Somehow I have arrived in Singapore with $12 which isn't even enough to get me to a hotel which I couldn't afford anyway so it woulda been a wasted trip heh. Now I realised this a day or two ago and probably could have made a few calls to friends, family or the french goverment and pleaded for some funds but really isn't it about time I learnt my lesson. So I'm currently punishing myself for being an utter retard by spending the night in Singapore airport (just a disclaimer here that the punishment is only scheduled for a single night so if I don't have funds tomorrow then I will start the phonecalls begging hah!). I also upgraded my punishment by going through immigration and realising I could no longer go back through to the comfy transit lounge with it's sattelite TV, Massage chairs and free internet. Thankfully there's a 24 hour McDonalds store here and I have enough cash for 2 happy meals and the internets free but only allows one window open and all other programs are disabled which means no chatting (fuck you ronald!)

I have been hogging this terminal for over an hour and being only one of two computers available I'm getting alot of angry looks but luckily Singapore folk are to nice for violence so nobodies battered me (yet). The flight was pretty bland, I just read a book that I "loaned" from my guesthouse and made sure I ate every mouthfull of my airline meal knowing that it could be awhile between meals.

• *Stops typing to stare-down 6 year old whimpering to use computer**

The last update was at the very beginning of my Phillipines jaunt so I'll try to recap what happened in the time since then. I spend 3-4 days in Manila and found the place nice but it had a dangerous feel at night and I wasn't comfortable walking alone. I'm generally not a wimp when it comes to these issues and most of my friends know that I love stumbling drunk around places whether it be home or abroad and did so without reservations in Hong Kong & Thailand. Manila seemed to have much more poverty and I was constantly hounded for money by small kids sniffing solvents and young girls with babies whom I'm told rent off families to beg. Scams also seem to be quite popular here and my first day here I was at a coffee shop slurping down a Orange Mocha Frappachino when a guy working there told me there was a phonecall from me. Now I've never been to the Philippines before and nobody knew I was going to the coffee shop so having a phonecall was puzzling. I picked it up and a lady on the other end told me she had a friend of mine on the line and asked me my name to verify my identity which I supplied and a filipino fella with great english struck up this conversation;

"Hello Darren!"

"Ummm hello who is this?"

"Oh you probably don't recognise me as my throat is sore, it's your friend from the Philippines!"

"I don't have any friends here buddy"

"Not even onem surely you remember me"

"Well ok I have one"

"Whats the friends name"

"Gina"

"Yes this is Gina!"

"Gina's a girl mate"

"No my name is Gino"

"Fuck you and fuck your scam"

"Darren I'm your friend!"

Now I don't know what the scam involved but I figured it led to me parting with some money and possibly rape (heh sorry) and how he knew I was there I'm not sure as he was either canvassing places or the coffee guy was in on it. I told the friendly owner of the guesthouse about this encounter and he said scams were very common here and he thought that they were only second to Nigeria in scams which he actually sounded envious about heh. He shared the story of a Japanese guest who took a boat trip and befriended an older filipino couple who after the conclusion of the trip offered to take him to there house for a filipino meal. He accepted and sure enough after the meal he woke up in an alley minus all his cash and cards and with no recollection of the drugged meal. It's shitty that people like these exist as you feel like you can't let your guard down which prevents you from making local friends. I did hook up with my filipino buddy Gina who was a great chick and showed me all around Manila. I tagged along to a party here friends were having and it was a good time with plenty of local dishes and a shitload of tequila shots which I actually declined as I was sporting a nasty hangover. One of the guys there seemed pretty highly strung and on edge but one of his friends explained that all 3 of them had just finished active military duty in Iraq and it was hard for them to switch off which is pretty fuckin' understandable!

After Manila I boarded a bus to Baguio which is high up in the mountain regions and thus very cool and it can get chilly at night which was great as there was no need for an air conditioned room. The roads up there were pretty dicey but the place had a really layed back feel and I spend a number od days just wandering around and kicking back with a book. Then one night I was in a small bar and I looked across and saw a guy waving at me, I looked closer and recognised them as the 2 crazy amsterdam guys Barry and Eso that I had met in Pattaya. We started chatting and they had just arrived in the Philippines and demanded I hit Angeles the next day which is a real party down similar to Pattaya. I figured I'd been good for a few days and had given my liver a much needed break so a bender was called for...right?...right?

So we got a bus to Angeles and after trying 6 hotels and finding them all booked out I was forced to choose a fancy joint but just for the night with plans to find something cheaper and slummier the next morning. I was getting low on cash so I took a trike (motorbike with an enclosed sidecar) to the ATM and got some money out before heading back to my room. After getting off the trike and walking a few metres I noticed a rip in my shorts and realised that someone (most likely the trike driver) had slashed my shorts in an attempt to get my walley to drop out. The slash was all the way to the skin and thankfully was just below my pocket, I couldn't believe it as I didn't feel a thing. I was more pissed at some wankstain ruining my faveourite shorts then I was at the pickpocket attempt but man I would been screwed as woulda lost my cash and all my cards. Following this incident I was very careful and heard many stories of people having bags cut open and losing cameras etc and always locked away my cards and spare cash in the hotel safe.

The next 3-5 days are a bit of a blur with plenty of drinking and bar-hopping taking place but I had a great time and made plenty of new friends. Angeles has a great nightlife but is dead boring during the day but I had changed to a cheap guesthouse owned by filipino's (most of the places in Angeles seemed to be owned by Aussies!) and it had a swimming pool which I took advantage of alot. I even attended a big Super-Bowl party but the Seahawks who I was rooting for got shafted by the refs and went down to the steelers (boooo). One night I ate some local filipino cuisine and spent the entire night throwing my guts up tho I did drink 8 beers so maybe that was to blame!. I must say that Thailand wins out in the food department as alot of the filipino food is very bland and the other alternatives are pretty fatty but everyone speaks better english here so it all evens out.

I gotta go as I need a crap but I'm here all night so will update in an hour or two hah!

Ok so it's now midnight and my money has cleared but I have a dilema, I have a hotel lined up for tomorrow night but nothing for tonight. Do I blow $50-$80 to simply sleep 7 hours or do I be a madman and just stay up all night (or sleep on a McDonalds bench?)

I'm actually leaning towards the all nighter but I've already exhausted websites to look at (I can't very well indulge in some time consuming porn in a family restaurant!) and my books nearly finished. I could actually hit some bars until the morning but that would mean lugging around my bags and sleep deprived drinking is never a good thing. Ahhh well it looks like it's been decided for me as the McDonalds staff have just warned me that I can only use the net for 15 minute intervals despite the place being deserted at this time of night.

So I'm off to a hotel to blow some cash on a nanna-nap (did I mention that I slept in a sweltering 6 person dorm last night that cost me $6?)

Ain't so funny meow is it? remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The problems all arise from the Thai's dislike of "losing face" which I think is best described using the example;

"You ask a thai for directions, the thai person does not know so he gives you wrong directions rather than admitting he doesn't know which would cause him to lose face"

It's kinda crazy and I think often costs them alot of business as admitting a mistake loses them face so the problem gets ignored.

Anyway my last night in Pattaya was pretty bland as I wimped off to bed at 9pm which was futile as the music and noise of Pattaya kept me awake until about 3am. The night before on the other hand was one of the most bizarre nights of my life and involved myself, a married lady, her thai lesbian friend and a bottle of Johnny Walker but I think it's probably not fit for the blog so I'll tell the tale when I get home.

I arrived in Manila at about 4pm and caught a taxi to a guesthouse that I'd spotted online, the taxi from the airports are an utter rip-off and I won't let them rape my wallet again. The guesthouse had 1 room available which was a small room with a fan and a shared bath-room which came in at about $11 which isn't to shabby. Without my girly long hair I don't have many problems with the heat and the fan is sufficient. The shared bath-room can be annoying as I was dying to drop the kids off at the pool this morning but some bastard was having a lazy 20 minute shower so I hope I didn't rupture anything heh. I might actually upgrade to somethin' a bit better but I slept past the 12pm check-out time so looks like I'm here for another night.

