Nuns, camp Police, eggs, brains and border security.

THIS IS A BEHEMOTH OF AN ENTRY, I MAKE NO APOLOGIES.

It’s been a while. What’s been happening? A fair bit I guess. My last week living in Tha Bom was upon me; heralded at 6am by the Church bells. Unlike the U.K. where there is at least an attempt to ring a tune on several bells, here I think they attach a dog to the rope of one bell and then make it chase chickens for five minutes. They then repeat this thirty minutes later. And again a further thirty minutes later. Then just to ram the point home that ALL GOD-FEARING CATHOLICS MUST ATTEND CHURCH NOW OR BE FOREVER DAMNED they blast out some hymns or something on a P.A. system. In Thai. Luckily once this racket has died down I usually drift off back to sleep until they make some noise in the Mass.

Stumbling downstairs a little bleary-eyed, I sat down to eggs (imagine that!) and HP Sauce (cheers mum!). The rest of the day petered out really – resting up from the journey back north and generally just chilling. I talked a little more to Brother Chun and took Adam on a quick tour of the village. One farang in the place (i.e. me) had caused quite the stir; two clearly took a few people by surprise. Lots of smiles and waves were exchanged, and we sauntered back to the house.

Monday was Adam’s first day in the school. After the ‘normal’ assembly of saluting the flag, listening to national anthem and some gentle synchronized exercises (?!), a hastily convened extra assembly was...er…assembled, in order to introduce Adam. It was odd watching from the sidelines the exact same process that happened to me. He was introduced to the kids; the kids looked at him; laughed at him; smiled and generally pointed at him. He was taken by surprise by the assembly but did exactly what I had done and gave a few basic facts about himself and told them how much he’s looking forward to meeting them all. The rest of Monday consisted of crashing a number of English classes to give Adam a flavour of what happens and to introduce him to each year group.

Every Tuesday morning in the month before Christmas I had been going to the local state primary school to teach the kids there. This came about through meeting the head teacher, Peter (not his Thai name obviously, but Christian Thais seem to take a Christian name), at Father Preecha’s house. His English is above average for Tha Bom so managed to ask me along to his school. The kids there are impossibly cute with huge smiles. They’re also really good to teach – they laugh with hysterics at the smallest things and you can see them really enjoying themselves. Compared to some students in St. John’s who sit there every lesson with a mixed face of boredom , puzzlement and indifference (which incidentally is very hard to read when you’re trying to gauge how a lesson is going), these primary kids are ace. This Tuesday was to be no different, and with Adam and Brother Chun coming along it was a treat for the kids.

We turned up and proceeded to whip them into a frenzy by teaching them fruits, body parts and reading the alphabet. We also introduced Adam and he spoke about his family and where he was from. Then the little gits made me feel awful for going on holiday before Christmas by giving me loads of Christmas cards they had made, drawn and written to give me the Tuesday before Christmas. After a quick, and genuinely heartfelt, thank you, we finished with a couple of renditions of “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” thanks to Adam’s quick thinking. My complete inability to remember even the most basic songs and their corresponding tunes had been a bit of a hindrance before Christmas. The kids lapped this up as we began to sing it progressively quicker. In the end I was essentially shouting the words having lost all semblance of key or melody and the kids were pissing themselves. After the lesson we were invited back for their Sports Day on Friday, which we gladly accepted.

Back at St. John’s the school was beginning to prepare for the arrival of the Assumption Sister’s General Council on the 16th; the head honchos or supernuns. The Sisters at the school were clearly very excited about this. Apparently the Council only gathers together every six years and this time Thailand had been chosen for the conflab. As a result, the kids were being put through their paces and a grand welcome event was being planned, in conjunction with the Diocese primary school. My only real thought on the matter was ‘OK, how many classes are going to be cancelled?’ and ‘Will I get any warning?’.

We were also invited along to an evening of traditional dance and song at Chiang Khan. St Johns had bought the tickets and we were told that the teachers would be attending. We agreed to go along and I was looking forward to having a few beers with the teachers; something that hadn’t yet happened. It was also on the same day as the Sports Day at the state primary school but it wasn’t likely to interfere.

