Phuket 28 April

So much has happened since last I wrote I barely know where to begin, I will start with the Similan Islands.

The dive trip was fabulous, all of the people on the boat were really easy to get on with and the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. My dive buddy Steve arrived from Sth Africa an hour or so before we left so he merrily slipped into a coma as the bus departed from Phuket town, we were delayed waiting for a French pilot to arrive but then we made it uneventfully to the boat.

The room was a double and not the bunk room we booked (you should have seen my face, oh shit almost captures it) but it was actually more like a triple and I'm sure half of you remember we all used to share beds like a litter of puppies in the old varsity days (the reason I have always understood the Michael Jackson defence). They also didn't seem to have been informed that I don't eat mammals (reptiles, insects) and try to avoid birds, I suspect it's because we booked through an operator and not through the actual tour company I will endeavour not to make that mistake again. (though bizarrely I think it was actually cheaper the way we did it) perhaps they have agents to sell of the tickets they can't, anyway I digress.

The first night just after the boat had moored I retired and it started raining, then came thunder and lightening, I wondered if I should check the life jackets were really under the bed as promised, I watched through the small round porthole but the perspex really didn't give a view of the majesty of the storm. I struggled out onto the deck and it was fantastic, as the storm got closer the captain decided to get up and move some where more protected, it was wild, a few fellow divers had wandered onto the deck and we stood enjoying the show and waiting for the call to abandon our ship, it's amazing how small a little boat feels when your standing on deck in the midst of a black, no moon night whose pelting rain is only encouraged by stabbing forks of lightening. I understand how people believed an angry God, blinded by rage was thunderously striking out to smite down anyone foolish enough to piss him off.

So let the diving begin, I have to say, it was the best diving I have seen since the great barrier, the soft coral beds like fields of candyfloss in pink, blue, greens and yellows, loads of anenomes, nudibranch worms, I got blase about Trigger fish there were so many, turtles, clown fish peaked out from every anenome, fish so friendly I reached out and petted one, he just continued to float in front of my eyes so I petted him again, his skin felt soft and elastic not hard and scaly as I was expecting. We dove in the night, we dove in the morning we dove a wreck, there were scorpion fish, stone fish, and lion fish schools of blue fish, squirrel fish, and occassionally you would just find yourself in the midst of a school fish in completely surrounding me as I swam lazily in the same direction. We floated over forests of staghorn coral with so many little strippy fish hiding amongst their protective antlers. We swam through coral archways. We saw leopard sharks, moray eels, a nurse shark and rays.

On one dive (when my buddy was busy feeding the fish with the contents of his stomach) I was given a new buddy and everyone in my dive team except me had a camera, it's a weird spin on Socrates the unexamined life, we seem to now ask ourselves the question is the unphotographed life worth living? It was so much fun having a dive buddy I actually know, it improved my underwater somersault skills no end, so next time you need a buddy you know who to call!

I could go on but all you non divers have dropped off to sleep by now and the rest of you have seen it too, I know. suffice to say I will be doing it all again soon, though of course the Similan parks is now closed for rainy season.

So anyway I have taken the job here in Phuket, I am actually really excited about it, I have meet a few of the people I will be working with and they all seem really easy going. There will be five teachers at my level so I wont be as isolated or pressured as I was last year.

I then went to Bkk and had to get hold of as much of my stuff as I could and brought it down here to Phuket. I spent the first night with Kev and Ian, we drank vodka while Kevin punctuated the conversations with a choice selection of parrping noises, the next night was whisky and collecting my stuff from the armpit of the universe (otherwise known as Rangsit). a night at the movies, "Pan's labrynth" which I really enjoyed, (Steve and Clinton acted like big girls, which is why one loves to go to the cinema with them, I like to watch people who really buy into the movie). Then a final night playing pub trivia.

Back in Phuket, I went to work for "orientation" I took all my documents and stuff thinking I would need them to sign my contract for work, but this was not required and the whole thing was a bit of a waste of time if you ask me. After I was driving (a motorcycle again) with my bag in the front basket to look for a house and a guy drives by on his motorbike and steals my bag out of the basket (I couldn't believe it, I though he was joking) but no he kept driving and that was that! of course my bag had everything as described above in it, passport, travellers cheques, mobile phone, wallet, work shoes, hair clip, and loads of papers for work.

I quickly lost sight of the guy but not before I memorised his licence plate and thought about as much about him as I can remember. I stopped as soon as I saw some people (at a "massage" shop of course) the girls were very kind and gave me their phone and called the police who came straight away and I gave my description. Then I had no money (the girls offered me some very kindly, who says all Thai prostitutes are after is money).

I still had a motorbike full of petrol, so I went to the Police station in Phuket town, useless, I went to the bank I have an account with, (Kasikorn bank folks) useless, wouldn't give me access to my account without my passport, I just sat stunned at this woman's desk having visions of starving to death in Phuket, I can't do anything without money. Tried to call the toll free travellers cheque number but no public phone in Thailand will service free calls, by this stage I am getting really hungry so desperate by now, I went back to school.

School came to my rescue, I used their phone and the travellers cheque people came through for me (yay), then my supervisor (Linda) at school mentioned that she "knows" one of the top detective's at the Chalong police station, so it's down there to make a second report (they poured scorn upon the pathetic effort made by the central Phuket police so if shit happens in Phuket guys go to Chalong police station, they speak English and act like they care a little).
The detective inspector feels pretty confident that I will be getting some stuff back, they were surprised I knew so much about the thief, the registration particularly threw them, so fingers and toes crossed I will be seeing my stuff again soon.

