The Home Front

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On the morrow, I jet off to Bangkok, Thailand, where I will be rendezvousing with a mysterious beast of a man notoriously referred to as simply Gunst. The behemoth 6'1, devilishly handsome blonde, and indeed a dear personal friend of mine, has been exerting his rugged efforts on his uncle's pig farm up in Queensland for the last week. And although our respective airplane flights out of the country are at different times and from different states (his being from Brisbane and mine Melbourne), somehow we will arrive within five minutes of each other. A development as convenient as it is surprising.



As I think of Gunst's preparation for the trip, which I presume involves grubby pig-farming related activities, only hardened by terrible XXXX Queensland beer (what passes for beer in that State anyway), I reflect upon my own. Unfortunately, the cost of the promised thrill of travelling a foreign land, is a pronounced fear of flying. Not badass enough to leave me a nervous wreck, but certainly profound enough to have encouraged me into purchasing the Virgin Flying Without Fear application, obtained on my Iphone (well, Ipod Touch - don't judge me).



Although the application includes a very valuable and reassuring 12-minute video covering an actual flight hosted by a real life pilot in step by step increments - the 'Flying Therapy' component, is voiced by this overly exaggerated cockney accent that inspires laughter rather than purification. As I'm attempting to achieve a moderate level of docile relaxation and overcome my fear with the instructions, the voice enunciates a particular word the exact same way and with the exact same accent and pitch as the Beaver character would in the Mel Gibson film, 'The Beaver.' For those of you that haven’t been enlightened by this contemporary masterpiece, this is a film where a Beaver hand puppet hijacks Mel Gibson's left hand and runs riot. A premise that is as troubling as it is befitting of such a dangerously insane individual. As you could probably imagine, being reminded of the iconic character while trying to relieve a phobia isn't entirely ideal.

The instructions and meditative authority of the app has however proved to be helpful and I find myself less anxious concerning the upcoming flight as I have been in the past few years. I've also looked up previous accidents and incidents of the Boeing 777 (the aircraft I am destined to board) and learnt that there have only ever been eight 'incidents' with zero fatalities involving such an aircraft. At this stage the realisation that Gunst's preparation is infinitely more manly and impressive and way cooler than my own has well and truly dawned on me, but admittedly he is going for close to three months, compared to my one.



Despite our separate and distincly opposing pre-flight weeks, we will both be arriving in Bangkok in about 24-hours, including the nine hour flight that commences around 3pm tomorrow with a taxi prearranged to take us to a cracker of a hotel. The application has been well listened to and my nerve is calm. I am excited and am looking forward to the following month which I am certain will echo epically throughout the ages. All for the better as once the exploration actually begins it will provide some thrilling anecdotes and feverish tales that will inspire future entries hopefully more interesting than this one.

I'll upload a new entry in a few days time when things get going and with a travel buddy such as Gunst, a glistening perfection of man with pecks as hard as the God's themselves, there'll hopefully be a few marvels.

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Photos

Glistening God Gunst
When he found out he gets to go to Thailand with me

At Home
Took me three weeks to grow that monster