Back in the UK with 1 month to go

Well as of yesterday I am now home in the UK.

Its been a strange few weeks bringing 13 years of expat life overseas to a close. For the past couple of years I have spent an increasing amount of time in the UK but, even so, my rented house north of Bangkok had felt the most like 'home'.

That home is no longer, however, so I must now focus fully on coming to terms with the inevitable 'reverse culture shock'; which in many ways is worse than the original 'culture shock'.

For a start there are so many more rules in the UK (more than 13 years ago anyway) and by and large people stick to them, which is definetlly not the case in Asia. Moreover, people here get far more upset here when there is a transgression! .... Thailand is much less agrressive, particularly on the roads. However, I dare say within a few weeks i will have adjusted and be ranting & raving with the best of them.

One of the things you notice straight away is the lack of staff & the level of automation. This hits you as soon as you try to get your cases in Manchester airport. No staff in sight & the baggage trolleys are all securely locked with a automatic baggage trolley securing thingy ... The only way to release them is to put a pound coin in the slot ...

Now how many overses travellers come ready prepared with a pound coin, very customer unfriendly.

** warning Victor Meldrew moment coming! **

Come on Manchester airport, it doesnt take a focus group or online survey to work out that this is a daft idea - look at life through your customers eyes!

By contrast in Bangkok airport, there are lots of gainfully employed staff collecting trolleys that people have left randomly all over the place, putting them in nice neat rows in convenient places where they can be collected for free and dumped wherever - the price of progress?!

Anyway, having luckily found a pound coin cleverly hiding in the lining of my hand luggage, I load my 68kg of luggage onto the trolley & head for the exit. A few minutes later I realise that they've stuffed up the collection & parking arrangments too, in the name of efficiency & income generation presumably.

No longer can you be picked up at arrivals ouside the terminal building, as private cars aren't allowed in. Instead whoever is picking you up has to park in a nominated car park, pay extortionately for the privaledge and then help you lug your cases in your non- refundable £1 trolley back to the car!

Somewhat jet lagged & annoyed, I beifley consider getting a coffee from the conviently placed italian sounding coffee shop, but then see the price £3.45!! ... OMG!, thats nearly three and a half trolley's!

I should add that this is another bit of reverse culture shock. In Bangkok coffee shops such as Cafe Amazon or Black Canyon, for the equivalent of about 90p you get a cappuccino, a small glass of jasmine tea and a buiscuit snack, served to your table by a smiling waitress - ah well, it was nice while it lasted!

Anyway, all is not lost, using the much observed Asian skill of 'restrictive process circumvention' , I plot my escape. I simply take the lift up to departures and walk outside to the conveniantly placed 'drop off only' area & call my better half to pick me up there. Take that Manchester Airport!

Small victory under my belt & out of the confines of Manchester (raining as usual!), the countryside starts to open up & the green rolling hills, fresh air and sunshine, all serve to lift the spirit. I start to remember all the good things about being in the UK & look forward to finally getting home.

 

 

 

 

Father's day & 6 weeks to go

Empty house but clean floors!

Well I was informed by my eldest (of 4!) today that its my 30th 'Father's Day' and so it seemed a good time to write another post. I am writing this at the house in Thailand we have lived in for several years; but as I look around at the empty floors & walls (our furniture is on a boat heading for the UK), it is clear that things are a changing.

No. 1 child is engaged to be married & doing great things with her art business, no 2 is buying his first house & building his career, no 3 has just got a 1st class honours degree & will start work soon @ no 4 will finish school at the end of this week & be moving to the UK to take up a university place.

What to cook?

The 'boss' is already 'sunning' herself in rural Staffordshire & I am now just ticking off the days here, eating & drinking whatever is left in the cupboards, until I finally close down the Asia branch!

As far as the adventure trip goes, I am now the proud owner of the necessary Visa's for Turkey, Russia, Uzbekistan & China.

The only other visa I may need to get in advance is Kazakhstan, but they are alledgedly going to extend their 1 year visa free trial for another year ... Just waiting to have it confirmed. All of the others can either be obtained on arrival at the border, or are not required for UK citizens.

The Chinese travel agents are working (hard I hope), in the background, to get all the required permits for China sorted, so from a permissions point of biew we are almost there.

July is going to be an interesting pre-trip month, though, there are is still a lot to do in preparation for the adventure. I need to finalise my target route (its always going to change day by day, but this man likes to have an outline plan at least!).

I also need to think about accommodation options, be they camp sites or B&B's and have at least a few decent target stop overs identified. Then there is servicing & preparing the bike, buying spares, tyres & other equipment & figuring out how to carry everything, then deciding you can't and working out what has to be left behind!

On top of that, there will be a shipping container full of things we thought that we would want in the UK arriving at some point. That on its own promises to generate much amusement .... "Who put this is?", ..... "I told you it would'nt fit!", .... "That'll never look right!" ... "We're going to have to change the curtains!" .... Etc etc. ....

Oh!, what fun awaits!

 

A brief sojourn in Vietiane

Well this doesn't really constitute the start of the trip, but I need to work out how to do this blogging thingy....
Shock horror today, I realised there was no Beer Lao left in the fridge & the local supermarket only had Heineken ... So a quick trip to Laos was in order I thought. The fact that I also needed to do a visa run meant two birds with one stone ....not bad for a Tuesday!
So a short flight booking courtesy of some left over TG air miles & a hotel courtesy of some left over New Zealand, Singapore & other foreign currency & lo and behold, here I am in Vientiane, Laos, looking across the Mekong to Nong Khai in Thailand - sorted!

Just after I got here it started raining ... I think they need to put some big fans up to blow it over to the Thai side though as they are heading for a drought at the moment (then probably a flood later this year just to even things out!).

So, first impressions of Laos? .... Well the airport's sort of quaint/sleepy and the toilets are the same ones they have in Indonesia (i.e. a bit more down market than the setup in Suvarnabhumi). The taxi reminded me of Nigeria, don't know where they had dug it up from, bottom of the Mekong maybe.

But on the positive side the same friendly smiling people you find all over SE Asia, & they speak Thai - well sort of. Only problem is they drive on the wrong side of the road - that will be the French influence for you I suppose!

I went for a quick stroll to see what's around ...