The rest of the week involved me teaching some lessons, getting annoyed at others being cancelled, letting Adam help out in classes and general school stuff. I realise I’ve not really typed much about the actual teaching element of my time here and I reckon it does deserve an entry; although it won’t be overly thrilling it’ll give you an idea of the day-to-day grind I endure.

On Wednesday Im, one of the girls that helps at the Church, decided that she’d give me a bicycle tour of Tha Bom. I’d seen pretty much all of it but I was surprised to see a market taking place only a few hundred metres from Father’s house. I’d never been told of it or anything. It was very small though, some toiletries, some tamarind and a couple of food vendors. Im decided she’d get me a milkshake. I asked for strawberry and proceeded to watch it being created. There was no small amount of sugar added, something jelly type things that looked like sheep droppings, some ice, Carnation milk and strawberry flavouring. All this was dumped into a food processor and whizzed up. At several points the vendor sprang back from the food processor and waved her hand. I couldn’t quite work it out. After about the fourth time, it dawned on me. The ice was causing condensation to form on the processor. This dribbled down to be soaked up by a very wet towel. The processor was sat in a metal tray, which was also very wet. Next to the metal tray, with the water, was a four-way power lead. A rickety four-way power lead. A very wet, rickety four-way power lead. Sure enough the lass was getting shocks from the processor. Handing over the shakes, she then gamely tried to unplug the processor without getting electrocuted, by moving faster than electricity. She failed. But she did get the thing unplugged. The shake tasted about as much like strawberry as a mackerel does, although I didn’t complain as it was free (thanks Im!) and I got to write about the whole thing here.

Friday was upon us and Sports Day was GO. We landed at about 10am, although it had started at 8.30am with a parade through the village. The school was busy with the girls in makeup and costumes, parents trying to make sure they didn’t get mucky, and the boys playing in mud. The first of the days entertainment was dancing, performed to a backing track. Each class from nursery upwards had to perform and they all got some prizes at the end of it. The backing track kept cutting out and restarting but the dancers battled valiantly to keep time and rhythm, although the nursery bunch were all dancing to their own tunes. I was called up to present a prize to one group of kids. I got to hold a baby which, worryingly, felt very comfortable. It dribbled on me quite merrily. It was also virtually the first pre-school child not to cry when looking at me (“what the fuck is that WHITE THING?” is apparently what goes through most infants minds upon first contact).

After dancing came some tug of war between the students, then between parents, then between parents, me and Adam. It was a hard fought contest but my team lost. I still bear the scars two weeks after the event – my little finger on the right hand went numb and full feeling is still to return. Probably a trapped nerve. Hopefully. It hasn’t fallen off yet so no need to worry. After tug of war came ‘bat a biscuit tin with a log whilst blindfolded’ and then lunch. Lunch and drink. It became clear that booze plays a big part of Sports Day in all state schools (sadly not Catholic schools). Sure enough out came the Leo beer and the ‘Lao Khao’ white whiskey. Promising myself not to go crazy, with one eye on the evenings entertainment in Chiang Khan, I took a beer and ate and drank with the parents. I took a second beer. On the third I made my excuses and went to the bog. On returning my beer had taken a strange taste, very close to white whiskey. It turns out that one of the crafty auld buggers I was eating with had slipped a shot or two of white whiskey into my Leo. Not wanting to cause any offence I drank it then hastily made excuses to go to the sports field for some volleyball. Many of the dads remained in the canteen, continued boozing and began singing along to some karaoke the school had laid on.

Primary school volleyball makes very few concessions for the size of the players. As a result, almost every game was won by the team that could actually get the ball over the net on the serve. During the games I also acquired a small following of little girls all eager to point at me and look at me. I lifted a couple of them on to my shoulders which was met with squeals of delight and one lass breaking down and blubbing. For some reason my mind recalled an Alan Partridge sketch about massive chickens. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5jpVbEL0jc. I do wonder if I’d committed some Thai faux pas by lifting the kids higher than the adults (heads are very important in Thai culure – don’t be touching peoples heads without permission ok?), but then I hadn’t been told not to do it and no one since has told me not to do it.

