Well, as I have already alluded to, I am home.  But it was not without a mammoth struggle.  I will break it down if I can manage to type it without having a nervous breakdown!

I managed to have a nice last day, meeting Jamie and Pong for lunch, doing some last minute shopping and then going back to the hotel to cram everything into my bags.  Then I checked out, got a taxi to the airport and that is where the woe began.

I went to check in and of course I was over the allowed baggage limit – WAYYYY over.  I tried bursting into tears, making up a sob story about my sister in hospital (always pick a family member who doesn’t exist to avoid fate intervening), to no avail.  They let me have an extra 5 kilos, which left with approximately 20 to find a way to get home.  As I didn’t have the £400 that Emirates wanted to take it, they directed me to a cargo service round the corner from their desk who could do it for a little less than half that price. 

So, off I went to plead with them to take my bags, which they agreed to at a price.  So I went to the cash machine and smile, in their infinite wisdom, had blocked my card.  Just when I needed it most!  I knew there was more than enough funds there to cover it, but they wouldn’t let me take out any amount of cash, large or small.  I was starting to panic a little, as I had very little cash on me, as I had thought I would just go to the ATM when I got to the airport.  Luckily, the cargo woman said that they could keep the bags and send them once I had wired them money when I got home.  Phew.

So, next – I tried to call the bank to find out what the hell was going on – but there was no phone number for them on my card.  So, I spent half my cash on a phone card and called everyone I could think of – no one was in.  Finally I got thru to Lee, who called me back with a number for the bank.  When I finally got thru to them, they put me on hold and of course, the credit ran out. Knowing that I had to pay a fine for overstaying my visa, I was truly stuck, so I did what any other sensible person would have done and went and sat on the floor and cried for a good 5 minutes.

So, refreshed after that, I decided to chance the customs thing anyway.  It was really a futile action, as of course the police man just laughed and sent me back.  So I went to the airline desk and wept at the guy I had already wept at, thinking he would take pity on me and let me use his phone to call the bank.  But no, he went one better and paid the fine out of his own pocket.  How nice!  The police though made me sign something to say that I had been arrested and cautioned and paid a fine, so I guess I now have a Thai criminal record!  Nice!  I told nice airline man that he was my hero, promised to pay him back and I got thru customs and he escorted me to the gate and by that time it was time for the plane to leave, so I got on in a sweaty mess and collapsed in relief that I was on my way.

So, right at this moment in time, I never want to travel again!  The flights themselves were not as bad as expected, with the first leg being pretty quiet, so I got 3 seats all to myself so I could stretch out.  I did have to spend nearly 9 hours at Dubai airport, which I spent eating some beef casserole in their free restaurant for Emirates customers, walking around trying to work out where my flight would be leaving from and then snoozing.  I found a metal bench and settled in with my blanket purloined from the first flight, a pillow and some ear plugs.  As I drifted off, I noted that it was pretty quiet and there were 2 South African guys next to me snoozing.  When I woke up, to the Muslim call to prayer, about an hour later, I was joined by the Korean national inline hockey team on my right side and a group of Japanese men on my left side who were gawping at me as if I had been snoring really loudly or something.

I was SOOOO pleased to touch down in Glasgow and be greeted by Lee, who has lost so much weight since I’ve been gone that I barely recognised him!  He is looking great and has put me to shame with only a stone being lost in my time away, although I am very pleased with that.  It’s been very strange getting used to living with someone again, and also adjusting to this time zone.  Little things like it still being light at 1030pm, being able to cross the road without climbing up 3 flights of stairs, the price of limes – it’s all so joyful!

On the job front, I have been applying for loads and have a few things in the pipeline.  I had an assessment on Monday for the subtitling job for the company that does subtitles for the BBC, so fingers crossed that goes well.  I had to “respeak” things like news reports, speeches by Tony Blair and commentary on the Helsinki marathon.  I think it went ok, they should be getting back to me this week hopefully.

I am now on day 4 of luggage watch, waiting for my bags to be sent.  I wired the money to them on Sunday evening and have so far heard nothing, but am not too worried as they have not collected the money yet either.  I just called them and it turns out the woman has been off that is dealing with it, but is back tomorrow, so fingers crossed I’ll hear something tomorrow.  I have a whole bunch of stuff in the bags that will now have to go on Ebay to pay for them to get back here!  It’s 5p listing day tomorrow, so I’ll be listing like a demon tomorrow and will post a link for you to check it out!

Now I am off to await the call of the temp agencies and wait and see if baby McChesney puts in an appearance today! How exciting!

