So yesterday I came down feeling quite sick at about lunch time. All I’d eaten up to that point yesterday was a sausage roll for breakfast, so I blame that.

Anyway, felt quite ill, and went home at about 2pm.

Once home, I immediately commenced a regime of slugging back hourly half-shots of Bis-Pectin ™ and lots of water. I watched an episode of The West Wing I’d missed, two episodes of The Simpsons, the MBFOF finale and was halfway through Kill Bill 2 when Blacky got home.

By 5-ish (I think it was 5 - The Price is Right was on television), I was starting to feel ok, and went to soccer.

We had 9 last night - strictly speaking, 8 is the maximum number you’re allowed to play with (5 on the field, 3 on the bench) and we’ve never lost with 8. I had a woeful game, but it didn’t matter … 15-5 was the final score. Considering the delicate situation with my stomach, I shouldn’t have gone, I know that, and it wasn’t a surprise when I later felt worse.

Anyway, went to bed early and woke up late. :thumbsup: I love that. Felt ok this morning, thanks for your concern, but stuck on the safe side and went with a plain baguette for breakfast. Just in case.

Things are busy here, back at work. And things are busy outside of work, too.
Let’s see … family night on Tuesday is back. Survivor is still on, I can’t believe how dumb Shiann (sp?) is. Gloat less, idiot. Sure, it’s ok to feel good when you win, but less gloating. And less talking about the rice/steak combo. Shut up, shut up, shut up! She’d get my vote. Still, glad Alicia’s gone … I liked her in Survivor Australia, but not at all this series.

Last night, I went to Rob and Nadia’s place for dinner. Sweeeeet osso bucco and we watched Jamie on the tele.

Tonight soccer is at 6pm. 6! That’s barely time to get off work, especially when I had to drive out to Stafford for a Dr appt this morning before work. I’m slacking off today, that’s for sure.

Hey all, I’m back in Perth, and here are some pictures of the Elephant Park. Click each picture for a fullsize version.

Firstly, this is the entry sign:

Elephants posing:

A “lassooed” elephant … how they used to catch elephants in the wild:

War elephants:

The magician at the park:

Me riding an elephant:

Whoa, which one’s the elephant? Diet time. :happysad:

The tigers I posed in the cage with (photos of pose coming once polaroid is scanned):

Hope you enjoyed the Thailand Pictorial Part 1!

Ok, I’m missing home now, and have decided to start doing nothing, with the hope that I will be recharged and ready to go when I get back. Doing a lot of reading, in fact I might have to buy some more books, as I’m almost finished the 4 I brought with me, as well as finishing 2 in Perth before I left.

I was supposed to do the second day of my cooking course, but I called in sick. (Not very sick, you understand, just lazy) and they shocked me by rescheduling it, so I still have to go Thursday morning.

Almost went out partying last night, but instead decided to save the money and effort. Been a quiet couple of days, and I leave mid afternoon on Friday, more or less.

I’m so full … I just finished day 1 of my 2-day Thai cooking course, which includes all the food you cook. I made three dishes, and tasted each, but I’ve still got at least 1 large meal left. Green chicken curry, beef mussaman(sp?) curry and a pad thai goong sod (fried noodles with prawns). Man, so good. If you go to the cooking school’s website, here, you will see that this differs from the lesson plan greatly … I was the only student today, so I could choose whatever I wanted to cook. Tomorrow, I’m getting a red curry lesson, as she didn’t have ingredients for it today. I don’t know exactly how this will work, because there are more students tomorrow, but we’ll see I guess.

The course also normally starts at 10am till 1pm, but because I was the only one, she asked me to come in at 9am and we’d easily finished by 10:30am - much less work when there’s just one student.

Yesterday I did nothing, a rest day. I did see Behind Enemy Lines and Van Wilder: Party Liason with Thai subtitles on TV though, so it wasn’t a total loss.

It’s been another couple of days, and I’ve got a lot to tell.

You may recall that the Bridge over the River Kwai tour (actually pronounced Kwah, and it’s not a River, but a tributary of the Meklong River) was postponed to Saturday morning, instead of Friday. So Friday, I got on the tour to visit the Grand Palace.

It was really very beautiful, and very typically Thailand - especially the architecture. Lots of gold, and lots of Monkey/Giant warrior statues to guard various parts from evil. There was a extremely long mural around the inside wall of one building that told a lot of stories central to Thai culture. Our tour guide did a moderate job of explaining them, despite much more broken english than our previous tour guide. Apparently monkeys are good soldiers, especially white ones. They served as the King’s army. The giants are the bad soldiers, although we weren’t sure they were giant whats exactly. They look a lot like monkeys, except they have curly black hair, big fangs and they were shoes. AFAIK these are the only differences. They aren’t any bigger than the monkeys, so perhaps “giants” was a mistranslation.