After volleyball came takraw, a fantastic game that is essentially football-tennis with a badminton net and a small, rattan ball. I was very impressed with the skill levels of the lads, a few of whom would certainly put St. Johns’ best players to the test. Following this there was running and then football. I had clocked one of the lads twatting the ball into the net from 20 yards out before the game, and figured that the team with him on would win. Not only was he good with the ball he was a good foot taller than the rest of the kids. Sure enough, Blues ran out 1-0 winners and the lad scored the winner from about 25 yards out.

The football was the last of kids games. We were then asked if we fancied playing in the parents game. It was to be women vs. men. How I laughed! Of course I’ll help thrap the women! I was then told the rules: the women can hold the men back; the women can jump on the men; the women can mob the men; the men can’t do any of the previous and can’t even touch the women. Just to give them an additional chance, the women could pick the ball up and run with it. These, coupled with the fact that the fellas were well-oiled after an afternoon on lao khao and karaoke, did not instill much confidence in me. The women romped home 4-1 winners. It’s not often I get to say this so I’m going to say it – I was the best on the pitch by a country mile and if I could only master the Thai for “give me the frickin’ ball now you drunken imbeciles” the score would’ve been very different.

After the game I got a call from Gene saying he would pick me and Adam up at 5.30pm to go to Chiang Khan. That gave us 40 minutes to get ready. I thanked everyone for an ace afternoon (probably the most fun I’ve had since coming here) and jumped on the back of a scooter for a lift home. Adam was slowly making his way through the crowd that had gathered round him. He’d taken his shirt off in the heat, and it’s fair to say he’s the most hirsute chap I’ve ever seen. For the locals he was quite the specimen. A few people were rubbing his fur. I’m not sure but I think I heard the odd ‘ling’ said by the locals, which is Thai for monkey. I laughed and shouted that I’ll see him back home.

Gene and Shell arrived at almost bang on 5.30pm and we set off to Chiang Khan. I was looking forward to seeing the teachers outside the school environment. They seem a friendly bunch, and in the typical Thai way very playful – lots of non-malicious mocking and laughs. We were picking up Kae from her family’s house. Kae is the English teacher at school who had set me up with my next residence; her family who I had spent a weekend with some time in November. It was a chance also for Adam to introduce himself as he would be joining me here too. Naturally I had forgotten the few names I had picked up last time and they all remembered me quite easily. I left it to Kae to introduce Adam. The family pulled out a bottle of whiskey (not white but brown, more like whiskey back home, but 4 quid 50 a bottle) and we had a couple of whiskey and sodas. After that we set off to the venue for the entertainment.

We got there about 7.30pm, Kae and some of her family came along too. The teacher’s were nowhere in sight and even the principal hadn’t shown up yet. We were shown to our table and sat on the floor. Food was with us quickly. Still the teachers weren’t here. Shell then told me that the principal, Ajarn Aran, was sick and wouldn’t be joining us. At about 8.45 the first band came on. The event was the finals of a nearly-nationwide schools competition for traditional dance and music, and there were 10 bands competing for a 100,000 Baht prize (2,000 quid). The winners would go to Bangkok to be presented with the prize by the Queen of Thailand. Anyway…we troughed, we drank some more whiskey, we watched. We watched for about 45 minutes. It was then that I realised that none of the other teachers would be coming, which I was a bit disappointed with. Gene said that at the last similar thing that St Johns had bought tickets for, only him, Shell and Ajarn Aran bothered to show up. As the first band went off stage, about 9.30pm, and our bums numb from sitting on the floor, we decided to call it quits and go home. I don’t envy those that stayed til the bitter end…a rough guess of 1 hour x 9 remaining teams would have the finals finishing about 6.30am. Ouch.

Saturday, my final day of living in Tha Bom (for now) went by very sleepily. I read. I took some photos. I packed. I slept. Sunday came and we were on the move. Unfortunately Father Preecha’s Mass obligations went on longer than anticipated (after normal Mass he goes to deliver it to all the elderly that cannot make it to Church), and I didn’t get to say thanks as I left. I had said thanks the week before and have subsequently done so again. He is a very nice man and I promised him and two of the most consistent church helpers (Im and Gun) a meal for making me feel incredibly welcome in my first couple of months here.

