nicer if he had looked over his shoulder to check nothing was coming from behind. Penis-brain did neither and swerved into the fast lane at walking speed. I was too close to avoid him and I ended up smashing into the back of him.

This is where time slowed down because I really thought I was going to die. I don't quite remember the initial impact as I was thrown forward. I do remember seeing masses of sparks from the crash bars as our bikes slid along the tarmac for a while. As everything ground to a halt I looked behind me and saw a trail of wreckage. I then looked at my bike and noticed the back wheel spinning crazily in the air. I was completely disorientated but the first thing I did as I struggled to my feet was switch both engines off. I couldn't move my left arm and therefore couldn't move the bikes from the road. Some bystanders helped with this as I stumbled to the safety of the roadside. I could hardly walk!

The other guy seemed OK and he drove off as if nothing had happened although he'd nearly been killed! I sat in a small bus stop thinking I'd broke my arm or shoulder as I couldn't move it an inch. I had blood all over my foot, thigh, groin and hands. The worst pain was my left shoulder.

I sat for 1 hour in total shock with my hands shaking uncontrollably. I looked at my bike and judged it undrivable. Even if it had of been mechanically sound I couldn't have driven it anyway given my useless left arm. I looked at my helmet and was astounded to see the damage incurred.

I truly believe I would not be writing this now had I not worn the helmet!

I still have a huge painful lump above my left eye but things could've been a lot worse.

I wanted to call my boss but my new phone hadn't survived the ordeal. It is battered and broken too.

Eventually a motorbike taxi guy drove me the 10km home in agony. I left my bike where it was. Even when someone is in severe trouble, Phuket taxi folk will still cheat Farangs. He charged me 300bt which even the girls who run my apartment agreed was ridiculous. He was not a jaidee kinda guy. The taxi wanker took total advantage of the situation. I hope karma repays him in kind. Nairn, the apartment girl went to get some pain killers for me. I took them and went to bed after swapping SIM cards so I could inform my boss of the incident.

I didn't sleep, merely tossing and turning in pain as it was impossible to find a comfortable position.

On Monday morning Gwan took me to school, hospital and to collect my bike. She drove my bike back to Phuket Town very slowly as it is wrecked - I was surprised to see in the cold light of day that it could even be ridden at all. Taxi wanker guy assured me it couldn't be done, but then he was only interested in lining his own pockets. The concept of actually helping someone in need is probably an alien one to him. I drove her small scooter in agony as I sometimes had to use my left arm. We took it straight to the Honda garage where I was told it'll cost around 7000bt to repair. The most important parts are the front forks since the front suspension doesn't work. However there is plenty of other damage too.

This morning I have sourced three new books since I have nothing to do other than rest and read in bed. My left arm is still aching 40 hours after the incident.

I've had plenty time to dwell on how this month has been one of the worst for me financially, emotionally and physically. The local Thais have told me to go and see a monk in the temple! Perhaps I'll do that when I feel a bit more up to it. I am still very much in agony right now. I missing work and feel very bored. It's also difficult not having any loved ones around when things are like this!

In conclusion, this month I have been

1. Dumped

2. Beaten

3. Fined by the Police 2500

4. Paid for a room I didn't live in 3000

5. Lost a TV/DVD and furniture 4000

6. Wasted money donated to my ex 8000

7. Almost died in a horrific crash

8. Wrecked my motorbike 7000

9. Wrecked my phone after only 3 weeks 3000 (No pics for a while)

10. Sitting here typing this feeling both terrible pain combined with loneliness and boredom.

Come to Asia - it rocks!

I'm off to read and rest in bed. I should have my bike back by Friday although whether or not I'll have the balls to drive it is another matter. I'm really shaken up!

At least I have the other guy's number plate as a souvenir! Moreover, I've acquired some new vocab.

Lom Rot - crash
pare - cuts and bruises
haa mor - see doctor
som - fix
jep mac - big pain
ber a - bored

By the way, the night before on Saturday, I went to Patong with my friend Miao. We went into Exotica gogo bar because it was selling beer at only 100bt and it might be a laugh. After watching a lesbian show (cool) we were treated to the spectacle of a 'pussy show'. Watching a small live bird emerge from a woman's 'area' is not erotic. Same same for live fish. She was squrting live fish into a small fish tank. Miao and I were almost sick! They could've warned us. So now I'm warning you.

Dumped - Again

2010-07-15T16:05:00.010+08:00

Update

Four years ago I was wandering around Moscow having commenced the first leg of the trans-Siberian train journey. I was enjoying the bland Russian food and the cold hostility of the Russian people. They rarely smile in Russia.

Three years ago I was about to head to the World's most populous Islamic country - Indonesia. I only reached two islands of this huge archipelago, namely Java and Bali. I attended traditional weddings and got scarred by unseen jellyfish.

Two years ago I had left Taiwan to spend two months on Leyte Island in the Philippines. I was living in a basic bamboo dwelling with no running water. We had to fill Jerry cans from a nearby spring every morning so that we could perform our ablutions. This was a little unusual for a Westerner like me. I helped in the grueling tasks of planting rice and avoiding field snakes.

One year ago I was living with little Pat in Trang. She was cute. Life was pretty comfortable as I settled into my new employment as a 13 - 15 y.o. Maths teacher. I was dreaming of buying the motorbike I now have.

This year I have spent the last week recovering from being DUMPED again! More on this later.

School

This is a small, jungle-clad waterfall cascading down from To Sae mountain. Unbelievably, this small piece of natural beauty is in the school grounds!

This small stream (klong in Thai) also flows through the school grounds. After a few days of rain this small tract of water can become quite a torrent.

This is a class of 55 * 13 year old girls. I have to teach them English which can prove almost impossible given the background noise they generate. However, they are a good laugh to be around as they are perpetually smiling (which can cheer you up on your worst days). Often, I feel somewhat like a crowd control steward when explaining the difference between 'has' and 'is'.

Look at these three little cuties. Behind us is my reconstruction of a cinema timetable on the 30th June.

If you need to wash your hands before lunch, you can do it in this trough.

This is the front of the school. I'm somehow reminded of Raffle's Hotel in Singapore. This used to be a girls only school but now we have boys too.

This is the food in the teacher's section of the canteen. This old lady is an oasis of calm in an otherwise chaotic school. I enjoy the peace in here.

Before you can eat, you have to buy some tokens from this lady. They come in denominations of 3, 5 and 10 baht as you can see. I think this is so the food 'disher-ooters' don't have to handle money.