After signing up for the room yesterday I took a nick nanna-nap and decided to appease my growling stomach with some overdue food (the plane food was horrible so I hadn't eaten in a day). I wandered about not knowing where I was and chose some fried chicken place to eat at and there were a few other cracka's in there. The chicken burger was nice but I ordered some odd-named fries and when they came out they were green and were served with sugar...what the hell?! (oh and they tasted crap!). Following that I checked out Roxas Blvd which is a stretch of bars and restaurants along the water, was really nice with heaps of people and live music. Now I had vowed to avoid alcohol for this portion of the trip but really I couldn't come to a country and not sample there local beer as I think that's actually illegal and punishable by castration. So I found myself a bar and ordered some of the local bew Sam Miguel, it was horrible out of a can but the next bar served it in bottles which was much nicer. Even better was Sam Miguel Lite which despite the name is a full strength beer but has less calories or some shit so I knocked back a few of them.

Hip Hop and the fashion associated with it is really big over here so you see plenty of twisted caps and baggy jeans but sadly not a single pimp-coat. The second bar I went into had two whiteboys that were wiggin' it up something laughable with huge bball jerseys, twisted caps and mad bling. You couldn't help but notice these two as they were constantly shouting things like;

"Wassup Cuz!"

"Whats crackin' ya'll!"

"She frontin' me dawg she frontin' me!!!"

It was really getting on my nerves but I watched with great amusement as our two loud white crips downed a large gulp of shut the fuck up as 4 big mean looking black guys entered the bar. For the rest of the night I didn't hear a peep out of them!

The black guys sat next to me and one of them wandered over to chat to me about the Philippines and upon hearing I was Australian this took place;

"Yer I hear Australia's nice but dunno how my trade be there"

"What trade is that?"

"The Opium trade"

"Oh...that trade...yes...well...geez look at the time!"

I didn't actually bolt but steadied my nerves with another SM Light and watched as a big steroid lookin' italian dude wandered over to my opium friends and banged fists with them and tried to befriend them which I overheard.

Italian Stallion: "Yo guys where ya from?"

Opium Dealer: "New York"

Italian Stallion: "Oh America, I lived in LA for 2 years"

Opium Dealer: "That right?...what part"

Italian Stallion: "San Pedro"

Opium Dealer: "Never heard of it"

Italian Stallion: *sounding nervous now* "Yes well I lived there"

Opium Dealer: "Sure you did"

Italian Stallion: *trying to salvage situation "so where in Africa are you guys from?"

• Opium dealers suddenly surround Italian Stallion*

Opium Dealer: "I said I was from fuckin' america, not Africa and boy I got a good mind to beat you for that"

Italian Stallion: *pale and looking like he's going to throw up but still not knowing to shut up* "Well at some point you musta come from Africa right?"

It was hilarious and they didn't perform any beat-downs but let him wander away to a corner where he shot nervous looks there way all night, heh normally I'm the one who finds myself in those situations. I'm off to do some sight seeing and will include more photo's next time but Danny knocked together a pimp photoshop of me so here it is heh;

You crapped on my heart. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I did manage to get over to Cambodia but didn't spend as much time as I anticpated and took even less photo's so I'll have to show Cambodia some love on a future trip. The place was pretty crazy and was reminiscent of the wild-west with it's dusty roads, rickety wooden buildings and I even saw a tense stand-off (ok so it was between two dogs but it still counts). I'm sorry to say I didn't get to fire an AK47, throw a grenade or fire a rocket at a cow but I did hit someone in the mouth with a frisbee. The sheer number of touts and beggars was amazing with most of them being small children who fight for your attention and fight even harder between themselves once you fork over some money. A number of people from Thailand I had spoken to told me that they kissed the ground upon there return to Thailand and while my reaction wasn't that strong I was happy to be back. I will go back but the poverty and the crazy roads take some getting used to but the people were friendly and it was relatively cheap.

I caught a mini-bus back from the Cambodian border to Pattaya yesterday and am going to spend the next day or two here before heading to the airport on Monday morning. The bus ride got off to an amusing start, it picked me up from my hotel and then went about town picking up other travellers until we had packed it out with 9-10 people. The bus left at 6am so I had crashed out early the night before so I could wake up in time which I barely did. Another traveller decided to take a different approach and drunkenly staggered onto the bus from a bar where he had no doubt spent the entire night drinking. Captain drunkard obviously thought this was a cool idea but it ended predicatbly with him on all fours puking his guts up beside the road an hour into the trip, heh not so cool now are we spewboy!. An old man was seated next to me and spent the whole trip swearing under his breath to himself and I'd often lean close just to hear him mutter "fucking-fuckers, fuckfuckfuck, fucksicle" and I wasn't sure what he was upset about but the guy was a regular fuck-factory. The trip took a good few hours over some rough roads and my ass was killing me and after stopping at a petrol station and stretching our legs I had this horrible incident with another passenger.

Fellow Traveller: "Boy my ass is sore"

Darren: "Mine to, feels like I've been in jail!"

Fellow Traveller: "Jail?...whatever do you mean?"

Darren: "Errr...well...errr"

!@#$%^&

I mean what the hell could I say, if he didn't get the original joke then I very well couldn't explain it and say "you know sore ass like in jail where another inmate forcibly sodomises you against your will!". Speaking of jail I saw a big brawl the other night that ended in some drunken pom getting stabbed with a steak-knife so have fun in prison where your the steak buddy. When in Cambodia I was drinkin' with a crew of mixed nationalities with a couple of poms,scots and an irish fella comprising the group. Had a good time and they were a good laugh and could all drink me under the table but the Irish dude had a raging boner for Australian sport and woulkdn't shut up about it. We had just met at a bar and were sinkin' some beers when he said;

"Sorry to Interrupt Darren but wasn't Steve Waugh a great ambassdor for the game of Cricket?"

"He sure was buddy"

Not more then 15 minutes pass and he leans over and whispers;

"Darren, isn't Michael Clarke a fabulous young talent and a superb batter"

"He sure is"

This went on all fucking night with him giving props to player after bloody player until thankfully he said some words that cheered me up and then nearly made me weep.

"Darren, I think I'll stop rabbiting on about Cricket as I'm probably boring you....but isn't Australian Rugby a great game and isn't George Gregan an intelligent quick-witted captain"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Now that I'm back in Pattaya I'm once again exploring bars but being much more of a tightass as my budget is thinning. I've changed hotels at least 6 bloody times which 85% of the time is due to me forgetting that I'm supposed to tell them that I need more time and someone else books my room. One night was particularly memorable with a drunken buffoon hammering on my door at 2am convinced it was his room, then the fire alarm went off at 6am and at 8am I was told I had to check-out...FUN!. Speaking of thinning budgets I've still been kicking it with Kwan and I wanted to head over to the island of Ko (insert name here as I've had a mind blank) and she wanted to come along. So she smsed me and requested that I pay her barfine for 2 days so she can goto bed early then spend all day on the island, which I responded by saying that I couldn't afford to do this. This of course led to her labelling me as "Miserly" which is defined as;

adj : used of persons or behavior; characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity; "a mean person"; "he left a miserly tip"

The sms hysterics that followed has now led to Kwan going home for a week to cook god-knows-what for Chinese New Years so I guess all's well that barfines well (that sounded good in my head I swear)

Despite the strong anti-drug message that Se-Asia sends with it's death penalties and jails so bad that our's seem like daycare centres you still bump into retards dabbling in them. I was a pub the other night and I guy leaned over me and offered me a joint before whispering that he'd lost his bag of weed and could I keep my eyes out for it. Another traveller told me he took some Thai ecstacy and for the next four days had an erection everytime someone touched him...thanks for sharing bonerman. Clearly the anti-drug message isn't sinking in so I personally believe SE Asia should now concentrate on punishing bad fashion especially amongst toursists. It seems that tourists arrive in Asia and believe they can wear whatever they like as they don't know anybody and there fat beer gut protruding through that tight muscle shirt is acceptable. The Japanese are particularly funny with there tour groups all decked out in bright Hawaiin geer but the germans take the cake with fat dudes wearing bike shorts or tight small denim shorts (shudders). Japanese never seem to travel solo and are always part of a loud camera clicking tour group and they really dig the kick boxing and go go bars. I was in a go-go the other week (I was lost...honest) and a tour bus pulls up and the japanese streamed in, picked a girl each, grabbed them and all filtered back onto the bus with there harem. Not a beer was drunk, a cigarette smoked or an erection formed as the whole deal was done in minutes!

