2007

So I made it back in one piece. Thailand was a mixture of things, and was even all the more impacting having been here for the past 6 months. The contrast between the Thai's and the Japanese was startling. Like how despite the language barrier, the Thai's still make all the effort in the world to communicate, and do a damn good job of it. I think it's partly due to a lack of fear of expressing themselves physically; if the Japanese can't find the words they wouldn't even begin to try and use their face, hands, or body to express it otherwise. The Thai's are definitely more European in their apporoach to communicado. It made me look to Japan with an acute sense of sadness and frustration, that communication here will always be difficult, due to this heightened sense of physical inhibitions.

But back to Thailand. On arriving in Bangkok I was like a startled bunny in headlights - having lived in such calm, quiet surroundings for a while Bangkok was like a cricket bat of reality shock around the head. Not in such a bad way, and after a day I was more familiarised and less in need of the hostel room. Leanne and I were taken in by a tuk tuk driver (these fella's that spend their whole existence persuading the tourists into their taxi style motorbikes to ship you around the city to all the places they get money to ship you) I think he got pretty pissed off us at though as he was getting next to nothing out of us, and he ended up abandoning us at one of the sights. Nicely done! I flew down to Koh Samui on the 23rd to meet Caitlin, where I spent christmas day. Koh Samui is the island with all the money where the rich folk flock, i was well out of my league there. They're apparently putting a stop to any more developments there now, it seems Cameron Diaz has been the last person to get her foot firmly in the door and had a nice little island mansion built for her. Good for you Cameron.

Some photos from Christmas:

I got a bit tired of island life quite quickly, and although we had the company of a geordie who had was helping to run a bar there, we soon felt it was time to head on further down Thailand, where we were going to see the new year in at a *trance* festival. Yes, that was Trance you read. I know, i know, that kind of goes against all i stand for. But it was a way to see in the New Year, and the floaty trancers are often quite nice company...... and maybe, just maybe, the music wouldn't be so bad this time. (i didn't really believe it, but i had every single finger and toe crossed....).

Boy were we wrong. The Trance was bad, so bad, it was worse than we could have imagined. There was only one stage. There was no chill out area. The Trance was completely inescapable and unavoidable, unless you actually left the festival. After a whole night of 140bpm vibrating our ear drums we decided we had to leave the festival for the day to recover. So we made our way to a local beach to spend time with the locals as it was a national holiday in Thailand. And there wasn't a sound system in sight. It was here that we came up with the 10 Commandments for the Anti-Trance movement, which I intend with the help of others who support this movement to spread globally. We wanted to stick them up all around the festival to spin the trance kids out...... If you have never been to a trance festival, this may lose you somewhat, but hopefully you will still be able to understand where i'm coming from. Those of you who have been subjected to a festival soley dedicated to Trance will know exactly what i'm talking about...

1. Thou shalt not stomp.

2. Thou shalt not wear day-glo paint or batik trousers.

3. Thou shalt not change thy name to anything inspired by Nature, Space or Robots.

4. Thou shalt not play every record at 140bpm.

5. Thou shalt not further the colonialist movement of the FULL ON PSYCHEDELIC SOUND.

6. Thou shalt not poi on the dance floor.

7. Thou shalt not assume everybody else is on, or wants to be on, psychedelics.

8. Thou shalt not transcend to a higher astral plane.

9. Thou shalt not subject thyself to same baseline and kickdrums for 72 continuous hours.
10. THOU SHALT NOT TRANCE.

I think all of the above is completely justified.

But, it was an interesting way to see in the New Year, with Caitlin, Leanne, and two of Leanne's friends who had come over from Canada. It gave some credence of normality to the whole thing. However, this next photo will make you think Leanne and I actually commited all of the above.... I promise, it was merely just to blend in. It's all for show. There was no stomping of feet or groovin to 140bpm....

Thats a classic trance fest for you. Hippies stomping around with not many clothes on, in Nature, man. Leanne is doing a fabulous job of blending in. She was a great actress. The others are Christian, a Danish photographer we met, and and American girl we met. There were only about 3 of them at the festival. In fact, we hardly met any of them in Thailand. Thailand was saturated with Brits, Israelis, Germans and Swedes. I'm not quite sure how the Thai's feel about this invasion....

This was the moment we had one of those inconvenient downpours in which our Israeli friend Lior realised his cheap Kohsan Road tent was not so waterproof, so Cait and Lior quickly proceeded to cover the tent in sellotape to waterproof. And believe it or not, it worked!!! I watched from the comfort of the tent........

There's not really much else to fill you in on about Thailand, apart from all the usual stuff which every body comes back with stories of. Massive amounts of food consumed - i got my heat tolerance up so high i've come back to Japan and everything tastes EXTREMELY bland. I also did a thai vegetarian cooking class there, so i'll be making the most of my new found skills and testing my chilli limits every night! I went rock climbing, although I was very sick on this day, 24hr Malaria I think. I still made the rock my bitch though. Well, once. Cait was far more impressive than me. I was sat on the sand for a lot of it feeling extremely naseaus. We were also quite intrigued about the so called wildlife of Thailand....

This monkey drank a whole bottle of Thai style red bull all to himself, (god knows where he got it from) and then proceeded to throw the glass bottle on the floor with a real venhemence, making it smash to smithereens. When there was a bin right there underneath him. I blame the parents. No respect these days. It actually made me think of the hobos in West Scotland and Buckfast.... Thing is, Thai Red Bull is uber strong, so this monkey was going to be seriously high after this. And these monkeys were already pretty hyperactive to begin with......