Lock stock and not too sure...

Went out drinking last night in an Irish bar (as you do in Thailand!) and after my fourth Guinness the room was swirling a little, but I could still see the Swedish girls on the next table fairly clearly so things weren't too bad at all! They were three typical Swedish girls, i.e. blond and fit, and as is typical in Thailand there were two sleazy English men trying to chat them up.

I didn't really pay that much attention (honest), but then one of the Swedish girls leaned over and asked if we had seen the film "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" or "Snatch" because one of the sleazy men was (claiming to be) Vinnie Jones.

Hmm.... he did look a bit like him and sounded like him, though I imagine there are a million look-a-likes. Anyway what would Vinnie Jones be doing on the pull in Thailand, I thought he was a family man! Turns out (apparently) that he is filming a new movie in Thailand, with Kyle McClaughlan (the dude from Sex and the City and Twin Peaks) - though he was no where to be seen.

Also nowhere to be seen was any sign of filming the next day...

Some missing news

oops.. in the lack of blogging recently i realise i have left out a few details which you may have been wondering about.

the elephant trainer thing never really happened. because we changed the date, the course was full and we only did a day thing instead, so no training just watched a show, visited the baby elephants and the elephant hospital.

that though did free us up for a day which we filled with a Thai cooking course. this was really fun, we got to go to a Thai market and spent the whole day cooking and eating... 5 courses! we made:

- thai fried rice (a bit easy for me this one!)
- pancake rolls (filled with glass noodles so really really good!)
- green papaya salad (amazing flavours)
- red curry paste
- Chiang Mai noodles

don't worry all you hungry boys and girls, we have brought back the recipes so will try to have a Thai dinner party one night!

On the beach

We have left the countryside of Northern Thailand and are now in beach heaven in Phuket based in the south. We made a quick stop in Bangkok along the way, stopping to do some shopping (see my camera blog) and more pampering (facial, massage, body polish, foot massage, hair cut and re-highlights... all in one day!).

We are in karon beach in Phuket, really beautiful beach, not busy at all and has wonderful fine golden sand and calm seas. The water is really clear and has no seaweed at all! The Europeans are as revealing as ever and everything is really chilled out.

Tonight we're going to some show and buffet dinner, then tomorrow we're going to visit the busier beach of Patong (supposed to be really seedy, but hey!). After that we're going on a day long boat trip to visit the beach used in the film of the same name and also some other nice islands, then the day after that we're doing some more diving, this time we're going to dive around a wreck! Hopefully there will be loads of sharks about!

New camera sorted

Cool, finally got a new camera. Went for a Canon Ixus 40, only 4.0 megapixel, but has amazing quality photos and looks the business.

It was a close run thing with the 7.0 megapixel Sony, and I know loads of you already use similar Sonys, but in the end I wanted something more different and smaller, plus I couldn't get used to a smaller LCD screen after my Casio.

Question now is, does anyone want to buy my old Casio?

Call me a trekkie!

G'day folks, long time no blog... with good reason. I have been out to the sticks in Northern Thailand, living with hill tribe people. Safe to say that they don't have internet access out there, best they have is an electric lightbulb.

The trekking expedition started off with 11 of us stuffed onto the back of a pick up truck headed for the hills. Getting off in the middle of nowhere we started walking... and walking... and walking. Sometimes up a hill, sometimes down a hill, but always in the baking hot sunshine!

The scenary was really picturesque, really rural looking paddy fields and wooden huts, but if I am honest, nothing that I haven't seen before in Hong Kong's new territories. Strange to think that my parents used to live in similar wooden huts and farms, so really I have only a generation removed from these hill tribe people which have become a tourist attraction for being primative.

Staying overnight in this village was fun as their was a gruop of 11 of us tourists with nothing to do but have each other for company. I mean normally we'd have a nice air con room to relax in and watch TV, but here we had a communual room with... erm... some windows... so we all had dinner then huddled around a camp fire and had a few beers. Thai beer is pretty strong (6.4%) and soon we were playing drinking games and singing songs to the stars in the sky.

Waking up at 5am the next morning was not voluntary. The cockerals on this farm are crazy and will start crowing like crazy even when it is pitch black! There were definately a few sore heads the next morning. Further walking ensured, followed by an elephant ride for an hour. For Darren, the Irish guy in our group (who being Irish should really be able to do better), sitting on top of a swaying elephant was too much and threw up from the top of the elephant, nearly hitting the elephant trainer below. Now as a hangover story throwing up from the top of an elephant in Thailand's jungles beats throwing up all over a construction yard anyday :P

The rest of the day was pretty taxing, after elephants we still had some more trekking until lunch by a waterfall. Fried instant noodles, gorgeous... not! Then more walking until we got to do some bamboo rafting on the river before taking the truck back home to Chiang Mai.