This is where the 3000+ students eat. The noise levels in here have been compared to a Rolls-Royce jet engine testing lab - quite rightly too. Thai kids love to be noisy.

This is Dek-hui. I have been his scrabble coach in preparation for the Southern Thailand Schools English Program Competition. This year it was in Nakkon Si Tammarat.

These are some 18 year old kids taking their final few exams before they leave the cosiness of school for the drunkenness of University. The girl's uniforms at University are soooo hot. They have the skimpiest tight black skirts with figure hugging white blouses.

Local

This was my local bar for a while in Rawai. I like the sign: "Shrek Bar: All ugly bastards welcome". Barry, a lad from County Durham, recently opened this place. He spent quite a sum of money on this project. It's always nice to hear his Geordie accent. Additionally, this bar has the best toilets in the whole of Thailand.

Here I am enjoying a nice glass of Tiger beer after a hard day's work. The handle to ring the bell behind me takes the form of a wooden penis. If you ring the bell you have to buy the whole bar a drink. From this photo it looks like I am, indeed, a dickhead!

This is the next door bar: 'DILLIGAF'. It's owned by a Geordie and an Aussie. I asked if 'Dilligaf' was some kind of Australian aboriginal term given its peculiarity. After been laughed at for a while I was informed it is an anacronym of "Does It Look Like I Give A F*ck". The lass between those two handsome fellows is Ying. She is Oy's friend and I bet you can't guess what she does for a living?

Hospital

I had to go to the hospital again.

This is the Mission Hospital in Phuket Town. To get a work permit last year you only required a doctor to look at you and check you're breathing. In Trang this was free. However, here in Phuket we had to have an additional blood test to pointlessly check for only syphilis. This cost 300baht. Phuket is blatantly more expensive than the rest of Thailand. I have many examples but this is my favourite:

Trang: Haircut/wash from a nice young woman in an air con small salon = 50 baht.

Phuket: Haircut from a decrepit old man with Parkinson's in a sweltering hovel = 100 baht.

Here in Phuket everything is double the price but you don't earn double the salary!

Dumped

Here she is: Oi. Two photographs of my latest love blunder. I'm beginning to lose count of my relationship failures out here in Asia.

She looks pretty good to me but Steve'll be getting nowhere near this again! We started going for sunset walks around Nai Harn Lake and along Rawai pier - hence the sports garb. We met on 9/5/10 and diverged dramatically on 10/7/10 managing a total of two months together. I shared her room for 3 weeks of those two months.

Here she is stretching on Rawai pier at sunset. The actual dumping came out of the blue for me. I'll try my best to describe the sequence of events leading up to the acrimonious split:

There I was on Friday night enjoying a beer in Phuket Town with a couple of colleagues. I then headed to Asia bar in Rawai where Oi later joined me. Oi went somewhere else and I went to Good Time bar before heading to Laguna disco with a gay pal of mine. This is where things start to go pear-shaped. I was standing in the disco drinking a beer at about 4am. In walks Oi with a face like thunder. She walks up to me and starts punching me repeatedly in the face. I am bruised and bleeding but I don't react to the assault. She takes a break to catch her breath and then continues delivering her jabs and uppercuts with ringed fingers.

I've had enough and I wrestle my way out of the disco. I walk home and find my bag is fully packed and has been thrown over the balcony. I check my pockets and see that Oi has somehow extracted the room key from my pocket. Now I get really mad and start kicking the door down. Once the door flies open I am surprised to see it's the room is empty.

Right door - wrong floor! Ooops.

The apartment manageress, on hearing the 'door-being-kicked-in' noise, decides to call the police. The police quickly arrive and encounter a drunk foreigner with a bruised and bleeding face. Sympathetically, he fines me 2500bt there and then! OUCH. Criminal damage you see.

I obviously don't have the cash. So I stumble to the nearest ATM to pay the thoughtful copper who accompanied me to the bank. I then sup a can of Leo on the steps of Rawai's 7-11 and assess my situation.

Sitrep: Time, 0700. Location, Rawai 7-11. Status, Drunk, bruised, bleeding, homeless, escaped charges of criminal damage.

Decision: Finish beer, check battered bag and secure it to bike, drive to old room in Phuket Town, sleep.

For a 2 month romance Oi did pretty well out of it. She got a free TV, DVD player, table and chairs. She got her rent paid for 1 month + about 8000bt in cash and every meal free.

What did I get? Sex with a fit lass for a couple of months? Worth it? Hell yeah.

For everything else there's MasterCard.

I contacted Oi as I have some of her Thai books she mistakenly packed into my bag. She also kept my plastic cup which I stole in Surat Thani 3 years ago (it is sentimentally valuable). I asked why she started boxing me and she doesn't remember doing it........nice.

I also asked why we are finished? Because "YOU SPEEK ME NO GOOD".

Whatever the f*ck that means.

Thai birds? You have to love 'em.

Nai Harn

This is Nai Harn Lake. It's a nice 2km stroll around here in the evenings.

There is some amazingly opulent accommodation on Phuket but these shacks below probably offer the best value for money. These condos are on the banks of Lake Nai Harn.

Rawai

This is Rawai pier. Many people enjoy fishing from the end in the evening. Just a random pic but can you notice the old Farang with the young Thai bird there? It's almost unavoidable in Phuket. Still, nice pier though.

A shot of some longtail boats moored near the sea gypsy village near Rawai. You can buy a bewildering array of shells here if that kind of thing floats your boat.

Nakkon Si Tammarat

On Sunday 11th July we had to be at the school for 0600. We were travelling to Thailand's south-eastern seaboard to Nakkon. My face still hurt and I hadn't slept much but I was glad of the activity as it took my mind off Oi.

Here's Rob preparing the kids for a 10 minute drama production. I get the feeling this bloke was born to be a teacher in Thailand. He's a natural.

Look at these outfits. We have Frogs, Queens and Princesses. What could the play have been about?
Once we'd arrived at the Grand Park Hotel on Sunday night we dived straight into party mode. Here we all are in my room that I shared with Californian Brett. I got ridiculously drunk this night and felt terrible the next day. I blamed it on my relationship breakdown.

