Khao San Road, Bangkok, 10:30am. 10 hours of planes, 2 temazepam, 1 stop over, 2 taxis, 3 beers and 34 degrees. Welcome to sleep depravation hell. The first tout to approach us never knew how close to being punched in the liver he got as we stood like a poster ad for stupid foreigners that radiate cash; backpacks on, Lonely Planet open, scratching our heads and expressions on our faces like the one you have when you get hit in the temple by a flying bottle at a rock concert.
Somehow, some way, I managed to check my steaming cow-pat of a mood and spoke to the tout. He asked where we were from, a question we would learn to embrace with the utmost patience for the next month, and I replied “Australia”. The man replied with yet another gem we would now need to accept with a smile and faux-chuckle in generous quantities, “Ah, Australia! GEDAY METE!” Us: “Yes, g’day mate”. Tout: “HA HA HA HA YEAH GEDAY METE!”
I guess it’s better than “Ah, Australia! A DINGOW ATE CHYA BAYBEY!”
Then the tout did something that still perplexes me to this day… he helped us. He told us that the police station was just to our right and if we go in there, they will show us the better places to stay. We did, expecting “the catch” to severely violate our pockets at any second. The police lady inside the station could see the Watership Downesque expressions on our faces and took pity upon us; she politely walked us outside, pointed across the road and 30 metres down from the entrance to Khao San Road to a little alley.
She was right; the Sawasdee Guest House was an oasis in a sesspool of smelly pepsi-max adventurers with zz-top beards and dreads, touts, hawkers, pickpockets, drunk 17 year old Australians wearing SAME SAME shirts, drunk 50 year old poms wearing polos, drunk 60 year old frenchmen wearing 17 year old Thai girls, all trying to talk to you or push past you at the same time. We checked in, ordered a large tiger, redbull bucket and a hookah full of apple shisha and started planning our month-long adventure.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Ritual
I sit here writing to you waiting for my girl to get ready to go to the Rosemount. I'm sure I speak for all men when I say I am interested in what takes so long to do this. I mean, here is my ritual. I arrive home and tear off my work clothes and throw them onto the floordrobe, then reach over to my non-work shoes, put them on, grab my non-work shirt and slip it on and walk out to the fridge and open a beer. Put beer down, walk back into room, put on pants, return to beer. I'm now ready.
My girl however begins the ritual with the preamble "I'm going to have a quick shower". This means action stations and that I have atleast 20 minutes of hassle-free tobacco time to myself. During this time in the bathroom it's like the opening scene of American Psycho, with 70 extra steps, and all of these products have avocado in some form in the active ingredients. They are guaranteed to make any taught, silky smooth, curved, lean, shiny haired woman look taught, silky smooth, curved, lean and with shiny hair.
After this, it's to the bedroom for yet another pharmacy load of growers-produce infused creams, followed by what resembles a machine with hundreds of tiny tweezers gnashing at her legs. Except it's not, it's, well actually, it is a machine with hundreds of tiny tweezers gnashing at her legs. This makes her silky smooth taught legs silkier and smoother. Now for the fun part, the wardrobe. This is like a men's floordrobe except it is upright with little "hangers" holding each piece up in a neat line of never been worn dresses that each have a specific purpose in mind when they were first purchased for example, one might be if they were to happen to find a pair of matching yellow shoes and would be invited to a girl named Sally's engagement on a Tuesday in Spring during a downturn in the Iranian Stock Exchange.
Once the specific outfit is discovered, it's put on 7 different ways until a suitable configuration is found then it's make-up time. For me this isn't too painful as my girl wears little if any, but I have experienced some in the past that have a trowel, a heat gun and three Sherpas on hand during a 3 hour session, then come out looking like Joan Collins after a food fight.Anyway, she's ready now.
My girl however begins the ritual with the preamble "I'm going to have a quick shower". This means action stations and that I have atleast 20 minutes of hassle-free tobacco time to myself. During this time in the bathroom it's like the opening scene of American Psycho, with 70 extra steps, and all of these products have avocado in some form in the active ingredients. They are guaranteed to make any taught, silky smooth, curved, lean, shiny haired woman look taught, silky smooth, curved, lean and with shiny hair.
After this, it's to the bedroom for yet another pharmacy load of growers-produce infused creams, followed by what resembles a machine with hundreds of tiny tweezers gnashing at her legs. Except it's not, it's, well actually, it is a machine with hundreds of tiny tweezers gnashing at her legs. This makes her silky smooth taught legs silkier and smoother. Now for the fun part, the wardrobe. This is like a men's floordrobe except it is upright with little "hangers" holding each piece up in a neat line of never been worn dresses that each have a specific purpose in mind when they were first purchased for example, one might be if they were to happen to find a pair of matching yellow shoes and would be invited to a girl named Sally's engagement on a Tuesday in Spring during a downturn in the Iranian Stock Exchange.
