OK.. so today's kinda quiet compared to Tuesday... Or Monday for that matter...
So while i eat my dinner and print off one version of CCTV, I shall try and attempt to blog about Thailand... how long this will take me to type... no idea... but you know what? I don't care.. i'll do it now or never...
Before i continue... i swear if not for angels, I would not be sitting here right now...
Near miss accident last night..... No didn't crash but close... TOO CLOSE TO BELIEVE... 1/2 a sec more and I would have crashed into the car in front of me... the air bags would have inflated and I probably would have been dead... or left with a face with many broken bones and a serious whiplash...
I was driving at about 50km/h and it was raining heavily down a gentle slope. The lights turned red so I started breaking and there was still a distance between me and the car in front. But as i stepped on the breaks, my car skidded and i lost control of the car. As i spun out of control, it felt like the car was not slowing down but accelerating. The car stopped abruptly just in time before my bumper hit the car in front. Next thing i hear was some people shouting from the near by bus stop to see if i was ok and the car in front of me speeding off, probably in shock.
Anyway.. I'm fine now... just shaken... and extremely scared while driving this morning, especially when i knew there was going to be a traffic light coming up.
Back to the thailand trip
Day 1 was quite interesting... slept throughout the flight as the weeks leading up to the flight was packed with editing, class, editing and more editing, till either really early in the morning, say like 3am... or a whole day's work with a 30min to 1hr nap... Got to Bangkok and was picked up from the airport. Got to the hotel, had supper with Wes and went to bed...
Day 2
Breakfast was nice... havent had continental breakfast in a very long time... so i enjoyed myself throughly... Wes got trapped in a lift while trying to get to a toilet... And we got picked up by a very nice car that drove us 2hrs away to Pattaya...
The hotel was like a Ghost-town from The Shining when we arrived... Wes, Greg and I ended up sitting around, searched for somewhere to have a drink and explored the place... This is when the whole mosquito saga started...
Day 3
Met the rest of the team, instantly clicked with them, as if i knew them well... Had a briefing, met Paul Martin the sound engineer whom many others from work knew and set up started around 10pm...
Ryan, Brad and Josh arrived from Singapore and were quite down because of the state that everything was in. Couldn't help them 'cos we all did have higher expectations of the place... nothing anyone could do... Plus they had been away from family for awhile so that did not help...
Day 4
Set up continued and it was non-stop from morning till the conference started.
The rest of the Band and the families arrived and it was nice seeing familiar faces again after 2days of being in an unfamiliar surrounding...
Technology failed me just before the conference started. I could either sit there, pout and cry or make a decision to move on with what i have on hand and try fixing the problem after the session.
Yes i know what you're thinking... I'm glad too that i took the second option.
Time to suck in any pride, face what is in front of me, in unfamiliar surroundings and equipment, SLAP IT IN THE HEAD A FEW TIMES... and do all I can to make it work by the grace of God... AND CREATE BACKUPS... yes just in case... not because I had no faith but because it was wise at that time...
This meant little sleep for Wes and close to none for me...
Day 5
Things worked according to plan and it all went well... and i kinda have little memory of what happened... probably because it went all too quickly and it was non-stop... and the lack of sleep...
Ah... there was a thunderstorm on Day 4's night or early day 5 morning while i was trying to fix the stuff ups... and because i was on the top floor... or should i say the "known" top floor... my room kinda got flooded... and i got shifted to another room... which explains the second room...
Day 6
300gB hard-drive starts to fill up, computer memory starts to freak out, things start to go on a downward spiral. But I knew that I had to stay positive... I shut out every negative thing that came my way, comments such as "what if this doesn't happen..." was shut out completely, allowing me to transfer brain cells to try make things work with what I have again. Made it work, in a long-about way... Took more time but there was delivery...
Evening was a free night, the first night i hung out with the Band from back home and the first night they saw me for more than 30mins. Went to a cultural show that was quite good... didn't like some parts but production side of things quite stunning... Loved their stage... It was so deep that they could set off fireworks in there... AND HAVE ELEPHANTS PERFORMING... Hendo got pulled up on stage as part of the performance and it was quite hilarious... Went to the night markets and 17 of us got seperated because we went in 2 vans... Due to the language barrier, the two vans dropped us at different locations... only Jeff, Greg and Wes had australian mobiles that worked... and Greg n Wes were in my group. I got given a thai mobile number which came in quite handy that night. Took us about 1hr45mins before the whole group managed to get together... Not that it mattered because we got seperated again due to people wanting to get different their different shopping done...
When we were trying to get to the final meeting destination, which was a starbucks about 2blocks away (u'd think it would be easy to spot), Paul Martin (the sound guy), Allison and Abby Fuller (Brad fuller's wife and 5yr old daughter) and me got lost... we walked about 6 blocks and still saw no starbucks.... why u'd ask? BECAUSE THE STARBUCKS WAS CLOSED AND THE LIGHTS ON THE SIGN GOT TURNED OFF!
Tried locating the rest which took about 30mins... And it got quite stressful because out of the other 3 phones that could work, 2 worked only via SMS because divert was turned on...
We decided that the 4 of us would get our own taxi back and meet back at the hotel which was about a 5min drive away from where we were, instead of a 10-15min drive away from where the rest were... AND OF COURSE WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROUTE FROM THE CITY TO NOWHERE... where either the taxis or tuk tuks as u might like to call them, were full because it was coming from the city centre, OR NO TAXIS AT ALL...
We were praying quite hard and after a while of waiting, Jeff's taxi drove past us... and stopped for us to hop on... so there we were, finally re-united with the rest of the group... U get the picture... 17people in a small tuk tuk... wives sitting on husband laps... and Hendo n Wes hanging at the edge of the tuk tuk... THAI STYLE... yes i can joke about it now... BUT IT WAS THE MOST STRESSFUL TIME OF THE WHOLE CONFERENCE...The group bought quite a number of things but i only bought a lamp... for AUD$7...
Day 7
Was good but it was sad having to say bye to people whom i just started to form a friendship with... Took lots of photos... exchanged contact details... and promised to stay in contact...
Oh the band rocked the night...
Day 8 and last day...
Slept throughout the bus ride from Pattaya to Bangkok Airport... tired... emotional and what have you...
Had Thai Burger king for lunch... spent the last of my Thai Baht... and hopped on the plane...
Next horrible bit...
Plane ride was the most traumatic one i've ever had... The guy sitting next to Bernice and I offered us Valium on the flight, had no concept of personal space whatsoever and was slightly tipsy as much as i could tell... He had 4 bottles of wine the moment they started serving drinks...We complained to the air stewards and they said they'd keep a look out.. however, when they turned off the lights because it was overnight flight, he fell asleep and was so close to me i didn't dare breathe and almost hyper-ventilated...
finally decided I had enough, i jumped out and swapped seats with Wes who had a spare seat next to him. But because I was emotionally and physically tired from the past weeks and almost 2mnths of full-on work and constant crisis mode, I broke and had a bit of a cry...
Was still shaken up on Monday, got a little better on Tuesday...
And of course on Tuesday night was that car drama.............
Well.. all I can say is.. it's been crazy... it CAN'T and i repeat CANNOT get any worse... but can only get better...
ANd most of the time, when things go horribly wrong, good turns up at the end of that tunnel... so i shall keep walking... and wait for the end...
One thing i am thankful for... The trip to Thailand has been confirmation I am in the right field... and doing what i'm passionate about... and also for the international friendships that have formed... Knowledge and wisdom through hard-work and trial n error during crisis... and........... a larger capacity for more to come!
