OK, so I'm gonna attempt a bit of travel writing, diary keeping while on my travels so I can look back at it when I'm even older and still get it right up yeez all. Here goes...
Leaving Glasgow wasn’t too bad, slept OK the night before until 6am then kept having strange dreams about my wife and her mother. Nothing dodgy, more situational comedy stuff…you had to be there, but nobody was.
When we got to Glasgow airport I realized that it was actually too hot even in there for my Scottish pallor to deal with and got a wee bit worried about the extreme heat that was to follow. I wasn’t really concerned about leaving Glasgow, my life, friends, home and family until I realized that I was missing ‘Three Ninjas : Kick Back’ on Channel 5 and then later Bad Boys 2 on ITV. That’s when it really sank in.
Transit was a nightmare though, not for any real reason, it just isn’t really the best way to spend your time. I actually really enjoyed the first part from Glasgow to Dubai because Holly slept and I watched chick flicks on the wee telly in my seat. I made pals with the Air Steward who looked like the kinda melted one from JLS and he was giving me 2 drinks for every one I asked for and giving me a wee wink. Gid Lad. Ended up in a pretty good mood as each wee bottle was 50ml and I got drinks almost 10 times. By the end of it I was doing the wee salute thing that Tom Cruise does when he takes off in Top Gun then laughing to myself when I realized “Ahm ekshully oan a plane!”. Happy Days.
Then, the inevitable happened. Every fucking time I get on a plane or go somewhere I meet someone I know, or in most cases don’t but they seem to know me. I clocked her on the way onto the plane sitting beside a tiny Chinese woman. “Hiya” as I feigned ignorance. 7 hours later and we’re leaving the plane and there she is waiting at the end of the terminal for us. Good job Holly was with me and she introduced herself or I wouldn’t have known her name. She is someone from the days when we’d be out trawling parties and always end up in the Halt or Arlington bar on a Sunday, she was always pretty nice but a bit too spaced out and ‘affected’ by whatever she had been up to before. And so it begins…9 hours of hanging around with this girl in Dubai airport through the night. You know what I’m like, and Holly too. We quite like to just sit and read when there’s nowt to do or talk about but this girl just couldnae handle it. She stated that she “hated reading, just couldn’t get into it” so progressed to sit there either staring into space or staring at you and then commenting almost just for the sake of it something terribly banal like ‘Did you hear someone got cured of aids?” – FUCK RIGHT OFF. At one point I made a very visual (and rude) point of putting in ear plugs while she was talking at me. It didn’t work by the way. Anyway, enough about that – I’m sure I’ll run into some dicks from school when I head to the beach later. Dubai was a struggle, nae sleep nae air, nae bevy, nae patter. Onwards to Singapore. (I will add one thing though, when you start descending into Dubai they play a video and a song to welcome you by Bryan Adams – QUALITAAAAAAY is all I’ll say)
Singapore was pretty easy going airport wise, nae bother getting our luggage and a cab – good price, good motor and good patter from a wee Chinese man that must have worked for universal Studios on the side. I must note that this was about the only value for money we experienced in all our time in Singapore. We got to our Hotel, the ultra Gucci ‘Fullerton Hotel’, pretty much the nicest bit I’ve ever been in. It used to be the Post Office for Singapore then they done it up into a 5 star hotel so you can see a good mix of the old and the new. We felt pretty out of place there and kept expecting to be directed to the nearest Korn concert but the staff were really, really nice and helpful. The room we got was awesome, it had a massive bathroom and balcony and a king size bed. They left us a nice wee note with a bottle of wine and a teddy with a sprig of Holly on it for Holly. Gallus.
We arrived pretty late so just went round the wee bay where we were at and found some pubs and eateries that looked like they would be on the cheap side (Best Kebab kinda vibe) and the first place we came across sold Strongbow, apparently on draught. Fuck it, lets get one of them to start us off. 28 Singapore Dollars! It wisnae draught either, I can tell these things – it was from glass 330ml bottles. (I will keep you updated on this blog with all the instances and occurrences of Strongbow and other ciders as I go along) That works out at about £15 for 2 drinks. OK, we thought. This is probably just because we’re drinking imported Strongbow eh? Naw son. We venture further down to get some food, Holly opted for the Stingray (mad cow) and I got a Green Curry. Was pretty good but we were expecting to pay about 4 bucks for each meal. £40 and about 9 minutes later we were unsatisfied. Again, OK we thought – we’re new to this, surely it’ll get better when we find our feet, let’s go get some beers and chill out in the hotel room.