Then we saw the Emerald Buddha in the temple, which is actually made of jade. The monk who discovered it amongst ruins somewhere thought it was emerald and the name stuck. Wierd huh?

Then we got bussed into a gem factory. I was a little pissed off at this really, we paid good money for the tour and they take us to a gem factory? Anyway, Mum had wanted a gold chain, so I took this opportunity to get gouged for it. I have no idea what gold is worth back home, so any kind of comparison is pointless. They only had 14 and 18 carat chains, my budget could only stretch to the 14 carat ones. Even then I was extremely nervous about the purchase … what recourse does one have if the “gold” in the chain immediately turns green upon wearing? They did give me a certificate of authenticity though, so I’m sure it’ll all be ok :rolleyes:

Last night I hit the gogo bars with this guy I met on the tour. I’m not sure whether describing him as a sex tourist would be mean or not, but he certainly knew how the bars worked, despite claiming that he very rarely took the girls back to his room. :dunno: But anyway, we went out for a beer or 7 in a sports bar to kill time before the gogos opened.

Things were in pretty full swing when we got there (a bar in Nana Plaza called “Angel Witch” which had model witches flying on brooms around the roof) but we still managed a seat at a table nearish the front. It wasn’t a very big bar, though … the whole area would’ve been smaller than the bedroom at my hotel room. So we’re sitting there having a few more drinks, watching what he called the “Bar Girl Shuffle” where it’s not really dancing, but not really standing still either. It was maybe 8pm by this stage, so the girls were all dressed in the Angel Witch uniform of black lingerie, although we were assured by the mamasan of “very good lesbian shows later …” :naughty:
I was way too drunk by this stage, and I got hustled by one girl into buying her a “lady drink” … watered down coke that she gets a %age of. She took one mouthful and then said she had to go and dance, and more bargirls began hovering, smelling the lady-drink-buying-guy like sharks smelling blood in the water. I left my tourbus companion and stumbled from the bar (vaguely recalling a River Kwai tour leaving early the next morning) and into a taxi. The driver didn’t speak a word of english, but I had the hotel’s direction card which showed him exactly how to get there in Thai. Somehow I got to my room without falling over.

When the wake up call came through the next morning, I thought I was going to die. I drank a litre of water immediately, but this didn’t help much. I visited 7-11 to buy some more water for the tough day ahead. It got better, as it always does, but I made another one of those promises noone ever keeps: never again.

We had a full-sized bus for teh River Kwai trip, so it was plenty comfortable for the 9 of us (plus tourguide, driver, and doorman). It took 2 hours to drive to the first stop, the cemetary where Australian, British and Dutch soldiers were buried, who had died during construction of the Death Railway for the Japanese, connecting Thailand and Burma. There were no American graves, as the dead Americans had all been transported to American War Cemetaries years ago. It was a very moving experience to see the gravesites, and worth the trip even if we did nothing else.

We did do other things on the tour though … next stop was the Jeath museum (renamed from the Death Museum as this sounded too horrific. Jeath stands for J(apanese) E(nglish) A(ustralian and American) T(hailand) H(olland) who were the parties involved in the Death Railway. Very interesting museum, maintained by the local monks, and housed in a replica POW barracks. It was almost unbelievable, which I suppose is why we must never forget that this all actually happened.

Then we caught James Bond-style long boats (powered by V8 car engines) down the Meklong until we reached the famous bridge. I walked over it, and then we caught a train over it to our lunch destination.

The train fare itself was included, but we were warned that it was a Saturday and there were no guaranteed seats available for the 1hr 30min trip. We had the option of spending 150Baht each (About $5.50) for Tourist Class that included a bottle of iced water, a pepsi, biscuits, a cold towel, a certiifcate of thanks from the Thai government tourist authority and (most importantly) a guaranteed seat. Worth every cent.

It wasn’t First Class by any stretch of the imagination, but felt terribly authentic. As uncomfortable as a train trip in Asia should be, really. No airconditioning, diesel fumes and hard, uncomfortable seats. I loved it.

We arrived at our final destination for lunch (I can’t quite place the name now, but I’ll update this entry one day to include it) crossing over one section of original POW-built track at a snail’s pace. After lunch, I walked along the track bridge to a set of caves that the locals had converted into a buddhist shrine. It was beautiful.

We then headed home, back on the bus, on a 3 hour trip. Back in the hotel, I crashed asleep almost immediately, waking some 15-16 hours later, and writing a blog entry. I thank you, dear reader, for sharing my journey. I’d written much more than I’d meant to, and now I can’t proof-read it because it’s too long, so please forgive any mistakes.

Thailand is great.