Having arrived back in Pattaya late yeste4rday afternoon I decided that I'd get some drinking done and hooked up with my mate Peter and hit some beer bars. At the first one I soundly whipped the girl at connect four 25 games to 6 and after about 12 straight losses she started pointing at her throat. I asked if she had a sore throat and she shook her head and we kept playing but after every game she'd clutch her throat and I'd just assume she was sick and kept playing. She finally won a game and the mamasam of the joint came up and demanded;

"Well are you going to buy her a drink or not!"

"Why didn't she ask...*recalls throat gestures*...Oh!...no sorry we gotta get going"

Take that!

The next bar we drank at was pretty quiet and I went through the same boring routine with the girl;

Where are you from, how old are you, how many times in Thailand but when I asked her age she said something that scared the shit out of me...

"17"

I checked her ID and sure enough she was 17 and so was every other girl in the bar, strange how the bars are allowed to let underage girls serve alcohol but I quickly left already hearing sirens in my head. Peter decided to head off with one of his regular girls so I caught a motorbike to Walking Street and started drinking at a bar I frequent occasionly. There was a bit of drama there after a tourist decided he'd stick his tounge in the mamasams ear and she punched him in the mouth which I found very funny but he didn't. When you drink in Thailand you get a small container called a bin where all the receipts for your drinks are put and when your ready to leave they calculate them all and you settle the amount. It has it's good and bad sides, the good is that you don't have to fork out money after every drink but the downside is that you forget how much your spending and often a receipt for a drink you never got finds it's way into your bin. Anyways I was sitting at the bar drinking and a guy next to me offers to buy me a drink which I happily accept and then notice that his bin is fucking packed full of receipts. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he said he'd been drinking since 2pm and shouting drinks alround and suepected his bin was already at around 4000 baht which is plain crazy. We chatted for much of the night and he bought all my drinks and I had to tell him to stop as ?I was absoultely hammered and offered various excuses for being a wimp and stumbled off. Now this is where things got a bit crazy as I was very drunk, running on 2 hours sleep and in a very odd mood so thought I'd walk along the beach to sober up. While heading to the beach I found a single black sandal on the road and picked it up and put it in my pocket. I then proceeded to approach all manner of people and would walk right up to them before suddenly stopping in front of them and whipping the sandal out of my pocket and demanded;

"I found this, does it belong to you?...I'm looking for it's rightful owner"

Most people would crack up laughing and just to be sure it wasn't there's I'd measure it against there feet and invite them to try it on. I'd tell the particularly hot one's that it was like Cinderellas glass slipper and one girl decided to tag along and help explain to people in Thai what my mission was. One toursit got all freaked out though and ran away so I chased him for a bit waving the sandal and shouting "it needs a homeeeeee". Not long after I came upon a ladyboy who refused to try on the sandal because;

"That's a man's shoe"

"heh aren't you a man?"

He got a bit upset about this and muttered plenty of things in thai which I'm sure weren't very nice so I decided to leave "it" alone and walked off. I'd walked a couple of metres when I felt my pocket and realised my precious sandal was no longer there, I spun around and saw it lying in the middle of the footpath where I'd spoken to the ladyboy. The ladyboy had wandered slightly away but had now turned around and spotted the sandal and we both looked from the sandal to one another. At the very same time we both ran for the sandal and being a rogue I hit sprint and got to the sandal first but as I picked it up the ladyboy arrived on the scene and grabbed the other half. We wrestled with the sandal for a good 30 seconds before my mighty biceps won over and I ripped it from the ladydudes grasp and ran. The ladyboy gave chase and was shockingly fast for a guy in high heels and we were both laughing but I wasn't parting with my sandal and escaped.

I fucking swear that is true and here is a picture of said sandal (taken in the toilets of a Maccas store, where I bumped into an Indian dude who wanted to talk about Adam Gilcrist rather than my Sandal..fucking cricket again!)

You boys like Mex-i-co? Woo-hoo remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The trip to Rayong took about an hour and was pleasent but boring and I was able to jump straight onto a waiting bus for Chantuburri which took another hour. Arriving at Chantuburri I was told the next bus to Trat wasn't for an hour and the whole setup was pretty crappy as there were very few signs and the information staff didn't seem to keen on actually givin' out any info. I waited it out and jumped on the final bus, a tall english guy jumped on and asked me if it was headin' for Trat which I told him it was. He explained that he badly needed to piss but was worried the bus would leave without him so I promised to full-nelson the driver if he attempted to leave without him. He made it back in time and he sat next to me, his name was Tony and he was a plumber from Liverpool who was also fleeing the Pattaya scene and planned on spending 10 days in Ko Chang. Having someone to talk to helped kill yet another long bus ride and we finally arrived at the pier after securing a taxi. The taxi driver had told us that the last ferry was 7pm but the sly bastard took us to the pier where the last ferry is 6pm so we had to go via speedboat which was double the price but we had little option. I chatted to a couple of Thai girls while waiting who were also going to the island for a holiday and they offered us a lift on the other side which we accepted.

The speed boat turned up and I reached into my pocket for the tickets and they were gone, after empptying all pockets & orifices I decided they were gone. Dammit so far on the holiday I had lost nothing which is unbelievable considering how often I lose items on holidays. I told Tony and he didn't seem phased and we told the speedboat driver to call the office and confirm that we had paid which luckily they did. Tony can be pretty frustrating at times as he LOVES to ask questions and he pretty much interogates people they often snap. This helped us for once as the ticket girl remembered Tony as he'd asked so many questions that it turned into this;

Tony: So we have to pay double for the speedboat because the taxi driver lied to us?

Ticket-Girl: Yes

Tony: What a joke

Ticket-Girl: Then take money back and not goto Ko Chang!

Tony: Ok Chill Out

Ticket-Girl: No

Tony: Chill out

Ticket-Girl: No

Tony: CHILL OUT

Ticket-Girl: NO NO NO

Darren: Tony, I Don't think she's going to chill out!

It was dark when we hit the island and our plans of scamming a free ride with the Thai girls was foiled when there friend said he couldn't as the local taxi drivers would get angry at him. So we piled into a baht bus and took a ride to Whitesand beach and set out looking for some accomodation. The joints on the beach were all asking ridicukous prices so we stumbled down a dirt trail off the road and found some dodgy looking Bungalows. The place was managed by a fat ladyboy which I found very funny and she told us they had some dirt cheap 200B a night bungalows. We asked to look at them and when we arrived at the bungalows I expected sheep or pigs to run out as it was a matress on the floor of a squalid tiny box, heh we quickly said hell no. The fat ladyboy said she had one 800 baht a night bungalow but if we wanted to share it she could do it for 600 bhat which didn't make much sense but we asked to look at it anyway. The bungalow was quite nice but only had the one bed so the question that faced me was;

Was I willing to sleep in the same bed as a strange man and does this make me gay.

Tony was all for it as he's a royal tightass and 300baht a night on an island is not to shabby at all so I agreed and we went to check out the nightlife. It's safe to say the nightlife was pretty non existant which I expected as it's more a honey-moon/couples destination but Tony was annoyed as I think he expected a mini Pattaya. Knocked back few beers at one of the local bars and I chatted up some small chick (she wasn't a dwarf but she was pretty damn small!) and convinced her that giving me her mobile number was a good idea. We then crashed out at about 1am and I'd just like to point out that no homo-erotic activities took place so I'm sorry to dissapoint. The next morning I got up at the earliest time so far on the trip (6:30am!) and checked out the beaches that everybody recommended. I'm not sure if it's because I'm from Australia and we have some pretty pimp beaches but I didn't think to much of the beach with it's brown sand and abundance of rubbish but it was definetly a step up from Pattaya's beaches. Having seen the beaches and chatting with Tony we decided that he'd head back to Pattaya and I would jump on a bus to Cambodia.