So, what have we been doing?  Well, SHOPPING.  A lot!  But with such low prices and such cute things it would be rude not to.  Hamish is going to have all sorts of new stock very soon!  Apart from shopping though, we’ve also fit in some culture in the form of more temples than you could reasonably be expected to view in your entire life, some elephants and also 2 days of relaxation at the Rabbit Resort which really was as fabulous as everyone said (apart from it being in the Thai equivalent of Blackpool).  But I am READY to come home now, if only to escape the 20 million mosquito bites I have picked up – my ankles look like a dot-to-dot puzzle.

Well, I must go and make the most of the lounging around on the big comfy bed in my room and also try to cram everything into my suitcase!  I’ll see you on the other side!

Yes, that’s me in the middle, surrounded by my compadres for the day Jeanette and Kathy from Ohio of all places, near Cleveland, but Jeanette is studying in Chicago, blah blah blah.  Honestly, I probably learned more about them than I did about the history of the River Kwai, the bridge and the mass death of a LOT of people building said bridge.

But I am jumping ahead of myself.  It was a LONNNNG day.  I had to get up at 5 am.  Yes, that is five in the A – M.  As in probably before most of you even went to bed on Friday!  Usually when I have to get up so early I hardly sleep from panicking that I won’t wake up on time, but I actually slept like a log and didn’t find it all that much of a struggle to shuffle into the shower at such a time.  When I left the house and was walking along the soi at 5:55:55 according to Casio time, I noticed that pretty much everyone was going about their usual business anyway – there were people getting their hair cut at the hairdressers along the road and the old man had the chicken on in his roadside wok!  It was also a much more pleasant temperature, which is probably why they were up.

So, I jumped in a taxi and we stumbled upon the swanky hotel I was being picked up and I loitered outside as I was early and then the reception man came out to ask me what I wanted and I explained and thankfully he didn’t have me escorted off the premises!  Phew!  Eventually a girl from the tour company showed up and we went inside and had a seat and then the mini van (which was quite luxuriously appointed) arrived and I hopped in, bagging the front row of seats for maximum spread-outage and said hello to Kathy and Jeanette, the aforementioned mother/daughter combo from Ohio.  Cutting a lot of driving around back sois out, the other people who had booked for the tour didn’t show up for whatever reason, so it ended up just being the 3 of us, which was good and bad – good in that we essentially got a private tour for a lot less than it should have cost and bad in that I was lumbered with the 2 of them for the day and their incessant whiny questions.

So!  It took about 2 hours or so to get to Kanchanaburi, where our first stop was the cemetery.  I have to say the tour was not all that informative, the guides were very nice and all, but didn’t give much of the history or show us round or anything.  Not that there is much from a tourist aspect that you can say to talk up a cemetery with over 6000 graves of people who died in such ridiculously unnecessary circumstances I guess.  The cemetery was very peaceful though, so well looked after – there were a lot of gardeners out tending to the graves even in the scorching sunshine.  I wandered around the rows of graves of the British soldiers (unfairly represented as E for England in the JEATH anacronym: Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand, Holland) and thought about my grandad and how he must have felt fighting in the second world war and thinking how lucky it was that he didn’t end up under one of these markers where no one could ever go and stand at his grave and remember him.  It must have been hard for the families who couldn’t even have a funeral to send off their loved ones. 

The peace was shattered somewhat as I reached the far end of the cemetery which is next to the road, across which was a little row of houses and shops, one of which was blaring out D.I.S.CO by Ottawan for some reason.  I have no idea why any Thai person would want to listen to that at 10am on a Saturday morning, let alone do so overlooking a cemetery where several coachloads of tourists are reflecting on the cruelness of mankind, but there we go.  I had a chuckle about it, still thinking of my grandad, as he would have thought that was funny.  I am sure that I must take my slightly warped sense of humour from him (he is the man that gave us milky way sandwiches with the wrappers still on, after all).  Anyway, back on board our mini van for the trip to the JEATH museum and to tend to the camera which is already protesting about the violent heat.  (I had rigged up a cooling bag for it by using a frozen Domo Kun facecloth and a gel eye mask in some Ziploc bags inside a carrier bag which does work for a while but is ultimately defeated by the searing heat).

We arrived at the JEATH museum, which I had been expecting to be a big-budget production – you know, a building with some sort of big marble engraved plaque on the outside, possibly donated by the Japanese to show that they are not evil after all, some air conditioning, some film footage maybe and at least a gift shop where you could buy your own authentic POW loincloth.  They are really missing a trick with all that.  Instead there were a few bamboo huts (which they painstakingly point out several times are not authentic, but replicas) which you file through with some photos taken of the camp showing the POWs going about their daily business in the aforementioned loincloths.  The loincloth aspect really threw me – I had somehow painted in the sort of striped outfit of the Nazi concentration camps in as the default uniform for them, but then it is a lot hotter here I guess. 