Here I am dressed in a kind of short-sleeved blazer. I did the naked blazer thing whereby I had no T-shirt underneath.
This is O from my old school in Trang. I caught him smoking in the carpark and attempted to get photographic evidence. Hopefully I could blackmail him in the foreseeable. However, he expertly hid the incriminating evidence! Little Bastard! He won the scrabble again as I'd predicted.
This is the main stage at Kalayanee School in Nakkon. There were bands and all kind of business up there but I didn't see much of it because, like everything else in Thailand, the noise was unbelievable. Amplifiers here have only one setting: MAX.
Friday nights

This is Derek, the PE teacher from my school. He's a genial Canadian who's been in Phuket Town for a few years now. He is married with a little girl and one more on the way. I get on with Derek very well and we like to go here for a Friday afternoon guzzle after work. I love this picture of him - although I hope her indoors never sees it.
It's almost 1500 Friday 16th July and we will shortly be going here again for some highly academic chat with these two lovelies.

Bike

I got my bike serviced again yesterday. I'm now at 18000+km. So I've done 15000km in 9 months! The lads checked everything on the bike. I had new brake pads fitted front and rear. Oil changed and other minor adjustments for 850bt. They even fixed the wimpy sounding horn although the crash bars are hanging a little dubiously. The crash bars have served their purpose - they have protected the bike through numerous accidents.

My bike looked brand new 9 months ago. Now it's starting to look battered. I didn't buy it to look good, I bought it to ride. Do I care? DILLIGAF?

jing jang = serious

4 Years anniversary. New birds and phones.

2010-06-29T14:19:00.010+08:00

Anniversary

On the 12th June I celebrated 4 years away from home by drinking enough booze to sink a battleship whilst watching the England goalkeeper perform World Cup heroics against the mighty USA. I am still upset after watching the over payed dross completely fold against Germany. England? SHITE!

When I left home all that time ago, I never envisaged being away so long. It was meant to be a one year trip. It's now over four years. After every passing year it seems more and more unlikely that I'll ever make it back to Blighty at all!

I remember my Mam saying:

"Son, have a great trip, but I've got the feeling I'll never see you again."

"Divvent be daft man! I'll be back in a year Mam."

"I divvent think see son."

Unfortunately it turns out she was right since she passed away in 2008. It also means that she knew me better than I know myself???????????????

Update

Four years ago I was on a ferry between Seydisfjordur in Eastern Iceland and Hanstholm in Northern Denmark. I'd trekked through summer snow to peer into some of Iceland's spectacular volcanoes. I had crossed the Arctic circle by boat on the way to Grimsey Island. I played footy with some kids outside my tent in Dalvik in broad daylight - despite it being after midnight. I watched fishermen haul in dolphins and small whales. I saw the earth's geothermal power as geysers and steam vents exhausted themselves into the icy cold atmosphere.

Three years ago I was nearing the end of a month in enchanting Burma. I saw the amazing temples of Bagan. I drifted down the awesome Ayerwaddy River. I trekked for four days through idyllic Burmese countryside. It is strange to see the Burmese immigrants here in Phuket. They generally perform menial jobs for pitiful pay since they are more often then not illegal. They still wear the yellow thanaka paste on their faces - making them instantly recognisable from the Thais. I normally shout 'Ming la ba' (Burmese for hello) to them which normally invokes a smile.

Two years ago I had just returned from the Philippines to Taiwan. I had survived a horrific typhoon in the Philippines. I was lucky because the ship 'MV Princess of Stars' didn't do so well and sank - costing 800 lives! Although I had survived earthquakes and typhoons, I couldn't survive being dumped by gorgeous Zi Ting. I still think about the little Taiwanese beauty from time to time.

Last year I had just completed the Thai Culture Course. Pat and I were also looking for a car. I was still settling into my new life as a Maths teacher. I was still exploring Trang having only been there a few months.

Now I am in Phuket. I have been in my new job for two months and seem to have settled in nicely. Like the title mentions, I have a new phone and a new lass.

New phone

The new Nokia 2700. Yes, it's a phone. But it has a 2MP camera. I can finally start posting pics on here again. It cost 2700bt + my old phone which isn't bad.

New lass

Here she is. This is Oi. Her real name has far too many syllables to reproduce in full here. We met two months ago on 9th May. She is from Nong Khai originally but has spent the last two years in Phang Nga. Here she is standing at the Kata viewpoint. You can see Kata and Karon beaches behind her.

Here we are together although the Russian guy taking the pic didn't understand how it might have looked better with the actual beaches in view??????

Oi on the back of my bike. She's an even better extra than the crash bars and side bags.

At the viewpoint you can heve your photo taken with an eagle shitting all over you. This seems to appeal to tourists who'll pay handsomely for the privilege.

Oi and I in Phuket's massive Big C superstore. We bought a TV/DVD, small table and two plastic chairs all for 3000bt.

Co-habiting

Perhaps a little rash but I moved into her room on 19th June. We figured we might as well share costs since I was sleeping there most nights anyhow. We live in Rawai on the South eastern tip of Phuket Island. We often go for sunset picnics on one of the spectacular beaches nearby. This is our room. As you can see, our power shower consists of a big red bin full of water.

Although our balcony view isn't too bad. I love sitting here drinking a coffee in the morning after a refreshing shower. This room costs us 3000bt/month.

Elephants

The drive down Phuket's South West coast from Patong to Rawai is fantastic. I love to cruise along the winding mountainous road which passes through luxurious dense jungle yet still affording glimpses of immaculate tropical seas below. Oi and I ate a shark curry in one clifftop restaurant last week.

Elephants are everywhere. In case tourists haven't been fleeced enough in the bars and restaurants here, there are more budding entrepreneurs willing to separate them from their mountains of cash. We all know that all Caucasians are millionaires and many Thais seem to really believe this, therefore, they are not shy about gouging you in certain situations. This elephant riding bollicks appears to be another example of this in my humble opinion.

Phone

I'd had the phone all of 3 hours by the time I'd buggered it. I messed up a security PIN and I needed to enter a PUK? The PUK is on the SIM card bit you throw away. I had to go to a shop where this nice lady below sorted it out for me.

Work

Here's a random office shot. There are many more Westerners here than in Trang. In Trang there was four. Here there are twenty!!

These reprobates are M5. They are 17 years old and I have to try and get Maths into their skulls. Oi and I went to watch the A-Team at the cinema last weekend. Two rows in front of us were about 10 of these kids! It was nice to see them out of their dumpy uniforms and in normal casual gear. They looked really cool. The A-Team was excellent by the way (if you haven't seen it).

This is M2. They are 13 years old. These kids are by far my most challenging. Trying to control them is like trying to herd cats. They are lovely on an individual basis but as a group they morph into some kind of Orwellian nightmare. I suppose things like group dynamics and synergy are coming into play here!

