#ontheroadtoaussie

Day 1 - 1st November 2014

Here I am.. Bangkok! 

I'll be here for the next 7 weeks. Firstly let me inform you of my travel here.

I'm finally here, after many years of saying this is what I wanted to do I've finally grabbed life by the balls and I'm gonna be a traveler. I've left my family/friends/career and my home country good old England. Still not sunken in yet that I’ve left everything behind. Asit only feels like I'm here for a normal holiday. Not here for over 14 months, where will life take me, who knows.

So I was placed between these two American ladies on my flight to Mumbai. They were both strong church believers and they are from down in the deep south of the U.S. Every second during the flight they would use sanitizing wipes for their personal TVs screens and remotes and picking up cups and cans.

When we landed the attendant mentioned that they would be fumigating the plane with the air sterilizer. The word 'fumigating' made them react like they were about to be poisoned. They called the attendant and asked if they could get off first. And could they tell the family before they spray. Behold language barrier!!! Americans can't understand Asian people, because throughout the flight I was translating English to English but dumbing it down like if i was speaking to a cbhild so they could understand better.

So all of a sudden they started to hear the spraying of the air sanitizier as the air attendant made her way along the plane fumigating everything in sight. I witnessed a military action from the family. I hear "Britney masks now, QUICK" four of them managed to get the masks on time with one struggling to get it on her face, so she had no other way to protect herself so she ducked so fast with her head between her legs and hid under her blanket wrapping herself with it and waited for the all clear.

At this point I was laughing so hard... The older lady said "its smells like air freshener”. The other lady said “Fumigating means another thing in the states!!!" No Shit love, i thought to myself.

I'm going to keep going on telling you more about the Americans. Next was the food problem. Americans don't like spicy food, by what i could tell from them, they never eaten Indian food. So when I explained that the yogurt goes with your main they gave me a look and repeated "yogurt in your main". After awhile I turned round and noticed the older lady putting milk (which was supposed to be for her coffee) in her dessert. The younger lady hardly touched her dinner. I mentioned to her that your gonna have to experiment more as your gonna be in India for the next 3 weeks.

So I've only slept like 4 hours, which was on the night 4 hr flight from Mumbai, even that was hard for me because sitting next to a snorer. Even my head phones couldn't block him out.

Day 6 - 6th November 2014

So this evening the Chief of the Wat Po Inc. took all his students and teachers for a evening dinner in the massive shopping complex near the compound of the school.It was actually great to leave the compound. But I do feel in the future there isn’t any point leaving unless on weds when the school takes us or on Sunday’s when it’s our day off.

After our first day doing practical massage it looks like it’s gonna get intense with a lot of practicing.The shopping was bizarre, yes we was the only white group of people in this shopping center. Center of attention, but who knows me I’m not the one to shy away from attention.

My main mission while I was here was 1) buy a SIM card for my phone, 2) washing powder 3) buy mosquito net. The only successful thing I managed to buy was the washing powder. The problem I had with SIM card was that my phone kept saying was that the phone wasn’t suitable for the Thai SIM card, I need to get this sorted because the Internet at the school is really really really really (you get the picture now) SLOW!! And data here is much more cheap then back home, that took most of my time so no looky looky for mozzynet.

We only had 1 hr to shop before dinner was served and me and Alex arrived little late and people had already started eating. The food was kind of like a boil hot pot, we selected a number of veg and meat and placed it all in the boiling pot. There wasn’t much flavor that i could taste because boiling it kinda takes the taste away from the food in my opinion.

So with my first day of classes over and done with, it was more theory based.

Apparently the first day of lessons was Saturday which I wasn't made aware of. We learned about basic biology of the human body I.e. bones, muscles, heart, lungs and diseases and infection, out of all the science subjects at school I mostly enjoyed biology and it's the only one I ever had any interest in, forget physics and chemistry!!! Who needs them in their life anyways... 

The teacher try and speak English clear but still has little trouble saying some words clear but I'm managing to follow it well. Compared to the other students they always look baffled by her English accent words. The Italian next to me on my right is half asleep with no clue what's going on, I hardly see him wrote any notes. Like she was trying to explain that the iliopsoas muscle is either long or short on people which would give the flexibility to bend your body forward. The words that came from her moth was "I'm big down there" while the room burst out laughing she was confused on our reaction. 

Everyday so far we have had thunder storm (mentally scary and loud) and rain from bout 5pm till 7pm, within the hour it all drys up because it's still so bloody hot. Don't get me wrong I think I'm gonna really enjoy the classes but the students facility's are little lacking in standard. I went to ask about bed sheets. We get our beds changed everyday which is needed. We have mattress cover and one LARGE towel and one medium size towel. Two Thai lady's came to my room and me playing charades with them to try and explain what part of the bed clothes I'm missing the room cleaner lady explained that the large towel was the top layer for you to sleep with. I showed her the mattress cover which would be perfect for us to sleep in as its thin, light weight and airy but apparently they have no more within this huge complex.