The next hut was filled with newspaper clippings, letters from foreign dignataries and drawings of how life would have been for the POWs.  The drawings were of things like - possible skin diseases prisoners may have suffered in a kind of desperate filler material.  I found this very strange as surely there must be all sorts of material about the terrible things that happened, film footage, more photos of the liberation, etc.  I can only surmise that it’s down to finances – Japan, if you are reading – cough up some cash for a bit of expansion, eh?  It’s the decent thing to do.

So, after shuffling through the bamboo huts, we arrived outside and … that was it.  Very abruptly back outside to real life.  The museum is not even on the site of the camp which is further upstream nearer the bridge.  We then had the option to take a boat ride instead of the minivan along to the bridge which I felt a bit coerced into paying more for.  Somehow you don’t mind paying a bit more when you are handing over the money to a man with no shoes and a wife with a baby sitting nearby who look like they might not have eaten for a while.  So in we all hopped, as you can see above, and we took a nice breezy trip along the river, seeing a lotus farm, some houses on the river and a very odd phenomenon that my camera was not up for catching – the river Kwai is actually 2 rivers, Kwai Yai and Kwai Noi (big Kwai and little Kwai – bridge is on Kwai Yai) and they are both different colours.  Noi is a muddy brown coming from the mountains and Yai is a deep blue, from the sea.  Where they meet it is like a line down the middle – the sea colour just stops abruptly and the brown begins like there is a fence.  Very strange.

Soon we came up to the bridge, which without insulting the memory of all the thousands of people who gave their lives for it, was a lot smaller than I imagined.  I had somehow thought it would be Golden Gate-esque in it’s proportions, but, although not an insignificant size, it was considerably dinkier than expected.  The train actually goes over it if you care to take it, which somehow seemed a little bit morbid – I had thought that people would just look at the bridge as a reminder of how cruel humans can be to each other and as a lesson to be learned, but there was a huge line of people streaming on and off the train that goes across it.  The Thai guide told me that 2 Thai people had fallen off the bridge a few weeks ago, jumping out the way of the train, one of whom died.  More casualties, all this time later.

Off the boat, we were given about 30 minutes to explore the town itself which centres around the bridge, naturally.  I was thinking to myself – I could really do with buying some sunglasses and a disposable camera and turned round and literally right in front of me was a stall at a little market selling only those 2 items.  Result!  I had a wander around, bought a huge bag of limes for about 25p and generally mooched around, soaking up the sun and seeing the sights.  I met back up with my American companions eventually (they were late every time) and we all headed to our minivan which had caught up with us and headed about 15 minutes onwards to a train station called Thakilen.  From there, we took the train across the wooden bridge by the river which seems to be the first attempt at the bridge building that was abandoned in favour of the metal one over the river (I think).  It was very picturesque as you will hopefully see once my disposable camera is developed.

Once we arrived at the train station, we headed to a little hut place for lunch which was surprisingly tasty.  Then back on the mini van and headed to the next stop which was for the Americans who had opted to do the bamboo rafting/elephant trekking part of the tour.  We all 3 of us got to go on all options of the tour as there was only 3 of us in the end, which was pretty good.  I didn’t elect to go on an elephant as they looked pretty sad in the sun, so I stayed behind looking at them baking and marvelling at their mahouts sleeping on their backs as they waited in the corral for the next set of tourists arriving, and chatted to the guide who told me all about growing up in Chiang Mai and how the elephant keepers who are Burmese mountain people (they don’t really say Myanmar round here it seems) get paid 3,000 bhat a month (approximately 50 GBP). 

The Americans eventually returned wearing crowns made of leaves and I decided to go on the bamboo rafting trip, so coughed up an extra fiver and leapt into my lifejacket.  We got on the raft which was actually a lot sturdier than it sounds and we were towed down the river against the current for about 15 minutes in the pouring rain – it started just as we set off and stopped just as we reached the turning back point.  Once we went as far as we were going, we were cut adrift and the guy on the raft started paddling us back.  It was very peaceful and I think one of those things I will always remember doing and going – did I really do that??  I’m glad I did now.

Back on the minivan and we headed about 15 minutes up the road to the Tiger Temple.  It has very mixed reviews – some people believe that it’s a den of abuse and illegal tiger-trading and that the monks are evil purveyors of punishment to wild animals who don’t want to be fondled by the public.  Whilst others are supportive of their venture which purports to care for abandoned “pet tigers”, cubs whose mothers have been killed by poachers on the Burma/Thailand border (very close by) and had a successful breeding history with several cubs having been born there over the past few years without a proper breeding program.  I decided to go and see for myself.

