A tale of two journeys…
I think it may have been Isaac Newton who said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And this holds true in other things too. For every good film you see there will be a bad one. For every sandwich you make that brings a smile to your face & a feeling of joy to your tummy, there will be one which has stale bread, dodgy cheese, not enough sweet chilli sauce etc…
And I have found over the last 2 days that for every terrible journey you go on, where every damn thing that can go wrong does, there will be a smooth, enjoyable and blissfully pleasant one.
My journey two weeks ago from Thailand to London was almost certainly the worst I have ever undertaken. This was due in no small part to the journey’s purpose: Going to see my Dad in hospital before he had heart surgery. But so many other little things helped contribute to making this journey thoroughly crap. Every taxi I got during that trip (there must have been 5 or 6, in both Thailand & the U.K) dropped me off at the wrong place. Generally i dont mind a little stroll to get to the correct place. Little strolls are fun & refreshing. Not, however, when one hasn’t slept for 2 days & is carrying a large backpack. Even less fun is carrying said large backpack whilst wading through ankle deep water (that may or may not have originated in a sewer) wearing sandals.
Heathrow Airport. Busiest one in the world apparently. Eery amenity you could posibly want & several that nobody ever does. (Who buys giant teddy bears with British flags at an airport?? I mean really???) Heathrow is so big & so busy that they park some of the aeroplanes 25 minutes walk from the immigration desk. And then decide they only need to employ 2 people to work at that immigration desk thus creating a massive queue. And then have the idea that since we live in an age of mobile telephones, nobody is going to need a public payphone pretty swiftly after leaving the plane. It took me more than half an hour after landing to get to a phone ( on the other side of immigration) and find out that my Dad was OK. So I pick up my backpack from the conveyor belt (which, surprise surprise, takes forever) & head off for the hospital I understand him to be at. Of course he’s not there. He’s in a different hospital on the other side of London. And on. And on.
And one more thing before I switch from righteous indignation mode to mellow joy mode. I used to have a very good, mutually beneficial relationship with my personal CD player. My side of the bargain was to keep it protected in a special soft CD player coat & keep it well fed with nutritious, non-leaking batteries. His side of the bargan was to play me the tunes I wanted to hear, at the times i wanted to hear them. This bargain worked well. We had an understanding. We were good together. And then the little bugger decided to start playing games with me. He decided that as he was closer to the CD’s than I was, he could make executive decisions about what it was going to play. Now I’ve always been careful to listen to a variety of different music. I certainly didn’t want my little CD player pal to get bored. But he decided that on any given day he would play, for example, only Pink Floyd & no Blur. Why? Because he could. And so..after helping secure my terrible journey into the number 1 spot for all-time terrible Bucky journeys by not allowing me to listen to things that might actually make me feel better, I dumped the fucker.
So yes..that journey was crap. But in a way its utter crapness helped me appreciate the return journey. A journey where everything that could possibly go RIGHT did. Firstly the lovely people on the Heathrow Express decided to get my journey off to an excellent start by not asking me to buy one of their extortionately priced tickets. Then I check in at the airport (no queue at all) and am told I can have 4 seats to myself to stretch out in. Don’t mind if I do. The money saved by not having to get a Heathrow Express ticket is then spent on 2 excellent albums. I glide down those great moving walkways listening to Jeff Buckley singing “Hallelujah” & I feel fantastic. The stewardesses on the plane are wonderfully efficient at keeping my red wine topped up. And in the morning after a brilliant night’s kip there are croissants for breakfast. I love croissants. Especially warm ones with butter melting. Mmmmm.
And then I arrive back in Ban Phe in the middle of a mates birthday party. Another tequila? Why the hell not…..
Tags: Thailand, Thailand
The Dude
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