We got to Chiang Khan and unloaded our considerable amount of kit. Having stopped with the family previously I was half-expecting to be shown to the same double room I had had last time. And was expecting to share it with Adam. Fortunately, we were shown to a bigger room. Unfortunately still with only a double bed. So for the last week we’ve been sleeping Eric & Ernie style (although I much prefer comparisons with Sesame Street’s Bert & Ernie, this would be factually incorrect as they have a single bed each, and I do like to be proper about these things). I have to say that at 32 years old, and having had pretty much my own bed for the last…ooh…32 years, I think I’m now a little beyond bunking in with other blokes for extended lengths of time (the exception being footy trips away for a weekend). We’ll see how it pans out and who nicks the covers…

After throwing all our stuff all over the room we headed out on foot for a poke about. I showed Adam around the two main streets of Chiang Khan and the market. We saw other farang and I realised that the novelty of me would be gone now, unless I headed out to the villages. I don’t care how egotistical it is, it’s quite cool being an object of fascination to small kids and old people. Along the route we also ran in to the German fella I’d met before Christmas. He seemed to be in the middle of digging his garden up. A brief conversation ensued; he was moving out of his rented house by the river (50 quid a month rent if anyone’s interested) but had had some bother with the landlord. Judging by my previous experience of him, I suspect the landlord may have had bother with him, if you catch my drift. Anyway, it transpired that he was removing all the topsoil from the garden simply to be an awkward bugger. His more or less exact Teutonic words were “You fuck me, I fuck you. I big fucker”. Duly noted.

Supper was a family affair; still without any grip on names it was had to start up conversation. They were speaking too fast for me to pick up on any discernable names. We just went along with the flow though and had a good laugh. It became clear that they were quite a spiritual family; about two bottles of whiskey a night on average. Luckily they drink it in a tall glass with plenty of soda water which negates slightly the hangover potential. So far, as I write, I’ve not drank for three of the nine nights I’ve been here.

Now that I’m not a 3 minute walk from school I’m reliant on Kae giving me a lift. She usually arrives about 7am, which means that in a house where 8 people now live I have to be up at 5.30am to be sure of getting a shower slot (hot as well, the luxury!). The ride takes about 30-40 minutes and we pick up another teacher and Kae’s niece along the way, so it’s usually a noisy affair as we traverse potholes and swerve around dogs. We’re also treated to Kae’s collection of English songs. A thoroughly depressing collection of lovesong tripe and power ballad dirges. I think she plays it because we’re English and therefore must love all songs sung in English. To be fair, from what I can make out from Thai songs they’re all love songs too, and equally horrendous.

So, Monday morning rolls around (11th January for those finding it hard to keep up). Adam got his first sight of Thai school discipline; the school’s military instructor was inspecting the boy’s hair. If he deemed it too long (a fairly arbitrary decision it appeared) then he lopped a chunk off the top. I think it got the message across. If he came near me he would have got lamped. Friday of this week would see the supernuns arriving. Naturally, more important than education is putting on a good show for visitors who are here to see how their work is helping improve the..er… education of the chiildren. To this end, most lessons were cancelled. Coupled with the supernuns was the impending provincial sports day in Loei; which meant lesson cancelled also. Cancelled, I hasten to add, not for actual sports. Oh no. Cancelled to practice cheering for sports. It seems Thais go big on co-ordinated shows of spontaneous cheering (…), and as such there was practice for clapping; practice for dancing to clapping; practice for chanting; practice for dancing to chanting; and practice for holding up different coloured bits of card to spell out words. Give me a Greasy Chip Butty from the Kop any day. The sports are being held at Loei City FCs ground – the Riverside Stadium for you football buffs; and it’s much more picturesque than Middlesbrough’s – so there may yet be room for an actual spontaneous chant lead by a portly, red-skinned farang from Tha Bom.