It was very run down, that is for sure.  Upon entering, you walk through a kind of dirt field with a lot of dead wood lying around with some wild boar in it.  It also smells authentically like a zoo/farm.  There are animals roaming free everywhere, mostly wild boar who’s babies are very cute.  There is evidence of the new tiger habitats which are being built to give the tigers more freedom, but reading reports around the internet, these have been a long time in the making.  The doubters claim this is because they want to keep the tigers chained up but in reality it is likely down to money as is so often the case.  They certainly try to get “donations” from visitors at every opportunity and it is abundantly clear that the place could do with funds urgently. 

The tigers themselves though on the most part looked pretty well cared for to me.  I’m not a tiger expert though admittedly.  The first one we came across was a baby.  He was on a little wooden platform under a tree and had just had a bottle and was lying sleepily having his photo taken with people.  He was chained to the tree to stop him wandering off and had a fan trained on him (and his brother in the cage behind him) to cool him down, and also a keeper with him who regularly gave him a drink from a water bottle.  Not exactly being whipped with a belt as some reports have indicated.  Anyway, it was quite an awesome experience to sit next to this little tiger and stroke him.  I got lucky and the keeper was giving him a drink when it was my turn, so I got to spend a little longer with him, and he gave me his paw to hold – it was very cute.

After that, we wandered up to Tiger Canyon, which is where the big boys are.  It’s basically a quarry which now houses the tigers for a few hours each afternoon.  They could really do with some more shade down there, as the heat was baking and the tigers were lying outside with some shade, but maybe not enough.  They were all chained to stop them wandering off into the crowd – I don’t think that it is possible to have tigers so close to tourists and NOT have them chained up.  The volunteers were mostly American and they were encouraging people to have “special” photos taken for 1,000 bhat (about 15 GBP) which basically is you sitting down with a tiger’s head in your lap. I did not choose this option, instead opting for the “free” photos – a volunteer takes you by the hand and takes you to each tiger, you crouch down beside it and give it a stroke on it’s back whilst the volunteer takes your camera and photographs you.  It is a bit odd being lead by the hand by a total stranger but also reassuring as you now, tigers are pretty scary close up.  The biggest tiger I stroked was pretty sweaty, and they were all obviously very hot – I suppose that they are well-fed and hot and will just lie there chilling out whilst people come up and touch them, otherwise they’d be a bit boisterous.

I personally saw no evidence of tiger abuse, but obviously there is a lot more to it than what I saw.  It’s clear though that they desperately need money to improve the living conditions for all the animals, not just the tigers.  The ponies that were roaming around were pretty well-fed looking though, including the little foal that tried to chew my fingers off.  It was good to see the tigers but I am not sure I’d go back.  At the end of the afternoon, I made my way back to the gates and met the guides who’d spent the time chatting and eyeing up the male tourists and waited for at least half an hour for the Americans to get back.  Then we all piled back on the mini van and headed back to Bangkok, snoozing and sneezing alternately.

It was a fun day out, but not quite what I expected really.  I didn’t learn as much as I thought I would but I did get a great tan on my arms!

Oh Dear, originally uploaded by mooosh.

So, I finally made it to Ko Kret! Yes, no one is more surprised than me about that I assure you. In the end it was nowhere near as much effort as I had expected, given that it was indeed 10am and not 9am, which on a Sunday, even in a non-Christian country, makes all the difference. Still have to suffer the international Sunday Service Syndrome on trains, etc.

Anyway, I turned up at the pier aroun 9.50 am and found that there were about half a boat load of other people waiting for the tour too, almost all of them Thai. Seems to be the sort of thing you would do for a nice day out with your family/elderly relatives/kids in much the same manner as we went to Millport for the day when I was wee. You can even cycle round the island and be told there is a bench just round the corner for a rest like my parents used to (there never was a bench – they lied. I have forgiven them just about).

We set off up the river which is always fun. I never tire of just looking at all the stuff on the river banks – shacks falling down next to posh hotels, people fishing and bathing in water the same colour as coffee, huge rice barges almost colliding with tiny rowing boats – never a dull moment! The concept of shipping lanes has not reached the Chao Phraya yet it seems – it’s really every mariner for themselves with jetskis weaving in and out of the ‘traffic” just like the motorcycle taxis do on dry land.

So, we stopped at a few of the main piers to pick up other sight seers and I was joined by 6 other farangs – 2 seedy old men with their young, beautiful Thai gal pals, a young Australian couple who were unstereotypically quite grumpy and bizarrely a pair of ladies from of all places my home county of Ayrshire – I could tell without asking them from their accents and also I could tell they were lesbian teachers just from being on a boat with them for approximately 25 minutes. One of them had a t-shirt on that said GLASGOW on it, which I found very amusing for some reason that escapes me now. I tried to stay away from them.