I was told the bus ride would take 12 hours (oh god no!) and I had to catch it from the Trat pier at 10:30am but it actually left at 11am and being only nine I figured I had plenty of time. Having paid for the trip I went down and got some passport photo's for the Cambodian border as the guards are notorious for ripping off tourists for even small items like photo's. Grabbed my bags and sat outside and waited for a taxi...and waited...and waited. A scooter pulled up behind me and it was the smiling dwarf girl from the night before and she told me that taxi's don't start running on the island until 10. This posed a problem as the trip was about 10-15 minutes but I wasn't willing to pay someone to drive me down solo as it'd cost me an arm & a testicle. I thanked her for the info and said I'd call her in Bangkok as she also didn't think to much of the island and was bailing.

The first few taxi's were full so I scammed one at 10:15 and reached the pier at 10:40 where a smiling boat operator told me that the next speedboat was at 11:30. I attempted to smile back and reminded him that I had to catch a bus and after a phonecall the operator said the bus would wait and he had confirmed this twice which was a relief. At 11:30 the speedboat rocked up and I caught it across and ran to the tourist office and said to the girl;

I'm here for the Siam Reap trip, I'm running late but I believe the bus is waiting for me.

No sir that bus left an hour ago.

Ummm I was told twice it was waiting for me?

Sir do you expect 11 people to wait for you?

No I don't, but when I'm told they are waiting for me then yes I do expect them to be waiting.

Sorry sir you can leave tomorrow.

haha no use getting upset about it as only the one bus leaves each day so I'm currently stuck in Trat where the highlight seems to be a naval show. One funny incident did happen, on the way back to Trat our taxi driver was addicted to honking the horn and would do it at every opportunity. He would smile at me and hold it down for a good 5 seconds, the only actibity her seemed to enjoy more was flashing his lights at motorists warning them of police up ahead. The activity he didn't enjoy was the taxi breaking down, I knew something was wrong as at the lights some young thai guys were looking at the taxi and making blowing up gestures to me heh.

Well I'll fill you in on what happens after Trat but I'm hoping to be in Cambodia.

Also I've let it slide to this point but some of the retarded comments left at the end of my posts aren't even amusing so let's drop it and keep it above the IQ-10 level (which I prolly won't understand!)

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I'm right down the street from the beach so I head there at about 2pm most days, pull up a deck-chair and spend the afternoon reading and eating club sandwiches...heh not a bad life really. The water is clear most days but has plenty of rubbish in it and I don't really swim there. I'm glad I didn't do any swimming as yesterday I saw an old white dude limp up to the water, drop his pants and urinate in the ocean in broad daylight...fuck that!. The beach strip is plain scary at night as it's populated by lady-boys and other women/beats of the night that try to accompany you home. Many of the ladyboys are mentally fucked up which is probably due to a mixture of hormones and not knowing whether to sit or stand when pissing. They're often quite aggressive but you gotta just let it slide as they're probably muai thai trained and there'd be nothing worse then getting your ass kicked by a ladyboy.

Before I forget I'd like to thank my colon of steel which despite ingesting some poor excuses for food has held up remarkable well and my stool samples are as solid as Portugals defence. Due to hanging out with Thai's most of the time I've been eating some pretty odd food and the majority of it is pretty fuckin' spicy. Last night at about 3am we headed to a Thai joint where your table has a hot plate and you cook up vegetables and all kinds of meat and it was really good. One of the girls with us had tried to go drink for drink with me and we'd gone through about 3-4 jugs and I "thought" she had done pretty well. That was until the uncooked meat arrived and her face went this horrible colour and she raced for the toilet and worshipped the porcellin god. Also been eating plenty of Tom Yum but they like it really spicy here but I'm actually pretty good with the hot stuff so I've been enjoying it. My fave place to eat is a joint called Greg's Diner and they do this all day breakfast that is perfect for a hangover. It consists of 2 eggs, bacon, sausages,roast potatoes, tomatoes, baked beans, toast, coffee and a glass of orange juice and is $5 aussie dollars...hell yeah!

The last few days I've been hangin' with a dude called Peter that I mentioned in my last update, he's been to Pattaya a number of times and showed me a few clubs that were pretty eye opening and proabably not blog safe to talk about heh. It's so easy to strike up conversation with girls over here and after chatting to a few at a cafe I was told that they lived at there bar. The bar closed at 1am and they had missed the curfew so could now not get back into the club until the morning. This meant they had no place to stay so being the kind hearted gentleman I am I offered to let all 3 ladies crash in my room which they accepted. The security guard at the fire escape stopped us and checked all the girls ID's then gave me a look that was either "you bloody pervert" or "you lucky bastard".

I actually said to my friends prior to leaving that my biggest fear was landing in thailand, finding some nice bars and then wasting the entire month drunk somewhere. Well so far my fears have been confirmed and I'm determined to leave over the weekend and explore the coast a bit before crossing into Cambodia so the next update "should" be free of bar hopping stories and devoid of beer and lesbanism. I'm pretty badly sunburnt at the moment and am pissed off that my Ipod so far has been useless, it holds a charge for less then 30 minutes and often takes a few minutes for a song to play so the 4 hour bus ride to Ko Chang should be fun. Tomorrow I'm going to a fund raiser for orphans organised by a bar I goto which is a day out at the beach for kids who have lost both parents so should be good fun and I can dazzle them with my old school frisbee skills!

Just on the subject of me looking different, a guy at the bar took me aside and told me that he wasn't sure to say anything or not but that he'd seen the girl I hang with (Kwan) out with another guy last week. I asked him what the guy looked like and he said he had glasses like me but had long hair and a goatee hahah.

Hope everyone is doing well back home, I got a call from ol' Jackal posing as Carl from Ctech asking me if I wanted a cup of tea which made me laugh. Have you boys booked your flights yet for Bali?

Photo's still to come, I lent my camera to Kwan as she was going to the pools with her mum so I just hope she doesn't take it down the aqua tubes etc!

Keep on, keepin' on remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Bushy has requested that I skip the bar stories (I have plenty) and maybe focus a bit on the culture and activities that don't involve intoxication so we'll indulge in some of that. Yesterday I took a baht bus to a huge golden bhudda up in the hills, the suckers massive and he's on a nice spot that gives you a great view of Pattaya so I took a boatload of photo's of both Mr Bhudda and the view. I was encouraged to pray to Bhudda and attempted to do so but the sitting style used to pray in just wasn't made for my wimpy ankles. So there we are in this temple, about 50 or so Thai's and me the only whiteboy and we all kneel with the top of your feet on the ground and head down with an incense stick. It's totally silent until my feet start screaming in agony and I roll over clutching them and gasping whilst dropping my incense stick and annoying everyone present.

Sorry Bhudda!

After offending Bhudda, myself and my bargirl friend
Kwan decided to hit the water park with her room-mate (the crazy one) and her latest boyfriend Peter. It was good to actually have someone to chat to as normally it's the three of us and I sit there whilst they take the piss out of me in Thai heh. The water park was good fun and had slides and aqua tubes and even sported a couple of roller coasters. Swimming is so much better now with short hair, I no longer have to worry about the knot-fest that normally results in a swim and I spent ages in the water. Kwan wanted to go on the huge slide so I joined her but I hit the lip of the slide a bit to fast, got slightly airborne and smashed my elbow on the side of the slide I'm now sporting a good sized graze. Last night at the bar I was telling another guy about the slide incident and he whipped out his forearm and showed me a big scar which he said he got on the very same slide haha.

