Category Archives: Travel Blog

Travel Blog

The Halifax

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So I get up at 3.30 am because I can’t sleep due to the excitement of it all, then sit in the foyer chatting on MSN to people who are enjoying their Friday night in the UK. I then get a taxi to Hualamphong station to get my train to the Cambodian border.

Do I ‘eck – I needed to get some cash out to pay the Cambodians their visa fee as well as a few other bits and pieces, but the ATM machines were spitting my card out with some explaination in Thai – so I thought to ring the credit card company . My phone was not getting a signal so I went to a garage to get a phone card – by this time I’m realising my window on Cambodia was drawing to a close, so I get a taxi back to my hotel.

I called the card company on skype – they told me that they had nicely cancelled my cards due to the fact that they were being used in a third world country. Well what in gods name do they expect me to do in Thailand, send them back by jet to get a few quid out of the cash machine at Heathrow.

So, after sorting that out I’m still at the Atlanta hotel and have had to endure another day of lounging by the pool and tucking into Pad Kaprow. Life’s a bitch.

I’m going tomorrow morning.

Travel Blog

Chao Praya

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Go to the end of the Skytrain at Saphan Thaksin, nip on a boat and pay 40p for a trip up river. You get to see Bangkok from the water. It’s a working waterway with people commuting up and down river on a thriving network of Boats, it would be great to see people in London doing the same, nipping up river from Richmond on fast river boats to add that little bit of spice to an ordinary urban day, but that’s long gone – having said that you can use an oyster card on Thames riverboats now so maybe there will be a rennaissance, but I’m digressing here, let’s stick to S.E.Asia.

I managed to catch up with an old buddy who has made Bangkok his home. Paul has a lovely wife and son and has that unique perspective that someone has who has 1. been in bangkok for 10 years  2. Is a Leeds united supporter. I asked him about his angle on the changing way of life here, he said ‘it was changing before we got here, will change after we have gone, but whatever changes happen the Thais will make them their own enough for them to keep their unique outlook and way of life’. So that’s that, we can stick our beaks into S.E.Asia as much as we want but their way of life will grow back like grass over a disused airstrip, eventually leaving no trace of us. You can read more of Pauls informed ramblings over here at the Naked Farang, on first impressions the front page looks dodgier than the content actually is, so read between the lines and tuck in.

Tomorrow I am heading up to Cambodia on the 5.55 train, so I am up at 4 to get to the station in time – it’s a 3rd class train that some kind Thai in the hotel said I’d be sharing with chickens and goats, beats the underground in rush hour I say. Huzzah!

Travel Blog

Quantum of Solace

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I sat this morning in McDonalds drinking a coke looking at one of the busy bridges that roll over the busy Sukhmvit road. Now any respectable ‘traveller’ would avoid McDonalds like the plague, but of the many things I have been called respectable isn’t one of them, so I doused my dry mouth that comes from a night of drinking Singha beer with the only thing that will reinstate moisture. A coke from McDonalds.

So, in McDonalds I watched listened to that sacharin Thai love music that always has the most cringeworthy chord progressions and pondered the effect of our races coming together. Now I am aware of the paradox here, but then again travel to me is a chess game of paradox. I read a brief history of time whilst on a river boat cruising up the amazon, but that is paradoxically subtle, resonant as David Byrne once said.

The Thais are a wonderful race. I don’t mean that in a mealy mouthed post colonial way, I mean that in a way that is perhaps a little jealous of the phase they are going through. They believe that progress will bring them many things, not least the things they think they have and manage to completely ignore the parade of maladjusted westerners that are drawn to Thailand like iron filings to a magnet. They believe in love, many of the girls that hang onto the arms of us lost in our malaise actually believe they are in love, so who are we to point out the future to them. The lover feels love, the abuser abuse, it’s an age old theme that is only a part of the thing called kharma, best we are on the right side of that old chestnut.

I realised recently that I love cities. This wasn’t due to the romance of S.E.Asian cities but upon my return to London after a long break. I grew up amongst the smog filled concrete estates of Tottenham and learned to play there, the blocks of flats providing fun, not the adult rejection of it’s ugliness. To me Bankgkok is a progression, the multilevelled walkways that remind me of Hong Kong, to me the perfect city with country parks a mere walk one of the most exciting examples of humans living in close proximity. To this end I prefer riding on the skytrain to escaping to floating markets, I am happy to people watch in sprawling shopping centres where the people all love to be watched.

But back to basics. I enjoyed a lovely meal earlier from a street stall outside one of the more impressive shopping centres of Som Tam. It’s a raw salad made from shredded papaya with garlic, tomatoes and dried shrimp. I let the lovely lady fill my bag with other goodies from the stall such as these Chineses style battered pieces that are great dipped in sauce, sausage thay can only be described as savaloy and chicken. I sat on a bench by the busy main road amongst young couples and tried to eat this feast without looking too much like the greedy English pig that I am, the Thais are a moderate race, they tend not to overindulge as much as this honky does. It was gorgeous.