Let’s see … I got here yesterday early in the morning, and have the greatest hotel room … 2 rooms (a bedroom and a living room) and it’s huge. Especially for the money I paid, which I recall being “not much”.

Thai Airways is my new favourite airline. Even if you put aside the hot Thai stewardesses, the roomy cabin, the comfortable flight and the great food. I was travelling in business class, so can only compare international business class with QANTAS and Alaskan, but Thai is immeasurably better.

Shall I break down what I’ve been up to? Ok.

When I arrived Wednesday it was quite early, and I decided to get a Thai sim card for my mobile, which I got from 7-11. There are a lot of 7-11s around here. I then pushed on to a very gucci shopping centre (obviously aimed at us rich farangs) which featured Gucci, Armani and the like. Genuine, too, from the look of the price tags. Had a green curry for lunch that day, and instantly I knew it was true: Thai food in Thailand is better than any of the crap we get served at Thai restaurants at home. Buh-lee dat.

Oh, it’s a Thai public holiday block from Tuesday to Thursday 13-15th, called Songkran. It’s the celebration of traditional Thai new year and also the water festival. They celebrate by basically having big water fights on the streets all day. I’ve come back to the hotel absolutely soaked about 3 times now.

Anyway, then I decided to get a haircut, and had heard of a place on Soi 11 called Hair Design. It was really hot, but I got a great haircut, shampoo and shave for a couple of dollars. The girl didn’t speak much English so I heard how “hansum man” I was quite a bit, but when you consider the annoying crap you have to normally talk about with hair stylists, it was a turn for the better. If it wasn’t so hot, I would’ve also taken a foot massage, which by that stage I really would’ve liked. :tongue:

As I was paying another girl was grabbing my ass and asking if I want massage. Truth be told, I did, but not the kind of massage she was probably offering. I politely declined and headed to a proper “traditional” Thai massage place after a nap back at the hotel.

Walking home after the massage (feeling pretty happy, despite declining the “happy ending” for the massage) and stopped in for dinner at the Seafood Palace. Interesting place … it’s like a little market, that you shop for what you want, and then pay a little extra for them to cook it the way you want it. I had stir-fried scallops with brocolli, carrot and garlic (which was a meal by itself, actually) and three enormous prawns served with clarified garlic butter, and half a small watermelon. I didn’t make it through the watermelon. While dining, there was an authentic Thai dance thing with the girls dressed up to the ying yang and a plastic smile on their face, then men dressed with a green gremlin mask on, and doing that type of dancing that involes a lot of moving about without moving your legs … the feet were working like nobody’s business.

Had a yarn with Eddy on the way home (he’s worked out how to call my Thai mobile, so I know it definately receives calls … email me if you want the number) and before you know it, I was back at my local 7-11 buying water for the night. 3L, $3.

Which brings us to today. I had breakfast at the hotel - it turns out that this was included with the stay - before going back to bed for a lie-in. I had booked a tour today at a crocodile/elephant park.

We left the hotel at 12pm, and hit the zoo at 1:15pm. There was a magic show which was quite good actually, then an elephant show which blew my mind … I got to feed the elephants, and then a crocodile show which I couldn’t watch. Nothing like the Crocodile Hunter’s “easy big fella, easy …” … these guys were doing stupid stuff like putting their head in the croc’s mouth, putting their arms down its throat up to their shoulder … that kinda thing. Nuts … I couldn’t watch it, so I went and rode an elephant. THAT’S FRICKING RIGHT … I rode an elephant. It was really uncomfrotable, but undeniably awesome. I’ll put the photos on chuckler.org when I get the chance.

More of less time to head back, but I wanted to pose with the tigers in their cage. THAT’S FRICKING RIGHT … in their cage. It was a rush, even though they were pretty tightly chained down. The photos? On chuckler.org soon. :bigthumb:

Came home, and planned an early night … tomorrow I was going for a day trip to the bridge over the river Kwai. Got a call just as I was dozing off saying that the Friday tour was cancelled, and would I like to do it on Saturday?

I wouldn’t have even considered planned tours unless dad had made me go on the Grand Canyon one in the States last month. It proved that there were benifits to be had in organized tours, a view that I had not previously held. Today’s tour was brilliant, for example, and I was looking forward to tomorrow’s. I might see if I can get in on an afternoon “Temple Crawl” tour tomorrow instead. It’s especially great to do here, because the two tours I’d already booked cost less than the dinner at the Seafood Palace.

Still haven’t made it to Khao San road, or the infamous Patpong/Nana areas, or a katooey cabaret … I’ve still got some work to do, huh?

Miss you all … Chux.

To those that rang or SMSed to enquire as to the status of my passport drama, thankyou. You’ll be pleased to hear, I trust, that it was all sorted on Thursday afternoon. The relief is still tangible.