Just so we don't end on a negative note I got the money back from Visa that was stolen off my credit card earlier this month so I'm hoping that sets a precedent for Nikki to get her stuff back.

After all that excitement I finally decided on a place to live, I have given in to my inner rock star and will live in a hotel room for a couple of months, it has t.v, it has a swimming pool, (note to self: must remember to throw t.v. in swimming pool before I leave), it is fully furnished including linen, it comes with a great communal atmosphere (ooh goody instant friends), it's close to school, but I think I have sent everyone an email with the address and phone no. if you weren't on the list and feel you should be drop me a line.

It's funny when you move some where you think you should be immune to the tourist rip-offs you forget that to thieves you still look like just another tourist! I have after all now had my wallet stolen in every country I have lived in (with the exception of New Zealand, and in the case of England and Australia from my house while I was in it!!!) I shall be less complacent in future.

Besos Nikki Jayne.

Phuket 13 April

Well much water under the bridge since Cambodia, crossed uneventfully back into Thailand though that last hour and a half to the Poi pet border is as bad as everyone tells you. Rumour has it that some airline or other has paid off the government in order to keep the road in this condition, suffice to say my bum had a great massage and a bottle of palm sugar smashed in the bus, luckily only a smidge got on my backpack, the two Danish girls were not so lucky.

Made it to Bangkok only to turn around and head straight down here for this job interview, I have been offered the job, pretty much the same deal as last year and pretty much the same pay in the end, the school is much better resourced but the holidays are not quite as generous as they could be, a lot more staff, 25 teachers 4 or 5 teaching exactly the same level as me, so the support structure would be much better, the year would not finish till the end of march, I'm still dithering on this decision.

As usual I went on line to see if I had any mail and sure enough someone had stolen my credit card (eep) and my credit card was showing a lot less money than it should (double eep), so I rang all the emergency support lines and now I have to fill in statutory declarations, fraud reports etc in order to try and get it back. I guess after all the time I have spent travelling sooner or later this was bound to happen and I am very happy that it was merely my credit card not my computer or my usb with all my photos of the last year, or my ipod or my kidneys (like you hear can happen in the back streets of some dodgy Indian cities). One must after all maintain a sense of perspective (after of course wishing that karmic revenge will swiftly be visited upon the villain).


Today is the first day of Songkran or what used to be Thai new year, everybody goes crazy, kids drive round in the back of pick ups squirting people with high powered water guns and the people on the street fire back with hoses and anything else that comes to hand, add copious amounts of alcohol into the mix and well it's very "sanook" (fun) but also highly dangerous, two more days to go. But at least they have stopped measuring the death toll with a "target" figure next to it as they did last year which was just too surreal.

The swiss man who got seven years in prison (reduced from 50) for spray painting black paint on the Kings picture haws been pardoned and sent home.

Coincidentally two more days till my dive trip to the similans, the weather has been really rainy the last few days and the skys quite leaden, the national park closes at the end of the month, I hope we have not left it too late in the season!

Anyway suffice to say Phuket is quite a pretty town, it has pockets of old Sino-Potuguese architecture, I am actually staying in a rather attractive historic building, but there is a crazy Ugandan down the hall who keeps following me about like a puppy which is a bit freaky, his Mother died recently and I think he's looking for some one to transfer all that emotional baggage to, thankfully I have this dive trip to escape to tomorrow. The local transport though is expensive and so everybody pretty much drives round on those little scooter motorbikes, I am reluctant to buy one as the death toll for foreigners on those things here is horrendous (possibly because they let any fool [like me?] drive one), but at least I actually own a licence that says I have passed a test and am competent to ride one, I suspect most of these guys don't.

Anyway, everywhere was shut today so tomorrow I will endeavour to find somewhere to post this, take care dudes.
Love N.J.

"So it goes" section:
R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, drank like a fish, smoked like a train, and still clocked 84, "Lonesome no more" I take it

Can Tho 30th March

The boat trip back from Phu Quok to the main land featured most of the same enterpainment we had en(dur/joy)ed on the way over, a Vietnamese Kylie Minogue, I am not familiar enough with Kylie's work to know which song was being covered but familiar enough to recognise the tune. The old "Black is black" number from the 70's complete with gold lame bikini clad boot scooters was pretty scary! All the sets, outfits and video editing style was circa 1984, it made me feel as though in a dream watching a parallel universe's version of ready to roll or solid gold (the dancers were the vietnamese lost twins of the solid gold dancers).

We are now in Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong delta, it has a beautiful foreshore, promenade and the kids here (like those all over this part of the country) love to fly their kites. We hired a boat this morning and went to a couple of floating markets where the kalediscope of colours and commerce was so intense it is hard to focus on any one thing or get a clear shot at a photo, it was pandemonium, it was great, we went on up and down canals to fruit farms and dry markets. I had a fabulous time but the markets between Sieam Reap and Battambang are more interesting and vastly larger I think.

Tomorrow we are back to Chau Doc for a few more days then I must head back to Thailand and check out some potential schools for the new school year.

Nikki Jayne.