We all have two lives. The second one begins when we realise we only have one'

Blog 28

Bugger, I'm f@'#ked... Now I'm not totally disorganised. 

I generally remember to put my trousers on before venturing out. Most days I remember to clean my teeth. If asked my name there's, usually, no hesitation before I reply. 

I did forget what year it was once and I forgot my age a couple of times but everyone does that ,don't they? 

Anyway, I forgot to look in my passport to see when my visa runs out. Now in my defence, I was pretty sure it hadn't run out. It hasn't. It does run out on the 2nd of January. That gives me five days to get out of the country. No big deal, yeah. Wrong! 

It takes minimum three days to get my visa for Myanmar and that doesn't include weekends and guess what's coming up in two days. Which brings us to the 2nd of January. The visa may not be ready by the 2nd and if it is I need to get it early enough to be able to get a bus and a tuk tuk to the border which closes at either 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock and some cats told me that they tried to book a bus and had to wait two days. Oh, bloody great. I need a secretary or someone to mother me. I will look into what happens if you overstay in Thailand these days. It has become a bit draconian over here. 

The North's laid back. So we will see what happens. I'll go and plead with the embassy tomorrow. Maybe I could put my hair in a ponytail, remember to put my trousers on and tell them I'm a diplomat.
I may have to make adjustments to the plans that I don't really have. I may end up having to cruise back down to Cambodia because I can make it within thirty hours of travelling, not including waiting for connections in Bangkok to the border at Trat. 

The only reason I travelled all the way up was to go to Myanmar. I'm not going back to Laos because if I have to go anywhere I intend on using the whole months visa and if I'm doing that I want to spend it in Cambodia. Oh, why don't you come travelling with me. It's great. I'll lead you astray and you may even like it.
It's all so stressful that I've had to open a couple of beers and get all origami with some papers and write some shite. I'll do my research later when I'm in that relaxed, beef burger eyed, focused state of mind. Saying that, the Rasta bar up the road has got some live bands on so maybe I'll do it in the morning. Yes, that's it, I'll get up really early and sort all my shit out. Now, how's that for organisation.
Maybe I should open up a travel company. I quite clearly excel in organisational skills. I'm relatively well travelled and I can remember half of it, nearly.
So I'm back in Chiang Mai, especially to get my visa for Myanmar but enough of that. 

I'm sitting on the rooftop remembering what it's like to be warm at night. Pai is stinky hot in the day but as soon as the sun goes down the temperature plummets Doesn't stop the f@#king mosquitoes though. The size of seagulls. I watched three people die from having the blood sucked clean out of them within three seconds. I ended up spending more time in Pai than intended, through no choice of my own, because I had to wait for my new SANTANDER BASTARDS card to come through. The DHL BASTARDS took a huge chunk of money to have it safely delivered from England to Pai post office, two days to Bangkok, they quoted. It took another six days from Bangkok to Pai and it couldn't be tracked after Bangkok. What did they do? Give it to a f@#king tuk tuk driver?
As I was saying in my last insipid blog we were heading out to do the loop on our scooters. Ryan, Csaba (sounds like chaba, oh and I've probably spelt it wrong. Sorry man) and I. We headed out to Mae Hong Son. Ryan named us the Mae Hong Sons of anarchy. Yeah, live that one down. 

Although I was singing 'born to be wild when the road was clear and I did sing Thin Lizzy 'the boys are back in town' when I went through any one dog mountain villages. Man, I would have killed for some leathers. Look, the bands are starting soon so I'll fill you in next time on the ride. I'll tell you what. Before I go. I like reading things that travellers write on hostel walls. Some are good. Some are great. Some resonate. This one resonated with me. 'We all have two lives. The second one begins when we realise we only have one'........ 

Speechy.