One Night Stand

Been home 3 weeks, but here’s the end of the journey anyway….

And so it is……..

The final countdown (not literally as des lynam is on it now with the effervescent carol vorderman supplying mature woman beauty). After the relaxed (full on horizontal) experience in Laos I was looking to inject some energy into myself, back to Thighland.

‘Hello Sir you want grasshopper’, obviously cringing at the thought yet surrounded by impressionable 18 year olds, ‘Yes I’ll have a full bag’. Crunch, crunch, slurp later(see also bicknall eating the contents of his nostrils) and I certainly had a spring in my step (boom, boom, boing, boing)!!

Had some bronchitis (no I didn’t also eat a dinosaur) due to heat (I feel a wave of winter addled sympathy coming my way).

All aboard the night train to bangwilly before going to the cinema on my own (weirdo, loser alert!) before discovering that they hate their king as much as we hate our royals. Before every film they play the Thai national anthem with a smashing montage of the king falling from the sky in raindrops (soggy and painful), Funny until, I had to stand up unfold my arms, dropping my pick and mix, sending giant bananas and cola cubes everywhere.

2 weeks left then and with me laughing at my unfathomable credit card bill (update: currently crying) it was time to PARTY like a worm in a tequila bottle. Headed down to Ko Phagn Nang (lemon meringue) and pretty much got lost in buckets for about 72+24 hours (beer has killed maths area of brian and brain too!). First night was more crackers than Jacobs and Ryvita, with memory loss attributed to my drink being spiked. I guess should’ve noticed that someone had put a hedgehog in there, but hey! Anyway ‘lost’ bank cards and hard cash (Thai P.M. doing a mean bullying face). There was a rumour going around about a ladyboy gang nicking stuff which posed obvious questions when telling the police……

The Fuzz “Was it a man or a woman|”…….
Me… “ Well…”

So armed with my best friend (not you Gil, you Essex sun bed merchant!) Mr Gold Card it was to the main event. Fortunately the moon had eaten all it’s tea and also a choc-ice for pudding and it was Full! Thus enabling 20,000 fruit loops and nut bars to go off on the beach (smelly). It was more mental than well, a mental person, meeting heaps of people (not all on top of each other) and going nuts (horsechestnuts especially) to quote Lionel Richie it went on All Night Long (regular voice), All Night (sort of high pitched beckham voice), All night long (reg voice) until 10 in the morning before swimming in a once beautiful sea now saturated with ‘pass’ (minus the ‘a’ add an ‘i’) , barf and some substance that rhymes with Doctor Who!!

Next day was like this….Discover not dead, rejoice! Fall foul of bucket syndrome, go mad, forget name, but still able to spit and deduce that I’m twerted when talking to people, turn down ladyboy, have one hour sleep, wake up, pack in 20 seconds, make boat with 4 seconds to spare, eat valium, sit in café, want to lie on floor, almost fall apart at the kneecaps. Arrive in Krabi feeling what else but Lobstery, er no I mean crabby.

Rock climbing at 8.30am REARRANGED for 2.00pm. Awake at 1.45pm “ muttering ‘mum, tea, bacon, urrggh’. Strolled up to big cliff (richard and asked him why he releases bad music) not knowing my arse from my elbow, fundamentally importantas its difficult to climb with your bum. After my instructor ‘Tu’ (never trust a man named after a number i.e. Juan or Tu) told me he hadn’t done
much rock climbing before and that he wasn’t really an instructor I suggested something similar to rock climbing in the slim chance I might be able to sneak back to bed, how about ‘Clock Rhyming’???

My champion efforts were ignored (sock, lock, block, cock) as he fitted me with a harness and told me to go away up a big rock face.It was great! I released more water than a camel after 10 pints of bitter and even got to tread on a Spanish girls foot when I got stuck. My later Spiderman auditions were discredited when the highly illegal substance sellotape was found on my fingers.

1 week……….Onto the lovely island of Ko Phi Phi twinned with Ko Poo Poo. Previously the Tsunami had hit here, but you’d barely know save for subtle reminders, a testament to the Thai people.

Not really to much to say about desperate sun bathing other than you go REDder than ruby grapefruit juice. Drank lots of fruit shakes to go with the arm shakes from booze consumption. Then hired a boat to take us to the island where they filmed the originally titled movie and book ‘The Beach’ did some class snorkelling seeing loads of fish before calling Captain Birdseye (rumour has it he really does have a birdseye under that eye patch) and asking for some breadcrumbs.

Hit the beach (not literally), no sign of All Saints singing ……“I’m moving, I’m jogging, can you come over here, I really want a beer, oh look Cyril sneer, take me to the quiche ” …… (or however it went), pretended to be Leonardo Di Crapio running around going “ I’m King Of The World ” , “ I’m also a huge cock ” and “ Francoise ”. It was a seriously beautiful place and therefore was ripe to be graced with my football skills, all was going well until a Brasilian by the name of ‘Chico’ popped up, played some ball, and it suddenly dawned on me with only 2 days left………

Cue sad violins and possibly the worst Goonies/current pop music joke ever, ever, ever and ever.

“ Don’t you get it Briggsy, the moment you get on that plane your giving this great nomadic life up, Up there in England it’s their extended winter time, down here playing football on a beautiful beach with Brasilians it’s Chico Time!!!!” (letterbombs are welcome for that one).