We also took a ride on the rollercoaster which looked pretty tame but once on it I realised it had some pretty big drops. Sitting in front of us was a teenage russian guy who looked at Kwan with amusement/contempt as she clutched my hand before the ride and clambered into the cart on shaking legs. So we do one revolution of the grid and come back to the start where the operator gives you the choice of doing it again (free of charge). Myself and Kwan were all for it but I looked in front of us and the Russian guy looked like a ghost and waving his arms frantically to get off. We all jumped off and they had a TV monitor where they show a picture of everyones face after the first big drop. I was laughing with hands in the air while Kwan was looking pretty scared but nothing was more funny then the Russian guys face which appeared to be a full blooded scream of fear!

Speaking of Russians, Pattaya is full of them and some of the women are absolutely stunning but I don't even give them a second look. Why you ask?...no I haven't gone queer (yet) but Russian girls are like a lost baby bear or lions cub. They're so cute and you wanna cuddle and touch them and maybe even take them home but you know that SOMEWHERE the momma bear is about and will tear you limb from limb. The momma bear for Russians is always in the form of a big boyfriend and if I've learnt anything from Steven Seagal movies it's not to fuck with Russian guys. Speaking of violence I've been watching heaps of Muai Thai Kickboxing and on the first night I was loving it. Some Thai dude whipped out a spinning backfist and knocked out his opponent and I jumped up and down screaming much to the amusment of the whole bar. After the fight the winner walks around thew ring collecting money from the crowd (typically 100 baht notes) which I happily parted with as he was risking his life/bones in there. As the night went on I started noticing that the fight weren't real, the punches and kicks were always partially blocked and the fight always ended in a spectacular fashion to dazzle the crowd like a flying elbow or spinning manfist. I guess they can't have fighters going all out each night as the injury list would be huge but I still found it dissapointing. That was until some white guys started stepping in the ring and there was no faking it here, they were obviously over to train or on a kickboxing camp and gave it there all.

The first white guy outweighed the thai by about 40kg's but still got the shit smack out of them, you can't believe how loud and strong these guys kick and punch until you see it in person. Funniest fight of the night involved a young white guy who appeared to start strong against the Thai, he nailed the Thai fighter with a few leg kicks which caused him to limp badly and reduced his mobility. It stunk of fakeness to me and I thought maybe they had paid the Thai fighter to lose, the whiteboy was getting more and more cocky and whipping out reverse kicks and smiling to the crowd. Then it got into the final round and the Thai fighter upto this point had looked shit and had done nothing, then at the start of the final round he went berserk and pummeled the shit out of his opponent. One of his kicks nearly bloody decapitated the young guy and the ref quickly called off the fight and everyone realised the Thai was just playing possum as he's used to doing and turned it on when he needed to...cheeky fucker.

As I mentioned yesterday I have shaved my head, I'd been considering it from day one in Thailand as the humidity is killer and long hair is unbearable. So I hit a salon yesterday and told the girl I wanted it all gone, she looked at me like I was crazy and went "all gone" which I nodded to and said "shave it!". So she went for a number 4 and I told her shorter then a number 3 as still to long so I settled on a number 2. Actually looks quite good and I'm now being called "handsum man" even more now. The reception girl at my hotel didn't even recognise me and asked if I had a room there heh and then nearly died of shock when I told her who I was. That was nothing compared to the reaction at my regular bar where the girls wouldn't stop going on about it and one suggested that SHE barfine ME haha. I also shoved off my poormans goatee so I looked vey different now and heaps younger and now I just wonder why the hell I didn't shave my head years ago!.

Pictures will soon be added but the computers here are very slow so it makes simple processes that much difficult. Which I find in Thailand is often the case, even things like going to the toilet at the water park are difficult when rules such as "you must buy toilet paper before using toilet" are in place, I hate to think about how many people didn't read that sign before dropping the kids off at the pool. I better bail as me and Peter are ditching the girls and hitting some bars so I'll let you know how that goes.

Speak when spoken to. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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• Shakes my hand no less then 15 fucking times nearly breaking it*

On another note I just shaved my head, that's right hombre's I've gone from a hippy to someone that now looks about 14 (I went for a number 2 shave)

That's pure floppycock! remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Toyboys karaoke...No

Massage 4 men by men...NO

Internet...Bingo

Now I'm sitting here charging up my ipod and updating this blog when I suddenly realised my computer is surrounded of snap shots of men in speedo's. And not the full man either...just a snapshot of a man's crotch in speedo's. Now cmon I can understand a Gay Sauna, a Gay nightclub but a gay internet cafe?!. I'm starting to sound a bit homophobic haha so I'll move on before I offend anyone.

New Years Eve was last night and I'm stuffed, I partied pretty hard and am feeling the effects now and feel like going back to bed despite only getting out at 3pm. I guess I should wind back the clock to last update and continue from there so you can get some ideas on what I've been doing;

I got up early the morning of my flight to Thailand and wanted to charge up my Ipod for the flight but Hong Kong is similar to Singapore in that all the shops stay open late but don't open until about 10am. This is normally fine by me as I prefer to stay out late and sleep in but on this particular morning I had things to do and my plans were foiled. Hong Kong on the whole was very enjoyable but wouldn't recommend it if you dislike crowds or a bit of chaos as the place is non-stop. The people were all very friendly but did find getting a taxi could often be difficult as the drivers spoke very little English so a conversation would go like this;

"Lockhard Road please"

"huh?"

"Lockhard road in Wan Chai"

"huh?"

"I WANT TO GOTO LOCKHARD ROAD IN WAN CHAI!"

"HUH"

In the end that particular driver drove me to another taxi and dumped me on him haha but thankfully that other driver spoke passable English. On my last night in Hong Kong I had a foot massage which really is "Foot contortion torture" and spent the whole session trying to avoid them upgrading me to another massage package. My flight was on time and the plane was only half full so I had a spare seat next to me, I spent the flight reading a John Grisham book that I purchased. I had already finished Dan Brows "Da Vinci Code" and must say it was great and can't believe a book about art and cryptography could of been interesting but it really was.

Customs was straight forward in Thailand and some tout offered me a taxi and when told of my Pattaya destination he offered 2000 but I counted with 1500 and he pays the road tolls. He acted offended and declined so I jumped in the massive taxu queue and think I payed 1200baht plus the toll of 100. The drive took ages as it was peaktime and think all up it took 3 hours to reach Pattaya plus about 40 minutes for my driver to locate the friggin' hotel. Thanks Adrian for smsing me the hotels number, this came in handy but even after 2 calls to the hotel the driver still couldn't get bearings but eventually we got there. The room is really nice but I open my curtains and 3 metres in front if my windows is another window looking straight into a male gym so I haven't opened the curtains since haha. Like Balinese hotels the power to the room is turned off once you remove the key and exit the room and my normal trick of jamming a pen in the sensor didn't work (damn!) so I always return to a hot room. The weathers been overcast but humid and the combination of the heat and seafood has caused me to break into hives again (mother@#$%^&. I'm taking medications to stop it but so far it's done sweet fuck all but the itching hasn't been to bad so it's bearable. The weather also has me contemplating cutting my hair off as the other day it was knot-hell and I just about cut it off on the spot heh.

I was pretty stuffed after the long drive but was anxious to hit the town and see the sights so I wandered out of the gay area and headed into the heart of town. Once I hit the main strip I must admit that my jaw hit the ground, it was bars as far as the eye could see and just hundreds of the hottest girls you can imagine. The girls are everywhere and wear outfits so skimpy that they'd probably get jailed in Oz for indecent exposure. They're of course on the arms of old overweight men with open shirts and tattoo's. Most people find this pretty disgusting but I guess it's just how it is overhere and money talks. The girls make a decent living and the old dudes instead of only attracting old wrinkly women back home get treated like kings by girls old enough to be there daughters (grand daughters in some cases!). Dunno if you'd dig the girls here Justin as I'm betting 8 out of 10 have tattoo's ahha and I often try to guess the girls ages but never get them right, a girl who looks 18 always turns out to be older then me.