Once the specific outfit is discovered, it's put on 7 different ways until a suitable configuration is found then it's make-up time. For me this isn't too painful as my girl wears little if any, but I have experienced some in the past that have a trowel, a heat gun and three Sherpas on hand during a 3 hour session, then come out looking like Joan Collins after a food fight.Anyway, she's ready now.
Commuter Games
In the great Game of Life, I have reached many challenging levels, encountered many grotesque monsters, greedy goblins and scary ogres. Battles fought and lost, sometimes full life+, sometimes it dwindled, sometimes it would be gone and I had to start from the beginning. If only I had a rail gun it would have made things easier. But enough about my past relationships, this is about one particular level. The Getting to Work level.
Due to a police officer mistaking what was clearly an impressive 180 degree trick-turn for a "dangerous driving charge", I have found my license under a 12 month suspension or what I prefer to call it: Taking a rest from driving for a bit. This has resulted in a choice of transport modes being restricted to three things: Bus, Train and Walk. Walking, as we all know, is extremely bad for your health and can cause leg cancer and heroin addiction of the eyeball, so that was easily deselected from the option panel I am now presented with.
On the days where I decide that the terrible misfortune that has befallen Prince Arutha’s Princess at Krondor is a far more critical quest than being at work on time, I catch the bus. It’s a great time to relax before work and have a good read. The problem is that it’s hard to read when some FUBU wearing begoateed and unshowered centrelink opportunist is in the seat in front of you wearing cheap headphones, the kind you would find in a discount store in India, in the back room, in the rubbish bin, under a Justin Timberlake CD, like they threw it away before they threw the JT CD out. It’s like the earphones are leaking pretty much all of the Tupac album he’s playing away from his head, or he is so stupid he is wearing them backwards. Either way, he may as well have the Valve Sound System strapped to his head, facing me, with a funnel stabbed into my ear, with Tupac live on stage inside it, doing a Justin Timberlake cover, in Hindi. The other problem is the drivers.
It’s obvious that bus drivers are from the same race of people that orderlies, carnival stand attendants and mercenaries are sourced from. They all have previous "black ops" war experience that no-one knows about like ticking time bombs, they all have that blank long-distance stare, and none of them appear to have legs. They aren’t particularly pleasant to deal with, nor are they unpleasant. You just want to get the transaction over and done with as quickly as possible before you do something to piss them off, like being made of flesh or having a face.
Train drivers are more like God in Alabama, no-one can see him, but you are convinced without a smidgeon of evidence that he’s there. The train for me is a 10 minute walk, which isn’t dangerous levels, and is extremely fast. This is great when you need to be at work on time and have no book. The only issue is the flies. These flies I have never found anywhere else on Earth, and I have travelled a great many bits of it and so consider myself, as most men do, an authority on everything. These flies are tiny, move slowly, suicidal and are magnetic. It’s a well known medical fact that skin is made of skin particles and iron, so this presents an issue when you are surrounded by a swarm of micro sized, magnetic death-wish bugs programmed explicitly to annoy humans. I have found the best thing to do is shoo them towards the person standing next to you. Either that or my next plan which is yet to come to fruition, is carry two cans of fast knockdown mortein in cowboy holsters.
Trains, busses and walking. The bane of my working life. I have about 3 months, 13 days, 9 hours and 16 minutes at the time of writing, approximately, before I am loosed back into the world of asphalt adventuring and this time, I will think twice about doing 180 degree trick-turns, when there is police around.
Due to a police officer mistaking what was clearly an impressive 180 degree trick-turn for a "dangerous driving charge", I have found my license under a 12 month suspension or what I prefer to call it: Taking a rest from driving for a bit. This has resulted in a choice of transport modes being restricted to three things: Bus, Train and Walk. Walking, as we all know, is extremely bad for your health and can cause leg cancer and heroin addiction of the eyeball, so that was easily deselected from the option panel I am now presented with.
On the days where I decide that the terrible misfortune that has befallen Prince Arutha’s Princess at Krondor is a far more critical quest than being at work on time, I catch the bus. It’s a great time to relax before work and have a good read. The problem is that it’s hard to read when some FUBU wearing begoateed and unshowered centrelink opportunist is in the seat in front of you wearing cheap headphones, the kind you would find in a discount store in India, in the back room, in the rubbish bin, under a Justin Timberlake CD, like they threw it away before they threw the JT CD out. It’s like the earphones are leaking pretty much all of the Tupac album he’s playing away from his head, or he is so stupid he is wearing them backwards. Either way, he may as well have the Valve Sound System strapped to his head, facing me, with a funnel stabbed into my ear, with Tupac live on stage inside it, doing a Justin Timberlake cover, in Hindi. The other problem is the drivers.