And last but not least I enjoyed the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace at a swanky cinema. It was great – I feel like I should sign up for the secret service right now, surely their recent policy of allowing all comers includes Cyber Gypsies, I mean I’m sorted when it comes to the gadgets and am no stranger to air travel, sign me up boys.
Travel Blog

The Atlanta

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The Atlanta has the oldest swimming pool in Thailand apparently and from the age of the palm trees surrounding it I can believe it. The entrance hall is original and fourties music pipes through the ground floor to add to that golden age of travel feeling.

The wifi connection is also great for gypsying, so I’m in the foyer right now tapping away to the strains of Peggy Lee.

The most amazing thing about this hotel is the no hanky panky policy. In large letters over the front door they state that if you are after the seedier side of Bangkok life then you are in the wrong place, so at the desk on the arrival they gently probe you (wrong choice of phrase perhaps, no probing allowed here) as to what you are up to.

The wrong answer would be ‘send three girls to my room and I’ll tell you later’.

The most magical thing about this place has to be it’s swimming pool. I leaped in as soon as I arrived from the airport to bring my core temperature down (the contrast from London was so great my thermostat was nearing breaking point).

The rooms aren’t great, but this isn’t the hilton and it only costs a tenner with aircon, so it’s a lot cheaper than renting a garage in London should you extend your stay to forever.

Even though there is no hanky panky they do sell beer. I’m going to go and get one.

Travel Blog

Terminal 4

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If the romance of travel is to be extuinguished then Terminal 4 Heathrow is the extinguisher to do it with, but my imagination is strong enough to paint it with glamorous hostesses, the smell of aviation fuel and all of that malarkey. If there are any glamorous hostesses to be found here they are having a fag in the depressing smoking zone outside, where terminal staff huddle in the cold like lab animals waiting to be experimented on – bring back the appreciation of travel I say, perhaps even pop propellers back onto aircraft.

I did have a few whistful moments today as I left the house today. It was one one of those autumn days lit up by a cold sun, I like those, they slap you in the face and say ‘be alive you sleepy sod there’s a world out there’. It’ll also be six weeks until I see my other half, but as we are going to meet in Sydney we have something to look forward to, so my whistful moments were moments and now I look forward to hob nobbing it around South East Asia looking for WiFi connections so that I can work as I play.

On another note entirely I heard that pirates had nicked a super tanker today. Now call me old fashioned but if terminal 4 is peeing on the joy of travel then surely that enhances it – there are still pirates be jaysus. Avast me hearties, sail on until you run out of fuel, or the pool table on the ship plugs up with coins and sends you, bored, sailing back to your pirate havens.

On the subject of pirate havens – I once visited a pirate haven off of the coast of Thailand, it was an island, naturally hollowed out, so that the only way in was to swim, underwater, through a cave into the central lagoon.

Pirates know how to pick a spot.

Travel Blog

On The Road Again

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It’s getting cold here in the UK so it’s time to pick up my laptop and head south. Qantas seem to be wanting to give tickets away at the moment so I picked up a four flight deal for just over a grand, Heathrow Bangkok, Hong Kong – Sydney, Perth – Singapore and then Singapore – London with a break in Tioman for some diving and Penang for a good curry.

I obviously have to make up the bits in between so I’ll be travelling overland from Bangkok to Hong kong and from Sydney to Perth. On top of this I have to co-ordinate work while I am away, but in this day and age that’ll be a doddle right?

Leaving things until the last minute as usual I have been sorting out things like visas this week. China and Vietnam need you to have a visa before considering entry into the country so my passport is at the Chinese Embassy right now. I can pick up a vietnamese visa in Camobodia, apparently without the hassles of getting it in London. The Australian visa was a a simple case of applying online – Thailand will simply give me a visa at the airport which is nice of them. Sorted.

This leaves the gear I will have to take with me to help me work and play on the road for three months.

I do enjoy this bit in a nerdy kind of way, as a kid I would collect camping gear to escape into the wild, even going so far as to shoplift kit from the local camping shops. So this isn’t drudgery to me. In fact this whole Cyber Gypsy thing is just an extension of that, carrying my whole universe around with me so that I can even run my business while I am away. It does take a little thought to be able to travel light though –

One of my First buys was a Jungle Hammock from a very nice fellow called Tom Claytor who just happens to be flying around the world in a light aircraft at the moment. I guess he is another kind of Cyber Gypsy. I like the idea of a jungle hammock because it makes me totally sefl sufficient for a place to spend the night – mosquito free. It has a rain cover and a mosquito net and can even be used as a kind of netted bivouac if needs be – all for a fraction of the weight of a tent. Done.

I didn’t get the camouflaged one.