This is my current boss (Ajarn Charoon) and I discussing the finer points of the EPL fixture list. He simply refuses to believe that NUFC will do the double over CFC next season - idiot!

Menu

If you wanna eat in our local restaurant you'll have to navigate this crazy menu:

Another crash

After a night in ICON disco (open 0200-0700) we decided that Oi was less drunk than me and that she should ride my bike home with me on the back. It turns out she was far more wasted than me (and that's saying something) because as she negotiated a sharp corner she veered off the road and into the bush. We both came flying off the bike and were lucky to miss the coconut trees. We were also lucky to escape with only scrapes and bruises. It could've been a lot worse.

Gok Gloi

Just North of Phuket Island is a town called Gok Gloi in Phang Nga province. We spent a day visiting Oi's old friends. We ate Isaan food and played cards all day while downing cheap bottles of Leo beer from the nearby shop. It was a nice day. We found a great Hotel with beautiful rooms for only 300bt/night.

Rob and Nicky's party

One day after moving into Oi's room I went to a Saturday night party at Rob and Nicky's amazing house in Khatu. Rob and Nicky are married teachers from Yorkshire. They've been in Thailand two years. All the guys from the school were there. Some played volleyball in their pool while others consumed an impressive amount of liquor. We have a Japanese teacher here and we also watched Japan v Holland as the night wore on.

Oi ended up having some kind of mental breakdown and stormed out of the party early. I later received a call informing me all my clothes had been thrown over the balcony and she'd changed the locks! This is after only one night living together!

I ended up sleeping on a sofa as the party subsided.

Gogo bars and Kata

I woke up early Sunday at 1000. We (me and another lass who also slept over) cleaned the house while the hosts lay comatose in bed (it took ages given the cans and bottles strewn everywhere). After sharing many roll-ups and cups of tea I headed to Patong for an afternoon hair-of-the-dog. I ended up in Rock Hard A-Go-Go which opens at 1400. I had a few beers while watching the bikini-clad beauties gyrating on a raised stage. I remember thinking things like:

"You can't do this on a Sunday afternoon in Trang"

"You can't do this on a Sunday afternoon in Pegswood"

"Life doesn't get much better than this"

etc.

I was passing through Kata on my way home Sunday night when a cluster of bars sidetracked me. I ended up drinking in one until 0500 after which I collapsed on a bar sofa. I woke up on Monday at midday with a head like Birkenhead. I headed home and faced the girlfriend's wrath. For some reason she was far from happy with my conduct during the preceeding 48hrs?

Theft

I've learnt the Thai for theft = kamoi.

Some bastard's been stealing my petrol. Unfortunately, this is a very easy thing to do from my bike. This has only started happening since I moved in with Oi. I'll have to watch myself.

I get payed tomorrow - yipee!

Keep living the dream!

Hom - smell good

Men - smell bad

Day 1451. Almost 4 years.

2010-06-01T14:52:00.002+08:00

Update

Four years ago I was waiting anxiously until the 12^th June 2006 for the first leg of my global odyssey: a ₤1 bus trip from Newcastle to Aberdeen. Then the subsequent ferries to the Shetlands, the Faeroes and Iceland. It’s incredible to look at what’s happened to Iceland since then: economic collapse coupled with nature’s volcanic fury causing European-wide travel chaos. Three years ago I was exploring the wonderful Chiang Rai region of northern Thailand. I had just secured a return flight to magical Myanmar. Two years ago I was in the Maolin region of southern Taiwan. The beautiful national park provided the perfect backdrop for my encounter with the aboriginal Polynesian Taiwanese who still live there. One year ago I was celebrating Pat’s birthday in Trang. My ex-gf and I enjoyed a fancy meal in Trang’s plushest hotel before heading to a bar with her millionaire factory-owning boss. I wasn’t to know she would ditch me for a 61 year old bloke 5 months later! How’s that for your self-confidence? Being dumped for a pensioner! Today I am in Satree School in Phuket Town on Thailand’s largest island and tourism capital.

Songkran

On Tuesday 13^th April I celebrated the Thai new year with an old Swede, a young Japanese lad and all the staff from the On On Hotel in Phuket Town. Like last year, it was a wet drunken affair. Even old Richard from Trang made it up to Phuket for a few nights.

Cinema

I wasted no time in heading for one of Phuket’s fancy cinemas. I found the big multiplex in Central Festival shopping mall on the edge of Phuket Town. My excitement was short-lived as the best movie available was Iron Man 2. I endured an intellectually demeaning 90 minute movie but enjoyed the English language, the popcorn and the aircon. I hadn’t been to an English speaking cinema for a loooong time.

I watched Robin Hood last week. Brilliant.

Touring

I’ve been to see the monkeys up Phuket Town’s biggest hill with many aerials. I’ve been to the small SiRe Island just east of Phuket Town. I’ve found Soi 11 where you can have a massage and possibly more depending on your negotiation skills. I’ve watched a sunset from Laem Prom Thep. I’ve been to Wat Chalong and the Big Buddha which sits atop a huge mountain offering glorious views of tropical jungle and coastline.

Room

After 11 days the minging On On Hotel was starting to get on my nerves. Some parts of the movie ‘The Beach’ were filmed here. However, it’s the part near the beginning of the movie where they are staying in a shabby backpacker flophouse. Yes, the On On is the shabby backpacker flophouse. I smiled one night as I was reading the plentiful graffiti scrawled all over the walls. It said:

You will find the beach

Map under the bed

My young Japanese friend helped me to find a more permanent abode. I now stay in NaNaChart Mansion for a whopping 2700bt/month + about 300bt for water and electricity. This is very cheap by Phuket standards although it is the hottest room this side of Venus. I bought a small desk fan to help the ceiling fan but my room is just more like a fan-oven now!

Holiday

I started work on the 3^rd May so I had almost 4 weeks to hang out and explore the island. I have seen all the amazing beaches. I have swum and even attempted surfing again at beautiful Nai Harn beach. I have been snorkeling at a small secret beach Richard told me about near Nai Harn. I got stung by a jellyfish here which tempered the enjoyment somewhat.

I have also done a fair amount of boozing here too. My most memorable night so far was when I got so drunk I had to sleep in my friend’s bar. Dean is an interesting fella. He’s from Leicester and he has married a Ladyboy going by the name of Nancy. I slept on a bamboo bench before the girls who ‘work’ at the bar dragged me into their room. I ended up sleeping on the floor in a room behind the bar with about 10 girls. Sounds good eh? Not really. They can snore as well as any submariner when they’re all drunk.

