Sunday, All Day

Indeed today is Sunday and has been all day. I'm now in Chiang Mai. I have a race against the clock to get to get a visa and get my ass to Laos before my Thai visa runs out. Okay, so I've dramatised it a bit. I do have seven days to get there. But I'm slow in my movements. You can't rush these things.

Peace in Phuket

Patong is not a peaceful place. In the Beach, when they go back to the mainland to get supplies and it's noisy and awful, that scene's filmed in Patong. So in search of a bit of peace I moved out to Surin and flash packed. Sod it, I needed rest before going up country. I over cooked it a bit with Surin as there's bugger all happening there and not much to do especially when it pisses it down every day. Nice room though.

Modes of Transport

My current favourite mode of transport is the scooter. I hired one in Surin to get about. Thrashed the shit out of the little 100cc chicken chaser and rode just about the length of Phuket, twice. The feds also got involved at one point.

This Country!

Coming down a hill into the next beach town and ahead of me was a lot of traffic. A bit weird for the beach roads in Phuket. Then I saw a bunch of cops and to my horror realised they were pulling over everyone. So I didn't blot through the road block like a hero crim on the run. I pulled over and started looking sheepish. This cop says, 'Where li ence?' Which I took to mean, could I have look at your license please. So I just shrugged and went, 'At hotel,' which I hope he translated as, I'm very sorry officer, I appear to have been rather foolish and left it at the hotel I'm currently residing in on your beautiful island. Of course, I have no such thing as a license, unless you class my license to swim without armbands when I was about five. I don't reckon that would have cut the mustard though.

The fed appeared to understand me and so I was happy. He then started writing me a ticket, and I was not happy. A license is required to ride the scooters in this country????? Honestly you should see the mess on the roads. I've just been driving through Chiang Mai for a couple of hours on a scooter, and it's a bloody god job I wasn't wearing white trouser. The upshot of the ticket was a 300 baht fine. Fine, that's only about 4 quid. Bloody annoying. So I paid my fine (which it appeared most of Phuket was having to pay judging by the queue to the payment table). Thoroughly annoyed, but happy not to have ended up in a Thai slammer, I got on my bike (haha, 'scuse the pun) and started looking to get back on the road. The cop about 7 meters infront of me started going mental and waving his arms and blowing his little whistle. So I just carried on shouting that I'd paid my fine and waving my receipt at him. Then I realised he was alerting me that I'd left my kickstand down. Red faces are a multi lingual way of proclaiming yourself as a twat.

About 5 minutes down the road I encountered the only roundabout in Thailand. So shocked to see such an advanced feature, I promptly went the wrong way round it. Maybe a license wouldn't be such a bad idea after all