It’s obvious that bus drivers are from the same race of people that orderlies, carnival stand attendants and mercenaries are sourced from. They all have previous "black ops" war experience that no-one knows about like ticking time bombs, they all have that blank long-distance stare, and none of them appear to have legs. They aren’t particularly pleasant to deal with, nor are they unpleasant. You just want to get the transaction over and done with as quickly as possible before you do something to piss them off, like being made of flesh or having a face.
Train drivers are more like God in Alabama, no-one can see him, but you are convinced without a smidgeon of evidence that he’s there. The train for me is a 10 minute walk, which isn’t dangerous levels, and is extremely fast. This is great when you need to be at work on time and have no book. The only issue is the flies. These flies I have never found anywhere else on Earth, and I have travelled a great many bits of it and so consider myself, as most men do, an authority on everything. These flies are tiny, move slowly, suicidal and are magnetic. It’s a well known medical fact that skin is made of skin particles and iron, so this presents an issue when you are surrounded by a swarm of micro sized, magnetic death-wish bugs programmed explicitly to annoy humans. I have found the best thing to do is shoo them towards the person standing next to you. Either that or my next plan which is yet to come to fruition, is carry two cans of fast knockdown mortein in cowboy holsters.
Trains, busses and walking. The bane of my working life. I have about 3 months, 13 days, 9 hours and 16 minutes at the time of writing, approximately, before I am loosed back into the world of asphalt adventuring and this time, I will think twice about doing 180 degree trick-turns, when there is police around.
If I was a caveman, I would be dead.
I’ve had a sore tooth for about two weeks now, excluding being drunk because I don’t feel it, which taken into account would probably make it more like five weeks in total. The tooth began aching more and more until my jaw felt left out and, due to peer group pressure I would guess, it, along with my right glands and neck, oh and the base of my skull, plus some surrounding teeth oh and my gum all decided to join in. Much like the commas in the last sentence.
At the risk of baffling you all with technical medical vocabulary, it is what the remedial fraternity call a “spreading infection”. This “spreading infection” seemed to be in layman’s terms, as I understood it, some kind of infection in my tooth that was spreading throughout my head. I thought it a good idea, once the entire right side of my face began an eternal throb, to go see a dentist.The one I chose was for lack of better words, a good one. Straight below my building and specialising in reconstructive and cosmetic dental procedures meant to me they could easily reconstruct for me a pain-free face and at the same time, make me handsome. A brilliant combination. I made my appointment which ended up being the only one left this year, they must be good, although there was only four weeks left of the year.
So to cut to the chase, my highly capable drill-wielding specialist went on to explain to me that had I not lived in the 21st century, an obvious choice I made as the other centuries seemed just plain dull, I would have been dead by my birthday next year via this “spreading infection” reaching my brain and degenerating pretty much anything of use in my head. I thought the alcohol had already taken care of that, but apparently not.
So, what was done, I hear you ask? Well, I imagine the more carnivorous readers might anyway. Because of the infection I could not have the tooth removed, it is a wisdom tooth. I do not understand the intricacies of the human mouth structure enough to explain it correctly so let me try in simpler terms. Imagine my mouth is made of Leggo. Now imagine my mouth was made of Leggo in a structure far too complex for me to explain it correctly and could not be put in simple terms. Now imagine a man with lots of whirring, buzzing, shiny and sharp weapons and a blue ninja-style face mask. Now imagine the magic blue and highly qualified ninja using those weapons for good, on my face, in what he called a minor root canal. That’s pretty much the way it went down.
So now I sit here after my face surgery trying to eat a blueberry muffin with a face full of procaine and it is similar in complexity to trying to solve a Rubik’s cube made of jelly with someone else’s mouth using thought and will power alone. I have absolutely no control over my saliva management so I need three napkins, one for my collar, one for my lap, and one for the ceiling. The best part about it is that I can’t talk and I am dribbling lots, both of which make me unemployable for at least the afternoon. So yeah, saggy mouth and luscious, teasing muffin, in front of my girlfriend’s laptop at her house telling you my adventure. I have to prepare for my “sooky, spoil me, I’m in pain” act for when she gets home so until then, l8tr alig8trz.