After a bit of a kerfuffle with hotels, we are now staying in a pretty luxerious hotel in the city centre. Just had an hour and a half of foot, hand and back massage which was just the thing after the trekking. Gonna lux it up for the next couple of days before we rough it again, this time staying in an elephant camp learning how to look after and train an elephant. If there's one thing I have learnt it's not to ride on one if you have a hangover!

New phone and new camera

Ok, some help needed here as I am looking to upgrade my phone and my camera. Actually the camera is more important as I am looking to buy one soonish, the phone can wait till i get back next Feb.

So what I am looking for in a camera? Obviously like all things I own, I am looking for good looks (so that it matches Ellen of course!). It has to be relatively small but most importantly function well. My current Casio is tiny and looks great but probs are:

- the flash is too bright and makes the pictures have a blue-ish tint
- pics are often blurry (could be down to my shaky hand though)
- you can't see anything in the dark, some canons and sony's have an orange light which is cool
- battery life is crap, only a few hours of normal use.

so any recommendations on cameras anyone? i also want a big screen on the back.

I have seen a nice sony which has anti-shake technology but cannot find it online.

ideally i want to buy in Bangkok next week so that I can use it at Holam's wedding, or i may buy in hong kong if that is cheaper.

Stupid car

damn - the pitfalls of owning a high performance car... just shelled out 700 big ones for a service.

owning a car that is high performance and less common on the road seems to equate to high cost replacement parts. so many components on my car seem to need specialist parts, e.g.

gas discharge headlight bulbs - 100 quid each (these are just the bulbs! normals bulbs are like 3 quid for a normal car)

platinum sparkplugs - 60 quid each compared to prob 1 quid for a normal car

sports tyres - i paid 75 quid each, actually not too bad, as the honda garage charges 150 quid normally!

starting to make me reconsider owning a performance car, the M5 will definately cost much more to service! looking around asia, they seem to really favour mini MPVs, the new Mitsubishi Space Wagon looks nice... maybe I am getting old but there's something to be said for comfort and lounging space in a car over hard suspension and an eager thristy engine. TBH you can't really appreciate a performance car in London all that often and the extra money saved would come in handy.... however being outpaced by Vicki in her CTR would be the death of me. I'll wait and see what she buys first i think!!

Back in Bangkok

After life in Oz, I must admit its nice to be back in Bangkok. The weather is glorious, sunny and 32C every day and food is so good and cheap!!

Met up with Anita and her family who were all amazingly friendly and helpful. We stayed at her youngest Auntie's place for two nights along a street which seems to be almost entirely owned by her family! So sweet how they all live together!

First day we started how we would end up doing for the next few days.... eating! On getting to the house around 1pm, Anita's mum brought out all this Thai food she insisted we try.... all good all good, but after stuffing ourselves silly, Anita's Auntie came over and brought some more food! Some really nice green, black and white beany dessert type things!

Feeling the need to walk it off we went to a shopping centre for some exercise.... exercising that credit card! We bought a few bits and peices and decided to go watch a film.... OMG.... if you ever think about watching a film called "The Grudge" think carefully. This has to be the scariest movie ever! I am not ashamed to admit that me, Ellen and Anita all held hands over our eyes throughout the film and probably only saw 70% of the movie. Film stars Sarah Michelle Geller and is based on a Japanese movie ("Ju-On"), no doubt Victor, Ho Lam etc, the "been tai" horror fanatics have probably already seen the Jap version and got the new one on fan ban VCD already.

After a surprisingly easy night's sleep, we spent the next morning at a tourist attraction called "The Ancient City". Anita's mum had told us that it was based on the map of Thailand and had reproductions of all the landmarks from around the country. Thinking it would be some bunch of models we could not have been more wrong... this place was massive! The best bit was actually hiring bikes to ride around this enormous park. It must have been at least 10 years since any of us had ridden a bike and we were all weaving all over the place! Actually I lie. Ellen and I were fine, lets just say that Anita was the only one to fall off... and the bike wasn't even moving then!