Monday proved to be the template for the rest of the week: lessons cancelled; practices undertook; eyes rolled. Me and Adam helped Gene write pieces for the welcoming of the supernuns. Gene was MCing and needed help with the English bits. He would be presenting in English and a student would be presenting in Thai. I was surprised that it was beyond the wit of the school to ask an Englishman to read the English. Although, to be fair even the English bits required a degree of Thai beyond me to introduce the dance and songs correctly. The culmination of the welcoming was to be a traditional Thai blessing ceremony which has been carried out for many years; it used to bless visitors on their onward journey and also to bless each other at New Year. The blessing consists of taking a long, very thin piece of cotton material, not too dissimilar to string, tying a knot in it to symbolise your blessing and then tying it around the wrist of the recipient. The best English name Gene could come up with for this ancient and venerated practice was THE CEREMONY OF THE STRINGS. It was the best name any of us could come with. A touch underwhelming. In the end, we stuck with the Thai name which probably still translates as ‘the ceremony of the strings’ but sounds far better.

The evenings of the week were spent boozing and eating. Culinary highlights so far have been pig’s brain (creamy, a bit like a good Mattesons meat paste), ant eggs with chillies (bland, if it wasn’t for the chillies) and chicken-insides-with-partly- formed-eggs-in-them soup (a bit like chicken insides with partly formed eggs in them, in a soup). Although I don’t wish to do the cook a disservice; we’ve had some absolutely excellent scran so far – whole fried fish; more eggs; savoury rice; vegetables; soups; laab; so on and so on. The evenings have also given me a chance to try and nail everyone’s names. I think I have them now: Mam Tur is the matriarch and chief cook of the house; Phi Nu is the Police Chief and is camper than Mark Lawrenson in a branch of Millet’s (are they still in business?), I think he’s Kae’s brother-in-law; Phi Tai is Kae’s brother, who works in government but also has fingers in other pies – possibly literally as he runs a bakery also; Phi Kuan (pronounced ‘Kwan’) is sister of Phi Nu and describes herself as a tomboy; Keow is Kae’s step-son who lives in the house and goes to St. John’s; and finally there’s a maid whose name I’m yet to catch but I think is Yang.

One night me and Adam took a wander down to a bar one night and had a couple of beers accompanied by some excellent cover versions of songs you think you don’t know but know very well when they come on – Hotel California and Rhinestone Cowboy to name two. Cover versions seem to be very popular in Thailand. I can’t remember ever actually hearing a proper version of a song yet, come to think of it. At Paradise Cottages on Koh Chang they were very keen on acoustic and accapella (spelling hideously wrong ) covers sung mostly by women, of utterly random tunes like Chumbawamba’s I Get Knocked Down, Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays and Guns n’ Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine.

I think it was on Tuesday night that we were told that a cousin of the family had been shot dead earlier in the day with an elephant gun (his name was ‘Lucky’…), a few streets from where we were. The family weren’t overly bothered on the surface; again probably something to do with a generally Buddhist outlook on life. Shortly after this news a mountain of a Thai fella walked round the corner and was introduced as another cousin and a bodyguard to the Thai Royal Family. In a flash I had visions of some particularly violent retribution being meted out on the killer of Lucky, and me somehow caught up in it all like some crazy Jap horror film. It turns out that the man-mountain was called Doi – aptly translating as ‘mountain’ - and was here on holiday with his wife Kat. Kat had spent three months in England learning how to wait on for the Thai Royal Family and has seen more of London than I have. Doi then proceeded to show us endless photographs of him and the Thai royals. It’s fair to say the Thais love their royalty, and without question. I wouldn’t find it too much of a push to think that most Thais believe the King invented gravity, the internal combustion engine and windows, amongst other wonderful and thoroughly vital creations. Naturally, during all this time we were boozing whiskey like it was going out of fashion. Just as things were dying down who should come tramping through the gates but Mr. Germany. Uwe was his name, I learnt, and boy was Uwe pissed that someone had killed his badminton partner…Lucky.

After a bit of stomping about he settled down. He shared his theories on Lucky’s demise (“He had high money. He was in drugs”); scoffed what remained of supper; told us about his imminent move to a rubber farm near the Burmese border; told us how one of his three Thai wives had robbed him; and was, on the whole, noisy and rude. After he left, the lady of the house (Phi Kwan) said the family thinks Uwe to be rude but tolerate him because he speaks English. I think they’ll find it a bit easier with me and Adam here.