At the risk of baffling you all with technical medical vocabulary, it is what the remedial fraternity call a “spreading infection”. This “spreading infection” seemed to be in layman’s terms, as I understood it, some kind of infection in my tooth that was spreading throughout my head. I thought it a good idea, once the entire right side of my face began an eternal throb, to go see a dentist.The one I chose was for lack of better words, a good one. Straight below my building and specialising in reconstructive and cosmetic dental procedures meant to me they could easily reconstruct for me a pain-free face and at the same time, make me handsome. A brilliant combination. I made my appointment which ended up being the only one left this year, they must be good, although there was only four weeks left of the year.
So to cut to the chase, my highly capable drill-wielding specialist went on to explain to me that had I not lived in the 21st century, an obvious choice I made as the other centuries seemed just plain dull, I would have been dead by my birthday next year via this “spreading infection” reaching my brain and degenerating pretty much anything of use in my head. I thought the alcohol had already taken care of that, but apparently not.
So, what was done, I hear you ask? Well, I imagine the more carnivorous readers might anyway. Because of the infection I could not have the tooth removed, it is a wisdom tooth. I do not understand the intricacies of the human mouth structure enough to explain it correctly so let me try in simpler terms. Imagine my mouth is made of Leggo. Now imagine my mouth was made of Leggo in a structure far too complex for me to explain it correctly and could not be put in simple terms. Now imagine a man with lots of whirring, buzzing, shiny and sharp weapons and a blue ninja-style face mask. Now imagine the magic blue and highly qualified ninja using those weapons for good, on my face, in what he called a minor root canal. That’s pretty much the way it went down.
So now I sit here after my face surgery trying to eat a blueberry muffin with a face full of procaine and it is similar in complexity to trying to solve a Rubik’s cube made of jelly with someone else’s mouth using thought and will power alone. I have absolutely no control over my saliva management so I need three napkins, one for my collar, one for my lap, and one for the ceiling. The best part about it is that I can’t talk and I am dribbling lots, both of which make me unemployable for at least the afternoon. So yeah, saggy mouth and luscious, teasing muffin, in front of my girlfriend’s laptop at her house telling you my adventure. I have to prepare for my “sooky, spoil me, I’m in pain” act for when she gets home so until then, l8tr alig8trz.
Another internet blogger, OK, what's your story then, why the hell does the internet care about this?
This blog is for two reasons, firstly to bring some exposure to our cause for Thundercat Events.
Thundercat Events put simply is a bunch of part-time responsible people who specialise in being drunk, dressing up like jerks and putting on fun dance partys to help the World’s most important asset, it’s children. We put 100% of the profit toward underpriveleged children throughout the world. We do this by travelling to these countries at our own expense, learning about the many and varied issues each country’s or even town’s children face, and help where we can. To date we have travelled through Cambodia and Vietnam changing the lives of over 400 children in 7 orphanages and 2 specialised needs schools. We also ate snakes, bribed police, got extremely drunk in most towns we visited and fell down a few flights of stairs in some hotels.
So I decided to make a blog of our travels, if you would like to know more about what Thundercat Events is about, check our site http://www.thundercatevents.com/ or just read this blog and use your grey matter, you’ll get the idea sooner or later. We basically are like a combination of Hippies who love helping children and exposing the issues they face in developing countries, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Idiot, blind drunk Lara Croft rolling around doing stupid things in strange countries and Old jaded ravers who think everything is stupid, unless we like it in which case it rules and everything you like is stupid and is something we liked, like, so last year. Anyway, enjoy.
The second reason is sometimes I like to talk complete rubbish about a subject no-one really cares about except me, so I'll blog it. I find much enjoyment in reading my blogs and how funny I think I am.
Thundercat Events put simply is a bunch of part-time responsible people who specialise in being drunk, dressing up like jerks and putting on fun dance partys to help the World’s most important asset, it’s children. We put 100% of the profit toward underpriveleged children throughout the world. We do this by travelling to these countries at our own expense, learning about the many and varied issues each country’s or even town’s children face, and help where we can. To date we have travelled through Cambodia and Vietnam changing the lives of over 400 children in 7 orphanages and 2 specialised needs schools. We also ate snakes, bribed police, got extremely drunk in most towns we visited and fell down a few flights of stairs in some hotels.
So I decided to make a blog of our travels, if you would like to know more about what Thundercat Events is about, check our site http://www.thundercatevents.com/ or just read this blog and use your grey matter, you’ll get the idea sooner or later. We basically are like a combination of Hippies who love helping children and exposing the issues they face in developing countries, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Idiot, blind drunk Lara Croft rolling around doing stupid things in strange countries and Old jaded ravers who think everything is stupid, unless we like it in which case it rules and everything you like is stupid and is something we liked, like, so last year. Anyway, enjoy.
The second reason is sometimes I like to talk complete rubbish about a subject no-one really cares about except me, so I'll blog it. I find much enjoyment in reading my blogs and how funny I think I am.
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