The next day the weather was a bit of a shiter but we went out and got a wee boat tour round the river and the various quays. That Marina Bay Sands hotel is one of the maddest things I have ever seen! Its sheer size is really off putting, not of it but off ma dinner. It was like in Independence Day when that big Spaceship arrives and every goes out into their gardens to see it looming above their heads, really scary but really, really impressive. I have never seen anything as adventurous as that before, (google it, it has a ship on top of it bridging 3 bulidings!) truly impressive as were a lot of the other buildings. We walked up into Chinatown and that was my favourite part of Singapore, a bit more scummy and a lot more flavours going on. We got some food and cocktails at some nice wee places then walked around the city with some cold bottles with an eye as to where to go in the night. That night we went out to Clarke Quay as it looked really nice, and indeed it was – really well done, lit and some interesting entertainment and food. Again, it was just so expensive so we had a couple and a Mexican meal and decided to get some cans and sit by the river (which is what the locals all seemed to be doing) with a pack of cards. We don’t really know any card games so made up some new Monkey Face games with the Joker Cards, which strangely had a rabbit coming out of an egg on them. ‘Ultimate Hand Monkey Face’ and 21 with Simian Flushes were highlights of these games. Back to the hotel to get packed and ready to leave for Thailand in the morning.
Air Asia is pretty gallus by the way, £35 each for a flight from Singapore to Phuket and the plane was nice and clean. One of the stewardesses obviously learned how to speak English from the voice function on the mac, she sounded so like the female voice. Cannae hold it against them, they were the best of a bad bunch of all relatively unattractive Stewardesses on the trip thus far. We arrived in Phuket and it took an age to get through customs and the like. We had an hours cab ride to Patong where we were staying so the wee bammy Thai driver played us a CD of covers of popular songs including Right Here Waiting, I Swear and Hero which were all pretty strange but as you can imagine…I was in my element! The roads here are crazy, guys sitting on piles of sticks on top of jeeps, women with 4 babies on scooters and generally a vibe much like what you see when you look at semen through a microscope. We got to the hotel though and all was good. It was like a gay Fawlty Towers and actually pretty hilarious, a super queen guy from England on the front Desk with a Thai assistant in a pink shirt and Grey socks doing the Manuel bit and giving him that gay ‘past remarkable’ glance at every turn. Hilarious. The room was actually really nice though and pretty cheap.
In Phuket, the first thing that was on telly was actually fucking Bad Boys 2 in English with Thai subtitles – I took that as a sign that all would be well and no matter how much I miss the creature comforts of home there will always be shady films and music to get me by. A favourite past time of mine as a youngster was to walk around listening to music on my headphones and imagine that what was happening in my life at that moment was the music video to that song. It was kinda like those montage scenes you used to get in Baywatch where there would be some character called ‘Billy Warlock’ or some shit walking around and it would change to sepia tones and some 90’s power ballad was accompanying the scene. I think I’m gonna do that with ‘Cruisin Down the Streets Of Siam’ from the Kickboxer soundtrack today.
Phuket si a good bit though. Actually, it’s no, it’s a pure shiter. I’m gonna have to fly kick the next person that say’s ‘My Friend’, ‘Tuk Tuk’, ‘Jet Ski’ or even ‘Hello’. I know it’s the way of life here and all that but my patience is short at the best of times. The only solace I have is that Dan West isn’t here to speak to them all individually and debate the price of an Ed Hardy cap he’s never going to buy anyway.
The sweets and food are pretty different, not like in berlin where you got a fucking white twix and not in a pure upside down way like ‘Mango Tango’, well maybe a wee bit like that as I just saw Seaweed flavour Pringles – if that’s not upside doon then I don’t know what is.
To cut a long story short, it’s just too busy here and too full of cunts from Bolton, Germany, Russia and Glasgow. We managed to screw up our sleeping pattern last night so that we woke up at 2am, kicked about the shanty hoose for a bit then went to the beach at about 6.45am – there were still plenty of bars open and ladyboys lining the streets as the sun was coming up, well in folks. We spent the day on the beach before getting bored and finding a shop that sells premium spirits for hee haw – 380 BHT later we have a litre of gin. Gonna have a wee cuddle, a nap and a cold shower then hit some pubs and clubs tonight. There is one place that has a big sign saying ‘AC/DC + Metallica tribute’ that has a Predator statue looking hard outside it. I dare say we will be going there for a bit of patter.
Until then, I’ll blog again in a couple of days.
Craggers
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