I hit a bar or two and resisted the attempts at eye contact by the bar girls and just sat and sipped a beer and took in the sights (and boy is it a sight). Eventually one beer led to 6 and found myself in a packed disco where a thai version of the blackeyed peas were playing, they had 2 african american guys in the band but Fergie had been substituted for a thai chick. I got to chatting to a nice thai girls and we've been kicking it the last few days. The language barrier can make talking difficult and the aussie accent probably doesn't help matters. I'm ashamed to say even after 2 days I don't know the chicks name, I mean she's told me but the combination of my bad memory and intoxication has made me forget. She works at a bar as most of the girls do which causes me some problems, the night we met was fine as it was her night off so we could party without her having to worry about being bar fined. For the uniniated the barfine is a standard practice over here, the girls work at a bar typically from 7pm and knock off when it closes which is normally 2-3am. If they wish to leave the bar during that working period then they or someone else must pay a barfine which is 500baht which then excuses the girls from work. This way the bar gets compensated for the girls being taken away, this barfine doesn't mean you're entitled to sleep with the girl it just means she's free for the night and most likely will accompany you. Now see this is where it gets annoying as I wanna hang out with <insert name here> but must pay her bar if I wish to do, I could wait until she finishes at 3am but by then I'm hammered haha. We could also just hang out at her bar but every drink for a girl you must buy and they're like triple the price.

I payed her barfine last night as we wanted to see the fireworks which were awesome and probably went longer than the yearly Australia Day one's. We were joined by one of her friends who is <drooling emoticon here> but crazy as all hell and has a running barfine from some guy who picks her from time to time but other then that she's free to do what she wants. When I say crazy I'm not kidding, I went into the clubs toilet last night and when I came out of the cubicle she was standing there demanding to see my package...haha what the hell!. I dunno if paying a girls barfine could be seen as prostitution but it's in the same ballpark and doesn't sit right with me but that's the system!

Due to being away for 3 months my budget is pretty limited so I can't afford to keep hitting the bars everynight so don't plan on barfining her tonight and will have a quiet one. I should probably get out of Pattaya mid week as a town full of booze and girls who tell everyone that they're a "handsum man" is a budget buster. I'm going to look into a Vietanm Visa tomorrow and need to find a bloody charger for my phone so anyone who's smsed me I apologise for not replying (haha Travis called me in HK and quickly hung up when he realised I was overseas and it was going to cost him a fortune).

I better go as my ipods all charged up and I need some food, feel free to leave any comments.

Regards,

Handsum Man

Dude, you look like a man-o-lantern. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I'll attempt to sift through the disjointed memories of last night and fill you in on what happened as it was actually a pretty good night. The plan was to hook up with the Welsh girl for a beer or two but then I found out she doesn't land until the 30th which is the day I fly out so that wasn't going to work. Instead I hit the American Embassy (McDonalds) for a snack and as usual there was no seating to be found anywhere as it's always packed. There was one seat spare next to another gringo so I asked if I could sit there which he happily agreed to. We got to talking and he was from Paris but was moving to Australia so we chatted about that and he told me to check out the nightlife on Lockhart Road in Wan Chai so that's where I headed last night. The taxi trip took about 15 minutes and I found myself on Lockhart road which was less busy than crazy Nathan road and had plenty of clubs/pubs. I had a burger and 2 pints of Stella at a quiet german pub (german pubs are everywhere!) and sat at a bench overlooking the road so I could scope out the nightlife (Scope is codeword for perv). I noticed a pub over the road had a decent amount of people crammed inside so I finished up my pint and headed over to the "Old china Hand"

The place was indeed busy and was full of tourists/ex-pats and one of them invited me over to his table where he was sitting with another guy (names were shared but I can't recall them). They told me a quiz night was about to crank up and would I be interested in joining and having nothing better to do I agreed. The quiz night had 6 sections with 10 questions in each and from memory the sections were "General knowledge,Sci-Fi,Sport,Celebs,History and Movies". I was pretty useless but did alright in the movies and celebs sections. The quiz went for about 3 hours and we drank through-out and were joined by a few other ex-pats and there wives. I often find that ex-pats can be pretty bitter/cynical and tend to lecture you especially on travel but these guys did none of that and were good fun. The quiz concluded and I laughed when the "Perth Eagles" got announced as being the 3rd placed team and we won a bucket of beer (6)...woohoo. All the other guys in my group screwed there noses up at the brand of beer and they joked that 2nd prize was 3 beers and the winner only got cursed with a single beer. Now by this time I had drank 5-6 pints of beer and should have passed up the bucket of beer and gone home but it was free beer dammit. The rest of my group retired for the night and STUPIDLY I drank the rest of the beer and found myself VERY VERY drunk.

I recall wandering blindly around Wan Chai and stumbled across some Christmas display outside a business and it had these giant golden balls which I decided to pick up and carry about. It was quite large and heavy and my drunken mind thought it would make a great basketball so I bounced it on the concrete which made a very loud crash and the bottom of the ball caved in. Some guy ran up and grabbed the ball off me and started yabbering so I did what most responsible drunkards do and ran for my life. Pretty silly of me really and hopefully there's not a warrant out for me but it's convinced me to ease up on the boozing!

I can't even recall how I got home but did get propositioned in the elevator by a prostitute who showed me on a calculator how much it would cost to let her infect me with an STD but I didn't take her up on the offer. Today was just spent feeling nauseous and trying to ignore a pounding headache but I feel alright now despite some dizziness which I've had for a day or two. I'll head out tonight and take some photo's before flying out tomorrow at lunchtime. Not having a window in my room is annoying as I waltzed out in shorts and shirt to find it was pissing down with rain but I don't have a raincoat anyway so I guess it doesn't matter heh.

I have plenty more to rant about but I'll do that once I hit Thailand!

No. It means I was drunk yesterday. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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"WAAAAAAA"

"ooo who's a cutey wooty baby waby"

• Crackling Intercom*

"This is your captain speaking, we'd like to kindly remind passengers that baby talk is a capital offence and anyone caught will be ejected"

Ok so the last bit didn't happen but it bloody should!

Accomodation was always going to be a bit dodgy in Hong Kong as there's quick a big gap here between budget accomodation and somethin' decent. I checked out some decent hotel and they blurted out "$200 a night" which made my wallet lapse into a coma so I headed towards the notorious Chunking Mansions. The touts quickly surrounded me and led me to a packed elevator where we took a slow ride upto the 13th floor. The room he showed me was like a cupboard as we went to go into the room to check it out a guy was actually leaving my room...what the hell?

The "cupboard" he showed me was downright horrible and I'm not the pickiest guy so I told him I'd get back to him if I ever needed a crack-den. I got into the elevator with 6 big scary black guys and while none of them screamed "Kill Whitey" it was still pretty uncomfortable. I moved onto Chunkings cousin which is the "Miridor Mansions" and a friendly chinese fella took me upto a room which while still hobbit-sized was much nicer and I agreed to his offer of 135HK which is about $25 (I think)

I felt pretty tired but decided to have a shower and hit the town but I wasn't anticipating the shower having no hot water. Being a tired smelly tourist I went ahead with the ice-shower and am confident that I came close to a heart attack. The shower and the toilet are actually in the same tiny room so if you chose to you could have a freezing shower while taking a dump...ingenious huh?

Nathan road where I'm staying is great at night as it's very busy and has more Neon than Vegas. I found some shady out of the way pub and took advantage of happy hour and knocked back a few expensive beers to prepare for my fave holiday activity "Wandering drunk around a foreign country". I finally stumbled into a nice little german pub and chatted with the two staff who were from Nepal and when I told them where I was from both went "ahhh Austria!"

I even tried swooning the hot female bartender by asking if I could have my beer in a baby bottle she was filling, heh think she thought I was serious!. Went to bed at around midnight and slept pretty well on the concrete matress but the aircon was really good and no hangover!

