Well, Thailand Was Disappointing

Cambodia came and went so quickly. It was quite the ordeal, but Wes and I had such a good time there. We took a minibus from Siem Reap to Koh Chang, a small quiet island just off the coast of the mainland near to the Cambodian border. Wes was recommended to visit this destination with a promise of it being ‘super chill’ and the ultimate place for island living. I’m not so sure about island living as it was more like Ireland living. It rained for 2 whole days.

Our plans of relaxing on the beach were scuppered and we spent two days in a bar playing pool and cards with the most boring German lads I’ve ever met. Wes and I tried to make the most of this negative situation, we found an empty beach bar and smashed it at karaoke. The Germans sat and smoked shisha. Germans are hardly known for their fun personalities, stereotypes exist for a reason.

In typical fashion the day we left there was glorious weather. This was the view from the boat.

From Koh Chang we went to visit my friend, Gav, in Pattaya. When we told other travellers that we were going to Pattaya we were met with the same reaction. We were told many times that it’s the worst place in Thailand…and they were right.

It all started well, Gav put us up in his swanky apartment, which was quite the step-up from our previous hostel which didn’t even have a lock on the door and had monkeys running around on the balcony. We headed for the go-go bar ridden Walking Street and I’ve never seen anything like it. Every bar is filled with dozens of “fun time” girls.  It’s the seediest place on earth. If Pattaya was a person it’d be Donald Trump.

The tourists were all male, 50+, and desperate. Wes, Gav and I stuck out like a sore thumb. We were probably the youngest men to ever step foot in Pattaya. The girls are very friendly, for obvious reasons, but I felt they preferred talking with us as there was only a 3 or 4 year age difference as opposed to a 30 or 40 year difference to the usual tourists.

As the night went on the abnormal just became normal. We were in a bar shooting pool with some prostitutes and they brought a few snacks round. One girl started feeding me fish fingers (no puns please, I know you’re all better than that). It was a strange night, but only when you take a step back and look at that situation you realise how bizarre the night had become.

Gav was a great host and it was great catching up with him, but one night in Pattaya is enough for me. From here we flew south to the islands.

Our first stop was in Koh Pha Ngan, an island notoriously known as a party island. We spent the day scooting around checking out the beaches, but we were pretty much killing time until the half-moon party that evening.

I’m not sure what came over Wes and I that evening, but we took it upon ourselves to organise all the drinking games for the entire hostel. The hostel staff were more than happy to let us do this as it allowed them to enjoy their evening. As a reward they ploughed us with a lot of free alcohol. Free beers, buckets, shots. The only problem with doing this is that Wes and I will drink all of it. I didn’t make it out for the half-moon party and Wes made it out for 10 minutes before getting a taxi home. Everyone else said it was good, but I can’t actually comment on the famous beach parties in Thailand.

From Koh Pha Ngan we got the boat over to the next island of Koh Tao. We did a spot of snorkelling which always sounds more fun than it actually is. You expend an awful lot of energy to see a few fish and rocks. It’s basically a day out getting sunburned and drinking sea water.

We went out on a bar crawl with some girls from Milton Keynes, Ellie and Emma, went to a ladyboy cabaret show (Wes loved it) and that wrapped up Koh Tao. 

We took one last boat to Koh Samui where we met up with some Irish girls, Laura and Ashlyn.

We’d planned a night out, but then we got the news that the King of Thailand had died. He’d been the king for 7 decades and had spent the last 7 years in hospital, I was in Thailand for 12 days and he snuffed it. The country declared an entire year of mourning and a ban on alcohol sales for a month.

A ban on alcohol?! How am I meant to enjoy Thailand without booze? How am I going to attend a ping-pong show sober? How am I going to convince Wes to get a tattoo without a few Jaeger bombs?

We had our two last days in Bangkok. Thailand seemed to put a ban on any form of fun. No music, no boxing and definitely no seedy entertainment. It rounded off a pretty disappointing 12 days in Thailand.

Some bars sold beer...in paper cups

I felt that Thailand isn’t really made for me. The type of people that usually holiday there are those who have gotten bored of going to Benidorm. I could feel my IQ dropping by the day.

I had a great time in Southeast Asia, but 6 weeks of heavy drinking with little rest is truly exhausting. I’m a broken man. I feel like Benjamin Button when he was just born. The doctor examines him and says:

“He’s nearly blind from cataracts…I’m not sure he can hear. His bones indicate severe arthritis. His skin has lost all elasticity. His hands and feet are ossified…shows all the deterioration, the infirmities, not of a newborn, but of a man well in his 80’s on the way to the grave.” 

I know exactly how that baby felt. I’m just hoping a black couple will adopt me.