Thursday evening was soccer, and even though I had an assload of packing to do, I went and helped the team to an impressive 7-3 victory. Great game, I made one classic stop in the goals with my face. Ouch.

Then I got home, and slowly packed. Woo was over playing Simpsons Hit and Run, and by the time he left, it was midnight. Let’s just say that I’d set my alarm for 4:30am to make my flight, so on Friday morning I wasn’t a happy camper.

Flight was ok, flew via Sydney, and arrived in Perth on time. Business class for that distance is cool, even though I thouht that it wasn’t that great for trans-pacific flights. Crashed by 4pm, and slept through.

Saturday Snod and I hit the Perth CBD for money exchange and browsing. Bought the new Peter Moore book (which Bryce will be pleased to hear about) and picked up some Baht. Also got some goal-keepers gloves and a couple of pairs of pants. Unfortunately, we walked past a pub with Belgian beers jsut after we’d been discussing the Belgian art of beermaking, so we wasted the rest of the afternoon people-watching and getting moderately shit-faced. Pancakes on the way home for dinner.

Sunday we headed to the beach for the morning. Read the new Lee Child/Jack Reacher novel, The Enemy. Good book, pleasant enough reading it in the shade by the beach. Had a coffee and then moved into a fish and chips lunch.

Monday we wasted completely, although we did wash Andrew’s car and buy apple pie and ice cream for lunch. Today we’re inspecting his new house before it final settlement. Cool

Last night, when I got home, I had a minor niggle that I should find my passport. It wasn’t on my desk, where I thought it was, nor was it on/around the piano (the second place I thought it was), wasn’t in the car (third place), nor at work (fourth place, yes I made a special trip to see if it was there). However, eventually, it DID turn up … as a pile of lint in my recently washed pants. I leave Brisbane early tomorrow, and then leave Perth late Tuesday night. Friday and Monday are public holidays. My heart sank like a stone. I wasn’t going to be able to go to Thailand.

I called the passport office, which was closed, and then the consulate, which told me to go to the passport office in Brisbane first thing this morning. It was a night of very little sleep.

This morning, I arrived at the passport office at 8:30am, prepared to wait until it opened at 9am or 9:30am. It opens at 8:30am, in case you were wondering, and I was second in line. The lady told me that the passport was too damaged to even renew, so I would need to apply again for another passport, and hope it was ready before I was due to leave.

Heart still sinking. Took the form to M&D’s to fill out and find my birth certificate, and my birth certificate was missing. Heart sank lower. Bryce found my birth certificate in his file (apparently “his file” should be more accurately named “his and stuff that Dean himself hasn’t yet claimed file”). Filled in the form, went down to Stafford City with Woo to get photos done, and then into work for E to become my guarantor. Paperwork all done, back to the passport office.

By this stage it was 11am. Woo had uni at 12, so we agreed that he’d do slow laps, until 11:40am at the latest and then he’d ditch me and take my car to uni.

I waited, and waited and waited. Tense? Fuhgeddaboudit. Eventually I got served at 11:30-ish, the guy read over my forms, asked about my itinerary and then took a copy of it. He disappeared for 3 very long minutes, before reappearing, and saying “We won’t be able to get your passport to Perth before your flight out.” I almost cried, but then he said, “so we’ll do it today. Come back at 3pm.” The feeling of relief was tangible, my friends, let me tell you.

I had to take another seat and wait for my turn to pay. $210, $62 of which was the standard emergency payment fee, the rest was the regular new passport charge. When I walked out the door at 11:44am, I thought I’d missed Callun. However, he’d decided to do one more block, and saw me, so I got collected after all. My luck seems to be improving.

Hopefully, the passport will be there at 3pm. Wish me luck.

Can you believe that we’re almost down to one day of the week left? Then can you believe that I’m almost on holiday again? I’m sitting here, and I can’t believe it. Someone pinch me, thanks.

So Godfrey called, wanting me to get him a camera from here for cheap, and then taking it to Thailand and using it, and giving it to him when I get back. How slammin’ is that? There will be Thailand pictures here on Chuckler.org after all.

Had lunch with Leyton today using a 2-for-1 voucher from the good ol’ Entertainment Book. I remember in the good old days when Godfrey and I used to use those books as a basis for planning our weekends. Ah, those were the days.

So there’s some bad planning on my part with the return leg of my trip from Bangkok … I get in really early Saturday 24th, and Brek gets in on Sunday. They’re all then immediately going to Margaret River, and not coming back till Wednesday, so I’m either by myself in Perth for a day, or I try to come back a day earlier. I don’t think a day in Perth by myself would be too bad, but we’ll see.