My local bar in Phuket Town, ran by Manc Steve and Derbyshire Lee is called O’Malley’s? I lost my keys in there one night. I won a pool competition in Roxy’s bar which is owned by a canny Turkish lad.

Teaching

My new boss ‘Ajarn Charoon’ offered me some extra classes at the end of April before my job started for real. I have been skint since leaving Trang so I jumped at the chance of some bonus income. I ended up doing basic Maths revision with some very small classes. It was pretty cool and the money was sorely needed.

I started working my new contract at Satree Phuket School on 3^rd May 2010. I primarily teach Maths to 16-17 year olds. However I have two English classes of 55 * 13 year old girls which is pretty challenging. I’m on a much better deal here since I only have 15 contact periods and I get 38K. In Trang I taught 20 contact periods and got 30K. However, offsetting this is that everything is more expensive in Phuket – especially beer.

Money

My last salary from Trang on 31st March has been depleted. I couldn’t make it last 2 months until the 31^st May. I got paid yesterday into a new bank account. I’m now with the Thai Government Savings Bank since this is the only bank my school will pay salaries into. My Kasikorn bank account is empty and never to be touched again.

Just for the record the ₤1 = 46bt which is ridiculous. Before long it’ll be ₤1 = 1bt which’ll kill foreign tourism here in Thailand but probably boost Asian tourists visiting the bankrupt UK. Maybe then we can start thinking that all brown people are millionaires like they do to us here.

Friends

Pla from Krabi has been in Phuket a lot lately but now she’s back in Surin. Na stayed in my room for 2 weeks since she lost her job (and room). She stayed until she found a new job. Bee, who I first met in Bangkok about 3 years ago was in Phuket for 1 week at the beginning of May. Bew my new friend has also gone home. It seems that as the tourism low season kicks in, many people head back home to families.

I met Oi 2 weeks ago in Rawai and I’ve been seeing a great deal of her recently. She’s 27 from Nong Khai in northern Thailand. She is very nice and I’m hoping things work out but we have some initial obstacles to overcome. I want to buy a new phone with a 2MP camera so I can start posting pics again. Hopefully I can get a pic of her on my next post. I might do that tonight along with a scientific calculator since my last one broke.

Visa Run

At 2200 on Monday 24^th May I took a bus to Hat Yai. Canadian Bill and I waited at Hat Yai bus station from 0400 until 0830 when we caught a minivan to Penang arriving at about 1500 Malay time. We shared a cheap room and submitted our passports for a Non-B immigrant visa. We dropped the passports off on Wednesday morning and collected them on Thursday afternoon. At 1500 we took a minivan back to Hat Yai and at 1900 we caught a bus back to Phuket arriving at 0200 Friday morning. This is the quickest and cheapest way to do it from Phuket.

Costs

Minivan + Bus = 1500bt

Non-B Imm visa = 2200bt

Room + food + beer = 1200bt

Total 5000bt or ₤100

And then back to Rawai where I have spent the past five nights with Oi – wow! She’s hot. We ate a shark dish at a cliff top restaurant overlooking the Andaman Sea and a superb sunset. On Saturday we danced away until 0500 in a Rawai disco called Laguna. I’ll keep you posted on how things develop there.

Keep living the dream

ฟานดีนะ Sweet dreams

Day 1402. Penang, Phuket and Newcastle.

2010-04-10T10:43:00.003+08:00

It's Saturday morning and I'm sitting in Phuket Town with an unusually clear head. I spent my last weekend in Trang before going to Malaysia on Tuesday 30/3/10. I took a crap 80bt 4hr local bus to Hat Yai where I picked up a 350bt 3 hr minivan to Penang. As I passed through immigration the officer asked if I was a teacher. It turned out he went to my school when he was a kid. This ensured a hassle free experience for me!

I stayed in the 75 guesthouse for 3 nights. A 60 day tourist visa cost 110RM at the Thai consulate. I saved 30RM by taking the bus and submitting the form myself. I ate an extreme amount of delicious Indian food and drank enough tea tarek to keep Malay tea plantations in business for another year.

I took a bus back to Trang on Friday 2/4/10 meaning I have to leave Thailand on or before 31/5/10. I was pleased to not have drunk or smoked for 3 days in Malaysia. However, this didn't last long as Mike and Tom forced beer and smokes into me on my return to Trang. On Saturday I had a puncture repaired on my motorbike's massive rear wheel. A new tyre would've cost 2200bt with a 1 week wait for it to arrive from Bangkok. Ironically, much of Thailand's rubber is produced in Trang but a tyre has to be ordered from Bangkok!

Pla came down to Trang for my last night and the following morning we headed to Ao Nang. Old Richard came and helped me tie everything I own onto the back of my bike. I gave him my ironing board since it wouldn't fit.

I spent 5 nights in Ao Nang before riding to Phuket Town yesterday. I turned up at my new school and ended up almost leaving immediately. They decided to pay me 33K instead of the previously agreed 38K. Why? Because my degree is in Engineering and not Maths. I pointed out that Engineering effectively IS Maths. After a while they acquiesced and agreed to offer me the original 38K which was good news. We then went on to do all the necessary paperwork.

So I have a new job commencing 3rd May in Phuket. I am on Phuket Island with a motorbike for the next year. Sometimes life can't get much better. Right now I feel like that.

Compounding this is The Toon's return to the EPL. Haway the Lads. I didn't hear about this until I phoned Richard on Wednesday - a full two days later!!

My brother recently had a little girl so I'm an Uncle for the first time.

Three reasons for me to celebrate tonight!!

Happy hunting.

Day 1383. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

2010-03-22T11:30:00.007+08:00

Update

Four years ago I was in Morpeth vaccinating myself against rabies and a whole host of other 'foreign' diseases. I remember fretting about prioritising Japanese B Encephalitis over Typhoid. Is Diptheria dodgier than TB? Is Hepatitus B better than Meningococcol Meningitis? Does Cholera kick Yellow Fever's arse? And what about Malaria? Shit, we still can't cure that! My arm was like a pin-cushion. It was all very painful, expensive and an absolute waste of time. In hindsight, I wish I'd never bothered.

Three years ago I was in Phnom Phen, Cambodia. I was still in the everything is new and interesting phase of my trip. Having said that, Angkor Wat was unbelievable.

Two years ago I was doing monthly visa runs from Taiwan to the Philippines. That was after being blacklisted by the Taiwanese Labour department. I was, in effect, an illegal immigrant!