This was all going on to the soundtrack of the “English speaking tour guide” we’d all paid 300 bhat for (roughly a fiver) who didn’t so much speak English as slur some vaguely European sounding syllables together. I was sitting about 6 feet away from him and I still couldn’t make it out. But he was very jovial and he got his important points across (be back on the boat by THREE PM or I leave you!) and he was also dressed like he got out of bed about 3 seconds before the boat left, so it was hard to be cheesed at him.

First proper port of call was a traditional style house (baan) for lunch. Tour guide man instructed us all to take our shoes off and leave them on the boat, as it’s considered rude to enter a Thai person’s house with your shoes on. So we all hopped barefoot across the sun-baked deck of 3 boats that were tied up at their tiny jetty (which was even harder as I got stuck behind a 90 year old Chinese man who couldn’t walk without a person on each side) and went inside for lunch.

It was an average affair – bland food hugely overpriced. They had a captive audience I guess. In hindsight, and if any of you reading this ever decide, hey, I must go to Ko Kret on this tour NOW, then my advice is forego food here and wait til Ko Kret as there are an abundance of intriguing foodstuffs there. I had some spicy pork and rice with vegetables on the side which were ok. I passed on the dessert aside from the samples I tried – they were so sickeningly sweet that even me who drinks Coke like it’s going out of fashion couldn’t handle it. (This is where I learned that the Australians were surly as they didn’t laugh at my joke about the jelly, damn them)

So, back on the boat and motoring along, past many photos of the King (long live him) adorning the river banks and we stop at our next port which is some park or other which I can’t remember the name of, but would mean nothing to you anyway. It was very pretty and had 2 of these here deer at the top in it for no apparent reason. They were waiting for us when we got off the boat, past a sort of corral in the water where there were loads of big fat ugly catfish leaping about. I declined the offer to feed them (catfish, not deer).

We had about half an hour to explore before the boat left (with or without us), so I headed off for a stroll round the main temple, where I learned that my camera had gotten heatstroke again, so I had to take a lot of photos on my phone (and ended up losing out on some photos of some really weird spirit houses as I later found out, booo). The temple was a far cry from the lavish decoration of Wat Pho, etc. This one was a bit rundown, but still quietly opulent with it’s gold leaf and laquer shutters, etc. It was very quiet and it was nice to sit inside on the cool marble floor, gazing at Buddha for a bit and wondering as I often do here what Catholic God makes of me sitting in his rival’s temples.

Then a stroll through the park to the pier a bit further up, admiring the many intricate bonsai trees, a couple having their wedding photos taken by a huge pagoda on a lake and the coconuts on the trees. Back on the boat and off to Ko Kret!

It only took about 15 more minutes to get there and we were given instructions on where to go to see what – go right to see the pottery, left to the market or straight ahead to the temple. I, having seen enough templey things for one day, decided to head to the pottery places (I know, you all thought I’d choose market – ha!) and immediately consigned the rest of the directional information to my recycling file as I later panicked a bit as I thought I was lost, despite being right by the temple and thus right by the pier, but it all turned out well in the end.

Just as I left the pier area, there was a girl selling homemade coconut ice cream, with a big sign next to her saying “As seen on ITV!”. She must have dropped that into conversation about ooh, 78 times in the space of the 3 minutes it took her to finish serving the other people and scoop my ice cream into a bowl made from a big leaf stapled together. I declined to have peanuts or kidney beans added (what IS that all about?!) and set off for my mini-trek to see the pottery.

About 5 minutes into my journey, a man stopped on his motorbike and said – you know it’s FOUR kilometres round the island? I can take you on my bike if you like? I said, oh yes, 4 km, that’s fine, thanks and continued on my way. A further 5 minutes, a woman on a scooter stopped and we had the same conversation, whilst some kids on bikes stared at me and excitedly shouted farang! farang! to each other. They were literally rushing out of their houses to see a white person! Like there are not lots of tourists here already! Probably because none of them ever tramp through the lanes of their village, I guess. Anyway, I politely declined (mai ao = don’t want) and set off only to be accosted about 10 minutes later by a very happy leathery faced man on a motorbike who said – you know it’s SIX kilometres round the island? I can take you for 50 bhat you know …

At this stage, I caved in and just leapt aboard his bike. It was hot and I had not put any sunscreen on (yes, I’m mental) and I have never been on a motorbike before, so I thought – what the hell! It was a LOT of fun. We must have reached a top speed of approximately 20 miles an hour such was the bendiness of the tiny lane and the speed bumps every few inches, but it was great nonetheless. Some enterprising locals had been out and made little ramps either side of the speed bumps to make it more comfortable for motorbike riders, so it was not too bad. The driver guy kept turning round and saying “walking, crazy!” and I assured him that he was quite correct as we zipped past a couple of farang sweating up the road. As expected, locals were coming out of their houses, putting down what they were doing to see a white girl on a motorbike, like I was some sort of modern-day Princess Di come to bestow that coy smile and rubbish hairdo visitation on their poor village. It was equally amusing and horrifying.

