Again I am writing this from a desk in a tattoo shop in Siem Reap, cambodia.
If you're just joining us in part one I ended it just as left the army. If you havent seen it you can find it here.
As I drove through the gates for the final time.
I felt a massive flood of relief, a huge weight was gone from my shoulders, I sped down the motorway laughing hysterically, that was it, it was done, I never had to go back to being treated like shit again, I never had to deal with bullshit burocracy, never had to live in a way that I hated again. I wont hate everything and everyone around me but stick it out for the money, fuck that shit. I know people now who are still being crushed under the yolk of the army, or more specifically the shit management which is the real barb to army life. From those of us who have escaped and are happier for it the resounding reply to their cries of help is 'Sign off, get out, save yourself' and I really hope they do.
Freedom and travel
I spent Christmas at home with my family, at the time I thought I just going to go traveling for 6 months or so, but none the less mum insisted on a goodbye party and all that good intentioned shit that mums do. Soon enough January rolled around and I was saying good bye to my crying girlfriend, my family and getting on a plane to Thailand, right out of the gate my first plane was delayed, meaning I missed my connecting flight and the connecting flight after that, so I flew from Manchester to Dusseldorph, Dusseldorph to Vienna, Vienna to Bangkok and finally from Bangkok to Chaing Rai. To be honest most of the flights were pretty awful, at least 2 screaming children were issued to each cabin, the syncranissity that the children work with was almost impressive, an orcestra of ear splitting cries which continued for a length of time that defied belief.
I finally arrived in Chaing Rai to descover my bags had been lost, I was getting pretty close to losing my rag at this point, so rather than carry on to my destination with a Thai family in the golden triangle I stuck around in the city for a few days whilst they located my bags, this in all honesty wasnt all that bad, Chaing Rai is a cracking little city with many great bars and gardens, it is littered with temples and the main road is decorated with a golden clock tower. If you ever get the chance I would advise you check it out. To the north is a fantastic art instilation called the white temple. It is truly spectacular.
The golden triangle
My hosts made me feel very much at home, the family consisted of the mother Ton, a kind, happy and very caring woman who did everything in her power to make everyone feel welcome whilst still running a guesthouse and home schooling her two children, BeBe who was around 4 and a ray of sunshine, playful, unknowingly hilarious and energetic in spades. Her older brother WooWo was frankly a little cunt, who relished in annoying whomever he could as much as possible and making his sister cry, only to burst into tears himself when denied even the most minor of things. I spent most of an unseasonably cold january learning Thai with Ton and attempting to teach the chidren english, although they both spoke it very well already.
Heres me in some awful shorts with the beautiful view of Laos to the right, and Burma (mynmar) to the left. In the distance is China apparently.
Im going to skip ahead past some more boring stuff about me teaching
Shambala
Well I ended up at this hippie festival, 'Shambala in your heart' which is a combined Thai and Japanese music festival held near a town called Chaing Dow, a hour or north of Chaing Mai. I met some fantastic people there, had an amazing time taking LSD for the first time ( I think ill make a whole post about that experiance) . The entire vibe of the festival was so peaceful and easy going, although that may have just been the miasma of weed smoke that had settled over the place, the festival is held in the shadow of a great forested mountain and makes a perfect backdrop to get really drunk and relax in the stream that ran through the venue, or go up the road to the town hotsprings, they were certainly an experiance. It was here I met Dan, Sam, Conran, Mike and leigh-anne, after the festival we all traveled to Pai.
Ok, thank you for reading, please hit me up with your comments I would love your feedback and look out for my next post "a short introduction to how I found myself in Cambodia. PtIII, Living the Pai life"