Last year I had just arrived in Trang to start a one year contract as a maths teacher. That feels like a long time ago now.

Right now I'm contemplating my imminent visa run to Malaysia. This is necessary because I don't want to end up in some kind Thai holding centre/jail with all the illegal Burmese. I'll probably go to Penang on Monday next week.

Trang - the end of an era

I came to Trang one year ago yesterday. This is my last week at Saparachinee School after seeing through a one year contract (which expires Wednesday 31st March). I need to go to Penang in Malaysia next week to get a 60 day tourist visa (before 31st March). I was thinking of leaving Thailand for good but:

1. I have a motorbike (my only possession) here.
2. I can't think of anywhere else to go although Indonesia keeps surfacing in my thoughts.
3. I can speak and read basic Thai.
4. The relative ease with which I can secure employment here. Luckily, maths teachers are thin on the ground.

Phuket/Ao Nang

After a short week at school last week I left for Phuket Island on Thursday morning for my interview in Phuket Town on Friday 19th March. I stopped at Ao Nang to pick up my friend Pla, 30 from Surin. We chilled out on the beach for a while before commencing the two hour drive to Phuket. This is the first time I've had a passenger on my bike for a long ride. The section of road between Krabi and Phang Nga must be one of the most spectacular drives in Thailand. This 100km stretch is festooned with beautiful scenery. We crossed the Sarasin Bridge and ended up in the On On Hotel in Phuket Town.

My friends Monkey and Richard were in Patong having a beer. Pla and I rode across a perilous mountain road to meet them. This road is very dangerous. Exacerbating this are the lunatic drivers here. I drank water? with the lads as I didn't fancy driving back across the mountain with beer in me! I also had an interview to think about the following morning!

Richard was having a break and Monkey is three weeks through a four week TEFL course. TEFL stands for Teach English as a Foreign Language. It's a certificate most educational establishments deem a pre-requisite before you can embark on an English Teaching career. They cost around £800. I like to boast about how I don't have one, yet can still conjugate verbs in the future continuous tense with the best of them.

Employment

Friday morning I was up early. I was shaved, booted and spurred for my impending interview. I was a little anxious since I had to do a demonstration lesson. There were 25 grade 1 kids expecting a 20minutes maths class. There were also 6 teachers from Satree Phuket School assessing me. Even after teaching for one year this is still quite a nerve-wrecking thing to do. It's a bit like doing a driving test.

As the 'Cartesian plane' class ended the teachers retired to discuss my performance. They later invited me in to inform me of their findings. I was relieved to hear that they thought I was OK. They suggested that I could improve in a couple of areas but on the whole they were impressed which was nice to hear. They offered me a position there and then.

Decisions

It had to happen. I remember being in this situation just over one year ago deciding between Bangkok, Thailand and Linfen, Shaanxi, China. I've been to two interviews and been offered both positions. I have more schools in Isaan to visit but I think I'll neglect them and decide between Rayong and Phuket only.

	Phuket Town	Klaeng, Rayong
Salary	£760 (38,000THB)	£600 (30,000THB)
Teaching Hours	18	16
Student Age	13-17	16-18
Class Size	35	18
Accommodation	3000 - 5000	Free + Free school lunch

Phuket equates to a 27% salary increase over Trang. However, the cost of living is higher there than the rest of Thailand. The classes are larger which can be a pain. Offsetting this is the fact that I should never be bored in Phuket - there's loads to do. There's enough nightlife to last a lifetime. Sublime beaches are everywhere. There's even a cinema with English movies.

In Klaeng I would be teaching smaller classes at the level I would ideally like. The free room and food is worth about 4000THB/month. However, this is in a remote place, 40km east of Rayong Town. I'd be living with the other teachers which could impinge on my privacy somewhat. Klaeng's administration seems far more organised which is a big consideration here in Thailand. Klaeng would begin on 25th April whereas Phuket starts 3rd May which gives me an extra week off!

I'm still undecided but I'm hedging towards Phuket right now. People pay £1,000s for holidays here and I could be living there - fecking awesome as an Irish Yank would say.

Weekend

Happy after another confidence boosting interview, I decided a boozy night was in order. We checked out of the On On Hotel and headed to Surin beach to see Pla's mates who work in salons. We ate som-tam and kaoniao (sticky rice) with our hands while downing bottles of Leo beer on a gloriously hot Friday afternoon in the tropics. Pla and I headed to Rawai beach in the south of the island to stay at Pussy Towers. We went to a few pricey bars and then sat drinking by the sea to soak up the atmosphere and save some money.

On Saturday we headed back to Ao Nang. We spent the night eating and drinking before retiring to Pla's bungalow set in an idyllic garden at the foot of an impossibly tall cliff face.

I spent all day Sunday swimming/sunbathing/sleeping on the beach with Neung from Khon Kaen. We ate some tasty suki (a Thai dish related to the Chinese hotpot dish shabu shabu although it sounds like the Japanese dish Sukiyaki). I had an early night while Pla (her name means fish) went to all kind of discos. She is one hot chick man! I woke up at 0500 this morning and drove two hours back to Trang. It was a very cold drive at that time in the morning. If you drive at 60km/hr you won't feel so cold but it'll take you ages to get home. If you drive at 120km/hr, you'll get home quick but you'll be brass monkeys. I opted for brass monkeys and a hot coffee when I got home.

Excited

They say a change is as good as a rest and I'm certainly looking forward to a change from Trang. I've experienced the 'real' Thailand and I'm now ready for the 'not so real - easy' Thailand. I've enjoyed my time here enormously and learnt much about Thailand, its people, culture, education system and the sanuk (fun) one can have here. I've made some great friends that I hope to keep in touch with. I'll never forget Pat, the lass I spent six months with. The fantastic trips I've had on my chopper. The fun I've had down at Russel's and Nat's bars. I know I'll miss Trang once I've gone.

I have that uncertain feeling again of not knowing what's around the corner - nice.

One small problem - I have one month's salary to last two months - arse!

April

Any ideas for what I can do for my 1 month holiday in April? I fancy a motorbike tour of Isaan and the North. Or perhaps see what Austrian Armin is up to and join him somewhere.

doncam = opposite
lae gor = then
sa lop sa lai = knockout
pee sue = butterfly

One year in Trang. New Horizons

2010-03-17T10:20:00.003+08:00

Trang Anniversary

I came from Penang to Trang for the first time on Saturday 21st March 2009. This coming Sunday will mark one year in this Southern Thai town.