So, we got to the end of the island where all the exciting stuff is and I hopped off the motorbike, only to burn my leg on the exhaust – I had been warned, but I didn’t pay enough attention. It’s not too bad though, so pipe down mum. Then I had a wander round the buddhas looking out to the river – some interesting looking ones – a gold short really fat one and a leopard print one with a hat on that looked worryingly like Boy George amongst others.

Then a Canadian man stopped me and asked me where I was from and then proceeded to talk about himself to me for a good 10 minutes and how he plays these obscure traditional musical instruments and how he lives on Ko Kret now but has been to Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and aren’t the Welsh great singers and oh look here’s my Indian friend, he plays the nose flute, look this is his wife, isn’t she pretty … I had switched off and was looking around for the lesbian teachers as they would have had far more in common with him than me, but no avail. He did show me where to see some pottery though that his friend makes which was pretty average looking to me, but seemed to be something extra-specially intricate. Maybe it was just me, but it was just terracotta pots.

Anyway, after that mild disappointment, I walked around in circles for a good 20 minutes trying to find my way back to the pier area (which we already know was right under my nose all along). I must have walked past those hens about 5 times but I finally got it right by randomly plunging down a narrow lane and it turned out I was right and found some interesting houses and stalls along the way, including one selling some very pretty pottery earrings and one selling fake sunglasses which was handy as I’d forgotten to bring mine. I later realised by this time my face was puce with no sunscreen, so THAT’S what the sunglass stall ladies were pointing concernedly at.

After that, I had some more coconut ice cream as it was SO good, a drink, a wander round the market and then back on the boat and home! So it was a lovely day out and my only regret is not wearing the sunscreen – I just forgot. So my forehead is now a wee bit peely, but apart from that, fine. You can see the rest of my photos on flickr.
The end.

Yesterday I slept late, got up and pottered around and then went to the book shop to return the huge pile of books I had accumulated and restricted myself to only 3 new ones to see me thru the next 3 weeks.  Then I went to Siam and met up with Jamie and we had the best lunch for a long time at Fuji, a Japanese restaurant.  NOMMMM.  We both had vegetable gyoza and pork katsu and all it’s accoutrements and I could not eat another morsel the rest of the day such was it’s enormity.  After lunch we waddled upstairs to the cinema and watched Kung Fu Panda which was pretty funny for a kid’s film.  Then we went downstairs to the exit to the train station and look who was there!

 After we parted ways, I had a wander round MBK and then realised I was in the wrong place really for what I was looking for and hopped on the subway to the nite bazaar.  I had a joyful hour or two wandering around, buying some trainers (and alarming Lee by phoning him to ask his shoe size) and a fake Balenciaga bag for Jo. 

Today I was supposed to be off to River Kwai but instead ended up pottering around Siam, buying some amazing umbrellas for much cheapness, finding a great source of gyoza and then having some ice cream before going to watch Sex and the City movie.  God what a weepfest that was!  No one warned me that it was so sad!  Me and the Thai girl next to me were trying to hide the fact we were both weeping constantly, but I really enjoyed the film nonetheless.

Guess what!  I AM going to Ko Kred tomorrow if it kills me!  The tour according to the boat people’s website leaves at 10am, however according to wikitravel, it leaves at 9am.  So I will trust the boat people as it is their tour and be there for 10.  Whoop!  Next weekend will go to River K.  Right I am off to watch some Sopranos and then get to bed.

0410 Wake up again to find a light show going on outside with some freaky lightning.  My knee is very itchy.

0700 Alarm goes off. Snooze for 10 minutes.

0710 Aahhhh! I must have a stray mosquito in my room as my knee has 3 bites on it, my right ankle has a new one to add to it’s total and my right, well … my right ass cheek has a bite on the side near the hip too.  Get in shower, come out and slather on the aloe vera and pop an anti-histamine tablet.  Get ready for work, take rubbish out and get in lift.

0805 I must be bang on time as the wee man along the road has just put the fish on to deep fry in his wok by the side of the road.  Buy lemon drink from 7-11, gal in there knows my routine so knows that I want a straw but no carrier bag.

0815 On subway, not as busy as usual. Get off and on sky train and then as I am ravenous, buy some pork and sticky rice for breakfast. Get to work, scrape hair back and read emails whilst chowing on rice and drinking lime smoothie.

