http://stevieblunder.blogspot.com/

From now on all future posts and photos will go there.

I have just completed the first post on the new site today.

Once again the URL is: http://stevieblunder.blogspot.com/

I hope you continue to enjoy reading my travel tales.

My blog entries from April 2006 to January 2009 will remain on this site. All future updates will go to the new site.

I’m off to catch an all night bus from KB to KL.

Best wishes

Two bombs exploded at the Malaysia-Thailand checkpoint yesterday (Wednesday) morning. The first bomb went off at 7.30am, destroying three immigration posts. Fifteen minutes later another bomb exploded nearby, forcing the closure of the busy bridge which connects Kolok in Thailand to Rantau Panjang in Kelantan, Malaysia.

Thai deputy consul-general in Malaysia, Niran Boonjit, siad no one was injured in the incident. A Thai police spokesman in Bangkok said  that both bombs, weighing 1kg and 2kg, were triggered using digital watches.

The bridge, which is open daily from 6am to 10pm, had been reopened and the situation returned to normal by Wednesday afternoon. Tour guide Shaari Jusoh said the explosions could be heard in Rantau Panjang some 300m away.

More than 3,500 people have died since suspected separatists resumed their armed campaign to seek independence for the Muslim-majority Thai provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala.

My thoughts:

This checkpoint is 30km from Kota Bharu where I am now. I have spent a total of 8 days in Kolok in Thailand and crossed this bridge twice recently! When I was first in Kolok (Sept ‘08) a woman told me how the town’s Police station had been bombed on 21st Aug 2008. Two dead and over 30 wounded!

A little too close for comfort?

What the hell am I doing hanging around here?

Takut - Scary!

Other news: I haven’t had a beer or cigarette for 2 weeks. This leads me to a gloomy question: why suffer the pain of quitting nicotine? To avoid cancer or heart disease? I could die in a bomb-blast or bus crash tomorrow. Perhaps I should continue smoking and live under the philosophy: your time is up when your time is up. However, I do feel healthier and have a few extra quid in my pocket so is this a moot point?

Tomorrow is my 950th consecutive day of travel meaning the 7th March will be my 1000th day away from England. I am determined to escape Kota Bharu on Saturday by taking a bus to Kuala Lumpu. Armin is there so hopefully I can catch up with him.

I installed skype last night and ended up talking to a Vietnamese woman for 2hours! Her name is Julia, 28 from Saigon. She works as a sales executive for a Singapore-based air compressor outfit. Quite an interesting lass (and cute too). Perhaps I will go to Saigon and teach instead!

NUFC lost at home to Hull last night in a FA Cup 3rd round replay despite dominating the match (if the BBC are to be believed).  I wish I’d been born in either Manchester, Liverpool or London so I could see what a trophy looks like! Even Pompey would do! NUFC have not won anything in my lifetime - will this barren spell ever end?

Air - water (air is pronounced: eye-yi)

Intel’s ‘inside’ Celeron 900MHz shit processor. Can multiply 342 x 278 in 3secs flat. Beat that.

I reckon this baby has enough power to piss around with photos, blogs, downloading stuff (like porn) and online chatting. I have Skype, MSN and a headset/mic ready to make use of free internet telephony. My Fatha has recently acquired my old PC and I am hoping he can get his shit in one sock so I can talk to him for nowt.

I am still in Kota Bharu. I seem to have been sucked in. I might go to KL on Saturday and try to get a tourist visa for China. This is incase the work visa doesn’t come through in time. I have booked a flight from KL to Macau on the 27th Feb so I can be in Guangzhou for 1st March to start ‘working’ (I hate that word). This flight was a cheap www.airasia.com special at only £30.

I am thinking of getting a new passport while I’m in KL but at £144 a pop I might wait until next month after already blowing this month’s budget on mobiles and laptops.

Since I have been applying for employment recently, my head is overflowing with uselss buzzwords. Consequently, standby for some ludicrous job hunting jargon in the next paragraph (regarding my passport antics):

Latterly, I observed my passport replete with stamps and visas. This renders it unusable. Recognising the problem I endeavoured to find a solution quickly - before encroaching on any deadlines. Always being one to appreciate the value of teamwork, I decided a team effort would be an agreeable approach to this particular issue. Accordingly, I touched-base with my colleagues. We decided on an innovative idea: I would be pro-active and remove (illegally) one of the used visas thus freeing up a page for future use. Showing daring, cunning and initiative I steamed a used visa from it’s home. The result is a delay in the outlay of £144. I believe this successful operation has highlighted many qualities synonymous with procuring employment in the modern workplace. Clearly evident was my motivational abilities and professionalism.

