Thai Dye on the Highway

Business recently sent me across to Ban Chang, about 100 miles South East of Bangkok. It’s about the same distance from AUH to Bangkok as it is to London (300 miles less actually), but is a different world again. For a start they drive on the proper side of the road, so after 7 months of left hand drive I was back to flicking the wipers on every time I wanted to indicate. Not that anyone noticed, nobody else was bothering with indicators, traffic lights or the pavement/road divide, or even which side of the road to drive on, it was pretty much a free-for-all.

Our mate Martin, a top Norwegian ex-ninja, racing driver, and general all-round good bloke gave us the inside track on where to go. Incidentally his son is also a racing driver and is busy wiping the floor with the opposition (and his Dad) despite being years younger than the rest of the drivers in his class. Check out kartthai.com or stuvik.com for the latest updates on Sandy's route to Formula One.

Ban Chang has no tourists there at all, which was lovely, there is a small ex-pat community, but they are a tiny fraction of the population. It is green with beautiful scenery, the people are friendly and the food excellent. Fresh exotic fruit is on sale everywhere, Lychees, Dragon Fruit, Durian, Papaya and all sorts of stuff that I couldn’t indentify but tasted great. The roadside Satay vendors are all busy with charcoal or gas grills, I think the infusion of traditional marinades and diesel fumes gives them a unique character and flavour.



There are about 3 bazillion travel blogs on this site that deal with Thailand, so if you want to see sleaze and sun burnt backpackers drinking neat rum out of coconuts you’ve got plenty of scope elsewhere. This is a quality blog for mature and culturally aware readers, not just a forum to provide titillation and enjoyment to people incapable of thinking up this stuff for themselves. As Shakespeare once said “with great power comes great responsibility” so I must act accordingly. Actually, I think it might have been Spiderman who said that, either way it was some bloke in tights, and if there is one thing I have learned in this life is that people take a lot more notice of what you say when you are wearing a pair of tights. And crying and holding a knife.







This blog has just had it’s 10,000th hit since I set it up in March, so that means either every single subscriber has logged on 285 times, or I have a much wider readership than I thought.



So, while I am here I’ll just quickly reply to some of the messages I get sent:

To Charles in Leeds - Strictly speaking it is illegal, but everyone turns a blind eye to it.

To Steve in Norwich - You'll just have to go to A & E and see if they can get it out, tell them you slipped while getting out of the shower or something.

To Scott in Leighton Buzzard - Please stop sending me those photos of yourself.

To Martin in Corringham - Those feelings are perfectly natural, especially in the Fire Brigade.

To Agnita in Sweden, Megan in Australia, Tanja in Luxembourg, Kish in Singapore, Britney in Colombia and Beccy & Zoe in Spain - Sorry, I am already happily married, but thanks anyway.

To Kiri, Hoshimi and Lulu in Tokyo - Yes, I think my wife would mind.

And to Bubba in the San Quinton Correctional Facility - Yes, I do like long, hot showers! - Was that a lucky guess?



Incidentally, other names for this chapter I thought up were “Thai Die For”, “All Thai-ed Up”, “Thai me kangaroo down sport”, “Tongue Thai-ed”, “Thai a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”, "Lip My Thai-ts" and “Thailand”. I stand by my final choice, Robert Plant's solo work was always under rated. Of course, I should have called it "Like a Baht Out of Hell" but it's too late now.

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