Whilst resting one day on the beach, pondering the meaning of life and what is left of it, I hit upon a profound philosophy and, I believe, a life changing one if adopted as I now have. Not too many of you though otherwise it would be self defeating as you shall see.
I have decided that I effectively stopped the clock when I made the decision not to seek more work, another mortgage, etc. Now if you take this a step further, by then actually doing something by traveling, I must then be turning the clock backwards! Logic. And now to apply this basic truth /logic:
- I must have a baseline, a point of clock stopping, so that is March 1st, 2007 - day 1 of not having anything to own, do, support or bare responsibility
- In order for this to be publicly acknowledged, I have declared this DUMB Day (Dodgy Uncle Mike's (Official) Birthday (a little poetic license as I know I was formally christened in KL).
- Therefore, and this is the really clever bit, as I was 52 on that Day 1 in 2007, I must have been 51 in 2008 and soon be 50 in 2009! How cool is that??
- Now, a logical extension (which surely cannot be contested) is that as long as I keep traveling / not working and generally failing "to act my age", my age will continue to fall. So, if I can string this out to 2010 I shall be 49 on March 1st AND, best of all, Taff will be 50 2 weeks later!!
- The rest of you good people will then either be growing, VERY QUICKLY, closer to my age or going further away from it. Think of the possibilities.....
And now the boring stuff:
I decided to base myself in Phuket again and renew acquaintances with certain establishments and people whilst getting back into the scuba diving thing. Then to go island hopping, using the local ferries, down the west coast to the last island before the Malaysian border and back to Phuket.
The diving all along here is supposed to be world class, and last year it was, but this year weather , high winds and full moon tides have combined to stir the seas up. So visibility was poor, but the good news is that it means you don't have to sit through pictures of fish and coral! Just "Wish You Were Here?" type photos. Although I did get very close to a couple of leopard sharks, which were beautiful (and not dangerous), and I set my new record for deep diving at 42 metres!
All went pretty well, the islands get less and less developed as you get away from Phuket and Krabi and the banking systems disappear completely, which led to some interesting chats with the locals (cash only, thanks) and a couple of extra trips to the mainland to find a bank. The locals get more laid back too, the last island (Koh Lipe) is ace; just bamboo huts, beach bars, live music, candles on the beach, booze and aromatic herbal smoke with not a single policeman on the island, mmmmm nice.
One hiccup worth a painful memory: staying in a hut with no electricity on Koh Bulone, and got the squits (first time seriously in 2 years!). Hut had an asian style pan and a basin out the back. Dashed out with a headtorch on into the pitch black night, tripped down a couple of steps sending the basin crashing to the ground in pieces whilst I attempted to aim my arse in the general direction of the crouch pan! A sight I shall never forget, me crouching and looking up to see a smashed basin swinging on its water pipe by dim torchlight with water spurting everywhere and me completely unable to move! The owner was very good, and so was the Enterocalm (luckily as I was on a ferry again next morning). Not a lot of sleep that night.
And so on to Australia, where I have been in the lap of luxury at my brother's place (many thanks Pete and Julie), and am currently starting to plan atrrip to Tasmania whilst sightseein in Melbourne, more of which next time.
Photos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Thailand_2009
Cheers! Mike