After this park, we headed down the road to a Crocodile farm and Zoo. After failing to look like locals and getting charged the tourist rate (3 times more expensive!) we went in and wandered over to see the Elephant show. The three of us sat in an empty stadium and after 10 mins thought something wasn't quite right. Apparrently it wasn't busy enough for them to hold a show, but after we asked they put on the show especially for us! So nice these Thai people. The elephants did a few tricks like riding a trike, dancing and tight rope walking, but mainly wandered over to where we sat so we could feed them bananas. Really cool getting so close to these amazing creatures and later Ellen got to walk under one and I rode one bare back!

Next was a crocodile show which went further in crazy acts than the ones we saw in Oz. The Thais will first pray to the Croc and then stick their head in their mouths. Even more shocking was when they stuck their arms down the croc's throat! More shocking still was that at the end they asked if anyone wanted to go into the croc pit (along with 15 crocs) and take a photo with one. Needless to say everyone laughed and walked out.... except for us. Must have been that ghost movie the night before, it must have overloaded our sense of fear as the three of us climbed down into the pit! Creeping slowly towards the croc Ellen and I got a photo done and then backed off quickly. When it came to Anita, she posed and.... nothing. The camera battery was dead. Waiting a few minutes the guy played with the batteries a bit and tried again, but no good. Eyeing the swimming crocs around us, the temperature seemed to go up a few degrees. Finally someone came over and passed the guy some new batteries, the photo was taken and the three of us could climb out.

The next day was filled with shopping at Chatuchat market (the one where Vicki went shopping crazy). The extra suitcase we bought the day before was now completely full.

Today we went to a really nice massage spa for a aromatherapy massage. For the guys this is basically lying naked will some woman rubs oil all over you for one and a half hours. Easy life.

We have booked our train tickets and hotel for going up to Chiang Mai in the north for some trekking in the countryside, elephant training and cooking courses. Will be interesting travelling overnight on the train, we leave at 6pm and arrrive 7am, the next morning. Better get my Gameboy fully charged up.

Joining the army

Was speaking to a friend the other day who had spent a year with the Territorial Army and I must admit I was half tempted to sign up!

Why spend money on a gym and a personal trainer when you can join the TAs (not the CS one!) and get paid for getting fit. Plus you learn about commanding a troop, attack and defend strategies (which would be good for CS!) and get to shoot with real guns.

Time committment seems to be limited to weekends and weekday nights, but the minimum is only 27 days a year, or 19 days a year if you go into the "specialist" route, i.e. i could be an accountant for the army! You sign up for 3 years, but can cancel at any time.

Major downside though is that you could get called up for active service and with all the world instability at the moment (caused by mad men such as Bush so I was vigarously told the other night) it's a pretty big downside!

Bouncers

kinda annoyed here in sydney cos one bouncer refused me entry cos i was wearing shorts and another asked me for ID!

actually was quietly pleased about the one who asked for my ID!

also realised that I have no going out clothes at all with me, everything is backpacker style drabs. still bangkok beckons and along with that lots of shopping! you know those lovely shirts i wear? well i am about to get a whole load more!!

muhahahahhaa!

Sydney goods and bads

In Sydney at the moment, was great meeting up with Lisa and Terrence and getting shown around the city by them.

So far we have done most of the touristy things here:

been to the opera house - a big whitish building,
the harbour bridge - a big metal bridge,
the fish market - amazing sushi,
sydney aquarium - loads of cool sharks, turtles, fairy penguins etc
australian museum - learn about poisonous spiders and snakes (so that i recognise them if i see anything in the bathroom)
blue mountain - pretty view of mountains that isnt that much like grand canyon (tho i think it is a bit) and the mountains aren't really that blue
jenolan caves - wandering about some caves where it is dark and wet.

Otherwise sydney is like a big mish mash of other cities i have been to. it has the names of london (e.g. we're staying in kings cross and it is every bit as dodgy with hookers roaming the streets!), the parks of new york (though smaller), apartments like the Docklands, the road signs of the US, some buildings and roads like Hong Kong. I could go on and on (and usually do) but you get the idea.

We're heading back to Cairns tomorrow, and tbh I'm quite keen in the idea of heading back to warmer climes. It's been mid-20's here but cloudy and really windy. Cos it's on the coast it's really cold when the wind blows. Cairns is a much more tropical climate, Syndey is good if you're working cos you can wear a suit and not be too hot. Hopefully Thailand is warm too, for we are heading there the day after to meet up with Anita.

Thanks again to Lisa and Terrence for taking time out to show us around.