Without the lights on in my room it's totally pitch black so when I woke up I figured it was around 2am but checked my phone and it was 9:30am so slept later than I had thought. Spent most of the day wandering around on foot and checked out Kowloon Park and Mong Kok and the walking has made me realise how unfit I've become as my ankles are aching bigtime. I'm supposed to hook up with a welsh chick that I met from the forums for a beer tonight so should be good to have a drinking buddy. I get plenty of strange looks here as I could probably count on 2 hands the number of caucasians I saw today so a long frizzy haired (I washed it noooo) goatee sporting retard like me stands out a bit but everyone is very friendly. For example a friendly Indian chap stopped me today and said

"Hello young man"

"G'Day"

"Guess what today is?"

"Errr Tuesday?"

"It's your lucky day!"

"It is?"

"Yes *launches into some complex scam which I quickly caught onto and made some excuse about bowel movements and fled*

I hadn't walked more than 5 minutes when another Indian guy walked up and said;

"Hello!"

"G'Day"

"Guess what today is?"

"My lucky day right?"

• Dissapointed look*

No matter the country there's always scams going on but I find it amusing rather than annoying and always chuckle when touts try to sell me suits...I mean do I look lkike the sorta guy who gets around in a suit...tho a tophat and monacle might be a good look.

Well I've ranted enough and am sure this is booby-trapped with plenty of typo's and gibberish buit I'll update it tomorrow with some pictures. The guy next to me is chuckling into his webcam like a japanese school-girl, I'll leave before his "tee-hee's" become contagious.

We're going streaking. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So far things are goin'pretty smoothly, flight from Perth to New Zealand was a breeze and not bein' able to sleep on flights means I'm 50 pages away from finishing my new novel (reading not writing!)

Now it's just a matter of killing time before the long haul to Hong Kong departs which is about an hour away. On a weird note the guy on the terminal next to me is wearing a bright red neck comforter, not sure if he forgot to take it off after his flight or 'maybe neck braces are just fashionable in New Zealand?

Guess I should head off and get on my plane!

And so it begins remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I started having second thought about my "by the seat of my pants" approach to travel and fired off a few emails to Thailand hotels enquiring about vacancies. I'll be landing just before NYE so I knew the place would be packed but figured I'd be able to scam a room somewhere. As expected all of the hotels came back informing they were fully booked but one had a cancellation and was happy to accommodate an unorganised retard like myself. It was a bit over budget at 1250 Baht a night but I figured it was better to have somewhere to dump my bags than having to stomp around in the sun hoping to find a room. A guy from another forum even checked out the hotel and said it was very nice but was smack in the middle of the gay area so I guess its "Queer Eye for the disorganised guy".

Starting this blog has actually reminded me how much I enjoy writing, sure I'm not very good at it and it's no doubt littered with spelling and grammatical errors but I do like sitting down and excreting my thoughts. I'm hoping it'll also encourage me to get out and do weird and wonderful things like eating strange foods and indulging in local customs like basket weaving, bukkake etc!. Also a good way for friends and family (mum I was kidding about the bukkake thing honest!) to keep up with what I'm doing as I'm pretty bad when it comes to postcards and phonecalls.

Anyway I'll try to sit down and knock out another update before I leave but if not my first one will be from Hong Kong.

I Left My Wallet In El Segundo remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Vaccinations- I figured getting myself inoculated against any foreign diseases that would attempt to lay siege to my system would be wise so I booked a doctors appointment. The doctor suggested that I get shots for Typhoid Fever, Hepatitis A, Cholera and Tetanus as well as a range of tasty pills to protect against Malaria and toilet-glue (diarrhoea). We then had the following conversation;

Doctor- "You should have these shots at least 4 weeks before leaving on your trip, how long until you leave?

Myself- "Errr 2 weeks?"

Doctor- *Chuckles" "Bit disorganised aren't you?"

Myself- "I kinda like to look at it as being adventurous!"

Taking his advice I decided to have the full range of needles and probably should have also demanded the “Heart-Attack Prevention Needle” after he presented me with a bill for $400. I wasn’t expecting a hefty bill like that but paid it without a whimper as I’d prefer to pay the money than get struck down by some crazy disease and spend the entire holiday in bed cursing myself for being a tightass. The doctor only had the Tetanus needle on hand so he jabbed me with that and I have to return tomorrow for the rest of them.

Now that I had the needles out of the way I went shopping for a backpack as suitcases were blacklisted on this trip as I planned on roughing it for most of the trip and wheeling about a suitcase just isn’t practical. I scuttled into a camping store and some young fella’ quickly convinced me that http://www.blackwolf.com.au/engine/SID/1000029/AID/100141.htm was the bag for me. It had a detachable daypack which I was looking for and space for a water bladder which I quizzed the young salesman on;

“Now this water bladder…will it only take water or could I put other liquids in there?”

“Any liquid will be fine, I myself put Gatorade in mine”

“So I could put Bourbon in there?”

“Ummm yes I suppose you could?”

“You’ve got yourself a sale!”

The backpack also is front-loading so you don’t have to open from the top and rip everything out to get to an item at the bottom. The pack is adjusted to fit the shape of your back by 2 metal rails which you bend to match the shape of your back and they also leave painful red welts on the back of your legs when slapped as my room-mate found out (twice).

I also went shopping for an Ipod but the 60gb model I was after has been snapped up by the Christmas shopping frenzy so I might have to bite the bullet and get the smaller 30gb. Only other items left on the shopping list for my big trip was a new pair of shoes (mine are falling apart) and a pimp hat.

My stomach is grumbling so I'll cya next update buttplugs but before I leave here's evidence that you shouldn't buy young folk beer at NYE celebrations! (this picture was the result of exposure to a SINGLE beer, guess they're not breast-fed beer like us Aussies!)

Life's a garden, dig it? remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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All my previous travel has been done with a travel partner and I’ve enjoyed it immensely and like travelling solo it offers many benefits. It’s always nice to have a friend to share the experiences with and fill your friends in on the small details that you were to drunk to recall (like that girl you were kissing was really a man). Those horrible waiting periods at places like airports are much more bearable with a friend who you can pass the time with by chinese burning and nipple crippling (nipple cripples are strictly guy to guy frolicking and should not be used on female travel partners, chinese burns are acceptable). Accommodation also works out cheaper with a friend as does transport where you can half the fare of a taxi ride.

That being said I’ve decided to kick it solo on this trip for the following reasons.

Decision Making: Planning my day is entirely up to me on the trip, when you’re partnered up decisions must be shared and mutually accepted. This can often cause issues as you might have something in mind that your partner doesn’t, normally this is resolved by doing your separate activities and meeting up after. Problems arise when this starts to happen all the time and you realise that you both had vastly different ideas on what the holiday was about. One of you may enjoy drinking himself impotent late every night on cheap Thai whiskey while your friend likes to sleep early and get up at the crack of dawn to surf. Really it comes down to making sure you and your buddy are travel compatible and don’t take it for granted that just because you’re great friends back home that you’ll be good to travel together. Often friends don’t make good travel partners and I’ve bumped into a few travellers that are barely on speaking terms despite being lifelong friends back home. Pretty tough to check compatibility though prior to the trip as you’ll be in a vastly different environment but maybe a camping trip together or a nude game of scrabble. Being alone on this trip I can wake up and set my own itinerary and pace and not have to worry that it’s ruining someone else’s holiday. This is a big thing for me as I do like to drink and have a good time and that normally results in a sleep-in/hangover which can really piss off travel mates.

Being a Moron: I can be a moron at times (ok so most of the time) and this tends to cause some headaches for whoever I’m travelling with. For instance last trip after withdrawing some money I forgot to remove my bank-card from the machine and realised a day later and by that time the machine had devoured it. Not content with how high I had set the stupidity bar I then accepted my friend’s offer of borrowing his bank card and transferred all my money into that account. Sure enough the next day I get some money out and leave his card in the machine and it gobbles it up which gave me a delicious serving of Deja Vu. So now I’m in a foreign country with no money in my wallet and no means of getting more. This doesn’t worry me to much as it’s my mistake and I know in the end not to panic as somehow things will get resolved but what worries me is my retarded antics inconveniencing someone else. I don’t mind having to drive to the bank and somehow communicate to them that I need them to crack open the ATM machine and rescue my lonely card/s but I hate someone else having to do this because of me. So on this trip being a retard will only affect me and that’s a good thing…isn’t it?