Trang weekend

On Thursday 4th March I was all set to spend a weekend in Ao Nang, Krabi with my many female acquaintances. However, USA Matt begged me to help some students from a poor school in Nayong on Saturday. Reluctantly, my altruism acquiesced to my intense carnal desires and I agreed to help these poor souls from Nayong.

On Friday, since I was in Trang and NOT in Ao Nang, I decided to hit the sauce straight after school on Eric's roof. At 0400 Saturday morning I was still going strong. I have vague memories of singing John Lennon's Imagine before my body submitted to the effects of 11hrs of beer.

My alarm went off at 0700 Saturday morning and I woke, showered, shaved and dressed before realising I still have 45mins spare before I need to leave for Nayong. I decided to have a quick nap. I was surprised to re-emerge from my pit 5 hours later at 1300. I was late for my philantrhopic mission and had burned any chance I had of getting the paperwork for a special visa that Matt had promised me.

Suchat in his undies

The combination of being stuck in Trang with a hangover and missing my appointment left me feeling melancholy. I decided a beer would attenuate my feelings of guilt and stupidity. So I sat down at the station bar and proceeded to drink myself to oblivion - again. I went to Pri's before going to Nat's karaoke - the normal Trang pub crawl. I ended up sleeping outside the karaoke bar on a deck chair since I was in no state to ride a motorbike home. I woke to Suchat standing in his underpants smoking a cigarette, a chicken pecking at my feet and Thai country music blaring from the radio. Not the first things you want to see after a rough night.

Nat, Chat and I went to eat some Sunday morning brunch (if Thailand has such a thing). It was then that I realised I'd lost my awesome turquoise helmet after 6 months - gutted. I headed off to meet Cockney Mike who was watering Richard's plants. We decided a Sunday morning session was in order and Mike, overcoming all barriers, downed an impressive 9 cans of Chang. I was embarrassed with my pitiful 7 cans of Leo on a bright Sunday morning in Lek's jungle shop.

We headed back to town and Mike carried on while I went for a 2hr oil massage. I finished off at Pri's and Nat's before making it to my own bed at 0300. Drinking almost every waken moment from 1700 Friday to 0300 Monday does nothing for your health. I ended up missing Monday at work and suffering a two day hangover. On Monday afternoon I sat, sweating buckets, with Mike and Swedish Eric in a Nayong shop. I was suffering terribly as they shared big bottles of Chang together. I drank coffee and thought about trying to eat something after two days of food abstinence.

Time for a change

After that weekend I decided I need a new direction in my life. Although I love all my friends here, Trang has become stale. I've been applying for Maths teaching jobs all over Thailand and I've received quite a few positive responses given that I now have one year's experience underpinned by reasonable Thai language skills. Last week I bought a 623baht bus ticket to Bangkok for Thursday night. I left Trang at 1700 and was at Morchit bus station by 0430 Friday morning. I then bought a 155baht ticket to Klaeng in Rayong Province. I arrived at 0800 after a 2hr journey from BKK.

I then took a 40baht motorbike taxi to this school. I met the staff who seem far more organised than my present place of work. They offered me a coffee as I explained I'd spent around 15hrs on night buses to get here. They seemed satisfied with me and offered me a position teaching Mattayom 4 - 6 (Grade 10 - 12) Maths. This is basically teaching A-level Maths to 16 - 18 year old kids. The salary is the same as Trang but I get a free room and free school lunch which is a bonus! I left in good spirits having secured a further year's employment in these turbulent times. I then jumped a bus to PATTAYA!

Pattaya

Happy but tired, I left Klaeng at 1245 on a slow local bus and arrived in Rayong town at 1400. I then took the slowest local bus in Thailand to Pattaya. It took over 2 hours to do 70km. That's about 30km/h (20mph)! I took a songtiew to Soi Honey and checked into the Star Inn where I have stayed before for 300baht/night. At 1700 I downed a few beers and headed to the gogo bars of Walking Street. My current favourites are The Windmill and Baby Dolls. I strolled along the beach chatting with the characters who hang around these parts at night. Next day I ventured down Soi 6 gawking at spectacle therein. I visited some soapy massage places but didn't partake as the costs are out of my league. I had massages, beer, Farang food and ALOT of fun during my three nights here.

To think this place is only a 90km/1hr bike ride away from Klaeng!!!!! I hung out with old American Mike who was visiting from Trang. At 0830 Monday morning I took a 60baht motorbike to the bus station and a 113baht bus to Bangkok's Southern bus terminal.

University

I was at the Southern bus terminal by 1100 but the Trang bus wasn't until 1820. I had 7 hrs to kill. I decided I might as well turn up for an English Teaching interview at this University just outside Bangkok. After being offered the post in Rayong I decided I wasn't going to waste my time here, but seeing as I had time to kill I thought 'why not'? I went to the station toilets looking like Just-Had-Weekend-In-Pattaya-Tramp-Man and emerged looking like Super-Smart-Teacher-Man. The woman collecting the 3baht for the toilet did a double-take as I left clean-shaven, in a shirt and tie with a gleaming smile. I went outside to catch a taxi.

I hate taxis

I paid 300baht for the taxi because the idiot driver lied about knowing where he was going. He drove the wrong way for 20mins before I clicked. The real fare should've only been 70baht or something, but sometimes you have to legislate for people being complete utter fucking ignoramuses. We spoke in Thai and he assured me he knew the way. However, I'd temporarily forgotten he is merely a capital-city-taxi-driving-cheating-shithead. For the record, the bus back was 16baht.

The interview was a farce as I didn't really have my heart in it. There is no way I would want to work in Bangkok. The cost of everything. Traffic. Pollution. Where would I ride my bike on weekends? I also don't really want to teach English - I find Maths far more stimulating for the grey matter.

I caught the bus back to Trang reflecting on how different other places in Thailand are - for a whole litany of reasons.

The bus left Bangkok at 1820 and arrived in trang at 0645 Tuesday morning. I showered and went straight to school - exhausted.

Phuket

Tomorrow night I am heading to Phuket since I have another interview here. I have to do a 20 minute teaching demonstration to 25 * 12 year olds. Since I'll already be in Phuket I may as well spend the weekend there. I might even take a friend from Ao Nang with me. We can sample the delights and get ripped off in Patong.

