Smiles

I smile a lot, or at least, I do now. I didn’t really before, but perhaps I heard the old adage that it takes far fewer muscles to smile than to frown. This may be true, but it takes far fewer muscles to frown than to wander around babbling rubbish like that all day, so I shouldn’t listen to it if I was you.

Anyway, Thailand is known for its smiling. Not the country itself, obviously, even Cydonia doesn’t smile (that’s an in joke), I meant the people. So, as I walk along the roads, I smile at people. Even, sometimes, grin.

In England, this is not such a good idea, people give you funny looks from the bridge they’ve just pushed you off. Actually, not so true, they just move to the other side of the road as if you’re advancing along it waving your arms over your head and screeching like one possessed. It’s one way of ensuring permanent solitude. Anyone with any reason to smile walking around in England is either a criminal or a mental patient. It’s an even worse idea in the back streets of, say, New York, where I believe the motto is “Shoot first and seldom bother asking questions.”

So then, as I wonder around, I smile like a demented bag lady in Hyde Park. And usually, people smile back. It’s actually rather nice, you get a warm feeling of having connected, albeit briefly, with another human being. Someone you’ve never met, will never meet again and probably wouldn’t get on with anyway has nevertheless shown you that they too are happy with you standing (walking, skipping, whatever) where you are standing (walking, skipping, whatever) and don’t mind if you keep doing it.

Today I was coming back from town on the Skytrain, smiling away, and I decided in a fit of the utmost senility to walk the distance back home. It was a nice day in Thailand (i.e. overcast. A sunny day kills people and burns their corpses). The distance which seems so short along a busy main road in a taxi suddenly turned out to actually be quite a long way, but no matter, I was committed by this point and suddenly began to find out what “magic patches*” are really all about.

To get to the point of this story then, I was crossing the road on one of the bridges designed for the purpose – this is the only way to do so unless you have an interest in finding out what tarmac tastes like when stained with blood from your severed legs – when I encountered a small boy on his way home from school. Around ten years old I suppose, but I can’t be sure, children go from baby into a middle stage and then become teenagers. Anyway, he was bouncing from railing to railing in the manner of one bored and frustrated with his experience. Here, I thought to myself, is someone I, as a teacher (of sorts, shut up) should help and support.

As I walked by, then, I gave him a thumbs up, smiled broadly (I may have grinned, for my sins) and possibly even winked. I intended this confusion of body language to communicate support, empathy and the idea that he should just hang in there and wait till he’s old enough to drive (about 2 more years, over here).

The look of utter, unswerving contempt he flashed me was palpable, the air turned away in embarrassment and as he continued bouncing away, I went on my way a broken man.

I shall never smile again.

*For the uninitiated, “Magic Patches” are sweat patches in completely random places over your body where you really wouldn’t expect much sweat. Oh, the joy of hot climates – so good for your vocabulary.

visa don't make busses

I was delighted to discover a massive number of messages on email and facebook today, so apologies if I don't reply to all of them, but I've been off the Internet for possibly the longest time in my natural born life (well, since I started my addiction anyway).

Ben came out 2 weeks ago, and after the fairly busy last week of term, we decided to go to Cambodia. Well, I decided, he just meekly submitted to my will.

I sortof had to go somewhere out of the country since, as my last message may have suggested to you, I was in a spot of bother. I was, for 3 weeks, an illegal immigrant. I've never been one of them before, and really don't intend to bother again. It's not, at least, it wasn't for me, particularly bad, nothing really happens at all. However, there is a sense of overhanging dread and a tendency to run away from police or dye your hair and wear an eyepatch.

My visa to live in Thailand is of a strange type whereby although I can move across the border freely for a year, I can't actually stay in Thailand for more than 3 months at a time. I can simply walk across, get the papers stamped, and then walk back in and be safe for another three months. You may think this silly.

It is.

So silly, in fact, that I completely forgot about it, particularly since the school has an office called "the Visa office" or just Visa Office for short. Unless you are a far better person than me you too would have assumed you could leave visa stuff up to them to sort out. After all, why else would we have a Visa Office except for Officiating Visas? Heaven knows.

Anyway, the only real thing is that you have to produce 500 baht (about 7 quid) for every day you linger beyond your visa expiry. Since I was 23 days in, I had 12,000 baht to find, or around 200 pounds. Thank god for the Visa Office. Suddenly they revealed their true occupation. Paying fines.

So, Monday the 16th of July came around (my Birthday, incidentally) and Ben and I, against a great deal of advice, to which we will be adding our own, clambered aboard a bus festooned with Whinny the Pooh, bound for the border. We'd bought our tickets from a little random travel agents on Khao San road. I did know about the scam which is apparently famous around Asia and is given pride of place in the Lonely Planet, but for some reason selectively forgot this and got the tickets from there anyway.

Thai roads are great. There aren't really any markings, and police are nonexistent, but they're flat and smooth and actually worthy of being called roads.

Cambodian roads are abysmal. Appalling. Dreadful. Apparently, they are a contender for the worst roads in the entire world, behind the DR of Congo and Nigeria, for Hell's sake. Armed with this interesting but not entirely helpful information, we waited for hours in a line for a Cambodian visa and eventually got through the other side. I was out of Thailand for the first time in 4 months. Only 2 steps out, but still, out. I should point out that the rain was falling down in true tropical style and washing the detritus of the streets away with it (Dust, leaves, bits of wood, tires, motorbikes, small trees, people, etc...).

From here we got on an amphibious bus, at least, I presume it was amphibious, it was submerged in a good 3 feet of water, although the rats were already swimming to safety. Around the corner, we waded through the same water we'd flushed down the toilet half an hour earlier and onto yet another bus, this time with very few amenities such as openable windows (you can't open windows with no glass in them in the first place) or seating space. This was where Ben decided he was 10 feet tall and demanded I be the one to sit over the wheel hub with my knees banging into my ears.

All in all, the bus journey from Bangkok to the nearest city in Cambodia is not a pleasant one. It is also not short. We eventually arrived in our destination, Siem Reap, at 11.30pm, having left home at 5.30 that morning. Indeed.

Siem Reap is home to what can only be described as a wonder of the world, and this was why we sat through a whole day of torture (on my birthday, too) in order to get there... more to come!

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Oh god, I'm going to be arrested.