Makin’ Friends: I feel travelling alone you’re more inclined to socialise, I don’t plan to spend 3 months chatting to myself so travelling solo encourages you to get out there and strike up conversations with strangers. I sometimes worry that I won’t make friends and will end up being a loner crying himself to sleep (kidding) but then I think back on previous trips and recall having many great moments with people I’ve bumped into. Last year myself and another Aussie guy I met wandered the Bali streets on NYE and handed out at least 50-60 bottles of bingtang to the locals and partied hard. I also attempted to swoon a barmaid I met in a bar full of transvestites and we’re still in contact so really I’m worrying about nothing.

Well I think I’ve ranted enough, leave a comment and I'll leave you with a picture of pure genius!

By the beard of Chuck Norris! remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Now that we have my touching tribute out of the way I'm glad to say that I only have 29 days before I embark on my solo trip to SE Asia. Last update I touched on my planned itinerary but due to certain restrictions relating to my airpass ticket I was forced to make some changes.

Japan had to be dumped which I was a bit bummed about, I'm sure I'll get to go there sometime in the future but I was looking forward to having my own Lost in Translation moments. The upside is my budget won't be as strained as Japan was going to garrotte my wallet for a tidy sum so I'll have a bit more to spend elsewhere.

Besides Japan being given a leave of absence the rest of the trip was fine and once I parted with a deposit my agent booked it all and I now have the tickets...well I think I do...I do recall seeing them a week or two back...

So the dates and destinations look somethin' like this;

Perth - New Zealand (26th December) - Not actually sure why I was forced to fly via New Zealand but it's no biggie, I won't actually get to see the country as I'm just switching planes with about 4 hours to kill.

New Zealand - Hong Kong (27th December) - I'll be kickin' it in Hong Kong for 3 days and to be honest don't know a whole lot about the place but I guess that's the pant-shitting part of it...exciting part...I meant exciting. I haven't lined up any accommodation but my budget is pretty tight so I'm thinking about staying at the famous/notorious Chunking Mansions. From what I've read the mansions are a run-down maze of cheap guesthouses occupied by immigrants, drug dealers and smut peddlers...oh and backpackers...sounds like my sort of place! I'd be interested to hear from any other fellow travellers who have stayed at the mansions but I kinda like the idea of slumming it in some warped mansion.

Hong Kong - Thailand (30th December) - I slide in Bangkok just before New Years which I'm really looking forward to, no plans as yet but I'm sure I'll find a decent party to drink myself retarded. Now I spend a month in the region and do plan on securing a Vietnam & Laos Visa and visiting both countries as well as Cambodia. The danger is that I get comfortable and waste the entire month drunk on a beach somewhere so I may have to limit my attacks on my liver as it's pretty tough to be motivated when cursed with a raging hangover.

Thailand - Philippines (30th January) - I've lined up 2 weeks to explore the Philippines which I know isn't going to be enough but should give me enough time to check out Boracay and maybe gather enough courage to try a balut.

Philippines - Singapore (14th February) - I've visited Singapore a few times and just plan on drinking with a buddy while not letting those $17 beer prices bring tears to my eyes.

Singapore - Bali (21st February) - Bali is the only destination I'm meeting some of the boys back from home, 3 of my mates are flying over so this should be good fun with plenty of whitewater rafting and bintanging planned.

Bali - Perth (11th March) - Home sweet home!

Next update I'll share a few amusing tales from previous trips!

Tina, come get some ham. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I checked it out and the airpass did seem very appealing and more importantly cost effective but there were certain rules/restrictions which had to be abided by and they were as follows;

1. South East Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos


2. North Asia: Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China


3. South West Pacific: New Zealand, Australia


4. Journey must include travel to all these areas and only one crossing permitted between the following areas:

*South-West Pacific - North Asia
*South-West Pacific - South East Asia
*North Asia - South East Asia

1. Travel must commence from and return to the same country


2. All sectors up to and including first international sector have to be confirmed at least 7 days prior to departure.


3. Certain booking classes apply.


4. Maximum of 18 sectors permitted


5. Three day minimum stay.


6. Maximum stay six months.


7. Minimum of two stopovers required, but only one per city permitted.

Nothing too overboard and figured I could abide by the rules and would get the tickets and re-arrange flights if needed while I was over there.

Now here's what my vision of my holiday looked like...

Australia - Japan: A couple of days sipping on sake and using panty vending machines (you crazy Japanese!) would be a nice start to the holiday. Japan is notoriously expensive but I figured I could afford to break my budget here and make it up later.

Japan - Hong Kong: Hell why not get the two most expensive destinations out of the way, I'd always wanted to see Hong Kong and with the opening of Disneyland I now had the opportunity to realise my dream of kicking Donald Duck in the balls.

Hong Kong - Thailand: I've heard many mixed reports of Thailand, some tell me it's beautiful and I won't want to leave whilst others rant about the pollution and the backpacker zoo that it's become. Not sure who to believe but I'm a big table tennis fan and I hear some of the girls (well ok there orifices) play a mean game of ping pong...Game On!

Thailand - Philippines: I never hear much about the Philippines as a travel destination but from what I read some of the islands were very nice and lazing around on a nice beach somewhere sounded very appealing.

Philippines - Singapore: I really enjoy Singapore, sure the place is a bustling modernized destination with beer prices that stop major organs but the people are friendly and I have a drinking buddy there that I'm trying to swoon.

Singapore - Bali: Despite the recent bombings in Bali I will be visiting and figured surviving a Bali taxi ride meant me and lady luck were going steady so I'd take my chances.

Then of course was the dreaded return to home but we won't dwell on that, now these rough plans ended up changing but we'll leave that to the next update as I have a date with the playstation.

Cheers & Beers!

Hansel... so hot right now remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cheap wasn't the only reason I chose Asia, people upon hearing about my holiday plans always seem to ask the same question;

Why Asia buttnugget???

Asia has many things going for it such as;

The weathers nice and warm (well when I'm travelling anyway!)

The foods great (please nobody mention Balut)

The people are friendly

It's fairly close to Australia meaning no deep-vein thrombosis

And most importantly the women are hot!

Now that I had chosen the destination for my epic 3 months bludge I had to now concoct an itinerary which is quite difficult when you're a lazy unorganised bastard like me...

Ok here's what I came up with...

Argh can't be stuffed...next update!

What happened? I blacked out. remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Coming home from a good holiday is great for the first day, your mind is occupied as you visit friends and show them the various smelly rashes you've picked up on your travels. After that though things tend to go downhill as your once free booze filled days are replaced by "The Man" and his grind. After my last trip I couldn't even bring myself to watch the travel channel on TV as it just ignited my need to travel and I had more important things to think about...right?

I mean I'm not getting any younger, my 25th birthday is behind me and I had to think of the bigger picture...car...mortgage...penis extension...family etc. Everybody keeps drilling it into me, I'm told countless times that I have to get my shit together and think of the future and what it holds for me.

They're right...it's time to take life by the genitals and give it some direction...

I marched into my Bosses office on my first day back...

"I want 3 months off to travel"

Ok so I didn't exactly find any direction but I sure kicked the travel blues in the balls!

The best recipe for the travel blues is to plan your next trip, whether it is in 15 days or 15 years having something in place will help you get by and instead of reflecting you’re looking forward.

I sound like fucking Yoda...

Bow to your sensei! remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I've decided to start a travel blog, sure the odds are it'll result in a typo riddled mess and will be labelled as the "Internets Urinal Puck" but it sure beats counting the days until I replace this depressing desk with an umbrella topped drink and a ladyboy on my arm.

Only kidding...

Umbrella's are for wimps...

Sweet Lincoln's mullet! remains copyright of the author Drexel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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