Finished up with the Half Moon party (one bum cheeked trousers) before slowly trundling off to Bangkok to fly home. Back in reality now I’m peeling more than a potato technician, a young child called me a w*nker presumably upon seeing my Henry from Neighbours haircut, and just had a phone call from Wilkinsons saying my Dads hedge trimmers are in. Brilliant!

So thanks everyone for reading and writing and being great travel people/job avoidersIt’s been character building (good C.V. lie)
I love you all more than a fat man at a woolworths eater egg sale and hope to see you soon to compare tans.

Sabede ka (I think it means hello but could mean monkey bogies)

The Laos mentality: Laos people feel sorry for those who think too much.

The only country named after an insect or bug (wood) Laos…………continued my unabated adventure travel by flying in with Air Laos who have one of the worst safety records in the world. After that we needed some serious (no jokes or fun) relaxation which as it turns out would go down very well in Laos. A supremely laid back country where the national past time appeared to be either sleeping or sitting down doing nothing and staring into space. Fantastic.

Well it was until the Laos people gathered around us at 10pm mimicking a sleeping action and saying they needed to sleep, when we’d witnessed first hand them sleeping all day. They’d be all smiles and friendliness when taking your brekky order only to start walking off before turning around, laughing and saying they’d forgot. Probably scared them with pro-activeness when I hired the gayest bike of all time™, proper E.T. style with a little basket on front minus the brown alien and proceeded to cycle to nowhere, well sweatsville.

Met some interesting travel folk as well including one try hard, who was like ‘fashionable dad’ and kept popping things into the conversation like “Aren’t the White Stripes just the best band around at the moment” Well, no its clearly Girls Aloud, always has been.

Observed more Laos work ethic from the peace of a hammock and noted that it was 5 seconds graft followed by 5 minutes rest, the boss would just walk around kicking planks every so often before sitting down and staring into space.

Trying to get anything done was a complete nightmare as every mother hubbard was asleep, went to get a boat ticket the fella is asleep behind the counter, went to a bank and politely waited 6 hours for the girl to raise her head from the counter and out of cuckoo world.

Clearly a country after my own heart, I developed a real affinity for the Laos people and their point blank refusal to wake up for the day, I signed up to a ‘Love in Laos’ internet dating site, arranged a date with a local stunner, favourite hobby being lazy, only to see plans for residency scuppered as she didn’t turn up. She probably couldn’t be arsed choosing a sit down or was sound asleep, my poor bleeding heart will never know.

Hired the newest contender for most useless bike of the year 2006 with a seat quite obviously gay as it continually tried to insert itself in my bum. I tried to dispel this notion as a girl strolled past in a bikini which grabbed the attention of three monks who couldn’t resist a sneaky peek and one could be heard to exclaim ‘wai be colomchi bigger boobs than Jordan’. To quote Charles and Eddie “ Would I lie to you?”

Thought we’d treat ourselves by taking a V.I.P. bus to the capital unfortunately it seemed V.I.P. stood for ummm… Vind Inglish People (up)….um yeah. We were promised meal, drinks and t.v. We got a mini swiss roll and 2 (count them) sweets, as for a t.v. they said chances are there was a transvestite on board. It was time to succumb to valium!!

As i slipped into a land of penquins playing the drums with icepoles and horses having banjo lessons with giraffes our destination didn’t seem too far off, after spending 5 hours in la la la land it became apparent that we’d been broken down on the side of the road for well, the last 5 hours. So we transferred to the local bus which was full. Never fear they had a solution, put tiny stools in the aisle for all us V.I.P. folk. With the valium still coursing around the veins I spent the next four hours, falling asleep at 3 second intervals, swaying violently in 360 degree circles due to the ergonomics (posh word) of the stool, thus unknowingly backwards headbutting, shoulder barging and elbow dropping the clearly alarmed locals.

In the capital then and I donned my ‘Lucky’ t-shirt to hit the streets. Which is where the t-shirt came through with flying (mostly brown and white) colours.

Luck No.1: A bird pooed on me. Ha.
Luck No.2: I cut my toe open. Ha Ha.
Luck No.3: The beer factory we visited was closed. Hady facking Ha.

As you can imagine the only thing in stitches was….

1.That idiot bird
2.My toe (quite literally)
3.My liver

I served my revenge by getting impossibly drunk and then the tables were turned on me again as a filthy hangover took its toll….DOH!

I laughed freely again the next day as I put a bike stand through my toe, ha ha brilliant I nearly cried until someone gave me a Mr Men plaster. Finally got to this big cave thing and was delighted to find the skeleton piano from the Goonies, you know the one where Andy isn’t sure which note to play and Mikey cracks that classic line “If you hit the wrong note we’ll all be flat” luckily we escaped the Fratellis with nothing but another cut on my foot.

Next up some tubing down the mighty Mekong river where locals pulled you into their bars with a big bamboo pole, forced beer and local hoembrew spirit (so good they named it twice) lao-lao down our throats, then pointed to huge rope swings, cliffs and jumps from which to risk castration, collapsed lungs and frizzy hair.

Bus ride up to Luang Prabang (gangbang) flanked by an orange hairded scotsgirl and an orange toga attired monk, the next 8 hours were spent in a shoulder barging contest with said monk for arm space, we finally made friends when he gave me his autograph and I told him I was UK chief Jelly Baby tester, although he blatently didn’t give a fack as he was too busy puffing on cigarettes, taking phone calls, sending dirty texts to nuns and going for a new record on snake.

I’d go on but I have to go to the immigration office to take a sleeping test to stay in the country.

Love Briggsy xxx

P.S. I failed for sleep talking and snoring

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