Thursday bobbed along and there was a practice for the welcoming of the supernuns in the morning. Shell came up with news on lessons which went something like this (in all honesty, read Adam’s blog about this, he’s has it bang on, I think):

i) The class you would have had in period 3 is cancelled;
ii) In period 3, you will instead teach whoever you would have taught in period 5;
iii) Period 5 is cancelled in lieu of sports;
iv) This only applies to Years 1, 2 and 3;
v) If you have lessons with classes outside Years 1, 2 and 3, these remain as normal;
vi) …at this point we were all looking at each other a bit puzzled…
vii) …”what happens then if in period 5 I have the third year and period 3 I have the fifth year?” I asked;
viii) …err…
ix) …”who teaches the fifth year?”…
x) …err…

In the end I shrugged my shoulders and stated that I’d be surprised if there were any lessons today. The practice got underway. The Diocese primary school came down. The Kindergarten did a dance to “I Don’t Want Nobody But You”, a fantastically inappropriate piece of European techno music to be played to 6 nuns. This was followed by the older years doing traditional Thai dance and then two students who had memorised speeches, one girl in near flawless English and a Kindergarten boy who put his chin to his chest and may have spoken Thai or English or both but nobody will ever know. Both got absolute thunderous applause and cheering (not practiced) from the St. John’s kids, which more than made up for the giggling and laughing throughout both speeches. Unfortunately, these little shits had also blown completely out of the water a speech I had given to the St John’s Head Girl to recite from a piece of paper. Ho-hum. The rest of the practice, all of which consisted of St John’s students, went well.

As anticipated, the remaining lessons were a joke. Some volleyball was being played against another school for much of the afternoon; given that my students were either playing or sitting on the sidelines watching, I gave up any idea of teaching anything about buying a return train ticket to Bangkok please and joined them. St. John’s won.

Friday came round and it was time to welcome the supernuns. I do wonder if there has ever been a fit nun. Does Joan of Arc count? Mind you, she was only fit when Jean Seborg played her anyway. Anyhow, a procession greeted the nuns and we all made our way from the convent to the front of the school. We did the usual saluting the flag and then made our way to the ‘Multi-Purpose Hall’ for the performances. I would like to report that things went wrong, but really everything went swimmingly, even though by the end the ceremony of the strings was played out in front of no-one, as the students had long since given up and wandered off.

(Christ this is now longer than most University essays, sorry)

Again, in a perverse twist of showing the supernuns just how much their order/chapter/whatever’s work was doing at St. John’s all the kids were allowed home early at 1.30pm. Another meeting was convened for the teachers of both Catholic schools and the supernuns. The nuns each said something generic about education, greatness, hard work and how much of an honour it is to be here; and the teachers asked when they would get accommodation in school grounds (quite typical in Thailand apparently), when they would get a gymnasium and wholly missing the point that its not the Assumption Sisters that fund St John’s, it’s St John’s.

Saturday (16th January…still with me yeah?) saw no rest for the wicked. Or indeed for the Catholics in Tha Bom. The Bishop of the Diocese was coming to town for his final obligation before retiring. This meant that as a Catholic school, all St. John’s staff had to show up to doff their collective cap. The Bishop, I am told, had played a large part in getting St. John’s to open a high school in Tha Bom. Kae picked us up at 7.30am. We landed at school at 8.30am and sat on our arses until 10am. At 10am we shuffled off to the Church and sat in a terminally dull Mass that stretched out for 3 hours. This included: the usual Mass; the offering of money by poor farmers to an already vastly wealthy organisation; listening to the Bishop give his farewell speech; and trying to stay awake. After the Mass there was a feast, prepared by the locals. Not much worthy of note other than an insanely spicy som tam salad that had me gasping for breath and water. I’m very happy to say that that will ABSOLUTELY be the last time I set foot in a Church without it being a wedding or a christening.

The latter part of the week also saw much discussion about visas. Adam’s was due for renewal on the 24th and mine on the 25th January. I had been told by Sister Deanna that I could renew mine at Chiang Khan; Adam would need to traipse to Laos to get a new one as he was on a tourist visa. I had intended to make a weekend of a trip to Laos in order to get my visa stamped. However, in amongst Sports Days, supernun visits, field trips to Khon Kaen (see next blog!) and Catholic feasts weekends in January were at a premium. In the end it was decided that I would renew mine at Chiang Khan and Kae’s husband would take Adam along to the nearest border point that farang can use, 200km away. This was all going to happen the Sunday after the field trip to Khon Kaen (24th).