Believe it or not modern day Brits have to come out with this kind of shit to secure a job answering phones. I am ashamed to admit that I’m actually quite good with this nonsense. The terms in italics are key words you need in an interview. Despite all these tips, if all else fails, be sure to use the catch-all job guarantee phrase:

“The  sum of the parts is greater than the whole”.

I  answered this to the question “What do you think about teamwork?”

The woman interviewing me visibly moistened at my reply. I remember thinking ‘you’re one sad lady’.

Needless to wsay I didn’t get the job.

Here’s a pic of  wor lass borrowing me laptop. Of course the marketing gurus want you to believe that you’ll be sexy if you buy one of their products. What a load o’shite. I doubt they would use the pic of the fat lass and me holding their computer (see last post) in the shop! Superficial, pretentious arses.

I don’t know what’s going on but this site has had 60400 hits. In the last 14 days alone, 4500 people have paid a visit - fuck me!

I’m off to bed.

Nasi lemak - small dried fish with rice for breakfast.

This is his business empire, the Bunga Raya GH, snugly located between Dr Choong’s dental practice and Kian Pharmacy on Jalan (street) Padang Garong, central Kota Bharu. As I said before there are millions of Pharmacies here.

Likewise, there are millions of Photo shops too. This is the one where I spent hours scanning and signing contract documents. Azam is a name that sounds familiar. If I was to open a DVD rental shop in Pegswood I would call it “Azam’s DVDs”.

For  some reason this pic reminds me of a scene I saw in Surat Thani, Thailand. I was on the bus heading to Hat Yai when we became stuck in traffic on the outskirts of town. I was watching some sign-makers making a very expensive looking sign for a tailor’s shop. The sign was in both Thai and English. However, the English bit said: “Armarni sults” which automatically made me think “Armani sluts” as is the way my twisted mind works. I tried to explain with sign language through the window that it was spelt wrong but they just smiled at me like I was some kind of idiot! I wrote it  backwards (so they could read it) in the grime on the window but to no avail. I might go back and ask them: ‘How much for an Armarni slut?’ That’s Asia for you folks!

Since I have a new camera I’ve been taking shots of random things. Like this one Kota Bharu bus station:

Also this one of the Toon poster in the Indian curry house:

Shearer, Beardlsey, Ginola and Ferdinand? No wonder we were kicking arse back then.

It’s funny to see this in a cafe full of Indian blokes. Turns out they all support Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool - f*cking glory hunters.

Anyhoo, Mike is responsible for this:

Yes, me buying a laptop from this Chinese lass. I have blown my monthly budget on a new mobile phone and laptop! I am using it now to write this blog. It cost me 1400RM/5.35 = £260. I have programmed the keyboard to use English(UK) so I can finally use the £ symbol - woohoo. Since I charmed the pants off the salesgirl she threw in a free keyboard protector, mouse, headset + mic and a lock worth 50RM/£10.

For some reason only ethnic Chinese seem to sell electronics stuff here in Malaysia????? They also have the monolpoly on jewellery shops which are in abundance here too.

Mike is partly responsible for this splurge. As elsewhere, people in Asia are very tech-savvy. Perhaps more so than England. Mike encouraged me to buy this ASUS eeePC 904 laptop. He insisted I would use it a lot. It seems a pretty good deal. It has: Intel 1.6GHz, WinXP, 160GBHDD, 1GB RAM, 9″ display, weight 1.3kg, WIFI, webcam, 3 USB.

However, becauseof this madness I have about 500RM/£100 to last me until Feb (19days). SHIT!

I know governments want us to be good little consumers and SPEND SPEND SPEND our way out of economic doom. Well I suppose this is my contribution to prop up the sagging economy. That makes me feel less guilty.

I do have to put a stop to these brain-farts. Still, if I get the job in China things will work out OK.

By the way…….only an idiot would stay this long in Kota Bharu.

Best