Those who have been following Wes on Snapchat have enjoyed our exploits. We've had many compliments from our humorous endeavours as we're a great big man little man combination. We're up there with the greats; Schwarzenegger and De Vito, Johnson and Hart, Crouch and Defoe, Burrows and Fennell. We'll soon have the credibility we deserve.

I’m looking forward to some stability in my life again. My diet has primarily been pad Thai and Jaeger bombs, if I have any hydration and nutrition it might collapse from the shock. 

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

My travels began with an ironic start, for my “last supper” my mum had made a chicken curry which I politely declined on the basis that I had a long journey ahead and could do with the hassle of an upset stomach. So I played it safe, or so I thought, and had a chicken & mushroom pie and potatoes. Between that meal and departing the UK someone must’ve spiked my consumption with a laxative as I made many movements between Gatwick and Bangkok, it almost became a trademarked calling card.

A short stop in Amsterdam was met with many stereotypes. You can’t move for tulips, wheels of cheese, clogs, and erotica. One thing that surprised me about the Dutch people is their inability to queue which, as a Brit, annoyed me. As this began to irritate me I remembered the great things that the Dutch have exported to us Brits over the years; Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars, Heineken, and in return we have given them Steve McClaren, so I endured the chaos that ensued as I boarded my flight to Bangkok.

The flight was uneventful, a few hours of Football Manager made the flight rather enjoyable and despite my pleas to do a circle of the airport so that I could finish Blackburn’s summer transfer-window I had arrived in Bangkok.

My first introduction to the Thai culture was the lack of Health and Safety. I left the terminal and got a taxi to my hotel. As we set off I reached for my seatbelt only for the driver to say “no, no, no”, I was rather confused at this which I therefore ignored, and then attempted to put on my seatbelt again for the same thing to happen. “No, no, no”, I finally understood what he was trying to say, there were in fact no seatbelt plugs, deeming the seatbelt useless. As we joined the highway my desire for a seatbelt grew as the journey pursued, as tuk-tuks, motorcycles, and other road users ignored every law of the Highway Code, I feared for my life. My attention was diverted from the road dangers, for it to focus on the vessel of disease that was the taxi driver. He was truly the most disgusting man I have ever met, belching and flatulence started the proceedings, followed by phlegm splutters. Luckily we were able to test the car’s brakes as an emergency stop was required when the driver focused his attention on exploring the cavities of his nasal passage rather than the road. The brakes worked just fine. It appeared that he had more diseases than Lindsey Lohan’s tampon. I gladly arrived at my hotel.

My initial thoughts of Bangkok are that it is homage to Manchester United, it was a good thing I was only there for two days. Very hot, humid, busy, and I was often left thinking ‘what have I stepped in?’ when I realised they are the typical smells that you become accustom to in the city.

I started with a visit to the floating market, a mediocre experience. I was expecting the hustle and bustle of a market place with the smells of different spices, foods, instead I found myself to be the only punter in the entire market, hardly the bustle I was expecting. The objects for sale ranged from fridge magnets, shot glasses, miniature models of tuk-tuks and other tat. The most common items for sale were knob related tat; knob bottle openers, knob key chains, and apparently the best seller was a knob ashtray. There are more statues of knobs in Bangkok than there are outside Old Trafford. The best and only purchase at the market was a beer.

On the way back I from the floating market I rode an elephant which was nice but I couldn't enjoy it fully as the Thai elephant tamer poked it with a sharp stick every time he wanted it to change direction. Then the chap revealed a box containing real ivory which ruined the entire experience for me. It was nice to see the elephant up close but it was a shame about the circumstances.

I made a second stop en route back to the hotel from the floating market, this time it was to visit the train market, an open market which literally trades on the railway line. The trains are infrequent and they normally pass through the market twice a day. My travels had coincided with seeing the train pass through the market, the stalls are withdrawn from the track for a few minutes and normal business will resume once the train has departed. Interesting to see but the smells were horrendous, fish, poultry, and crustaceans that have been out in the heat all day with no means of preservation, only for the train to cover the meats with exhaust fumes and soot, and the Thai traders carry on as normal. I didn't buy anything. But whilst I was there I was interviewed for British television for a show called The World’s Most Extreme, slightly ironic that they interviewed the world’s most mediocre man. It was a nervous interview, from which I offered very little insight, which will definitely not make the final cut of the show.