In theory.

In practice what actually panned out was this: the nearest border crossing was shut at weekends - we found this out on Sunday just gone (17th); Adam decided to leave for Laos by bus on the Monday morning, after a trip to the dentist to fix a tooth he had broke on some peanut brittle over the weekend; after reassurances from Sister Deanna and the local Police Chief (who we are staying with), I pedalled down to Chiang Khan Immigration Point on Tuesday evening to ask about renewing, only to be told I can’t actually renew at Chiang Khan – i.e. I should have joined Adam on a long trip to Laos; cue mild panic; I was told there was another border point to use 60km upstream from Chiang Khan; I went back to the house where the Police Chief (Pi Nu) was insistent that Chiang Khan could process me; after a few calls he accepted he was wrong; after some more calls we established that a quick border crossing could be done at Tha Li, an underused (by farang) border point that was mainly used by truckers.

I was to embark on my first ‘border run’. The use of ‘border run’ makes it sound much more thrilling than the actual reality. Pi Nu would take me on Wednesday afternoon after a meeting he had. The meeting was shifted back to the afternoon so we went in the morning. I packed a bag in 2 minutes flat, concerned that things are never straightforward in Thailand and that I may have to stay in Laos, and we set off. The sign at the bottom of the road said 62km to Tha Li; but instead we went a route that was 100km. I can only assume this was because the roads were quicker.

As Pi Nu was heading to a meeting after taking me he was in full police uniform; which proved very handy at the Thai border point. The officials there saluted him and made sure I was clean through and free to leave Thailand. Pi Nu would have come with me to Laos but he can’t cross in uniform; it’s probably tantamount to invasion round here. The last thing I wanted to do was cause any sort of international security concern. I walked across the bridge and the border. They’ve really gone over the top with marking the border –a slab of marble and a very normal lamppost. A couple of minutes later I was in the middle of an international security concern. I shouldn’t have walked over the bridge, I was told by three Laos soldiers. I should have used one of the tuk tuks that was ferrying everyone else across. Thinking that they would take a very dim view of a foreigner breaking the walking rule and not wanting to make them feel like I was only using Laos to get another 90 days in Thailand I stumbled through a conversation, being very apologetic… “I’m here on a visa run but I intend to come back to Laos when I’ve finished teaching which is in three months and I’ve heard its very nice and I want to spend a few weeks here really I do but right now I’m just trying to get some more time in Thailand and I’m hoping that you won’t shoot me to death with them guns and we can all be friends and have you ever been to England of course you haven’t you earn peanuts but if you are ever in England then feel free to drop round for a cuppa and some Hob Nobs…”

In the end they were quite cool really, but insisted that I still needed to get a tuk tuk for the remaining 50 metres to the checkpoint. Expecting this to be some big money-making scam I climbed on board as I had no other choice. In the end though the fella took me and dropped me off right outside immigration, all for free. Next up was a Laos visa. Fairly straightforward form-filling and paying 1400 baht (28 quid) for my 30 minute stay in Laos. I have to say it’s far more impressive looking than the Thai visa; what is it about communist states and doing bureaucracy with a flourish? Anyway, having got the visa I went to immigration arrivals, got stamped in then walked round to immigration departures and got stamped out. Hopped back on a tuk tuk, swerved around a hen and some chicks on the way out of Laos and rocked back up in Thailand. Then I queued up at Thai immigration arrivals, got stamped in and got me another 90 days in paradise. Happy days! An utterly futile exercise in administrative bureaucracy.

And that, dear reader, is that. It’s now Thursday 21st January. Tomorrow we have the provincial sports in Loei and on Saturday the whole school goes bananas on a field trip to the next province (Khon Kaen), which needs us to be at the school for buses at 3am. Oh dear.

Expect more regular blog updates in future, cos I’m screwed if I’m sitting on my arse for 5 hours typing up 2 or 3 weeks at a time again.