1000 It’s busy today – bah

1130 Lunchtime.  Still hungry despite breakfast, go with Jamie to the pasta place next to our building. Have spaghetti bolognaise! It’s very nice.

1400 Still busy. Boooo.

1500 Yay, Glasgow are awake. Company!  Continue with work, find time to look at some more tours to the beach for me and mar-c, email a travel agent or 2.  Have wave of excitement about coming home as look at s1 jobs.

1630 We got a whole bunch of emails from customers signing our praises this week so we get ice cream this afternoon – wooo.  Have discussion on flavours on MSN.  We get pistachio, raspberry ripple, chocolate and durian flavours.  If you don’t know already, durian is a fruit from South East Asia which smells rancid – like rotting garbage.  But, they say, tastes nice.  So I tried the ice cream – and it tastes just like it smells!  Ugh!

1800 Home time! For some reason they are keen to get us out the office tonite, so pack up sharpish and catch the lift with Jamie. We head across the bridge of death talking, as we often do, about lesbians, as he has a few Thai ex-gal pals who it turns out are more than good friends.  We get the train along to Sala Daeng and then down to the supermarket where I buy some eggs, bread, milk (to make french toast), potato salad and some noodles for tea.

1900 On train, get a seat no problem today, yay!  I am SO tired.  I doubt I will make it into swimming pool again tonite as I can barely keep my eyes open.

1950 Home. Put on Sopranos, call bank back in UK about them messing me around, open parcel from Jo containing some CDs, some sweets and bacon fries – yay!

2115 Writing this, going to switch off and watch Sopranos til I fall asleep now.  Over and out!

0720 In shower. SO sleepy.  Lean on the wall for a while contemplating death over work.  This is a common theme on workdays home or abroad it seems.  Open window, someone is in the swimming pool.  It’s a nice day outside, a bit overcast, not oppresively toasty.

0740 Drying hair.  Straighten it too – I just cannot help myself.

0755 Leave house. In lift.  Consider going back to 7th floor and going back to bed, but hey, why waste this fabulous hair!

0800 Hair is a mess already.  Slog down to end of soi, avoiding puddles. Must have rained in the night.

0805 In 7-11 buying some lemon juice stuff. Forget to buy phone top up card again I later realise.  Outside the school where the policeman usually stands to blow his whistle at the traffic are a bunch of kids in green uniforms with white gloves on. They are blowing whistles at the traffic.  What are they doing?  Why are they doing this? Is it some sort of traffic management Scouts badge?  I don’t remember doing that one in the Guides.

0820 On subway. Manage to get a seat a couple of stops from Si Lom.  Close eyes and dream of my tofu cushion and my head upon it.  So sleepy today.

0840 On sky train.  Walk past Mr Bun and do not feel tempted at all – ha!

0850 Buying some melon from the fruit man. Over the bridge of death in blazing sunshine.  Buying lime smoothie.  Spot Jamie up ahead and have unofficial lift race as he gets in another one.  I beat him, mwuhahaha. Jamie has brought me every episode of Sopranos on DVD to watch.

0900 Working.  This continues til 1130, boringly.

1130 Lunchtime!  Kow moo deng today, yay.

1140 Walking back across bridge of death with Visit and Jamie. Discuss holidays, me leaving, some work issues.  Jamie and me have a routine going at the kow moo deng place.  He doesn’t like the soup, we both don’t like the ginger on the pork and rice, so i take his soup, empty it in my bowl and we use the empty bowl for the ginger.  We don’t even have to discuss it anymore such is our familiarity with this now.  It’s very tasty lunch and only 30 bhat (about 50p) for a big bowlful.  I will miss this place as it is so delicious.

1215 Back across bridge of death, walk down to 7-11 and get a drink. Also spot chunky kit kats in shop and excitedly buy one – they cost the same as lunch.  Forget once again to buy a phone top up card, later realise. Buy corn cobs for 20 bats from stall outside. Resist the cake stall.

1230 Back in office, troughing chunky kit kat, such is my excitement. Playing Diner Dash and then Trauma Center on DS.  Slow afternoon – not busy again til about 3.30pm.

1530 Work blows. It’s busy today, but fit in saying hi to some folks back home on MSN.

1800 Yay, finished! Look at some tour packages to some Thai islands for when mar-c is here. Leave about 1815 and head for Sky train.

1830 Buying some supplies from supermarket, cross road, on subway.  It’s busy, but I get a seat after soon watanatam and enjoy watching 3 Japanese men who are clearly some gentlemen in search of a good time.  Guess they will get off at Huai Kwang with me.