Decisions

My current contract and visa expire on 31st March. I'd like to relocate and sample some different aspects of Thai life. That is why I am currently attending all these interviews. If I am successful in Phuket I will have to make a decision as to live in either Rayong or Phuket. It will be a difficult decision given the many advantages of each place. I'll leave this to next week.

These job interviews will have given me consecutive weekends in Phuket and Pattaya! Not bad! People save all year to visit these places - I could be living there! However, perhaps living in these places is not the same as visiting them on holiday. Still, imagine the fun I'd have on weekends.

Domesticity

I had my teeth cleaned and polished yesterday for £10. The last time I did this was December 2008 in Sungei Golok on the Thai/Malay border!

I also had my chopper serviced yesterday. (My other chopper had already been serviced in Pattaya). It was fully checked and serviced for £12. This included a new air filter, spark plug, engine oil, rear-light and labour. It drives much better today. I need to remember to oil my chain more frequently.

Toon

The Toon seem to be flying at the moment. Looks like we can be looking forward to thrashings from Man U et al next season. Well done beating Barnsley 6-1. Let's hope they can see off Bristol City on Saturday. Only a Keeganesque occurence could squander promotion now.

Language class

samam sameu yim - always smiling
non mai lap - can't sleep
glua - scared
song yokgamlang sam - two to the power three

Day 1364. Ao Nang.

2010-03-03T11:03:00.004+08:00

Ignoring medical advice.

It was early Friday night. I was sitting at a packed table in Welcome Home having just finished a porkchop, chips and beans. I'd been on antibiotics for three days. All my mates were boozing and making merry. I was sipping a Kiwi Smoothie after a week of attempting to fill young unwilling minds with cumulative frequency diagrams.

Life was grim.

Until two or three friends suggested that you CAN drink on antibiotics. I suspected this was erroneous advice but I was willing to blur the lines between established medical knowledge and the experiences of a few mates. I decided my friends, with a lifetime of bar anecdotes behind them, were far better suited to advise me on medical issues than the Doctors at the hospital.

So, with a new-found vigour, I started drinking my favourite Leo beers. After one bottle my head was spinning. The alcohol was coalescing with the other narcotics floating around my system. However, I remained cocooned in the psychological security blanket my friends had thoughtfully provided. I proceeded to carry on as normal.

The sun lanced my eyes and triggered an earthquake within the vulnerable confines of my brain the next morning. I was experiencing a pain beyond anything I'd ever known before. My dessicated tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my teeth felt like they belonged to someone else. I brushed my teeth and vomited. I vowed to never drink on medication again as my head pounded and I tried to quench my unrelenting thirst . The hangover from hell!

Lessons learnt? Sometimes Doctors do know what they are talking about!

Saturday and Sunday were spent being bored in Trang.

Another week back at work

preparing the kids for their final year-end tests. Friday 26th Feb was Pri's 24th birthday and Alex's last night in Trang before going back to the USA. I bought Pri a small bottle of Thai Whiskey for her birthday . I ended up singing karaoke in Nat's bar with Alex. It was also my little brother Joe's birthday.

Ao Nang

I was itching to get out of Trang so the next day Aussie Paul and I jumped on our bikes and headed to Ao Nang near Krabi for a long weekend. We had Monday off because of another public holiday. Makha Bucha was actually on Sunday but everybody got the following Monday off - Great! However, on Sunday no businesses are allowed to sell beer. It was weird seeing all the bars closed on Sunday night. The normally chaotic, neon-lit Soi Sunlight had an empty, ominous almost eerie feel as we walked down there in pitch black silence looking at the amazing full moon!

Makha Bucha is one of the most important dates in the Buddhist calendar. Celebrated on the full moon night of the third lunar month, it is a day of veneration, marking the day nine months after Buddha's enlightenment when 1,250 of his ordained followers spontaneously gathered to hear Him give a sermon, at which he established the basic tenants of the monastic order - the Sangha.

I spent Saturday night in the girly bars and Thailand Beer disco until 6am. Sunday night was spent on the beach since all the bars were closed. Monday was spent sunbathing and swimming before heading back to Trang. I spent loads of money over this weekend. Money seems to run through your fingers like water in the tourist traps. I have some nice friends in Ao Nang now.

This week at school is exam week so I have a lot of marking and registers to finish. Other than that it's a pretty boring week. I might go to Ao Nang again on Friday for the weekend.

Pics

I still have no camera but a few friends have passed some photos on to me.

Here's a photo from Bothal Middle School, Ashington around 1984. I am the left most boy. How dated does this look? This was around the time of Auf Weidersehn Pet - remember that?

Here I am on the ferry from Ko Lanta. Nui (a new generation Muslim girl) took this photo. I needed the towel to prevent my neck burning since I had forgotten my jacket.

Here are some of the lads at the opening of Boo Bar, Hat Yai. Left most is Mike. He's a Red Sea Pedestrian or Yid (Spurs fan) from somewhere Daan Saath. He uses these terms himself. I'd never heard 'Red Sea Pedestrian' before. Next is Ian the Manc, my fellow maths teaching colleague. I think he even managed a smile that night. To my left is Irish Tom to be sure. Thanks to Canadian Mac for passing these photos on to me.

On the following three pics Mac has added some comments. This was just after Pat had dumped me. The comments speak from themselves:

This is Monkey and I having a quiet night.

Toon

I shouldn't say this but it looks like they should go up at the first time of asking.

Thai

This is a message I received from a Thai friend working in Hong Kong:

สวัสดีค่ะ สตีเฟ่น สบายดีไหมคะ คุณชอบเมืองไทยไหม แล้วชอบคนไทยด้วยรึเปล่า สอนหนังสือสนุกไหมค่ะ คุณมาจากประเทศอะไรคะ มาทำงานที่นี่เกือบ 6 เดือนแล้วค่ะ มีแต่ตึก ตึก และก็ตึก ไม่ค่อยชอบเท่าไหร่ จะกลับเมืองไทยประมาณเดือนกันยายนค่ะ ไม่แน่อาจจะได้เจอกันนะคะ ยินดีที่ได้รู้จักค่ะ ว่าง ๆ คงได้คุยกันนะคะ

This is my translation:

Hello Stephen, How are you? Do you like Thailand? Do you like Thai people or not? Do you like teaching? Which country are you from? I've been working here (Hong Kong) almost 6 months, there are many buildings. I've never liked it very much. I will go back to Thailand around September. I am not sure when we'll meet. Nice to meet you. When we are free I hope we can chat.

I'm not doing too badly with this.

I'm off for some lunch and an afternoon swim in the sun. Sometimes life sucks.