The evening’s entertainment was Thai boxing, and some sight-seeing took place the following afternoon. I was told that Khaosan Road was the best destination for a night of drinking in bars, so I hailed a tuk-tuk to take me there that evening. Before I left England my father, a previous visitor to Thailand, gave me some advice which was to haggle with everyone from market traders to taxi drivers, always negotiate the price to avoid the locals taking advantage of you. When I asked the tuk-tuk driver to take me to Khaosan Road he declared it would cost 200 baht (£3.80) for the 4-mile journey, I began to try barter with him and said I would not pay any more than 100 baht (£1.90), I was arguing over £1.90, I’m not sure why I was so tight. The driver wouldn’t do it for 100 baht but offered an alternative. In broken English he said “5 minute diversion, 100 baht”, I struggled to understand and what I thought he was saying was saying that due to the traffic he would drop me 5 minutes from Khaosan Road and I could walk the rest, so I agreed and got in the tuk-tuk.

The journey began to confuse me, I’m no expert on the Bangkok roads but we spent a lot of the journey off the main highways and were going down many back-streets. About 10 minutes later he pulled over down a side road which did not seem safe, in an area which you would hardly call “touristy”. He told me to get out of the tuk-tuk and kept on saying “5 minutes, 5 minutes”. Considering the situation I was in I remained in the tuk-tuk, questioning why I was arguing over £1.90. The driver began to get a little irate, and then he tried to re-explain the situation, in further broken English he explained that tuk-tuk drivers get some sort of commission from local businesses if they bring in customers, these businesses often range from tailors, shows, and other places of entertainment that Thailand has become famous for. The local business that he wanted me to go into was a tailor, luckily. He carried on by saying “go in, look around, no buy, we go Khaosan Road”. I was considering just paying the extra 100 baht so that I didn’t have to pretend I was interested in buying a suit, but I’m not made of money so I went in.

I was welcomed in the tailors; I went into a private room where they began to measure my dimensions for a custom fitting suit. I had to pretend that I was interested in buying a suit for long enough for the driver to get his commission but also had to think of a reason not to buy one, as I didn’t actually want a suit. All-in-all I was reasonably confident as I was acting with a lot of self-importance, feeling the materials and asking about the thread-count and textile content, like I actually knew what I was talking about or indeed cared.

The first hurdle that I threw at the tailor to not buy a suit was the colour, I thought that if I asked for a ridiculously coloured suit, he would not have the material and therefore could not match my demands and would give me that elusive excuse to leave. I announced to the tailor that I must have a pink suit, only a pink suit will do for me! To which he replied “that will not be a problem, sir”. Shit. Out came this bright, luminous, pink material which he started to drape over me. I said “this is fantastic, exactly what I wanted!” The hole I was digging was getting deeper.

I then had another brainwave, the price. If we cannot agree on a price then I have an excuse not to buy such a ridiculous suit. I announced again with even more confidence “before we go any further, I think we need to work out a price, how much will this suit cost?” He informed me that he could make this undesirable suit for 15,000 baht (£287). Here was my chance to get out, I was going to negotiate a price that he couldn’t do, and then leave. I had to make sure the negotiations didn’t start too low otherwise he’d know that I was just there to “scam” him for the benefit of the driver. So I said “ooh, that’s a little out of my price range, I’d be able to stretch as far as 10,000 baht but that’s my limit”. By taking a third off the original asking price, I was sure he’d say no, unfortunately for me he said “that will not be a problem, sir”. Shit. He asked me to stand so that he could continue to measure me, so I did. Now I’m all out of excuses and will be paying 10,000 baht (£190) for a pink suit that I didn’t want when I could have avoided all of this for the measly fee of £1-bloody-90!

Now I’m panicking a little and my confidence has run a mile. I struggle for the next excuse, but I draw a blank, so I tried to re-negotiate the price again. I said “you can’t possibly make this suit for 10,000 baht”. He replied “I can”. I tried to act all moral, “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you and your good nature”, to which he said “but it was your price, if you feel like you’re taking advantage of me then pay me more money”. Shit. I told him I had a confession to make that in fact, I could not afford to pay the 10,000 baht that I had negotiated, and in fact could only offer 7,000 baht. He looked shocked, and in this moment I decided to just walk out rather than try to talk myself out of the situation. I’m not sure what he must have thought of me as I walked out the door, a confident man who asked for a pink suit, negotiated a price, was overwhelmed by morality, said he was taking advantage of the tailor’s good nature but then offered him less money than originally agreed and then left. The driver was waiting for me outside, I asked the driver “did you get your commission?” he said that he did so I told him “well, let’s get the f*** out of here!”

I laughed about the situation on the journey to Khaosan Road, and it turned out to be a good night. The following day I met up with some uni friends who happened to arrive in Bangkok at the same time. We went for lunch then I left for the airport. An interesting few days, I’m sure I’ll go back to see other parts of Thailand, Chiang Mai and Phuket are meant to be worth a visit.

Here's a montage of my short time in Bangkok.