1915 There is a man getting off the subway in front of me who is carrying 3 big boxes in clear carrier bags that say Machine Gun on them.  I hope they are toys!  Follow Japanese men up the escalators.  They are a bit young and well to do for this.  They are all wearing striped shirts and chinos and have all got the same haircut.  As suspected they head straight into Ceaser’s next to the subway.  Chuckle wryly and forego some miniature sausages being barbecued by side of road.  Walk past first hotel where the security staff are having their nightly briefing session.  Past the nice spirit house, pass the fish tanks and pass second hotel where mar-c will be staying.  Up the soi and home.

1930 No mail today - boooo.  Have some corn cob, update this and watch Sopranos on DVD – it’s really funny. 

2230 Should stop playing DS and get to bed – good nite!

0410 Wake up.  Wide awake.  Lie awake for about 5 minutes thinking I could maybe get up, have a swim.

0610 Alarm is going off.  Up early today to go to immigration to renew my visa.  Ponder not bothering as deportation is surely better than getting up this early.

0640 Straightening hair. Why am I still bothering after 3.5 fruitless months of this?

0700 Walking to MRT.  There is hardly anyone about at this time – well, there are lots of schoolkids going to the school at the end of the soi.  There are less food stalls out at this time, but more dogs.

0720 On subway.  It’s somehow busier than an hour later usually is.  Stand with face in sweaty Thai man’s pit.  How can he reek of onions at this hour?

0740 Out of subway trying to hail a cab.  Surprisingly sparse on the roads this morning.  Pick up a copy of the free English language newspaper, full of doom and gloom.  Is useful for fanning self/acting as sun visor.

0750 In taxi.  Not sure if we are going to where I want as the driver’s English is practically non-existent and my Thai doesn’t stretch as far as “are  you sure you know what you’re doing?”.

0755 Ha! We are here! It’s much closer than I thought.  There’s a big queue outside.  Stand around looking nonchalant reading my paper to wait for Khun Pui who I am meeting.  She has all my paperwork.

0800 National anthem time. Everyone stops in their tracks, hands by side, head bent as it’s played on a tannoy.  I join in – at the end we all bow and then carry on like nothing has just happened.

0815 Doors open.  Everyone floods in, taking tickets for the queues, filling in forms, etc.  I skulk about just inside the door enjoying the air con and watching a big cockroach try to scale the ramparts of the photocopier behind the reception desk.

0835 Khun Pui arrives.  She is tiny, beautiful and very smartly dressed.  She is accompanied by a silent man who is wearing socks with flip flops.  We settle in for 1.5 hours of waiting on a hard chair for our turn in the queue.

1005 Our number is called. I leap up but I am told to sit down again and Khun Pui goes off with my papers and talks to a man at desk number 12. She comes back about 15 minutes later and asks me to confirm my job title, but I have no idea what it is as it’s in Thai on my work permit.  I just nod and smile.  She goes off again and comes back 5 minutes later and tells me I can go!  Seems like a bit of a waste of all our time, but head off outside.  There is a market in the carpark selling eggs and shampoo.

1045 Make it to work.  No lime smoothie today, bah.  Almost lunchtime tho.

1130 Lunchtime! Feel guilty that I have just arrived, so Jamie gets me a sandwich from Au Bon Pain for lunch and I have it at my desk whilst I catch up with work from this morning.  It’s a toasted onion bagel with chicken and cheese – yum!

1330 Break news to boss that I am going back to UK next month.  Goes better than I thought it would.  Glad that everyone is very nice about it.

1500 Yay, it’s 9am in the UK, so people to talk to on MSN.  Doing tickets and Livechats.

1800 Finished! Talk to Jo briefly on gmail chat, read some RSS feeds.

1830 Leave office, head to sky train.  Get off and decide against going to supermarket. Head home as so sleepy with intention of swimming but too tired.

1930 Home, put kettle on for noodles.  Spend evening eating noodles, watching The Tudors on DVD and playing Diner Dash on DS.  Also opening parcel from Marceline’s mum of oil of Olay and pickled onion monster munch – yay thanks!

2245 Good nacht!

Ok, I know I said I would be better at this, but here we are a week later again and I am only getting round to this. Not for want of something better, but the past week has been a bit busy at work and also with plotting. I have a whole load of fun stories from Wat Po to post at some point – it was really nice and sunny and I saw lots of monks, but for now, here is the breaking news:

I’m coming home! I will be returning to the U of K on Saturday 5th July, a little bit earlier than I anticipated, but I am most pleased nonetheless. I’ve had a great time so far here – still over a month to go – and I can come back having had a great experience. Hurrahs all round!

Just as exciting is the news that marveline will arrive 3 weeks tomorrow! Hurrah! We will have a great time touring round, shopping and eating a lot of rice. Rumour has it we may even get to the beach!

Synchronise diaries and bake me a cake!