For a rucksack I needed something with a laptop pocket that could take up to 40 litres but also get on a plane as hand luggage. After looking around the London camping shops I came up with the North Face Overhaul 40 a bag that can be expanded to a tardis like degree.

For mobile communication I changed mobile providers to ‘Three‘ and picked up a schpanking new Nokia E71. Now this was a canny move as ‘Three’ have networks in two of the countries I will be visiting (Hong Kong and Oz) meaning I can use my phone as I would at home with unlimited internet access and minutes. It also has a huge memory for all my MP3’s and an FM radio so it means that I don’t have to bother with any kind of MP3 player. Sorted.

Next was a camera that would take great pics but not take up too much real estate. I could have gotten hold of a nice Nikon but opted for a point and shoot with an 18x zoom lense – in my experience having a good analogue zoom is the killer point for a camera when you travel as it means you don’t have to get into peoples faces to take nice pictures, the Panasonic DMC-FZ28 seems to do it all. My onle issue with it is the battery life, but I’ll pick up a few spare batteries in Hong Kong while I am there which will sort that out.

Pop a super teeny weeny Storm Shield S660-D Sleeping bag (not made anymore I think) that has pure down in it meaning it will pack up small enough to fit into a sock and that’s it.

I’m not going to go down to the suntan lotion level of detail, so assume I’ll pack some swimming trunks and a pair of sunglasses.

I have six days to ponder the finer points of packing a bag and that’s it – my next post will be about some of the things I do to make sure I can still run my business even if my laptop is stolen.

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Travel Blog

Terminal 5

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I went to Heathrow recently as my ex was getting back from seeing her family in Peru.  I decided to stop off at Terminal 5 to see what all of the fuss was about and was amazed. The building is lovely. It is a cathedral that pays homage to travel, huge halls, grand scale and sheers walls all looking like they pivot on giant metal bearings.

Terminal 5 Heathrow

I sat at the runway end of the terminal, in a cafe and watched one of the new Airbus 380’s take off and could only sit in wonder. For those who want to do nothing but complain about some of the wonderous things we humans make, shut the fcuk up.

Toughen the Fuck Up

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Travel Blog

Paris In The Rain

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I managed to get most of my daily chores out of the way as the rain pours down outside the Paris flat. I post to a few message boards about SEO and web design issues, and I am trying to get into the rythm of updating this blog daily. So here we are.

My train home is at 14.43 from the Gare De Nord so I want to get some work done before I go. I have an ecommerce store to quote for, which is for an American religious group. I seem to be getting a lot of requests from god fearing folk, which must reflect on my good Kharma so watch this space ;0)

I have also been reading up (Wikipedia etc) on people like the spiral tribe as they came up in conversation with a friend recently.

I worked with one of the founder members (Mark) just before the whole free dance scene kicked off. We worked on a small building site together, only for a short while, but he did make quite an impression because he came across as genuinely lovely.

Mark also seemed to exude an inner confidence that was infectious. I found myself quite jealous of it at the time because I was insecure and not ready to fight the system in the way he did. I spread my wings by travelling the globe for five years, and found my own way of coming to terms with existence later on.

I remember bumping into Mark at a later date when asked for me to donate a flotation tank, which I had bought to set up a business at the time, to one of the spiral tribes indoor events. I said no because I had invested £3000 in it and didn’t want it to be towed off by the police, which in hindsight had probably saved me a few quid, but had I done it it might have led to some great experiences. Having said that I wasn’t really too attracted to the scene chasing free parties through muddy fields, and never really believed that techno would unite us all.

Ecstasy, however, was a revolution in itself, causing people regard each other in an altogether loving way that was so different to the alcohol and whiz fueled punk generation. The kindness it fostered might have been drug fueled, but it changed a generation for the better, and now there is an undercurrent of love that will not go away. Having said that, changing the world comes in larger doses of self awareness. The disillusion caused when the party is over can be as harmful as it was good, so as in all things balance is needed.

I got the feeling that Mark was strong enough to ride the storms. If you get to read this mate (Network23 seem to have a Paris location), let’s meet up for a croissant and a chin wag.

It all is unfolding just as it should.

Right, back to cyber blogs.

I am going to pack up here and head off onto the streets for some 3d contact. The net does have its limitations, and I have done this gypsy’s work for the day.

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Paris

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It’s deserted here.

The French all go away on holiday for the month of August leaving a skeleton staff in Paris. It’s like some post apocalyptic movie where the streets are ours, tinned goods can be fetched at will from empty supermarkets. I was here only two weeks ago in the blistering heat, when the banks of the Canal St Martin were thick with people. Today we even managed to get into Antoine & Lili’s shop without a fight.

In between trips out I managed to get a little of my redesign done for my website templates store. I am making it a lot more web 2.0, but you’ll see. But all in all I am staying away from my vaio.

So that’s all for now…